The distinctive smell of fast food followed the little 12-year-old down the empty sidewalk. The smell came from her backpack: inside of it, a paper bag with a burger fries from McGrease King. She didn't normally do fast food, but if she grabbed a bag of snacks from the Sanctuary, people might have guessed that she would be staying out all night, doing something she shouldn't.

She stopped and sipped some soda from a big styrofoam cup, staring at a large apartment building near the southern end of Manhattan. It took her a second, but she managed to figure out which windows belonged to her target. The apartment building across the street would probably be a great place for her to set up. Assuming she could get in. Given what she had in her backpack, this was a fairly safe assumption.

Kaitlyn set her backpack down on the front doorstep of the apartment building, then pulled two objects from one of its pockets. One was an L-shaped metallic thing, the short arm of which was flat and fit easily into the lower part of the lock. The other object had a large handle and a small, hooked metal prong, which she put into the top part of the lock. She held down a button, and it buzzed for about ten seconds before the lock turned with a satisfying click. The girl wasted no time getting inside.

Process greasy fast food carries a pungent aroma, easily picked up on by the scavengers of the world. Normally this wouldn't pose a threat to any human, but what had begun to follow Kaitlyn was no mere scavenger, but a predator. The Boogieman had picked up on freshly purchased fast food, and came upon a scene rather unusual. A small girl, just a child walking down the streets at night on her own. Normally adult women avoided being alone on the streets at night, but this child seemed to show no concern, which peaked Sylar's curiosity as well as his appetite. He had stayed up high, keeping to rooftops as he followed her towards her destination.

She stopped and seemed to be focused on one building, leaving Sylar to sit at the corner of a rooftop, gazing down at her like a hawk observing a mouse on the ground. His dark color and lack of movement let him blend beautifully against the sky as he hunted Kaitlyn. She however didn't go into the first building, instead crossing the street to another one, leaving Sylar a bit confused. Just what was this girl up too? His tail swished behind him silently as he observed her start to work on the door of the building. His blind eyes may be unable to see like ours, but her thermal image fiddling with the door like she was could only mean she wasn't supposed to be opening this door.

Sylar lept forward silently, his form hitting the side of the apartment complex with a softened thud. His claws sank into the brick, creating hand holds for him to stay aloft with. He crawled across the buildings surface like a spider, his senses making sure there wasn't anything within distance to observe his superhuman movements, as he stalked after his prize. The girl had entered the building, leaving his thermal sight, but her scent was easy to pick up on, especially the food she had in her backpack. He wouldn't follow her through the door though, a foolish mistake when stalking someone. Instead he crawled along the building, letting his eyes peak inside various windows, searching for her small signature. If she didn't enter one of the rooms, he could always enter the building from the streets, or come in from the roof top, either way she'd trapped herself inside a structure, making his hunt far easier, though the theft of her food would become a bit more difficult.

Roof access was easy. At the top of the first stairwell she found, there was an unlocked door to the roof. She opened and closed the door as quietly as she could, to avoid waking anyone up, then tiptoed over to the edge of the roof. It was largely empty and featureless, except for the air conditioning units she had to squeeze between to get to the end of the building she wanted.

Here, Kaitlyn had a clear view of her target's apartment building. There was still light in his window, though there must have been curtains or blinds stopping her from seeing anything inside.

First, she pulled something small and cylinder-shaped out of her backpack, and attached it to a tripod she set up on the roof. Then, she pointed the cylinder at her target's window, and attached a cord running from the cylinder to a small laptop. The cylinder turned on immediately once she plugged it in, but the only way somebody would notice that is if they could see the infrared laser beam it was shooting at the window.

With that done, she finally pulled the sack of fast food out of her backpack and sat down, propping herself up against the waist-high wall at the edge of the roof. Thanks to the wall, nobody looking out that window could see Kaitlyn or the faint glow of her computer screen. Here, she alternated between messing with the laptop, shoving fries into her mouth, and sipping some soda from her outrageously large styrofoam cup.

Sylar crept along the buildings surface, waiting for a sign of the girl, only to be startled by something odd. He stared upwards, toward the roof and observed an odd thin beam of heat, extending off the roof towards the other building. It gradually grew a bit and steadied with time, some kind of light perhaps? Sylar didn't have much experience with laser's or infrared, but he could recognize the thermal image. He quickly darted around to another side of the building and made his way to the roof.

