Title: A Visit to the Home Office
Rating: PG
Pairings/Characters: Mohinder, Mira, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Illyria
Warnings: none
Word count: 3,556
Disclaimer: Heroes belongs to Tim Kring, NBC et al.
Summary: Post-S4, Mohinder gets an interesting job offer from an old friend. (Crossover with Angel: The Series)
A/N: Thank you to my bodacious and awesome beta! Originally written for the Heroes Exchange over on LJ.
When the call comes in, Mira is eager to take it. She pushes Mohinder from the room, and he watches her in bemusement from the breakfast nook, sipping his morning tea as she gestures wildly. It's an old university friend on the phone, a connection long lost. She brightens at the reintroduction, smile animating her face as she speaks.
Mohinder's recollection of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is colored sepia by nostalgia. He remembers the warm wood of the tables they shared while studying, the dim lights of the libraries, and the soft feel of pages underneath his finger tips. He remembers Wesley's refined voice in his ear, discussing theories of genetic migration and deep archetypes embedded in the collective unconscious.
It's not just a familiar voice in her ear that makes her eyes gleam with excitement, however. It is an offer. Mira has always been ambitious. She has always fought to inculcate a similar ambition in Mohinder.
She has always failed.
Since returning to India – again, and for good – Mohinder has led the sedate life of an academic. He reads. He writes. He teaches students. He does not hare off half way across the world to pursue mad theories, nor madder men.
"You're going," Mira decrees the moment she hangs up the phone. Mohinder suspects that she thinks he has followed her conversation and therefore knows what she's talking about.
"I'm going where?"
"New York City." Mohinder blanches and Mira comes to settle next to him on a stool, taking his hands in hers as she looks up at him earnestly. "It is a wonderful opportunity Mohinder. You have become such a recluse. This will be good for you."
"I can't say I agree," Mohinder murmurs, a wry twist to his lips. New York City has brought nothing but tragedy to him, and he to it. He is not keen to return.
Mira stands, crossing her arms.
"You drift, Mohinder," she says.
And that is final. He will go.
Wesley meets him at the airport. More correctly, an anonymous, unpaid, spotty intern meets Mohinder at the airport. He leads Mohinder swiftly to an idling limousine parked on yellow striped pavement forbidding just such behavior.
"I'll get that for you, sir," mutters the intern, heaving Mohinder's modest luggage into the back before disappearing.
Mohinder frowns and looks about, feeling a shiver deep inside. He would prefer to avoid super powers, thank you. He won't even watch the interviews on TV. Mira teases his skittishness. She likes to murmur quotes from the latest interview with Claire in his ear over dinner, or leave a tabloid detailing Ando and Kimiko's wedding preparations on the coffee table, but Mohinder is steadfast. He's done with that world.
With a sense of trepidation and disconcerting familiarity, Mohinder sighs, reaching out to open the limousine door.
"It is not a trap," Wesley offers. He is tucked far back into the corner of the back seat, a whiskey neat clutched in one hand. A drop of condensation rolls down from the lip of the glass, trailing water over Wesley's hand. It seems rather pale.
That is not the only noticeable change to Wesley's appearance. He has aged, as they all have, although Wesley does seem well preserved despite that. There is a weariness in his eyes and a roughness to his voice that was not there before. Mohinder remembers Wesley as a man filled with bright, youthful spirit – if not altogether competence.
On that mark, he and I certainly had a lot in common, Mohinder thinks ruefully. There is a new confidence to Wesley's posture, and Mohinder can only hope that he too shows that growth. He is not the passionate naïf who struggled so hard to follow in his father's footsteps anymore. What his travails and mistakes have transformed him into, he does not yet know. He merely feels the change.
Mohinder slips into the car, diffidence falling away some as he takes in his surroundings. It is all very average – for a plush, overpriced luxury vehicle, in any case.
"It doesn't look like a trap," Mohinder agrees.
"When it is a trap, it will look like one," Wesley continues. "We're very good about that at Wolfram and Hart. We like to be upfront about precisely how evil we are."
Mohinder's stomach turns over. Discreetly, he tries the handle of the limousine.
Next to him, Wesley sighs and drinks deeply.
"Really, it's not worth it. Trust me."
"And why should I do that?" Mohinder snaps.
Wesley's eyes narrow. Moving swiftly, he sets his drink down and angles his body toward Mohinder. Unbuttoning his suit jacket, he flips his jacket open, baring the bloody stain seeping from his side.
"Because I have tried." Mohinder pulls again and again at the door; Wesley rolls his eyes. "Really, however, we will be quite clear when we are trapping you. We, at the moment, are not."
Wesley buttons his suit carefully, fingers holding the jacket away from his side and then gently pressing it back against his wound, all the while looking down to ensure that no blood shows on the outside. He picks his drink up once more.
