I know that cannon says Sylar picked up his freezing ability from James Walker, but honestly I never believed that. Walker was frozen solid in mid-bite of his food. If Sylar had gotten freezing from him, his body would not have been positioned like that. So, because this is fic land and I can, I've changed that little detail around. I always figured that if Walker actually had an ability (and it wasn't a case of mistaken identity for his daughter) then he must have had one that could have been a threat to Sylar so he froze him in place before attacking. But that's just me.
April 30, 2006
Shrill screams of terror floated down the halls after her. There was an ungodly banshee's howl of screeching metal that seemed to come from all around her followed by a loud crashing sound and she pushed herself harder. "Elle…" He was getting closer, the low vibrato of his voice a sweet, melancholy taunt in the darkness. "Come out, come out, wherever you are…" Something small and slender grazed past her shoulder, buzzing by her ear and whipping through her hair with its proximity. Elle turned on her heel to send an arch of blue lightning into the abyss of shadows where she had come from, stumbling into the corner of the corridor. Her eyes met level with a pencil jutting out from the wall having been perfectly imbedded in it like a piece of straw driven through the trunk of a tree during an intense storm. Tiny whispers of breeze answered her counterattack as one by one more common desk utensils were darted into the wall around her figure followed by the cracked laughter of a mad man.
Her shoes squeaked on the tile as she launched herself away from becoming impromptu target practice. To anyone that hadn't spent the majority of their life within the confines of Primatech being lost in the dark would be a horrifying task of finding themselves in the chaotic maze of tunnels and side passages that lead around some of the powerful monsters the world had ever known. But for her, sixteen years of practice were becoming a vast advantage in the game of survival. Elle ran for her life through the pitch black without any need to even keep her arms ahead of her for guidance, sliding one direction and then another, her feet pounding the floor barely above the thundering of her own heart in her ears until the haunting red glow of an emergency back up light announced the haven of the Level One detainment quarter.
Another shriek of pain echoed in her wake as she barged through the door of the first cell she came to, rounding about to slam it shut behind her. Two frantic heart beats passed as she rested with her back against the door before a stirring inside the cell caused her to stifle a breathless whimper. The cell's occupant stretched on his bed, scratching himself as he raised a sleep tussled head.
"Oh, bloody hell. I told you it was only one time," Adam groused when he figured out who his late night visitor was after a few blinks. "It had been twenty-five years. I was weak!"
She hissed at him for quiet, butting her finger up against her lips even though he may not have been able to see the motion. Shouting passed by the entrance to the cell, funneling down another hallway where gun shots were fired. Adam became instantly aware of his surroundings at the violent ruckus. He slid from his mattress and padded over to her side, pressing his ear against the door and holding his breath in curiosity. The absent hum of energy throughout the building tipped a mischievous smile on his lips in spite of the nightmares occurring on the outside.
Monroe flipped the handle on the door to his cage, delighted when he encountered no resistance other than the frightened girl running sparks of static over his arm as she tried to hold him back, and took a bold step towards freedom. Elle covered her ears to ward away the screeching of more metal. Adam ventured out another step, peering down the hall in all directions for anyone that might halt his progress and then had to abruptly duck out of the way for a body that came flying out from the shadows. The fleshy projectile smacked into the cell's wall with a wet crunching sound. A ball of flame sizzled by his face as he stood back up. "Now that was just rude!"
Elle tried not to listen to scuffle that broke out when Adam disappeared into the darkness. She didn't have to try for long. Less than a minute later a rather dazed and disgruntled Adam was thrown back into his cell to land on top of the first body after a similar collision. "Right then. Now that that's settled…"
Piercing silence whistled in her ears as she crept down the hall, one set of fingers keeping a guiding line along the wall, the other gripping the Haitian's pistol tightly at her side. Claire had followed the screams at first, but not even her historically haunted imagination had been able to conjure the grisly sights that she had encountered. She had found a series of rooms that must have served as some sort of preliminary examination center, filled with medical slabs, stores of miscellaneous bottles of pills and vials of fluids with names on their neatly printed labels that she couldn't pronounce, and banks of computer monitoring equipment. One of the rooms housed the limp body of a female lab technician on its table. Her form had been decorated with countless slash marks, her pale hand continuing to hold a bloodied scalpel in the grips of muscles that had been clenched in fierce pain before death. Beyond that, deep gouges had been carved into the sterile white walls of the corridor down to a corner office. Inside was another body curled over a ransacked desk with the throat slit. Blood slowly dribbled onto the carpet one drop at a time as the pool of origin cooled in the absence of common utensil supplies from emptied drawers. The door at the end of that hall had been left ajar, the electronic locking mechanism on the side having been burst apart to expose the live wires within. Doors pocked with splintered bullet holes had been torn off their hinges and hurled to rest on top of the broken bodies of agents. Another agent was tacked to the ceiling, practically nailed there by groups of ball-point pens riveted through bone into support beams.
