Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Chapter Six
Aug. 16th, 2017 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
st_aurafinaTitle: Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Chapter Six
Rating Teen
2011
It happened when John was trying to choke the man, this annoying, buttoned-up psychopath who had used his money and influence to kidnap John and set up his kinky little game with murder tapes and zip ties. John moved faster than this Finch could focus, got his forearm jammed under the guy's chin and lifted hard, got his feet a few inches off the ground. He paused when he heard bones creaking in a way that was not right. In that moment his bare wrist made contact with the skin of Finch's throat and the room fell silent.
He let Finch slide down so his feet were on the ground but still held him in place against the wall. John's rage was fading, despite the fresh blood dripping from his palm, despite the ground-glass pain in his chest from hearing Jessica's name. 'Your friend,' Finch had said, that patronising, slick term rich people used when they meant 'person we'd rather not acknowledge you're having sex with'.
The silence in his head was a relief, as it had been the first time he met Mark, but without the claustrophobic pressure that Mark always induced in him. John's rage folded in on itself like a paper boat, smaller and smaller until it dissipated, and even then he didn't realise that this was coming from Finch. His breath levelled out and the perspiration chilled on his skin, and all the while, this man let John press an arm against his throat without panic, kept eye contact with him, worried about him.
John let him go, and reeled, falling into a chair, his hand palm up on his knee. He watched the blood welling from the slash, trying to understand what was happening. The pain kept demanding attention, and he kept ignoring it.
Finch, loosening his collar and straightening his tie, glanced over John's shoulder at the wound and made a tch with his tongue, then went to the bathroom for towels.
"Here," he said, offering him a hand towel that was bigger and more plush than the one John been using in the shower at the flophouse. "Keep the pressure on it; it doesn't appear too deep." He was, John noted, careful to prevent skin contact this time, and now John understood why.
"You're a Guide," John said. He flopped back in the chair, his fist closed around the towel. This should be where his survival instincts kicked in, where he ran from this room and this man, back to the street and the subway and the bottle. Instead, he felt a great fatigue and hopelessness.
Finch sat opposite him, slowly and with a rigid back that spoke of old injuries. "I had hoped we'd have a bit more time to get to know each other before this came up, but yes. I realised some time ago that I had the potential, and now, apparently, more than just potential."
John eyed him. There was nothing military about this man. He was not a killer; he certainly wasn't physically capable of working missions. "You're not government," he said, finally.
"No, I am not," said Finch with a grim expression.
"Cascade?" said John, experimentally, to see if it garnered a response. "Part of the research unit?" He got nothing. Everything about Finch was restrained. John could usually tell just from skin chemistry when someone was afraid or over-confident or trying to conceal their reactions. Finch was oddly blank to him. Even Mark, with all his barriers raised, could still be read a little.
Finch shook his head in response to John's questions. "I know what Project Cascade entails, and no, I'm not involved." He thought for a moment, and this time there were emotional cues to track, except that instead of directly reading the man, John had the feeling he had been permitted to peek inside the window of a great clockwork engine.
"I suppose you could say I was a concerned third party," Finch said. Then he smiled, clearly pleased with the phrasing, though John couldn't tell why. "I'd like to work with you, if you would be interested."
John eyed him warily. "What kind of work?" he said. There was no chance he was tying himself to a Guide again. He'd throw himself off a bridge before he became someone else's attack dog.
"As I explained previously, Mr Reese, I receive intelligence about people in trouble. People the government would deem irrelevant." He stood, took a few deliberate, rocking steps across the room. John heard again the pull and slide of tendons moving over misplaced bone, and this time, he was sure Finch was letting him pick up on the amount of pain he felt in movement. "Unfortunately, I lack the physical capability to act on that knowledge."
In the end, John took him up on the offer, if only because it was dangerous, and he seemed to have less to lose than Finch did. Though he promised himself that night, bandaging his hand in the flophouse, that if Finch tried to impose himself as John's Guide, if he stepped one foot over that line, John would walk. That walk would probably take him to the nearest bridge and over the edge, but that was something he would face when the time came.
The time never came: Finch was scrupulous in corralling his abilities, respected John's stated boundaries, and apart from commenting on the extent of John's occasional injuries and whether they could have been prevented, or his preference for avoiding lethal violence, he allowed John to carry out missions any way he preferred.
As it happened, the irrelevant numbers were diverting and surprisingly challenging, considering the nature of their opponents. Operating without a Guide wasn't easy, but it was better than he expected, though John doubted it made him a very nice person to be around. It hadn't with the CIA on the few occasions he'd had to go without a Guide before, when a mission went awry and separated him from Mark. He and Kara learned some tricks to get through: booze, sex, pain or working out. Now that he was active again, he'd given the bottle away, and, sweating old booze from his pores, he'd never felt less like sex. Pain was a good option in a pinch: he constantly carried a few bruises and cuts from a sharp pinch or a quick slash with his knife. Exercise was best, though. He'd lost a lot of condition living rough, and getting himself back to an operational level essentially took care of any sensory overload. Add to that the fact that things were always a little easier in New York, and he managed well enough in the first week, and better in each week that passed.
The other thing that helped, unexpectedly, was stalking Finch around the city. Maybe it was the challenge of it. John had only had one Guide before, but in comparison to Mark, Finch had a frightening level of control over the emotions he allowed John to detect. He never once made any offer of Cascade-type support, even on the mornings when John showed up haggard after a night of willing his own mind into quiet without the anaesthetic of booze.
A Guide would have offset all this, but the cost was too much for John to consider. Still, the lack of sleep, the early mornings, and the gradual detoxing from months of solid drinking left him with a short fuse. He never knew if his overloaded senses troubled Finch, or if he experienced any discomfort when John had to pace or disappear deeper into the library to prowl in the dark and the quiet, because Finch was virtually unreadable. John had never got much from Mark - presumably being a Guide made it easier to mask your emotional and physical responses - but Finch was somehow able to turn this on and off at will. Or stranger still, bring the strength of it up and down like volume. John had never seen anything like it.
Still, it did explain the eerie way Finch could just disappear from John's extended senses in the time it took John to round a corner. John didn't know why this was so fascinating to him, or what he hoped to achieve by tracking Finch to the place where he slept, apart from sending a message to someone who technically had power over John's mind. He had no idea what would happen should he actually manage to find Finch's home, but the chase kept him occupied between numbers. It was good to have a hobby, he reasoned. When things got too much and he overloaded, having something he enjoyed kept him away from the bottle.
