Participants:
| Scene Title | Numbers And Information Augmented |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Gillian Childs comes to the former HQ of Phoenix. |
| Date | January 10, 2009 |
Once upon a time, the New York Public Library was one of the most important libraries in America. The system, of which this branch was the center, was among the foremost lending libraries /and/ research libraries in the world.
The bomb changed that, as it changed so much else.
By virtue of distance, the library building was not demolished entirely, like so many others north of it; however, the walls on its northern side have been badly damaged, and their stability is suspect. The interior is a shambles, tattered books strewn about the chambers and halls, many shelves pulled over. Some have even been pulled apart; piles of char in some corners suggest some of their pieces, as well as some of the books, have been used to fuel fires for people who sought shelter here in the past.
In the two years since the bomb, the library — despite being one of the icons of New York City — has been left to decay. The wind whistles through shattered windows, broken by either the blast-front or subsequent vandals, carrying dust and debris in with it. Rats, cats, and stray dogs often seek shelter within its walls, especially on cold nights. Between the fear of radiation and the lack of funds, recovery of the library is on indefinite hiatus; this place, too, has been forgotten..
It's cold, the day's temperatures are in the mid-twenties. Skies overhead are cloudy. Activity outside the library building is minimal, the ruins of midtown aren't a place which attracts many people. There are obstacles, most likely, to approaching that building. Back alleys to take, official attentions to dodge, but it's doable.
The location itself, as one gets close, doesn't seem like it might be in use as the headquarters of a clandestine organization. There are no sentries easily visible, but that doesn't also mean they aren't present.
Libraries are one thing that Gillian once knew, before everything went to hell. No, not the bomb. A personal kind of hell. The ruins of Midtown aren't exactly her forte, though— the closest she got to wandering around them came near the edges, at a building near Central Park, and an old loft. Coat wrapped around her close, she stuck mostly to the alley ways, going from a memory of a time before an exploding man shattered the city, glancing at street signs and trying to avoid what she assumes might be major thoroughfares.
Once at the library, she pauses and watches it for a few minutes, shielded from the cold wind in a nearby alley. After a while of no major noises, no obvious signs of survellience, she makes her way forward, right up the front steps, as carefully as she can. The bandage has been removed, the wound that got stitched up covered by hair and a pulled up black hoodie.
As she approaches, it becomes clear she isn't alone and unobserved. Two men, tall, step out of the shadows and from behind cover to either side of her. They're both armed, the weapons being rifles slung over shoulders with one hand on the grips to bring them around swiftly if needed.
They look at each other, then her again, and nod as if in agreement. "Miss Childs?" the one to her left asks, his voice a deep bass. "Stand right there." He observes, while the other moves in with the intention of frisking her for weapons.
The voices make her stop and Gillian curses quietly under her breath, pulling her hands out of her pockets and making sure they're visible, so she can turn to face them. The hood falls away a little as the wind catches it, pushing against the hair to reveal the still healing cut along her forehead. "Since you know my name I'm guessing you… expected me?" Her voice still carries some of the under-her-breath curse to it, as well as teeth chattering chill. And she's really hoping these men aren't feds.
There are no badges brought into display. The men's faces are covered partly against both the cold and being identified. "We've been told you might find your way here," the speaking one answers. "We've been told someone of our acquaintance name-dropped this place as a destination and that we should keep eyes open in case you got curious."
The other one carries out the frisking of Gillian, taking advantage of her visible hands and still posture. His hands go to places a woman may not have comfort in being touched, the frisking is thorough and clinical in detachment.
"Woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woah." There's a plethora of the exclamation 'woah' as not only one young man is calling it out, but two. Identical twins apparently. Same physical appearance, same voice. One wearing a gray hoodie, the other wearing a thick green jacket and a military style cap. A shotgun is held in one hand, leaning it onto his shoulder. The one with the hoody seems unarmed.
"Easy bro. Seriously man, you are never going to get a date if you insist on frisking every girl you meet. They really don't like that dude, trust me. I hated it when you tried it on me." A light smile plays on his lips as he looks to Gillian. "Childs? Gillian right?" Bringing up one hand he motions her to follow him. "You can follow me. I'm Brian, by the way." His hand comes forward in greeting to the young woman.
"Hey! Watch the hands," Gillian says, in echo of the twin voices calling out in woahs. She's actually starting to pull away a little. "I have a gun, it's in my coat on the right side. You didn't have to grab my ass to try and find something." God, men. She's apparently not too pleased. "If you need to hold onto it, you can, but I want it back." She'll even open up her coat so he can pull it out more easily, since the pocket is in the interior. And they better leave the rolled up hundreds in her pockets.
