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watchmakers_sonIt takes a while, after that.
Quite a long while.
It's less a matter of riding out the pain, all-encompassing as it is, than of staying awake: struggling against the black haze that fuzzes the room as the floor heaves and the agony, white-hot, burns through his stomach. He has to spit out a final mouthful of blood (though there is far less of it by now, pinkish instead of dark red) before he can sit up, hands pressed gingerly to the fresh sutures. The gauze underneath his shirt feels stiff and matted; the room whirls again as soon as he's upright before it finally settles into a grudging, tenuous steadiness. It feels like standing on quicksand. One misstep, and he'll stumble back into vertigo.
Sylar can move, but not very fast, and he's running out of time.
The doctor's long gone. He glances to the scene he painted of Ted Sprague, hands aglow and an orangish flame-like blob spiraling upward behind him. A sculpture, maybe; Sylar thinks he vaguely knows the shape. If he squints and leans his head to the left, just a little, it almost looks like the twisting double staircase in Kirby Plaza further downtown.
It's a start.
He pushes himself to his feet, and, bloodied hands dragging along the rail for support, stumbles to the front door.
Walking doesn't help -- each step means he needs more air, and each breath means both the stitches and the sword wound skew -- but Sylar keeps his fists tight and his steps careful, and he doesn't make a sound.
He finds the sculpture first, Ted Sprague second. More than that: Ted Sprague, Mr. Bennet, Claire, Parkman -- the cop who'd shot him in Los Angeles -- and Peter Petrelli, still alive despite the precautions Sylar had taken to ensure he'd stay dead. Sylar grits his teeth harder as he waits, listening in on their conversation. It takes several, forcible reminders to himself that he is only here to deal with one of those five.
For now.
Slowly, though, it becomes easier to maintain his focus as he gleans more information. They speak about it as openly as if they're discussing the traffic; there's no challenge as he blends in and out of the crowds from sixteen paces behind. The FBI's got my face all over wanted posters, Ted snaps, harsh and nervy.
Sylar smiles, slowing to a halt. I can use that.
He places the call to the NYPD hotline five minutes later.
Audrey Hanson isn't as clever as he once thought her to be. They've been away from each other for much too long; it's made her lose her touch.
He's rather disappointed by that.
"Mendez," he says to her as the FBI wrestles Sprague into a familiar black truck for transport. It's accompanied by the same guileless smile he gave Sam Winchester. "Isaac Mendez."
Across the country, over the Chicago rails, through the hallways of the LAPD -- and now Audrey, not knowing how close she stands to the man who forced her own gun to her head, can't do anything but return the smile and offer her thanks before Sylar slips away.
The armored truck, at his best guess, must weigh ten or fifteen tons. He intercepts it five minutes into its trip to Guantanamo Bay: with an eyeblink and a twitch of his fingers, it flips upside down, crashing end over end as if it were made of Styrofoam.
Sprague's trussed up in his own bonds like an animal when Sylar slows the wreck to a stop and opens its doors with a casual flick of his wrist. "I'm hurt!" he screams, bucking against the restraints. "I think it's bad!"
Carefully -- though not quite carefully enough; the movement's too stiff and slow, halting halfway through with a quickly concealed grimace before he can resume again -- Sylar crouches down in front of Ted. He can already feel the heat radiating out in slow waves, each undulation matching the accelerating tick, tick, tick that thuds in his ears like the pulse of blood.
"Here," he whispers as he points at Sprague's forehead. "Let me help."
On the roof of the building, he cannot see the way the lights flicker throughout the apartments beneath him as electromagnetic pulses chop the steady flow of energy into uneven, jagged waves.
He doesn't feel the cold (and it is November 8th, late evening, in the northeastern United States; snow flurries have made appearances at this point in the year before).
It's so warm. Sylar opens and closes each hand, half expecting them to burn, nearly tensed as he waits for the pain to start. But there's nothing: nothing except the light, the rush of heat up each arm and through his fingers. He can feel it thrumming everywhere, just under his skin. Energy. Potential.
And he knows now that when the city burns, he will not crumble away with it.
Head bowed in concentration, he opens his hands. The nuclear blasts rumble in both palms, flaring to a blind-bright yellow and orange.
Sylar looks out over the New York skyline and smiles as he whispers one word.
