A/N: At last they meet! Mwahaha! This chapter was fun to write. I'm quickly discovering that Mr. Bennett is lots of fun. Anyhoo, thanks for the darling reviews so far!!! You guys make me happyface =D This chapter also introduces a few original characters - please to be leaving them alone as they are part of a piece of original fiction that really kinda seems to mesh here, oddly enough, so plugged them in to use them for funsies.

I don't own Heroes or anything remotely related and I bow humbly before the television gods, please have mercy on me. Rated "M" for language, some violence, some blood & guts, and eventually some sexual imagery. And please review! If I've massively screwed something up, I'd like to know =D

4) Suits and Ties

'Can't believe they got him too,' Mohinder thought to himself as he sat frozen against the far wall of his cell, which was the texture and color of a white kitchen cutting board (an image that kept him from sleep on many occasions), in rapt fascinated horror as he watched the unconscious form of Sylar, bound and tied with a collar still fitted around his throat, carried into a cell of his own by two familiar black-suited figures. 'He was the one I thought for sure would get away... if he couldn't, what hope is there for the rest of us?'

Their cargo having been deposited and untied, one of the figures passed through a doorway at the end of the hall where he pushed a button on a console, one that Mohinder had seen utilized each time they drug their prisoner in and out for whatever the purpose. The clear, plexiglass-like outer wall of Sylar's cell descended from the ceiling, encapsulating him inside his own white cutting board prison. After the two figures had departed, Mohinder approached his own looking-glass wall slowly. He peered down to the opposite end of the hall, the last cell on the right, where he knew Peter to be held. Until Parkman, Molly, and Sylar had arrived, Peter had been the only other person there that he had known. Having nothing else to do but wait for their captors to carry out whatever plans they obviously had worked so hard to put into place, they had, in the meantime, made small talk. Peter had entrusted Mohinder with the knowledge that he had discovered shortly before his arrival (presumably from his mother) his brother was.... not who he had believed him to be. While he didn't speak on it long, there was an unmistakable edge to Peter's voice, one Mohinder easily identified with having possessed it himself once before, and one he understood intently. Peter had plans, and his current state of incarceration was a maddeningly frustrating detour. Peter stopped talking completely when Matt Parkman arrived.

Mohinder gazed at the cell in an attempt to catch Peter's eye or see some sign of what he was thinking, having had the object of his furious vengeance dragged past him in the most vulnerable state either of the two men had ever seen him in. He knew what a bitter pill it was to swallow acknowledging that the playing field between them had been leveled but the game had been postponed. Mohinder could see Peter's legs, bent as he sat on the floor, his back braced against the wall that partially obscured the view - he was as still as the eye of a storm, yet a maelstrom of emotions raged in clouds around him. Mohinder decided he would not press the situation lest he be a catalyst to what would surely be a disaster, and retreated to his spartan white bunk.

After lying in silence for a few moments he pulled his knees against his chest as a pang of guilt and sorrow slid through his insides yet again - this had become somewhat of a ritual. How could he have been so blind? He should have seen it coming when so many of his students at the University where he taught, students he knew to exhibit genetic anomalies resulting in special abilities, were recruited by the same pharmaceutical company in Yuma, Arizona. He shouldn't have been so naive when he was visited by scientists in suits and ties, with jovial faces and beguiling smiles and demeanors implying there was nothing to hide, with seemingly innocent questions about his old research - research he denied nonetheless, however in retrospect he probably could've acted dumber. Could've denied them access to his office, his person, and unknown samples his DNA. Could've stated he was too busy to talk. Could've left town, and never returned. Could've recognized the Cheshire cat for what it was. The visit they paid him was a formality - a chance to see if he'd come quietly, if he could be lured by the promise of a lucrative career with a hugely inflated salary. They had known all along who he was, what he had created, and what he had done to himself. He became to them, however, nothing more than another victim, a man with an ability (born with it or not), once they had what they wanted from him - the key to his success, and his father's list of names.

Not long after he had refused their offer he began hearing about the disappearances of some of his graduates in Yuma. Paranoid, he pulled the plug on his private databases, keeping two mirrored backup copies on external hard disks, and he stepped away on sabbatical to some land in up-state New Mexico where he secretly planned on carrying out further investigation. It didn't take long before this new, malevolent entity decided that if it could no longer hack the University network to get what it wanted, it would just bring Mohinder and his valuable information to them, the hard way.