"Nice greeting. If I'd known I was going to get groped, I would have arrived naked." Only not, cause it's too cold for that. She's grumbling under hre breath as she reaches out to take said hand. The frisking has her a little on edge, so instead of carefully restrained in the back of her head, her ability is opened up.
The men stop checking her as Brian approaches, their eyes resting on the weapon Gillian is carrying. He's taking over handling the approach, so they step back and leave it to him as to whether or not she'll be disarmed. Neither of the pair speaks his name; they simply go back to where they were before emerging to speak with her.
"Normally we greet visitors with a full on orgy." He gives a little shrug. "You're luuucky it's cold today!" He says in a high pitched voice to impress on how lucky she is. Though when their hands connect, his eyes go wide very wide. "Holy shit." He manages before something out of the ordinary happens. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
And wouldn't you know it, they actually do have the makings of an orgy. Ten young men are suddenly manifested, popping out of each other like instant cloning. Looking bewildered and covering their manbits hastily. His power has gone haywire once before, only difference was that time he felt alarmingly out of control. He's more aware of all his copies than he's ever been. The handshake is quickly broken.
When their hands connect, there's a moment of glowy light. Similar to the color of a black light. Gillian knows what's happening as soon as it starts, the pull of energy drug out of her with the physical contact, the pops, and the sudden appearance of naked men falling out of each other— she's seen this before. Though nowhere near as quickly. At least there's less to cover thanks to the cold? When his hand jerks back, hers does as well, the glowing around her fingers disappearing as she forcefully works to shut it down. "Well— when you said orgy I didn't think you meant… Sorry."
Inside the library, near the outer areas, Cat is unaware of the sudden conjuring of Brian. And Brian. And Brian, and… however many Brians there are, all of them dressed appropriately for an orgy. She's seated at a table with a suitcase next to her. On the table are two forty caliber handguns with silencers, one M16, assorted ammo for both weapons, a cornucopia of literature and maps regarding every single bridge connecting Manhattan to the outside world, and quite possibly blueprints for those structures too. Atop the pile of written materials are manuals relating to the firearms.
She, dressed in jeans and a dark blue hoodie featuring the word Yale across the front, has her booted feet up on the table. In her hands is one which details the mechanics of the M16 rifle. The current page is looked at just long enough to remember and turned.
Fingers touching each other and the Brians meld back together quickly, absorbing back into each other until finally there's only the two clothed ones left. Brian takes a sharp breath looking rather surprised. "Wow." He remarks flatly shaking his head slowly. "You really know how to make a guy jump out of his pants." He takes a moment, taking another deep breath. "No, no. It's fine. I like to be naked in front of girls I meet for the first time. It sets the mood for the rest of our relationship." He's obviously still shocked and a little unstable, even though his jokes suggest he's not.
"My fault. Anyway. If you wouldn't mind handing over the gun? I'll take you in." Another deep breath is taken, as the first Brian raises his hand to toss back the hood and run his fingers through his hair.
"Well, I don't do it on purpose— and neither did you. So equal fault," Gillian says, pulling open her coat enough to reach in and pull out the glock. It's loaded, but the safety is on, and the chamber empty. She holds the handle out to him. "I am going to want that back, or you'll end up with a bunch of guys with shrivelled bits again. Is Cat or that Helena woman here?" she asks, as she closes up her coat again to lock out the cold and protect her rolled up hundreds.
Taking the gun, the young man goes to hand it off to the other young man behind him. "Of course you'll get it back." As to the shrivelled bits he lifts his nose up and gives a quiet little 'hmph'. "Was not shrivelled." He mutters under his breath as he turns his back to Gillian, motioning for her to follow. "You're looking for Cat?" He asks, looking over at his shoulder at her. "Yeah I'm pretty sure she's here. This way."
The page turned to is looked at and committed to memory, then turned again, a repetitive process, as Gillian and Brian talk and the weapon is handed over. Cat is here, she just doesn't yet know the Augmentor is. Two pages later and she finishes the M16 manual; it's set aside. Fingers take up the firearm and open it as Cat begins to disassamble the thing.