Wherever she followed the trail of destruction Claire was only lead deeper into the bowels of the building. There was no trace of doubt that Sylar was the source of the chaos, him being the only one that she knew capable of such single-handed disaster, but the obvious lack of any escape attempt was even more disturbing than the chill of stillness that had set on. It was out of character in a way that refused to make sense. Gabriel would have headed upward and outward, looking for freedom. Sylar would go anywhere motivation lead him, but to blaze such a candid path of evidence was illogical. He never blatantly advertised his whereabouts. What lay before her was an animal that she had never known before. One without a name or exit strategy that lashed out irrationally, his only goal to cause pain.
Muffled curses filtered out from the dark, nearly sending Claire free of her skin at the sudden sign of life. She rounded a bend that was dimly lit by a blood red emergency back up system and felt herself sprinting to the hazy beam of light that shot out from a side room before she could bring caution to mind. Noah Bennet held a flash light between his teeth as he fiddled with a security panel inside of a maintenance access inlet.
Claire was forced to stare down the ever ready barrel of his Company issue firearm before Noah let his quick draw rest. "Claire?" he garbled around the butt of the flash light before dropping it. "What are you doing awake?" He enveloped her in a bear hug the same as he had done since she was a small child though not as firmly with her expanding belly in mind. "I'd tell you to get out of here but I don't think that's an option anymore."
"Someone needs to tell me what the hel-ck happened." Claire saw the cool steel of the agent creep into his eyes as he looked down on her and she reaffirmed herself. "Now."
"We brought Sylar in for termination after he killed Trevor Zeitlan for his ability, but Angela said she wanted him tested before going through with the deal on mission failure. He escaped. And now…" Noah handed Claire his flash light and showed her where to point while he stripped the protective rubber insulation from a pair of wires in an attempt to fix their circuit, "he's out to kill us all. Fortunately Angela thought enough to give most of the employees the day off so we were running on minimal staff, but -" He cut himself off as he shocked himself and whipped his hand around with a barely restrained slew of swearing. "Sylar shattered most of the security locks and rewired them before he shut down the power grid. The whole place is locked down and we're trapped inside."
I guess that explains why he didn't leave himself a way out. He wasn't planning on leaving.
"And just to make it a little more interesting, he also let half the detainees loose in the process."
"Paging Agent Bennet," crackled over the intercom. "Paging Agent Noah Bennet. Primatech ID number A007." A rumbling chuckle rolled out of the speakers. "I see you were born in 1962. You were married once before. Boring, boring, boring," papers could be heard shuffling past the static as Noah looked into Claire's confused eyes, his own hardening even as he swallowed thickly. "I didn't know you were a Shakespeare man, Noah. I would have pegged you for more of a Robert Ludlum kind of guy. Maybe even a Tom Clancy fan. Oh, look, a home address. I'm sure your wife, Sandra is just a lovely woman. I'd really like to meet her." More laughter peeled out to reverberate against the walls followed by a wistful sigh. "Done to death by slanderous tongue. Why then tonight let us assay our plot."
"He's in the records room." Her father had evaporated the instant their family was mentioned. In his wake was the man with the plan, hook, line and sinker. "Are you up for this, Claire?" Even in the dim light she saw him graze over her body warily.
