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Scene Title | Run Rabbit Run |
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Synopsis | The ghost comes to steal the abducted corpus of one Edward Ray, and ends up trying to make off with a few more than he can carry. Fortunately, the Parkman family is good with their hands. |
Date | June 16, 2009 |
New Jersey — Pinehearst Headquarters: Medical Room
The prison is like a hospital room which, in turn, makes it more like a prison. Insulated from the world outside, its tile and chrome architectured to persuade the inhabitant to feel safe— not even the sink faucet holds a sharp corner. Windowless, sterile walls and regularly-changed linens, smooth hydraulic mechanics that make the beds adjustable for human comfort and an equally state-of-the-art ventilation system keeping the room at a stagnant temperature in an odorless, soundless, invisible exchange of gas. The wall clock, analog, is the only measure of days.
Which all seem to merge into each other, don't they? It feels like a month since that ruckus from outside.
It had scared Molly, though she'd denied that. Strident voices, one of them Arthur's. The crackling shriek of high-energy discharge racing the wall and caroming of bodies off metal, breaking, shattering, jostling the floor, screams. Afterward, the woman who brought Matt and Molly dinner had declined to answer questions. Additionally, the security guard who had accompanied her had been in armed and fierce, as if to dissuade further insistence. Matt had noticed, though.
Around the uniformed shoulder: broken glass seamed into the corners of the floor despite the hasty application of somebody's broom, elevator doors gaping ajar and empty but for a few ropey cables drooping out the top, like trailing spare parts of a dug-out eye-socket.
Nothing since. No one pounding on the door shouting 'Police!' or sirens; no follow-up attacks, explanations, not even Arthur's malignance powered up and ready to tie up loose ends. Just a whole lot of nothing. Until today— no, tonight, long after the second savory meal o the day: two o' clock by the measure of the timepiece. There is a scratch of metal in the lock, a leggy shadow underneath the door.
"Matt!"
Molly's voice is a tense whisper, as if her guardian hadn't heard the noise.
But Matt has been on edge since he got here - before, really. Recent events have merely sharpened that edge. Matt stands from where he had been sitting on his bed, and Molly slinks off of her own, half crouched out of cautious fear. It's not a meal time, and the room is spotless. What else could it be?
"Stay back, Molly," is Matt's muttered command as he holds out a hand as if bringing up some invisible wall to shield her. But the girl only moves slowly around until she is behind him.
What Matt would give to be able to see into the mind on the other side of that door. He takes a careful step forward, hand still out to protect Molly from whatever it is out there that is fumbling at the lock.
There is a rasping click, of tumblers falling into place and then a beep of acknowledgment from the panel beside. The wooden panel gives way, hinges rubbing. A silhouette of grotesque size and breadth fills the gap of dim hallway outside, lumpy, a long-fingered hand splaying on the frame of the door before slowly emerges—
An man's butt, where he's hooked, limp, unconscious, over the shoulder of the unforseen arrival. On the other side, a knee bumps the door the rest of the way open, and then Matt can see him: a stranger, forty years old for all he seems spry, six feet tall and therefore taller than the sprawl of his burden, raven-haired and blue-eyed, Caucasian ancestry sharpening the bones of his cheeks and keeping his skin fair, wrapped up in tactical gear— the armor a good fit but standard, too many pockets, extra guns.
None of them pointed at Agent Parkman or his child, refreshingly. Father and daughter are subject only to the piercing of a brief and speculative stare. When he puts out his invitation, his voice, too, is entirely unfamiliar: "Coming with?"
There is a moment when Matt stands stock still, staring at the two men in confusion. The hell has happened out there now? But the unconcious one is what intrigues him most, if for a moment, and Matt leans slightly to one side in order to see his face.
He hadn't expected it to be a face he recognized.
Putting a lot on luck, Matt turns his palm slightly, silently offering it to Molly. She's too big to carry as he might have once, so when the girl places her hand trustingly in that of her father's, he only holds it tightly.
"Depends on where we're going," he says to the man in tactical gear even as he begins leading Molly toward the door. "But out seems like a damn good option."
New Jersey — Pinehearst Headquarters: -4th Floor
'Out' seems like the first precarious step to a considerably more complicated process, given they are four stories below ground level. Ghost turns around, allowing Matt a proper view of the roof of Edward's bald head— and his beady eyes closed, no glasses— before he pads out again, his boots pushing quiet tread into the linoleum, and quieter still when it gives way to carpet.
It's been even longer since Matt saw the hallway. He can see that the elevator still remains defunct— at least on this level, a square black chasm with iron lips. No glass on the floor; instead, tape and cardboard have a laboratory closed away from public view, and a hardhat is hanging off the handle of a janitorial closet, evidence of repairs conducted by civilians who plainly have no idea what infernal castle they're working to maintain.
Abruptly, the ghost's hands are empty, lock pick dispensed with in favor of a 9 pulled free. Alloy composite click-clacks, shuffles between his hands before he offers it to Matt, straightforwardly, courteously as you please. There's an instant's genuine consideration of Molly, before he self-evidently decides not to give the, you know, thirteen-year-old a firearm.