"Much longer out in the cold and they would've been," Gillian says, pointedly looking in the direction of his pants which cover the same bits. "I guess you're the reason I saw someone else naked in the street one day— fell out of his own body. Scar across his face?" she adds as they move in the direction of the library, where Cat is supposed to be. Smalltalk, of sorts, but… "Kind of an asshole, which went along great with his asscrack face?" The sight of the Library upclose does start to subdue her, though, eyes looking around as if hoping to see all the shelves and shelves of books. About things other than guns.
"Peter." Brian comments quietly as Gillian goes to talk about assholes and asscrack faces. "Peter Petrelli." The replicator says quite softly, his features becoming somewhat downcast as that person is brought up. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he raises his gaze to the woman. "Yeah. He tried to kill me. As an experiment." Brian confesses, shaking his head sadly a little bit. Though once he spots Cat, he nudges Gillian with his elbow. "There she is. Xena. Ayayayayayayaya." The last bit said in a high pitched falsetto.
She isn't looking at the printed material on the table anymore, Cat's just taking the weapon apart. Each segment is studied when she pulls it out and compared against her memory of the manual's info, then set on the table as she moves on to the next one. Seemingly, at least, she didn't hear Brian's commentary.
The library does have books, and shelves, in these outer areas. Quite a lot of them, in fact. While the building was damaged, much of the contents were not, there's still enough and then some to form a librarian's sweet dreams.
"Yeah, that guy," Gillian says, a bit of bitterness in her own voice. Not from the 'killed as an experiment' part, but for her own personal reasons, surely. She lets the topic drop, at least, since he's uncomfortable with it. The future they get inside, she gets more comfortable, though doesn't take off her coat at all. Still a lot to warm up for. "You call her Xena?" she asks, a hint of amusement before she waves her hand, looking at the shelves with amazement. "I'm surprised none of this got retrieved yet. Could've used it in Brooklyn." Before she left. "Nice to see you, Cat," she adds, subconsciously touching the mostly healed up scar on her forehead, the one she sewed shut a couple weeks ago.
"You don't like him either, huh?" Brian asks, shaking his head a bit. "He's a douche and deserves a fierce tongue lashing." Though Brian might give him a bit more than that if he had his way. He grins at Gillian's next question and nods. "She's our warrior princess. Takin' down the bad guys with arrows and what not. She has this awesome idea, blow gun.." Bringing his fists up to his mouth he makes a fierce puffing noise. "Big bad scary Volken guy, right in the neck. Boom! Problem solved!" He says, bringing his hands up as if it were a miracle he looks to Cat with a girn.
"Well hey there. Those don't look like blowguns Cat." He gives a grin to her before looking back to Gillian. "So you wanted Helena? I can see if I can find her."
She looks up, the partly disassembled firearm in her hands, and places it on the table with the other bits. Feet hit the floor next, and Cat moves toward Gillian. Brian's comments draw a mildly annoyed roll of her eyes. "There's nothing worse than a Heckler," she mutters. But then her attention is given to the Enhancer. "Good to see you too, I had a feeling you might make your way here, but when you didn't I was going to come to you."
She checks the woman's forehead, to view the state of healing and stitches there, then nods to Brian. "Helena wants to see her too."
"I tried to give him a 'tongue lashing'. Don't think he got the point of it, though," Gillian says, still trailing her eyes over what she can see of the library, probably thinking of how out of sorts everything probably is… But she glances back at the talk of 'Xena'. "Saw the bow and arrow thing once— though the guy I was with dubbed her Arwen." The rest seems to go over her head a little, though. "Volken guy?" Not a name she's been privy to, it would seem. "I needed a few days to settle into a new apartment, looking for a job, too. Not easy to do when you're technically missing."
"One thing is! And that's someone who says 'heckle' everyday! Heckleheckleheckleheckle." Brian rattles on, grinning a little bit. "Arwen?" He casts a glance to Cat. "So it's her buddy who called you Arwen? Ah. It's a small world after all." He says in a sing song voice. Though glancing back to Gillian he shakes his head when she talks about Volken guy. "Nuttin."
And enter Brian number three. With his hand on Helena's shoulder. The not sore one. "There she is." He intones to the woman, bringing his hand up off her, pointing at Gillian.
"Kazimir Volken." says Helena quietly, "The man who's running this whole thing. Hello, Gillian. It's good to see you're okay." She enters the part of the library where they're loitering, gives her escorting Brian a faint grin, and then goes to get herself a chair. "Catch me up on what you guys were talking about? I thought I heard you mention you're looking for a job." She looks to Gillian once more. "If you can ride a bike, Alley Cat Couriers doesn't ask a lot of questions."