~*~*~

Her father was dead. He had been dead for five years. Five years! The person with whom she had finally kindled some kind of weird, detached understanding that passed as a budding relationship, while she was too busy with school and he was too busy with his job and his lifestyle and giving speeches and meeting with lobbyists and making legislation and having pictures taken and shaking hands and kissing babies and oh my god! that man was a complete unwitting imposter. And not just any imposter – a complete, raving psycho mass murderer. She didn't want to think of all the times she'd stepped into his office and hugged him… On top of that, the man who raised her, loved her, and ritually lied to her was involved in the act of chaining that beast, pulling the Nathan Petrelli clown suit over him. Noah Bennett and her grandmother had lifted the rug while Matt Parkman had swept Nathan under it, and they'd considered themselves rid of a nasty mess, no one was the wiser.

She, Hiro, and Janice had pulled together what cash they had to secure themselves a meager lodging for the night. After Janice had put her young son to bed she had told Claire everything that Matt had confided in her, leading up to their present situation. Claire had been afraid she would scream so she left the room and was still sitting on the curb of the parking lot outside the hotel room door, undisturbed, blinking away tears while an insect lamp zapped somewhere off in the balmy evening stillness. She wasn't angry at Janice and didn't blame her – the only crime she was guilty of committing was to be reticent to hurt someone else. And in truth, after sixteen years of absence in her life, it was difficult to come to know Nathan (the whole turning-your-own-kind-over-to-weird-government-agencies thing didn't help matters much either), and at times she wasn't certain the interest the Petrelli family took in her was completely genuine, but a reciprocal attempt had ultimately been made and it was a gesture that she had appreciated. She hadn't realized how much until now, facing the fact that the relationship with her foster father had diminished into something less pure than it was in her youth, and the reminder yet again that yes, Nathan Petrelli was dead. She pressed her face against knees drawn up to her chest, allowing the collecting moisture on her face to soak into her pant legs before she returned her gaze to the horizon, beyond the highway on the hill overlooking the town of Costa Verde below. It was a nice night and the lights twinkled in the distance – a tapestry of a world completely bathed in blissful, sleepy ignorance. She had lost a mother not long ago, and now felt as though she had lost two fathers.

Except one she could still save if she could discover where he was. And when she found him, she would punch him so hard. Oh no, forget that. She'd hit him where it really hurt – she'd tell mom.

Finding him, she decided, would be easy - all she'd have to do was leave after everyone was asleep and wait for these "shadow people" to come get her. After all, her name was on that list too. Resting her head on her arms she closed her eyes, the yellow light of the porch light above her head burning a fiery glow behind her eyelids, forcing the image of a incinerating Sylar into her mind. Who did she really see burn? Who attacked her father? Whose blood was all over the entrance to her father's apartment? Who else had been taken by the shadow people? If she just started walking down the road, would he find her first, if he really was out there? She rose to her feet. He couldn't possibly hurt her any worse. She wasn't afraid of him anymore. She started walking.

It wasn't long until Hiro had joined her, having stepped out to check on her in time to see the top of her blonde head disappear around a bend in the road. Upon catching up his face was imploring, curious to know what was going on, but he remained silent. His grasp on the English language had vastly improved since the last time they saw each other, but he was also the kind of man who felt his emotions readily – speaking now would only push him into an unnecessary display. He also recognized that their kind had a new threat and what they needed, more than tears and sympathetic words, was a plan. And Claire Bennett looked for all the world - her back straight, stride purposeful, and gaze like granite – to be a woman with just that. After a few paces, when Hiro had taken notice Claire had not tried to persuade him to remain behind, he found the ability to speak his mind.

"This way leads back to town."

"Yes, it does."

Hiro nodded in assent.

"We go back to the apartment?"

Claire only nodded. Hiro nodded in return.

"You don't have to come," she countered.

After a moment's consideration, he stated, "There is no honor in abandoning you in our quest." He paused. "I don't think you want to be alone anyway."

He was right.

