Participants:
| Scene Title | Starlight And Shadow |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | At the cold end of a long day on the road, Silas and Asi swap updates, theories, and worries. |
| Date | July 9, 2021 |
The Ruins of Minneapolis
The hour is late, the sky clear and moonless; with the chill of the night air, the stars of the Flooded world are on display in their full glory. But even the wonder of the night sky wears off after long enough, and the grueling cross-country slog the Convoy is attempting feels long indeed by now; most have already turned in for the night, the better to get an early start in the morning.
Most, but not all; among those still awake is one Silas Mackenzie, dark coat pulled tight around him as he waits patiently near Frizzel, a patch of darker black amongst the night shadows.
"There you are," announces Asi more than her footsteps among the quieting camp as she returns to the Frizzel at last. As keen as she would be to sleep somewhere warm, somewhere out of wind appeals to her better. She has her coat still bundled around her, and her eyes catch the light of the moon faintly as she nods her head with a jut of her chin in a kind of greeting. "Came to show you the stupidest new-old-fangled thing this side of the Mississippi." Nevermind they'd only just crossed it.
She extends out a half-gloved hand to him, something sizeable in it held with her palm faced down as she holds it out. It's warm to the touch, maybe even on the surprising side of warm. It has some heft to it, slightly rough to the touch along its oblong, flattish shape.
It appears to be a rock.
"Downside– you wake up with a cold stone at your feet. Upside? You go to bed warmer than you would otherwise." She seems to find this trade worthwhile.
Silas looks up at the sound of Aces' voice, lips curling into a smile; as she drops what she brought him into his hands, his grin broadens into something merry and bright. "Ya brought me a rock!" he exclaims. "Just what I always wanted," he says fondly… but the warmth is nice. He folds his hands around it, soaking in the heat, his smile expression shifting from a mischievous grin to a more sincere smile. "I appreciate it. Gonna have cold feet in the morning anyway; it'd be nice to warm em up before I go to sleep, at least. Thanks," he says, and means it.
"How'd the scouting trip go? Anything good?" he asks.
Asi turns her head back toward where she came from. "Had a good view of them as they came back. Some good finds, but looks like they cut the trip short given sundown. No return trips to haul back anything big." Her shoulders turn up in a shrug. That they found anything seemingly worthwhile at all was always a surprise, and a pleasant one. She refused to adjust her expectations in any other direction.
"You're welcome for the rock," she segues back sincerely. "I must assign credit where due, however. Elliot suggested firing it, and I'll be heading down by the river to find some other good candidates for sleeping bag warmers before the fire goes out."
Silas nods slowly, but his smile fades to something more thoughtful as his eyes shift off into the distance somewhere. "Tracks. He's a crafty one." That assessment sounds much more muted than the last one he'd offered of Elliot, before they'd left New Chicago.
For a moment he remains silent, mulling things over… then, using his ability to drop a veil over the two of them, he looks back to Asi. "Had a chat with him earlier. He was… helpful. I almost feel like I know what questions I ought to be asking now, at least," Silas says with a grimace.
That is a tall subject to go into, though, so he sets it aside for the moment, looking back to the warm rock in his hands for a moment, studying it as if trying to memorize the pits in its surface before he looks back to Asi. "So, have you been able to figure anything out about that network of his?" he asks.
"I'm not in it right now," Asi admits firstly, looking off into the dark herself. She asides back to Silas, "But starting tomorrow, we experiment. I pushed him to develop a way to hold connections for more time, and confessed my ulterior motive for that. 帰る後そこを見えるため.1" Her nose wrinkles. "He then told me there's no way home for them."
"So," she notes somewhat grimly. "We have time for the exploration I want to do." Breathing out past that uncomfortable reality, she adds as she looks back to him, "He also showed me how to add to what he calls the Index. Key moments, phrases– memories. We practiced its use for understanding and communication."
Barely a beat passes before she wonders, "What did you two talk about?"
The knowledge that Asi isn't currently linked into Elliot's — what, psiweb? Brainsphere? — sees Silas relax a bit, a tension he hadn't even realized he'd been holding slipping away. He nods as she says that tomorrow she's going to start experimenting, though, and that sees that tension return. Still, there's some interesting bits in there. The Index sounds like something he should probably follow up on.
