October 27, 2009
Mailbag Idea
Please don't post comments on the blog, instead send me a message on the 9th Wonders Forum to member called mrmichaelt and if I have enough, I'll do a mailbag post and answer them. That's the plan anyway.
Part Four - Phase Three Part One
Hell. Hell is waking up every day and not knowing why you're here. Not knowing why you're breathing.
DREAM
There is only a Void, Bird's Eye Point of View, on Trevor Tanaka. He is standing in it somehow. The camera view pans down slowly to close up on Trevor's face. His eyes and mouth are covered by a DNA Symbol each.
Trevor bolts up from bed in the dark of night. He pauses.
It took somebody who loved me getting killed to find out.
OCTOBER 2, 2006
AOYAMA, JAPAN
Trevor is seated near the first row. He is dressed in black. He looks forward, at a loss for words or any evidence he is alive.
I know exactly why I'm breathing. I know exactly what I'm doing.
2004
NEW YORK
Trevor drives away from Bellevue in a delivery van. An unconscious man is laying down at the staging area.
SEPTEMBER 10, 2007
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Trevor is typing away at a laptop. The camera view is over his shoulder. It looks like building blueprints on the screen. He clicks through pages and is memorizing them.
Trevor - We're being attacked day and night for our resources by factions I never even heard of. Take one out and ten come out of the wood work to take its place. We have to start coordinating and conducting negotiations. Who knows what else is out there waiting to swallow us up.
Trevor stands up and plants his hands on the desk, arms straight.
Trevor - They don't need me there. Some of them still don't trust me. Want me distracted. Others just want me to hold their hands on every operation.
Trevor turns around and looks at the steel door, the only entrance to the room. It remains still. Nothing happened.
Trevor - Ugh. I should go see Stark after this.
Suddenly, the lights short out but not from power failure. It's like the light was drained. Only the fading sunlight leaking in through the dirty windows illuminates Trevor's room.
Trevor - Great timing. Two minutes and fifty eight minutes until a teleporter is available.
He types a combination on the laptop keyboard. The steel door begins to noticeably vibrate continuously.
Trevor- Doesn't anyone remember how to knock?
The steel door groans and crumples like a used soda can. It flies off and a thud is heard off screen. Four men enter the room.
Scott Riedel - Stay right there.
Trevor puts his hands up halfway. Riedel holds his right hand out like a gun.
Trevor - I'm just the janitor.
Mike Matheson - No, you're Trevor Tanaka.
Riedel's finger sizzles with electricity. Matheson uses ferrokinesis to summon Trevor's Strayer Voigt Infinity 1911 .45 Caliber Semi-Automatic Pistol. Matheson tucks it away.
Trevor- No one has time for small talk, neither. Isn't that right Scott Riedel: Electric Manipulation? Nor do you, Michael Matheson: Magnetism. Or you, Jim Walters: Telepathy. Not even Blaine Pryce: Flight.
Matheson - Hand over all the intelligence you have on the factions.
Trevor - That's not the magic word.
Riedel - Jimmy.
Walters walks forward. He looks at Trevor. Telepathy FX.
Walters - Tell me…what we want to know…
Trevor - 'Kay.
The room blacks out. Only Trevor and Walters are visible. Ones and zeroes zoom past Walters. His eyes bulge. The void vanishes back to normal. Blood is flowing from Walters' eyes and nose. He falls over, dead. The remaining trio look at him, then at Trevor.
Trevor - Don't look at me. I guess I should have given him the thumb drive, instead.
Matheson sighs. Annoyed, he turns to Riedel.
Matheson - Will you taser him?
Riedel shocks Trevor but he just looks at them. He doesn't flinch, like he's had enough experience with torture.
Matheson - We're going to cut our losses and kill you real ugly.
Pryce - You didn't say we were gonna kill him.
Matheson whips out a switch blade whimsically. He uses ferrokinesis to float it up and aims it at Trevor.
Matheson - Any last words?
Trevor - What's cheaper than a threat?
Matheson - Wha? What'd he say?
Trevor slowly backs away. They start to walk forward when an explosion engulfs them from underneath. Trevor grins.
Trevor - Dynamite. 'Course, you have to splurge on motion sensors.
Trevor adjusts his posture and takes a small breath with a smile on his face as if he's refreshed. He walks past the smoking corpses and picks up his gun. Trevor walks over to Pryce. Pryce is bleeding and wincing in pain on the floor. Trevor just stares at him then shoots two bullets in his head and two in his chest. He walks into another room.
Trevor - You'd better be right about this, Ms. Melody.
Trevor assembles his cell phone, types and sends a text, and disassembles the phone with record efficiency. He shoots a nearby window three times. He grabs a desk and holding it as a shield, backs up eight paces, and charges into the window. Trevor springs off it in mid-air then stops and begins to fall. The camera view closes up on Trevor's hand, reaching up. Another hand appears and grabs Trevor's. They both teleport away.
NEVADA DESERT
James - Who was it this time?
Trevor - More bottom feeders. I'm more annoyed I had to waste good ordinance on them.
James - So you didn't kill them with your super memory?
Trevor - Just the telepath. I would have teleported them into an active volcano if I could.
The camera angle shifts to six others nearby: Frank Tanner, Alexander Minner, Kupe Nukarmoi, Kurt Hasian, Clara Zhang, and Athena Leuce. James teleports.
UNDAUNTED - in Heroes title font - graces across the panel.
PHASE THREE - PART ONE: THE JANITOR - in Heroes title font -
Trevor - Yeah. See ya.
Trevor fishes out a paper and pen and walks over to the others. Frank Tanner is seated on the ground and looks unconscious. Alexander Minner is knelt near Tanner and is drawing X's, O's, and arrows in the sand. Athena Leuce stands three paces away from them and holds her hands out, eyes closed. Clara Zhang swings her right foot across the sand.
Kupe Nukarmoi - I stopped reading after Mary Jane died.
Kurt Hasian - It got fixed after that. Didn't see Gorgan as Venom coming.
Trevor - Let me guess, we're an oasis?
Leuce's eyes are still closed but she grins. Pan out, cactus replace the people.
Tanner comes to. He points at Minner's drawing. Minner rubs some out and redraws. Trevor hands over the paper to Zhang. It looks like the blueprints he memorized earlier.
Trevor - Just in case. Can't be too prepared.
Zhang nods and walks over to Minner, who is explaining the strategy to everyone. Zhang half smiles and teleports. Standing outside the crowd, Trevor reloads his gun with a new clip. Hasian looks at it, peeping out from the huddle.
Zhang appears to another unit. The building is now visible and some others, Virco Sloan, Samuel Whitman, Luna Yu, and Marcus Kane, are standing more closer to it. Azuteor, Carson Ford, John Bishop, and Kurt Kelly walk up to her. Bishop turns to the people up ahead and holds his right hand out. Force fields form around them. Kelly walks past Bishop. An RPG Launcher appears in his hands. The camera view follows the RPG as it races to the building. An explosion rocks it.
Whitman and Sloan run into the building. Seconds later, a light burst erupts from the smoke. Yu and Kane follow inside. They use their powers to slam the stunned and hurt highly evolved beings aside and immobilize them. Red bolts shoot out from Yu. Whitman inspects a crate.
Whitman - Yup, looks like ours alright.
Whitman grabs two crates and runs out at super speed. Kane uses his free hand to telekinetically push the half a dozen outside. Sloan manipulates a shadow under several and they vanish. Yu and Kane step into it, then Sloan and they vanish, too.
The frontline and the recovered resources pop out of Bishop's shadow. They all gather around, all three units. The resources, Tanner, Minner, Leuce, Sloan, Whitman, and Yu are teleported with Zhang.
Carson Ford - What now, fearless leader?
Trevor - Bishop shields us.
Bishop - Huh?
A column of fire surrounds them. Bishop quickly reacts and generates a force field.
Trevor - You didn't smell that?
The fire clears. A pyrokinetic appears behind the wave.
Trevor - Pyrokinetic sentry makes ten as predicted.
Ford - I'll take care of 'Sparky.'
A tornado forms around the sentry. His flames snuff out and he struggles to breath then passes out. Ford dismisses the wind. It flows past Azuteor. His scarf flows among the remnants of the wind.
Trevor - I hope that was asphyxiation. Mr. Nukarmoi, if you will.
Nukarmoi summons enough sand to cover up the building area.
Ford - A bit overkill. Can we go now?
Trevor - Azuteor.
Trevor blinks at Azuteor. Azuteor manipulates gravity around Trevor. An invisible man groans from the sudden increase in weight. Hasian walks over and turns him Turquoise. Without bothering to turn around, Trevor shoots behind him and connects with the Turquoise Man's head. He falls over, dead.
Trevor - Match him to the sand, Truk. Then we can go home.
Ford - Ah, there's always one more.
Nukarmoi summons a SUV.
Trevor - We need to drive to the nearest pick up point. Shotgun!
They climb into the SUV.
Hasian - So Kane, do you prefer Power Absorption or Power Theft? Is it the same as Ability Replication?
Everyone groans.
DREAM
There is only a Void, Bird's Eye Point of View, on Trevor Tanaka. He is standing in it somehow. The camera view pans down slowly to close up on Trevor's face. His eyes and mouth are covered by a DNA Symbol each.
Trevor bolts up from bed in the dark of night. He pauses.
It took somebody who loved me getting killed to find out.
OCTOBER 2, 2006
AOYAMA, JAPAN
Trevor is seated near the first row. He is dressed in black. He looks forward, at a loss for words or any evidence he is alive.
I know exactly why I'm breathing. I know exactly what I'm doing.
2004
NEW YORK
Trevor drives away from Bellevue in a delivery van. An unconscious man is laying down at the staging area.
SEPTEMBER 10, 2007
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Trevor is typing away at a laptop. The camera view is over his shoulder. It looks like building blueprints on the screen. He clicks through pages and is memorizing them.
Trevor - We're being attacked day and night for our resources by factions I never even heard of. Take one out and ten come out of the wood work to take its place. We have to start coordinating and conducting negotiations. Who knows what else is out there waiting to swallow us up.
Trevor stands up and plants his hands on the desk, arms straight.
Trevor - They don't need me there. Some of them still don't trust me. Want me distracted. Others just want me to hold their hands on every operation.
Trevor turns around and looks at the steel door, the only entrance to the room. It remains still. Nothing happened.
Trevor - Ugh. I should go see Stark after this.
Suddenly, the lights short out but not from power failure. It's like the light was drained. Only the fading sunlight leaking in through the dirty windows illuminates Trevor's room.
Trevor - Great timing. Two minutes and fifty eight minutes until a teleporter is available.
He types a combination on the laptop keyboard. The steel door begins to noticeably vibrate continuously.
Trevor- Doesn't anyone remember how to knock?
The steel door groans and crumples like a used soda can. It flies off and a thud is heard off screen. Four men enter the room.
Scott Riedel - Stay right there.
Trevor puts his hands up halfway. Riedel holds his right hand out like a gun.
Trevor - I'm just the janitor.
Mike Matheson - No, you're Trevor Tanaka.
Riedel's finger sizzles with electricity. Matheson uses ferrokinesis to summon Trevor's Strayer Voigt Infinity 1911 .45 Caliber Semi-Automatic Pistol. Matheson tucks it away.
Trevor- No one has time for small talk, neither. Isn't that right Scott Riedel: Electric Manipulation? Nor do you, Michael Matheson: Magnetism. Or you, Jim Walters: Telepathy. Not even Blaine Pryce: Flight.
Matheson - Hand over all the intelligence you have on the factions.
Trevor - That's not the magic word.
Riedel - Jimmy.
Walters walks forward. He looks at Trevor. Telepathy FX.
Walters - Tell me…what we want to know…
Trevor - 'Kay.
The room blacks out. Only Trevor and Walters are visible. Ones and zeroes zoom past Walters. His eyes bulge. The void vanishes back to normal. Blood is flowing from Walters' eyes and nose. He falls over, dead. The remaining trio look at him, then at Trevor.
Trevor - Don't look at me. I guess I should have given him the thumb drive, instead.
Matheson sighs. Annoyed, he turns to Riedel.
Matheson - Will you taser him?
Riedel shocks Trevor but he just looks at them. He doesn't flinch, like he's had enough experience with torture.
Matheson - We're going to cut our losses and kill you real ugly.
Pryce - You didn't say we were gonna kill him.
Matheson whips out a switch blade whimsically. He uses ferrokinesis to float it up and aims it at Trevor.
Matheson - Any last words?
Trevor - What's cheaper than a threat?
Matheson - Wha? What'd he say?
Trevor slowly backs away. They start to walk forward when an explosion engulfs them from underneath. Trevor grins.
Trevor - Dynamite. 'Course, you have to splurge on motion sensors.
Trevor adjusts his posture and takes a small breath with a smile on his face as if he's refreshed. He walks past the smoking corpses and picks up his gun. Trevor walks over to Pryce. Pryce is bleeding and wincing in pain on the floor. Trevor just stares at him then shoots two bullets in his head and two in his chest. He walks into another room.
Trevor - You'd better be right about this, Ms. Melody.
Trevor assembles his cell phone, types and sends a text, and disassembles the phone with record efficiency. He shoots a nearby window three times. He grabs a desk and holding it as a shield, backs up eight paces, and charges into the window. Trevor springs off it in mid-air then stops and begins to fall. The camera view closes up on Trevor's hand, reaching up. Another hand appears and grabs Trevor's. They both teleport away.
NEVADA DESERT
James - Who was it this time?
Trevor - More bottom feeders. I'm more annoyed I had to waste good ordinance on them.
James - So you didn't kill them with your super memory?
Trevor - Just the telepath. I would have teleported them into an active volcano if I could.
The camera angle shifts to six others nearby: Frank Tanner, Alexander Minner, Kupe Nukarmoi, Kurt Hasian, Clara Zhang, and Athena Leuce. James teleports.
UNDAUNTED - in Heroes title font - graces across the panel.
PHASE THREE - PART ONE: THE JANITOR - in Heroes title font -
Trevor - Yeah. See ya.
Trevor fishes out a paper and pen and walks over to the others. Frank Tanner is seated on the ground and looks unconscious. Alexander Minner is knelt near Tanner and is drawing X's, O's, and arrows in the sand. Athena Leuce stands three paces away from them and holds her hands out, eyes closed. Clara Zhang swings her right foot across the sand.
Kupe Nukarmoi - I stopped reading after Mary Jane died.
Kurt Hasian - It got fixed after that. Didn't see Gorgan as Venom coming.
Trevor - Let me guess, we're an oasis?
Leuce's eyes are still closed but she grins. Pan out, cactus replace the people.
Tanner comes to. He points at Minner's drawing. Minner rubs some out and redraws. Trevor hands over the paper to Zhang. It looks like the blueprints he memorized earlier.
Trevor - Just in case. Can't be too prepared.
Zhang nods and walks over to Minner, who is explaining the strategy to everyone. Zhang half smiles and teleports. Standing outside the crowd, Trevor reloads his gun with a new clip. Hasian looks at it, peeping out from the huddle.
Zhang appears to another unit. The building is now visible and some others, Virco Sloan, Samuel Whitman, Luna Yu, and Marcus Kane, are standing more closer to it. Azuteor, Carson Ford, John Bishop, and Kurt Kelly walk up to her. Bishop turns to the people up ahead and holds his right hand out. Force fields form around them. Kelly walks past Bishop. An RPG Launcher appears in his hands. The camera view follows the RPG as it races to the building. An explosion rocks it.
Whitman and Sloan run into the building. Seconds later, a light burst erupts from the smoke. Yu and Kane follow inside. They use their powers to slam the stunned and hurt highly evolved beings aside and immobilize them. Red bolts shoot out from Yu. Whitman inspects a crate.
Whitman - Yup, looks like ours alright.
Whitman grabs two crates and runs out at super speed. Kane uses his free hand to telekinetically push the half a dozen outside. Sloan manipulates a shadow under several and they vanish. Yu and Kane step into it, then Sloan and they vanish, too.
The frontline and the recovered resources pop out of Bishop's shadow. They all gather around, all three units. The resources, Tanner, Minner, Leuce, Sloan, Whitman, and Yu are teleported with Zhang.
Carson Ford - What now, fearless leader?
Trevor - Bishop shields us.
Bishop - Huh?
A column of fire surrounds them. Bishop quickly reacts and generates a force field.
Trevor - You didn't smell that?
The fire clears. A pyrokinetic appears behind the wave.
Trevor - Pyrokinetic sentry makes ten as predicted.
Ford - I'll take care of 'Sparky.'
A tornado forms around the sentry. His flames snuff out and he struggles to breath then passes out. Ford dismisses the wind. It flows past Azuteor. His scarf flows among the remnants of the wind.
Trevor - I hope that was asphyxiation. Mr. Nukarmoi, if you will.
Nukarmoi summons enough sand to cover up the building area.
Ford - A bit overkill. Can we go now?
Trevor - Azuteor.
Trevor blinks at Azuteor. Azuteor manipulates gravity around Trevor. An invisible man groans from the sudden increase in weight. Hasian walks over and turns him Turquoise. Without bothering to turn around, Trevor shoots behind him and connects with the Turquoise Man's head. He falls over, dead.
Trevor - Match him to the sand, Truk. Then we can go home.
Ford - Ah, there's always one more.
Nukarmoi summons a SUV.
Trevor - We need to drive to the nearest pick up point. Shotgun!
They climb into the SUV.
Hasian - So Kane, do you prefer Power Absorption or Power Theft? Is it the same as Ability Replication?
Everyone groans.
Commentary - Undaunted Part Five
The epic conclusion to the first arc! It was wild ride, and after awhile, it wasn't me writing, Trevor took over for the most part. And we begin with...more banter!
So we start from where we left off with James getting Trevor. Now there's a big pow wow with all the Undaunted crew at the Garden of the Gods. I decided to make the big problem deal with hype surrounding HSG's upcoming Phase 3 that would allow Factions to declare enemies and attack each other which was a tie in to the Carnival...two birds with one stone.
And imagine, that Trevor has this rep of being the crazed loner, you think anyone else in the group would believe him right away? That's where it came important that I establish Seal's relationship with Trevor beforehand. He's sort of the lone person that believes, and luckily he's the leader, too.
A month later, HERO inspired me to change this section just a tiny bit. It sort of came to me as it always does, on how to change a sentence to make it funnier and reference 9th Wonders babble even more. Trevor comes up with this plan and everyone is skeptical, a few of them thought of it, then Seal comes forward and reveals he and a bunch of other faction leaders were working on a similar plan. But then Seal saves his butt by asking everyone to give their opinion one at a time through his power of empathy.
And I bring up the fact that Trevor wasn't read as another rumor among Undaunted, a mere set up to lead to another dark humorous moment and it leads to the group falling in with the plan, only if Seal reads Trevor in front of everyone. And I played with the montage again and replaying events I revealed in previous stories. I thought it'd be fitting that on the image of Samuel, that Seal starts to lose control. I only did this because in the grand scheme of powers on Heroes there's always someone that can resist it or some weakness that comes with the power. Here, Trevor has so much memories and thoughts stored in his mind, Seal begins to get overloaded with trying to empathize (and it doesn't help that Trevor's a little insane in the membrane) and we get these weird nightmare scenes with the DNA Symbols, a callback to young Trevor's nightmares.