He keeps moving, down toward the end of the hallway, the warning paneled into the emergency evacuation door.
Words come clipped, low, quick: "I knocked out the operator in the video booth and tripped up the alarm circuit, so I was going to use the fire stairs going up." The ghost sniffs once, through his nose, loud and wet, peculiarly feline. "But there's an RSSS thing and more aces running around with radios, so that's for you. Have you seen Peter Petrelli?"
There's a lot going on, apparently, and all Molly can do aside from cling to Matt's hand is look around her. The man - this savior of sorts, if that's what he is - looks like he could be a S.W.A.T. team member, or one of the black-masked specialists that work so close with her father. He's certainly dressed for the part - bloody nose and all.
"Are you with the government?" Molly asks in a tentative, mouse-like voice as Matt takes the offered pistol and releases her hand to ready it. It doesn't matter if there's no tactile connection. Molly remains close.
At the mention of the younger Petrelli brother, Matt's eyebrows furrow. "Not in ages," he says brusquely. "Why? This more of a family affair than I gave it credit for?"
"'S like you forget whose story we're in." Ghost's voice is unadulteratedly wry, older even than the cut and lines and faintly shadowed fatigue on his face, discreetly bloodied nose and all. He sounds like he is quoting somebody when he speaks. Ancient words of wisdom, some axiomatic truth around which the universe spins. "It's always about the Petrellis.
"Or Noah Bennet," an afterthought. Blankly. His eye shades downward at Molly, processing her query retroactively, with the same clinical insouciance with which he bears up under Edward Ray's dead weight, pretending that none of such minutiae is of any consequence at all. Men who run around in black tactical gear don't feel fatigue. They ski uphill. Illness ought to fear them. Injury, also.
Clack. The broad strip of the handle careens inward, not quiet. The round, ribbed light at the top of the door does not go off, and there's no sudden klaxon of alarm, but the scrape of steel parts and drag seems to reverberate up the cold spiral of the stairway. "Four floors up, backdoor," Ghost mutters back, hitching himself up the first step.
There is, of course, too much truth in the man's words for Matt to even consider countering them. It certainly seems as though the Petrelli's are always in the thick of things. And now one of them is President.
It's hard not to run up the stairs when freedom is so near, despite the number of questions that Matt has for the man he's following. Molly takes them two at a time - the last thing she wants is to fall behind, back into that white-tiled hell.
And then there is a light. A single beam, the breadth of a man's arm, piercing the dull glow of the staircase's conservative, night-time settings.
Ghost stops, very suddenly— and Doctor Ray's prone corpus almost pitches right off his shoulder, but he stops it somehow, a lean arm whipping upward, bracketing the toppling bulk of Edward's torso. He yanks down against the railing, pale eyes turned upward, bright as chipped ice. Doesn't call out a warning: there would be point in that.
"—must've fallen asleep," a voice gruffs down, echoing faintly. The beam brightens the wall, cutting a lazy loop, arcing closer, slow with either predatory precision or inattentive rote. Both. Neither. "Poor bastard."
That hand goes out again, and Molly shies back, shrinking to some degree into the darkness behind Matt. He edges forward, eyes narrowed as he watches the beam of light above. It pauses for a moment, and at the same instant, so does Matt.
"What the…" It's quiet now, groggy, but aware enough not to be thunderously loud.
Even without the insight of what's going on inside the guard's head, Matt knows enough by simple observation and deduction to lower the barrel of his upraised pistol and take aim.
"Cover your ears Molly," he whispers would have been a thought, were the situation different, but as soft as it is, it might as well be.
In comparison, the sound of the silenced gun firing is like a thunderclap, and that of the man collapsing, an avalanche.
Rump-a-thump go the loose pile of dead limbs. The bulwark of torso thudding onto the landing, a slithering slap of fabric as lighter limbs carry a few inches even as the trunk of his uniformed body loses momentum. Not enough blood, yet, for a sticking sound. Licking blood off his upper lip, the ghost squints sidelong at Matt's head, momentarily. Wonders about the wisdom of having a lawman around to do your killing for you; not that that had been the original determinant of whether or not he would.
Time to run.
Ghost jack-knives upright and lunges up the stairs, rubber jarring into concrete, drubbing noise through the hollow column of the space. He pauses to fetch up the radio clipped to the fallen officer's belt, grunts when the weight of Edward's body stretches painfully across his neck; listens to the jittering squawk of chatter even as he throws his shoulder against the metal door recessed into the wall, there, underneath the bright red block-letters: EXIT.
"Blue sedan," he snaps sidelong, even as Century Drive opens out wide and black punctuated by lamp-light. You wouldn't see it if you weren't looking: the edge of the Volkswagen Rabbit tucked into the manicured brush of the roadside where it had been rolled to park, lights off, hours ago. Finally, the emergency klaxons go off, crashing air against the rough-paint walls, reverberating around the motley foursome, like they're inside the churning gut of an awakening mountain.
The one thing those klaxons are sure to provide is medical attention for the man suffering from a bullet wound. He'll need it too, and soon if he wants to live to see the sunset on this day the way it was intended to.
