Revelations by SLynn
Summary: In the end is the beginning. Sequel to 'Resurrection'.
Spoilers: AU after 'Fallout'
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing and will return them all when I'm done, virtually untouched.
Notes: Yes, it's been awhile. I'm sorry. I've been keeping busy, trying to keep up with canon and finishing my degree program. Now that finals are done, I've got my free time back and will hopefully finish this off quickly. There is still quite a bit to go and I thank everyone who's reading and reviewing and keeping patient with me. Thanks! Also, thank you Tripp3235 for the beta'ing and listening to all my extremely frustrated ranting on plot points. Enjoy!
Chapter 21: Fake
"We'll go on three," Peter said.
Lauren nodded.
"Stay with me," continued Peter. "Right with me. We're two stories underground so we'll need to move quickly. When we go, I want you to push this field out as far and as fast as you can. I'll take care of anyone still standing. Alright?"
She nodded again but felt her stomach churn.
"We won't kill unless we have to," Peter added, sensing the reason behind her discomfort.
"Okay."
"Ready?" Peter asked.
"Let's just do it."
"One. Two. Three."
On three, Peter felt the connection he'd been maintaining with Lauren break as she sent the field around them soaring in all directions. The men they hadn't seen surrounding them were knocked to the floor, momentarily stunned; the security glass in the observation window shattered; the contents of the room were flung to the wall and smashed to pieces.
It had gone no further.
The field had died inside the room, unable to get past the stronger inhibitors maintaining the rest of the building.
"I'm sorry," Lauren said, nearly out of breath. "I…"
Peter only shook his head, not ready to give up yet.
"Out this way," he urged, motioning to the observation window.
Lauren was ready to follow wherever he led, but felt helpless. She could already feel her powers slipping away even inside the room. Outside of it would be even worse. It took a few moments to maneuver their way through the window, but they still managed it rather quickly. Alarms were blaring and lights were flashing, but the halls themselves were empty; the sound of many fast footsteps approaching could just be heard in the distance.
Peter stopped and considered what to do next.
He could still access his powers; still feel them working inside of him, but what…
"Grab hold of my waist."
"What?" Lauren asked, certain she'd heard him wrong.
"My waist," Peter said urgently. "Quick. Stand as close to me as you can, I'm not sure I can control this one very well."
Lauren complied, clasping her hands together across his stomach.
"Hold on tight," said Peter.
Before Lauren could respond or even readjust her grip, a few men had rounded the corner ahead of them with weapons drawn.
Peter gave neither them nor Lauren any warning, just let loose an awful torrent of wind that rushed out all around him.
The men flew backwards a good twenty feet before hitting the wall behind them and collapsing to the floor.
Lauren let out an involuntary scream as her own feet left the floor, clutching Peter tighter and terrified of losing her grip.
The wind could be heard ripping through the building all around them, pouring down corridors and finally exiting in a boom above them accompanied by the sound of shattering glass.
As it finally stopped, Peter swayed heavily back onto Lauren.
"Sorry," he said, panting for breath. "It's harder with these damn inhibitors on. Takes more out of me, but that should do it for awhile. That should clear the way."
"No, it's great," Lauren returned. "It is, but we should hurry. Which way is out?"
"Not yet," Peter answered, still upright but not without support from Lauren. "First, we need to pick someone else up. They've got Franco's daughter here, I saw her. We can't leave her behind."
"Alright," Lauren said, stepping back as Peter now seemed capable of standing on his own.
"This way," he motioned as he began a brisk walk down the corridor. "It shouldn't take long. She's not far from here."
"Is there anyone else we should take with us? I've only seen you."
"Sylar."
"What?" Lauren asked, stopping abruptly.
"He's here too," Peter said, turning back to take her by the wrist so that they could continue on together. "We shouldn't leave him either."
"He's a murderer."
"He's also powerful," Peter returned. "Too powerful. He might be able to help us escape."
"Why would he? Why…"
"We can't leave him," Peter interrupted. "I don't like it either, but right now we need all the help we can get."
"But…" Lauren said weakly, shaking her head and uncertain exactly how else she could argue against this idea. Not used to argue against any idea.
