Deep in the concrete sprawl of Hell's Kitchen, on the third floor of a rundown apartment building, a frosted glass pane sat set into a heavy wooden door. The chipped black lettering painted across the glass read: Alias Investigations.
Matt Murdock stopped on the landing and knocked twice with his knuckles.
He tilted his head, letting his heightened senses map the room beyond the door. He heard the frantic scraping of a chair, the heavy clinking of empty liquor bottles being shoved into a cardboard box, and a sharp, muttered curse. She was panic-cleaning. Matt waited patiently, leaning his weight onto his white guide cane.
The deadbolt snapped back. The door swung open.
A woman in her twenties stood in the threshold. She wore a scuffed leather jacket, and the heavy scent of cheap bourbon and stale coffee rolled off her. She stared at Matt, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.
"If I knew it was just the blind lawyer, I wouldn't have bothered hiding the empties," Jessica Jones grumbled.
"Kicking all your trash against the baseboards hardly constitutes cleaning, Jessica," Matt smiled, stepping past her into the apartment. "But you're looking well."
Jessica was a private investigator, the sole employee of her own agency, and a superhuman capable of flight and shattering concrete with her bare hands. They hadn't met through normal legal channels. Months ago, Jessica had snapped the neck of a mind-controlling psychopath named Kilgrave. Matt had taken her case, dismantled the prosecution's arguments in court, and secured her freedom. It bonded them.
Matt tapped his cane against the hardwood. He tracked the subtle vibrations in the floorboards and the rhythmic clicking of Jessica sitting back down at her laptop. He turned his head toward the far wall.
"Did you move the corkboard?" Matt asked.
"Mac Gargan," Jessica said, not looking up from her screen. "You paid me to track him. I've got three weeks of surveillance photos and red string pinned to the drywall."
Matt rubbed the back of his neck. "Right. About that. You can close the file."
Jessica's typing stopped.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. bagged him yesterday," Matt explained, keeping his voice level. "He got modified. Tried to kidnap the family of a federal asset. He's out of our reach now."
Matt adjusted his red-tinted glasses. The investigation into Gargan had barely started, but just like with the Kingpin, the trail had hit a dead end.
Spider-Man had confirmed the details. Wilson Fisk had personally bankrolled Gargan and a handful of other enhanced mercenaries. Fisk had also hired Otto Octavius to reverse-engineer leftover Chitauri weaponry. Conservative estimates placed Fisk's profits at twenty billion dollars. It was more than enough capital to completely legitimize his criminal empire.
But none of it mattered to a judge.
"We know Fisk funded the weapons trade," Matt said, his jaw tightening. "But the intel came from a telepathic scan. It's a Fourth Amendment nightmare. As far as the courts are concerned, mind-reading is illegally obtained evidence. It's fruit of the poisonous tree. I can't draft an indictment with it."
Jessica slammed her laptop shut. The sharp crack echoed in the small office.
"A phone call costs nothing, Murdock," Jessica said, crossing her arms. "If you just wanted to cancel a contract, you wouldn't have walked up three flights of stairs. Why are you actually here?"
Matt exhaled heavily. He found the cracked leather sofa and sat down.
"I visited Fisk at the precinct today," Matt said. "He looked entirely too comfortable. He's looking forward to the power vacuum. He wants the violence to spill out of Hell's Kitchen so the city begs him to take control again."
Jessica scowled, leaning back in her desk chair. She understood immediately. Matt was an attorney; he fought in courtrooms. But Jessica was a street-level P.I. She lived in the gutter. She knew the pulse of the local gangs better than the NYPD did.
"The Kitchen is holding its breath," Matt continued. "I need to know who is stepping up to fill Fisk's shoes. I need to stop the bleeding before it starts, to prove to Fisk that New York doesn't need a kingpin."
He leaned forward, resting his hands on his cane. "What are you hearing on the streets?"
Jessica chewed her bottom lip. She spun her chair around, opened her laptop, and pulled up her active case files. Matt listened to the rapid clicking of the keys.
"It's quiet. Too quiet," Jessica said, her voice dropping into a lazy drawl. "But I do have one weird missing person case. A girl named Tandy Bowen. Trust fund kid. Rarely leaves her upscale apartment."
"Why is it weird?" Matt asked.
"Because she evaporated," Jessica read off the police report. "Hallway surveillance cameras show she never left the building. But her apartment is completely empty. No forced entry. No struggle. The only thing the cops found was a pile of incredibly expensive gold jewelry scattered across the bedroom floor."
Jessica tapped the screen. "It has the structural markers of a kidnapping, but it makes zero sense. Nobody has asked for a ransom. It's like she vanished into thin air."
Matt opened his mouth to reply, but his burner phone vibrated violently in his suit pocket. He recognized the specific ringtone. Foggy Nelson.
"Excuse me," Matt murmured, pulling the phone to his ear. "Foggy. Slow down."
Jessica watched Matt's posture shift. His spine stiffened. His grip on the phone tightened until the plastic casing creaked.
"A walk-in?" Matt asked quietly. "Are you sure? ... Alright. Keep him in the conference room. Do not promise him anything yet. I'm on my way."
Matt ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket.
"What broke?" Jessica asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Foggy just took a consultation," Matt said, standing up. "Our potential client is a fugitive. He just broke out of Rikers. He's sitting in our conference room right now, claiming he was framed."
Jessica raised an eyebrow. "You guys defend convicts all the time."
"This one is different," Matt said, walking toward the door. "He claims he's completely bulletproof. He possesses superhuman strength. And he told Foggy he didn't get those powers by accident."
Matt paused with his hand on the doorknob.
"He claims the United States military is running illegal, underground super-soldier experiments on the inmates inside Rikers." Matt turned his head slightly toward her. "I need a massive favor, Jessica. Look into a man named Luke Cage. I need to know exactly who is sitting in my office."
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