His tone is dry, more than a touch bitter as he adds, "Relax. Have a drink."
Mohinder does neither. He fidgets and twitches his way through the ride, trying again and again to think of ways to broach the gaping wound in Wesley's side. "Are you alright?" does not seem to truly cover it, nor does "So, what have you been up to these past fifteen years?"
He settles for an awkward cough.
"Wesley, are you …?"
"Dead?" That is not the question Mohinder was considering. His eyes widen in surprise as Wesley nods perfunctorily, gaze skipping over the passing cars out the window as he adds, "Yes. I have been for some time. Standard perpetuity clause."
"You have a contract," Mohinder begins, brow furrowing with thought, "for use of your ability?"
Wesley laughs – a sharp, grating sound that draws Mohinder's eyes to his throat. There is a noticeable line across it, suggesting a long healed cut.
"Ability? No, Mohinder. I think I have not done an adequate job explaining myself. We – that is, Wolfram and Hart – we do not deal in abilities, nor in Specials. We deal in magic." Wesley pauses, tilting his head to the side in consideration before adding, "And demons."
Mohinder does not actually remember Wesley being insane. This is a disturbing turn of events.
"Ah."
He pulls yet again, futilely, at the door. Shouldn't super strength be good for something? He'd had enough road trips with psychotics to last him a lifetime, thank you. And job offers, for that matter.
And, unfortunately, he is about to get another, complete with tour. They have arrived.
In relief, Mohinder fumbles with the door, pulling it open and hurrying to exit. His eyes dart around, taking in the small square of office buildings they parked in front of. One building is disturbingly familiar, as is the red, spiral sculpture in the fountain before it.
"Kirby Plaza?"
Wesley taps him on the shoulder and then seizes him bodily, turning him to face the building opposite the former headquarters of The Company. Emblazoned across the doorway in large, golden letters, it reads Wolfram & Hart, Attorneys at Law. It might as well begin "Abandon all hope" for the motivation Mohinder's legs feel to stride forward underneath it.
"Your company is opposite Primatech," Mohinder hisses to Wesley as they are waved through security. "You do not honestly expect me to believe—"
Wesley cuts him off, "That Peter Petrelli's long planned and devastating explosion almost occurred in front of the offices of the Company's biggest and most acrimonious rival by mere coincidence? No. I do not. Nor do the Senior Partners, no matter how many times Angela Petrelli may protest to the contrary."
When put that way, it's still no particular relief to Mohinder. Aside from hearing that the Senior Partners are not afraid of Angela Petrelli. That's always nice to hear.
Although the exterior of the Wolfram and Hart building is glass and chrome neomodernism just the same as the Primatech building across the square, the interior is a vast marble space of art deco ornamentation. Columns line the walls depicting stylzed gods that Mohinder suddenly realizes are not familiar. A bright sunburst halos out of the ceiling, rays of filligreed gold reaching across the pastel blue painted high above them. The private elevator is topped with a geometric cornice atop which an antique floor indicator sits. It does not have nearly enough numbers.
Unsettled, Mohinder takes his place beside Wesley in the elevator, watching as the other man carefully selects the highest floor.
"Is there anything you wish to tell me,r Wesley?" he asks, waving his hand around to encompass Wesley's injury and the whole of Wolfram and Hart. "Magic? Demons? How you died?"
Wesley's eyebrows climb at Mohinder's vehemence. After a moment's consideration, he reaches out, pulling lightly at the emergency stop. The elevator slows gently to a whisper smooth halt. Leaning backward against the mirrored surface of the elevator wall, Wesley turns to face Mohinder directly.
He can admit to a certain measure of relief at the sight, given that not only is Mohinder reflected, but Wesley's reflection is doubled in the opposing mirrors.
"Given the events of your life in the previous few years, I honestly thought you knew," Wesley says after a lengthy pause. "Genetic mutants are not the only strange creatures of the world, much though they grab the headlines these days. There is a mindbogglingly diverse assortment beyond that – vampires, demons, ghosts…"
"Leprechauns?"
"No," Wesley says, giving Mohinder a reproachful look. "We here at Wolfram and Hart seek to assist and contain the threats of such forces. It is not, I note, savory work. You will find yourself allied with demons, facing good and evil both arrayed against you."
"Very convincing sales pitch," Mohinder murmurs. "Why do you do it, then?"
"It is… necessary. I tried the alternative. And while world spanning epic battles against evil sound good in theory," here Wesley gestures toward his injured side, although he does not again reveal it, "they do not always work out in practice.
"Besides, it's really the only employer which can utililze my skills. Didn't you ever wonder what my thesis was in?"
