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John doesn't move at the sound of a knife being unsheathed, but he wants to, which is enough for Kara to notice.
"I'm just untying you, Christ," Kara says, sawing through the ropes around his wrists. She pinches John's hands. "You're cold. Nerve damage set in yet?"
The minute John can flex his fingers, he does, testing. They're not numb, although they were getting there. "Still good."
Kara pats him on the shoulder, incongruously gentle. "So what are you waiting for? Let's go. Enjoy freedom while it lasts."
Despite Kara's insinuations, John's not terrible at his job, doesn't get captured all that often. It's happened enough times, though, that he's familiar with the weird refocusing sensation that comes when he gets his feet back under him, like coming out of darkness and being blinded by the light.
Still. He hasn't lost sensation or control of his fingers. Kara presses a gun into his hands, and his legs work fine. John loads the gun. "You leave some of these assholes for me?"
Kara grins sharp and beautiful. "There's my Johnny-boy."
~~
Every time John thinks he's finally got it, he's finally shed the last dregs of what keeps him from being the agent he can be, and every time he gets knocked right back to reality.
This time, it's a voice message that does it.
Jessica's scared, across the line. She's trying not to be, John can tell. Trying to beg for help while sounding casual about it.
John tallies up his leave time. He didn't exactly sign a contract before getting out here, but there are policies, procedures, more habit than law. He's pretty sure if he asks nicely Mark would give him a couple days off. Plenty of time to sort out whatever Jessica needs and come back, free and clear.
~~
"No," Mark says, and John isn't even surprised.
There's another mission. There's always another mission. John exhales and turns to follow Kara when there's a hand on his shoulder and Mark says, "Wait."
Unwillingly, John stiffens.
"I could give you an alternative mission." Mark's eyes dart around. "This one's more of a long-term commitment, but it'll keep you local. You might have time to take that leave."
"Yeah?" There's a catch, though. There has to be one.
Mark doesn't spill, which is worrisome. Even worse, Mark looks faintly disturbed. "All right." Ominously, he adds, "Just so you remember, I gave you a choice."
Some fucking choice. John accepts, of course. He shouldn't have: his only excuse is that after a while, some forms of futility can become addictive. You forget how to take any option but the worst possible one.
~~
Mark puts him into a car and they drive. They park next to a dilapidated building. Mark leads John down creaking stairs, knocks on a wooden door.
The door is opened by an irritated-looking man in a very nice suit. "If you've come to offer me more of your discard pile," the man says, scathing, "you can keep it."
"I think you'll like this one." Mark's smile is tense. "Give him a try."
"Alright." The man narrows his eyes at John, and--
Something touches John, he can't explain it. Like somebody walking over his grave, maybe. The oddest feeling of something chilly and unfamiliar brushing the inside of his head.
The man looks surprised. "Hm." He gives John another critical look. "I suppose he'll do."
He invites John and Mark inside. "Sit down," he tells John: Mark, John notes, receives no such instruction.
The man says, "Let me look at you." He comes close, puts his hands on John's face, and John finds himself falling into captivity mindspace, where they can do anything to you and nothing matters.
Kara hates it when he does that. "It has its place," she likes to say, "but for God's sake, John, you can't just zone out all over the place. It'll get you killed." She literally poked him with a stick the last time she saw him do it.
John tries to make himself sharper, more present, but the fog in his mind is unusually persistent. He frowns, tries to dig his nails into his palm, and find he can't.
"Please don't be alarmed," the man says. "It's all part of the process. Now." The man presses gently under John's eyes, moving the lids a tad more open. "Tell me. What is important?"
Unbidden, Jessica's voice comes to John's mind. Over it, the words she didn't say: I'm afraid. Help me.
The man blinks at him. "Oh, I wasn't expecting anything with a time limit. Very well. Go on, take care of it." When John doesn't immediately get up, the man makes a little shooing motion.
"Finch, are you sure--" Mark says, strained.
Finch turns to him and says, "Agent Snow, should Mr. Reese escape, do you think I would have any difficulty in finding him, or returning him to the fold?"
Mark glowers quietly.
"That's what I though," Finch says. To John, he says, "Your accounts will be replenished as necessary. Go take care of business, and then come back."
~~
Peter Arndt's face is turning purple, his eyes bulging. The feeling of his throat in John's hands is familiar. John knows exactly how much force he'd need to break his neck, how much to strangle him, how much to rip Arndt's head off his shoulders.