And so Trevor goes into detail about his form of the plan and a new montage begins. I imagined how these squads would be like and used classification from AT files to justify it. Maximize powers by teaming them up with complementary ones. This was a set up for the next bunch of stories (there's always a set up somewhere).
I imagined the Heroes theme playing over the muted scene of Seal talking to everyone and the camera revolves around everyone and zone in on a couple Undaunted members while Trevor recites the full Lewis Carroll quote, that Leona used when she texted him in China, in his monologue.
Then I end the story with a "OOOO" moment and revealing Trevor's intention to confront Leona Mills. And like when a volume ends on Heroes, you get a short prologue of the next volume. I did the same here with a classic reveal of Trevor and Seal at Mable's Diner as Leona comes to wait on them. Threw in Tim as a reference to iStory, too. And the ultimate of callbacks, Seal makes the same comment about Mills that Trevor did.
All in all, this was so much fun to write except the part when I get the flow at 12:30 in the morning. I'm happy with the arc, what it became and where its going. I hope some of you did, too.
So we start from where we left off with James getting Trevor. Now there's a big pow wow with all the Undaunted crew at the Garden of the Gods. I decided to make the big problem deal with hype surrounding HSG's upcoming Phase 3 that would allow Factions to declare enemies and attack each other which was a tie in to the Carnival...two birds with one stone.
And imagine, that Trevor has this rep of being the crazed loner, you think anyone else in the group would believe him right away? That's where it came important that I establish Seal's relationship with Trevor beforehand. He's sort of the lone person that believes, and luckily he's the leader, too.
A month later, HERO inspired me to change this section just a tiny bit. It sort of came to me as it always does, on how to change a sentence to make it funnier and reference 9th Wonders babble even more. Trevor comes up with this plan and everyone is skeptical, a few of them thought of it, then Seal comes forward and reveals he and a bunch of other faction leaders were working on a similar plan. But then Seal saves his butt by asking everyone to give their opinion one at a time through his power of empathy.
And I bring up the fact that Trevor wasn't read as another rumor among Undaunted, a mere set up to lead to another dark humorous moment and it leads to the group falling in with the plan, only if Seal reads Trevor in front of everyone. And I played with the montage again and replaying events I revealed in previous stories. I thought it'd be fitting that on the image of Samuel, that Seal starts to lose control. I only did this because in the grand scheme of powers on Heroes there's always someone that can resist it or some weakness that comes with the power. Here, Trevor has so much memories and thoughts stored in his mind, Seal begins to get overloaded with trying to empathize (and it doesn't help that Trevor's a little insane in the membrane) and we get these weird nightmare scenes with the DNA Symbols, a callback to young Trevor's nightmares.
And so Trevor goes into detail about his form of the plan and a new montage begins. I imagined how these squads would be like and used classification from AT files to justify it. Maximize powers by teaming them up with complementary ones. This was a set up for the next bunch of stories (there's always a set up somewhere).
I imagined the Heroes theme playing over the muted scene of Seal talking to everyone and the camera revolves around everyone and zone in on a couple Undaunted members while Trevor recites the full Lewis Carroll quote, that Leona used when she texted him in China, in his monologue.
Then I end the story with a "OOOO" moment and revealing Trevor's intention to confront Leona Mills. And like when a volume ends on Heroes, you get a short prologue of the next volume. I did the same here with a classic reveal of Trevor and Seal at Mable's Diner as Leona comes to wait on them. Threw in Tim as a reference to iStory, too. And the ultimate of callbacks, Seal makes the same comment about Mills that Trevor did.
All in all, this was so much fun to write except the part when I get the flow at 12:30 in the morning. I'm happy with the arc, what it became and where its going. I hope some of you did, too.
Part Three - Undaunted Part Five
LATE SUMMER 2007
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
THE GARDEN OF THE GODS
[9th Wonders Board, Heroes Survival Game, Factions, Undaunted]
James and Trevor land near the field where Trevor first met Seal, leader of the faction Undaunted. James inches away from Trevor. He nods once to Trevor. They turn and face the field.
Trevor - "There's always an exception."
Trevor makes light of the rule that Trevor broke, teleporting them directly to the field instead of at the start of the trail.
[Reference to Part Three]
James - "Isn't that how it always starts?"
Trevor - "The moral gray?"
James - "Murder."
Trevor - "Why, ever teleport anyone into space? How about the Sun? No…shark-infested waters?"
James - "Quit it."
There is a circle of people, members of Undaunted, formed around a single person, Seal. Seal sees them and motions them to come. Some in the crowd turn to look. Murmurs are heard.
[Volume Five "Orientation" and The Carnival]
Seal - "That's everyone."
James and Trevor step forward and joins the group.
Seal - "Several of us have reported meeting strangers not from any faction we met before. Each time, a circus or carnival is mentioned. It's some sort of code…"
[Reference to Part Four]
Trevor steps into the open and cuts in.
Trevor - "It's literal."
Everyone turns to Trevor.
Seal - "Your investigation turned up some leads?"
Trevor - "The lead."
Seal backs up into the circle and Trevor walks to the center.
Trevor - "The rogue Company agent, Eric Thompson Junior has formed ties to a highly mobile faction that uses a carnival as a cover for their powers. We don't have time to but I assume for those who met them, they were in the vicinity of a carnival attraction. Only some of us were approached because they need specific powers. They are preparing for something big."
[iStory Book Six]
Seal - "Big?"
Trevor - "They are building an army."
Murmurs erupt.
"Just a guess."
"He's speculating."
"Where's his proof?"
Trevor - "I remember everything. Words. Images. Body language. I remember and I put it all together, one by one, into the truth. Eric Lee Harrison met two ex-Building 26 special agents in Costa Verde, California. Weeks later, Magdelana Muller was kidnapped. A short time later, two raw recruits were assassinated. Things are escalating. If we continue to do nothing, we lose. People will die and lives will change, forever. Up until now, it has been a fragile armistice between factions. Not anymore. Now, we are either an ally or an enemy."
[iStory Book Six and reference to Part One]
A voice from the crowd - "But why now?"
Trevor - "For the last 50 years, evolution has manifested in the human race. Highly evolved beings emerged. They like anyone else. They hid among the populace and procreated. Now, we have reached a flashpoint. Why did this happen? Natural Selection. But there was no check on us so its up to us to sort through the consequences."
[Charles Darwin]
Seal - "What do you suggest, Trevor?"
Trevor - "Start at the bottom. Work our way up the food chain and accumulate resources. I have compiled eight pages and counting of known and unknown factions. This is Survival of the Fittest."
[Heroes Survival Game, Phase Two]
Voice - "Like we didn't already come up with that idea."
Voice of disdain - "Really? What's with all the Biology references, Darwin?"
Trevor - "Darwin. I-Ching. Bruce Lee. Improvise. We draw lessons from the past but we can't live there."
[Collateral]
Seal exhales and walks up to Trevor. He turns to the crowd.
Seal - "I agree with Trevor. I've been working with other factions on a similar idea. But I want everyone to tell me how they feel about this. One at a time, okay?"
Everyone nods in approval. Trevor walks away and sits on the ground.
A Nearby Voice - "I heard he's the only one that wasn't read by Seal."
[Reference to Part Three]
Another - "Why is that?"
Without looking at them, Trevor answers.
Trevor - "My head isn't a nice place to visit."
[Justice League, Batman, "Only A Dream" Part Two]
The two freeze and walk away.
SOME TIME LATER
"You enjoy scaring the cupcakes out of them, don't you?"
Trevor looks up, it's Seal.
Trevor - "I was shooting for fearful inspiration."
Seal - "Most of them don't believe you. They want me to read you. That's the only way to make them go along with the plan."
Trevor - "What I said was true. It won't be a dance through the rainbows with unicorns in there."
Seal - "If that's the case, I've got aspirin in my back pocket."
Seal reaches his hand forward, waiting for Trevor.
Trevor - "Do I need to concentrate or anything?"
Seal - "No, I'll do the leg work."
Trevor reaches his hand forward, Seal reaches, then Trevor quickly grabs him.
Trevor - "It better be Extra Strength."
[Extra Strength Tylenol PM]
Seal is about to laugh the pauses. The point of view zooms into his eyes.
Leona Mills steps out of her coffin.
[Reference to Part Two]
Above Seal various images float past him, they are of Trevor's past.
Sam's Comics: The Rebellion, Claire Bennet, Rachel Mills, and Callum.
[iStory Book Six Chapter Five "Yesterday's Angels]
Sidewalk: Trevor stands over his stalker from Part Three.
[Reference to Part Three]
Bushes outside a house: Trevor reaches for Callum who fades.
[iStory Book Six Chapter Five "Yesterday's Angels]
Looking into a van with a blood stained leather jacket.
[iStory Book Six Chapter Five "Yesterday's Angels]
The DNA Symbol scratched into his parents' LA home.
[Reference to Part Four]
The shady bar: Samuel Sullivan.
Seal gasps for air but something goes wrong. Images start piling out faster and faster and out of order. The eclipse on December 14, 2001. Trevor kills Agent Dulahey's partner. Trevor is enraged after opening his parents' message. Trevor snaps in a straitjacket. Trevor holds his dead girlfriend. Trevor shoots two Company agents with one of their standard issue guns, execution style. Agent Park furiously punches Trevor.
[Heroes Survival Game - Biography and Parts One to Four]
Then the images pause on the TANAKA headstone of Trevor's girlfriend in Aoyama, Japan. The headstone explodes. Ones and zeroes flood out and carry Seal away into a black void. The numbers change into DNA Symbols and smother Seal. He hears a voice.
"Seal!"
Seal looks up at a white flash and envelops the void.
Trevor shoves Seal away from him. Seal takes a big gasp of air and rests his hands on his knees.
Seal - "I…"
Trevor - "I'll skip the told you so. Well?"
Seal - "How should we do this?"
Trevor - "Squads. Match up powers and personality. At least one cerebral, one biological, one elemental, and one temporal/spatial. Then special strikers…front line offense, mid-range, and long-range. We need to gather up the ones with teleportation capabilities and place them strategically. Set up new outposts. New signals. New Messages. Change them up every couple of hours."
[Heroes Evolutions, Assignment Tracker 2]
Seal nods and stands. He waives everyone back into a circle. They were all watching him and Trevor. They believe.
Trevor - You can either take action or hope for a miracle. We have to be unpredictable.
I wonder if I've been changed in the night.
[Lewis Carroll]
Muted montage begins. Seal orates like he hasn't orated before.
Let me think.
Mags' clone consoles the real deal.
Was I same when I got up this morning?
A tiny Eric Lee Harrison stands on the shoulder of James, the Teleporter.
[DC Comics, The Atom and Hawkman]
I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.
Case watches Seal.
But if I'm not the same, the next question is.
James teleports a group of five away.
"Who in the world am I?"
A finger traces a doorway.
Ah, that is the great puzzle.
UNDAUNTED PART FIVE: UNPREDICTABLE - in Heroes title font
Trevor. The point of view shifts 180 degrees to the field. The field and people turn into ones and zeroes for a second then back to normal. He's been memorizing the teams and anything else.
Trevor - "It's coming."
[Reference to Part Two]
Only Seal and Trevor are left.
Seal - "She was beautiful, Trevor. And you were so different."
Trevor - "We all were."
Seal - "What now?"
Trevor - "We're going to pay an old friend a long overdue visit."
Seal is silent, he doesn't understand. James appears, wiping off a bloody nose with the back of his palm.
[Volume Four and Five, Hiro Nakamura and Arnold, Teleportation]
James - "Where to?"
Trevor - "Lyneboro, Connecticut."
[iStory Book Five]
THE END OF SPECIAL ONE: UNDAUNTED - in Heroes title font
SPECIAL TWO
PHASE THREE
[Heroes Survival Game, Phase Three]
LYNEBORO, CONNECTICUT
MABLE'S DINER
The staging area where the waitresses pick up plates is buzzing. It's breakfast time.
Leona Mills lays down a plate for The Neighbor, Tim. She winks at him. He smiles and shrugs.
[iStory Book Five]
Mills walks over to another table. The two patrons are hidden behind their menus.
Leona - "What can I get you two?"
Close up on Leona. She is shocked as the menus are lowered on the table nearly out of frame.
Trevor - "I'll take the Whole Truth."
Seal - "She's younger than I thought."
[Reference to Part Two]
TO BE CONTINUED
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
THE GARDEN OF THE GODS
[9th Wonders Board, Heroes Survival Game, Factions, Undaunted]
James and Trevor land near the field where Trevor first met Seal, leader of the faction Undaunted. James inches away from Trevor. He nods once to Trevor. They turn and face the field.
Trevor - "There's always an exception."
Trevor makes light of the rule that Trevor broke, teleporting them directly to the field instead of at the start of the trail.
[Reference to Part Three]
James - "Isn't that how it always starts?"
Trevor - "The moral gray?"
James - "Murder."
Trevor - "Why, ever teleport anyone into space? How about the Sun? No…shark-infested waters?"
James - "Quit it."
There is a circle of people, members of Undaunted, formed around a single person, Seal. Seal sees them and motions them to come. Some in the crowd turn to look. Murmurs are heard.
[Volume Five "Orientation" and The Carnival]
Seal - "That's everyone."
James and Trevor step forward and joins the group.
Seal - "Several of us have reported meeting strangers not from any faction we met before. Each time, a circus or carnival is mentioned. It's some sort of code…"
[Reference to Part Four]
Trevor steps into the open and cuts in.
Trevor - "It's literal."
Everyone turns to Trevor.
Seal - "Your investigation turned up some leads?"
Trevor - "The lead."
Seal backs up into the circle and Trevor walks to the center.
Trevor - "The rogue Company agent, Eric Thompson Junior has formed ties to a highly mobile faction that uses a carnival as a cover for their powers. We don't have time to but I assume for those who met them, they were in the vicinity of a carnival attraction. Only some of us were approached because they need specific powers. They are preparing for something big."
[iStory Book Six]
Seal - "Big?"
Trevor - "They are building an army."
Murmurs erupt.
"Just a guess."
"He's speculating."
"Where's his proof?"
Trevor - "I remember everything. Words. Images. Body language. I remember and I put it all together, one by one, into the truth. Eric Lee Harrison met two ex-Building 26 special agents in Costa Verde, California. Weeks later, Magdelana Muller was kidnapped. A short time later, two raw recruits were assassinated. Things are escalating. If we continue to do nothing, we lose. People will die and lives will change, forever. Up until now, it has been a fragile armistice between factions. Not anymore. Now, we are either an ally or an enemy."
[iStory Book Six and reference to Part One]
A voice from the crowd - "But why now?"
Trevor - "For the last 50 years, evolution has manifested in the human race. Highly evolved beings emerged. They like anyone else. They hid among the populace and procreated. Now, we have reached a flashpoint. Why did this happen? Natural Selection. But there was no check on us so its up to us to sort through the consequences."
[Charles Darwin]
Seal - "What do you suggest, Trevor?"
Trevor - "Start at the bottom. Work our way up the food chain and accumulate resources. I have compiled eight pages and counting of known and unknown factions. This is Survival of the Fittest."
[Heroes Survival Game, Phase Two]
Voice - "Like we didn't already come up with that idea."
Voice of disdain - "Really? What's with all the Biology references, Darwin?"
Trevor - "Darwin. I-Ching. Bruce Lee. Improvise. We draw lessons from the past but we can't live there."
[Collateral]
Seal exhales and walks up to Trevor. He turns to the crowd.
Seal - "I agree with Trevor. I've been working with other factions on a similar idea. But I want everyone to tell me how they feel about this. One at a time, okay?"
Everyone nods in approval. Trevor walks away and sits on the ground.
A Nearby Voice - "I heard he's the only one that wasn't read by Seal."
[Reference to Part Three]
Another - "Why is that?"
Without looking at them, Trevor answers.
Trevor - "My head isn't a nice place to visit."
[Justice League, Batman, "Only A Dream" Part Two]
The two freeze and walk away.
SOME TIME LATER
"You enjoy scaring the cupcakes out of them, don't you?"
Trevor looks up, it's Seal.
Trevor - "I was shooting for fearful inspiration."
Seal - "Most of them don't believe you. They want me to read you. That's the only way to make them go along with the plan."
Trevor - "What I said was true. It won't be a dance through the rainbows with unicorns in there."
Seal - "If that's the case, I've got aspirin in my back pocket."
Seal reaches his hand forward, waiting for Trevor.
Trevor - "Do I need to concentrate or anything?"
Seal - "No, I'll do the leg work."
Trevor reaches his hand forward, Seal reaches, then Trevor quickly grabs him.
Trevor - "It better be Extra Strength."
[Extra Strength Tylenol PM]
Seal is about to laugh the pauses. The point of view zooms into his eyes.
Leona Mills steps out of her coffin.
[Reference to Part Two]
Above Seal various images float past him, they are of Trevor's past.
Sam's Comics: The Rebellion, Claire Bennet, Rachel Mills, and Callum.
[iStory Book Six Chapter Five "Yesterday's Angels]
Sidewalk: Trevor stands over his stalker from Part Three.
[Reference to Part Three]
Bushes outside a house: Trevor reaches for Callum who fades.
[iStory Book Six Chapter Five "Yesterday's Angels]
Looking into a van with a blood stained leather jacket.
[iStory Book Six Chapter Five "Yesterday's Angels]
The DNA Symbol scratched into his parents' LA home.
[Reference to Part Four]
The shady bar: Samuel Sullivan.
Seal gasps for air but something goes wrong. Images start piling out faster and faster and out of order. The eclipse on December 14, 2001. Trevor kills Agent Dulahey's partner. Trevor is enraged after opening his parents' message. Trevor snaps in a straitjacket. Trevor holds his dead girlfriend. Trevor shoots two Company agents with one of their standard issue guns, execution style. Agent Park furiously punches Trevor.
[Heroes Survival Game - Biography and Parts One to Four]
Then the images pause on the TANAKA headstone of Trevor's girlfriend in Aoyama, Japan. The headstone explodes. Ones and zeroes flood out and carry Seal away into a black void. The numbers change into DNA Symbols and smother Seal. He hears a voice.
"Seal!"
Seal looks up at a white flash and envelops the void.
Trevor shoves Seal away from him. Seal takes a big gasp of air and rests his hands on his knees.
Seal - "I…"
Trevor - "I'll skip the told you so. Well?"
Seal - "How should we do this?"
Trevor - "Squads. Match up powers and personality. At least one cerebral, one biological, one elemental, and one temporal/spatial. Then special strikers…front line offense, mid-range, and long-range. We need to gather up the ones with teleportation capabilities and place them strategically. Set up new outposts. New signals. New Messages. Change them up every couple of hours."