"Genetic migration patterns…" Mohinder begins. To tell the truth, he had not spent much time speculating. Back then, he'd been more enamored of trying to discern the exact shade of Wesley's eyes.
"Of Ethros demons," Wesley finishes for him. There is an amused sparkle in his eyes.
"And now you work for an evil multi-national law firm," Mohinder says snippily. "Bit of a step down."
Wesley shrugs a shoulder – there is just a touch of stiffness to all his movements. Rigor mortis, Mohinder supposes. He feels queasy at the thought. He also feels queasy at the thought that he is taking this seriously. It's all preposterous. He can see the potentialities spinning out before him, far worse than anything he has been through since his father's death.
And not even in his specialty. Genetic aberrants he understands, particularly now that he is one. Vampires, magic, and undeath? Very much no.
Although the ideas… if they are true… they are recklessly tantalizing.
Mohinder wets his lips nervously, staring at the line of Wesley's back. He doesn't look like he's decomposing, and indeed, perhaps he is not. Mohinder would love to run some tests. Even take a pulse.
His fingers twitch at that idea and he can't help it, he has to push.
"Your death?"
Wesley slants a look over his shoulder from where he pushes the emegency stop back in, beginning their journey once more.
"A wizard did it."
The elevator dings before Mohinder can muster a response to that. The door opens onto a busy floor. No. A busy laboratory.
Mohinder is bemused.
"I thought Wolfram and Hart was a law firm."
"It is a state of the art, turn key, multi-tasking operation," Wesley rattles off. "Which is to say, no. It's whatever the Senior Partners want it to be. The lawyers are merely the outer most defenses."
A pretty brunette in a lab coat sweeps over to them.
"They're like the crispy candy coat on the big evil chocolate-y M&M of the law firm," she says with a wink and a grin. There is an underlying Texas twang to her voice, but it sounds off, clumsy. Rehearsed.
Wesley grabs her thin arm roughly, pulling her in close.
"Illyria," he hisses. "No."
Her head tilts mechanically and she offers a cold smile. In the same, warm voice as before, she replies, "Thought I'd just give ya'll a friendly greetin'."
"We will talk at home," Wesley says.
Illyria nods. Her voice is calm and ominous as she agrees, "We will."
She shakes him off, going back to her work. Mohinder's eyes follow her, tracing out the jerky, almost insect-like movement of her body.
"Is she dead, too?" he asks.
"No. She is an intractably arrogant nuisance." He breathes deeply and unnecessarily, before adding, "She's also god-king of the primordium. And inhabiting the body of my girlfriend."
That second sentence does not actually take "dead" off the table, in Mohinder's estimation. However, he can admit that he is hardly an expert in all of this.
Collecting himself, Wesley begins to give a tour.
"This is our practical science division. The budget, while not infinite, at times may appear so. Wolfram and Hart R&D is one of the gentler aspects of the company, if there could be said to be such. We have particle accelerators, uranium enrichment, and a variety of microfuges at your whim and disposal."
Wesley leads Mohinder over to a furiously concentrating scientist working to sequence DNA at a computer. There are far too many chromosomes and base pairs being plotted, and Mohinder wants to linger and ask questions. Wesley gives a cursory look at the material before shaking his head.
"Basic Davric genealogical research. I'm sorry the showing is so poor today. Your work, of course, would be of a far more revolutionary and insightful sort."
"My work?" Mohinder asks in disbelief. "I think you have far too much faith in me – and yourself. What possesses you to believe that I want to work here? Or even know how? Wesley, I'm a scientist. I have no background in demonology!"
"You can learn."
"I don't want to learn. I have a comfortable life, in India. Why would I want to move back to New York City to work for an evil company?"
"Firstly," Wesley says, tone very dry. "Because you have before, if you recall your short lived stints with both Primatech and Pinehearst. And secondly, because you do not enjoy a comfortable life. You came all the way here, just for this opportunity."
"It was Mira's choice."
"Oh. Well. That's rather…" Wesley coughs and frowns, trying to rethink his sales pitch. "That's rather different then. Just one moment."
Wesley pulls his cell phone from his pocket, wandering away to speak privately with what Mohinder presumes are the Senior Partners. Left to himself, Mohinder explores the laboratory, hovering over the shoulders of scientists — evil scientists, he reminds himself . He watches as they bend small pieces of space-time, and he thinks of Hiro. In a different corner, a scientist tries to distill emotion into usable concentrate, and Mohinder thinks of Peter with a brief smile.
He wanders left, taking in the pristine air of the laboratory. It is nothing special, although it brings back many similar memorable of that clean staleness. It is something he could enjoy, he thinks.