Normally the latter is out of John's ability, but he's feeling inspired.
"John," he hears behind him. "John, please, no!"
Without letting go, he looks around. Jessica's face is pale, making her black eye stand out all the more, the blood from her split lip vivid. "Please don't kill him," she says.
"He doesn't love you," John tells her. It seems important that she know that. "He wouldn't do that to you if he loved you."
Tears well in the corners of Jessica's eyes. She reaches out to John, her hand shaking. "Please."
He can tell that she's terrified, and not of Arndt, who is just short of losing consciousness.
It's a momentary lapse of attention, but it's enough for Arndt to surge wildly. He gropes around the kitchen floor, picking up a knife.
For a moment, time seems to stretch. John could block the knife; of course he could. But just for a moment, he thinks about waiting, about letting Arndt catch him. He can imagine the sharp pain of being stabbed, his heart thudding out of rhythm at the thought, and then the warm listlessness of blood loss.
Kara was right. John really will get himself killed like this if he doesn't shape up.
It won't be today. He bats the knife out of Arndt's hand, flips him over and zip-ties his wrists together. He gets to his feet, hoisting Arndt over his shoulder.
"John," Jessica says, shoulders tense, looking down. Not at John's blood-streaked face.
"He won't bother you anymore," John says. "And neither will I." He steps outside.
~~
"You do realize," Finch says, once John is inside, "that entertaining suicidal thoughts on a frequent basis is not healthy?"
John raises his eyebrows. "I didn't get into this line of work for my health."
"It's not very good for your productivity, either."
John doesn't flinch. The criticism is mild, compared to what he's used to.
Finch sighs. "All right. Shall we try again, from the top? My name is Harold Finch. You can call me whatever you like, Mr. Reese. Your former employers have remanded you to my service."
That explains the Mr. John got, in contrast with Mark's agent. "And what does this service entail?"
"Anything that I might ask," Finch says. "In particular, I will ask of you certain intimate liberties."
The corner of John's mouth curves up. That has to be the most polite way anyone has ever informed John they'd be fucking him.
"If you need time to acclimate," Finch carries on, "I will do what I can to make you comfortable. However, I fear that I will require those services eventually."
John shrugs. "Then let's get to it. Want to start now?"
Finch hesitates. Then he says, "Yes. Follow me." He opens a door that leads into a bedroom and gestures at the bed. John sits down on the edge of it, and Finch settles into an overstuffed chair in the corner.
"Take off your shoes, please," Finch says, "and in the future, I'll thank you for removing them when you enter. I will require major penetration - oral, anal, or genital. Do you have a preference?"
That gets John to pay attention. "I don't have genitals you can penetrate, Finch."
However, even as the words come out of his mouth he realizes that's incorrect. There was that mission where the Russian agent did that thing with the thin glass rods. John tries not to think about that.
"I'll take that as a no to genitals, then," Finch says.
"Anal," John says. It might hurt worse, but it's easier on him in other ways.
Finch nods. "And for penetration, would you prefer I use my fingers, my penis, or my other appendages?"
John opens his mouth to ask, Other appendages? when he sees them.
The tentacles come creeping out of the shadows in the room, black and smooth, of varied thickness, tapering at the end. One brushes over John's hand. In its wake, there is numbness, and then John's skin starts burning.
He's got enough control to refrain from hissing, but Finch notices anyway. "Oh, my apologies," he says. "There. Is that better?"
As Finch says the words, the skin on John's hand starts feeling... God, John doesn't even know. Like he's glowing or some shit, like Finch drugged him.
If the agency gave him to Finch, though, then Finch is allowed to do that, and John will take it over pain any day, any time. John turns over and smiles, lying on his back. "Much better."
"I'm glad you approve," Finch says, and divests John of his clothing with quick, efficient pulls of his tentacles, which leave his skin striped with sensation.
It's not just the golden trails of the tentacles making John wonder if he's drugged. Harold's acting not only like he can read John's mind, but like John should expect it and behave accordingly.
Then one tentacle edges inside John, and he abruptly stops worrying.
The best sex of John's life to date had been with a girl he'd briefly dated in high school, who rode John and then lay down beside him and got herself off, shameless and self-sufficient. She wasn't afraid to use her hands on John, either, pushing a spit-slick finger inside him until he yelled and came so hard he bent double.