[Heroes Evolutions, Assignment Tracker 2]
Seal nods and stands. He waives everyone back into a circle. They were all watching him and Trevor. They believe.
Trevor - You can either take action or hope for a miracle. We have to be unpredictable.
I wonder if I've been changed in the night.
[Lewis Carroll]
Muted montage begins. Seal orates like he hasn't orated before.
Let me think.
Mags' clone consoles the real deal.
Was I same when I got up this morning?
A tiny Eric Lee Harrison stands on the shoulder of James, the Teleporter.
[DC Comics, The Atom and Hawkman]
I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.
Case watches Seal.
But if I'm not the same, the next question is.
James teleports a group of five away.
"Who in the world am I?"
A finger traces a doorway.
Ah, that is the great puzzle.
UNDAUNTED PART FIVE: UNPREDICTABLE - in Heroes title font
Trevor. The point of view shifts 180 degrees to the field. The field and people turn into ones and zeroes for a second then back to normal. He's been memorizing the teams and anything else.
Trevor - "It's coming."
[Reference to Part Two]
Only Seal and Trevor are left.
Seal - "She was beautiful, Trevor. And you were so different."
Trevor - "We all were."
Seal - "What now?"
Trevor - "We're going to pay an old friend a long overdue visit."
Seal is silent, he doesn't understand. James appears, wiping off a bloody nose with the back of his palm.
[Volume Four and Five, Hiro Nakamura and Arnold, Teleportation]
James - "Where to?"
Trevor - "Lyneboro, Connecticut."
[iStory Book Five]
THE END OF SPECIAL ONE: UNDAUNTED - in Heroes title font
SPECIAL TWO
PHASE THREE
[Heroes Survival Game, Phase Three]
LYNEBORO, CONNECTICUT
MABLE'S DINER
The staging area where the waitresses pick up plates is buzzing. It's breakfast time.
Leona Mills lays down a plate for The Neighbor, Tim. She winks at him. He smiles and shrugs.
[iStory Book Five]
Mills walks over to another table. The two patrons are hidden behind their menus.
Leona - "What can I get you two?"
Close up on Leona. She is shocked as the menus are lowered on the table nearly out of frame.
Trevor - "I'll take the Whole Truth."
Seal - "She's younger than I thought."
[Reference to Part Two]
TO BE CONTINUED
Commentary - Undaunted Part Four
This was my Carnival tie-in before writing the conclusion. I tie it in with a text message. And it just so happens that one of Undaunted's pick up points is near a seedy bar.
HOME
And so I explore Trevor's past again. With the reveal about him being insane, one wonders what about his parents? So I have Trevor decide to go confront them only to find an empty home. I also had the desire to establish that long before Trevor manifested his ability, that he had this reoccurring nightmare about manifesting, which I pick up on after part five, which involves the DNA Symbol. This ties into the nightmares that Molly Walker had and the childhood drawings of Richard Drucker. Inexplicably, these symbols are ingrained in specials' lives since their birth and its an important motif of Heroes.
But then Trevor pulls back and regrets even going back home. What does he do? Drink and be funny. And so it was here that he briefly encountered Samuel Sullivan. And with what limited knowledge I had, starting writing the character and made it so he knew about Trevor and expressed that by drawing the Symbol. This brings up the red flag in Trevor's drunken state and he splits and gets back to the task at hand, the meeting.
Throw in some banter with James and I end part four on the day Trevor manifested. So the title of part four ties into all the stories, Trevor gets an offer from Samuel to join the Carnival and Trevor finds an offer to reunite with his family, and finally we learn that Trevor got an offer to enroll at NYU placing him in New York when he manifested. So Bellevue happens shortly after this flashback. There's also the one line that Trevor graduated high school early. I decided to add that to establish that he's always been a little ahead of the curve. And we end on another important Heroes motif...the Eclipse.
About Trevor in the bar, some of those responses are those I made in high school. What do you want to be when you grow up? I thought it was a ridiculous question. Or my gripe with people calling their children kids. Always annoys me.
HOME
And so I explore Trevor's past again. With the reveal about him being insane, one wonders what about his parents? So I have Trevor decide to go confront them only to find an empty home. I also had the desire to establish that long before Trevor manifested his ability, that he had this reoccurring nightmare about manifesting, which I pick up on after part five, which involves the DNA Symbol. This ties into the nightmares that Molly Walker had and the childhood drawings of Richard Drucker. Inexplicably, these symbols are ingrained in specials' lives since their birth and its an important motif of Heroes.
But then Trevor pulls back and regrets even going back home. What does he do? Drink and be funny. And so it was here that he briefly encountered Samuel Sullivan. And with what limited knowledge I had, starting writing the character and made it so he knew about Trevor and expressed that by drawing the Symbol. This brings up the red flag in Trevor's drunken state and he splits and gets back to the task at hand, the meeting.
Throw in some banter with James and I end part four on the day Trevor manifested. So the title of part four ties into all the stories, Trevor gets an offer from Samuel to join the Carnival and Trevor finds an offer to reunite with his family, and finally we learn that Trevor got an offer to enroll at NYU placing him in New York when he manifested. So Bellevue happens shortly after this flashback. There's also the one line that Trevor graduated high school early. I decided to add that to establish that he's always been a little ahead of the curve. And we end on another important Heroes motif...the Eclipse.
About Trevor in the bar, some of those responses are those I made in high school. What do you want to be when you grow up? I thought it was a ridiculous question. Or my gripe with people calling their children kids. Always annoys me.
Part Three - Undaunted Part Four
LATE SUMMER 2007
COSTA VERDE, CALIFORNIA
Exterior - Sam's Comics - Trevor exits from the employee entrance in the alley. He re-assembles his cell phone and turns it on.
It reads: "1 New Message"
He selects it and the point of view closes in on the screen: MEETING
Trevor - Something is wrong. Repetition. Then the unexpected. Escalation. The Pattern is changing.
[Fringe]
Trevor breaks thought and disassembles the cell phone.
Trevor - This is my last chance. Erase the last of my self-doubt. Take care of unfinished business.
Several hours later…LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Trevor walks up to a house, one floor, surrounded by a white picket fence. The fence is dilapidated and broken off in some parts. A realty sign with 'FORECLOSURE' is in the front yard. He opens the front gate carefully and slowly. The front door is open and rocking in the breeze.
Inside, the living room is bare and stripped down, similar to Stephen Canfield's home in Volume 3. Trevor hears footsteps. A homeless man appears from the hall. The man freezes up after seeing Trevor.
[Volume Three]
Trevor - "I have two questions. Answer them and I never saw you."
Bum - "Shoot."
Trevor - "How long has this house been vacant?"
Bum - "Came here back in uh…April. Foreclosure sign was already up."
Trevor - "Was there anything in here when you first came?"
Bum - "Place was cleaned out. I only use it for sleeping. Bunch of scratches in the corner room, though."
Trevor - "Thank you. You've been very helpful."
Bum - "If you want it, no problem, man."
Trevor - "It doesn't belong to me."
Trevor walks into the hallway, right past the homeless man.
Bum - "You're one of them, aren't you?"
[Heroes, Motifs, The Company, One of Us, One of Them]
Trevor pauses in the hallway with his back turned to the homeless man.
Trevor - "I'm nobody."
[Odyssey]
Trevor keeps on walking to the corner room. There is only one window and it is sealed. It is closer to the ceiling than the floor. The carpeting is still in. There is a strip of wallpaper still up on one side of the room.
Trevor places his right hand flat on the wallpaper and stares at it. He rips the wallpaper off and throws it behind him. The wallpaper drifts to the ground. The point of view shifts back to the wall.
The DNA Symbol is scratched into the wall, maybe from a pocket knife, at about waist level.
[Heroes, Motifs, The DNA Symbol]
Trevor traces his index finger along through the carving at each point from top to bottom like he formed an 'S'
Trevor - "I never did figure you out."
[Implied past about nightmares]
Trevor turns to leave and looks down at the wallpaper. A folded piece line paper is taped to the backside of the wallpaper. Trevor rips it off and puts it into his back pocket. He paces out of the backdoor through the kitchen across from the room.
LATE AFTERNOON
SAFEHOUSE
A small, square room. There is an industrial metal desk in the center. Trevor is seated staring at the piece of paper.
Trevor - One more sliver of information. I need this. I do.
He tears along the taped portion. A folded roll of US Dollar Bills tumbles out. The Bill on the outside is a $50. The inside of the line paper that can be seen reads: "You can find us here:"
Trevor - "December 14, 2001. That was another life. That was someone else. If I were still the same, I'd go and I'd say, "I'm alive. I missed you both. We have so much to catch up on.""
Without reading the paper, Trevor crumbles it into a wad and hurls it into the corner enraged and frustrated. He turns and swats the money to the floor. He reaches under the desk and walks forward. He kicks in the wall, revealing a passage, and leaves.
Exterior - Explosion
TWILIGHT
Interior - The Angry Skunk Bar - Trevor drinks a bottle near the bartender, Milosh. He polishes his glass glancing at Trevor.
Milosh - "You should slow down, pal."
Trevor - "Please don't be a stereotype, tonight."
Milosh shuts up and walks away glaring at Trevor. He holds back. Trevor is a stranger and he doesn't know what his power is. A man sits down next to Trevor. Milosh looks at him, waiting for an order.
Man - "Let me catch my wind first, barkeep."
He puts his hand into the shady bowl of nuts like a spider attacking its prey. He tilts his head toward Trevor. Trevor doesn't notice or doesn't care.
Man - "You look a little lost."
Trevor - "We're all a little lost."
Man - "And the kids, they used to be brilliant. All they had to do to make it right was runaway to the circus."
Trevor - "Goats have kids. People have children."
Man - "Ah yes, but you couldn't tell the difference, could ya?"
The man cackles at his own joke.
Trevor - "I was never into the circus. The clowns were the worst."
[The Carnival, Samuel Sullivan]
Man - "It's a common fear…"
Trevor - "They remind me too much about the real world."
The man is intrigued.
Man - "How so?"
Trevor - "They reflect back to us the comedy and tragedy of our lives. How we try in vain to hide who or what we really are, only to end up like pale-faces spirits lost in our bodies."
The man motions to Milosh and points at Trevor.
Man - "I'll have what he's having."
Man - "That's why it feels so good to be yourself, doesn't it?"
Trevor - "What's that supposed to mean?"
Man - "Well…what'd you want to be when you grow up?"
Trevor - "Someone else. Anyone else. A child wouldn't know what he wants to be as a man."
Man - "I said astronaut."
Trevor laughs and takes another drink.
The man reaches over and touches the ring of condensation that formed under Trevor's drink. He shapes it into something. Trevor looks.
Man - "You should come with me. Take in a show."
The water mark is shaped into a DNA Symbol.
[Heroes, Motifs, The DNA Symbol]
Trevor stands up normally and tosses money on the table.
Trevor - "I don't lean that way, but I'm flattered."
Man - "You won't have to hide anymore. Don't have to be alone."
Trevor - "I am alone. No matter where I go, who I'm with, or what I do."
The man drinks from his bottle.
Man - "Suit yourself, then. I can tell you're not circus material."
He looks back, Trevor is already gone. He cracks a smile and turns to Milosh.
Man - "Maybe it's time to head east and find some greener pastures."
Bird's eye point of view - The man leaves the shady bar and strolls away. Pan up to the other side of the street, Trevor is watching from the rooftop.
Trevor - Strike three. There is another faction. They are watching others. Recruiting others. Killing. Why? Are we warheads in a new and unseen arms race? The escalation is already happening.
James teleports in behind him.
James - "There you are. Everyone's waiting."
Trevor - "Then, let's go."
James - "What, no comeback this time? No witty retort?"
Trevor grabs his left arm.
Trevor - "Now."
James eyes study him and realize Trevor's urgency. They teleport away.
UNDAUNTED PART FOUR: OFFER - in Heroes title font -
DECEMBER 14, 2001
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CAMPUS
NYU Tour Guide Stooge - "And that concludes the official tour. If you will follow me, there will be a reception with light refreshments and snacks."
The crowd files into the nearby building except for a group of three: a mother, a father, and Trevor.
Mom - "That was nice."
Dad - "Yeah."
Mom - "Well, hon, what did you think?"
Trevor - "Nice."
[Vague reference to Butler dinner in Volume Two]
Mom - "They offered you a full scholarship."
Trevor - "I'm sure they do that for all the kids who graduate high school early."
Trevor's dad laughs.
Trevor - "Let's go get some lunch."
Dad - "I thought you'd never ask."
They walk away from the building smiling and laughing. The point of view shifts into bird's eye. Trevor looks up toward the camera (to the sky) and can't stop looking for some reason as he walks on. The view shifts to the sky. The Eclipse.
[Heroes, Motifs, The Eclipse]
TO BE CONCLUDED - in Heroes font
NEXT: UNDAUNTED PART FIVE: UNPREDICTABLE
Trevor Tanaka returns to the Garden of the Gods and finds himself at the forefront of a rare meeting with every Undaunted member in attendance. What is going on? How will they react to Trevor's news? Don't miss the conclusion- a lead in to the upcoming Volume 5: Redemption airing on September 21. Coming Soon!
COSTA VERDE, CALIFORNIA
Exterior - Sam's Comics - Trevor exits from the employee entrance in the alley. He re-assembles his cell phone and turns it on.
It reads: "1 New Message"
He selects it and the point of view closes in on the screen: MEETING
Trevor - Something is wrong. Repetition. Then the unexpected. Escalation. The Pattern is changing.
[Fringe]
Trevor breaks thought and disassembles the cell phone.
Trevor - This is my last chance. Erase the last of my self-doubt. Take care of unfinished business.
Several hours later…LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Trevor walks up to a house, one floor, surrounded by a white picket fence. The fence is dilapidated and broken off in some parts. A realty sign with 'FORECLOSURE' is in the front yard. He opens the front gate carefully and slowly. The front door is open and rocking in the breeze.
Inside, the living room is bare and stripped down, similar to Stephen Canfield's home in Volume 3. Trevor hears footsteps. A homeless man appears from the hall. The man freezes up after seeing Trevor.
[Volume Three]
Trevor - "I have two questions. Answer them and I never saw you."
Bum - "Shoot."
Trevor - "How long has this house been vacant?"
Bum - "Came here back in uh…April. Foreclosure sign was already up."
Trevor - "Was there anything in here when you first came?"
Bum - "Place was cleaned out. I only use it for sleeping. Bunch of scratches in the corner room, though."
Trevor - "Thank you. You've been very helpful."
Bum - "If you want it, no problem, man."
Trevor - "It doesn't belong to me."
Trevor walks into the hallway, right past the homeless man.
Bum - "You're one of them, aren't you?"
[Heroes, Motifs, The Company, One of Us, One of Them]
Trevor pauses in the hallway with his back turned to the homeless man.
Trevor - "I'm nobody."
[Odyssey]
Trevor keeps on walking to the corner room. There is only one window and it is sealed. It is closer to the ceiling than the floor. The carpeting is still in. There is a strip of wallpaper still up on one side of the room.
Trevor places his right hand flat on the wallpaper and stares at it. He rips the wallpaper off and throws it behind him. The wallpaper drifts to the ground. The point of view shifts back to the wall.
The DNA Symbol is scratched into the wall, maybe from a pocket knife, at about waist level.
[Heroes, Motifs, The DNA Symbol]
Trevor traces his index finger along through the carving at each point from top to bottom like he formed an 'S'
Trevor - "I never did figure you out."
[Implied past about nightmares]
Trevor turns to leave and looks down at the wallpaper. A folded piece line paper is taped to the backside of the wallpaper. Trevor rips it off and puts it into his back pocket. He paces out of the backdoor through the kitchen across from the room.
LATE AFTERNOON
SAFEHOUSE
A small, square room. There is an industrial metal desk in the center. Trevor is seated staring at the piece of paper.
Trevor - One more sliver of information. I need this. I do.
He tears along the taped portion. A folded roll of US Dollar Bills tumbles out. The Bill on the outside is a $50. The inside of the line paper that can be seen reads: "You can find us here:"
Trevor - "December 14, 2001. That was another life. That was someone else. If I were still the same, I'd go and I'd say, "I'm alive. I missed you both. We have so much to catch up on.""
Without reading the paper, Trevor crumbles it into a wad and hurls it into the corner enraged and frustrated. He turns and swats the money to the floor. He reaches under the desk and walks forward. He kicks in the wall, revealing a passage, and leaves.
Exterior - Explosion
TWILIGHT
Interior - The Angry Skunk Bar - Trevor drinks a bottle near the bartender, Milosh. He polishes his glass glancing at Trevor.
Milosh - "You should slow down, pal."
Trevor - "Please don't be a stereotype, tonight."
Milosh shuts up and walks away glaring at Trevor. He holds back. Trevor is a stranger and he doesn't know what his power is. A man sits down next to Trevor. Milosh looks at him, waiting for an order.
Man - "Let me catch my wind first, barkeep."
He puts his hand into the shady bowl of nuts like a spider attacking its prey. He tilts his head toward Trevor. Trevor doesn't notice or doesn't care.
Man - "You look a little lost."
Trevor - "We're all a little lost."
Man - "And the kids, they used to be brilliant. All they had to do to make it right was runaway to the circus."
Trevor - "Goats have kids. People have children."
Man - "Ah yes, but you couldn't tell the difference, could ya?"
The man cackles at his own joke.
Trevor - "I was never into the circus. The clowns were the worst."
[The Carnival, Samuel Sullivan]
Man - "It's a common fear…"
Trevor - "They remind me too much about the real world."
The man is intrigued.
Man - "How so?"
Trevor - "They reflect back to us the comedy and tragedy of our lives. How we try in vain to hide who or what we really are, only to end up like pale-faces spirits lost in our bodies."
The man motions to Milosh and points at Trevor.
Man - "I'll have what he's having."
Man - "That's why it feels so good to be yourself, doesn't it?"
Trevor - "What's that supposed to mean?"
Man - "Well…what'd you want to be when you grow up?"
Trevor - "Someone else. Anyone else. A child wouldn't know what he wants to be as a man."
Man - "I said astronaut."
Trevor laughs and takes another drink.
The man reaches over and touches the ring of condensation that formed under Trevor's drink. He shapes it into something. Trevor looks.
Man - "You should come with me. Take in a show."
The water mark is shaped into a DNA Symbol.
[Heroes, Motifs, The DNA Symbol]
Trevor stands up normally and tosses money on the table.
Trevor - "I don't lean that way, but I'm flattered."
Man - "You won't have to hide anymore. Don't have to be alone."
Trevor - "I am alone. No matter where I go, who I'm with, or what I do."
The man drinks from his bottle.
Man - "Suit yourself, then. I can tell you're not circus material."
He looks back, Trevor is already gone. He cracks a smile and turns to Milosh.
Man - "Maybe it's time to head east and find some greener pastures."
Bird's eye point of view - The man leaves the shady bar and strolls away. Pan up to the other side of the street, Trevor is watching from the rooftop.
