Pre-dawn (12:00 — 6:30am)
Staten Island
Hana and Logan
Moonlight is coming in through the window, or it could be the pallid glow of streetlamps far closer than outerspace — both create the same silver shine that draws lines along Logan's chest, through horizontal blinds.
He can feel the customary warm laziness making loose his muscles, the corners of his mouth relaxed into a feline smile, one arm tucked back beneath his head. Logan glances where a clock rests upon the nightstand, its numbers glowing 2: 13 A.M. Other details: a leather jacket flung over a desk chair. The smallness of the room; water stains upon the ceiling.
Beside him, the mattress shifts beneath the weight of someone else.
Logan's immediately reaching, brushing his fingertips against the bare slope of a shoulder, his body rolling all the closer to explore a dark head of hair with the tip of his nose. Affection, as well as a signal. He's still awake.
Slender fingers unhook from the edge of the bed, movement to rise aborted by the interruption of his breath warm against her ear. Hana's still awake, of course; and drunk is now shading into hungover, although it'd take someone who knew her very well, or else a very perceptive eye, to realize. In this vague lighting, there isn't much to see.
Dark hair drinks in what illumination there is as she turns her head, thin strands tickling in their brush against his face. She twists about to face him, her eyes reflecting almost nothing as they find and meet his. "I have to leave," the woman murmurs, an absence of anything personal in her tone — neither apology nor regret. There's also a whole word missing, a blank filled implicitly by the way her hand runs along his chest, tracing light-gleam up around the back of his neck to sink into his hair. She has to leave soon.
Not now.
Logan snakes an arm around her waist, allows his eyes to shut — reduces the moment to tactile sensation. Her fingernails making tingling tracks, the clammy warmth of bedsheets beneath him, the fresher heat of her sloping hip. There is no twinge of disappointment for her words — possibly because he can fill in the blanks. Possibly because it's how this goes. He's reaching out, a gentle stirring of friendlier neurotransmitters.
Which is about when he opens his eyes again, the glowing discs of poison green studying her features, before assuming authority enough for a kiss as he mumbles chastisement against her mouth;
"Busy girl."
Busier than he knows; but that skates into the very concerns she seeks to escape. He assumes authority, is allowed to assume it, just long enough for Hana to in turn make a point of her own: to kiss him back with almost antagonistic intensity, bypassing a demand for control with its simple usurpation, using her weight to push him down to the sheets.
The temptation his touch offers is exactly what she wants — to postpone tomorrow's burdens just that much longer — and the opportunity won't be wasted.
Financial District
(Le Rivage Apartments)
Judah and ???
There's someone on the other side of the door.
He doesn't have to squint an eye through the peephole, either. The marrow in his bones knows who it is even if his brain only has sneaking suspicions to rely on, a half-formed conclusion the rest of him is still in the slow, stumbling process of moving toward as he splays fingers and feels the familiar grain of the wood under the rough, callused skin of his ape palm.
The knock sounds again, echoing in the high ceilings of the apartment, and Judah turns his head to regard the slim figure tangled in the pristine white sheets thrown across the bed behind him, face buried in a shallow indent between two pillows and one slender leg hanging over the side of the mattress, haphazard.
The screen on the nightstand reads 5:57 AM in firetruck red. Someone else — Colette — might have preferred a softer neon green, but alarm clocks aren't meant to be soothing. If they were, the noise it's due to make in a little under three minutes wouldn't be loud enough to induce a headache that the steaming cup of hot coffee he picks up on the way to work every morning can cure.
Today, Judah's work comes to him.
"Detective Demsky," says a voice that he recognizes on the second syllable, lip curling around a sardonic smile that feels strangely at home on his mouth, "this is the NYPD.
"Open the door."
Morning (6:30 — 11:59am)
Unknown Location
Huruma, Ryans and ???
"Mji uko karibu kulipuka. Mimi nataka wewe nyuma kabla ya kesho, Huruma."
"Nitafanya nini siwezi kufanya."
"Kwaheri. Bahati nzuri."
"Asante."
Whatever the conversation was about, Huruma comes away from the spotty reception of the cellphone with a pool of butterflies in her stomach. It is a strange feeling. Something between nervousness and fondness. Her thumb presses in a couple of dozen keystrokes on the pad before the machination is clipped shut and tucked away.
The room around her is chilled, the heat having not quite kicked in. She does not care for the cold much, as it is. The television is on in the next room over, the noises of news coverage filtering into the mostly empty bedroom. The blankets are rumpled, slept in, and tossed half aside onto the floor. On a space beside the dark woman's thigh is a stack of thickly bound folders, none labeled. Huruma gets heavily to her feet, though soon her steps are as quiet and as careful as any housecat's. Over the course of the carpet, into the hallway with its hardwood and threadbare rugs. Mundane, at best. Huruma's figure rounds the sharp turn into another room, stock still in the doorway peering into a den setting. The news is still on, chirping offhandedly on her eardrums.
There are two men here in the room with her, intent on the screen; both are all too familiar. Benjamin Ryans turns his Grecian profile over one shoulder, eyebrows furrowing deep and light eyes squinting to Huruma's figure in the door. The shorter, slimmer man nearby shifts his weight, dark skinned hands patiently finding the pockets of his jacket. Ryans' breath leaves him in a short sigh, as he looks back, leonine voice somber.
"Soon. Be ready, Huruma. Do you need anything?" He asks softly of the dark man standing there watching the television picture. When his skull tilts to respond, there is a faint laugh on his breath.
"Ah. Batteries?"
Brooklyn
Brennan and Katherine
Brennan exits the door of the brownstone as he's wiping off his hands free of spatter of blood that mark his palms, watching Katherine hosing down the sidewalk with the coil of green as quick as she can, water hitting the cement with enough force to start to dilute and wash away the hemoglobin that hasn't had time to even clot on the sidewalk. His brows pulled down, frowning worriedly at the long form beneath the tarp off to the side beside a sedan not far from the pooled blood.
"You got it handled? You know where to dump it?" He's wiping off red from his hands as he comes to join her, in the cool of the early morning, the streets quiet. He wants to get this over with, before it can be noticed, before questions are asked that he doesn't want asked. "We leave in five minutes, no one will be any the wiser" He assures her.
Katherine is standing in a driveway with a nozzle in her hand. The hose attached snakes across the cement towards the brownstone house. She's got the spray on 'jet' and is forcing red liquid down the drive towards the drain. She's seems to be fairly cool and calm, as she walks past a object wrapped up in some tarp and taped around with duct tape.
She's got most of it down when a dark haired male comes from the house. "You got it handled?" he asks, "You know where to dump it?" A slight look of disdain over the situation crosses Katherine's features as she stares at him for a moment before nodding as he informs her, "We're leaving in five minutes, no one will be any wiser." She reaches for his towel, handing him the hose to roll back up and begins to wipe the blood from her own hands.
Greenwich Village
Daphne and Joseph
"Do you like it?"
What a moment ago was a blur of red, gray, and white and a rustle of wind is now Daphne Millbrook standing in front of him, feeling rather like the cat that ate the canary as she hands him a box.
A small, pale blue box that is as iconic of a certain store as Audrey Hepburn.
Smirking, she watches him open the box - inside: a platinum ring anchoring a sparkling square-cut diamond, flanked by six smaller baguettes. The center stone has to be at least two carats. Nothing he could buy.
"When are you going to ask?" the impatient speedster asks.
"Oh no." Fwip, goes the box when it's closed, only to be opened again a second later, and Joseph rests his spine against the back of the street bench in mute— well. Simply mute, looking down at the twinkling specimen.
"Uh. Not— not today. Maybe not ever."
But rather than exasperate over stolen goods, he offers her a crooked smile. Around them, the back drop of a street market unfurling in the morning is likely a familiar sight, for all that its configurations shift and change any given day.
"She'd be lucky to have you. I'd say yes if you were fast enough to catch me," teases Daphne, standing arms akimbo as she looks down at the man on the bench. "Life's too short. If you love her… Ask."
She nods at the box in his hands. "One less excuse to wait."
"Thanks," sounds wry, sardonically and typically heterosexual — husbands-to-be are meant to be reluctant, and rue makes lines spiderwebbing from Joseph's eyes turned down to the ring in his hands, the small box nervously gripped as if expensive things were breakable. A glance back up probably confirms that he means it.
The thanks. Shakes his head, but ultimately closes it— gentler— and tucks it into a pocket, before tilting his head towards the fruit stalls just now lying out their produce. "Come on — lemme buy you breakfast before I cause more thefts. The pears're in season this time've year."
Daphne nods a tacit welcome to his words, happy that Joseph isn't pushing the box at her to return. He probably knows she wouldn't return it, but sell it for profit anyway. She tucks her hand in the crook of his arm, as if he were a gentleman of the 19th Century, to allow him to escort her to the fruit vendor's where they look at the colorful array of produce, the sweet scent surrounding them. "Make it a pear and a banana, and it's a deal. Bananas have potassium, you know. Electrolytes are important for someone like me."
Battery Park City
(Redbird Security)
Sydney
Some things just feel routine. That's how it starts for Sydney. She has mail in one hand and hot coffee in the other as she goes to a desk. Flipping through the mail she sorts it, reading the names and having it all addressed to Redbird Security's place. They get dropped by the paper where she reads the front page headlines.
Taking a sip of her coffee Sydney is the image of a professional woman. Slight heels, her well tanned nylon covered legs shimmering in the warm lighting of the office in the morning, a skirt that hangs to a modest length but not to the point of being matronly. It's slim shaping giving clues to her figure as the business suit coat is hands about her blouse top and some simple jewelry. The note reads:
I don't have Rebecca's surveillance shots. — Cardinal
The coffee gets set down off to the side the desk is mostly lean of personal effects but for a few pictures to remind Sydney of her life in the Caribbean. Calling out, "Hey Rebecca Card was wanting to know if you got those shots developed yet." Before there's a reply the phone rings and she picks it up, "Redbird Security, this is Ms. Daniels."
Unknown Location
Nash and ???
Christopher Nash is sitting outside of the Starbucks on Broadway and drinking down a White Chocolate Mocha. He can feel something bulky in the side of his jacket, but he seems to know what it is and has no curiosity about it at all. It's broad daylight with plenty of pedestrian traffic moving back and forth in front of him. There is sun, which is a good sigh, though tinted through his not-so-cheap sunglasses that cover his eyes. He glances down at his watch as if he had an appointment, then begins to tap his foot as he mutters. "Late. Bastard." He takes another sip of his coffee before he finally hears the voice.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. Got tied up."
Nash smirks at that, "Could be fun. Plenty of room. Sit." There doesn't seem to be any concern whatsoever that the location is very public. "I got what you asked for, did you bring what I wanted?" Nash says.
"Of course."
The package is handed to Nash who opens it and looks at the contents. Money. And plenty of it. "I'm sure it's all there as you look like the trustworthy sort." Nash reaches into his pocket and pulls out a brown folder, fairly thick with papers and hands it over. "There you go. I'm not entirely sure you can put a monetary value on that, but this," he holds up his newly acquired envelope, "should come pretty damn close. Need anything else, you just let me know."
With that, Nash pulls himself up to his feet and walk away.
Afternoon (12:00 — 4:59pm)
Washington D.C.
Danko, Maddie and Nathan
"My fellow Americans,"
Mister President front and center, all smarmy eyebrows, lantern jaw and hollow promises. Someone else's words printed out for him on white paper. Old-fashioned-like. Looks taller on television. American civilians checkered in slovenly rows on every side. Twenty or so tax-paying patriots, veterans and lobbyists with a personal stake. The rest are all secret service and press. Reporters who should know his profile and don't - name, face and what little else they can wring and wring and wring out've Freedom of Information - too busy soaking up Petrelli's filth like bone dry sheets of 1-ply pressed tender to a pissy toilet seat. Three words in and nothing but click click snap and pens scratching from the crowd. No flash photography. Fucking hambeast in a fedora across the aisle's been trying to catch his eye for five minutes now, piggy little peepers all asquint with perplexion.
Because Emile Danko's here today.
And it's been a while since he's had cause to wear a suit.
"I come to you today in the face of a country in crisis."
This one's all matte shades of sable and jet, dress collar turned down slate against the cool skin at his neck. There's a deliberately shabby rumple to the set of his pea coat across his narrow shoulders, the laminate sheen of his press badge the only light about him when he tilts his focus sedately down after it. Not really listening, lifeless eyes set too deep in their own shadows. Irises the same filmy grey as the November cloud cover smothering still and stagnant overhead.
He clamps his jaw. Measures out one long breath. Then another. In through his nose. Out through his teeth, nothing but stale coffee and old smoke. Running on fumes.
"Never has our sovereign nation faced such trials as it has seen over the last four years."
Today he's Harvey Derringer. Five feet seven inches of certifiably harmless New Hampshire reporter, the colorless fuzz of his burr sifting soft against a funeral breeze so weak it only serves to make the air seem more static when he pushes deliberately to his feet, eyes fixed cold ahead from beneath the hood of his brows. There's a murmur from the seats around him. Silence from the podium. Uneasy disapproval. Everything too slow - the world grinding on its gears.
Someone's moving fast at his seven but the gun's already out, swept off his holster faster than thought, Petrelli Petrelli Petrelli in the warm snub of its sights. A few minutes with the right contact can move you miles ahead of the game. The cartridges he's using can move a bullet three-hundred and thirty meters in a second.
He's only seventy-five feet away when he first pulls the trigger. Cordite, adrenaline exhaust and spent casings spiraling helter skelter into the recoil and seethe of unmitigated panic.
Him and them and one scream blending into the next until everything goes black.
She sits not one hundred feet away from the American President. This is what she became a reporter for. The excitement wells up inside of her, and she feels somewhat like a star-struck teenager, waiting for a boy band to come out on stage and croon about love.
Instead, Madeline Hart is waiting for Nathan Petrelli to speak. The young reporter for the New York Times takes in her surroundings — the podium boasts the dignitaries and the secret service, tall, burly men in suits with eyes alert and watchful, murmuring now and then into the radios they all wear, accessories to their ubiquitous gray suits.
Finally, Nathan Petrelli is announced to a roar of applause and takes the podium. Maddie has a tape recorder in the chest pocket of her blazer, but she always takes notes by hand, as well. Recorders glitch — handwriting is a failsafe. She clicks her pen and prepares to write, though a transcript of the speech is always provided anyway — sometimes politicians veer from the script.