What the tentacles do to him now feels like, if Katie found a button and pushed it, then Finch installed an automatic industrial array to flood the circuit the button closed when it was pressed. It's relentless and somewhat terrifying.
It's very, very good.
"Connection established," Finch says, sounding satisfied. "Now let's see...."
Finch falls silent. John's thoughts wander. He thinks of Katie again, briefly, then of Jessica. Their faces flutter in his mind, vanish before he can more than register the thought. Then that Russian agent - what was her name, John doesn't remember, just her low husky laughter and the bite of her fingernails. The agent had tied John down and had sex with him, tried to get John to spill figuratively by making him spill literally. When that didn't work, out came the car battery and the glass rods. John had been damn grateful when Kara came bursting in and pistol-whipped her.
"Mm, rotate," Finch murmurs.
The image in John's mind shift, himself holding the battery's leads to the agent's smooth skin. He recoils from the thought without knowing why. He's done worse.
"Interesting," Finch says, and the image shifts again: now it's Kara on the bed, and John drops the glass rod he'd been about to insert into her on the floor. It's too small to crash, but it tinkles gently.
Then there's another shift, Kara still on the bed but John at the doorway. He shoots the agent until his gun runs out of bullets.
John blinks. The memory fades. He's lying on a bed in Finch's house, the blanket wet with come that John doesn't remember ejaculating. "Was it good for you?" John says.
"Very," Finch says, with a straight face. "I must admit that Agent Snow was right: you'll do wonderfully." His mouth twists while John tries not to gape at him like a particularly stupid fish. "Provided, of course, we get the initial issues out of the way."
A damp, warm touch to John's hip nearly startles him. He turns to see a tentacle holding a towel to his skin, wiping him clean. John grabs the towel - the tentacle doesn't put up a fight - and finishes the job himself. "Which issues?"
After a brief hesitation, Finch says, "My last asset killed himself. To have that happen twice would be wasteful. I understand that your suicidal ideation is chronic; I will monitor it, and request your cooperation. If you feel it getting worse, for any reason, I'd much rather cut you loose and request a new asset."
John opens his mouth intending to argue the chronic when he's inundated with another burst of memories: early mornings and just after missions and any time at all when John found himself longingly entertaining vivid fantasies of various violent deaths. "Oh, come on," he says, feebly. "Everyone says 'Ugh, just shoot me' on Mondays."
"Many do," Finch allows, "and when they mean it quite as much as you do, that means they need monitoring."
Christ. What was the world coming to, when people could get out of any damned job they didn't want to do just because it made them want to die? John shook his head. "Fine. I'll keep you posted."
~~
Even so, it makes John wary. He wonders what it is that Finch asked from his previous asset that was so bad.
After a little while, he wonders if the former asset might have just killed himself out of sheer boredom. Finch spends most of his time looking at little scraps of paper with a thoughtful frown, ignoring John.
Little as John likes admitting it, that rankles. It makes him reckless.
He pulls up a chair next to Finch. "Anything interesting?"
"To you? I doubt it." But Finch turns over a scrap of paper for John to observe. "This is Courtney Emmett. Mother of three, no spouse, no job or other source of financial support."
John tenses up, trying to think what interest Finch might have in her. "She getting supplemental income by selling state secrets?"
Finch snorts. "Hardly." He pulls down another picture. The woman in this picture is well-coiffed, her teeth sparking at the camera. "Whitney Blake. Homemaker and mother of one child. Her husband is very well-to-do." He rubs a finger over the picture. "Mrs. Blake's son, Andrew, is going to die in the next twenty-four hours."
That shouldn't make John freeze. The people he's killed were all somebody's sons, too. "Why?"
"She's going to kill him," Finch says, with complete equanimity. He shows yet another picture. The boy looks about nine. He's not looking at the camera. "He suffers from developmental disabilities, and Mrs. Blake has despaired of his state improving."
John stares. Andrew has an upturned nose, a smattering of freckles. "What's Emmett got to do with it?"
"Her daughter Casey seems to have a condition similar to Andrew. However, despite lacking resources to support either Casey or her siblings, Ms. Emmett seems to be much less inclined to filicide."
John pushes away from the desk. "Jesus." His heart's hammering. He never did well when kids were involved.
"If you're this upset about this," Finch says, not looking up, "I can give you Mrs. Blake's address."
John's out the door almost before Finch has finished the sentence.
