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| Scene Title | Amaterasu and the Cave |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Following an encounter with Walter Renautas, Corbin and Eve rush to find Robyn and connect more pieces of a terrifying puzzle. |
| Date | February 5, 2020 |
They will bury Robyn Quinn in her desk, some SESA agents joke.
Right now, her apartment has become her desk. Boxes of old files are scattered across the floor of the downstairs living room, wheeled white-boards borrowed from Fort Jay stand up at the corners of the room with scribbled notes and newspaper clippings. Printed copies of coroner’s reports lay across every available surface and a half-finished bottle of whiskey sits on an end table just past the arm of a sofa covered in water-stained documents from Staten Island Hospital.
William Sadler’s photograph hangs on one of the wheeled whiteboards and a box of records from Antarctica rests beside the whiteboard with a few errant case files laying atop it. Saito had been here up to an hour ago, delivering copies of New Jersey state planning documents detailing sewer access to and from a chemical plant. There was hours more research to be done, but she — unlike what her coworkers may think — can’t live in her office. For one, very specific reason.
“Hey, are we out of ice cream?”
Matthew Parkman Jr eases the door to the living room open, eyes tracking the paperwork scattered everywhere, holding a bottle of chocolate syrup in one hand and an empty bowl in the other. “Woah,” he says with wide eyes, “you say my room is a mess? Mom, this is a disaster.”
Mom.
Kaleidoscope Studio
Bay Ridge, NYC Safe Zone
February 5th
12:27 pm
Robyn isn’t sure exactly when that started. Sometime after she returned from Antarctica and discovered Matthew had been living on his own in her apartment because Rue never showed up to baby-sit. He had weathered her time away perfectly fine, even if he was eating like a raccoon most of the time, there were enough places he could order food from to prevent him from getting brave in the kitchen. But when Robyn returned home, Matthew had greeted her with an enthusiastic hug and a croak of mom.
Nothing’s felt quite the same ever since.
Hearing it hasn't become routine yet, either. There's still a thrill in her mind, a flutter of her heart every time she hears it. Which is probably good, because it's about the only thing that can get her to lift her gaze up from her desk at the moment.
Robyn looks - exhausted. It's not just the room that's a disaster, she is too. It's hard to tell if she even came upstairs last night to sleep properly, or if she simply stayed down here left to her own devices. Though her eyes as slightly red and possessed of rings, at least there aren't any bottles out for Matthew to see. She at least made sure of that.
It takes a moment for her vision to de-haze enough for her to offer him a smile. "Check the guest fridge in the lobby kitchen. There should be two pints of cookies and cream."
If she didn't eat them last night.
She might have.
"Life is a disaster sometimes, Matthew." It's a rather bleak thing to say, falling straight out of nihilistic left field. "Ice cream makes it better, though." A deep breath, and she rises up from her desk chair. "Did you see Kenji before he left?" Kenji. "He asked how you were doing the other day."
“Yeah, I asked him for my copy of Katana Blossom 3 back,” Matthew says as he walks backwards through the doorway into the hall. “He’s crap at it anyway, I kicked his ass the last time we played competitive.” There’s a small, proud smile there. “Anyway, you keep making a mess in here,” he says with a rise of his brows and a motion toward Robyn with his head, “I’m gonna go eat all the ice cream before you can get an— ”
The doorbell chimes, followed by a small chirp from Robyn’s phone connected to the building security system. Someone’s triggered the exterior cameras. She can see the phone face up on the arm of the couch from here, video displaying through the lock showing a low-res video of the front door and…
Corbin and Eve?
Unable to keep from laughing, Robyn picks up a bottle of water marked with a ribbon that reads "EMERGENCY" and precedes to take a long slip. "Have a blast, kiddo, but don't forget about-" In theory the next word should be lunch, but the chime draws her attention to the phone.
"The fuck?" Yes, this said with no mind paid to the child in the room. "Erm. Sorry." She stares at the security image for a moment, before sucking in a deep breath. "Matthew, have you met Aunt Eve? I can't remember."
Pursing her lips, she starts her way towards the front lobby. "If you haven't… I apologise for any yelling and, ah, colourful language may hear in the next hour." She stares at her phone for a moment. "You should come meet Agent Ayers, though. He is quite a delight, if I must say so."
Matthew fixes a square stare at Robyn, side-eyeing the direction of the kitchen. He then walks sidways past her, then walks backwards in the direction of the kitchen without breaking eye-contact with her, and disappears into the unlit kitchen holding the empty bowl in one hand and the chocolate syrup in the other.
Guests can wait.
Meanwhile
“She might be working,” comes from Corbin’s right periphery as he stands on the curb outside of Kaleidoscope Studio’s main entrance. “It is wednesday,” she says with a rise of her brows. “Some agents are…” she circles behind him, coming to rest her chin on his shoulder. “At work?”
Technically this is work, but Hokuto’s teasing knows no technicalities.
“She could be at work, but we’ll try here first.” Usually, when Hokuto speaks to him, Corbin responds like this, as if he’s muttering to himself. It’s a habit he’s picked up for years, and even knowing that Eve knows it’s difficult to break immediately. So few people in his life did know about it. Kaylee was one, but— After a pause he glances at Eve, “Hokuto’s with us. If for some reason Quinn isn’t here…”
Well, getting Eve into Fort Jay might be difficult, really. He’s not sure most of his bosses would approve of a guest pass. They’ll figure it out, or maybe just sit in the car and finally have that awkward conversation about how he’s been cohabitating with a ghost for most of the last decade. For once, Corbin doesn’t try to voice his response as if he’s talking to himself.