"My fellow Americans, I come to you today in the face of a country in crisis."
She can't help but shiver — it is her first presidential press conference, and while he's there to speak about somber, solemn events and issues, Maddie is excited. Happy. She glances at the faces of those around her, other reporters, most of whom she knows from the business and other political gatherings. Some faces, however, she does not recognize. But then, she's still a relative newcomer to New York.
"Never has our sovereign nation faced such trials as it has seen over the last four years."
Suddenly, not ten feet away, a small and wiry man, balding and pale, rises from his seat. His pale gray eyes stare straight ahead, as if to bore into the President. Maddie gasps. Others murmur in a hushed cacophony of chaos.
"Sit down."
"Are you crazy?"
What's he doing?"
"Oh, my God, he has a…"
The man's hand is reaching in a flash and there is a glint of metal in the sunlight. Someone is running along the side, preparing to tackle or shoot. Maddie drops to the ground, covering her head, even as she sees the gun pointing at the podium
Her eyes squeeze closed as the murmur of the crowd is shattered by the sharp crack of the gunshot.
Above Manhattan
Jaiden
As the unknown voice over the helicopter's radio speaks through the bulky headsets, the passengers of the helicopter look to each other in confusion. "What in the hell is going on?" the pilot asks.
The final words are spoken -"Every Prophet in his House."
The city swells, straining it's boundaries and then explodes.
First a few individuals, then countless hordes pour out from wherever they were, mob mentality seeming to take hold. Windshields and plate glass windows are shattered with thrown stones and trash cans, cars are flipped and set ablaze, and opportunistic looting starts to happen in isolated pockets, then everywhere. Circling above it all as an unflinching witness, is Jaiden and his camera.
"Circle around!" he calls out to the pilot, leaning out on the skid, held only by his harness. He lifts his camera, quickly focusing on one scene after the other, snapping a few horrible, beautiful images, and then moving on. A man is hit by a runaway car and is sent flying into an intersection where the mob surrounds his broken body, kicking it into lifelessness while the driver is subjected to the same treatment. A man fires a handgun into the crowd to protect a woman, shrieking in incoherent rage when his ammunition is spent and the mob takes him, his companion dragged out of sight, followed by a crowd of hundreds to apparently send her off to some horrible fate. A child is pulled from the mob up a fire escape to the safety of a tenement roof. A family, one member seeming to be Evolved, stands on top of a moving van, surrounded by the crowds, trying to fight them off.
On the Queensboro bridge between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan, Jaiden turns to focus on the checkpoint . People, both innocents trying to flee and the blood-hungry mob, all running toward it at full speed. The men and women unlucky enough to be there start to form a defensive formation, using cars as makeshift barricades - and cover.
"Oh my god?." The woman says. "We've got to help them."
"Help them?" Jaiden's voice crackles over the intercom as he tucks the full memory card into it's waterproof case. "Lady, we stay here. We go down there, we're in as much trouble as the people we try to help."
But then the decision to land is taken out of Jaiden's hands as something hits the helicopter. Hard.
Jaiden's harness snaps.
He falls.
Lower Manhattan
Corbin and Hokuto
It's bright. The cool breeze tickles against skin, pushing hair off Corbin Ayers forehead as he kneels beside a simple stone monument. The name is covered by flowers, fresh and alive. The last numbers of the date show, 2010. His lips move, caught in the middle of a sentence "— but we'll never know."
"And now, the president's speech, live." A voice says at a small distance. Corbin glances to the side, eyes skimming over a set of other monuments to a side road, where a simple van sits, a van that once would be behind the Ichihara Bookstore. Still running, the windows rolled down.
"My fellow Americans," the president's voice starts, as Corbin stands up, dusting his hands over his pant legs. "I come to you today…"
The voice continues in the background, though the words get lost as Corbin speaks outloud, his own voice drowning the voice, "Do you need another minute?"
The woman at Corbin's side offers a slow shake of her head, dark eyes closed and one hand reaching out to touch fingers at his cheek, her nails scratching at his beard gently. "No…" she says distantly, brown eyes opening as Hokuto Ichihara settles her stare down on the grave, "no I think I'm… done here." Letting her hand lower, the dark-haired woman breathes in deeply and then exhales a sigh, offering a look back towards Corbin.
"I think… I've said everything I need to, I'd rather go where you want to go this time." Lowering her hand from Corbin's cheek, Hokuto lets her palm rest on his shoulder, squeezing gently as a smile forms on her lips. "We never did get to go on that date…" she says in a hushed tone of voice, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt. "You've got time, now…"
"We can still see the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park," he offers, feeling the smile on his own lips, taking a step away as a scraping sounds at the gravestone. The flowers dislodge from their perch, sliding down a bit to reveal the simple bold lettering.
AYERS
CORBIN
1975-2010
Unknown Location
Francois and ???
Two removed wooden boards in the bedroom floor gape emptily like missing teeth, and the dust that's created a film over the box in his hands appears to be the same stuff that settles within these little empty caverns. Noon-time light wriggles obscurely through the curtained windows, and outside, Francois can hear the sound of an early peak hour — crowded cars, the squeak of horns, someone's barking dog as an alarm sounds out. He seems to pay these no mind, staring instead at the box he holds on his lap and his own hands clenching either end, before he stiffly goes to nudge back the lid.
His left hand fingers are crooked, and old age has made it more pronounced — the way his knuckles appear broken and his ring and middle finger work in opposition. Skin seems thin and loose, stretched over his abused hands with blue veins snaking beneath. There is a minor tremor that starts from his forearms, exaggerates the movements of his fingers.
"My fellow Americans." That would be the sound of the radio. President Petrelli. "I come to you today in the face of a country in crisis. Never has our sovereign nation faced such a trials as it has seen over the last four years." When it goes silent, Francois only lifts his head briefly— sees a shock of silver-white hair in the mirror, lines scrawling out from the corners of his eyes and bracketing a small scowl— before he looks back down.
Letters. Paper that has not yet gone thin. Beside his feet rests a suitcase, packed and ready, but he takes his time to flick through the papers, some lined, some not — all full of words. Names go by. Abigail Beauchamp is often, as is Teodoro Laudani. Some more whimsical, titled only Daphne or Hiro or Eileen without a chance of being sent.
"What are you doing?" A gently curious voice of a well-dressed woman in the door, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her eyes blue. She moves into the room with a rustle of her fur-lined coat and twinkling diamonds in her ears, though despite her finery, she readily steps around the opened floor and crouches, goes to take his hands in hers' and urge him to shut the box. "We gotta go — the helicopter's going to leave without us."
Her own age shows in sporadic silver in her dark hair, the softness of the skin at her eyes, but not much. Her hands look like youth next to his. "I'm going nowhere," he responds, his own voice sounding as weak and tenuous as his will is stubborn and strong. American, too. She smiles indulgently, and as she goes to say the city isn't safe, the radio starts again.
"If you vilify us, we will become your villains. If you demonize us, we will become your demons. If you martyr us, we will rise up. Every prophet in his house."
West Village
(Maison d'Allegre)
Magnes and Teo
The clip loads into his gun as Magnes begins looking in various rooms of the shared home of Francois and Teodoro. He checks the time on his iPhone before sliding it back into his pocket, then heads up the stairs, checking doors until finally he finds the master bedroom.
"Thought I'd forgive it, maybe somehow forget…" he mutters to himself, before stopping at the bedroom door, kicking it open and aiming his gun at Teo standing near the bed. "But this is where I get revenge, this is where you suffer for what you did. An eye for an eye. Turn around and I'll shoot you just like you shot her, you won't see it coming. If you make this hard, I have ways of getting what I want." There's a pause, and finally he just shakes his head. "No, this is what she'd want. No hesitation."
And without another sound, bang.
The Bronx
(Gun Hill)
Sable and Tamara
Times likes these make a girl wistful for simpler days. 'Packing' consisted of tossing whatever cash she'd earned, won or stolen into the hollow body of her acoustic and then zzzzip - done. All this shit, it's not even hers.
Sable has blocked out the bustle of the safe house with her headphones. The sound of 'Going Mobile' is loud and clear, keeping Sable's spirits high enough above the rush of necessity to avoid panic. Panic's for when the Man shows up – gotta save that shit. Into knapsack after knapsack she slides item after item: flashlight, city map, two (2) bottles of water, handful of fruit leather, handful of power bars. Things an Evo on the run needs, compliments of the Ferry.
Her hand reaches, feels for a bottle, finds nothing. Out of water. Sable reaches into her pocket, pulls out a knife with a folding blade. She turns looking for the right crate to open…
The rhythmic click-click-click of claws on the floor would announce Tamara's approach to anyone not wearing headphones; for Sable, the girl raps her knuckles loudly against another crate. Shoulder-length blonde hair, teal shirt, black jeans; she holds a blue leash in her left hand, half-grown pale-furred dog padding sedately at its other end, just behind her heels. "Third on the right," the seeress informs the girl packing, pitching her voice to pierce the music.
She stops within arm's reach, the dog peering up at its keeper; the tip of her tail dusts the air in polite greeting to Sable. "Thank you." Tamara steps forward again, looking down at the packs; the dog whuffles curiously at one, then looks expectantly back up at the humans. Expectant for what… who can say?
Sable turns as she's effectively knock-knocked. When she turns to see Tamara, her smile is crooked, "Oh. 'course. There you are." She's expected. She tugs her headphones free, eyes darting to the indicated crate. "'course," she says, again, flicking the blade free and going over to slice the box open. Flick, the blade's gone again.
Sable eyes Tamara warily, "Aw no… What're the goddamn chances yer thankin' me fer what I'm doin' now and not somethin' I'm gonna fuckin' do? Kinda got my hands full with the here 'n' fuckin' now."
Tamara smiles softly at Sable, blonde hair flying as she shakes her head. "It's a now thing," she assures the musician, although the choice of wording suggests a different 'now thing' than the packing. "Today. Tomorrow." The seeress looks down at the dog, who has since moved along to the next knapsack and poked her head inside. After nudging around, the canine's head reappears, and she huffs a quiet snort before sitting down, facing the two girls. "I was… gone, for a bit," Tamara begins, blue eyes lifting to Sable. "Someone needed to keep her until Colette or Tasha came."
The leash strap is slid off her wrist, held out for Sable to take — if she chooses.
"Would you please?"
Staten Island
April and Silver
Glass shatters with a characteristic crisp chime, punctate in a background of human voices, human feet, nearby cars and distant sirens. The mob roars, somewhere outside the deceptive isolation of one small alley, drab and dark, old newspaper and an empty beer bottle huddled forlornly in the lee of a dumpster as if to hide themselves from rioting crowds.
"Are you insane?"
The April of James' memories never quite looked like this — not with her pinstriped suit stained, blood darkening the cloth over one hip, her hair entirely disarrayed. Somehow older, in her eyes. And never, even when he ticked her off, confronting him with both anger and, beneath it, terrified worry.
"You could get killed out here!"
The noise. The chaos. It adds to the heavy dose of adrenaline already rushing through James Silver's body. His own suit is covered in dirt and grime. He spins around to face her.
"Maybe I am crazy. But if you think I'm going to stand here and let this happen all around us without trying to do something, you…" His eyes narrow. "I guess you never knew me." The words are literally spat from his lips as he turns to go. "I'm not going to stand in here while there are people dying out there. I'm going to help." There's more to be done and it won't happen if he cowers where it's safe.
It's what he's always wanted to do: Help.
"Stay here." He reaches up and wipes the sleeve of his jacket across his forehead, leaving a streak of grime.
A translucent silver veil draws itself across the alley in front of James; April's power at work. He doesn't get to walk away just like that. "Help how?" she demands of his back, voice taut. "Doing what? You go back out there…"
Her voice cuts off in an audible rush of indrawn breath, something sounding far too like a sob strangled halfway through formation. Silence, one beat, two; if he turns, he can see her look away, hand closing and opening reflexively by her hip.
"I didn't come back just to lose you all over again!" she says, more plea than demand, green eyes glinting suspiciously when April faces him directly.
Pause.
James' throat bobs as he swallows at her words; he is silent amongst the violence and noise that fills the atomsphere. A pained expression crosses his face, suddenly wishing to take back everything he just said. But he can't.
"I… April." His voice is low, barely heard above the rumbling around them and he leans forward, stepping up to her and placing his forehead against hers. He looks at her face, "You know me better than anyone. You know I can't just sit here. You know I can't." He places his hands on her upper arms and a single tear trickles down his cheek, collecting dirt and dust as it goes. "I'll be back." He takes a deep breath and releases her, turning towards the veil.
James turns back, a thought crossing his mind. "You could come with me…" He lifts his eyes to meet hers, and offers his hand.
Roosevelt Island
(Summer Meadows)
Ruth
Shiny black, bulky armor gives the line of riot police the look of giant, overgrown insects — too few legs, but the glossy face-masks, however translucent they may be, provide a crowning touch of otherness. They hold up shields before them, a bulwark that seems anything but solid against the chaos rampant in the streets. Armored more extravagantly still, her mechanized suit distinctively blazoned with FRONTLINE's eagle and shield, Ruth stands behind their line. She doesn't belong here, in the face of such boundless violence; she can throw gas canisters with the best of them, certainly, but dealing with more civilians than should be packed into a small space is not part of Ruth's talent.
The work of months, physical manifestation of care and concern, of rejuvenated hope and self-pride, is trampled carelessly underfoot by a milling swarm; its individual members may not have fangs and stingers, but knives, impromptu clubs, and sheer bloodthirsty determination make up for that lack in spades. There's blood on the asphalt, along with uprooted mailboxes and shattered glass; the front door of a house on their left hangs open, its hinges twisted to uselessness, while someone lays prone in the half-rebuilt flowerbeds of another on the right, perhaps wounded or dying or merely wise enough to play dead.
Tunka isn't here.
There's a cold comfort in the fact — he's safer, back on base, away from grasping hands and kicking feet, from the red-hazed mob mentality and its indiscriminately homicidal rage. Gas canisters fly, launched by black-clad arms in a coordinated volley, dusky mist hissing free to cloud the air. In their wake, the line marches forward, braving the fray in the hopes of restoring the order Summer Meadows once reclaimed for itself.
As she, too, plunges into the dark chaos, obedient to duty and necessity, Ruth can only think of what's missing. The feel of warm, thick fur in her fingers, the pressure of a shoulder against her leg or a dull-clawed paw on her foot, the reassurance of having his teeth at her beck and direction. Absent, these things give shape to a startlingly hollow void that huddles, a cold and despairing lump of lead, in the pit of her stomach.