But Aces' own question prompts him to blow out a heavy breath. "Temporal mechanics and other witchery, government agencies, and why Richard went and flew the coop. Basically a wholeass primer on cross-reality weird shit." He pauses. "The network came up a little bit, too."
Asi takes a moment to glance around and then inside the Frizzel before she pushes a hand to the door to cave it onward, nodding her head up inside. She steps aboard first, bypassing the driver seat she's seen too much of to take a seat in the first row, seated facing out into the aisle with her knees buckled out of the way so there's room for him to seat across from her.
She hesitates even though she's pulled them aside to someplace it's safer to talk more freely about these things. For so long, she's been aggressive against the concept of hearing of other, seemingly meaningless places, in the face of their own reality before them. Even the horrific Wasteland that Squeaks was from was viewed in the same way for her as places where the world hadn't ostensibly ended. What did they matter? But she weighs things, the faint light of fires outside glinting just slightly in her eyes as she looks to and fro and then back to Silas.
"All right," she offers quietly. "Tell me more."
Silas's head tilts slightly as Aces invites him into the bus, but he follows, taking the seat across from her. The tell me more sees him tilt his head again, studying her for a moment in the dark as best he can… then he nods. "Okay. I, uh… don't really know where to start, to be honest. It's a whole ball of yarn." He takes a breath, frowning as he concentrates. "I'll just… start talking; if you have any questions, ask."
"Okay, so… timelines. According to what Elliot said… the way things used to work, or at least the conventional wisdom on the way things used to work, was that small changes when time traveling don't make a difference individually. Big changes, or a lot of small changes added together, can add up to make things different enough to force time to branch. One timeline contains none of the changes, the other carries all of the changes forward. How much of a change it takes… that I'm not sure about. But…"
"We know Hiro Nakamura triggered the first branch by going back in time and saving the lives of four people — Angela Petrelli, Bob Bishop, Charles Deveaux, and Daniel Linderman." Glory had said that. "There's at least four other timelines, each branching off the last — ours is the first, then there was one with a killer virus, then another one I don't know much about, then the one with the killer robots, and then the one with the Second Civil War — that's the one the Travelers came from."
Asi doesn't so much as blink at the mention of the names of the four unknown people to her when they're brought up again, though a second thought surfaces Petrelli as a name she recalls from being one of the men behind the DoSA and sees her let out a quiet hm of interest to herself.
"Killer robots - Squeaks. The 'unknown' one - the girl speaking New Orleans French, Cassandra, she must have been from there. Her world seemed fine, when she showed it to me with her ability. No virus." She rattles this off casually, not as if it were novel. "'The one with killers of 電念波族2', to follow your naming logic."
"And then there's Glory," she points out. "From… wherever it is she is from. The future, where the thing that is going to have the sun kill us has died, where she believes time is as intractable as gravity, pulling back in on itself even if it is disrupted. And yet she's here." The urge to pin that girl down and demand answers out of her rises ever again, but she imagines the younger woman to probably fight off attempts to extract information out of her the way a cat fights off medicine being given to it.
"Richard left…" she fishes to draw lines between things. "To try and impact that flow?" Asi wonders, arching an eyebrow. She sounds dubious.
Silas raises an eyebrow at Asi's contribution, but nods. "I never talked with Cassandra much, didn't know where she was from," he admits.
The rest of what she has to say sees his face twist into a grimace. "Yeah, well… that's the way it used to work. According to Glory it doesn't work that way anymore where she's from. Things change in the past and the changes just carry forward — no branching anymore, and everyone just… remembers it that way." No safety net, he thinks, but doesn't say. "I have no idea why. Theoretically that doesn't cross timelines — according to Elliot there's a radio host that apparently stopped existing in the Safe Zone and nobody in that timeline remembers him," he says grimly.
He lets out a long, slow breath. "I need to have a chat with Glory again. I've got some pieces of her puzzle, but…" Silas trails off, shaking his head. "Not enough yet."
"As to why Richard flew the coop… I'm still not sure on that," he says after a moment. "Elliot's best guess was that he was trying to throw a wrench in somebody else's plans by working from another angle. Who that might be… that's harder. There's no shortage of fingers in this pie, unfortunately. There's the OEI, there's whoever sent Glory… and there's whoever sent Gracie."
