quinto formaggi: chapter sixteen
Fandoms: Stuff ZQ was in
Words: 4,024 4,555 (oct'10 rev)
All Chapters
"Hello?"
The call went unanswered.
Tony stuck his hands into his pockets and sauntered into the corridor trying to look braver than he felt.
The place seemed empty; there was a dead air about it, and yet something suggested that there had been people here not long ago. Tony's eyes lingered briefly on a patch of discoloured wall and the carpet below it. Blood, he thought, then shook it off. Whatever it was had been cleaned away, though not very effectively.
He jumped slightly as the door shut. Something fluttered in the brief draught of air. It was a note, he saw, as he located it and went over for closer inspection. A note tacked on a door:
'DO NOT OPEN. DEAD PEOPLE + SERIAL KILLER'
...in his handwriting.
Tony stared at it. He blinked.
Nah, he thought, and tried to put the familiar turn of the letters down to coincidence. He stared at the door instead. Dead people plus serial killer. Perhaps it wouldn't be wise to open it. Not now, anyway.
But one thing was certain now; there had been people here at some point...
He continued walking towards the room at the end. The door was ajar, but no sound came from it.
He entered, searched for a light switch and flicked it on.
The room had been lived in. Tony made his way through it. Upturned chair lying by the door, empty cup on the table. Remote control. Discarded sandwich wrappers in the trash. More suspicious blood-like spots on the carpet. A faint smell of roses.
There was an area partially blocked off by a long bookshelf. Tony went in and found himself in a tiny library with a desk in the centre. The shelves held books and assorted junk; on the desk was a digital video camera.
Tony picked it up, curious, and turned it on. He found the menu, scrolled to the sole video recorded there, and played it:
A face appeared on the screen. "My name is Adam Kaufman..."
Tony's mouth fell open.
"Hello?"
Startled, Tony fumbled the video off and put the camera down.
"Where is he?"
"Maybe Sylar killed him."
"We still have twenty-seven seconds-"
"He could have been early."
Tony emerged from behind the shelves and stared at the people who had just run in. "What the hell-"
"No time for questions," the guy from the video said, as another rushed past him to grab a book, and the camera as an afterthought. "You've got to get out of here. Now. Leo!"
Leo ran back out with the camera, its cable and a book about coffee.
"Ten seconds."
"...Is that Sp-"
Adam grabbed Tony's arm ("Hey!") and pulled him out the door. Smudge came out from one of the rooms hugging two pillows.
"Because you're not stealing mine," Smudge stated in response to Adam's unasked question.
"Five seconds."
"He said about five minutes," Smudge insisted as they ran down the corridor. "Not exactly."
Out the door into the lift lobby, where the lift was still waiting for them. They went in and Adam hit the button for the fifth floor.
"What if he's there when the doors open?" Leo asked.
Adam hit the button for the sixth floor.
Tony was busy staring at everyone and wishing that Adam would let go of his arm.
"What's your name?" Adam asked, letting go of his arm.
"Tony."
"Adam, Leo, Smudge, Spock."
"What kind of a name is Smu-"
The doors opened. Adam yanked him out. Sixth floor stairwell. They hurtled down the steps.
"Who are you?" Tony asked. "Why are we running-"
"Questions later," Leo said as they reached the fifth floor and went through into the connecting corridor to the central block.
They slowed down as they entered the crowds, Adam and Leo casting wary glances around as they made their way through to the west side of the block. Past several shops, down a series of corridors, slowing down to a walking pace as they left the crowds behind and entered into a wooden alcove that Tony saw with a shock had two dead people in it.
Leo turned on the camera, facing the lens towards one of the bodies and recording a brief take of it before moving on to the second.
"What are you doing?" Smudge asked.
"Someone might have to tell their families that they're gone," Leo said quietly. "They might need closure." He turned off the camera and joined them walking up the escalator, which wasn't moving fast enough for their liking.
Across the dance floor - "You're back," Arthur said pleasantly - and into their chosen room, where Adam firmly shut the door.
Smudge dumped the pillows on the floor a noticeable distance away from the one that had been Sasan's.
Tony folded his arms. "Okay," he said. "Mind telling me what is going on?"
"Whoa," Smudge said suddenly. "I just saw a green unicorn running across the lab."
"We're... not in a lab," Tony said.
Smudge glared at him. "I saw it!" he insisted. "Why, you don't believe the bisexual guy?"
Leo mentally face-palmed.
"How is your sexual orientation relevant to your hallucinations?" Tony asked. "Or are you into unicorns as well?"
Smudge was aghast. Tony smirked.
"I saw it," Smudge said. "There's... another one... right there..."
Smudge fainted.
*
Always, I wanna be with you
And make believe with you
And live in harmony, harmony...
"Smudge?"
He looked up, dazed. Sasan was standing by the green unicorn. Sasan...
Smudge raced over and grabbed him in a hug. Sasan was real within his grasp. Tangible, solid, breathing... Smudge's fingers closed earnestly over clothes and skin and hair, tears streaming down his face.
"I miss you," he gasped out. "Why did you have to go..."
"I miss you too," Sasan said softly, holding him tight.
Smudge trembled in his arms, trying to lose himself in the rhythm of Sasan's heartbeats; calmer than his own, and a constant reminder of the life that had been taken.
The green unicorn ambled off to another part of the room.
"You're dead," Smudge whispered, his eyes squeezed shut against Sasan's chest. "This isn't real, it's not... there's a unicorn..."
Sasan gently pulled Smudge off him and looked him in the eye. "It's real if you want it to be, okay?" He brushed a tear off Smudge's cheek. "It's just the two of us here with a fabulous unicorn, and that's the only thing that matters right now."
Smudge sniffed and wiped a hand across his nose.
"I mean... Smudge, we got kidnapped from our homes and zapped into another universe. The benchmark for what is real has been moved forever."