Ruth Crow Dog feels alone, adrift in a sea of humanity, and finds it a struggle not to close her hands tighter around a weapon's grip.
Roosevelt Island
(Summer Meadows)
Elisabeth and Sarisa
Kershner's voice is shouting orders in her ears, but Elisabeth is shaking her head negatively even as the order comes through. Almost absently, she waves a gauntleted hand toward Ruth and says to her supervisor through the throat mic, "I'm not even going to try this with the helmet between me and the sound waves. I've never tried to lace ambient sounds with that kind of sonics, only ever done it with voice."
The riot surges around her position while leaving her spot curiously untouched, giving the moment a surreal feeling of clarity amid chaos. From the corner of her eye she can see the figures of her squad mates — Ruth's position hasn't been overrun yet, but Faye and Rachel are falling back. Her rifle is heavy in her hands. One hand reaches up to disengage the connectors of her state-of-the-art armor, and she rips the helmet off her head, exposing sweat-damp blond hair.
So much noise. So many people screaming. The air has a coppery metallic tang to it overlaid with the smell of cordite and smoke. For a moment, it is 2006 all over again; different but not.
Elisabeth's vantage point is covered and she'll have enough range from here to carry well in spite of the chaos in front of her. At least she's learned not to simply make a target of herself — they don't have to see the source of the amplified voice to be effected. If they're of any kind of mindset to even be quelled by such subtle acoustic effects. She drops the helmet to the ground as she prepares to at least try.
A movement in her periphery brings her head around and she looks over her shoulder.
Roosevelt Island
(Summer Meadows)
Cardinal, Elisabeth, and Lola
Error. Error. Error.
Those five red letters blink steadily in the periphery of Richard Cardinal's vision as he steps out of the shadows onto the roof of a single-story grocery, the shiny black plates of the armour he's wearing reflecting the light of the smouldering skies.
New York City is burning. At least a part of it is, enough for the heavens themselves to take notice, a sullen crimson as though embers had reached the foot of the throne itself and set the angels aflame. The noise in his ears is a cacophony that defies description, shouting voices, breaking glass, hundreds of feet moving in an arrhythmic chorus that seems like it should shake the earth. Gunfire echoes over the street, but it's too late to scatter the crowd, it's been too late for hours now. The mob's its own thing, a wild, mad thing thrashing violently in its birth throes, never knowing it will never survive to be fully born.
There are other sounds - closer, voices speaking through the radio in his helmets. Some familiar. Some not. They filtered into his perception in snatches half-drowned out by the noise of the riot and static.
"Shhhsst--rect order, Harrison! If that mob gets to the-shsstt-all fucked!"
It wasn't hard to pick out FRONTLINE in the midst of the police barely holding the mob from progressing past a chokepoint on the streets, their armour gleaming in the fire of Molotov cocktails. It wasn't hard to notice that the mob was starting to falter there; subsonic assaults leaving those with unprotected ears reeling with vertigo, collapsing to their knees or falling there in the street as they got close to the barricades that were protecting the next intersection.
It was easiest of all to pick out the flash of blonde hair in the midst of the police barricade, the one thing that was keeping the riot from spilling out into the neighborhood beyond and growing even more uncontrollable.
Cardinal watched in silence from his vantage point, listened to the radio chatter, and then he raised one hand to the side of his helmet-adjusting to a different radio frequency.
"Cajun. Blonde, center of the barricades. Do it."
"Ah, y'all do know that's-"
"I know. That's an order."
There's a moment like silence in the midst of all the rioting, or at least it seems like that to Cardinal, as red blossoms across the blonde peacekeeper's forehead with a sniper's gift from a mile away, falling back in what seems like slow-motion to his eyes. Then she's gone, behind the lines of the police, and the rioters surge forward with a new roar of anger and protest, bodies physically hauling the riot cops down to the pavement.
"Shhttss--is down, repeat, Harrison is down, we can't hold them, fall back, fall-sshhzzt"
The shadowman watches for another few moments as the riot stampedes onwards, and then turns his back on the scene, fading into the shadows.
"I'm sorry, Liz," the darkness whispers, "But at least you won't have to live through what comes next."
Roosevelt Island
(Summer Meadows)
Delia, Huruma, and Ryans
Pain.
He hurts. His breath rattles thick in his chest, teeth clenched tight, the taste of blood in his mouth. One hand holds his handgun loosely, his other is warm and sticky, pressed to his side. Everything seems blurry and gray at the edge.
"Go!" Ryans snaps angrily, as Huruma stands over where he sits propped against the wall, holding back his red-headed youngest. "Get her out of here, Huruma." There is a pained sound in the back of his throat, a hand clutches at his side, back arching slightly.
"Dad! No…"
"Lia…" His voice filled with pain, "…go with Huruma. I'll cover your escape." Ryans is only human, despite the fact his age was flipped back, he doesn't have an evolved bone in his body. "Find Sawyer, Ayers, or Bennet's people. They will help."
Hands shakes some, slick and red with his own blood making it hard to grip the gun, his head lolls forward so that he can check how many bullets he has left. Not many. The sound of feet running getting closer. "Your running out of time." He growls out, hand reaching up to find something to grip and pull himself to his feet, smearing blood where ever he touches.
When they don't seem to be moving fast enough, the normally calm and collected Company Agent, roars a mighty. "GO!"
As they turn and run, Ryans straightens as the proud lion of a man that he is, as figures come around the corner, his gun raises. He makes his last stand.
Queens
Isabella, Luther and Monica
It's got to be the heat. It's making her hallucinate.
Here's this woman, and she's so little. You'd never expect a girl like this to be soaring impossibly through a burning building, with a flying kick aimed at your head. Isabella certainly wouldn't. Goddamned Evolved. Snakes in the grass. They're all alike.
All, except me.
The Agent tries to remember her training: back step. Grab her ankle. Overbalance her, don't fight against her. But pain lances through Isa, knocking her off balance as the kick connects before she's able to react and sends her flying back. There's just no fighting this one hand-to-hand. Luckily, she has an ace up her sleeve. Ducking behind some burning debris, she stares at her adversary, watches her move. Concentrates. It's like a delicate tug, this ability of hers. The subtle draw of blood along her system. It takes concentration: something that's hard with the flames licking all around her, but the only way out of the building is through the dark-skinned woman with the fire of vengeance in her eyes.
What'd I ever do to her?
One eternity later, and the fruits of her efforts are realized: Monica drops like a stone. Isabella darts up to escape, light-headed though she is, only to be blocked by a man.
A man on fire.
Fuck my life.
Four years later and they still haven't learned a damn thing. People and their petty squabbles have lead to this. Hell on Earth, Luther wants to call it, but right now isn't the time for musings about social psychology. Or blame.
Because, I started this.
Flames lick up the sides of the room, hungry fingers grabbing greedily for the next source to burn. He can stand the heat, but anybody who's gone through grade school safety knows it's the smoke that kills. Hunkering down, Luther desperately seeks his options of escaping the growing inferno. His brow wrinkles in trying to concentrate, to block out the fire, to think enough to run for safety.
If only it were that easy.
He looks down to the young woman lying at his feet, unconscious and bleeding. Who is she, and why is she… A part of him pulls his gaze down along her toned body, dark skinned and athletic. Appealing.
God damn, Luther, FOCUS.
A crash of a burning support beam and the sharp popping of glass windows jars him. There is no more time for inner debate. It's time to go.
"And all around him, Rome was burning."
Darkness… no, emptiness. Blank and unending. There is no thought, there is no pain, there is no 'me' here. There is no 'here'… here. There is only a sense… of floating. Like a kid in a pool on a hot summer's day. Very hot.
It starts small, a dot in the distance, but the apparition grows quickly. Light… and a human shape doesn't quite take form, and seems to blip in and out of her vision. The apparition speaks to her, but she can't make it out, just a low rumble. Male, perhaps. It's comforting, in a way. Monica thinks only one thought before the vision's end…
Must be… an angel…
Queens
Molly
There are screams and there are explosions. Gunshots are fired and people are falling to the ground clutching wounds and trying to get away. But the fight rages on. In Queens, the riot is going strong and a young girl duck and dodges as she searches the crowd. "DAD!! DAD!!" Molly Walker yells and shrieks as someone falls to his knees in front of her, chest basically gone. "I.. I.." he says before falling forward.
"Oh.. my .. god.." she says and then she's running away and looking up towards the sky. Tucking herself away behind a corner, she closes her eyes and tilts her head. There he is.. "Dad.." she says softly and then she's setting off in the direction that she knows her father is in.
Staten Island
Dante and Nadia
Staten Island is not a very happy place today. Not in the slightest. The scene is terrifying: a small portion of the southern part of the island…is gone. The Lighthouse is gone. Completely missing, disappeared under the water, after the island was struck by a concentrated earthquake that just plain should not have happened.
Only one piece of solid ground still stands among the waters that used to be an island, a small platform within the water, fashioned from the street. Upon it are two figures. The first, Carlos Dante Lupinetti, is laying prone upon the ground, lifeless, bloodied, and broken. The second, Nadia Fadwa Ba'albaki, stands over him, her head spinning.
First, her eyes survey the area. What was once an island…is now part of the ocean. Completely gone, save for this one platform that she stands upon. Then, her eyes turn towards Dante's lifeless form…and the panic sets in. She crouches down, shaking at him. "Dante! Dante, no!" This goes on for a few moments. Then, her tear-filled eyes raise once again to the scene before her, the platform of earth that she stands upon, and the shards of what was once a piece of a settled island jutting out of the water.
"What have I done…?"
Unknown Location
Claire
"Oh god… Oh god." The voice of the man, on his knees in front of Claire, quavers with the fear. "Please… please don't. Please! I don't want to die!" Tears streak his face, as he sobs, as he begs her not to kill him. The brunette is bent over him, her armored chest pressed against his back, so that her head is along side his. The blood that streaks her face, smears across his cheek as she leans her head against his. One hand grips under his chin, pressing it upwards, where his head rests again her shoulder, the other hand, holds the knife given to her by Bones, so long ago, against his bobbing adam's apple.
Her head turns ever so slightly so that the words she breaths, are against his cheek, almost sound mournful even though a small smile plays on her lips, "I'm sorry."
His choking sobs becoming wet gurgles, as Claire Bennet slides the knife across his throat slowly, savoring how the weapon parts skin and muscle with such ease. A fresh spray of warm blood mingles with her malaria ridden fluids, before rolling thickly down her neck to be soaked into her clothing.
As the body goes limp, her hold loosens so that the man folds to the ground like a ragdoll. Turning her back on him, she wipes her knife on her slightly shredded pants, before shoving the knife back in it's holder.
Battery Park City
(World Mall)
Mika
The World Center Mall is in a state of chaos. A mob has taken to ransacking the mall, looting and breaking things. People are running about, screaming and attacking each other with whatever they can find. Indeed, the mall is a bloody mess. Some people are on the ground, injured from fighting and trampling.
It's about to get worse.
There is a loud shattering crash as a large black SUV crashes through the doors of the mall. Behind the wheel is a petite Japanese girl, her face twisted into a snarl of mindless fury and hatred, her hands clutching the wheel so tightly that her knuckles are white. She veers over the slippery tile, sending a photo machine flying into the air. A skid of tires and the SUV is driving through the main corridor of the mall, veering back and forth in an attempt to actually hit the people that have run wild through the malls.
A machine gun is pulled out, and bullets are sprayed into the crowd as she swerves through the mall, sending people and benches and trash cans and fake trees flying in her wake, the crack of the gun the only thing louder than the roaring engine.
As she's screaming at someone who has somehow been lodged against the windshield, Mika loses control of the vehicle, sending it skidding sideways into a concrete pole. Cracking her head against the door frame, the little Japanese woman is knocked unconcious, with a bloody forehead.
Though this rampage is over, all around, the people continue to riot…
Los Angeles
Lancaster
"— oh, wow, I am so sorry— "
Rather than turn her head to the sound of the stammering male, Lancaster narrows her focus on drawing the razor in long, loving strokes up her leg, pivoting the limb at the knee to navigate over the curve of her calf. Soapy shaving cream gathers on the plastic stalk and three-toothed razor, before flicking it into the partially filled sink. Only then does she lift her head from where her foot is braced against the porcelain, precariously balanced, to observe the FRONTLINE officer — or the hovering astrally projected version of one. "You will be, Garland. But while you're here, observe — it takes a fucking acrobat for the most basic of grooming rituals. Watch and learn."
Silence from the officer, clearly unsure of what to make of this.
"Jesus Christ, what, are my balls hanging out? Report already." And she returns to smooth strokes from ankle to knee.
There's a minor hesitation, before that slightly detached sounding voice speaks up again. "New York City requires our presence. Things have gotten out of control. Kershner is demanding that all FRONTLINE units, including Unit 5, mob— "
"Kershner can kiss my perfectly shaven ass."
A static pause, filled with the scrape of razor to skin, before Lancaster looks up again. Her jaw narrows in her reflection in the mirror, and she impatiently pitches the razor into the sink. "Okay whatever. I'll just feel asymmetrical all damn day," she mutters, moving swiftly through the projected image of the FRONTLINE officer with a wave of her hands, and as the bedroom comes into view, her future goes black.
Bronx
(Sam's Comics)
Kendall
It's a lovely late afternoon for most people, and there's a slight bustle in Sam's Comics as people browse the stands while trying to peer through them at what's going on without being too obvious. Kendall is here, wearing an employee nametag, and he is in the process of….
Getting punched in the face.
The opponent is a guy his age, blonde hair, brown eyes, a few inches taller than Kendall, and looking mad as hell. Kendall has no idea what he did to deserve this, and as he gets punched he is hurled back due to the force of it, landing on the ground and (fortunately) not into any racks of comics. "Next time maybe you'll think twice before you try that again!" the pissed off teenager snaps, then strides out of the store. At that precise moment, a few bricks are thrown through the windows, and people start screaming and running out.
Kendall regains his feet, narrowly misses being hit in the face by one of the bricks, then grabs an object off the shelf labeled a 'Greater Ring of Invisibility', no doubt used in one of the roleplaying games, or for people to cosplay. He slips it on and immediately vanishes, although it's merely an illusion of such. Kendall hurries out the door before people decide to set the building on fire or something. Outside, it's chaos, there's police and military everywhere, and in the distance, over where Queens is, billowing smoke can be seen. "What the hell!" Kendall mutters invisibly, lifting a hand to gingerly touch his eye, which is likely a lovely shade of purple now. Then there are footsteps running away, towards Staten and home.