Asi sits there perplexed for a moment, trying to wrap her mind around time is an immutable line now that recurses on itself, where changes in the past immediately take place in the present, but… also it didn't impact them, here. Theoretically. Maybe. She frowns at the thought they might be an outlier from whatever temporal correction is happening elsewhere just as much as perhaps things have changed in their own past and they'd have no way of knowing, currently.
"Color me hateful, given all those people want to use us to further their own agendas," she supposes, more even than glib. The hate can keep under the surface for now, where it might warm her better.
"What are the questions we need to be asking for ourselves, though," Asi wonders, redirecting that energy. "How do we take what's happening and keep ourselves protected– maybe even stop what's to come, if we think there's a chance in hell it might be possible?" Her eyes search for changes in Silas' expression again, breath almost held after that. Does he think such a thing might be within their power?
Silas is unable to stifle an explosive laugh at Asi's color me hateful, merriment twinkling in his eyes for a moment as he grins at her appreciatively. But he sobers at her question. More than that, he falls silent, his brow furrowing as he considers.
"I don't know, Aces. I really don't," he finally answers… but then a smile creeps back up to his lips, an expression grim, but not joyless. Not hopeless. "Right now, I don't," he amends. "Maybe there isn't a way… but I'm not gonna give up without trying. I'm gonna keep my eyes open. Just because I don't see it doesn't mean it's not there. And," he adds, his smile warming, "It helps that I'm not looking alone."
All she can do is nod at first, stiffly, her own expression more guarded. Her breath still held. The small return snort she had when Silas appreciated her turn of his own language didn't change that. But she nods, and that's something. "I'm tired of feeling like we're just waiting for the world to end, like there's no hope for us. One thing I trust the people sent here to be is… resourceful, in their own way. And now I know they're stuck here with us."
"If we want to move mountains…" She pauses then, reflecting on her namesake, recognizing they've somewhat moved her own mountain in the time they've spent together, even with her fighting every step of it. "They seem like good allies for it. They fought their war against the end of the world and they won, several times over."
"I'd be an idiot to not respect that," Asi acknowledges, even if it does sound a little grudgingly done still.
Silas nods slowly. "Not unlike us," he observes, frowning as he considers. "Different shit they've been through, but still a helluva fight."
He exhales slowly, considering. "I know that they're looking for someone by the name of Drucker, a heliophysicist; they think his research is the key. Apparently he's also Nova's godfather or something. If we're talking about hope for the future… he's probably going to be the place to start." So why did they drop the Travelers off the coast of Virginia and have Nova sail all the way around the continent to get them, instead of just dropping them in Alaska? he wonders. Yet another question to ask later.
Heliophysicist is a new word for Asi— one she has to take a moment to break down into its components and then put back together again. Her eyes narrow in thought when the meaning comes together. Huh.
"Knowledge is power," she agrees on the end of a long breath. "But if there are so many hands in this pot, and they may all be vying after the same information… or trying to destroy it to prevent others from having it…" Her eyes swivel away and then back to Silas, not liking the way her stomach suddenly turns. "Who knows what we'll run into the closer we get to the Travelers' goal here?"
Her hands come together in her lap, fingerless gloves impacting her ability to lace her fingers together quite as tightly as she wants, but not enough to keep her from doing it entirely. She frowns deeply.
"There's no telling what's up ahead," Silas agrees with a grimace. "All we can do is try to make sure we're ready for anything."
The idea that someone might have bad intentions for the information they're after makes him frown. "We'll just have to keep our eyes open. Make sure the information gets where it needs to go." He looks to Asi. "Who knows, maybe it'll even be stored on something computerized. In which case…" Silas trails off, grinning.
A startled, almost nervous breath leaves Asi at that. Something for her to do? Something for her to interface with? Something like a smile wants to come forward, but caution reins it back in. Her expression morphs in the shadows and eventually she shakes her head. "Should we be so lucky," is all she'll allow at the moment, and she takes in a deep breath, eyes flicking back in the direction of the fires.
"You'd said–" she segues as much to distract herself from that thought as much to get back on topic. "You'd talked about the Network, too?" A look back to Silas precedes a wonder of, "Anything interesting in it?"
