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Title: Black Edelweiss
Series: Zeitgeist
Follows: One Giant Leap
Wordcount: 3,474
Summary: Two weeks after Claire Bennet's televised leap from the Ferris wheel, the 12th handles it's first case delving into the strange world of specials. Evidence points the investigation toward a former Company Agent, a man Noah Bennet would swear up and down doesn't exist.
Details: Minimal details due to inflation. Full warnings and details in main post.
Warnings: This chapter contains some potentially disturbing references to 9/11, human experimentation, difficult childbirths, and bag-and-tagging gone horrifically wrong.
PREV: Chapter Twelve // MAIN // NEXT: Chapter Fourteen
Recap: Konrad's interrogation began with Detective Beckett allowing Konrad to assume she was Hana Gitelman, an ex-Mossad special whose grandmother he had encountered at Auschwitz more than sixty years ago. Showing great hostility toward Bennet, Konrad was also quite honest and detailed about his disapproval of their victim, Jonas Zimmerman. Eventually, however, Beckett's interest in Zimmerman caught his attention, and Konrad seemed to notice the situation wasn't what he originally thought it was. Not only did he realize that that Kate was not Hana, he knew who she actually was, calling her by name.
Chapter Thirteen: Thorns Outlive the Rose
"Everything we've ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are."
—Terry Prachett, A Hat Full of Sky
"You're the other granddaughter," Konrad said softly, eyes locked on hers. "Johanna's daughter."
He pronounced the name with the soft "j" Kate had only rarely heard growing up. A startling detail, but one to which she barely had time to react as Konrad paused for a moment, face twisting like he was trying to remember.
"It's Katherine, right?" he asked her. "Katherine Beckett?"
Kate could not pretend, even to herself, that she hadn't been somewhat dubious about the whole plan. The situation itself was impossibly bizarre, and adding their deception into the mix only seemed to compound its existing strangeness. Neither would she pretend not to have felt a bit guilty. The memories they had been dragging up had been causing Konrad a great deal of pain, and it was difficult for her to see that pain written across Kevin's face. She had been forced to remind herself throughout the interview that this man wasn't Kevin, not really, but what her mind knew seemed insufficient to effect her feelings on the matter.
Now, Kate found herself fighting a mild sense of panic. She hadn't quite believed Bennet's claims about her connection to Konrad's past, not until she had seen the man's reaction. Even then she hadn't imagined that Konrad might know her, might know of her mother—or of her mother's murder. From the sympathy that shone in his eyes as he looked at her, it seemed that he did, and his next words settled the question entirely.
"That's right," he said quietly, nodding to himself. "I remember hearing you'd joined the NYPD after her death."
And he frowned, seeming to make another connection.
"You're— Is this an investigation?" Konrad seemed somewhat startled by the idea. "Am I a suspect in something?"
Kate tried to regroup after the sudden shift. A quick glance at Bennet gave her little in the way of cues to go on. That left only Konrad to work off of, and while instincts honed through numerous investigations were telling her plenty, the situation was so outside her usual frame of reference that she just wasn't sure.
"Look, I'm going to need more information if you want me to cooperate," Konrad said, and it was strange how...friendly his tone had become. "I'm...unsurprisingly lacking in details."
He almost sounded embarrassed.
It was enough for Kate to make her decision. She was no longer "Hana", and she already had Konrad's sympathy. There was no need for her to be his antagonist in this interview, and if he truly was willing to cooperate she would happily lend him every encouragement to that end. Kate wasn't used to playing the "good cop", but with Konrad's clear antipathy toward Bennet, in this case she figured she might as well take the role that had opened up to her.
"Jonas Zimmerman was murdered yesterday morning," she informed him, watching Konrad's reaction carefully. "His body was discovered in a building in Chelsea—a building I'm told you're likely familiar with."
Konrad inclined his head slightly as he took the information in. Kate didn't notice any tells indicating an attempt to falsify his reaction, but he seemed distressingly unmoved by the news. Though from their earlier conversation about the victim, this was clearly to be expected.
"Reed Street?" Konrad asked, matching the nod Kate gave him in confirmation. He made a soft noise, almost a laugh, continuing faintly. "Yeah, I can see how I'd rate as a suspect in that one."
He frowned suddenly.
"He's a long way from home though," Konrad observed curiously. "What about his daughter? Is Barbara okay? Have you notified her about her father?"
And Kate was somewhat relieved to see some actual concern there, at least.
"We're still trying to locate her," Kate said, avoiding giving him more as she had with Angela Petrelli, "but she is alive as far as we know."
Konrad gave a slight nod. He seemed to turn the facts over in his head for a bit. Finally he sighed and shook his head.
"I'm sorry...detective?" he ventured the title, giving another faint nod as he continued. "I wish I could help more, but I can't confess or deny a crime I don't remember."
The fact that Konrad so calmly accepted his possible involvement in murder was vaguely disturbing, and completely at odds with everything she knew about Kevin Ryan. Or thought she had known. Before today she never would have imagined him capable of something like this. Part of her still wanted to believe that he wasn't, but she didn't understand enough about this—about how the two identities had become separated or exactly how much was shared between them—to truly know for sure.
"Perhaps you can help by telling us more about Zimmerman," Kate suggested, setting those doubts aside for now. "I understand you're working on information more than ten years out of date, but can you think of anyone else who might have wanted him dead?"
"A few dozen specials at least, if they somehow remembered what he did to them," Konrad answered sharply, before giving the question serious thought.