Unknown Location
Aaron
The sound of running water is little more than a low hiss to go with the swish-swish of pooled water, gloves gripping a cloth in one hand, a gleam of silver and crimson in the other. The knife looks more or less what every kitchen in America has in its collection, though something about this particular knife stands out. The blade is coated with streaks of red, which are washed away with water, soap, and bleach. The clean and dried knife gets set in its block. Metal dials are twisted fully on and the kitchen lights go out.
When all is done, the kitchen looks like any other, even as a dim glow comes from the end of the hall when Aaron moves on to the fire escape. Just the one light. He opens the window and climbs out. Window shut behind him, his gloves protect his hands from the cold of the metal bannister as he descends, eventually hitting the alleyway with the light crunch of the occasional bit of gravel. He walks away as though nothing happened. But something did.
Staten Island
Joanna, Logan and Sasha
The tube of lipstick is fat and clumsy in his hand, a thick finger of deep carmine housed in a gold shell with the letters M.A.C. emblazoned lengthwise across the side, but only some of the red on his palms, tacky and glutinous, is made of the same wax and oil that composes women's make-up.
There's blood everywhere. Not just on Sasha's hands, the front of his densely-knit sweater or his denim-clad thighs, but the cement under his feet, the blankets that cover the bodies laid out on the floor of the crumbling parking garage like toy soldiers ready to be packed back into their wooden chest.
The analogy, he thinks, is not all that far off the mark. Each will get its own.
He takes a knee at the side of a woman in the shadow of a concrete column — P1 — and uses his free hand to smooth hair away from a face gone paler than the paint that's supposed to section off one parking space from the next, though it's much too dark inside the structure for him to see much of anything except the sheen of fever sweat dripping off her pallid skin and his own reflection in eyes made bright by the tears swelling in them.
She feels cold.
A flashlight flicks on and a glance at the woman's midsection confirms his suspicions. Two puncture wounds ooze bubbling black fluid at a rate that's almost certainly fatal.
With a quickness that seems at odds with the state that she's in, Joanna's hands clamp around his wrist, trying to drag him down. Not in an attempt to beg for help though, plead to not die. Sometimes, you just know that there's nothing that can be done. If they could, she would have been placed on a gurney and rushed to the hospital, not left here with other dead.
"Tasha. Tasha Renard." Blood at the corner of her mouth, never a good thing when it's leaking from places like that and not attributed to a cut in the mouth. "Tell her I tried. Tell…" Brown eyes clamp shut, a pained groan smothered behind lips, wetness coursing down her cheeks. A diamond stud missing in one ear, lost somewhere.
"I love you Bee Bottom, I love you, please don't leave me. Stay here. Hold my hand please. Just till…" Till there's no point in holding her hand, till the already laboured breathing inevitably stops.
Sasha's fingers tangle in the shaky knit of Joanna's. He presses his thumb hard into the palm of her hand, physical reassurance that she isn't alone where words alone probably wouldn't suffice. It isn't until her grip is relaxing that he smears the X across her brow and raises his eyes to the set glowing green on the other side of the garage.
Long Island City
(Cliffside Apartments)
Gillian and Peter
The building resembles a skeleton. A few walls along the outer edge, while the inside sits with mostly framework, walls laid out, but incomplete. Half finished, the floor isn't even done. Planks of wood, securely nailed in places, stick up in others. The lightning is dim, flickering, casting a reddish tinge. Smoke tickles at the senses, eyes burning. Even with the stinging in her eyes, Gillian Childs' eyes are adjusted to the dark, as she hurries down the unfinished hallway— but even then, she's looking behind her, looking back, and doesn't see a missing floorboard. It catches her boot, sends her falling against the dusty floor with a grunt.
A tiny spot of blood on the floorboards comes from Gillian's chin where skin is scraped off from the impact. Blood runs in a tiny rivulet down the front of her throat, and by the time she's managed to get herself scrambling back up onto her hands and knees, she can already see what she's running from coming into view. It's through one of the unfinished walls like a ghost, black tank top baring toned, muscular arms slicked with sweat and flecked with ashes and soot. Wild black hair is tangled into his face, parted in the middle, but it's the cordless nail gun that Peter Petrelli carries in one hand that worries Gillian the most.
That, and the blank look in his eyes.
Gillian struggles to get to her feet, breath caught in fearful gasps, harsh and hoarse, as she abandons the unfinished hallway toward the opposite room. Moisture both blurs and clears her eyes, the sting persisting as she looks around, the flickering dim light guiding her, even as she ends up running against a solid wall. No exit. A frantic search in the dim light reveals no escape. She looks back again, finally calling out in a rough voice, "Peter, stop."
Striding forward, Peter curls his fingers tighter around the grip of the nail gun, his head tilting to the side as he steps through a doorway and into the sparsely lit room. The glow of fire out a glassless window at his side reflects orange against one side of his face. Boots clomp heavily across the floor as Peter marches towards the brunette, lifting up the nail gun in one hand as he does. His boot falls leave dark tracks in the sawdust and ash on the floor behind him, still wet with blood from somewhere— someone else.
He's wordless in his approach, lifting the nail gun up, head tilting to the side as he does. There's nothing there in his eyes, no regret, no remorse, no anger— nothing. There's just the expression of humorless intent and the threat of that nail gun.
"Help! Somebody help!"
The scream coming from the second floor of the burning apartment complex rings off of the walls, a howling and emotional cry punctuated by the ragged sound of what might be a sob. Cradled across his lap, blood darkens already black hair, makes it slick and wet, puncture wounds all down her neck and face bleed dark, thick pieces of metal bristle from her chest like spines of a hedgehog; nails, driven through her ribs, through her sternum, right into the chest of Gillian Childs. She's bled so much that it's soaked her clothing to a deep crimson hue, slicked Peter's calloused hands and stained the floor beneath him.
"Oh God… oh God, Gillian— hang on— hang on…" Pressing his hand at the wounds on her chest, Peter's entire body shakes, his breathing comes in with hitched sobs and fearful noises of confusion. Hand trembling, he rests his fingers around the nails bristling up from her breastbone, feeling life bleeding out of her, feeling how warm it is against the chill in the air.
Help!" The crackling roar of fire outside does nothing but serve as a backdrop for Peter's panicked cries, mixing with the distant pop of small arms fire and screams of a city gone completely insane. Distant noises of slamming footfalls coming down the hall precede the emergence of black clad riot police in full gear storming into the room, plastic shields raised, assault rifles lifted up.
Peter lifts a bloody hand up in pleading motion, reaching out for help, and he is greeted by the muzzle flash of gunfire.
Red Hook, Shipyard
Elle and Bennet
The sun is setting, making for a lovely sunset over the freight yard, despite the day's events. But that doesn't really matter. The click of high heels can be heard echoing through the narrow corridor between the metal shipping containers, along with the crackling of electricity as Elle trails her fingers along the side of one of the containers. The little blonde has an amused smirk on her face. "Come out, come out, wherever you are…" She offers a little gleeful giggle. Then…the woman begins to sing, of all things, 'One Way Or Another' in her diminuitive voice.
When Elle rounds the corner of the corrugated metal frame of the shipping container she's followed along the side of, the crackling snap of electricity arcing from the hand that traces along its side serves as a warning to her prey that the huntress is getting close. Blue lighting arcs from Elle's fingertips, crackles along the metal and mixes with the sound of distant gunshots, sirens and the chop of helicopters overhead.
There, around the corner of the shipping container, trapped at a dead end with a concrete wall at his back and too-high metal walls at his side, the breathless and injured man in an ink black suit she's been chasing slowly raises his empty hands. "Elle," his voice is so familiar, and when he turns, the electricity in Elle's hand is reflected in the lenses of horn-rimmed glasses, "you don't want to do this." Noah Bennet's brows furrow, jaw sets and head quirks to the side.
Elle comes to a halt as she rounds that corner, a smug smile upon her face as she raises that hand, a ball of electricity beginning to form in her hand as she watches the try to reason with her. A musical giggle escapes her lips as the crackling noise grows in volume, lighting the darkened dead in with blue electricity. "Oh, Noah…sweet, silly old Noah Bennet…"
Another giggle escapes her lips. "I really do."
Without giving him another opportunity to speak, the huntress thrusts her hand toward Noah, letting that electricity of hers arc out toward the horn-rimmed bespectacled man. All the while, she giggles, almost uncontrollably, obviously enjoying herself.
The arc of electricity strikes Noah square in the chest where a burn mark already exists on his undershirt. Thrown backwards against the concrete wall, Noah's limbs tense, back arches and mouth opens in a howl of pain.
Breathing heavily when the shock stops, Noah slouches down the wall and lands on his knees, hunched forward. "Elle," he hoarsely whispers, looking up to the blonde with his brows raised and hands trembling. "Elle don't— do this."
"Why not? It's so…fun." The little blonde giggles softly, placing a hand to her mouth for a moment in a demure gesture. Then, she lowers that hand once more, electricity sparking to life in both hands this time. The grin on her face grows as she slinks a few steps closer, halting only five feet from the hunched man.
"Say goodbye, Noah…maybe I'll see you in Hell some time. Who knows when?" Then, Elle's hands lift up in the air. Almost as if in slow motion, the double-jolt of electricity arcs toward Bennet, the girl laughing almost maniacally…
Evening (5:00 — 8:00pm)
Queens
Colette, Tamara, and Tasha
"Tamara!"
The shout seems to come from far away, the distant reaches of a long tunnel, timbre strained by tension and urgent fear. A recognized voice nonetheless, as familiar as the brown eyes and soot-stained short hair flying, unseen, behind the speaker as she runs. Rubber soles slap against black asphalt, but even as their approach grows louder the sounds seem to fade. The staticky crackle of fire explains the smoky haze darkening the sky — no, the buildings — above like some terrible, swift-winged storm; explains the gritty taste of ash on parted lips, inhaled with every labored breath.
Fingers cradle the base of Colette Nichols' skull, support firm against its curve, adamantly forbidding the grace of laying down. Eyes even darker than the smoky air gaze steadily down from a face framed by short, unkempt hair, its blonde color considerably darkened by dirt and grime. Tamara fails to cast so much as a glance towards the girl running the same route her feet traced only a short time ago, the girl deliberately left behind so that the sybil could be kneeling in the street here and now.
The sounds of running feet, yelling voices, of feral fire consuming nearby buildings from the inside out, shattering glass and screaming children — none of it quite sounds real. A streak of soot meanders down the curve of Tamara's cheek, ashes adhering to the line of moisture left behind by a fallen tear. The blonde girl's lips pull up in a smile, shaky and wan, wilting almost immediately under the sorrow that attempted bravado, however well-meant, can't banish from her eyes.
Colette's hands press tight against cloth-covered ribs. The liquid warmth that spills out regardless around desperate fingers is the truly, inarguably real element of this tableau, puddling crimson-black on the street beneath them. Its stain will never come out of these clothes — and its loss, if it continues to flow, may never be replaced. Fingers clench harder still in the effort to make it stop, incipient panic stealing scant breath and the words it may otherwise have fueled.
"Wha— yh— you— Colette?"
The distance separating them gets smaller with each reaching stride, with each jarring lance of dull pain through her side; but not small enough. Not small enough that Tasha can do anything but look on in horror as bloody knife falls from red-daubed hand, steel ringing an incongruously musical chime against rough asphalt. Freed, those fingers close over Colette's shoulder, supporting and supported in turn. Tamara looks up, finally; the weight of her regret makes Tasha falter, slower, staggering steps postponing irrevocable revelation a few precious seconds more.
Closing her eyes, Tamara presses her cheek against Colette's temple, three softspoken words somehow completely overshadowing the chaotic destruction going on around them.
"I'm so sorry."
Her feet pound on the pavement under her, short legs carrying her at sprinter speed. The smell of smoke stings her nose and eyes, smothers her lungs. She coughs raggedly, out of breath as she turns the corner. Ahead, the two small figures she's seeking seem to cling to one another — one or the other or both are hurt, as they kneel on asphalt with blood dripping between them.
The red blood stands out in livid, sharp juxtaposition to the otherwise gray and dingy scene. The asphalt is black; the skies are gray; the buildings loom above like black and gray sentinels; the faces of the two girls she stares at are pallid but for smudges of soot and grime, streaked by tears. All the other colors are stripped away, bleeding until everything is a gray-scale canvas so that all that Tasha's eyes can make out is the garish scarlet spreading too fast against pale hands smudged with gray.
"Wha— yh— you— Colette?" Tasha gasps, her voice ragged and out of breath. She rushes forward when she sees a bloody knife fall, the shine of liquid red brighter than the gleam of metal in the dim light.
The metallic chime on the asphalt is accompanied by the sound of her heart pounding like drums in her ears, the percussive symphony making it hard to hear what it is that the blonde woman whispers to Colette. The words of apology are lost on Tasha.
"No!" Tasha cries, rushing forward on stumbling feet, feeling that she might be too late.
Queens
Helena
Chaos rules.
All around is the evidence of riots which continues elsewhere, she can still hear the sounds of it all, though the actual violence has abated where she is. Amid the debris left behind as broken glass, damaged buildings, overturned cars and still-burning fires, Helena Dean keeps her arms protectively curved around the body of the child in her arms, trying to tune out his wails of terror being emitted directly into her ear.
Helena doesn't have time to wonder where Jacquelyn is, or why she's the one carrying Liam through all the destruction. When she has to stop short because an overturned vehicle's gas tank has leaked and abruptly bursts into flames some distance ahead, her ability is what sheilds them from the explosion.
There's too much happening too fast, and for the first time, she's directly responsible for someone's life other than her own. The urgent need to run is choking her throat, there's too much smoke and madness for her to even think of stopping to look at a streetsign to figure out where in New York she is. It doesn't even occur to her to think about where she's going, in this particular moment.
All she can do is run.