~~
The situation's pretty easy to defuse. John has a short conversation with Mrs. Blake where he explains to her exactly what happens to child murderers, and a longer one with Ms. Emmett: the Blakes will pay her to care for Andrew, a fee sufficient for Emmett to care for her own family as well.
John still comes back rattled. "What the hell was the point of all this?" he says as he shuts the door, none too gently.
"Shoes," Finch says reprovingly. John takes his off, glaring all the while. "A point? I don't suppose there was one, really. The universe is full of meaningless cruelty."
John very carefully doesn't cross his arms. "Did I pass your test?"
Finch frowns at him. "Test?" Then his face clears. "Ah. I didn't learn anything new about you, if that's what you mean, except that I might have an idea how to help you avoid boredom. There's plenty more senseless violence that could be prevented, if you're interested in that."
After that, Finch loses interest in John, becoming absorbed in photographs again. John eyes him warily. He has no idea what Finch is doing. Next time, John won't take the bait.
~~
Next time, it's a combat vet who's lost his leg. The guy is hounded by loan sharks for not paying his medical debts fast enough.
John takes care of them, and of the next name Harold gives him, and the one after that.
The one after it is a mob boss whose life is in danger from a woman whose husband he had executed. John doesn't bother going out for that one, stays in and pretends to read a book until Finch looks up from his photos and says, "Ah, there goes Mr. Lafferty." Finch then goes right back to poring over the still images.
John doesn't ask how Finch knows. He's pretty sure he wouldn't like the answer. "You don't seem too upset."
"I'm not." Finch picks up a pair of scissors, neatly cutting Lafferty out of a picture. He puts him on one board. On the other side of the board are the faces of people for whom John intervened.
Maybe it's the forced inactivity of the afternoon that makes John snap. He says, "That's some kind of fucked up tally."
"I suppose it is," Finch says with equanimity. "Still too few to call a pattern, I'm afraid, but we have time. So far I have vengeance and culpability as main suspects, although I'm not yet ruling out strict morality or something more complex." He tilts his head at the display. His spine doesn't quite move right, which makes the gesture awkward.
"For the record," John says, "I have no idea what you just said."
"Noted." Finch finally looks at him. "If you don't mind, I'd like to have you now."
Wordlessly, John stands up and heads for the bedroom. Finch follows him to the bedroom in a sedate pace.
Harold is usually polite about asking. John's tested his boundaries here, too, to an extent: Harold has no problem waiting a few hours, even if John doesn't specify a time limit in advance.
Today he feels like he might have taken enough chances. "How do you want me?" John asks.
"Disrobe, please, then hands and knees on the bed." Harold lets John undress himself.
John loses his clothes quickly and gets into position. It's probably fucked up that he's feeling anticipation, but there's nobody here to take advantage of it except Finch.
Finch seems pleased that John is playing along, says so outright: "I very much appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Reese," he says as tentacles come out to caress John's skin.
John lets himself gasp, lean into their touch. It's becoming familiar, now, the mindless pleasure that they spark up in his skin and the numbness in his mind. Now that John doesn't struggle against it, he likes that numbness, too. It's relieving.
It makes it easy for John to just be, just take what Harold does to him. To his body, yeah, but more importantly to his mind.
Today, the themes John is thinking about have to do with war. The casualties of a long war contrasted with the quiet horrors of oppressive peace, trenches versus terrorism. A whole cornucopia of senseless violence, Finch's favorite thing.
John watches atrocities quietly, peaceably. They are awful and he can't prevent them, but for once, he's not upset about it. People die. So will John. It's just a matter of time.
"Hm," Finch says afterwards, when John is lying in a spent heap. Finch sounds dissatisfied.
With effort, John raises his head. "Got a problem?"
Finch waves him off. "Nothing you need to attend to." Finch smiles then, incongruously warm. Two tentacles flit over John's chest, his belly: they leave behind a numbness, like sensation done in negative space. "Rest, Mr. Reese. You've earned it."
~~
One day, it occurs to John that he might as well come out and ask: "Hey, Finch," he says, lying in bed after Finch is done with him, "what are you?"
He expects a glare, or maybe an incomprehensible answer. Finch pauses and says, "Hm. Complicated. I am... a possession, perhaps, is the best way to put it."
John looks at Finch's neat little body before him. "Whose possession?"
A tentacle flicks John on the ear, and Finch gives him a reprimanding look. "You know very well what I mean."
