The Walker Tracking System, Part Nine
We knew he was in town, of course. How could we not? I knew the minute he stepped within city limits, and told my parents straight off. They called Monica and Angela while I sent an email to Elle and posted a bulletin on The Network, and then we all sort of went into standby mode.
We hunkered down in our apartment for a week, calling in sick to school and work and waiting for Sylar to leave. He didn’t- far from it. Adam and Fred and the Japanese woman and all the other villains we’d gotten to know from afar showed up in New York instead, and hunkered down in a Fifth Avenue penthouse of all things. They seemed to be here for the long haul. That kind of made my brain get stuck on a continual loop of frantic cursing, which was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“We can’t keep hiding like this,” Dad said. “Chances are they’re trying to take down the Company headquarters here, and aren’t even going to bother with the little fish like us. We’ll be careful, but we have to try to get back to normal.”
So, the next day, we did. Appa went back to NYU, Dad went to back to the NYPD, and I went back to school, each of us carrying fully charged cell phones and nervous hearts.
Which is how I found myself hiding the girl’s bathroom in the English wing, frantically dialing my home number.
Appa was back at the apartment, you see. He’d forgotten his lunch, apparently, or maybe he had always planned on eating at home. And Sylar was almost literally right outside his front door.
“C’mon, c’mon…” I muttered under my breath. My voice echoed softly off of the bathroom tiles. Appa picked up his phone.
“Appa, you need to stay in the apartment,” I said, the minute he picked up the phone.
“Molly?” he asked.
“Sylar’s in the lobby right now,” I told him. I heard a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line. “Is the door locked?”
“Yes. And I’ll bolt it now,” he said. “Don’t come home until it’s safe.”
“I won’t as long as you don’t leave,” I told him.
“Don’t worry, there is absolutely no chance of that,” he assured me. “Love you.”
“Love you too, Appa.”
He hung up. I hung up. I went back to class.
Ten minutes later, I was telling my teacher that I really didn’t feel good and needed to go to the nurse. Five minutes after that, I was running down the New York City streets, heading for the apartment.
In hindsight, it seems inevitable. Of course Appa would warn Dad away from the apartment. And of course Dad would ignore that warning and rush straight there. And of course he would ignore me when I realized what he was doing and asked him to stay away.
The last part I didn’t have to figure out of my own; Sylar was looking for people with abilities. He wasn’t after Appa so much as he was after Dad.
And me, probably. But, as I was twelve and broke, so there was no way I could arrive back home before Dad did (and ran into Sylar). Fortunately, I knew Sylar was alone in this one. His coworkers were all holed up in their comfy penthouse- if he wanted to kill my Dad, he’d be doing it like a serial killing, rather than as part of Adam’s ‘cleansing of the earth’ thing. He didn’t like to be seen for those, so I felt very clever when I called the police and told them where he was. He couldn’t kill anyone if there were enough people around. Or wouldn’t, I suppose, but it all came down to the same thing- my father would be safe. Both of them would.
So, why was I running though the freezing New York streets then? Maybe I needed to see him safe, really see him with my actual physical eyes. That was certainly a part of it. But another part, which I’m not all that proud of, wanted Sylar dead. Badly. And with the whole of the NYPD coming down on him (and really, would they send anything less after a super powered serial killer?) he would surely die.
I wanted to be there for that. Or at least arrive soon enough after the deed was done to be able to spit on his corpse.
Again, hindsight helps. I was so painfully naïve, it makes me cringe to think of it. How could I have possibly expected the NYPD to take a tip from someone who was obviously a pubescent girl seriously?
They didn’t come. Not until it was too late, anyway.
Dad didn’t die, though. Thank God, he didn’t die.
It was close, though. Way, way too close.
I arrive soon enough after the deed was done to see him being wheeled into an ambulance after a not-so friendly confrontation with Sylar.
Again. Not that I was in any sort of state of mind to appreciate the feeling of déjà vu.
