Jamie Chambers

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Scene Title Jamie Chambers
Synopsis Sylar and Elias team up to take out a Tier-2 Registered Evolved in Las Vegas, Nevada, at Kazimir's request.
Date November 14, 2008

Las Vegas, Nevada


1862 Buona Vista Lane is, in a word, unkempt. It probably doesn't help that the half-light just before dusk makes the property appear more rundown than it really is; cracks in the pavement leading up to the single-story dwelling sprout prickly weeds, while the house itself has several pieces of cheap plywood nailed across one of its front windows. Pieces of broken glass and debris, including an old mattress and an overturned crib, litter the front lawn which itself is mottled and patchy, in various states between brown and a sickly shade of green, dead or dying.

It's also the last known address of one Jamie Chambers, 22, a Tier-2 Registered Evolved with the ability of 'Tactile Telepathy' — whatever that means. One of the downsides to using any sort of list as a hunting tool is you can never say with one hundred percent certainty that you know what you're ultimately going to end up with; it isn't unheard of for abilities to be miscategorized or, more often, misrepresented when it comes to the official government registry.

Kazimir had better know what he's doing.

And of course, as with any large, bureaucratic database is that the data might be flat out wrong. Unlike the government, however, the internet can be counted on for something exceptionally helpful: directions. Or, in the case of Elias de Luca, a street view of an address to give him an idea of where he's going, and like magic, the entire world is no more than a hop, skip and tele-jump away. Two quick stop-overs in Chicago and Wichita later, and he's Vegas bound, plus one guest.

Out of nothing and with not much more than a sudden, soft breeze, both Elias and Gabriel Gray are in Nevada, arriving in fading light in a spot picked out because it was secluded. Luckily, Elias was only off by a few feet, and while they're still near the fence he picked out, concealed by shadows and an overgrown sage bush, it's on the opposite side of the fence compared to what he wanted. Close enough for government work, as it were. "Okay. We're here," the teleporter reports in a low whisper, just slightly light-headed, "Mostly."

Sylar doesn't startle when they appear at their destination, just looks around briskly, and relaxing just a little more when he realises they're aptly concealed. "That was amazing," he tells the other man, fixing a look on him that is part ways impressed and in other ways envious. "We're in Nevada?" Just like that. Like magic. He doesn't wait for an answer, just steps forward, a hand reaching out to part the branches so he can properly see their destination, and a flicker of disappointment crosses his features. He holds up a hand to Elias, gesturing for silence, and he listens for a few moments. They pass without event, before Sylar mutters, "Running water. Enough of a sign of life for me."

Do they have a plan? This, Sylar considers for a moment, before moving to approach the house. He's dressed casually enough in a blazer over a dark shirt, jeans, boots crunching dead and live grass. "Come on," he says, flatly, as if it only just occurs him to say it. The rest of what he has to say is an echo in Elias's head. Just get out of my way when we find Chambers. If you whisper, I'll be able to hear it.

Sounds like a plan to Sylar.

The slightly more rapid breathing from Elias, followed by a single, deep breath that he holds in for a few seconds before slowly exhaling is enough of a clue: he's ready to go. Much like several nights ago when they first met, he's wearing his tanker boots (good for any kind of dirty work), and jeans, but he opted for a tank-top and a windbreaker for the rest of his outfit; it may be early evening, but in Nevada, that means the evening is still plenty warm yet. Without a spoken acknowledgement, he follows after Sylar, glancing around just to confirm that, yes, no one much will be coming by here any time soon.

Confidence bolstered by this fact, Elias nevertheless has taken additionally precautionary measures; a .45 caliber autoloader under his shoulder with a sound suppressor taped to the holster, concealed under his windbreaker. "Which room in the house?" he whispers.

Sylar places his hand flat against the door, the other drifted to gently try the handle. When it doesn't give, he only has to concentrate for a few moments before the locks slide without the need for a key, and the door gently swings open. Apparently, he was rather confident no one would be in the front room, and he steps over the thresh hold, tilting his head to the side. Water's upstairs, he reports to Elias, veering towards the stairway, then pausing again. But someone's downstairs. He glances back at Elias with a raised eyebrow, as if asking for his opinion at this crossroads. See look, he can play with others.

"Where downstairs?" Elias whispers as he pushes his jacket aside and begins to carefully peel the masking tape off his holster, freeing the suppressor which he begins to immediately screw onto the barrel of his firearm; it's not only to keep their presence a secret if a fight starts (and given that he's using subsonic ammunition, the suppressor will make sure that the loudest sound the gun will make is the action cycling), but also to protect their hearing. In Elias' mind, it's clear what the plan of action is: divide and conquer. Two of us, two of them, with the odds stacked in favor of the bad guys. Time to clean house.

