Participants:
| Scene Title | Underpromotion |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The leaders of Messiah are playing chess and angling to use their newest pawn. |
| Date | September 14, 2010 |
The Little Green House — Edgar's Attic
The attic, the messy messy attic, is something that might give Melissa a heart attack if she ever broke her promise to never venture up into Edgar's personal space. Trunks and junk and piles of stuff are lumped all over, ready to be scrounged through at a moment's notice. Most of it wouldn't even get a dollar per item at a pawn shop, but for some reason, it's all collected here.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, Edgar is holding a tin box with a little level on the side, plunk plunk~ plunk plunk~ plunk plunk plunk plunk plunk~ And the lid pops open to reveal a clown on a spring. Wavering from side to side, its red smiling lips only serve to remind the man of a home he's lost.
The clown is pushed back in and the speedster slowly winds the little metal key around and around. The off-key tune of 'Pop Goes the Weasel' would drive anyone insane, but Edgar's not really paying attention to the music, or even the clown. He has his mind on Lydia, Lydia who is in New York right now and looking for him.
Nor does he have his mind on the smoke drifting up through the floorboards.
Melissa's house isn't on fire, however. The smoke wafts up through the gaps in the floorboards, coalesces in thick tendrils and eddies, then starts to gather in a swirling column like that of a slowly cycling tornado, all gray and brown and dirty. In the smoke, there's a silhouette of a man slowly taking form, and as if by a strong wind the haze around him is blown away, revealing that Peter Petrelli comes and goes with the same tricks.
Dressed differently than before, Peter's all-black attire is little more than a well-worn pair of leather pants, motorcycle boots and a tanktop tucked into his pants. A red scarf hangs loosely around his neck, one long trailing end frayed and ragged. For all that clothing slims him, in the tanktop he wears the fact of his athleticism is revealed in muscled shoulders and arms. He's not the wiry young man that was chasing after Sylar anymore.
"Edgar," is offered with both hands lifting in the universal sign of I mean you no harm. Peter Petrelli just chooses not to knock.
The moment the swirling vapors starts solidifying into the shape of man, Edgar drops the music box to the floor with a clatter and has his knives out. His eyes get stuck on the leather pants, then the tank top, and the scarf. "Are you one 'o tha' bosom cupcake man's friends? 'Cause I don' go tha' way.. I — Pe'er, righ'?" One of the knives is slowly put away and the speedster's right hand is extended in greeting. There's still a rather suspicious look in his eyes as he regards the smoking man, but he's one of Melissa's friends, apparently.
"Melissa's downstairs, I think she wanted teh talk to you." The carnie's smooth voice is cracking a little. One might believe it's from a touch of the emotion displayed at the music box, but the glint in his blue eyes betrays a bit of mirth. "She's qui'e upset wi' you… or somethin'."
Peter's eyes narrow for just a moment, considering Edgar thoughtfully. "She'll get over it," isn't the most confidence inspiring answer her could give. "Do you have a cell phone?" One of Peter's brows lifts up slowly as he approaches Edgar, slowly and cautiously, looking down to the jack in the box tipped over on the floor, then back up to the speedster, eyeing the faintly visible injection scar under his chin from his time in Moab, one that Peter too has, mostly hidden by the scruff of his beard.
"Have you talked to Rupert yet? Anyone other than Melissa?" One of Peter's brows lifts up slowly as his head angles to the side, looking Edgar up and down before stopping just outside of arm's reach. "Your answers to that are extremely important."
This… isn't the usual sales pitch.
"I've talked wi' all sort'sa people since yesterday, I been lookin' for a member of my family. I dunno 'oo this Rupert fellow is you're talkin' about, though." The ignored hand is lowered and the knife that's still in the other hand is whipped away, out of sight. The speedster narrows his eyes at Peter with more than just a little bit of suspicion before licking his lips. "Mind tellin' me wha' it's abou'? 'Cause I ain' no mind reader…"
Scooping the little toy off the floor, he tucks the clown back into the box and snaps the lid shut. Then his eyes wander toward Peter again and he lofts one eyebrow toward the ceiling. "An' yeah, I 'ave a cell phone, it's over there." Balancing the cube in one hand, he gestures over toward one of the trunks where a jacket has been carelessly thrown over it. "'Sin the pocket."