"Elle Bishop would probably be my first choice for it," he finally said, unhappily. "Most of Zimmerman's test subjects were catch-and-release, but Bob likes to keep his daughter close enough to watch her, which means by now she probably works for the Company. So there's a chance she could have learned about what happened, or recovered her memories through other means. And the tests Zimmerman ran to push the limits of her ability weren't simply painful, they also left her dangerously unstable, so if she did manage to remember, there is a real possibility she could have reacted violently."
"I'm afraid Elle and her father were both killed four years ago by an escapee from Level-5," Bennet said.
Kate didn't know what that meant, but Konrad must have, because he didn't ask for details, though he definitely seemed saddened by the news. He gave a slight nod, but was silent a moment before he continued.
"I suppose there's also that Haitian kid, René," Konrad said next, and a glance over at Bennet had him reacting to the other man's surprise. "Yeah, I don't really see it either, but the motive is there."
"Explain," Bennet said.
Bennet's tone was not simply skeptical, but somewhat defensive. Kate remembered a Rene being referenced in Kaito Nakamura's letter, but Bennet had never given any indication the name meant anything to him personally. Unsurprising, in hindsight, given that he had also successfully hidden any reaction to Kate's resemblance to Hana. She put the detail away with the other questions she would have for the agent later.
"Zimmerman disapproved of René's relationship with his daughter," Konrad said with a light smile, "or at least, he always did for as long as he managed to remember it."
Bennet gave a sharp blink, clearly surprised, and seeing it was so alarmingly unexpected it was almost comical.
"Ever since he was little more than a child, René's role at the Company has been to protect other people's secrets," Konrad said, life fading from his short lived smile, "and he is very good at keeping them. But his job also means that he remembers what others do not, and people underestimate what kind of burden that is."
The smile had been replace by a weary expression of loss.
"Few enough people hold any memories of me that will stay," Konrad said, his voice turning soft and painfully fragile as he continued. "Take those away, and I might as well never have existed to them at all. René...took someone precious from me once, on Thompson's orders. It nearly crushed me. Angela wasn't very happy about it either, but there was no way for René to undo what he'd done."
Konrad paused, wetting his lips.
"We had...a sort of understanding after that," he said. "René agreed he would leave my memory untouched in others, and because of the way his ability worked, his own memories of me remained intact. He was...a lifeline. In return, I promised to hold onto his secrets carefully."
"Anyway," Konrad said suddenly, shaking off his shift in mood with startling abruptness and returning to topic, "as far as I know their relationship ended when Zimmerman left the Company, but with René you never can know for sure. Though as far as suspecting him of killing someone...well, I think we both know he really wouldn't need to."
Bennet nodded slowly, clearly disconcerted, though by exactly what part of the information Konrad had revealed it was impossible for Kate to guess.
"Anyone else specific you could name?" she asked.
"I guess there's one other possibility," Konrad said, hesitantly, eyes taking in Bennet with cautious consideration. "He never gave anyone at the Company his real name, but we knew him as Claude Raines."
Kate noted Bennet's posture shifted slightly. As always, the particular nature of his reaction was difficult to read, but Kate thought she saw a hint of his earlier defensiveness. And something else, very briefly, that she couldn't quite name. Anger? Guilt? With his attention so clearly focused on Bennet, Kate had little doubt Konrad had seen it as well. He gave little indication of it, however, as he continued to speak.
"I never knew what his specific issue was with Zimmerman," Konrad said. "It might have been connected to the experiments, or it could simply have been the incident with Elle rubbed him the wrong way. Thompson always suspected Claude was keeping a family hidden from the Company. I would have gone as far as to speculate he had a daughter, if I'd felt it was any of Thompson's business. And Claude's paranoia did turn out to be justified in the end."
Bennet's frown deepened at this, but Konrad seemed unaware. He paused thoughtfully.
"When Claude left the Company, Zimmerman was living in California," Konrad pointed out. "If Zimmerman was here in New York and spotted him—doubtful, but a possibility—Claude might have killed him out of fear that word might make it back to the Company."
"Claude left the Company before you did," Bennet interrupted, a slight inflection drawing unusual attention to the phrase. His voice was hard, though Kate wouldn't have characterized the emotion in it as anger. "You knew he'd survived."
It was an accusation, not a question. Konrad sat back, examining Bennet for a moment before he gave a humorless smile.
"I knew Thompson was going to order the execution before he knew it himself," Konrad said, a bit smugly. "I even warned Claude you were coming. He was just crazy enough to stick around to see if you'd really do it."
Up to this point, if Kate had needed to choose a single word to describe Bennet, the best she might have come up with was unyielding. Yet, while his posture was stiff and his face as impassive as ever, when the stare-down drew out between him and Konrad, Bennet was the first to look away. It was a subtle defeat, but resounding. He took a slow breath, recovering his usual composure before he turned to Kate.
"It's...a possibility," Bennet admitted, "but it doesn't sound like Claude's style. Zimmerman's murder was too flashy. Too melodramatic."
Bennet paused, shaking his head.
"Too...visible," he concluded.
Konrad frowned thoughtfully at Bennet's words.
"How was Zimmerman killed, exactly?" he asked.
Kate found the curious interest in his eyes painfully familiar. Her mind stumbled over the image briefly, delaying her answer even after she had weighed the consequences and benefits and decided to share the details.
"He was stabbed through the heart," she supplied. "The forensics suggest the murder weapon was a thin, curved blade, less than two inches in width, but long enough to exit cleanly through the back. Possibly a sword. And the detail might be an unconnected, but he had an edelweiss flower pinned to the lapel of his coat."
Konrad frowned, his eyebrows drawing together in a troubled expression. After a moment, he turned toward Bennet.