It wasn’t identical to Kirby Square; there was a whole bunch of people gathered around the area, my Dad’s car was a bloody wreck (Sylar had flipped it into the side of a building, I later learned), it was broad daylight, and everyone knew who was responsible. The name Sylar was bouncing between people in the crowd like a ping-pong ball.
“Dad!” I shouted, vaulting over the police lines. Appa caught me before I could make it to the EMTs.
“Molly!” he said, pulling me into a hug that was as much for comfort as it was to keep me from running after them. “Molly, he’s going to be alright. He’s going to be fine.”
I didn’t have the words to express how much I knew he was lying, so I just hugged him back.
“What are you doing here?” Appa asked.
“Looking after you and Dad,” I replied.
We stood there for a while, watching the ambulance driving away. But no sooner had it pushed out into traffic than it was replaced by a white vehicle bearing the letters FBI. A blond woman jumped out of the passenger’s seat and began giving orders. Appa gave me a small squeeze.
“Molly,” Appa asked. “Where’s your coat? You‘re freezing.”
“I left it in school,” I mumbled.
“Why don’t you run upstairs and get a sweatshirt or something?” he suggested. “I have a feeling they’ll want our statements and I don’t want you catching a cold.”
“Yeah, okay,” I agreed.
I began to walk up to the apartment.
I only stopped because the blonde woman- Agent Audrey Hanson, of course- reminded me of something.
“Take the names and get video feed of everyone in this crowd. Sylar likes to be around to see us work.”
I snapped.
Eight year olds aren’t supposed to hate people. Neither are twelve year olds. That doesn’t change the fact that my hatred for the man who had killed my parents, the man who had hurt my Dad, the man who kept trying to destroy my family, had been festering away for four years at this point.
“Excuse me,” I whispered, ducking under the arm of an FBI agent. “I’ll be right back. I just have to do something first.”
No amount of Post-It Notes were going to cut it this time.
He looked a bit like a hobo; then again, he’d probably gotten the clothes off a hobo. He had a fedora pulled down low over his face, and his ratty trench coat was pulled tightly around him, the collar popped up.
“James Walker,” he slurred when the agent asked his name.
Bastard.
I waited until the agent had ambled away, before I started speaking.
“In case it’s escaped your notice,” I began. His eyes snapped up to meet mine, and I took an instinctive half step back.
“You’re Molly,” he said, surprised.
“In case it’s escaped your notice,” I repeated. Dimly, I was aware of the fact that I was shaking. “I’m not bluffing. I’m watching you- I’m always watching you.”
“Really?” he asked, amused.
“Really,” I confirmed. “It doesn’t matter where you go. It doesn’t matter what you do. You can crawl back to your hideout on Fifth Avenue after this, surrounded by all those security cameras and super-powered cohorts, and I can still see you. I can still find you.”
“Molly!”
That was Mohinder. He’d notice me- noticed who I was talking to.
“Interesting ability,” Sylar said. “I’ll put it on the list right after telepathy.”
I barely heard him over the pounding of the blood in my ears; it muffled both his voice and Appa’s shouting behind me, and before I knew what I was doing I had punched him in the gut- one of the Judo punches that, strictly speaking, I wasn’t supposed to do outside of kata because they could break a persons rib, and that just doesn‘t fit with the whole ‘gentle way‘ deal.
Unfortunately, I had only been taking Judo for a little more than a year, and I probably just ended up giving him a nice-sized bruise. It did make him double over gratifyingly, though.
“Stay away from my family, Sylar!” I hissed, just as Appa, followed closely by Agent Hanson, came up behind me.
“Sylar!” she shouted.
He took one look at her (or maybe just noticed the throngs of people who were trying to figure which one of us was that serial killer they had heard so much about) and ran away so fast he left an after image.