After another span of silence broken only by their soft, determined footfalls and the omnipresent singing of what could've been crickets he said, "We will let them take us, won't we."

He didn't look to her for an answer, he didn't need one. It wasn't a question. She didn't provide him with an answer either – it was understood.

As the stretch of highway they walked began to bend down to deposit them back into the town they'd left earlier that evening Claire grinned in spite of herself – certainly getting kidnapped on the other side of the country would provide her a sufficient enough excuse to convince her instructors to let her re-take her finals…

That was the last thought to pass through her head before the calm night air was broken by cricket song that intensified to an ear-splitting, squealing tone punctuated by small blinking red lights.

~*~*~

The first thing he noticed, before he even opened his eyes, was the pressure of the collar still present around his neck, bobbing uncomfortably around his adam's apple when he swallowed… which , incidentally, was difficult. Like, something's in the way, difficult. Around the same time he felt strain in his wrists and shoulders which told him he was hanging spread eagle, and he heard a pair of voices in the same space with him. Sylar was nothing if not fearless – he risked opening his eyes. When his vision swirled into something not quite focused and almost liquid, moving like waves, his awareness of his environment became much more pronounced, like a switch had been turned on. There were sounds of machines performing gruesome tasks, smells of chemicals or lubricants or rubber tubes or even body fluids, and pain. Spreading, aching, invasive pain. Everywhere. A groan escaped him as nothing more than a choking wheeze – there was a tube down his throat, which had caused it to become chafed and unnaturally dry. He weakly began to gag. A nauseous sense of déjà vu dissolved into the stark realization that this was the sixth time he'd woken up here today, and reality began to swirl around him a bit faster.

"Shit, where's Tierney? The subject's becoming lucid."

"Who cares? You know who this guy is, right? Sure his buddies think he's got a lot worse comin' to him. Hand me that disk, I wanna compare these readings to the last one." Shuffling noises, vision of two men in white coats. "So, speaking of buddies, how come we keep taggin' this one?"

"Because," declared a new voice belonging to a statuesque and severe looking blonde woman who had entered at that moment, easily crossing the room from the doorway in long, confident strides to tenderly cup his chin in her hand, turning it as she investigated his condition clinically. He guessed this wasn't Tierney. "This one is special." He didn't find that statement to be too awful damn funny. "If we can understand how his ability works, then we can use that to understand how the others work. Everything would move along much more quickly."

Stepping back, but not before giving his face a final sickly sweet stroke, the newcomer joined the two men in lab coats to oversee their progress. Sylar took the opportunity to take stock of his situation. He looked down at himself, as much as his restraints would allow, and discovered he was shamelessly naked and had tubes running from every hole in his body – and some of the holes were new, angry-looking wounds with seeping gauze. His skin was a patchwork of tested areas – he supposed to see how his DNA would react to certain triggers, regardless of how incapacitated his abilities currently were. He imagined samples had been taken, and currently he was being pumped full of….. something. He didn't know. Something that would change him? Test him? Ultimately kill him?

The collar. It was the collar that kept him from healing, and kept him from doing a whole mess of other satisfyingly unsavory things. He didn't understand how these people could create a simple device that rendered him so completely harmless, yet could still be unable to determine how his ability actually worked. He didn't have time to understand – another white-coated individual, this one a mousey young woman, briskly walked into the room brandishing a hypodermic needle. As she approached she squeezed a small arc of the syringe's contents into the air, briefly capturing the dim light in its movement creating a sinister momentary rainbow.

"Sorry, Prince of Darkness, time to go night-night," she whispered in his ear as she injected him. Before he slipped away again he wondered what he'd see the seventh time he opened his eyes…

~*~*~

He saw Claire. Behind the glass, across the hall, like an unnaturally sterile zoo exhibit. Her face was contorted with rage, and she was yelling at someone. He couldn't hear a word she said, couldn't hear anything except maybe his own pulse and his shallow, ragged breath. With all her might she drew back her arm, squeezed her eyes shut bracing for impact, and all the muscles in her upper body flexed, the light playing sinewy shadows across every contour of her strong and vibrant body. Her fist crashed into the glass and small traces of blood popped from her knuckles painting a work of art for him to appreciate. The percussive event pummeled his eardrums and woke them up slightly. He thought he could hear her breathing now, too – pants of frustration and malice. She was an angel of war, she was. A valkyrie. Suddenly desperate to connect with her, like praying for mercy before some saving grace, he lifted a shaky finger to his own glass, tracing the line of her clenched jaw. He left behind a trail of something he couldn't – didn't want to – identify, and the movement in her peripheral vision snapped her eyes to meet his.

