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The world is lousy with secrets. This is a good thing. Secrets are the raw materials for Jessica’s job, as coal is to power stations, or cows are to Voughtburgers. Secrets keep Alias Investigations afloat.
Let’s take an example of a secret – a big and juicy one. Every technological advance that has ever bettered (or not) the lot of a bemused humanity – from what silkworms squirt out of their asses to the Colonel’s Original Recipe – has inspired cheaper emulation. The secret is that this is even true of Compound V, which was never quite as below the radar, in some circles, as Vought thought.
It would be hard to name all the tech bro biohackers and cartel alchemists who have tried their hand at homebrew V, down the decades – if only because they don’t usually leave enough to bury beneath a stone. But once in a while – once in a rare, rare while – there’s a Karl Malus, who gets lucky. And, let’s be honest: own-brand cola tastes just the same, if you ignore the packaging.
The upshot of that secret is another one: there are more Supe-ish folks around than people think. That’s not just down to homebrew V. Some of it is just good old-fashioned corporate negligence. Vought cuts corners with transportation costs in the Nineties; twenty years later, there’s a blind lawyer who can beat out Tek-Knight at telling who in the courtroom has jizzed their pants this morning. And some whisper that there are other paths to power: that you might wind up with glowing fists not because mommy and daddy consented to Vought making your infant ass their petri dish, but because you gave head to a dragon that lives outside the world. Some would call BS on that; Jessica is wiser. She has seen the cardigan they made Homelander wear for the last Vought at Christmas, and knows that the age of miracles is not past.
Secrets, then, are everywhere. But some are better kept than others. So when some fucking student from that lame-assed School for Supes swaggers into your office and threatens to out you if you don’t play ball, not guessing that all of Hell’s Kitchen, most of Harlem, and a not inconsiderable quantity of Queens knows what you are already… well, all you can do is laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
Until he tries to punch you in the face.
***
“Fuck you, bitch,” Jordan hisses. His left hand is braced against Jessica’s chin; the other, balled, begins to shine. Oh look – glowy fists, as well. Randy dragon will have to sue. “Fuck you.”
“Sounds like a plan,” says Jessica, brightly. She grabs Jordan’s right wrist and begins to force the hand away. “How’s that working out for you?”
Jordan bows his head; shudders with the effort of opposing Jessica; and switches.This has now happened three times since the brawl became something else, or, to be completely accurate, since it has been garnished with a side-order of something else: since the grips began to pleasure, as well as to constrain; since the punches began to be changed up with messy, hungry kisses. The detective in Jessica is still trying to spot a pattern to the switches. Despite the sass she delivers about work hours on the office voicemail, Alias Investigations never closes.
Not much luck in discerning a pattern, so far. Maybe Jordan just switches when they need an edge. No doubt, they find it hilarious when some frat boy who has just been eating her out has his teeth stoved in by a surprise delivery of superdick. Jessica totally would, if her own powers ran that way.
(Jessica, as an ample cross-section of New York already knows, is more straightforward. She can lift; and she can really, really jump. So, yeah: budget Maeve. Still, Jessica enjoys one advantage over everyone’s favourite LGBTQ+ martyr; she has the power of “not dressing like a Game of Thrones-themed hooker”.)
Sweat gleams on Jordan’s forehead. The taut young body flexes and strains as she struggles to compete, to contest Jessica’s command of their awkward make-out grapple. Hot and ever so slightly adorable as Jessica is finding this, her inner Sam Spade scribbles another note. Jordan deftly began to serve up making out alongside belligerent muscle, when he saw that brawn alone wouldn’t win the day, and guessed that the rough stuff floated Jessica's boat. All the same, Jordan can’t quite tamp down how insanely competitive she is.
It burns Jordan that she's less strong than a millennial lush. That itch, that need to be in pole position, is what lets him down, whether she’s playing a blackmailer or a vamp. Stage kid. Jessica recoils from that thought. She bends Jordan’s wrist back a little more, just because.
The pronouns, if Jessica is honest, are giving her more trouble than her new potential client slash rival slash fuckbuddy's trembling grip. Jessica’s decided to go with “she” when Jordan is presenting as a hot chick with insufferably pert tits and decent superstrength whom Jessica is about to fuck into the wall, and “he” when Jordan is presenting as a hot boy with stupid bishounen hair, a great ass, and decent superstrength, whom Jessica is about to fuck into the wall. But maybe “they” would be preferable throughout.
