The Walker Tracking System, Part Seven
The blog worked something like this:
1) Micah and I would find some specials. This was rather easier than it seemed, because we were traveling all over the country, meeting all sorts of people, and special kids kind of stood out to us.
2) Those kids created user accounts for our blog. Most of them even posted regularly.
3) They then went out to find other special people (oftentimes they were related) who created user accounts, who then found other special people…
It’s called the cascade effect. Pretty cool, eh?
I mean, yeah, it wasn’t the most secure of systems, but then again, I was ten at the time. The paranoia hadn’t really kicked in yet. Besides, The Network, as it quickly became known as, existed mostly as an early warning system for Sylar-related attacks (thankfully, none of them happened during those first few years), a social network, and a support group for kids like me who didn’t like discussing their powers with their parents. Or, as more and more adults joined in, wives who couldn’t discuss it with their husbands, fathers who weren’t sure what to tell their grown sons.
During those days, at least. Things have been a bit different lately.
We had a policy at the Walkmanesh house back then, you see. No powers, genetics, or collars in the house. Dad did his best to reign in his raging mind control impulses, didn’t talk all that much about his job as a detective, and never, ever mentioned any missing persons cases he may or may not be working on, lest he or I be tempted into using my powers to find them. Appa never discussed the differences between DNA and RNA unless I needed help with my biology homework, nor did he ever mention anything remotely related to the science of virology. I just didn’t talk about my powers, whether I was using them or not, whether I wanted to use them or not. The Big Scary Real World did not need to intrude upon ours.
Of course, it didn’t always work. Appa would get really excited about something and just babble about it nonstop until Dad broke his rules and telepathically ordered him to shut up (in later years, this was normally followed by him having to move back onto the couch. Shortly after that, nothing could get Appa to stop). Every now and again, Dad would drag himself home looking exhausted and refusing to talk to anyone about his day- it didn’t take me long to figure out that at these time he likely had a missing persons case, and I would wait until he went to bed before opening his briefcase, finding the file, and phoning in an anonymous tip about the person’s whereabouts. And, technically speaking, I was supposed to talk with my fathers about my powers evolving- but I didn’t, all that much. It’s kind of difficult to explain to your Appa that you were focusing on the place where Sylar and Adam were meeting, and suddenly you had astral projected yourself into the room, and then snapped back into your body only when Sylar walked right through you and you were so scared you almost peed in your pants. Instead, you have to wait a few days for your heartbeat to get back down to normal, then tell him that you were trying to find the new apartment and you astral projected into it…
Yeah, I know. I’m a total asshole for lying to my parents.
Although, to be fair, at first it was simply not mentioning (or even letting myself think too much about it in Dad‘s presence) The Network and what I did in it, rather than outright lying about it. It was only later, two or three years down the road, after we’d actively started trying to save the world, that I actually started telling untruths to them. What Micah and I were doing in my room, what Elle and I were doing in my room, what Farid and I were doing in my room, why I was up so late, who was that Asian guy who was looking for me earlier…they didn’t need to know, I had told myself. They don’t want to know.
And then they found out after that big huge mess in Jamaica, and, naturally, it turned out they did want to know what their only daughter was up to.
They kinda exploded after that. A lot. Repeatedly.
And sometimes, telepathically in the middle of American History.
And during dinner when Appa was already ranting externally. You think you have it bad when your parents finish each other’s sentences while yelling at you? Wait until you have two separate telling-offs going on at the same time, one in your head, one waking up the neighbors. And they still managed to finish each other’s sentences!
If I could get the Haitian to erase one week of my memory, that one would be out of here so fast he’d get a nose bleed.
I mean, really. Yes, Sylar did actually kill me, but Claire brought me back before he could take my power, and I didn’t even scar so, no harm no foul, right? There were people who were a lot less fortunate that night.
Obviously, that argument didn’t really go over well. At all. Especially because their problem had more to do with the fact that I’d been lying to them for four years than anything else.
So, back at the ranch, we weren’t really normal, I guess, as much as trying to keep up the pretense of being normal. It was especially important in the months following the trip in the RV, when the rest of the world went completely batshit.
Sylar’s monologue had actually been less of a monologue and more of a manifesto. Or a Declaration of War.
“It’s simply nature. Evolution. The eradication of one species so that another can take its place. I’m not all that concerned with the humans. You will, in all likelihood, destroy yourselves without any help from me or mine. But those of you with powers… you will either use them with us, or I will take them from you and use them myself. Needless to say, I‘d prefer the second option…”
Naturally ‘the humans’ didn’t take this too kindly. Neither did most of ‘those of us with powers’, but it took a long time before we could actually work together in any meaningful way. We still can’t, at times, but back then it was impossible. Or at least, that’s the impression I got from the fruits of all of Simon’s ‘fly on the wall’ imitations.
You can see why we felt the need to be normal. Even if we weren’t. Especially if we could sense that we would be right in the thick of what was to come. Any semblance of normalcy was a comfort- even if it was a lie.
These days, it doesn’t matter much. After they found out about The Network, after the came to terms with the fact that they couldn’t get rid of it, couldn’t get me out of it, things became…well, I won’t say easier, because it most certainly was not, but it was more honest. Open. Dad bragged about the murderers he put away, Appa shared his frustration with his lab work, and I could come home and say something like ’I had to shoot someone today’, and not have to make up some bullshit about a robbery or something.
And yes, I know I’m turning into the next Linderman. The next Kensei.
The next Sylar, even, since I’ve recently found out that my dark side self is less with the manipulating power mongering and more with the gratuitous bloody violence.
I’m doing my best to avoid it, and I like to think I‘m succeeding. I don’t think I’m more important than anyone else I see; I don’t have any delusions of grandeur, think that I’m a Goddess or anything stupid like that. And once this war thing is over, The Network will go back to it’s original function, of being a place for people with special abilities and their friends and family to talk about their problems and help each other reach their full potential, and when the next threat rises, we’ll just have to deal with it then- and only then. Nothing preemptive- ever. No ‘bag and tag’ missions, no surveillance.
Secrecy and manipulation got us into this mess. I ignored that, and created an even bigger mess before I realized, they aren’t going to get us out. It took me much longer than it should have to come to terms with that, but I have and now…
I’ve kinda blown it all to hell. Hence my hiding in this motel in New Orleans, ignoring the fact that Noah Bennet is currently trying to break down the front door.
~*~
Link to the next part is here.