She lightly curled her top lip into a sneer. The look she favored him with was cold and hard as her eyes bored holes into his, but it wasn't quite angry – she was too angry with someone else at the moment to focus her anger on him. While he was certainly aware that it would be directed toward him later, and he was happy to let it (she was her most stunning when furious, after all), he let the thought warm him and a smile drifted briefly across his face as he closed his eyes and went back to sleep on the floor.

~*~*~

She had made yet another rash and stupid decision. She had gotten herself and Hiro trapped, her father nowhere to be found, completely defeating the purpose. No matter how much noise she made, no amount of screaming and swearing and punching and kicking and tantrum-throwing had caused their captors to pay her a single ounce of attention. She was fairly certain she had just broken a bone or two in her hand. And, to top it all off, she was across the hall from him. Of course. Just fucking great. She thought back on the time when she and her moms had gotten into a bit of trouble with the puppeteer man. This situation felt a lot like that. Pressing her uninjured left hand to her face she stepped slowly backwards until her knees hit the side of her bunk. She sank down onto the edge of it. Somehow, someway, she absolutely had to start thinking things through completely before making decisions. Seriously.

She gradually became aware of a sensation spreading through her broken fist. It was a feeling she had forgotten, having grown accustomed to its absence. She stared down at her knuckles – swollen, pale from trauma, the skin broken and crusted with drying blood. It wasn't healing and she hurt. It was absolutely fabulous – it felt like being alive. She prodded it gingerly and relished the waves of white hot pain that put tingles in her tear ducts. It was almost like feeling a long departed lover.

Her introspection was interrupted by the sound of someone murmuring. She scarcely recognized the voice as Molly's, her fear driving her to quiet hysterics. Claire stood and approached the glass in an attempt to seek her out. She suppressed a wave of numbing resentment when she heard Matt Parkman somewhere speaking out to her.

"Molly, honey, talk to me. What's going on."

She looked down the row of cells, trying to find the source of the voices, looking for familiar faces… well, some other familiar face than the one across from her. There were a handful of other people occupying cells to her right, none of whom she knew: a tall willowy blond girl; a short, slim brunette woman with expressive green eyes; and a tall, dark, lithely muscular man. She heard Mohinder's voice from somewhere to her left call out.

"What is she saying?"

She couldn't resist the temptation to speak out as well. "Mohinder, is that you? Hiro, are you here?"

"I am here, cheerleader," she heard him somewhere in the distance even further to her left.

"She's saying something about being… lost… there's no ground," Matt related, faithfully focused on the girl.

"Claire?"

"Peter!"

"I know how she feels. This is the most quiet my mind's been in years – it's almost like being blind. It's frightening. I think she's going through something similar. It's okay, honey, I'm right here. Mo's here too."

"Claire, are you alright?"

"Peter what's going on? Why are we here?"

"I think Dr. Suresh can answer that," said the green-eyed woman. The chorus of voices ceased, anticipating his answer.

Mohinder allowed a lull of silence while he drew in a tight breath.

"I don't know what they want with us as a collective, but I do know that they wanted my research. I don't believe they intend to use it, but I think they want to build upon it. They believe my results to be too unpredictable and chaotic. Not to mention there were some… side effects."

"You think they're trying to create something that will grant abilities to others?" Matt asked.

"I can tell you personally, it's a very attractive prospect. Something I'm sure someone would pay a lot for. And, you know, I didn't exactly do what I did for no reason at all. Yes, I think that's exactly what they're up to - however they're going a lot further than I did. I think they're trying to pinpoint specific abilities in an attempt to reproduce them. When I injected myself with my serum, the only thing I knew was that I'd gain an ability – I had no idea what it would be. I think they'd like to make the process no longer random."