Sylar doesn't get the opportunity to answer Elias' question. No sooner has he voiced his query does another man appear in the doorway that separates the kitchen from the entryway. In one hand, her carries a jug on bleach; tucked under the opposite arm is a bottle of dark liquid, and while Elias won't be able to read the label from a distance, Sylar will. It's iodine. Nearby, sitting atop an unmarked cardboard box, are similar containers: hydrogen peroxide, battery acid, trichloroethane and what looks like a bag of fertilizer procured from the local Home Depot.

He stares at Sylar and Elias, dark circles under his even darker eyes, saying nothing at first. When he does speak, it's in a low, hoarse voice that's rough with surprise. "The hell—?"

Sylar's head whips around when he hears, too late, the sound of a foot step, and his lips curl back in a show of annoyance. Mistake, number one. Hopefully, it will be the last. His hand comes up with the intent to hold the man in place, considering he's likely seen too much for acting innocent. And while there are more efficient ways to hold someone still, like with puppetry, he can't help but fall back on his most favoured tool when cornered. Or, you know, minutely surprised while still in a dominant position of power. "Hello," he greets, amicably. But to the point? "We're looking for Jamie Chambers. Wanna help?" If he notices the items the man is holding, or has around him, he doesn't mention it, gaze fixed on the stranger.

Elias also notices the man too late, and really, it's just as well. Bleach? Peroxide? Ammonium nitrate? One bullet goes stray or happens to produce a muzzle flash and today's word will be 'Fwoosh!'. Preferring not to die in flames, he elects to let Sylar handle matters downstairs, holstering his pistol and switching to a reliable standby with a 'snikt!'; the gravity knife. Things down here are under control. "I've got the stairs," he whispers. Sylar said he'd hear him, and Eli isn't about to doubt a hi-powered maniac.

You don't argue with a man who could crush your internal organs into paste simply by balling his hand into a fist and squeezing it. The jug of bleach and the bottle of iodine hit the floor, one bouncing harmlessly across the tiles, the other shattering on impact. His eyes get just a little bit bigger, appearing even more sunken as his mouth opens and closes, opens and closes, reminiscent of a fish gaping out of the water. "Upstairs," he chokes, "B-Bathroom. Second door to the right."

Sylar smiles once, and says with seeming sincerity, and still quietly, "Thank you." And his other hand comes up, a wide grip on something invisible— a sharp twist follows, the man's head turning sharply and with a dull thud, possibly too loud, his body falls to the floor. The smile on Sylar's face promptly vanishes, and he turns to the gun-toting teleporter. Let's both take the stairs, he suggests to Elias, as if there's any doubt now.

"Sounds good," Elias whispers. But even though he moves towards the stairs, he most certainly does not go up first. Rather, he flanks around Sylar to approach the stairs from one side; he's not going up first just yet. Certainly not if the only thing he can reasonably arm himself with is a knife. Who knows what's up there waiting for them? "You first?" he whispers again, "Or can I count on you to be right behind me?"

Leaving behind the dead body of the unfortunate soul whose last good deed was signing a death sentence, Sylar nods once and moves to take a step. He tests the creaking of the stairs, but unfortunately, he's not Wu-Long, and so it will be as loud as it's gonna be. Still, he tries to move lightly, but not really with caution, fingertips lightly trailing along the railing as they move up towards the next floor. He keeps his hearing as sharp as possible, leading the way, and one hand held out and free in preparation. A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, one of anticipation.

The water in the bathroom shuts off suddenly and Sylar can hear light footsteps from tub to bathmat. The woman in the shower is drying off. The door is opened slightly, though no one steps out. It's just to let out the steam from the room. Inside, Jamie Chambers, wrapped in a sky blue bathrobe stained by hair dye of varying shades and what might also be blood and vomit speckled here and there, lights up a cigarette and plugs in her curling iron. The woman is impossibly thin and when she goes about her grooming procedure, she bares her teeth at the mirror - a couple are missing. She frowns and picks up a compact, setting about applying foundation to a badly bruised eye. "Archer!" she calls without turning toward the door. When she doesn't get a response she rolls her eyes. "David! I'm talking to you! Could you stop what you're doing for two fucking seconds? It won't fucking kill you!"

Oh, if she only knew.

Foot coming down onto the landing, Sylar only pauses, body turning just enough so that he can take note of Elias while also listening to the sound of the woman's voice, looking back at the man before concentrating elsewhere, simply listening to the sounds beneath the ones apparent to a normal range of hearing. Keep your eyes on the hallway, he instructs. He's pretty sure there's no one left alive here aside from his target, but he's also not infallible, and would rather not be interrupted.