Eventually, when they'd worked seven or eight numbers together, John found Finch waiting for him at the top of the subway entrance John knew he most regularly used. John stared; Finch wore chinos and a pale tweedy sports jacket. Granted, they were well-pressed chinos, and the jacket was certainly expensive, but still, it was a level of dressed down that John couldn't imagine Finch embracing.
"Something bothering you, Mr Reese?" Finch asked. He carried a battered messenger bag on his shoulder. Under the jacket he wore a t-shirt. John was surprised that Finch even owned a t-shirt, or indeed, anything in stretch fabric, but on top of that, this t-shirt was orange. Faded orange.
Finch followed his gaze to the soft collar of the t-shirt, which was faded and frayed. It didn't scream 'authentically faked vintage' so much as 'I've owned this for thirty years and it still fits.'
"It's my lucky t-shirt," he said, with no further explanation. "About this stalking situation: do you think we've established our relative abilities to a degree of satisfaction? It does seem like a needless expenditure of energy, constantly chasing me around the city." His voice was all John had to judge his mood, a kind of sense-blindness he could only barely remember from before Project Cascade. This, and Finch's choice of clothing left John itching with curiosity. It was weirdly exhilarating.
"Well, you would say that, if I were getting close to catching you," said John. He felt oddly effervescent, leaning against the rail in the mild spring sunshine. He'd slept well, all things Cascade considered, and when he ran in the park this morning, his body had responded, strong and capable. And now, Finch had presented him with a mystery.
Finch's expression was sceptical, but amused. "I am sorry to shatter your expectations about my place of residence, but I've made reservations here," he said, indicating a restaurant a little further down the block. "Though I do promise that should you come knocking on my door some late night, I'll certainly welcome the company. For now, would you like to have lunch? We have a new number to discuss."
It was as they both walked towards the restaurant that John realised what he had been doing with Finch, why he felt buoyant and ridiculous. Somehow in the last few weeks, his plan to track Finch and hold knowledge over him like a weapon had transmuted into a game. He'd been playing with Finch, and Finch, eternally polite, played along. And just then, John was fairly sure, Finch had both made a gentle pass at him and told John he was single all in the same sentence.
The maître d' recognised Finch as Mr Crane, despite the chinos. His state of dress was obviously no issue, as they were seated with the quiet efficiency shown only to extremely wealthy patrons.
Over an elegant lunch of many small courses, Finch passed John documents and photographs, explained the new number and talked about potential threats to and by the man in question. John took each sheet of paper, nodded and agreed, but instead he was watching Finch's body language: his posture, the way he ate, the little movements of his mouth and eyebrows. Flirting and sex, physical intimacy, all those things were driven by pheromones and John was suddenly learning that he'd come to rely on Sentinel abilities to manage them. Finch, if he experienced those things at all, kept them supressed or hidden from John. John wasn't sure if he wanted to know, but the fact that the knowledge was being kept from him was frustrating. He watched Finch's hands moving papers as he spoke, and he wondered why his mind was wandering like this.
"This tournament is likely to have media coverage, though it will mostly be press or online. There's occasionally a big network present at the finals for the novelty value, but hopefully we'll have this number completely resolved before then. Mr Reese?" Finch tapped his finger on the linen tablecloth to catch John's attention. "Are you all right? Have you… gone somewhere else? I believe the term you use is 'zoned'?"
John blinked and shook his head. "No, I'm fine," he said, and tried to catch up on the conversation. "I'm going to a tournament? Tennis? Golf?" His face fell when Finch shook his head. "Chess?" He hoped not. It wasn't his game.
"Tetris," said Finch. "Our number was last year's national champion. And you won't be playing, unless there are some significant gaps in your CIA file that you've neglected to fill me in on."
"What's my cover, then?" John was confused. They had tournaments for video games? What was John supposed to do at one of those?
Finch undid his jacket, so that John could see his t-shirt. The faded Atari logo was still visible, though the printing was now cracked and mazed. "You'll be my bodyguard," he said. "I assure you, you won't stand out at all. The tournaments are quite blood-thirsty."
"I thought you were a very private person," said John, baffled. "Won't this expose you?"
"Harold Drake is a reputable contestant in national titles," said Finch. He pulled a pair of aviator glasses from his pocket, foiled with orange, to match the t-shirt. "He's known to be publicity shy and often skips the presentations, but he's won three years out ten."
John's grin could not be contained. He was going to enjoy saving this number.
2013
The journey to John's friend was only a couple of blocks, but without a Guide or suppressants, for Shaw it was a rattling experience. A steampipe under the sidewalk hissed noisily to itself, slowly forcing a crack wider. John spared it no more than a glance and a text on his phone, and he swept on. He dealt easily with the blaring taxis, the milling pigeons (Shaw knew which ones crawled with lice, and which had been improbably used to transport drugs), and muttering crowds. An ambulance screamed past on the other side of the road, and the power of the sound pushed viscerally at Shaw's body, until John turned to stand in the way of the soundwaves, blocking and breaking their movement with his back until it passed them both in a falling wail of Doppler shift.
"How are you doing this without losing your mind?" she said, under her breath, knowing he would hear. She stared at him; the stark black and white of his suit and shirt were an oasis amidst the flashing lights.
For a second, John's smile was unexpectedly open, then he tapped his earpiece. "My other half," he said. "Come on."
By the time they reached their destination, John had helped Shaw navigate a world only she and he could sense: he crossed the street to avoid an elite hair salon that pumped music so loud it existed on the visual spectrum, quivering beams of neon light. Then he stopped still at a corner and shook his head before grabbing a hotdog vendor by the collar and physically shaking him.
"I told you not to buy from those crooks – dump this and go home now before the city closes you down. Or you kill someone."
Shaw wrinkled her nose at the river water tang coming off those hot dogs and ran a little faster to keep up with John's long stride. "What are you? Like, the hot dog police?"
He smiled, a nasty smile this time, one that Shaw could get on board with. "I am for that guy," he said. "Come on, this way."
The building that he brought her to was unexceptional: clean enough, partially under construction, and reasonably empty. They went up in the elevator, which, to Shaw's senses was incredibly clean. Beside her, John's breathing had settled completely, and his shoulders were relaxed. His calm body language passed instinctively to her, which irked her enough to reach out to poke him, but then the elevator jerked to a halt.