"They've kept him alive for a reason," Peter continued. "It's the same reason they've kept me alive; they want what we can do. As far as anyone knows, Sylar and I are the only two people in the world that can use another person's power."
"Yeah, Peter, but you don't… you don't do it like…you're not him."
"I know," Peter said quietly, cautiously turning a corner and ensuring it was still safe. "I do. But that's not the point. They don't care what kind of person I am, or what he is either. This whole plan of theirs is flawed. They can bring out powers, they can sort of suppress them, and they can even build machines that duplicate them. But the one thing they still can't do is take the power for their own. They can't use the powers the way they were meant to be used and they can't figure out how we do it either. We can't let them do it. We have to stop it."
"Peter," Lauren said. "I don't care what they're doing here. I really don't. I just want us all to go. We need to get as far away from this as we can. There's no way…"
"There will never be anyplace safe enough if we let this go on."
"Peter, please…"
"Lauren," he said, stopping in the center of the hallway. "If they have Sylar, if we leave him behind, they might figure it out. They might find a way to make it work and we can't let them do that. I know what he is. I know what he's done. It's not a matter of saving him; it's a matter of saving all of us. If Primatech accesses his power, we won't be able to stop them and we'll never be able to get away again."
"Okay," she agreed after a long pause, understanding his point, "but can't we… Do we have to take him with us? He's the one. He killed Ando. He's…"
Lauren wiped her eyes frantically, not wanting to break down but feeling close to doing so.
"I know what he's done but we have to take him with us," Peter said as kindly as he could. "There's no other way."
She nodded curtly, accepting it for the time.
"Don't worry," Peter said, hearing a bit of her uneasiness inside of his head. "I've got a plan."
"I trust you," Lauren returned, just as they stopped outside a large observation window similar to the one they'd used to escape her cell.
Peter made his way to the keypad outside her door as Lauren attempted to peer inside the darkened glass.
"Damn it," Peter muttered, holding his hand to the mechanism. "How does Micah do this?"
"Peter?"
"Give me a second."
"I don't think anyone is in here."
The door popped open just after she'd said it and Peter looked at her in surprise.
Pushing the door open, Peter tentatively stepped inside and took a look for himself. Flipping on the light switch, he quickly surveyed the room. Stephanie was gone.
"They've probably taken her to the lab," Peter said, turning to go. "It's the floor below us. It shouldn't take…"
The sound of gunfire echoed down the hall. Hurrying to the doorway, Peter found Lauren just outside the room holding off the three guards who had snuck up on them with a force field that blocked their access entirely.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, but she didn't seem to be able to hear him; she was too intent on what she was doing.
The guards fired a few more shots at the field without success, continuing to look for a way through it or around it. Concentrating as hard as he could, Peter tried to telekinetically knock the men over and hopefully unconscious, but found to his surprise that his power would not extend past the point of the field Lauren had created.
"Push it out," he told her. "We've got to keep moving. The labs are below us; push out the field and… Lauren? Lauren!"
The field grew brighter and brighter, slowly expanding and cracking the walls it touched. The guards, witnessing this, turned around and ran in fear as the ceiling began to shake.
"Lauren!" Peter yelled once more, grabbing her by the wrist and trying to physically stop her from what she was about to do.
Gasping, she finally dropped the field, looking both confused and frightened.
"What did they do to me?" she asked quietly. "What… Did they do something? Did they make me..."
"I don't know," Peter answered honestly. "They told me they were just looking at your powers but they might have done more."
"Why? Why would they do that?"
"Because they can," Peter returned, realizing more and more how dangerous this place really was. How Primatech was playing God and not caring about the consequences. "They probably wanted to get the most out of what you can do before they duplicated it. Maybe…"
Peter stopped, realizing this wasn't the time to stop and have this conversation, but it was too late.
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe they tried to trigger your gift," Peter provided, knowing what he was saying would only create more questions than it answered. "Or see how…"
"Trigger? But I'm already… why? Why would they…"
"Lauren," Peter interrupted. "We don't have time for this right now. Let's get to the lab and then… we might be able to find something there."
Lauren nodded, used to following orders, but continued to look uneasy.
Peter led them quickly down the hall, back the way they'd come, and towards the staircase that led to the level below where the laboratory was at. Lauren followed him silently, but he could still hear her internal turmoil almost bubbling up past the breaking point.
