Murphy's First Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

The florescent white rod in the ceiling flickered off and on for a moment with a loud buzzing sound, and the girl sitting cross-legged on the bed beneath it looked up from the page of her book apathetically. It didn't flicker anymore and she returned to her reading with a shrug; someone would be down to fix it. Someone always was. She scanned a few more pages of the heavy medical text in her lap before shutting it with a muffled whump. Her disection of the cadaver that afternoon had given her ample time to familiarize herself with the procedure of her simulation tomorrow, and it appeared this text would give her little more aid. She had already spotted some alternatives and additions that would make the procedure shorter and less invasive. More profitable too. She inwardly gave a little sigh of relief; They would certainly be pleased with her for this.

She threw the book to the end of her bed, watching it as it flopped on the thin mattress and slid on the woolen blanket, slipping to land on the floor. She eyed the camera in the corner guiltily-- they didn't like it when she didn't pay proper respect for their belongings. She moved to retrieve the book, the springs creaking loudly as she shifted her weight on the bed, but she didn't mind, they always did that. It was such a constant in her life that she found it almost soothing. Her own personal lullabye. She deposited the book onto the corner of her desk, hesitating there a moment. They would want her in bed right now, but the opening to the ventilation system had caught her eye. It was in the corner of the room, and she could easily pull herself into the hatchway if she stood on her desk chair, no one would know if she went; the night crew never paid very much attention to the surveillance tapes anyway, she was sure. It wasn't going to hurt anyone; not if she was back here before they came to retrieve her in the morning. She looked at the security camera in the corner, debating with herself. She hadn't left her room to go anywhere other than the SIM lab in simply months. There was nothing wrong with that, not really, but her latest simulations had been leaving her bored and restless; none were very challenging. She was positively itching for something new to happen. She was sure the technicians must have noticed her disquiet, her boredom, but nothing had changed.

You aren't supposed to leave the room without permission Riley. The voice speaking from the back corner of her mind sounded suspiciously like Mr. Lyle, which was just enough to get her to move back to her bed and crawl beneath the covers. She sent a jaded look up at the camera. "Happy now?" It didn't respond of course, but she knew she had obeyed her training, so she took the silence to mean 'yes'. She couldn't help but allow her eyes to travel back to the vent cover though. She looked away guiltily as she heard a beep coming from her door, the sound of locks grinding against metal and concrete met her ears and she moved across the room to stand by the wall opposite it, eyes to the floor, as protocol demanded. It was good that she hadn't gone, she surely would have been caught, and if she had been caught, she would have been punished. Mr. Lyle would not have been happy with her--none of her training was more basic than that simple request to follow the rules. There would have been no excuse to disobey it, even if she was bored. If she only followed the rules like they told her to, things would be easier.

Riley wondered who was coming, in all likelihood it was a sweeper, come to take her to the SIM lab-- that was the only place she went these days. And there's nothing wrong with that she told herself. Maybe if she just pretended it was fine, it would be. It was late though now, or at least, they'd told her to stay in bed just hours ago, and though simulations at night were not out of the question, they weren't common. The unvoiced sigh in her throat made her shoulders slump a little in submission; she didn't need that much sleep anyway.

There was, of course, another possibility, Mr. Lyle or Mr. Raines could be coming. Neither one of them had been to the facility recently, and Riley had been forced to work with the bumbling technologists on all of her simulations; an annoyance under the best of circumstances. Niether man had left her alone with them for this long before. Earlier that day she had thought of acting out just to see if either of them would even come back to punish her. Their absence was unnerving, it didn't happen very often to say the least. She played with the small necklace hanging at the base of her throat as she mulled it over, running her finger over the pendant at the bottom out of habit. If one of her mentors were coming, though it was strange for either to be absent for this long and then return without warning, she sincerely hoped it was Mr. Lyle. Mr. Lyle was better than Mr. Raines, more familiar, and much easier to work with. In truth, Mr. Raines had always frightened her.

The door opened outwards, revealing a sweeper standing outside, and her stomach dropped. She really had hoped... The sound of footsteps and squeaking wheels met her ears. The were back! Or Mr. Raines was, at least. Still, it was better than both of them being gone, wasn't it? Mr. Raines was strict, though. She'd just have to watch where she stepped for a little while then. She resisted the urge to squirm in anxiety. She didn't feel altogether prepared for a meeting with Mr. Raines. And if he were meeting at the facility so abruptly like this, it was likely he would be in a foul mood over something. She tried to put the implications of that knowledge out of her head.

"Hello Riley," Riley looked up when the man spoke to her, recognizing his voice instantly, and a warm sense of surprise washed over her before she squelched the burgeoning emotion. Mr. Lyle stepped into the room and was followed by Mr. Raines. She realized now that what had seemed to her like one set of footsteps must have been two. She barely managed to restrain the smile fighting to spread across her face. It seemed like forever since she had last spoken with anyone, and alone she was beginning to go stir crazy. She wanted to tell him that she had missed working with him, but in front of Mr. Raines, it would not have been appropriate.

"Hello Mr. Lyle, Mr. Raines." She answered quietly. Mr. Raines had always seemed like he could see directly through her, if she ever made a mistake he would notice it, so she immediately fell into the personality that she knew would placate him; that of a servant. "Is there a simulation I need to perform sir?" She asked, knowing he would approve the prescience of her question. Of course, there would be something they wanted her to do; Mr. Lyle wasn't opposed to just coming down to speak with her, but Mr. Raines always came with a purpose. Neither of the men answered, though she thought she saw a glimmer of satisfaction in Mr. Raines eyes after she asked the question. Good, he was pleased. Mr. Lyle's gaze left her and began roving around the small room, finally settling on the large pile of neatly stacked books at the end of her desk. She had been having trouble keeping her mind occupied.

"Ah, yes. It's so hard to find good reading material now days." He stated sarcastically, picking up a bound copy of The Taming of the Shrew. It was the only fictional book they had yet given her, so she hoped he wouldn't decide to take it away. He thumbed open to the dog-eared page she had read to, about three quarters of the way through the book. She'd have read further, but one of the technicians had come and given her the medical text she had just finished, and he had not let her read to the ending, hadn't even allowed her to finish the speech she'd been reading, actually.Mr. Lyle set the book back down on the top of the pile, tapping the cover with the fingers of his right hand.

"You'll want to finish reading that," He said. "It has a very good lesson for you."

"Yes Sir." She answered, subdued. Of course, she'd known they must have given her the book for a reason, but now that she was expected to glean a lesson from the text, it didn't seem as much fun. He walked over to her, tilting her head up with a finger below her chin.

"You're doing all right?" He asked as he handed her a paper cup with two tablets in it without offering an explanation.

She just nodded. She would have said more if Mr. Raines weren't in the room, but around him, her throat didn't always seem to work properly. Even saying a two-word phrase had her feeling anxious, as though he could find fault with even a simple "Yes Sir." Riley eyed the two small tablets in the cup, then downed the pills silently, swallowing them dry. The after-taste coated her tongue with bitterness, but it didn't occur to her to ask for water.

She wavered between silence and loquaciousness before finally asking "What are they?", indicating the small cup in her hand. It didn't really matter, as she had already taken them, but it was good to know what to expect.

"Just some mild sedatives, nothing for you to worry about." Mr. Lyle answered carelessly, patting her once on the shoulder, making her flinch away out of instinct. dropped his hand to his side, noticing her reaction, clearly showing that he wasn't about to hit her. She knew that-- in her mind she knew that, but her body didn't always agree.

A small warning bell went off in the back of her mind at the word sedative. The last time she had been given a sedative she had woken up in a different section of the facility under the care of a different supervisor. That had been almost a year or two ago, Mr. Lyle had left for an extended period of time and Mr. Raines was busy with other projects. Doing that many simulations under the untrained eyes of the technicians would have led to poor results. The scientist she had worked under for the time had no patience for any mistake made and often took what punishments he doled out to the extreme. Naturally she was wary of what would befall her this time. "I'm not going to be working with Dr. Cochran again, am I?" she asked thickly, fatigue wrapping itself around her mind, and the question was out before she could think of a less rude way to say it.

Mr. Lyle looked at her sternly in response, but let up after only a moment. "No Riley, you won't be working with him again, but if the need should arise, you won't question it. Are we clear?"

Riley fought against the fuzzy edges of her brain to find a suitable answer. "Uh-huh." She yawned. She blinked and her eyes stayed closed a little bit longer than usual. She jerked them back open. She wanted to stay conscious at least long enough to find out what was about to happen to her, but it was a losing battle.

"Stop fighting them Riley, just go to sleep, just relax..." Mr. Lyle's voice echoed and doubled back on itself like a sleeping python in her head as she blacked out and collapsed on the floor.

-

-

Lyle picked up the young teenager, noting how light she was for her age. She was thin, with wiry muscles and the lean look that typically disappeared in most people after the age of seven. Lyle continued scanning her face as he and Raines left the room; large chocolate eyes, dark brown hair styled in a blunt cut that hung just above her shoulders, a thin straight nose and full lips. Pale, of course, the girl had never seen the light of day before.

And never will...

He thought to himself as he and Raines walked through the cold concrete hallways of the facility. This project would take him to the top, and by the time it was over, he would have not only one pretender, but two. Yes, two pretenders, and their little chameleon boy would not be escaping again, this time he would stay put, Lyle would make sure of it.

The air outside the climate controlled walls of the facility was cold despite the hot summer day that had preceeded this night. Goosebumps, for what must have been the first time in her life, broke out across her thin white arms, and Riley was completely unaware. Lyle sat her down in the back seat of the standard, Centre issue vehicle, placing handcuffs around her wrists as he did so, the sweeper sitting in the back seat next to her fingered his gun a moment, nodding at Lyle before he closed the door. Lyle wasn't worried about her escaping, no no no, she wasn't like that, but Jarod was still on the loose, and that was never a good thing. What with Jarod still out there, they could not afford having her escape... or having her kidnapped. Not after that fiasco with the Gemini Project. Little did she know, but the next few months at the Centre were going to revolve around her. Why? Because Riley was special.

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