Brown eyes meet Edgar's for just a moment before Peter stalks over to where Edgar's jacket lays, Lifting the coat up he fishes around in the pocket, finding the cell phone. Turning it around in his hand, Peter offers a nod before sliding the back open and removing the battery, tossing the phone into the bed and keeping the battery in his palm.
When his dark-eyed attention turns back to Edgar, Peter's brows furrow and there's a look in his eyes, something between desperation and anxiety. "Edgar," Peter implores with a sharply exhaled breath, "I need to ask you to do a favor for me."
Before the phone lands, it's caught in Edgar's palm and turned over for inspection. "Tha's a bi'.. strange." He murmurs lowly, turning back to face Peter. The carnie is still wearing the same polyester pin stripes that he was in the day before, but he's paired it with a different shirt. One not so bright.
Slowly, he gets up off the bed and tosses the phone onto one of the other trunks that's been stacked into the room. "Wha' sort'a favor?" The knife thrower isn't a trusting man by nature, something that might be quite clear to the battery wielding man in the corner. "I s'pose i' ain't somethin' you trust one'a your comrades with?"
"No," Peter states in a hushed tone of voice, shaking his head slowly. "Look, Edgar, I'm really sorry to get you involved in this, but you were going to be either way. I'm going to explain some things to you, things I haven't told anyone else. The only reason I'm trusting you with this is because you're on the outside, if you were with Messiah already I wouldn't know if I could trust you with this. I— don't even know if I need to, but— I just— too many coincidences are stacking up."
Walking past Edgar, Peter moves to one of the tiny attic windows, looking out into the yard below. "There's a few weeks of time this winter that I can't remember clearly," Peter explains in a hushed tone of voice, "I didn't think much of it, probably never would have, if it weren't for the fact that— apparently— I died." Turning around to look at Edgar, Peter arches one brow. "A healer brought me back, an Evolved healer. Whatever he did, it— did something to my head. Ever since then, I've been noticing things… inconsistencies in my memory, little blind spots showing up. I'll be saying something, then just… stop, midstream and go somewhere else."
Peter looks over to the other side of the attic from where he and Edgar stand, squinting at the clutter. "I think there might be something suspicious going on in Messiah. I think… I don't know, I think someone's trying to set us up to take a fall, or… I don't know. All I do know is that I'm not sure who in the organization I can trust anymore."
Offering the battery to Edgar's cell phone out, Peter warns, "Don't use it unless you have to, keep conversations short. Never leave the phone powered on for more than five minutes. There's a technopath in the group, I think he might be compromised." Sliding his tongue over his lips, Peter looks back to the attic window, then back to Edgar.
"I need you to meet up with two people for me," reaching inside of his pants pocket, Peter withdraws a folded piece of paper and holds it out alongside the battery. "The first name on the list is Ash, he's a member of Messiah, but he was one of the first people that warned me something weird might be going on. He lives out in the Rookery in an abandoned pawn shop. His address is on there, I need you to and Ash to talk to the second man on the list. His name's Richard Cardinal, tell Richard that I need to set up a secure meeting with him. I put the address of his business on the paper…"
What has Edgar gotten himself into?
Taking the folded piece of paper in hand, "Apparently— You died…" The tone from the juggler sounds a bit disbelieving, but stranger things have happened. An entire prison full of inmates just vanished and left Edgar by himself in some desert in Mexico. As for the cell phone and the battery? Well, the battery gets chucked to the side without getting put back together. He'll have to explain that to Smedley later, maybe give him an excuse or specific times to call.