"She's always with you, isn't she?" That doesn't weird Eve out, if anything she relates more. She often talks to herself, has friends in her head but this time is real! It's very exciting and they seem awfully close. Even though just ringing the doorbell is fine, it's Eve.
So she tips her head back as she rushes closer to the door and knocks three times very softly, "Yoohoooo Reddddd. You'll never guess who it is!" Eve's ability to switch from melodrama to levity is truly a gift and especially in these times of finding out about old family secrets. She's putting on a front, they had a job to do. Questions to answer, answers to uncover from the thick fog of the past.
"Do you think…" Turning her head slightly to the side to regard Corbin out the corner of her eyes. "You are just naturally like a beacon to ghosts?" She gestures to herself and then points in three different directions to indicate where Hokuto might be. "You are… Friend of the Ghosts, Baby Blue!" If anything, Corbin and Hokuto's predicament seems super interesting to the former seer. A crackle of red lightning curls around her fingers and sprinkles to the ground. She has been trying to not focus on what she saw with Kam and Level 5. It didn't make sense, unless it did.
"I don't think Red is at Gilly's, I told her I needed the house to do my weekly ritual. Which does not involve smoking weed in the living room while my sister is stuck on the west coast with a fucking immortal crazy pants!" Well. Maybe Eve isn't doing all that alright, just like that her mood switches again thankfully it's not more than a few seconds because the dark haired woman begins to hum as she hears someone approach the front entrance from the other side of the door.
Hokuto’s unseen stare angles toward Eve with a question on her lips right up until there’s a loud clank of the metal door being unlocked and the squeak of its hinges as it opens. Hokuto steps into Corbin’s silhouette and out of sight as Robyn Quinn reveals herself on the other side of the door.
With Matthew out of view, Robyn's shoulder's sag, and as she pushes open the glass doors to Kaleidoscope Studios it becomes clear just how ragged she is today. She had been trying to think of all sorts of things to say to them at this moment, eyes moving from Eve to Corbin, and then between them.
She's too tired to really be witty right now, though, so…
"Go home."
Eyes half lidded, she looks between them. "I don't have the time or the patience today."
Not after last night.
There were so many things that Corbin wanted to say to Eve’s words, but the door opens and someone who doesn’t know about Hokuto forestall any answers he might want to give. He’s ready to talk, with a plan in his head of what to say to explain the odd situation that they’d found themselves in, but he’s left with his mouth slightly open like a surprised pikachu when she just tells them to go home. Of all the thoughts he’d had of how this could start, that had not been one of them. In a list of Plans A-Z, this would have been Plan Z.
After a second, he starts talking, in hopes of preempting a possible Eve-moment. “I know we both have active investigations, and… if the circumstances were different, we would.” He wasn’t one of those who would push his problems on others when they expressly said to leave, but— “We got a visit from someone about our parents and their apparent involvement in the Company.” He grimaces a little, cause Gods, he’d never imagined his mom would have been an Agent. It changed everything he thought he knew about his life. “He said we needed to find you to find out more.”
He glances at Eve, in a hope to keep her reined in, cause he knows how— much Eve can be at times. “If you still want us to leave, we can try to come back in a couple days, but I don’t think we should wait on this.”
Her expression twists as she sniffs at the air quietly around Robyn. "You're more dour than usual. Has something happened? Is Matty okay?" Usually when parents are upset it has to do with their children the dark haired woman comes to that conclusion. Eve frowns and crimson eyes stare into Robyn's. The former seer really is sorry to come to her best friend in this moment knowing how Robyn feels about all of this but… it can't be helped.
"That's… not gonna work Red. Sorry. Grampy Walter will be here shortly." Eve says after Corbin is as polite as any good SESA agent or coworker would be. "There's no time to wait a couple days. To know sooner is to gain a better chance at keeping this world-worlds from ending. You're a mother now, the world ends. Well, it doesn't just end for you anymore or me, or Gilly, or Chicken. There's a wee one now," Matty Jr might object to being called a wee one.
Robyn looks between Corbin and Eve, seemingly very unamused. An exaggerated roll of her eyes ends in an apologetic look back to Corbin. "Hello, Corbin." Then a flat look to Eve. "I'm done saving the world, Eve. Let me just live in it." The mention of Grampy Walter leaves a particularly bitter taste in her mouth. That Eve has the gall to bring both Matthew and Jolene up in reference to it makes her simmer. "If you want to stop the world from ending, go talk to Richard. That's his thing."
She turns, placing one hand - wrapped heavily in red stained gauze - on the glass and metal sliding doors to the inside. "And don't bother Matthew. He's enjoying ice cream." She walks back inside, but what she notably doesn't do is lock the doors again.
“I’m not a vampire but that looks like an open invitation to me,” Hokuto says helpfully from behind Corbin’s right shoulder.
It’s a good thing that Hokuto was there, cause even with the door wide open, Corbin was considering coming back later. He wanted to rub at his face over this whole thing. He’d had expected Eve to be Eve, but he was used Robyn being— less like this? Perhaps because he usually only saw her on the job and not on personal time. Except for that time, ages ago, when she had worked at Hokuto’s bookstore. If this went like last time— he knew he would have some explaining to do. And perhaps now wasn’t the time, especially with a kid in the picture.