"A little bit," Silas replies, his grin turning into something more like a grimace for a moment before shifting into a worried frown. "First, that he can redact information from memories he's sharing — though he said that can be noticed, if you're looking for it. Second… he's got safety concerns about linking conduit users in. He said something about there being a chance that Nathalie killed some people who were linked in while they were undergoing some 'mad science experiments'."
She blinks once, then twice. "N… Nathalie?" Asi echoes back, bewildered. "I'm guessing you mean from their side? Because, she…" There's a slight shake of her head, then. There were whispers, of course, about the thing that had changed Gillian following Peter's return and his death. It definitely didn't have anything to do with Nathalie. "But all right. That's… probably not an issue."
"Yeah, Nathalie over on that side," Silas says with a small, absent wave. "At least I'm guessing."
Probably not an issue isn't Silas's assessment, but he doesn't pursue the point, only shrugs. "He just said that's why he didn't link Richard in early on — because Richard had it then."
He hesitates for a moment — Elliot's evasion on the issue of other 'potential' negative interactions worries him — but then shakes his head and moves on. "The only other thing I've got is that one of the earliest co-hosts apparently had an ability similar to mine," he says, shifting his grip on the rock, and flashing a rueful smile that he doesn't really feel. "Don't know how useful that is, mind, but since it came up…" he pauses, shrugging. "Figured I'd share."
The news that Richard had a conduit puzzles Asi, just as much as him apparently not having it now. "I… missed something, I think." He didn't have a life-destroying aura about him, she thought. But who knows, maybe he'd hid it fairly well. Her eyes flit off to the side as she remembers Gillian's spell during the ambush on the bus, and she represses a shudder. "This conduit thing changes people, but I didn't know it could just be given at will."
"I think it's a special circumstances apply kind of thing," Silas says heavily. "I don't know all the specifics. Apparently Nathalie had one over in the other world, which she passed to Richard when she died." He lets out a slow breath. "Doc Gray's healing also came from a conduit ability, which she passed on to Chess when she died… so from what I'm guessing, passing these conduits usually involves someone dying."
Silas frowns as he considers. "Though Richard seems to be an exception to that. Not sure when he passed his off, either."
With the pieces Nathalie had it, passed it to Richard, and not sure when all lining up, Asi feels a chill run underneath her skin. It's Silas' own words coming back to haunt her. She didn't hear Natalie Grey's warning in her hollow shock at her hands having been frayed to nothing and then returned to her, but she remembers Silas repeating what the bird-wielding healer woman had said.
Nathalie was shot. Tell Richard.
She agrees. It feeds off of and circulates in death. Asi manages to find her voice, sounding unnerved, "When… we were attacked. She must've… died. Richard got to her, but she died, and he must've…"
Why hadn't Nathalie freaked out? Why was she still acting normal, more or less herself? Of all the revelations that happened after the ambush, that hadn't been one of them. She tries to reason it out loud. "Okay, so– Gillian has one kind, which harms. ばあちゃん had one which heals, and Chess has it now. That must be the kind Richard had, too, but he brought it from somewhere else, and now– Nathalie has it." That's the only way she can rationalize it; why both Richard was safe to be around, and why Nathalie hadn't quarantined.
She pauses, finding the entire thing unsettling. "… There's something significant about all that, I think, and I don't know what." Her head starts to shake as she wonders for a moment, "Do you think their Eve has the 'harm' kind from their side, too? She's not like Mad Eve was."
"Why the fuck did the people who sent them here shunt unique abilities like that all the way over here? Why were they better here than there?" Her nose twists. "なんかクサイ3."
Silas frowns slowly. "Right… of course. You're right," he says, nodding as the pieces click together. "Richard was worried about Nathalie killing Gracie…" he murmurs aloud, frowning.
The question of Eve sees Silas's frown deepen. "I don't… think she's got one of the conduits." Though he doesn't know, either. Not for sure. "Eve was there at Sunspot. She died there… then later she came back with whatever she's got now. I don't think it's a conduit, but I don't know what it is, either."
Her suspicion surprises him, though. "You think there's something afoot there?" he asks, frowning. "Makes sense to me. When you're up against the end of the world, you want to send your best." His frown deepens, sours. "Although… from what Elliot was saying, he thought something smelled at the top of OEI — the group that organized this whole expedition." He shrugs. "Maybe you're right. Maybe there's something there. Or maybe not."