"Is Adam still being held at Three Mile Island?" he asked. Which was a bizarre enough question to beg further questions, but Bennet clearly understood his meaning.
Kate still made a note to ask about the connection later.
"Adam briefly escaped, but he was also killed four years ago, in a separate incident from Bishop."
Stricken was the only word for Konrad's reaction to the news. Given what they knew of Adam and Konrad's history together and the ability they had shared, Kate could imagine the other man's death was a difficult thing to hear. Konrad was quiet for a long moment, and as they watched his undisguised shock progressed through sadness and regret, into a shaken acceptance.
"You're right," Konrad said eventually, voice subdued and quiet when he spoke, "I didn't like Zimmerman. Plotting his death wasn't exactly on my to-do list, but I guess it's possible something could have moved me to do it. But the flower feels like someone trying to send a message. Or part of some kind of setup. That doesn't sound like me, and if it was I have no idea who it could have been aimed at..."
His expression turned briefly intense as he seemed to turn the details over in his head, but he finally abandoned the effort, shaking his head with a sigh.
"Peter seems to have wrapped up all my memories of the past decade somewhere out of my reach," Konrad said, finally. "If I killed Zimmerman, my reasons for it are locked up in that part of my mind you don't want me to see."
Konrad stopped then, blinking suddenly as if he had just realized something.
"There it is," he said, softly, his voice almost a whisper as he turned his attention on Kate once more. "I knew there was something in this that was personal for you. When I thought you were Hana that made sense, but not for a detective investigating a murder. Not unless someone you cared about was involved. I know it wasn't Zimmerman, and there's no reason to fence off my memories during an interrogation, not unless..."
Konrad trailed off
"It's Ryan, isn't it?" Konrad asked.
His mouth shaped a soft, somewhat baffled and sincerely sympathetic smile, but Kate still felt a little sick hearing the question. She couldn't respond right away. While Bennet was not so affected, he looked at her as if he seemed unsure how to proceed. They had agreed, after all, when preparing for their interview, that where Kevin was concerned, she would have final say. Pushing her unease to the back of her mind, Kate did her best to move forward.
"Tell me about that," she demanded, somewhat relieved when her voice didn't betray how truly unsettled she was. "About Ryan. I deal with aliases and covers on a daily basis, but I don't understand this."
Konrad looked down at his chained hands, his smile turning a little sideways, as if embarrassed.
"To be honest, I don't either," he admitted faintly. "I've lived a long time, detective, and I've had a lot of names. Kevin Ryan was just another name. Just someone I made up to get me through another few decades. If he's somehow managed to take on a life of his own...?"
Whatever her expression was, it seemed to be all the confirmation he needed. He slowly shook his head.
"I don't know how exactly I might have managed to do that," Konrad admitted, confusion plain on his face. "I couldn't tell you if it was one of my abilities or just legitimate mental illness. I probably couldn't do it again if I tried. But I—"
He paused, wetting his lips.
"I might be able to guess why," Konrad said, almost breathlessly. "Because the last thing I remember clearly are the roses."
Confusion crossed his face again, slightly nervous, uncertain.
"Nine years ago there was some kind of attack, wasn't there? In Manhattan?" Konrad asked her cautiously. "Two planes hit the World Trade Towers?"
Kate's eyebrows rose in a vague sort of surprise, and she gave a slight nod. Konrad mirrored it faintly, eyes moving to his hands.
"I remember the second tower falling," Konrad said, slowly, almost as if he were piecing it together for himself. "I remember joining the response efforts—me and my partner, Max. I remember...seeing the streets covered in rubble, and the buried cars and smoke, and dust, and..."
He trailed off with a thick swallow, taking a breath that shook audibly.
And Kate felt a little stunned, because she had heard this story before. Every cop who was on the force that day had their own version of that story, and she knew this one because Kevin had told her. About how he and his partner had been helping to pull the survivors out of the Marriott, and the breakdown he had suffered when he found the roses. Telling the story, Kevin had always described the reasons behind the reaction as a complete mystery to him, just something that he had never adequately been able to explain. Now, knowing the man's true history, from Konrad's lips it made a painful amount of sense...
"It brought back some very powerful, very ugly memories," Konrad said, coming back to himself with a shake of his head. "Of Dresden. Seeing the city where I grew up destroyed, the block where my family's home once stood turned to rubble. Things I think I never really dealt with..."
"Things I didn't really want to deal with," he said distantly, with a weak, lifeless smile, "and right then I didn't have time. So I used one of the abilities I had to push it all to the back of my mind—just a piece here and there—until I could deal with it later.
"But then I found the roses," Konrad said softly, "orange-yellow ones, like my mother used to grow under the window where she could look at them while she read... And for a split second it was that same moment, and...and I felt like I'd lost them all over again."
He closed his eyes, shaking his head again with a faint breath.
"It all gets kind of choppy after that," Konrad said when he opened his eyes again. "And it's funny, too, because that's the last thing I remember, but it doesn't feel like yesterday. Like I've moved on past the shock of it...or I guess it was Kevin who did."
"But yeah," he concluded, almost apologetically as his eyes returned to Kate's, "I think if anything I've lived through was going to break me...it would've been that."
"You seem to be handling the idea pretty well," Kate managed, feeling a little disconnected. What else could she possibly say?
Konrad let out a faint snort, offering a rueful smile.
"Well it's strange, I'll admit," he said, "but then my scale of strange has its bar set pretty high. I've died, detective, and come back from the dead more times than I care to remember. I've been dissected alive, and seen my own heart beating outside my chest. I saw a man walk on the moon, and an actor elected president. I've seen dozens of impossible things during my time with the Company—"
He cut off with a faint blink, as though something had occurred to him, frowning slightly.