John rolls over and stretches. The movement turns halfway through into a game, leaning towards the tentacles and away from them, John enjoying his own range of motion.
When he's had enough of playing, John lies back. "I'm not sure I do know what you mean," he admits.
"Come now, Mr. Reese," Finch says. "Surely you've heard of being possessed."
Sure, John has. "So that makes you, what? A demon?"
He's managed to irritate Finch. "Not a demon, no. That implies theological claims I have no intention to make. Simply... a being. A presence."
"And how did you come to this body?"
For a while, Finch seems lost in thought. "How curious," he says at last. "The memory is... unusually stored. I haven't had much reason to go into my own - my host's - memories for a very long time. I've forgotten what it's like."
John remains quiet. He knows when to let someone keep talking.
"I was quite an angry young person." It might just be John's imagination, but it sounds like there's a faint echo to Finch's words. "The world seemed... unacceptable. I struggled against it. For a long time, and with all the resources at my disposal.
"Then he - I - lost hope," Harold says with a sigh. "And went calling. And - something answered."
"Don't be upset," he adds, when he sees John's expression. "We like one another perfectly well, my host and my... guest, I suppose, or rather a permanent resident. We found one another surprisingly educational."
Just as John is falling asleep, he thinks he can hear Harold musing, "I wonder what would have happened if he'd found you, before I came. Perhaps he wouldn't have called for me."
~~
Whatever else one might call these visions Harold inflicts on him, they sure are varied. This one has so far been variations of the trolley problem. The current iteration has the trolley driven by a man John knowns (though how he knows is a mystery) is a serial killer. The serial killer has the brakes to the trolley.
John, many yards away, has a sniper rifle.
He can shoot the serial killer, and save all his future victims. Or he can not shoot, and allow the serial killer to run over several bound, screaming victims.
The number of future victims is higher. John knows what he's supposed to do. He squeezes the trigger.
He tries, anyway.
He watches as the killer stops the trolley just before the first bound victim. The killer looks right at John, with a gleam of triumph in his eyes.
The vision fades before John can do anything else. He's back in the room with Harold, wrapped snugly in black tentacles. "Did you do something to me?" John asks harshly.
"I did many things to you," Harold says. "What do you mean?"
John closes his eyes. "I should have been able to make that shot." His voice doesn't tremble. He won't let it.
Harold makes a scornful noise. "Of course you couldn't. The visualisations show me how you'd act based on your initial inclination, not what you were taught is right. I've read and watched more existing material on morality than you could in a lifetime; what I'm interested in is your... hm. Call it intuition."
That gets John to open his eyes. "Is that what you need me for? My take on moral dilemmas?"
"Well," Harold says. To John's fascination, he turns a bit pink. "I also derive some, ah, personal enjoyment from our encounters."
"Really," John drawls.
He's just about to suggest that they go another round, in that case, when Harold stiffens. "I have another person for you to find," he tells John. "Her name is Megan Tillman."
John finds her, and finds the man she plans to kill, too. He talks her out of committing murder, and goes to commit some assault and battery instead.
He's expecting to kill Andrew Benton himself: he only talked Megan out of it so she wouldn't have the blood on her hands. John's hands are plenty bloody already. One more dead asshole won't make a difference.
But instead, he finds himself with his face intimately close to Benton's, telling him to turn himself in. "You'll plead guilty, and you'll go with whatever punishment they throw at you. Ask me why."
Benton more or less sobs out his "Why?"
"Because if you're in prison," John says, so quiet the words are barely more than breath, "there's a teeny, tiny chance that I won't be able to get you."
John watches Benton turn himself in with mingled satisfaction and unease. When he returns to Harold's apartment, Harold is at his desk, fiddling with bits of paper. "Ah, Mr. Reese," Finch says without looking up. "Did everything go well?"
"You did something to me," John says, voice flat.
Harold tilts his head. "Come to the bedroom, Mr. Reese. There's something I'd like to show you."
As usual, John is naked and wrapped in tentacles within minutes of entering the bedroom. He relaxes into their hold. Maybe this time Finch will give him the prisoner's dilemma.
But when the room fades, John is face to face with... himself? A man that looks like him, certainly, only he seems much more than John is used to seeing in the mirror. The man John sees is brave, and strong, and...
Good.
John flinches away from the thought. But he can't shake it off. He can't look ahead at this vision of him without knowing that this is how Harold sees him: mortal and fragile, but all the more beautiful for it, for his instinctive desire to preserve life when he can.
