Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; you know what to expect from this site.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
The Not-So-Average Girl
"I have to go on record as saying that I'm officially not comfortable doing things this way," Audrey said as Mohinder tightened the straps around Sylar's arms and legs as the serial killer's unconscious body lay slumped in a chair in their current 'safehouse'.
She was still amazed that the planned sting operation had worked out as well as it had in the end. Dale naturally hadn't expected to become part of a sting operation, but she'd gone along with the proposed plan easily enough. While Dale waited in her house, Matt and Audrey had taken up position by the door, Matt using his own ability to keep an 'eye' out until Sylar arrived to go after Dale. The serial killer had been so focused on his intended target, supposedly in the garage, that he hadn't noticed Matt and Audrey come up behind him and take him down with an amped-up taser, Once Smithers had been warned to keep an eye out in case Sylar came back, Audrey had been able to call a friend from the bureau and get the address of a holiday home belonging to a friend of that friend, explaining that she was dealing with a difficult case that she couldn't afford to interrogate officially until she knew what she was dealing with.
It was a difficult balance, but even if she recognised the practical need not to take Sylar to the police station until they're worked out how they were going to deal with him long-term, that didn't stop her feeling uncomfortable about ignoring everything she'd been taught about making a legitimate arrest…
"Your objection has been noted," Mohinder nodded at her as he set up the IV. "I sympathise with your dilemma, Agent Hanson, but you have to acknowledge that we don't have a better means of keeping him under control considering the powers he's likely absorbed by now."
"He's right," Matt nodded at Audrey with a grim expression. "Believe me, I'm not comfortable about this either, but if those crime scenes were half as disturbing in reality as they were in the files…"
"Yeah, I get it; just doesn't mean I like it," Audrey looked grimly at the trapped killer. "This is going to be a lot trickier than I expected…"
"If it helps, I can promise you enough time to think it over," Mohinder nodded at her. "This IV is delivering a low level of curare into Sylar's body; it won't be enough to kill him, but it will induce a mild paralysis of the brain that should stop him from properly controlling his abilities even if he regains consciousness."
"…Suppose I can deal with that," the FBI agent nodded.
"So how do we do this?" Matt looked at their prisoner. "I mean, in terms of turning him over to the authorities?"
"That's… a good point," Audrey sighed in frustration as she looked at their prisoner. After what she'd learned from Matt and Mohinder, there was no question that Sylar had committed multiple crimes that deserved imprisonment at best, but the problem lay in working out how to actually prove any of this in a court of law. Even if she could make anyone else believe in the existence of… superpowers… without just letting Sylar wake up and potentially kill whoever was in the room with him as a demonstration, then they'd need to work out the best way to keep him from breaking out while he was on trial without human rights lawyers getting up in arms about 'cruel and unusual punishment'…
"Is he truly human any more?"
"What?" Audrey and Matt looked sharply at Mohinder to see the man looking coldly at Sylar.
"Taking powers from others to enhance his own nature… he's essentially little more than a parasite," Mohinder said, his tone grim and his eyes cold. "There's only one true way to stop a parasite; kill it before it kills again."
"…Tell me you're kidding," Audrey looked coolly at the Indian doctor. "You're not seriously talking about-?"
"Can you honestly tell me that your superiors at the bureau are capable of holding a man like Sylar?" Mohinder asked. "We already know from crime scene reports that he can freeze objects and impale people multiple times without needing to touch them himself; we can't be sure what other abilities he might possess-"
"But we can't just jump straight to murder as a solution!" Matt protested. "Audrey's right; we have to be better than-"
The cop's protests were cut short when the main door was suddenly kicked open and a man staggered inside, looking desperately around before he saw Matt and Audrey.
"You're here!" he said, sighing in relief.
"Ted?" Matt and Audrey said simultaneously.
"Who?" Mohinder asked.
"He was an early suspect in the Sylar case," Audrey said.
"What?" Sprague looked at her indignantly. "You said-!"
"Doctor Suresh is helping us investigate the Sylar case," Hanson cut Sprague off. "What are you doing here… and how the Hell did you find us?"
"I was… I met this woman," Sprague explained, looking awkwardly between the three while giving every impression he was trying to deliberately not look at the man in the chair behind them. "She said that she could help me find information about the man with the glasses and whatever company he's working for, but I thought that… well, I thought that Officer Parkman could help me confirm…"
"OK, that explains what you're doing here, but doesn't explain how you got here," Matt said.
"Hana… she has the ability to access electronic data," Sprague explained, looking uncertainly at the Indian doctor and the FBI agent before he looked back at Matt. "She managed to track you down based on your recent messages, and then she's been helping me trace your phone here… seriously, who is that guy?"
"Sylar," Audrey answered.
"Seriously?" the radioactive man looked at the unconscious man incredulously before he turned back to Matt and Audrey. "You thought I was that guy?"