Smudge blinked. He turned his face to Sasan's hand on his arm; reached out his own to touch it, tracing the individual fingers, firm and real and there...
Smudge looked back up at Sasan's face, the dark eyes looking steadily back at him, and emotion welled up in his throat.
"Sas..."
"I'm here."
"How..."
"It doesn't matter," Sasan said. "Maybe you're dreaming, or I became a ghost and didn't know it, or the green unicorn was responsible somehow." He glanced quizzically at the green unicorn. "I thought unicorns weren't even supposed to be green."
"What if this is all just in my head?"
Sasan shrugged. "Well, there is a green unicorn."
The unicorn raised an eyebrow.
Sasan looked reprovingly at it.
"For an imaginary creature, it has terrible manners," he commented.
"I don't want to have to leave you again," Smudge said, his voice shaking. "I need you."
"No. No, you don't, Smudge. You're going to be fine, all right?"
"I-"
"Listen," Sasan said. "Look at me. Smudge. You're going to be fine."
Smudge blinked at him through his tears. "But I miss you so much."
"We had good times together," Sasan agreed. "And I don't regret them. I'd do them over if I had the chance, even if it means never going home. ...Though if I knew, I would've let my parents know I was finally moving out."
Smudge hugged him again. Sasan stroked his hair.
"You're going to be fine," Sasan said again. "Put some sense into the rest of them. If Adam bothers you, steal his computer."
"I don't... I don't want to wake up. Don't make me wake up."
"I can't control that," Sasan said quietly.
"I love you," Smudge choked out.
Some unidentifiable emotion passed briefly over Sasan's face.
Smudge hugged him tighter.
Sasan kissed the top of his head.
And then the dream started to fade and die no matter how hard Smudge tried to fight off consciousness; and Sasan grew intangible beneath his grasp, vanishing into mist before his eyes; and then the unicorn too, was gone, and Smudge found himself back with the others, on the floor where he had blacked out, faced with the reality that Sasan was dead.
Tony was munching on a sandwich. "Still seeing things?" he asked; and then he yelled and dropped his sandwich as Smudge lunged at him, knocking him over and delivering an angry punch to his face.
Adam and Leo looked up from where they'd been continuing their marathon. Spock moved to intervene, but Smudge seemed satisfied. He got away from Tony, who was massaging his jaw and looking as though he thought Smudge was crazy.
Smudge got a sandwich, unwrapped it, sat down and ate, alone in his own world, imagining that Sasan was still there with him, and that he was not alone.
*
The hours passed fitfully by in numbing boredom, confined by fear to wait for an unspecified time when they might be free. Adam and Leo occupied themselves with watching TV on the laptop; at one point Tony wandered over to join them and be clueless about the plot so far, whereupon he left for the next room to be bored and attempt to compose pretentious poetry about how terrible things were:
imprisoned. without reason. company of me. they suck.
Spock engaged himself in conversation with Arthur at the bar.
Smudge sat by the hole in the wall, his legs dangling out into the void as he absent-mindedly shredded the empty wrapper of a packet of peanuts and tossed the pieces out, watching them float lazily down and out of sight. He wondered where they went. He wondered where anybody went when they died here in this constructed universe in the middle of nowhere. Did they fade into oblivion? Did they live on in some afterlife? Did their spirits return home? Did they linger on in unconscious dreams that felt so real...
"Sometimes, yes," Arthur said, his voice carrying over to where Smudge sat. "Although it's not always sheep. Sometimes I dream of electric butterflies, or pigs, or unicorns."
"So there was some truth in the writer's speculation," Spock mused. "He was a visionary of his time."
Smudge tossed the last bit of wrapper into the hole and swung his legs back up. He walked over to the bar and sat down.
"What happens when you die here?" he asked Arthur.
"There's only one way to find out," Arthur said.
"Becoming nothing would appear to be the most likely answer," Spock said. "If this universe were created for the sole purpose of holding this facility, it would have been pointless to go to the trouble of fashioning some afterlife system for it."
"Oh," Smudge said sadly.
"You seem down," Arthur observed. "Would you like another drink?"
Smudge lingered for a moment on the thought of seeing Sasan again. But if it wasn't real...
"Maybe later," he said.
"All right."
"Where are the rest of your crew?" Smudge asked Spock. "Kirk and everyone."
"I do not know."
"Maybe they could help us," Smudge said.
"How?"
Smudge shrugged. He had the vague notion that there was no problem that the crew of the USS Enterprise couldn't solve.
"What's it like being an android?" he asked Arthur instead.
"What's it like being a human?" Arthur replied.
"Scary," Smudge said.
"Why is that?"
"You're mortal," Smudge said. "People die. Sometimes too soon."
"It will always be too soon," Arthur said.
Spock nodded in silent agreement.
"Don't dwell on loss," Arthur said. "Nothing much can come from that. There's no point in wasting your time on things you cannot change. That way lies nothing but pain."
"Is drinking that stuff supposed to make you see dead people?" Smudge asked, pointing to the bottle of Experiment #42.
"Hard to say. Not many have tried it, but you'd be the first with that result. Did you see any green unicorns?"
Smudge nodded.
"I could never figure out where that came from," Arthur said.
"They had terrible manners," Smudge said softly.
"Well, that's green unicorns for you."
Adam and Leo finished Season 1 of Heroes, and Leo went to see if the book on coffee was any better than the wisdom of Jach Juan. Adam got the laptop back to displaying camera feeds. He scrolled absent-mindedly through them, his head starting to hurt from the extended period of time spent staring at the screen.
He glanced past shots of people on the various floors. Talking, fighting, being bored, making out, starting fires, trying to hack through the walls, falling through the holes in the walls, eating, running, getting free stuff...
Adam gave a start. He scrolled back and stared at one of the feed windows. A bookstore. People ambling in and out, or reading; and in the corner...
"I found him," he said.
"Who, Wally?" Tony asked, having returned from his poetic exploits in the other room.