"Stop," John says, strangled. "Please. Don't."
"I didn't do anything to you," Harold says, "except reveal who you are."
"Please," John repeats. To his immense relief, the vision fades. "I'm not," he tells Harold, desperate to get the words out even as he's terrified of Harold's reaction. "That's not me."
"You could be," Harold says. "All it would take is the right opportunity. Oh, all right," he adds, when John is on the verge of begging again. "It's gone now. Hush."
It is gone. In its stead there's only Harold, the cool presence of him inside John's head. John clings to it and shakes until he comes.
~~
"Don't stay up late," Finch admonishes one night. "We have a meeting in the morning." He walks away before John can ask any questions.
In the morning, John wears his usual suit and stalks after Harold. They walk out the door, and as they go, the world subtly crackles and shifts around them until John realizes they're inside the Company's offices.
"Nice trick," he murmurs. Finch looks smug. "Who are we meeting?"
Finch's response is drowned out by another familiar voice. "Well, well. Look who the cat dragged in."
John goes rigid. Ill-advised; he's been far from Kara for too long, and forgot how not to let her get the best of him.
Before John can respond, though, Finch turns around to face Kara. "I am not a cat, Ms. Stanton."
"No?" Kara smiles. "And yet it seems like you've got his tongue. Why so quiet, John?"
"We're here on business, Kara," John says, hoping that'll be enough. "No time for chit-chat."
Her smile widens. "Oh, John. There's always time for chit-chat." She puts her hand on his arm.
John knows how this goes. He knows it well enough that Kara's sudden grimace comes as a surprise, as does the way she turns pale and abruptly lets go of him. She turns sharply away and leaves.
The presence of Harold in his head is familiar by now, comforting, the feeling of distance from himself and the world padded by some mental film that Harold provides. "What did you do to her?" John asks, voice low.
"The same thing I'm doing to you right now," Harold says. The presence in John's mind twists somehow, as if to draw attention to itself: John retreats from reality and lets the presence have the space it needs. "She took it somewhat less well than you do."
John preens at the warm approval in Harold's voice all the way to the meeting.
~~
Men start filtering into the room. All of them are in civilian clothing, but John doesn't need insignia to recognize the higher ranks. Harold is drawing some serious attention, here. John hopes it doesn't backfire on them.
"Gentlemen," Harold says, once everyone has settled down. "I am glad to tell you that I have a preliminary design at last, and we can begin implementation as soon as now, if you like."
A quiet mutter goes through the room. "About time," one portly, older man says.
Harold ignores this. "Would you like to review the design?"
Once most heads in the rooms are nodding, John feels himself sinking into his mind again. But this time, he sees the images that Harold is projecting as just that, images, like holograms on the conference table in the middle of the room.
The images show a team of people with blurry faces, John's face alone clear among them. They're all classily dressed. John watches them receive a number scrawled on a piece of paper, and scatter.
One faceless person locates materials held in a basement, and explodes them. Another person is burning papers. The image of John sits next to an image of Megan Tillman.
The image breaks up, and another replaces it. The faceless agents do any number of tasks, but John himself is shown speaking to people, over and over: former chases Harold sent him on as well as people he's never seen before. Nobody dies, or is even injured, in the images that Harold shows. That's gotta be a first.
One younger guy, relatively speaking, clears his throat. "Can you explain what we're seeing here, Mr. Finch?"
"Of course," Finch says. "I'll require a team of operatives. I will be able to provide them with information which should lead potential security crises to a satisfactory solution with minimal loss of life. Quite similar to the initial program that was suggested when this cooperation began, except that the scope of information I will offer will be calibrated to offer the best solution available."
As the images fluctuate, a murmur in the room rises into a dull roar. Then the man who was impatient with Harold yells, "Oh, for crying out loud!"
The images freeze. "Yes, Mr. Keirney?" Harold says.
"You expect us to believe you can solve terrorism by talking to people?"
"It's amazing how many things that would solve," Harold says, straight-faced. "But no, talking alone won't do it. There's a mental component at work." At his words, a web of light appears between John and the marks he'd talked out of doing murder. "This is my humble contribution to the effort. It is far from universal, but it improves on the original plan by 30 percent."
Keirney snorts, an ugly sound. "You think we brought you here for 30 percent?"