"Once, I watched the same person born three times on the same day," Konrad said, leaning forward to look at Kate sharply. "I mean, if you want to know about Zimmerman and the Company, detective, there's a story...
"Back in the early seventies, Thompson and I were sent to collect a woman. A cloner. We were given her whereabouts and information about her ability, but the information somehow missed the fact that she was pregnant."
A dark expression crossed Konrad's face before he added, "I still like to think that, if we had known, Thompson never would have used the taser."
"She went into labor in the back of the van on the way back to Odessa," Konrad said, eyes shifting to stare at some point off to her left that held nothing much in particular. "Only, part of the way through it her ability began to malfunction, and two unprepared agents with the uncomfortable task of delivering a baby on a stretch of empty road suddenly found themselves trying to deliver seven."
"Which almost sounds like it should have been laughably funny," Konrad continued, his eyes distant as he let out a pained laugh, "except that the mother died, each one of her, leaving the nightmare results of seven dead women and four dead infants and three perfect, blue-eyed baby girls more identical than any natural triplets you could ever hope to find."
"Zimmerman was fascinated with the possibilities," Konrad said, his expression turning nasty. "They became...an asset to his research."
"Years later, he would play up his role as a doting father," Konrad finished, "and I'm sure he did love Barbara, in his way. But that doesn't change the fact that she was a lab rat before she ever was his daughter..."
Konrad trailed off into a restless silence. Though he was still, the lines of his body were charged with an intense, disgusted anger that was almost palpable. Kate and Bennet each were left stunned, and just as quiet. Several seconds ticked past before that silence was broken.
"If you don't have any more questions, detective," Konrad said, looking back to Kate with a strange, vulnerable smile, "I think I'd like my phone call."
PREV: Chapter Twelve // MAIN // NEXT: Chapter Fourteen
Author's Note: I could have just titled this chapter "Konrad Carries Guilt Like a Boss".
And I'm not really sure where the weird little anecdote came from. Konrad's particular interest in Barbara and her sisters mutated a lot over the course of the story. Originally, Konrad was going to be their biological father, with their mother being either the Ghost (who was originally supposed to be a woman) or a special who worked for the Company.
This would have reflected back on Kevin's flirting with Tracy and turned it somewhat disturbing... Though that same draft, imagined before the episode Nikki Heat aired, featured a bit less harmless banter and a lot more good-natured leering, as originally Tracy was supposed to break into Barbara's apartment by slipping under the door, with a little bit of super-powered nudity thrown in for good measure (as seen in the video for the fic).
Which...really would have made it even more messed up.
Also Thompson. I originally set up Konrad and Ivan as the big precedent-setting partnership. It really should have been Konrad and Thompson. I might go back and make minor tweaks to chapter four to reflect it later, but I figure in the earlier days of the Company there were probably a lot of partner trade offs before anyone really found chemistry. Konrad and Thompson...not good chemistry. But then Thompson was just an all around dick.
Also, it's kind of funny. I didn't choose Zimmerman to be the victim because he was a bad guy, he was just convenient. It wasn't really until I started writing the interrogation and looked back over some of his activities in the comics and on the show and realized how monstrous they really were. The Barbara/Rene thing I just made up, though in the comics they are shown to have known each other.
I also didn't notice how all of Konrad's suspects just happened to have been Bennet's partner at one time or another.
Series: Zeitgeist
Follows: One Giant Leap
Wordcount: 3,474
Summary: Two weeks after Claire Bennet's televised leap from the Ferris wheel, the 12th handles it's first case delving into the strange world of specials. Evidence points the investigation toward a former Company Agent, a man Noah Bennet would swear up and down doesn't exist.
Details: Minimal details due to inflation. Full warnings and details in main post.
Warnings: This chapter contains some potentially disturbing references to 9/11, human experimentation, difficult childbirths, and bag-and-tagging gone horrifically wrong.
PREV: Chapter Twelve // MAIN // NEXT: Chapter Fourteen
Recap: Konrad's interrogation began with Detective Beckett allowing Konrad to assume she was Hana Gitelman, an ex-Mossad special whose grandmother he had encountered at Auschwitz more than sixty years ago. Showing great hostility toward Bennet, Konrad was also quite honest and detailed about his disapproval of their victim, Jonas Zimmerman. Eventually, however, Beckett's interest in Zimmerman caught his attention, and Konrad seemed to notice the situation wasn't what he originally thought it was. Not only did he realize that that Kate was not Hana, he knew who she actually was, calling her by name.
Chapter Thirteen: Thorns Outlive the Rose
"Everything we've ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are."
—Terry Prachett, A Hat Full of Sky
"You're the other granddaughter," Konrad said softly, eyes locked on hers. "Johanna's daughter."
He pronounced the name with the soft "j" Kate had only rarely heard growing up. A startling detail, but one to which she barely had time to react as Konrad paused for a moment, face twisting like he was trying to remember.
"It's Katherine, right?" he asked her. "Katherine Beckett?"
Kate could not pretend, even to herself, that she hadn't been somewhat dubious about the whole plan. The situation itself was impossibly bizarre, and adding their deception into the mix only seemed to compound its existing strangeness. Neither would she pretend not to have felt a bit guilty. The memories they had been dragging up had been causing Konrad a great deal of pain, and it was difficult for her to see that pain written across Kevin's face. She had been forced to remind herself throughout the interview that this man wasn't Kevin, not really, but what her mind knew seemed insufficient to effect her feelings on the matter.
