Special In His Eyes

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Scene Title Special In His Eyes
Synopsis In 1979, Kimiko Nakamura discovers something about her life and her connection to the future she is trying to save.
Date March 18, 1979

Primatech Research, Hartsdale New York


"I can't do this anymore."

This isn't exactly the moment Hiro Nakamura and Kimiko Nakamura were hoping to land in.

"I— I'm done— I'm out."

The place is unfamiliar as it is drab looking, painted like an old hospital with green halfway up the walls and white the rest of the way, the identical hallways of the facility have the same feeling that the bunker at Coyote Sands did, that semse air of nervous energy and uncertainty.

"I can'd do this anymore, Kaito. I can't."

When Kimiko and Hiro arrived here, in 1979, their decision to split up and cover more ground has been a mixed bag. While it has allowed them to try and find their objectives of Kaito or Ishi, it has also left the more mundane Nakamura sibling with a marked lack of ways to conceal herself.

"I— I'm leaving the Company, for good. I can't do this anymore, the— this is just— I want out."

In one of those identical halls, Kimiko Nakamura has become witness to one of the defining moments in te history of the Company. Here, just beyond a partly open door and visible through a window with blinds only half-way drawn, she spies a decades younger version of her own father Kaito, standing with hands folded behind his back and a stern and familiar expression etched across his stony countenance. With him in the office, is a young woman with long, auburn hair and sad eyes, slouched down in her chair with one hand wiping at her face.

"I'm sorry…"

Kaito breathes in deeply through his nose, looking out a window in the office to rural parklands of upstate New York, his back to the woman. "Miss Pratt," his tone of voice is so formal, and the hitch of her voice and mild choking back of an emotional sob causes even Kaito to soften some. "Victoria," he turns, looking down at her with narrow, dark eyes. "I know things have been hard, the choices we are forced to make on a daily basis." Kaito's head tilts to the side, "But things can change, sometimes even for the better. Are you absolutely certain this is the path you wish to go down?"

Well, it's not as if Kimiko can even stop him if he decides he wants to go off by himself - Hiro will just teleport away, and in fact that's just what he did. A random supply closet yeilds a lab coat, which she puts on after twisting her hair and sticking a pencil in it, the very picture of tired medical personnel. Her time spent in the 60's has resulted in her being able to passably act as a nurse, and that's her plan in case she gets caught. Or you know, call herself a labtech. It's chancy to risk openly loitering near the doorway, so she consults a randomly grabbed clipboard and simply leans against the wall as if she were caught up in looking over her work as she strains her ears to listen.

"I know… I just— I can't do this anymore. If that virus ever got out, billions of people would have died, and— it would have all been my fault for bringing it here." Raking her fingers through her hair, Victoria hunches forward in her chair. "I can't… focus on my work, the Formula, everything it— I need— " she strains a sigh through clenched teeth, "I don't know what I need."

Looming in silence, his head tilted back and chin raised just enough to make him stare down his nose at the doctor. "You need a break, Victoria. I won't — can't — fault you for that. We all have our roles to play, and I feel that you have done an admirable job in keeping up pretenses. But right now, I agree that perhaps you could use some time off, and if you feel comfortable returning to your duties at some future point…" Kaito's brows rise slowly, head inclining, "then by all means."

Nodding slowly, Victoria breathes in a slow breath and nods her head, hands folding in her lap as she bites down on her lower lip to try and contain her emotive response. "T— thank you. I— I just need some time, something. I don't know, I— " looking to the side, Victoria rises to her feet, hands wringing together. "Will Zimmerman have to continue on his own, or do you have a substitute in mind?" Zimmerman? A name from Coyote Sands comes burbling to the surface here.

Kimiko only pauses briefly upon hearing the name. Yes, she recognizes it. Still, there's not a whole lot she can do aside from continue to listen. She'd not been able to find any references to Kaito with regard to the Coyote Sands project, but now here it would seem that Zimmerman has found its way to it…why would the likes of those who wanted to put a stop to what was going on at Coyote Sands be willing to work with one of their captors? Shaking her head a little, she resumes listening, the information better to share with Hiro later.

