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| Scene Title | Howler Tone |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The howler tone is a telephony signal for alerting a user that the telephone has been left off-hook without use for an extended period, effectively disabling the telephone line. |
| Date | July 8, 2023 |
"—and that's all I'm asking for. An update."
Sage Abernathy is being reasonable. Though she may be dwarfed by Agent Gates' height, the adamancy of her words levels the disparity between them. Gates folds into a chair at the long conference table, noticing the absence of Secretary Jones. Gates crosses his legs, folds his hands in his lap, and forces a silent smile at Sage.
"Anything." Sage stresses. "Deacon is worrying a hole in his carpet because upper management at the OEI hasn't formed a containment plan." She motions to an open folder on the table in front of her. There's blurry night photography of city lights viewed at a distance. "This is the fifth time it's appeared in a month. Does your office know where it's coming from? We have an oversight committee meeting tomorrow morning and I need to tell them something about this."
Gates looks down at his hands folded in his lap, lips pursed to the side. He sighs, then slowly rises. "How about…" Gates says, taking the file off the table. Sage looks up at him with a squint. "You don't tell them anything."
Sage opens her mouth to say something, but no words come out. Gates' neutral expression slowly slips into a smile and he tips the folder toward her, then holds it against his chest.
"I could just not tell them anything at all." She parrots back, half-aware of what she's saying.
Gates gives her a wink and a smile, and turns for the door.
Didn't miss a beat.
Three Hours Earlier
Kansas City Marriott Downtown
Washington, K.C.
Earlier Then He'd Like
Staring up at the ceiling of his hotel room, Agent Gates has been counting the hours since he woke from a peaceful sleep. Regular sleep has been hard-fought for years. A combination of trauma, a challenging-to-control ability that continually snowballs in size, and the general state of the world makes getting more than two consecutive hours of sleep unlikely. Peaceful, though, he can at least afford himself. Autohypnosis was one of the first parts of his ability suite he mastered, the art of hypnotizing himself. Helped with his anxiety, helped with his depression, helped with his crippling sense of guilt over—
"Fuck it." Gates mutters, sitting up in bed. He glances at the clock, angrily, like it did something to him. Then rises and strides across the hotel room to look at the city skyline out the windows. Kansas City glitters in the dark, the new heart of America. He rests his head against the window with a soft thunk and closes his eyes, listening to the ambient hum of the air conditioning running. To the muffled sound of the television in the next room. To the rhythmic klaxon of a land line that's been left off the hook. Gates opens his eyes, staring through the reflection of his face, eyes unfocused. Suspicion turns his attention to the hotel phone. On the hook. No, he still hears the noise. He checks the phone, picking it off the cradle and setting it back down. It's not in his room. Suddenly this faint sound is like an icepick behind his eyes. Maybe this is what was keeping me up? He wonders.
Throwing on a sweatshirt and a loose pair of pants, Gates steps out into the hall of the hotel, padding barefoot down the carpeted hallway to the next room down. Gates knocks, lightly at first. He can hear the noise of the phone off the hook behind the door. The faint sound of a television. No answer. He knocks again. "Hello?" He politely yells at the door, as if that will help. He's unsurprised when it doesn't.
"Fucking hell," Gates murmurs, closing his eyes and reaching out to feel the thoughts of the guest on the other side of the door.
Nothing.
"Jesus Christ, did they leave the—" Gates stops himself. Not no one.
Nothing.
Gates steps away from the door. His heart races. He steadies, concentrates, pushes. Nothing. "What the fuck," slips out in a shaky exhalation. He looks at his hands, checks his pulse—thumpthumpthumpthu—then hurries back to his room. He grabs the handle and—
"Fuck!" He forgot his keycard. "Fuck, fuck what the fuck is going on?" Gates hisses to himself, rattling the door handle. Nothing. He locked himself out and he has nothing somehow. His mind starts racing: Not drugged, don't feel nauseous, can't be negation gas or pills. Gotta be a negator. Range is usually close. He rationalizes the problem as he hurries to the elevator, cursing under his breath the whole way. No phone, no gun, no keycard. He slams the call button on the elevator and paces back and forth, looking up and down the hallway as he does. There's nobody else up at this hour. He doesn't want to be up at this hour.
The ding of the elevator pulls Gates away from his thoughts and he hastily steps inside, unconsciously hitting the L button for the lobby. The doors slowly side shut, and Gates paces around the confines of the elevator, running his hands through his hair. Nine floors down, quick enough, and the doors open with a soft chime of "Lobby," from the elevator speakers. He steps out into the—
An electric buzz emits from a box on a concrete wall and all the lights mounted in the ceiling flicker.