Trevor - Strike three. There is another faction. They are watching others. Recruiting others. Killing. Why? Are we warheads in a new and unseen arms race? The escalation is already happening.
James teleports in behind him.
James - "There you are. Everyone's waiting."
Trevor - "Then, let's go."
James - "What, no comeback this time? No witty retort?"
Trevor grabs his left arm.
Trevor - "Now."
James eyes study him and realize Trevor's urgency. They teleport away.
UNDAUNTED PART FOUR: OFFER - in Heroes title font -
DECEMBER 14, 2001
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CAMPUS
NYU Tour Guide Stooge - "And that concludes the official tour. If you will follow me, there will be a reception with light refreshments and snacks."
The crowd files into the nearby building except for a group of three: a mother, a father, and Trevor.
Mom - "That was nice."
Dad - "Yeah."
Mom - "Well, hon, what did you think?"
Trevor - "Nice."
[Vague reference to Butler dinner in Volume Two]
Mom - "They offered you a full scholarship."
Trevor - "I'm sure they do that for all the kids who graduate high school early."
Trevor's dad laughs.
Trevor - "Let's go get some lunch."
Dad - "I thought you'd never ask."
They walk away from the building smiling and laughing. The point of view shifts into bird's eye. Trevor looks up toward the camera (to the sky) and can't stop looking for some reason as he walks on. The view shifts to the sky. The Eclipse.
[Heroes, Motifs, The Eclipse]
TO BE CONCLUDED - in Heroes font
NEXT: UNDAUNTED PART FIVE: UNPREDICTABLE
Trevor Tanaka returns to the Garden of the Gods and finds himself at the forefront of a rare meeting with every Undaunted member in attendance. What is going on? How will they react to Trevor's news? Don't miss the conclusion- a lead in to the upcoming Volume 5: Redemption airing on September 21. Coming Soon!
Commentary - Undaunted Part Three
This part would become my take on the effect of manifestations on the wrong people. Not everyone gets a power and gets to live through it on a TV show. A lot of people can't accept it and they snap and they end up in the nuthouse for years. The temporary plight of Niki Sanders and Level 5 influenced me to explore Trevor's manifestation and take it up a notch. Because all of a sudden you can remember everything, how you not go mad from storing all that information in your mind, worse so if you just manifested and have no idea how to control that power. He really did go crazy. And this lends to the Company's later conclusions about his psyche, and how he decides to kill, and everything else that comes after.
BELLEVUE
But I presented it intertwined with other events to confuse the reader and make them think Trevor was caught by these agents that are chasing him. And this where I showcase Trevor's power and his uncanny knowledge of pop culture and of course, an Uluru shout out. If that's Trevor or Uluru talking, I leave that up to speculation. Quite frankly, I'd rather it be that Uluru is an aspect of every advanced ability that appears in everyone...eventually what got superseded by the Hunger (see Peter in Volume 3). That's the face I was going for, but more intense.
And I had to write in Heroes trivia. I always thought the fake expiration date on Mohinder's taxi license was funny so I had to reference it somehow and here it is, sort of like a conspiracy buff being interrogated, he spouts some weird gibberish very like the Question on Justice League Unlimited.
The stardust line is important, of course. If you haven't read Neil Gaiman, I feel sorry for you. It is a set up for a C-Story...OMG...a C-Story?! But of course, I give the one clue that this A-Story and the B-Story are two different stories. 339. Aother important setup was when Shell says "Dammit" and used it as another red herring later on in the A Story. I'm so evil...
The Voice was something I wanted to do to redeem Sanjog after those Writers Strike period GN's. I wanted to see, how would Sanjog try to help a special whose insane? Appear as he did to Mohinder or as a voice and it's a no win situation. He's nuts, remember? So with Sanjog's last line, it's supposed to mirror what the doctor is saying, "You came to me for help" and remind Trevor for the briefest moment and jilt him. So after two years, Trevor uses his power again this time, with a feeling of clarity, and snaps out of it. Then everything peels away and the image changes to reality where he's in Bellevue.
CHINA
And the B-Story is set in China and is the first time Trevor begins attacking agents openly, here Shell and Park, from the evsdropr arc, are his prey. But here, he's really just testing them to see what kind of field training agents get. And I purposefully ended it with Park beating the living daylights out of him to fool the reader into thinking the A-Story was the same, just later on when he was in a Company cell.
SEAL
And so the C-Story picks up from when Trevor leaves Leona Mills' warehouse in part two. The man he met at Harold Square was none other than James Kelly, the Teleporter, who I references in part one so it all comes together. And so beings their relationship of banter.
I take the opportunity to tease and jab the heck out of Heroes Survival Game, because I care and continue on with Trevor's sense of humor and develop it even more. I also made sure I didn't mess up with Seal's character. Thanks for the input, HERO. It was important that I told this story the way I did to set up part five: to see Trevor and Seal interact and that Trevor never got read before being let in.
PRESENT
And it ends back in the present between Trevor's appearance in iStory when he's running to meet up with the squad staking out the house and he knocks out Callum. I wanted to settle that he did memorize those fighting books and movies, he's fit, and he knows how to use his power. I imagine on the evolutionary tree, enhanced memory can easily diverge into Adoptive Muscle Memory (Monica Dawson) or into Intuitive Aptitude rather than progress into Telepathy. So I made this scene where he kicks the crap out of a spy, whether this spy is a Carnie or from another faction, is up to the reader to decide. Trevor knows exactly where to hit, time the hits, and how to hit. Then I end on a humorous note. He's pumping with adrenaline, blood all over him, and he calls for a ride.
BELLEVUE
But I presented it intertwined with other events to confuse the reader and make them think Trevor was caught by these agents that are chasing him. And this where I showcase Trevor's power and his uncanny knowledge of pop culture and of course, an Uluru shout out. If that's Trevor or Uluru talking, I leave that up to speculation. Quite frankly, I'd rather it be that Uluru is an aspect of every advanced ability that appears in everyone...eventually what got superseded by the Hunger (see Peter in Volume 3). That's the face I was going for, but more intense.
And I had to write in Heroes trivia. I always thought the fake expiration date on Mohinder's taxi license was funny so I had to reference it somehow and here it is, sort of like a conspiracy buff being interrogated, he spouts some weird gibberish very like the Question on Justice League Unlimited.
The stardust line is important, of course. If you haven't read Neil Gaiman, I feel sorry for you. It is a set up for a C-Story...OMG...a C-Story?! But of course, I give the one clue that this A-Story and the B-Story are two different stories. 339. Aother important setup was when Shell says "Dammit" and used it as another red herring later on in the A Story. I'm so evil...
The Voice was something I wanted to do to redeem Sanjog after those Writers Strike period GN's. I wanted to see, how would Sanjog try to help a special whose insane? Appear as he did to Mohinder or as a voice and it's a no win situation. He's nuts, remember? So with Sanjog's last line, it's supposed to mirror what the doctor is saying, "You came to me for help" and remind Trevor for the briefest moment and jilt him. So after two years, Trevor uses his power again this time, with a feeling of clarity, and snaps out of it. Then everything peels away and the image changes to reality where he's in Bellevue.
CHINA
And the B-Story is set in China and is the first time Trevor begins attacking agents openly, here Shell and Park, from the evsdropr arc, are his prey. But here, he's really just testing them to see what kind of field training agents get. And I purposefully ended it with Park beating the living daylights out of him to fool the reader into thinking the A-Story was the same, just later on when he was in a Company cell.
SEAL
And so the C-Story picks up from when Trevor leaves Leona Mills' warehouse in part two. The man he met at Harold Square was none other than James Kelly, the Teleporter, who I references in part one so it all comes together. And so beings their relationship of banter.
I take the opportunity to tease and jab the heck out of Heroes Survival Game, because I care and continue on with Trevor's sense of humor and develop it even more. I also made sure I didn't mess up with Seal's character. Thanks for the input, HERO. It was important that I told this story the way I did to set up part five: to see Trevor and Seal interact and that Trevor never got read before being let in.
PRESENT
And it ends back in the present between Trevor's appearance in iStory when he's running to meet up with the squad staking out the house and he knocks out Callum. I wanted to settle that he did memorize those fighting books and movies, he's fit, and he knows how to use his power. I imagine on the evolutionary tree, enhanced memory can easily diverge into Adoptive Muscle Memory (Monica Dawson) or into Intuitive Aptitude rather than progress into Telepathy. So I made this scene where he kicks the crap out of a spy, whether this spy is a Carnie or from another faction, is up to the reader to decide. Trevor knows exactly where to hit, time the hits, and how to hit. Then I end on a humorous note. He's pumping with adrenaline, blood all over him, and he calls for a ride.
Trevor in iStory
iStory 605
So after everything that was happening, I wake up to a cryptic Private Message from HERO on 9th Wonders. Wondering what the heck is going on, I check out the newest iStory and find out Trevor was used in an iStory. I was proud as fuck and so honored to be chosen from 4000+ characters. I thanked Mr. Inkel, thanked God, Buddha, Vishnu, and the Powers That Be. Mr. Inkel got Trevor down to the T and linked his involvement up nicely to what was going on in Book Six. And to top it off, he kicked butt. It was a great day for me and made me even more into writing more stories.
So after everything that was happening, I wake up to a cryptic Private Message from HERO on 9th Wonders. Wondering what the heck is going on, I check out the newest iStory and find out Trevor was used in an iStory. I was proud as fuck and so honored to be chosen from 4000+ characters. I thanked Mr. Inkel, thanked God, Buddha, Vishnu, and the Powers That Be. Mr. Inkel got Trevor down to the T and linked his involvement up nicely to what was going on in Book Six. And to top it off, he kicked butt. It was a great day for me and made me even more into writing more stories.
Part Three - Undaunted Part Three
DATE AND PLACE UNKNOWN
A dark room, like a holding cell. Trevor is sitting, in a corner, tied up in ropes. His hair is messed up. There are bags and bruises under his eyes. A spotlight is focused on Trevor.
The Voice - "You have a power. Escape."
Trevor laughs gleefully, a step below the Joker. He looks worse, beyond tired.
Trevor - "Mogwai in the wall. Can't get me when I'm in the light. Want to eat me after midnight…"
[Gremlins]
The Voice - "You don't belong here."
Trevor - "Are you a butterfly? Or am I the butterfly?"
[Chuang-tzu]
The Voice - "They don't understand you."
Trevor - "Don't feed the jellyfish, there's a sign."
[Spongebob Squarepants]
Figure #1 - "He's not responding."
Figure #2 - "Heart rate. Blood pressure. Neurokinetics. All off the charts. The stress on his brain is destroying his body."
[Teen Titans, Season Three, "Haunted"]
Figure #1 - "Then he'll die."
Figure #2 - "Dammit."
[Red Herring]
Trevor - "One eye sees the past. Second sees the present. The third sees the future. Balance and unity to see all."
[Maharishi and the Sixth Primary Chakra, Hinduism]
The Voice - "Yes, that's it. Remember."
JUNE 8, 2007
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
James and Trevor appear in front of a sign - The Garden of the Gods.
[9th Wonders Board, Heroes Survival Game, Factions, Undaunted]
James - "Go straight to the end."
Trevor - "Couldn't you just take me there?"
James - "No, he prefers you to come on your own. There's the path, you must travel it."
Trevor - "That's so terrible, it doesn't even qualify as a cliché."
Trevor walks off. James nods in agreement. He teleports away. Trevor looks up and sees a yellow ethereal sky and walks. And walks.
Trevor comes to a field. He stops. Seal is on the other side. Trevor walks forward to up to him.
Seal - "You must be Trevor."
Seal holds out his hand to Trevor. To shake Trevor's hand or to read Trevor?
Trevor - "When was the last time you washed your hands?"
Seal - "Of course."
Trevor - "Based on this hideout, you're not an eccentric billionaire, are you?"
[Batman]
Seal - "She didn't say you were a comedian."
Trevor - "What did she say?"
Seal - "Not much."
Trevor - "She told me I should join your clubhouse. I'm late to the game but I'm a fast learner."
[Self-reference. Joined Heroes Survival Game in August 22, 2009]
Seal - "Yes, so I've heard. Enhanced Memory. That's a cool one to have."
Trevor - "Not really. I'd have picked teleportation. Cuts down on travel expenses."
[Self-reference. What power I would choose in a hypothetical situation]
Seal smiles.
Seal - "It's okay if you don't want me to read you. Since Ellen vouches for you, I'll let you join Undaunted. We don't have very much rules but when you do get a message, be sure to answer it. It could come every three hours, more than four hours apart, or randomly beyond our best prediction."
[Heroes Survival Game, New Messages]
Trevor - "I'm not much of a morning person."
[Heroes Survival Game, New Messages]
Seal - "I want you to meet the others but we'll have to wait until James comes back in a couple hours."
Trevor - "So you got a TV in those bushes? No? Monopoly?"
[Monopoly board game]
Seal is caught off guard. Trevor knows this from reading his file. Seal tries to change the subject to get a read on him.
Seal - "What'd you think of the sky?"
Trevor - "It's like a child grabbed a marker and tried their best to color in the lines."
Seal - "…I never got that answer before."
Trevor - "I've got a lobe dedicated to witty quips and one liners."
Points to his head.
Seal - "I think it's stardust."
Trevor turns.
Trevor - "What?"
DATE UNKNOWN
Trevor, tied up, is leaning on a wall like a ragdoll. The light is still focused on him. The rest of the room remains dark. The two figures are standing around him.
Figure #1 - "Are you ready to tell us anything?"
Trevor looks like hell.
The Voice - "Tell them to let you go."
Trevor - "Why are you still here?"
The Voice - "You came to me."
[The only clue to who the voice belongs to. Volume One "Seven Minutes to Midnight]
Trevor's head drops then rises back up. The figures are covered in stars.
Trevor - "I need help."
The Voice - "You need to help yourself."
Trevor closes his eyes and concentrates. The point of view shifts to Trevor's. At first there is nothing but black. Then the room and people are flowing with zeroes and ones, and then a white flash engulfs the room.
[The Matrix]
Close up to lower half of Trevor's face from the side view.
Trevor - "Thank you."
From off panel. White light oozing into the black and reveals glimmers of reality.
Figure #1 - "You're welcome."
Pan out. Trevor is in a white, padded room. The chief psychiatrist and an orderly surround him. Trevor is bound in a straitjacket.
Exterior: Bellevue Hospital Center - 462 1st Avenue, New York, New York, 10016
Trevor - "How long have I been here?"
Chief Psychiatrist - "Two years. It's 2004, now."
UNDAUNTED PART THREE: BOUND - in Heroes title font -
LATE SUMMER 2007
COSTA VERDE, CALIFORNIA
[Takes place within iStory Book Six, Chapter Five "Yesterday's Angels"]
Trevor is running down the sidewalk.
Trevor - It was just an illusion. Callum. Double agent. Must have been the accent that threw me. Classic. Too indirect of a strategy to be Thompson. One of the other factions? Mills was right. I have to handle this efficiently. I say this wrong, and fear spreads like wildfire between the factions. Alliances. Lines drawn. War.
Someone is following him. Trevor knows this. He stops at a corner, pulls out his cell phone, and starts a fake conversation. He laughs like the other person told a joke.
The figure pauses and looks around quickly. He hasn't done this before. Easy prey for Trevor. He looks up and Trevor is gone. The figure runs to the corner and frantically searches for any sign of Trevor.
Trevor jumps out at him. And with pinpoint accuracy, Trevor attacks him at memorized areas, each hit within a second of each other: He connects with a punch to the gut, a crushing left to the face, kicks down on his right knee, the man cringes and drops down, then Trevor connects with a drop kick to his jawbone. The man lays unconscious. Trevor looks at him but doesn't bother searching him. He was just another distraction.
Trevor lets out a steady breath. He turns to the street.
Trevor - "Taxi!"
TO BE CONTINUED - in Heroes font
NEXT: UNDAUNTED PART FOUR: OFFER
Trevor Tanaka parts ways with The Rebellion when Eric Thompson Jr. is nowhere to be found. He decides to make a visit to his past life before reporting back to Undaunted. However, something wicked this way comes…straight for Trevor! Coming Soon!
A dark room, like a holding cell. Trevor is sitting, in a corner, tied up in ropes. His hair is messed up. There are bags and bruises under his eyes. A spotlight is focused on Trevor.
The Voice - "You have a power. Escape."
Trevor laughs gleefully, a step below the Joker. He looks worse, beyond tired.
Trevor - "Mogwai in the wall. Can't get me when I'm in the light. Want to eat me after midnight…"
[Gremlins]
The Voice - "You don't belong here."
Trevor - "Are you a butterfly? Or am I the butterfly?"
[Chuang-tzu]
The Voice - "They don't understand you."
Trevor - "Don't feed the jellyfish, there's a sign."
[Spongebob Squarepants]
Figure #1 - "He's not responding."
Figure #2 - "Heart rate. Blood pressure. Neurokinetics. All off the charts. The stress on his brain is destroying his body."
[Teen Titans, Season Three, "Haunted"]
Figure #1 - "Then he'll die."
Figure #2 - "Dammit."
[Red Herring]
Trevor - "One eye sees the past. Second sees the present. The third sees the future. Balance and unity to see all."
[Maharishi and the Sixth Primary Chakra, Hinduism]
The Voice - "Yes, that's it. Remember."
JUNE 8, 2007
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
James and Trevor appear in front of a sign - The Garden of the Gods.
[9th Wonders Board, Heroes Survival Game, Factions, Undaunted]
James - "Go straight to the end."
Trevor - "Couldn't you just take me there?"
James - "No, he prefers you to come on your own. There's the path, you must travel it."
Trevor - "That's so terrible, it doesn't even qualify as a cliché."
Trevor walks off. James nods in agreement. He teleports away. Trevor looks up and sees a yellow ethereal sky and walks. And walks.
Trevor comes to a field. He stops. Seal is on the other side. Trevor walks forward to up to him.
Seal - "You must be Trevor."
Seal holds out his hand to Trevor. To shake Trevor's hand or to read Trevor?
Trevor - "When was the last time you washed your hands?"
Seal - "Of course."
Trevor - "Based on this hideout, you're not an eccentric billionaire, are you?"
[Batman]
Seal - "She didn't say you were a comedian."
Trevor - "What did she say?"
Seal - "Not much."
Trevor - "She told me I should join your clubhouse. I'm late to the game but I'm a fast learner."
[Self-reference. Joined Heroes Survival Game in August 22, 2009]
Seal - "Yes, so I've heard. Enhanced Memory. That's a cool one to have."
Trevor - "Not really. I'd have picked teleportation. Cuts down on travel expenses."
[Self-reference. What power I would choose in a hypothetical situation]
Seal smiles.
Seal - "It's okay if you don't want me to read you. Since Ellen vouches for you, I'll let you join Undaunted. We don't have very much rules but when you do get a message, be sure to answer it. It could come every three hours, more than four hours apart, or randomly beyond our best prediction."
