YEARS GONE
By Unlikely Hiro
Chapter IX: Paint Me A Picture
Rosette, Utah
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Peter had ordered Molly and Joey to get some sleep. Joey, who had been complaining
about his lack of sleep, had tried to object. Molly didn't say anything at all, and Peter
didn't need the three or so varieties of telepathy he had to tell she was scared out of
her wits. He reminded her that Sylar was staying at the Army base and that she could
sense him coming for her a hundred miles away. He had calmed her a little with
another power, also. It wouldn't do her any good psychologically in the long term, but
her body desperately needed sleep.
That had been three hours ago. Peter had been in a precognitive trance since. He
stared at the largest painting for a moment.
"Holy shit!" he gasped, "Damn him for running away."
Shaking his head, he walked over to the desk where sheets of paper were scattered
about. They were the result of a precognitive ability to write the future he picked up
from Yamagato Fellow Byron Bevington. He glanced through them while trying to
figure out their order. There were about a hundred pages.
He rubbed his eyes after a moment and decided to get help. He walked to the main
office. There was only a single person there.
"Morning, Zach," he said, sitting across from him.
"Morning." He didn't look up from his computer, "Claude put a call in while you were in
trance."
"Did he? What'd he want?"
"Review of two subjects he's ready to bring in. Your wife also called."
Peter cocked his head, picking up a psychic subtext, "Home trouble?"
Zach tapped the desk, "Yeah. Steve's just…" He shrugged, "S'nothing."
Peter, though, discretely scanned his mind and planted a suggestion that, he hoped,
would fix things, "Well, alright then. Listen, I need you to tell Joe I'll be having his
office for a while longer."
Zach chuckled, "I'm sure he'll be thrilled. He'll probably be getting up for his morning
calisthenics any moment now. Should I tell Niki you'll be having a long day, too?"
Peter got up, "Knowing my girl, she'll be pissed even if I tell her."
"Hey, it's your fault for staying with the Fellowship."
"No one likes a smart-ass, Zach."
"So why do you keep me around?" He smiled, "Anything else?"
"What time is it in India?"
Zach glanced at the computer, "6:42 PM."
"Call Claude back and tell him I can't show up for a while." He turned to leave, stopped,
and walked back, "Zach. Do you think you could help me sort out some of the stuff I
wrote?"
Zach shrugged, "Sure, what the hell. I'll stop by the office in a few minutes."
***
Zach spent most of his time there sorting the written prophecy, making notes and dog-
earing the pages before making copies and binding them together. He also offered
some suggestions for painting interpretation.
However, by 11:00, he needed to sleep. He was operating on the night-shift schedule
after all, and he went home. Joe Henderson stopped by soon after. He joked that Peter
needed to requisition his own office before sitting down with a copy of the written
prophecy to read.
A few minutes after one, Peter sent an alarm to Molly and Joey's quarters, and waited.
***
Molly and Joey lived in separate quarters that were next door to each other. Joey
rolled over when his alarm clock triggered and put a pillow over his head.
"Too soon!" he muttered. It wouldn't stop of course, so eventually he switched it off
and slid out of bed. He threw on the clothes he had worn the previous night and
walked the ten feet to Molly's door.
He stood by the door for a moment before knocking. When he hit the door though, it
slid open.
Joey shook his head, "And she calls me the rookie."
Joey glanced around inside. The main room was small, with a small couch facing a
fireplace that was immediately to the left of the door when coming inside. When Molly
had shown him his quarters the previous night, she had said it was an actual fire that
was used in winter. Joey had thought that was rather odd--being underground, they
should be at a constant temperature no matter what the weather.
"Moll? Hey Moll!"
"Just a minute!" she shouted from the bedroom behind the living area.
Joey stepped inside and walked over to the mantle. There were dozens of framed
photographs. A number were of her and her parents. One immediately caught his eye,
though, and he picked it up. He gaped at it. It was of her, probably no older than 15,
with a man he instantly recognized.
"Mohinder Suresh?!"
"Yep," she said. She was standing behind him, her arms crossed.
"THE Mohinder Suresh?"
She raised an eyebrow, "Do you know many Mohinder Sureshes?"
"You knew the guy who took down the Haitian?"
