Takes place during "Dying of the Light"

She would classify this day as bloody annoying.

First, there had been Hiro, that Asian dweeb who she had thought was a pushover but who had actually turned out to be positively out-of-his-mind. Daphne didn't have what one would call strong morals, and she was all for bending the laws, but she drew the line at sticking swords into people. Honestly.

Then, she had been well scolded by Linderman (and he knew how to give a scolding), not to mention threatened and mocked. Worse, he had snuck up on her; she positively hated it when people did that, since she was supposed to do the sneaking. She didn't care if he had some weird power that made him not-really-there or whatever it was. She knew she should still be faster.

And just before, there had been that cop, who had seemed like a decent guy until he had turned majorly stalker-y on her. Married in the future? They named their kid after her grandmother? She had heard better pickup lines from the criminals she worked with, for Pete's sake. At least the turtle was kind of cute.

Now, Daphne leaned against the outside wall of the airport and attempted to clear her mind. She was flipping through the files as she fought down impatience- anything to keep from thinking about how much she wanted to go back to her apartment and give up on all of Pinehearst. Maybe, once she was done with the 'recruiting', the company would let her go back to theft. That'd make her life a heck of a lot easier, and then she could stop worrying about all the awful people she had met lately.

Tired of contemplation, she flipped back to the front of the files. The first two were located at Primatech, at the holding facility they had there. Both were classified as hardened murderers, ruthless people who would assuredly agree to work for Pinehearst, assuming they got them out of jail. She was to give them the facts, and get them out quickly. It seemed simple enough.

As she moved to put the files back in her bag, a thin sheet of paper fell out of the first file. She picked it up; the words were handwritten, spindly and crawling.

Be careful with this one. He's extremely dangerous, and psychologically damaged. Make it very clear that we're willing to accept him, no matter what. His ability is of supreme importance to us.

The note was unsigned. That was different; she'd gotten history files before, and more than a few psychological profiles, but never a note like that. Frowning, she slipped it back into the file it'd fallen out of, and glanced at the person's name. Gabriel Gray, alias Sylar.

She could have sworn she'd heard of him before.

It took no time at all to reach Level 5, snatch a key and head to the cells; Primatech had awful security, by her standards, at least. The floor was mostly empty, devoid of its previous occupants; only two cells near the middle held prisoners now. She could tell at a glance that the fire-guy would come with her with no hesitation. She zipped into Sylar's cell instead; he jumped up and backed away too quickly, like he'd heard her coming.

She tried the no-questions method first, hoping to drag him along before the agents could catch up to her. No luck. He seriously was psychologically disturbed, if he wanted to stay in the prison. Then, she tried to play off his doubt, to be the tough girl who knew what she was doing.

As he telekinetically slammed her back against the door, a sarcastic thought flitted through her mind; careful might have been the best option after all.

Briefly, she could relate to what he was doing. He was playing the hero. She had tried to do that too, when she'd first discovered her ability; but she had found out right away that there was no real difference between good and evil. People like Hiro Nakamura made that far too clear.

Desperate, she tried to reason. She was on his side, she just wanted to help. People were trying to change him, and he didn't want that.

That touched a nerve, and she couldn't breathe for a second as the invisible force slammed against her throat. Panic was setting in as each second ticked by, and it was time to play the big cards. Pinehearst knew something about him; they wanted him just the way he was. She even threw in what hopefully looked like a reassuring smile.

There it was- the doubt. The pressure let up for a second or two, and that was all she needed. She ducked out of his hold and ran up to put a card in his hand; there was no way she was sticking around any longer. The note had said he was dangerous, and the note had been absolutely right.

As she snatched Flint and dragged him behind her, she considered the fact that Sylar could possibly be one of her coworkers in the future. For the fourth time that day, she decided that her job was immensely sucky.

Too bad she couldn't get out of it.