Am I Still Nathan Petrelli?, Chapter 10: The Set Up
Matt walked to a park bench across from his car and sat down on it, elbows on knees. For the millionth time, he sought through his mind for traces of Sylar’s presence. It wasn’t there. Sylar was gone. Or if he wasn’t gone, then he was hiding for some reason and he’d been doing it for nearly a week now. Why would he do that? If he couldn’t get into Nathan for some reason, then he should still be in Parkman. Maybe he’d been blocked from getting into Nathan and made a transfer later into someone else? Even now he could be directing that body to find someone with a power he wanted so he could take them over like he’d taken over Parkman. Matt had to do something about it.
He pulled out his phone and toyed with it for a while, looking around the park. There was really only one person he could call about this. After stalling for several minutes, he dialed.
Noah Bennet looked at his caller ID. It read: PARKMAN, MATT. “Hm,” he said to himself. “This might be a lot easier than I’d expected.” He’d spent the whole day wandering around southern California trying to figure out the most likely place for Parkman to have run to after the “Suicide by Cop” incident. Most people went somewhere familiar after trauma. Home and work had been busts. Nathan was just leaving the young Parkman’s daycare, having learned what he needed to know. He walked to his car and answered the phone.
“Hello.” Noah smiled and leaned against the hood, enjoying the late afternoon sun.
“Noah?”
“Yes.”
“There’s been a problem. I lost Sylar.”
“You lost him?”
Matt grimaced. “Yes, I lost him. Whatever I did to push Nathan into his body and get Sylar out ended up with Sylar being trapped in me. I’ve been trying to contain it, but I failed. He was on his way to New York to get his body back before I stopped him in Texas. I thought if I killed myself, that would be the end of him.”
“Uh-huh,” Noah sounded unimpressed.
Matt frowned, but he went on, “Then… something happened to me. I woke up and I was healed. Peter and Nathan were there. I touched Nathan’s hand and Sylar was gone. They left.”
“Mm-hm.”
Matt looked at his phone and wondered why he was even bothering. He’d imagined this would be new information to Noah and that he might actually care. Since, you know, it was Sylar. “Listen, do you want to hear this or not?”
“Of course I do, Parkman. That’s why I answered your call.”
Matt rolled his eyes and continued, “Okay, well, I thought Sylar must have jumped into Nathan’s body, but so I came here and it’s a no-go. I don’t know where he is now. I need your help to find him.”
“Tell me where ‘here’ is.”
“I’m in New York.” Matt glanced around the darkened park.
Noah straightened and got in his car, closing the door quietly. “You don’t think Sylar is in Nathan’s body?”
“No, he’s not.” Matt shook his head.
“I have it on very good information that he is.” Noah started the car and pulled out.
“Well, he’s not.”
Noah merged into traffic. “Did you look?”
“No, I didn’t look! Do you know how hard it is to get that man alone?” Matt stood up, the memory of his frustrating day flooding through him again. “I can’t find out where the guy lives either!”
“He probably lives in an apartment rented by a fictional employee of a holding company owned by the Petrelli Trust.”
Matt was silent for a moment. “Oh. Well… yeah, that would explain why I couldn’t find anything under N. Petrelli.”
Noah shrugged a little. “The Petrellis are a very private family.”
“I found Peter easy enough!”
Noah nodded. “Peter’s living a very different lifestyle than the rest of the family. If you didn’t look, then how are you sure Sylar’s not in Nathan?”
“He’s… he’s doing things Sylar wouldn’t do.”
“What kind of things?”
God! He just doesn’t let up, does he? I don’t even want to talk about this. “He’s doing… Nathan things… I guess. I didn’t look at his memories when I put them in Sylar’s body. I just put them in! Let’s just say the Petrellis have kinks even Sylar would never stoop to.”
“Hm.” Somehow, even with that tempting subject matter, Noah managed to sound uninterested.
Parkman shook his head rapidly, trying to get the image out of his mind. Something else. What else was Nathan doing? Think of something else. “He’s being… he’s being Nathan Petrelli. You know, he’s working, and he’s seeing Pe… uh, you know, he was with Peter when he left and he was with Claire here, alone. You do know Claire saw him today, right?”
“Yes,” Noah said in his level, measured tone.
The man was infuriating. Matt began to pace. “And you don’t care? Sylar might be in him and you don’t care that he… went out to lunch or whatever for hours with your daughter?” Or given what he’d seen, that Claire was alone with Nathan for hours. Matt wondered if that was really safe. The man obviously knew no boundaries of common decency. Claire was a really attractive girl.
“She’s fine, isn’t she?” Matt could hear a slight smile in Noah’s voice.
“Yeah, but that’s not the point.”
Bennet was silent on the other end of the line.
“Alright, fine. You don’t care. It’s not a big deal. Sylar’s not in Nathan anyway.”
“No, from what you’ve just told me, I’m very sure that he is.”
“Then… What?” But… I just told you I was sure Sylar wasn’t in Nathan! Matt looked around desperately. And what the hell was Claire doing there with him?!
“I have it from a very reliable source that Sylar is in Nathan and is continuing to pretend that he’s Nathan Petrelli.”
“Why would he do that?”
Noah sounded actually curious, “I don’t know.”
“It’s Sylar!” Matt raised his voice in agitation. This was a mystery that had been bothering him all day. “Why would he stay as Nathan? He knows I know he’s out there. He knows we’re going to hunt him down. Why would he stay where we could find him?!” Matt paced faster, gesturing with his words for emphasis.
“I’ve been wondering that myself.” Noah took the ramp onto the highway. “Do you think it’s possible that he still believes he is Nathan?”
“I don’t think so. What was in me was totally Sylar. He knew exactly who he was. He killed a man, with my body, just to prove a point to me! The man was helping me change a fucking tire! And this psychopath kills him! He’s a sick fuck!” Matt shook his fist impotently in the air. What I’d like to do to Sylar… If I ever get a chance to end him, I’m going to do it in the most painful way possible. Like something out of a horror movie. And it’s going to hurt, really bad, for what he’s done to me, and everyone else.
Noah nodded, thinking about what Sylar had done to Claire. “Yes, I believe ‘sick fuck’ is the technical term for him.”
Matt put his fist on his hip. “So what are we going to do?”
“Well, you’re going to pick me up from the airport in the morning. Then we’ll lure Nathan to our turf, on our terms, and you can work your magic on him again. If Sylar’s not in there, we’ll apologize and move on. If he is, then we have him. And if you can’t get him out for good, we get rid of him.”
Matt nodded. The idea of getting rid of Sylar was very attractive to him at that moment. He needed to start thinking about how he’d do it. “Okay. Alright. So where are you now?”
Noah looked up at the highway signs, searching for the right link to the one that took him to the LAX. “I’m in Texas. Might take me a while to get to an airport though. I’ll call you later when I know when my arrival time is.”
“Sure. Texas is pretty big. What, were you near Odessa? Looking for me?”
“Something like that…”
“Yeah, I figured.” Matt sounded smug.
“Okay, I’ll call you later.” Noah hung up. He shook his head sadly. Odessa was yesterday.
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Bennet was very pleased with the airlines. He’d managed to get a flight out that left in a little over an hour and he didn’t even have to use any clearance codes to do it. With security these days, that was saying something for a same-day, late-notice flight. He hadn’t been able to get a seat with extra legroom, but he’d live. He’d told Matt to pick him up at 5 am, which should give him plenty of time to make the stops he needed in New York for equipment.
It was time to make another call. Angela answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hello, Angela.”
“Why, hello, Noah. Claire’s here. Would you like to speak with her?” Claire looked up from the book she’d been reading about the road to the presidency. After an excruciatingly tedious evening, she’d finally found something that Angela had a lot to say about that Claire actually wanted to hear. How to achieve greater power in the country, and the many and varied paths others had taken to achieve it, was apparently one of Angela’s obsessions.
“No, not necessarily. I was calling for you.” Noah crossed his legs at the ankles and stretched while he had the opportunity. A five hour flight was going to leave him stiff as a board.
“Oh?”
“I found Parkman. He’s on board. I think the sooner we do this the better. Do you agree?”
“Yes, very much.” She nodded slightly, glancing at Claire, who was busy reading again. Or at least appearing to read. Angela smiled as she noticed Claire’s eyes weren’t tracking back and forth with the printed words, like they should be.
“Then I’d like to do it tomorrow. Invite Nathan over for lunch. Make sure he can’t refuse. We’ll do it then.”
“Alright. Claire told me her flight out is tomorrow afternoon. I think she’s going to have lunch tomorrow with Nathan. It’s already scheduled.” She put the slightest stress on the last word of each sentence.
Noah paused and thought about what she was saying. “Good. I’ll deal with Claire when I get there. Make sure Peter’s out of the loop.”
“Of course. Good-bye, Noah.” She hung up and took a moment to review her side of the conversation. She turned to Claire. “Your father was just checking on your schedule. Now, where were we? The early Clinton years, wasn’t it?”
Claire sighed and flipped back a page. “Yeah, I think that’s where we were.” ‘Checking on my schedule.’ Yeah, right. I gave my father my schedule just a couple hours ago. Afternoon… Nathan… scheduled. Huh.
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The next morning, Claire looked up from the computer at the sound of the doorbell. She saved her email to Lyle as a draft and shut everything down. Someone had just come in and she heard her father’s familiar tone. She hurried into the room fast enough to see Angela Petrelli shut her mouth with a snap and give her a sideways glance. Her father was standing in the foyer, briefcase in one hand and a large duffel bag in the other. Close behind him was Matt Parkman, who carried a second duffel by a strap over his shoulder. Noah looked over at Angela and gave her a slight shrug. He set the duffel bag down on a small table. It was heavy and made a metallic settling sound. Claire walked forward.
“What’s in the bag, Dad?”
Noah looked directly at her and said, “Materials for taking out Sylar.”
“Oh.” She stepped closer, interested.
