WARNING: contains Season 3 Material.
Starring:
Summary: Peter drops in to ask a really huge favor of Kory. They also discover how interconnected are the circles in which they travel.
Date It Happened: December 14, 2007
The Important Thing
Kory's Apartment
"No, I'm going to install them myself, thank you," says a young man in the hallway as he approaches the other apartment. Peter is on the phone, taking care of some last minute business as he approaches the apartment of a friend he hasn't had much time to see lately. "No, I don't need it delivered, I'll stop by your store tonight and pick them up."
Stopping outside the door, he pauses a few moments longer, before adding on a light, "Thank you." Shutting off the call on his cellphone, he lets it drop into his pocket. He's not dressed for travel, not even wearing a jacket over his shirts, indicating that he could have been in his apartment. Or teleporting around. He knocks firmly on the door and waits, unaware on if she's home or not.
Kory happens to be home. She's not due at the Lair until the evening, thanks to the new employee. She's thrilled to have a little downtime, even if she can't spend it in the arms of her new boyfriend. She hasn't had him over yet, and wasn't expecting anyone, so it's with a note of surprise in her voice that she calls, "Who is it?" The peephole must be jammed or something.
"It's Peter," the whispered voice responds through the door, loud enough it can be heard. Sounds as if he's not been sleeping. Then again, thanks to her and Sharon he doesn't really need to these days. "I have to ask you for a favor."
Peter! Kory is actually quite surprised, but also relieved. "Just a second!" Thence follows the sound of several locks being undone before the door opens. Kory's dressed and unrumpled, but she has bare feet instead of her usual sneakers. "Hi! Come on in!" She steps back to allow him to come in. "Did you have a good Thanksgiving?" Hopefully he wasn't off fixing the future again.
"It wasn't as good if the treatment for the virus had been available before Thanksgiving— but it was okay," Peter admits, stepping inside as soon as he can. He runs a hand through his hair, which has grown out again. Not as bad as it'd been in the dream they shared, but a little longer, hanging at his eyebrows. "Sorry I haven't come to visit sooner. I was pretty busy last month. And it didn't slow down after the virus got cured." That might be why he's here, but he lets it slide for the moment to ask a polite, "How have you been?"
His hair is kinda cute, long. If impractical. "No worries. I know you have a lot going on. So do I. More than I'd like, I sometimes think." She gestures for him to make himself comfortable. "I've been good. New boyfriend. Business booming at the shop. Somebody came and told me the acid-hands woman has been captured. And now I get good news from you. Get you something to drink?" Kory pauses, turned toward the kitchen, question on her face.
Settling down on one of the comfortable chairs, the same one he dream-walked in last time actually, Peter follows her with his eyes. "Sure, I'll take a drink," he adds on, shifting enough so he can respond to the rest of what she'd said, "I'm glad business is good. I sent a friend that way, to check out some comic books. After I found out that we were in them." It would sound crazy in another situation, but it seems old hat now. "Congratulations on the new boyfriend. He's a lucky guy." Sounds like he isn't just saying that, either.
"Ninth Wonders," Kory says, with a knowing-yet-exasperated air. "Yeah. This wouldn't be a cute little Japanese guy, would it? He was really, really worked up about finding them. That's how I found out I showed up on the page. Disconcerting." She pours him a glass of pomegranate lemonade, and then one for herself, bringing them both in and handing him his. "Yeah, a friend of mine showed up in them too. And so did Mrs. Sanders." She blushes, profusely, at him at the kind remark. "Oh. Well. You're sweet. Thank you."
"Yeah, Hiro," Peter says with a hint of a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth. "He was pretty excited at the idea, especially since he's the main character. I haven't gotten through all of the ones he borrowed from Niki's son yet— you know Niki too?" All connected. If the comic book hadn't been proof enough. "I didn't know you were in them too, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised." The glass is taken, and sipped from, but he just nods to her blushing over the compliment, "You're welcome." Hesitation follows, before he lowers the glass to rest on his leg. "The reason I came is because I was— you mentioned that people don't lie in dreams, right? So questioning someone using your ability would get us the truth as they see it?"
