Participants:
Scene Title | My Way |
---|---|
Synopsis | Mohinder learns that he has more in common with Sylar than he realises. |
Date | January 7, 2009 |
Most notable business collapse in Queens was that of Eagle Electric, a major manufacturer based out of Long Island City for decades, comprised of acres of warehouses and manufacturing plants designed to produce electronic components to suit all sorts of needs. The western warehouse of the Eagle Electric lot is an enormous and foreboding red-painted building made entirely from sheets of ridged steel. Amidst the grass growing up through the cracks in the pavement and the burned out cars in the parking lot, it seems just as uninhabited as the rest of the area. A large and ruined sign at the top of the office and manufacturing building prominently reads, "Eagle Electric—Perfection Is Not An Accident.
It's Mohinder's first day on the job, as it were. He is looking over the equipment he is to be using, and is frowning most sincerely. It's not even that he's here against his will…but..do they /really/ expect him to make samples viable in this EZ-Bake oven type contraption? this is SCIENCE, not PIZZA. Harrumph. Arm Cross.
"Is everything not up to your standards, Doctor Suresh?"
Having been let out of his cage— otherwise known as the large crate container shoved into the far end of the room— to inspect what he has to work with, perhaps Mohinder didn't notice the very vague outline of someone mostly invisible parked just on top of it. Sylar now lets colour pool back over his body after watching Mohinder poke around the equipment for a while, and now moves to let his feet land on the cement floor of the makeshift laboratory. "We're no Company, but I've been assured it's all high quality."
It's been a bad few days for Sylar, apparently - bruises litter his face, a dark one in particular still obvious at his jaw, and the climb down from the top of the crate had been less lithe than usual. But if he's in any kind of pain, it doesn't otherwise show.
Mohinder stiffens when he hears Sylar's voice. Partially out of fear, partially because he expects to be paralyzed again. When he isn't he turns around - "You look awful." he says plainly, "Someone been treating you as good as you treat your guests?"
No paralysis takes hold of Mohinder's body, the man free to move for the time being. Sylar lifts his arms a little, hands spreading. "Concerned for my wellbeing?" he asks, with a raise of an eyebrow. On closer inspection, there's the addition of a nasty gash at his hairline, stitched neatly if recently. "Car crash. I'll ask again, is everything to your satisfaction? Odessa was most thorough. After a while."
Mohinder looks around and sighs. "Actually, I'm surprised you were able to pull together the materials. I will require /one/ change in equipment." at this point, Mohinder quits talking to Sylar like a captive and more like..well..a person. If he's going to do this, he might as well be civil.
Sylar takes up pacing, moving slowly around the perimeter of the room in a wide circle which encompasses both Mohinder and the tables, the computers, the glass, metal and plastic he's surrounded by. "Which is what?"
Mohinder motions to the incubator. "This model is particularly..unsavory..for producing quality samples. Their viability will be cut in half, and that could be time critical." he jots down a manufactuer, make, and model. "It'll do for sterlizing equipment, though." he hands him the post-it. "You'll want this for incubation."
Amusement, just the slight beginnings of it, shows on Sylar's bruised features, and he saunters on over to take the post-it note from Mohinder. "You're the scientist," he allows. "I'll see what I can do. It's nice to see you've come to terms with where you stand in this equation, Mohinder."
Mohinder mms, and mulls this over. "Oh I know exactly where I stand. I've got the knowledge, you want what I've got and it's something you can't take the way you can take the abilities of others. If you kill me, you still won't get what you want. Therefore, my life is in no way in danger." a beat pause before he continues, "I'm assuming you won't honor my request to free Odessa for some silly display of machismo. However, make no mistake Sylar, I'm in control here. Things will come out /exactly/ as I intend them to."
The note for equipment he's been given is folded over once and politely tucked into a pocket, although Sylar keeps his gaze trained on Mohinder, a gaze that narrows briefly— but in a show of restraint, the words are not met with punishment, or a display of the control Sylar, in turn, weilds. He asks the important question, instead, "And how do you intend for things to go?"