[Heroes Survival Game, New Messages]
Trevor - "I'm not much of a morning person."
[Heroes Survival Game, New Messages]
Seal - "I want you to meet the others but we'll have to wait until James comes back in a couple hours."
Trevor - "So you got a TV in those bushes? No? Monopoly?"
[Monopoly board game]
Seal is caught off guard. Trevor knows this from reading his file. Seal tries to change the subject to get a read on him.
Seal - "What'd you think of the sky?"
Trevor - "It's like a child grabbed a marker and tried their best to color in the lines."
Seal - "…I never got that answer before."
Trevor - "I've got a lobe dedicated to witty quips and one liners."
Points to his head.
Seal - "I think it's stardust."
Trevor turns.
Trevor - "What?"
DATE UNKNOWN
Trevor, tied up, is leaning on a wall like a ragdoll. The light is still focused on him. The rest of the room remains dark. The two figures are standing around him.
Figure #1 - "Are you ready to tell us anything?"
Trevor looks like hell.
The Voice - "Tell them to let you go."
Trevor - "Why are you still here?"
The Voice - "You came to me."
[The only clue to who the voice belongs to. Volume One "Seven Minutes to Midnight]
Trevor's head drops then rises back up. The figures are covered in stars.
Trevor - "I need help."
The Voice - "You need to help yourself."
Trevor closes his eyes and concentrates. The point of view shifts to Trevor's. At first there is nothing but black. Then the room and people are flowing with zeroes and ones, and then a white flash engulfs the room.
[The Matrix]
Close up to lower half of Trevor's face from the side view.
Trevor - "Thank you."
From off panel. White light oozing into the black and reveals glimmers of reality.
Figure #1 - "You're welcome."
Pan out. Trevor is in a white, padded room. The chief psychiatrist and an orderly surround him. Trevor is bound in a straitjacket.
Exterior: Bellevue Hospital Center - 462 1st Avenue, New York, New York, 10016
Trevor - "How long have I been here?"
Chief Psychiatrist - "Two years. It's 2004, now."
UNDAUNTED PART THREE: BOUND - in Heroes title font -
LATE SUMMER 2007
COSTA VERDE, CALIFORNIA
[Takes place within iStory Book Six, Chapter Five "Yesterday's Angels"]
Trevor is running down the sidewalk.
Trevor - It was just an illusion. Callum. Double agent. Must have been the accent that threw me. Classic. Too indirect of a strategy to be Thompson. One of the other factions? Mills was right. I have to handle this efficiently. I say this wrong, and fear spreads like wildfire between the factions. Alliances. Lines drawn. War.
Someone is following him. Trevor knows this. He stops at a corner, pulls out his cell phone, and starts a fake conversation. He laughs like the other person told a joke.
The figure pauses and looks around quickly. He hasn't done this before. Easy prey for Trevor. He looks up and Trevor is gone. The figure runs to the corner and frantically searches for any sign of Trevor.
Trevor jumps out at him. And with pinpoint accuracy, Trevor attacks him at memorized areas, each hit within a second of each other: He connects with a punch to the gut, a crushing left to the face, kicks down on his right knee, the man cringes and drops down, then Trevor connects with a drop kick to his jawbone. The man lays unconscious. Trevor looks at him but doesn't bother searching him. He was just another distraction.
Trevor lets out a steady breath. He turns to the street.
Trevor - "Taxi!"
TO BE CONTINUED - in Heroes font
NEXT: UNDAUNTED PART FOUR: OFFER
Trevor Tanaka parts ways with The Rebellion when Eric Thompson Jr. is nowhere to be found. He decides to make a visit to his past life before reporting back to Undaunted. However, something wicked this way comes…straight for Trevor! Coming Soon!
Commentary - Undaunted Part Two
LEONA, TOM, AND TREVOR
I fell in love with Leona Mills and Crazy Tom and wanted to explore them in detail. So Part Two begins back in time and I reveal how Trevor became a part of Undaunted and what Mills plays in all this. I wanted Leona and Trevor to roll off each other and here I got a grasp on Trevor's snarky humor. And the crack about Leona's youth was purposefully put there so I could callback to it in part five.
And one can tell I had a lot of fun with writing his part, in particular. That moment in Kill Bill where the Bride's name is beeped out cracked me up and I figured this would be a hilarious FX if used. But if it were a graphic novel, then maybe it'd be whited out and indicate only Trevor could hear not the reader. I will never reveal his real name and none of his aliases nor nickname even hint at what it is.
But here, I was sort of building up the premise of Volume 5 and Phase 3 of HSG from Trevor's point of view and how it influences his story. He knows he's being manipulated but he came to her anyway. He knew she'd have some sliver of information that he needed. So it was the ultimate 50/50, would he accept or not and have to play a role in Mills' scheme. Then to contrast this stuff with jokes, with the Rachael Mills one, I couldn't stop laughing at that one.
I totally wanted Trevor to have a Batman moment and I came up with him walking into the shadows and disappearing. I also wanted to play with the Company's theory he was once a black ops spook. The truth is, he probably read a bunch of books and watched movies and shows about fighting and military training. Then totally out of left field, the cheesecake idea came to me and I wanted Crazy Tom be say something...well crazy. And with Leona, the one line about redemption sets up what happens to her in iStory Book Four from this story's point of view.
PRESENT
Then, we're back to the present like Trevor was dreaming about that moment in time. And I was planning on writing a Costa Verde story for part three but after iStory came out, I scrapped it and went ahead with coming out with the big reveal about Trevor's past and putting more emphasis on that. So to add to it, I set up the line here about how Mills arranged for Trevor to meet Seal. In hindsight, the Costa Verde story would have just bogged down the flashback.
I always liked the idea of how Trevor booby traps his safe houses so with the ending, I went in detail about his procedure. He does work on a computer, wipes the hard drive, then blows up the building. After awhile, it got humorous to me on how he blows everything up.
I fell in love with Leona Mills and Crazy Tom and wanted to explore them in detail. So Part Two begins back in time and I reveal how Trevor became a part of Undaunted and what Mills plays in all this. I wanted Leona and Trevor to roll off each other and here I got a grasp on Trevor's snarky humor. And the crack about Leona's youth was purposefully put there so I could callback to it in part five.
And one can tell I had a lot of fun with writing his part, in particular. That moment in Kill Bill where the Bride's name is beeped out cracked me up and I figured this would be a hilarious FX if used. But if it were a graphic novel, then maybe it'd be whited out and indicate only Trevor could hear not the reader. I will never reveal his real name and none of his aliases nor nickname even hint at what it is.
But here, I was sort of building up the premise of Volume 5 and Phase 3 of HSG from Trevor's point of view and how it influences his story. He knows he's being manipulated but he came to her anyway. He knew she'd have some sliver of information that he needed. So it was the ultimate 50/50, would he accept or not and have to play a role in Mills' scheme. Then to contrast this stuff with jokes, with the Rachael Mills one, I couldn't stop laughing at that one.
I totally wanted Trevor to have a Batman moment and I came up with him walking into the shadows and disappearing. I also wanted to play with the Company's theory he was once a black ops spook. The truth is, he probably read a bunch of books and watched movies and shows about fighting and military training. Then totally out of left field, the cheesecake idea came to me and I wanted Crazy Tom be say something...well crazy. And with Leona, the one line about redemption sets up what happens to her in iStory Book Four from this story's point of view.
PRESENT
Then, we're back to the present like Trevor was dreaming about that moment in time. And I was planning on writing a Costa Verde story for part three but after iStory came out, I scrapped it and went ahead with coming out with the big reveal about Trevor's past and putting more emphasis on that. So to add to it, I set up the line here about how Mills arranged for Trevor to meet Seal. In hindsight, the Costa Verde story would have just bogged down the flashback.
I always liked the idea of how Trevor booby traps his safe houses so with the ending, I went in detail about his procedure. He does work on a computer, wipes the hard drive, then blows up the building. After awhile, it got humorous to me on how he blows everything up.
Part Three - Undaunted Part Two
JUNE 8, 2007
WASHINGTON, D.C.
[iStory Book Four and Heroes Survival Game, Biography - June 8, 2007]
Leona Mills' hand reaches out and opens the top of a coffin from the inside.
Trevor Tanaka watches silently as she steps out from the coffin. The shadow slips from her face. She is young and youthful.
Trevor - "You're younger than I thought."
Leona - "I get that a lot."
Trevor - "You know, stepping out of a coffin leaves a very specific first impression with people. And that tingling sensation I got from your buddy's teleportation power in Los Angeles goes away right?"
Leona is unfazed by his comment and smiles.
Leona - "Hello, [INAUDIBLE]"
[Kill Bill, Secret Name]
A silent shock comes over Trevor's face. It quickly melts into a grin.
Trevor - "I prefer Trevor these days. And you, it is a pleasure to meet Miss Leona Mills."
Leona - "You're charming. Clever, even."
Trevor - "Ellen. Initials. L. N. Linda Niles. Shipping Company. Ciphers. Apple Pie."
[Heroes Evolutions, Rebel, iStory Book Four, Graphic Novels]
Leona - "You must be wondering why you're here."
Trevor - "Who are these who are to fight? What is the selection process? A natural phenomenon or is it a construct of further arrogance on the part of humanity?"
[Renaissance Humanism]
Leona - "Both and neither."
Trevor - "I knew I'd like you."
Leona - "Let me rephrase the question. Don't you want to know why you're standing here in my building?"
Leona gestures to the wall. There is an inscribed symbol: 4 stars and a hammer.
[iStory Book Four]
Trevor - "Ah. Yes. Please. Do tell."
Leona - "Even though Ellen would benefit greatly from your diverse set of skills, there is another faction that is in greater need of you. They call themselves Undaunted. It was formed by a man who goes by Seal. He only wants to hide posthumans from Building 26."
[Volume Four, Heroes Survival Game Phase Two, and iStory Book Four]
Trevor - "And my accumulated experience of avoiding Company surveillance would prove invaluable to him."
[Heroes, The Company]
Leona - "For now. When the rebellion is over, the real war will start."
[Volume Four and Five]
Leona hands him a red file marked 'SEAL.' Trevor flips through it without blinking. His power is at work.
[Volume Three, Noah Bennet's Files]
Trevor - "Empathy, fascinating. It seems, in the end, we are only transhumans when held up to his posthuman. We are autonomous, rational, and gasy but the posthuman can understand the world through context and multiple perspectives. To him, nothing is ever relative."
[Verner Vinge and Claude]
Leona - "Seal has an amazing heart and he is a natural leader."
Trevor - "And I would say, as any person would…"
Leona - "What's in it for me? You have a list don't you?"
Trevor - "Everyone's got a list."
[Heroes, Motifs, The List]
Leona - "Julia Ryan. Lukas Bahn. Felicia Brooks. Eric Thompson, Jr. The Haitian. Those were the agents who were sent to bag and tag you. Instead, they found your girlfriend. And she had a very nasty reaction to the Haitian's ability."
[Heroes Evolutions, Evsdropper and Heroes Survival Game - Biography - September 26, 2006]
Trevor gets agitated. His emotions were definitely stirred.
Trevor - "This is where you start tasting your words very, very carefully."
Leona - "You already know Brooks and Ryan are dead. If you serve Seal until I need him, I will give you the other three."
Trevor - "What makes you think I care about them?"
Leona - "Because if it's not you that kills them, then it will be someone else. Can you let that happen, when you knew you had the chance?"
Trevor - "I don't want revenge. I don't want this assignment. I just want…"
Leona - "It to go away? That hole in your heart? It'll never stop. It will haunt you. Consume you. Cut you in two. Until you accept it. Now, are you in or not?"
Leona holds out another red file marked 'BUILDING 26.'
[Volume Four]
Trevor pauses and takes a long exhale.
Trevor - "Does the hand still grow by the Golden Ratio?"
[Mathematics and Biology, The Golden Ratio]
Leona - "I'll take that as a yes?"
Trevor - "Yes."
Leona - "Good, I'll set up a meeting."
Trevor - "Will there be enough time for a complementary Ludovico session?"
[Lost, Mysteries of the Universe]
Leona "Mmm, maybe a mind upload or even a direct brain-computer interface if you keep on behaving yourself."
[Neal Asher]
Trevor - "Oh, you do know how to spoil your would-be suitors."
Trevor turns and faces the wall.
Trevor - "Miss Mills, the walls have eyes and ears, don't they?"
Leona - "That's just Crazy Tom, don't mind him."
Trevor - "Hello, Crazy Tom. Nice to meet you."
There is a long silence.
Crazy Tom - "Hey."
Leona - "Trevor, you're going back west. Meet a man at Harold Square at 2:31 P.M. today. He'll take you to the Garden, where Seal is. We probably won't see each other again so it was nice knowing you."
Trevor scoffs at her forthcoming-ness.
Trevor - "The Singularity is long overdue. Goodbye, Miss Mills. Crazy Tom."
[Verner Vinge]
Crazy Tom - "Trevor."
Leona - "I wish you could have met my daughter. I think you two would have hit it off."
[Heroes, Rachel Mills]
Trevor - "I'm sure she's too busy beating men off with a stick as it is."
Trevor walks into the shadows. Leona watches, even long after he is gone.
[Batman, Motifs]
Crazy Tom - "So Leona…"
Leona - "Yes, Tom?"
Crazy Tom - "What was he before all this, a spook?"
[Heroes Survival Game - Biography]
Leona - "A librarian."
[Heroes Survival Game - Biography]
Crazy Tom - "…And they call me crazy."
Leona - "He was just a man, Tom. Wondering if he had a purpose."
Leona inches her hand to a chair and drains it.
Leona - "If he would ever fall in love. Then came the eclipse. At first he was overwhelmed by the power. He created different identities to cope with the pain. His power made him into a chameleon. The Company stepped in and did what they do best, to say nothing of their hubris. Trevor tried to do what many have tried over the years."
Trevor holds an agent in a death hold, the now cliché Steven Segal neck snap.
[Steven Segal, Mad TV]
Leona - "It turned him into a monster. Now, he's a ghost."
Hong Kong apartment, several levels up near the top floor, a fire blazes. Trevor is seen walking away [toward frame] back turned as spectators gather and point upwards, while some try to cobble out their camera.
[Heroes Survival Game - Biography - November 30, 2007 and Evsdropper myNBC]
Leona - "He wants to be whole again, but even with that fantastic memory of his, he can't remember how."
Japan. Trevor is knelt in front of a headstone with the TANAKA Kanji on it, eyes closed, mouth clenched, tears streaming down.
[Volume Two "Powerless" and Heroes Survival Game - Biography - March 20, 2007]
Crazy Tom - "Wow. What a story."
Leona - "Yes. Unfortunately, it's a story being told one too many times in this generation."
Matt Parkman and Ted Sprague confront the Bennet Family from "Company Man." Sprague's hands are burning with radioactivity.
[Volume One "Company Man"]
Crazy Tom - "I could go for a cheesecake right about now."
Leona - "It's coming."
Crazy Tom - "My cheesecake?"
Leona - "Redemption."
[Volume Five]
Large pan out of the empty warehouse. Leona stands near her coffin. Crazy Tom walks out from the wall. They are as big as specks.
UNDAUNTED PART TWO: SPOOK - in Heroes title font -
PRESENT
Trevor's cell phone buzzes and jolts him awake.
Trevor - The phone is off. I pulled the components out. So you must be The Rebel.
Screen reads: SAM'S COMICS - CLAIRE
[Volume Four and iStory Book Six]
Trevor - Costa Verde it is. But a little redecorating, first.
Trevor types in a combination of strokes on the keyboard and reaches for something under the computer desk. He kicks a nearby carpet away, revealing a trap door and ladder. He climbs down and closes the door.
Pan out to the building. A big explosion bursts out from the building.
TO BE CONTINUED - in Heroes font
WASHINGTON, D.C.
[iStory Book Four and Heroes Survival Game, Biography - June 8, 2007]
Leona Mills' hand reaches out and opens the top of a coffin from the inside.
Trevor Tanaka watches silently as she steps out from the coffin. The shadow slips from her face. She is young and youthful.
Trevor - "You're younger than I thought."
Leona - "I get that a lot."
Trevor - "You know, stepping out of a coffin leaves a very specific first impression with people. And that tingling sensation I got from your buddy's teleportation power in Los Angeles goes away right?"
Leona is unfazed by his comment and smiles.
Leona - "Hello, [INAUDIBLE]"
[Kill Bill, Secret Name]
A silent shock comes over Trevor's face. It quickly melts into a grin.
Trevor - "I prefer Trevor these days. And you, it is a pleasure to meet Miss Leona Mills."
Leona - "You're charming. Clever, even."
Trevor - "Ellen. Initials. L. N. Linda Niles. Shipping Company. Ciphers. Apple Pie."
[Heroes Evolutions, Rebel, iStory Book Four, Graphic Novels]
Leona - "You must be wondering why you're here."
Trevor - "Who are these who are to fight? What is the selection process? A natural phenomenon or is it a construct of further arrogance on the part of humanity?"
[Renaissance Humanism]
Leona - "Both and neither."
Trevor - "I knew I'd like you."
Leona - "Let me rephrase the question. Don't you want to know why you're standing here in my building?"
Leona gestures to the wall. There is an inscribed symbol: 4 stars and a hammer.
[iStory Book Four]
Trevor - "Ah. Yes. Please. Do tell."
Leona - "Even though Ellen would benefit greatly from your diverse set of skills, there is another faction that is in greater need of you. They call themselves Undaunted. It was formed by a man who goes by Seal. He only wants to hide posthumans from Building 26."
[Volume Four, Heroes Survival Game Phase Two, and iStory Book Four]
Trevor - "And my accumulated experience of avoiding Company surveillance would prove invaluable to him."
[Heroes, The Company]
Leona - "For now. When the rebellion is over, the real war will start."
[Volume Four and Five]
Leona hands him a red file marked 'SEAL.' Trevor flips through it without blinking. His power is at work.
[Volume Three, Noah Bennet's Files]
Trevor - "Empathy, fascinating. It seems, in the end, we are only transhumans when held up to his posthuman. We are autonomous, rational, and gasy but the posthuman can understand the world through context and multiple perspectives. To him, nothing is ever relative."
[Verner Vinge and Claude]
Leona - "Seal has an amazing heart and he is a natural leader."
Trevor - "And I would say, as any person would…"
Leona - "What's in it for me? You have a list don't you?"
Trevor - "Everyone's got a list."
[Heroes, Motifs, The List]
Leona - "Julia Ryan. Lukas Bahn. Felicia Brooks. Eric Thompson, Jr. The Haitian. Those were the agents who were sent to bag and tag you. Instead, they found your girlfriend. And she had a very nasty reaction to the Haitian's ability."
[Heroes Evolutions, Evsdropper and Heroes Survival Game - Biography - September 26, 2006]
Trevor gets agitated. His emotions were definitely stirred.
Trevor - "This is where you start tasting your words very, very carefully."
Leona - "You already know Brooks and Ryan are dead. If you serve Seal until I need him, I will give you the other three."
