Chapter Text
Tuesday, March 26 2019, 4:45 pm
Work ended up slamming me at the hardware store once Rodrigo’s late deliveries finally showed up. I spent the rest of the afternoon buried in boxes of wall plugs and screws, shoving my questions as far down as I could. Rodrigo let me clock out early, he could tell it mattered. He’s solid gold, I’ll never say it enough. I’ll make it up to him with a six-pack of those Hanoi beers he pretends not to love.
On the bus ride over, my brain kept circling back to the glass eye, Five’s apocalypse warning, and that damn notebook Klaus chucked like an idiot. But mostly, I made up my mind: at the end of this line, I’m talking to Pogo. Not just to buy Klaus more time to find the notebook, even though I know he’s counting on me for that. No, I’m doing this for me. To try and get answers about what Reginald really knew about me, from the only person still breathing who was his confidant, his 'only friend'.
The bus drops me on the corned of Rigel Street and Rainshade Square. No more rain, for once. The light was even pretty earlier. Soon the massive front of Hargreeves Mansion looms ahead, columns and tall windows catching the fading daylight and the glare of passing cars.
I climb the front steps. For once, I’m not sneaking in through the back alley or Klaus’s perpetually open window. No. Today I’m using the main door- the one with the umbrellas stained glass - like someone who actually belongs here, at least for now. The door’s heavy, loaded with memories. It barely creaks as I push it open and step onto the cold checkered floor of the grand hall.
Inside, that familiar amber glow from the wall sconces stretches over the carvings and display cases. From the noises drifting in from the living room and the basement stairs, I can tell most of the Hargreeves are home: except Five, who’s probably still investigating at Meritech.
The air smells like old books and anthropology collections. Reginald Hargreeves was clearly obsessed with technology, natural specimens, art: like everything in the world fascinated him except his own children.
But there’s something heavier hanging in the air too, the kind of residue you feel after a blowout fight, or at least a tense conversation. It hits me right away, even before I spot Allison - quiet - then Diego, looking down as he lets Grace head back to her quarters. I can guess what just went down: they talked about her. Her glitches. I don’t know if anyone floated the radical option: shutting down her incredible electronics for good.
I don’t linger. I’ve never been here to meddle in their family mess. Instead, I look up to the gallery overlooking the grand staircase on the first floor, its perfectly frozen portraits lined up under golden light. Up there, a limping silhouette is moving away from the balcony over the living room: Pogo, cane tapping softly on the floor. He must’ve watched the whole conversation from up here, silent as usual. But he’s alone now. Now’s my chance to talk to him.
I climb the grand staircase, boots whispering on polished wood. At the top, I slip between the art-deco railings and find him by the circular bench where I’ve seen Grace embroider. He lowers himself slowly, props his cane against his knee. He looks exhausted, shoulders slumped, that old chimp weariness deep in his bones. But he spots me immediately through his half-moon glasses, so I step closer.
"Pogo."
My voice comes out lower than I meant, way less steady than usual. As his name fades into the gallery’s silence, he looks up, glasses slipping down his wrinkled nose. He wasn’t expecting me here alone, without being in Klaus’s usual nonchalant orbit.
"What is it, child? You seem... troubled."
His voice is calm, kind even through the fatigue. He knows I came for him specifically, and he’s steady, like he already guessed why. So I move closer, hands jammed in my leather jacket pockets to hide the shaking.
"I..."
I swallow, second-guessing everything now that I’m here. Shit, why did I think this was a good idea? Why didn’t I just go straight to the apartment, crash with Granny, and zone out to one of her dramas with the smell of jasmine tea? Suddenly I wonder if I’m deliberately stepping into something way too big for me. But I steel myself and start with the most concrete thing I’ve got.
"I came to tell you... Klaus is still trying to track down the notebook he lost. He was chasing another lead this afternoon, with some of the homeless folks in the neighborhood."
Not a total lie, but not the truth either: it’s a desperate long shot, and no guarantee Klaus even remembers it. Pogo’s not fooled anyway. He closes his eyes for a moment, no anger, just deep sadness and resignation.
"Two days," he says. "It’s been two days since that notebook vanished. At this point, I almost hope the writings were destroyed."
My stomach knots. I frown.
"Destroyed? Why? Were the secrets in there... that bad?"
Pogo hesitates, his gnarled fingers tightening slightly on his cane.