Her eyes, and the expression which settles on Cat's face, might very well match the words 'fuck you, Brian, every single one of you, and the horses yous ride in on' if she spoke those words. She just eyes him for a very long moment, then turns attention back to Gillian. His mockery is addressed by a simple question of the augmenter. "It was effective, wasn't it?"
On Helena's arrival with another Brian, Cat is found standing near Gillian, checking out something on the woman's forehead, dressed in jeans, boots, and a Yale hoodie. Near her is a table which holds printed material about every bridge connecting Manhattan to the outside, manuals for forty caliber pistols and M16 rifles, two pistols of that type, and an M16 she took apart along with ammo for both weapons.
For whatever animosity she holds toward the man of many copies, there's no hint of that toward the blonde. "Hey," Cat offers in greeting. "Gillian actually just got here, and they were talking about my archery prowess." Unpleasantness between them the night before is at least apparently left behind her.
She goes back to checking Gillian's forehead, deadpanning "Kazimir Volken is a real Nazi."
And those are a lot of horses. And he rides them all bareback? "How many of you are there?" Gillian has to ask as a third emerges with Windy, as she calls her. The forehead has been cleaned, the stitches having mostly faded away, absorbed, though a few of them are still faintly visible. Not puffy or infected at all, but it will definitely leave a permenant mark, one that will likely never fade away. A scar left behind on her skull as well, most likely. "It's fine," she assures, trying to push her hair back into place to cover it up. "I can ride a bike, sure. If you got a card, I'll check it out, but I don't need any favors, thanks." The name again.
Dark eyebrows lower a bit, shifting the wound on her forehead. Not the kind of sound she likes attributed to a man. "I've never heard of him. What's he running exactly?"
As Cat stares him down, Brian does his best to bite back the grin that was rising up his features. It only makes angry people angrier when you smile in their angry face. He matches her gaze until she looks back to Gillian's head. "Prowess." He finally grins then. "Good word. We were also talking about my naked prowess." The Brian over by Gillian announces.
"You can come work with meeee!" Brian says cheerily, with a large smile to Gillian. Though there are plenty of places he works at, the AlleyCats is one of his several jobs. "How many? As many as you want." He says with a little smirk, finally going to leave Gillian's side to take a seat somewhere near. Though he calls out over his shoulder. "Unless you want zero! And that's not funny. If you're thinking of saying that!"
"Giving you a potential job contact isn't so much a favor." Helena says, bemused as she watches Brian's' antics. She moves over next to Cat, hunting down a scrap piece of paper to write something on. "It's not like I'm giving you a bike or anything, and you'd have to impress Rey enough to get the job. Which isn't really too hard, but he's kind of a jerk." After writing down a number and address for Alley Cat, she offers the paper to Gillian. "Kazimir Volken's group is called the Vanguard. They're the ones responsible for the attack on the school, and they've got a pretty serious, viable plan for more or less destroying the world. Or at least most of the world's population." Noting the scars on Gillian's forehead, she says quietly, "Sylar's one of them."
"It's healing well," Cat observes. Her interest in the other brunette's forehead is satisfied, she stops looking at it. A brief thought is given to once again suggesting she could have attention of an Evolved nature applied to make it as though the wound never happened, but it's discarded; her judgment is the result would be the same as it had been before. Her seat is retaken, attention remains with the others instead of the printed material, but she's calmly quiet. Nothing to add at the moment.
"Zero's such a nice number, though," Gillian says, though she's probably joking. The jest wouldn't last long as her mood darkens at the mention of the school explosion, Vanguard, and various other things. And Sylar being one of them. She looks away at his mention, jaw tightening a bit. "The guys pretending to be PARIAH— the ones who weren't really PARIAH at all. I met a couple of them. When they were still claiming to be PARIAH, and then they gave it up cause they needed to know what happened to… to Sylar." From the pause, she wanted to call him something else. "I'm guessing this Volken guy isn't the British ones?"
"I'll be upstairs." Brian says, giving the table a double tap as he goes to shove off. "Gotta read up on that Catabase thing. You guys wrote a lotta crap, you know that?" With that the young man is making his way(s) away from the group. THe three of the Brians converging to make their way out.
"That piece of work's name is Ethan." Helena says, her expression filling with distaste. "He's one of Volken's ops men, from what can be told. The virus they're considering unleashing is…well, if they succeed, we're all dead." she says matter-of-factly.
