Starring:
Date: September 28, 2009
Summary:
There's always another way to do things, even if you can't find it.
"Carving Out Another Path"
Level 5
It's just like most evenings in Level 5. Occassionally quiet and occassionally loud. Sometimes the bald man who can't be hurt throws himself against the wall, screaming, yelling, talking crazy. He never seems to speak coherently. Sometimes the pyros try their best to burn their way out. There's often people wandering the hall, Agents. Some with abilities, some not. One face who is often seen in these halls is one Peter Petrelli. Over a year ago, he'd been one of them. Now, he's one of the ones overseeing them. He walks past the large glass windows, staring in on the ones that are asleep. Or in straight jackets, or drugged into unconsciousness.
It's two windows that he finds himself stopping in front of, looking in on the two women. Sound is muffled by the glass, but they can still hear when he knocks against the glass with his knuckles. "I want to ask you some questions. Both of you." Dex he knows well. Lilith he knows in passing.
"What's on yer mind Pedro?" Says the voice of Dextris Neal. Her eyes are closed but she is sitting down, meditating. She opens her eyes and stands to lean against the wall. The little red ball she likes is hovering near her shoulder. "Both of us, you must be speaking to dear old Lilith." The telekinetic gives a roguish grin and crosses her arms.
Lilith is in the center of her cell. Her home as she's come to know it for quite some time. She's managed to pass under great scrutiny - so much so that some even think she's mute, capable only of humming eerie-sweet tunes hours after 'lights out' comes across Leve 5. Very few within the compound know how wrong that is.
Stretches - Her only piece of mind. The only thing that has kept her 'sane', or at the very least out of a straight jacket. Limberly drawn into the splits, her head bowed down to her knee so that her dreads sprawl across the floor like ebon and ivory serpents, she perks up at the sound of the rapping. Her only response is a lofted brow and a glance to the blank wall where Dextris's voice filters through the fireproofing in soft, muffled tones.
"What happened to you? When they rounded you up and put you in here… what all do you remember of it?" Peter asks, staying where he can see both of them, and where they can see him. He's dressed nicely, more or less, but he seems to be wearing a paramedic uniform instead of a suit like he normally wears down there. This might be a completely unscheduled visit. He looks as if he hasn't been sleeping well. And as if he hasn't shaved. "I know what it was like when I was put here, but what did the two of you experience?"
"A nice dart to the neck, and a kick to ribs. I wasn't very nice to the agents picking me up." Her lips tug up to a smirk as she crosses her legs as she stands as well. The young woman runs a hand through her hair. "That's what I remember, nicely dressed bastards." She comments under her breath and she tilts her head at Peter's physical appearance.
"Looks like you need some sleep and some grooming, sir. What has you out of sorts?" she raises an eyebrow. Though she wouldn't readily admit it, she considers Peter a friend "Like the uniform." She comments also with a wink.
"Shouldn't have answered the door." Her voice is husky with lack of use above more than a whisper to her 'neighbor'. Why she chose to respond has a great deal to do with the man's state of appearance.
"Maybe he's loosing sleep - knowing well he's on the wrong side of the glass. A traitor to the rest of us locked up in here?" Her smile is saccharine, an expression worthy of a family photo that does not quite match the venom in her words.
She shrugs and returns to the question. "Looked like overdressed salesmen. They tracked me down to the motel. Somehow. As soon as I heard my name, I knew. I went to run." She hadn't wanted to hurt them. Stupid girl. "Tranquilizers leave you with a migraine from hell, you know."
"No, maybe I think you're on the wrong side," Peter says, turning away from them for a moment to look up at the blank walls of the building. It's dark and quiet sometimes, but darts are different than what's happening to the people now. It's different. "There's a lot going on, but you're safe here," he says, sure of it. They might be the safest people in the whole country. Then again, is it a safety that's worth it? Even he's not so sure.
"I honestly don't want to keep you here. I'm trying to make sure that you're ready to be on the other side of these walls. I wish that most of you could be on the other side. I know, I used to be where you are now."
And maybe he doesn't deserve any better, but if he deserved a second chance, so do they. To the person being held captive, is it any different whether they're helpless or dangerous? Probably not.
"What would you use your ability to do if you were on the other side?"
"Safe?" Dex leans forward with a interested look, actually walking closer to the glass. "And what wouldn't we be safe from on the outside?" the way Peter talks get her interested and she tilts her head.
"Well seeing as I can't really do anything with it.. I'm not sure. Maybe work for this shit Company, help put the real crazies behind glass." Ok she doesn't think she's crazy, but what crazy person actually thinks they are crazy?