"Hiro," Kory repeats, amused very much by how the name is pronounced. "We've met a time or two. Through Cam. He and Micah are thick as thieves." A nod, to confirm her words, and then her expression goes serious at his question. "Pretty much, yeah. It's all subconscious stuff, and lies are more or less a conceit of the conscious mind." She's shifted gears, slightly, and sounds different now. Scholarly and academic. "I've never tried what you're hypothesizing, Peter, but it does stand to reason. "Unusual powers notwithstanding, that is. I mean, there may be somebody with a greater lucid dreaming than the average, who could." She pauses to take a couple sips of her lemonade before peering at him, curiously. "…why do you ask?"
"I've known Niki for a while now," Peter says in a hint of an explanation, though he doesn't give much more than that right now. Mostly because he's leaning forward to listen to her take on his theory, drinking from the glass as he does. "That's one thing I'm worried about. There could be an ability that would counter it— and I'm not entirely sure it's safe— for you. I know you could make yourself look different, but could you make yourself look really different?" There's a question, but he has to answer hers too… "I captured someone— someone who's done some terrible things. But after some of the things he said— I'm not sure they were entirely his fault. He claims his ability came with a side-effect. Something he couldn't control. I've seen something similar before in others. Not exactly the same, but… He asked me for help. I just want a way to know if he really means it. Know it's not a trick?"
Kory lets the Niki thing go for the moment; she has more about Niki she wants to talk to Peter about, but it can wait for a short while. "I could look really different, yes," Kory says, calmly. She's apparently done it. "I once followed a …violent criminal into his dream. As soon as I realized it, I figured he'd recognize me if he remembered the dream. So I have a few 'costumes' I can slip into in dreamscape if need be." The criminal in question must have ended up incarcerated if she's this calm about it. She wrinkles her nose, though. "In a dream, it's likelier that he would tell you the truth, yeah." She understands; or thinks she does. Peter wants backup on the dreamscape. "If it would help someone, it's worth the try."
"I tried it a couple times on my own, but… I didn't really want to try this on my own," Peter says softly, looking down at his drink for a moment. It almost sounds as if he's got a legitimate worry about this, a fear. "This man's dangerous. He's— if you've read any of the Ninth Wonders, I'm pretty sure he's at least one of the major villains. I believe that he does want help, but I also want to be cautious at the same time. It's not just me I have to worry about. If he were lying and tricking me… he could end up hurting the people I care about— my friends and family— even more than he already has."
"I've flipped through a couple times," Kory confirms, pausing to think about it. Villains, villains, vi— * "…" The exact moment Kory realizes which of the major villains Peter is most likely talking about, her mouth falls open. She stays silent, though, and listens to Peter. She gulps down the rest of her lemonade as her mouth has suddenly gone dry. "I…" Thought Hiro had killed him at Kirby Plaza since that's what 9th Wonders said, but obviously that turned out to be …what? Inaccurate? Accurate but something different has happened since? She shakes off the tendency to woolgather on it, and nods. "Caution, from what little I know about the guy from the comic — is advised. And I trust you. What can I do to help you?"
Kirby Plaza. Where Peter nearly destroyed the city after fighting the man who got stabbed. Where Peter told Hiro to kill him too, asked his own niece to shoot him, and finally got carried away by his brother. "I guess Ninth Wonders can't have that many villains— he would covet your ability. Probably will anyway. But if you don't look like you, he might have a difficult time trying to find you. That's actually the problem. He described what he felt when confronted with people like us as a hunger. A difficult to control desire to take the power as his own.
Kind of like an addiction, after a while. He said he'd tried to stop, wanted to— even attempted to kill himself at one point. He even told me to kill him, more than once, when I fought him. That's why I captured him. I don't even know if he can be helped, but I…" He trails off, shaking his head. "I just need to get inside his dreams and question him. And I want you to be there with me. So that you can control it more— pull us out if you need to?"
