Unearthed

Participants:

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Scene Title Unearthed
Synopsis Adam Monroe digs up something the Company buried long ago.
Date October 8, 2016

The taste of love is sweet when two very hearts meet

A battered gray Dodge pickup truck roars across a dusty road cutting through flat land dotted with scrub vegetation. Tall telephone poles sit at skewed angles like the posts of a pasture's derelict fence, broken power lines dangling ineffectually to the ground. The sun is a bleached ball of light overhead, blanketing the arid land in unseasonably hot autumn sun.

I believe you like a child oh but the fire went wild

Arm hanging out of the passenger's side window, Adam Monroe waves one hand through the air, feeling the currents blow over his fingers and palm. In the rear view mirror, he watches the plume of dust the truck kicks up billow into the clear midday sky. He's whistling along to the song playing over the radio, warbling as it is from the quality of the casette tape jammed in the tape deck. Up ahead, a ruined building with a crumbling pair of concrete domes gradually comes into view. "Drive up halfway," Adam says to the driver as he adjusts his sunglasses, squinting at the sun, "don't want you getting cooked." They drive past a dilapidated sign, indicating where they're headed, and a spray painted warning over the sign simply reads TURN BACK.

I fell into into the burning ring of fire


Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant

Glen Rose, Texas

October 8, 2016

12:11 pm Local Time


A dead wind howls through the ruins of Comanche Peak, across the bullet-riddled signs indicating the site as property of the Luminant Generation Company. Abandoned trucks are parked in the dust-swept courtyard between the plant's numerous buildings. Their tires are all flat, windshields broken, bullet holes riddle the vehicles rusting chassis. No one has come here since the facility was hit by an errant missile strike intended for Dallas in 2012. No one who wants a long, productive life, at least.

Dust storms blow in off of the dry lakebed that was once the Squaw Creek Reservoir, sending clouds of brown whirling through the concrete and rust-streaked white of the plant grounds. Vegetation grows here, certainly, hardy weeds and grass, though there's a distinctive lack of insect noises or animals in the region. Only that which survives on windblown seeds can take root here. Dandelions litter the dirt causeways between twisted metal pipes and fire-gutted security buildings.

As Adam Monroe walks down the middle of this vacant, tomb of a site he carries a simple sledgehammer over one shoulder. Occasionally he daubs sweat off of his brow with a plaid kerchief hung around his neck, blue eyes watching the skies for signs of errant wildlife. Anything that wanders in here likely was sent, as opposed to naturally curious. Though as Adam passes by the burned-out hulk of a white truck, he pauses to examine his reflection in the fragments of the rear-view mirror, pausing to notice the dessiccated skeleton sitting in the driver's seat.

"Mondays," Adam grouses to the skeleton, "am I right?" he gives a double tap of the side of the door, as if to say goodbye to the dusty bones, then leans away from the truck and takes a right toward one of the partially demolished containment domes. It is a looming concrete cylinder split up one side from the direct impact of a missile. Stone and rusted steel debris are strewn about the ground at its base. As he closes the distance to the tower, Adam begins whistling the chorus of Ring of Fire again, then swings the sledgehammer from over his shoulder and gives it a few golf-like test swings in the air.

Whimsy fades as he approaches the tower, looking at it with a mixture of disgust and weariness. Then, as a frown cuts deeply across his face, he strides toward the crack in the concrete, booted feet carrying him up the pile of long-settled debris.


Glen Rose, Texas

June 2

1980


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"This isn't right."

Weight pulls the corners of Adam Monroe's mouth down into a deep frown, creases deep much as the lines between his pinched brows do as he looks over at the man at his side. Arthur Petrelli stands with one hand in his pocket, cigarette pinched between two fingers and attention cast across the desert landscape to the construction crews pouring concrete in a shallow trench. Arthur slides a slow, patient look over at Adam and raises his shoulders into a shrug.

"Adam," Arthur's tone is clearly tired, "you said your peace. We voted and…" Arthur motions to the crew with his cigarette before returning it to his mouth to take a drag. He doesn't feel the need to explain any further. Adam, however, isn't satisfied with the outcome — vote or no. He steps in front of Arthur, gets in his face and looks up at him.