She seems to be more relaxed as Brian departs, at least until the British man with the Vanguard and the name Ethan are mentioned. Cat's hands tighten into fists, and her eyes take on a murderous look for an instant. "If he's the partly bald one who speaks with a Cockney accent," she mutters, "we've met."
"He called himself Michael when we met," Gillian says, thinking back on the two guys with those kinds of accents that she met. "There were two like that, with the funny accents going on. Blond touchy feely guy and Michael. But that would be that Ethan guy." There's a bitter sound to her own voice, before she looks back at Cat. Ah. That kind of meeting. "Pretty sure he was involved in what happened to my sister, too." There's a slow breath. "Virus." She glances down, frowning a little as if she's considering something. "There's a virus that's going to kill everyone?"
Helena nods a little. "If we don't stop it. We're working on strategies to disrupt and destroy their delivery systems and bring them to justice, but if we fail it could end very badly." She hesitates a moment and then admits, "We have someone who has a plan." she says. "And he's able to judge probabilities, determine the strategies that are our best chance. Play the odds." She studies Gillian. "Which might be higher if you'd consider helping us, when the time comes."
"Blond touchy feely guy," Cat echoes, her memory calling up the roster of operatives in the Vanguard. "Nearly six feet? It sounds like Amato, he's allegedly a psychometrist, that would explain the touchy-feeliness."
"Psycho's a good thing to call him. Called himself something else— one of those girl-guy's names. Not Amato." Gillian frowns, trying to reevaulate everything that she saw that morning after her rescue. "He could read people's pasts. He touched my hand one day in the park and it— I knew he was doing something. My hand glows sometimes when people use my ability to up one of their own. The two of them knew a lot about me because of it." From their own admission. "They rescued me from this… weird Asian guy who made all the sound go away. Though I've already guessed the whole thing was probably staged. They wanted me to tell people about PARIAH. Get people to join, probably even help them. I ran off with Gabriel instead. Though that might have been part of their plan too, I don't know." She's not a planner. She takes a slow breath, looking over at Helena again. "The virus. I think I know who you're talking about— the guy who came to look at the strings? H.I.T. man? But how do you know this virus thing? This one of those… paintings or dreams things?"
Helena blinks a little bit. "There's an Asian man with them, but he's called Wu Long and I hadn't heard he could do anything with sound." There's a pregnant pause. "Some of it is precog work, yes. But it's also due to an informant we dealt with, and some of it via our probability expert." She doesn't go into how exactly on that score. "We actually found about nine of the people Volken and his Vanguard kidnapped to be used as incubators for the virus to spread it out more. They have high projectile mortars, as well as the possibility of using the New York's underground vent system."
"He touched you, and saw things about you, in the past. That's psychometry," Cat confirms. "We have him listed as Amato. The Asian one you just mentioned doesn't sound like Wu-Long to me either. Wu's thing is messing with light and darkness. I've met him too," she states with a scowl. "And on top of that he makes things insubstantial, then solid again. Like maybe he can manipulate darkness somehow. He's somewhere between thirty and forty, longish hair. Did his suppression of sound work from anything like that?"
"I didn't exactly ask the guy's name while he was threatening to take me off somewhere," Gillian admits with a shrug. "All I know is I was listening to my iPod in the rain, and I couldn't hear my music, the rain, or even my own attempts to yell." Whatever that means. "But that's— more or less what he looked like. He did go all… funny when he touched me, though. Like… dark and misty? So I guess that could've been his thing. Maybe the other guy with him made the sound go out. Didn't really get a great look at either of them— other than the Asian part— and that they were both men and in suits. It was dark and I was just happy to get out of the car they shoved me in. They made me think that they were those suit guys— the one the Peter that got killed worked with— that they were after me."
"That sounds like Wu-Long," Cat replies, with the darkness that was around as she was escorted to the point of release by him in mind. She's speculating, the tone of her voice and the way she's staring at a wall suggests a travel of memory is happening. "When he did this, was it day or night?"
"Night, late at night. It was October— about two days before my, so probably the twenty-seventh," Gillian says, remembering when it'd been because… her birthday. "The only person I got to celebrate my birthday with was Gabriel." There's a slow breath. "He stopped by the loft a couple days after you and the string guy did."
"So he could've used the darkness somehow to block sound," Cat speculates. "Intriguing. Or it could've been someone different." Her attention returns more fully to the here and now when she mentions Gabriel showing up. Her question then is quietly asked. "What did he do and say, Gillian?"
Helena is quiet during this exchange, listening to the woman. "The string guy? Do you mean Dr. Ray?"