The doors opened, and Shaw stepped into stillness so complete, her senses were left ringing with the bluster of the city. The room was dim, and looked down on a cityscape that no longer threatened to overwhelm her.
The source of the stillness was obvious, because all of the emotional movement in the room was between him and John, like two pebbles thrown in a stream. Shaw walked through the ripples as the connection between the two men mingled and bounced back. It was like nothing Shaw had ever seen, not the whole time she had been in Project Cascade.
The man by the window was well-dressed and owlish, and from him emanated a impenetrable, organic calm, creating quiet the way a wooden floor absorbed sound or fog softened the strength of colours. He turned from the cityscape to watch her as she approached.
"Ms Shaw," the man said. He honest-to-God steepled his fingers, like a damn mad scientist or something, and that wasn't even the weirdest thing about him. "You can call me Harold. Is this level of protection adequate for you? To go any deeper, I'd have to intrude a little, and I think that's something we'd both rather avoid, at least until we're more familiar."
"It's fine," said Shaw, though she was desperately curious to know more about how he could control the degree of suppression. Cole had one level and that was it: an on and off switch, and while that worked fine, knowing there might have been a way to have finer control, to sense the things she wanted to know without being overwhelmed by the background stuff, was… she wanted to say frustrating, but she meant heartbreaking.
She got nothing from Harold: no scent trace, no mnemonic triggers, no sense of what he ate for breakfast, who he kissed. She only knew he had a dog because she saw some hairs on the leg of his trousers. Same dog as John, she'd be willing to bet, though she had no sensory data to back this up.
"You're his Guide," she said, though it didn't need to be stated; the connection between them was so intense she was surprised she couldn't see it physically. "How is your bond so strong?" This is something Cole would have loved, she thought, with a bitter pang.
"Ah," he said. "Well, it's something we learned along the way, I suppose. Project Cascade doesn't exactly encourage the strongest of bonds. I believe that there has always been this potential link between those who are super processors, such as myself and your friend, Mr Cole, and those who are hyper-sensory, like you and John. I think when those relationships are left to grow naturally, not tampered with or forced, that the bonds that we form are healthier. And by extension, stronger."
"Who are you? You sure know a lot about Project Cascade, for someone who supposedly isn't part of it." Shaw wondered if he was an early instructor, someone who managed to leave the project without the usual retirement package.
Harold's expression was more readable now: a little wry, a little regretful. "I had a project of my own that, for a short time, was on an path aligned with Cascade. Not a project with human subjects," he added quickly. "Something quite different. I didn't realise at the time that I had the abilities of a Guide. That came later. Although, I do wonder if the way our projects intersected was in some way influenced by my abilities."
At the elevator, John was leaning a little forward, and Shaw had the impression that this was news to him, too. You'll be talking about this later, she thought.
"Are there many of you out there? Untrained Guides, I mean? Because I've already come across one today, and yeah, she was enough trouble all by herself."
Surprised, Harold met John's gaze over her shoulder, his eyebrows raised.
"Root," John said. "She posed as Veronica Sinclair."
Harold's voice went up half an octave. "Root? Miss Groves is a Guide? That is… That is unacceptable!" However his ability worked to create quiet in the mind of a Sentinel, emotional shock cracked a hole in it. Shaw started to feel the city press in on her senses: a siren wailed past, the ever-present garbage smell wafted up on a cloud of steam. All the while, Harold's expression of horror was almost comical.
Shaw would have laughed at his outrage, if she wasn't so exhausted, and if this peace wasn't such a balm. "What's her deal, anyway? She's got some interesting tastes."
"Oh, unfortunately, I'm well acquainted with Miss Groves' preferences," Harold said, sourly. "John and I both are."
"You said you thought that programming abilities lay parallel with Guides," John said, with more calm than Shaw would have, if this was her Guide freaking out. "Root has plenty of talent in that sphere."
Harold's mouth pursed and he noticeably struggled to get his control back, but the presence of all those people on the other side of the glass retreated, first to a whisper, and then to nothing. Shaw had no sensation that he was corralling the data in her mind, nothing like a Guide who had any sort of bond, but apparently he didn't have to be her Guide to tell her mind to not see the sensory triggers. He raised his eyebrows at her, to ask if she was comfortable.
"Why do you do this?" Shaw asked. "You and John, why are you involved in this?"
"We help people," Harold said. "John is a Sentinel; it's right there in the name. We watch and we protect people who don't realise they're in danger. Quite often, we're the only people who can save them."
Shaw couldn't understand it. "Why me?"
"I'm not entirely certain myself," said Harold. "Whatever the reason, I doubt that it's coincidental that we were called to assist another member of Project Cascade."
"Called by who?"
Harold gazed out into the city. "I'm sure Ms Groves has told you, or dropped hints, that the ISA acquired intelligence from a source you know as Research. Your agency operates on two fundamental principles: that Research is never wrong, and that all Research will give you is a number."
"You should be careful; you know enough to get you killed," said Shaw. She should have been edgy and paranoid; this guy knew too much about the ISA and Research for her to feel as safe as she did right now. She set her jaw and told herself to act like the agent she was. "How do I know this isn't some kind of trap?"
Harold gave a wry smile. "Honestly, I wouldn't put great odds on John being able to lie to someone like you, Ms Shaw. Or vice versa, to be completely fair. That's one thing about Cascade that you would have to agree on."
Shaw looked back at John, and he gave a shrug.
"Okay, that's true. It doesn't explain how our paths ended up crossing."
Harold opened his notebook and gave her a page, with two social security numbers written on. One was familiar.
"That's mine," she said.
Harold nodded. "And Mr Cole's – we were unable to save him, for which I'm sorry. We didn't understand the nature of your situation in time. But we understand now, and we want to help, both of us. If you need protection, medical assistance, or relief from the sensory overload, I am willing to offer anything you need. John has been outside the program for a long time; I know he has resources that could assist in your transition."
Shaw thought about it for a moment, she really did. Whatever John and Harold had going for them, what they'd learned about bonding and Guides could mean a whole new life for her, one that she didn't think was possible. Then she remembered Cole, dying right in front of her, never having reached the full potential that the two of them were capable of, and she made her decision.
