Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.

Background music: -

[=]

"What you have to understand, young Simon, is that specials are not as their name suggests. We are nothing more than ordinary human beings with a little bit more genetic makeup than the average person. Just because we have powers does not mean we are invincible or supernatural. The Lord can only change forms, and he has been handicapped for some time. That is why he needs so many specials minions so he can cover every single ground.

"Therefore, once you come face to face with him, he is just as vulnerable as you or me. Any sort of human means to kill a person is fair game. Once he falls, his whole regime will fall with it. Granted, there will be a power struggle afterwards, but it is preferable than the present status quo.

"Specials usually only have one ability, although it is not unheard of for some specials to have two. However, these are extremely rare, as are offensive abilities. Oftentimes, the specials you meet will have what we refer to as 'soft powers' such as reading minds or shape-shifting. I know you have a friend who can twist his body into different shapes; but that is not common and will be useful in your plan to overcome the Lord.

"But we have much to do before you can even begin your plans. First, we must help develop your ability. Reading the future is quite easy once you get the hang of it. It's grasping for hypothetical straws. You just have to trust that there is a future you will see. You must let yourself go completely into the sands of time before you can control what you see. You cannot doubt yourself or you will not be able to specifically locate certain events. You will have large mental blocks at the beginning, but I trust that you will be able to tap at the source of your powers and wield them.

"We must call our meeting to an end for now. Your friends are trying to find you at the moment. Please keep our correspondence a secret, as my company is not very desirable at the moment. Until we meet again, I wish you luck on your endeavors."

[=]

Roger's head is never silent. In order to infiltrate people's brains and gain access to their nerve fibers to inflict pain, his mind must always be on the constant, buzzing wavelength to impose his will on other mind waves. If his mind is quiet, he will not be able to attack on the fly; and he has already forgotten how to turn off the static.

He supposes he could always blame his mother – his lazy, whorish mother who always kept his door and legs open. She self-appointed herself the neighborhood comfort and he was a product of one of these trysts. His father was already married but enjoyed dope and extramarital sex on the side – one of his earliest memories, his mother and the man on the couch, uncomprehending and negligent.

His childhood neighborhood is not a place where troubled youth can seek guidance; in fact, it is the place where troubled youth go when guidance has forsaken them. Staying home at a place where he may as well be home alone triggers a strange busy signal in his head that frightens him. Leaving the place that smells of sex and smoke, he tries to find solace on the streets. It is hard, but there is nothing else he can do – and the buzzing gets worse.

It reaches the point where, in a street fight, he angrily wishes that his opponent would just die and right then and there, the other boy suffers a heart attack. Roger does not stick around long enough to find out if he survives or not.

Going home is a fruitless decision but he drops by for one last time. His mother is gaunt and listless, sprawled on the floor, and he can only get out from her that the man who is his father is gone, off to rot in a jail somewhere. When he goes to leave her, someone comes through the door to the living room where his mother is and something else explodes in Roger's mind; the last memory of his mother is her shriek but he does not know what he did to her.

Being taken in by the Lord startles him somewhat. He is in one place for an extended period of time, which he is not used to. There is a sense of tension in the waves that surround the building, and it is not only because of the protective shielding it has. It makes the buzz in his mind jump at times, which serves to make him more anxious. Roger is not a solitary human – he does not like taking orders, but the Lord's goals cross paths with his (which he does not know, but destruction sounds like a nice ending) at several points so he sticks along for the ride.

He does not like being a babysitter, but he is forced to stay with the rather noisy twin. Eric embodies almost everything Roger dislikes – he talks too much, he pokes his nose into things that do not concern him, and he kicks and fights like he is powerful, like he is worth something. In the grand story, he is just a speck that can be eliminated. People don't often see that about themselves, Roger realizes. They go around their lives thinking they are important, that they can change things.

He could easily squash Eric, but he has orders not to. But there is something else. Eric's mind is different, maybe because he can also jump into minds too. When Roger reaches in to play with nerves, there is a soothing sound that mixes with his conflicted static – something like waves or the wind. It throws him off and bothers him. It makes the roaring falter and listen.

And when they kiss, it goes completely silent. Nothing.