"Which is probably what they want with us," Claire added. "They want to study our abilities in order to discover how to give them to someone else. They want to know how they work."

"I think so, yes."

"So then," Matt began, "how come Captain Karma over there's the only one who's been in the hot seat a lot lately?"

"He wasn't the first one," the green-eyed woman answered again. Feeling eyes turn to her, the ones that could see her, she nodded down to the end of the hall, last cell on the right – Peter.

"It's true," stated Peter. "They plucked me right out of the mission hospital – I was in the middle of treating a spider bite on a six year old girl. When I got here Mohinder and his students down there were already here, but they didn't know what was going on or what they wanted with us. Several hours later they came and drugged me and dragged me off. When I woke up…" He paused, chilled by the memory. Claire thought he might not be able to go on but he continued. "When I woke up I imagine I looked a lot like him, and I heard them talking. I think they originally wanted to study my ability in order to determine how to study everyone else's ability, but my ability works through some sort of tactile imprintation process, there's 'no real understanding' there – at least that's what they said, something like that. I think they'd just brought Sylar in because they were excited to work with him – something about his capability to understand complex systems."

"Yes," Mohinder assessed, "with his ability they can truly understand how our abilities work – would save everyone a lot of time."

"That's why he cuts our heads open…." Claire breathed, grimacing at the memory and the pang of survivor's guilt. No one answered her, except Molly.

"You don't think they're going to do that to us, do you?"

The response she received was a long, hoarse, guttural chuckle emanating from the cell across from Claire. Sylar struggled to pull himself onto his cot – a tortured bag of bones clad in nothing except what resembled a hospital gown. He was obviously freezing cold and very sore, dark shadows adorned his gaunt face, and his hair had been closely clipped, shaved in some patches where small wounds still glistened, coated with some unidentified ointment. He balled himself up tightly in his blanket before muttering, "That would be a huge fuckin' disappointment."

~*~*~

Noah jerked awake, hands outstretched, searching for a weapon, had to put that son-of-a-bitch down for good before he got too far away, why was everything so blurry… damn. He lost his glasses. And he couldn't really move his arms. Blinking a small amount clarity back into his vision, he was able to discover he wasn't where he thought he was – heavily bandaged, strapped into a hospital bed in a dark sterile room, hooked up to intravenous drugs, and naturally being monitored across a wide spectrum of different body functions. A voice in the back of his head screamed at him to slow that breathing and control that heart rate – don't draw attention, do it NOW. Old training eased him quickly yet assuredly into a perfected meditative trance, one that would allow him to bring his body back into a state that would convince his monitors that he was still asleep. He focused on the prompts his old instructor had used to drill him – a soothing, innocuous panorama of rocks, a river, and some trees. He counted the rhythm of his breathing, employing an amazing amount of discipline to hold it steady at the correct rate, and he could feel his pulse diminish into a near-dead calm.

Still counting his breaths, and without losing track, he slowly ventured to reopen his eyelids. He investigated what was going on with his arms – as he'd suspected, they were held in place with leather straps. The leather made him happy – if he had been held in place by handcuffs that would've been a bit more of a challenge. Leather, however, he knew how to escape; it was easier to maneuver when it was cold and dry. He gently dropped his hand over the side of his bed and let the natural environment of the notoriously chilly infirmary do its magic. Most people in his position would rush the escape in blind panic, however Noah knew all the rookie mistakes that were bred by impatience. After a painfully long time he drew his frigid hand back against the leather strap - maintaining an accurate count of his every breath, every heartbeat - just to the point that the fleshy part of his palm applied pressure against it.

Noah had been a small-framed, flexible, wirey sort of child when he was little. As a result, there were aspects of his training that he was better at than most, making him an asset to his instructors – this included the ability to conform his body to confined spaces. Moving with the speed of a predator stalking a bird, he contracted the bones in his hand contorting them into an unnatural arrangement that would allow his hand to slip through the binding. The years that had passed since he'd first started putting his body through these techniques had made the effort a tad more difficult but with patience and perseverance he was successful.

