Thanks for the reviews, guys! It's helpful, believe me. Since everyone keeps asking, I probably should just say this up front right now; the Brothers Petrelli reunion isn't going to be for a while, sorry...Hey, wait, where you going? They (and everyone else) will be doing some cool stuff in the meantime! Come back!

7. Sabotage

Claude Rains relocated back to Manhattan the previous month. He decided to do this while taking a holiday in Ireland and being forced to watch Irish football at every pub he snuck into, causing him to leave the damn drunkards with a broken tap as a going-away present, naturally. He only went back to New York because he impatiently reasoned that everyone who would have died from the nuclear fallout Peter Petrelli exploded all over the place had probably snuffed it already. Therefore, it was safe.

The first place he went was the Deveaux Building, because if the idiot had really killed anyone in his attempt to save the world, it would've been his poor pigeons. Indeed, that seemed to be the case; none had flown back to him in the first few weeks he was there.

But today one came back. A pigeon named Pele. At least he thought it was Pele. He didn't tag the pigeons—he was disgusted with himself the minute the idea popped into his head—but he did keep an informal record of their spots and markings in his memory. This one resembled Pele; there were the same spots and everything. But he was too young and small, and he was missing a white patch near his legs.

"Pele, Jr. it is, then," Claude declared. "He saw the end of the world coming, decided to spend the apocalypse with a tart in Ontario, and now here you are. Well then. Death begets life, eh?"

The pigeon cooed softly in his hands, and he stuck him in Pele's old cage. He took a handful of seed and was about to give him dinner when he heard footsteps, slow and distinct. A realtor visiting to look at the building, probably.

"An invisible man who spends his time talking to pigeons?" a man asked. "What a waste of talent."

Definitely not a realtor.

Claude turned to find a dark-eyed young man watching Pele, Jr. feed from his invisible hand. Slowly, he withdrew his hand from the cage, leaving some spare seed to keep Pele occupied. Then he backed away with soft steps, increasing his pace as the man continued to look in his direction curiously.

"What's wrong? Did I insult you?" He stuck his right arm out, and a stick traveled easily from the floor to his hand.

He was telekinetic.

Instinct pulled Claude into a backward jump as the man swung the stick swiftly at him, and he ducked and sidestepped before he could get caught by the next hit. He threw birdseed into the man's face, and ran like hell past the cages, just though the greenhouse door-

-And he froze.

"There's no use staying invisible anymore, I've got a hold on you," the man announced, brushing birdseed off his clothes. "Show yourself."

It was a reasonable argument. Claude couldn't move a muscle, so escape was out of the question. He materialized, deciding to stall while he worked out a plan.

Claude felt himself being spun around in place and then shoved back roughly into brick, as the man telekinetically held him against the wall. He came closer, looking at Claude with a sneer. "You must know Peter Petrelli," he said.

"I must not," said Claude, unafraid. "I talk to pigeons, remember?"

"I think you do know him. He also has that magic trick of yours."

"What, talking to pigeons?"

His eyes narrowed. "Where is he?"

"He exploded, didn't you know? Guts and locks splattered all over the place. Perfectly lovely bloodbath, it was."

"You've got a smart mouth. Let's see if you've got a smart brain, too." He aimed his left finger at the wall next to him, and a line etched cleanly through the brick, about two inches deep. "I've still got it," he smiled to himself. "And now for you."

His finger pointed slightly to the right of his head, and Claude's eyes widened. His heart rammed furiously in his chest, but he still couldn't move a single limb. And he could see exactly what was coming. Shit.

But suddenly in swooped the still ravenous Pele, Jr. right onto the man's head, pecking at some birdseed still nestled in his hair. Startled, the man swatted at Pele with both hands, accidentally releasing his grip on Claude. Now free, he sped into the greenhouse, dashed down the stairwell, and got the bloody fuck out of there.

He ran for about five blocks, running into any man, woman, or child who got into his way. Claude hated leaving his one loyal pigeon to possibly the most dangerous man alive, but he knew in his heart that Pele, Jr. did it for a valiant cause. His invisible hide.

Panting, Claude turned around, and seeing that the coast was clear, he made up his mind. He was going to have a talk with that idiot, Peter Petrelli.

"Are you sure you don't want to try some prego?" Lucy asked Mohinder, discourteously waving her grilled beef sandwich in front of his face as they journeyed the streets of Lisbon, Portugal. "It's really good. Or do you not like foreign foods?"

"I like them just fine, I'm just full," he insisted, pushing her arm out of the way, so he could read his map.