In confident strides, Sylar moves towards the doorway of the bathroom, and it's likely the woman will be able to hear his approach. Not that it'll really matter. It's hard to see, because the air whirls even thicker with water. In the reflection of her mirror, blurring further with steam, the door will open wider, a man dressed in black appearing.

Elias is more than able to give his due diligence. Upstairs, there is less risk of setting things off, and so his pistol comes back out and after a moment, the silencer is fully attached. Firearm in one hand and knife in the other, Elias is ready for anything that should suddenly appear. And hey, if it comes down to it, he'll suddenly vanish from sight, if only momentarily.

Jamie at first fans in front of her face as the steam gets thicker. It usually doesn't take that long for the moisture to clear the air! Her eyes refocus on her work and only then does she realise there's someone behind her. She whirls around, cigarette hanging loosely from her lips. "O- Oh, my God. I- I don't have the m- money," she stammers. "That's Archer's thing. Please, please, please. If I had anything to give you, I would. Archer's downstairs. Take it out of his hide. Don't hurt me. Please!"

Sylar's hand is the last thing to be seen from the bathroom, as it extends back out of the room to delicately take the handle and draw the door closed, steam still pooling out the seams of the door before finally ceasing. Within the bathroom, as water streaks down the mirror and clings to skin, Sylar gives a chuckle that bounces off the walls. "But see, he pointed me to you, Jamie," he says. "With friends like these, who needs enemies, right?" And his hand comes up, and like a concussive force of kinetic energy, Jamie is thrown back against the mirror and sink, enough to crack glass and make porcelain and pipes shudder. "No, you're the one with something I want."

Jamie shrieks as she's lifted and slammed up against the mirror. She immediately begins to cry. "Did you kill him?" She sniffles and tries to scramble away. He must have. "Good. He deserved it for what he's done to me." She takes in great, heaving breaths. "Don't come any closer," she begs. "Don't let me touch you. I'm cursed, just the same as you are." What Sylar considers a gift, Miss Chambers calls a curse. Just how does that ability of hers work, anyway?

She's held in place against the broken mirror, against seven years bad luck if you're superstitious, and Sylar shakes his head. "You won't need to touch me, I'm an open book," he says, stepping closer, on tile, onto bath mat. But that mask of an expression he wears, his face completely still save for his eyes which show a world of hunger and anticipation… flickers. "Curse?" he queries, and his telekinesis presses down even harder on the woman, rendering her completely still and tilting her head up so she's forced to look up into bright bathroom lights.

Feeling that Sylar has the bathroom under control, Elias decides to take advantage of the situation that's been presented to him. Whether it was drugs, explosives or 'other' that this Archer fellow was manufacturing, he probably wasn't buying these things with a credit card. And so, while Sylar satisfies his hunger for knowledge and power, Elias will happily satisfy his own hunger for material wealth, checking the bedroom for cash, bond notes, anything that might be valuable. He's bound to have a little time to look before his partner finishes up.

The frail-framed woman squeaks and whimpers pathetically. "When I touch people, I see things. I can see into their heads. That son of a bitch got me hooked and used to me to check out his clients. Make sure they weren't cops, or cheating him. But I can't shut it off. Every time I touch someone… I can hear their voices in my head and they're so loud." She sobs once, choking on her words. "Nobody should hear those thoughts."

It wouldn't be the first time that Sylar's turned something like this down in fear it would do him more harm than good. Good mad women in New York City, one's mind turns when she sleeps and the other living in future dreams while awake, driven to riddles of varying degrees of sense. He's silent as he listens carefully, evaluates… then sneers. "It's people like you," he says, harshly, Kazimir's "angel of judgment" indeed if only for a moment, "that can't control themselves that find themselves right here. You only have yourselves to blame."

Elias might hear a shattering of glass as the woman is drawn back from the mirror and slammed against it once more, enough to send shards of glass to the ground. Good night, Jamie, he projects, a final voice in her head as he brings up his other hand, two fingers pointed, and draws a tearing line of hack-slash surgery across her forehead.

The scream is unnerving to Elias only in that he has to use his imagination to decide just what Sylar is doing to the woman. The scream itself isn't anything he hasn't heard before. And in any case, he's a little more enthralled by what his treasure hunt turned up: a wad of bills worth somewhere north of $1,000 (a lot of sandwiches), a watch that he can probably pawn for a hundred if he goes to the right place (a few Mai Thais to go with them) and a roll of quarters (laundry). Even if they are 'saving the world', he still has to eat. "Are you almost done in there?" he asks in a normal tone of voice; if there is anyone else in the dwelling, they have to know someone is here by now.