Kory listens to Peter, and she's now sitting in the other comfy chair. She's not sure when the knees gave out, but she's sitting now. "You…you want to go into Sylar's dreams. And see if he's having you on about wanting to get better." He's a serial killer. Made the papers. And Wikipedia. And 9th Wonders. Kory's face goes a little ashen, but she nods. "Two of us using the same ability will be better than one, yes," she agrees. "So yes. I'll go with you. I've been practicing like you suggested, so I've got a little more range, and I can combine dreams. Not too many people, though. It'll just be us, and him?" Her hands are white-knuckling the arm of the chair. Willing, but scared.
"It's not just that, either," Peter says, glancing up across at the chair, noticing that she's dropped into it. He can't really blame her shock and skepticism. And she's not even one of the many he's directly hurt. There's a shuddered inhale. It sounds as if he's not sure he's able to do this either, however… he nods. "Just the two of us. I can't think of any reason to bring more into this. Especially if his dreams are anything like who he could be. People who he's directly harmed could be… really hurt by what they see, even with you there to help keep it controlled." The shakiness might indicate that's why he's afraid to go in there alone.
Kory reaches a hand across to cover Peter's. "Okay. We don't have to be in the same room with him." He knows this from their lesson. But it bears repeating. "Do we have any kind of failsafe? If something weird happens?" Scientific method and helping people are all well and good, but given the danger level, it's a sensible question in Kory's opinion.
"I'd love to have him in a coma while we do it," Peter says, shifting the hand so he can squeeze back just a bit. "I don't know what else we can really do. I've been able to keep him locked up for over a week. We've had some things to keep him powerless, or as close to powerless as we can get him, but I don't know how long that will last. I've been keeping an eye on him as much as I can." Fortunate he doesn't need to sleep? "There's someone I can bring in for an emergency, though we'd need to keep them at a distance so they don't interrupt the dream. They… have an ability to— I don't know how to describe it. Around her I actually got tired. And I couldn't do anything. Theoretically she could just go stand next to his room and he couldn't use his abilities at all."
"Whoa. You know someone who turns powers off altogether." Kory seems vaguely surprised, for a moment. Her expression softens into a wry, should-have-known smile, though. "Okay. Do you have closed circut cameras or even a home camcorder hooked up through wires to a TV? Your friend could stand outside range and watch us. If we show any signs of distress, she steps close enough to knock us all offline. Does that sound like a good plan?"
"That'd take a couple more days to set up, but yeah, I could do that," Peter says, thinking on all the things he'd need to get set up. Luckily he has friends. "Probably better to have everything together before we risk that, anyway. If it turns out he is lying, and he has some way of being more aware of the dream than a normal people— that would be the time to break out. When he knows his lie is revealed." And she'd be close by. Someone like him with her power? He can't imagine what he would do with it. Doesn't want to.
Kory nods. "Okay. So it sounds like you've thought this through. And like you're okay with being as cautious and safe about this as we're able to get, within reason. That's good." Peter doesn't seem the reckless action-without-thought type, but he does seem to have a bit of a hero complex. That much she knows just from their few conversations. She seems satisfied with what she hears, though. "You let me know when you're ready, then. When we are, I suppose I should say." She squeezes Peter's hand back, other hand tapping the arm of the chair pensively, a sign she's calmed down past the natural reaction of fear.
There's been times he'd take reckless action without thought— though that tends to only be when he's the only one at risk. Peter's far more careful when someone else gets added into the equation. Like this. "My brother told me to stop and think, so you have him to thank for me being prepared to capture him in the first place." That reminds him. "I can also ready a tranquilizer in case we need to knock him out. That's how I captured him in the first place. I had a couple syringes prepped to knock him out. I'll let you know when, though." He glances down at their hands, before moving his away after a moment. "So— boyfriend? Not someone I know, is it? Wouldn't be surprised if I did."
Kory smiles. "The Senator? I guess stopping and thinking would be his bailiwick," she has to admit, smiling. "Redundant backup in this case, I would say is probably a really good idea. The more the better." She blinks as he moves his hand away; she doesn't blush, though, because the idea Peter finds her attractive? Well, it never entered her head. She's used to Saturday nights actually washing her hair. "I don't know. Maybe you do know him. You seem to know half of New York. He comes to the comic store. His name's Randall."