"Thanks," she said, as sincerely as she could convey. "But no thanks. This isn't about my wellbeing; this is about making sure they know what they've done. I need to see this through."
Harold nodded, and stepped back. "If I could offer some assistance? At least to see you through the next day?" He glanced at John for confirmation, and smiled.
Shaw turned from him to John, and caught John's encouraging nod. They obviously didn't need to talk much. They were easy in each other's company, and so completely a team. She wanted this for her and Cole, intensely, and the feeling of lost opportunity made her grief hot and angry. She set her jaw and nodded shortly in Harold's direction. Even if this meant he knew how she felt, if it was anything like what Cole had been able to do for her at Mercer's place, it would be worth it to take down Control and make sure they understood just how badly they fucked up.
"Very well," said Harold. "Before I begin, I should tell you – you maybe have begun to realise this already – the medical suppressants used in Project Cascade are harmful. The reasons for using them are to keep you dependant on your keepers for control and sedation. If you've managed to retain any, I strongly suggest you refrain from taking them ever again."
She fucking knew it. Those assholes had been hobbling them the whole time. "That's all very well, as long as I never have to take a flight or go to a large city again." Not that she had a lot invested in surviving this encounter with Wilson and his boss. She was realistic.
"Try pot," said John, from across the room. "It does the same thing, without messing up your senses. Don't smoke it, though. Eat it."
She stared at him, this well-dressed man in a bespoke suit advocating the use of cannabis.
"It's legal. Ish" he said, mock-defensive. "Harold makes brownies."
Harold was abashed. "It's an old college recipe," he said. "It does help, actually, without any of the dampening effects of the suppressants."
"Great," said Shaw. "I'll get myself a bag of hash cookies as soon as possible."
Harold took a step closer and extended a hand. "I can do this without physical contact, if you'd prefer. If it's something you can tolerate, though, I do believe it gives a longer effect."
Shaw took her own step forward, which brought them close enough to dance. "I'm okay with it," she said. "I've already been tased today, I'm sure it won't be as intrusive."
"I should hope not," said Harold, appalled. He took her hand in his, and folded her fingers into his palm. His skin was cool against hers, and she could feel callouses. He must work with computers, she thought, picturing those hands moving over a keyboard. Or a piano, she added, though she didn't know why. When he pressed his palm to her forehead, she realised where that thought had come from: inside her mind, Harold moved like a fall of musical notes. It was an odd, alien sensation, but nothing that challenged her or forced her to react. The difference between what Cole did and what Harold could do was immediately obvious: Cole received information while Harold actively sought it out. Cole could settle her senses down and make the loud noises tolerable, but Harold could make them calm without making them dulled. The sounds were still there but they didn't bewilder or make her panic.
"Ah, but I can see your Mr Cole was an excellent operator," said Harold, inside her mind. "Were the two of you not hampered by the effects of the sedatives, you both could have become very adept." Harold had no visual presence – as far as Shaw could tell, he simply stood in front of her, holding her hand and gazing away into the distance – but it was as if a phrase of music drifted in and out of her memories, with that tip-of-the-tongue sensation that came from trying to remember things. A sweet, wooden percussive tone, she thought, and tried to recall the sort of instrument that sounded like that, and why it was familiar to her.
Harold immediately, maybe instinctively, found the image she was seeking: a series of wooden bars on a standing frame, and a very serious man using mallets to elicit sounds from them. In the memory, the man was unrealistically tall, and Shaw remembered she'd been very small, sitting cross-legged in the gym at her elementary school while a group of visiting musicians taught them about their instruments. She turned her head in the memory from side to side, the visualisation was very real. These sneakers had been her favourites, with flames running up the sides. Her pigtails were too tight; her mother always did them too tight. And the man played soft, melodic sounds with his felt-covered beaters on bars of wood that gleamed in dusty rays of light.
"It's a xylophone," said Harold, as he eased her out of the memory so gently that she felt nothing but a fleeting nostalgia for times when tight pigtails were the worst she had to face. "A lovely instrument; thank you for such a flattering association."
He was out of her mind completely now, and Shaw blinked herself back into the darkened room. Harold had stepped back, but he held her hand until she was ready to break the contact, which, she was surprised to find, was a lot longer than she expected. When she was finally ready, she let go and stepped away.
"For what it's worth," said Harold, and passed her a card with a phone number.
Shaw held the card and all the safety and entanglement it promised, considered it briefly and gave it back. "Thanks," she said again. "I mean it. But I have to get this done." She passed the card back to him, but not before she brushed the linen of the cold pressed paper under her fingertips, and the cool embossing of the name. He'd chosen that card specifically to be texturally pleasing to – what did he call them? – hypersensory. It was an odd idea, a world where things were tailored to her needs, rather than pressing her into a shape where she fit, but poorly, into someone else's world.
She turned away from him, and walked towards the elevator. John pressed the button for her, and in the seconds before the door opened, she looked up at him. His face was a little clammy, and his shoulders tense. This time, she wasn't sure that was from the proximity of another Sentinel.
"You all right?" she said. She knew how much he'd shared with her, and how generous he'd been to someone who had actually tried to kill him in the last twenty-four hours.
He gave a tiny nod. "Thank you," he said.
"Shouldn't I be thanking you?" she said. "He's your Guide."
"For being careful," John said. "You didn't have to be."
Damn, Shaw didn't want this stuff out on show, not when she barely knew what she was feeling herself. "Whatever," she said with a shrug. "We probably need to make a Sentinel book of etiquette or something."
John made that huffing noise, the one she knew just from their short time together was a pleased laugh. "Just so you can throw it out the window?"
"Pretty much." She stepped into the elevator and took in the two of them for the last time.
"Watch your back," he said, because it was what you said, even when you know the other person probably wasn't coming back. Shaw was surprised at how much it was like a platoon mate speaking.
"Yeah," she said, her chin stuck out, defiant. She couldn't quite refute the unspoken offer he was making her, and as usual, emotional response made her want to punch him.
John didn't react to the aggressive body language, nor did he try to talk her out of it. He simply accepted and understood. He'd be doing the same thing, given the same circumstances.
As the door closed, she watched him walk across the room, and bend to rest his forehead against Harold's, a quiet moment of union.
"Yeah," she said aloud. "You'd do the same. Or more: you'd burn the whole city down."