"Boom."
Quite a long while.
It's less a matter of riding out the pain, all-encompassing as it is, than of staying awake: struggling against the black haze that fuzzes the room as the floor heaves and the agony, white-hot, burns through his stomach. He has to spit out a final mouthful of blood (though there is far less of it by now, pinkish instead of dark red) before he can sit up, hands pressed gingerly to the fresh sutures. The gauze underneath his shirt feels stiff and matted; the room whirls again as soon as he's upright before it finally settles into a grudging, tenuous steadiness. It feels like standing on quicksand. One misstep, and he'll stumble back into vertigo.
Sylar can move, but not very fast, and he's running out of time.
The doctor's long gone. He glances to the scene he painted of Ted Sprague, hands aglow and an orangish flame-like blob spiraling upward behind him. A sculpture, maybe; Sylar thinks he vaguely knows the shape. If he squints and leans his head to the left, just a little, it almost looks like the twisting double staircase in Kirby Plaza further downtown.
It's a start.
He pushes himself to his feet, and, bloodied hands dragging along the rail for support, stumbles to the front door.
Walking doesn't help -- each step means he needs more air, and each breath means both the stitches and the sword wound skew -- but Sylar keeps his fists tight and his steps careful, and he doesn't make a sound.
He finds the sculpture first, Ted Sprague second. More than that: Ted Sprague, Mr. Bennet, Claire, Parkman -- the cop who'd shot him in Los Angeles -- and Peter Petrelli, still alive despite the precautions Sylar had taken to ensure he'd stay dead. Sylar grits his teeth harder as he waits, listening in on their conversation. It takes several, forcible reminders to himself that he is only here to deal with one of those five.
For now.
Slowly, though, it becomes easier to maintain his focus as he gleans more information. They speak about it as openly as if they're discussing the traffic; there's no challenge as he blends in and out of the crowds from sixteen paces behind. The FBI's got my face all over wanted posters, Ted snaps, harsh and nervy.
Sylar smiles, slowing to a halt. I can use that.
He places the call to the NYPD hotline five minutes later.
Audrey Hanson isn't as clever as he once thought her to be. They've been away from each other for much too long; it's made her lose her touch.
He's rather disappointed by that.
"Mendez," he says to her as the FBI wrestles Sprague into a familiar black truck for transport. It's accompanied by the same guileless smile he gave Sam Winchester. "Isaac Mendez."
Across the country, over the Chicago rails, through the hallways of the LAPD -- and now Audrey, not knowing how close she stands to the man who forced her own gun to her head, can't do anything but return the smile and offer her thanks before Sylar slips away.
The armored truck, at his best guess, must weigh ten or fifteen tons. He intercepts it five minutes into its trip to Guantanamo Bay: with an eyeblink and a twitch of his fingers, it flips upside down, crashing end over end as if it were made of Styrofoam.
Sprague's trussed up in his own bonds like an animal when Sylar slows the wreck to a stop and opens its doors with a casual flick of his wrist. "I'm hurt!" he screams, bucking against the restraints. "I think it's bad!"
Carefully -- though not quite carefully enough; the movement's too stiff and slow, halting halfway through with a quickly concealed grimace before he can resume again -- Sylar crouches down in front of Ted. He can already feel the heat radiating out in slow waves, each undulation matching the accelerating tick, tick, tick that thuds in his ears like the pulse of blood.
"Here," he whispers as he points at Sprague's forehead. "Let me help."
On the roof of the building, he cannot see the way the lights flicker throughout the apartments beneath him as electromagnetic pulses chop the steady flow of energy into uneven, jagged waves.
He doesn't feel the cold (and it is November 8th, late evening, in the northeastern United States; snow flurries have made appearances at this point in the year before).
It's so warm. Sylar opens and closes each hand, half expecting them to burn, nearly tensed as he waits for the pain to start. But there's nothing: nothing except the light, the rush of heat up each arm and through his fingers. He can feel it thrumming everywhere, just under his skin. Energy. Potential.
And he knows now that when the city burns, he will not crumble away with it.
Head bowed in concentration, he opens his hands. The nuclear blasts rumble in both palms, flaring to a blind-bright yellow and orange.
Sylar looks out over the New York skyline and smiles as he whispers one word.
"Boom."
