About ten minutes earlier, Coulson's team had driven away from Adela's house. They were headed to investigate the home of the fifth eyewitness, who was not an American but a Canadian living in a small town near Niagara Falls.
Coulson and the others took out their credentials and prepared to cross the border. The process went smoothly. Canadian customs barely stopped Americans; Coulson flashed his ID, and they drove straight through without even stopping the car.
As he drove, Coulson thought of Adela's account of her encounter with the Visitor from the Mist.
Years of handling supernatural incidents made Coulson begin to speculate about the conditions for the Visitor from the Mist's appearance. Did it happen when a car reached a certain speed? At a particular intersection? Or perhaps after filling up at a designated gas station?
It sounded absurd, but the occult was absurd by nature. Over the years, S.H.I.E.L.D. had never perfectly resolved a single case. Most of the time, they merely contained the fallout, because many supernatural phenomena simply did not follow logic when they occurred.
They could appear suddenly and cause a disaster, then never show up again. There was nothing humanity could use to study the patterns behind their appearance or take precautions against them.
This job often made Coulson feel how insignificant humanity was. The last supernatural incident he had handled perfectly was that hammer that had fallen in New Mexico. Of course, it had not really been perfect, because the person who ultimately dealt with the hammer was its owner, not him.
Coulson's thoughts wandered until he came back to himself and noticed that fog had risen around them.
Simmons, seated behind him, reached over and patted his shoulder. Coulson looked back at her and nodded, but everyone tacitly kept silent.
Coulson knew