2007-03-19: Robot Master

Starring:

Matt_icon.gif Molly_icon.gif Ed_icon.gif

Summary: Molly is not a Robot Master. However, Matt is. (Matt plays with Ed's mind).

Date It Happened: March 19, 2007

Robot Master


Central Park and then the 3 M's Apartment

Gritting his teeth, perhaps just for effect, Matt places both hands on the small of Molly's back and gives her a gentle push to send her forward in her swing arc. He even grunts out a good "Grraah!" but it's just aesthetic. Molly's not that heavy, and Matt could certainly push her much harder. At this point, perpetual motion pretty much has Molly covered. It's not as if Matt /doesn't/ have things he could be doing for any of the cases on his docet, but spending time with Molly is important too - especially if he wants to try and get her to map Sylar's position every morning.

"Higher Matt!" Molly squeals after the last push from her guardian. Clinging on tight to the metal chains, she swings her legs out in front of her to get more momentum. "I want to go /really/ high!" Her long hair flies out in whatever direction the wind blows it in and she giggles a bit when she sees how far into the sky her legs can point. "As high as possible!"

Edward Boone comes tromping off from the distance. Is he bringing business to the park? Where Matt is playing? With his /kid/? Apparently. He's wearing his coat and looking casual; the consummate professional. Who'd expect anything less from the FBI? He waves as he approaches. "Detective Parkman." How the hell did he find him here? "Sorry to bother you like this." He looks at the swings, and grins. "You know, I hear if you go all the way around you turn inside out."

It's a good thing that Matt sees Ed before he gets too close, or he might have grabbed the chains of Molly's swings and accidentally dumped her out. Instead, he gives her a more subdued push before he steps away. "Keep pumping your legs, Molly, and you'll get there. But if you /do/ turn inside out, I'm not going to fix you." Let Mohinder do that. The button up he wears open over his t-shirt billowing out a bit as he walks, Matt takes another few steps away from the swings toward Ed, though he looks back at the little girl, somewhat wary. "Is everything alright, Agent Boone?" But even before Ed can answer, Matt is already squinting a bit, trying to skim his thoughts looking for the answer. It's almost always better if you can see bad news coming. Almost.

As Edward Boone comes over toward them, Molly doesn't really pay him any mind. There's a lot of people in the park and sometimes grown ups like to swing, too. When he greets Matt and talks to her, though, that's when she takes interest in the FBI man. "Eeew. Gross!" she replies with a wrinkling of her nose. That in itself is enough to make her not keep pumping her legs. She doesn't want to turn inside out! Slowly but surely, her momentum slows down and her swing arcs become smaller and smaller as she listens in to this conversation.

"I wanted to check in about the case," Ed says. "We should sit down and share our notes properly. I'm sure you'd have let me known if anything came up, but I at least wanted to touch base," he explains.

. o O (Stupid. Stupid! How could blow it so big?) O o .

To see Ed would provide the image of the consummate professional; straight-laced, neat tie. "I've picked up a few leads that I'm going to start chasing down. You're here with your daughter, so I'll keep it quick."

. o O (I'm sure not gonna talk about the gruesome gruesome in front of your rugrat. Guh! Idiot! Okay. You know what? It's for the best. Really. She's probably crazy. Just relax. You'll finish up and be done with this hellhole town for good. Idiot! Everything was going /fine/ until you opened your damn mouth.) O o .

"I also wanted to check with you before I got in touch with your roommate. I didn't want to go tromping around in your house until you knew; he's a person of interest, so I'm going to want to talk to him at some point."

If it had just been a mention of Mohinder, Matt might have laughed and shrugged, saying he could get the doctor to come in tomorrow. But Ed's thoughts set him off a bit, though he tries to hide the fact he's uneased. And Molly is /not/ a rugrat. She's too cute. "I can have Doctor Suresh come in tomorrow, if you'd like. I'll ask him what his schedule is like." Okay, so Point B is dealt with. "Things have been pretty quiet on my end. What's this lead you're starting after?" Once again, Matt searches, even as he finishes his question. Is there anything /deeper?/ What is Ed /not/ saying?

"I might have a lead on Sylar's last known whereabouts. A break-in. Matches his description," Ed says. "I don't know all the details yet. It's Damaris's lead.

. o O (Maybe I should just call her. No, wait. That's stupid. We're co-workers. What the hell am I gonna say? Just forget it. Act like a professional, for crying out loud. I wonder if she remembers anything. What the hell happened to her, anyways? Ugh! Stupid!) O o .

What the hell is he going on about in there? Ed, for his part, still seems completely unflappable.

