Takes place sometime after Building 26.

There was only one thought in his mind when he first came back to his senses- captured.

Him, Sylar, the undefeatable, uncatchable- he had been trapped like a rat in a cage. That was not supposed to happen, wasn't on his list of things to do for the day. Ha ha, a joke. Unfortunately, he only made jokes when secretly nervous. Bad sign. Very bad.

Focus. He needed to focus, figure out how to get out of this situation. How had he gotten into it to begin with? A new weapon? Something had changed, he knew. The government agents couldn't possibly have taken him down otherwise. But that could wait for later- first, he had to escape. Someone had made a mistake in letting him regain consciousness, and he was planning on leaving a battlefield of destruction and death behind him as a gift to them.

Something was keeping his hands fastened to the back of the chair he was tied to, something metallic. Idiots- such simple restraints couldn't possibly keep him trapped. Eyes still closed, he envisioned the area around his hands, and gave that slight mental nudge that he always associated with telekinesis.

Nothing.

No time to wonder, experiment. He tried again, slashing at the material in his mind- but nothing at all was happening. Frustrated, he decided to try a different route, and curled his hands around the material, attempting to access its memories, to find out what it was made of, how it had been created.

Nothing.

Biting back a curse, he opened his eyes and found himself face-to-face with a short bald man, grim-looking and dressed all in back. Quickly, before the man could do anything, Sylar opened his mouth to try Murphy's sonic scream trick and knock him back- but all that came out was a dusty-sounding croak.

"You're probably dehydrated," the man said. "Tough luck."

Sylar narrowed his eyes.

"I was right, Senator," the man said, keeping his eyes on Sylar, but also speaking more loudly. "He's awake."

"I was afraid of that." A new figure walked into his line of vision, and he forgot himself enough to jerk against the bonds holding him without even trying to do anything with his powers- he knew that figure. "Hello, Sylar. I don't think we ever got a chance to talk about what you did to my daughter."

Daughter. It took a moment for him to remember that Petrelli was Claire's father, as it was hard to believe that the cheerleader was actually related to someone so… shark-like. In any case, he would lower himself to talking to Nathan Petrelli, since it would be a good way to distract himself from the fact that he couldn't seem to access his abilities. Clearing his throat (it was rather dry), he rasped out, "what, saved her life?"

"Try 'cut open her head'," Nathan growled, glaring down at him.

"We don't have time for personal issues," the bald man said, still watching Sylar. "If we're going to test it on him, we'd better do it now."

"Test what?" He relaxed back into his chair, convinced that he could keep the two talking for long enough to figure out a way to escape. Clearly, they were underestimating him.

Nathan reached over to the medical tray that was placed on a table nearby, picking up a syringe full of clear liquid. When he looked back at Sylar, his face was unreadable. "The cure."

At first, he didn't realize what that was supposed to mean.

Then, when Nathan approached him with the needle, it snapped into place.

"NO!," he yelled, trying anything- telekinesis, electricity, sound manipulation, even those abilities like melting and shattering that he hadn't tried to access in ages. But nothing was happening. Something was holding him back. The Haitian? Or some kind of force field, some new technology that could suppress powers?

It wouldn't matter in a moment or so. Any second now, they'd all be gone for good.

He started thrashing in his bonds while yelling garbled sentences that he couldn't even understand, trying to loosen something, knock the chair over, anything but be 'cured'. The bald man was now trying to restrain him, while Petrelli stepped back, looking perturbed.

"I thought you pumped him full of sedatives," the senator snapped, eyes flickering back and forth nervously.

"We did," the bald man grunted, "and twice the usual dosage, too."

"Well, shit." Nathan's eyes continued to flicker, and then he gave a hesitant nod. "We'll have to risk it, then."

And Sylar couldn't do anything to stop it, couldn't do more than watch in a strange combination of fury and petrifaction as Petrelli lunged in, needle aimed towards his shoulder, and there was a brilliant flash of light-

-

"-ou okay? Hey, s-stop screaming like that, it's really freaking me out. Sylar?"

Sylar sat up abruptly, gasping in air. The brilliant light was coming from a bedside lamp that had had its lampshade knocked off. The voice was Luke's, and was coming from the boy himself, who was sitting on his own bed on the other side of the nightstand, shivering in his sweatpants and t-shirt. He could remember every single fact he had learned from the government-issue laptop the previous night quite precisely, and if he tuned his ears in to the right frequency, he could hear cockroaches skittering in the walls three motel rooms away. He still had his powers. He wasn't cured.

He sat back against the headboard, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, trying to compose himself.

"Sorry for waking you up," Luke muttered, looking away, "but, God, you should have seen yourself. I've never heard anyone scream like that. What kind of nightmare were you having?"

Keep breathing. That was all that mattered. He still had his abilities. He was still special.

"Go back to sleep, Luke," he muttered, trying to beat back the images.

"But-"

"Do it!" He opened his eyes to glare at the teenager, then slumped a little and sighed. "And, uh. Stop looking so petrified. I'm not going to kill you in your sleep for this." It was the closest thing to a thank-you that he could even consider giving the kid.

Luke turned off the lamp and crawled back under his covers, leaving Sylar to sit in the dark and think. The information that the laptop from the agents had 'given' him had been infinitely useful, and had even led to him discovering who the main players in this twisted little game were. But he had also been able to deduce where their current path was going to leave them, and it was the worst possible path for him.

He'd have to be vigilant. He absolutely could not let anyone take his powers away. They were more important than anything else- more important than who his father was, if he had a family, the truth, even life itself. Life wouldn't be worth living, if he was normal. Not anymore.