Unknown Location
Alia
Alia pants for breath. A pack of food, medical supplies, and technical supplies sat on her shoulders. The sound of sirens catching up to her was leaving her with few options left. She could outrun them on foot as long as she knew where she was, which was rarely a problem, and kept her skateboard handy, which she had, but cars… cars were a different story. She did the only thing she could. She reached with her ability… the cars were just barely in reach… newer models, thankfully for the technopath. A moment later, the sirens cut out as screeching sounds were heard. The onboard computers that controlled fuel injection, power steering, and power brakes had all been fried. She quickly took off on her skateboard into the alleyways before anyone could recover from the chaos…She had much left to do and the night was young…
Governer's Island
Elaine and Perry
Gripped in his gloved hand, Pericles Jones holds a remote trigger device he himself built and designed. If he depresses that button, a series of bombs will go off under the Brookly-Queens expressway.
"This… uh… this isn't something you have to watch. I'm… uh… I'm sorry you're here. I'll let… I'll let you go just as soon as I can, okay?"
"You really don't have to do this," Elaine murmurs, eyes wide. "If you do this tonight.. it will change everyone's life. It doesn't have to be like this. There's no good reason. Things can be changed in other ways… this will take the lives of many people, a lot of them innocent."
"Innocence and guilt… there are objective parameters, okay? It's just… it's…" Perry's hand tenses around the trigger device, "I have to be true to my Cause. This is all there is. You have to understand that, okay?" As if he needs her absolution.
"You can't.." Elaine's eyes are on the trigger. "It's not objective. If you're willing to throw those lives away, you might as well kill me here. It's as good as throwing away the lives of everyone you know or have ever loved. Those are people out there!"
"This is about destiny" Perry says, adamant, as if this is the most important thing, "This is… this is the moment." Either way, this is true. He doesn't look at Elaine. That might be too much. "If I don't… it'll be my fault. It will be for nothing, because of me."
"You're right. It is destiny. If you do it, then that's the moment you'll forever be known as a murderer. Can you live with that guilt?" Elaine keeps her eyes focused on him.
He can feel the weight of her gaze. Perry closes his eyes tight, as if this might help. "Great men do terrible things."
She slowly closes her eyes, taking in a deep breath. "Terrible men can also do great things."
"Either way, there's greatness," Perry says, voice growing harder, all hint of stammer disappearing. His hand tightens around the trigger. Almost.
"Don't.. please." Elaine begs. "Don't go down known as a murderer."
"Only you'll know," Perry says. He closes his eyes.
"Then you'll always have to live with the memory of me knowing." She says, looking right at him. She won't look away now.
He finally turns, and catches her eyes. Perry knows. And so will she. His thumb shifts, he flips a switch. The trigger's power light blinks off.
Elaine doesn't look away, a hint of a smile in her eyes. "Thank you."
Perry gets to his feet, lifts his arm, and hurls the trigger off the edge of the island. It lands in the water, and bobs there, dark amidst darkness. He turns to Elaine, offering his hand, "Remember this, please," he says, imploringly. Then he smiles, awkwardly, "Feel free to forget everything else."
Pillars of black smoke, underlit by the grim oranges and reds of the fire it heralds, rise from Queens. So many people, so many, are already trapped. Yet more will be, should the infrastructure fail.
This is not a hypothetical. Gripped in his gloved hand, Pericles Jones holds a remote trigger device he himself built and designed. It's clunky, built from an amplified walky-talky set, an elegant device, but it works. He's tested it.
Tonight, though, is no test. It's the real deal. If he depresses that button, a series of bombs will go off under the Brooklyn-Queens expressway. Rubble will rain down onto rioters and refugees alike. Cars trying to flee the oncoming flames will tumble down to the streets below, or be trapped. All according to plan.
He should have already done it. A clear message must be sent. A message written in blood and fire, and while the fire spreads, the blood is trickling out of his grasp.
"This… uh… this isn't something you have to watch. I'm… uh… I'm sorry you're here. I'll let… I'll let you go just as soon as I can, okay?"
"You really don't have to do this," the girl murmurs, "Please. If you do this tonight.. it will change everyone's life. It doesn't have to be like this. There's just no good reason to do it. Things can be changed in other ways… this way will take the lives of many people, a lot of them innocent."
"Innocence and guilt… there are objective parameters, okay? It's just… it's…" Perry struggles to find some mooring, something from the books he's read. His hand tenses around the trigger device, "I have to be true to my Cause. This is all there is. You have to understand that, okay?" As if he needs her absolution.
"You can't.." the girl says, "It's not objective. These are human lives. If you're willing to throw those lives away, you might as well kill me here. It's as good as throwing away the lives of everyone you know or have ever loved. Those are people out there!"
"This is about destiny" Perry says, adamant, "This is… this is the moment." Either way, this is true. He doesn't look at her. That might be too much. "If I don't… it'll be my fault. It will be for nothing, because of me."
He can feel the weight of her gaze. Perry closes his eyes tight, as if this might help. "Great men do terrible things."
He hears her take a deep breath. "Terrible men can also do great things."
"Either way, there's greatness," Perry says, voice growing harder, all hint of stammer disappearing. His hand tightens around the trigger. Almost.
"Don't.. please." she begs. "Don't go down known as a murderer."
"Only you'll know," Perry says.
"Then you'll always have to live with the memory of me knowing."
He finally turns, and catches her eyes. She's looking right at him. Perry knows. And so will she.
Queens
Thalia
There are gunshots and screaming.. and screaming..
It's all Thalia hears as she battles her way through the crowd. A giant mass of people fighting, blood everywhere.. bodies flying. Fire.. complete and utter chaos. A man dressed in dark clothing runs up to her and tries to wrap his hands around her neck but a knife comes up and slices through his clothing and leaving a nasty gash on the man's arm.
A few men dressed in some type of government clothing come dashing onto the scene. Charging after the people causing the heartless violence. Thalia spins out of the way, eyes flashing silver as she throws a knife into the first man's chest and then she's fighting her way through the military men. Twisting and twirling and never staying in one place for too long. Her hair and clothes are ruffled by the wind while the men are thrown around in circles and then out of the aerokinetic's way.
The young Ashford cries out as one of the men's bullets grazes her stomach and another hits her in the shoulder. The woman's eyes flicker and then fade back to their baby blue and the wind seems to die down around her. She stands with her hands on her knees as the men edge closer. Before another move can be made the wind picks up, but it doesn't just pick up.. it swirls in front of Thalia, first ruffling the men's clothing and then making it so they can barely move.
Thalia's eyes blaze a hot silvery color and she gasps as she is picked up by the wind, floating in the air around her. As she twitches and her hair swings loose around her, the wind picks up until a tornado is working it's way away from Thalia, growing in strength and power as cars and people alike are swept into the mass of wind. Fire can be seen within the monstrous creation of Thalia's, giving it a out of this world look and glow. The screams of violence and chaos are now joined by screams of fear.
As the screams get louder and more people are swept away, Thalia is left lying on the ground. Convulsing and staring ahead with wide eyes as the tornado makes it way deeper into the city.
"No."
Queens
April and Quinn
Keep her head down. That's what they'd always told her to do in this sort of situation. Of all the times not to listen to what other people had to her, this was probably the most foolish of them. The orange glow, crackling flames, breathless gasps, and the music blaring in her ear paints a dismal picture around her as Quinn runs down the hallway. Even with the orange glow of the fire, it's still not bright enough for her, a hand up and light pouring forth to light her way as she holds a small instrument case and a piece of paper close to her chest with the other. She can see the door, so close.
Not close enough, though. Chaos and disarray rules the hallway, proven no more poignantly when Quinn finds something she never quite gets a look at to catch her foot on — and just feet from the door, no less. She lands hard on her side, a cracking sound almost drowned out by the loud thud. Pain shoots up her arm, but somehow she's too distracted by her violin case siding down the hallway and just out the door. At least that went all right.
But damn, her arm — talk about smarting, it was hard to move it even to sit up. "Damn!" She looks up, eyes narrowed, hoping to catch someone as they pass by, her good armed aimed forward, still shining bright.
There's suddenly a foot right next to the violin case — one encased in what used to be a shiny black shoe, now stained indelibly with soot in swathes of varying depths of matte gray. Squinting in against the photokinetic's light, the dark-haired woman proves to have a weary face equally blackened by dirt and adsorbed char. "You'd be— "
Into the background roar of crackling fire, a different sound intrudes, sharper and more immediate. April's words cut short at its interruption; her gaze lifts towards the ceiling. "Don't move!" she barks, foot sending the violin case skidding further out into the street — out of the line between her and the building interior. A silver light that is manifestly not light snaps into place like a second ceiling. Wood splinters, tears, lands against the peculiar surface with an unremarkably dull thud.
It hovers there for several beats before April finally speaks again, stiff and angular words, her posture gone tensely rigid. "Can you make it out?"
Quinn blinks rapidly, using her arm that he could actually move to help pull herself to her knees. "The hell?" The light from her hand dissipates into a dull glow, just enough to not obscure her vision anymore. She glances upwards, finally catching sight above her. "Holy sh—Ow!" The exclamation of pain comes as she stands up rather quickly, causing pain to just repeatedly lance up and down her arm. Probably broken, that was going to make playing a bitch. "Y-Yeah, I think so…"
"Then you'd better do that," the woman calls from the doorway, still not moving. Something creaks overhead, tears loose, thunks down on the protective veil.
"Don't think I can hold this up for long."
Roosevelt Island
Abby and Delilah
"It's a boy"
Cooing southern tones meant to soothe the laboring woman from her perch on the floor of a store that they broke into to take shelter in. The ambulance lays outside the door, on it's side where it smashed into a light pole after being hit by another vehicle driven by people caught up in the chaos. A dark haired man's body lays half out of the ambulance, neck bent at an angle that indicates there will be no coming back from what befell him. Abby's hand closes around the back of the neck supporting it's neck as she hastily runs through a mental checklist. Abby looks up to her friend, suctions out the nose, mouth, rewarded with a lusty offended yell from the infant. One life taken, and another survives.
This wasn't supposed to be how it went. She was supposed to have been holding him for a week now- but life is full of shock and surprise, and Delilah's has never been an exception.
"Abby- ah-" Delilah's remaining grunts of cramping pain are quite loud, red hair stringy and plastered onto her temples as she fumbles to stay upright. Natural chemicals make the world fogged up, save for the attempt to concentrate on the smooth angles of Abigail face amidst the chill autumn air pouring all around.
There is a look of mixed triumph and relief that spreads over flushed, freckled features, once the infant takes a big inhale and seconds later exhales in the form of that cry. Delilah's spine finds the uncomfortable prop of her stretcher. Her hands extend at length towards Abby, arms open and beckoning for the wriggling baby boy. Lilah's voice cracks and her breath wobbles.
"Oh- Walter- "
Quickly, the baby is wrapped in the blankets scavenged from the wreck behind them, gently lays the baby on her friends chest with a smile, even as the radio at her shoulder is rattling off for a status report. She lets Delilah get to the job of mothering while she gets to her own job. "Dispatch, Unit Fifty-Nine. Male, apgar of 8, born at six forty-two PM. Mother's vitals are strong, we'll hold for another unit at location. What are your instructions regarding the mother?"
Though Delilah will be forever in Abby's debt, from the moment that the bundle of fussy lungs and balled fingers come to her arms, she has nothing else. The newborn presses himself to the skin over low-cut collar of his mother's dirtied blouse, burbling face up against her breastbone. Her arms have since engulfed him to keep him close and to keep him warm.
Through the various hazes of sensory input, Delilah has somewhere found the drive to laugh brightly, eyes wet and breathless lips finding the crown of wet copper hair."What a little man you are." Her smile cracks broadly, brown eyes downturned to Walter's round, pink cheeks and tiny furrowed brows. Indignation at being born in such a place. That must be it.
What a little man, indeed.
Long Island City
Bella and Deckard
A phone in her hand, the weighty receiver of a payphone. The feel of a metal pole against her back. Knees folded before her as she sits. A desperate prayer running through her mind.
Pick up, please, God, have him pick up.
“…Deckard. Still there?” Flint's voice.
"Yes! Thank God, yes!" Bella's voice is shrill, panicked, but undeniably her own.
Her fingers clutch the molded plastic receiver, its metal umbilical stretching out above her as she sits, hunched and huddled, trying to remain out of anyone's line of sight. A mob's anger directs itself towards anything outside its mass, and Bella is much too alone.
"It's me. It's Bella. I… I need help. Are you in Queens?"
"Bella?" Situation and the static crackle and snap of burning in the background aside, Flint's voice is simultaneously muffled and too loud in the receiver. There's a scuff where he readjusts the phone, club gone slack in his grip.
"I'm on the backside of some heavy shit, around…11th. No troop movement yet. You need h — where are you?"
Where is she? Good question. She's tired from running, scampering really, from car to car, trying to avoid being seen by anyone and anything. She dares to peek out, stretching the payphone's cord to its limit.
After a pause, no disconnect since her breathing is still audible, Bella answers, "Uh… Hun-" and then she's promptly cut off.
'Hunter'. She was going to say 'Hunter'.
Bella is informed by a polite, automated voice that she will have to insert ten more cents for another minute of time. She moans, digging in her jacket pockets, pulling out some change, which spills between her fingers and falls to the ground. When the phone gives her her last few paid seconds, Deckard is treated to a string of expletives.
"Shit shit shit shit!" Bella's voice intones, trembling badly and nearing sobs.
She finally pulls up a great, glorious quarter from the spill of change and struggles to slip it into the coin slot. Bella's voice is nothing short of frantic.
“I'm here! Are you still there?"
But he's not. Bella's quarter rolls out of the phone, into the change return. The phone is dead, its connection a casualty of the rapidly growing fire.
Isabella Sheridan slams the receiver against the payphone over and over, her hands singing with pain with each blow. Within moments her assault ends, and she dissolves into tears.
Oily black smoke and the stench of simmering metal mingled with burning rubber.
Ash falling on the wind in flurries. Helicopter rotors roaring overhead. A smouldering, mummified corpse propped upright by a golf bag, lips pulled dry away from grey teeth.
Inferno.
The blaze is more of an entity than the shattered street it encompasses now. Broken glass, leaning street lamps and stray cars shimmery with heat. The taxi cab Flint's teeing up on was overturned at some point. A brackish tongue of flame still licks at one of the rear tires behind him, chassy warm through the soles of his crocodile hide boots while he adjusts his stance to the tune of snarling flame and
tok
swings through clean
club glittering like amber under the orange night sky.
There's a brittle tinkle from afar when the ball pitches through a window.
He never actually played golf, that he remembers. Someone else that's been in his head probably had a passion for it. Hazy history layered translucent over his own, context lost to preserve more important bullet points. A veteran agent. A Frenchman. Evil incarnate.