"Sylar," Adam said, though he wondered for a moment if Kenselton Hotel was presently home to one bespectacled individual in a red and white striped shirt and a matching hat.
The others came over to look, crowding around the screen. Smudge subconsciously clenched his fists.
Sylar was standing in a corner by the shelves, inconspicuously watching people. Watching, waiting, noting the brief displays of power some of them displayed: telekinetically grabbing a book from a shelf, flying up to get one located too high, reading books just by touching them...
"How do you know it's him?" Tony asked.
"It's him," Leo said, fresh from the Heroes marathon.
They continued staring.
"What do we do?" Smudge asked.
"There's nothing we can do," Adam said. "Short of sneaking up to him like the last time, and it's not worth the risk."
"What if he kills more people?" Leo asked.
"What Sylar does out of his own volition is not our responsibility," Spock said. "We are no more to blame for his actions than anyone else."
Smudge opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come.
They continued watching.
And then, suddenly, Sylar looked straight up at the camera.
Adam swore.
"He can see us," Leo said.
"Closed-circuit cameras don't work that way," Tony said.
"He might have new powers we don't know about," Leo said.
"Stop staring!" Smudge shouted at the camera.
"He can't hear you," Tony said.
"We don't know that," Leo said.
"It's not wholly unlikely that he does this with every camera he sees," Spock suggested. "It would serve to create the illusion that he is aware of anyone watching him."
Smudge walked away. Looking at Sylar just reminded him of what had happened to Sasan.
*
"All right," said the clerk at the Isolated Bubble of Hyperspace Afterlife, coming in with a sheaf of paperwork. Her nametag identified her as Fhille. "The mass suicide crowd's lessened up. It's time to go."
"Where?" Sasan asked.
"I could tell you if the system was up, but it's been down since we shifted everything onto Windows Vista," she explained. "Don't worry. Murder victims usually get off pretty easy."
Sasan looked back across the waiting room. Smudge and the green unicorn had long gone. He wondered if it had been real.
"Um - a friend of mine might be coming back," he said. "Could I wait here for a while more or is that against company policy?"
She sighed. "All right, but not for long," she said. "We're running late. Taxon set all the clocks an hour forward because he thought it was funny, and there's a growing queue of dead people in a few other isolated bubbles of hyperspace that need dealing with. You've got to get out by the end of the day. We normally don't even use the waiting rooms, but the suicide group got messy."
*
"Need any help?" Leo asked, going towards the bar with his hands in his pockets. Arthur was mixing up some other experimental drink; gold liquid bubbled in a flask.
"Sure," Arthur said. "Have a taste of this and tell me what you think."
He poured some of the gold liquid out into a glass. "It is my attempt at the mythical Felix Felicis," he said. "It gives luck. I have yet to arrive at the correct recipe, but I think it makes a pretty good drink, regardless."
Leo took the glass and drank a sip. A deep, glowing warmth spread through him.
"Do you feel lucky?" Arthur asked hopefully.
"Not really," Leo said. "It's good, though." He took another sip, gazing out into the darkness of the dance floor.
"If I may inquire: what are you thinking about?" Arthur asked. "I am often interested in the thoughts of organic sentient beings."
Leo gazed into his glass and swirled the liquid about. "Zachary," he finally said. "Does he know about us? That we're being killed, and... and if he knew, would he care?" Leo looked up at Arthur. "I realised we don't know anything about him," he said. "He could be a horrible person for all we know."
"Would it matter if he was?" Arthur asked.
"Yeah, of course."
"Why?"
Leo hesitated. "What would that say about us?" he asked.
"Absolutely nothing."
"But-"
"Bad parents can produce good kids; life-giving inspiration can spring from wells of despair," Arthur said. "You are who you are, Leo, and nothing can change that. Zachary being a complete scumbag of a human being would not reflect badly on you any more than him being a saint would make Sylar any less of a monster."
"...At some point he shared my life," Leo said quietly. "The same... words, actions, feelings... it doesn't get much more personal than that. But he's just a stranger to me, and... and that's frightening."
"The unknown creator," Arthur said, pouring the rest of the drink into a bottle. "By his fruit he shall be known."
"There are too many kinds of fruit," Leo said. "He could be just like Sylar for all we know, and... and the rest of us were just... acts..."
"But you'll never know, will you?" Arthur asked. "Even if you do meet him, one day, that self he presents could also be an act."
"Yeah," Leo said.
Arthur set the flask and bottle down. "What does he mean to you, Leo?" he asked. "What do you think of when you hear his name? What's more important: the mysterious actor, or all of you?"
Silence.
Leo remembered quiet moments. Adam hacking on the laptop. Sasan and Smudge cuddling on the couch. Spock narrating a log into the silence of the void. Tony hanging around picking fights with Smudge. Mike watching them, hesitant. Picking up cheese from a corridor floor, filming a video, sharing meals in an empty cafeteria, huddled around the television, cheating death, running, hiding, always sticking together as their numbers dwindled from the threat of the watchmaker...
"Us," Leo said softly.
Arthur corked the bottle and set it aside. "Then," he said, "that is all that matters."
*
The tedium of the morning turned to the tedium of the afternoon. Adam and Leo eventually started on the second season of Heroes; Tony hung around sporadically watching with them, still clueless as to what had happened before. Spock picked up the two books, teaching himself about coffee and digging it, and arched a threatening eyebrow when Smudge and Tony looked about to break into a fight ("why are you always so angry? Is it because you're bisexual or is there something else wrong with you?").
Tony said that they were all being paranoid and that there were so many people in the place that he doubted anyone would notice them if they went out instead of just sitting here and waiting to die, because it wasn't as though he looked particularly conspicuous, and if they didn't jump around yelling, "look at me!" nobody would care.
Adam pointed out that Tony had yet to have the experience of being randomly accused of serial killing and beaten up by a complete stranger, and would he please shut up because people were trying to watch a show.