Matt glanced back and forth between Angela’s face and Noah’s back. Noah’s face split into the broadest possible grin. He was so pleased. Claire wasn’t in the least surprised. He put his arm around her shoulders and said, “Come on. We need to talk about things.”
They walked out into the garden and he shut the door firmly behind them. He glanced back for a moment through the paneled glass. When he turned back, his voice was soft and warm. “Hey, Claire.” He gave her a big hug.
“What’s all this?” she said, her voice muffled a bit by his coat.
“You are doing great and I’m just so proud to be your father. Now let’s talk about what’s really going on.”
He sat down on a wrought iron bench and spoke, “Sylar never died. He’s operating under deep programming put there by Matt Parkman to make him think he’s Nathan Petrelli.”
She blinked at him, then swallowed and tried to look less surprised. Well, that’s not exactly what I thought was going on…
A beat later, she realized that meant she’d spent the previous day hanging out with Sylar. A surge of panic went through her. Then anger, that her father had sent her there. She looked at him and opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind about it and saw him reading her like a book. She shut her mouth. Then said, “Oh… okay. Yeah.”
Very quietly, he said, “You need to work on your emotional control. I suggest using a mirror at first.”
“Um,” she blinked at him, trying to process this and everything else crashing through her brain at once. “Okay. I’ll do that. Thanks.”
He nodded. “The programming needs to be updated. So what we’re going to do today is have you call Nathan and invite him to lunch here with his mother. Matt and I will immobilize him, Matt will use his ability, we’ll wake Nathan up, tell him nothing happened, and everyone will go on their merry way. Do you understand?”
She hesitated. Someone was missing from this equation. “But… where’s Nathan? The real Nathan?”
Noah looked down. This would be the hardest part. If she couldn’t deal with it, then they’d go to plan B. He looked back up at her. “Nathan’s dead, Claire. Sylar killed him.”
She gasped. Tears welled up in her eyes. “But… I… I saw him just yesterday…” She looked down and to the side and started sniffling. Noah stood up and hugged her to him. “I’m sorry, Claire-bear. I know he meant a lot to you.” They stood together for several minutes while he gently stroked her back and she cried on his shoulder. Matt came over once and looked out the glassed door at them, then retreated out of sight again.
Claire blew her nose on Noah’s handkerchief and laughed roughly. “So much for my emotional control!” She sniffed mightily and sank down on the bench. Her father sat down next to her and put his arm around here. “I’m… I don’t know… what happened?” At Noah’s questioning look, she said, “What happened to Nathan? When?”
“Seven weeks ago, when Peter and Nathan tried to kill Sylar. Sylar killed Nathan… and… Matt was able to transfer Nathan’s memories into Sylar’s body.”
She blinked. “Then does that mean… that… the man I saw yesterday is actually Nathan, but just in Sylar’s body?”
Noah shook his head. “No, not really. That’s not how it works. He’s still Sylar. He just thinks he’s Nathan.”
She furrowed her brow. “And he has all of Nathan’s memories?” Her father nodded.
“Then… what’s the difference?”
“Between what?”
She blew her nose again. Her tears were ending. “The difference between being a person for real and thinking you’re that person and having all their memories?”
Noah stared at her, trying to think of how to answer that definitively. Before he could answer, she went on, “Because the man I saw yesterday… that wasn’t Sylar.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be Sylar. He’s not supposed to think of himself as Sylar.”
She studied her hands and carefully folded the handkerchief. “You’re not going to hurt him, are you?”
“Sylar?”
“No, this… person who thinks he’s Nathan.” She gave a tiny shrug. “He seemed kind of nice. Like… Nathan.”
“If we can’t stabilize the programming, then we’ll have to end the experiment.” He realized immediately he’d made a mistake in using Angela Petrelli’s euphemism for it. Claire looked at him very directly and swallowed.
“You mean you’ll kill him.”
“It’s not really Nathan, Claire.”
She looked away from him and breathed out slowly. She took another deep breath. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s really Sylar.” She started to elaborate, to justify, but she remembered her dad’s habit of telling too much when he was lying. She looked at him and smiled slightly. “Thank you for trusting me, Dad.”
He nodded. “It’s alright, Claire. You’ve been doing a lot of growing up lately. This isn’t the best way to get started, but you were the best qualified for what I needed.”
She thought about that a moment and said, “You needed someone who knew Nathan well enough to tell if… if he was slipping.”
He nodded.
“Okay. Well, I guess I need to call Nathan then, right?”
He stood up. “Yes, but first you need to go to the bathroom and clean up properly. Get some warm water to rinse your mouth out with. You don’t want to sound like you’ve been crying. Nathan’s always been unusually perceptive. I don’t know if Sylar has that trait too, but you can never afford to get sloppy.” He started to turn away, then turned back to her. “Oh, and it is very important, very important that you don’t actually lie to Sylar. He can detect that. We’ll work out a script with Angela. Okay?”
She nodded. “He still has all of Sylar’s powers?”
Noah nodded. “Plus Nathan’s flight. He can be very dangerous if things don’t go right.”
“Okay, Dad. I’m on it.”