"Are you still mad about the airport?"

"Which one?" Mohinder asked in exasperation. "I believe we had incidents at two airports."

"The LAX incident."

"Ah. Well Lucy, all I will say is that it's a very good thing they let you drink on flights."

"Do you know how to read Portuguese?" she asked out of nowhere, like she was an easily distracted child. She was Molly without sensibility, basically.

"No, Lucy, I still don't know how to read Portuguese."

"Well, this thing I stole from that woman's purse seems to talk about the University of Lisbon."

He looked at her. "Hold on, what woman?"

"That lady who just passed by, the one with all the junk spilling over the hemline of her shorts," Lucy said unconcernedly. "Ooh, that word means 'population'! I remember it from the airport. D'you think this'll help us find the University?"

"Can you read anything other than the word 'population'?"

"No."

"Then it's possible that you just made a useless steal."

Lucy frowned. "I never look at any steal as useless. I view this steal as an opportunity to read more Portuguese literature. Do you know where we're going, by the way? Why don't we just take a cab to the university?"

"Because we're already here." They stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, Lucy barely noticing that they had been walking around the perimeter of the university for the past two minutes. She looked over at Mohinder, who grinned amusedly.

"How'd you do that? We barely left the hotel like fifteen minutes ago!"

"It's a little thing called internet hotel bookings," Mohinder replied, rolling his eyes. "Come on, the science department is on the west side of campus."

A little while later, they were in a science building, approaching the office of Dr. Jorge Vicente, an eminent researcher in the field of genetics. He was a friend of the late Dr. Suresh, and Mohinder had recently read an article the man had done on rare and unique human phenotypes. While reading, Mohinder kept having the distinct feeling that Dr. Vicente was holding back a great deal more than he was writing about, and decided to contact him.

"So does this guy work with people like me, too?" Lucy asked.

Mohinder nodded. "He does. But he only has two subjects, and coincidentally, one of them has Molly's illness. Dr. Vicente's been working on a permanent cure for a while now, and he told me over the phone that he's made a major breakthrough in the last few weeks."

"So did he agree to give it to you? The cure?"

"Well, I said he made a breakthrough," he answered, approaching the door. "That doesn't necessarily mean-"

Mohinder knocked and the door had opened wide, revealing two men hunched over a mess of papers on the desk, and a very dead Dr. Vicente, lying on the floor in a small pool of his own blood.

The men noticed Mohinder and Lucy, standing absolutely still and terrified in the doorway. One of them made a move, and so did Lucy, shoving Mohinder out of the doorway at a sprint and yelling at him to run.

He found himself barreling down the hallway, dashing downstairs after Lucy as the men behind them sprinted behind. At the foot of the stair, Lucy had found a janitor's cart. "Get in!" she yelled, knocking the water container and spilling its contents all over the floor. Having no objections, Mohinder obeyed.

"Hold on tight!" she yelled, grabbing onto the handles behind Mohinder. She pushed him down the hallway slowly at first, but within seconds everything around him had blended into a continuous blur, and he was clutching on to the sides for dear life. The cart crashed through something hard and there was light speeding at them now as they hurtled through the wind. It was a bumpy ride, but Mohinder barely had time to feel the bounces and jolts through the claustrophobia of speed all around him.

A minute later, Lucy started to slow down, and in another minute, they had come to a complete stop. Still terrified, and now panting and shaking, Mohinder tried to step off of the cart, finally half-falling onto the pavement in utter disorientation. Finally steadying himself, he got up, looking around.

They were just outside the market place, a good two miles away from the university.

Incredulous, Mohinder let out a disbelieving laugh and looked over at Lucy. She was sitting on the ground, sweaty, out of breath, and barely able to reply to him, but she did smile contentedly.

"Who…was that…?" she gasped.

"I'm not sure exactly, but I have a strong hunch," he said pensively. "What's clear is that they really wanted to get their hands on whatever it is poor Dr. Vicente had found." He sighed. "Look, I really need to figure out what's going on. Obviously, this is probably going to be just as dangerous as what happened right now, if not more so. Are you still with me?"

"Who said I wasn't?"

Mohinder grinned thankfully. He shut his eyes for a few moments, inhaling deeply as he tried to compose himself again. Remembering his manners, he turned back to her. "Thank you so much, Lucy, you did very well. I think you're worth the trouble."

She managed a smirk. "So are you."

"Rodrigo!" Claire exclaimed as she opened the door. "What are you doing here?"

"I found some time in my schedule," he grinned. "Thought I'd drop by and see you, Jodi, it's been a while. What you been up to?"