Sylar's voice floats through the shut door. "Just a minute." It has a pleasant tone, and the whole thing seems sickeningly mundane until you remember he's busy washing his hands of blood in the sink, not finishing up a shower or taking a leak. Jamie's body lies sprawled, collapsed and awkward, her head emptied of a brain which is discarded in the corner. Blood is everywhere. But Sylar's hands are clean, now.

Stepping out into the hallway not a few minutes later, his hair and face are damp from the steam he'd thickened moments before, and he looks towards Elias, seeming slightly dazed. "We should go," he states. "Try not to touch my skin. I want to understand it better first." If Elias isn't caught up on exactly what 'it' is, he'll just have to be confused as Sylar doesn't elaborate further.

"I think I can manage that," Elias replies, pocketing the last of his ill-gotten gains, "Meet me downstairs." Without another word, Elias moves past Sylar; if he can't figure out what's about to happen, he'll just have to be confused for the time being.

Pulling his knife out again as he reaches the ground floor, Elias grabs a bag of the fertilizer, slices it opened and leaves pile of the stuff next to the other chemicals before going into the kitchen. If they had drugs, they're bound to have alcohol. Preferably something around 80 proof.

That certainly does get his attention, but Sylar compliantly follows once he almost politely shuts the bathroom door behind him, completely satisfied with his end of the mission, after all, stepping onto the ground floor and merely watching as Elias prepares to clean the place out completely. Leave nothing behind. A small part of him almost wants the Nevada police to wonder if they have a known New York based serial killer in their corner of the world, but it's less relevant than covering the tracks of the Vanguard. So, he simply watches Elias work - and learns.

"You pay much attention in chemistry, Sylar?" Elias asks casually. Here we are: some cheap whiskey and half a bottle of vodka. Should be just about enough for this job. "Chem was one of my favorite subjects. You know why? Because, with a little knowledge of basic chemistry, you can do a lot of amazing things." Opening the whiskey first, Elias begins pouring it onto the floor, not too thickly, and makes a small trail leading towards the door. When the whiskey is empty, he switches to the vodka and continues taking his trail outside.

At a casual pace, hands in his pockets, Sylar follows the trail of alcohol out the door after Elias, footsteps changing from steps against carpet, against concrete, against grass. Outside, it's cooler, now, as evening has deepened. "Like fireworks?" he suggests with a wry smile, much less the more severe and somewhat quiet younger man, slightly more amicable. He's had a good meal. (Just not literally, that's gross.)

"Yeah, like fireworks," Elias replies, throwing the empty bottle of vodka back onto the front porch, "But see, fireworks are made basically with gun mixtures, with a little powdered metal thrown in for color. Pretty neat, but not for much else except the Fourth of July. Here's the trick here. Grain alcohol burns pretty hot, makes good auto fuel. Lawn fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, doesn't react well to high temperatures. Tends to explode. And if it's mixed with acid and all other kinds of chemicals, well." Fishing a cigarette lighter out of his pocket, he looks at Sylar and says, "'Meth Cookers Cook Off' is a pretty good headline, don't you think? People love headlines like that. Spices up their day, gives them something to talk about. Stand over here, please, because we really don't want to be around to see how this pans out."

Sylar moves where urged, looking back at the broke-down house once more, and gives a nod. "It'd be as beautiful and bright as it would be painful," he says. "Once you've witnessed one explosion, you've witnessed them all. And thank you," he adds, looking back at Elias, "I'll remember all of that." And he offers his arm. Time to up and out.

"You'd better," Elias replies, "You never know when you'll need to blow something up." Holding the lighter well away from the alcohol before sparking a flame, the teleporter crouches down and carefully moves his lighter closer to the house until the line of booze ignites. Quickly, almost panicky, he seizes Sylar's arm maybe a bit too hard and after only a second, both of them are back in Kansas. The fire, meanwhile, spreads into the house, igniting the carpet, the furniture, and the fertilizer, rapidly decomposing it into flammable gas. This also ignites, beginning an explosion that immediately spreads to the bleach, peroxide and iodine, all of them reactive oxidizers. The resulting blast does more than cover just the evidence that the two had been on the scene; the bodies disappear. The house disappears. Anything that had been around the house disappears as well.

'Meth Cookers Cook Off'. It's just not quite strong enough to describe what happened here.


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November 14th: Give It Another Go
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November 14th: Chivalry
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