how to stop an exploding man.

[regenerated]

The papers read November 7th, 2006. The much anticipated New York congressional elections were underway as people all around the city were filing in lines, some staring with a bit of curiosity or trepidation at the new booths provided by one Daniel Linderman, a big name throughout the whole of New York, but one who came with his share of shadiness as well. Not every household trusted him, the most wary sticking in their apartments, offices, and classrooms, absentee ballots clutched in their hands, but the turnout was decent on the whole, the only event which seemed to set that day apart from most others in that gray city, skyscrapers stretching all the way up into the clouds above.

But, unknown to the general populace, there were a group of individuals scattered around the whole of the city, some whose faces were plastered on posters at every turn, others making it onto national television, and still more trying their best to avoid any detection altogether. And those individuals were special, the pinnacle of human evolution, some believed. Destined to do something great.

A hospice nurse.

A taxi driver.

A watchmaker.

A girl next door.

An office worker.

A policeman.

A socialite.

A soon-to-be Congressman for the 14th District.

A manager at a paper factory.

A cheerleader.

Heroes and villains.

This was their story.

Comments

[noonelaughed]

Well, this is just fuckin' weird.

One second, Chris was sure he'd been asleep, back in his hut, half tangled in a blanket, and the next he's waking up in an alley somewhere. Chris has had nights where he's gotten so fucked that he doesn't remember heading home, but he's always made it there. And besides, this isn't the island anymore. It's not even Bristol. Chris doesn't think there's a level of fucked that even exists for something like this.

He's only in a tee shirt and his pants when he walks out into a crowd of people. This is beyond fuckin' weird.

[regenerated]

Her heart almost stills when she sees him out there. Chris. Or, possibly, just some person who looks like Chris, give that the island does have a habit of making clones of people in the most unsettling of ways. Maybe it brought her Chris Miles on the island just for this, to drop her back in New York and somehow have her lose all concentration when someone with that same face, that same confused and at once wondrous look in his expression. And if that's true, then the last thing that Claire should be doing is running after him the way she does now. She should just be letting him stay among the civilians, not making it clear that she's connected to him at all, because that puts him at risk. But, Claire reminds herself, that she's coming to New York today with memories of the next twenty-four hours intact, that's a game changer.

And the last thing she can ever let herself do is get Chris tangled up in all of that.

It's only when she's merely a couple of yards away from Chris that she realizes. He doesn't know. He doesn't know what she is, what she can do, and seeing that might drive him away more quickly than anything else. She can't be fully sure, and that thought is enough to make her want to run in the other direction entirely. She can't afford to lose him.

"Chris?" she calls out anyway, dread in her voice.