ellectrical (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ellectrical) wrote2010-03-20 11:08 pm
ellectrical) wrote2010-03-20 11:08 pm
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June 2007, Three Weeks
After three weeks, everything had finally come into place. It had rained until late into the previous night, but the sky was clear by morning, and Elle had packed her bag (a large black purse) with what she'd borrowed from X, her map, her gun, even another plastic bag of Girl Scout cookies, before locking the door to her room and heading out to the street.
She gets an early start, making her way to the alley a couple hours before she thinks he'll show up. After double-checking that the employees of the club have really cleared out, Elle checks her surroundings, then moves to the double doors, and sets her purse down on the wet pavement.
About ten minutes later, with the aid of a torsion wrench and bump key, the padlock on the door has slid open. She leaves it hanging on the chain, puts her tools back into her purse, and moves away.
There's a space on the other side of the alley - it gives her cover in the form of the hair salon's dumpster and is kept dry by a short, striped awning that juts out from the wall, over the dumpster and the door on the other side. Elle positions herself, and waits.
Patience is not one of her virtues.
But sometimes, when she wants something bad enough, it doesn't really matter.
She gets an early start, making her way to the alley a couple hours before she thinks he'll show up. After double-checking that the employees of the club have really cleared out, Elle checks her surroundings, then moves to the double doors, and sets her purse down on the wet pavement.
About ten minutes later, with the aid of a torsion wrench and bump key, the padlock on the door has slid open. She leaves it hanging on the chain, puts her tools back into her purse, and moves away.
There's a space on the other side of the alley - it gives her cover in the form of the hair salon's dumpster and is kept dry by a short, striped awning that juts out from the wall, over the dumpster and the door on the other side. Elle positions herself, and waits.
Patience is not one of her virtues.
But sometimes, when she wants something bad enough, it doesn't really matter.
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But once he's been shoved somewhat upright into the chair, Elle walks away and calls after him, "You can take his coat off."
In the meantime, Elle drops her own bag to the floor, and starts to set up a small, plastic table just more than an arm's width away from the chair.
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Jamie sighs and starts dragging the coat off, taking the opportunity to search the pockets while he's at it. He comes up with a handful of ancient half-wrapped candy, some spare change, a crumpled five-dollar bill, and a tube of lipstick from one; bicycle keys, three different house keys, a set of ID cards on a ring, the wrapper off a cheap sandwich, an empty neon-green wallet, an empty brown leather wallet, and a pocketknife in the other.
"Thief?" he hazards, talking to himself as much as Elle. "Drifter?"
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At the flash of metal in Jamie's hand - "Give me the knife."
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He's starting to look significantly less than happy about this.
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Almost immediately, her shoulders relax, and she moves back to the table.
Her tone is much more calm, and less demanding, when she tells Jamie, "You should probably stand over here."
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If it's torture, he's thinking, he'll - not interfere. Elle has her reasons for what she does, and it's no business of his. But he's not going to stay and watch if he doesn't have to.
For now, though, he's more curious than wary.
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She twists the cap off the water, and in a very quick movement, steps close enough to the man to pour some of it over his head before stepping back again. It's the best she has, but it works - the man finally stirs, and coughs loudly, pressing his free hand against his scruffy beard and then, almost on cue, fading entirely from view. Even the handcuffs disappear.
Elle continues to step back toward the table, closing the bottle of water again. "I don't need to see you, Claude, I know you're not getting out of that."
The silence that follows lasts for several minutes. Elle returns the bottle to her bag, and leans back against the table, watching the apparently now empty chair.
Then, there's the unmistakable rattle of the handcuffs being pulled against the pipe. The pipe is sturdy enough that there's no movement at all, just the noise his ability can't hide.
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"Handy," says Jamie, blinking.
(At least that explains the mysteriously moving newspapers in the alley.)
All right; so this is another one of Elle's mutants, superpowered people, whatever you want to call them. Someone else from that place she workied for, maybe? He feels like he hasn't got quite enough pieces to put two and two together and make four out of yet. Maybe three and a half.
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She checks her watch again. "- five and a half hours. And I'm gonna get bored way before then."
At last, the sound dissipates. It's still a moment before the man melts back into view. He glances around the room once, his eyes lingering longer on the boxes and crates than the stairway, and then back to Elle. There's a slightly panicked edge to his movements, but mostly, he just looked agitated.
"I really didn't think Bishop would send his psychotic brat after me here."
Looking to Jamie - "Who's your friend?"
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"I'm just a bystander. Well -" He glances at Elle. "Accomplice now, I reckon. But this is between you and the lady."
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Turning her attention back to Claude, "And I don't work for the Company anymore."
A disbelieving grin actually breaks out over Claude's face, and he laughs, even if he tugs yet again at the handcuffs binding him to the wall.
"No, Princess, you'd never leave if -"
And then he cuts it off. It's not as though her father's death was really anything that remote. Claude's grin doesn't fade, but he leans back into the chair.
"What got him, then?"
Elle sneaks one glance at Jamie, though there's no apparent reason for it - she looks back to Claude, and steps forward. She's still out of his reach were he to stand, but it's a much closer thing. Elle lifts her hand, and for a moment, lifts her bangs out of her face.
It seems to take the man a moment to piece together what this is supposed to mean - Elle isn't even sure he knows who Sylar is, though since he ran into Peter, it seemed like he'd have some idea - and sure enough, Claude's somewhat searching expression disappears. He's not grinning, though the look could hardly be called concerned, and Elle presses her hair down over her her forehead once more.
"Then what do you want?"
Again, Elle glances back to Jamie.