When Silas says she died there, all Asi can do is fix him with a pointed stare, brows raised particularly high. She feels like her point makes itself. "It's not not a Conduit," she ventures under her breath, not willing to beat the dead horse too loudly.
Which just leaves them with the sour reality. "Yeah, well," she sighs. "They're not in blade's reach, and they aren't ever likely to be. Knowing that there's a bad actor that might've wanted to get rid of them, make sure they were out of the way, though…" Her tongue smirches off the roof of her mouth as she dithers, "If we ever got the chance…" It seems she knows who she'd prioritize to make it through.
Asi shivers abruptly and it comes with a momentary stamp of her feet, hands rubbing together almost violently. "Damn, I miss that fire already," she swears to herself. Then she thinks harder for a moment on what's been said, cycling back, and nods upward to Silas. "You know, though– if Elliot knows how to overclock your ability already, you should let him. Maybe practice in advance, so if things get dangerous… you can keep us safe, and not put yourself into a coma doing it." This, said with a frown for that hypothetical potential outcome.
Silas shrugs at Aces's murmured comment about Eve's ability; the fact of the matter is he doesn't know what it is, so he can't authoritatively say it isn't a Conduit.
When she suggests letting Elliot overclock his ability, though, he goes still. For a moment he's silent… then he lets out a slow breath. "I'll… think about it," he says heavily, and while it's not hard to pick up the reluctance behind those words, he still means them.
Asi gives that a beat, in her way to respect his feelings on the matter. Then she wonders, carefully, "What worries you about the Network? I'm not sure you've ever said it outright."
And there it is. What does worry him about the Network? With anyone else, Silas probably would have tried to gloss over it, make some self-deprecating quip and… deflect. Dodge the question with a laugh and a grin and never look back.
But this isn't anyone else.
"Part of it," he finally says, "is just me not liking the idea of sharing what's in my head. Even though it's not the same as telepathy. That part is on me. I know that."
"But that's not the only reason. Another part of it is something he said early on — about telepathic abilities potentially backfeeding through the network. Compulsions proving contagious. And if that's even a possibility, it makes sense to have someone out of the loop, don't you think?" he asks.
Asi considers that, even if it makes her sigh. She trusts herself better than that, but neither has she built up a good firewall of her own against sharing more than she means to share– drawing more than she means to draw, where it comes to the Network. Perhaps she ought to, in this practice sees they're about to embark on.
"It's intimate," she's forced to acknowledge. "Sharing… skillsets. And now, memory. It's things I…" Her eyes narrow at nothing, reconfirming what she's about to say before she does it. "It's not just words. It's… seeing life before the 氾濫, as it was. As I felt. That and… other memories of importance."
Of the time she gave herself over to hope, to thinking of the future. She tries to form the words to explain, but shies away from them. It's easier to think about than to speak about, when it comes to things that precious.
Asi shakes her head to reset herself. "You are as vulnerable to telepaths on your own as you are linked, I might argue," she remarks thoughtfully. "If you are stronger against them, if you have better willpower, you could help break the chain of influence. But the sharing is normally feeling and being, not… explicit thought. This Index is the closest thing to it, but even that is– it's closely partitioned." She sniffs, allowing, "So… if someone were to be influenced, Index the influence, and then invite others to interact with the infected Indexed object, it…"
"… That's also, though, just a theory," she reconciles the thought. "And Elliot hasn't shared everything about the Network. How much of that is because it just hasn't been relevant versus how much of it he wants to hide is something I may find out soon."
Silas remains silent, really listening as Aces speaks; when she finishes, he lets out a sigh, and again seems to relax a bit. "It's hard to say," he admits. "And maybe I'm worrying too much. People've been linking up to his BrainWeb for awhile now and nobody's exploded yet. Hell, I linked up to his BrainWeb for a bit and haven't exploded."
Silas falls silent for a moment, chewing his lip as he thinks. "It's just… every now and then, something kinda strikes me as a little off, you know? He mentioned the bit about the Conduit maybe killing a bunch of people when it was linked in, then he mentioned that my ability — or one very similar to it — hadn't had any weird ability interactions. But when I asked if there'd been any other hazardous interactions, he's immediately like, why do you assume there have been other hazardous interactions?" Silas says, shaking his head with worry and frustration. "And he never did answer the question, either."