As he neared the top of the building, his movements became as soft as possible, making sure not a bit of sound escaped his form as he peered over the top of the roof to observe the environment. The smell of fastfood became stronger, meaning she was eating the food or had at least opened it now. Sylar looked over, observing the girl sitting with the food, as well as the mostly empty space making it somewhat hard to sneak up on her from this angle. He moved along the edge of the roof, keeping his form just out of vision, his tail low against the building to keep it out of sight as well. He moved back to the frong of the building, leaving a good bit of space between himself and her laser beam setup.

Sylar crept over the edge of the building, remaining behind the girl's back and away from her line of sight. The distraction of her eating and messing with the computer further allowed Sylar to get the drop on her. He wasn't sure what she was doing up here, but taking her food would at least be easy, or so he thought. His tail rose up behind him, striking a scorpion like pose as he glared at her. A hiss escaped his throat as he spoke, a monstrous threatening voice followed. "Drop the food...and run." Normally Sylar could just pounce down and take food right out of someones hands, but he was a bit reluctant to risk hurting a child, one of the few things in the world Sylar still had a soft spot for. Instead he'd just play monster and win some tasty food for the night.

Kaitlyn stopped. She looked up at the mutant looming over her head, and she didn’t make a sound.

After weighing her options, she pulled the greasy burger out of the paper sack, still in its wrapper, and held it up for him to take. “We could share,” she suggested, unshaken and unafraid. “But I wanna stay.”

As much as she would probably want that later, she could sympathize with a hungry mutant living on the street, and she didn’t want to get in a loud fight that would ruin everything she was doing out here. Plus, she forgot to tell the guys at the McGrease King not to give her any onions. She hated onions.

Sylar got the exact opposite reaction that he was expecting, her nonchalant rebuttal pushing Sylar from his comfort zone. He back up a few inches, staring at Kaitlyn. His tail began to flex and swish in confusion. He'd met people not intimidated by his appearance, mutants who just recognized him as a mutant and didn't seem to care. But a child showing no fear to a real world monster? This was not a normal kid. Sylar stared at her, before quickly grabbing the sandwich and retreat a few feet from Kaitlyn. He sniffed the burger, the scent causing his stomach to growl. He turned back and looked at her.

"You weren't afraid...weird." He questions her, before biting into the sandwich and savoring the flavors of processed food. This girl was clearly not a normal kid, and also up to something. Sylar kept his distance, but inched back towards her. She was alone, breaking into a building, and doing something to another building. Some kind of prank? Or maybe an adult was making her do something. "What're you doing up here kid? Breaking in, doing something to that building across the street, and not afraid of mutants." He questioned her mostly because Sylar had learned anyone not afraid of him, usually had reason not to be immediately afraid of mutants.  "You're definitely not normal."

The kid knew mutants, was a mutant, or was around mutants enough to not mind the physical differentions between a normal person and a monster. He'd have fled immediately upon her just speaking to him like he was nothing if it wasn't for the food, Sylar's eteranl weakness it seemed.

The question about what she was doing made her suspicious. It shouldn’t have; she was doing something unusual and probably illegal, after all. Either way, she didn’t want the wrong people to know what was happening; at least, not before it was too late to stop her.

“I’m from the Sanctuary,” she explained to him. “So I’m used to visible mutations. Also, a lot of them are actually afraid of me, ‘cause of my power.”

White noise crackled in Kaitlyn’s earbud; she only had one in her right ear, so she could hear everything around her. Occasionally, warped, distant-sounding voices joined the static. All of this was just loud enough for Kaitlyn to hear, unless her new friend had some very powerful ears.

“Why do you think I’m doing something to that building?”

Sylar chomped away on the free sandwich, still wary of Kaitlyn, but not as much as he was of most people. A child was still a child, even if she was weird. His interested perked up a bit at mention of Sanctuary, a place he'd been before. "So you're a mutie too, that explains a few things." Obviously even normal looking mutants had dealt with monstrous ones like Sylar, however if Kaitlyn knew he'd been following her for some time, she might be more inclined to feel a bit intimidated. A fact he'd keep to himself for now. He let his eyes wander to her equipment set up once more, the laser looking quite obvious to his special sight, like a bright line cutting straight across the streets.