"No one knows how dangerous Sylar can be more than me. I knew that this could happen someday. As much as I care about Gabriel…" She fought the fall of her chin, choosing instead to hold it high with proud resolve if only in image for her father. "He's gone now, and this is bigger than us." Two hammers were drawn back with a synchronized click as the father, daughter duo set out to save their world.
They didn't find Sylar in the records room. A lone agent that had been caught up in their mistakes was strung up on the wall, his position that of one enduring a crucifixion, being pinned up by scissors and pencils like the others. Where his head fell loosely about his chest they were greeted with the stomach turning view of an emptied skull, the brain conspicuously absent. Scrawled off to the side was a message painted in blood.
"I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extentuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then you must speak
Of one that lov'd not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplex'd in the extreme…"
"Othello," Noah mumbled. "It's his swan song. The musings of a twisted and delusional mind attempting to find reason in the murder of his wife."
"I don't understand. Why would he do this?"
Bennet rocked back on the balls of his feet with his hands in his pockets, a low sigh issued from a tensely set mouth. "He thinks you're dead, Claire." Their eyes met, her fury against his silent plea for understanding. "Angela's orders. She's been orchestrating every move we've made since you showed up. Making you wait to kill Sylar until you got to know him as Gabriel. Your," his eyes roamed once more to the bulge of her stomach being concealed by the oversized shirt in the darkness, "relationship with him. Probably even this." Noah fished out a small diamond ring from his pocket that he had taken from Sylar upon his arrival at Primatech.
"Othello believed that his wife had been unfaithful. What he didn't know was that he had been manipulated all along in Iago's power play. His dark side was drawn out by jealousy and vengeance." Noah handed Claire the engagement ring that she had never gotten the chance to see before. "We had to make him believe it."
"She planned this all along." The facets of the diamond caught the peripheral light to flash a twinkle across her face like a tiny star that she could hold in the palm of her hand. Claire glanced up from the shimmering ring through the tears that began to well in her eyes. "There was never any stopping it."
Noah opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by the sight of something behind her. Claire saw the fringes of a shadowy figure moving beyond the range of view from the doorway. Her father drew his weapon, signaling with his free hand for her stay behind him as he inched towards the edge of frame. The hairs on the back of her neck rose with the hint of something all too familiar, her eyes darting about in the darkness and her skin tensed with every alert nerve for motion like prey aware of some looming predator. "No!" she cried out as her father peered out into the hallway in the direction of who or whatever had passed them by. But her warning came a fraction too late. Bennet was gripped by an invisible force and jerked out of sight - the door to the records office slamming shut behind him.
Gun shots fired from the other side of the barrier as Claire hurled herself at the door. She battered the edge of the door with her shoulder and finally cracked it open with a kick at the knob, Gabriel's engagement ring left forgotten on the floor of the office after having been dropped. Noah was gone by the time she lurched back into the open air of the hallway. One bullet had become lodged in the wall, another cracked the ceiling where dashes of dust continued to fall, but the third had aimed true; droplets of fresh blood dotted the tile along a hasty path to where it smeared at a junction with another corridor.
In the crimson wave of another emergency light she found two separate paths marred by the blood as though its owner had doubled back in an attempt to confuse potential pursuers. From what little she could discern though, one hall was being occupied by an escaped prisoner that had crouched down in the shadows, poised to listen for the danger lurking around them. When he caught sight of her, bright blue balls of flame erupted from his hands to illuminate a round face marked with matching blue eyes and closely shaved blonde hair. They eyed one another for a moment, but both were reluctant to attack other as they were very much aware of a greater enemy in their presence. The only thing that may have saved the man's ability was the fact that Sylar would have been preoccupied by his primary objective. All the same, Claire chose to take the other route and effectively avoid his unpredictable obstacle.
There were more shadows creeping about the maze of tunnels, all crowded as tightly into the corners as possible, and none seemed willing to give away their positions in order to impede her so she pushed on without paying them much heed. Movement caught her attention near the Level One floor and she bolted for the door that swayed closed. Bursting into the cell she at first found nothing, but after lingering for a moment to be sure, two curious blonde heads popped out from under the bed that they had been using to hide. "Elle?"
The man wearing the white pajama clothing of Primatech prisoners crawled out after the confused girl that climbed to her feet. Elle Bishop squinted at her a few times trying to think of where she had seen her face before. "Claire? Bennet's daughter?"