"Undoubtedly. They concerned extraordinary events and sensitive realities. Observations, theories, not meant for just anyone’s eyes. Some of the information could do great harm. And other parts, potentially beneficial, may now never see the light of day."
"I’m sorry."
I don’t even know why I’m apologizing. Klaus is the one who should be sorry. And Pogo sighs.
"Whether we’re sorry or not won’t change anything. Now we’ll have to deal with the consequences."
I don’t quite get what he means, but an icy trickle runs down my spine. Suddenly I feel like I’m inside one of Five’s equations, with two parallel worlds: one where nothing happens, and another where the fallout from this seemingly small thing is catastrophic.
Pogo’s being evasive, but he clearly knows a ton, which I suspected. My heart’s pounding because he planted these seeds himself yesterday morning in the hall. So I take a breath and the words tumble out before I can stop them.
"You said those notes concerned me too."
The silence between us hums through energy.
"How long... did Hargreeves know I existed?"
"It’s Sir Hargreeves to you."
"Bullshit. He’s dead anyway."
My eyes blaze as I stare him down, and for a second he gets the full force of the punk-rebel streak I’ve unleashed in the past. He holds my gaze, then lets it go: there’s no point correcting me anymore. After all, Hargreeves was never anything to me. He looks down and says:
"Sir Reginald had... acute awareness of many events that occurred on October 1st, 1989."
That’s nicely phrased. He’s choosing every word carefully.
"He knew. From the day I was born."
"Factually. And he made deliberate choices about which children he did or did not adopt."
What the hell does that mean? That Reginald Hargreeves weighed whether to adopt me and consciously decided against it? That I stayed with my mom and Granny only because he deemed me not Academy-worthy? The idea that my entire fate once hung on his monocle sends a chill through me.
"Lucky me he ranked me second-tier."
Pogo narrows his old monkey eyes, cryptic.
"Nothing he did was random. Everything was also for your own good. And everyone’s: he wanted a better future for the world."
Suddenly a bigger shiver hits me: pure indignation. I drop my head, fists clenching.
"For everyone’s good?" I echo, dripping sarcasm. "Locking Klaus up was that for his own good?"
Pogo straightens, staring motionless.
"You know nothing, Marine."
I jerk halfway, eyes wide.
"What did you just call me?"
Pogo clears his throat and shifts on the bench, like he’s backpedaling.
"Klaus mentioned your name," he says, hesitant, but my stare is steel now.
"Klaus doesn’t know that name. Because I never told him."
Heavy silence settles over the gallery’s ironwork, thick with meaning. Reginald Hargreeves didn’t just spot my birth across the Atlantic and choose not to adopt me. He knew my name, the one I bury even deeper than Bach Liên, the one I left behind. So now I have every right to ask...
"How much did he know about what I became?"
I’m shaking as the question comes out, and Pogo thinks long and hard. I can tell he’s weighing how far he can go, what he’s allowed to say. But maybe because his master is dead, or maybe because the energy around me is crackling with outrage, he finally decides.
"In all honesty," he says slowly, "you are mentioned only once by that name, in the lost notebook. There were annual follow-up notes from 1989 to 2007."
Roughly when Klaus got kicked out and the 'Academy' spontaneously disbanded. I’m frozen, staring at his simian lips talking like he’s known me forever. I’m terrified I already understand. No. I’m dead certain I already do.
"Annual follow-up? He knew where I was? He was spying on me?"
Pogo shakes his head slightly, neither yes nor no.
"The proper term is 'monitored'. Periodically."
For a second the energy around me feels almost solid. The wall sconces flicker like they’re buzzing in an echo.
"What was I in his goddamn experiment, then?"
My voice is hard.
"Just another number?"
I flash back to what Diego told me: how their father ranked them, the mystery of what the order even meant, how that dehumanization scarred them all. Pogo flaps his big ears in a clear no.
"No. You were designated as..."
For a brief moment he holds back the word, like saying it will trigger something long overdue.
"As 'Omega'."
"'Omega'?"
Not a number. A Greek letter. The fucking very last one in the alphabet. The absolute final, while numbers go on forever? I could almost laugh hysterically, but what really guts me is the fresh slam of realizing that to Hargreeves, people were just variables to tweak.
Pogo senses my anger mixed with despair and actually recoils, like he’s suddenly afraid of what I might do. But I stay still. My clenched fists aren’t for hitting him: they’re for holding myself together, like always.
