Title: There Goes the Window
Summary: No saner inside than he was outside, that's Lyle. Vignette.
A/N: No idea what inspired this. And why Lyle? I have no idea. Unbeta'ed, written pretty quickly, but I hope you enjoy. Rated for some bad language on Lyle's part.
Feedback is, as always and ever, treasured. :)
Really, they should have known.
Lyle sat back, staring contemplatively out the window.
Jarod had been on the run for years. He had been free for years. The latter fact they should have paid more attention to. Of course, Jarod did feel the need to connect with the people he helped – some subconscious rebellion against his childhood isolation, perhaps? – but that didn't mean he wouldn't be doing other things as well during his time in the outside. He certainly had devised complex games for Ms. Parker and her associates, but again, there would be weeks or months in-between Jarod sightings. It had been easy to assume he had no desire to bring down the Centre, not while it held information he wanted, even if he did frequently interfere in ongoing programs.
Even he had assumed it.
The leaves of the tree just outside the window waved cheerily. Disgusting.
"Lyle . . ."
Lyle ignored her. He frequently did, except when he wanted to play with her mind. She always called him Lyle; he wouldn't accept anything else, not Bobby, and she had given in to that demand with surprising acquiescence.
Jarod had been a lab rat, yes, but there was a reason he was such an important lab rat. He was smart. Brilliant. A genius. So was Lyle, of course, but his talents had been squandered most of his life. In some ways, Lyle could almost envy Jarod, in that he was raised and trained to focus his abilities. Lyle . . . Lyle had had to develop them on his own.
"Mr. Lyle –"
Mister? Oh, she really wanted his attention now.
He wondered if his sister had known. It would make sense – the games, the late-night phone calls (yes, they knew about those), all a distraction against the real plan. Even Jarod's desire to find his family, was that also a ploy? But Parker. Damn the woman. She had chased him for years and failed. Why hadn't the Centre thought that suspicious? Fools. And with everything Jarod had arranged for her? He should have killed her. He would have power now if he had killed her. But his pretty sister, his striking sister, what a beautiful game it had been.
"If you don't wish to talk, you can return to your room," she said.
Lyle kept staring outside. In another five minutes, she would give up. He liked seeing how close he could get to when she would act; he was getting better and better at it all the time.
It was a bright, sunny day. During summer. It was cool inside, but Lyle was sure the heat would be intense and smothering outside. Not that he knew that for a fact, it was just commonsense talking.
The bars on the window ruined the picturesque image.
They had finally outsmarted the smart rat. He still treasured the memory. He could see the hopelessness and terror in Jarod's eyes, not that it was to last, but he saw it. He watched with satisfaction while Jarod was reeducated in the classic Centre way. Sydney had bitched, of course, but the old man had failed to adequately provide mental safeguards in Jarod in the first place, so he couldn't be trusted. And wasn't trusted, not with Jarod. Jarod had learned tricks outside, naturally – meditation, mental tricks, but pretending and experiencing something were two different things. They had successfully driven away his conscious mind, destroying what they could. They were nearly on the process of making a brand new Jarod when it happened.
Lyle closed his eyes, breathing deeply. Calm calm calm . . .
"Has something disturbed you, Lyle?"
Bitch. But don't tear her throat out; you worked hard for that damn window.
Files had cascaded. Damn files. Just within the Centre, at first – more than enough to cause massive infighting as secret information was leaked, friends became enemies, and a lot of people just ran for their lives. Then the massive data dump into the mainframe of the FBI, CIA, and a few choice files for the news organizations just to top it all off. After the government had their files for a few days, of course. It was all done in a specific order, with specific files, to cause a specific result. He had planned it that way; by the time the media got hold of 'illegal experimentation' and 'organized crime' being connected, the FBI had a grasp on the situation, but not a firm enough one that they could keep it under wraps.
Around that time, the Centre had realized something else: their roots in the US government hadn't gotten as deep as they had thought, and Jarod's had gotten a lot deeper than they had realized. He'd had years.
"Lyle –"
He tuned her out.
Parker hadn't been in those files. Her father, yes, but her, no. The FBI had turned wary eyes on her pretty quickly, but there was no proof of her involvement, and they had bigger fish to catch, so they let her go. Sydney, too.
His father got a jail cell. Raines got the death penalty, but it was ultimately revoked on medical grounds; wasn't healthy enough to die.
He'd heard, just through the grapevine, that his damn sister and Jarod still kept in touch. How much, he wasn't sure. But he wasn't the only former Centre employee here, and they heard things.
Jarod should have been here. But no. They had his files, too, most of them anyway, and they put him in a nice little secure facility, waiting for him to regain his sanity. He did. Rumor had it she visited him every day.
No one visited Lyle, but then, he was perfectly sane.
Just too damn smart for the psychologists and not enough patience to fool them long enough to let him go, or move him to a less secure facility . . . But he would do it. He wouldn't be here forever, as a lab rat for psychologists who wanted to understand the workings of a deranged mind. Lyle wasn't deranged; he was perfectly rational. Didn't they understand he knew what he was doing when he killed those woman? When he did everything? Not that he could tell them that, he was 'recovering', but it seemed so blindingly obvious.
"Lyle, getting lost in your thoughts isn't healthy, not when you do it this much."
You want to know what I think is healthy, bitch? Lyle wanted to snarl. Instead, he smiled. It was condescending, probably, but better than nothing. "I'm fine."
She nodded, not a hint of belief in her eyes.
"Just a little constrained, you know," Lyle added, jerking his restraints. Leather. Thick. Arms, legs, waist, and head. Just in case.
She nodded with false sympathy. "Your sister wanted us to let you know something."
"Oh?" Lyle said, interested in the conversation now despite himself. His sister had something to say? Not that it would matter. No, it wouldn't matter. He was still escaping.
"She's marrying Jarod –"
He knew it. HE KNEW IT. The bitch had been screwing Jarod all along, betraying them all, his father died in prison, he was still in here –
He screamed incoherently in rage. He would rip her head off, cut Jarod to pieces – start with the thumbs, start with the thumbs –
"Security!" he heard the psychologist call. "Lyle! Lyle!"
"I'll kill her!" Lyle was screaming.
"Lyle, I've told you this six times, every time you forget, do you understand me? Look at me, Lyle. You have to remember. Do you remember? Look at me, Lyle. You won't escape the restraints. Lyle! Lyle! Get him away from the window! There, give him the shot – good, good . . . See? Hopeless. He's not ever getting out of this mental institution . . ."
There goes the window, Lyle thought dimly.
[fin]