Disclaimer: I own zip, zero, and zilch. The quote is from the Second Witch in Macbeth. It's one of my less obscure ones.

Chapter 11: Glimpses of the Future

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."

Los Angeles, California

Detective Matt Parkman was grateful for the silence of the empty house. Maybe the toys he kept stumbling over and the bright colored walls (definitely painted after the divorce) glaring out at him were less than relaxing, but the solitude felt like a tropical getaway. Of course, when Janice got back with Matty this attitude always evaporated. Still, some alone time was great after a day probing through minds for clues. That was all he used his power for anymore; anything else reminded him too much of what he had done three months ago at the Stanton Hotel.

Grabbing a soda from the fridge, Matt started listening to the messages on the answering machine. There were rarely any for him, except for work-related emergencies and the occasional call from Mohinder.

"Hiya, Janice," came a high pitched voice after You have one new message. "This is Tricia..."

Did every wife -not that they had remarried, yet- have an annoying friend? Matt rolled his eyes- and nearly did a double take at what he caught in his peripherals.

"Hello, Parkman," said Usutu.

Matt sighed. He had thought this might come up eventually. "Just tell me what you want."

"You have forsaken your duty. You were chosen to be a prophet, but you do not paint."

"Maybe that's because I don't want this, okay? I don't want to see the future or mess with people's heads anymore! All I want," said Matt, in a more subdued tone, "Is to be a father, and a cop, and a husband."

"Perhaps you have had too much pushed upon you," Usutu said contemplatively, but he - or whoever was in charge of picking prophets- must have decided this beforehand. "You will be released from you responsibilities as a prophet after one last vision."

Before Matt could say or do anything, the world went suddenly and frantically white.

Petrelli Mansion

It wasn't that she had expected Mr. Bennet to be the American James Bond, but... she had expected Mr. Bennet to be the American James Bond. Instead, after being ushered into the mansion by the woman who had introduced herself as Angela Petrelli, Bridget had met an average-looking, forty-something man with horn-rimmed glasses. She mentally chastised herself for being stupid.

"Hi, I'm Bridget Lynns," she had said, trying to act like this was not by far the biggest and fanciest house she'd ever been in.

The man who had been described to her as one of the most deceptive and dangerous Company agents in existence shook her hand. "Bennet. I'll be supervising you and your partner."

She waited for a first name. It didn't come. Had anyone thought to tell her beforehand? "So... will I be meeting my partner? I still don't know exactly what I'll be doing here."

Not for the first time, Bridget wished the Liberators had chosen one of their more experienced members -which would have been anyone else- for the mission. However, it was decided that all the other members needed to keep their identities secret until they found out how the new Company would be run, since they were already in the Primatech files. After a crash-course of rigorous training, Bridget was still positive that she would screw something up somehow. Good thing she had the Liberator headquarters as Speed Dial 1 on her new, GPS-equipped phone.

As if on cue, Angela entered the room again, this time with a man probably in his late twenties. This must be Peter Petrelli, her partner. He could easily be described as tall, dark, and handsome, Bridget decided. He was dressed in black jeans and a white, long-sleeved T shirt. Besides being a little pale and stressed-out looking, she could see no physical flaws. In conclusion, unless he turned out to be a huge jerk, she really wouldn't mind working with Peter.

Bridget once again mentally chastised herself for being stupid.

Angela beat her to the introduction. "Peter, this is Bridget. Bridget, this is my son, Peter. You'll be working together on the Outlook case."

The older woman could have just introduced them at a dinner party. Angela seemed like a very pleasant and harmless woman, but Bridget had been warned about her too. According to Hiro, Ando, Mohinder, and Rebel, Mrs. Petrelli was a ruthless, domineering matriarch who was not to be trusted. Peter's wary expression said he knew that all too well.

"Hi," said Peter.

"Hello," said Bridget.

Peter turned to Mr. Bennet. "So what's the mission?"

Mr. Bennet picked up two thick folders from the coffee table and handed Bridget and Peter one each. "Peter, you'll be our inside man. Using shape-shifting, you'll create a new identity for yourself. There's a bio and DNA sample in the folder. You'll be bugged, which will allow us to find out how Outlook works. You need to get as close to their leader as fast as you can. You may have to do some things you think are morally gray, but the important thing is to never compromise your cover."

"Yeah, you would say that," said Peter, looking through his folder. "What if they find the bug?"