"I just make powers stronger, I don't get to know what they do with it," Gillian admits, letting that topic drop completely. "Yeah— Dr. Ray. The guy who came to check out the strings… Gabriel wasn't there to finish what he started, obviously. I wouldn't be here if he was. But…" She looks down, lips parting for a slow inhale. When she looks back up, her jaw is set, and her voice tight. "He mentioned seeing strings too. Strings like the ones in the Loft. Where Peter sent him. Wasn't Antarctica at first like he said it was."
She doesn't say it directly, her expression alone shows Cat's interest in hearing more about where Peter sent Gabriel and how it connects with strings.
Helena narrows her eyes, but in thought. "Peter…sent Gabriel Gray somewhere that wasn't Antarctica." she repeats. "He sent him somewhere…" She moves over to one of the Catabase monitors, and begins typing. "No way." she says. "No way."
"He said he was in the future. Ten years in the future, I think— I remember saying I'd've been thirty-three if I was still alive…" And 33 has some meaning to her where Gabriel is involved. Cat might remember the watch… Gillian watches Helena move away, with the exclaimations. She doesn't freak out, but she does start to move a little in that direction. "He said everyone was dead… Almost everyone."
She's doing it again, that thing where she goes quiet and focuses on a wall. Cat's calling up and replaying an extended memory again.
Edward motions over to a chair closer to Helena than it is to Edward, "Reach into my jacket pocket," He motions over to the fur-trimmed and heavy looking winter coat slung over the chair next to Helena, "There's a manilla envelope in the right front side of the jacket, just open it and take all the contents out. I think" He looks down to the steam of his coffee, "Well, it should elucidate you more than my rambling will."
She fast forwards through the contents of the envelope being set out and viewed, except for one segment.
The next photograph is unlike the other two, it depicts Edward seated at a poker table with a cigar in his mouth, looking more weary, tired and aged than he does now. At his right side is Peter, with a green army jacket on and a black tanktop beneath, his hair is a little longer that Helena's seen it before, and he's missing his scar. Standing behind Peter with her hands on his shoulders, is the young woman who stabbed Teo in the stomach with a butterknife, though she's not young anymore, she's an adult, and she has an assault rifle slung over her shoulder.
"This package was delivered to me three days before the assassination attempt via United Parcel mail with no return address." Edward motions to the hand-written documents, "My own handwriting, and mathematical formulas and research into string theory that I have not even begun to understand yet, along with a menifesto of sorts, and" He points to the glasses, then up to the ones he is wearing, with the same three chips in the right lens. "Proof."
She pulls herself out of the recall mode there, her eyes wide and her head shaking. "Holy…" Feet are gotten too, she moves to Helena's side. "Way," she replies in disbelief.
"A possible complication to the problem which existed in the timeframe from which the data was sent is a trip to our timeframe made by a person or persons unknown." Helena reads aloud, and turns in her chair. "It was Sylar. But why?" she she shakes her head. "He's working for Volken. He isn't any of the ones who've come forward."
Gillian's eyebrow raises a little between the two of them, but— well— she knows the time travelling thing is weird. "So I guess you already kinda knew that there was a time travelling thing going on?" Just not that it was Gabriel. She reaches up and touches her forehead, moving in a little closer, but not quite trying to read what's there, but— maybe stealing a impolite glance or two. "He said Peter sent him back. He said that… he was sent back to stop it. That he needed to… kill the right people. Not the wrong ones."
She listens briefly, and goes back into that expression she shows when playing out memories. Cat's eyes once more lock onto a spot in the distance.
"Kazimir Volken becomes the grand poobah of the whole damned world. And somehow in the midst of this, a man named Sylar ends up taking over for him, adopting his name, and becoming the next Kazimir Volken. I I can hardly make heads or tails of half of his handwriting, it looked all to be rather frantic. He claims Peter Petrelli made an attempt to time travel," It's said rather incredulously, "Back to stop the virus, but somehow only made things worse. So the notes say another candidate was chosen and sent back, and I have no idea who it is. The notes are implicit that I'm not to interfere." He grimaces sligtly, "My future self If I am to believe all of this, seems rather concerned for my well being." There's some information Edward leaves out, personal things detailed in the documents.
When the memory snippet ends, Cat speaks in a solemn voice. She repeats what she recalled word for word.