The reply is two words, simple and succint: "My way."
And Sylar's reply is aless succinct - a warm, full-throated chuckle that echoes through the room. "And you call my actions silly displays of machismo," he says, moving away from Mohinder to resume his room-wide pacing. "You have something I need from you. You have knowledge, education, and you know more about the Shanti than I could ever hope to. But if you don't give me what I want, Mohinder, I won't need you any longer, no matter how valuable you are. Without coorperation, you're just a broken toy."
Mohinder looks at Sylar and looks around at the lab, and raises his arms. "That's different from how things will end how, exactly? I'm going to wind up a broken toy no matter what. The difference is how long you'll wait to break me. You've no intention of releasing me once I've done whatever it is you want. I've learned /that/ much from you after all this time."
Even sociopaths can learn lessons. Sylar's current bruises and cracked ribs are a tribute to the fact that cornered men will do anything they can to take the world down with them. Syar studies Mohinder for a few moments, before he moves to sit down at one of the work stations, a hand placing on the clinically clean metal table, as new as the equipment resting on it. "What I want is probably no different from what you want, Mohinder," he says. "The quest for understanding and knowledge. It's only after that our paths diverge."
Mohinder nods sarcastically, "Oh yes. Our paths certainly diverge. *I* don't want to destroy the world time and time again. Don't you care if you go with it, Sylar? Destruction of the world goes hand in hand with your own destruction - and you don't strike me as the suicidal type." he leans against a counter across from the other man, and crosses his arms. "So tell me - what are /you/ getting out of all this?"
Sylar lifts his gaze from the shining surface of the counter to look across at Mohinder, and a faint smile draws at his mouth. His answer is a simple one. "Survival," he says.
"You're going to look at the samples you're given. You're going to tell me if it's the Shanti." Sylar too leans forward. "You're going to make sure it does what it's supposed to do, that it's not going to mutate, become even worse." A pause, smile fading. "I've seen the future, I've seen what it could do to even the immortal, how fast it can get. If you have so much investment in this world, Mohinder, you'll keep it from happening. And then… then you have the chance to find the cure. Now that's not so bad, is it?"
Mohinder blinks. "Wait..you just want me to run permutations on the Shanti virus and ensure that it's a stable strain?" he sounds..incredulous. Shocked, even.
"Surprise," Sylar says, wryly, and steps back from the work station, studying the geneticist. "Will you do it?"
Mohinder looks a little aggrivated, "Of course I'll do that. Why go through the dramatics of abducting me, when you could've contacted me and I would've been just as willing? I could've worked on that at either lab without hindrance."
"Because I don't trust you, or the Company," Sylar says, tone a little sharper, "and you don't trust me." He leaves it at that - he leaves it simple. Because this is so much more complicated than his request even suggests.
Mohinder sighs and nods. "I suppose that's the case." he shakes his head, "You do realize that I wish it weren't so, yes?"
A smirk of acknowledgment from the killer, the post-it note is extracted from his pocket, held up between two fingers with a quiet crinkle of paper. "I'll get you this," Sylar says, shortly, "and you can get to work." Coorperation is key. It's a careful equilibrium and it's not one Sylar achieves easily, and so it's left at that. Time to go. He goes to turn his back on the geneticist and head for out.
Mohinder is sure that if this moment were painting, it'd be signed by Dali. He nods to Sylar, it is a nod of understanding. It might be far more complicated for Sylar than it is for Mohinder, but at this moment, Mohinder is sure that even at this moment his father would smile upon him. There is /hope/. He may not /like/ Sylar, but for once he can understand the motives, and the desires of the killer. He takes a deep breath as he turns, and starts taking the plastic coverings off equipment. There's alot of work to be done, and not alot of time to do it. Time and tea. Caffeine will be /vital/ to this project.
January 7th: Checking on the Housebound |
January 7th: Scorched Earth Policy |