"That's why you never compromise your cover," Bennet said. He handed Peter a pair of rather large black studs. "You're getting your ears pierced. One of these records sound, one is a camera."

"That's where you come in, Bridget," Angela said.

"What do I do?" Bridget asked, not really seeing how that was where she came in.

"We need somebody to be watching and listening all the time Peter is working for Outlook. He can't contact us in any way, so you'll be his only way to call for backup," explained Bennet. "Rebel said you would be able to identify if anyone was hacking into the signal."

"Yeah, I can, but isn't there something else I could do?" Sitting at a computer all day sounded way too much like her old job.

"Surveillance is a very important part of the mission," Angela said. "Besides, we don't know how far we can trust Rebel. You'll have to earn your place."

This sounded a little more like the description Bridget had heard. No inoffensive reply really jumped into her mind after Angela's statement. Peter, on the other hand, wasn't afraid to speak exactly what he was thinking.

"Are you serious? Rebel protected people with abilities while you two just let it happen and you don't trust him?"

"Peter, you already know that we were working undercover, much like you'll be doing in Outlook," said Angela. And Bridget had thought her tone couldn't possibly get any more patronizing.

Peter rolled his eyes. Sure it was disrespectful, but with the reputations Angela and Bennet had, maybe it was deserved? Bridget really needed to find out more, so she didn't get herself into one of the worse-case scenarios Claude had described. However, with a GPS tracker in her arm (Hiro was a big fan of GPS) it would be hard for her to mysteriously disappear.

Bennet broke the awkward silence before it had fully begun. "Start learning your material when you get home. We'll have another meeting here in three days, then you'll start."

Since 'home', at the moment, was a tiny apartment with almost nothing in it yet, procrastination would be nearly impossible. Besides, Bridget had always been good at memorizing things. I'm the rookie of a superhero team working undercover as a secret agent. This isn't just homework, this is the fate of the world. Possibly, she added. No one knew what Outlook was really up to besides recruiting and kidnapping people, even with all the data they had gathered.

Bridget nodded and told Bennet, Angela, and Peter she was sure it would be a pleasure working with them. She really wasn't so sure, but that was why she was there. Nobody was sure about the new Company. Even Peter didn't look a hundred percent on-board.

Los Angeles, California

"Matt? Matt?!"

"Huh? What?" Matt awoke on the kitchen floor with Janice kneeling beside him. He looked around. "I must have gone into a trance..." Colored pens and pencils were scattered on the floor around him.

"What are you talking about?" Janice asked. "I came home and you were passed out on the floor - and what are these? I didn't know you could draw."

Matt quickly rose to his feet, taking the drawings from Janice. "I can't. It's an ability," he explained. Then he thought back to what Usutu had told him. "But don't worry. It won't happen again."

The first picture was mostly dark grays, midnight blues, and black shadows. The setting was a bedroom lit only by the moonlight that had snuck in through the locked window. The silvery beam shone like a spotlight on the bed and its occupant, a teenage girl. Her blond hair was the brightest thing in the drawing, tucked behind her ears to accommodate black headphones. She lay curled up, crying, with arms crossed over her chest so that it was impossible to read her sweatshirt's lettering.

"What are these?" Janice asked.

"The future," Matt answered. "I was chosen to paint -or draw it. But when I said I didn't want it, they took it away."

"But not until after you drew these," Janice finished. She opened her mouth to say something else, but was diverted by Matty's crying down the hall. She hurried off to see if anything was the matter. Matt remained in the kitchen. Future paintings were a cause for him to call Noah Bennet or Angela Petrelli. That would be a humbling experience after he had insisted that he was "out, cold turkey", and would never work with them again.

Bright orange flames stood out from the second drawing. People gathered on the sidewalk to watch some firemen try to save an apartment building from being consumed. Matt inspected this picture longer than he had the first. While the crying girl definitely resembled Claire Bennet, everything about the fire scene was anonymous. Matt could only guess that it wasn't L.A.

He turned to the third and final prophecy as Matty's cries subsided. A kneeling Peter Petrelli stared at him from the paper with guilt, despair, and a gun pressed to his temple by his own white-knuckled hands.

A.N. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this eleventh installment. Please review with criticism, compliments, and suggestions. General feedback is a beautiful thing. Oh, and yes, I know I stole Matt's cold turkey line from the previews for the new season. No, I won't be using "I want my body back", as much as I really, really want to. Kay, you can go review now. x)