Smudge declared that Tony was an idiot. Tony made a comment about infantile insults, bet that his intellectual capability was higher than his, and that Smudge had no authority to call other people idiots. Smudge raised a fist and told Tony to intellectualise that. Tony made a remark about Smudge's tendency to resort to violence, and if he was the one responsible for the two dead guys down there-
Oh no, Leo thought; and then Tony was on the ground with a bloody nose as Adam and Leo and Spock tried to pry a screaming Smudge away from him.
"You take that BACK!"
"GET OFF ME, YOU BISEXUAL PSYCHO!"
"Smudge-"
Smudge grabbed Tony by his hair, struggling to get full use of his limbs back from the other three trying to pull him off. "I DIDN'T KILL HIM!" he hollered, tears forming in his eyes. "I DIDN'T!"
"So what, you're going to kill me instead?"
Smudge kneed him angrily in the throat.
Spock yanked Smudge off.
"One of you, get out of the room," Adam demanded. "There are enough people trying to kill us without you two helping."
Tony crawled off the floor, massaging his neck where Smudge's knee had threatened to break it. He gave Smudge a final look, then limped off back to the other room to compose more pretentious poetry.
waiting. what are the hours that never end? what is the life that's spent confined? what the eff is wrong with the bisexual guy?
"We should have let Sylar kill him," Smudge said, glaring out the door.
"Looks like you're doing a good enough job of that," Adam muttered, returning to the Heroes marathon.
The afternoon turned to night.
Smudge refused to let anyone touch what had been Sasan's pillow, and finally took it for himself. Spock conceded to go without a pillow.
They left the door open. Shutting it made the room pitch black, and in this place there would be no knowing when it was day. Sparse light came in from a small lamp at the bar, where Arthur was busy concocting new mixtures of alcoholic beverage and thinking about the nature of life.
Smudge lay fitfully in the dark against the wall, missing Sasan's reassuring presence of the past few nights, the absence heightened by the rough carpet and the cold, unfeeling wall. The others dropped off to sleep, evidently unconcerned by that. Steady breathing filled the room. Smudge stared up at the ceiling.
Eventually he got off the floor and slipped out. Arthur looked up as he approached.
"Can't sleep?" he asked pleasantly.
"Yeah," Smudge said, climbing onto a bar stool. "Can I have more of that drink I had?" he asked.
"Sure." Arthur put down the bottles he was carrying and picked up the one labelled Experiment #42. He poured out a glass. "Miss the green unicorns?"
"Nah. I just want to see my friend again."
Smudge drank a gulp of it. He made a face. The taste hadn't got any less weird.
"But does he want to see you?" Arthur asked.
"It's not real anyway," Smudge murmured. "He's dead."
"How does that make it less real?" Arthur asked. "The dead can sometimes be realer to us than the living,"
Smudge swirled the drink in his glass. He drank up the rest of it. He gazed into the empty glass.
"Thanks," he finally said.
"You're welcome."
Smudge got off the bar stool and trudged back into the room. He lay back down on the pillow, waiting.
A green unicorn peeked through the door and huffed rudely at him. Smudge smiled at it.
Then he fainted.
*
"You're back."
Smudge opened his eyes. Sasan was sitting calmly on a bench against the wall.
"I know," Smudge said earnestly. "I won't leave you, I'll stay here as long as I can and then I'll come back again-"
"Smudge, you can't keep doing that," Sasan said. "You've got to move on, okay?"
"But I can't sleep when you're not there."
Sasan sighed. "Come here."
Smudge went. He climbed onto the bench and snuggled up to Sasan. Sasan put an arm around him.
"Tony doesn't like me," Smudge said. "But I beat him up, so I think it's okay now."
Sasan looked at him. "Smudge! You can't just beat someone up if they don't like you."
"He asked if I was the reason you were dead."
"Hey, if he wants to be an insensitive jerk, let him. It's not an invitation to stoop to his level or lower."
"But-"
"Smudge, you've got to stop hitting people. You don't solve problems that way. Show them you're better than that."
"What about Sylar?" Smudge asked.
Sasan considered this. "All right, for him we'll make an exception."
The door opened.
"Time to go," said Fhille.
"Where?" Smudge asked.
"Not you, him."
Sasan made to stand up from the bench. Smudge clutched his arm. "Sas-"
"I've got to go," Sasan said quietly.
"Then I'll go with you," Smudge pleaded. "I'll kill myself if I have to-"
"NO." Sasan grabbed him by the shoulders. "You're not going to kill yourself, Smudge, you hear me?"
"..."
"Smudge!"
Smudge blinked.
"Smudge, promise me that," Sasan said. "Promise me you won't kill yourself. Not for me. Promise?"
Smudge managed a tearful nod.
Sasan relaxed his grip.
Smudge hugged him. Sasan returned it; holding each other close in silent farewell.
"Will I see you again?" Smudge whispered.
"I don't know."
Smudge nuzzled against his neck.
Fhille looked warily at the green unicorn. It stared indignantly at her. She raised an eyebrow. It returned the gesture.
"All right," Fhille said, giving up on the unicorn and moving out the door. "Break it up and let's move."
Smudge reluctantly let Sasan pull away. Sasan went towards the door and stepped out after Fhille, then hesitated.
He turned. Smudge stood there, watching him...
"I love you too," Sasan said quietly.
Smudge swallowed back the tears as Sasan turned to leave for good; and then the door closed shut behind him, never to be opened again.
*
"Would you like a drink, sir?" Arthur greeted.
"No."
"I didn't see you with the others earlier."
Sylar shrugged. "I come and go," he said with a grin.
"Turning in for the night?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"Good night."
"You too."
Sylar went towards the open door and through it. He stood there in the dark as his eyes adjusted, looking over the five sleeping figures spread across the room. One of them rolled over and fell still again.
Sylar smiled.
This place was where he was meant to be.