Sylar wondered why it seemed so many other mutants got lucky in the power department, being more like normal people with the added bonus of super powers. Unlike Sylar who could never pass in the normal day to day world of mankind. Jealousy however, was something he didn't really feel or care about anymore. "You aren't very fear inspiring to look at, compared to me at least." He said, stating his thoughts about Kaitlyn very bluntly. For Sylar, gangs of normal people were scary, the police were scary, a little girl? Not so much in his world, considering the last time he'd interacted with a child was an entirely humanizing experience. Though Kaitlyn was older than the little girl from awhile ago.

Sylar turned to stare at Kaitlyn when his ears picked up some strange noise coming from her head. Sylar's hearing wasn't as strong as his sense of smell, but it was quite a bit stronger than a normal persons. The earbud however, when tightly place in an ear funneled it's sounds directly into the ear, making it difficult to make out exactly what the noise was. She was listening to something, and shooting some kind of light at the other building? Was she spying? Sylar swayed back and forth a bit, thinking about how to respond to the girl. "It's none of my business, but it kind of looks like you're spying on someone." That was all he could think of.

Kaitlyn stared blankly at him for ten seconds. Her mind raced.

She had no idea how he could connect the dots to realize she was spying on somebody, unless he was familiar with laser microphones and he did some kind of anti-spying thing for her target. But if he did work like that, he wouldn’t need to run around stealing fast food from kids, now, would he? Unless that was just a clever ruse to trick people like her into thinking he didn’t earn thousands as a private counterintelligence agent. It would make sense. Except it seemed kind of far-fetched.

Her first impulse was to start threatening him. She had previously rehearsed some very good threats in front of the mirror and in the shower, and a part of her itched to dish one of them out. The rest of her would be mortified if she ended up using one of those lines against an actual homeless mutant.

“Really?” She tried to feign amusement, with mixed success. Her laugh was a little bit too nervous, and it came after too long and too serious of a pause. “What makes it look like I’m spying on someone?”

Sylar wasn't so clever as to have guessed what she was doing out of the blue. Instead it was more because he could see and hear things a normal person couldn't. However it must have seemed like he was indeed a clever creature. She sounded nervous, a feeling Sylar was quite used to reading, though it was normally a fear inspired by his visage, not his words. He finished his snack, and crumpled the paper it had come in, dropping it onto the roof beneath his feet. He turned to look off the building, staring at the laser shooting across towards the other building.

"Well this beam you're shooting over there." He said, lifting his hand up and pointing across towards the other building with his obsidian finger. "At least it looks like some kinda light." He mumbled in response, not entirely sure it was a light considering his eyes worked very differently than anyone else's. His tail extended outwards from his back, swaying a bit with enjoyment. Pointing this out was almost like a game, catching a child in the middle of doing something wrong. "And you're listening to something, unless sound just comes out of your ears little girl." He didn't smile or look triumphant, only pointing out what she was doing with a flat factual tone.

Why exactly was a child spying anyways? Sylar observed people out of habit and necessity, learning their routines and fears to take advantage of. But what advantage did a kid need over someone else? Especially in such a well equipped manner. "The only real question is, who exactly does a girl need to spy on." Maybe this was how Evelyn felt when she was observing others, picking up on subtle ques that only she could notice. Sylar would have to tell her about it the next time they met.

She stared at him for another long while, silent and calculating, before she said anything.

Was he actually able to notice all that stuff? Or was he just bluffing? The way he mentioned the laser she was using…

“You can see infrared,” she concluded. It seemed like he couldn’t tell that normal people couldn’t see it, so she was more likely to believe him about that. And since he had special eyes, it would make sense if he had special ears.

“You know, your mutation’s pretty cool.” If they were going to keep talking, she would like to keep the conversation steered away from what she was doing. At least, until she knew what the deal was with this guy. And since all of the stuff she heard through the laser mic was being recorded, she didn’t need to worry about missing anything. “I mean, how did you sneak up on me like that? I didn’t even know you were there until you were sitting right behind me.” Conversation-steering aside, that was a pretty impressive move.

Sylar took a moment to recognize the word infrared, before responding. "Yeah, I can see heat. You and that little light stand out up here on the roof." He pulled his claw back to his mouth, picking at his sharpened teeth, cleaning a bit of burger from them. Sylar's senses were all more powerful than normal, except for his lack of natural sight. He hadn't really had his powers referred to as cool before, monstrous, animal like, predatory, but not cool. "I'm not exactly sure being a monster is cool." He responded with little emotion.