Molly looks between Ed and Matt as the swing finally comes to a stop. Wrapping her hands around one chain, she leans her cheek against it so that she can listen and rest at the same time. "Mohinder? A person of interest?" She can't help but ask. This involves one of her dads. It's important! "Interesting how?" Inquisitive and serious, she almost has the same expression as Matt has. Even though she's not his actual daughter, she is picking up on some of his gestures.

Crap. Matt waited too long in bribing Molly so that he could ask her to pinpoint Sylar. And the mention of Damaris only deepens Matt's frown. When Molly speaks up, Matt turns to her and motions her over with a wave of his hand. "C'mere, hon," he calls before he looks back to Ed. "Damaris isn't on this case anymore, Agent Boone," he replies in an even tone. He squints again, and the look may appear judgemental. But Matt is merely trying to project his thoughts in a whisper in order to hide his own voice: (Why would you call her? What the hell /did/ happen?)

"No, she's not, but I'm going to need her input if we're going to solve this case," Ed says, before looking Mollywards.

. o O (She looks familiar.) O o .

"Doctor Suresh's father wrote a book that's connected to a certain case. He's not in any trouble; I just need to talk to him about his father's research. Nothing in the least bit to be worried about," he explains, reassuringly, before looking back at Matt… and then away, as though suddenly distracted.

. o O (Nothing even happened. Seriously. Just letting off steam. Like a grown-up. Nothing! … Tch. Maybe that's the problem. Oh, grow up, Ed. Christ.) O o .

Hopping off the swing, Molly scrambles over to Matt obediently. It's an interesting conversation and all about Matt's new job at being detective and she wants to hear more. Especially since Matt's all involved. When Ed looks at her, she meets his gaze with a steady one of her own. "Oh. Okay." She understands most of what he's saying, but she doesn't really have much else to add. In fact, she's getting a little shy around this agent she doesn't know.

"I've already made copies of the file Suresh's father had on Sylar," Matt says as he bends his knees so that he can whisper in Molly's ear, and though he misses the look the Agent gives her, he catches the thought and squints. "I'm not very far in it though. It's a thick bastard. You, Demsky, and me can go over it together if you'd prefer." As he stands, Matt squints again, but rather than project, he digs deeper, looking for some sort of mental reenactment. What is Ed thinking about?

Matt whispers: I need to you find Sylar. I don't know what you've got in your bag, or if you can try without your atlas. But I need you to find him, okay?

"I'd like that," Ed says, regarding the Sylar File. "I'd like to get in and see the room, too." The Sylar Room, that is. The creepy 'forgive me for I have sinned' room. Which hopefully hasn't been cleaned up, yeah. "The whole department has been really cooperative," Ed says.

. o O (Ed and Mara. Late at night? Some bar. Drinking too much. Staggering into a cab. Almost making out. Oh, yeah. And then Mara passed out in the middle of what looks like a lower Manhattan apartment building's trash room. It's pretty skeevy.) O o .

"It's the first time I've felt like the net was closing in a long time."

When Matt whispers something in her ear, though, Molly frowns and turns away from him as if something has suddenly spooked her. "No. Don't ask me to, Matt," she replies quietly to him in a pleading tone. It's a little louder because she's starting to panic about the thought. "I don't like to think about him. He scares me." Pushing away from Matt, she starts to back up away from him, worried about what he may say next about it.

"Monkey," Matt says in a soft pleading tone of his own, but it's short lived. Matt is not much of a match when up against scared little girls. But he shakes his head free of it, and the images of Damaris lying in a trash room before he looks at Ed again. "That's something I'd like too. I'll go find Damaris so that we're all on the same page. I don't want to keep you, Agent Boone." A cold sort of smirk plays in the corner of his mouth as he steps toward Molly. "I don't think I've ever seen you looking well-rested." (Are my eyes red?) he projects in a whisper, but this time the small voice is an attempt to mimic Ed's own, (Do I still smell?)

"Detective Damaris?" Ed says, with a shrug. "She's probably at the station," he thinks. . o O (Sleeping off her hangover and probably still freaking out.) O o . he adds, off the top of his head. "Why don't I give her a call?" . o O (Too fast. Idiot. You sound like a greenhorn.) O o . "Actually, uh, I'd rather not. At the moment. And he also sniffs, as surreptitiously as possible, his arm.

The nickname makes Molly even the more frantic because she knows that she can't really stand up to Matt when he pleads. He saved her life and she trusts him…but she doesn't want to have to use her powers to find Sylar. That requires a whole level of thinking about him that she really does not want to do. Quickly, she runs over to her backpack to watch the conversation from the safety there without replying.

Matt continues to squint at Ed for another moment, focusing on mimicking that voice and even daring to make it louder. (I should go home and…just think. Or wait. Hell. Maybe I should get someone else to cover the case.) Thought patterns, like speech patterns, are tough, but 'verbal' thoughts are all that Matt has practice with. "Don't worry, Agent Boone. I'll see to Damaris." With that, Matt walks toward Molly with the intent to take her hand and lead her out of the park.