Someone.
Bleeding from somewhere, grizzled bristle thick with sweat and char and more sweat, he gropes into his leather jacket after another ball and wipes his face on his sleeve on his way to setting up his next shot. He should probably be helping people.
tok
A car alarm siren sets to wailing and he reaches for his phone, suddenly aware of its persistent mutter against his middle. Long iron at one side, cell nudged up against the jut of a blood sticky ear by his shoulder, he tips down his sunglasses to size up an explosion of fresh fire in the distance, air heavy with pyroclastic smog, shockwave boxing flat at his lungs. Might be time to move.
"…Deckard. Still there?"
"Yes! Thank God, yes!" Bella's voice is shrill, panicked, but undeniably her own.
Her fingers clutch the molded plastic receiver of the payphone, its metal umbilical stretching out above her as she sits, hunched and huddled, trying to remain out of anyone's line of sight. A mob's anger directs itself towards anything outside its mass, and Bella is much too alone.
"It's me. It's Bella. I… I need help. Are you in Queens?"
"Bella?" Situation and the static crackle and snap of burning in the background aside, Flint's voice is simultaneously muffled and too loud in the receiver. There's a scuff where he readjusts the phone, club gone slack in his grip. "I'm on the backside of some heavy shit, around…11th. No troop movement yet. You need h — where are you?"
After a pause, no disconnect since her breathing is still audible, Bella answers, "Uh… Hun-" and then she's promptly cut off, silence seizing up the stiff of his rawboned back in a rattlesnake snap of sudden tension. Retarded, heart-pounding panic sets in quicker than he recalls it working while he turns on the spot, trying to get his bearings.
Everything on fire or getting to be that way.
Smoke in the spaces in between.
Unknown Location
Bao-Wei and Ling
Karma is a bitch.
Given, it was only a matter of time before Bao-Wei Cong's lifetime of moral ambiguity caught up with him. This somehow occurs to him just now, slumped against the cold stone of the wall behind him. Even in his size, he can feel the biting sting of the wound drilled into the space just below his ribcage. A doctor, a gang leader, a man of science- none of these really prepares him for the moment wherein he realizes that he has been shot through the abdominal aorta, not to mention very likely through his celiac artery.
It is going to be a very wet death.
Heels click clack on the ground, nervous steps forward made as brown eyes train on Bao-Wei, little more than malice in their gaze. The hand holding the gun shakes and lowers, bringing a face into view - Ling Chao. She stops short of where Bao-Wei is slumped, running a hand confidently through her hair. "Hmph." It sounds almost like she doesn't care. " I'm sorry it came to this, Bao-Wei," she comments coldly. "But eventually, all the loose ends must be tied.
"«Or burned, as you will in good time.»" Bao-Wei' response is just as cold, one paw-calloused palm holding the hole bored into his torso. Red is slick down his hand and side, pooling over the floor and reflecting the haphazard lights screwed into the ceiling. His glasses are cracked, and his mouth crusted with blood, but the doctor's eyes have failed to draw away from Ling Chao, their intent and stare murderous, even while the Emperor bleeds freely out onto the concrete. For a split second, they glance to the air behind her- a tiny flicker- and back again.
"«My work will continue, even if I am not here. You lose.»" The older man snarls, crimson spittle in his teeth.
Ling seems to pause for a moment, an eyebrow raised. She shrugs a second later, hers eyes narrowing and her lips forming into a sneer. "«Everything dies out without a font,»" she retorts, reverting back to traditional Chinese. Wisps of smoke begin to flick up from her hand and arm, the black-clad woman casually slipping the gun into the belt around her waist. "«Whatever you've done, Bao-Wei, will follow behind you.»"
Financial District
(Linderman Building)
Cardinal and Kain
Were the Devil to reign in Hell, this may be his vista.
Standing at the edge of a window larger than his field of vision, Kain Zarek is afforded a muted reflection of his own, tired face in the glass lit by the orange glow on the horizon. Staring out from the window, he can see lower Manhattan sprawling before him, thin tendrils of smoke rising up from the streets.
Beyond, across the East river, there lies a conflagration on the horizon, a swallowing storm of cinder and smoke choking black up into the cloudy skies. A fire rages uncontrollable through the great borough, gutting it like a knife guts flesh, letting it bleed dry where smoke should be blood.
Turning to look over his shoulder, Kain sees another man reflected in the glass of the window, half shadowed by Kain's silhouette, half lit by the fiery glow. "Ya'll got'cher wish…" the Cajun breathes out in solemn quality, turning his back to the window and settling his eyes on Richard Cardinal, "but it ain't much of a world left t'rule, now is it?"
The gun in Kain's hand is heavy, a weighty thing that clunks against his thigh before leveling up towards the shadow-morph. Swallowing tightly, his brows furrow and lips downturn into a frown, and the hammer of the revolver is clicked back and the cylinder spins; he can see the brassy finish of each .45 shell rotating to a clicked stop.
"This is all your fault," Kain mumbles, eyes welling up with tears. Behind Kain, the sound of helicopters roar as US Air Force troop deployment helicopters roar past on the nearby horizon, floodlights shining down to the streets, cinders and embers kicked up to the window of the Linderman Building's head office.
"Congratulations, Dicky…" Kain offers in a growl, the heavy Colt .45 trembling in his hand, "You murdered yourself a future."
Night (8:00 — 11:59pm)
Long Island City
(Brick House)
Meredith
The darkness is complete. The rundown house that Meredith has called a home sounds quiet, though she knows it won't be soon enough. She knows what's coming and what's to come and she knows what she has to do. But, that doesn't make it any easier.
The doors have been locked, latched and spare furniture pushed in snuggly in front of them. The windows on the ground floor are boarded, the curtains drawn over them as if to block out the flickering streetlights outside. With shaking hands, Meredith lights a cigarette and takes a very long drag. The rest have escaped, she hopes, and all that is left to do is her own dramatics.
One last drag and the blonde pyro drops the still lit cigarette onto the floor and stomps it out with her boot. It may be her imagination, but she can hear the footsteps outside, can imagine the team getting into place and wondering what they will find in this 'abandoned' house in the middle of nowhere Queens. What they will find is her.
Meredith levels her shotgun at the front door and slides her feet into position in order to take the kick back. There's a crash and what sounds like a battering ram slams against the braced door. Holding steady, she takes aim. Splinters fly as the door bursts open and the blonde woman squeezes the trigger. The roar of the shotgun overtakes the sound of more battering. There are shouts, warnings, a flurry of activity. Guns bark, people yell.
Seconds into the action, Meredith feels a bullet slam into side and she stumbles, the gun falling from suddenly numb fingers. They're inside now and they start the swarm closer. The woman crumples under the pain as more shots embed themselves into the floor and the wall behind her. She feels something else impact into her arm and she cries out. The anger, the fear, the pain, it all burns in the pit of her stomach. She can feel the fire, licking at her palms, sees them glow a bright and angry red.
"G—-" She knows what's about to happen and can't stop it. By now she may not even want to. The warning dies on her lips as the fire explodes from what feels like every pour, grasping onto the floors, the door, whatever is closest. As her eyes close, she thinks she can hear shrieking, screaming, panic. With the barest smile, she feels herself being dragged into unconsciousness. She doesn't fight it.
Chelsea
(Chelsea Market)
Vincent and ???
Movement in the dark.
For some things it's better to have eyes, but this isn't one of them. Tile and bricking paved into a once-elegant arch is heavy with cobwebs overhead. A warped clock face leers from the wreckage with broken arms. No light at the end of the tunnel. Somewhere there's the steady drip drip drip of standing water against cold cement and rather than keep pressing forward, Vincent hesitates, his own breath hazing his vision at a pause. Like an animal in the pre-dawn light, suddenly alert. Then he vanishes.
Not a flinch too soon.
Something flits through the space he occupies - a flick of feather and the fang of a needle that breaks itself against the stone.
There are six of them, including their cargo.
Five are suddenly standing very still. The sixth lists drowsily in their ranks, knees and ankles weak, head stooped in a canvas sack.
For the first time in a long time, Lazzaro feels his temper boil over.
He's on them in the time it takes them to confer in silent gestures to form up on the defensive. Around them and among them, calculating until he's coalesced. A flashlight bleaches past boot black eyes and balding skull in a jagged sweep and doubles back to lose itself in inky vapor. That's when the shouting starts. Between flushes of reality to underwater garble and echo it doesn't even sound like they're speaking English. Unfortunately, they are.
A gun stripped off one is a bludgeon to another. He shoots the third twice, muzzle flash amplified, stamping glimpses of chaos in negative across the backs of his eyelids only for as long as he has them. In and out, streamers of sooty smoke furling fluid after a vicious kick to the knee of the third. The first and fourth run, abandoned flashlight filtering dust in their wake. It's the fifth that catches him by surprise, sidearm brought around in an inevitable arc for their captive, hammer haunched back. Ready to fire.
This time he doesn't register the In Between. Only the After: the sizzle and spit of number five's lower half, perfect cross section coated in a veneer of crackling black ice that sublimates rapidly into vapor in the dark. Legs still standing, knees locked - only just starting to tip. A few feet away, Vincent pushes the top half away from himself with a wet thump, the soldier's gloved knuckles still clenched around around his gun in the grip of cadaveric spasm.
Somewhere in this, a warmth has started in his side that hasn't gone away, seeping gradually through the rumpled white of his dress shirt like an oil slick. Five against one. Some things are inevitable.
The third's still conscious too, having fallen ghastly silent out of his painful creeching and clawing at his knee at that last act.
Vincent stares down at him, breathing hard. Three stares back, startled recognition plain on his bloodless face.
Five's disembodied legs finally fall over in the background, still hissing.
And somewhere against Lazzaro's hip, there's the insistent vrrrr vrrrr vrrrr of an incoming call.
Staten Island
(Staten Island Hospital)
Mortimer
In the background, there's a scratchy record playing, Murder in the Red Barn, sung by Tom Waits.
All that can initially be seen are two hands in white medical gloves and a white labcoat, meticulously placing gears together, but with no noticeable outer shell yet to tell what it could possibly be. When the head looks up slightly, it sees a blur of red fabric from one person, and light blue from the other, then he looks back down to the gears.
He listens to the two figures speak, both sounding around fifteen, female. The one in red drags a butcher knife across the table, saying in a scratchy smoker's voice, "You should make it spray blood out of the back!"
"You don't even know if it's supposed to be a weapon!" the figure in light blue says in her proper almost English accent. "It could be something… to help people! He doesn't have to kill every time!"
"What do you know? You're blonde." the red one says while tapping the knife against the metallic table, sounding far more sure of herself than the other girl. "Besides, he knows what he should be doing, what he should be building." He is quiet though, apparently ignoring the two arguing figures.
"How dare you! That's a stereotype!" she hmphs and can be felt patting him on the shoulder a few times. "He's a good person, he won't be dragged down by the likes of you!"
The figure in red walks behind him as well, then pulls the one in blue back before the quick slicing sound is heard, and blood sprays over the pure white wall of the completely white room. "What would you know, Miss LSD?"
Greenwich Village
(The Hangar)
Grace, Megan and Scott
The Hangar is empty. Empty as it hasn't been in — three years, now. The silence is almost deafening.
Three people remain, seated as comfortably around the kitchen table as if the walls weren't about to crash in about them. Grace's chair is pulled a little away from the table to where she has her back against the fireplace facade, legs stretched out towards the floor, crossed at the ankles. Her fingers curl around a featureless white mug, the woman sipping idly at the steaming dark coffee within.
Scott Harkness is an equal image of nonchalance, at least once he pulls the radio headset from his ear, device vanishing in a passing blue glint. "Wireless says they made it through," the old soldier states gruffly, tension leaching from his frame with the assurance that their charges are safe. He picks up his own mug, raises it to his two companions in a silent toast.
Megan rests with her elbows on the table, absently turning the coffee cup in front of her round and round. Irish coffee is the only way to go when you know that people with guns are going to be busting in the windows and doors any time now. She raises her own cup in a brief salute, a faint smile playing about her lips. "We did good," she murmurs softly, taking a swallow out of her cup. "I'd say it's been an honor, but it sounds like we're getting ready to die instead of go to jail. I'd rather not jinx it."
"Pessimistic much?" Grace remarks, broken voice only emphasizing the dryness of her tone, even as she stands up to clink her mug against Scott's. "Lady, it's not over until we say it's over."
Scott stands up also, stepping around behind Megan. One hand comes down on her shoulder, one hand on Grace's; a gesture of solidarity. "Damn straight," he agrees sagely as a tremendous collision with the front door rattles through the whole house. "Besides, old soldiers never die, don't you know?"
The atmosphere begins to glitter blue… and then to dim to darkness, three rasping, raven-voiced words lingering on the air.
"You damned id—"
The Bronx
(Gun Hill)
Faye, Joseph, Kaylee, Lynette, and Tris
Panic. It hit the building and runs through it like a flash flood, palpable, almost tangible. Try as she might to keep the children calm, reassured, there's no hiding her own sense of dread. The sound of metal banging against metal makes the children gasp and cry, or cry harder as the case may be. Kaylee's hand reaches out to soothingly pet one of the girl's hair, blonde and fine. Delicate, like the girl it belongs to. Sweet, precious girl who will never be innocent again. Covering her face with her hand, Lynette fights back the urge to cry herself, that panic pushing her normally hoarded emotions to the surface. What are we going to do? What happened? What went wrong? Why this? Why me?
Even as the questions run through her mind, she feels a soothing hand on her own back. "Preacher…" she starts, but stops there. Who knows what to say at a time like this? The urge to spout some meaningful, final goodbye is getting hard to fight off.
"First truck is clear," he tells her — it sounds like good news, the way the Tennessee-tinged words rush out, as if maybe they might stem the threat of oncoming tears from the safehouse leader. Either way, it denies room for last words. He holds a shotgun, its muzzle tilted floorwards. "They got out. Raith knows we're runnin' behind— "
Before he can finish, there's a small, helpless cry from behind a door. And even as they can hear boots stomping through the stairwell, all it takes is a panicked look from the women to the man, and he's off. Lynette sighs in relief, but it's a short lived reprieve. As they go back to helping the children into the escape hatch, there's a firm stomp on the tile behind them. "Don't move," comes a strong, gravely and downright frightening voice.