She questioned his sneaking up on her, showing that the girl was unaware he'd been following her for awhile. He'd have grinned, but his face remained quite blank as he continued to talk with her. "Sneak up on you? It wasn't difficult, I've been following you for a few blocks now." He said without hesitation. He had no reason to hide his ability to stalk her, he was a predator, it was simply his nature. Much like most children's nature was to play and be afraid of the dark. "I smelled the food, and started hunting you to steal it. Stealing from children is usually quite simple." He was still bothered by her response to him earlier, but for now they both seemed to have an interest in the other, like two children wanting another's toy or game.

"The normal people don't call me Predator for nothing." He did enjoy the little stories he heard about himself, the monster in the dark, stalking people down. The Scourge of Manhattan, the Boogieman, names that kept him safe behind a veil of lies. Plus, Sylar still kind of liked spooking people, it was one of his few leisure's. He flexed his hand, showing off his claws to her. "I just keep to the rooftops, or alleys, and stay in the dark. Not hard to sneak up when I can just scale the building and come from your blind spot." His voice remained hollow, the thought that what Sylar was explaining was actually quite scary kind of made him happy. Alma had told him once he was powerful, and he was starting to wonder if he truly was, with his ability to stay hidden, and stalk prey like the fiercest of beasts. His tail began to pick up the pace a bit, swinging quickly back and forth, a sign of his enjoyment of the moment.

The name ‘predator’ sounded familiar for some reason. The redhead filed that away in her memory as she kept listening. Her attention was split between ‘Predator’ and the sounds from the laser mic, but nothing interesting was coming from the latter.

Once he was done explaining himself, she spoke up. “First off, don’t call yourself a monster. It’s too negative. You look different, and you have super senses and an awesome tail,” seriously, that thing was cool, “but you’re still a person, okay?”

Though, maybe that comment about being a monster had less to do with his mutation than his behavior. Without giving him time to respond to that first comment, she moved on: “Secondly… do you need to steal from kids very often? ‘Cause, you know, the Sanctuary could totally give you free food…” though if he’d been around long enough to get a codename from the normals, he’d probably thought about living in the Sanctuary already. “I mean, even if you don’t wanna live there, the guys in the kitchen could totally fix you some stuff to take home or something, if you need it.” And if that wasn’t official Sanctuary policy, Kaitlyn could just coerce someone until Sylar got a special arrangement.

Sylar allowed his senses to start tuning out her little spy game, after all, who she was spying on was of really no relevance to him. Instead she was relevant at the moment, his interest not satisfied about this odd little girl. As it seemed every one he'd met recently did, she also told him not to call himself a monster. Sylar knew himself better than these other mutants did, his monstrous side was real, even if they wanted him to not think that. He responded with an emotionless tone "There is more to monsters than just the scary face." Sylar's title was both given and earned, though maybe he should call himself half a monster for now.

Sylar didn't really need to steal from children, and he usually preferred robbing closed shops, but the smell had gotten to him. "I usually prefer looting to mugging, but I don't get burger's often." He responded, his tail swishing a bit behind him. She brought up the Sanctuary, which Sylar had been too just to check it out before. It seemed both Mutant homes were willing to give away food, but Sylar was still unsure taking their handouts wasn't a danger to himself. Sylar shrugged a bit, looking at Kaitlyn. "I've been told that before too, the Mutants at the Mansion by the river offered as well." He thought aloud. "I guess I have trust issues." He said with a bit of inflection, was it a trust issue? Or was it he'd become uncomfortable with the idea of normal interaction? Either way he did want the free food.

He reached up from his perch on the building, pulling his hood tight to secure his face. Sylar still hadn't asked her anything about her spying, though he wondered why she was. His social skills left quite a bit to be desired, but he eventually brought the conversation back there. "So why exactly is a girl playing spy all alone at night." His eyes turned to stare across the street, the other building nothing but a blob in his thermal sight, some of the windows showing heat signatures of the activity within, but otherwise an unexciting sight.

“Well…” Kaitlyn shrugged, “I’m kinda trying to keep that a secret.” Even if it seemed unlikely that telling this guy about it would ruin her plans, she didn’t want to risk it. “I mean, I don’t even know your name. I just met you. I wouldn’t even trust some of my friends with this. Maybe I have trust issues.”

Even so, a part of Kaitlyn wanted to tell him all about it. There weren’t a lot of people she could talk to about this kind of thing, and the few people she probably could talk to would also probably want to stop her from doing anything about it. She was, after all, trying to get revenge against someone who technically did good work for the Order.