Participants:
| Scene Title | For What You Will Do |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Niles takes revenge for a betrayal that is yet to come. |
| Date | April 16, 2009 |
The city is just like he remembers - just as it was before everything was taken away. This world is not jarring to him. He has never experienced the peace and rebuilt prosperity of 2019. That world does not exist for him, never existed. The only thing that was real was a cell in Moab for ten, long years.
Niles Wight has not been able to choose his clothing since he was twenty one years old. It's little wonder that he chose colours in subdued grays and cool blues after a decade in blinding orange. He walks the streets of New York, hair slicked, clothes neat and stride confident. He resides deep in a feeling of arrogant superiority.
He knows what is to come.
And he intends to change it.
Peace and prosperity has been built on the backs of the persecuted few - the scapegoats that must be locked away in order for the utopia to flourish. They are the Others, the Unwanted. Those who would tip the balance of the perfect future.
Niles seems too well-dressed to be heading towards the Trailer Farm, but he has old friends to visit. Friends who last saw him only a few weeks before, when the Company dropped him into a coma and hauled him off to Level 5.
He was just a child, is just a child. His young self is drugged and captured, guilty only of having a temper and a weapon sewn into his hand. And he was betrayed by a cluster of people he once called friends.
The Trailer Farm looms into view. His steps guide him towards a structure he once called home. Muscle memory knows the way. He sees familiar faces - families, old acquaintances, but they don't see him. He is no longer fresh-faced and slim. His body is hard and so are his eyes. He is a stranger who knows them all too well. One young child watches him. She seems to know, or thinks she does. Perhaps she's clairvoyant or unusually perceptive. Her mother pulls her away, into the rickety confines of the trailer.
His new shoes scrape along a bit of gravel road as Niles stands facing the white-sided trailer with yellow curtains in the window. A figure moves past.
Thea.
For a moment, the monster's hand is stayed. The dark-haired girl washes dishes just beneath the window. She smiles and mouths along to words on the radio. Her nose ring flashes in the faint light. Her face brings warm joy and soft memories, but then, a small frown tics onto her bowed lips.
The television feed Niles has been given access to crackles and fuzzes as he sits locked in his cell, drugged and restrained. On the monitor are a cluster of people protesting during his parole hearing. They hold signs and speak to anyone who will listen. They say Niles Wight does not deserve a pardon. They are the families of the people he killed. They are people he used to call friends.
Thea Barberis is with them. She holds a sign and leans towards the reporter's microphone. "Niles Wight is a monster," she says. "He should stay in there for the rest of his life."
"I wasn't a monster," says Niles to himself, around the filter of a cigarette. "Not before you."
Thea looks up, at the man who stands beyond the window, beyond the yellow curtains. For a moment she is confused. She mouths, "Niles?" and then disappears to click off the radio.
Niles takes this moment to mount the steps, to shove open the door to the trailer. It bangs violently back on its hinges. Sparks and licks of electricity dance up as the silhouette of a hand appears. It only crosses his mind for a soft moment that this Thea has done nothing. She is still friend to the boy in prison. Until she learns of all his crimes and turns on him. But she had to know. She always knew. She just chose to ignore it and then condemned him when it served her.
Thea watches him, perplexed. He doesn't look right. His eyes are too hard, his face too lined with pain. There is too much rage clenching his shoulders.
"Niles? Niles, what did they do to you? Gio said someone grabbed you and Marcus too. And…oh god, Niles. I…I don't understand. You look…"
"Older?" Niles steps towards her. Thea backs into a small, rickety table. A pair of icing-topped cupcakes tip off and smear across the ground. "I have been in prison for ten years. And you made sure I stayed there. Your daddy found you. He asked you to condemn me and you did. Condemned me for things you believed necessary when they were planned. So you could go back to your pampered life and your big house." His words curl with venom. There is no warmth left for this girl.
"Niles, I would never - "
"Oh, but you did." He smiles. It is an unwelcome expression. All shark teeth and no joy. "Rallied the others. Wrote petitions. Protested. When many other Evolved got a second chance, you made sure I would rot away."
An aura starts to glow around him, then detatches - a silhouette to the left and right. Electric ghosts now flank Niles.
Thea doesn't know the future, but she knows what's coming. She's seen him do it to the people they called their enemies. The power of flight does her no good indoors in the low-ceilinged trailer. She sprints, tries to move past, but Niles alone has enough bulk and strength to stop her, let alone his pair of duplicates. They sting her like jellyfish as she passes through, but that is a minor bit of pain compared to what is coming. Her hand folds around the doorknob.
Niles' duplicate comes at her from behind. A glowing, energy-filled hand plunges into her back. The scent of burning flesh overcomes the sweet scent of baking. The small home now reeks of impending death.
Thea struggles on and manages to fling the door open, but the second duplicate surges forward and slams through the girl's body. She drops and falls against the door. Again and again, the duplicates attack her and pull painful currents of electricity through her body.
He could kill her quickly, but that would be too merciful. She needs to suffer for what she will do. Would have done, were she to live past this day.
Finally, one of the duplicates circles electric fingers around her heart. Thea's body convulses, sizzles, then finally goes limp. The pair of duplicates step back from her, look to Niles, then draw back into his body. HIs back arches, his nostrils flare and a smile appears. He steps towards her and stares down into the dead eyes of the dark-haired girl. He steps over her and pulls open the door. Fresh, spring air trickles in to the trailer.
"Who says you can't change the past, ay?" He laughs from deep inside his chest as he moves away from the trailer.
That's one.
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