"Have you never wondered why..." he murmurs, letting the words flow, "why your family emigrated to The City?"
I was five. I only have fragments from back then. My life was built here: I was literally forged by this city, pulling only scents, flavors, and rare trip memories from my mixed roots when we could afford to visit family.
Of course I’ve wondered, always telling myself Mom and Granny came here for a better life. But what are the odds it was here: this exact city where that sick billionaire wanted to study me remotely, once a year, without me ever knowing? I chalked it up to coincidence when I was thriteen and saw the local news, realized I wasn’t alone, then met Klaus. But now it all clicks painfully into place.
"My mom and Granny..."
I watch him let me connect the dots myself, and it makes me dizzy.
"...they came here at his request?"
My voice drops, flat. Because this isn’t just about the absurd strings that apparently shaped most of my life anymore: it’s about my mother’s story, and Granny’s before her. Pogo rests his hands on the cane again. Those black eyes still sad, but now resolute, like my understanding has to win over my ignorance.
"They were already looking for a way, a place, to give you a better life. Somewhere to raise a child as singular as you. Sir Reginald merely provided the opportunity they already hoped for. And the financial push without which they wouldn’t have managed."
His answer is clear, and I repeat it, fighting to keep my legs under me:
"He paid my mother to move here."
He paid her. The irony. Not enough, though, that she didn’t wreck her health working. Unless, that was part of his 'plan' too?
My thoughts crash together. Deep down I’d always wondered where Mom and Granny got the money for those trips to Vietnam and over in Europe to see aunts and cousins. How they afforded that damn private school where I basically suffered through my education. I stare at Pogo, whose main answer is silence.
"I never had access to all the information," he says. "Sir Reginald did keep an eye on you from across Argyle Park, that’s a fact. He wanted you to grow up in an environment... as unaltered as possible."
"As unaltered?"
I echo the words in barely a whisper. So that’s really what it was. Research where he tweaked one variable or another. Shock has replaced the anger now. What else in my life did he nudge while making me think it was my choice? How much control did I ever really have?
Slowly I pull up my sleeve and stare at the blank skin on my forearm. I thought the missing umbrella meant freedom, but I was dead wrong. Just like Viktor, I was never free, and finding out at almost thirty is indescribably painful.
More questions flood my scrambled brain. Hargreeves only adopted seven, watched me from afar, but how many of us were there? What other fates did he engineer? And out of everyone, why bring me here? Now Five’s words come back, when we compared our powers. He manipulates space-time directly. I manipulate matter and energy. Was that what interested him?
"Why me?"
It’s the first thing I manage to say after the long silence, voice sharp as a blade again.
"What am I in all this?"
Pogo sighs, his immense sorrow and exhaustion washing over him.
"I am not him. Your questions and anger aren’t aimed at me. I can’t answer them: not because I don’t want to, but because I truly can’t."
He’s right, and my shoulders sag. I’ve been harsh with the old chimp. He’s not to blame. I don’t even want to imagine what he might have endured himself.
"I’m sorry..."
I try to steady my breathing, calm down.
"I just wonder... what I’m supposed to do now."
Pogo looks at me with affection, though I can feel in the energy that what he’s about to say won’t make me happy. He finally rises from the bench, leaning on his cane. Downstairs, the house noises never really stopped, even if the blood rushing in my ears drowned them for a while.
"Sir Reginald is gone," he says solemnly, "but his plans don’t need him. He was the kind of man who started the engines and let the machinery run on its own."
Toward what? I stay silent, heart hammering as this cursed week’s emotions tangle with my fears about Five’s apocalypse.
I’m not him. I’m not Diego, not even Klaus. I’m trained for nothing. I’m not even really good at anything: just disappearing, listening to the hum of the world’s energy and people’s, and tinkering with machines on Rodrigo’s counter between customers. I’m nothing. And I can only be honest with Pogo, since he’s been honest with me.
"Pogo, I’m scared of what’s coming."
He takes a few steps toward the staircase, looking older than ever, then glances back over the fabric of his vest shoulder.
"There’s a Shakespeare quote Sir Reginald was particularly fond of."
His gaze drifts over the balcony toward the sofas below, like he can still see the old man sitting there. I believe him when he says - even dead - Reginald hasn’t fully left. So I listen, feeling my strength drain away. Pogo looks up at the skylight, closes his eyes as if hearing his voice again, and finally recites:
"Not a whit, we defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all."