Chapter Five /Chapter Six/ Chapter Seven
Rating Teen
2011
It happened when John was trying to choke the man, this annoying, buttoned-up psychopath who had used his money and influence to kidnap John and set up his kinky little game with murder tapes and zip ties. John moved faster than this Finch could focus, got his forearm jammed under the guy's chin and lifted hard, got his feet a few inches off the ground. He paused when he heard bones creaking in a way that was not right. In that moment his bare wrist made contact with the skin of Finch's throat and the room fell silent.
He let Finch slide down so his feet were on the ground but still held him in place against the wall. John's rage was fading, despite the fresh blood dripping from his palm, despite the ground-glass pain in his chest from hearing Jessica's name. 'Your friend,' Finch had said, that patronising, slick term rich people used when they meant 'person we'd rather not acknowledge you're having sex with'.
The silence in his head was a relief, as it had been the first time he met Mark, but without the claustrophobic pressure that Mark always induced in him. John's rage folded in on itself like a paper boat, smaller and smaller until it dissipated, and even then he didn't realise that this was coming from Finch. His breath levelled out and the perspiration chilled on his skin, and all the while, this man let John press an arm against his throat without panic, kept eye contact with him, worried about him.
John let him go, and reeled, falling into a chair, his hand palm up on his knee. He watched the blood welling from the slash, trying to understand what was happening. The pain kept demanding attention, and he kept ignoring it.
Finch, loosening his collar and straightening his tie, glanced over John's shoulder at the wound and made a tch with his tongue, then went to the bathroom for towels.
"Here," he said, offering him a hand towel that was bigger and more plush than the one John been using in the shower at the flophouse. "Keep the pressure on it; it doesn't appear too deep." He was, John noted, careful to prevent skin contact this time, and now John understood why.
"You're a Guide," John said. He flopped back in the chair, his fist closed around the towel. This should be where his survival instincts kicked in, where he ran from this room and this man, back to the street and the subway and the bottle. Instead, he felt a great fatigue and hopelessness.
Finch sat opposite him, slowly and with a rigid back that spoke of old injuries. "I had hoped we'd have a bit more time to get to know each other before this came up, but yes. I realised some time ago that I had the potential, and now, apparently, more than just potential."
John eyed him. There was nothing military about this man. He was not a killer; he certainly wasn't physically capable of working missions. "You're not government," he said, finally.
"No, I am not," said Finch with a grim expression.
"Cascade?" said John, experimentally, to see if it garnered a response. "Part of the research unit?" He got nothing. Everything about Finch was restrained. John could usually tell just from skin chemistry when someone was afraid or over-confident or trying to conceal their reactions. Finch was oddly blank to him. Even Mark, with all his barriers raised, could still be read a little.
Finch shook his head in response to John's questions. "I know what Project Cascade entails, and no, I'm not involved." He thought for a moment, and this time there were emotional cues to track, except that instead of directly reading the man, John had the feeling he had been permitted to peek inside the window of a great clockwork engine.
"I suppose you could say I was a concerned third party," Finch said. Then he smiled, clearly pleased with the phrasing, though John couldn't tell why. "I'd like to work with you, if you would be interested."
John eyed him warily. "What kind of work?" he said. There was no chance he was tying himself to a Guide again. He'd throw himself off a bridge before he became someone else's attack dog.
"As I explained previously, Mr Reese, I receive intelligence about people in trouble. People the government would deem irrelevant." He stood, took a few deliberate, rocking steps across the room. John heard again the pull and slide of tendons moving over misplaced bone, and this time, he was sure Finch was letting him pick up on the amount of pain he felt in movement. "Unfortunately, I lack the physical capability to act on that knowledge."
In the end, John took him up on the offer, if only because it was dangerous, and he seemed to have less to lose than Finch did. Though he promised himself that night, bandaging his hand in the flophouse, that if Finch tried to impose himself as John's Guide, if he stepped one foot over that line, John would walk. That walk would probably take him to the nearest bridge and over the edge, but that was something he would face when the time came.
The time never came: Finch was scrupulous in corralling his abilities, respected John's stated boundaries, and apart from commenting on the extent of John's occasional injuries and whether they could have been prevented, or his preference for avoiding lethal violence, he allowed John to carry out missions any way he preferred.
As it happened, the irrelevant numbers were diverting and surprisingly challenging, considering the nature of their opponents. Operating without a Guide wasn't easy, but it was better than he expected, though John doubted it made him a very nice person to be around. It hadn't with the CIA on the few occasions he'd had to go without a Guide before, when a mission went awry and separated him from Mark. He and Kara learned some tricks to get through: booze, sex, pain or working out. Now that he was active again, he'd given the bottle away, and, sweating old booze from his pores, he'd never felt less like sex. Pain was a good option in a pinch: he constantly carried a few bruises and cuts from a sharp pinch or a quick slash with his knife. Exercise was best, though. He'd lost a lot of condition living rough, and getting himself back to an operational level essentially took care of any sensory overload. Add to that the fact that things were always a little easier in New York, and he managed well enough in the first week, and better in each week that passed.
The other thing that helped, unexpectedly, was stalking Finch around the city. Maybe it was the challenge of it. John had only had one Guide before, but in comparison to Mark, Finch had a frightening level of control over the emotions he allowed John to detect. He never once made any offer of Cascade-type support, even on the mornings when John showed up haggard after a night of willing his own mind into quiet without the anaesthetic of booze.
A Guide would have offset all this, but the cost was too much for John to consider. Still, the lack of sleep, the early mornings, and the gradual detoxing from months of solid drinking left him with a short fuse. He never knew if his overloaded senses troubled Finch, or if he experienced any discomfort when John had to pace or disappear deeper into the library to prowl in the dark and the quiet, because Finch was virtually unreadable. John had never got much from Mark - presumably being a Guide made it easier to mask your emotional and physical responses - but Finch was somehow able to turn this on and off at will. Or stranger still, bring the strength of it up and down like volume. John had never seen anything like it.
Still, it did explain the eerie way Finch could just disappear from John's extended senses in the time it took John to round a corner. John didn't know why this was so fascinating to him, or what he hoped to achieve by tracking Finch to the place where he slept, apart from sending a message to someone who technically had power over John's mind. He had no idea what would happen should he actually manage to find Finch's home, but the chase kept him occupied between numbers. It was good to have a hobby, he reasoned. When things got too much and he overloaded, having something he enjoyed kept him away from the bottle.