“Molly!” Appa said shrilly, “What did you- what on earth were you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” I said blankly. Everything seemed suppressed, but I could still here the blood pounding in my ears. “But I’ll let you know when I start again."
~*~
Link to the next part is here.
We hunkered down in our apartment for a week, calling in sick to school and work and waiting for Sylar to leave. He didn’t- far from it. Adam and Fred and the Japanese woman and all the other villains we’d gotten to know from afar showed up in New York instead, and hunkered down in a Fifth Avenue penthouse of all things. They seemed to be here for the long haul. That kind of made my brain get stuck on a continual loop of frantic cursing, which was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“We can’t keep hiding like this,” Dad said. “Chances are they’re trying to take down the Company headquarters here, and aren’t even going to bother with the little fish like us. We’ll be careful, but we have to try to get back to normal.”
So, the next day, we did. Appa went back to NYU, Dad went to back to the NYPD, and I went back to school, each of us carrying fully charged cell phones and nervous hearts.
Which is how I found myself hiding the girl’s bathroom in the English wing, frantically dialing my home number.
Appa was back at the apartment, you see. He’d forgotten his lunch, apparently, or maybe he had always planned on eating at home. And Sylar was almost literally right outside his front door.
“C’mon, c’mon…” I muttered under my breath. My voice echoed softly off of the bathroom tiles. Appa picked up his phone.
“Appa, you need to stay in the apartment,” I said, the minute he picked up the phone.
“Molly?” he asked.
“Sylar’s in the lobby right now,” I told him. I heard a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line. “Is the door locked?”
“Yes. And I’ll bolt it now,” he said. “Don’t come home until it’s safe.”
“I won’t as long as you don’t leave,” I told him.
“Don’t worry, there is absolutely no chance of that,” he assured me. “Love you.”
“Love you too, Appa.”
He hung up. I hung up. I went back to class.
Ten minutes later, I was telling my teacher that I really didn’t feel good and needed to go to the nurse. Five minutes after that, I was running down the New York City streets, heading for the apartment.
In hindsight, it seems inevitable. Of course Appa would warn Dad away from the apartment. And of course Dad would ignore that warning and rush straight there. And of course he would ignore me when I realized what he was doing and asked him to stay away.
The last part I didn’t have to figure out of my own; Sylar was looking for people with abilities. He wasn’t after Appa so much as he was after Dad.
And me, probably. But, as I was twelve and broke, so there was no way I could arrive back home before Dad did (and ran into Sylar). Fortunately, I knew Sylar was alone in this one. His coworkers were all holed up in their comfy penthouse- if he wanted to kill my Dad, he’d be doing it like a serial killing, rather than as part of Adam’s ‘cleansing of the earth’ thing. He didn’t like to be seen for those, so I felt very clever when I called the police and told them where he was. He couldn’t kill anyone if there were enough people around. Or wouldn’t, I suppose, but it all came down to the same thing- my father would be safe. Both of them would.
So, why was I running though the freezing New York streets then? Maybe I needed to see him safe, really see him with my actual physical eyes. That was certainly a part of it. But another part, which I’m not all that proud of, wanted Sylar dead. Badly. And with the whole of the NYPD coming down on him (and really, would they send anything less after a super powered serial killer?) he would surely die.
I wanted to be there for that. Or at least arrive soon enough after the deed was done to be able to spit on his corpse.
Again, hindsight helps. I was so painfully naïve, it makes me cringe to think of it. How could I have possibly expected the NYPD to take a tip from someone who was obviously a pubescent girl seriously?
They didn’t come. Not until it was too late, anyway.
Dad didn’t die, though. Thank God, he didn’t die.
It was close, though. Way, way too close.
I arrive soon enough after the deed was done to see him being wheeled into an ambulance after a not-so friendly confrontation with Sylar.
Again. Not that I was in any sort of state of mind to appreciate the feeling of déjà vu.