"Where'd he go?"
Elle looked back at Adam and then at Claire again. "I don't know… What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in Texas or something?" The next sound was that of Elle's backside smacking into the concrete floor of the cell as she held her bloodied nose. She may not have known her yet, but Claire could certainly remember more about the electropath than she cared to. According to Sylar's files, Bishop had played an integral role in his creation as a monster, and it seemed that in Claire's absence history had repeated itself.
Claire flexed her abused knuckles, watching them heal over the splits in the delicate skin. Elle's eyes widened slightly at the sight having not known before that her former Company partner was concealing his own daughter's ability. Her male counterpart also looked on with a mild amount of surprise and amusement. "I like her," Adam grinned as Claire left the cell, looking back to where Elle continued to pinch the bridge of her nose.
Memories of similar cat and mouse games within the confines of Primatech floated back to her as her fingers skimmed along the walls for guidance. She carefully stepped over a slouching body and side-stepped the obstruction of heavy oak desks that had been thrown about. Testing one door would lead to a dead end of warped locking mechanisms while another would allow further passage. They were being herded. Like cattle to the slaughter, Sylar had oriented the building to his advantage so that anyone seeking him or escape would be funneled along the routes that he chose, and she guessed they all ultimately lead straight to him or at least where he wanted them to be. Releasing the prisoners had offered a practical distraction for the agents that remained on duty as well as bait for someone like her father. The first body that she had found, the technician that had been sliced to ribbons, that hadn't been Sylar's usual handy work. That poor woman's death had been personal. Vengeful. And if Sylar were after revenge rather than power it would explain why the only sign of a stolen ability she had found was in the lone agent. All of Primatech's detainees had been left unscathed. Oddly enough the motives began to make sense. Sylar was after the Company. No one else. He had been manipulated, lied to, and betrayed by them. Their prisoners probably seemed like people with kindred issues. Wrongfully accused or stuffed into cages like dogs because they bit when prodded one too many times. With Claire being the only one that could stop him, and suddenly jerked away…
Gabriel was all alone. He was facing his greatest fear with nothing left to lose.
Tendrils of ice snaked along the walls under broken networks of water pipes with ghastly icicles hanging their razor points down at forceful angles where the moisture had burst. At the end of the last hall a wall of frost enclosed a door barring entry. As it was the final passage, and the ability blocking it a familiar token in Sylar's arsenal, it wasn't hard to assume where had gone.
Three shots at the ice block were enough to shatter most of it apart, the chunks sprawling out across the tile at her feet. Claire used her hands to pull the rest away. Ignoring the sharp edges that gouged into her skin she tore her way into the room. It appeared to be a large conference area, almost auditorium like with the wide open floor space, and a valuable strategic point with its bottle neck entry way without secondary exit. The long polished table that would have seated at least a dozen or more had been shoved to the far side along with its chairs, and in the center of the room were two figures that she didn't even need to see clearly to distinguish.
"Sylar!" she screamed as he loomed over her father, laying on the floor in a position to crawl backwards from his nemesis. "Stop!" He froze instantly at the sound of her voice. Even in the darkness she knew how his back muscles would tense, his shoulders squared to turn and look.
Deadly fingers that had been poised to slash at her father's defenseless body fell to his side. "Claire?" Sylar's eyes hardened for a moment as he drank her in, but whatever war was being waged in his fragile mind subsided and he softened, timidly approaching. "It's you. It's really you," he whispered to no one in particular when he stopped a few feet away. "They told me you were dead."
"It's me. I'm fine. They've been keeping me here…" He shuffled to within closing distance, surprise, confusion, happiness and rage all entangling together into one indecipherable emotion in his frenzied eyes. "Gabriel… What did they do to you?" Claire reached out to touch one of the many cuts that littered the expanse of his body, but he flinched away like a wounded animal, his eyebrows drawing downward in a fierce expression so that his eyes became obscured by the deep purple swelling encompassing them. Torture. The damage that could be seen appeared superficial for the most part but it was what went unseen that troubled her. What had they done that hurt deeper than anything physical? That had the power to force him away from her touch in such a manner?