"He was like a father to me."
Joey shrugged and went to set it down. When he did, he caught another photo of a
man in a police uniform. Though it was clearly very old, he could tell who it was.
"What the fuck?! You knew Director Parkman?!"
"He saved me from Sylar. Twice. Now would you stop messing with my pictures? What
the hell made you think you could even come in here!"
"You left the door open," he said, setting the picture down, "Lesson One, Molly: Always
secure your surroundings." He glanced down at the fireplace, "I still don't see why we
have these. Wouldn't the smoke be a dead giveaway?"
"Would you belive me if I told you it was a secret passage?"
He turned around to look at her, "I would, actually."
"Then you'd be a moron," she smiled and winked at him, "Peter designed these, I think.
He probably seems like a tough bastard to you, but he's really just a HUGE sap. He
thinks it's homey or something."
Joey blinked, "Right."
After a moment of silence, she gestured towards the door, "So let's go, then."
***
Peter opened his door, "You guys can come in now."
Molly and Joey entered the room. Molly went first, almost tiptoeing. Joey, on the other
hand, almost ran into the room.
Joe Henderson and Peter were standing beside the door. Molly smiled and gave
Henderson a sloppy salute, "Sarge!"
Henderson laughed. He had trained both of them in various martial arts. Training was
his primary job--he possessed photographic reflexes and was a master in dozens of
arts.
He returned the salute. "Hello Molly. Crane."
"Sir," Joey nodded his head and turned towards the paintings.
The room was now dominated by a ring of seven paintings. The first painting, which
was sitting on top of the desk, was a canvas almost totally black, with a green-white
flash center-bottom. Upon closer inspection, one could see it was a missile being
launched from a ground pad. A strange, lozenge-shaped aircraft flew overhead.
The second was of a man in what looked like an old-fashioned police interrogation
room. A man in a military uniform was standing at a control console holding a clipboard.
Another man was sitting in a chair in the room. A greenish gas was filling the room.
The third was of a disheveled man standing in a control room of some sort. An
indeterminable number of mutilated corpses lay at his feet.
The fourth was of a teenage boy dressed in all black, standing on top of a stack of file
folders the size of a small house.
The fifth was a shot of a number of aircraft in flight. There were three small aircraft
which looked somewhat like jet engines floating on their own, with their intakes
pointing up. They were surrounding a large, triangular, black aircraft, one near each
corner. The aircraft were flying over the desert. The radial street pattern of SG City was
visible off in the distance. The main aircraft was banking off in its general direction.
The sixth was of the President, Stefan James, sitting at his Oval Office desk. A person,
visible only as a shadow, was pointing a gun at him. Surprisingly, the President was
totally calm, literally twiddling his thumbs.
The seventh and final painting was of two men in military uniforms handing a suitcase
over to a man.
Molly stood in front of the final painting, "Son of a BITCH! Winters is selling us out?!"
"Looks like it," Joey said, standing behind her. Winters didn't look scared at all by the
people he was talking to, so it wasn't any form of extortion.
Molly turned towards the second painting, "And why does he look familiar, too?"
"Because he is," Peter said, "That's Hank Revere."
"And they're killing him?"
"Testing him," Henderson said, holding up what looked like a brand-new book,
"According to this, a 'Colonel Ye' is in the room, and he is gassing him with the main
biological agent in the FGR-207 rocket. This says the test will be successful in shutting
of Hank's power for a period of approximately twenty-four hours."
Henderson handed Molly the book. According to the cover, it was Warm Nights In Cuba
by Isabel Juarez.
"A romance novel?"
"That's what I wrote," Peter explained, "I had it put in a cover that wouldn't rouse
suspicion. About half the pages are fake, too. Fillers."
Joey looked over Molly's shoulder. Molly was flipping through the book. It was filled
largely with text but with some diagrams and maps interspersed.
"I had the original paper digitized and turned into text," Peter continued, "Don't worry, I
checked to make sure it worked all right."
Molly handed the book over her shoulder to Joey.
"Um, who's Hank?" he asked.
"Prospective agent from SGC, seventeen years old," Molly said, walking over towards
one of the other paintings, "He's a wallcrawler."