With agonizingly slow movements he continued counting and released his left hand from its hold, and then removed the IV from his right hand. Once free, he turned his blurred gaze to the table next to the bed. When his left hand finally made its way to the top of the table, he made a lengthy investigation of all the items that littered its surface. It wasn't long before he came into the possession of several scalpels and other surgical instruments and the stretchy rubber band of a tourniquet. He tied the band across the width of the bed, stretching it taught and padding the middle of its length with a wound ball of gauze. Having fashioned himself a wicked slingshot and armed himself with lots of sharp ammunition, he was ready to remove the monitoring sensors. He ripped off the cords and waited.

Although his imperfect vision was somewhat of a handicap, it wasn't the first time he'd shot a weapon with it – that was a scenario he'd played over countless times in the past. The first two black suited guards in the room were dropped and wounded easily, having been stabbed by flying scalpels, and in no time they were bound by the leather straps on the bed, bleeding as they were disarmed and one was disrobed. He still wished he had his glasses, but at least now he had a pair of guns and a really awesome black suit of his own. It was time to get out of there.

~*~*~

The sound of the opening door roused him from a restless sleep filled with dreams in which he froze to death. He propped himself onto his elbows, suddenly eye level with two very familiar firearms. The same mousey-headed lab technician rounded the corner into his cell readying her syringe behind his black-suited guards. The routine continued until a small voice broke it. Claire.

"They won't kill you, Sylar. You're too important to them."

One of his guards partially obscured his view of her, but the one eye he saw he made deliberate contact with.

'Fight them,' she mouthed to him. Mohinder, in his cell next to her, crowded into the closest corner to get a better view of what might happen.

The technician gripped his arm; he turned to look, and watched the tip of the needle graze his skin. Claire smacked her open palm against the glass, demanding his attention. He looked to her plaintively – she wasn't going to take no for an answer.

'You are SYLAR,' she mouthed again, 'FIGHT THEM.'

A moment passed between their eyes, a meaningful gaze held steadfast, her hands pressed to the glass – this girl whom he had tortured, whose family he'd killed, was putting aside everything and was counting on him now, he was her last hope. How could she put her faith in him? What if he let her down?

With his first small, weak movement he defiantly jerked his arm away from the needle. The barrel of one gun ground into his forehead, the other his left temple, as the technician grappled more tightly for control of his arm. She tried to give him an impatient glance but what she received from him in return made her freeze.

He did nothing to hide every sick, venomous ounce of murderous intent in his eyes – he gave that woman all of it before he shoved her back. She was stunned, and like lightning he shot out a hand to steal the syringe from her, then swung it around to plunge the offending item into the neck of the closest guard. He was glad to have one less gun to deal with.

"Shoot him!!!!" the technician yelled while struggling to retrieve the weapon of the fallen guard. He kicked the woman with his right leg squarely in the stomach and was turning around to make an attempt at wrestling with the remaining black suit when the man lowered his gun and shot him in the leg; he was pretty sure he felt the bone crack. Sylar dropped low and cried out in agony, knowing the wound was deep and if he didn't get this damned collar off he would bleed to death. Crazed with desperation and an unfulfilled need to maim something, he lunged into the guard who shot him, toppling them both down onto the bunk. He growled and clamped a hand onto the other's, lifting the gun high into the air before pummeling into the man's face with his free hand a series of rapid, unstoppable blows. The guard reflexively shot two rounds into the ceiling before losing consciousness. Sylar ripped the gun out of his hand and whipped around at the same time the lab technician found the loose weapon on the floor. She had the hammer cocked and was ready to pull the trigger but a bullet found her first. Her body fell and remained very still.

Sylar collapsed to his knees on the floor, wheeling around, his outstretched arms still claiming the gun, sights narrowing a shaky path to the forehead of a black-suited newcomer – one who still held a smoking gun, having just shot the mousey-headed woman. The black suit held up his other hand in a placating gesture, and lowered his weapon slowly. Sylar could hear nothing but the sound of his own gulping breaths over the shots still ringing in his ears. He held his position, wide-eyed. He wasn't the kind that went down easy, and he trusted no one.

The black suit touched an unseen button on his chest and the material covering his head disappeared revealing the face of Noah Bennett.

"Dad!"

"Funny thing, running into you guys here," he said. Sylar hadn't moved. His face was a mask of quiet fury, jaw clenched, eyes hard. Noah cocked his head to the side and presented him with an incredulous look that said, 'you've already shot me once and I just saved your life.'

