A Note From Lara: Wow, I'd have had an update out days ago, but my internet was down for a week, and I couldn't get to the half-finished chapter I'd uploaded. *commits violence against modem* *well, not really, because that would put my internet out again*

--

January 7th,

Twenty years ago...

Thompson sighed. "Shame," he said, surveying the burning wreckage of the Mercedez that lay smashed against the guard rail. "I never like jobs like this."

Bennet shook his head, feeling slightly nauseated as the odor of burning flesh drifted across the freeway. He knew it'd been necessary, but he still felt guilty about it... and he hadn't even been in the car that had forced the Morten family into a spin! He and Claude were just backup, stationed along the roadside in case Thompson failed to drive them off the road. This was his first real mission with his invisible partner, and both he and Claude were ill at ease.

"This wasn't what I signed on for," the invisible man said in an undertone, so that only Bennet could hear.

He nodded. "Me either. I'm comfortable with morally grey, like I said, but this..." He gestured helplessly at the car wreck. He raised his voice to address Thompson. "Why was this necessary?" he asked. "As far as I'm aware, these people weren't dangerous."

Thompson shrugged. "The woman, Kira Morten, is the sister of one of our Company's founding members, apparently. She and her husband did occasional work for us, but apparently something's gone sour for them; they were on their way to... reveal certain things to the government, trying to get us shut down. We can't allow that to happen, obviously."

Bennet glanced at Claude, who looked even more sickened, if that were possible. "Tell me something mate," Claude said quietly. "Were they 'one of us' or 'one of them'?"

Their superior half-smiled at that. "One of each," he said. "The woman was, her husband wasn't."

"And the girl?" Bennet asked. He jerked his head toward the sobbing girl being examined by the paramedics just a few yards from the inferno.

"How should we know?" Claude said caustically. "It's too early to tell."

Confused, Bennet said, "But... what about Bishop's little girl?" The child had been brought to the Company just last week. Bennet had seen her, terrified, with bright sparks playing from her fingers.

Thompson shook his head. "Elle Bishop is the exception, not the rule. An early manifestation- not unheard of but certainly unusual. These powers don't usually manifest until the late teens, at the earliest. Although... the fact that she survived a crash that killed even her mother would lend itself to suggest that she's Special."

Making up his mind, Bennet started walking. "I'm going to talk to her," he said.

"Bennet!" Claude called. "Don't--!" But it was no good. When Noah Bennet made a decision, he didn't go back on it.

The paramedics had finished their examination, and the child was left sitting miserably at the back of the ambulance while they completed their check of the motorcyclist who had been hit in the side by a piece of debris from the crash. Bennet knelt down in front of her. Her long blonde hair was soot-stained and tangled, and her face was covered with ash, but she had stopped crying and met his gaze firmly with bright green eyes.

"What's your name?" he asked.

She looked at him curiously for a moment before saying "I'm Dianne."

He smiled at her. "I'm Mr. Bennet. You're a very lucky girl, Dianne."

She cocked her eyebrow in the most sarcastic expression he had ever seen a six-year-old wear. "How?" she asked incredulously.

Bennet supposed he understood her apparent cynicism. She had just lost her parents, after all. "Well, that was a very bad car accident. It's amazing that you survived... and without a scratch. Do you know how that happened?"

Dianne shrugged. "My mom did something. The purple lights, like she does sometimes. But I'm not supposed to talk about that." She clambered up into the main bay of the ambulance and turned away from him. Bennet took this as his cue to leave. Clearly, the traumatized child wasn't interested in talking to him anymore.

When he returned to where his coworkers stood amid the crowd of ogglers, he said softly, "I didn't get much out of her- she's a stubborn little thing, I think- but what she did say was that her mother did something. Do "purple lights" mean anything to you?"

Thompson nodded. "Of course," he said. "Her mother had the ability to throw force fields. Not very powerful, if spread out over a wide range. Certainly not enough to protect all three of them. But if she were to concentrate it on one small area..."

"She chose to save her daughter, rather than herself," Claude said softly.

"Apparently. Now come on, that's enough chit-chat. Claude, you know what you have to do?" Thompson said brusquely.

Claude gave him a mutinous look, but nodded, and withdrew a small device from his pocket. It looked like a bizarre cross between a staple gun, a tattooing needle, and a rubber stamp. The many-pointed tip was just an inch long, if that, and was cut in a twisting shape, like a fragmented strand of DNA, that was all too familiar to every man present. With not a word, Claude turned invisible.

Though he couldn't see him, Bennet knew he was walking casually across the crowded space to where the disconsolate orphan was sitting once more on the edge of the ambulance. Though the weather was cold even for January, the girl had taken her coat off when the paramedics were examining her, leaving only an oversized Star Wars T-shirt between her and the stinging lake effect wind. All at once, the right shoulder of her T-shirt slipped down for no reason that anyone could see. She jerked in startlement and looked behind her, but saw nothing. Of course. All at once, she jerked again and let out a soft cry of pain as Claude injected her with the ultraviolet dye that would be invisible (much like the man applying it) unless exposed to a blacklight.

Sixty seconds later, Claude was back. "Alright mate, the deed's done. Now let's get the hell out of here, I'm freezing my ass off."

--

The Present...

It took everything I had to keep myself in place and avoid hurling myself at Bennet. Here it was at last, confirmation that I wasn't completely crazy. Bennet had been there the night my parents died, he worked for Primatech (and thus for Linderman), he was the one who had ordered my death last week. He could be the key to all of this.

"I'm sorry," he said mildly. "I believe you must have me confused with someone else. I don't know you."