Trevor - "What makes you think I care about them?"
Leona - "Because if it's not you that kills them, then it will be someone else. Can you let that happen, when you knew you had the chance?"
Trevor - "I don't want revenge. I don't want this assignment. I just want…"
Leona - "It to go away? That hole in your heart? It'll never stop. It will haunt you. Consume you. Cut you in two. Until you accept it. Now, are you in or not?"
Leona holds out another red file marked 'BUILDING 26.'
[Volume Four]
Trevor pauses and takes a long exhale.
Trevor - "Does the hand still grow by the Golden Ratio?"
[Mathematics and Biology, The Golden Ratio]
Leona - "I'll take that as a yes?"
Trevor - "Yes."
Leona - "Good, I'll set up a meeting."
Trevor - "Will there be enough time for a complementary Ludovico session?"
[Lost, Mysteries of the Universe]
Leona "Mmm, maybe a mind upload or even a direct brain-computer interface if you keep on behaving yourself."
[Neal Asher]
Trevor - "Oh, you do know how to spoil your would-be suitors."
Trevor turns and faces the wall.
Trevor - "Miss Mills, the walls have eyes and ears, don't they?"
Leona - "That's just Crazy Tom, don't mind him."
Trevor - "Hello, Crazy Tom. Nice to meet you."
There is a long silence.
Crazy Tom - "Hey."
Leona - "Trevor, you're going back west. Meet a man at Harold Square at 2:31 P.M. today. He'll take you to the Garden, where Seal is. We probably won't see each other again so it was nice knowing you."
Trevor scoffs at her forthcoming-ness.
Trevor - "The Singularity is long overdue. Goodbye, Miss Mills. Crazy Tom."
[Verner Vinge]
Crazy Tom - "Trevor."
Leona - "I wish you could have met my daughter. I think you two would have hit it off."
[Heroes, Rachel Mills]
Trevor - "I'm sure she's too busy beating men off with a stick as it is."
Trevor walks into the shadows. Leona watches, even long after he is gone.
[Batman, Motifs]
Crazy Tom - "So Leona…"
Leona - "Yes, Tom?"
Crazy Tom - "What was he before all this, a spook?"
[Heroes Survival Game - Biography]
Leona - "A librarian."
[Heroes Survival Game - Biography]
Crazy Tom - "…And they call me crazy."
Leona - "He was just a man, Tom. Wondering if he had a purpose."
Leona inches her hand to a chair and drains it.
Leona - "If he would ever fall in love. Then came the eclipse. At first he was overwhelmed by the power. He created different identities to cope with the pain. His power made him into a chameleon. The Company stepped in and did what they do best, to say nothing of their hubris. Trevor tried to do what many have tried over the years."
Trevor holds an agent in a death hold, the now cliché Steven Segal neck snap.
[Steven Segal, Mad TV]
Leona - "It turned him into a monster. Now, he's a ghost."
Hong Kong apartment, several levels up near the top floor, a fire blazes. Trevor is seen walking away [toward frame] back turned as spectators gather and point upwards, while some try to cobble out their camera.
[Heroes Survival Game - Biography - November 30, 2007 and Evsdropper myNBC]
Leona - "He wants to be whole again, but even with that fantastic memory of his, he can't remember how."
Japan. Trevor is knelt in front of a headstone with the TANAKA Kanji on it, eyes closed, mouth clenched, tears streaming down.
[Volume Two "Powerless" and Heroes Survival Game - Biography - March 20, 2007]
Crazy Tom - "Wow. What a story."
Leona - "Yes. Unfortunately, it's a story being told one too many times in this generation."
Matt Parkman and Ted Sprague confront the Bennet Family from "Company Man." Sprague's hands are burning with radioactivity.
[Volume One "Company Man"]
Crazy Tom - "I could go for a cheesecake right about now."
Leona - "It's coming."
Crazy Tom - "My cheesecake?"
Leona - "Redemption."
[Volume Five]
Large pan out of the empty warehouse. Leona stands near her coffin. Crazy Tom walks out from the wall. They are as big as specks.
UNDAUNTED PART TWO: SPOOK - in Heroes title font -
PRESENT
Trevor's cell phone buzzes and jolts him awake.
Trevor - The phone is off. I pulled the components out. So you must be The Rebel.
Screen reads: SAM'S COMICS - CLAIRE
[Volume Four and iStory Book Six]
Trevor - Costa Verde it is. But a little redecorating, first.
Trevor types in a combination of strokes on the keyboard and reaches for something under the computer desk. He kicks a nearby carpet away, revealing a trap door and ladder. He climbs down and closes the door.
Pan out to the building. A big explosion bursts out from the building.
TO BE CONTINUED - in Heroes font
Commentary - Undaunted Part One
MATHEMATICS, FINANCE, AND HOW TREVOR FITS IN
As I said before, numbers are a motif with Trevor's power. I liken his power as storing any form of information, numbers, words, images, what have you as strings of 1's and 0's like a computer. They explored this notion with Matt Neuenberg in the graphic novels. So I wanted to explore his power a little more and make it cooler, if only to me at least.
So Part One starts with a reference to the Black Swan Events, a financial theory by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and visually, I used the explosion at the end of season one. Ultimately, I thought this was the unexpected moment, the catalyst that caused everything to happen as it did in the Heroesverse. It also implied from his job history, maybe Trevor was a Finance Major and if he never manifested, he'd probably ended being a Certified Financial Analyst. That never came to be, and his analyst skill is being used very differently.
GUEST STARS
Since I planned to slowly put more emphasis on Undaunted as the stories got made, it made sense for me to have Trevor interact with other members. I could never decide on the two in the beginning until a month later when I was reading every Undaunted members' bios and figuring out which to use in an upcoming story. I liked Kurt Hasian and Carson Ford alot, because one's a geek and one's a wise ass. They're there to complement Trevor, who is sort of in the middle in terms of personality if you want to approach it that way. To me, he's somewhere between Batman, the Question, and Rorschach. He's got snark, the detective quality, strategizing, obsessive, the loner and what not. So I decided to edit part one and add in Hasian and Ford.
And may notice, I do visualize as I wrote this and I clearly know what I want the scene to look like. It helps me write to picture it as a graphic novel or webisode. I definitely wanted some piece of shit, shady room with electronics to be a base of operations. It's one of the first times you get a description of Trevor's safe houses.
JUMPING IN
And between the HSG bio and this story, months have passed. I skipped ahead to lay down the plot of Undaunted and reveal Trevor's assorted past in pieces out of order, the way most serials do now. I chose certain parts of the past based on the story so that by the end of part five, you can construct Trevor's past and it won't even matter that I will never reveal his real name. I latched to that theory on how you never reveal your name, because there is power in it and once your enemy knows, you're defeated. Story-wise, it's just what is laid out, it's part of another life that he can never have back so he ditched the name and chose a new one.
And I don't know, I must have been on the same wavelength as Tom Inkel but I wanted to link part one and part two specifically to events going on in iStory Book Six and give an idea of, yes I did my homework, and I'm not screwing with continuity in anyway whatsoever. More on Mr. Inkel later.
SET UPS
And yes, I mentioned multiple things to set up future plots such as with Seal. Sort of dangle that idea of what is Trevor's relationship with Seal and Teleporter and it came together quite nicely. And of course, the image of Thompson Jr. was a set up for part two which later became a big deal to me (see above) and tying back into Trevor's original revenge goal with the current mission at hand. At this point, I danced with idea of Trevor's loyalty to Undaunted. If he had a chance to get back at the agents, would be betray/leave Undaunted. And I want that idea to dance around until part five.
FLASHBACKS
Yeah, at times it was a bit too Lost-y but it fit what I set out to do. So visually, you in this dank, dark, dilapidated building filled with computers, then all of a sudden, BAM, you're looking at a bright forest of bamboo, it's day, the colors are vibrant...total contrast of scene. What links these two scenes...Trevor. And as much as time drives me crazy on Heroes, I was very specific on dates and locations.
This first flashback refers back to Leona's texts and explores further what is going on with Trevor. And it seems like Trevor took a vow of silence as the monk and probably the whole temple are getting curious about who this outsider is. And so the conversation ties into the fact that Trevor used his power to be fluent in several languages, here, in Mandarin. And with the monk, I mashed in theories of two great minds Chikamatsu and Drucker, one a Japanese playwright and the other, a business savant, along with a throwback to Volume One. But not an obvious one then followed by an obvious one!
Here, I wanted to experiment with a montage scene and I heart it. The images mostly all jump all out of order and illustrate past scenes I wrote about like the death of Trevor's girlfriend (which was a powerful moment) and grounding him further into the Heroesverse, he was near Kaitos funeral?! OMG. That's the sort of reaction I was gauging. And each line also ties into the image, it's not random selections.
And Leona Mills, I just loved how iStory introduced her from a coffin. I knew I had to use that image and here, it's a set up for part two. And with Mags and Seal, I don't know how I came up with that one, it just popped in there. You see, the beautiful thing about these stories is, I'd look at the timeline of Trevor, outline what I want to do in the story, go do whatever I had to do in the day, then exactly around 12:30 AM, my creative juices amped up and I write each part in one sitting. So really, it only took five nights total to write. So for Mags and Seal, I just wanted a funny way of how Seal's power works, he bumps into Mags and realizes her story and they have an awkward moment, does Seal know or not, then contrast that with urgency of Building 26. So this happened in Volume 4 separate from Trevor's story. If their character's creators agree with this or not is unknown.
And the bank scene, I really wanted a foreshadowy moment and nothing better than when Trevor was working at a bank and unbeknowst to him at the time, two Company agents are gathering intel on him, posing as bank patrons, sort of a loose reference to Claire's fake bio-parents. But I wanted to put that feeling of dread like Bahn is inches away from Trevor and he doesn't even realize it.
Then the montage fades and we return to discover this takes place exactly when Mills started texting Trevor.
As I said before, numbers are a motif with Trevor's power. I liken his power as storing any form of information, numbers, words, images, what have you as strings of 1's and 0's like a computer. They explored this notion with Matt Neuenberg in the graphic novels. So I wanted to explore his power a little more and make it cooler, if only to me at least.
So Part One starts with a reference to the Black Swan Events, a financial theory by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and visually, I used the explosion at the end of season one. Ultimately, I thought this was the unexpected moment, the catalyst that caused everything to happen as it did in the Heroesverse. It also implied from his job history, maybe Trevor was a Finance Major and if he never manifested, he'd probably ended being a Certified Financial Analyst. That never came to be, and his analyst skill is being used very differently.
GUEST STARS
Since I planned to slowly put more emphasis on Undaunted as the stories got made, it made sense for me to have Trevor interact with other members. I could never decide on the two in the beginning until a month later when I was reading every Undaunted members' bios and figuring out which to use in an upcoming story. I liked Kurt Hasian and Carson Ford alot, because one's a geek and one's a wise ass. They're there to complement Trevor, who is sort of in the middle in terms of personality if you want to approach it that way. To me, he's somewhere between Batman, the Question, and Rorschach. He's got snark, the detective quality, strategizing, obsessive, the loner and what not. So I decided to edit part one and add in Hasian and Ford.
And may notice, I do visualize as I wrote this and I clearly know what I want the scene to look like. It helps me write to picture it as a graphic novel or webisode. I definitely wanted some piece of shit, shady room with electronics to be a base of operations. It's one of the first times you get a description of Trevor's safe houses.
JUMPING IN
And between the HSG bio and this story, months have passed. I skipped ahead to lay down the plot of Undaunted and reveal Trevor's assorted past in pieces out of order, the way most serials do now. I chose certain parts of the past based on the story so that by the end of part five, you can construct Trevor's past and it won't even matter that I will never reveal his real name. I latched to that theory on how you never reveal your name, because there is power in it and once your enemy knows, you're defeated. Story-wise, it's just what is laid out, it's part of another life that he can never have back so he ditched the name and chose a new one.
And I don't know, I must have been on the same wavelength as Tom Inkel but I wanted to link part one and part two specifically to events going on in iStory Book Six and give an idea of, yes I did my homework, and I'm not screwing with continuity in anyway whatsoever. More on Mr. Inkel later.
SET UPS
And yes, I mentioned multiple things to set up future plots such as with Seal. Sort of dangle that idea of what is Trevor's relationship with Seal and Teleporter and it came together quite nicely. And of course, the image of Thompson Jr. was a set up for part two which later became a big deal to me (see above) and tying back into Trevor's original revenge goal with the current mission at hand. At this point, I danced with idea of Trevor's loyalty to Undaunted. If he had a chance to get back at the agents, would be betray/leave Undaunted. And I want that idea to dance around until part five.
FLASHBACKS
Yeah, at times it was a bit too Lost-y but it fit what I set out to do. So visually, you in this dank, dark, dilapidated building filled with computers, then all of a sudden, BAM, you're looking at a bright forest of bamboo, it's day, the colors are vibrant...total contrast of scene. What links these two scenes...Trevor. And as much as time drives me crazy on Heroes, I was very specific on dates and locations.
This first flashback refers back to Leona's texts and explores further what is going on with Trevor. And it seems like Trevor took a vow of silence as the monk and probably the whole temple are getting curious about who this outsider is. And so the conversation ties into the fact that Trevor used his power to be fluent in several languages, here, in Mandarin. And with the monk, I mashed in theories of two great minds Chikamatsu and Drucker, one a Japanese playwright and the other, a business savant, along with a throwback to Volume One. But not an obvious one then followed by an obvious one!
Here, I wanted to experiment with a montage scene and I heart it. The images mostly all jump all out of order and illustrate past scenes I wrote about like the death of Trevor's girlfriend (which was a powerful moment) and grounding him further into the Heroesverse, he was near Kaitos funeral?! OMG. That's the sort of reaction I was gauging. And each line also ties into the image, it's not random selections.
And Leona Mills, I just loved how iStory introduced her from a coffin. I knew I had to use that image and here, it's a set up for part two. And with Mags and Seal, I don't know how I came up with that one, it just popped in there. You see, the beautiful thing about these stories is, I'd look at the timeline of Trevor, outline what I want to do in the story, go do whatever I had to do in the day, then exactly around 12:30 AM, my creative juices amped up and I write each part in one sitting. So really, it only took five nights total to write. So for Mags and Seal, I just wanted a funny way of how Seal's power works, he bumps into Mags and realizes her story and they have an awkward moment, does Seal know or not, then contrast that with urgency of Building 26. So this happened in Volume 4 separate from Trevor's story. If their character's creators agree with this or not is unknown.
And the bank scene, I really wanted a foreshadowy moment and nothing better than when Trevor was working at a bank and unbeknowst to him at the time, two Company agents are gathering intel on him, posing as bank patrons, sort of a loose reference to Claire's fake bio-parents. But I wanted to put that feeling of dread like Bahn is inches away from Trevor and he doesn't even realize it.
Then the montage fades and we return to discover this takes place exactly when Mills started texting Trevor.
Part Three - Undaunted Part One
And so, as I planned from the start, I was going to write stories about Trevor and naturally I integrated them into when I joined with the faction, Undaunted. Why did I join that faction? A few reasons, 1) the bio fitted with where I wanted to take Trevor's story to the next level and 2) I'm a fan of the creator, HERO. I tend to gravitate towards kindred who have similar psychopathic tendencies. When I first joined 9th Wonders, I saw all this work and screen grabs that HERO contributes and figured this person was a moderator or Tim Kring in disguise. And don't tease me for revealing this HERO, ;P Of course, there are some people that point out Undaunted is #1 and is a sure way to boost your rank. I say to that, it doesn't matter what faction you join, you still have to answer those messages.
Anyway, here's part one. In [ ] are my notes and references I sneaked in. Commentary to come in a separate post. Enjoy.
[Notes]
Trevor - There is a surprise. It has a major impact. After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight as if it had been expected.
[Black Swan Events]
Distant shot of Peter Petrelli exploding in the sky above Kirby Plaza.
[Volume One "How to Stop An Exploding Man"]
LATE SUMMER 2007
[Bridge between iStory Book Six and Volume Five]
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
A steam punk, cobbled together room not unlike main room from Nebuchadnezzar in The Matrix movie.
Kurt Hasian - "This place is definitely a Craig's List must buy."
[Craig's List]
Carson Ford - "Two more dead. Not even with us for more than a month."
Trevor looks away from two others into a flat screen computer monitor.
Trevor - "People die in the morning, they are born in the evening, like foam on the water."
[Kamo no Chomei, Hojoki (1212), An Account of My Hut]
Carson Ford, clearly a polar opposite of Trevor, looks annoyed at his comment.
Carson Ford - "That's so callous."
Kurt Hasian - "Dude, he already knew it was going to happen sooner or later. It was possible. He had strategies on what to do after the murders before any of us could blink…he's…"
[Lost, Hurley, Dude]
Kurt Hasian is clearly a 'fan' of Trevor. Ford cuts him off.
Carson Ford - "I thought he just remembers stuff, not dreams about the future!"
[Heroes, Angela Petrelli, Precognitive Dreaming]
Kurt Hasian - "Nah, it only starts as memory. Remembering all those numbers, details, images…his brain can process them into actions and plan scenarios. He's like an advance scout, tactician, and general all wrapped up in one. He knows what our next move should be. Look, Seal gets him. That's enough for me. It should be for you, too."
[Heroes Survival Game, Undaunted, Seal]
Trevor types away, not listening to them at all.
Trevor - "They were being followed for days. They didn't know but they were chosen to die. Someone thought they had intel. Assassinated them. Picked through their belongings. Took their wallets to make it look like a robbery. Probably dumped them a couple blocks away. We'll find the wallets. He'll read them. We find the target."
Carson Ford - "It sounds so convenient. Not everything's one big coincidence. It could be just retribution for that thing with Mags."
[Heroes Evolutions, iStory Book Six, Chapter Three "Wild Things"]
Trevor - "There are no coincidences. Just the illusion of coincidence."
[V for Vendetta]
Kurt Hasian - "I totally saw this on CSI once. If it was retribution, the bodies wouldn't be manipulated. The human body doesn't fall like that from a headshot. If this was revenge, they'd be left alone, displayed like war trophies."
[CSI]
They stare at him in silence. He looks down and scratches the back of his head, embarrassed.
Trevor - "This isn't just a faction. It's an army, too. They were the front line. Expendable. Replaceable. Us? Not so much. Stay around long enough and you become too important. A bunch of us gets killed, the faction has to start all over again. We're human. They're human. We all had normal lives. Dreams. Friends. Family. I had a life before this. Kept my power a secret. Even used to have a sense of humor. I had love. Had it and lost it. Answers. Truth. It's all I wanted. I tried it before with my emotions. But it led to revenge and I became a killer. A monster. To make sure it didn't happen again, I had to remove emotion from the equation. It's called clinical detachment in medical school. I could be objective. See everything. Cause. Effect. Action. Reaction. Scenarios. Alternatives. Possibilities. Black Swan Events. Every piece has its part."
[X-Files and Black Swan Events]
Carson Ford calms down and smiles.
