For the first time, Harry felt the conversation slide out of his control.

“Humanity cannot be trusted with the knowledge, the last time it came out… we were burned…”

Burned? The Witch Hunts maybe? But which ones? The ones in Europe Will thought - the way Harry was talking certainly indicated that it had been a long time, and most of the more recent ones were less about magic and more about race or ideology.

But everything the man was saying was just pissing Will off more. The truth was more important than self-righteous justifications. Humanity was fucked up yes, but who the hell did Harry and his fellows think they were to have the right to dictate what people were allowed to know. ‘Humanity cannot be trusted with the knowledge’? Fuck that shit.

You cannot know what will happen, until it does.

“Who are your organisation to dictate what humanity can and cannot know?”

Harry sighed, “no organisation, just a people who want to survive.”

“But if this woman wants to reveal you to the world, then evidently she believes that you can survive without hiding. Why should I believe you over her?”

“What gives her the right to make that decision for the rest of the world?”

Will took his hand from Harry’s wrist, leaning back and averting his eyes. There was another shift. “I’m sorry. This is evidently very important to you and there’s obviously a lot that I don’t know. I shouldn’t have been talking to you like that. In regards to your question, I don’t know. I don’t know her motivations. She was annoyingly cryptic, talking about changes and birthrights and expecting me to know what she meant.”

The Asian-American leaned back warily, “So why are you helping her?”

“I haven’t helped her, not that I know of. We’ve spoken only once, and she asked nothing of me. My reticence is because she saved my life, and I find it difficult to think ill of someone who would do such a thing and ask for nothing in return. That you have lied to the world for so long is, admittedly, another reason for my poor attitude; I despise deceit in all of its forms, even where others would see it as the best or even the only choice.”

“Private eye was the wrong career for you, you should have been a priest.”

Harry chuckled at his own joke, then grew serious again. “I don’t pretend to have all the answers, or even to understand the ones I do have, but I trust the people who do. I have to. It is a hard choice, but we have never pretended to be superior because of it, we hide because we feel we must. We know that our current course of action is the safest. Who knows what might happen should we change now?”

“Didn’t I just say I hated lying? Priests do it all the time.” Will snarked, but he was too busy focussing on the rest of what Harry had said to worry about the poor jokes they were both making. It made sense; it pissed him off to admit it, but he could understand why people would prefer to continue doing as they had always done rather than risk something going wrong. It was only human nature.

“But to answer your initial question, I don’t know of anyone else the doctor has been in contact with for certain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she met with one of the other survivors of the crash.”

“Shit…”

Harry looked concerned, “then we need to talk to them, and now…”

“What will you do if they’ve spoken with her, and are less willing to hear you out than I was? She may have been annoyingly cryptic with me, but that may be because she knew you were near, and didn’t want to risk me giving away anything incriminating. But them? Well, they’ll only have her side of the story. I know very well what can happen when you make decisions based on only half the evidence.” Will took another sip of his coffee before continuing.

“You seem willing to talk Harry. I think you believe that what you’re doing is right, but as you said earlier you don’t know everything. And I obviously know almost nothing about this whole situation. So here’s my question. How far do you think your fellows would go to keep this secret?”

The smaller, dark-haired man glanced towards his companion, who was still sipping his absurdly complicated drink. The taller, bulkier man returned the glance, though what it said was a mystery.

“I think you’re confusing us with the CIA again. We are not mindless killers. Besides, people would ask more questions than they already are if you died so suddenly after your miraculous recovery.”

“I never said you were mindless, but people can do terrifying things when they’re frightened, and few things cause more fear than change. Besides, who said anything about killing. I’d be surprised if you don’t have a way to make sure we don’t say anything without needing to resort to that. A telepath maybe, or something similar. And even if you don’t, questions are much easier to brush aside than people actively trying to reveal your secret.”

“But anyway, there were six of us. Six survivors. Dominic, Mason and myself, as well as Persephone, Alice and Claire.”

“I don’t know any of them particularly well, so I’m afraid I probably won’t be much help.” Will deliberately ignored the fact that Dominic had given him his number, ‘accidentally’ omitted that he was fairly certain Persephone wouldn’t be revealing anything any time soon unless actively pushed into it and just generally was totally ignorant of a lot of things he’d worked out about his fellow survivors.

“Mhmmm…”

The response did not sound convinced, after all, Will had already proven himself to have something of a penchant for knowledge.

“True telepaths are rare, those who can affect memories rarer still.”

He slipped a business card across the table, a plain white card with a number stamped in black across one side. There was no other information on the card.

“If you see them you need to call me.”

Will smiled as he took the card. “I’ll make sure to do so. It was a pleasure meeting you Harry, even if I could’ve done with a few less mind-blowing revelations.”

He wasn’t lying. Will genuinely liked the man. He was honest, forthright and blunt in a way that was too rare in the world. It was ironic, considering that he was involved in hiding the biggest secret Will had ever found out about.

Will stood, finishing his coffee. “I’ll see you around.”

Harry watched him leave, before standing and joining Roman by the exit. He didn’t look pleased.

“He’s contacting them right now…”

---

Will was halfway back to his office, checking all around the whole way, by the time he pulled out his phone and dialled a number.

“Dominic, it’s Will. We need to talk.”

The man raised an amused eyebrow at the PI’s reply. It was obvious to all of them that Will was expecting trouble of some kind. The Asian-american turned and rolled his eyes at the bigger guy, “come on Heller, could you try and look a little more like a professional, and a little less like a tank sized schmuck?”

The large man shifted awkwardly looking apologetic. His partner turned back to Will.

“Clearly you’re expecting me to suggest some sort of secret underground HQ like the ‘Men in Black’…”

He smiled, “I wish that was the case, so much… but I was just going to suggest the Starbucks in the lobby…”

With an easy smile he turned to walk back down the hallway, “I’m Harry Lisle, that is Roman Heller, we are not the men in black. To be honest I wish I could look half as good in a suit as Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones, but some of us just aren’t born that way.”

He paused to turn back a fraction, “are you coming?”

She smiled, evidently amused.

“For the purposes of this conversation, yes.”

‘Elaine’ gestured off to the side, “although we should have it elsewhere, don’t you think?”

Without even waiting for a response she began walking. It was the middle of the night, but that didn’t mean that the hospital was empty, far from it. A small family walked in with a bawling six year old, blood streaming from a cut on his forehead. A moment later a doctor rushed past, fumbling with the small plastic pager at his waist, it’s insistent beeping faded into the distance.

She was confident that Will would follow her, after all, why would she bring him back from the dead just to harm him now. In any case, she had no intention of harming him, he was family now.

“You left the hospital early… that was a little disappointing, though not surprising, Mr Weaver is surprisingly determined, I really should have anticipated that. As to you coming back… that was less of a surprise…”

She paused once they reached a quiet corridor, out of sight of the main entrance, though the distant sounds of the hospital could still reach them. Her next words were not a question, but a statement.

“You have questions.”

The enormous glass cylinder at the front of the building was lit up in the failing light of a winter evening, it’s own artificial lights shining through the windows and proving that the building never slept. The occasional doctor or nurse could be seen walking along a windowed corridor, but the area was mostly quiet, apart from the constant background noise of ay large city occasionally broken by the wail of a siren.

Despite the lights, the structure of the hospital seemed forbidding, looming, as though it knew why Will had come and was refusing to give up it’s secrets. A figure on the roof watched the PI cross the plaza with his companion and enter via the front doors. Invisible against the night sky, they nodded once and dialled a number on a phone before turning away from the now empty square.

“I was right about that one. Although he has company...”