"He thinks so, but he's had moments where he acts without thinking too. I guess he just thinks I do them more often," Peter says, trying to think on the name a few moments. The name alone doesn't actually ring any bells. "I don't think I know that one. Maybe if I see him I'll recognize him, but he doesn't sound familiar. Still a lucky guy, though." Shifting his hand to lift up his glass, generously moving toward finishing the glass. "I should leave soon. I don't want to leave anyone alone with him for long, even if he's been quiet the last few days."
"I'm sure. But he's still doing much, much better than so many politicians," Kory assures him with a grin. "And thanks again. You're sweet." She kisses Peter's cheek in a sisterly way for the compliment, though she looks disappointed he has to hurry off so quickly. "Don't let me hold you up. But when you have a minute, could you let me know if you ever figured out how come the events under which we met took place?"
"I'm sure Nathan would be happy to hear that. At least most of the city agrees with you, considering they elected him." Despite everything! The kiss on the cheek makes him look vaguely sheepish. Despite saying he needed to leave soon, which he likely does, Peter doesn't stand up right away, and instead listens to her questions, "You mean the shared dream? I— sort of know a little about it. My girlfriend did a little investigating, though I only found out about it much later. A lot happened, with the virus, the escaped criminals… she forgot to mention it. But she thinks there was someone near us who could make our abilities stronger. She thinks that's why we all started losing control when we did, and why the dreams combined, I guess? I don't know who this person was, but obviously the dream had a meaning… Parts of it came true— the escapees, the virus…"
Kory grins at Peter. She was probably too busy immersed in a book or comic and forgot to vote. Hazard of keeping her weird hours. "Yeah, the fact everybody fell over asleep and I was able to dream-link us all!" She shakes her head, still a little astonished even at this remove from the unbelievable event. "Right. The future happened. But …hm." She frowns, thoughtfully. "I met somebody who was there that night. Bumped into him in front of the lair. He seemed …" She smirks, "Awfully eager to believe it was a gas leak that made everybody fall asleep." She looks a bit abashed, but meets Peter's eyes solidly. "I suggested it; people who tend to leap at rationalizations must need them in my experience."
"Gas leak?" Peter asks, frowning a little as he does. And at the same time he remains seated and seems to be trying to recall another guy. All the people he's talked to about the dream all happen to have one thing in common. Not being a guy. "I don't remember any other guys involved in that…" But he'd been distracted by people dying. He'd not have remembered half the people if his girlfriend hadn't listened when people gave names and jobs. "Did you happen to get a name?"
"Yeah. I did." Kory nods, once. "Benjamin. He had a little girl with him. Said he was babysitting." Tone of Kory's voice, though. She isn't a hundred percent certain she believes that. "For friends. I saw him as my brother came to pick me up. Poodle hair. Big puppy dog eyes. Looks like Mr. Harmless."
"Benjamin," Peter repeats the name, suddenly rubbing a hand over his face. All the more reason to get Sylar the hell out of Bat Country if he's back from wherever he went. It certainly seem like he might recognize the name, the description. "He had a little girl with him? How long ago was this?"
"This was that day," Kory tells Peter. "The day all the weird happened. The day we met. I was thinking maybe he is as harmless as he looks… Cam said Micah's mom knows him. And she wouldn't let anyone dangerous near her kid." Peter saw the horror of the dream as clearly as she did. Niki would rather die — literally — than let danger come near Micah. "So maybe I'm just jumping at shadows. But I'd feel better knowing for sure… but if you're asking," she adds, as his question dawns on her, "when I saw him last? Day before yesterday. He came in the Lair and looked around."
"He's not dangerous by himself," Peter says softly, shaking his head a bit. "In fact he's a nice guy," he assures after a moment, though there's some tension in his forehead. And the clarification of 'by himself' might mean something else. "I've met him a few times. Just don't talk about these things around him. Believing it's a gas leak will be best where he's concerned." Little girl. Under Benjamin's care the day that they all met and the dreams happened. That's something to speculate over.
Kory raises an eyebrow at Peter as he phrases that response just so. "By himself?" she asks, tilting her head. "Oh — oh!" She remembers one more thing. "How could I be so stupid?!" She gets up and paces the apartment. "And two nights before that," she says, jabbing a finger toward Peter. "I went to this little …dive" well, that's what it was! "For a bite. And I saw him there, too. He got into a scuffle with a woman I've seen a time or two. She was acting really hostile to him." She wrinkles her nose, thinking. "Spock," she murmurs, and then her eyes fly open wide. She must use the phrase as a mnemonic. "…that woman's little girl was missing over the summer!"
Woman. With a missing child. Confronting Benjamin. One of the few things he remembered after waking up was the Company reaction to the teleporting woman who confronted them, how Mara pulled a gun on her. Other than the attack by Sylar. Little girl with Benjamin. Woman confronting them until she popped away. Peter suddenly has to ask, "Was this woman in the dream too?"
"I …don't remember seeing her," Kory admits. "She probably was there. I remember seeing her in the cafe when I lost my hold on the dream. But I'd seen her before that. She gave me a flyer." She goes to the little table beside her door. "I wonder if I still have it. A number. A picture. The little girl's face." She pulls the drawer out. She glances over her shoulder at Peter. "Any of this ringing bells for you, Peter?" She keeps searching.
"Yeah, actually it is," Peter says softly as he starts to stand finally. Not to help her look for mysterious flyer, but because he's thinking about something. "I 'ran' into a woman. I didn't recognize her from the dream, I was a little preoccupied, but somehow my abilities became part of the topic and I mentioned some of what I could do and she looked rather pale at the mention of dreams that come true. That's when I recognized her from that day."
Kory stops looking in this drawer and puts her hands on top of her head, a gesture of both frustration and trying to think where else she might've tucked it away. "Ah. The plot thickens." she says, and suddenly goes bright eyed. "Prince Trivet!" She dashes to the closet, and begins searching. "I had him the day I got the flyer!"
"Prince Trivet?" Peter asks, moving a little closer to hover as she digs unsuccessfully through drawers. "I was healing her— that's how we got into the conversation on what abilities I had. She'd been involved in one of the villains from the dreams— one of them attacked her. The one that slashed things without touching them."
No luck. The flyer isn't there, either. Kory makes a frustrated noise and sits back on her heels. She thinks, and tries another drawer, this time in the kitchen. "The one who was with the acid hands woman. They killed the magician over the summer," Kory recollects. "They hurt Cam." Which puts a quaver in her voice. She's close to the kid and she couldn't do anything to help him. "What is going on…" she says, though it's uncertain she's talking to herself or to Peter.
"They killed a lot of people in Central Park," Peter says in a soft whisper, following toward the kitchen while she continues to look. "My girlfriend's roommate was one of the ones killed, and a dozen or so more, too." There's a soft tone to his voice before he hesitates at her soft words. "I wish I could tell you all that I know…" But so many people tell him to stop talking about it. "It's okay if you can't find what you're looking for. I might be able to contact the same woman, it just may take a bit longer."
"I remember. AJ was there too. Also hurt. They told me how bad it was." Kory hangs her head, remembering. Her hair falls down to curtain her face. "You could tell me," she says, looking up with a lost expression. "I'm a good listener. People I care about are in danger too. And the Lair is turning into a congregation point. People are coming by, Peter. Looking for comics to teach them how to use their powers. Talk to me or not, but I'm already involved."
The people she cares about are in danger. Peter leans against the nearest wall for a moment, hesitating, and then starts to talk softly. "There're people— who want to keep what we can do a secret, the people like us. It's not for the wrong reasons. One of the many abilities I have took me to the future. Two years into the future. I saw one of the things that would happen if people like us became public knowledge. There's probably a couple things that could happen, but this was one of them. In that future… people like us took control. Of everything. Those who weren't like us were sent to camps. It could go exactly the opposite way, too. Us in camps. Either way— they don't want us becoming public. They'll do anything they can to keep that from happening. Which is why I'm really surprised they didn't stop Isaac's comic book. Guess they figure if it's presented as fiction, people will think it's a hoax if they see something similar."
