Fic: Yen, 10/12
Yen
By kalimyre
Pairing: Kensei/Hiro, Adam/Hiro
Rating: Adult
Summary: In which the fairy tale does have a happy ending, but not the one you were expecting.
Notes: As always, thank you to my fabulous betas: powered_otaku and soulpeddler.
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine
~~~
Part 10
Hiro got sick the second day, of course. Adam could drink the water and get away with it; he couldn’t. He lay curled on the edge of the beach, propped against a tree, too sick to even get them back to Tokyo, and Adam stood over him and looked helpless and frustrated.
Eventually Adam went away and came back and stuck a cup of something in Hiro’s face and told him to drink it. Hiro had been throwing up all morning and was terribly thirsty, and would accept anything, even more of the water that had made him sick in the first place, so he swallowed it fast without thinking.
It was only when the aftertaste hit that he gagged and put a hand over his mouth and Adam held him still, murmured, “Keep it down, let it work.”
“Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Hiro said eventually, his eyes closed, lips bitten tightly together.
“I didn’t have a needle,” Adam said, shrugging. “You feel better?”
“Yuck,” Hiro replied eloquently but the thing was, yes, he did feel better. His stomach was settling, the chills easing, and he finally felt clear headed and steady again. But still, yuck.
“See?” Adam said, settling beside him and nudging him with an elbow. “I figured it out.”
Hiro wiped his mouth and looked at the red smear on his palm, and shuddered. “Thank you,” he said. “I think.”
“I’ve never been ill before,” Adam mused. “Is it as unpleasant as it looks?”
Hiro nodded and rested his head on Adam’s shoulder, yawning. “You’re lucky,” he said.
Adam kissed the top of his head, curling one arm around him. “I know.”
They stayed for a little while, Hiro drifting sleepily, but Adam’s blood worked its magic eventually and when he opened his eyes, he felt like he’d had a full night’s rest, rather than one spent sick on the edge of some empty beach.
A stop in Tokyo for a shower and a change of clothes, and soon Adam was eagerly talking about where else they could go, what they could see. And yes, Hiro liked adventure, liked travel, and liked indulging Adam, but there were limits. So he was actually glad when Suresh called them, asking if they could come to New York.
Hiro nearly asked if it was about Peter, but bit it back at the last moment, not sure if Suresh knew. He worked for Bob, after all. Instead, he asked, “Do you need to test Adam more?”
“No,” Suresh said, “not right now, anyway. A medical doctor would have a lot more to ask him, I’m sure, but that’s not really my field.”
“Oh,” Hiro replied. “So why...?”
“I was hoping to work with you a little,” Suresh replied. “I have a few experiments I’d really like to try, if you’re willing.”
Hiro agreed eagerly before he could really think about it, because some part of him was still a little boy with a magic trick that he loved to show off. Adam seemed disappointed that they weren’t going to London (he’d wanted to see how it had changed) but he shrugged it off, and they went back to New York.
Suresh had a new lab in the basement of some innocuous looking shipping company, the door marked Maintenance and half-hidden in row after row of stacked cardboard boxes. The door required some kind of code to get through, but it had a small, wire mesh window and Hiro could see the other side, so he just hopped them over.
A blank, anonymous corridor opened into a bright white room, all gleaming stainless steel lab benches and the low buzz of fluorescent lights. Suresh was sitting at a desk, watching something on a computer screen, a messy stack of papers beside him, his back to them; beyond him, the place was empty.
“Hi,” Hiro said, and Suresh jumped.
“Oh,” Suresh said, standing. “I just called you five minutes ago.”
Hiro shrugged. “We’re quick.”
Suresh nodded, raising his eyebrows. “That’s actually part of what I want to test, I’m glad you could come.” He gestured toward a row of tall stools beside one of the benches, and they sat, Suresh across from them. “First,” he said, “any ill affects from your shooting?”
Hiro could see Adam stiffen from the corner of his eye, and he bumped their shoulders together. “No,” he said. “I feel fine.”
“How about the little girl?” Adam asked. “Is she all right?”
Suresh glanced down, pressing his lips into a thin line. “Molly is... resilient. And for good reason. I think she’s probably coping better than Matt and I, actually.”
Adam just nodded, looking like he didn’t know what to say to that, so Hiro asked, “What do you want me to do?”
“Ah,” Suresh said, brightening. He shuffled through the papers on his desk for a moment, then came up with a scribbled list. “Let’s start with a recording of you actually teleporting. I want to capture the image so I can slow it down, see it frame by frame.”
So they set that up, Suresh mounting a camera on a tripod, telling Hiro where to stand, getting the image on his screen. Adam sat and watched, and Hiro was reminded of the cool indifference of a cat who only pretends to not be watching the birds. Then on cue, he teleported, just across the room and back, and they clustered around the screen, playing it back.
In the frame by frame, first there was Hiro, looking perfectly ordinary, and then there was a suggestion of his outline, distorting the wall behind him, and then nothing. Coming back was the same thing in reverse the first time through, but when Suresh slowed it down even more, they caught for a moment the image of a microscope visible behind Hiro’s outline. The microscope he’d stood by on the other side of the room.
“So it’s like a tunnel,” Suresh said thoughtfully. “A path opens, and you can see what’s on the other end for a moment.”
“A wormhole!” Hiro agreed, grinning. “They do it all the time on Stargate.”
Suresh blinked at him, and said, “...right. Okay, step two.” And then he brought out the handcuffs.
Adam sat up straight, a speculative gleam bright in his eyes. “What are those for?” he asked.
“I’m going to cuff Hiro to something solid,” Suresh explained, “and see if he can still teleport.”
“Ah,” Adam replied, and Hiro shot him a scolding glance. Nobody should be able to insert that much meaning into a single sound. Adam smiled, laced his hands behind his head, and completely failed to look innocent.
Hiro allowed Suresh to cuff one hand to a lab bench, and then stood while the camera was trained on him again.
“Okay,” Suresh said, “try it, but don’t take the bench with you. Try to leave the handcuffs behind.”
Hiro closed his eyes and reached for the now familiar feeling of stepping over, of folding space so two points touched and he merely had to skip between them. For a moment it was there, and then his arm yanked painfully, stretching much further than it was meant to, and the cuff scraped his wrist, catching hard against the base of his thumb and biting in. He wound up sprawled on the floor, back where he started.
“Ow,” he mumbled, trying to sit up. Adam’s hands were there immediately, holding him up, and then soft on his wrist, gingerly smoothing over the abraded skin.
“Get this off him,” Adam said sharply and Hiro could hear Suresh jingling the keys and asking if he was all right, but it was distant. He’d never been jerked back like that, mid jump, and he felt dazed and not entirely there.
When the cuff came off his arm flopped down and he woke up all at once, yelping in pain. Something was very wrong about his shoulder, and his arm felt... detached, somehow. “What...?” he started, twisting to look at it, and then he swallowed hard, closing his eyes.
“It’s all right,” Suresh said, but his voice was nervous, uncertain. “I think it’s just dislocated.”
Adam was close behind him, one hand cradling Hiro’s arm, taking the weight off his shoulder, the other wrapped around his waist to keep him from slumping to the floor. “Will my blood fix it?” he asked.
“Maybe,” Suresh replied. “Let’s try it.”
There was a brief bustle of activity around his head, Adam holding as still as possible, his hands firm and steady, keeping Hiro grounded. A brief pinch of the needle, barely noticed over the fiery pain of the dislocation, and then a strange, pulling sensation, his body trying to put itself back together.
Adam helped, pushing the joint into place, murmuring a soft apology when Hiro gritted his teeth and winced, and then it was better, his shoulder round again, his arm moving when he told it to. The scrape on his wrist healed too, and soon Hiro could take a deep breath and stand, shaking off the dizziness.
“This is becoming a habit,” Adam said, hands still on him, worried.
“I’m sorry,” Suresh said. “I had no idea that would happen.”
“It’s all right,” Hiro told him, but Suresh shook his head.
“No, it isn’t,” he said. “It’s sloppy research, and irresponsible. I won’t let it happen again.”
Hiro opened his mouth, ready to assure him that he wasn’t angry, when he realized that Suresh was looking at Adam, apologizing to Adam, who did not look at all forgiving.
“See that you don’t,” Adam replied flatly.
“It’s not his fault,” Hiro said, trying to make peace. “And I’m fine now, it’s okay. Plus, this is good. I didn’t know I couldn’t do it if I was tied down.”
“Not exactly good,” Adam pointed out. “Now you can be locked up.”
“I always could be,” Hiro replied. “I just didn’t know. Better that I find out now, where you’re here to help me, than if I tried it some time when I really needed it and couldn’t.”
Adam gave a grudging nod, but his hands found Hiro’s wrist again, his thumb running gently over the freshly healed skin. When Suresh turned away to run back the recording, Adam brought Hiro’s arm to his lips and kissed him, his palm and the soft, thin skin just there at the base, where the blood ran close beneath the surface.
Hiro smiled at him, a little startled to realize he kind of liked being fussed over. When Adam did it, anyway.
Suresh cleared his throat, nodding toward the computer screen. “Want to see?”
Hiro nodded, curious, and they watched it in the frame by frame again. For just a moment, the Hiro on the screen flickered, and the other side of the room was visible in the shape of his body, but then there was a blurred outline of Hiro again, the handcuff chain pulled taut and his arm stretching like taffy, and Hiro felt Adam’s hands on him as they watched, gripping his shoulders.
In the next frame Hiro snapped back, his eyes barely starting to open in shock, his legs crumpling beneath him, and the Hiro-shaped window behind him still visible. Then it was gone and Hiro was headed for the floor, Adam already appearing to the side, running to him. In the next frame Hiro lay sprawled and Adam was crouching, hands outstretched, face showing... everything.
Hiro leaned back into Adam’s chest, smiling to himself. Clearly some things did not need to be said out loud.
“I think I see what happened,” Suresh said, going back to the frames where Hiro had almost made the jump. “If it is a passage, a link between two places, you can’t be in both of them. Your body was trying to be in one place but the cuff held you back, and you were sort of... pulled, in the middle.”
Hiro nodded, rubbing his shoulder, although it didn’t hurt anymore.
“We could try the time dilation,” Suresh began, “although I’m not sure it would film well.”
“Perhaps we’ve done enough for one day,” Adam replied evenly.
“I don’t mind,” Hiro protested. “I’ll try it.”
But Suresh was already shaking his head. “No, really, it will either show us the same thing, like when you teleported, or it will show nothing at all. Changes in the time stream cannot be captured with a simple video camera. I’ll need to think about an applicable experiment for that.”
“All right,” Hiro replied. “I’ll think about it too. I do want to help.”
Suresh smiled, nodding. “I’ve noticed that.”
“Have you heard from Bob lately?” Adam asked.
“Mmm, yes,” Suresh replied. “After he set me up in this lab, he asked me to start working on my list again, all the potential candidates for the key genetic marker. He wants to find those who would be assets against Sylar.”
Adam nodded, and Hiro could see the wheels turning, Adam seeming to read so many layers into every situation, mistrustful.
“Have you found any?” Hiro asked.
“Some possibilities,” Suresh replied, “but the problem is that nobody is willing to return my phone calls. Not that I blame them; it sounds like pure lunacy.”
“You could go visit them,” Hiro pointed out. “It’s harder to ignore someone in person.”
“True,” Suresh said, “but they’re scattered all over the world. It’s difficult to plan who to see first, especially given that Bob wants them found as quickly as possible.”
Adam narrowed his eyes. “And yet in your mad rush to track them down, you had time to stop and play games with Hiro?”
Suresh had the grace to look embarrassed, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck and glancing away. “Well, yes, I must admit I had something of an ulterior motive there.”
“Imagine that,” Adam replied dryly.
“I did want to learn about your ability,” Suresh assured Hiro. “But I also need your help. You can get me to these people quickly, and between you and Adam, you’re very convincing about the existence of special abilities. It would make a tremendous difference.”
“Of course,” Hiro said, “why didn’t you just say so?”
At the same time, Adam said, “So we get to be your show ponies and your free transport, is that it?”
Suresh offered an apologetic smile. “That’s why. This is up to you, of course-”
“We’ll do it,” Hiro said firmly. “It’s to defeat Sylar,” he added when Adam gave him a protesting look.
“Or it’s to recruit more walking weapons for Bob and his company,” Adam argued. “You don’t know who you’re working for.”
Hiro opened his mouth, but Suresh beat him to it, giving them both a meaningful look. “This is not really the place to discuss it,” he said.
Later, Hiro would feel a little silly that Adam, who knew pretty much nothing about modern technology and surveillance, grasped it first. He got it quickly enough though, once Adam murmured, “We’re being watched,” in his ear, and then he took them all away, to an empty hillside in upstate New York.
Suresh looked around, blinking, and asked, “Does he always do it like that, with no warning?”
Adam nodded. “Constantly. You get used to it.”
“They will know, of course, that we left to talk about them,” Suresh pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter,” Adam shrugged. “As long as they don’t know what we said.”
“Wait, what?” Hiro protested, feeling lost. “Who’s watching you?”
“Bob and his mysterious company, of course,” Adam replied.
Hiro frowned; spy novels and webs of lies were fun to read about, less fun to live with. “You think so?” he asked Suresh.
Suresh regarded them both steadily for a long stretch, and then nodded. “I’m going to trust you,” he said. “Frankly, I’ve got to trust someone in all this.”
“Good,” Adam said, “and for what it’s worth, you’ve chosen wisely. So. Start from the beginning.”
Suresh gave a humorless laugh. “That, I’m afraid, is a rather long story. The upshot is that I’ve been working from the inside, trying to bring this company down. It’s hard to get in, though; their whole system is built on blind obedience and tightly guarded information.”
“You think Bob is a villain?” Hiro asked.
“I’m not really sure,” Suresh replied. “I know there are things he’s not telling me, things he’s lied about-like where that virus came from in the first place, and how it came into the company’s hands. But I also believe he is serious about wanting to stop Sylar, and protect those who are special, like yourselves.”
“Protect us, or keep us in his own personal zoo?” Adam said. “He only wants those who can further his own ends.”
“I know,” Suresh said, nodding grimly. “Even the man I’ve been working with, another one who was on the inside for years... I’m beginning to wonder about him. There are too many fine lines here, too many shades of gray.”
Hiro shared a glance with Adam, who hesitated, then nodded. “We’re going to trust you, too,” Hiro said.
Suresh raised his eyebrows curiously. “Oh? With what?”
“There is more at play than you know,” Adam said. “It’s time we pool our knowledge, and see what we have.”
“All right,” Suresh said. “Tell me everything.”
~~~
Only two more parts after this! Thanks for reading.
Chapter Eleven
By kalimyre
Pairing: Kensei/Hiro, Adam/Hiro
Rating: Adult
Summary: In which the fairy tale does have a happy ending, but not the one you were expecting.
Notes: As always, thank you to my fabulous betas: powered_otaku and soulpeddler.
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine
~~~
Part 10
Hiro got sick the second day, of course. Adam could drink the water and get away with it; he couldn’t. He lay curled on the edge of the beach, propped against a tree, too sick to even get them back to Tokyo, and Adam stood over him and looked helpless and frustrated.
Eventually Adam went away and came back and stuck a cup of something in Hiro’s face and told him to drink it. Hiro had been throwing up all morning and was terribly thirsty, and would accept anything, even more of the water that had made him sick in the first place, so he swallowed it fast without thinking.
It was only when the aftertaste hit that he gagged and put a hand over his mouth and Adam held him still, murmured, “Keep it down, let it work.”
“Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Hiro said eventually, his eyes closed, lips bitten tightly together.
“I didn’t have a needle,” Adam said, shrugging. “You feel better?”
“Yuck,” Hiro replied eloquently but the thing was, yes, he did feel better. His stomach was settling, the chills easing, and he finally felt clear headed and steady again. But still, yuck.
“See?” Adam said, settling beside him and nudging him with an elbow. “I figured it out.”
Hiro wiped his mouth and looked at the red smear on his palm, and shuddered. “Thank you,” he said. “I think.”
“I’ve never been ill before,” Adam mused. “Is it as unpleasant as it looks?”
Hiro nodded and rested his head on Adam’s shoulder, yawning. “You’re lucky,” he said.
Adam kissed the top of his head, curling one arm around him. “I know.”
They stayed for a little while, Hiro drifting sleepily, but Adam’s blood worked its magic eventually and when he opened his eyes, he felt like he’d had a full night’s rest, rather than one spent sick on the edge of some empty beach.
A stop in Tokyo for a shower and a change of clothes, and soon Adam was eagerly talking about where else they could go, what they could see. And yes, Hiro liked adventure, liked travel, and liked indulging Adam, but there were limits. So he was actually glad when Suresh called them, asking if they could come to New York.
Hiro nearly asked if it was about Peter, but bit it back at the last moment, not sure if Suresh knew. He worked for Bob, after all. Instead, he asked, “Do you need to test Adam more?”
“No,” Suresh said, “not right now, anyway. A medical doctor would have a lot more to ask him, I’m sure, but that’s not really my field.”
“Oh,” Hiro replied. “So why...?”
“I was hoping to work with you a little,” Suresh replied. “I have a few experiments I’d really like to try, if you’re willing.”
Hiro agreed eagerly before he could really think about it, because some part of him was still a little boy with a magic trick that he loved to show off. Adam seemed disappointed that they weren’t going to London (he’d wanted to see how it had changed) but he shrugged it off, and they went back to New York.
Suresh had a new lab in the basement of some innocuous looking shipping company, the door marked Maintenance and half-hidden in row after row of stacked cardboard boxes. The door required some kind of code to get through, but it had a small, wire mesh window and Hiro could see the other side, so he just hopped them over.
A blank, anonymous corridor opened into a bright white room, all gleaming stainless steel lab benches and the low buzz of fluorescent lights. Suresh was sitting at a desk, watching something on a computer screen, a messy stack of papers beside him, his back to them; beyond him, the place was empty.
“Hi,” Hiro said, and Suresh jumped.
“Oh,” Suresh said, standing. “I just called you five minutes ago.”
Hiro shrugged. “We’re quick.”
Suresh nodded, raising his eyebrows. “That’s actually part of what I want to test, I’m glad you could come.” He gestured toward a row of tall stools beside one of the benches, and they sat, Suresh across from them. “First,” he said, “any ill affects from your shooting?”
Hiro could see Adam stiffen from the corner of his eye, and he bumped their shoulders together. “No,” he said. “I feel fine.”
“How about the little girl?” Adam asked. “Is she all right?”
Suresh glanced down, pressing his lips into a thin line. “Molly is... resilient. And for good reason. I think she’s probably coping better than Matt and I, actually.”
Adam just nodded, looking like he didn’t know what to say to that, so Hiro asked, “What do you want me to do?”
“Ah,” Suresh said, brightening. He shuffled through the papers on his desk for a moment, then came up with a scribbled list. “Let’s start with a recording of you actually teleporting. I want to capture the image so I can slow it down, see it frame by frame.”
So they set that up, Suresh mounting a camera on a tripod, telling Hiro where to stand, getting the image on his screen. Adam sat and watched, and Hiro was reminded of the cool indifference of a cat who only pretends to not be watching the birds. Then on cue, he teleported, just across the room and back, and they clustered around the screen, playing it back.
In the frame by frame, first there was Hiro, looking perfectly ordinary, and then there was a suggestion of his outline, distorting the wall behind him, and then nothing. Coming back was the same thing in reverse the first time through, but when Suresh slowed it down even more, they caught for a moment the image of a microscope visible behind Hiro’s outline. The microscope he’d stood by on the other side of the room.
“So it’s like a tunnel,” Suresh said thoughtfully. “A path opens, and you can see what’s on the other end for a moment.”
“A wormhole!” Hiro agreed, grinning. “They do it all the time on Stargate.”
Suresh blinked at him, and said, “...right. Okay, step two.” And then he brought out the handcuffs.
Adam sat up straight, a speculative gleam bright in his eyes. “What are those for?” he asked.
“I’m going to cuff Hiro to something solid,” Suresh explained, “and see if he can still teleport.”
“Ah,” Adam replied, and Hiro shot him a scolding glance. Nobody should be able to insert that much meaning into a single sound. Adam smiled, laced his hands behind his head, and completely failed to look innocent.
Hiro allowed Suresh to cuff one hand to a lab bench, and then stood while the camera was trained on him again.
“Okay,” Suresh said, “try it, but don’t take the bench with you. Try to leave the handcuffs behind.”
Hiro closed his eyes and reached for the now familiar feeling of stepping over, of folding space so two points touched and he merely had to skip between them. For a moment it was there, and then his arm yanked painfully, stretching much further than it was meant to, and the cuff scraped his wrist, catching hard against the base of his thumb and biting in. He wound up sprawled on the floor, back where he started.
“Ow,” he mumbled, trying to sit up. Adam’s hands were there immediately, holding him up, and then soft on his wrist, gingerly smoothing over the abraded skin.
“Get this off him,” Adam said sharply and Hiro could hear Suresh jingling the keys and asking if he was all right, but it was distant. He’d never been jerked back like that, mid jump, and he felt dazed and not entirely there.
When the cuff came off his arm flopped down and he woke up all at once, yelping in pain. Something was very wrong about his shoulder, and his arm felt... detached, somehow. “What...?” he started, twisting to look at it, and then he swallowed hard, closing his eyes.
“It’s all right,” Suresh said, but his voice was nervous, uncertain. “I think it’s just dislocated.”
Adam was close behind him, one hand cradling Hiro’s arm, taking the weight off his shoulder, the other wrapped around his waist to keep him from slumping to the floor. “Will my blood fix it?” he asked.
“Maybe,” Suresh replied. “Let’s try it.”
There was a brief bustle of activity around his head, Adam holding as still as possible, his hands firm and steady, keeping Hiro grounded. A brief pinch of the needle, barely noticed over the fiery pain of the dislocation, and then a strange, pulling sensation, his body trying to put itself back together.
Adam helped, pushing the joint into place, murmuring a soft apology when Hiro gritted his teeth and winced, and then it was better, his shoulder round again, his arm moving when he told it to. The scrape on his wrist healed too, and soon Hiro could take a deep breath and stand, shaking off the dizziness.
“This is becoming a habit,” Adam said, hands still on him, worried.
“I’m sorry,” Suresh said. “I had no idea that would happen.”
“It’s all right,” Hiro told him, but Suresh shook his head.
“No, it isn’t,” he said. “It’s sloppy research, and irresponsible. I won’t let it happen again.”
Hiro opened his mouth, ready to assure him that he wasn’t angry, when he realized that Suresh was looking at Adam, apologizing to Adam, who did not look at all forgiving.
“See that you don’t,” Adam replied flatly.
“It’s not his fault,” Hiro said, trying to make peace. “And I’m fine now, it’s okay. Plus, this is good. I didn’t know I couldn’t do it if I was tied down.”
“Not exactly good,” Adam pointed out. “Now you can be locked up.”
“I always could be,” Hiro replied. “I just didn’t know. Better that I find out now, where you’re here to help me, than if I tried it some time when I really needed it and couldn’t.”
Adam gave a grudging nod, but his hands found Hiro’s wrist again, his thumb running gently over the freshly healed skin. When Suresh turned away to run back the recording, Adam brought Hiro’s arm to his lips and kissed him, his palm and the soft, thin skin just there at the base, where the blood ran close beneath the surface.
Hiro smiled at him, a little startled to realize he kind of liked being fussed over. When Adam did it, anyway.
Suresh cleared his throat, nodding toward the computer screen. “Want to see?”
Hiro nodded, curious, and they watched it in the frame by frame again. For just a moment, the Hiro on the screen flickered, and the other side of the room was visible in the shape of his body, but then there was a blurred outline of Hiro again, the handcuff chain pulled taut and his arm stretching like taffy, and Hiro felt Adam’s hands on him as they watched, gripping his shoulders.
In the next frame Hiro snapped back, his eyes barely starting to open in shock, his legs crumpling beneath him, and the Hiro-shaped window behind him still visible. Then it was gone and Hiro was headed for the floor, Adam already appearing to the side, running to him. In the next frame Hiro lay sprawled and Adam was crouching, hands outstretched, face showing... everything.
Hiro leaned back into Adam’s chest, smiling to himself. Clearly some things did not need to be said out loud.
“I think I see what happened,” Suresh said, going back to the frames where Hiro had almost made the jump. “If it is a passage, a link between two places, you can’t be in both of them. Your body was trying to be in one place but the cuff held you back, and you were sort of... pulled, in the middle.”
Hiro nodded, rubbing his shoulder, although it didn’t hurt anymore.
“We could try the time dilation,” Suresh began, “although I’m not sure it would film well.”
“Perhaps we’ve done enough for one day,” Adam replied evenly.
“I don’t mind,” Hiro protested. “I’ll try it.”
But Suresh was already shaking his head. “No, really, it will either show us the same thing, like when you teleported, or it will show nothing at all. Changes in the time stream cannot be captured with a simple video camera. I’ll need to think about an applicable experiment for that.”
“All right,” Hiro replied. “I’ll think about it too. I do want to help.”
Suresh smiled, nodding. “I’ve noticed that.”
“Have you heard from Bob lately?” Adam asked.
“Mmm, yes,” Suresh replied. “After he set me up in this lab, he asked me to start working on my list again, all the potential candidates for the key genetic marker. He wants to find those who would be assets against Sylar.”
Adam nodded, and Hiro could see the wheels turning, Adam seeming to read so many layers into every situation, mistrustful.
“Have you found any?” Hiro asked.
“Some possibilities,” Suresh replied, “but the problem is that nobody is willing to return my phone calls. Not that I blame them; it sounds like pure lunacy.”
“You could go visit them,” Hiro pointed out. “It’s harder to ignore someone in person.”
“True,” Suresh said, “but they’re scattered all over the world. It’s difficult to plan who to see first, especially given that Bob wants them found as quickly as possible.”
Adam narrowed his eyes. “And yet in your mad rush to track them down, you had time to stop and play games with Hiro?”
Suresh had the grace to look embarrassed, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck and glancing away. “Well, yes, I must admit I had something of an ulterior motive there.”
“Imagine that,” Adam replied dryly.
“I did want to learn about your ability,” Suresh assured Hiro. “But I also need your help. You can get me to these people quickly, and between you and Adam, you’re very convincing about the existence of special abilities. It would make a tremendous difference.”
“Of course,” Hiro said, “why didn’t you just say so?”
At the same time, Adam said, “So we get to be your show ponies and your free transport, is that it?”
Suresh offered an apologetic smile. “That’s why. This is up to you, of course-”
“We’ll do it,” Hiro said firmly. “It’s to defeat Sylar,” he added when Adam gave him a protesting look.
“Or it’s to recruit more walking weapons for Bob and his company,” Adam argued. “You don’t know who you’re working for.”
Hiro opened his mouth, but Suresh beat him to it, giving them both a meaningful look. “This is not really the place to discuss it,” he said.
Later, Hiro would feel a little silly that Adam, who knew pretty much nothing about modern technology and surveillance, grasped it first. He got it quickly enough though, once Adam murmured, “We’re being watched,” in his ear, and then he took them all away, to an empty hillside in upstate New York.
Suresh looked around, blinking, and asked, “Does he always do it like that, with no warning?”
Adam nodded. “Constantly. You get used to it.”
“They will know, of course, that we left to talk about them,” Suresh pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter,” Adam shrugged. “As long as they don’t know what we said.”
“Wait, what?” Hiro protested, feeling lost. “Who’s watching you?”
“Bob and his mysterious company, of course,” Adam replied.
Hiro frowned; spy novels and webs of lies were fun to read about, less fun to live with. “You think so?” he asked Suresh.
Suresh regarded them both steadily for a long stretch, and then nodded. “I’m going to trust you,” he said. “Frankly, I’ve got to trust someone in all this.”
“Good,” Adam said, “and for what it’s worth, you’ve chosen wisely. So. Start from the beginning.”
Suresh gave a humorless laugh. “That, I’m afraid, is a rather long story. The upshot is that I’ve been working from the inside, trying to bring this company down. It’s hard to get in, though; their whole system is built on blind obedience and tightly guarded information.”
“You think Bob is a villain?” Hiro asked.
“I’m not really sure,” Suresh replied. “I know there are things he’s not telling me, things he’s lied about-like where that virus came from in the first place, and how it came into the company’s hands. But I also believe he is serious about wanting to stop Sylar, and protect those who are special, like yourselves.”
“Protect us, or keep us in his own personal zoo?” Adam said. “He only wants those who can further his own ends.”
“I know,” Suresh said, nodding grimly. “Even the man I’ve been working with, another one who was on the inside for years... I’m beginning to wonder about him. There are too many fine lines here, too many shades of gray.”
Hiro shared a glance with Adam, who hesitated, then nodded. “We’re going to trust you, too,” Hiro said.
Suresh raised his eyebrows curiously. “Oh? With what?”
“There is more at play than you know,” Adam said. “It’s time we pool our knowledge, and see what we have.”
“All right,” Suresh said. “Tell me everything.”
~~~
Only two more parts after this! Thanks for reading.
Chapter Eleven