Now, Kate found herself fighting a mild sense of panic. She hadn't quite believed Bennet's claims about her connection to Konrad's past, not until she had seen the man's reaction. Even then she hadn't imagined that Konrad might know her, might know of her mother—or of her mother's murder. From the sympathy that shone in his eyes as he looked at her, it seemed that he did, and his next words settled the question entirely.
"That's right," he said quietly, nodding to himself. "I remember hearing you'd joined the NYPD after her death."
And he frowned, seeming to make another connection.
"You're— Is this an investigation?" Konrad seemed somewhat startled by the idea. "Am I a suspect in something?"
Kate tried to regroup after the sudden shift. A quick glance at Bennet gave her little in the way of cues to go on. That left only Konrad to work off of, and while instincts honed through numerous investigations were telling her plenty, the situation was so outside her usual frame of reference that she just wasn't sure.
"Look, I'm going to need more information if you want me to cooperate," Konrad said, and it was strange how...friendly his tone had become. "I'm...unsurprisingly lacking in details."
He almost sounded embarrassed.
It was enough for Kate to make her decision. She was no longer "Hana", and she already had Konrad's sympathy. There was no need for her to be his antagonist in this interview, and if he truly was willing to cooperate she would happily lend him every encouragement to that end. Kate wasn't used to playing the "good cop", but with Konrad's clear antipathy toward Bennet, in this case she figured she might as well take the role that had opened up to her.
"Jonas Zimmerman was murdered yesterday morning," she informed him, watching Konrad's reaction carefully. "His body was discovered in a building in Chelsea—a building I'm told you're likely familiar with."
Konrad inclined his head slightly as he took the information in. Kate didn't notice any tells indicating an attempt to falsify his reaction, but he seemed distressingly unmoved by the news. Though from their earlier conversation about the victim, this was clearly to be expected.
"Reed Street?" Konrad asked, matching the nod Kate gave him in confirmation. He made a soft noise, almost a laugh, continuing faintly. "Yeah, I can see how I'd rate as a suspect in that one."
He frowned suddenly.
"He's a long way from home though," Konrad observed curiously. "What about his daughter? Is Barbara okay? Have you notified her about her father?"
And Kate was somewhat relieved to see some actual concern there, at least.
"We're still trying to locate her," Kate said, avoiding giving him more as she had with Angela Petrelli, "but she is alive as far as we know."
Konrad gave a slight nod. He seemed to turn the facts over in his head for a bit. Finally he sighed and shook his head.
"I'm sorry...detective?" he ventured the title, giving another faint nod as he continued. "I wish I could help more, but I can't confess or deny a crime I don't remember."
The fact that Konrad so calmly accepted his possible involvement in murder was vaguely disturbing, and completely at odds with everything she knew about Kevin Ryan. Or thought she had known. Before today she never would have imagined him capable of something like this. Part of her still wanted to believe that he wasn't, but she didn't understand enough about this—about how the two identities had become separated or exactly how much was shared between them—to truly know for sure.
"Perhaps you can help by telling us more about Zimmerman," Kate suggested, setting those doubts aside for now. "I understand you're working on information more than ten years out of date, but can you think of anyone else who might have wanted him dead?"
"A few dozen specials at least, if they somehow remembered what he did to them," Konrad answered sharply, before giving the question serious thought.
"Elle Bishop would probably be my first choice for it," he finally said, unhappily. "Most of Zimmerman's test subjects were catch-and-release, but Bob likes to keep his daughter close enough to watch her, which means by now she probably works for the Company. So there's a chance she could have learned about what happened, or recovered her memories through other means. And the tests Zimmerman ran to push the limits of her ability weren't simply painful, they also left her dangerously unstable, so if she did manage to remember, there is a real possibility she could have reacted violently."
"I'm afraid Elle and her father were both killed four years ago by an escapee from Level-5," Bennet said.
Kate didn't know what that meant, but Konrad must have, because he didn't ask for details, though he definitely seemed saddened by the news. He gave a slight nod, but was silent a moment before he continued.
"I suppose there's also that Haitian kid, René," Konrad said next, and a glance over at Bennet had him reacting to the other man's surprise. "Yeah, I don't really see it either, but the motive is there."
"Explain," Bennet said.
Bennet's tone was not simply skeptical, but somewhat defensive. Kate remembered a Rene being referenced in Kaito Nakamura's letter, but Bennet had never given any indication the name meant anything to him personally. Unsurprising, in hindsight, given that he had also successfully hidden any reaction to Kate's resemblance to Hana. She put the detail away with the other questions she would have for the agent later.
"Zimmerman disapproved of René's relationship with his daughter," Konrad said with a light smile, "or at least, he always did for as long as he managed to remember it."
Bennet gave a sharp blink, clearly surprised, and seeing it was so alarmingly unexpected it was almost comical.
"Ever since he was little more than a child, René's role at the Company has been to protect other people's secrets," Konrad said, life fading from his short lived smile, "and he is very good at keeping them. But his job also means that he remembers what others do not, and people underestimate what kind of burden that is."
The smile had been replace by a weary expression of loss.
"Few enough people hold any memories of me that will stay," Konrad said, his voice turning soft and painfully fragile as he continued. "Take those away, and I might as well never have existed to them at all. René...took someone precious from me once, on Thompson's orders. It nearly crushed me. Angela wasn't very happy about it either, but there was no way for René to undo what he'd done."
Konrad paused, wetting his lips.
"We had...a sort of understanding after that," he said. "René agreed he would leave my memory untouched in others, and because of the way his ability worked, his own memories of me remained intact. He was...a lifeline. In return, I promised to hold onto his secrets carefully."