"You could bury the hatchet, buddy. Be a hero for once."

"Sylar." Claire's voice rang like a gentle chime. He still didn't move, but she knew he heard her. An alarm started sounding – it was deafening. She raised her voice. "It's gonna take all of us to get out of here. Put the gun down, let's go."

He still hesitated.

"Put it down."

She was firm but sweet. And she was right. He complied, suddenly exhausted and very dizzy. He fell backwards onto his butt and the hand holding the gun dropped to the floor into a pool of his own sticky warm blood. Noah made a quick step forward and kicked the weapon away from him, smearing a bloody trail. Kneeling in front of him he produced a small tool that he used to remove the collar from Sylar's neck. Every wound, every mark on his body, began to immediately disappear. He closed his eyes and lay back, enjoying the sweet relief that was almost enough to put a tear in his eye, never before so glad he'd met Claire Bennett.

Noah wasted no time.

"Need yer help." He yanked Sylar unceremoniously to his feet and backed them out the door he'd come in, stepping over the bodies he'd left sprawled in there (which earned a sarcastic "tsk tsk" from Sylar). "You figure shit out," Noah said, "that's your thing. So, figure out which button to push to open those cells."

Sylar fixed him up with a fiercely menacing glare, ready to telekinetically fling the man as far and as hard as he could and make a run for it – really, who would actually be able to stop him now, right? – but damn if he didn't become distracted by the system panel Noah presented to him. Completely betrayed by a nagging hunger for knowledge, one that continually won nearly all of his private internal battles, what he saw before him was a puzzle begging to be solved. He was powerless to resist it. Entering a euphoric trance of imminent discovery, he let the presence of all others drift away from him, completely focused on the object of his ministrations, and he used his favorite stolen power to delicately remove the paneling from the console to get at its heart – had to see how it worked. Following wires to soldered connections, tracing etchings across circuit boards, ignoring Noah's frantic whispers saying 'hurry up, they're coming,' he determined which button to push. Eyes alight, grinning with boyish eagerness, he jammed it with his thumb dying to see if he was right.

He was.

Noah bumped his shoulder as he raced back into the hallway that had become alive with motion once the glass walls began to retract, freeing the prisoners. He immediately set to work removing collars. Sylar remained where he was, still transfixed by his natural ability, before he felt a small, warm hand clamp onto his arm. A light breeze carrying the scent of roses snapped him back to reality.

"You're coming with me. We're gonna be a meat shield," Claire ordered forcibly, not exactly looking happy about the prospect. He was about to protest but the look she gave him silenced him. She wasn't going to back down and he wasn't going to be able to persuade her. Perhaps safety was better in numbers, he supposed as he let her lead him through the gathered crowd of people. On their way he heard her tell Peter, "Bring up the rear, will you? Since you can heal too, let's protect these people." With Claire's fingertips poking bruises into his arm he kept his eyes downcast, avoiding Peter's gaze, but he felt a vindictive charge of energy rip across his back. Peter matched him, power for power, and would have his revenge at the first opportunity, but for now he was biding his time.

Trading with her dad his glasses for one of his firearms, she pushed Sylar forward with a command, "GO," intending to follow him while she proceeded to load a new clip into the gun. Fiddling with the stiff, heavy device while she walked, she continued forward out the door at the opposite end of the hall until she collided with a warm, solid wall of Sylar. Looking up to see what his problem was, she witnessed a sight she'd never seen and wasn't sure she'd ever see again. His face was agape with unabashed horror – eyes as wide as dinner plates, jaw completely dropped open, a trembling hand rising to point at what appeared to be a window or viewport. Following his line of sight she nearly dropped the gun in shock. From somewhere behind her, she thought she heard one of Mohinder's students mutter, "Oh my God…"

What they all witnessed was a rather lovely view of the Earth from space.

From fucking space.

"Holy shit….." Claire breathed. "How the hell did we get up here? And why are we shooting guns?!? Who brings a fucking gun to space?!?"

Behind her, she could hear Hiro swallow thickly as all eyes turned to him for help. And for the first time, like, ever, Sylar was really very extremely glad he hadn't killed this one…