Adventures of Matt Parkman, Chapter 11: New Sun
A/N: I know next to nothing about boats and I didn't do much research, so… apologies. Feel free to review and correct me. (Yes, anything for reviews!)
Matt paced down the wooden walkway, looking at the various boats tied up there. The one he wanted wasn't here. It would be further over, with the larger, richer boats. He wasn't sure how he knew this, but he did. He couldn't quite see the future now, but he had a sense, a sort of premonition of how things were going to go, like a gut feeling. He was going to find the New Sun, go out on it, and spend a lot of time on it. It was his, or it would be as much as mattered. It was nice to be so sure of things. The world had never made as much sense to Matt as it was making lately.
Ryan trailed along after him, eyeing the boats they passed. Parkman could see in his mind that the young man was cataloging various things in them he might steal, or would at least be worth stealing if Matt would just slow down enough for him to do it. He seemed to be pulling back together after the trauma of the previous day and settling back into being what Matt thought of as a menace to society. Matt wondered if there was any amount of punishment that would make Ryan 'safe' to leave to his own devices.
This place was a gold mine to the young man's way of thinking. Matt stopped and turned, facing him. The man almost skidded to a halt and backed up, breathing harder. Parkman turned away and looked at a nearby speed boat, as if that was the reason he'd stopped. The fear response from the kid was almost automatic, as was Matt's annoyance at it.
He waited, listening to Ryan's thoughts as he calmed back down. Luckily, the boy had a short attention span. When he thought Matt's focus was elsewhere, he relaxed and went back to looking around. Matt cocked his head. It was harder if he wasn't looking at him, but Ryan was keyed to him now. He could enter his mind under virtually any conditions.
Don't steal things.
He waited a beat to make sure it was received correctly. Ryan was looking at his back intently, aware there had been some sort of communication and not sure what it meant. He knew the meaning of the command, but not how it had been delivered. He wasn't even consciously aware of the command itself, but he had a nagging feeling something had happened. Matt started walking again. His shadow followed. He found the New Sun about fifteen minutes later.
Parkman knew very little about boats. This one was a yacht, or so he assumed. It was big by his standards at some 30 feet long, but given some of the other craft nearby, he could see it wasn't even really medium sized. It didn't have any sails, which distinguished it from most of the other boats in this area. He walked back and forth on the U-shaped walkway around it, trying to figure out how to get on it. He combed through Ryan's mind, but the boy knew less than he did.
Finally he went for the ladder at the rear of the vessel, which was awkward and difficult to get to. His shoulder ached with a sharp pain as he reached, hurting only after he was committed to the motion and couldn't go back. He cursed. He felt blood trickle down his back from the pulled stitches and he cursed again.
Ryan followed him with an ease and athleticism Matt envied. The boy might be dumb as a rock, but he was wiry and healthy, even if he was currently exhausted from spending a sleepless night terrified Matt might wake up, which of course he eventually had. And he was still hungry, having eaten only a hamburger the day before and a single donut so far this day. He remained obedient and entirely uncomplaining, which was a marvel. Parkman wouldn't have expected him to complain out loud, but he was surprised there wasn't at least some inner protest at the bad treatment. Matt wasn't sure whether to attribute that to his powers or the boy's personality. He shrugged it off and searched the vessel.
He found two things worthy of note. The first was a box of electronic gear and several control panels at the rear of the boat, along with some winches, cabling and a grappling magnet. The other was two fifty caliber rifles with long range scopes and what appeared to be an anti-aircraft gun. Ammunition was stored with them, concealed in compartments built into the decking. Guns of this size could punch through the hulls of even some of the metal-clad vessels used by the Coast Guard.
He'd stumbled across it by accident while kneeling to look in one of the cabinets, noticing the flooring gave just a little more under his weight than it should have. After examining the guns, he put them back carefully. This was no simple fishing boat.
Parkman sat down in the cabin, thinking about things and trying to bring forward in his mind the lingering surety that the boat was important, would be important. Ryan came to sit across the cabin from him, eating an apple. "Where'd you get that?" Matt's brows drew together, distracted from his thoughts for the moment.
Ryan pointed at a mesh bag of fruit that was hanging from the ceiling of the galley. Matt looked at it, confused. He looked back at Ryan. "Isn't that stealing?"
The young man looked at the apple and then at the mesh bag, his mind blank. After a long beat, he said, "Uh… no?"
"What do you think stealing is?" Matt wasn't really offended that the kid had taken an apple. Actually, it was kind of reassuring after the weird behavior at the donut shop. The older man was trying to understand his own ability and why it worked sometimes and not at other moments.
Ryan shrugged and didn't answer, looking conflicted. He was afraid anything he said wouldn't be the answer Matt wanted to hear. He couldn't think of what to say that was truthful, that would also help. Parkman didn't need him to verbalize though. Stealing, to Ryan, was taking something and selling or trading it.
One stole for financial gain. It wasn't stealing to take someone's car, drive it around for an hour and leave it parked somewhere else. That was just pranking. It wasn't stealing to take fruit off someone's counter or out of their garden, even without their permission because it was obviously meant to be taken, but it was stealing to take it from a grocery store. Matt's brows pulled together at the odd definition.
Matt's thoughts on this were interrupted by the arrival of people outside the vessel. He heard a man's voice, apparently speaking into a telephone because there was only one side of the conversation. Despite that, Parkman sensed two minds. They stopped outside the boat.
He heard, "Yeah… Yeah… Uh-huh, today at noon. … Yeah. … Well, it looks pretty good, very calm. You've seen it. … Uh-huh, they're coming. … We'll see. … I'll call you when it's done." Then, in a different tone of voice, he said as if in an aside, "Go ahead and get that, will you? Thanks." He shifted back to his phone voice and said, "Right. … … I will. … Listen, I've got to go, we're here already and I need to get loaded up. … Uh-huh. … Yeah, thank you again. We'll talk later. Good-bye." He sighed heavily.
There was a clatter of sound and the boat shifted slightly. Something was folded out and set against the walkway, bridging the vessel to it. Two men shared a short laugh. "Chatter, chatter, chatter. He has to know every single time, like we haven't done this dozens of times before," the man said quietly, then added a little louder, "You go first. I've got this end."
Matt leaned out a little and looked out the door he'd left open to the deck. The darkness of the cabin concealed him for the moment. He saw two men come on board over the side, bringing with them a very large ice chest. They stowed it to the side, out of the way, next to the cabling and magnet.
The man who had been talking was in his mid-40s, wiry and lean with a goatee and thin brown hair. He was weathered and tan. He must have caught something of Matt's movement, because he inhaled sharply and jerked himself to the side, out of line of sight. The other man, a very tall bald man of the same age, jumped the other way a second later.
Matt called out, "I'm with LAPD!" The bald man had pulled a gun. The other was wishing he'd carried his. They hesitated at Matt's words and he saw the edge of the hand of the guy who had been on the phone. He was making a calming gesture at the bald man. A moment later, he edged around the entry to the cabin, both hands clearly in sight.
"What's wrong… officer?" He glanced around the cabin, but Ryan had pulled his legs up at some point and hidden himself on the other side of the bulkhead. He wouldn't be visible unless the man came considerably into the room. Matt mentally congratulated the boy for fast thinking. Street smarts, Ryan had.
"Detective, actually. This boat is part of an investigation."
"Ship."
"What?"
"It's a ship."
Matt eyed him. It was an important distinction for the man, a point of pride. This was his ship and he felt very strongly about it. He wasn't surprised it was part of an investigation though. He figured it was for the drug smuggling. Matt said, "Tell me about the drug smuggling."
The man looked around the cabin again and asked, "You came here alone?" He was thinking Matt was either an idiot, or he was an idiot looking for a bribe. So far, it seemed safer to have his partner shoot him and then they'd dump him in the ocean later.
Since thoughts of murdering his truly were floating around, Matt felt moved to defend himself. You won't hurt me and you won't let me get hurt. You like me. You trust me. I'm an old friend. Tell me the truth and do what I tell you to do. They seemed like good, all-purpose commands. With a little effort, he projected the same to the bald man outside, who put away his gun. Matt could read his thoughts enough through the wood of the cabin wall to sense his actions, even if he couldn't see him.
The other man smiled and relaxed. "Hey, you gave me a good scare just then! Why didn't you say who you were?" He hesitated, trying to remember who Matt was. It gave him pause as he tried to work out how he trusted his old friend whom he couldn't remember the name of.
"Matt," he volunteered. "Your old friend Matt." Parkman was surprised to hear an echo in Ryan's mind as he learned Matt's name for the first time. I never introduced myself to him? Huh. He gestured at the corner Ryan was hiding behind. "And I brought a… a friend of mine named Ryan. Just to… see how things were going."
"Oh." The man looked uncertainly at Ryan, who scooted back along the padded seats where he could be seen. He was very wary. The older man correctly pegged him as a scruffy-looking malcontent just from looking at him. He was a good judge of people. He wasn't sure at all what he was seeing now with Matt, as his perceptions were clouded by commands. He shook his head and walked back out on deck, trying to clear his mind. After a moment, Matt followed him. He seemed like too dangerous a man for Matt to leave alone so soon after turning him.
"So, honestly, tell me what you're doing here," Parkman said.
The man shrugged, trying to work out how much he'd told Matt before. He couldn't remember anything he'd told him about the shadier side of his business. So he said vaguely, "We're just going out on the ocean today, maybe do some fishing. You know how it is." Despite Matt's command, he was still thinking it was safer if they just killed him and dumped the body, no matter how much he liked and trusted Matt. 'Hurt' just related to pain. Killing him was something different. A quick death wouldn't hurt Matt at all. He wouldn't do anything less for his good friend.
Jeez, this guy would kill his friends? Even Sylar wasn't that much of a stone-cold killer! "Tell me about the drugs," Matt insisted. At the strong reaction it got from both men, he added, Answer my questions. You trust me. You trust me in everything. And you will not kill me or have me killed.
Goatee-man said, "We're going out to snag a submersible coming up from Mexico. It's loaded. We'll empty it into the ice chest and-" He cut off as two other people walked up.
Matt was beginning to feel apprehensive about so many people. This was how he'd gotten stabbed just the day before. He couldn't keep track of them all at once or predict how they would interpret his commands. Already he was basically unaware of what Ryan was doing. With these two new arrivals he wouldn't be able to keep a tight rein on the first two. He faded back into the cabin, letting the men he'd already subverted carry the initial contact. As he got line of sight, he directed orders about trust and friendliness and obedience to the man who came on board, then stuttered when he saw the woman. The man didn't seem to understand what he meant other than obedience, but Matt dismissed it as he looked at her.
She was the broad-faced beauty from his painting. He felt an immediate attraction to her, knowing her, knowing he would know her. She was curvy - stacked, they sometimes called it - and showing it off nicely in a form-fitting emerald green outfit with black slacks. She had slightly slanted eyes, marking her as part Asian, but it had to be a quarter or less. Matt blinked at her and shook his head. I only left Janice a few… how long has it been? Not long enough. What am I thinking? It didn't matter what he was thinking, it was as if his fate was sealed.
The man with the goatee looked around to see where Matt had gone to. He called him out of the cabin. "Hey, Matt, get out here. I want you to meet Brandon and Patricia. They're coming with us today. Brandon, Patricia, this is Matt. He's got a guy with him named Ryan, young fella." He didn't sound too happy about Ryan's presence.
Matt came out and shook hands. Brandon was all smiles - he was supposed to smile at old friends, right? He wasn't really sure as he didn't have any other than Matt. Patricia was more hesitant. Matt hadn't affected her yet, being too affected by her in turn. Ryan loitered in the doorway and eyed people, which was all the greeting he gave. He had a really good idea of what was going on here, minus Matt's ability, and wasn't sure they were going to survive it. He was a little conflicted about that, as dying was starting to seem like a pretty good idea.
After Parkman shook Patricia's hand, he tore his eyes from her and concentrated on the two older men, digging for their names. The man with the goatee, who had been on the phone when he'd arrived, was Jason Garrison, though they called him Jay. He was the captain of the ship.
The tall bald man was Elliot McCay, though they called him El and sometimes, jokingly, El Jefe. Jay and El had a considerable amount of military training between them. They were both competent, hard men who had a shared background in the military and now, after varying attempts at civilian life, in picking up drugs they sold to various distributors.
As he got the ship prepped to leave, Jay tried to suggest Matt and Ryan take off. Matt declined. He was still stealing looks at Patricia, not able to believe he'd run into her here, trying to understand what that meant. He still hadn't commanded her and she was beginning to notice his looks. So had her companion, Brandon. It made him think a lot less of his 'friend.'
Jay made a last call to everyone warning them of his intention to cast off, obviously hoping Matt and Ryan would take their cue and depart. Matt leaned on the railing, comfortable among old friends, having no intention of leaving. This was his new home, his new family. He could feel it. He'd never been out on the ocean in a ship this small. It sounded like fun. Eventually he'd find out why he'd painted it.