"The doctor's death suggested a similar M.O. to Sylar's cases, and you are aware that you're still wanted by Homeland Security?"
"Because they think I'm a terrorist, which you know I'm not-!"
"Can I… clarify something?" Mohinder cut in, looking curiously at Ted. "I take it from my… colleagues' comments that you have an ability yourself?"
"I… generate radiation," Sprague replied with a bitter edge to his voice.
"Really?" Mohinder looked at the new arrival with a smile.
"Which led to him killing his wife and her doctor because he couldn't control it," Matt said before either man could say anything else.
"Ah." Mohinder's smile quickly shifted to regret. "You… have my condolences; I lost my father recently myself."
"Uh… thanks, I guess," Sprague said, before he looked at Sylar. "So… what's the big deal with this guy?"
"He killed my father and used his research to find others like yourself," Mohinder explained. "He was able to use my father's research to track down people with abilities, and he…"
"He kills them and apparently takes their abilities for himself," Audrey finished, before she fixed Sprague with a firm glare. "So stay calm and stay away from him, OK? I'm still undecided about whether I should treat you as anything more than a particularly unstable nuke, but I know I don't want what you've got in the hands of this son of a bitch."
"…Fair enough," Sprague nodded at her, before he looked back at Mohinder. "But… if your father knew something about… what I am-"
"We'll… discuss that later," Mohinder nodded awkwardly at Sprague. "Right now, we still have to work out what we're going to do with Sylar here…"
There were times when even Bennett was amazed at how much he could achieve when he was pushed to it. He'd failed in his attempted mission to capture Peter Petrelli and Claude Raines even with the Haitian and the Gogh siblings backing him up, and he'd still managed to respond to the Company's latest call for his services when they'd found Sylar's latest location after intercepting a phone conversation about the escaped killer. A part of him was grateful that they'd called after his failed attempt to capture those two, so at least he didn't have to choose between his own plan and the Company's request, but it still frustrated him that he'd been recalled to the Sylar case before he could finish his own project.
Like with the Gogh siblings, it was a matter of popular debate among some circles just how the Company kept track of phone calls on matters like this, but all that mattered was that they had found some report that the killer had been captured by an FBI agent in Montana. He'd been on a flight to Montana barely an hour after he got the call, and from there he and the Haitian just had to follow the phone's GPS to wherever the agent was keeping the killer. The call had apparently been intercepted so that the FBI as a whole were currently unaware of Sylar's capture, which at least meant they wouldn't have to worry about anything more than an FBI agent or two, but Bennett would be lying to himself if he didn't admit to feeling a certain shame about the idea that they would be potentially sabotaging the woman's arrest.
Anyone who caught Sylar has to know something about what he's capable of; the only problem with this scenario is that they'd have no way of explaining to the bureau how to keep him locked up without sounding crazy.
He particularly regretted that he'd been unable to respond to Lyle's call about Sandra being taken to hospital, but he'd been able to honestly answer that he was trying to follow up a lead to Claire's location. He'd only managed to get the answering machine (he'd never gotten around to memorising Lyle's mobile number, and he obviously didn't carry his personal phone on business; he had to set up some system where calls to that number were sent to his company-issued phone in case of emergencies), but hopefully his son would check the messages in time to understand why he wasn't there…
When the car came to a halt outside the house that the phone had been traced to, Bennett glanced over at the Haitian as he took out his gun.
"Be ready," he said firmly. "If Sylar's in there…"
The Haitian simply nodded, silent as ever, but Bennett had been working with him long enough to see an edge of apprehension in his eyes. He regretted that he hadn't been able to get the Gogh siblings to accompany them for back-up, but he couldn't risk Thomson asking questions about what they had been doing in New York with him in case it led to anyone else getting too interested in Claire's disappearance.
Tightening his grip on his gun, Bennett walked briskly up to the house, only to pause when he realised that someone had already forced the door open. Only slightly calmed when he noticed that the door had been forced open from the outside, he marched into the room and found himself faced with a particularly unexpected group of people. The blonde woman wasn't familiar, but he was fairly sure he'd been responsible for testing the two men for abilities at some point, Doctor Suresh was easy enough to recognise, and the only reason he needed a moment to recognise that Sylar was in the chair behind them was that he wasn't used to seeing the man unconscious.
"Who the Hell-?" the blonde woman said, pulling out a gun with the ease that could only come from professional training.
"Stay back!" the bearded man said, raising his hands as he glared at Bennett, only to stare at his palms in shock. "What the-?"
"My colleague here is keeping things on an even playing field," Bennett said; he couldn't immediately recall what that man had been capable of, but judging by the way he'd raised his hands Bennett would assume that it was some kind of offensive ability that it would be best to keep neutralised for the moment. "Now then, since I'm sure we all want Sylar to not be allowed to go free, might I suggest that I be the one to take him into custody-?"