His visit was a pleasant surprise; it really had been some time since they'd last hung out, mostly due to Peter's week-long stay. It had only been two days since Peter had left, but she was already missing him dearly and had sort of taken to moping around the house ever since. Rodrigo didn't have to know that, though. "Oh, you know, been busy," she answered. "A family friend came to visit for a few days, so that's why I haven't been out much."

"Hah, recluse!" he laughed. Geez, she didn't even tell him about her moping around. She was slightly embarrassed, but tried not to make it apparent. "Looks like we'll need to rectify that, eh?" he asked.

"Jodi!" called her mother from the kitchen. "Who's that, hon?"

"It's Rodrigo, Mom!"

Mrs. Bennet (or Petersen), so fond of the extremely cute boy who always came to visit Claire, greeted him happily, and offered to get some cookies and lemonade ready for them. "I'll be in the kitchen, and you two can spend some time in the living room, where no one's going to bother you," she said perkily.

"I think your mom thinks she's a matchmaker or something," Rodrigo observed after she left.

"Ugh, I'm aware," said Claire, rolling her eyes. "She's a crazy woman."

"Who makes crazy cookies and crazy lemonade?"

"Made with crazy love," she laughed. "Hey, I thought you said on IM that you were finally going to catch up on your Trig homework today."

He shrugged. "I finished it like an hour ago."

"Oh my god, you nerd!"

"I am not a nerd," he protested, to Claire's laughter. "You're a goober."

"What?!" She exclaimed, her eyes glancing to the window momentarily. "You're the last person who should be calling me a goober, Rodrigo."

"Whatever. Only goobers put potato chips in their sandwiches. Who does that?"

"Hey, hey, everyone has their quirks! Especially you."

Rodrigo laughed. "You don't know the extent of my quirkiness, Jodi."

"I don't know, maybe I can relate," she replied wistfully. "I've seen some pretty weird stuff."

"Speaking of weird stuff," he began, dropping his mischievous air and looking her in the eye, "I hear you haven't been asked to the Spring Dance yet. Now that's pretty weird. I think it's off the wall."

Whenever he actually stopped and got serious, Rodrigo spoke with a very quiet, yet still playful, tone of voice. Claire always found it to be one of his more 'hottie' qualities. "You do, huh?" she asked shyly.

"Well, yeah. It's gonna be a big night, and it's only two weeks away. I have to confess though," he said with a grin. "I don't have a date yet either. Would you be my date, and then I could be yours?"

He said this in the cheesiest way possible, forcing Claire to laugh. "And you didn't ask me earlier because…?"

"I mean, I thought I'd let you bat off all the other guys before I came over and wowed you with my charm," he said with adorable mock-confidence. "Also…I was scared shitless."

"You were scared?"

He nodded. "Hey, I don't do this very often, okay? Gimme a break. Come on, Jodi, you still haven't answered. Will you go with me?"

Claire grinned, the widest she'd had since Peter left. "The Nerd and the Goober. I think we'll be the talk of the dance."

"I hope you're not treating this as a practice run, Matt, because you're not going to spoil our child this much," Janice was telling her husband, as she watched Molly devour her double-scoop ice cream cone (with sprinkles!) happily. They were walking around in the mall, enjoying one of the first laid-back Saturdays they'd had in a while.

"You say that now, Jan, but in a year, we're gonna be king and queen of Sesame Street. Aw, come on, I'm kidding!" He said in response to her stern glare. "Right now it's okay to spoil Molly, I mean, she isn't even ours. It's perfectly fine."

"Is that right?"

"Kids have like an aunt-and-uncle loophole for spoiling. It's in fine print somewhere, I'm sure."

Molly laughed. "I bet I could find it!"

"Well…I know you've already found the toy store, Molly," said Janice, at last giving in to the adorable little girl's spell. "I can see you looking over there. Did you want to go?" she nodded excitedly. "…Okay, Matt, can you take her while I sit down for a bit? Matt?"

She realized that her husband had stopped walking, and was standing in the middle of all the mall shoppers passing by him. "Matt, what's-"

Molly Walker…with Parkman…wait before…backup already at toy store-

"We gotta go," he said suddenly, breaking into a brisk walk and grabbing both her and Molly by the wrists.

"Matt, what's gotten into-"

"Someone here is after Molly," he uttered under his breath, holding the little girl close with one arm. He let go of his wife and stuck his other hand in his pocket, making sure his gun was at the ready. "We have to leave, now."