"He's one of us," Adam says with a motion to the construction crew, "we can't just ignore that. We can't start drawing lines between the ones of us we're willing to help and the— "

"Adam," Arthur exhales a mouthful of smoke and flicks his cigarette to the ground between them, "I appreciate all that you've done for us. It's clear you're dedicated to the cause, but times are changing. This isn't the seventies anymore, we can't coast on the good will of the past an dhope that the world stays in the mindset of the way things were. We're more numerous than we ever imagined. Eventually, yeah, we were going to have to start developing more permanent solutions to these sorts of things."

Swallowing his anger, Adam stares up at Arthur and clenches his hands into fists at his side. "This isn't a solution, it's a nightmare." Fear wells up in Adam's eyes, a momentary pang of panic that flutters in the middle of his chest. Arthur looks past him to the construction crews, then back to Adam again.

Silence hangs between the two colleagues for a few moments, and as Arthur watches the indignation drain from Adam, his flat expression hints at a smile. "You know I'm right," Arthur admits with a motion to the crew, steppng around to move to Adam's side, though Adam moves to step away from Arthur's encroaching arm that was angling to put a hand on his back. "We had three options, and all of them had their merits…"

"Maybe we could've reformed him," Arthur admits, motioning to Adam as that was his idea. "But if he destroyed a city in the process?" Arthur leaves that bit hanging. "We could try killing him, but I feel like we tried everything in the book and nothing really took." Then, finally, Arthur tucks both his hands into his pockets and shrugs deeply. "The third option was all there was left."

"I know what you can do." Adam sharply says as he leans in toward Arthur. "What your ability really is." Arthur's murky-colored eyes swivel down to regard Adam with the same attentive disdain one might a yappy dog. He pauses his walk, and turns to face the Brit. "You could've…"

"I could've /what?" Arthur jabs back at Adam, stepping close to the regenerator. "Taken his ability? Then what, lose my temper one day and level half of Manhattan?" Waving a dismissive hand, Arthur starts walking again. "Adam, there's one thing you have to realize…"

"…some abilities are simply too dangerous."


Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant

Glen Rose, Texas

October 8, 2016

8:34 pm Local Time


A shadowy, blood red moon hangs overhead, flanked by the cracked walls of the containment tower. Skin glistening with sweat, hands aching, Adam Monroe drives his sledgehammer down onto the concrete floor underfoot one more time.

This time, after hours, when the stone cracks it sags with the weight of ages. "Come on," Adam whispers to himself, raising the hammer up again to the moonlight and driving it back down with a reverberating slam. The stone shatters, pieces falling down into a dark cyst below the floor he's smashed open. Six solid feet of concrete, smashed into a divot around where he stands. Adam backs up, looking down into the chasm, and waits in silence.

Silence echoes back.

Closing his eyes, Adam drops the sledgehammer in defeat and swipes a forearm across his brow, then exhales a ragged and defeated breath. As he shuts his eyes, he fails to notice the flicker of firelight blossom in the darkness. But when it grows brighter — even with his eyes shut — he can't miss it. Snapping his eyes open, Adam scrambles out of the pit seconds before a blast of white-hot energy escapes the cracks, blasting molten rock upward in a showe rthat rains rapidly cooling magma down all around Adam.

Scrambling backward, Adam watches as the swirling white flames continue to vent upward like a blinding jet. He recoils, shielding his eyes with one hand. "Stop!" Adam screams to the pillar of flame. "Stop, please! I released you!" The flames gutter at the voice, as if both sentient and aware. They pool down, crashing into a molten mass at the side of the crack, then slowly begin to take the shape of a humanoid form burning from the inside with roaring heat.

The figure turns white hot eyes toward Adam, then raises one molten hand as if to point accusingly at him. Adam grimaces, half ducking and holding his hands above his head. "Look— look— I know. I know. Just hear me out, please, then you can incinerate me if it'll make you happier."

Save for the crackling roar of white-hot fire, there is nothing but silence.

"Can we talk?" Adam asks hesitantly to the flames.

"It's been a very long time, Garza."

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