"What else could I use my ability for? I could go about saving randoms that are in trouble around the city." she nods to herself, sounds like a good plan. Everyone's own
"Is this a parole hearing?" Lilith responds with sweet sarcasm, and perhaps the most hidden sense of hope. It was an odd question, after all.
She pulls her leg back forward to join the other, stretching them out before her and grabbing her toes in a way that almost seems child-like. She glances once more to the blank wall as she takes in her neighboring prisoner's reply. Her own response is slower to come, a moment to toy over the possibilities. "Find the people that run this hell hole and picket for better living arrangements," she says with an easy smile. It doesn't take a translator to relay that her 'rally' would not be a peaceful one. Her smile wanes, though, as she looks at the floor at the base of the clear glass. "Go visit my sisters," she adds more compassionately, her entire demeanor shifting in an instant.
"There's always a parole hearing," Peter says, looking in on the two of them, giving them both a long moment. There's so much that they live through that no one else could understand. In many ways it's worse than a prison. Prisons give time in the yard, allow for contact between the prisoners. "I do agree that you need better living conditions. I've been working on that since I got out, but…" Only one person. "It'd be easier if I had a few other voices out here petitioning for it, I admit that."
Something always has more weight when said by a half dozen voices instead of just one, even if that one voice is the boss' son.
"What this place is for… it's to keep what we do secret. From people who wouldn't understand it. You've lived in this country. You know how people are treated when they're different. People are beaten cause of who they love, what God they worship, the color of their skin… Imagine how people would respond if word of what we can do got out to the public? You're not here because… they're not convinced that you won't do something that will make us known. That will destroy all of their hard work. That's why I was in here. I'll keep trying to convince them that you're not dangerous, that you understand the consequences of your ability… and maybe you'll be able to get out."
"What does everyone else think of your opinion of us lowly crazies?" A question from Dex, "Lil! You think he's a popular one among the other Agents?" she shows her teeth as she smiles and slides down the wall so she can sits on the floor. Now three balls are hovering around her, bobbing up and down.
"I understand that bit, yes yes. Secret, we don't want the whole world having a huge spaz attack. Plenty of good reason.. I suppose." The dirty blonde shrugs and shakes her hair out. "What does momma think of your efforts. They are genuine and meant to do well."
"As popular as the favorite pet rottwieler is to its owner, I'd imagine," she comments back. She pulls herself gracefully forward onto hands and knees, though, crawling a pace or to over. The motion puts her with her back to Dex's separated by the wall - a preferred spot for their quiet conversations as rare as they were. The closest Lil had been to another living being in a long while.
"I don't see the point of hiding," she mumbles, looking down at her knees as she pulls them up to her chest, embracing her slender legs in the loop of her pale arms. "Doing so merely feeds and endless cycle of conspiracy, hatred, and ignorance. It does no one any good." Despite the depth of her words, her current mood leaves them lacking in the conviction that one would associate with an uproar for revolution - almost as if she had no energy left with which to fight for the belief.
With a soft sigh she looks up and to the side, a brow drawn into a subtle arc as her azure gaze seeks to read out Peter's expression. "Do you like what you do here? Do you think you're doing something good for the world? Really?"
"Yes, I do believe I'm doing something good for the world," Peter says, taking a few steps back and looking a little wounded, or perhaps just confused. Perhaps like that rottwieler that's been mentioned getting kicked in the side. "I've seen the future and I know where this could go. I know what could happen. I've seen many versions of it, and none of the outcomes have been good. Worlds of fear and hatred, worlds of destruction, death and mass imprisonment…"
He backs up a few more steps, reaching up to push a lock of hair off of his forehead. It's not long enough to go behind his ear, so it falls right back where it'd been. Not quite in his eyes, but almost. "Until I see a way to have a good outcome, this is the best solution that I have, even if it's not really a solution. It's just— it's better than the alternative."
An alternative that may already be happening. "I'll visit again sometime. Maybe I can get you some better food down here, or something."
"Easier to say that when you're on that side of the glass. Besides," Lilith leans forward, canting her head to the side like a curious feline, obscuring her soft features and oceanic gaze behind a few black and white dreadlocks. "Has it ever occurred to you that all paths are not laid out before you? If you've seen more than one outcome - who is to say that there are not possible others?" She sighs and unfolds from herself with a dancer's grace, moving off to the small cot-like bed.
"The correct path is not usually that which is easiest, but its goal is often worth its strife and loss," she mumbles as she lays her head onto the pillow and pulls the bland, standard-issue blanket up over her head and bids him farewell:
"Until next time, Puppy."