The Walker Tracking System, Part Eight
But, getting back to the topic at hand…The RV only lasted about a month.
Or, more accurately I suppose, it took the miraculously long time of a month for the tatters of Elle’s self-control to degenerate to the point where one night, doomsday orders to protect untrained specials in the case of an invasion or not, she actually caused the RV to explode.
Thankfully, by then we were all back in New York and sort-of squatting in the Petrelli mansion (and yes, that disastrous New Year’s Eve party was just around the corner at this point), but, still, it was random and destructive and more than a little frightening.
This would be the end of our gypsy phase. It was decided that Micah and family would stay close to ours, and that we would stay somewhere close enough to the city so that the three of us could hold steady jobs and schools, but we could move around home-wise if Sylar or his group of evolved human killing/kidnapping cohorts caught up with us. Dad used his powers to help convince the NYPD that he had actually been on extended leave, and Appa found a job working as a biology teaching for a community college on Long Island, interspaced with periodic lecture tours I later learned were covers for the semi-volunteer work he did for the Company. I went back to school. Angela Petrelli took one look at the wreck Elle had made of the RV and sent her back to the Company to help mop up the mess Adam’s gang was making of the place.
I’m not sure what the two of them thought of each other. The two of them are just so Alpha Female, I can’t imagine they got along very well. I suppose that’s why Elle started crashing at our place when she came home from missions, and, eventually, stopped leaving. She eventually became sort of a surrogate big sister to me and a sort of half-feral cat to leave out scraps for to my fathers.
I’m not too sure what she thought of us, only that she had stopped threatening Dad with her ball-o-lightning routine shortly before she died. I guess that means she liked us.
Or maybe that was just because the fighting had gotten kind of intense, and she was just too exhausted to bother.
Oh, they- Adam, Sylar and the rest- weren’t making a big a mess as they could have, I suppose. The planet is still here, after all; there was no world-wide plague, or major bloody Armageddon-like civil war. It’s just every few months another group of people with abilities would find themselves herded into some rural, isolated location, and either slaughtered or kidnapped. Or, at least, that’s all that was reported in the papers. Sylar’s normal stream of serial killings didn’t stop either. I know- Micah helped me get past the block my parents put on the computer.
That’s when I started compiling the list, by the way. Although, back then it didn’t start with Brian Davis-telekinesis; it started with James Walker- mimicry and Eve Walker- his wife.
But, strangely enough, this time period is the part of my life I classify as my golden years- the time period after my parents had died, but before I became obsessed with Sylar. Life was routine. Except for a close brush on Dad’s part with a perfectly mundane wannabe cop-killer, I don’t think our lives were even threatened all that much.
And as for The Network? It was a bit like those weird LiveJournal communities where everyone thinks they’re a vampire or something. Strange if you were an outsider, like coming home for everyone else. We argued over names for powers…
WalkerGPS99: I’m telling you, it’s pyrokinesis!
Gorgon1153: It’s my power, if I want to call it firebending I will!
WalkerGPS99: But the real scientific name is pyrokinesis!!!!
MicahMouse: Why don’t we compromise? The power is pyrokinesis, the user is a firebender.
And names for people in general.
Aloha_means_goodbye: So, what do you call someone who can make dormant volcanoes explode?
WalkerGPS99: Well, the science of studying volcanoes is vulcanology, so I guess that makes you a Vulcan.
MicahMouse: You’re Spok!
WalkerGPS99: Oh my God, YES!!!
There was a happy reunion or two.
AVMann08: I’m actually not special, I’m just looking for someone who is.
MonAmi: Not an escort service.
WalkerGPS99: …I’m going to pretend I have no idea what you’re talking about.
AVMann08: God, no!
WalkerGPS99: Eleven here!
MicahMouse: PG guys, keep it PG.
MonAmi: Americans.
AVMann08: I’m looking for a friend of mine.
AVMann08: Her name’s Claire, and she’s indestructible. She can regenerate.
CallMe_BeepMe: Zach?
And several thousand arguments I’d rather skip over, because they were all petty. And long. I mean, once Micah and I had a fourteen-page, five hour long argument about whether or not eating Play-Dough was weird. And then didn’t talk for each other for days.
It totally isn’t by the way. I mean, really, get some perspective.
But, my point is, life was stable during this time period. And fluffy. Or at least it seemed that way to me. I don’t think I was the only one hiding things from my family.
We did seem pretty normal though.
I mean, we went through all the normal family stuff. We made plans for the future- normal plans. Dad was slowly but surely working his way through the ranks and departments of the NYPD. Appa became a professor at a SUNY school, then NYU. I discovered CSI and announced one night that when I grew up, I wanted to be a forensic psychologist- a career choice that made both of my parents grin like the loveable maniacs they are.
And my parents fell in love. Finally.
Although, I have to say, I’m still a little miffed that they didn’t tell me, and I only found out because Elle walked in on them making out in front of a pile of dirty dishes and squealed so loudly she woke me up.
But still, it felt like we were actually normal. Like maybe, if someone were to make a television show of our lives, we'd be a sitcom rather than a scifi drama.
It all came to an end the winter before I turned thirteen, when Sylar found my family again.
~*~
Link to the next part is here.