"Then either he's failed, or he hasn't killed the right people." Helena's tone has a certain dryness, but nonetheless, "I don't know what to think. I don't know who's side he's on. His own of course, but I don't know what's suiting his purposes more right now." She looks back at Gillian. "This is our database of information, everything we have on everything that's going on. We don't share it readily, but we do when necessary. I won't lie, your ability could be an enormous help…and so could your connection to S- Gabriel. You could be a part of stopping this." And Helena could show her more.
The words that Cat recalls makes Gillian frown visibly, looking away from the Catabase. "I thought he said he was dead too, in that future…" So the thing with this Volken guy and Gabriel taking his name confuses her. "Maybe he just hasn't done it yet… he still— I don't think he was being selfish in this. He doesn't want that world. Whatever it was, he didn't want it. And he … came to me for— I guess you could say advice. I told him I wanted to live." The computer screen earns her eyes for a moment, as her ability is brought up again. There's a long pause as she stands there, looking down at the computer. She's thinking. Her thinking isn't loud, though, and when she looks at the blonde woman again, she nods. "I'll help. I have two conditions, though. I won't help you kill him. If that's what you want me for, you find someone else."
"He let you live simply because you asked?" Helena doesn't know what to make of that, but then says, "We're not in this to kill Sylar. If he tries to hurt us in our effort to get to Volken, we'll fight back for our lives, but he want be a specific target. Is that fair?"
Her expression is pensive, her eyes are those of a woman with the metaphorical wheels turning behind them. Cat remains silent for a short time, then her thoughts are expressed. "Here's what we know: The virus in that possible future killed ninety percent of the world's people. Doctor Ray was alive in that future. Peter was alive in that future. It's claimed Peter at some future point tried to go back and change what for him is the past, and it failed."
She draws in a slow breath, pausing to let what she says sink in for the other two, then goes on.
"Here's what's possible: Peter of the future who tried to change things had been exposed to the virus, and that perhaps complicated things. So they, wanting to still make alterations, found a chance dropped right into their laps when Gabriel was sent there instead of to Antarctica. It could be they educated him, gave him the information we have now, and sent him back, because he was someone who'd never been exposed to the virus. It fits with what you said, Gillian, about him having seen strings. It's also possible the Peter from that future came back too, even probable, unless he learned to teleport people while he stays put. If that's true, and his being present is dangerous because he was exposed, he would've gone back immediately, or gone someplace where no one will be around him. Someplace a virus couldn't spread from."
Then she's briefly quiet again.
"Maybe it makes sense to you, maybe it doesn't," Cat offers in a quiet voice, "but it does to me."
"He teleported me to the past without going with me. Just a day, not ten years," Gillian says, trying to add in some insight while she has it. "And he didn't disappear when he sent Gabriel to what he thought was Antarctica. Both times he was touching me, so maybe that had something to do with it." The whole… power boost. They don't intend to kill Sylar, though… That gets a nod. "I said I didn't want to die in this future he saw— Me or ninety percent of the population, I'm sure. But he did stop when he started to kill me," she adds, touching her forehead again. "Because I don't think he wanted to kill me." There's more she could explain, but she takes a slow breath. "My second request is to get to look at your books. They probably need to be reshelved and inventoried. Fuck, some of these books probably belong in a museam— New York Public had some of the best collection in the entire east coast." She's a Librarian!
Helena cocks her head. "Technically, this is a safehouse that just happens to be a library, and the person being placed in charge of it will have a say in that. But I'll provisionally agree, pending Claude's okay. But like I said - we won't target Sylar, but if he gets in our way or he tries to hurt us, we'll react appropriately. None of us is going to willingly give up our throat. Or um, brain." She looks to Cat. "That all makes my brain swim, and I'm smarter than the av-er-age blonde."
"Right," Cat replies with a nod to Helena when she speaks. "Short version: I think they found Gabriel dropped suddenly in their laps, realized he was from our time and therefore never exposed, educated him, and sent him back. That's the best answer I can come up with to the question of why him."
She doesn't comment on the agreement regarding Sylar, or the mention of brains. This wouldn't be the time to comment on him already having what she's got. Instead she wonders who he stole it from, what he or she was like.
"I don't expect anyone to just let him kill them," Gillian says, giving her an odd look at the suggestion. "If he attacks you, then he might well deserve whatever he gets— just like I shot him once myself." A rather nasty gunshot wound at that. But she doesn't know it was healed. By one of their own friends. "I think you're probably right in why they picked him— they probably don't get many choices dropped in their laps like that. Peter teleported him to the future by accident, even." Hence the Antarctica stuff. "I'll be willing to talk to this Claude guy about it. I'd just like to make sure these books are taken care of by an actual Librarian… Something I haven't been able to do since I met that Michael guy. Ethan as you called him."