"Anyway," Konrad said suddenly, shaking off his shift in mood with startling abruptness and returning to topic, "as far as I know their relationship ended when Zimmerman left the Company, but with René you never can know for sure. Though as far as suspecting him of killing someone...well, I think we both know he really wouldn't need to."
Bennet nodded slowly, clearly disconcerted, though by exactly what part of the information Konrad had revealed it was impossible for Kate to guess.
"Anyone else specific you could name?" she asked.
"I guess there's one other possibility," Konrad said, hesitantly, eyes taking in Bennet with cautious consideration. "He never gave anyone at the Company his real name, but we knew him as Claude Raines."
Kate noted Bennet's posture shifted slightly. As always, the particular nature of his reaction was difficult to read, but Kate thought she saw a hint of his earlier defensiveness. And something else, very briefly, that she couldn't quite name. Anger? Guilt? With his attention so clearly focused on Bennet, Kate had little doubt Konrad had seen it as well. He gave little indication of it, however, as he continued to speak.
"I never knew what his specific issue was with Zimmerman," Konrad said. "It might have been connected to the experiments, or it could simply have been the incident with Elle rubbed him the wrong way. Thompson always suspected Claude was keeping a family hidden from the Company. I would have gone as far as to speculate he had a daughter, if I'd felt it was any of Thompson's business. And Claude's paranoia did turn out to be justified in the end."
Bennet's frown deepened at this, but Konrad seemed unaware. He paused thoughtfully.
"When Claude left the Company, Zimmerman was living in California," Konrad pointed out. "If Zimmerman was here in New York and spotted him—doubtful, but a possibility—Claude might have killed him out of fear that word might make it back to the Company."
"Claude left the Company before you did," Bennet interrupted, a slight inflection drawing unusual attention to the phrase. His voice was hard, though Kate wouldn't have characterized the emotion in it as anger. "You knew he'd survived."
It was an accusation, not a question. Konrad sat back, examining Bennet for a moment before he gave a humorless smile.
"I knew Thompson was going to order the execution before he knew it himself," Konrad said, a bit smugly. "I even warned Claude you were coming. He was just crazy enough to stick around to see if you'd really do it."
Up to this point, if Kate had needed to choose a single word to describe Bennet, the best she might have come up with was unyielding. Yet, while his posture was stiff and his face as impassive as ever, when the stare-down drew out between him and Konrad, Bennet was the first to look away. It was a subtle defeat, but resounding. He took a slow breath, recovering his usual composure before he turned to Kate.
"It's...a possibility," Bennet admitted, "but it doesn't sound like Claude's style. Zimmerman's murder was too flashy. Too melodramatic."
Bennet paused, shaking his head.
"Too...visible," he concluded.
Konrad frowned thoughtfully at Bennet's words.
"How was Zimmerman killed, exactly?" he asked.
Kate found the curious interest in his eyes painfully familiar. Her mind stumbled over the image briefly, delaying her answer even after she had weighed the consequences and benefits and decided to share the details.
"He was stabbed through the heart," she supplied. "The forensics suggest the murder weapon was a thin, curved blade, less than two inches in width, but long enough to exit cleanly through the back. Possibly a sword. And the detail might be an unconnected, but he had an edelweiss flower pinned to the lapel of his coat."
Konrad frowned, his eyebrows drawing together in a troubled expression. After a moment, he turned toward Bennet.
"Is Adam still being held at Three Mile Island?" he asked. Which was a bizarre enough question to beg further questions, but Bennet clearly understood his meaning.
Kate still made a note to ask about the connection later.
"Adam briefly escaped, but he was also killed four years ago, in a separate incident from Bishop."
Stricken was the only word for Konrad's reaction to the news. Given what they knew of Adam and Konrad's history together and the ability they had shared, Kate could imagine the other man's death was a difficult thing to hear. Konrad was quiet for a long moment, and as they watched his undisguised shock progressed through sadness and regret, into a shaken acceptance.
"You're right," Konrad said eventually, voice subdued and quiet when he spoke, "I didn't like Zimmerman. Plotting his death wasn't exactly on my to-do list, but I guess it's possible something could have moved me to do it. But the flower feels like someone trying to send a message. Or part of some kind of setup. That doesn't sound like me, and if it was I have no idea who it could have been aimed at..."
His expression turned briefly intense as he seemed to turn the details over in his head, but he finally abandoned the effort, shaking his head with a sigh.
"Peter seems to have wrapped up all my memories of the past decade somewhere out of my reach," Konrad said, finally. "If I killed Zimmerman, my reasons for it are locked up in that part of my mind you don't want me to see."
Konrad stopped then, blinking suddenly as if he had just realized something.
"There it is," he said, softly, his voice almost a whisper as he turned his attention on Kate once more. "I knew there was something in this that was personal for you. When I thought you were Hana that made sense, but not for a detective investigating a murder. Not unless someone you cared about was involved. I know it wasn't Zimmerman, and there's no reason to fence off my memories during an interrogation, not unless..."
Konrad trailed off
"It's Ryan, isn't it?" Konrad asked.
His mouth shaped a soft, somewhat baffled and sincerely sympathetic smile, but Kate still felt a little sick hearing the question. She couldn't respond right away. While Bennet was not so affected, he looked at her as if he seemed unsure how to proceed. They had agreed, after all, when preparing for their interview, that where Kevin was concerned, she would have final say. Pushing her unease to the back of her mind, Kate did her best to move forward.