*
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN >>
Tony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FelywyTwCws
Words: 4,024 4,555 (oct'10 rev)
All Chapters
"Hello?"
The call went unanswered.
Tony stuck his hands into his pockets and sauntered into the corridor trying to look braver than he felt.
The place seemed empty; there was a dead air about it, and yet something suggested that there had been people here not long ago. Tony's eyes lingered briefly on a patch of discoloured wall and the carpet below it. Blood, he thought, then shook it off. Whatever it was had been cleaned away, though not very effectively.
He jumped slightly as the door shut. Something fluttered in the brief draught of air. It was a note, he saw, as he located it and went over for closer inspection. A note tacked on a door:
'DO NOT OPEN. DEAD PEOPLE + SERIAL KILLER'
...in his handwriting.
Tony stared at it. He blinked.
Nah, he thought, and tried to put the familiar turn of the letters down to coincidence. He stared at the door instead. Dead people plus serial killer. Perhaps it wouldn't be wise to open it. Not now, anyway.
But one thing was certain now; there had been people here at some point...
He continued walking towards the room at the end. The door was ajar, but no sound came from it.
He entered, searched for a light switch and flicked it on.
The room had been lived in. Tony made his way through it. Upturned chair lying by the door, empty cup on the table. Remote control. Discarded sandwich wrappers in the trash. More suspicious blood-like spots on the carpet. A faint smell of roses.
There was an area partially blocked off by a long bookshelf. Tony went in and found himself in a tiny library with a desk in the centre. The shelves held books and assorted junk; on the desk was a digital video camera.
Tony picked it up, curious, and turned it on. He found the menu, scrolled to the sole video recorded there, and played it:
A face appeared on the screen. "My name is Adam Kaufman..."
Tony's mouth fell open.
"Hello?"
Startled, Tony fumbled the video off and put the camera down.
"Where is he?"
"Maybe Sylar killed him."
"We still have twenty-seven seconds-"
"He could have been early."
Tony emerged from behind the shelves and stared at the people who had just run in. "What the hell-"
"No time for questions," the guy from the video said, as another rushed past him to grab a book, and the camera as an afterthought. "You've got to get out of here. Now. Leo!"
Leo ran back out with the camera, its cable and a book about coffee.
"Ten seconds."
"...Is that Sp-"
Adam grabbed Tony's arm ("Hey!") and pulled him out the door. Smudge came out from one of the rooms hugging two pillows.
"Because you're not stealing mine," Smudge stated in response to Adam's unasked question.
"Five seconds."
"He said about five minutes," Smudge insisted as they ran down the corridor. "Not exactly."
Out the door into the lift lobby, where the lift was still waiting for them. They went in and Adam hit the button for the fifth floor.
"What if he's there when the doors open?" Leo asked.
Adam hit the button for the sixth floor.
Tony was busy staring at everyone and wishing that Adam would let go of his arm.
"What's your name?" Adam asked, letting go of his arm.
"Tony."
"Adam, Leo, Smudge, Spock."
"What kind of a name is Smu-"
The doors opened. Adam yanked him out. Sixth floor stairwell. They hurtled down the steps.
"Who are you?" Tony asked. "Why are we running-"
"Questions later," Leo said as they reached the fifth floor and went through into the connecting corridor to the central block.
They slowed down as they entered the crowds, Adam and Leo casting wary glances around as they made their way through to the west side of the block. Past several shops, down a series of corridors, slowing down to a walking pace as they left the crowds behind and entered into a wooden alcove that Tony saw with a shock had two dead people in it.
Leo turned on the camera, facing the lens towards one of the bodies and recording a brief take of it before moving on to the second.
"What are you doing?" Smudge asked.
"Someone might have to tell their families that they're gone," Leo said quietly. "They might need closure." He turned off the camera and joined them walking up the escalator, which wasn't moving fast enough for their liking.
Across the dance floor - "You're back," Arthur said pleasantly - and into their chosen room, where Adam firmly shut the door.
Smudge dumped the pillows on the floor a noticeable distance away from the one that had been Sasan's.
Tony folded his arms. "Okay," he said. "Mind telling me what is going on?"
"Whoa," Smudge said suddenly. "I just saw a green unicorn running across the lab."
"We're... not in a lab," Tony said.
Smudge glared at him. "I saw it!" he insisted. "Why, you don't believe the bisexual guy?"
Leo mentally face-palmed.
"How is your sexual orientation relevant to your hallucinations?" Tony asked. "Or are you into unicorns as well?"
Smudge was aghast. Tony smirked.
"I saw it," Smudge said. "There's... another one... right there..."
Smudge fainted.
*
Always, I wanna be with you
And make believe with you
And live in harmony, harmony...
"Smudge?"
He looked up, dazed. Sasan was standing by the green unicorn. Sasan...
Smudge raced over and grabbed him in a hug. Sasan was real within his grasp. Tangible, solid, breathing... Smudge's fingers closed earnestly over clothes and skin and hair, tears streaming down his face.
"I miss you," he gasped out. "Why did you have to go..."
"I miss you too," Sasan said softly, holding him tight.
Smudge trembled in his arms, trying to lose himself in the rhythm of Sasan's heartbeats; calmer than his own, and a constant reminder of the life that had been taken.
The green unicorn ambled off to another part of the room.
"You're dead," Smudge whispered, his eyes squeezed shut against Sasan's chest. "This isn't real, it's not... there's a unicorn..."
Sasan gently pulled Smudge off him and looked him in the eye. "It's real if you want it to be, okay?" He brushed a tear off Smudge's cheek. "It's just the two of us here with a fabulous unicorn, and that's the only thing that matters right now."
Smudge sniffed and wiped a hand across his nose.
"I mean... Smudge, we got kidnapped from our homes and zapped into another universe. The benchmark for what is real has been moved forever."
Smudge blinked. He turned his face to Sasan's hand on his arm; reached out his own to touch it, tracing the individual fingers, firm and real and there...