"They told me that I killed you. That it was my fault." She reached out to touch him again and he flinched, but remained in place. "I tried to find you. I - I tried to stop it. But you were gone. I just wanted to make them go away."
"I know," she rasped through the tightening of her own throat when he leaned his cheek into the palm of her hand, every motion a desperate search for confirmation that she was real. "It's not your fault, Gabriel. None of this was your fault."
"I killed those people, Claire."
"I know." His haunted eyes stared straight through her in a pain that she couldn't imagine for herself.
"Are you going to kill me now?" They both looked down at the gun still being held in her trembling hand. He stiffened again, muscles strained, and his voice a detached monotone. Gabriel had been resigned to death, but the part of him that was Sylar clung to the most basic of instincts for survival. "I don't think I can stop it now." And that was the damage that they had done to him. A taste for blood that could never be taken back. Irreparable.
The tell tale click of a round being chambered sounded from behind them. Noah had recovered himself as well as his weapon and stood with the killer in his sights. "Move out of the way, Claire."
Gabriel dropped to his knees knowing that his time was done. Something like relief shone through from behind the darkened haze of his broken self. The end was near. A welcome end to his suffering. "No."
"Claire, think about what you're doing. You know what's going to happen if we don't finish this."
"No." Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them away not wanting to miss what could be the last moments with the man that beyond all possibilities she had come to love. She couldn't give up on him. Even after all the things that they had been through and what he had done, she knew that Gabriel lived on inside of the monster. She couldn't make herself let go of that. Not when he needed her the most.
Noah strafed over to her side, ending up slightly behind her as she used her body to block his view of Sylar. "You came here to save the world, Claire. You showed us what he's capable of. Think of all the people that are going to die."
Sylar peered out again, his menacing glare piercing directly through her to Noah. Without a thought for what she was doing, Claire drew on him the second she saw his hand raise towards her father. Gabriel blinked back, slightly confused, but not all together surprised. His lucidity was rapidly waning and he knew it as well as she did.
"Claire!" Noah shouted to her, keeping his weapon trained on their target. "Do it, Claire! He's a killer!"
"Please, Claire," Sylar implored her, leaning forward on his knees to take hold of the revolver's barrel. He slowly moved the firearm up his stomach until it was held to his chest in her trembling fingers, just over his heart. "If I have to die today I want you to be the one to do it." He shifted nervously when Noah took another step closer, finding his aim past his daughter. "Please, Claire. I don't want to be a monster."
"I can't," she sobbed. Tears streamed down her face as her shoulders shook and her stomach churned irritably. Gabriel thumbed away the evidence of her torment and watched helplessly as her mouth opened and closed, stumbling for the right words to say. "I need to tell you something."
You're going to be a father. In the darkness as it were with the oversized black shirt covering her form, Claire knew that he wouldn't be able to see the bulge of her belly. He would never know of the life that they had created, or be able to indulge in the joys of their child's innocence. He would never hold his son. Never watch him grow and play. He wouldn't be there for the first words or steps, the first day of school, or the magical discoveries of every day objects to a learning mind in a world they took for granted. Gabriel wouldn't be there at her side to look into the depths of sharp brown eyes that mirrored his own.
And so, the words to express her joys for them, and the fear of what was to come refused to exit her swollen lips. "Shoot, Claire!" her father shouted again.
His fingers twitched in the failing resistance that Gabriel provided. Claire never got the opportunity to spill her secrets to him. Noah took another step and his fingers found hers in the metallic loop. "Do it, Claire! Kill me!" Gabriel screamed through gritted teeth. He couldn't hold on anymore, and in another second it was only Sylar staring back at her. The quiet calculation of a machine swallowed the last of him, predicting the statistical outcomes of his situation in a void of emotion. Pure, unadulterated instinct.
"I'm sorry," she whispered for whatever trace of Gabriel that may have remained. "I love you. Always."
The hunger blinked its blackened eyes, dissecting her existence for a moment before whipping the gun out of her hands. A lethal hand lifted and Noah took his shot. The fire of his gun echoed around the room to sting their ears with finality.
To be continued...
I'm so going to get killed for this cliff hanger.