Matt reaches back as he rushes up the stairs on Ghost's heels, Molly's hand once again gripped tightly in his own. She squeezes her eyes shut, doing her best not to look at the figure of the man in the crumpled heap on the staircase. Matt does his best to half-pull, half-haul her along at the near breakneck speed to the outside. To the open air.
To the moonlight.
He snaps his head to Ghost, then to the indicated car. After checking the area like a deer about to spring out into an open field, Matt rushes across the to the car before diving into a crouch behind it, pulling Molly with him. He looks about, trying to stay focused enough to keep his wits about him should they run into any more trouble.
New Jersey — RIGHT FUCKING OUTSIDE 8(
Amid the urban parks of Fort Lee New Jersey, the Pinehearst Corporate Headquarters is an unusual sight. Architecturally designed with an eye for the natural environment, the building is both sleek and modern while retaining a touch of the natural world. The primary facility is a seven story office building rising up out of forested grounds, the reflective green-tinted plate windows show not the neighboring Jersey cityscape, but reflect the natural splendor of the six acres of land the facility rests on. The secondary facility and central lobby is a two-floor structure with a rounded front lined with square columns, an entire green-tinted glass wall behind it shadowing the lobby beyond.
Between these two structures, a central courtyard is filled with neatly landscaped trees surrounded by bark mulch, a fountain prominently displaying a stone slab with the Pinehearst logo flanked by benches, and stone walksways that meander through this lush, natural splendor. Near the lobby entrance, an enormous blue and green double-helix proudly identifies the building as Pinehearst property.
The Pinehearst Corporate Headquarters is located at 26877 Century Drive, Fort Lee, NJ. The facility is located roughly ten miles from Manhattan, outside of the irradiated zone of Jersey City. Pinehearst Corporation is open to the public for tours and visitations, and the company is currently hiring talented and bright individuals for its projects.
Trouble follows, shod in black shoes, shouts of alarm splitting the air but, no doubt, this is second to the phonecalls no doubt rife in the higher frequencies of cold evening air. It's an almost palpable shift when the orders come through not to shoot and kill; only one shot rings out, ricocheting in a spark of white across the asphalt before the muzzles are yanked skyward, replaced by shouted threats.
Loud, but empty, and Ghost knows it. "Heads up, Parkman!" And there's an arching flicker and glitter of keys thrown in the air, overhand, rapid for Matt to "Catch!"
The agent has about four adrenaline-fuelled seconds to get the doors open as Ghost comes gallumping toward him, Edward Ray jouncing on his shoulder. Now, finally, the man awakens just enough to release a hissing groan into the air, eyes seaming open for a brief coruscation of consciousness, even as Ghost slams bodily into the side of the vehicle.
Matt was never a sporty kid, at least not in the traditional sense. But need is a terribly wonderful thing, and so his hand shoots up - but it is a minute too late. The keys brush just past his grasping fingers.
Thankfully, a smaller set jerks into the air to grab them and shove the appropriate bit of metal in the lock. The doors are soon torn open, and Molly scrambles into the back while Matt shoves himself into the driver's seat and starts the car. Molly is there to grasp at the the unconscious doctor through the open door.
"Get in, get in!" she cries. It wouldn't be fair to leave their savior behind.
Saved by a thirteen-year-old. Mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like Italian, the ghost tumbles in through the back door, hurling Edward in first, under him. The smaller man winds up bouncing inelegantly on the padded seat, the slack weight of hands and feet rolling haphazardly against the clink and slide of belts. Somehow, Ghost manages not to crack his knees down onto any part of his quarry as he hauls himself in, and jerks the door shut behind him, clap, with such force that the pressure feels like thumbs against their eardrums.
Ghost was always a sporty kid— and is used to being a somewhat more athletic, and therefore physically reckless character than his current body actually allows. Ungainly but gamely, he squeezes himself up over the gap between front seats, drops himself in shotgun in a twisting kick of boot-shod feet.
Little doubt, by now, the car is already moving.
"That way," Ghost says, his breath coming hard through his teeth. Behind them, outside, a warning shot is fired splits the back of the vehicle, tearing a splatter of fragmented pattern freeze-framed inside the lamination of the window. This way, no doubt, the hunters will know how their quarry is marked. "Left."
Molly lets out a shrill shriek as the bullet pings off the car with with a metallic harbinger. Matt ducks for a moment. Being on edge isn't helpful in all situations. Still, he follows Ghost's directions until he's left with his own decision.
Where to now?
Of course, walking into any precinct and rattling off his serial number and whatnot will surely keep he and Molly safe for awhile.
That is, until whatever moles Arthur Petrelli has in place report back to the hive.
The car makes it's way toward the Narrows instead, with Molly as asleep as Edward Ray in the backseat, slumped against the window due to sheer exhaustion. With the doctor slung over the Ghost's back once more, and Molly cradled in Matt's arms, the two men sit in a rusty boat chugging toward a derelict and nearly forgotten eye-sore of an island.
"We've got to talk," the agent says, eyes fixed on the man across from him.