Smudge looked back up at Sasan's face, the dark eyes looking steadily back at him, and emotion welled up in his throat.
"Sas..."
"I'm here."
"How..."
"It doesn't matter," Sasan said. "Maybe you're dreaming, or I became a ghost and didn't know it, or the green unicorn was responsible somehow." He glanced quizzically at the green unicorn. "I thought unicorns weren't even supposed to be green."
"What if this is all just in my head?"
Sasan shrugged. "Well, there is a green unicorn."
The unicorn raised an eyebrow.
Sasan looked reprovingly at it.
"For an imaginary creature, it has terrible manners," he commented.
"I don't want to have to leave you again," Smudge said, his voice shaking. "I need you."
"No. No, you don't, Smudge. You're going to be fine, all right?"
"I-"
"Listen," Sasan said. "Look at me. Smudge. You're going to be fine."
Smudge blinked at him through his tears. "But I miss you so much."
"We had good times together," Sasan agreed. "And I don't regret them. I'd do them over if I had the chance, even if it means never going home. ...Though if I knew, I would've let my parents know I was finally moving out."
Smudge hugged him again. Sasan stroked his hair.
"You're going to be fine," Sasan said again. "Put some sense into the rest of them. If Adam bothers you, steal his computer."
"I don't... I don't want to wake up. Don't make me wake up."
"I can't control that," Sasan said quietly.
"I love you," Smudge choked out.
Some unidentifiable emotion passed briefly over Sasan's face.
Smudge hugged him tighter.
Sasan kissed the top of his head.
And then the dream started to fade and die no matter how hard Smudge tried to fight off consciousness; and Sasan grew intangible beneath his grasp, vanishing into mist before his eyes; and then the unicorn too, was gone, and Smudge found himself back with the others, on the floor where he had blacked out, faced with the reality that Sasan was dead.
Tony was munching on a sandwich. "Still seeing things?" he asked; and then he yelled and dropped his sandwich as Smudge lunged at him, knocking him over and delivering an angry punch to his face.
Adam and Leo looked up from where they'd been continuing their marathon. Spock moved to intervene, but Smudge seemed satisfied. He got away from Tony, who was massaging his jaw and looking as though he thought Smudge was crazy.
Smudge got a sandwich, unwrapped it, sat down and ate, alone in his own world, imagining that Sasan was still there with him, and that he was not alone.
*
The hours passed fitfully by in numbing boredom, confined by fear to wait for an unspecified time when they might be free. Adam and Leo occupied themselves with watching TV on the laptop; at one point Tony wandered over to join them and be clueless about the plot so far, whereupon he left for the next room to be bored and attempt to compose pretentious poetry about how terrible things were:
imprisoned. without reason. company of me. they suck.
Spock engaged himself in conversation with Arthur at the bar.
Smudge sat by the hole in the wall, his legs dangling out into the void as he absent-mindedly shredded the empty wrapper of a packet of peanuts and tossed the pieces out, watching them float lazily down and out of sight. He wondered where they went. He wondered where anybody went when they died here in this constructed universe in the middle of nowhere. Did they fade into oblivion? Did they live on in some afterlife? Did their spirits return home? Did they linger on in unconscious dreams that felt so real...
"Sometimes, yes," Arthur said, his voice carrying over to where Smudge sat. "Although it's not always sheep. Sometimes I dream of electric butterflies, or pigs, or unicorns."
"So there was some truth in the writer's speculation," Spock mused. "He was a visionary of his time."
Smudge tossed the last bit of wrapper into the hole and swung his legs back up. He walked over to the bar and sat down.
"What happens when you die here?" he asked Arthur.
"There's only one way to find out," Arthur said.
"Becoming nothing would appear to be the most likely answer," Spock said. "If this universe were created for the sole purpose of holding this facility, it would have been pointless to go to the trouble of fashioning some afterlife system for it."
"Oh," Smudge said sadly.
"You seem down," Arthur observed. "Would you like another drink?"
Smudge lingered for a moment on the thought of seeing Sasan again. But if it wasn't real...
"Maybe later," he said.
"All right."
"Where are the rest of your crew?" Smudge asked Spock. "Kirk and everyone."
"I do not know."
"Maybe they could help us," Smudge said.
"How?"
Smudge shrugged. He had the vague notion that there was no problem that the crew of the USS Enterprise couldn't solve.
"What's it like being an android?" he asked Arthur instead.
"What's it like being a human?" Arthur replied.
"Scary," Smudge said.
"Why is that?"
"You're mortal," Smudge said. "People die. Sometimes too soon."
"It will always be too soon," Arthur said.
Spock nodded in silent agreement.
"Don't dwell on loss," Arthur said. "Nothing much can come from that. There's no point in wasting your time on things you cannot change. That way lies nothing but pain."
"Is drinking that stuff supposed to make you see dead people?" Smudge asked, pointing to the bottle of Experiment #42.
"Hard to say. Not many have tried it, but you'd be the first with that result. Did you see any green unicorns?"
Smudge nodded.
"I could never figure out where that came from," Arthur said.
"They had terrible manners," Smudge said softly.
"Well, that's green unicorns for you."
Adam and Leo finished Season 1 of Heroes, and Leo went to see if the book on coffee was any better than the wisdom of Jach Juan. Adam got the laptop back to displaying camera feeds. He scrolled absent-mindedly through them, his head starting to hurt from the extended period of time spent staring at the screen.
He glanced past shots of people on the various floors. Talking, fighting, being bored, making out, starting fires, trying to hack through the walls, falling through the holes in the walls, eating, running, getting free stuff...
Adam gave a start. He scrolled back and stared at one of the feed windows. A bookstore. People ambling in and out, or reading; and in the corner...
"I found him," he said.
"Who, Wally?" Tony asked, having returned from his poetic exploits in the other room.
"Sylar," Adam said, though he wondered for a moment if Kenselton Hotel was presently home to one bespectacled individual in a red and white striped shirt and a matching hat.
The others came over to look, crowding around the screen. Smudge subconsciously clenched his fists.
Sylar was standing in a corner by the shelves, inconspicuously watching people. Watching, waiting, noting the brief displays of power some of them displayed: telekinetically grabbing a book from a shelf, flying up to get one located too high, reading books just by touching them...
"How do you know it's him?" Tony asked.
"It's him," Leo said, fresh from the Heroes marathon.
They continued staring.
"What do we do?" Smudge asked.
"There's nothing we can do," Adam said. "Short of sneaking up to him like the last time, and it's not worth the risk."
"What if he kills more people?" Leo asked.
"What Sylar does out of his own volition is not our responsibility," Spock said. "We are no more to blame for his actions than anyone else."
Smudge opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come.
They continued watching.
And then, suddenly, Sylar looked straight up at the camera.
Adam swore.
"He can see us," Leo said.
"Closed-circuit cameras don't work that way," Tony said.
"He might have new powers we don't know about," Leo said.
"Stop staring!" Smudge shouted at the camera.
"He can't hear you," Tony said.
"We don't know that," Leo said.
"It's not wholly unlikely that he does this with every camera he sees," Spock suggested. "It would serve to create the illusion that he is aware of anyone watching him."
Smudge walked away. Looking at Sylar just reminded him of what had happened to Sasan.
*
"All right," said the clerk at the Isolated Bubble of Hyperspace Afterlife, coming in with a sheaf of paperwork. Her nametag identified her as Fhille. "The mass suicide crowd's lessened up. It's time to go."
"Where?" Sasan asked.
"I could tell you if the system was up, but it's been down since we shifted everything onto Windows Vista," she explained. "Don't worry. Murder victims usually get off pretty easy."
Sasan looked back across the waiting room. Smudge and the green unicorn had long gone. He wondered if it had been real.
"Um - a friend of mine might be coming back," he said. "Could I wait here for a while more or is that against company policy?"
She sighed. "All right, but not for long," she said. "We're running late. Taxon set all the clocks an hour forward because he thought it was funny, and there's a growing queue of dead people in a few other isolated bubbles of hyperspace that need dealing with. You've got to get out by the end of the day. We normally don't even use the waiting rooms, but the suicide group got messy."
*
"Need any help?" Leo asked, going towards the bar with his hands in his pockets. Arthur was mixing up some other experimental drink; gold liquid bubbled in a flask.
"Sure," Arthur said. "Have a taste of this and tell me what you think."
He poured some of the gold liquid out into a glass. "It is my attempt at the mythical Felix Felicis," he said. "It gives luck. I have yet to arrive at the correct recipe, but I think it makes a pretty good drink, regardless."
Leo took the glass and drank a sip. A deep, glowing warmth spread through him.
"Do you feel lucky?" Arthur asked hopefully.
"Not really," Leo said. "It's good, though." He took another sip, gazing out into the darkness of the dance floor.
"If I may inquire: what are you thinking about?" Arthur asked. "I am often interested in the thoughts of organic sentient beings."
Leo gazed into his glass and swirled the liquid about. "Zachary," he finally said. "Does he know about us? That we're being killed, and... and if he knew, would he care?" Leo looked up at Arthur. "I realised we don't know anything about him," he said. "He could be a horrible person for all we know."
"Would it matter if he was?" Arthur asked.
"Yeah, of course."
"Why?"
Leo hesitated. "What would that say about us?" he asked.
"Absolutely nothing."
"But-"
"Bad parents can produce good kids; life-giving inspiration can spring from wells of despair," Arthur said. "You are who you are, Leo, and nothing can change that. Zachary being a complete scumbag of a human being would not reflect badly on you any more than him being a saint would make Sylar any less of a monster."
"...At some point he shared my life," Leo said quietly. "The same... words, actions, feelings... it doesn't get much more personal than that. But he's just a stranger to me, and... and that's frightening."
"The unknown creator," Arthur said, pouring the rest of the drink into a bottle. "By his fruit he shall be known."
"There are too many kinds of fruit," Leo said. "He could be just like Sylar for all we know, and... and the rest of us were just... acts..."
"But you'll never know, will you?" Arthur asked. "Even if you do meet him, one day, that self he presents could also be an act."
"Yeah," Leo said.
Arthur set the flask and bottle down. "What does he mean to you, Leo?" he asked. "What do you think of when you hear his name? What's more important: the mysterious actor, or all of you?"
Silence.
Leo remembered quiet moments. Adam hacking on the laptop. Sasan and Smudge cuddling on the couch. Spock narrating a log into the silence of the void. Tony hanging around picking fights with Smudge. Mike watching them, hesitant. Picking up cheese from a corridor floor, filming a video, sharing meals in an empty cafeteria, huddled around the television, cheating death, running, hiding, always sticking together as their numbers dwindled from the threat of the watchmaker...
"Us," Leo said softly.
Arthur corked the bottle and set it aside. "Then," he said, "that is all that matters."
*
The tedium of the morning turned to the tedium of the afternoon. Adam and Leo eventually started on the second season of Heroes; Tony hung around sporadically watching with them, still clueless as to what had happened before. Spock picked up the two books, teaching himself about coffee and digging it, and arched a threatening eyebrow when Smudge and Tony looked about to break into a fight ("why are you always so angry? Is it because you're bisexual or is there something else wrong with you?").
Tony said that they were all being paranoid and that there were so many people in the place that he doubted anyone would notice them if they went out instead of just sitting here and waiting to die, because it wasn't as though he looked particularly conspicuous, and if they didn't jump around yelling, "look at me!" nobody would care.
Adam pointed out that Tony had yet to have the experience of being randomly accused of serial killing and beaten up by a complete stranger, and would he please shut up because people were trying to watch a show.
