Chapter Five

Plotting & Scheming

Reviews, yay!

Optimistic girl94: I know I do that too much; I have my characters tell you what's going on rather than telling you myself. There should be a balance somewhere in there… thanks for reviewing.

Sayuri the Dramatic Doctor: Thanks, I love John too, he's kind of based on a guy I know only less idiotic. Anyway, I'm glad you decided to read this, and I'm sorry, but I wasn't planning on bringing Niki and the rest in, but I might later, just because you suggested it.

Marinawings: You still rock and I love you! Thanks for your compliments.

On with the show… well whatever…

Robert Bishop waited patiently in his office. One his "employees" would be in soon.

"What news from the front?" he asked as a shadow slipped into the room. It came to rest in a chair in front of Bob.

"She says he gave her no indication of his intentions," the speaker revealed himself. He was a young man in his early twenties with dark hair and eyes. He had a long narrow face, and Bob often found that he reminded everyone of Sylar, in more ways than one. That was very far from a good thing.

"Is that all, Mr. Andrews?" Bob continued.

"No, and you can stop calling me that. I'm sure Elle has told them my real name by now."

"It doesn't matter. Have you seen her?"

"Not yet, but I think I know a place she may frequent."

"Do tell."

"Isn't it obvious? He's the one who incited her to leave us."

"Yes," Bob said with disgust, "is he still loose?"

"Indeed he is, and we have Sylar to thank for that."

"Do you have any good news?"

"They haven't found Olivia, as far as I know, and Peter is still MIA."

"Hmm… it will have to do." Bob stood and headed for the door. "Bring Elle back first. She will need an appointment with our silent friend."

"Indubitably."

Nathan Petrelli stared as several people climbed out of a rather large vehicle and on to his front lawn. Out of the front came and unfamiliar woman in a lab coat, Matt Parkman and Molly Walker. From the second seat came Peter, another unfamiliar, and a rather bewildered looking Mohinder Suresh. And from the back came two more strangers and…

"Sylar?!" Everyone looked in Nathan's direction.

"Perhaps, Mohinder would like to explain," Peter said. Inside everyone was brought up to date on the events of the past few days. Nathan left out the part about Heidi's phone call.

"So are you going to introduce me to your new friends?" he asked Peter when serious matters were through.

"Well," Peter began, "Elle isn't really my friend," she glared at him, "I don't know him over there."

"It's John," the indicated young man said.

"Right," Peter continued, "which brings us to yesterday. You remember my first patient, James Lawrence?" Nathan nodded. "Well this is his daughter, Olivia."

"Great, another one of your patients daughters," but Nathan's friendly smile gave him away, and Olivia suspected she could easily be friends with Nathan. Peter however glared at him until he said, "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to be insensitive to… well, never mind, continue."

"Thank you, this," here Peter put his had on the shoulder of the woman next to him, "is Caitlin."

"Ah, the one from the future!" Peter rolled his eyes.

"Don't try to explain it to him, he's just being difficult." Caitlin smiled.

"Well, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance, however obnoxious you may be," she said. Will he be family some day? She thought.

Yes, she heard Peter's voice in her head, unfortunately, he will be.

Later that morning, Peter went to the kitchen to find some food. Sylar followed him and sat down at the table, silent.

"What's up?" Peter asked sitting across from him with a rather large sandwich.

"I have a theory," Sylar said, eyeing Peter's food.

"You want one?" Sylar raised his eyebrows. "It's fine, I'm a professional sandwich maker, and Nathan's never going to eat all this food." Sylar nodded. "So what's you theory? Peter began creating another sandwich.

"I was thinking, a person wouldn't have to die for me to copy the codes in their DNA."

"What's your point?"

"If Larry, or whatever his name is, is after us and there are some people more powerful than others, I should copy yours." Peter came back to the table with Sylar's sandwich. "You can't be in two places at once, but if I had the same power as you, then everyone would be safer." Peter thought for a moment.

"But if the Haitian is there, it won't matter."

"I'm not so sure about that. You used his power on Elle."

"True, how do you propose we go about this? I don't want my head ripped open."

"All I need is your DNA; hair, blood, saliva, anything." Peter nodded and went over to the counter. He took a knife and a small bowl and cut his hand. He held the knife in the wound, letting the blood drip into the bowl. He brought the bowl back over to Sylar.

"I imagine you've lost your appetite now."

"You would be surprised." Sylar placed the tips of his fingers in Peter's blood and closed his eyes. Peter heard a strange ticking sound, and then Sylar opened his eyes and smiled.

"It worked." Suddenly his elation was replaced by a very bad headache.

"Yeah," Peter said, "that happened when I started reading minds too." But the pain was quickly gone thanks to Claire's healing ability. Sylar held up his hand and watched in fascination as blue electricity encircled it.

"I'd be careful with that one if I were you," Peter said, "it really hurts."

"I know," Sylar wiped the blood from his fingers and stared at the bowl, "what do we do with it?" Peter took it.

"I'll get rid of it." Don't ask me what he did with it, I haven't the slightest notion.

"I have a plan," Sylar said.

"First things first, "Peter said, "we finish lunch and you tell me what powers you have that I don't know about."

"Where do I begin? The ones you probably don't know are, sensitive hearing, freezing, liquefying, and the first one, the way I got all the others, I understand how things work, watches, DNA codes, Japanese cars…"

"How have I had all of these and not known it?"

"Probably because you aren't as experimental as I am. So what can I do now?"

"You probably know most of them. You can fly, heal, manipulate time and space, whatever my mom does if she does, and everything everyone else here can do."

"I can find people now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like Molly. You didn't know?"

"No, I always wondered about her. I think there are more. Oh, yeah, I can go through walls too. One drawback of all this; if someone shoots me in the brain, of cuts off my head, I die. I guess it's the brain that makes it all work."

"I'll remember that, now for the plan."

The plan mostly consisted of everyone figuring out where they were staying. John offered to stay with Olivia, to "protect" her. Personally, I think he was afraid of the dark. It was decided that Sylar would look after Elle and Maya, while keeping a mind connection with Matt a few floors up. Peter and Caitlin were staying with Nathan, who protested most vehemently that he didn't need a baby sitter. Peter reasoned,

"They probably want to kill you more than anything else right now."

"That's comforting," Nathan said.

"It should be, because I'm here to protect you."

"Not really, after learning that mom and this Drew person are more evolved than the rest of us."

"Olivia is too," Elle interrupted.

"Alright!" Olivia protested, "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I don't think I like it very much."

"You're father brought you to the company shortly after your mother died on the condition that they do the standard tests and then leave you alone, permanently," Elle explained, "But in the testing they found that you were more special and they told James. He made them all promise never to tell anyone about you. Your father was a big influence on the company's early growth; they owed him. He never let them near Drew, but he came to us about three years ago. He chose to join the company."

"Wouldn't I remember being tested and getting these marks?"

"No, they had the Haitian erase your memory of it."

"How do you know all this?"

"I read your file, and Drew was my partner for awhile, until I complained. He talked about you a lot."

"So why haven't they come after me?"

"Drew's one good point, he held them to the agreement they made with your father. Don't ask me why my dad agreed. He's probably afraid of Drew. You can never really know who's on what side."

So there it is, the next chapter will see some relationships being developed and some being resurected, all in anticipation of the faux climax which happens in chapters 10-12, but the real climax doesn't come until later, 'cause I haven't wrtitten it yet, tootles!

S.L. Lynn