Jessica is more concerned about this issue than those who don’t know her well would suspect. She doesn’t like giving casual offence. Offence, in Jessica’s view, should always be premeditated.
Like betrayal.
***
“Before we go any further,” Jessica keeps Jordan pinned, “say I’m stronger.”
“But we’re just making out, now.” Jordan’s eyes are wide and innocent, even though the pressure against Jessica's hold could snap a cheerleader in half. There’s hope for that acting career yet.
“You get nothing from me, unless you say I’m stronger.” This is a test – as revealing of Jordan Li’s limits, in its own way, as the brawl was. Jessica wants to see whether the many, many things Jordan is prepared to throw overboard to obtain what he wants include her pride.
Jordan switches again; his jaw clenches. At last, he spits it out, “You’re stronger.”
“Good.” Jessica relaxes her grip. “You know: people coming into this office have tried to blackmail me, physically intimidate me, and seduce me…”
Jordan looks sceptical, the little bitch.
“… OK, not so many cases of the last one. But this is the first time a single person, in under five minutes, has tried all three.” Jessica sighs affrontedly. “There’s such a thing as just paying a girl, you know.”
Jordan shrugs. “No money.”
“You don’t dress like a pauper.”
“All the green belongs to my folks.” Girl-Jordan again, and she’s scowling. “No birthright, for their bornwrong.”
“I see. And yet, despite the prejudice you faced growing up, I’m impressed at how you nevertheless blossomed into the confident, self-affirming, twenty-four carat cunt who stands before me now.” Jessica looks Jordan in the eyes. “You went from zero to whoring yourself in about six seconds – quite an acceleration. What’s worth that to you?”
Jordan holds her gaze. “Marie.”
***
“The chick you mentioned? The one you wanted me to find?”
“Yes. She’s a Supe, like us. She controls blood.”
“I’m not a Supe, bitch. I have powers, that’s all. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
Truth be told, that’s not a question to which Jessica has ever found an answer. Once, she even contemplated becoming a hero – a real one, not that Vought reality-show crap. Jessica never put the notion into practice. It had been someone else’s idea, someone else’s dream.
Occasionally, she imagines a Jessica Jones, somewhere, who did try: who became a hero, and found out where that vocation took her. But it’s not a fancy that vexes her unduly. The “multiverse” shit which Vought has lately been churning out makes Dawn of the Seven look like Citizen Kane.
Or so she’s heard, anyway. Jessica seldom watches anything besides film noir.
***
“Why is this ‘Marie’ so important to you?” Jessica cocks her head. “Were you fucking her? You were totally fucking her.”
“No.” Jordan sags. “Well, yes. But that’s not why. I need to find Marie because… because I let her down. I made a judgment call; and I screwed up. I wanted to protect her. But all that happened was that I lost her.”
“Sad story. But you’ve played all your cards, Jordan Li. You’ve blackmailed, bullied, and offered your body – both of them – to me. There’s no lower you can go to make me do what you want.”
“Marie always thought there was no way I could undershoot her expectations.” Jordan’s voice is quiet. “She was always wrong; so are you. I can go lower. There’s one last card to play.”
Jessica stares. There’s a shape to all this – one she knows she should have seen before.
“My last card is penance.” Jordan gulps; steadies herself. She’s gathering her strength for what comes next. “This is your chance to put right for someone else what went wrong for you. I don’t just know about your powers, Jessica Jones.” A pause. “I know what you did to your sister.”
The storm breaks. Jessica throws herself once again at the younger woman – this time, the haymakers will go through walls. Jordan, resolute, raises glowing fists.
Maybe The Raft is real. Maybe it’s not just a name for two bullets in the back of the head, when another Supe who got drunk on her powers pays the Butcher’s bill. Maybe Jessica did the right thing, the only thing she could have done. Maybe. But Jessica never saw Trish again.
Jordan’s eyes say she knows she isn’t going to win. She’s not strong enough; she’s not smart enough; she’s not good enough, in any available sense of that awful word. But she’ll endure the beatdown that's coming because, afterwards, he’ll have the detective’s help, in expiation of both their sins. A final secret: Jordan Li isn’t as crooked they’re supposed to be.
Neither is Jessica Jones.
FINIS