Megaera

Participants:

hana_icon.gif mendez_icon.gif

Also featuring:

nathan_icon.gif

Scene Title Megaera
Synopsis Greek myth.: 'The jealous one'. One of the Erinyes (Furies).
Following a lead to the jungles of Suriname, Hana finds what she's looking for.
Date October 28, 2009

Suriname, the District of Sipaliwini


It's within the indistinct heart of Suriname, the sprawling district Sipaliwini with its miles unused forest terrain, waterfalls, jungle and swamp, that Hana finds herself. Towards the south, where things still grow wild, foot hiking when the roads run dry and stifling heat of day and early evening all battle to test the woman's motivation as well as her mettle. But the information Iago Ramirez has given her is true.

It's up to her to follow through.

Old windows are flung wide open, but curtained off with mesh to keep the insects out. The early morning is cool, a brisk wind blowing to make the insect catchers billow like sails in the high seas. Carlos Mendez sleeps alone in the humble house, one that perhaps, he built himself. Prophet, Founder, battle-scarred soldier and hand-roughed artist. At least—

Sleep inasmuch as he lies quiet and still in his bead, back turned to the window and breathing deeply. There are paintings on the walls, watercolours, ones by his own paint stroke. If they tell the future, they say nothing of the creatures, woman or no, that lurk in the forest that wraps thick around his home.

Give me half a ration of water and a full pack to carry, and I can survive a desert.

A desert would at least be dry, free of the humidity that clings to her like a second skin, weighted oppressively; even at this dark and early hour, when the birds have not yet awakened and the jungle itself slumbers, waiting for the sun's approach to herald a new day. The desert sand, shift as it might, would pose less of a nuisance than the clumps of undergrowth — and, sometimes, the animals those hide. All of this can be overcome with time, however; with patience and sheer stubborn willpower, the careful consideration of surroundings.

She isn't dressed like she habitually does in Manhattan; her well-worn leather jacket and standard jeans are probably back some dozens of miles with the motorcycle. Her hair has been re-plaited, coiled up under the simple helmet that covers the curves of her skull; its shape is typical, but the faceted glass lens at its front is not. Camo doesn't actually hide Hana in the jungle; darkness does that. She's been walking all night, and her eyes have acclimated to the shadow; enough to pick out and avoid the obstacles which immediately present themselves. Greater-scale navigation is reckoned by satellite.

The house is her destination; with few such things out here in the vast expanse of decidedly nowhere, it could be no other. She isn't quick to storm its walls, to jump through a window; studies it first, as is proper for any unknown territory. Takes the time to learn its shape, to glean from the outside an impression of the inside — in dimensions and demarcations, at the least. Darkness is no ally here.

In the end, she scorns the windows and the walls. In perhaps an anticlimactic move, Hana does nothing more outstanding than open the door.

There is nothing remarkable about this place. It's small, humble, though the glass in the ceiling indicates that somehow, there is electricity it runs from - if it's working now, however, there's no indication given, what with everything dark and switched off, and an oil lamp resting dark on a chunky wooden table. Despite the wiring, the kitchen that Hana steps into has no signs of plumbing, not out here. There's a well some distance away, with water rich with minerals and taken inside in metal buckets for cleaning and cooking.

An unfinished painting is fixed within an easel. The shape of a woman, holding a mirror that she seems to stare into for more than just her reflection. There's skill, there. But perhaps, in the gloom, the bright moonlight giving Hana the chance to see, there's a scattering of glass on the floor - not too in the way, out of the trajectory that would lead her from door to bedroom, and seems to have once been— perhaps a bottle. Hard to say.

Somewhere some ways from the building, a piece of sky apparently falls, to land upon branches, and make them sway. Still again, cloaked in darkness.

Solar-powered, perhaps; if moonlight can reach the earth here, so can sunlight, and the tropics have a surfeit of energy in that regard. Such is Hana's determination. Steps light, deliberately placed upon the floor, the woman moves further into the building — after cautiously closing the door behind her. The crash outside was heard, noted; the guns holstered at her hips aren't reached for, but the familiar weight of a knife drops into hand upon silent command. Quieter, available in greater number, and in these times less expected than a gun.

She clears the building first, looking through rooms for surprises, for shapes too warm to be background, to be anything but living. Just because Mendez is here doesn't mean he's perforce here alone… a priori assumptions of that nature cause complications, and the agent-turned-assassin doesn't much care for those. Who does?

Of course, Hana is assuming that she has something resembling surprise on her side. Also a dangerous presumption.

Creeping steps bring her to the bedroom, past the easel, past art that is little more in this lighting than angular shapes on the wall; not too close to the warm contours that represent Carlos Mendez, at least presumably, in an infrared view of the world.