Nothing else changes, but Roger can hear.

It is truly an unnatural phenomenon, Roger knows. He wonders what sort of influence Eric holds, what kind of power he has that he has not shown anyone yet. He is so small, and defenseless as he sleeps, knowing full well Roger is in the room. Roger watches Eric sleep, the calm, settled face he makes, and ponders the idea that psychokinesis is not always unpleasant.

[=]

"Simon! We were so worried; we thought they'd gotten to you!"

Ralph meets him halfway from his meeting place with Crusoe and Jack's university and the moment they see each other, Ralph rushes over and scoops Simon up into his arms. The gesture startles Simon, as Simon never considered Ralph to be the publicly affectionate type, and he flushes. To be honest, he and Ralph have only known each other for a couple days and they have only talked for about half of one of those days. Pygmalion follows behind, along with Sam and Jack.

If Simon had to consider of them to be the one who lifts him up in the air with an embrace, it would be, no matter how farfetched, Jack. After all, they are the ones who have known each other for the longest – not to mention, not to mention…but Jack gives him a disgusted look and looks away, so Simon returns his attention to Ralph, who is burying his head into his chest.

"What do you mean, they got to me?"

Ralph looks up to him and finally returns him to his feet again, but does not back away and maintains his close proximity. "So this disk thingie attacked me and Piggy and totally tore up the car, but we managed to take one back and had Jack analyze it with his powers or whatever. And it's true! The guy you've been talking about, the guy with the pig's head? He's been sending them and trying to kill us!"

Simon blinks. But this is common knowledge; he reminds himself that they have not talked to Crusoe and do not know what he knows. "Oh," he says. "Of course he is."

They gape at him. "How do you know that?" Sam asks. "I mean, I know you've had your dreams, but…for sure?"

"Ah…" Simon gives him a huge fake smile. "I have my sources."

"Well, now that we've recollected Simon and he's completely fine," Piggy says, in a voice that suggests that he has been telling the others that their concern is uncalled for, "let's go actually plan this thing out. If we're going to take down this Lord of the Flies guy, we're going to have to map out what we're gonna do. Come on." Sam nods in agreement, although they don't know where to go now.

"We can go back to my house," Ralph says in the lull, and begins to lead them in that direction. Jack falls behind in step with Simon, ignoring Ralph and Piggy's loud conversation, that Sam has half-joined in.

"Where were you?"

"I was…" Simon shrugs. "Doing research." It wasn't a lie. He shoves his hands in his pockets.

"Why couldn't we contact you?" Jack looks unconvinced. "If we're going to be on a team, you can't be keeping anything from us. If you know something we don't, you should tell us. We need to be on the same page if we're going to work together."

"I am going to tell you what I've found out," Simon insists. "Why are you so concerned about it? I'm not going to get ourselves killed."

"You're the one who dragged us all into this. I'm not going to let you do your own thing and keep us in the dark. We're a team, aren't we? You should have told us where you were going. They were going to have a search party go find you, you know." Jack gestures at the others in front of them.

"Who died and made you chief?" Simon asks irritatedly. "I don't have to tell you everything I do. You're not my mother."

"Someone has to be in charge. We can't go around doing whatever we please. There has to be order." Jack doesn't know why every time he talks to Simon, he just feels annoyed. He and Simon clash every time they interact, and he isn't even trying to be mean. If they cannot get along, he doesn't know why he bothers. "I'm not trying to be mad at you; I'm just trying to get us all to get along."

"We are getting along. You don't have to throw around the authority that you don't have to do that." Simon's eyes are icy and he storms ahead to join the others. Jack bites his tongue and kicks at a stone on the ground. He is older than this; he does not need to have children lead him around. Sam turns around and Jack hears a faint what's wrong in his head, but it is so immaterial it could be his imagination.

[=]

Simon debriefs them all on what he has learned, but tells them he has to withhold the source. "I can't tell you where I got this information," he admits. "But it's completely creditable. Trust me." They cannot get him to talk any more about it, so they decide to turn their sights on the next task in line.

"We've got to get into the building where Eric is held," Ralph says. "Then we can save your brother." He looks at Sam, who nods in approval. "It's better to have both twins to storm the Lord of the Flies's headquarters, which we still don't really know where it is."