It wasn’t identical to Kirby Square; there was a whole bunch of people gathered around the area, my Dad’s car was a bloody wreck (Sylar had flipped it into the side of a building, I later learned), it was broad daylight, and everyone knew who was responsible. The name Sylar was bouncing between people in the crowd like a ping-pong ball.
“Dad!” I shouted, vaulting over the police lines. Appa caught me before I could make it to the EMTs.
“Molly!” he said, pulling me into a hug that was as much for comfort as it was to keep me from running after them. “Molly, he’s going to be alright. He’s going to be fine.”
I didn’t have the words to express how much I knew he was lying, so I just hugged him back.
“What are you doing here?” Appa asked.
“Looking after you and Dad,” I replied.
We stood there for a while, watching the ambulance driving away. But no sooner had it pushed out into traffic than it was replaced by a white vehicle bearing the letters FBI. A blond woman jumped out of the passenger’s seat and began giving orders. Appa gave me a small squeeze.
“Molly,” Appa asked. “Where’s your coat? You‘re freezing.”
“I left it in school,” I mumbled.
“Why don’t you run upstairs and get a sweatshirt or something?” he suggested. “I have a feeling they’ll want our statements and I don’t want you catching a cold.”
“Yeah, okay,” I agreed.
I began to walk up to the apartment.
I only stopped because the blonde woman- Agent Audrey Hanson, of course- reminded me of something.
“Take the names and get video feed of everyone in this crowd. Sylar likes to be around to see us work.”
I snapped.
Eight year olds aren’t supposed to hate people. Neither are twelve year olds. That doesn’t change the fact that my hatred for the man who had killed my parents, the man who had hurt my Dad, the man who kept trying to destroy my family, had been festering away for four years at this point.
“Excuse me,” I whispered, ducking under the arm of an FBI agent. “I’ll be right back. I just have to do something first.”
No amount of Post-It Notes were going to cut it this time.
He looked a bit like a hobo; then again, he’d probably gotten the clothes off a hobo. He had a fedora pulled down low over his face, and his ratty trench coat was pulled tightly around him, the collar popped up.
“James Walker,” he slurred when the agent asked his name.
Bastard.
I waited until the agent had ambled away, before I started speaking.
“In case it’s escaped your notice,” I began. His eyes snapped up to meet mine, and I took an instinctive half step back.
“You’re Molly,” he said, surprised.
“In case it’s escaped your notice,” I repeated. Dimly, I was aware of the fact that I was shaking. “I’m not bluffing. I’m watching you- I’m always watching you.”
“Really?” he asked, amused.
“Really,” I confirmed. “It doesn’t matter where you go. It doesn’t matter what you do. You can crawl back to your hideout on Fifth Avenue after this, surrounded by all those security cameras and super-powered cohorts, and I can still see you. I can still find you.”
“Molly!”
That was Mohinder. He’d notice me- noticed who I was talking to.
“Interesting ability,” Sylar said. “I’ll put it on the list right after telepathy.”
I barely heard him over the pounding of the blood in my ears; it muffled both his voice and Appa’s shouting behind me, and before I knew what I was doing I had punched him in the gut- one of the Judo punches that, strictly speaking, I wasn’t supposed to do outside of kata because they could break a persons rib, and that just doesn‘t fit with the whole ‘gentle way‘ deal.
Unfortunately, I had only been taking Judo for a little more than a year, and I probably just ended up giving him a nice-sized bruise. It did make him double over gratifyingly, though.
“Stay away from my family, Sylar!” I hissed, just as Appa, followed closely by Agent Hanson, came up behind me.
“Sylar!” she shouted.
He took one look at her (or maybe just noticed the throngs of people who were trying to figure which one of us was that serial killer they had heard so much about) and ran away so fast he left an after image.
“Molly!” Appa said shrilly, “What did you- what on earth were you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” I said blankly. Everything seemed suppressed, but I could still here the blood pounding in my ears. “But I’ll let you know when I start again."
~*~
Link to the next part is here.