If Ramirez is correct, then certainly, the man lying in his bed is Carlos Mendez. The window is an oddity indeed, as open as it is, wide and generous. The sounds of the outside jungle leak in, mostly clicking insects at this hour, cool if forever damp. But it permits some light, what little there is to share, and even without infrared, the man's presence is detectable.

Which doesn't mean he's asleep.

It's when Hana's cat-like footfalls fine the edge of a floorboard that begins to groan under her weight, and before she can correct it, soft Spanish drifts from the bedroom. It's almost quiet enough that they could be in his sleep. «What manner of justice are you? What revenge do you seek? Who brings the swift death I see in my path?» There's the slide of bedsheets. The man has silver hair to his shoulders, as silver as the pistol in his hand that slips out from beneath pillows. He's as swift as someone his age can be. Which is to say, not as swift as Hana.

What isn't silver is the knife that flies, rasp of metal through air giving no useful warning across such a short distance, the mere length of a room. Blackened blade sinks into the mattress a hair's breadth shy of hand and pistol, either miss or warning. "I don't miss" is the equally quiet statement in English. She can, so it's not entirely true, but —

— a warning, then.

In the darkness, Hana Gitelman is little more than a silhouette; that her other hand is curled around a similar throwing knife would be hard to pick out, but it's not a difficult conclusion to draw even without sight.

"You're the first to ask," the Israeli woman continues in her midnight voice, making no attempt to speak Spanish but using her ability to extract the gist of meaning from his words. Internet translators work much more quickly without the medium of GUI interfaces. "Is that because you don't acknowledge what you've done — or because you do?"

At a leaning tilt in his bed, Mendez has gone still since the knife flew, his hand still clasped about the gun he had hidden, but he doesn't point it. Breathing is reedy, but not sickly, as even in the darkness, covered in sheets, he seems to be a robust man for his age - just frightened. Silver hair plasters to his forehead, and dark eyes regard the woman, or rather, the shape of a woman across the room without familiarity.

English, then. His voice has accent, but not weighted as heavily as could be expected. "I've done many things. I'm an old man. Old men have many sins. And many enemies. I am wondering which you are."

A pause, before he observes; "Monroe would not send someone."

Monroe. "I am not sent," the woman says, quietly grim. A shift in the angle of her head; the subtleties of expression are lost to light's lack, if they exist at all, and her tone alters none. "Truthfully, Carlos Mendez, it isn't personal." And yet it is — terribly, dreadfully personal. Nothing less could bring someone into the dark recesses of Suriname on no more than their own desire.

The dark silhouette steps forward, menacing in the way any sight of impending death might be. "My name is Hana Gitelman." It might mean nothing to him, though he disappeared after her recruitment and abandonment by the Company; little though she knows, it might mean something. "And I will see the Company to its end, or die in the attempt." Spoken with a flat, cold tone that says more about her determination to see that end than any impassioned anger would provide.

With his form half-bathed in shadow, it's difficult to see the way such news effects Carlos. He blinks, slowly, with eyes as deep a brown as his son's, whom he somehow, despite everything, outlived. He breathes slowly, with the silver pistol pointed at wall, where shadows from trees outside bend and distort with the continual flutter of the loose mosquito net.

A weathered hand, paint spattered green and black upon attempting to mimic the tones of a swampy lagoon, connects blindly with the tall glass bottle, with stalks of wildflower extending out its slender neck, drooping in the Suriname humidity. It falls before he can catch it, toppling end over end and hitting a weak spot against the wooden floor. It shatters promptly, spills its glittering mirror shards across the ground in jagged sizes.

And he sees it, there. The end, that is. Dried leaf and petal make their own patterns in the midst of the glass and he sees it there too, burning revenge. At the sound of the shattering, the younger man, the only other person in the world— or so Carlos thought— came to stand in the door way. "What is it?"

It's not something he can answer. There are no words, in patterns. Not even images. Just knowledge.

"I didn't run from you. I didn't run," is near growled from the darkness. His hand loosens around the pistol, enough that it slides off his pillow, and he opens his palm to Hana to show there's nothing there. Which is around the same time that the sound of a shotgun outside sends sleeping birds scattering, too loud and masking the sound of the mosquito net tearing to shreds, but not loud enough to muffle the sounds of wood splintering when buck shot hits the wall too close for comfort to Hana Gitelman.

There's no thought involved when Hana drops to the floor, tucking into a fluidly graceful roll which puts her in the shadow of the bed from the angle of the window. That it brings her within arm's reach of Mendez is a negligible concern, and to some extent intended; she grabs for the prophet, the knife that had been at ready in her off hand now discarded without ceremony, an angular black lump on the floor. Time to move away from the window, and she's not leaving him behind to escape.

Fingers rake against cotton to correct his mistake as to releasing the gun, but by then, Hana is moving, and with purpose. Much like Isaac, there is not much meat to Carlos' form as he is dragged from his bed. A white T-shirt is a shock of paleness in all the darkness, his hands gripping onto her arm in vain grasps as hers curls around his throat, dragging him unstoppably away from the window, out of the bedroom, into the main of the cottage.