"Claude won't care about that." Helena says dismissively. "But if you're helping us, Dr. Ray will want to know. It made change our odds, hopefully for the better."
"I think he wanted you here, Gillian," Cat replies calmly, "but didn't think you'd come if he just asked. You'd turned down offers of help and chosen to stay at the loft on Reed Street where it was cold. I think that was why he mentioned where he and I might be going where you could still hear him, to let curiosity do the work." Then silence for a moment, before adding "We also need to tell him we figured out who came back with the data from that future."
"You didn't figure it out, I told you," Gillian says, with a hint of a shrug. "I'm not sure how long I'll stick around with you guys, but… I definitely don't want to die in some terrible virus future. And I don't want to help the people trying to cause it." There's a small pause, she might have ulterior motives about it as well. "You'll have to let me know what you can and we'll go from there. Your friend Ray certainly knew me better than most people." …except maybe Sylar. "I'll do what I can."
"If you're going to be coming here and doing stuff with the books, then you'll need passwords to get in." Helena says. "I'll make sure you get networked before you leave."
"That's true," Cat replies. "Doctor Ray will be told the answer came from you." They haven't mentioned directly that Edward is the probability experts, but the clues are certainly present. Like him knowing the best way to get someone he just met to come where he wanted her to be.
"All right. I got plenty of time. Still need to get the address of that possible job from you too," Gillian says, looking for a place to get comfortable, even taking off her coat finally. One thing Cat may notice… her broken watch is missing from her wrist. Finally removed?
Helena had offered the paper to Gillian earlier, but it may have since been forgotten. It only takes a moment to locate it again, and she offers it back to Gillian. She calls out to one of the members, who runs off to get one of their disposable phones.
The paper is taken, as indeed it was forgotten, and Gillian starts to look it over. "Your super memory would be helpful at times like this," she adds in the direction of Cat, the beginnings of a smile showing up on the corner of her mouth.
She notices the broken watch being absent, just as she's aware of the importance placed on the number thirty-three, but Cat doesn't comment on it. She displays a slight smile at the mention of her ability. "It's a sword with two edges," she offers. "If I see a bad movie or read a crappy book, I'm stuck with it."
"You mentioned that. I tend to skip out on a movie that sucks if it doesn't grab me in the first half," Gillian says, still peering at the paper. Then she looks up and adds, "That doesn't help if the movie only sucks because of the end, though."
When Hel gets her hands on a phone, she programs it and offers it to Gillian. "This is tied into our network, so you'll be able to get password updates and the like. It's disposable for easy getting-rid-of if necessary." She grins a little bit. "Welcome aboard."
"Welcome aboard," Cat also offers. "I was planning to visit the loft again, you found us first. Where are you staying now?"
"Chinatown," Gillian says, rattling off the appartment complex and even the room number. At least with this person she doesn't have to worry about writing it down. "It's behind the painting like I said it would be. You could've found me, if I hadn't made it here first." Probably a good thing she did. Edward knew her well enough after two minutes to know she's better when she thinks it's her choice.
"I miss the market in Chinatown." Helena comments wistfully. "I could get good ingredients there. But anyway…in a pinch, if you need it? The library's equipped with beds and food and showers, even if they're kind of makeshift. So there's a safer place to crash here, if you need it."
It's heard and filed away. "Thanks," Cat offers, before going solemn. Helena isn't the only one away from places she was fond of. "Someday I'll play onstage again, it'll be safe to have a recognizable routine again. I think I'll make my home in a recording studio I came across, though. It's on the upper floors, the rest of the building can have other uses."
"Do you allow a cat?" Gillian has to ask when the offer to crash is given. "I really don't want to leave Chandra alone in the apartment for days if I end up crashing here."
"Ultimately up to Claude, but I don't see why not." Helena says. "And animals get into the outer rooms all the time. We have more problem with stray animals then we do homeless people. No one wants to be this close to the rad zone."
"Then I'll wait to see what this Claude has to say about it," Gillian says, nodding a little. "I can make my way home tonight and come back in the morning once I make sure he's got food."
She doesn't seem to have any more to add, Cat remains silent as the other two talk for now. Her eyes move from one to the other when as the conversation continues.
 January 10th: Chivalry Is Dead |
 January 10th: Why Do You Even Come Down? |