The box stops buzzing, the lights go back to normal and the moths circling around them return.
Gates stands frozen in the concrete hallway. Water intrudes from cracks in the stone, cold and wet underfoot. Nearly an inch of water. Gates can feel his pulse in his jaw—humpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpt—hears the rise of a tinnitus ringing in his ears. He's not in the hotel. He's in his own head.
"Roswell," Gates says to himself, eyes wrenched shut, "Woodstock," he clenches his hands into fists, "Thanksgiving," his jaw trembles, "Blackout," chest rising and falling with sharp breaths, "Y2K." Gates forces his eyes open. Nothing. Still the hallway. Still his mind palace. "What the fuck," comes shaky again, but louder and with more disbelief. Continuing to curse under his breath, Gates notices a sound that hasn't stopped. One ringing in the back of his mind, not behind a hotel door. A phone. A phone that's been left off the hook.
Splashing down the corridor, Gates hurries past rows of matte black paintings hung in illuminated alcoves, all of which are stained with water damage. The black on the paintings is like soot, however, and the water intruding from the ceiling is washing it away, revealing colors of the paintings beneath while the water underfoot swirls with sooty darkness. It's a quick jog down the hall to a scuffed metal door with a faded coat of red paint, marked with the word CONTAINMENT. Gates reaches up to where he normally has his badge clipped to his lapel, only to find nothing there. He tries the door handle. Nothing. Just like his hotel room. The sound of the phone off the hook comes from inside the—
"House."
There is a brown two-level house in St. Joseph, Missouri.
It has a fenced in backyard, neighbors on either side of the street, neighbors across the street. It is an unremarkable residence, decorated with furnishings and styles that went out of vogue in the Reagan administration. This home has carpeted stairs, faux wood paneling on the walls, and pictures hanging. There’s a family here, pressed into a two-dimensional expression of faded color. A mother, a father, a son. In some of the photos, there’s even the family dog. But there’s noise in the kitchen, down past the stairs, past the slowly spinning ceiling fan with the light that no longer works. Down in the kitchen, there is music coming from a small radio with faux wood paneling on its face.
This home is an unremarkable time capsule, save for the remarkable fact that it weathered a Civil War without so much as the lawn being disturbed. St. Jackson is a rural town on the eastern edge of Missouri, nearly on the border of Illinois, so far removed from the worst of the violence and civil unrest that the locals have started calling their home "The Town That Said Yes to Peace," though no one really believes that. Or says it in mixed company. But in spite of the misguided pride in keeping out of a moral conflict, the people of St. Joseph remained insulated from the horrors of a second civil war.
Gates stares at the green Formica table in the dining room, blinking his eyes as if he'd forgotten where he was for a moment. Ahead, he can see the door to the basement, with its faded coat of red paint. No, he starts to stand, this isn't right. Gates knocks the chair back with his legs, pushes away from the unfamiliar table that is bleeding into his subconscious like water intruding from a crack in the ceiling. A droplet hits him on the forehead, and he reflexively looks up to see the stain on the ceiling.
"Roswell," Gates tries again with his eyes forced shut, "Woodstock," he clenches his hands into fists, "Thanksgiving," his jaw trembles, "Blackout," chest rising and falling with sharp breaths, "Y2K."
Drip.
This time on his shoulder.
"Fuck!" Gates shouts, pushing the dining room table away angrily. He storms out of the kitchen, striding through the living room, thundering up a flight of soggy stairs toward the closed bathroom door. There's a faucet running on the other side and a muffled, watery sound of a phone left off the hook in a full bathtub. "What the fuck is going on?!" Gates hollers, pounding his fists on the door. It doesn't give way. He tries the doorknob—no that doesn't work. Kick the fucking thing down. He backs up, then launches himself at the door with a firm kick. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again—
Gates jolts awake in an armchair. The set-top television in front of him shows nothing but static, and the red hotline next to him has been left off the hook. It shrieks a howler tone to warn him. Water is leaking out of the holes in the receiver, pooling on the small side table next to his chair. Gates reaches out, but hesitates when someone behind him says—
"I wouldn't, if I were you."
Gates whips around, a chill run down his spine when he sees
"Hello Tom."