She stared at the fourth painting, "You're involving Matt in this!"
"Apparently," Henderson said.
"He's barely fourteen!"
"Matt? Who's Matt?" Joey asked, walking towards the painting. The kid looked familiar
in an odd way.
"Look, if that's what the painting says…" Peter began.
"I don't give a FUCK what the painting says, you're NOT involving him in this!"
Peter put a hand on her shoulder, "Molly, I know you feel that he'll not have a life if he
lives with the Fellowship, but he won't have a life if he doesn't. Besides, he'll be able
to go home to Janice when this is over."
Molly's shoulders slumped, "You just used a power on me, didn't you? Damn you,
Peter." She sighed, "Alright, I give up. I don't want to, but I'm going to."
Peter shook his head, "I didn't use anything on you." He didn't think he did, at any rate.
"Right," Molly rolled her eyes and turned back to the painting, "You can't just absorb
his power for him?"
"Read the book, Molly. That's the only real answer I can give you. We need Parkman on
this, Molly. Trust me."
"Parkman?" Joey gasped, "Damn, he looks a lot like his father."
Molly shrugged, "Fine. But I'm supervising him."
"Of course. Your practically his family, Molly. I wasn't going to suggest anything
otherwise."
"Good!" She walked towards another painting and began flipping through the book,
"So. What are all these planes?"
"Ah!" Henderson ran over to the fifth painting, "The main aircraft here is the SR-91
Aurora. It's a Mach 7 or so aircraft first built in the nineties. As far as I know, its
existence is STILL classified. The others are QA-10 drones. These were still only
theoretical when I was thrown out, but if I recall things correctly, they were initially
intended as reconnaissance aircraft, but these look like they've been modified for an
attack role."
"What sort of an attack role?" Joey asked.
Henderson pointed at some small flanges at the bottoms of each craft, and a series of
vertical, raised housings, "These look like missile launchers to me. The craft would tilt
at an angle, about forty-five degrees, and fire them. The added angle is there to give
the missiles more area to maneuver."
"So this is the attack," Molly said, lightly touching the painting.
"The preliminary phase, actually. May I?" Henderson gestured for the book. Molly
handed it over. Henderson flipped through the book, "Here! The attack pictured here
is the first phase in a multipronged attack. The planes here are to mist the city with the
FGR-207 gas." He frowned.
"What is it?" Peter asked.
"In a missile, an 'F' signifies that the missile is shoulder launched."
"I remember this from the documents I scanned last week," Joey said, "The 'F'
designation is there to fool Congress or something. I think it was originally intended
for a rocket-launcher, but Maslarak said he was modifying it."
Peter nodded, "That's it."
"Okay," Henderson said, "It was something that was bugging me. Anyway, this book
says phase one is to gas the city, immobilizing us for about twenty-four hours. The
second phase entails a squadron of F-35's launching dozens upon dozens of missiles
on the city. The final phase is a tank and ground attack to 'pick off' the survivors."
"I see," Molly whispered. She hadn't taken her eyes off of the painting.
"And this?" Joey gestured at the painting on the desk, "Is this part of the attack, too?"
"The whole setup is more reminiscent of testing," Henderson said.
"Right."
Molly looked at the sixth painting, "A presidential assassination. BIG surprise," she
rolled her eyes, "Does your book give any reason why he'd be so calm?"
"Or who's going to shoot him?" Joey asked.
"The book is focused almost solely on the logistics of the attack," Peter said, "and
several possible outcomes. The president is barely mentioned."
Molly rolled her eyes, "Figures."
"Least it makes life more interesting," Joey kidded.
"Shove it, Joe," Molly muttered, "What about psycho-kid here?"
"That," Peter said, pointing at the third painting, "is the guy you heard Maslarak talking
about earlier, Barry North. The kid sent to Guantanamo at eleven."
"Right. Shit," she whispered. She turned towards him suddenly, throwing her arms
wide, "Why isn't there anything about Sylar in here?"
"I don't pick my subjects, Molly," Peter said, "But according to the book he won't reveal
himself until the week of the attack."
"Well? Let me see it!"
Henderson opened the book to the relevant page and handed it to her.