The two women pause for a moment, but as the little blonde starts to wail, Lynette watches in slow motion, in the span of a breath… Kaylee turning to the girl, the ring of gunfire, a scream from the children, a gasp from Kaylee… and all in the background as her own panicked breathing fills her ears. But panic feeds into anger when she sees the blood, and with one arm around the telepath, she turns from caretaker to soldier, an arc of blinding white electricity reaching from her hand to the shooter. She almost can't hear the cries behind her, or feel the woman in her arms, or care about how much she's pumping into the man attacking them. It's only the gentle tug from tiny fingers on her jacket that tears her away.
And the thunderous blam of a shotgun in another room sends Lynette back to the present.
All FRONTLINE officers more or less look the same in their armor, and through Faye's visor, she can make out one other ahead of her. The rattling fire exit shakes under heavy footfalls as she, two armed soldiers, and the officer ahead of them climb up the winding staircase that zigzags its way up the face of the redbrick apartment building. A glance down below confirms the beetle-black armored vans down below, the front of the building secure. It's a raid, and up above, the sky has gone a smoky navy velvet.
More details factor in, such as the twin hovering handguns floating by the other FRONTLINE man's shoulders — unmistakeably Tristan Bentley of Unit One.
His gloved hand goes out and simply presses against the closed door. Three, two one— the door suddenly slams off its own hinges, plummeting inside the darkened apartment building. «Hallway clear,» he reports disappearing inside.
«Right behind you.» Faye responds, voice all business. Following into the hall, the sound of movement heard from above. Weapon raised and ready, she sweeps around the new area.
This isn't what I signed up for. The riots are one thing, but this…
It's a mental thought sent through one of her telepathic bonds. No immediate response flickers back.
A flicker of movement catches her eye in her visor, a person rounding the corner of the hallway. «Someone's in the hall,» she states to Bentley, before moving after, to get to where the figure disappeared.
The group splits, Bentley moving for the stairwell to pursue the sounds upstairs, one soldier tailing him and the other standing guard at the hallway. There's no objection — Faye is cleared to investigate as she pleases, moving capably down the hallway and passed emptied rooms. Whoever was on this floor left in a hurry, but obviously not everyone got out in time as she follows where she saw that silhouette last.
As she rounds the corner, the sound of gunfire up above crackles like a fireworks display.
Quick as a mouse, she sees a child-sized limb dart beneath the bed, and to her left, movement registers— too late. As her helmet turns to take in a broad shouldered figure of a man, all jeans and plaid, he hefts up a shotgun. Muzzle fire flares as a singular blam thunders out through.
The impact disorients, tossing her back and onto the floor with a loud crash. Spider web fine lines ripple through the visor, systems shutting down, red visible against the cracks. Blood splattered onto the screen.
The weapon comes into sight, reflexively raised in defense, as the distorted vision settles on the board shouldered man.
Footsteps judder vibrations on the floor as backup comes to her rescue, but late. Joseph withdraws further into the room, trapped as he is, and in some instinctive response to her weaving aim coming up towards him— the muzzle's cycloptic eye settles towards her masked face, and a second shot seems to make the world go bright white.
Glass and metal cracks, and supreme pain rings through her head like sound.
The Bronx
(Gun Hill)
Odessa
Blood.
It's roaring in her ears.
Pooling at her feet.
Speckling her dress.
Wide-eyed, Odessa watches life ooze from the second smile carved beneath a masked man's chin.
Gunfire elsewhere in the building calls her attention back. She shifts the duffel bag slung across one shoulder. Scalpel clutched tightly still in her fingers, leaving droplets on the floor, across her knuckles.
Thick yellow smoke stands unnaturally still at the bottom of the stairwell, like ominously frozen water vapour. Sprinting past the dead man's sprawl, the tacky red smacks almost glutinously beneath Doctor Price's stilettos, avoidance of all that blood not on her mind. Avoidance of the hazy barrier between her and the rest of the building, however, is top on her priorities. She's supposed to be escaping through a secret egress in the basement, but something important waits for her upstairs.
She doesn't touch the cloud of gas, but she doesn't take into account the bulk of her duffel bag.
It isn't easy weaving through the sea of black-clad intruders frozen in place, some more awkwardly than others. Ducking under a gun here, sidestepping an outstretched leg there. Number 103 is having its door kicked open. In the preternatural silence, Odessa's gasp for air fills the first floor like a deafening roar in its contrast. There's no gas deployed here. Not yet. Perhaps that's what that oddly shaped gun… cannon… thing is set to fire off into her doorway.
She has to crawl underneath the invading party in order to get to her apartment. "Sorry to keep you waiting, 'Inger," she murmurs. The calico Persian mewls as the bag is set on the floor next to her. She should go.
She should really, really go. Odessa checks the watch on the red leather band around her wrist, still ticking the time away merrily despite its cessation around her. The clock on the wall doesn't. A blue stuffed mouse is swiped off the floor. A favourite toy. She tugs open the zipper on the duffel just far enough to stuff it inside with the rest of the contents and seal it up again. Bracing one hand against the bottom of the large bag, she pulls its strap across her shoulders.
Her hand comes away oily. She looks down in horror at the yellow-tinged film on her palm. "No!" She quickly wipes it off on her skirt as though it might save her from the effect she can already feel settling in. Her head is already aching. She readjusts her grip on her scalpel before lifting up Schroedinger's carrier in her other hand, trying to hold just this one brief segment of time even as she can hear footfalls on the floors above where her ability has slipped away. The sound of resuming movement is like the terrible crescendo of a wave crashing to shore. She fixes her gaze on the doorway, preparing for the inevitable.
The only way out is through.
Unknown Location
Ling and ???
"For a moment, the grey concrete is the only thing that fills her blurry vision is the only thing she sees, the only sensation she experiences. Chaos rings off in the background, long forgotten as Ling Chao chokes on something lodged in her throat, begging her body to caught, to force it out, something it seems so unwilling to do.
Red fills her vision as it spills from her mouth to the pavement, the Chinese woman continuing to hack violently afterwards. The scuff of shoes draws her eyes upward, to a man; a man with blonde hair and a gun pointed at her, smoke rising from the barrel. A man she doesn't even know had just shot her. Sometimes, the universe has a sense of humor - after all, it's impossible to be prepared for the assassination you never see coming. And Ling knew that lesson better than most.
She shifts her weight and tries to sit out, but instead just cries out as a stabbing pain shoots through her body, the sticky red puddle underneath growing every second. The man says something, but it's lost in the mix of the numbing throbbing in her head and the oppressive chaotic noise permeating the air. She reaches out, clawing at the pavement, desperate to get enough of a grip to pull herself up, but her fingers just won't move like their supposed to, cold and deadlocked as they are.
A bloody cough forces its way up again, a small billowing of smoke following after it. It's too late for that, Ling knows; by the time she could muster the concentration to go through with the process it would be too later. Still, wisps of smoke begin to raise her from body as she slowly begins to lose control, swirling and dissipating as they extend up into the open air. Her vision blurs further, and as she gives up and slides down to the ground, she looks up and tilts her head to the man, smirking.
"Business as usual, I guess. Funny how these things go…"
And then the blur fades to black.
Brooklyn
Gabriel
It's night time, and the air is full of smoke and sirens.
Gabriel sits in the middle of the empty street, crossed legged and casually leaning his weight back against the palms of his hands, head tilting back on the stalk of his neck and almost dreamily regarding the smoke-filled sky. He reeks with the scent of war, that not only includes smoke and metal, but also blood, a lot of blood that makes his clothing wet, and his body aches in the way that suggests a good night's labor. As he allows his gaze to wander along the stretch of road, he admires the following: a car turned on its side and licking flames in its burned out husk, the broken ragdoll bodies of police in riot control gear piled off towards the end of the street as if something in the form of one foul swoop had destroyed them, and—
There's a sound, a rushing of wind, and he blinks as something darts through his inner periphery, and the sparks a bullet that passes through his intangible skull causes sparks as it skids along the road just in front of him. With all the irritation of a movie goer sending a quizzically impatient look over his shoulder at the yammerers in the row just behind, Gabriel twists in an effort to see the sniper attempting to put a downer on his evening.
Dragging himself up, Gabriel rolls his shoulders, splays fingers and turns bloodied hands into fists in an effort to relax, and begins a stroll away from the site, moving at a lone trot down the narrow of the empty street, picking his way around burning debris without a glance back, and he scoops up a fallen automatic rifle on impulse as he goes. A glance up, rather — an avian shape makes a shadow against the sky stained reds and midnight shades, but aside from a passing glance, Gabriel pays it no heed.
Time to move on.
Brooklyn
(Red Hook)
Lucille
Away from the chaos of the riots and such, a young woman dressed in a dark leather jacket that falls to her thighs and her light jeans are tucked into a pair of boots. As she makes her way towards the boats that are waiting to evacuate. A little kid tugs on her coattail and she tilts her head as she looks down at him.
"What can you do?" he asks with an innocent expression on his face. "Why are you hiding from them?" And to that question the woman that always has something to say is stumped for a answer and she smiles softly as she looks out towards the skyline. "Nothing good.. nothing good at all. Lucille Ryans blinks and puts her hands in her coat. Bowing her head as she moves forward in line. Off to god knows where, but away. Away from everything.
Brooklyn
(Red Hook)
Delia and Kaylee
Confused. Tired. Frightened.
All alone in a sea of strangers, most of them are in the same condition, some worse than others. The boat is stacked full of passengers, all of them different but with one thing in common. They're running. The sounds of other boats alongside and the flutter of the helicopter overhead add a drone to the night filled with screaming and crying.
As she looks out over the people around her, Delia feels numb; detached. She doesn't belong here. Some of the faces are those she knows, one or two at least. They seem familiar; one of them even gives her a sad smile, before turning to hug a little girl with hair and complexion like hers. Where is her father or sister?
Not among them.
"We have to push off!" Is shouted above the thumping of helicopter rotors, other boats already in the water heading upstream full of passengers.
"Hold up! Two more!" Is called loudly, the sound of boots hurrying along, until a man comes into view carrying another bloodied form. Blond hair falls in a curtain over the man's arm, her head lolls weakly with the rough movement, but she is clearly unconscious. An arm hangs limp, allowing a view of her badly bloodied side. "Gunshot wound."
"She's in really bad shape." Delia can just hear said as the man and his burden are helped into the boat. "She was shot while her and others were trying to get some of the kids to safety… They shot at kids." The word is practically spit out, full of venom.
Her heart is pounding so loudly she can hear it.
Breathe Delia
Moving over to the woman, the redhead looks up at the man supporting her and gives him a rather pleading look. "Sir? I — I can help…"
The world is a blurry mess, her eyes unable to focus for whatever reason, maybe the blood on her face or the fact her head is throbbing in pain. She doesn't know who is helping her, she can't find the energy to care. Her vision is narrowed, concentrating on making one foot in front move in front of the other. One of her arms is draped across her stomach, fingers clutching at something warm and wet at her side.
"Oh god… what happened?" The voice seems like it should be familiar, but her brain isn't processing it. She hangs on to whoever is helping her, as a gentle hand moves to pry her fingers off her side and tear the soaked cloth of her shirt. She can actually hear the way their voice hitches in the back of their throat. "She's bleeding out badly. Why wasn't this tended to?" The voice angry… who is that? She's heard it before.
"We didn't have time." Gasps out her crutch, Kaylee's jostled as they shift their grip, to pull her up better.
"Get her on the boat, quick."
"Nnng…" Kaylee's mouth doesn't want to work at first, as she is half drug along. Something, makes her dig her heels in, find her balance and her head clears enough to try and pull away. "No…" The word is soft at first, but then. "No!" She shouts and manages to off balance her human crutch and stumble away from them. "I'm not going anywhere…. not…." Her world starts to spin as soon as she's on her own, she blinks, but her vision still doesn't completely clear. "Not… till I know where Peter is."
She steps forward, and her knee gives out sending Kaylee to land on both of them, even as hands grab for her to stop her from cracking her head on the ground. Her vision narrowing as darkness starts to bleed into the edges of her vision. No… not yet! "Where is he?" She asks in teary whisper, before the black consumes her.
Brooklyn
(Red Hook)
Avi, Eileen and Raith
«First boats are launched. We'll cover you as best we can from down here, Glaucus.»
With a smile as Eileen's voice sounds over the radio, Raith gently works the controls in his hands, and the Kamov rises as easily into the night sky as if it were a bird itself. «Ladies and gentlemen, we are airborne and getting the hell out of here,» is his calm assurance, aimed less at the experienced fighters in the back of the chopper and more at the children with them, their parents and guardians still on the ground where lights along the waterfront illuminate spiraling tails from rockets or grenades, expanding clouds of colored smoke amidst muzzle flashes from rifles, and creatures of war forged from cold, dispassionate metal that mindlessly crush anything, everything in front of them.
"We're not going to get shot down," is the very optimistic response from the man situated in the co-pilot's seat of the helicopter. Staring out the side window, Avi Epstein watches the city of New York burn through the dark lenses of his namesake sunglasses, "tell me we're not going to get shot down?" Optimism turns to anxiety as Avi looks askance at Raith, voice crackling over their headsets.
The whistling plink of small arms fire not withstanding.
A flock of starlings scissors in front of the chopper, flarelight reflected off glossy wings, and momentarily blocks the cockpit's view of the street for the brief amount of time it takes them to stream past, drawing fire even as dime-sized holes appear in the windshield, sprinkling the men with a fine spray of safety glass.
"We're not going to get shot-" What forces Raith to pause is not death or injury, but the mere peppering of glass that results from their damaged windshield. "Shot down, Avi." A moment later, he's back on the radio. «Be advised, I see negation gas and tanks down there. You need to pack up and get ou—»
The first screams that fill Raith's ears and cut off his report are those of copper tearing through steel. After that, the screams of the helicopter and its passengers as it bucks like a horse trying to throw its rider off, daring him to maintain control over it. He does, if only just. «We're hit! Repeat, we're hit!»
It doesn't take long for the wailing of the stabilization alarms to rise up into the air, the world blurring left to right when the rudder on the Kamov is hit by something. It's hard to tell if it was any of the gunfire or just a very angrily thrown rock but it did its job with enough efficiency to create a plume of thick, black smoke belching off of that rear extremity of the chopper.
"Shit— shit!" Curses Avi in the co-pilot's seat, watching the spin of red brick mill buildings, pavement, a tank, a crowd of rioters, fire, red brick mill buildings, pavement, a tank, a crowd of rioters, and fire repeat over and over again.
Back stiff, fingers clenched and one eye wide behind the lenses of his sunglasses, he slides his tongue across his lips in that single moment where tension bleeds away into resignation.
Unknown Location
Rebecca and ???
Rebecca's slowly walking down an alleyway in the dead of night. The occasional flicker of neon signs behind her lend very little light to the deserted dead end street. To make matters worse, she can feel the light sprinkling of rain as it begins to fall and make droplets on the pavement. There's something not right from the very start, she can feel it deep into her bones. She can hear her own voice, "Why are you doing this? I don't understand."
There's another voice. A woman's voice who answers, "You put your nose where it doesn't belong, Rebecca." The voice is familiar to her, but for some reason she can't place it. She starts to turn around but is sharply scolded, "Eyes forward." It's then she feels the point at her back. A gun, it has to be. "When you go around investigating things like you did, you're bound to get burned. I did warn you off of this, but now I've no choice."
There's a sharp poke with the end of the gun, "Orders are orders. On your knees." She refuses to cry as she slowly sinks down, her knees hitting the pavement. "Sorry, Becca. I'll make sure you're taken care of." She can hear the sound of the gun cocking back and then a whisper. "Rest in peace."
Rebecca squeezes her eyes tightly, waiting for it, "Please…" as if just now thinking to beg for her life.
The sound is deafening, but it only lasts for a split second as Rebecca blacks out.
Staten Island
Brennan, Hana, and ???
Idiot. Damned idiot…
…but for all her internally vocal self-recriminations, Hana knows she couldn't accept doing anything else. It's an unimportant natter in the back of her mind, an outlet for the tension she can't permit to interfere.
The rest of her is busy, split in three different directions — retrieving maps, images, live data for the immediate area, where available, using the urban terrain to build plans within contingency plans; watching her surroundings with an alert eye even as she runs headlong down the street, ducking around a derelict, slowly-rusting parked car to pass between two houses; monitoring Ferry communications, sparse to the point of silence, as well as the terse combat-chatter of her hunters, content less relevant than position…
…and spoofing, on channels she knows full-well have been tapped, the voices of civilians fleeing pursuit. She counts down the buildings in her mind, cornering one and coming ever closer to the point of turnover. Turnabout.
Silence slams down all too like a guillotine. The maps, the images, the radio chatter — they all disappear, along with the background of police scanners and an ever-present ocean of sappy IMs. Disoriented by instantaneous loss, Hana staggers one step to the side, her pace faltering, blinking to force her eyes into focus.
Shit.
It's a familiar face just down the street, above a midnight-blue suit. "Don't you even," she warns Dr. Harve Brennan, leaving the thought unfinished; it doesn't need to be finished.
Even before the first word is out of her mouth, Hana's eyes flash to the other. FRONTLINE suit, the helmet's technology quiescent, neither sending nor receiving; not that it matters now, with her power disabled. Its identifying insignia are masked by shadow, but all that really matters is that it stands in her way. They both do.
"I wish it didn't have to be like this, Ms. Gitelman. Hana." Lines ingrained across his forehead, a pleading look on his face for the Israelite. "I really do, but my hands are tied and I can't let you do this. Stand down, please." His gaze remains heavy on the technopath, maintaining that blanket of silence in her mind, isolating her from the network she so often uses to advantage.
From under his jacket, a handgun is drawn, pointed at Hana with the safety taken off. "I don't want to do this. But I will." His finger rests on the trigger, not yet depressing it, trying to give her the chance.
Though all of this, Hana hasn't quite stopped moving; as Brennan reaches under his jacket, she marshals that momentum into a roll, disregarding how the asphalt scrapes at exposed skin. Comes out of it beside the suited soldier, hand driving towards his face; denying Brennan a clear shot, angles such that only a good marksman would be confident enough to fire despite proximity — but one of those black-gloved hands closes over her arm, not even a direct attack, servo-powered grip bruising muscle against the bone beneath.
An eyeblink's instant brings her gaze up along that black-clad arm to the faceless helmet, and Hana bares her teeth defiantly.
Brooklyn
Eileen and Gabriel
The air near a lightning strike is heated to fifty thousand degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than the surface of the sun. Eileen can smell the effect that it's had on her thralls, or what's left of them: broken husks of crackling bone stripped of peeling flesh and skeletal feathers scorched black by electric blue arcs that leap unrestrained from an outstretched hand. There's a slender column in hers, a flash of silver at its tip visible from the sky — and the sky is where she is. Looking down.
Through the raven's eyes, she can make out two figures on the rooftop, one large and one small, both of them dark and not because the smoke rising from the north chokes out the moon or smothers the stars. Immolation provides plenty of light to see by; in the distance, hellfire rips through Queens, reducing its cityscape to a roaring inferno that provides a resplendent if sweltering backdrop for the scene playing out below.
He has her up against the concrete lip, their bodies only meters apart, Gabriel soaked in blood — who's to say if any of it's his own? — and Eileen unsheathing the blade from its scabbard, wolf's head clutched and snarling between the obsidian black of her fingers. It sticks halfway.
A tremor passes through the empathic connection they share, and that this lifeline has not yet been severed causes a resurgence of hope, wild and desperate. Her consciousness hooks claws into his and, heedless of anguish inflicted, tears him out and gathers him in with a brusque ferocity that surpasses what physical bodies are capable of.
Any sooner and it might have saved her life.
The blast of concussive energy rips gravel off the rooftop and sends it singing through the air with the force of bullets spat from a Gatling gun. Small pieces of rock and stone punch through her coat and pierce the cavity of her chest and abdomen, but lack the momentum to explode out the other side, some wedged instead between ribs, others perforating the soft tissue of her lungs and heart.
Hurled off her feet, she goes over the edge, and although hooked toes tear at her hair and clothes the whole way down, no number of furiously buffeting wings can stop or even slow her fall. When her body impacts with the roof of the car, it blows out the windows, scattering thousands of tiny shards of glass across the pavement, each one swelling with the red-orange glow of barely containable firelight.
As the other birds disperse, the raven alights on the parking meter beside the car and fixates on the ragdoll arm dangling over the side of the crumpled roof, hand limp and fingers bent, their tapered tips curled inward like withering spider's legs. There's an alarm blaring in the background, but it's one voice among a multitude of thousands.
The cane isn't here.
Movement on the concrete lip high above snaps up the raven's head. A shadow, and then—
Time Unknown
Unknown Location
Audrey and Melissa
Her thumb flipped the safety off, a special round sunk into the chamber and the gun pointed not far from the other womans head as she moves forward quickly. Audrey's face stern, lips pressed together and hand steady, bead on Melissa's forehead. Sweat shining on her forehead from the run they've been doing, chest heaving beneath the simple cut suit. She's got him. Finally got him.
"I don't know who you think I am, but you've got the wrong girl, lady," The other woman protests in southern tones, not much younger than Audrey, her hands up and turning around. Disbelief flaring in the HomeSec agents eyes as she comes face to face with the blonde, lip moving up in a canine like move to bare her teeth. Every movement is eye'd by her, judged as if it might mean that she'd going to flee, draw a weapon, look behind the agent at some collaborator.
"No, I don't. I know exactly who you are" Audrey replies back with a fierce snarl even as the blonde sighs and shakes her head. Her fingers doesn't press down on the trigger yet, waiting for some move, waiting for the tell tale signs, almost anticipating them, her body so rigid and hair triggered. Waiting. "No, I sincerely doubt you do." The other says, still shaking her head.
But she's tired of waiting, she's waited so long and Audrey makes as if to lower her gun. But she doesn't in truth, but fires the chambered round, a tranquilizer dart all told by the liquid that sloshes inside it as it flies forward, firing out from the barrel and heading towards Melissa, aim'd for the chest instead of head to deliver it's payload. "I don't doubt anything Sylar"
Not again.
That was all that Melissa could think as she heard the voice behind her, telling her to put her hands up. A woman's voice, unfamiliar, for the most part. She sighed, eyes closing, and she gave her head a small shake. She was preparing to run, to do something, when she heard a sound that sent a chill up her back, tensed her shoulders and hardened her features.
The sound of a pistol hammer cocking.
Shit!
Slowly Melissa's hands lift into the air, and she begins to, just as slowly, turn around. "I don't know who you think I am, but you've got the wrong girl, lady," she drawls, keeping her voice steady, calm, though she wanted to lash out, to lose her temper. But she didn't know how this woman would react to pain, and she really hated getting shot. The mere thought had her shifting her left shoulder slightly in memory.
She looked at the woman holding the gun on her, and fought to keep the sneer off her face. Hard-ass, she thought. Probably had no personality and less of a life.
The woman shook her head. "No, I don't. I know exactly who you are," she replied, and had Mel's eyes narrowing slightly. This wasn't supposed to happen. She was tired of this. Of all this. Sometimes she wondered if it would be better if she just left, became a hermit, or even let the bullet come. But today wasn't the day she let that last one happen.
She drew in a slow breath, then shook her head and met the woman's eyes, preparing to do what she had to do. "No, I sincerely doubt you do." How could she, when Mel didn't always know?
Las Vegas, NV
Laura and Roderick
A pair of matte-black heeled shoes sit at the base of a blank concrete-block wall whose coating of very clean paint belies nothing of the reinforcement masked beneath. The black-stockinged feet which belong in them are a short distance away, folded under that their owner might kneel on the floor.
"They could've bothered to use carpet," Laura grouses, deft fingers pausing as she speaks. Given that the pants she's wearing, also black, fit like a second skin, it's not a comfortable stance to be in; and the sleeveless silver shirt, only half of which is substantial enough to deserve the label fabric, leaves plenty of surface area for the air conditioning to raise goosebumps on bare skin: insult added to injury.
But the figurative clock is ticking. She shifts her weight, easing pressure from one joint to another, without opening her eyes or even moving her head. Fingers twist in the opposite direction, no further words forthcoming — the better to concentrate on clicking tumblers embedded in the door of the safe.
"Hmm?" Comes the question from the small British man with her, he's a touch distracted by the way the pants fit her, and trying not to show it. He stands back pressed to the wall, a black matte finish hand gun cradled in his hand. "I guess they decided not to put that beastly casino carpeting in here, too."
Oh wait, that's right — he's supposed to be keeping an eye out for people.
His own clothing is just as shiny looking, except his covers much more skin: satiny dark red poet's shirt, covered with a black vest decked out in sequins that catch the light when he moves; baggy pants, shoes just as shiny as the rest of him. His own short blonde hair is spiked, eyes lined with black, nails painted black, fingers decked with silver rings.
Lips press tight. "Hey…" Roderick hisses in a whisper, slanting his head to look back at the other thief. "What's takin' so bloody long? I thought you were the pro here?" He shifts so he can lean closer to see what she's doing.
The hissing whisper is perfectly timed — to distract Laura. She realizes she's reached the next number in the code only when it's already past and gone. Cracking open one bright blue eye, she regards Roderick — then uncoils from her kneeling position, giving the lock a spin on her way up to clear the tumblers. "Well, we could try something different," the woman allows.
Bare feet seem to glide across the concrete, turning aso that her right hand's smooth rise begins at left hip and ends planted on Roderick's shoulder. The outfit is meant to be distracting — and she's not afraid to manipulate that. "Let's see how quickly you crack the lock," she continues, impish grin blossoming wide as her left wrist settles into the mirroring position on his other shoulder.
Distracted, Roderick doesn't realize there's a stopwatch somehow materialized in her hand until it beeps right next to his ear.
"Go."
Unknown Location
Peyton and Danko
There's the pop-pop-popping before there's anything else.
It's a gut-turning kind of biological click, tinny and hollow - a guitar string finally giving in to a chord wrought too hard and too fast. Below the panic pounding in her eardrums. Behind them. It comes from within. The sound of tendon cords and cartilage tenting irreparably under the relentless clamp of the chain pressed into her throat. Quicksand force dragging back and back, stymieing a lurching advance that might evolve into escape. Assailant flush to her aft, breath blasting at the nape of her neck, a glimpse of her fingernails ripping out at the seams in their increasingly feeble scrabble for purchase at stainless steel.
The room beyond sizzles white with static on its edges, dim-lit, featureless concrete made all the moreso by the smudge and smear of oxygen deprivation doing its thing. There's a voice on the other side of a great metal door, baritone muffled as if by water and the chain at her neck scissors hard to the right. A clipboard clatters off a nearby table, pen skittering in circles after it.
Fingertips gone slippery and red flash through the fog against chain and cuffs and claw-like hands, the room's only camera swinging laconically from one or two wires in her periphery, seeing nothing.
She twists. Chokes. Writhes. Curls in on herself. Lifts her feet and tries to buck one last time and he catches her weight. Catches it, holds it and works it against her with an even harder wrest to the left. There's a sound like a cheap plastic lid being shorn off a styrafoam cup and metal raking wet bone, too terrible to be purely artificial. Long held breath gurgles and rasps in a spurt, but it's her blood slinging thick in an arterial arc across the near wall that spells inevitability. Today there is no happy ending. No last second rescue.
The room continues to fade even once he's slung her down and aside with a hoarse, "Shit," boots tramping through the mess they've made together until he's nearly on top of her. Concrete to ash, ash to soot, soot to black. He rolls her corpus over with a kick hefted up under her middle and she has the briefest of hazy glimpses of a close-shaven military buzz and grey, grey eyes set deep in the blood-smeared and handcuffed visage of Emile Danko crouching at her side before even that much light fades and it ceases to matter.
Unknown Location
Veronica
The room is gray, small and spartan. The walls, floor and ceiling are plain, gray concrete slab. The only piece of furniture in the room — unless one counts the toilet in the corner — is a small cot with a blue mattress, a hunter-green blanket folded at the foot.
There is no window. The only light comes from a single light fixture overhead. There is not even a switch to turn it on or off. A single door marks the only way in or out; a digital keypad is installed in the wall next to the door, though the doorknob also has a keyhole — presumably a safety guard for electrical failures.
The last thing in the room — besides Veronica Sawyer — is the mirror. It is not there for her vanity's sake, however. There is a lack of sharpness in the reflection that stares back at her — a slight halo effect to her outline there that indicates it is a one-way mirror.
In the reflection, Veronica's hair is messy mane of dark hair around a face that is pale, except where her cheek is bruised a mottled purple, a cut from the impact of something bouncing off her high cheekbone.
She sits on the cot and watches the mirror — knowing that she is being watched from the other side.
"I'm willing to talk," she says, husky voice rough with pain and lack of use.