"That's probably true," Kory says, startled and shaken by Peter's explanation. "People tend to believe what's easiest. Rationalize." She leans against the door to the kitchen. "I know some people who are afraid of being dissected. Some who don't even want the power. I'm just lucky mine is so subtle it's not easily discovered. So …so what do we do, Peter? Aside from keeping quiet and looking out for each other?"
"What I'm most worried about is… people like us losing control of what they do," Peter explains softly, not wanting to give too much more on those 'people'. It makes sense they'd exist. And he'd have to see if they were included in the comic at all, but he has a feeling they would have been mentioned at least. "Last year it was a bomb… In the future I went to, it was a tornado. A series of them. And more, a whole war between people like us. But the tornado and the bomb— both of them were caused by people who didn't understand the abilities they had." One of the just happened to be him. "I think what's most important, besides laying low and protecting each other… would be teaching each other how to control what we're capable of."
"Yes!" Kory gets the rest of the way up. "That's what I was asking Cass about. Cam wants to learn to use his ability!" She is excited, but she also trusts Peter completely, that much is obvious, even if he isn't using some power to determine how she's thinking. "So we kind of lie low together, then. I'm just …people are starting to look to the Lair as the go-to spot. What happens if the people we're hiding from catch on?"
"That's the problem. I wouldn't be so sure they haven't already caught on," Peter says, shaking his head. "They know about me— no question about that. I've done my best to keep everyone else out of it, but it's really only a matter of time. They have measures they can take…" He shakes his head a bit. "It's really better if I not explain too much on this. I want to, but…" He doesn't think it's safe. "This is why I wanted to dream-conference. It's safer to exchange information that way." He pauses a moment, "We can probably help Cam with his ability, at least enough that he can figure the rest out on his own."
Kory nods, understanding. "Okay. I get it. And yeah, dream-conferencing is probably safer. You're right. I can teach it to you once I get the hang of it myself." Just having the conversation has done her nerves a world of good, though. "Thanks for what you could say. I don't feel as clueless. I know in a lot of ways, I probably still am. But I don't feel it."
"Sometimes I wish I didn't know half the stuff I know," Peter admits softly, that tug of a smile pulling on the corner of his mouth. "It either leaves me double guessing everything…" Like even Sylar's confessions. "Or I find myself in situations where I can't do anything to help. But I do think knowing things does help. Some of the questions I'll be asking Sylar while we're dreaming with him will probably fill in some blanks for you too."
"The important thing is helping him, if he can be helped," Kory says, seriously. She's still irked she can't find the flyer, but she's given up tearing up the apartment for it now. "I guess the important thing is helping in any way we can — same as if we were regular people," she says thoughtfully. "That's how my folks raised me." She sets her jaw. "So — when're we doing this?"
"We'll do it once I get all the locks and cameras in place, and as soon as I talk to the person who…" Peter trails off, hesitating a moment. He knows she probably knows the woman, the… largely muscled woman… but he hesitates revealing anyone's ability if he can help it. "The person who can stop abilities. It'll probably be a couple of days at least. I can call you once it's all ready."
"I'll be waiting," Kory tells him. "And you know you don't have to wait to call when there's a crisis. You're a friend. You can just come over with a DVD. Or we can order a pizza. Focusing your whole life on saving the world? Can't be healthy." With these sage words, she offers him an affectionate hug. "Promise you won't be a stranger, huh?"
"If things ever slow down enough to allow that, sure," Peter says, returning the hug with that same hint of a smile. "I'll probably bring Elena if I can— I don't think they two of you have really gotten the chance to meet outside of that dream, and I know you'd like each other." They both have similar sage advice at times. "I better head out. You be safe. And… I'll see if I can get ahold of the woman I healed— see if that might be the same one you remember confronting Benjamin too." So much to do… Teaching Cam. Fixing Sylar. Finding out about this little girl…
So much to do indeed. "I will. You stay safe too," Kory says gently as he heads out. "See you soon."