"'Sylar dropped his illusion,' blah, blah, blah…" she skimmed the pages around it,
flipping back and forth, "This is worthless."
"Well, can't you just find him?" Joey asked.
"I've tried," Molly said, snapping the book shut, "His illusion power screws things up.
It's psychically confusing, I think because he is essentially identifying himself as
another person in every manner possible, visually as well as mentally. He might even
be consciously blocking me somehow. I only detected him because I felt what I can
only describe as a murderous lust when Barry here was mentioned."
Peter stared at her a moment, "All right. No Sylar. I'll see what I can do about it."
"Thank you," Molly said, visibly relieved.
"So!" Peter clapped his hands, "You guys have new orders. I want you to go after
Winters."
"So I'm done tracking Maslarak?"
"No," Peter said, "But that's secondary. You guys are going to follow him. Find who's
paying him off, then bring him in."
Molly nodded, "Sir."
"Is that it?" Joey asked.
"For now. I'm going to have Byron work on more writings, and then I'm going to go to
India to pursue another avenue of defense."
"Claude?" Molly smiled.
"Yes, Claude's top-secret mission."
"And I'm going to be training the City's residents in hand-to-hand combat." Henderson
said.
"Well, you're the best," Molly looked at him, "Are you being quiet about it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you guys never mentioned any 'excuse' Maslarak would offer to the American
public for wiping us out. Couldn't he claim we were planning an attack?"
Henderson shifted uncomfortably, "I've been VERY discreet about the training, though
I'll admit I hadn't thought of that."
"I haven't been able to see any sort of public justification," Peter said, "The whole
thing, though, including the assassination here, has a sort of 'coup d'etat' vibe."
"Right. Nazi-style takeover. Sieg heil," Molly muttered sarcastically.
"Well, not quite. The Nazis actually won in a legitimate election but then dissolved the
democratic government."
Molly smiled, "I didn't ask, Sarge."
"No, but I told." He chuckled. Molly gave him a look, "Military humor, Moll."
"Right," she turned to Peter, "So, trail and takedown?"
Peter frowned, "Don't shoot to kill, Molly."
Molly turned towards the painting of the betrayal. "I'll try."
By Unlikely Hiro
Chapter IX: Paint Me A Picture
Rosette, Utah
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Peter had ordered Molly and Joey to get some sleep. Joey, who had been complaining
about his lack of sleep, had tried to object. Molly didn't say anything at all, and Peter
didn't need the three or so varieties of telepathy he had to tell she was scared out of
her wits. He reminded her that Sylar was staying at the Army base and that she could
sense him coming for her a hundred miles away. He had calmed her a little with
another power, also. It wouldn't do her any good psychologically in the long term, but
her body desperately needed sleep.
That had been three hours ago. Peter had been in a precognitive trance since. He
stared at the largest painting for a moment.
"Holy shit!" he gasped, "Damn him for running away."
Shaking his head, he walked over to the desk where sheets of paper were scattered
about. They were the result of a precognitive ability to write the future he picked up
from Yamagato Fellow Byron Bevington. He glanced through them while trying to
figure out their order. There were about a hundred pages.
He rubbed his eyes after a moment and decided to get help. He walked to the main
office. There was only a single person there.
"Morning, Zach," he said, sitting across from him.
"Morning." He didn't look up from his computer, "Claude put a call in while you were in
trance."
"Did he? What'd he want?"
"Review of two subjects he's ready to bring in. Your wife also called."
Peter cocked his head, picking up a psychic subtext, "Home trouble?"
Zach tapped the desk, "Yeah. Steve's just…" He shrugged, "S'nothing."
Peter, though, discretely scanned his mind and planted a suggestion that, he hoped,
would fix things, "Well, alright then. Listen, I need you to tell Joe I'll be having his
office for a while longer."
Zach chuckled, "I'm sure he'll be thrilled. He'll probably be getting up for his morning
calisthenics any moment now. Should I tell Niki you'll be having a long day, too?"
Peter got up, "Knowing my girl, she'll be pissed even if I tell her."
"Hey, it's your fault for staying with the Fellowship."
"No one likes a smart-ass, Zach."
"So why do you keep me around?" He smiled, "Anything else?"
"What time is it in India?"
Zach glanced at the computer, "6:42 PM."