Carson Ford - "But aren't you ever curious to see how it all plays out?"
Trevor - "There are bad people out there. I can't afford to leave it to The Powers That Be."
[Angel]
Kurt Hasian - "Contact us the usual way when things come together. We're going to the Garden with James.
[9th Wonders Board, Heroes Survival, Factions, Undaunted, The Garden of the Gods]
[Heroes Survival Game, Undaunted, Teleporter]
JUNE 2, 2007
China.
A cliff that overlooks a vibrant, seemingly endless forest. Contrasts the previous scene in all possible ways. A monk walks up behind to a man sitting near the cliff.
Roughly translated from Mandarin.
Monk - "What holds the parts together is the mind. The mind must be the strings which hold together all. Learn to connect. See forest and tree."
[Chikamatsu Monzaemon and Peter F. Drucker]
Trevor closes his eyes in disbelief.
Monk - "You have been here for three months. But you do not say who you are or what you are searching for."
Trevor - "Why do you think I'm here?"
Monk - "The pull of the soul."
[Volume One, Mohinder Suresh, Zugunruhe]
The monk continues on the path.
Trevor looks out to the forest.
[Volume One, Narration]
Trevor - Where does it come from? This quest, this need to solve life's mysteries…When the simplest of questions can never be answered.
Trevor holds his dead girlfriend in his arms.
[Heroes Survival Game, Biography - September 26, 2006]
Trevor - Why are we here? What is the soul? Why do we dream?
Close up from Trevor's point of view. Looking down into a Sprint cell phone. The screen shows his Assignment Tracker 2.0 profile.
[Sprint, Assignment Tracker 2, Heroes Survival Game, Biography - November 26, 2006]
Trevor - Perhaps we'd be better off not looking at all. Not delving, not yearning.
Trevor watches Kaito Nakamura's funeral from a headstone with the TANAKA Kanji on it.
[Volume Two "Powerless" and Heroes Survival Game, Biography - March 20, 2007]
Trevor - But that's not human nature. Not the human heart. That is not why we are here.
Close up on Hiro Nakamura as he gives his eulogy for his father.
[Volume Two "Powerless" and Heroes Survival Game, Biography - March 20, 2007]
Trevor - We dream of hope, We dream of change, of fire, of love, of death.
Various headshots of Undaunted members in different parts of the world.
[Heroes Survival Game, Undaunted]
Trevor - And then it happens. The dream becomes real.
The iconic eclipse.
[Heroes, Motif, The Eclipse]
Trevor - And the answer to this quest, this need to solve life's mysteries finally shows itself…
Trevor's hand reaches out to another (Victor). Hands hold. Trevor's shifts away.
[iStory Book Four and Heroes Survival Game, Biography - June 8, 2007]
Trevor - Like the glowing light of a new dawn.
Leona Mills' hand reaches out and opens the top of a coffin from the inside.
So much struggle for meaning, for purpose, and in the end,
Mags walks along a sidewalk. She bumps into someone.
[Heroes Survival Game]
We find it only in each other.
The man Mags bumped into is Seal. He smiles at her like he used his power on her.
He motions to her into an alley. In the distance, Building 26 Special Agents are closing in on them. Possibly Kent Harper's team.
[Volume Four and Heroes Survival Game]
Trevor - Our shared experience of the fantastic, and the mundane.
2006 on a hanging banner. Bank. Trevor works at a bank. Sitting behind him are Company agents, Julia Ryan and Lukas Bahn talking to a bank stooge. Bahn has his head slightly turned toward Trevor.
[Heroes Survival Game, Biography - January 2006 and Heroes Evolutions, Evsdropper]
Trevor - The simple need to find a kindred, to connect.
Case jumps forward into a sunrise with glee.
[Heroes Survival Game]
A light 'leaks' out of the dirt near Trevor.
Trevor - And to know in out hearts that we are not alone.
Trevor digs up a cell phone. He brushes dirt off the screen. Close up to the screen. It reads: "1 New Message."
UNDAUNTED - in Heroes title font - graces across the panel.
PRESENT
Trevor - When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is quit. That is exactly what the majority of men do.
[Napoleon Hill]
Shot over his shoulder. The screen shows a home page for Cisco security camera feeds like Bob Bishop's from Volume Two. A smaller square reads: "You're Welcome." Each corner of the square has a star and a faded hammer imprint in the center of the background. The square disappears.
[Volume Two and iStory Book Four]
Trevor - Success is a function of the sincerity of the mission. Without a meaningful purpose, action leads to disappointment and frustration. Yet, when focused upon a compelling reason, action always results in achievement.
Close up on Trevor. He wears a concerned face, like seeing a ghost from his past, almost a tinge of anger seething from his eyes.
The reveal on screen: Eric Thompson Jr. with a sniper rifle.
[Heroes Evolutions, Evsdropper and iStory Book Six]
TO BE CONTINUED - in Heroes font
Anyway, here's part one. In [ ] are my notes and references I sneaked in. Commentary to come in a separate post. Enjoy.
[Notes]
Trevor - There is a surprise. It has a major impact. After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight as if it had been expected.
[Black Swan Events]
Distant shot of Peter Petrelli exploding in the sky above Kirby Plaza.
[Volume One "How to Stop An Exploding Man"]
LATE SUMMER 2007
[Bridge between iStory Book Six and Volume Five]
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
A steam punk, cobbled together room not unlike main room from Nebuchadnezzar in The Matrix movie.
Kurt Hasian - "This place is definitely a Craig's List must buy."
[Craig's List]
Carson Ford - "Two more dead. Not even with us for more than a month."
Trevor looks away from two others into a flat screen computer monitor.
Trevor - "People die in the morning, they are born in the evening, like foam on the water."
[Kamo no Chomei, Hojoki (1212), An Account of My Hut]
Carson Ford, clearly a polar opposite of Trevor, looks annoyed at his comment.
Carson Ford - "That's so callous."
Kurt Hasian - "Dude, he already knew it was going to happen sooner or later. It was possible. He had strategies on what to do after the murders before any of us could blink…he's…"
[Lost, Hurley, Dude]
Kurt Hasian is clearly a 'fan' of Trevor. Ford cuts him off.
Carson Ford - "I thought he just remembers stuff, not dreams about the future!"
[Heroes, Angela Petrelli, Precognitive Dreaming]
Kurt Hasian - "Nah, it only starts as memory. Remembering all those numbers, details, images…his brain can process them into actions and plan scenarios. He's like an advance scout, tactician, and general all wrapped up in one. He knows what our next move should be. Look, Seal gets him. That's enough for me. It should be for you, too."
[Heroes Survival Game, Undaunted, Seal]
Trevor types away, not listening to them at all.
Trevor - "They were being followed for days. They didn't know but they were chosen to die. Someone thought they had intel. Assassinated them. Picked through their belongings. Took their wallets to make it look like a robbery. Probably dumped them a couple blocks away. We'll find the wallets. He'll read them. We find the target."
Carson Ford - "It sounds so convenient. Not everything's one big coincidence. It could be just retribution for that thing with Mags."
[Heroes Evolutions, iStory Book Six, Chapter Three "Wild Things"]
Trevor - "There are no coincidences. Just the illusion of coincidence."
[V for Vendetta]
Kurt Hasian - "I totally saw this on CSI once. If it was retribution, the bodies wouldn't be manipulated. The human body doesn't fall like that from a headshot. If this was revenge, they'd be left alone, displayed like war trophies."
[CSI]
They stare at him in silence. He looks down and scratches the back of his head, embarrassed.
Trevor - "This isn't just a faction. It's an army, too. They were the front line. Expendable. Replaceable. Us? Not so much. Stay around long enough and you become too important. A bunch of us gets killed, the faction has to start all over again. We're human. They're human. We all had normal lives. Dreams. Friends. Family. I had a life before this. Kept my power a secret. Even used to have a sense of humor. I had love. Had it and lost it. Answers. Truth. It's all I wanted. I tried it before with my emotions. But it led to revenge and I became a killer. A monster. To make sure it didn't happen again, I had to remove emotion from the equation. It's called clinical detachment in medical school. I could be objective. See everything. Cause. Effect. Action. Reaction. Scenarios. Alternatives. Possibilities. Black Swan Events. Every piece has its part."
[X-Files and Black Swan Events]
Carson Ford calms down and smiles.
Carson Ford - "But aren't you ever curious to see how it all plays out?"
Trevor - "There are bad people out there. I can't afford to leave it to The Powers That Be."
[Angel]
Kurt Hasian - "Contact us the usual way when things come together. We're going to the Garden with James.
[9th Wonders Board, Heroes Survival, Factions, Undaunted, The Garden of the Gods]
[Heroes Survival Game, Undaunted, Teleporter]
JUNE 2, 2007
China.
A cliff that overlooks a vibrant, seemingly endless forest. Contrasts the previous scene in all possible ways. A monk walks up behind to a man sitting near the cliff.
Roughly translated from Mandarin.
Monk - "What holds the parts together is the mind. The mind must be the strings which hold together all. Learn to connect. See forest and tree."
[Chikamatsu Monzaemon and Peter F. Drucker]
Trevor closes his eyes in disbelief.
Monk - "You have been here for three months. But you do not say who you are or what you are searching for."
Trevor - "Why do you think I'm here?"
Monk - "The pull of the soul."
[Volume One, Mohinder Suresh, Zugunruhe]
The monk continues on the path.
Trevor looks out to the forest.
[Volume One, Narration]
Trevor - Where does it come from? This quest, this need to solve life's mysteries…When the simplest of questions can never be answered.
Trevor holds his dead girlfriend in his arms.
[Heroes Survival Game, Biography - September 26, 2006]
Trevor - Why are we here? What is the soul? Why do we dream?
Close up from Trevor's point of view. Looking down into a Sprint cell phone. The screen shows his Assignment Tracker 2.0 profile.
[Sprint, Assignment Tracker 2, Heroes Survival Game, Biography - November 26, 2006]
Trevor - Perhaps we'd be better off not looking at all. Not delving, not yearning.
Trevor watches Kaito Nakamura's funeral from a headstone with the TANAKA Kanji on it.
[Volume Two "Powerless" and Heroes Survival Game, Biography - March 20, 2007]
Trevor - But that's not human nature. Not the human heart. That is not why we are here.
Close up on Hiro Nakamura as he gives his eulogy for his father.
[Volume Two "Powerless" and Heroes Survival Game, Biography - March 20, 2007]
Trevor - We dream of hope, We dream of change, of fire, of love, of death.
Various headshots of Undaunted members in different parts of the world.
[Heroes Survival Game, Undaunted]
Trevor - And then it happens. The dream becomes real.
The iconic eclipse.
[Heroes, Motif, The Eclipse]
Trevor - And the answer to this quest, this need to solve life's mysteries finally shows itself…
Trevor's hand reaches out to another (Victor). Hands hold. Trevor's shifts away.
[iStory Book Four and Heroes Survival Game, Biography - June 8, 2007]
Trevor - Like the glowing light of a new dawn.
Leona Mills' hand reaches out and opens the top of a coffin from the inside.
So much struggle for meaning, for purpose, and in the end,
Mags walks along a sidewalk. She bumps into someone.
[Heroes Survival Game]
We find it only in each other.
The man Mags bumped into is Seal. He smiles at her like he used his power on her.
He motions to her into an alley. In the distance, Building 26 Special Agents are closing in on them. Possibly Kent Harper's team.
[Volume Four and Heroes Survival Game]
Trevor - Our shared experience of the fantastic, and the mundane.
2006 on a hanging banner. Bank. Trevor works at a bank. Sitting behind him are Company agents, Julia Ryan and Lukas Bahn talking to a bank stooge. Bahn has his head slightly turned toward Trevor.
[Heroes Survival Game, Biography - January 2006 and Heroes Evolutions, Evsdropper]
Trevor - The simple need to find a kindred, to connect.
Case jumps forward into a sunrise with glee.
[Heroes Survival Game]
A light 'leaks' out of the dirt near Trevor.
Trevor - And to know in out hearts that we are not alone.
Trevor digs up a cell phone. He brushes dirt off the screen. Close up to the screen. It reads: "1 New Message."
UNDAUNTED - in Heroes title font - graces across the panel.
PRESENT
Trevor - When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is quit. That is exactly what the majority of men do.
[Napoleon Hill]
Shot over his shoulder. The screen shows a home page for Cisco security camera feeds like Bob Bishop's from Volume Two. A smaller square reads: "You're Welcome." Each corner of the square has a star and a faded hammer imprint in the center of the background. The square disappears.
[Volume Two and iStory Book Four]
Trevor - Success is a function of the sincerity of the mission. Without a meaningful purpose, action leads to disappointment and frustration. Yet, when focused upon a compelling reason, action always results in achievement.
Close up on Trevor. He wears a concerned face, like seeing a ghost from his past, almost a tinge of anger seething from his eyes.
The reveal on screen: Eric Thompson Jr. with a sniper rifle.
[Heroes Evolutions, Evsdropper and iStory Book Six]
TO BE CONTINUED - in Heroes font
Part Two - Heroes Survival Game Bio
When I initially joined the Heroes Survival Game (HSG), it was during Phase Two and the bio was the basis of what would become the Assignment Tracker 2.0 content except on the HSG bio, there are two exclusive sections that continue chronologically after the AT 2.0 March 20, 2007 entry.
HSG Bio
The first section, Ellen, is revealing what Trevor was up to in the Volume 3 and 4 timeline. As much as I wanted him to be this uber-James Bond character, I knew I had to ground him in the Heroes-verse in a sensible way. He's only human and flawed like anyone else. He let his emotions get the better of him and set out to get revenge. And between 2006 and 2007, he killed five Company agents and it got to him. Trevor began to realize the monolithic nature of the Company and began to question himself. So in short, he exiled himself to one of the safe places he knew of, the Chinese countryside, in order to reassess.
I set this up to explore more in detail in a future story. But the HSG profile reveals the tail end of his exile. All of a sudden, his dead cell phone starts getting texts from someone.
JUNE 2, 2007
I summed up Ellen's purpose and Volume 4. To add several things to pique Trevor's interest, the reference to his nickname listed in the HSG bio and I wrote in the part of being in an equation. As I noted earlier, the numbers one's and zero's play a part in Trevor's power. It's set up to explore Trevor's use of mathematics in future stories.
I might as well talk about the nickname. When I went about creating these aliases for Trevor, there was no significant origin other than coming up with Japanese names and matching the first letter to the first letter of the first name as an homage to the comic book motifs (i.e. Peter Parker, Wally West).
The nickname itself, I never figured out a way to tell its story but the backstory on it is some silly DJ handle, he came up with when he was in college, before he manifested. I pictured him as listening to rap music one day and fantasizing about how cool it would be to be a rapper. He brainstormed and tried to figure out what his name would be and thought about the flow of pronouncing letters and mrmichaelt was all he could come up with.
That's why the tone of his answer to Ellen was "I haven't heard that name from college" = "Man that sounds so stupid to me now, what was I thinking?". And also, the fact that this Ellen knows something about his past, which he erased, raises a red flag in his brain. Trevor is intrigued and has to know more. So he quickly accesses his memory and concludes Ellen is an alias and deduces she or one of her cronies has a power which then references Micah Sanders, Hana Gitelman, and Richard Drucker's powers. Obviously in this case, Ellen called in a favor to Micah, now Rebel, to deliver the text. I used this to tie in to their alliance in iStory. Then Trevor's warning about being a "caged tiger" is another Drucker reference from when he interacted with Gitelman in one of the early Evolutions blogs/texts. Because at this point, Trevor is still on the fence about giving up or continuing to kill and he compares himself to a zoo animal.
JUNE 4, 2007
I wanted to have fun with Leona Mills' character, and hint at how much like Angela Petrelli she can really be like, which iStory explores in Book Five. She continues to dangle that line in front of Trevor. Trevor responds with more Drucker-esque logic and I embedded a loose reference to HRG's Company, if it ever comes to be. After that line is one of my favorite quotes, it's mainly about purpose and we see what Trevor is really after and basically asks Leona if that's what she's offering.
Leona realizes this and starts speaking in code to Trevor. She starts by quoting Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass). It happens to be a line that is my all time favorite, about identity and change, and Trevor, who probably memorized the book, responds with another line. And this also happens to be a scene from Lost when Jack reads the story to his nephew in a Flash Forward. Then Leona quotes another line which instructs him where to meet. This turns out to be Trevor's birthplace, which I did on purpose to explore in a future story.
Then the texts end and we shift to the second piece, Building 26.
BUILDING 26
The title is in reference to the room where all the captured specials were kept under sedation. If you paid attention to panels, you'd see the Human Resources sign. I always loved that sort of irony so I wanted to reference it. The file name and its style is a direct homage to iStory 602's conclusion when it is revealed how Belief insulted the agent, Penn. It sums up what Trevor did post March 20, 2007 and notes when he arrived at LAX, on June 15, 2007. This is a reference to when the registration on Niki Sanders' Cadillac in Volume One "Don't Look Back" expires. And to add to Ms. Niles line about using Victor and Valerie on two ends of the USA, I had Trevor meet Victor then vanish. This story picks up in part two of my five parter.
After that I planned on inserting my five parter but I discovered there is a limit to how much you can type in the field. So with a restriction, I looked elsewhere to post it, on 9th Wonders. But recently, I decided it will be housed here on this blog as five posts and I'd leave a link on the forum. It'll also have a minor edit and extra joke added since the forum thread was created.
HSG Bio
The first section, Ellen, is revealing what Trevor was up to in the Volume 3 and 4 timeline. As much as I wanted him to be this uber-James Bond character, I knew I had to ground him in the Heroes-verse in a sensible way. He's only human and flawed like anyone else. He let his emotions get the better of him and set out to get revenge. And between 2006 and 2007, he killed five Company agents and it got to him. Trevor began to realize the monolithic nature of the Company and began to question himself. So in short, he exiled himself to one of the safe places he knew of, the Chinese countryside, in order to reassess.
I set this up to explore more in detail in a future story. But the HSG profile reveals the tail end of his exile. All of a sudden, his dead cell phone starts getting texts from someone.
JUNE 2, 2007
I summed up Ellen's purpose and Volume 4. To add several things to pique Trevor's interest, the reference to his nickname listed in the HSG bio and I wrote in the part of being in an equation. As I noted earlier, the numbers one's and zero's play a part in Trevor's power. It's set up to explore Trevor's use of mathematics in future stories.
I might as well talk about the nickname. When I went about creating these aliases for Trevor, there was no significant origin other than coming up with Japanese names and matching the first letter to the first letter of the first name as an homage to the comic book motifs (i.e. Peter Parker, Wally West).
The nickname itself, I never figured out a way to tell its story but the backstory on it is some silly DJ handle, he came up with when he was in college, before he manifested. I pictured him as listening to rap music one day and fantasizing about how cool it would be to be a rapper. He brainstormed and tried to figure out what his name would be and thought about the flow of pronouncing letters and mrmichaelt was all he could come up with.