"Tell me about that," she demanded, somewhat relieved when her voice didn't betray how truly unsettled she was. "About Ryan. I deal with aliases and covers on a daily basis, but I don't understand this."
Konrad looked down at his chained hands, his smile turning a little sideways, as if embarrassed.
"To be honest, I don't either," he admitted faintly. "I've lived a long time, detective, and I've had a lot of names. Kevin Ryan was just another name. Just someone I made up to get me through another few decades. If he's somehow managed to take on a life of his own...?"
Whatever her expression was, it seemed to be all the confirmation he needed. He slowly shook his head.
"I don't know how exactly I might have managed to do that," Konrad admitted, confusion plain on his face. "I couldn't tell you if it was one of my abilities or just legitimate mental illness. I probably couldn't do it again if I tried. But I—"
He paused, wetting his lips.
"I might be able to guess why," Konrad said, almost breathlessly. "Because the last thing I remember clearly are the roses."
Confusion crossed his face again, slightly nervous, uncertain.
"Nine years ago there was some kind of attack, wasn't there? In Manhattan?" Konrad asked her cautiously. "Two planes hit the World Trade Towers?"
Kate's eyebrows rose in a vague sort of surprise, and she gave a slight nod. Konrad mirrored it faintly, eyes moving to his hands.
"I remember the second tower falling," Konrad said, slowly, almost as if he were piecing it together for himself. "I remember joining the response efforts—me and my partner, Max. I remember...seeing the streets covered in rubble, and the buried cars and smoke, and dust, and..."
He trailed off with a thick swallow, taking a breath that shook audibly.
And Kate felt a little stunned, because she had heard this story before. Every cop who was on the force that day had their own version of that story, and she knew this one because Kevin had told her. About how he and his partner had been helping to pull the survivors out of the Marriott, and the breakdown he had suffered when he found the roses. Telling the story, Kevin had always described the reasons behind the reaction as a complete mystery to him, just something that he had never adequately been able to explain. Now, knowing the man's true history, from Konrad's lips it made a painful amount of sense...
"It brought back some very powerful, very ugly memories," Konrad said, coming back to himself with a shake of his head. "Of Dresden. Seeing the city where I grew up destroyed, the block where my family's home once stood turned to rubble. Things I think I never really dealt with..."
"Things I didn't really want to deal with," he said distantly, with a weak, lifeless smile, "and right then I didn't have time. So I used one of the abilities I had to push it all to the back of my mind—just a piece here and there—until I could deal with it later.
"But then I found the roses," Konrad said softly, "orange-yellow ones, like my mother used to grow under the window where she could look at them while she read... And for a split second it was that same moment, and...and I felt like I'd lost them all over again."
He closed his eyes, shaking his head again with a faint breath.
"It all gets kind of choppy after that," Konrad said when he opened his eyes again. "And it's funny, too, because that's the last thing I remember, but it doesn't feel like yesterday. Like I've moved on past the shock of it...or I guess it was Kevin who did."
"But yeah," he concluded, almost apologetically as his eyes returned to Kate's, "I think if anything I've lived through was going to break me...it would've been that."
"You seem to be handling the idea pretty well," Kate managed, feeling a little disconnected. What else could she possibly say?
Konrad let out a faint snort, offering a rueful smile.
"Well it's strange, I'll admit," he said, "but then my scale of strange has its bar set pretty high. I've died, detective, and come back from the dead more times than I care to remember. I've been dissected alive, and seen my own heart beating outside my chest. I saw a man walk on the moon, and an actor elected president. I've seen dozens of impossible things during my time with the Company—"
He cut off with a faint blink, as though something had occurred to him, frowning slightly.
"Once, I watched the same person born three times on the same day," Konrad said, leaning forward to look at Kate sharply. "I mean, if you want to know about Zimmerman and the Company, detective, there's a story...
"Back in the early seventies, Thompson and I were sent to collect a woman. A cloner. We were given her whereabouts and information about her ability, but the information somehow missed the fact that she was pregnant."
A dark expression crossed Konrad's face before he added, "I still like to think that, if we had known, Thompson never would have used the taser."
"She went into labor in the back of the van on the way back to Odessa," Konrad said, eyes shifting to stare at some point off to her left that held nothing much in particular. "Only, part of the way through it her ability began to malfunction, and two unprepared agents with the uncomfortable task of delivering a baby on a stretch of empty road suddenly found themselves trying to deliver seven."
"Which almost sounds like it should have been laughably funny," Konrad continued, his eyes distant as he let out a pained laugh, "except that the mother died, each one of her, leaving the nightmare results of seven dead women and four dead infants and three perfect, blue-eyed baby girls more identical than any natural triplets you could ever hope to find."
"Zimmerman was fascinated with the possibilities," Konrad said, his expression turning nasty. "They became...an asset to his research."
"Years later, he would play up his role as a doting father," Konrad finished, "and I'm sure he did love Barbara, in his way. But that doesn't change the fact that she was a lab rat before she ever was his daughter..."
Konrad trailed off into a restless silence. Though he was still, the lines of his body were charged with an intense, disgusted anger that was almost palpable. Kate and Bennet each were left stunned, and just as quiet. Several seconds ticked past before that silence was broken.
"If you don't have any more questions, detective," Konrad said, looking back to Kate with a strange, vulnerable smile, "I think I'd like my phone call."
PREV: Chapter Twelve // MAIN // NEXT: Chapter Fourteen
Author's Note: I could have just titled this chapter "Konrad Carries Guilt Like a Boss".