What goes on in the office, unfortunately soon comes to take a back seat to what is transpiring in the hall, as the tail end of a conversation from an elevator spills out to Kimiko's earshot. "…what we really need, though, is a controlled way to expose a large number of people to it overall. The triplets were a good start, but I think we might need to take this to the next level and see if we can attempt induction at different developmental stages in controlled environments."

Coming around the corner of the hall from an elevator, is a widely build man with thinning hair and thick-framed glasses. At his side, a considerably older man with mostly gray hair comes walking with his hands held behind his back, wavy locks swept to the base of his neck. On first glance, Kimiko can hardly recognize Robert Bishop and Lewis Zimmerman for who they are, with over a decade of years on them, but once she sees it, it's hard to unsee.

"We could, perhaps, begin those tests in a year's time. I have a refinement of the Formula I would like to attempt to create, one that is a bit more stable. Arthur has been adamant about ensuring the security of new developments, in light of the Monroe breach, the last thing we need is someone absconding with the test vials." Zimmerman speaks in that same stilted eastern European accent he did in the sixties, though more rough and gravley in tone now.

As the pair walk by where Kimiko stands, Bob passes a side-long stare at the dark-haired woman, but does not pause in his stride until the office door nearby opens, and Victoria stumbles out into the hall drying at her eyes with the white sleeves of her labcoat. The entire group comes to an awkward halt, with Lewis holding out his hands in welcome.

"Ah, Victoria. Just the woman I was looking for… I was wondering if— " Zimmerman notices Victoria's emotional state in the same heartbeat that Kaito emerges from the office behind her, a stern look on his face. He tilts his head to the side, regarding Lewis for a moment, before turning directly to Kimiko. "Doctor Chang," there's no name on her lab coat, she hasn't even adopted an alias here, and yet Kaito seems to be playing at something. "If you could step into my office, please."

Kimiko is so thoroughly startled, she's almost a dear in headlights. But only for a split second. "Of course." she says smoothly, and moves to step inside her father's office. Oddly, this is more nerve-wracking then when she was fourteen and would get sent to face him when she'd misbehaved. So much worse. She has no idea what he's up to, but it's obvious that he's up to something. There's no possible way he could recognize her…could he? She keeps her expression as bland and inscrutable as possible, bowing her head a little so no one can comment on their resemblance.

The door closes behind Kimiko with an audible click, and Kaito does not move from that position with his hand on the door and brows furrowed in a familiarly stern expression. "I do not know who you are," comes the intonations from Kaito's all too young voice, "I do not know how you have come here, but I do know where — " his hand comes off of the doorknob, " — and when you are from." Lifting his chin up, the patriarch of the Nakamura family slowly begins circling around Kimiko, looking her up and down with some measure of uncertainty.

"What I want to know, is why are you here, and what you are attempting to accomplish." As he moves behind his desk, there's a certain look of scrutiny behind Kaito's eyes that Kimiko remembers from her youth. It is surreal to see her father like this, so much younger, and alive. Though the meeting itself, perhaps, explains his attitude after a fashion. "Explain yourself."

Explain herself. Kimiko hesitates for a moment. Lying to her father? Yeah, that's not something that's ever worked well for her. He already knows, as he puts it, where and when she's come from, so she can at least afford selective honesty. "There are things I need to see." she says in Japanese. "Things that I must observe." She wants to explain to him that she's here at his behest, but she's hesitant to do so. Omission is easier than a lie.

Kaito's brows lower into a disapproving expression that crosses all language barriers. "You have come to observe for what purpose?" Tilting his head back just a little, Kaito arches one dark brow more than the other, moving to stand behind his desk, fingers splayed and coming to rest on the desk's surface as he leans forward and watches Kimiko uncertainly. "Consider your answer carefully, because it will inform my next decision remarkably."

No matter how different Kaito looks in his youth, Kimiko's father's attitude has changed so very little. Though in his final years, there was something benevolent, some gentleness to him that is not yet present here. Perhaps that chink in his otherwise implaccable conversational armor is formed at Ishi's death.

Kimiko frowns back at him, very much trapped and not exactly certain how she can talk her way out of here. "Because there are things that I must learn. To better understand, and prepare for certain tasks." She studies him a moment and considers the date. "Your wife." she says quietly, "She's due in just a few months, isn't she?"