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If she's worried about asking her questions in front of him . . . well, she didn't seem to mind that much that time with her laptop. This can't be all that much more sensitive.
He can even try and look vaguely threatening at Claude, if she likes. Though given Jamie's unimpressive size, slight build, and pimples, it might take something of an effort.
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She turns back to Claude, and dares yet another step toward him. Her eyes are on the floor, though not far enough that she can't still see his mud-splattered sneakers.
"I - know what my Dad did."
(Please. I don't have anyone else to talk to.)
"But I don't remember and -"
Her voice even trembles, a little. "Please. I want to know what happened."
Claude blinks at her, and then over her, to Jamie.
"Don't be impressed. That's all bullshit."
It's not all bullshit, but when Elle lifts her head, she does look a lot less distressed than she'd sounded.
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"Like I said, I'm mostly a bystander, but I am on her side here and all."
Anyway, it's not like Jamie's doesn't have more than enough practice bullshitting that sort of thing himself; he's in no position to judge.
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"Claude -"
"That's not where I worked, I don't know," he interrupts, loudly, sounding more aggravated for the first time. "You can go find someone else. Who the hell told you, anyway?"
She folds her arms. "The guy who shot you in the chest."
Claude chuckles at the mention of Bennet, but it's mirthless and short lived. Elle takes yet another step.
"So you just never saw me? Didn't know anything?"
"I did what I was told until I didn't and I was shot." Claude tugs again at the handcuffs, but doesn't make any movement toward her. "All right?"
Elle stays still, not taking her eyes off him. It was all probably true.
But it also wasn't what she asked. She turns back, walking past Jamie to the table. Again, she shuffles through her purse.
This time, she pulls out a gun.
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Seeing Elle shoot a fellow was not top of his list of things to do today, it's true, but he doesn't want to give much sign of that now. The last thing he wants is for the man - Rains? - to start trying to appeal to his conscience or something. It'd just be awkward for all parties concerned.
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Claude doesn't look or sound very concerned when Elle turns back with the gun in her hand. "That's it?"
It wouldn't be true to say that's all she wanted to do, but he was still ex-Company. He had the same training any of them did. You could try. It would be a waste of time, and she's wasted enough time here if that's it.
Elle lifts the gun, and Claude once again melts away from view. She doesn't put the gun down.
"I think being dead's a lot worse than playing dead," she calls out to the room. There's no sound, no sudden, unexplained movement. But Elle lifts her left hand, and fires a bright blue arc across the room. At first, it seems to be aimed at nothing - but it smashes into the slender pipe she'd chosen, crackling over the metal and onto the cuff clinging to it. Once again the light spreads over the briefly invisible figure, and Claude tumbles back into view has cries out and falls forward from the chair. Elle adjusts her aim with her gun.
"I won't do that again."
There's a pause, but rather than disappearing, Claude lifts his hand.
"Fine, I have -"
He pulls himself up, with some difficulty, and even moves back toward the chair.
"One time - but that's all."
It's enough for Elle to lower the gun.
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He stands with his arms folded off to one side, and his expression a reasonably practiced blank. It makes him look, for once, older than his physical years.
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"It was ages, years before I -"
He sighs, and looks back up to her. "Bennet and I had this job in Boston, a precog or something, and they wanted her in - your place was closest, we had to stick around for the paperwork, but I told him to go back to Texas -"
Her shoulders stiffen, for a moment. She knows exactly why Claude would have encouraged Bennet to go home. He was the one with a family. I didn't want her to become you. But Elle doesn't move any more than that, and Claude continues -
"I was upstairs, there was a TV on - probably why I didn't hear it all - but the door opened and I didn't look up until no one said anything -"
He shakes his head. "You must've thought you were hiding, but you weren't good at it - you just sat on the floor and watched the door. And you were - how you were, then -" He gestures slightly with his free hand, like Elle should know what he means. "Like the others they put there.
"And of course, they found you, and you probably set a couple of them on fire, but one of them slammed your head on the floor and that was it."
His tone is nearly matter-of-fact throughout it, though there's a thread of something like doubt or regret beneath it. He looks away from her for the first time as he says, "You - I don't know, maybe -"
"Twelve," she interrupts, her own gaze falling to the ground. It gets a curious look from him, but Elle doesn't explain herself - she just looks up again, and mumbles, sounding like she means it, "Thank you."
And then, she fires another bright white bolt of electricity at him. Claude doesn't yell again, but slumps over once more.
Elle moves forward, checks over him once, and then pulls a small key from her front pocket, which she uses to unlock the handcuffs.
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"So, ah - we're done?"
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She shifts the handgun and cuffs to her left hand, and uses her right to take the knife out of her back pocket, and lay it on the floor next to his coat.
Elle returns to the table to put her things back in her bag, and tells him, with the same stilted cheer she had before, "But I want to leave before he wakes up and stabs us."
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"I'm well in favor of that," he says instead, already moving towards the door - then, remembering his groceries, doubles back over to the chair and grabs up the bag, keeping a wary eye on the unconscious man all the while.
"Have you got a place around here? We can go back to mine if you want."
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Elle doesn't look up from zipping her bag as she says it. It sounds like a sudden, offhand decision.
But it's not.
As she pulls the bag back over her shoulder, Elle offers, "I'll buy you food."
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"All right," he says, brightening. "Must be lunchtime by now."
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They leave the same way they came - Elle makes them stop in the alley so she can pull the chain around the doors and put the padlock back in place. She's mildly hoping Claude won't make a mess when he wakes up. Either way, he'll probably be out of the city by night. Like she should be.
But Elle doesn't say any of that to Jamie. They step out from the alley into the street, now a little busier in the early afternoon, and head for the nearest underground entrance.