"Call Claude back and tell him I can't show up for a while." He turned to leave, stopped,
and walked back, "Zach. Do you think you could help me sort out some of the stuff I
wrote?"
Zach shrugged, "Sure, what the hell. I'll stop by the office in a few minutes."
***
Zach spent most of his time there sorting the written prophecy, making notes and dog-
earing the pages before making copies and binding them together. He also offered
some suggestions for painting interpretation.
However, by 11:00, he needed to sleep. He was operating on the night-shift schedule
after all, and he went home. Joe Henderson stopped by soon after. He joked that Peter
needed to requisition his own office before sitting down with a copy of the written
prophecy to read.
A few minutes after one, Peter sent an alarm to Molly and Joey's quarters, and waited.
***
Molly and Joey lived in separate quarters that were next door to each other. Joey
rolled over when his alarm clock triggered and put a pillow over his head.
"Too soon!" he muttered. It wouldn't stop of course, so eventually he switched it off
and slid out of bed. He threw on the clothes he had worn the previous night and
walked the ten feet to Molly's door.
He stood by the door for a moment before knocking. When he hit the door though, it
slid open.
Joey shook his head, "And she calls me the rookie."
Joey glanced around inside. The main room was small, with a small couch facing a
fireplace that was immediately to the left of the door when coming inside. When Molly
had shown him his quarters the previous night, she had said it was an actual fire that
was used in winter. Joey had thought that was rather odd--being underground, they
should be at a constant temperature no matter what the weather.
"Moll? Hey Moll!"
"Just a minute!" she shouted from the bedroom behind the living area.
Joey stepped inside and walked over to the mantle. There were dozens of framed
photographs. A number were of her and her parents. One immediately caught his eye,
though, and he picked it up. He gaped at it. It was of her, probably no older than 15,
with a man he instantly recognized.
"Mohinder Suresh?!"
"Yep," she said. She was standing behind him, her arms crossed.
"THE Mohinder Suresh?"
She raised an eyebrow, "Do you know many Mohinder Sureshes?"
"You knew the guy who took down the Haitian?"
"He was like a father to me."
Joey shrugged and went to set it down. When he did, he caught another photo of a
man in a police uniform. Though it was clearly very old, he could tell who it was.
"What the fuck?! You knew Director Parkman?!"
"He saved me from Sylar. Twice. Now would you stop messing with my pictures? What
the hell made you think you could even come in here!"
"You left the door open," he said, setting the picture down, "Lesson One, Molly: Always
secure your surroundings." He glanced down at the fireplace, "I still don't see why we
have these. Wouldn't the smoke be a dead giveaway?"
"Would you belive me if I told you it was a secret passage?"
He turned around to look at her, "I would, actually."
"Then you'd be a moron," she smiled and winked at him, "Peter designed these, I think.
He probably seems like a tough bastard to you, but he's really just a HUGE sap. He
thinks it's homey or something."
Joey blinked, "Right."
After a moment of silence, she gestured towards the door, "So let's go, then."
***
Peter opened his door, "You guys can come in now."
Molly and Joey entered the room. Molly went first, almost tiptoeing. Joey, on the other
hand, almost ran into the room.
Joe Henderson and Peter were standing beside the door. Molly smiled and gave
Henderson a sloppy salute, "Sarge!"
Henderson laughed. He had trained both of them in various martial arts. Training was
his primary job--he possessed photographic reflexes and was a master in dozens of
arts.
He returned the salute. "Hello Molly. Crane."
"Sir," Joey nodded his head and turned towards the paintings.
The room was now dominated by a ring of seven paintings. The first painting, which
was sitting on top of the desk, was a canvas almost totally black, with a green-white
flash center-bottom. Upon closer inspection, one could see it was a missile being
launched from a ground pad. A strange, lozenge-shaped aircraft flew overhead.
The second was of a man in what looked like an old-fashioned police interrogation
room. A man in a military uniform was standing at a control console holding a clipboard.
Another man was sitting in a chair in the room. A greenish gas was filling the room.
The third was of a disheveled man standing in a control room of some sort. An
indeterminable number of mutilated corpses lay at his feet.