Smudge declared that Tony was an idiot. Tony made a comment about infantile insults, bet that his intellectual capability was higher than his, and that Smudge had no authority to call other people idiots. Smudge raised a fist and told Tony to intellectualise that. Tony made a remark about Smudge's tendency to resort to violence, and if he was the one responsible for the two dead guys down there-
Oh no, Leo thought; and then Tony was on the ground with a bloody nose as Adam and Leo and Spock tried to pry a screaming Smudge away from him.
"You take that BACK!"
"GET OFF ME, YOU BISEXUAL PSYCHO!"
"Smudge-"
Smudge grabbed Tony by his hair, struggling to get full use of his limbs back from the other three trying to pull him off. "I DIDN'T KILL HIM!" he hollered, tears forming in his eyes. "I DIDN'T!"
"So what, you're going to kill me instead?"
Smudge kneed him angrily in the throat.
Spock yanked Smudge off.
"One of you, get out of the room," Adam demanded. "There are enough people trying to kill us without you two helping."
Tony crawled off the floor, massaging his neck where Smudge's knee had threatened to break it. He gave Smudge a final look, then limped off back to the other room to compose more pretentious poetry.
waiting. what are the hours that never end? what is the life that's spent confined? what the eff is wrong with the bisexual guy?
"We should have let Sylar kill him," Smudge said, glaring out the door.
"Looks like you're doing a good enough job of that," Adam muttered, returning to the Heroes marathon.
The afternoon turned to night.
Smudge refused to let anyone touch what had been Sasan's pillow, and finally took it for himself. Spock conceded to go without a pillow.
They left the door open. Shutting it made the room pitch black, and in this place there would be no knowing when it was day. Sparse light came in from a small lamp at the bar, where Arthur was busy concocting new mixtures of alcoholic beverage and thinking about the nature of life.
Smudge lay fitfully in the dark against the wall, missing Sasan's reassuring presence of the past few nights, the absence heightened by the rough carpet and the cold, unfeeling wall. The others dropped off to sleep, evidently unconcerned by that. Steady breathing filled the room. Smudge stared up at the ceiling.
Eventually he got off the floor and slipped out. Arthur looked up as he approached.
"Can't sleep?" he asked pleasantly.
"Yeah," Smudge said, climbing onto a bar stool. "Can I have more of that drink I had?" he asked.
"Sure." Arthur put down the bottles he was carrying and picked up the one labelled Experiment #42. He poured out a glass. "Miss the green unicorns?"
"Nah. I just want to see my friend again."
Smudge drank a gulp of it. He made a face. The taste hadn't got any less weird.
"But does he want to see you?" Arthur asked.
"It's not real anyway," Smudge murmured. "He's dead."
"How does that make it less real?" Arthur asked. "The dead can sometimes be realer to us than the living,"
Smudge swirled the drink in his glass. He drank up the rest of it. He gazed into the empty glass.
"Thanks," he finally said.
"You're welcome."
Smudge got off the bar stool and trudged back into the room. He lay back down on the pillow, waiting.
A green unicorn peeked through the door and huffed rudely at him. Smudge smiled at it.
Then he fainted.
*
"You're back."
Smudge opened his eyes. Sasan was sitting calmly on a bench against the wall.
"I know," Smudge said earnestly. "I won't leave you, I'll stay here as long as I can and then I'll come back again-"
"Smudge, you can't keep doing that," Sasan said. "You've got to move on, okay?"
"But I can't sleep when you're not there."
Sasan sighed. "Come here."
Smudge went. He climbed onto the bench and snuggled up to Sasan. Sasan put an arm around him.
"Tony doesn't like me," Smudge said. "But I beat him up, so I think it's okay now."
Sasan looked at him. "Smudge! You can't just beat someone up if they don't like you."
"He asked if I was the reason you were dead."
"Hey, if he wants to be an insensitive jerk, let him. It's not an invitation to stoop to his level or lower."
"But-"
"Smudge, you've got to stop hitting people. You don't solve problems that way. Show them you're better than that."
"What about Sylar?" Smudge asked.
Sasan considered this. "All right, for him we'll make an exception."
The door opened.
"Time to go," said Fhille.
"Where?" Smudge asked.
"Not you, him."
Sasan made to stand up from the bench. Smudge clutched his arm. "Sas-"
"I've got to go," Sasan said quietly.
"Then I'll go with you," Smudge pleaded. "I'll kill myself if I have to-"
"NO." Sasan grabbed him by the shoulders. "You're not going to kill yourself, Smudge, you hear me?"
"..."
"Smudge!"
Smudge blinked.
"Smudge, promise me that," Sasan said. "Promise me you won't kill yourself. Not for me. Promise?"
Smudge managed a tearful nod.
Sasan relaxed his grip.
Smudge hugged him. Sasan returned it; holding each other close in silent farewell.
"Will I see you again?" Smudge whispered.
"I don't know."
Smudge nuzzled against his neck.
Fhille looked warily at the green unicorn. It stared indignantly at her. She raised an eyebrow. It returned the gesture.
"All right," Fhille said, giving up on the unicorn and moving out the door. "Break it up and let's move."
Smudge reluctantly let Sasan pull away. Sasan went towards the door and stepped out after Fhille, then hesitated.
He turned. Smudge stood there, watching him...
"I love you too," Sasan said quietly.
Smudge swallowed back the tears as Sasan turned to leave for good; and then the door closed shut behind him, never to be opened again.
*
"Would you like a drink, sir?" Arthur greeted.
"No."
"I didn't see you with the others earlier."
Sylar shrugged. "I come and go," he said with a grin.
"Turning in for the night?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"Good night."
"You too."
Sylar went towards the open door and through it. He stood there in the dark as his eyes adjusted, looking over the five sleeping figures spread across the room. One of them rolled over and fell still again.
Sylar smiled.
This place was where he was meant to be.
*
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN >>
Tony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FelywyTwCws