Eventually, when they'd worked seven or eight numbers together, John found Finch waiting for him at the top of the subway entrance John knew he most regularly used. John stared; Finch wore chinos and a pale tweedy sports jacket. Granted, they were well-pressed chinos, and the jacket was certainly expensive, but still, it was a level of dressed down that John couldn't imagine Finch embracing.
"Something bothering you, Mr Reese?" Finch asked. He carried a battered messenger bag on his shoulder. Under the jacket he wore a t-shirt. John was surprised that Finch even owned a t-shirt, or indeed, anything in stretch fabric, but on top of that, this t-shirt was orange. Faded orange.
Finch followed his gaze to the soft collar of the t-shirt, which was faded and frayed. It didn't scream 'authentically faked vintage' so much as 'I've owned this for thirty years and it still fits.'
"It's my lucky t-shirt," he said, with no further explanation. "About this stalking situation: do you think we've established our relative abilities to a degree of satisfaction? It does seem like a needless expenditure of energy, constantly chasing me around the city." His voice was all John had to judge his mood, a kind of sense-blindness he could only barely remember from before Project Cascade. This, and Finch's choice of clothing left John itching with curiosity. It was weirdly exhilarating.
"Well, you would say that, if I were getting close to catching you," said John. He felt oddly effervescent, leaning against the rail in the mild spring sunshine. He'd slept well, all things Cascade considered, and when he ran in the park this morning, his body had responded, strong and capable. And now, Finch had presented him with a mystery.
Finch's expression was sceptical, but amused. "I am sorry to shatter your expectations about my place of residence, but I've made reservations here," he said, indicating a restaurant a little further down the block. "Though I do promise that should you come knocking on my door some late night, I'll certainly welcome the company. For now, would you like to have lunch? We have a new number to discuss."
It was as they both walked towards the restaurant that John realised what he had been doing with Finch, why he felt buoyant and ridiculous. Somehow in the last few weeks, his plan to track Finch and hold knowledge over him like a weapon had transmuted into a game. He'd been playing with Finch, and Finch, eternally polite, played along. And just then, John was fairly sure, Finch had both made a gentle pass at him and told John he was single all in the same sentence.
The maître d' recognised Finch as Mr Crane, despite the chinos. His state of dress was obviously no issue, as they were seated with the quiet efficiency shown only to extremely wealthy patrons.
Over an elegant lunch of many small courses, Finch passed John documents and photographs, explained the new number and talked about potential threats to and by the man in question. John took each sheet of paper, nodded and agreed, but instead he was watching Finch's body language: his posture, the way he ate, the little movements of his mouth and eyebrows. Flirting and sex, physical intimacy, all those things were driven by pheromones and John was suddenly learning that he'd come to rely on Sentinel abilities to manage them. Finch, if he experienced those things at all, kept them supressed or hidden from John. John wasn't sure if he wanted to know, but the fact that the knowledge was being kept from him was frustrating. He watched Finch's hands moving papers as he spoke, and he wondered why his mind was wandering like this.
"This tournament is likely to have media coverage, though it will mostly be press or online. There's occasionally a big network present at the finals for the novelty value, but hopefully we'll have this number completely resolved before then. Mr Reese?" Finch tapped his finger on the linen tablecloth to catch John's attention. "Are you all right? Have you… gone somewhere else? I believe the term you use is 'zoned'?"
John blinked and shook his head. "No, I'm fine," he said, and tried to catch up on the conversation. "I'm going to a tournament? Tennis? Golf?" His face fell when Finch shook his head. "Chess?" He hoped not. It wasn't his game.
"Tetris," said Finch. "Our number was last year's national champion. And you won't be playing, unless there are some significant gaps in your CIA file that you've neglected to fill me in on."
"What's my cover, then?" John was confused. They had tournaments for video games? What was John supposed to do at one of those?
Finch undid his jacket, so that John could see his t-shirt. The faded Atari logo was still visible, though the printing was now cracked and mazed. "You'll be my bodyguard," he said. "I assure you, you won't stand out at all. The tournaments are quite blood-thirsty."
"I thought you were a very private person," said John, baffled. "Won't this expose you?"
"Harold Drake is a reputable contestant in national titles," said Finch. He pulled a pair of aviator glasses from his pocket, foiled with orange, to match the t-shirt. "He's known to be publicity shy and often skips the presentations, but he's won three years out ten."
John's grin could not be contained. He was going to enjoy saving this number.
2013
The journey to John's friend was only a couple of blocks, but without a Guide or suppressants, for Shaw it was a rattling experience. A steampipe under the sidewalk hissed noisily to itself, slowly forcing a crack wider. John spared it no more than a glance and a text on his phone, and he swept on. He dealt easily with the blaring taxis, the milling pigeons (Shaw knew which ones crawled with lice, and which had been improbably used to transport drugs), and muttering crowds. An ambulance screamed past on the other side of the road, and the power of the sound pushed viscerally at Shaw's body, until John turned to stand in the way of the soundwaves, blocking and breaking their movement with his back until it passed them both in a falling wail of Doppler shift.
"How are you doing this without losing your mind?" she said, under her breath, knowing he would hear. She stared at him; the stark black and white of his suit and shirt were an oasis amidst the flashing lights.
For a second, John's smile was unexpectedly open, then he tapped his earpiece. "My other half," he said. "Come on."
By the time they reached their destination, John had helped Shaw navigate a world only she and he could sense: he crossed the street to avoid an elite hair salon that pumped music so loud it existed on the visual spectrum, quivering beams of neon light. Then he stopped still at a corner and shook his head before grabbing a hotdog vendor by the collar and physically shaking him.
"I told you not to buy from those crooks – dump this and go home now before the city closes you down. Or you kill someone."
Shaw wrinkled her nose at the river water tang coming off those hot dogs and ran a little faster to keep up with John's long stride. "What are you? Like, the hot dog police?"
He smiled, a nasty smile this time, one that Shaw could get on board with. "I am for that guy," he said. "Come on, this way."
The building that he brought her to was unexceptional: clean enough, partially under construction, and reasonably empty. They went up in the elevator, which, to Shaw's senses was incredibly clean. Beside her, John's breathing had settled completely, and his shoulders were relaxed. His calm body language passed instinctively to her, which irked her enough to reach out to poke him, but then the elevator jerked to a halt.