After a moment, he murmurs a small, “I guess we’re already here,” and then walks in, motioning Eve to follow if she isn’t already stepping on his toes to do so. He hoped this didn’t disturb the kid enjoying his ice cream. Maybe he’d just walk in on them walking around the room talking to themselves. And have a laugh later.
“I really am sorry to disturb you with this, Robyn. You don’t have to be involved in this anymore after tonight, either.” He wasn’t expecting to use this to save the world. He just wanted to know what was going on with his mom. He can leave the crazy stuff to the crazy.
"Red Wait! I didn't mean-" Eve sighs as the door is closed but it is indeed left unlocked, "Sorry Baby Blue…" Eve clicks herself lightly on the side of the head and her eyes roll while her tongue is hanging out. "I'll-"
She doesn't want to lie about behaving but… "I'll try my best. Reign it all in. Momma use to say, buck up Eve! Calm down! Heh." Eve smiles sheepishly and follows after Corbin. Looking around the place, of course looking for her new nephew. Aunt Eve luh the kids.
"He's right Red, tonight. Here, nowhere else is all we need, I'm sorry to do this." Eve places her hands behind her back, she is not wearing shoes and occasional a crackle of crimson lightning flares somewhere on her person. In this instance it's in the crook of her elbow. The former seer squints and looks up to the ceiling, "Grampy, are you there?" She tries to whisper.
At least at first glance, Matthew is nowhere to be seen, something which gives Robyn a bit of relief. Stopping, her unwrapped hand curls into a fist and she lets out a sigh. "You know that's not how this ever works, Corbin." She lets out a bitter chuckle, before turning back to face them. Her shoulders sag, rubbing at her temples.
"Look, I'm sorry. It's hasn't been a great last few days. I got some bad news last night, and…" Trailing off, she eyes Eve. "Eve never brings more good news with her." Yes, it's mean, but there is a teasing edge to it that the former seer is more than familiar with.
"Grampy Walter already came to see me once," she grumbles, rolling her shoulders. "What else is there at this point?"
“Considerably more,” is the sudden intrusion of Walter Renautas to the conversation. He is just to the right of Eve, Corbin, and Robyn, leaning up against a wall as though he’d always been there. “As it turns out, the story I’ve been researching features the four of you, one generation removed each.” Slowly, Renautas leans away from the wall and begins to approach. Suddenly it hits Robyn that Renautas said four of you.
“I have two points in time I need to see,” Renautas explains, holding up two fingers. “Each of which involving your parents. Having four points of information will help me hone in on the frequency of the moment, as they’ve been most elusive the closer I get to…” his eyes angle down to the floor, “the incident.”
They were probably about to find out, is what Corbin would have said when Grandpa Walter appeared, if he hadn’t just resorted to waving his hand in a ‘see?’ gesture. He immediately hears the ‘four’ and glances over toward Hokuto for a moment, knowing that, if like last time, she will be pulled along with them and Robyn will be able to see her, however briefly.
It also meant some other things he was trying not to think too much about right now.
“I guess all our parents were coworkers once,” he states as he glances back at Robyn, giving her that sheepish smile that he sometimes did when he was asking far too much of someone and knew it. “I don’t know how your ability works, sir,” He didn’t feel comfortable calling him ‘Grampy’ or ‘Walter’, So sir would have to do it. “But it seems quite… useful.” He just hoped it wasn’t all an illusion. Robyn had seen him before, Eve trusted this. And while his mother being Company felt unbelievable on the one hand, he couldn’t help but draw points in his mind that made it make sense.
Like why they picked a seemingly random journalist to recruit as an Agent.
Eve sticks her tongue out at Robyn and shrugs, truth is truth but she's happy Robyn's leaning away from her edge at the moment and just in time as Grampy shows his face and Eve smiles over at him. "Useful but he's lost… and free. All at once." Remembering how Walter had originally explained his gift to her. The pale woman drags a finger along the wall and looks over at the other two a weak smile on her lips.
"Field trip time."
Robyn takes a deep, shuddering breath of frustration as Walter speaks up. "Fine. I suppose there's nothing to be done about it now, but-" She pauses, turning to face Walter with narrowed eyes. "Four of us? No. You leave Matthew out of this." Her finger is hoisted out and pointed towards Walter. "I don't care what it affects, do not drag him into this."
Look back to Corbin, she raises an eyebrow. "I'm assuming you're talking about working at the Company," she relates, lips thinning. "Somehow I'm not surprised. At least it isn't just me." Rubbing at the bridge of her nose, and nods her head and sighs once more. "Alright. Let's get this over with."
“Matthew?” Renautas asks with an angle of his head to the side.
“I don’t believe I know him.”
Boston, Massachusetts
New Years’ Eve
1982
There are cheering crowds down on the street. The nighttime skyline of downtown Boston is lit by glittering skyscrapers and rows of taillights and headlights locked in traffic. A bitterly cold wind that no one outside of this moment in time can feel whips across the darkened rooftops, where the creak and groan of old metal is barely audible over the cheer of jubilation from street level.
They arrive in the shadow of an old rooftop water tower, looking out over the city. The slam of a door opening so hard it strikes a wall sounds like a gunshot, followed by a dark-haired man rushing out from the stairwell with a flashlight in one hand and a handgun in the other. Akado Ichihara is a cipher to Robyn. She’d never seen his face before, and when he arrives on the rooftop, sweeping flashlight and gun through the shadows, it’s a surprising twist. Not nearly as much as the visage of Hokuto Ichihara standing beside Corbin, holding his fucking hand.