"Not a chance," the woman with the gun said firmly. "This asshole's my prisoner, and he's staying in my custody."
"My company has experience at keeping people like Sylar contained-"
"Which would be why he's still walking around?" the fat man cut in, looking at Bennett with a particularly intense glare. "And the reason why Zane Taylor is dead?"
"Zane Taylor?" Bennett repeated.
"He could turn objects to liquid before Sylar here cut his head open, copied his power, and took his identity to try and find more victims," the fat man said. "And then he was going to kill Dale Smithers for her enhanced hearing before we stepped in and caught him ourselves, so where the Hell were you then?"
"Sylar's escape was a mistake-"
"And we're expected to just hand this guy over to you and trust that you won't repeat that kind of mistake?" the woman asked. "No chance in Hell; he's staying here until-"
"Mohinder… can kill me…?" another voice said. Spinning around, the six were all shocked to see Sylar looking tentatively up at them, a subtle smile on his face even as his posture gave the impression of intense weariness. "Like father… like son…"
"My father was not a killer-" Mohinder began.
"When he kept… leading me to them…?"
"He didn't know what you were-"
"When we were making so much progress… why would he stop?" Sylar grinned. "He told me so many things… things about your sister Shanti… things he thought you were too fragile to know about…"
"Shut-!" Mohinder began, only for the woman to grab his arm before he could strike Sylar.
"Hit him like that and you might just dislodge that IV," she pointed out grimly. "He's trying to provoke you; don't let him."
"And… you are?" Sylar looked at her with a thoughtful grin. "I feel like… we've met before…"
"Been hunting you for the last few months," the woman shrugged as she turned back to look at him. "Got to admit, after everything you've done, I was expecting someone bigger."
"Size… isn't everything… detective-"
"Agent," the woman countered. "I'm with the FBI."
"My mistake," Sylar smiled at her. "Credit… where credit's due…"
"Save it," the woman said before she turned back to Bennett. "So you're… what, tracking people who manifest these powers?"
"You seem remarkable casual about this," Bennett observed, even as he tried to consider how he could turn this twist to his advantage; he'd been recruited for his own tracking skills when he had nothing left after Kate's death, but this woman clearly had her own life that she didn't seem likely to give up…
"I had a few run-ins that left me with a more open mind," the woman replied, her expression calculating as she looked at him and the Haitian. "So you say that your colleague here can keep things on an even playing field… what do you do?"
"The same as you and Doctor Suresh, I believe."
"So… you don't have an ability yourself?" the larger man looked at Bennett in surprise.
"I know what I'm doing," Bennett replied. "You'd be surprised how many people get complacent because they can do something others can't."
"Really?" the other man indicated Sylar. "He doesn't exactly seem 'complacent'-"
"Shut up!" the bearded man yelled, suddenly shoving his way forward and grabbing Bennett by the jacket to practically throw him against the wall. "I don't care about why you were 'tracking' me, I just need to know if you're the sick fucks who did this to me in the first place!"
"I had nothing to do with-" Bennett began.
"What was it, some kind of sick experiment?" the bearded man continued, further reinforcing Bennett's opinion that the man was losing his grip if he wasn't even listening to their counter-argument. "Are you the reason I killed my wife?"
"Ted!" the other man yelled, stepping forward to grab his shoulder. "You can't just-"
"You've got some psychopath tied up because he's trying to… what, take abilities from other people and you're just going to accept this shit?" the now-identified Ted looked at the other man even as he kept a grip on Bennett. "He did something to us-!"
"I did nothing more than keep track of you," Bennett replied, even as he privately acknowledged that he would probably be more panicked without the Haitian here to even the odds. "Your ability is natural; we just keep track of manifestations-"
"Stop lying-!"
"He's not lying," Doctor Suresh interjected, looking sympathetically at the man who was apparently Ted. "My father's work has confirmed that the genetic sequence that gives people abilities is completely natural; there is no way that any company could have turned you or others into what you are now."
"…He's telling the truth," the other man put in, looking between Bennett and Mohinder before focusing on Ted. "They all are."
"…They… they are?" Ted stood uncertainly back from Bennett, staring tentatively at his temporary prisoner. "But… my wife…"
"It was a tragic accident," Bennett looked at the man with new sympathy. "Believe me, I know how you feel; my own wife is in hospital right now because of… well, it's not anything I did to her on purpose, but-"
"It's… it's still rough," Ted looked awkwardly at Bennett. "I… you really didn't…?"