"Where?" Janice asked, as she met Molly's scared eyes while they hurried through the crowds.

"Anywhere," breathed Matt, pulling out his phone. "Anywhere but here."

Nathan always thought of private thinking time as a valuable asset. It was certainly hard to come by in the political world; when you weren't brainstorming policy and image issues with your staff, you were out in front of the press, basically bullshitting half of what you said anyway. When he did take time to ponder, it was usually in his office, or even better, his father's at home. But as nice as Aster's facilities were, Nathan could find only one place suitable enough for contemplation time: an altitude of 250 feet in the air.

He learned that he was staying in the headquarters of "Primatech Paper Company," just west of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was anything but a corporation, of course; New Mexico was probably too happy to have a big "company" based in the state to care about what the hell was actually on the premises. For example, he was presently mid-air, floating around on his back in the company's 30,000 square-foot underground "gymnasium" (hardly appropriate due to the lack of patrons and weight equipment). Below him were various props, dummies, and targets scattered on the white tile floor. These were intended for "training" and "refining abilities," as he was told.

It was strange how he'd picked his "thinking spot." As much as he despised using his ability, for the moment it was the only real and familiar aspect that had transferred from his old life. The only proof that he was still Nathan Petrelli. He had no one here with him right now, save for a recent inheritor trying to push him into an offer he wasn't quite sure he could accept.

Congress popped into his thoughts. It was a shame he couldn't serve. He'd known Josh Sutter a long time though; truthfully the man would probably make for a much more admirable public official, even if the guy lacked Nathan's notorious negotiation skills. For a while he pondered about the House. If none of these far-out events had ever happened—his and Peter's powers, the explosion plans—he would probably be sitting in the House of Representatives right now, getting to sponsor some school vouchers bill, or meeting foreign dignitaries to discuss trade policy, or sniping back at Tim Russert on Meet the Press…

But his election hadn't even been certain in the first place. He had only won courtesy of a Linderman fix.

Nathan shook his head to himself, rolled over in midair, and decided to take a few laps around the gym ceiling. He needed some adrenaline. Idle dreaming wasn't his thing. It was Peter's.

He bolted from wall to wall and rounded the corners with ease, returning to his exact spot in something like 40 seconds. It was a lot like his days on the track team in high school. Except 100 times faster. Nathan cracked a determined grin as he embarked on his fifth lap. Flying, as inherently fun as you'd think it'd be, was for the first time actually a little bit thrilling for him.

Now focused, for this lap he concentrated on the situation at hand. After dropping off the face of the earth for four months, Nathan was alone and missing, and now had a company—an incredibly dubious company—asking him to help lead it through restoration and rebirth.

We're a match made in heaven, he thought to himself ironically.

But he knew that for once, he was actually going to get a chance to redeem himself, to really help people like him, instead of turning them away in the street and having them shout things like "Birran!" to him and the press corps' ears.

Aster had detailed the job description thoroughly, and very specifically outlined the benefits. Nathan would mostly work in secret, of course, and people he'd meet within the organization would be sworn to secrecy on his presence. He didn't ask how Aster would elicit this secrecy, because he didn't want to know. The Company would provide all of his needs, amenities, and transportation for life, and it was at this point that Nathan started to revisit his Aster-as-Hell's-game-show-host theory.

But the real clencher, the "but wait, there's more!" prize, was Nathan's family. Aster promised that in time ("less time than you'd think," Aster promised), once the media frenzy diminished, Nathan would be allowed to bring Heidi, Simon, and Monty into the fold, and that they could live together as a family again. Candice (an "illusionist," he was told) would help the Petrellis keep up normal public appearances to the rest of the world. Eventually, he could even recruit Peter to join in the Company's cause.

It was tough. Any choice he made regarding Heidi was going to be difficult, for one encompassing reason: he was the man responsible for all of her pains. Her wheelchair, her rift-inducing marriage, her four months of worried agony. There were so many if-I-had-just's that went through his head whenever he thought about her. How was he ever going to get her to stay with him on this one, even with the truth?

And then Peter. What was Peter doing? Looking for his big brother, refusing to return home without him. And while Nathan was sure he himself could get used to this arrangement in time, provided that his family did as well, Peter never would. He was never cut out for compromise, or organizational culture, or any kind of politics, as Nathan was. Peter's welfare was going to take a lot of thinking. And Nathan hadn't even gotten to what to do about his mother or Claire yet.

Nathan found himself dreaming again. He sorely wished he could fly faster in here. He wished that he could drown out this new world with the speed of sound.