Participants:
| Scene Title | MBTA Bus CT1 |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | In the days following the 5th anniversary of the midtown explosion, Peter Petrelli delivers unsettling news to his father. |
| Date | November 15, 2011 |
Brass-plated elevator doors slowly shut, connecting two halves of of a troubled man's face as divided by a scar as it is the seam of the door.
The elevator lurches into motion, numbers counting up in gradually hastening procession. Peter Petrelli's sleek black suit makes him look thinner than he is, lankier than he should be. The crisp white of the shirt beneath pops out in as sharp a contrast as the bright red folder he holds under one arm. His other hand is occupied with a phone, looking down to an unanswered text message he's been debating on responding to for hours. With a heaving sigh, he tucks the phone in his pocket and stares up at the numbers counting up and up. As the elevator finally comes to a stop with a soft chime, the doors slide open and Peter confidently strides out into the hall.
"Mister Petrelli," Dirk greets at the desk, pinning a phone to a shoulder with his chin. Brows raise, and there's a motion to the frosted glass doors behind his sleek black desk. "Arthur's expecting you, go right on in." Peter doesn't offer a greeting to Dirk today, doesn't stop to chat at his desk, just carries himself with a determined swiftness to the doors and pushes his way inside.
His father is waiting for him, standing behind his desk and facing out toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that curve in a gradual arc along the far wall of the office. Rain patters down against the glass, streaking rivers that fork and split and distort the glow of the city lights visible beyond. Arthur's reflection, muted in the glass, regards Peter as he approaches. "Shut the door," Arthur offers without turning around, and Peter is already closing the door with a soft click.
Pinehearst Tower
Arthur's Office
"Stevens called ahead, told me you two made some… exciting discoveries regarding the bus incident?" Arthur turns, one hand in the pocket of his slacks, tie loosened and top button of his dress shirt undone. He cradles a neat glass of Scotch in the other hand, mostly finished. Peter approaches the desk, lays down the red folder and opens it up to reveal photographs of a public transportation bus, cut in half lengthwise with a sheer diagonal slice. Its tires are melted to the asphalt, metal at the cut rippled and uneven like it was melted. Peter turns the file around, and Arthur regards it with a brief look, then a more pointedly interested one up at his son.
Peter sweeps a hand over his mouth, then starts pacing in front of the desk. "You were right," is his first assertion, met with only a oh really raise of Arthur's brows in response. "According to the traffic cameras the incident with the bus coincided to the minute to the last ping we received from the Mount Natazhat facility." Peter fans out a few more photographs of the bus, with charred corpses fused into the seats.
"We spent days spinning our wheels trying to figure out who could've done this." Peter explains, flipping out another photo of where the bisected half of a bus slid through an intersection, leaving deep gouges in the asphalt. Cars that impacted the bus wreckage are nearby, front-ends smashed in and windows cracked. "The MBTA wasn't screwing with us when they said they weren't missing any busses. They got back to us yesterday after we were able to get a positive ID on which bus it was. MBTA Bus CT1, for Cambridge plaza and MIT. The bus is still in service. Woods and I went down to their yard and checked it out personally."
Arthur's brows furrow, and he picks up the picture of the bus again, looking down at the burned corpses inside. He doesn't say anything, trusts his son to deliver the information accordingly. Peter reinforces that trust without a second thought. "So we thought we were looking at an object replicator, but the DNA from the bodies…" Peter slides out photographs of fourteen individuals of varying age and ethnicity. "Of the fourteen, nine are still alive. Four live in Cambridge and we were able to interview them, the rest are across the country. Five are deceased, varying points between 2009 and now. None under suspicious circumstances. We're coordinating with local law enforcement to check the bodies but…"
"What about the living ones?" Arthur finally asks, looking at the four that live in Cambridge. Peter's brows raise slowly, head tilting to one side.
Peter starts to explain, but he can tell Arthur is looking for something in his explanation. "We brought them all in for evaluation. DNA is a match, none are Evolved, but there's— "
"Discrepancies." Arthur's interjection elicits a piercing look from Peter. The eye contact lingers for a long while, as Peter's brows furrow thoughtfully and suspiciously. Arthur looks away, setting down the file. "I've been worried this would happen eventually," is not what Peter expected his father to say. Arthur walks away from the desk, scrubbing one hand over his mouth as he comes to stand in front of the tall windows again.
"Do you know what this is?" Peter asks with an agitated tone, circling around the desk to stand beside his father. Arthur looks at his son's reflection in the glass, then offers a shallow nod of concession. "Dad, what're we looking at here? Darren's— "
"Project Looking Glass," Arthur says flatly, eyes focused on a distant city light in the darkness beyond the rain-streaked glass. Peter grows silent, but his expression remains none-the-less focused on his father. "A scientific experiment the Company picked up in the 1980s. It was based around the premise that the quantum state of past and future events could be observed and converted into a medium that could provide actionable intelligence on past and predictive threats."
Peter shifts his posture, turning to put his shoulder at the window and regard his father more fully. "Technology to see through time? Is that… what does that have to do with the bus?" Peter motions to the files on Arthur's desk. The gesture draws his father's attention, briefly, then brings dark eyes back to his son's.
"Nothing." Arthur admits with a double-edged tone. "Looking Glass was a failure. The Company was never able to replicate the original scientist's results. But the principle of the experiments were intriguing. We picked up the pieces of Looking Glass with the intention of trying with more modern technology and a larger budget. The Natazhat Facility was going to be the new Looking Glass, that's why we had Kara observing the particle accelerator."
Arthur moves back to his desk, looks at the pictures spread out again. "When Natazhat disappeared, I feared the worst. That it had been accidentally pulled into the past or future…" he picks up one of the bus victim's files, looking at the red-highlighted discrepancies. "But this, medical procedures that don't line up. Different dental records…" Arthur looks back to Peter, eyes narrowed. "We'd always theorized that perhaps the reason the Company's experiments into Looking Glass failed because they misunderstood what the project really was."
Peter takes a step away from the window, hesitant and yet also eager. "Dad, I'm not following."
"The bus isn't from the past or the future, Peter." Arthur throws the file down with a slap to his desk. "It's not from this world at all." He points t the window, to he and Peter's muted reflections in the rain-streaked glass. "It's from over there." Peter turns, looking at his reflection in the window.
"Through the looking glass."