It might be John's imagination, but knowing Harold, he bets the temperature indeed dropped a few degrees. "You didn't bring me here at all," Harold says. "I chose to come. I could always choose differently, if this cooperative effort ceases to be so."
Keirney makes an almost imperceptible gesture, and two men rise up, pointing their guns at John. John blinks at them slowly. He hasn't left Harold's apartment armed, but now there's a weapon in his holster.
Harold's shaking his head at John, though, so John doesn't pull it out. Instead, he watches the men with the weapons yelp and drop their suddenly melted guns to the floor.
"See? This is what I was talking about." Keirney rises to his feet. "You can do anything you want, and this is what you give us?"
"Yes," Harold says. "I suggest you take it."
A hole opens beneath Keirney, and he just manages to grab its edge.
"I'm not all powerful," Harold says, "but from where you're standing, the difference may be academical." Keirney's fingers are white with pressure. He's kicking wildly. "I have my reasons. You'll have to trust me; you have no choice, except to refuse my help altogether."
And just like that, Keirney stands on solid ground again, pale and mussed. "Fine," he spits out. He snaps at the person who must be his second in command, "Deal with this," and leaves the room.
"Now," Harold says, "if we may discuss the practicalities...."
~~
Even with Harold's fancy projection thing, explaining his system to the higher-ups takes hours. John listens, fascinated, and tries not to look too happy about his role in this new scheme. He has a feeling he's failing miserably, and he can't bring himself to care.
They finally leave with a promise of three teammates for John, agents to put the system into place in the field.
"More off their scrap heap, I suppose," Harold says with a sigh as they walk back, the company offices walls fading into the familiar ones of Harold's apartment. "But now that I have you, my requirements are far less strict."
"Harold," John says, gently, "I'm not really all that great." Understatement of the century, he feels.
Harold looks unimpressed. "I'll allow that your self-assessment skills need improvement. As for the rest..." After a moment, he says, "I might as well show you. Come."
He beckons John to the door, opening it again to show--
Nothing.
Not empty space, not blank whiteness, but nothing. John's senses would scream, if Harold hadn't accustomed him to taking more than he thought he could bear.
As it is, he follows Harold on shaking legs. Harold glances at John, and offers him his arm; John takes it gratefully.
"Existence," Harold says softly, "is vast. And most of it is what you see: nothing. This is the void between universes." He points out a tiny speck of something, and John's eyes lock onto it hungrily. "This is the universe we occupy."
The speck grows with dazzling speed, until an almost familiar view of spinning galaxies surrounds John. Two of them are crashing into one another, unstoppable and vast.
"Life," Harold says, "is incredibly rare. Even more rare are lives like humans have, ones that think and create. A tiny amount of intent and structure in an existence that just... happens."
Numbly, John nods. It almost makes sense, in a horrifying way. How fleeting life is, how fragile, in a universe-- no, what did Harold call it? An existence that didn't care one way or another. It feels like his head was going to explode, and at the same time, like he's always known this on some subconscious level.
"John," Harold says sharply, "pay attention." John blinks at him. "Life is rare. The idea that life might be important - precious - that's a novelty. It's the most beautiful thing I found." Harold gestures, and suddenly they're back on Earth, surrounded by people in the heart of New York City. John can see the same glowing network that was present in Harold's projections.
"I could crush them all with a thought," Harold says. "I could force them into the same kind of order that causes stars to go nova and galaxies to collide. I chose not to. But in order to do good rather than harm, I needed," he gestures at John, "a local point of view."
"And you chose mine?" John says, dubious.
"Yes," Harold says simply. "You are altruistic and brave, and you love fiercely despite every attempt to burn it out of you. You are an excellent lense through which to view humanity. And now that I can see humanity through you, I suspect I can make some improvements."
That ought to have creeped the fuck out of John, but perhaps all fucks have already been creeped out of him by that nothingness. A pair of tentacles catch him as his knees give up. "What about me?" he says. "Gonna make improvements to me, too?"
"I might," Harold says, sounding pleased. "All in due time."
The tentacles cradle John gently, not burning him. John closes his eyes, lets his head tilt back, lets Harold take everything he has to give - apparently not just his mind and his body, but also his skills and his wants. Harold can't quite make John want to not die, but he does make life sound more appealing.
"Yes," Harold says. The tip of a tentacle slides through John's hair. Another rests against his throat, gentle. "We'll make your life such a beautiful thing, together."
John is still skeptical, but just for a moment, he lets himself believe.