Like a crocodile clamping its jaws over lake-side prey and dragging it into the lake. "Nathan!" is shouted in something that is, in equal measures, anger and warning. His bare feet are pierced with the broken glass they tromp over. There's no response to that call, however, in either appearance or second shot.

Nathan. Not a Latin name at all, and noted for it, in a distracted fashion. Distracted, because Hana has other priorities; she almost lost Pratt in a mistake of trust, and Mendez was so much more difficult to track — she's not going to risk losing him. One hand holds as a vise might; just long enough for the other to drop to her belt, sliding pistol from holster with the soft rasp of plastic on polymer. Words take time, and time is slipping away irretrievably; she says only two, though Carlos may not realize the concession they represent.

"Goodbye, Mendez."

Muzzle to temple mere inches away from her own face, the report is deafening; and Hana can't close her ears the way she closes her eyes, shielding them from the splash of stray blood. She drops Mendez' body in much the same fashion as the knife, giving no ceremony to the mangled shell empty of spirit; there's another problem to deal with.

Weapon in hand, Hana creeps through the room, searching with slow sweeps for any glimmer of warmth beyond the net-covered windows, considering her options. Opts, in the end, for a window on the far side of the building from the original shot, sweeping bug-net aside and jumping the sill to land in a crouch beyond.

There is no future, in the spray of blood that glitters black on Hana's body, on the wall, catching the edge of the unfinished painting. Forensics could tell the past in such designs, but the man who could tell what is to come from the random patterns of chaos and nature lies dead and still. This chapter is over. And now it's Hana's task to get out of Suriname.

Insects buzz as if nothing were amiss as Hana's feet land her on damp ground. For a moment, it seems as though they're the only things keeping her company.

And then, the sound of something moving through the air, creating its own funnel of wind, and boots land heavy against the rooftop of the cottage, precarious. There's an ominous crack of wood as that landing is complete, but he doesn't fall through. Hana has time enough to react, then, even as Nathan angles his shotgun steeply down towards her dark form. He's a vague outline in clothing fit for the jungle.

In the lee of the building, Hana has to look almost straight up to see the silhouette of warmth against the chill blackness of sky; freezes in a way that might be taken for caution, for concern in the face of an aimed gun. It isn't. "Don't make this your quarrel, Nathan," the woman says quietly, assuming that Carlos' last spoken word attaches to him. Feet planted securely on the earth, pistol angled in the direction of the cottage's foundation, Hana keeps her dark eyes focused intently upon his shape. "Just walk away." Jump away, fly away, do whatever he did to get up there, she doesn't care; as long as he leaves.

It's possibly the use of his name that doesn't have the trigger being pulled immediately, as much as the shot is awkward as hell. It's near impossible for her to see anything of him apart from his shape, the glint of the metal and plastic of his gun, his stance which grows still in paranoia as well as consideration.

Then; "He's dead?"

Gravel voice, possibly even familiar to any American, or foreigner that tunes into CNN. It seeks confirmation, and then dismisses it in the same instance as he asks, flatly, "Why?"

He doesn't dwell on confirmation; neither does she. He heard the pistol shot nearly as well. "Because twelve people thought they could be Pied Pipers to the world," Hana replies.

She does recognize the voice; it's as familiar as his brother's, and no more loved.

"That they can just get away with manipulating a people, a country, a world to their ends and desires. Me. More others than I care to name. And you." A pause, as the Israeli woman slowly straightens to her full height, gun still angled down.

A snarl: "They're fucking wrong."

No expression, no nothing. Only stillness, as much as the jungle around them is never truly still, never truly quiet. There's also no telling click of a hammer being cocked back, but perhaps it doesn't need to, to unleash the spray of pellets with just a pull of a trigger, as much as it would sooner tear through ground and flora than human flesh. But he doesn't touch it either.

After a moment, Nathan simply states, "They were wrong. You're not the only one fixing mistakes."

He shifts, then, a glance over his shoulder, but too much movement could easily mean falling, as much as he can fly. It's the shotgun that shifts first, lowers even more to point at his feet. "Good luck." And unless she fires a shot his way, the man is moving, a straight up trajectory and disappearing rapidly into the oppressively dark sky.

She listens as he speaks; watches as his posture changes, relents. No need to shoot when he is neither target nor opponent. Says nothing herself, until Nathan has gone away, leaving only the memory of a benediction behind.

"And what were your mistakes, Petrelli?"

There's no answer, of course, save the buzzing of insects; the first chirps of birds and an early-morning monkey squabble heralding the near approach of dawn. Where 'near' is measured yet in an hour or more, time Hana puts to good use; best to get as far as possible before the day's sweltering heat and clinging humidity settle in full force.

Flight would be rather useful right about now.


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