She was worried and confused and wanted answers.
Peter did too.
They finally made their way down the stairs to the lowest level of the Primatech building; the laboratory.
The entire floor was filled with different rooms and strange equipment. All of it under lock and key. All of it seemingly deserted.
"Where do we start?" Lauren asked quietly.
Peter shrugged before going to the first door on his left.
He had no idea where to start; he remembered nothing of this room.
Once more using Micah's powers to pop the lock, they were both inside in a matter of moments.
The room they'd entered was like some kind of technical headquarters. It was basically just two rows of computers, networked together along with a number of filing cabinets and nothing more.
"We should…" Lauren started to say, before realizing Peter was actually sitting down at the first terminal. "What are you doing?"
"Having a look at what they're doing."
"But…"
"It'll only take a minute," Peter said, already riffling through files at an incomprehensible speed.
He knew there were more pressing matters at hand, but he couldn't help himself. Peter was tired of not knowing. He was tired of guessing and not understanding what was really happening, and he wanted answers.
Lauren shifted uneasily on her feet, straining to hear any sound of approaching guards.
"This is it," Peter said, moving back to allow Lauren a look as well. "Their list. The list."
"What does 'First Wave' mean?" she asked, unable to keep from looking despite her nerves.
"It's what they call those of us that evolved or were helped to evolve prior to New York," Peter answered, remembering well his conversation with Dr. Hahn about the subject.
"So few?"
"They told me that they had tried to keep it under a hundred."
The list itself was very organized. It was alphabetical by last name, followed by a first name and even a middle initial. This was followed by either the word 'natural' or 'triggered' indicating how the person came into their powers and a brief description of what the power was, if known. After that was a last known city and state and a note of whether or not they had been tagged. Finally listed was if the person was still living or deceased.
There were definitely more than a hundred people on it.
Out of curiosity Peter clicked his own name and wasn't altogether surprised to find a full profile on him come up.
It listed everything there was to know about him: who his parents were; where he was born; where he went to school. There was even a mention of the one traffic ticket he had gotten when he was only nineteen. His height and weight and general description given were also there, despite the fact that the profile even included a photo.
"When was that taken?" Lauren asked, hardly recognizing it as the same man that sat beside her.
"Nathan's campaign," Peter answered somewhat fondly. "They took all these pictures of the whole family for it… Feels like another life…"
Peter snapped out of his own thoughts and continued to scan the page for something more useful. There were recent notes added, footnotes really, indicating Peter's last whereabouts and the addition of the scar that covered a good part of his face. There were also links to field and lab reports that Peter didn't feel up to viewing. Not yet at least.
Returning quickly to the main list, Peter found his way to the second list; the 'Second Wave'.
"According to Hahn," Peter told her as they opened and reviewed it, "these are all the people who evolved or could have evolved after New York. This was their potential list before New York."
On this list, after each name, instead of 'natural' or 'triggered' there was either written 'natural' meaning that the person had come into their powers or 'unchanged' meaning they had not.
Neither was surprised to find a majority of the colony's members on the list, or that a majority of the list was also listed as 'deceased'.
Peter, who'd been looking intently for Lauren's name, hoping that Hahn had at least been lying about that, felt her eyes on him instead of the screen.
"I'm not there," she said quietly.
"Hahn said you weren't but…"
"I'm not…" she started, evidently having a hard time with it. "You might find a Lauren Taylor on this list, maybe even on the first one, but it wouldn't be me. I'm not… I'm not really her."
"It's a fake," he said, truly surprised. "Lauren's not your real name?"
She shook her head slowly, looking down as she did so.
"Well then," Peter said, willing to hold off asking other types of questions for the time being, "we can look for your real one and…"
"It's not there either," Lauren interrupted. "I did look. While you were looking… I looked and…"
Peter didn't know what else to say.
Lauren sighed as she reached over and scrolled back up to nearly the top of the list.
"That…" she said, pointing at one name in particular from the list. "That's my mother. I'm not there… it's only her listed. Not me."
Peter stared at the name of Holly Crammer, the list declaring her both 'unchanged' and 'deceased'.
"I'm not there," Lauren repeated.