The doors opened, and Shaw stepped into stillness so complete, her senses were left ringing with the bluster of the city. The room was dim, and looked down on a cityscape that no longer threatened to overwhelm her.
The source of the stillness was obvious, because all of the emotional movement in the room was between him and John, like two pebbles thrown in a stream. Shaw walked through the ripples as the connection between the two men mingled and bounced back. It was like nothing Shaw had ever seen, not the whole time she had been in Project Cascade.
The man by the window was well-dressed and owlish, and from him emanated a impenetrable, organic calm, creating quiet the way a wooden floor absorbed sound or fog softened the strength of colours. He turned from the cityscape to watch her as she approached.
"Ms Shaw," the man said. He honest-to-God steepled his fingers, like a damn mad scientist or something, and that wasn't even the weirdest thing about him. "You can call me Harold. Is this level of protection adequate for you? To go any deeper, I'd have to intrude a little, and I think that's something we'd both rather avoid, at least until we're more familiar."
"It's fine," said Shaw, though she was desperately curious to know more about how he could control the degree of suppression. Cole had one level and that was it: an on and off switch, and while that worked fine, knowing there might have been a way to have finer control, to sense the things she wanted to know without being overwhelmed by the background stuff, was… she wanted to say frustrating, but she meant heartbreaking.
She got nothing from Harold: no scent trace, no mnemonic triggers, no sense of what he ate for breakfast, who he kissed. She only knew he had a dog because she saw some hairs on the leg of his trousers. Same dog as John, she'd be willing to bet, though she had no sensory data to back this up.
"You're his Guide," she said, though it didn't need to be stated; the connection between them was so intense she was surprised she couldn't see it physically. "How is your bond so strong?" This is something Cole would have loved, she thought, with a bitter pang.
"Ah," he said. "Well, it's something we learned along the way, I suppose. Project Cascade doesn't exactly encourage the strongest of bonds. I believe that there has always been this potential link between those who are super processors, such as myself and your friend, Mr Cole, and those who are hyper-sensory, like you and John. I think when those relationships are left to grow naturally, not tampered with or forced, that the bonds that we form are healthier. And by extension, stronger."
"Who are you? You sure know a lot about Project Cascade, for someone who supposedly isn't part of it." Shaw wondered if he was an early instructor, someone who managed to leave the project without the usual retirement package.
Harold's expression was more readable now: a little wry, a little regretful. "I had a project of my own that, for a short time, was on an path aligned with Cascade. Not a project with human subjects," he added quickly. "Something quite different. I didn't realise at the time that I had the abilities of a Guide. That came later. Although, I do wonder if the way our projects intersected was in some way influenced by my abilities."
At the elevator, John was leaning a little forward, and Shaw had the impression that this was news to him, too. You'll be talking about this later, she thought.
"Are there many of you out there? Untrained Guides, I mean? Because I've already come across one today, and yeah, she was enough trouble all by herself."
Surprised, Harold met John's gaze over her shoulder, his eyebrows raised.
"Root," John said. "She posed as Veronica Sinclair."
Harold's voice went up half an octave. "Root? Miss Groves is a Guide? That is… That is unacceptable!" However his ability worked to create quiet in the mind of a Sentinel, emotional shock cracked a hole in it. Shaw started to feel the city press in on her senses: a siren wailed past, the ever-present garbage smell wafted up on a cloud of steam. All the while, Harold's expression of horror was almost comical.
Shaw would have laughed at his outrage, if she wasn't so exhausted, and if this peace wasn't such a balm. "What's her deal, anyway? She's got some interesting tastes."
"Oh, unfortunately, I'm well acquainted with Miss Groves' preferences," Harold said, sourly. "John and I both are."
"You said you thought that programming abilities lay parallel with Guides," John said, with more calm than Shaw would have, if this was her Guide freaking out. "Root has plenty of talent in that sphere."
Harold's mouth pursed and he noticeably struggled to get his control back, but the presence of all those people on the other side of the glass retreated, first to a whisper, and then to nothing. Shaw had no sensation that he was corralling the data in her mind, nothing like a Guide who had any sort of bond, but apparently he didn't have to be her Guide to tell her mind to not see the sensory triggers. He raised his eyebrows at her, to ask if she was comfortable.
"Why do you do this?" Shaw asked. "You and John, why are you involved in this?"
"We help people," Harold said. "John is a Sentinel; it's right there in the name. We watch and we protect people who don't realise they're in danger. Quite often, we're the only people who can save them."
Shaw couldn't understand it. "Why me?"
"I'm not entirely certain myself," said Harold. "Whatever the reason, I doubt that it's coincidental that we were called to assist another member of Project Cascade."
"Called by who?"
Harold gazed out into the city. "I'm sure Ms Groves has told you, or dropped hints, that the ISA acquired intelligence from a source you know as Research. Your agency operates on two fundamental principles: that Research is never wrong, and that all Research will give you is a number."
"You should be careful; you know enough to get you killed," said Shaw. She should have been edgy and paranoid; this guy knew too much about the ISA and Research for her to feel as safe as she did right now. She set her jaw and told herself to act like the agent she was. "How do I know this isn't some kind of trap?"
Harold gave a wry smile. "Honestly, I wouldn't put great odds on John being able to lie to someone like you, Ms Shaw. Or vice versa, to be completely fair. That's one thing about Cascade that you would have to agree on."
Shaw looked back at John, and he gave a shrug.
"Okay, that's true. It doesn't explain how our paths ended up crossing."
Harold opened his notebook and gave her a page, with two social security numbers written on. One was familiar.
"That's mine," she said.
Harold nodded. "And Mr Cole's – we were unable to save him, for which I'm sorry. We didn't understand the nature of your situation in time. But we understand now, and we want to help, both of us. If you need protection, medical assistance, or relief from the sensory overload, I am willing to offer anything you need. John has been outside the program for a long time; I know he has resources that could assist in your transition."
Shaw thought about it for a moment, she really did. Whatever John and Harold had going for them, what they'd learned about bonding and Guides could mean a whole new life for her, one that she didn't think was possible. Then she remembered Cole, dying right in front of her, never having reached the full potential that the two of them were capable of, and she made her decision.