Tom Porter leaps out of the chair as if it electrocuted him. He scrambles away from the specter of Charles Deveaux like Ebenezer Scrooge from the Ghost of Christmas Future. He backs into the television, yelps in surprise, curses at the tv, but can't break his eyes away from Charles. "What the fuck?" Tom shrieks. "What—the entire fuck?!" Charles walks around the armchair, gently touching the leather on the back, and Tom circles the same way, keeping the furniture between them. Charles wasn't going all the way, though. He stops at the phone.
"I need to make a call, Tom." Charles says with an apologetic smile. Tom doesn't find it comforting at all. "I know your head's swimming with a lot of questions right now, and I don't blame you. But right now the…" he spreads his hands, "stars are aligned for a little long distance call. I need you to stay put for a little bit, let me take care of a problem, and then—I promise—we'll all have a chat about this once everyone is back together again."
"What—" Tom stammers. "What—wh—no! No, fuck you no, you're—" Dead? Tom's blood runs ice fucking cold.
Lost within the overgrown forest, Agent Gates sits at a long-forgotten table within the partially-collapsed ruins of the Pine Tree Cafe on the southwestern edge of the Gardens. No coffee is served here anymore. Young growth trees rise up behind the counter where a barista once stood. Bushes have overgrown three of the four booths by the demolished front windows, and a roost of parakeets now calls the exposed rafters home. Gates stares down at his table, at the discoloration that time has given to the bubbling and split vinyl surface. He looks at his hands, flexing them to smooth out the wrinkles time has given.
Then, as a cool breeze brushes past him, a Barista from across time and space sets a coffee down in front of Gates.
"Extra cream and sugar, right?" Hiro Nakamura says with a crooked smile, settling down on a creaking metal chair across from Gates. The tired agent reaches out and cradles the cup in his hands, looking down at the name scribbled in Sharpie on the side of the cup. Not Gates, but his real name. He snorts out a laugh, then looks up to Hiro.
"I started taking it black, but—"
"Oh, tough guy," Hiro says with a sly smile. Gates can't help but laugh at his tone.
"You're in a surprisingly good mood, all things considered." Gates admits with a tightness in his voice, content for the moment to use his coffee as a hand-warmer. Hiro sits forward, folding his arms on the table in front of him as he leans in toward Gates.
"On the scale of weird things, this is about a solid four." Hiro notes, one brow raised. "Walk me through what happened," he says, getting comfortable.
Now Gates takes a sip of his coffee, trying to delay the hard discussion to come. It doesn't buy him much time. "It was late—early this morning, about three or four. My phone rings and… it's Marcus. He sounds out of breath, tells me that…" He frowns, visibly. "He tells me that Charles Deveaux is alive. He just opens up with that."
Hiro's expression is a passive mask. He does not react to the news.
"Marcus rambles on about—the Institute. About how Cardinal somehow—I don't even fucking know, hid him somewhere.
"No." Tom whispers. "No, no, no, no. I—I tried to save you." He shakes his head, and Charles mirrors the gesture at a slower pace.
"You tried, and I appreciate that. But I was already gone by the time you got there." Charles smiles, again apologetically. "Some times, these things, what we do? You can't control it the way you want. Death was a real hum-dinger." Reaching down, Charles touches the hotline receiver, then looks back at Tom. "I really am sorry for this…" He says, and Tom finds himself back in the chair, staring at the static on the television, silent and unblinking.
"…but I only have one chance right now."
Three Hours Later
Outside the Department of the Exterior Headquarters
415 E 12th St
Washington, KC
Agent Gates slips out of the front door of the OEI headquarters, tucking a folder under one arm. There is a black Lincoln Continental waiting for him outside, and as the back door opens he ducks inside without missing a beat in his stride or even regarding the other passenger in the car. As Gates pulls the door shut, the Lincoln is already pulling away from the curb.
"How did it go?"
Gates holds up the folder. "It's happening again," he says, handing the folder over. The front of the file is clearly labeled TD-000-A - RAFFIL TOWNSHIP, UTAH. "Five sightings in the last month, the longest being six minutes. They started after November 8th, 2011. Stargazer in his truck watching a meteor shower saw it on the horizon for a moment."
The passenger takes the folder, opening it to reveal several old photographs. Gates continues. "Did you talk to her already?" The passenger nods, continuing to flip through the folio until she finds a photograph of a kitchen with a green Formica table. Paperclipped to it are photographs of Robert Bishop, and another Company agent in a hat and glasses. "I don't have much time. I need to know this is enough." Gates says, placing his hand on the folder.
Angela Petrelli looks up with more than a decade older eyes than he remembers. She puts her hand on his. "It has to be enough." She says with a weary smile.
"We don't get another chance."