"So this Ash fellow, 'e's no' been compromised either? Or am I goin'teh 'ave to keep an eye on 'im?" The way the man asks, it seems as though he might just keep an eye on him anyway, no matter what Peter says. Unfolding the paper, the carnie reads it over to himeself a few times before its folded up again. "An' wha' other types'a things should I be keepin' an eye out for? Don' talk near televisions an' video games? Or jus' cell phones?"
Scissoring the slip of paper between his two fingers, he holds it out toward the smoking man again. He's already got the contents memorized and anything short of eating the slip for extra fiber, it's got no use to him. It certainly wouldn't do to leave it around if he can't even trust his room mates.
"Electronics that can receive wireless signals, things with microphones. I'm going to give you another cell phone too, to keep up appearances. Everyone in Messiah gets one, but I forgot it today." That much is said a little tongue-in-cheek. "Ash is as close to trustworthy as I'm sure I can get, he's the one who pointed out some things to me, so I can only hope that whatever's going on hasn't gotten to him yet. Ash is a really paranoid guy, but he was in Moab too. You should be able to earn his friendship by playing that angle. Tell him I told you about what you warned me about, about how Rebel was acting funny…"
Unwinding the scarf from around his shoulders, Peter offers it out to Edgar. "This is something you'll need to wear too. It's a symbol of the membership of Messiah, it's… it's cut from the same cloth as everyone else's scarves. It's a show of solidarity against the government, against things like Moab." Brows furrowed, Peter takes a step towards Edgar.
"Rupert wanted you to join Messiah for a reason, I've heard people say they don't think he can be trusted. I— I have a bad feeling, because those memory holes I have… I— I can't remember when I met Rupert. He's told me a dozen times how we first met, but Edgar… I can't remember ever meeting him before. I don't even remember exactly how I became the leader of Messiah… not clearly."
Exhaling a deep sigh, Peter shakes his head. "Most of all, I want you to keep an eye on Melissa for me. It's— it's too risky for me to let her in on this, especially if someone's looking to see if I act out of line. I'm going to need you and Ash to take on a mission for me after you talk to him, I might have you bring Cardinal on too if you can get in touch with him. It isn't going to be safe, but I need to find out if the things I have bad feelings about are just— just me jumping at shadows— or…"
Brown eyes angle towards the jack in the box on the floor. "Or if there's something else going on here."
It's all a little out there and before reaching out to take the scarf, the red piece of cloth is eyed with suspicion. It's finally whisked out of Peter's hands and held between both of Edgar's as he continues to peer at it. A symbol of a family that can't be trust anymore, ironic. "How'd you fin' me anyways? Melissa invitin' me to stay 'ere, was tha' all this Rupert's plan?" There's a twitch that appears in the carnie's left eye, making it look like he's about to wink every once in a while.
Having never even seen Rupert before, yet knowing there's some sort of conspiracy surrounding him, it's enough to set the already shifty man on edge. "Wha' reason d'you think 'e wanted me for? To run packages over state lines? Tha' li'l blonde thing from the barbeque'd be better at it than I.. She's a might faster. Bit clumsy though, terrible tumble she must'a taken teh get so much road rash."
"I didn't find you, Melissa did." There's a reluctant shrug of Peter's shoulders. "Rupert told me about you, didn't explain where he'd heard about you from, but he had a photograph of you and told me about something that happened down in Florida, some— baseball thing?" One of Peter's brows rise slowly. "I put out a notice to Messiah to look for you, and it just happened that Melissa found you first. I only got to thinking about all of this after seeing Rupert at Melissa's house the other night."
Looking askance to the window he'd checked before, Peter shakes his head. "I need you to play dumb about why you don't have a phone yet. I forgot it, that's all that really matters for now. As for Melissa, just… don't tell her anything. It's safer for her if she doesn't know." Something she'd hate to hear Peter say.
Only realizing belatedly that he'd failed to answer one question, Peter looks back to Edgar. "If I had to guess why Rupert wanted you, it's probably the same reason I'd want you around. You can kill someone before they realize it. That's a pretty big boon in any war."