Ed rubs his eyes a little bit. . o O (I swear I'm cracking up. I think I need to take a break. Hell, maybe I need the day off. No. I can't. Not yet. Too much left to do… but maybe if I went home for a few.) O o . Ed teeters, before shrugging. "Uh, yeah. Sure thing, detective. We'll catch up later."

Molly gives Matt some wary looks and picks up her backpack, but allows him to lead her out of the park. She casts a glance over her shoulder to where Ed looks so confused and out of it and then back to Matt. Something happened back there and she's not sure what it was.

It's not until Matt and Molly are back in the apartment that the former speaks. "Molly, that man did something mean to Detective Damaris," he says as soon as he closes the door behind him. "I'm sorry for what I asked you to do earlier, but I really need to know where she is at least." Knowing where Sylar is would also help, but thankfully he manages to keep this thought soft enough that even in his distraction, he doesn't accidentally push it too far across that invisible Thought Trading table.

"What did you do to him?" Molly moves into the apartment and her room. Putting her backpack down on her bed, she turns around. "That man. He was acting weird. Is he normally like that?" Really, she'd like to just ignore the request and talk about something else entirely.

Mohinder had warned Matt about this newfound branch of his ability, and now it feels like Molly is chiding him for it. Frowning, Matt slowly follows Molly and sinks down onto the edge of her bed. "Something new," he mumbles. "If I showed you, Mohinder'd yell at me."

Plopping down onto the edge of her bed, Molly studies Matt. "Something new? Can't you tell me, then?" She doesn't mean to be chiding, but she just desperately wanted to change the subject and now it seems like she has. And as an added bonus, she now has something else to be curious about.

"I can…" How to put it… it /would/ be so much easier for Matt just to show Molly. "I can put thoughts in people's heads. Talk to them like that. And…well, I guess I can make them think things, essentially. It's all that. Everything is based up here," and Matt taps his temple with a thick finger.

"You can mind control them?" Molly looks confused about this new power that Matt has. "I didn't know that we could…do things differently. Will I be able to do more when I grow up?" Now this brings up more questions about what she can do and what she might be able to do in the future. "That sounds…dangerous, though. And wrong."

There's the chiding. Matt narrows his eyes some, his frown taking on a defensive quality. "A hammer's only wrong if you use it to hurt someone. It's nice if you build a birdhouse. And I dunno, Molly. But a muscle never gets stronger if you don't use it, you know?" Use it or lose it! But Matt stops himself almost mid-thought, scared of who he sounds like in his own head for a moment.

Molly can't help the chiding! She's picking it up from Mohinder. "You can't make a birdhouse with your thoughts, though." Pause. "Can you?" She's half serious. If he can project his thoughts into other people's heads, who's to say that he can't build a birdhouse with his mind. "I wonder what else I could do."

Matt shrugs, and the motion is more childlike than fatherly, in it's own way. "Maybe you're like me, Molly-Monk, only…sort of backwards. How do you know where people are? Do you…see through their eyes or something? Like you're piloting a big robot?" That actually sounds kinda cool.

Molly giggles at the image of piloting a big robot. "No…not really. It's like…I think about them and then I follow some sort of path to where they are. And then I can see them and see where they are." She pauses and thinks about it, as if going over it in her head. "I can't see what they're seeing, though."

Matt narrows his thoughtfully, then nods. "Well, maybe it's just that you see and I hear. I dunno. Mohinder'd be the better one to ask." He places his hands on his thighs then, elbows slightly cocked. "But Boone…that man…did something bad with Detective Demaris last night. She fell asleep in a very bad place, and I need to find her to make sure she's alright." Matt? Caring about Demaris? …has hell frozen over/thawed?

Finding Mara is a lot different from finding Sylar. That's something that Molly doesn't mind doing. "Find Detective Damaris?" The mention of what Boone might have done makes her frown. "Okay. What…what did he do?" Slipping off the bed, she goes to search for her atlas.

"I don't think he hurt her," Matt clarifies as he idly watches Molly. "But he shouldn't have done what he did." But he hasn't answered the question. "He…well, he didn't treat her like you treat someone you work with."

Molly frowns, not quite understanding what he means by that. "That doesn't sound very nice." Grabbing her atlas from the kitchen table, where she left it before, she opens up the pages to show Manhattan. "Can you find me a pushpin, Matt?"

Pushpins. Right. Matt gets up as if he were shocked to life, and he immediately starts to squint as he looks about. Where was that box he bought…it didn't matter now, since the new map is probably going to stay in it's tube in the dining room, unless Molly gets curious. He soon locates the small box and hands it over to Molly with a gentle smile. "Thanks for the help, Molly," he says softly.

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