John could understand what Elion meant. After all, both of them were merely passengers of the man they were about to meet.
He shrugged, muttered a "whatever," and closed his eyes with a disappointed air.
Soon after, the sound of his snoring could be heard.
Elion sighed and rolled down the car window.
There was no way around it: John's current state was far too disheveled. He was not yet the renewed man who would one day support Harold Finch as his right-hand man, but someone who had even abandoned the desire to live.
Elion, sitting beside him, felt suffocated, so in order not to torture himself during the trip, he opened the vehicle's window.
About an hour later, the car stopped beneath a bridge. On the deserted riverbank stood a man wearing glasses and a long trench coat.
He watched the two people step out of the vehicle as the river breeze stirred his coat.
After his nap, John stretched and walked toward Finch without the slightest fear.
"Do I owe you money? For now, as you can see, I'm a bit short on cash."
Finch, who was standing there waiting, smiled and said, "You owe me nothing, Mr. Reese. Of all the names you've used, this one seems to be one of your favorites, doesn't it?"
After saying that, Finch calmly added, "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone about your situation… just as I won't tell anyone that Mr. Whitmore is about to die."
Reese completely ignored the last sentence and took a step forward. "You don't know anything about me. You don't know who I am or what I'm capable of."
Finch did not respond to Reese. Instead, he turned to look at Elion, who remained a few steps behind.
"Oh, yes I do. I know your past. I know you worked for the CIA. I know everyone believes you're dead. But we can talk about that later. First, I need to speak with this man who is dead while still alive… Mr. Whitmore."
Finch stared at him and said in a tone full of confidence, "Your time is running out, isn't it?"
Under Finch's gaze, Elion smiled faintly and replied sarcastically, "Did your machine tell you all that?"
When Elion mentioned the machine, Finch's expression changed instantly. He lost his composure, forgot the speech he had prepared, and asked urgently, "How do you know about the machine? Are you one of them?"
Before Elion arrived there, Finch had thoroughly investigated his background.
According to the records, Elion was nothing more than an ordinary college student from a wealthy family who had been abandoned by the ridiculous wishes of his deceased mother. So ordinary that he did not deserve the slightest attention.
Finch would not have even known of him if not for Elion's connection to the Continental.
But he had never imagined that a terminal cancer patient, with little time left to live, would know about the existence of the machine.
It was an extreme secret. Almost everyone involved had been silenced.
There was no way Elion could know.
Seeing the surprise on Finch's face, Elion smiled and said, "I know much more than you think. You could even call me… what do you call those who see the future? Prophets?"
Finch's pupils contracted.
A prophet?
That was something reserved for machines. No human being could withstand billions of calculations per second. It was impossible.
But what Elion said next left him frozen.
"I know why you recruited John Reese, the man standing in front of me. This poor soul who lives without direction. All he needs is a goal to move forward, and you will give it to him."
"Let me guess. Your first target is Diane Hansen, right? Unfortunately, you only receive her social security number, so your information is limited."
"You know she grew up in Detroit, that she came here after graduating from law school, and that she's single. You can't even tell whether she'll be a victim or a perpetrator."
Elion took a note from his pocket, pretended to read it, then lifted his gaze. "But thanks to my brain cancer, which sometimes allows me to share the field of vision with machines… I know perfectly well that she is the perpetrator."
Finch looked at him in disbelief.
Everything Elion said was correct.
He knew what Finch was about to say, what he had discovered, and what he planned to do.
With that level of detail, wasn't he truly a prophet?
Could he share the machine's field of vision?
If not… where was he getting that information?
Had the brain cancer altered his brainwaves until they synchronized with the machine?
Everything was unsettling.
Unable to accept it, Finch shook his head. "Impossible… absolutely impossible."
Reese, watching from the side, looked at both men without understanding anything. He saw no connection at all between the machine, Diane Hansen, victims, or perpetrators.
Elion knew that Finch would not accept it so quickly.
Although he could not actually share the machine's vision, Finch could not prove otherwise either.
Like Schrödinger's cat, the doubt remained.
So Elion calmly added, "If you don't believe me, let Reese investigate in your usual way. When you discover it's true, you can come find me, and we'll talk."
Elion turned to leave and said before walking away, "Don't worry. I'll live longer than you imagine. And since you have access to the machine, you'll know where to find me."
"Then we'll talk about how to save more people than you can imagine. Oh, by the way… if it's not too much trouble, could you take me to my hotel?"
Finch restrained the turmoil within him and regained his composure. Finally, he signaled to the men behind him to take Elion back.
As he watched the vehicle's lights fade into the distance, his mind filled with thoughts.
Should he trust Elion?
He had not forgotten that Elion was suffering from advanced brain cancer. What if everything was just a mental illness?
But that did not explain why he knew Finch's plans so well.
"Is he really someone who's dying? From what I see, it doesn't seem so," Reese said, merely observing and hoping to gain some information.
He had never seen a terminal cancer patient so lucid, so calm, so articulate.
The dying fear or rage. They do not show such calmness.
Hearing Reese's words, Finch realized that Elion's behavior did not match that of a terminally ill patient.
It was strange… far too strange.
He even began to believe that perhaps Elion truly was a prophet. Otherwise, nothing made sense.
According to the data, Elion should have died four days ago. He had received no treatment.
Under normal circumstances, he would not be alive.
And yet there he was, working as if nothing were wrong. Elion's visit left Finch's mind in complete disarray.
He looked at Reese with an ironic smile. "Verifying whether what he said is true is very simple, Mr. Reese."