"No," Bennett nodded in confirmation. "We had nothing to do with you becoming what you are now-"
"Whereas…" Sylar's voice suddenly cut in, "Doctor Suresh's father… had everything to do… with what I am…"
As their gaze turned back to Sylar, Bennett barely bit back a curse when he saw that the IV drip that had been sticking into Sylar had been removed; the man must have regained enough control of his abilities to remove the feed. Bennett raised his gun to fire, but Sylar suddenly raised one hand and Bennett was sent flying up against the wall, along with the other people in the room. For a moment Sylar just glared at the group, his outstretched hand visibly shaking even as his remaining straps slipped off his limbs, but he soon stood up and glared at them all.
"See you… around," he said, a particular edge to his voice as he looked at Sprague and Doctor Suresh before he released a burst of what Bennett could only consider blue energy from his hand, and suddenly Bennett felt a chill along his wrists and ankles. Looking around, he wasn't entirely surprised to see that his outstretched limbs were now covered in frost that was holding them against the wall, with his fellow 'prisoners' in a similar state. Turning his attention back to Sylar, Bennett was prepared to face Sylar's particular brand of death, but was surprised to see the killer just turn around and head for the rear of the house, likely making for a back door of some kind.
He briefly wondered why Sylar had allowed them all to live, but considering the villain's condition, he would guess that Sylar had concluded that he wasn't yet strong enough to hold down all six of them, particularly when he couldn't be sure if any of them had an ability that he might find useful to acquire…
"Mr… Ted?" he turned his attention back to their current situation. "From what you said earlier, can I assume you have some kind of… offensive ability?"
"He… generates radiation," the fat man replied.
"And it's Sprague," the bearded man clarified bitterly. "Ted Sprague."
"Right," Bennett nodded, taking a moment to think this over before deciding to just hope that Sylar had left. "Mr Sprague, I need you to release a quick burst of energy-"
"Are you crazy-?"
"My colleague can inhibit your ability to limit the amount of energy you can release in one burst; if you don't try it, we could develop frostbite before anyone else finds us," Bennett said urgently. "At least try it before you dismiss it!"
"All… all right…" Sprague said. The other man was too far down the wall for Bennett to see what he was doing at this angle, but a glance to one side allowed Bennett to see that the Haitian had closed his eyes and had a very measured expression on his face, making it clear that the other agent was trying to moderate just how much of Sprague's power he was suppressing rather than just letting his own ability do its usual thing. After a minute or so, there was a brief thumping sound, and he looked over to see Sprague on his knees on the floor, looking uncertainly at his now-damp forearms. The others began trying to talk to him all at once, but Bennett simply waited in silence until Sprague had melted the others' bonds, even if he was the last one the man turned his attention to.
"So-" Bennett began, only to find himself facing the barrel of a gun held by the blonde woman.
"Under normal circumstances, after hearing some of what you said to Sylar, I want you to be clear that I'd be arresting you for unlawful detainment at best," the woman said, before she groaned in frustration and lowered the gun. "But considering the kind of things we're dealing with right now… I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt."
"And I'll do the same for you," Bennett replied, already abandoning the idea of asking the Haitian to wipe the memories of everyone present; if they had captured Sylar for any length of time, they must have at least some idea of what they were doing. "Noah Bennett."
"…Audrey Hanson," the woman replied, shaking his hand before she indicated the other men. "I gather you already know Doctor Suresh, but this is Officer Matt Parkman, originally of the Los Angeles Police Department; he's been… helping me track Sylar."
"I see," Bennett said, looking at Parkman in thought before the memory came to him. "You… read minds, correct?"
"…Yeah," Parkman replied, looking at him in a probing manner that Bennett had a feeling he should be worried about even with the Haitian present, before he turned his attention back to the empty chair. "So now that Sylar's gone, what do we do next? Go after him?"
"Given Sylar's track record at evading pursuit and our lack of a plan for what we do when we do catch up with him, I'd advise against that," Doctor Suresh observed. "Our best bet is to anticipate his next move and try and catch him before he can make further progress."
"And… how do we do that?" Mr Sprague asked, clearly uncertain about his own next move even as he looked at Parkman and Hanson in particular as though they would be able to give him the answers.
"I have an idea or two," Mohinder said, before he looked at Bennett in a very firm manner. "But I would require your own promise that you let us handle Sylar; as Mr Parkman has already observed, your company's track record at keeping him contained is… not the best."
"Not to mention that I'm not keen on the idea that your bosses might decide to lock up Matt and Ted for what they're capable of," Agent Hanson said.
"Both… fair points," Bennett nodded at the doctor and the agent.
He couldn't entirely believe that he was about to do this, but he couldn't deny that both made good points; the company had already failed to stop Sylar once, so there was no harm in trying to go after him again with new allies.
Besides… with everything he was doing to keep Claire away from them, did the company truly deserve his loyalty any more? So long as the Haitian didn't show any objection to the new agenda, these people deserved help catching Sylar, and they'd already done comparatively better than the company considering what they'd been starting with…