And I'm not really sure where the weird little anecdote came from. Konrad's particular interest in Barbara and her sisters mutated a lot over the course of the story. Originally, Konrad was going to be their biological father, with their mother being either the Ghost (who was originally supposed to be a woman) or a special who worked for the Company.
This would have reflected back on Kevin's flirting with Tracy and turned it somewhat disturbing... Though that same draft, imagined before the episode Nikki Heat aired, featured a bit less harmless banter and a lot more good-natured leering, as originally Tracy was supposed to break into Barbara's apartment by slipping under the door, with a little bit of super-powered nudity thrown in for good measure (as seen in the video for the fic).
Which...really would have made it even more messed up.
Also Thompson. I originally set up Konrad and Ivan as the big precedent-setting partnership. It really should have been Konrad and Thompson. I might go back and make minor tweaks to chapter four to reflect it later, but I figure in the earlier days of the Company there were probably a lot of partner trade offs before anyone really found chemistry. Konrad and Thompson...not good chemistry. But then Thompson was just an all around dick.
Also, it's kind of funny. I didn't choose Zimmerman to be the victim because he was a bad guy, he was just convenient. It wasn't really until I started writing the interrogation and looked back over some of his activities in the comics and on the show and realized how monstrous they really were. The Barbara/Rene thing I just made up, though in the comics they are shown to have known each other.
I also didn't notice how all of Konrad's suspects just happened to have been Bennet's partner at one time or another.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: Tuesday, 3 July 2012 04:31 pm (UTC)From:I'm starting to feel like all the Heroes/Company mythology is getting jumbled up in my head -- well, Konrad's relation to it all, anyway -- but that's probably partly because of where I stopped watching and partly because I actually haven't gone back and done any re-reading. (The recap was very nice and thoughtful, though.) But really, I'm mostly in it for emotional punches and maybe some actiony danger, which this is also delivering in spades.
Nice work.
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Date: Tuesday, 3 July 2012 05:28 pm (UTC)From:Yeah, I won't even pretend it's not confusing. Mostly it's because I mined up a crapton of obscure comics canon, though I'll also admit that most of the "history" alluded, to in this chapter in particular, is a massive ass-pull.
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Date: Saturday, 28 July 2012 11:51 pm (UTC)From:And for the first time, I find myself genuinely wondering who killed Zimmerman and why. I realize this story is a mystery and the death of Zimmerman is central, but I've been so wrapped up in 'why/how did Javier time travel?' and 'how/when will Javier and Kevin get together/develop a romantic relationship/see each other as something more than friends and work partners?' and 'what's the deal with this Konrad guy?' and 'what's going to happen to Kevin!?!' that ... well, I sort of glossed over the parts about Zimmerman. Not that I didn't read them (I did) or ignored them (I didn't, at least not really), but they weren't nearly as interesting as the others.
"Once, I watched the same person born three times on the same day," Konrad said,
Time travel and childbirth? Er ... ::struggles to wrap brain about that:: ::reads on:: Oh, wait, cloning. Yeah.
And to think, Castle is getting all of this!
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Date: Sunday, 29 July 2012 12:49 am (UTC)From:And to think, Castle is getting all of this!
It's a very good thing interviews are routinely recorded, because none of them are going to remember this directly... And wouldn't that have just killed Castle dead, knowing that he'd seen Beckett interrogate an immortal Nazi, but that he couldn't remember it?
Ranfomfaxx:
I'm kind of imagining NikkTraciBarb's mother as having a version of cloning somewhat different from Eli's (which would be an example of the "projected" clones Noah talked about in chapter eight) and more like the ones shown in the comics. There was a character named Evan in one of the comics, who I sort of used as a model. His version of the ability was more persistent than Eli's, but still copied his clothes, but a lot less creepy than another comic character (Julian Dumont *shudder*) who would likely be the example of "genetic clones" Noah bases his distinction on.
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Date: Monday, 30 July 2012 02:10 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Monday, 20 August 2012 01:10 pm (UTC)From:I love how everyone goes to "Adam" when a sword is brought up. Of course, he made himself famous for that. Though there *is* someone else we know who has a fondness for them. And not much hesitation when it comes to 'doing what must be done'. Someone that has come to look a lot like a samurai himself. With, if I might add, a lot more credibility that a, albeit cute, blond occidental man....
I can't imagine what it feels like to know you've disapeared. It's like in Dollhouse, if an imprint ever realized it was one, and what it implied, it would fight tooth and nails to stay on, to stay 'alive' (or 'live', in Konrad's case).
Thought I cannot concieve how it feels like to have lived as long as he has, and how that can impact a view on it, but... yeah, I once hit my head hard and lost a few hours. Apparently I was conscious but I just didn't imprint (that, and the time I was roofied... bleh). I have this creepy, unnerving image of an old typewriter without a ribbon just... tapping away at nothing. Yeesh!
"I've died, detective, and come back from the dead more times than I care to remember. I've been dissected alive, and seen my own heart beating outside my chest. I saw a man walk on the moon, and an actor elected president. I've seen dozens of impossible things during my time with the Company.
Lucky Castle wasn't there, or heck, I don't know why but I can see Zoe say this. "Boy, you haven't seen nothin'. We have a black president now."
(A dark expression crossed Konrad's face before he added, "I still like to think that, if we had known, Thompson never would have used the taser." Unless she was really fat, how could they have missed it? Though, knowing the Company, they may have jumped her in the dark...)
Dude, who's Konrad going to call? Oo
I just had an image of the most improbably pairing (you know how I love those). Hiro/Tracy. Especially, starting from now and existing in the future. Mh.
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Date: Monday, 20 August 2012 01:41 pm (UTC)From: