Chapter One
"Judges"
Three Years Later
The wall of the employee lounge at Washington DC's FBI headquarters may as well have been one big trophy. Golden plates and wooden plaques were more visible then the cheap wallpaper and the giant "Employee of the Month" slab rested center stage.
A young woman reached out and ran her fingertips over the latest engravement: March 2013: Mary Whetsill.
Technically, there was no such person, and technically, the honor went to the woman standing before the plaque. But that plate could never say Claire Bennet, because there was no Claire Bennet. She'd been erased four years ago along with everything else in that little girl's life.
Not a girl anymore, though. A woman. A woman named Mary Whetsill that worked security in the FBI, and was the government's most dirty laundry.
She could see her reflection in the shiny metal. Same face and grey-green eyes, but long gone were the honey curls. Claire's hair was straight and chestnut now, an extra precaution to mask her individuality.
Though Claire worked hard, she suspected the real reason behind her latest achievement was because her indestructibility saved the FBI thousands. Rather then designing all new defense gear, they just threw Claire out in the field, let her do the dangerous work, and patch her up when she got back to OPs. If she could talk to Zach, he'd probably nickname her the FBI's Energizer Bunny.
The whole thing was hideously cruel at face value, but according to Nathan, it was the only way to keep her safe. If she was a secret weapon, then she would be under utmost protection. Erased. Deleted. Washed from the system. Or, when concerning the mutant database, never added at all.
To stay safe from the government, she was forced to join it.
Claire checked the shatterproof watch that was nearly as indestructible as her, and saw that her break time was nearly up. Sighing, she pushed past the lounge's door and padded down the sterile hallway, towards the security booth.
As she turned a corner to enter the Security and Defense wing, a fellow agent roughly slammed into her, too distracted by what he was doing to even apologize. The offender and his partner spoke in a rapid conversation concerning the Asian man they were hauling down the corridor.
"Where'd the sword get sent, Quinn?"
"Back to its owner in Vegas."
"Has he been restrained yet?"
"Yessir. We injected him as soon as he was down."
"Well done."
They went down another hall, slipping out of Claire's sight. She peered after her co-workers, unnoticed, probably picking up pieces that weren't for her ears. It was a habit she couldn't shake, however. It was blatant that the poor man was a mutant, someone like her that they'd recently bagged. She rubbed the underside of her wrist, shuddering, before remembering her place in all of this.
Mary Whetsill went to the security booth in silence.
xxx
A couple of the burlier guys in the FBI entered the interrogation room with Ebbot, Quinn, and the unconscious metahuman they schlepped in. Rarely was their assistance needed, since most prisoners were so freaked that they sang like canaries, but there was the occasional oddity...
Hiro Nakamura was one such find.
There was nothing he could do about the authorities figuring out his identity. When your mutant ID was slapped right on you, it was hard to charade around anymore. His sword was confiscated as well, so he was completely unarmed. If that wasn't enough, Hiro couldn't teleport out or stop time, either, thanks to the lovely new shoot-em-up: Temporary Restraining Serum. The injection was basically a quick fix of curare, something a Canadian scientist concocted a few months back.
But Hiro still had his dignity and wit.
Ebbot waved the info in front of Hiro's nose as soon as the Asian man awoke. "Hiro Nakamura, born in Japan. Ability to bend time and space." He looked up and grinned a little, but the smile didn't meet his eyes. "How cool."
The agent's gaze scanned across the paper a little more, overlooking all the minor details, until he came to the list of charges.
"Ah. Theft of an ancient artifact from a Daniel Linderman. Various homicides, other robberies throughout the country, break-ins, kidnappings..." Ebbot finally cocked his head at Hiro and leaned against the water cooler. "Damn, kid. That's one bad rap sheet. But that's not what we're here for today…"
Hiro sat in silence, almond eyes serene.
"Where is the headquarters for your underground organization? The one that keeps causing all this trouble?"
"I don't know what you are talking about," Hiro declared, boring holes into the cinderblock wall.
"Mmm-hmm," replied his interrogator, not absorbing the words at all. "Looks like you're gonna be difficult. Boys?" He shot pointed looks at the security thugs. "Give Nakamura some loose lips."
The second punch was the most painful to Hiro's round face, and they all sort of numbed him after that. When Hiro had actual marks to his face, Quinn called off the brutes.
"Now," Ebbot continued nonchalantly. "Where are the rest of your little treasonous friends?"
Hiro's eyes glinted with confidence. "No matter how much you hit me, I will not tell anything."
Ebbot smirked mischievously, already hailing over the guards again. "That's what they all say."
xxx
"Hey, Whetsill," grinned Chester from his position by the wall of televisions in HQ. Claire took a second too long to recognize that he was talking to her. She quickly recovered with a wave.
"Hi. Anything interesting?" She gestured to the black and white screens, a bird's eye view from all of the security cameras. Her friend shrugged back.
"Nah. Caught Luke picking his nose, but nothing else today. What about you?"
Claire was stoic. "I saw them taking another branded guy in."
Chester nodded approvingly. "Serves the freaks right." He caught the subtle forlorn in Claire's eyes and immediately regretted his statement. "Oh…sorry…I-I forgot that you…"
"It's cool," she said shortly. Everyone knew what she was, but no one really recognized her as "one of them." It was almost like you had to be tagged to be a freak in the eyes of the law.
"Well, you're not like them anyway," Chester added, retracing his steps. "I mean, you're with the good guys, so it really doesn't matter what your DNA looks like."
Claire absently wondered if he was attempting to hit on her, but was too distracted with chewing over 'the good guys.' It all had to do with point of view, an outlook that she, unlike her co-workers, could not channel.
Several other agents bustled around on the other side of the room, while Chester sat, lonely and bored, in the corner. He was the newb of the staff, not much fresher than Claire herself, so he got stuck with the crappy job.
One some days, though, it had the tendency to be fun.
"Mary, check this out," he whispered to Claire, pointing to a screen on the second row. "Wicked trenchcoat. I wonder if we get to wear those soon."
Claire frowned and peered at what he was talking about, not finding it wicked at all.
"I don't think that's one of us, Chester," she told him slowly, watching a raven haired man in a preacher's jacket make haste through the corridors. The two young agents followed his path through several different TVs before the invader incapacitated three guards on screen #35.
"Holy lord," Chester groaned.
"Breach!" Claire cried back to her coworkers. "I'm going after him!"
Her warning started a wildfire in the HQ room. Everyone stood up from their chairs all at once and grabbed the nearest phone or walkee talkie. Claire dove under the table and reached into a metal box, feeling the cool hilt of her pistol slide between her fingers.
As Claire loaded her gun, Chester pushed himself on his rolling chair to a map system on the computer.
"According to here, that camera is on…level three, near the Mutant Detainment and Interrogation wing."
"Then I'm off," Claire breathed, trying to keep the instructions to memory. She briskly sprinted out the front door before she could hear Chester call:
"Try not to eat any metal this time, Whetsill!"
xxx
Hiro tried not to get in the habit of expecting to be saved, per se, but he still retained that cocky feeling in his gut. And lo and behold, instinct prevailed once again. Just as he was about to be hit into unconsciousness once again, all chaos broke loose for his captors.
Bodies flew all across the room, banging into walls, knocking over desks, until all four men were either dead or close to it. Hiro's savior tsked like it was nothing, and removed the bindings on his friend.
"I think you overdid it," Hiro flatly remarked, looking around at the carnage.
"I think they did too," the rescuer responded darkly, indicating Hiro's swollen face.
"I will heal. Now, the priority is my sword."
"Right. It's gotta be around here somewhere. C'mon…"
They blew through the heavy door, invisible, but not yet safe. Because five hundred feet away, a ruddy-faced kid named Chester saw it all on camera.
"Mary, he's got the latest inmate and they've just turned invisible," he screeched into the Walkee Talkie. "I'm sending someone over there with infrared, okay?"
Claire acknowledged his message and quickly pocketed her own Walkee Talkie. The back-up team met up with her at an intersection, and she explained to them what Chester just explained.
Dora Williams, an intern in the Tech wing, ran up to Claire. The college student thrust a pair of what looked to be binoculars in Claire's hand, before slumping up against a nearby wall in exhaustion.
Claire stared at the panting girl in slight worry, but the head of the backup squad screamed that "They're getting away!" and snapped her out of her reverie.
She kept the infrared binoculars glued to her eyes as the group clambered throughout the building. Alarms had been ringing for a while now, though Claire was not positive when they started. Everything had happened so fast already, and she kind of wondered when it would be done. REALLY done.
They ended up finding their target not far from the captive's holding room. Through Claire's infrared camera, she could see that one had his arms around the other, passing on his invisibility. She yelled out at them, but they made no move to stop off the crude shout.
This was the part she hated most about the job. Claire was a kind hearted cheerleader, not a gun wielding cop. In her three years at the FBI, she was fortunate enough never to have had to take someone's life. God, why couldn't they have just given her a tranquilizer gun?
Oh, right. Because mutants were expendable, that's why.
"Halt or I'll shoot!" she threatened again, and another squad of security detail flooded the hall from the other side. The two criminals were trapped, but still unseen. Claire was the only one able to view what she was actually aiming at.
This made things much more complicated. Though the teams could block off any exits, their weapons were useless. They would never risk misfiring and hitting one of their own on the other side of the hall. It was up to Claire now, and she had a dirty feeling in her heart that today was the day she would become a killer.
The two bad guys were slick, but apparently not of one mindset. While the rescuer stopped in his tracks, the original prisoner kept running forward until he shimmered into visibility and skidded into the backup team. Hiro was immediately restrained and Claire crept forward until the front of her gun was pressed between the trechcoated man's shoulder blades.
"Put your hands up!" she ordered, and to her surprise, he did what he heeded her instructions.
"Now slowly turn around. Go visible again," she continued, cold metal still digging into black cashmere.
What happened next was something none of them could have expected. The man flowed into perception as told, and he began to curve towards Claire. But before she could look at his face, she was suddenly pressed against his front with her own gun to her head.
The dark-haired man's slender index finger rested naturally on the trigger, firmly but breezily holding up the black revolver to Claire's temple. His other arm crossed the front of her, starting at her hip, going through the valley between her breasts, and up to her shoulder, pinning her to him.
"Give me Hiro, or she's dead!" he shouted, spinning Claire to face both sides of her colleagues.
For the first time in six years, she was honest to God scared for her life. Could she really survive her brains being splattered onto the wall beside her? It was the single life/death test she hadn't attempted yet. Sure, a tree branch to the brain was one thing, but the force of a 9mm…
"Let go of Agent Whetsill, or we'll shoot!" retaliated the commander. Over twenty guns must have been pointed at the pair in the middle of the hallway.
"And risk her getting killed?" retorted the kidnapper doubtfully, nearly choking Claire with his fervor.
"Please," she found herself begging like a teenager again, shaking uncontrollably in her captor's arms. "Please don't do this."
"And why should I spare one of you?" he seethed in her ear, lips brushing against her jaw. It should have been terrifying…
…but Claire's spirit instead felt elated.
She recognized that voice. Hadn't heard it in four years, but those half-raspy half-youthful tones would be burned in her mind forever. The only question was: how in Hadeshad he ended up like this?
"Peter?" she whispered, clutching the arm that held her more out of affection than defiance. His grip loosened a little, and he frowned down at her.
"What?"
"Peter," she squeaked, placing her hand over the one he used to clutch her shoulder. "It's me."
He blew it off. He didn't know any girls named Whetsill with brown hair…most likely. He had been around the block a few times too many in the last couple years.
"You have to the count of three," warned Claire's boss. "Release her, now!"
Peter made no move to comply, but already a plan started to take shape in his head. No one noticed the furtive wink he gave Hiro, who looked confused, but winked back.
"One…two…"
BANG! The ear-splitting sound of Claire's pistol erupted throughout, making everyone in the room jump except for Peter and Claire. Peter knew it was coming, and Claire…well, Claire was a little bit worse for wear at the moment.
On the wall beside them was a mess of blood and tissue. Claire had a nasty wound that just grazed the top of her head and a few shards of molten metal in her skull to prove it. She lay limp in Peter's arms, lifeless head lolling on his shoulder, and that's when he finally saw her face.
"Claire," he choked. She was no longer a petite blonde girl; a shapely brunette woman now, and bleeding from her temple, but it was still his Claire Bennet. God, what was she doing, working here? And she was trying to tell him to stop, but he wouldn't listen…
The FBI finally regained their senses and started open firing. Peter blocked most of the bullets with a mental shield, but felt a couple pangs in his shoulders and thigh in reward for lack of a focused mind.
"HIRO!!" he screamed in part pain, part desperation. Peter outstretched his hand and pulled it back, sending Hiro Nakamura sliding across the floor towards him like a rollback Hot Wheels car. Once his friend met him in the middle, Peter, with Claire still curled against his torso, teleported the three of them out of chaos and into the slipstream.