"Thanks," she said, as sincerely as she could convey. "But no thanks. This isn't about my wellbeing; this is about making sure they know what they've done. I need to see this through."
Harold nodded, and stepped back. "If I could offer some assistance? At least to see you through the next day?" He glanced at John for confirmation, and smiled.
Shaw turned from him to John, and caught John's encouraging nod. They obviously didn't need to talk much. They were easy in each other's company, and so completely a team. She wanted this for her and Cole, intensely, and the feeling of lost opportunity made her grief hot and angry. She set her jaw and nodded shortly in Harold's direction. Even if this meant he knew how she felt, if it was anything like what Cole had been able to do for her at Mercer's place, it would be worth it to take down Control and make sure they understood just how badly they fucked up.
"Very well," said Harold. "Before I begin, I should tell you – you maybe have begun to realise this already – the medical suppressants used in Project Cascade are harmful. The reasons for using them are to keep you dependant on your keepers for control and sedation. If you've managed to retain any, I strongly suggest you refrain from taking them ever again."
She fucking knew it. Those assholes had been hobbling them the whole time. "That's all very well, as long as I never have to take a flight or go to a large city again." Not that she had a lot invested in surviving this encounter with Wilson and his boss. She was realistic.
"Try pot," said John, from across the room. "It does the same thing, without messing up your senses. Don't smoke it, though. Eat it."
She stared at him, this well-dressed man in a bespoke suit advocating the use of cannabis.
"It's legal. Ish" he said, mock-defensive. "Harold makes brownies."
Harold was abashed. "It's an old college recipe," he said. "It does help, actually, without any of the dampening effects of the suppressants."
"Great," said Shaw. "I'll get myself a bag of hash cookies as soon as possible."
Harold took a step closer and extended a hand. "I can do this without physical contact, if you'd prefer. If it's something you can tolerate, though, I do believe it gives a longer effect."
Shaw took her own step forward, which brought them close enough to dance. "I'm okay with it," she said. "I've already been tased today, I'm sure it won't be as intrusive."
"I should hope not," said Harold, appalled. He took her hand in his, and folded her fingers into his palm. His skin was cool against hers, and she could feel callouses. He must work with computers, she thought, picturing those hands moving over a keyboard. Or a piano, she added, though she didn't know why. When he pressed his palm to her forehead, she realised where that thought had come from: inside her mind, Harold moved like a fall of musical notes. It was an odd, alien sensation, but nothing that challenged her or forced her to react. The difference between what Cole did and what Harold could do was immediately obvious: Cole received information while Harold actively sought it out. Cole could settle her senses down and make the loud noises tolerable, but Harold could make them calm without making them dulled. The sounds were still there but they didn't bewilder or make her panic.
"Ah, but I can see your Mr Cole was an excellent operator," said Harold, inside her mind. "Were the two of you not hampered by the effects of the sedatives, you both could have become very adept." Harold had no visual presence – as far as Shaw could tell, he simply stood in front of her, holding her hand and gazing away into the distance – but it was as if a phrase of music drifted in and out of her memories, with that tip-of-the-tongue sensation that came from trying to remember things. A sweet, wooden percussive tone, she thought, and tried to recall the sort of instrument that sounded like that, and why it was familiar to her.
Harold immediately, maybe instinctively, found the image she was seeking: a series of wooden bars on a standing frame, and a very serious man using mallets to elicit sounds from them. In the memory, the man was unrealistically tall, and Shaw remembered she'd been very small, sitting cross-legged in the gym at her elementary school while a group of visiting musicians taught them about their instruments. She turned her head in the memory from side to side, the visualisation was very real. These sneakers had been her favourites, with flames running up the sides. Her pigtails were too tight; her mother always did them too tight. And the man played soft, melodic sounds with his felt-covered beaters on bars of wood that gleamed in dusty rays of light.
"It's a xylophone," said Harold, as he eased her out of the memory so gently that she felt nothing but a fleeting nostalgia for times when tight pigtails were the worst she had to face. "A lovely instrument; thank you for such a flattering association."
He was out of her mind completely now, and Shaw blinked herself back into the darkened room. Harold had stepped back, but he held her hand until she was ready to break the contact, which, she was surprised to find, was a lot longer than she expected. When she was finally ready, she let go and stepped away.
"For what it's worth," said Harold, and passed her a card with a phone number.
Shaw held the card and all the safety and entanglement it promised, considered it briefly and gave it back. "Thanks," she said again. "I mean it. But I have to get this done." She passed the card back to him, but not before she brushed the linen of the cold pressed paper under her fingertips, and the cool embossing of the name. He'd chosen that card specifically to be texturally pleasing to – what did he call them? – hypersensory. It was an odd idea, a world where things were tailored to her needs, rather than pressing her into a shape where she fit, but poorly, into someone else's world.
She turned away from him, and walked towards the elevator. John pressed the button for her, and in the seconds before the door opened, she looked up at him. His face was a little clammy, and his shoulders tense. This time, she wasn't sure that was from the proximity of another Sentinel.
"You all right?" she said. She knew how much he'd shared with her, and how generous he'd been to someone who had actually tried to kill him in the last twenty-four hours.
He gave a tiny nod. "Thank you," he said.
"Shouldn't I be thanking you?" she said. "He's your Guide."
"For being careful," John said. "You didn't have to be."
Damn, Shaw didn't want this stuff out on show, not when she barely knew what she was feeling herself. "Whatever," she said with a shrug. "We probably need to make a Sentinel book of etiquette or something."
John made that huffing noise, the one she knew just from their short time together was a pleased laugh. "Just so you can throw it out the window?"
"Pretty much." She stepped into the elevator and took in the two of them for the last time.
"Watch your back," he said, because it was what you said, even when you know the other person probably wasn't coming back. Shaw was surprised at how much it was like a platoon mate speaking.
"Yeah," she said, her chin stuck out, defiant. She couldn't quite refute the unspoken offer he was making her, and as usual, emotional response made her want to punch him.
John didn't react to the aggressive body language, nor did he try to talk her out of it. He simply accepted and understood. He'd be doing the same thing, given the same circumstances.
As the door closed, she watched him walk across the room, and bend to rest his forehead against Harold's, a quiet moment of union.
"Yeah," she said aloud. "You'd do the same. Or more: you'd burn the whole city down."
Chapter Five /Chapter Six/ Chapter Seven