His feet propel him while he muses to himself, and he ends up in a small morgue, complete with medical examiner. The creature he cuts into is red skinned and blue veined, and Mohinder does not recognize it as sentient, let alone human, but the medical examiner cuts in to its skull, removing the cap to expose brain and Mohinder shudders deeply in horror.
No. This is not something he could enjoy. Never.
Mohinder turns in a circle, eyes desperately searching for an exit, right when Wesley reappears. He places a steadying hand on Mohinder's shoulder, concerned eyes peering at Mohinder's suddenly flush face. His lips almost form a worried question, but Mohinder brushes it aside with a shake of his head.
Wesley straightens, pulling back.
"The Senior Partners have authorized me to make you another offer. One more… tuned to your concerns and interests."
Mohinder laughs – and he's fairly sure he restrains his hysteria.
"I don't want to work in this laboratory or any other."
"Oh, but you mistake us. You were not going to work in this laboratory. You would run it – Division Head of Practice Science. Our previous head," Wesley's expression darkened, eyes flicking over toward Illyria, "has proven unreliable.
"But, no matter! That offer is now off the table. We are discussing an entirely new position for you."
Wesley hustles Mohinder out the door, to a large foyer where the air is much crisper and less cycled, and then past that into a plushly decorated room full of wooden bookshelves – noticeably absent the books.
"You want me to stock your library?" Mohinder asks. He really is getting sick of this, old friend or no.
"This is our prophecy wing," Wesley says, gesturing broadly with his hand to the single table sitting in the middle of the room, the single row of books atop it.
He watches Mohinder closely for a reaction. Mohinder is aggrieved to realize he gives one readily – his posture straightens, his eyes go wide, and a very embarassing gasp issues from his lungs. But prophecies…in some ways, they are the center of so much that has gone wrong. Mohinder himself got into the prediction game during the eclipse, only to have his hopes torn away. And while Mohinder has little experience with the realm of the magical, he does know there is plenty of prophecy in the world. So, again, Wesley's demonstration seems a little anticlimactic.
Until Wesley picks up one of the books. Holding it close, almost in an embrace, he raises it to his mouth, whispering across the spine, "The complete works of Isaac Mendez, volume one."
With a flair for dramatic that Mohinder remembers well from Oxford, Wesley opens the book and presents it to Mohinder even as the pages bleed ink and shape themselves into the first painting Isaac blindly created. But for style, it is unfamiliar to Mohinder – an unfortunate woman running in front of a bus. He reaches out carefully to grasp the sides of the book, fingers touching the image lightly. Despite the earlier, fluid appearance of the ink, the colors do not run.
"That book," Wesley says, bringing Mohinder's attention abruptly to him. "is a template of fulfilled prophecy made within the contiguous United States. There are, of course, many other templates. Unfulfilled prophecies, histories of our world, histories of alternate worlds, and the complete literary canon of the world."
"Complete?"
"If you want to read a scroll from Alexandria," Wesley says, walking down the row of books to tap on slender volume on the top, "it is at your fingertips."
"What's the job?" Mohinder asks, voice rough. He has been tempted before. It has been nothing like this.
"Head of Magical Studies – which includes full access to the templates, of course. Hours would be minimal. Those templates can travel anywhere in the world. The pay would be substantial, but I think we can both agree that the real key," Wesley says, coming around behind Mohinder to take the template from him, shutting it right in front of his face, "is knowledge."
"I don't know anything about magic."
He is fading and he can feel it, hungry eyes watching as Wesley slots the book back onto the shelf.
"Ah. But wouldn't you like to?"
Mohinder feels a smile spread across his face. Yes, Wesley has reiterated the "evil" caveat multiple times, but that's hardly news in the corporate world. This phenomenal world of information and understanding unfolding before him, that is new.
"But what about you?" Mohinder asks softly. "Isn't this your job?"
Wesley offers a crisp smile.
"I am your liaison to the Senior Partners. But if you want, I could come up from time to time. We could research."
Mohinder does not remember a great deal happening during those research sessions. Work or otherwise. He'd been too shy.
"I'll have to ask Mira," he returns. Wesley's smile turns warmer, just a bit more human, and Mohinder wonders suddenly just what he talked to Mira about.
"If you'll excuse me," Wesley says, turning for the door. "I'll leave you to get acquainted with the books. I have an elder god to get back to. She gets cranky when I'm late."
The door slides shut behind him with a very quick click. Mohinder breathes in deeply, smelling an earthy, strange scent he can't identify. Maybe it's magic. Comfortable? No. Reckless? Incredibly.
Mohinder reaches for the book of prophecy, thumbing open to the later pages of Isaac's work before reaching for the twin book, the one of unfulfilled prophecies. He just wants to know what happens next.
And besides, Mira has always wanted him to be ambitious.