"Bullshit," I said. "There might be twenty years between then and now, and I may have changed a lot, but you were there. I remember now... but you didn't have the glasses, then."

"What are you talking about?" Claire asked, staring back and forth between her father and myself.

I narrowed my eyes. "What is it that you do at that little "paper factory" of yours?" I asked, making airquotes. "Who the hell is Eden, and why did you have her try to kill me? What's all this about?"

Bennet simply smiled, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Miss... uh?"

"Morten. Dianne Morten." I saw the slight tightening around his eyes at my name, and I knew that I was right in my guess. It was him, all right.

"Miss Morten. But I just don't know what you're talking about. I'm just a paper salesman, and I don't know any Eden."

My patience had already been stretched to the edge; what with... well, everything that was going on with Peter, the upheaval that had already been going on in my life, and the intrigue of Primatech, I was at the breaking point. Ignoring Claire's yell of shock, I hurled myself at Bennet and slammed him up against the wall.

"I know you're connected to all of this," I hissed, jamming my forearm against his throat to keep him pinned. "What I don't know is how, and what exactly your agenda is. I am here to try to stop a fucking nuclear bomb, Mr. Bennet. And you're somehow the one piece of the puzzle I need to figure out where to go from here. So tell me what I want to know, or I can crush your windpipe easier than you can say 'Primatech.'"

Claire pulled at my shoulder, trying to get me to release him. "What are you doing?" she exclaimed.

I suddenly realized that this was exactly what I had seen in Isaac's painting- me attacking a man with horn-rimmed glasses, and a blonde girl attempting to stop me. "Get off, Claire," I said in a tense voice. "I need answers. My best friend is lying in a hospital bed, and this man- your father- might be the only way I can get answers to what the hell is going on."

Bennet's hand was creeping along the wall toward the underside of the bookshelf. I caught the motion, and rammed my knee into his wrist. He gasped in pain, and quickly snapped the hand back to his side.

"I'm not asking for much. Just tell me what I need to know." Sudden inspiration struck me. "What do you know about Sylar?" I saw the twitch, and knew I'd struck true. I released him, taking a step back. "Alright, so clearly you know that name. Who is he?"

Claire looked at me. "What are you talking about? I thought Sylar was the man who attacked me at homecoming--?"

I nodded. "And apparently he knows something about him. I intend to find out what. Mr. Bennet, I used to do work as a vigilante. My specialty was taking down serial killers. What's one more? Especially one who killed a friend of mine?"

Bennet sighed, and ran a hand over his face. "We have Sylar contained in Primatech," he said.

"Dad?" Claire whispered, shocked.

My eyes narrowed. "I want to see him," I said. Bennet met my gaze, but I turned up the intensity of my glare, attempting to burn right through his skull. Finally, he dropped his eyes.

"Fine," he said quietly. "But it will be dangerous. If anyone finds out I brought you into a Company facility... things could get very complicated."

I nodded, then glanced at Claire. "Claire, I'm sorry I couldn't stay any longer and explain things, but I have to do this, okay? Listen, I'm going to be in Las Vegas for about a week, to find Niki Sanders. After that I'll be going back to New York. If you need any help, if this guy brings his work home, so to speak, come to me. My friends and I can protect you from him or anyone else who's causing you trouble."

She nodded, eyes huge. "I... what's happening? Why is everything in my life based on a lie?"

"I don't know," I said. "I've taken to blaming Daniel Linderman for everything that goes wrong in my life. But if I were you, I'd blame him." I jerked a thumb at Bennet, who glared at me.

--

Las Vegas

Bellmonte Correctional Facility For Women

Niki stared through the glass at her son and husband, hardly hearing the words that were pouring from DL's mouth. She just drank in the sight of them, knowing that they were doing okay, that they were safe. Safer than they had been, at any rate. With Jessica around, no one was safe...

"Baby?"

She shook her head, suddenly realizing that DL had asked her something. "What? Sorry..."

He smiled, but she could tell it was forced. "I was just askin' how you're doing. You've been worried about us the whole time we've been here."

Niki smiled absently, plucking at her orange prison uniform. "I'm okay," she said. "Mostly just bored. But whenever they try to ease me off the drugs... Well, I start losing track of time again. The drugs put her beneath the surface, they make it easier to keep her inside, but whenever they start to wear off..." She bit her lip, trying to hide the terror she always felt when she was contemplating her vicious alter-ego. "When they start to wear off, she comes out and tries to break us out of here..."

He shook his head. "That's because you shouldn't be in here."

"DL, she's hurt people! Bad. There are a couple of guards... Look, I'm not safe to be around right now, okay? Please, I need you to take good care of Micah. He needs his father right now."

The dark-skinned man shook his head, meeting her eyes through the glass. "No," he said. "He needs his mom. He needs you. We both need you, Niki. We're gonna get you outta here."

She tried to protest, but nothing she said made any difference. DL was going to do everything in his power to get her out, and nothing she did would change that. And considering this was a man who could literally reach through walls, Jessica considered gleefully from the back of their mind, that was really quite a lot.

Shut up, Niki hissed to her. Get out of my head.

All the while she was talking to Micah, she managed to keep the suddenly strong Jessica at bay, but once her son and husband were once again gone, the other side of her rose up with unexpected ferocity, and suddenly it was Niki in the reflective surface of the glass. She could only watch helplessly from the inside as Jessica made yet another bid for freedom, knocking out a dozen of the guards before they were both rendered unconscious by the soft kiss of a hypodermic...

--

Meh, it's a little shorter than some past chapters, but I assume you'll all get over it and review, yes?