"Maybe this is a far stretch," Piggy says slowly, and everyone turns to him, "but would it be reasonable to assume that the one who kidnapped your brother is the Lord of the Flies himself? I mean, obviously the one holding him hostage doesn't have a pig's head…but say…couldn't he be working for him?" When no one answers, he goes on. "It makes sense. The disks that have been attacking us have been sent by the Lord of the Flies. It's obvious he wants us dead for some reason – to stop us from stopping him, according to Simon – and Eric did take you three to a place where they had planned to kill Simon…so…maybe it's not something we should rule out."

"It's a large leap of faith," Sam points out.

"Have you had any visions about it?" Jack asks, turning to Simon. The dark-haired boy shakes his head. "I haven't seen any sign of Eric from the disks or even from that letter fragment. But it would be easier to group the two instead of having to go against two different enemies."

"What would anyone else want with Eric?" Piggy asks logically. "He has a tie with our group, which is Sam. Somehow, the Lord must know that we're all working together. Then it would only make sense that he's holding Eric hostage to try and draw us out." He leans back. "Therefore, we can deduct that where Eric is, the Lord should be close by. He's not going to let someone as important as Eric be taken from his side from under his nose. So Simon, you said you could get us the blueprints. If we know what building the Lord is in, we can save Eric on our way to killing the Lord of the Flies."

There is a silence. "That's so damn simple," Ralph whistles. "Just like that! Amazing, Piggy. You're so the brains of the operation."

"We may get blueprints," Jack agrees darkly, "but that doesn't mean we know what's in all the rooms. We will know the layout and where rooms are, but we still need surveillance. And Sam hasn't been able to get in touch with his brother, so we don't have an indoor guy. Simon can't see where we need to go with his visions. So how are we going to tackle that?"

There is another silence, before Piggy breaks into a grin. "I'm not going to toot my own horn, but I'm a pretty good hacker." He shrugs. "I haven't hacked into any sort of mainframe, but I'm pretty sure I can find instructions on Google or something."

As everyone makes their way to leave, Ralph catches Simon and Jack in the foyer. Jack is kneeling down and tying his shoes. "Simon, can I talk to you?" Ralph asks excitedly, reaching for his arm. Simon looks at them, then down at Jack.

"In private?"

"Oh, no, Jack can hear, I don't care," Ralph dismisses. "Hey, listen…I know this is kinda the wrong time, but…I was wondering…and you can totally slap me if this is out of line…buuut, I was wondering if you would like to go on a date with me?" He puts his hands up. "I know, I know, this is really sudden and really random of me, but it can be a…a duo team building experience if you don't like the whole date thing. This is coming out really weird." Ralph pauses and thinks. "Okay, the main idea is that I think you're a pretty cool kid and I think it would be pretty cool if you would go out with me. Not that this is going to somehow impact anything about what we're doing…keeping business separate from pleasure and that crap. Okay, I'm talking a lot. And you say…" Ralph makes a sweeping gesture that implies that it's Simon's turn to speak.

Simon blinks. This is unexpected. The hug, and now this? He did not see this coming at all. He glances down at Jack, who is still taking an unbelievably long time to tie a pair of laces. The idiot could have at least given them their privacy. It's not like Jack actually cares other than nagging at them because he is the oldest. "Alright," Simon blurts, before he can change his mind. "I'll take you up on that."

"Score!" Ralph cheers, pumping his fist in the air. "Hey, hey…I'll take you home. We can talk about it then. You can find your own way back, right, Jack?" They look down at Jack, who is still, before suddenly standing.

"I don't need the help of children," Jack sniffs, turning to the door. "Do whatever you like." He does not feel bad for slamming the door behind him. He hopes he breaks it.

[=]

Note: Strangely, although this gave me a HUGE headache when I first tried to write this chapter, when I sat down due to my huge amount of time resulting from a day off, I finished this in about half an hour. I really want to tie up all the loose strings, so if there's something that I haven't addressed or something I explained badly, please comment about it so I can see what I can do. BUT OH tension is fun to write. Thanks for reading!