As much as that revelation is a shock, the emergence of a woman at Akado’s side is almost as shocking. Becca Ayers manifests in a flash of light and a pop, holding a walkie in one hand and a gun in the other. “I’m on the roof with Ichihara!” She says into the walkie over the roar of the crowd below. “No sign of her!”
Akado puts his back to Becca, flashlight out and eyes scanning the dark. Over Becca’s radio, another voice crackles. A man’s voice, unfamiliar to the viewers of this historic moment. «Charlotte and I are on our way, we radioed back to headquarters. The Founders are all in a meeting at the Deveaux Building, it could take an hour to get to them.»
“So you’re saying we’re on our own?” Becca barks into the radio, glancing over her shoulder at Akado who starts checking above the stairwell, then into the shadows of the water tower with his flashlight. “Eric could be dead!”
This time, Corbin isn’t distracted by the knowledge that his mother was Company and he was seeing her for the first time since the original Bomb that decimated part of Manhattan. This time, he feels the hand against his and pulls it closer when he squeezes it back, glad to feel more than a faint brush that could have been an illusion. After a few seconds, he looks back at Robyn and says, “It’s a long story, I’ll explain when this is done.” Though part of him wished it wouldn’t be over for a while.
As his mother arrives in a pop of light, he exhales. He hadn’t known for sure last time, because she had arrived with Eve’s mom, but now— His mother had been SLC-E. Special. Evolved. Whatever words people decided to label them with. For a second he wonders if she and Hokuto’s father were partners, but no, he had been ‘one of them’ too. That wasn’t something they had broken often when it came to partners.
For now, they would just have to watch and see how this unfolded, as he continued to squeeze Hokuto’s hand.
"Oh no Red not-"
Too late they are already in the past and it's not slowing down this memory. Eve claps her hands to her lips and leans forward as her eyes adjust and make out what's going on. "Dad dead? Nooooo. No no." That would make no sense! "Surely they got to him in time,"
Eve isn't freaked out by Hokuto and for once is zeroed in on the matter at hand, mind at work as the pieces become more and more clear. They were a gang, maybe friends or something like it. They were connected through their children years later, somehow Eve and the others had found each other in the most unlikely of ways.
There feels like there's something behind that, something she can't put her finger on yet. Were they purposefully brought together by the Dragon?
Robyn's eyes are initially locked on Hokuto Ichihara, a woman she had only previously glimpsed in photos and talked about in past tense. Someone she had never had the pleasure of meeting despite having worked at the very same bookstore that bore her name. Considering that she hadn't been there seconds before made it understandable how she gawks for a long moment.
"Ms.-" She is cut off from questioning Hokuto's sudden appearance by the mention of her mother. Her shoulders stiffen and she closes her eyes. She takes in a deep breath and turns to take in the scene around her more deeply.
"When is this?" she asks Walter as she looks from Akado to Becca. Her brow furrows, looking over to Eve for a moment before instead turning to Corbin and Hokuto. "Fill me in." This had happened so fast she felt like there was something notable she was missing, and the fact that they came to her implies that they may know more than she does going into this.
“We are looking New Year’s Eve squarely in the eye,” Renautas says with a loft of his brows. “The last moments of nineteen eighty-two, to be precise.” He looks around at his surroundings, brows furrowed. “This moment is one I’ve been looking forward to having context on, ever since Ms. Gitelman and I first delved into her family’s past…”
“Gitelman?” Hokuto says with brows furrowing together, a quick look angled over at Corbin, then back inexorably to her father. “You don’t mean— ”
A scream cuts Hokuto off, a man’s scream from overhead. Akado looks up sharply, angling his flashlight into the dark of the sky. The beam sweeps around, focusing on nothing but the occasional fleck of snow blown in the strong December wind. But then, a quick flash of arms flailing wildly. His flashlight jerks back, holds—
“Help! Please!” Eric mas screams from the sky, some twenty feet above the rooftop, hovering upside down. His winter coat is off except on one arm, the length of it flagging in the wind. His nose is bloody, brown hair blowing in his face. He’s screaming, pivoting like a balloon come untethered from its string. “For fuck’s sake someone help!”
“Eric!” Akado shouts, but Becca is quick to look around everywhere not focused on Eric. Her back straightens, shoulders square, and she looks directly at Robyn. No, through Robyn.
“Akado,” Becca whispers, though her voice is lost on the wind. She walks backwards, grabbing at his arm, unblinking. From behind where Robyn is standing in the vision, a shape begins to take form. It begins as a pair of disembodied rings of fiery gold light, though soon bone and muscle, veins, blood and skin weave together to form a person, clothes falling down off of their shoulders as if woven in that instant.
It is unmistakably Kam Nisatta. She has not aged a day.
Akado turns his attention down from Eric, but the moment he points his gun at the Entity he exhales a howling scream and drops the weapon, his hands moving to his head as he drops to his knees. Akado screams, his veins glowing as if fire was flowing through them as the Entity utters, “Osoreru koto wa arimasen.”
Hokuto, one hand over her mouth and the other clinging to Corbin whispers. “Do not be afraid,” in translation.
Becca quickly raises her hands, eyes wide and steps in front of Akado. “Stop! Stop!” She doesn’t look back as Akado reels, eyes wrenched shut and howling in agony. “We didn’t mean— we didn’t want to hurt you! I don’t— please, stop!”
The Entity pauses, angling her head to the side with anger visible in her face. She bares her teeth, then narrows her eyes as Becca stumbles forward and presses the heel of her palm to her forehead. “What’re— what’re you doing? Get— get out of my— ” She makes a keening sound. “Stop!”
The Entity’s lips downturn into a frown and as her eyes relax Becca lets out a gasp of relief and steps back toward Akado, who has collapsed onto his side in pain. “I am no one’s prisoner,” the Entity says in perfect English. Becca draws in a sharp, shocked breath. “This world is pain and hostility wrapped in death and artifice.”
Confusion blossoms across Becca’s features. She looks back at Akado, then to the Entity again. “You’re hurting him, please. He doesn’t want to hurt you— search his mind!” The Entity’s gold eyes dip down to Akado, then back up to Becca.
“I know,” the Entity says flatly. “Transformation is painful. He is not my enemy.”
For a moment, Corbin looks as if he might be about to try to explain what they had seen last time, but his jaw falls open and the words stop as they hear the screaming and look up to stop Eve’s father. Eric Mas is the only one whose fate he doesn’t know, so he can’t help but be concerned about this man and what happened to him in this moment. As he looks back down and follows his mom’s eyes, he sees Kam on the other side of Robyn.
His breath hitches a little, and then he nods to her, finding his voice again, “We saw our parents capture and question her. This is sometime after that. Looks like she escaped somehow.” He’s not talking loudly, so as not to speak over the whole thing, but he did want to at least give Robyn that much to go on.
With a squeeze, he pulls Hokuto’s hand up against his chest, as if to hug it as he keeps watching, worried about her father, but knowing he survives this. So does his mother, whom his throat swells with pride for. She sounds like she had been a good Agent, one of the ones he would have wanted to work with.
Unlike Eric Mas, who struck him as trigger happy in the last vision. That doesn’t mean he wants to man to die in this moment either, though. He’d known many trigger happy Agents.
Eve runs forward as the only man she's known as her father screams above. Nononono, he didn't die! Not like this! He had been gone since the Bomb just like her mother, maybe he had a knack for cheating death just like Eve what was going on?
"Dad…" She whispers, knowing she's not able to do anything to help. This time had past and any rectifying of it would needed Hiro or her cousin's former gift.
"Kam… The Host. She escaped with… what's mine." Eve looks down at her hands and does her best to keep herself together. Remembering how becoming too emotional or unstable in her ability would cause problems for Grampy's broadcasting of the memory.
Was this ability hers? Eve had already had her Precognition taken and the notion that she didn't have agency over this gift made her a little unnerved.
A lot.
Robyn gives a quiet nod at Corbin's explanation, but when it doesn''t include Hokuto, she pointedly angles a look her way. It doesn't stay there. There's no way it could with what is unravelling around them.
She remains fixated until Akado screams, and that snaps her back into… well, whatever reality this is enough that she spins around and lays eyes on Kam Nisatta. Even if she hadn't heard about Kam through other means, there's no way she would mistake Elaine's former boss and the woman she replaced at the Fellowship.
Sucking in a deep breath, her eyes jump eye catcher to eyecatcher. Akado. Becca. Back to Kam. Up to Eric.
"She's not wrong," is all she can manage to mutter as she stands otherwise mesmerised by the horror show in front of them.
“What’re you— ” Becca’s voice is stolen by the freezing wind. She squints against the cold, her hair whipping in front of her eyes, pushed back by a tentatively-raised hand. “What’re you doing to him? Stop!” The Entity’s gold eyes remain locked on Becca through her protest, her expression impassive save for the slow rise of one brow as if not understanding what Becca is asking.
“You’re hurting him!” Becca screams, her voice cracking. In that same moment, the thundering sound of footsteps rise in the stairwell to the roof, followed by the sudden emergence of two new figures that skid to a halt the moment they see the horrifying scene playing out before them.
Renautas turns in the same moment that the Entity does, watching as Richard Drucker and Charlotte Roux come skidding to a halt. Drucker steps in front Charlotte, holding an arm out across her chest. “Eric!” She screams, lifting a hand into the air and creating a bloom of warm, golden light that illuminates Eric’s suspended form like a spotlight. The Entity exhales a sharp and keening breath as her glowing eyes flicker. She steps backwards, discorporating into a hazy cloud of energetic red gas crackling with crimson electricity before folding in on herself and disappearing.
Eric immediately begins to fall to his death, only for Becca to vanish from where she’s standing, appear in mid-air to grab Eric, and then reappear in a heap on the ground with a grunt of discomfort. Neither of them are too worse off for the experience. Drucker immediately starts running for Akado, taking a knee at his side as the agent collapses, unconscious. Charlotte goes running to Becca and Eric, taking a knee.
Sitting up slowly, Becca picks up her radio from the rooftop. “Vee where the fuck are you!?”
«I’m th— over the cr— an’t get a clear s— » Crackles Eve’s mother over the radio. Drucker looks to the noise, furrowing his brow and taps Becca on the shoulder.
“Try again, I cleared it up.”
Becca depresses the receiver again. “Come again, Vee, where are you? We have an agent down!”
«Eighth floor stairwell!» Vee comes loud and clear over the radio now, breathless and frustrated. Renautas slowly turns toward Eve, then looks at Akado laying on his back next to Drucker, unconscious.
“One final piece of the puzzle… coming together,” Renautas says with a slow look around those gathered, then up to Hokuto. He remarks not about the fate of her father, instead turning to the others. “Your parents played a pivotal role in history, lost to time. I’ve nearly found all of the pieces… and if you would so entertain me, there is one more remaining that I require from you four.”
During the whole thing, Corbin just watches, eyes shifting from one person to the next, mostly keeping on his mom until she vanishes to save Eric. He lets out a relieved breath, because he had been worried about the man for a moment, even if he didn’t like his style of Agent-ing. “We know your father didn’t die here,” he says to Hokuto, even if it’s not exactly reassuring because he lived long enough to apparently die and then come back to get revenge on the Company until Corbin shot and killed him. That wasn’t his best memory.
He kept holding onto Hokuto’s hand as he looked back at the old man, lips pressing together. One more piece. And then whatever this was would be over.
Before things change again, he glances at Robyn and says, “Hokuto, because of her ability, stayed with me after she was murdered. Very few people know about it.” He thinks some of his bosses might know, and Kaylee definitely did, Delia and now them. But that seems like the longest version of a long story that Robyn is going to get right now.
“Let’s see this final piece.”
"Um…."
Eve blinks and scratches her head, leaning back as the scene unfolds and then ends. The former seer is rather focused on the last spot Kam was though in that hazy form of energy and then simply… winking out of existence. "That's not how that works…." Frowning and looking down at her hands. Was it? Maybe for the thousandth time since New Mexico Eve finds herself asking: what am I?
She has to pull herself back to the now heh, or she runs the risk of losing herself entirely to the madness of this all. "I.. yes Walter." Oh, real names are being thrown out.
"The final piece, please."
Eve looks over at her companions on this journey of memory blankly.
"A bold statement coming from you," Robyn mutters to Eve, crossing her arms. "So this is just shy of two years before…"
The words are taken out of her mouth as she realises her mother has skidded into the scene. It shouldn't come as such a surprise given the mention of her name moments before, by the display afterwards - the first time Robyn has ever seen her mother's ability with her own two eyes - leaves her mouth agape.
Sucking in a deep breath, she reaches down into her pocket and pulls out a glasses case, removing the spectacles from within and settling them on her face. Now, it seems, it is time to play detective with what little bit she has here. "This isn't the last time they dealt with…" Her eyes drift over to Kam,, and she frowns. "This. Is it?"
As her mother takes a knee, a look of curiosity forms across her face. "My mum, you four's parents, Hana's… whatever Drucker was to her. And that's before the likes of the Petrelli's or any other more well known connections."
Her lips purse, and she shivers. "Why do I suddenly feel like some sort of cosmic pawn?" Unlike the others, she doesn't bid for the next vision, still clearly stuck in the past of this one.
“People underestimate pawns,” Renautas remarks, looking away from the scene on the rooftop and over to Robyn. “They are the only piece in chess that can transform…”
“…and become a queen.”
Fort Hero
Montauk Point, Long Island
October 28th
1984
A scream echoes through the lab, rows of fluorescent lights explode one by one in the ceiling, sending cascading showers of phosphorus sparks down onto lab equipment and computers. A small fire erupts in the circuit-breaker on the far wall, eliciting a cry of, “I’m sorry!” from Valerie as she recoils from a sparking and smoking array of mechanical components that looks a lot like a portable satellite dish.
Staggering backwards, Eve’s mother looks at her hands, then up to the machine. Dozens of feet of cloth-braided cables extend from the back of the six foot wide satellite dish on a tripod, smoke issuing out from electrical components. “I didn’t— I didn’t do anything!” She says, eyes darting back and forth between the others gathered in the lab.
“It’s fine, it’s alright!” Richard Drucker exclaims, grabbing an extinguisher to put out the electrical fire. “Can someone get a flashlight?” No sooner than he asks, does a bloom of warm sunlight flood the room, expanding outward from Charlotte Roux like a halo. “Okay, showoff,” he adds with a crooked smile.
Queen. The word echoes in the back of Robyn's head for a moment, seeming to raise in volume as she stares at her mother, gently radiating sunlight. She blinks, her head cocking to the side just ever so slightly. Her brow knits together, eyes moving quickly as she focuses on her mother.
Rebecca Ayers sets down an old VHS camcorder on the table, turning it onto its side and ejecting the tape, checking it with a jiggle of the cartridge. “Camcorder still works, I don’t think V fried it with an EMP.”
“No,” Drucker says, firing a few more short bursts at the outlet, “it’s the amplitude. This… thing— we’re trying to run too much power through the array. We just don’t have the time or the resources to test on a micro scale.” Drucker admits, setting down with extinguisher with a clunk. Rebecca circles over, running a hand through her hair slowly.
“I’m sorry, I’ve been up to my armpits in logistics,” Becca says with a tinge of frustration in her voice, “we tracked that thing’s movement all the way to Kuwait and we’re barely able to keep on it with Mr. Nakamura helping calculate probable locations. How is…” she motions to the satellite dish, “this supposed to help?”
“Twofold,” comes a response from the dark edge of the lightless lab, where Eric Mas is opening shuttered windows. “The radioisotope tracking system you developed?” He motions over to where an injection gun sits on a workbench, “that’s going to allow us to know wherever in the world this fucking thing is. Richard’s project…”
“Richard and Charlotte’s,” Drucker corrects.
“Whatever,” Eric says with a roll of his eyes, “that’s the endgame.”
Blinking in surprise, Corbin’s eyes shift to his mother. His mother had made the radioisotope tracking that the Company had used right up to the end. He couldn’t help but shift toward Hokuto, looking at her neck, knowing she had a tag somewhere there. So had so many. And his mother had invented it.
"Don't be sexist dad…. goddess." Eve shakes her head as she smiles a little, if it wasn't for the do or die nature of this past memory and Eve's current reality she would be enjoying this more. They were friends. "Thunder buddies…" The former seer whispers to herself and allows another smile. The implications of what exactly their parents are doing right now are also dawning of the pale woman and her smile widens.
Drucker's correction draws Robyn out of whatever thought she'd been in, eyes moving to him, and then to Eric. "Dick," she mutters, shaking her head.
Becca walks into the incandescent glow of Charlotte’s solar aura, then toward the now smoking machine. “Exactly what’s this supposed to do? Pratt hasn’t mentioned word one about this.”
“That’s because it’s not Pratt’s project,” V says defensively, following Becca into Charlotte’s aura. The moment V enters that solar radiance, feathering nimbus of aurora borealis lifts up off of her body and starts drifting around her in silhouette. No one in the room seems surprised, except Becca. “This is Bishop’s call.”
“It’s a gamma ray emitter,” Drucker says with a gesture to the dish. “Or, it was. Charlotte and I figured out that this— entity’s power fluctuates with intense solar amplitude. Specifically solar radiation. We compared Kaito’s predictive model of the Entity’s movements against your isotope tracking data and confirmed that every time it’s gone to ground was during a period of solar radiation bombardment.”
Robyn's posture straightens noticeably, eyes widening slightly. "Fucking- This is what we saw, what he and mom were working on." Which she realises he just said, pushing her to continue the thought. "This is what gets Drucker killed." She heaves out of a soft sigh, lips pursing as she listens further.
Becca looks incredulously at Drucker. “How did you figure that out?”
“I had a hunch,” Drucker says with a look to Charlotte, then back again. “The only time it ever ran from us is when Charlotte was nearby. It wasn’t until after the massacre at the Pas that I realized what was actually going on. You and Kaito confirmed it. But odds are we’re only going to get one chance to test the theory out.”
Gray eyes drift over to Robyn's mother, the SESA agent, taking in a sudden breath. "Wait, when…" She visibly boggles, chewing on her lip as she looks down at her own hand, visual attention away from what's happening around them, though she still listens keenly.
Becca looks at the machine, then over to Eric. “Is this Project Tartarus?”
One agent who had been quiet in the room all this time, Akado Ichihara, finally chimes in as he leans away from a bank of old computers. “No, Mr. Petrelli is developing that with Charles and Simon. This,” he says with a motion to the machine, “is Project Amaterasu.”
The former seer gasps, "The goddess." Eve leans forward with anticipation.
There is noticeable incredulity as Becca raises one brow. “Pretend I don’t know what that is.”
“Amaterasu,” Akado says with an incline of his head to the machine, “is a sun-goddess in Japanese mythology. In one story, she fled from the world into a cave, ushering in an age of darkness.”
“It’s super poetic,” Eric says with a roll of his eyes. “Practically speaking, it’s a fucking laser.”
“It’s not.” Drucker says with one hand at his forehead.
"It's not," Robyn speaks absently, almost at the same time as Drucker.
“It’s a fucking ray gun that’s going to blow this bitch into next week,” V says with a furrow of her brows. But Drucker tempers her confidence with a firm hand clapped on her shoulder.
“It’s not going to do anything if we can’t find a large enough source of power,” Drucker explains with a look to Becca. “My plan is to build this on a larger scale. The energy output we need is just— it’s impractical to make it on a portable scale. But the dish on top of Fort Hero?” He points up with one finger. “We can repurpose it. Fire a concentrated beam of charged protons and gamma radiation right at her.”
“Doing?” Becca asks with a look around the room. No one is quick to answer, though Charlotte offers an awkward smile.
“We’re not one hundred percent certain,” is Charlotte’s unfortunate answer. “We think it will weaken her, based on the data we have. It might outright kill her. We can’t be sure. The trick is going to be luring her into position, because the dish on top of Fort Hero only has so much of an active radius. We’re looking at something multi-story in height with a clear line of effect from here to probably Manhattan on its far end.”
Eric laughs, shaking his head. “Maybe we could invite her onto an airplane?” V rolls her eyes at him and shakes her head.
“So, if you don’t know about this…” Charlotte says with a look to Becca. “What part of this have you been working on?”
Becca’s jaw sets, her eyes cast down to the floor, then angle over to Eric before looking back to Charlotte. “Asset retention,” is her //incredibly vague answer. When it’s clear nobody in the room accepts it as voted on by their languid stares, she adds some clarity. “Arthur had me working with Maury and Cindy while she tried to locate material assets for Tartarus. We found one half of our solution thanks to an acquaintance of Simon’s, Karin Brauer.”
Where has Corbin heard that name before? His lips thin as he tries to remember.
"The sun goddess… your momma was one Red." Eve rocks back on her heels and looks between the ghosts in the memory. All this time… "The answer has been there… when it arrived… when it changed for the first time. An eclipse. A solar and celestial event. It cannot fight the cosmos itself, even the Dragon has a master it must obey." Eve breathes and closes her eyes briefly imagining. What if Charlotte had more than one sun god on her side? Would they even have needed this device?
At Eve's comment, Robyn swallows audibly. "Yeah… she might not be the only one."
“None of that sounds shady,” Drucker says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Are these assets willing?”
“Don’t give me any of your sanctimonious bullshit, Drucker. We’re talking about the extinction of the entire fucking human race,” Becca says with a crack in her voice. “We’re going to do some things that are uncomfortable. Get over yourself.”