Mention of Ishi derails Kaito's train of thought like several miles of missing track. A sharp breath is drawn in and his expression shifts from confusion to uncertainty, an almost imperceptible difference were it not his own progeny looking on. "She is," and while his tone of voice indicates a measure of confidence returning, his face is still showing confusion. "What you need to witness here, now, do you pose a danger to anyone here?"

Kaito's head tilts to the side as he asks the question, surveying Kimiko more with an askance view than a full-on look. From years of practiced conversation with her father, she knows the look well, one he gives when he's uncertain whether to trust someone's word.

"Not that I know of." she says with simple sincerity. She seems oddly relieved - like somehow she expected him to tell her that Ishi wasn't pregnant at all, and thereby prove that she is not really a Nakamura at all. It would have in her mind make sense, though be heartbreaking to hear. "I will not get in the way of all that you are doing, but it is important that I understand what has been done. This is what I've been instructed to do, and I have no choice but to follow it. I am sorry, but there are things which I am not permitted to speak to you of."

"All things in their time," Kaito states simply, in some quiet form of agreement. "You are doctor Rei Chang, you work for me and were brought in from Tokyo yesterday evening. Your accomplice likewise is under my employ, wherever he is." The implied consent of Kaito's ability to cover for Kimiko here comes as a relief, but at the same time seems suspect. "My… unborn child, what do you know of her?" There's a rise of one of Kaito's brows as he straightens his posture, hands folding behind his back.

Oh, what a loaded question. Kimiko's frown is so tight so as not to betray her swell of emotion, inscrutability is a Nakamura trait that she has relied on in the boardroom, and now before her own father - or the man who will soon become such. "I can tell you," she says slowly, "That if you are hoping that she will be…special, in the way you are, that you be prepared to be disapointed." Her tone is calm and cool, amazing even to herself. "Do not hold it against her. She will love her father quite fiercely and strive to be everything he wishes otherwise."

Kaito's head tilts to the side, jaw set crookedly. "I am already aware she is not to be born as I or my son," but there's something in Kaito's expression that says there is more. "This is why she is going to be a test subject for a Formula, one designed to give the abilities of our kind to normal humans. It will be the first attempts at inducing the effect in utero, rather than after birth."

Kaito's eyes narrow slightly, "If she will not be born special, than she can be made special. But…" Kaito's head cants to the side, "From the sounds of your words, the experiment is destined for failure…" he hesitates before adding, "after a fashion."

"She could be special simply for being your daughter." Kimiko says tightly. "And nothing more than that." She seems inclined to clamp up a moment and then asks suddenly, "Does Mo- does Ishi known what you are doing? Attempting to alter her child in utero? Did she consent to it?"

"Were it not for her, none of this would be possible." Kaito looks at the woman before him with a raised brow, "She is integral to the Formula, and it would not exist without her grace and light." Furrowing his brows, Kaito looks past Kimiko to the door, then back again. "If you are here to observe, doctor Chang, than I would prefer if you returned to that task now…"

Hesitating for a moment, and hesitation is something so unusual to see in Kaito, the patriarch of the Nakamura family motions to the door. "You should speak to doctor Zimmerman, if you wish to further this line of questioning. I do not think the answers you seek lie here, with me."

"No." Kimiko rises primly, smoothing her skirt with one easy motion, "I suspect not, either." She starts to walk to the door, pausing only briefly. "Will Dr. Zimmerman answer my questions concerning the formula?" she inquires as she prepares to step out.

"It is his brainchild, he and doctor Pratt." Kaito's eyes close, head hanging, "I would not speak with Victoria, however." With a moment of hesitation, Kaito looks back up to the woman standing before him. "Miss Chang," he addresses her clearly in her assumed moniker, "if my daughter were to turn out anything like you have," his eyes wander away from her, "It would be difficult not to be a proud father."

Kimiko does not answer as she moves past him, does not even correct the 'Miss' in lieu of 'Doctor'. Instead she walks down the hall, away from him, pausing to turn the corner, where she can pauses a moment and close her eyes, focusing with all her strength for a few moments to keep it together before she begins to walk again.

She'll need to tell Hiro what just happened.


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