After a moment he looks back to Asi plaintively. "Am I worrying too much, you think?"
Asi has to chew on that for a moment. Finally, she answers softly, "No."
"No, I think your assessment of him back in Chicago still stands. That he's evasive, maybe worse." Her own interest in the man and his ability aside, those wariness-inducing traits still existed. "You have a good gut feeling on things, and I've maybe been too invested in… using him," because when it boiled down to it, that's what it was, "to pay better mind about that." It comes with its own sigh, as she can acknowledge the information, but still not know what to do about it.
"We've verified short term uses are safe," she can say confidently. "The longer game, what I'm about to embark on, that's the thing to keep an eye on." Asi gestures toward Silas with a lift of her chin and notes, "And I trust you to tell me if I start acting weird. Like him, or…"
She's not sure, so she just shrugs.
Silas nods as Asi speaks. It's a relief, in a way, to know that she agrees with his assessment of Elliot; that they are, at least, reading off the same page. The downside is that, by her own implication, what she's about to embark on is the dangerous part.
For a moment, the thought of trying to talk her out of it hovers in the back of his mind… but it's a hopeful fancy that never even makes it to the point of serious consideration. He knows her well enough, his fearless first mate and best friend, to know that she will not back down on this. So for all the worry he feels — and the implication she raises of her starting to act like someone else, the half-imagined nightmare of someone else looking out from behind her eyes, is something he finds gut-clenching — he gives her his best smile. "I'll keep my eyes on you. I've got your back," he says, extending a hand to her.
The muted clasp of glove against palm isn't as satisfying a sound as she'd care for, but it's nonetheless a pact. Asi mods firmly, feeling grounded by it.
"In the meantime," she says with far more grim in her voice than before. "I'm fucking freezing. I think it's time for me to go heat me up one of those, and think about bed." Her head nods back toward the direction of the firegleam, and she pulls back her hand to herself so she can shove them in her pocket. Her chin lifts after as she looks back to Silas. "But…"
Maybe one more thing first.
"How's the rallying going otherwise?" she wonders. "Get the chance to talk to any of them besides Elliot yet?"
"Had a chat with Castle," Silas answers. "They agree with Richard's call to put me in charge, which will make things easier," he says, the dubious expression on his face clearly showing his surprise on that front. "Other than that… not yet. Trying to pick my moments and make sure they're good ones."
Asi catches herself beginning to arch an eyebrow at Silas' surprise, but eases her expression back in the dark, letting out a thoughtful hm instead. "That's one less person to convince," she agrees gamely. "Probably farther than I'd get, too." This, with a self-aware snort of derision at herself. "Maybe add Leroux to the list, if she's… I don't know, part of them now by nature of having that… Conduit thing."
She shakes her head to herself, then starts to rock herself to her feet. "I sat down with her for a few minutes in Chicago, after the meeting with that 'Administrator'. She… seemed interested in being closed to Tay, to Richard. Said they were both family. Just wanted to be by them." Shuffling into the area at the top of the bus' steps, she acknowledges almost unwillingly, "… The more I'm saying it, it sounds like I should talk to her, though. Maybe I've got more recent, ah…"
There's a moment where she automatically reaches for the Index, and it's not there. Elliot, Wright, and the others-networked's more native grasp on the English language is only a memory of a memory, presently. She lets it linger for a moment, trying to remember on her own, before she waves a hand and supposes, "I've talked to her more recently, after all."
Silas tilts his head slightly, but nods after a moment. "Well, if you're offering, I won't argue," he says. "Truth be told, I've never really known LeRoux that well. We never really talked in the Ark, or in the Pelago after I came back," he admits with a sigh.
For a moment he lets himself linger on that, flirting with self-recriminations, before he drags himself back to the here and now, flashing Aces a grin. "Well. Keep me posted, alright? On that, and how your Network exploration goes," Silas says, nodding. His grin widens. "And I hope you can find a nice rock to toast."
Asi's cheeks blow out in a ultimate sigh of sincerity, glancing back at him and gravely confessing, "You and me both." before pushing the door back open and heading out into the night.