With a grimace, Corbin watches his mother, knowing how difficult the hard decisions were to make. He might not agree with some of them, and it made him rethink a lot of things, but he had to hope that, like him, she only did those things when the choices were limited and the other options were worse.
Drucker exhales a frustrated snort, turning and storming out of the room. Charlotte offers an apologetic look to Becca and hurries after him, leaving Eric, V, and Akado behind. “I need to file a report with Mr. Bishop,” he says quietly.
“Yeah…” Eric murmurs, “V and I need to go check on Miguel and Niel. Uh, so…” he grimaces, awkwardly backing up.
“Bitch,” V mumbles under her breath as she turns to leave with Eric.
“Fascinating,” is Walter Renautas’ take on the entire scene that played out before them.
When it seems like things might be slowing down, Corbin looks toward Eve, “What exactly was— is? — this thing trying to do? How was it going to wipe out the human race?” He didn’t know as much about the golden eyed creature as this woman, but he knew more than he wanted to sometimes. It came from being on point for most of the paperwork involving that entire incident out west. That seems to have started this thing all over again.
Whatever this thing was.
"Gutes-asi, Baby Blue. Unite." Eve's eyes began to tick from each face and she is visibly getting more revved up. "It was never about wiping us out. It's about bringing us together, with all the alternates. All the other worlds, smashed back into one. That's the goal. That is It's mission." The woman is floored at the discovery of a true weakness discovered for The Dragon.
"She—It told me, last month. It came to say hello, it came to tell me just a little of its plans. It has no stake in our living or dying, it just wants…. home. It wants its family. It's past." Eve rubs her elbow as a current of red lightning flows between her fingers and circles around her arm giving it a hazy, red ghostly glow.
"We already know of one Sun God among us, he's my friend." Luther. "This is how we stop her."
Robyn is quiet, staring off into the middle distance. "Not- quite," she remarks, again absently to Eve. "About Luther. I don't know if it's similar enough, from what I've seen him do." She doesn't look towards the former seeress, eyes trained ahead. "But…" Trailing off, she closes her eyes and thinks.
Halting the vision, Renautas turns to the others gathered with a look of satisfaction. “I believe this paints one of the last pieces of the picture for me, all I need to do now is determine the fate of one lost soul and visit the final moments.” Renautas takes a deep breath and then exhales a seemingly real sigh. “This journey may well be nearing its end. You have all been most helpful in drawing the corners of this mystery together.”
Hokuto slowly reaches out for Corbin’s hand, squeezing it firmly as she looks over at Renautas, then back to Corbin. There is a moment where it feels like all of this is so temporary, and there is a look in her yellow eyes that is so overwhelmed by both the strangeness of this entire experience and the vivid nature of it. Rising up onto her toes, she seizes the moment and places her free hand on Corbin’s cheek and a kiss to his lips. Hokuto’s eyes flutter shut, her kiss forming a small smile against Corbin’s mouth.
Renautas looks away at the show of affection, turning his focus to Eve and Robyn. “I believe we are done here.”
As soon as the older man says that they were done, Corbin opens his mouth as if intending to make a request— but Hokuto’s hands on his face stop him. Then she’s leaning up and what he’d fully intended to ask of the old man gets forgotten because, once again, she’s making the first move he had totally intended to make.
Eyes slide shut as he leans down against the kiss, feeling her smile against his lips and sinking into it. He knows that it won’t last, that the moment will fade. But he’d rather have the moment than regret it again, like he had this morning.
His hands go into her hair, sliding dark locks between his fingers. It seems he’s going to be leaning into this right up until he can’t feel her anymore. After years of dreaming, the moment feels realer than anything had in a long time.
Eve doesn't interrupt the moment with Corbin and Hokuto but she does stare hard in that direction and grin wildly, on how romantic, she would chinhands if she could at the moment. She winks at Hokuto while Corbin's back is turned. Instead she looks over at Walter and gives him an even wider grin, "Thanks for the help Grampy. I'm gonna tell Lilah her grandpa is the best!" There's a moment of sadness as she turns her head.
"Say you'll visit again…. sometime… okay?"
She's grown fond of the old ghost, crimson eyes blink back tears and she smiles weakly. "Gonna be a little boring without you around," Rubbing at her eyes and looking to Robyn. "You're a Key, Red! Haha! Also Luther, oh boy this explains everything." New Mexico… the Crossing….
"Off to the end," Eve adds.
Robyn is silent, watching Corbin and Hokuto just long enough for is to feel uncomfortable. Averting her eyes from them brings her back to looking at her mother and the halo of light she exudes. "Mr. Renautas?" Thumbs slide into the edges of her pockets and she starts to approach the frozen visage of her mother. "If you can just leave things like this a bit longer… do you mind?"
She's obviously not just asking for herself, though she does still studies her mother. "It's not every day I get to see things in colour again. I get this is only a cognitive projection, but…" It feels comfortable despite that.
"I'm not anything," she remarks to Eve. "Still though… I guess this wasn't a waste of time after all." At the very least she has an idea of what she should do next.
Renautas hangs his head at Robyn’s request, his brows pinched together and shoulders slacked. His last few journeys through time had been hard, each one harder than the next. As he looks from Robyn to Hokuto and Corbin, there is a weight in his eyes that matches the burden his shoulders bear. Walter makes a soft sound in the back of his throat and fades into the background of the moment in history. The static image stays, the mental link remains.
What is another ten minutes to him? Nothing.
To Corbin Ayers and Hokuto Ichihara? It is eternity.
To Robyn Quinn, staring into the face of a mother she never truly knew?
It is everything.