That's why the tone of his answer to Ellen was "I haven't heard that name from college" = "Man that sounds so stupid to me now, what was I thinking?". And also, the fact that this Ellen knows something about his past, which he erased, raises a red flag in his brain. Trevor is intrigued and has to know more. So he quickly accesses his memory and concludes Ellen is an alias and deduces she or one of her cronies has a power which then references Micah Sanders, Hana Gitelman, and Richard Drucker's powers. Obviously in this case, Ellen called in a favor to Micah, now Rebel, to deliver the text. I used this to tie in to their alliance in iStory. Then Trevor's warning about being a "caged tiger" is another Drucker reference from when he interacted with Gitelman in one of the early Evolutions blogs/texts. Because at this point, Trevor is still on the fence about giving up or continuing to kill and he compares himself to a zoo animal.
JUNE 4, 2007
I wanted to have fun with Leona Mills' character, and hint at how much like Angela Petrelli she can really be like, which iStory explores in Book Five. She continues to dangle that line in front of Trevor. Trevor responds with more Drucker-esque logic and I embedded a loose reference to HRG's Company, if it ever comes to be. After that line is one of my favorite quotes, it's mainly about purpose and we see what Trevor is really after and basically asks Leona if that's what she's offering.
Leona realizes this and starts speaking in code to Trevor. She starts by quoting Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass). It happens to be a line that is my all time favorite, about identity and change, and Trevor, who probably memorized the book, responds with another line. And this also happens to be a scene from Lost when Jack reads the story to his nephew in a Flash Forward. Then Leona quotes another line which instructs him where to meet. This turns out to be Trevor's birthplace, which I did on purpose to explore in a future story.
Then the texts end and we shift to the second piece, Building 26.
BUILDING 26
The title is in reference to the room where all the captured specials were kept under sedation. If you paid attention to panels, you'd see the Human Resources sign. I always loved that sort of irony so I wanted to reference it. The file name and its style is a direct homage to iStory 602's conclusion when it is revealed how Belief insulted the agent, Penn. It sums up what Trevor did post March 20, 2007 and notes when he arrived at LAX, on June 15, 2007. This is a reference to when the registration on Niki Sanders' Cadillac in Volume One "Don't Look Back" expires. And to add to Ms. Niles line about using Victor and Valerie on two ends of the USA, I had Trevor meet Victor then vanish. This story picks up in part two of my five parter.
After that I planned on inserting my five parter but I discovered there is a limit to how much you can type in the field. So with a restriction, I looked elsewhere to post it, on 9th Wonders. But recently, I decided it will be housed here on this blog as five posts and I'd leave a link on the forum. It'll also have a minor edit and extra joke added since the forum thread was created.
October 22, 2009
Backstory - Assignment Tracker 2.0
Statistics
I decided to make Trevor's control index on the high side at 88% not only because he's awesome but to lay down the possibility that he could use his power against telepaths and other cerebral's in a dangerous way which I explore in future stories.
I love the Diagram photo used for specials with Enhanced Memory. The Ones and Zeroes become an important motif in future stories when Trevor uses his power.
Personal History
Paragraph One
I based them on the reports that evsdropr stole with the trojan virus. Like with field reports, agents check in to Primatech. Story-wise, I decided to use Julia Ryan and Lukas Bahn as the agents first charged with determining if Trevor was a highly evolved being. At this point in 2006, Trevor is already using multiple aliases, moving from state to state, and erased his data in every known database across the world. It makes perfect sense to use the Ryan-Bahn team because they specialize in finding the hard to find, off the grid specials.
I also sought to quickly establish how Trevor used his advanced ability of enhanced memory: memorizing specific disciplines that may come handy while on the lam, languages, tv shows (that he's references to in his own snarky way), keeps in shape (so he can fight or flee), and is an outcast.
Paragraph Two
I wanted to build up a sense of mystery behind this character. Why did he erase his history? Who is he really? What is he? I laid down the blacks ops theory to use as a callback in the story "Spook."
Paragraph Three to Five
These lay out Trevor's traveling pattern. It is done chronologically to suggest he was moving west from some point east but at the same time, nothing specific about his origins. The main point is to demonstrate his patterns of how long he stays, names he used, where he appeared, what job he used that was listed in the statistics, and what other people noted of him.
Also I chose the date May 2, 2003 because we know from his profile, Matt Neuenberg manifested in 2003 at age 12.
Paragraph Six
I adapted the 'accumulated ability predictors' from the chosen method of investigating specials by the Company, usually mentioned as genetic predictors just like in evs' file on a homeless special being chased. I also laid down this entry to use as brief flashback in the montage of Part One.
Paragraph Seven
I used this to reveal why Trevor stayed so long in Hawai'i, he found a life he wanted and someone to share it with. However, with love often comes tragedy in the world of Heroes. The Company tried to bag and tag him but the came at the wrong time. I used what happened to Sandra Bennet in Volume One to explore a curiosity of the Haitian's power and its effects. It can't work the same on everyone. In this case, Trevor's girlfriend got a seizure from the mental manipulation and died. This becomes the main driving force of Trevor's life. I debated for awhile on what his impetus would be, and I concluded on an element of tragedy. I also listed the agents there specifically for Trevor to discover when he steals a Company phone and hacks into their database. They become part of his 'list', another motif of the show.
I used terms like neurocognitive deficit, support team, and nullifer from the AT Files and Graphic Novels. 'Nullifier' and 'support team' came from the story featuring Kill Squad taking on Brandon Lewis with Donna Dunlap and Eric Thompson Jr., who was present at the attempted bag and tag of Trevor. I never elaborated on the support team but it may have been anyone even a KS member or two.
September 26, 2006 was chosen because it is the day Chandra Suresh told Mohinder he was paranoid about being followed as revealed in "Genesis."
Paragraph Eight
I began to embed elements of the show into Trevor's story: Sprint phones, Company surveillance, and Assignment Tracker. I also felt the need to frame the storyline and adding in show references to solidify and tighten Trevor's. Here I used the raid that Matt Parkman and Audrey Hanson instigated in Odessa in Volume One. I suspect it made a headline in a local newspaper and Trevor probably saw it while skimming Google News or something online and remembered.
Paragraph Nine to Ten
I laid down Trevor's methods. He times his flights, pre-packs, has safe houses all around (I never dealt with how he did it, but he was a credit analyst so its implied he had financial sense and liquidated everything then bought up properties with his aliases. I never got time to explain it so it got cut out). Also felt the need to link his power to his basic skill of analysis then combined, it makes him a very strategic person. Also the rant about how his power is not harmful is a nod to Justice League Unlimited "The Cat and the Canary" when Black Canary and Green Arrow confront Wildcat about his extra-circular activities. The last line about paranoia is also modified from something Sayid Jarrah said to Jack in the Lost season 2 finale when they talked about Michael.
Paragraph Eleven
This is intended to reveal that the Company knows Trevor killed the agent and took his phone and (gun but I forgot to mention it but if you think about it, Trevor probably took all his gear to find out about this operation) and performed an autopsy, exploring Company procedure. Revealed that the surviving agent was Dulahey who had a brief appearance on iStory Book One Operation Splinter Chapter 4 when the contract player searches Red Eye's apartment. The player asks Dulahey about the agent before, Eric Thompson Jr! Six degrees of separation. Also threw in their conclusion about Trevor, lock him up in Level 5, a nod to Volume 3.
Paragraph Twelve to Thirteen
Meant to confirm that Trevor did indeed at least download some AT 2.0 files before ditching the phone. He reads off psych profiles of several characters including Matt Neuenberg who shares the same power.
Paragraph Fourteen
Maybe I threw this in to build empathy for Trevor. He was trying to rebuild his life and then he lost it. Now, he's running on rage and wants revenge and I established he's okay with killing. So he's in a weird moral gray space, he's never been in, and now he's had his paranoia confirmed by the Company. The song he hears in his head is a reference to the Korean film, "Old Boy." It hit a chord with me when I watched the movie and it stuck with me since. As much as Trevor is angry, he also has a broken heart and he has never felt so vulnerable.
Paragraph Fifteen and Sixteen
When Trevor goes on another rant, most of the dialogue is a reference to Richard Drucker when he conversed with Hana Gitelman in Volume 2's Heroes Evolutions. I loved the ideology and for sure it would have been a book that Trevor read during his travels. It also shows that he's questioning his current course of action, what's more important, revenge or the truth, a callback to when Ted and Parkman confront Bennet at his house in Volume One "Company Man." It also lays tracks for his desire to find others with powers, which comes to a head in my later stories. Also the line about "wishing it and making it happen.." is a loose nod to Future Matt and Future Mohinder's conversation in Volume One's "Five Years Gone."
Paragraph Seventeen
Based on one of my original blog posts during the evsdropr arc, this one sets up how Trevor now booby traps his safe houses with cheap explosives. Also included is a nod to another agent introduced in the evsdropr arc, Paul Harding, who can manipulate hair.
Paragraph Eighteen
Also another original entry I gave some meat to. It establishes where Trevor is during the Volume 2 finale, he was visiting his girlfriend's grave a few feet away from where Kaito Nakamura's funeral was held which I later referenced in several future stories. I also couldn't help but establish this was after Hiro buried Adam Monroe and Trevor thinks its his subconscious.
Paragraph Nineteen
Ties up everything I was implying and setting up. He's dangerous.
Paragraph Twenty
A nod to iStory with the Executive Servies. Always wanted Evolutions to explore those divisions more but I felt the need to show that the Company considers what their bag and tags could be if they were 'reprogrammed' to work for them.
Paragraph Twenty One
Couldn't resist but make Trevor look nuts with multiple disorders. Apophenia is a callback to DC Comics' the Question and a scene from Justice League Unlimited "Double Date" when Huntress messes with the Question in the Watchtower. Class III Sedation is a callback to the German arc when he was captured and the Company transmissions were sent to us by evsdropr. The German was sedated to keep his powers in check during transport.
Next time: I introduce what happened to Trevor in the show's third season and talk about that in detail.
I decided to make Trevor's control index on the high side at 88% not only because he's awesome but to lay down the possibility that he could use his power against telepaths and other cerebral's in a dangerous way which I explore in future stories.
I love the Diagram photo used for specials with Enhanced Memory. The Ones and Zeroes become an important motif in future stories when Trevor uses his power.
Personal History
Paragraph One
I based them on the reports that evsdropr stole with the trojan virus. Like with field reports, agents check in to Primatech. Story-wise, I decided to use Julia Ryan and Lukas Bahn as the agents first charged with determining if Trevor was a highly evolved being. At this point in 2006, Trevor is already using multiple aliases, moving from state to state, and erased his data in every known database across the world. It makes perfect sense to use the Ryan-Bahn team because they specialize in finding the hard to find, off the grid specials.
I also sought to quickly establish how Trevor used his advanced ability of enhanced memory: memorizing specific disciplines that may come handy while on the lam, languages, tv shows (that he's references to in his own snarky way), keeps in shape (so he can fight or flee), and is an outcast.
Paragraph Two
I wanted to build up a sense of mystery behind this character. Why did he erase his history? Who is he really? What is he? I laid down the blacks ops theory to use as a callback in the story "Spook."
Paragraph Three to Five
These lay out Trevor's traveling pattern. It is done chronologically to suggest he was moving west from some point east but at the same time, nothing specific about his origins. The main point is to demonstrate his patterns of how long he stays, names he used, where he appeared, what job he used that was listed in the statistics, and what other people noted of him.
Also I chose the date May 2, 2003 because we know from his profile, Matt Neuenberg manifested in 2003 at age 12.
Paragraph Six
I adapted the 'accumulated ability predictors' from the chosen method of investigating specials by the Company, usually mentioned as genetic predictors just like in evs' file on a homeless special being chased. I also laid down this entry to use as brief flashback in the montage of Part One.
Paragraph Seven
I used this to reveal why Trevor stayed so long in Hawai'i, he found a life he wanted and someone to share it with. However, with love often comes tragedy in the world of Heroes. The Company tried to bag and tag him but the came at the wrong time. I used what happened to Sandra Bennet in Volume One to explore a curiosity of the Haitian's power and its effects. It can't work the same on everyone. In this case, Trevor's girlfriend got a seizure from the mental manipulation and died. This becomes the main driving force of Trevor's life. I debated for awhile on what his impetus would be, and I concluded on an element of tragedy. I also listed the agents there specifically for Trevor to discover when he steals a Company phone and hacks into their database. They become part of his 'list', another motif of the show.
I used terms like neurocognitive deficit, support team, and nullifer from the AT Files and Graphic Novels. 'Nullifier' and 'support team' came from the story featuring Kill Squad taking on Brandon Lewis with Donna Dunlap and Eric Thompson Jr., who was present at the attempted bag and tag of Trevor. I never elaborated on the support team but it may have been anyone even a KS member or two.
September 26, 2006 was chosen because it is the day Chandra Suresh told Mohinder he was paranoid about being followed as revealed in "Genesis."
Paragraph Eight
I began to embed elements of the show into Trevor's story: Sprint phones, Company surveillance, and Assignment Tracker. I also felt the need to frame the storyline and adding in show references to solidify and tighten Trevor's. Here I used the raid that Matt Parkman and Audrey Hanson instigated in Odessa in Volume One. I suspect it made a headline in a local newspaper and Trevor probably saw it while skimming Google News or something online and remembered.
Paragraph Nine to Ten
I laid down Trevor's methods. He times his flights, pre-packs, has safe houses all around (I never dealt with how he did it, but he was a credit analyst so its implied he had financial sense and liquidated everything then bought up properties with his aliases. I never got time to explain it so it got cut out). Also felt the need to link his power to his basic skill of analysis then combined, it makes him a very strategic person. Also the rant about how his power is not harmful is a nod to Justice League Unlimited "The Cat and the Canary" when Black Canary and Green Arrow confront Wildcat about his extra-circular activities. The last line about paranoia is also modified from something Sayid Jarrah said to Jack in the Lost season 2 finale when they talked about Michael.
Paragraph Eleven
This is intended to reveal that the Company knows Trevor killed the agent and took his phone and (gun but I forgot to mention it but if you think about it, Trevor probably took all his gear to find out about this operation) and performed an autopsy, exploring Company procedure. Revealed that the surviving agent was Dulahey who had a brief appearance on iStory Book One Operation Splinter Chapter 4 when the contract player searches Red Eye's apartment. The player asks Dulahey about the agent before,
Paragraph Twelve to Thirteen
Meant to confirm that Trevor did indeed at least download some AT 2.0 files before ditching the phone. He reads off psych profiles of several characters including Matt Neuenberg who shares the same power.
Paragraph Fourteen
Maybe I threw this in to build empathy for Trevor. He was trying to rebuild his life and then he lost it. Now, he's running on rage and wants revenge and I established he's okay with killing. So he's in a weird moral gray space, he's never been in, and now he's had his paranoia confirmed by the Company. The song he hears in his head is a reference to the Korean film, "Old Boy." It hit a chord with me when I watched the movie and it stuck with me since. As much as Trevor is angry, he also has a broken heart and he has never felt so vulnerable.
Paragraph Fifteen and Sixteen
When Trevor goes on another rant, most of the dialogue is a reference to Richard Drucker when he conversed with Hana Gitelman in Volume 2's Heroes Evolutions. I loved the ideology and for sure it would have been a book that Trevor read during his travels. It also shows that he's questioning his current course of action, what's more important, revenge or the truth, a callback to when Ted and Parkman confront Bennet at his house in Volume One "Company Man." It also lays tracks for his desire to find others with powers, which comes to a head in my later stories. Also the line about "wishing it and making it happen.." is a loose nod to Future Matt and Future Mohinder's conversation in Volume One's "Five Years Gone."
Paragraph Seventeen
Based on one of my original blog posts during the evsdropr arc, this one sets up how Trevor now booby traps his safe houses with cheap explosives. Also included is a nod to another agent introduced in the evsdropr arc, Paul Harding, who can manipulate hair.
Paragraph Eighteen
Also another original entry I gave some meat to. It establishes where Trevor is during the Volume 2 finale, he was visiting his girlfriend's grave a few feet away from where Kaito Nakamura's funeral was held which I later referenced in several future stories. I also couldn't help but establish this was after Hiro buried Adam Monroe and Trevor thinks its his subconscious.
Paragraph Nineteen
Ties up everything I was implying and setting up. He's dangerous.
Paragraph Twenty
A nod to iStory with the Executive Servies. Always wanted Evolutions to explore those divisions more but I felt the need to show that the Company considers what their bag and tags could be if they were 'reprogrammed' to work for them.
Paragraph Twenty One
Couldn't resist but make Trevor look nuts with multiple disorders. Apophenia is a callback to DC Comics' the Question and a scene from Justice League Unlimited "Double Date" when Huntress messes with the Question in the Watchtower. Class III Sedation is a callback to the German arc when he was captured and the Company transmissions were sent to us by evsdropr. The German was sedated to keep his powers in check during transport.
Next time: I introduce what happened to Trevor in the show's third season and talk about that in detail.
Part One - Primatech Assignment Tracker 2.0
It all started on August 22, 2008 as the summer arc starring evsdropr was coming to its conclusion. I created the character, mrmichaelt, for fun on myNBC to keep up with evs' own blog about the Primatech Company. I created a few blog entries, which became key aspects of mrmichaelt's origins-Hong Kong, Kaito Nakamura's funeral, and stalking Primatech agents. Then I forgot about mrmichaelt for awhile. But he didn't forget me, he lingered and stewed in my subconscious for a year.
Then came Heroes Survival Game. I joined near Phase 2 and decided to revisit mrmichaelt. I took some time to jot down an exact timeline of events that take place in his life and used them as the basis of writing stories of the biography. I began with Primatech monitoring and that grew into a custom Primatech Assignment Tracker 2.0 file on Heroes Wiki.
http://heroeswiki.com/User:Mrmichaelt
My one gripe is I didn't figure out how to add multiple entries for Known Persons Exhibiting Similar Abilities so I chose Charlie Andrews over Matt Neuenberg. Otherwise, I was happy with how the file turned out. It set up the foundation of mrmichaelt, now Trevor Tanaka, going from job to job, no past, borderline paranoid for good reason, and tragedy.
Next entry: The references and callbacks I hid within the writing.
Then came Heroes Survival Game. I joined near Phase 2 and decided to revisit mrmichaelt. I took some time to jot down an exact timeline of events that take place in his life and used them as the basis of writing stories of the biography. I began with Primatech monitoring and that grew into a custom Primatech Assignment Tracker 2.0 file on Heroes Wiki.
http://heroeswiki.com/User:Mrmichaelt
My one gripe is I didn't figure out how to add multiple entries for Known Persons Exhibiting Similar Abilities so I chose Charlie Andrews over Matt Neuenberg. Otherwise, I was happy with how the file turned out. It set up the foundation of mrmichaelt, now Trevor Tanaka, going from job to job, no past, borderline paranoid for good reason, and tragedy.
Next entry: The references and callbacks I hid within the writing.
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