The fourth was of a teenage boy dressed in all black, standing on top of a stack of file
folders the size of a small house.
The fifth was a shot of a number of aircraft in flight. There were three small aircraft
which looked somewhat like jet engines floating on their own, with their intakes
pointing up. They were surrounding a large, triangular, black aircraft, one near each
corner. The aircraft were flying over the desert. The radial street pattern of SG City was
visible off in the distance. The main aircraft was banking off in its general direction.
The sixth was of the President, Stefan James, sitting at his Oval Office desk. A person,
visible only as a shadow, was pointing a gun at him. Surprisingly, the President was
totally calm, literally twiddling his thumbs.
The seventh and final painting was of two men in military uniforms handing a suitcase
over to a man.
Molly stood in front of the final painting, "Son of a BITCH! Winters is selling us out?!"
"Looks like it," Joey said, standing behind her. Winters didn't look scared at all by the
people he was talking to, so it wasn't any form of extortion.
Molly turned towards the second painting, "And why does he look familiar, too?"
"Because he is," Peter said, "That's Hank Revere."
"And they're killing him?"
"Testing him," Henderson said, holding up what looked like a brand-new book,
"According to this, a 'Colonel Ye' is in the room, and he is gassing him with the main
biological agent in the FGR-207 rocket. This says the test will be successful in shutting
of Hank's power for a period of approximately twenty-four hours."
Henderson handed Molly the book. According to the cover, it was Warm Nights In Cuba
by Isabel Juarez.
"A romance novel?"
"That's what I wrote," Peter explained, "I had it put in a cover that wouldn't rouse
suspicion. About half the pages are fake, too. Fillers."
Joey looked over Molly's shoulder. Molly was flipping through the book. It was filled
largely with text but with some diagrams and maps interspersed.
"I had the original paper digitized and turned into text," Peter continued, "Don't worry, I
checked to make sure it worked all right."
Molly handed the book over her shoulder to Joey.
"Um, who's Hank?" he asked.
"Prospective agent from SGC, seventeen years old," Molly said, walking over towards
one of the other paintings, "He's a wallcrawler."
She stared at the fourth painting, "You're involving Matt in this!"
"Apparently," Henderson said.
"He's barely fourteen!"
"Matt? Who's Matt?" Joey asked, walking towards the painting. The kid looked familiar
in an odd way.
"Look, if that's what the painting says…" Peter began.
"I don't give a FUCK what the painting says, you're NOT involving him in this!"
Peter put a hand on her shoulder, "Molly, I know you feel that he'll not have a life if he
lives with the Fellowship, but he won't have a life if he doesn't. Besides, he'll be able
to go home to Janice when this is over."
Molly's shoulders slumped, "You just used a power on me, didn't you? Damn you,
Peter." She sighed, "Alright, I give up. I don't want to, but I'm going to."
Peter shook his head, "I didn't use anything on you." He didn't think he did, at any rate.
"Right," Molly rolled her eyes and turned back to the painting, "You can't just absorb
his power for him?"
"Read the book, Molly. That's the only real answer I can give you. We need Parkman on
this, Molly. Trust me."
"Parkman?" Joey gasped, "Damn, he looks a lot like his father."
Molly shrugged, "Fine. But I'm supervising him."
"Of course. Your practically his family, Molly. I wasn't going to suggest anything
otherwise."
"Good!" She walked towards another painting and began flipping through the book,
"So. What are all these planes?"
"Ah!" Henderson ran over to the fifth painting, "The main aircraft here is the SR-91
Aurora. It's a Mach 7 or so aircraft first built in the nineties. As far as I know, its
existence is STILL classified. The others are QA-10 drones. These were still only
theoretical when I was thrown out, but if I recall things correctly, they were initially
intended as reconnaissance aircraft, but these look like they've been modified for an
attack role."
"What sort of an attack role?" Joey asked.
Henderson pointed at some small flanges at the bottoms of each craft, and a series of
vertical, raised housings, "These look like missile launchers to me. The craft would tilt
at an angle, about forty-five degrees, and fire them. The added angle is there to give
the missiles more area to maneuver."
"So this is the attack," Molly said, lightly touching the painting.
"The preliminary phase, actually. May I?" Henderson gestured for the book. Molly
handed it over. Henderson flipped through the book, "Here! The attack pictured here
is the first phase in a multipronged attack. The planes here are to mist the city with the
FGR-207 gas." He frowned.
"What is it?" Peter asked.
"In a missile, an 'F' signifies that the missile is shoulder launched."
"I remember this from the documents I scanned last week," Joey said, "The 'F'
designation is there to fool Congress or something. I think it was originally intended
for a rocket-launcher, but Maslarak said he was modifying it."
Peter nodded, "That's it."
"Okay," Henderson said, "It was something that was bugging me. Anyway, this book
says phase one is to gas the city, immobilizing us for about twenty-four hours. The
second phase entails a squadron of F-35's launching dozens upon dozens of missiles
on the city. The final phase is a tank and ground attack to 'pick off' the survivors."
"I see," Molly whispered. She hadn't taken her eyes off of the painting.
"And this?" Joey gestured at the painting on the desk, "Is this part of the attack, too?"
"The whole setup is more reminiscent of testing," Henderson said.
"Right."
Molly looked at the sixth painting, "A presidential assassination. BIG surprise," she
rolled her eyes, "Does your book give any reason why he'd be so calm?"
"Or who's going to shoot him?" Joey asked.
"The book is focused almost solely on the logistics of the attack," Peter said, "and
several possible outcomes. The president is barely mentioned."
Molly rolled her eyes, "Figures."
"Least it makes life more interesting," Joey kidded.
"Shove it, Joe," Molly muttered, "What about psycho-kid here?"
"That," Peter said, pointing at the third painting, "is the guy you heard Maslarak talking
about earlier, Barry North. The kid sent to Guantanamo at eleven."
"Right. Shit," she whispered. She turned towards him suddenly, throwing her arms
wide, "Why isn't there anything about Sylar in here?"
"I don't pick my subjects, Molly," Peter said, "But according to the book he won't reveal
himself until the week of the attack."
"Well? Let me see it!"
Henderson opened the book to the relevant page and handed it to her.
"'Sylar dropped his illusion,' blah, blah, blah…" she skimmed the pages around it,
flipping back and forth, "This is worthless."
"Well, can't you just find him?" Joey asked.
"I've tried," Molly said, snapping the book shut, "His illusion power screws things up.
It's psychically confusing, I think because he is essentially identifying himself as
another person in every manner possible, visually as well as mentally. He might even
be consciously blocking me somehow. I only detected him because I felt what I can
only describe as a murderous lust when Barry here was mentioned."
Peter stared at her a moment, "All right. No Sylar. I'll see what I can do about it."
"Thank you," Molly said, visibly relieved.
"So!" Peter clapped his hands, "You guys have new orders. I want you to go after
Winters."
"So I'm done tracking Maslarak?"
"No," Peter said, "But that's secondary. You guys are going to follow him. Find who's
paying him off, then bring him in."
Molly nodded, "Sir."
"Is that it?" Joey asked.
"For now. I'm going to have Byron work on more writings, and then I'm going to go to
India to pursue another avenue of defense."
"Claude?" Molly smiled.
"Yes, Claude's top-secret mission."
"And I'm going to be training the City's residents in hand-to-hand combat." Henderson
said.
"Well, you're the best," Molly looked at him, "Are you being quiet about it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you guys never mentioned any 'excuse' Maslarak would offer to the American
public for wiping us out. Couldn't he claim we were planning an attack?"
Henderson shifted uncomfortably, "I've been VERY discreet about the training, though
I'll admit I hadn't thought of that."
"I haven't been able to see any sort of public justification," Peter said, "The whole
thing, though, including the assassination here, has a sort of 'coup d'etat' vibe."
"Right. Nazi-style takeover. Sieg heil," Molly muttered sarcastically.
"Well, not quite. The Nazis actually won in a legitimate election but then dissolved the
democratic government."
Molly smiled, "I didn't ask, Sarge."
"No, but I told." He chuckled. Molly gave him a look, "Military humor, Moll."
"Right," she turned to Peter, "So, trail and takedown?"
Peter frowned, "Don't shoot to kill, Molly."
Molly turned towards the painting of the betrayal. "I'll try."
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |