Chapter 1: The Rumble of the Approaching Storm
Wednesday
The alarm clock buzzed loudly, and a hand emerged from the covers to swat vaguely in the direction of the snooze button – and after four unsuccessful attempts, finally pushed the switch to 'off'. Dark eyes blinked out from beneath the warm covers into the brightness of the early November morning, and slowly Jarod pushed himself up on an elbow and scratched at the hair on top of his head with his other hand.
Even though he'd had this studio apartment for over two years now, awakening to both the sunshine coming in his window and the sound of traffic several stories below never failed to be a thrill first thing in the morning. Both symbolized his freedom from the constraints and underground life he'd led at the Centre for the better part of thirty odd years. Even when his lair had been an empty warehouse, he never failed to thrill at the sounds of society moving just outside those thin walls – or at the sunlight streaming through even the most begrunged glass reinforced with imbedded chicken wire. A place of his own in which he could have both was a dream made reality.
The studio apartment, rented under his own name, had been his gift to himself when he'd started his psychiatric residency. It was big enough to be comfortable housing for one – and occasionally housing a guest or two briefly. All of his siblings, Emily, Ethan and JD – Gemini had decided upon 'Jeremy David' as a name for himself, names that were quickly abbreviated by two brothers and a sister – had taken turns visiting for weekends. His reunited parents had flown in from Kentucky not long after he'd found the place to help him make it a home. It wasn't opulent – certainly he could afford more, but more would bring him closer to that Centre radar that he'd been so successfully eluding – but he was comfortable, and it was his.
He rolled to a sitting position with his feet almost touching the rug he'd placed to keep from freezing his bare feet on bare hardwood and scratched at a bare chest before giving a shiver of increased awareness of the chill in the air. It was a very short walk from the bed to the bathroom door and the hot shower that beckoned just beyond. As was a habit of years now, Jarod let the hot water soak him from head to toe, not moving a muscle until he was soaked and feeling much warmer. His Centre baths had been a washrag and a basin of rapidly cooling water that meant that he constantly had to rush or risk either a cold rinse or running out of time altogether. Instead of an unscented industrial soap that substituted only very poorly as a shampoo and left his hair brittle, he'd become addicted to and shampoo that made his hair soft and a baby soap that left his whole body smelling clean – something he'd always admired and envied a bit in Sydney all those years.
By the time his ablutions were finished, he was warm, very much awake and ready to face another day at the teaching hospital where he still had three months of grueling hours and a thesis paper to write in order to earn the right to take the exam for a license to practice psychiatry. A glance at his alarm clock made him shed the towel around his middle and reach for a clean set of underclothing. His shift began in a little over an hour – and he had a half-hour commute to look forward to.
Jarod dressed quickly in a casual polo shirt and olive-drab dress trousers that would be easy enough to shed to don the hospital blues he'd be wearing for the better part of the next thirty-six to seventy-two hours. He eyed himself in the mirror and slicked his hand over the hair at his temple and turned to his kitchenette, where his one-cup coffeepot had been set to have his morning treat ready at just this moment. He carried his cup over to the window and fingered aside the curtain to gaze out at the New York City he could see.
His cell phone on the kitchen counter chirped brightly at him, and he reached out a free hand to pick it up and hit the receive button. "Hello?"
"Hey, Jay!" It was Henry Kellogg, a fellow psychiatric resident who had graduated from Yale the same year Jarod had and been awarded his residency at the same psychiatric institution the same month Jarod had started there.
"Hey yourself, Hank," Jarod replied and sipped at his coffee. "You just getting off or getting ready to go on?"
"Neither, my man. I've got three weeks to do the research for my thesis paper, and I'm taking them."
Jarod's eyebrows climbed his face even as his grin spread. "Three weeks? Are you sure you're not leaving us short-handed?"
"Nah," his friend's deep voice chuckled. "I see you're going to be paired with Sanchez for the next few – and then…"
"And then I go over to St. Helena's to begin MY thesis research," Jarod filled in. "Actually, I'm being transferred over there temporarily, since St. Helena's is associated…"
"With Briarwood, I know. You chose an easy topic though – 'The Psychology of the Child Abuse Cycle.' It's been done to death, you know…"
"Not really – I'm working on the angle that follows victims of abuse through their childhood and into a pattern moving from victim to abuser," Jarod protested. "The premise is that if we can begin to identify the triggers to abusive behavior and find an effective means of early intervention, we could prevent so much heartache."
"Yeah – well, you can do yours in the comfort of an institutional setting. Mine, however, requires genuine field work. 'The Psychology of Prolonged Homelessness' needs to be researched out in the streets – in flop-houses and shelters…"
Jarod frowned. "That's a dangerous world you're talking about entering, my friend. Are you sure you've taken safeguards to extract yourself if you get in trouble?"
"That's part of the reason for this call, Jarod," Hank informed his friend. "There's a shelter down on west 187th Street called Dignity House – most nights I intend to be holed up there. I checked it out about three weeks ago, using my psychiatric ID as an excuse. There's a phone in the office that residents are allowed to use in the evenings – I'll be calling your cell. If I miss a day, don't sweat it – but if I miss more than one…"
"I'll have the police down there looking for you," Jarod promised. "How long did you say you were staying there?"
"Three weeks," Hand answered. "I need to know as much about the actual experience of being homeless as I can get – to understand the pressures and rejection of so-called 'normal' society, as well as the obstacles faced by those who want to escape and how the druggies manage."
"That's an awfully big topic," Jarod cautioned. "How are you going to record your findings?"
"Dignity House isn't far from the local branch of the library – and they have computers and free Internet. I gave myself a throw-away address to which to email my own notes – figuring that doing that rather than trying to keep a notebook with me physically might be a wiser move." Hank sounded very sure of himself. "I don't want to be looked upon with suspicion by the people I'm trying to research – that kind of defeats the purpose…"
"You just be careful!" Jarod exclaimed. "I haven't got that many friends, and I tend to be very protective of the ones I've got…"
"How many parties did you chaperone me home from in med school?" Hank asked, amused.
"Too many to count," Jarod retorted with a brusque chuckle, "and that's beside the point."
"Not really. Then again, maybe I should do my thesis on YOU – 'The Psychology of the Mother Hen'…"
"Oh shut up," Jarod sniffed and earned himself a hearty laugh from the other end of the line. "OK, smart guy – when are you taking off?"
"Tonite," Hank answered. "No sense in putting it off…"
Again Jarod's brows climbed. "Already?"
"And now that I have my safety check-in arranged, I have to take a trip over to an army surplus place and find me some duds that fit – but only just – and a backpack that has seen better days."
Jarod glanced down at his wrist watch. "Yeah – and I'm just about out of time to yak. I've got rounds in about thirty-five."
"Take care of the digs while I'm gone, man," Hank blurted suddenly, "and I'll be seeing you – maybe sooner than you think."
"You take good care of yourself – and don't hesitate to call for help if you need it, OK?"
"Cluck, cluck. See you in three weeks." And suddenly, Jarod was holding onto a phone with the call disconnected from the other end.
He chugged the last of the coffee down and reached for the box of Pop Tarts on the counter to pull out one of the silver-plastic wrapped packages to open and eat on the way into the institution. He put the edge of the plastic between his teeth as he reached for his black leather jacket – one of the few things that he still kept and wore from his days on the run – and pulled it on. The cell phone immediately was dropped into the right-hand jacket pocket, and the keys to his apartment and beat-up little Toyota came out of the pocket in its place. He threw the deadbolt as he walked out and just gave an extra tug on the door on his way out, and then started down the long stairs.
Now, the last thing he needed was a traffic jam…
oOoOo
Thursday
The dark-haired man walked down the corridors of Centre power and delighted, as always, in watching the lesser denizens of the institution slink to one side or the other so as to not be considered an obstacle. This was a perk to having the proper last name – and to having the ear of the Chairman – he decided and let himself puff up just as little more proudly. Lyle had had this effect on those around him for a while – something even Mr. Raines required a big, bruiser of a sweeper named Willy to accomplish. Perhaps it was his predictably unpredictable temper – or the fact that when it came to disciplining, he enjoyed being in on the process personally – but the fact that there were only a very few in the entire organization who didn't fear him never failed to make his day.
The smile he was wearing – cold and calculating as well as satisfied – stiffened as he pushed through the etched glass doors of the Chairman's office to see that his boss wasn't alone. Normally, at this hour, Mr. Raines was still studying the summary of all reports tendered the day before, or proposals from clients – not giving his full attention to someone of the ilk of Mr. Cox. The brilliant blue eyes of the head of the Biogenics Department rested evenly and calmly on the face of the intruder for but a moment before returning to the paper that both were studying.
"Come on in, Lyle," Raines wheezed and beckoned. "Mr. Cox is just bringing me…" Raines took an agonized pull of oxygen through the plastic cannula. "…up to date on the project he's been spearheading."
"Oh?" Lyle's steps hesitated slightly before he walked briskly to the desk. "I didn't know that…"
"Up until this time," Mr. Cox said in his very cultured and accented baritone, "it has been a 'need to know' project that you didn't need to know about." The brilliant blue eyes flicked up into Lyle's grey-blue with a much colder and self-assured expression in their depths. "However, we're reaching a point where the 'need to know' circle must necessarily expand a bit."
"I didn't know that there were any projects where I wasn't in the 'need to know' circle," Lyle aimed at the balding and skeletal-looking Chairman petulantly.
Mr. Raines' gaze rested on the face of his erstwhile 'son' with a touch of frustration. "You need to listen," he directed in a hoarse voice and pulled once more on the offering from his little green oxygen tank beneath the desk, "and stop complaining. The Centre – with…" He gasped in breath again. "…Triumvirate approval, is about to enter a new era of…" Another wheezing gasp. "…profitability."
"Without the Pretender Project back up and running?" Lyle's face showed his surprise. "That IS news!"
"The Triumvirate agrees with my assessment that Project Hydra's Teeth holds the possibility of restoring much of the financial stability of the Centre, once the trial phase of the project has been completed and we can move into full implementation," Mr. Cox stated simply and surely.
"And just what is Project Hydra's Teeth?" Lyle demanded.
Mr. Cox handed him a pair of papers, and Lyle's eyes slowly widened as he read further down the page. Finally, he looked up and at Mr. Raines with appreciation. "This is sheer genius! Brainwash the discards of society and train them into an army of single assignment assassins capable of blending into the general population – a sort of twist on the concept of kamikaze." He even gifted Cox with a look of admiration. "Can you even imagine how much in demand our product will be…"
"We are already in receipt of several inquiries as to when our newest product will be on the market," Raines wheezed and drew in breath noisily. "That is why Cox and I decided that the time had come to bring you into the loop."
"Oh?" Lyle didn't like the sound of that.
"We're ready to move into human trials," Cox explained patiently. "Mr. Raines was just telling me how effective you can be at… um…" He cleared his throat meaningfully. "…'acquiring' …the kind of test subjects that I'm going to need."
Lyle glared at his boss angrily. "I'm not a sweeper," he protested loudly, and then gestured at Willy, standing quietly and alertly behind Raines' desk. "Willy is more than capable of 'acquiring' the kind of test subjects you need – and I've got responsibility for several other projects, you know…"
"You haven't been in the field since the Triumvirate decided to pull the plug on the Pretender Project and the hunt for Jarod," Raines glared at his 'son.' "In fact, the only proof you've been able to provide lately as to your continuing skill in fieldwork is the fact that several cities have unsolved murder cases on the books that – if they only knew about each other – would sound very familiar to each other." He gasped in another breath. "I'm counting on your ability to hunt and capture without causing comment at the time to bring back a minimum of 10 subjects that will be put through the Hydra process."
"I can't just leave," Lyle continued protesting. "Several of the projects I'm managing are at critical phases…"
"I'm aware of the projects of which you speak," Raines growled hoarsely. "I will personally watch over your projects for you while you're gone…" He gasped in more oxygen. "…both this time, and any other time I find it necessary for you to take part in this endeavor."
"Damn it, that's a sweeper's job!" Lyle exploded.
"Mr. Cox," Raines spoke to the slender European doctor and assassin, "will you give us a few moments, please?"
Lyle found himself impaled by a very intelligent and mildly amused blue gaze for a brief and chilling moment before Cox nodded serenely. "Of course, sir," he gave a very slight bow from the waist and headed for the etched glass doors.
"You will do as you're told," Raines snarled breathily. "Your record when it comes to field assignments is no better than your sister's – and frankly, the Triumvirate is looking for some reassurance that you're still able to handle yourself outside Centre walls. I'm not getting any younger – and we need to be sure that the Centre will continue under competent management when I'm not longer around."
Lyle didn't bother with any platitudes or protestations that Raines would continue in his post for a long time – he didn't have the stomach for it, considering the task he was having forced upon him; and Raines would know them for lies. "I don't see YOU doing field work," he stated instead, rebelliously.
"I've DONE my share of field work – and most of it over the years has been successful, I might add," Raines retorted. "You, on the other hand, have had not a single success racked to your name since you tried…" He gasped. "…to buy your way back into Triumvirate good graces with one of the Centre's data chips and assassinated an entire satellite office in the process."
Lyle's eyes turned a stormy grey. There was little he could respond to that – his successes WERE more in an internal management capacity. "This is still sweeper duty."
"And you'll do it because I tell you to," Raines snapped, "or I will have to reconsider the wisdom of your continued employment." The watery blue eyes glared a warning.
Lyle shuddered. "When do I leave?" he asked with a huge sigh.
"I give you three days to tie up any urgent loose ends with your current projects," Raines relented slightly, knowing Lyle DID have projects at delicate phases, "and then you will brief me on current status and leave for New York City on Tuesday. Willy will be going with you…"
"Willy!"
Raines smiled coldly. "Yes – to make sure you don't go on any 'side-trips' and come back with, say, a young Asian lady that will distract you from the task at hand."
Lyle would have protested that he hadn't done any hunting of his own in months, thanks to a very busy work schedule that simply didn't allow for more than a single day free in every seven – not enough to hunt effectively and safely. But, knowing his 'father's' displeasure at his extracurricular activities in days past, he kept his mouth shut. "Three days?"
Raines nodded. "And you take Willy with you."
A quick glance up into Willy's dark eyes told Lyle that the trip would have little to make it anything but a chore. He sighed. "Three days – and I take Willy with me."
"Good!" Raines smiled predatorily. "Tell Mr. Cox to come back in as you leave, will you? There are some details that he and I still need to discuss…"
Lyle knew he was being dismissed, and a glance into Willy's visage told him that the sweeper was finding the put-down highly amusing. His eyes narrowed as he turned away from the massive and carved desk and headed toward the etched glass doors. One day, that ghoul would be gone, Lyle thought darkly. And then Willy would find out the price to gloating once too often.
One day…
oOoOo
Monday
Miss Parker closed her eyes and sipped at the coffee Broots had just poured for her, savoring the anticipation of the caffeine rush that was only a few minutes away. It was Monday – too damned early after a weekend filled with activities designed around a very lively and intelligent seven year old half-brother – and she had yet to completely awaken to full awareness. Mondays were this way for her now, and Broots had learned several years earlier that an especially potent and bracing cup of espresso hot and waiting for her at her desk when she appeared promptly at seven forty-five could make the difference between a snappish boss and one who was tamed and ready to work.
"What's on the docket for us today?" she asked with a lazy tone as she shifted through the pile of folders in her inbox with a bored hand. "Anything interesting?"
"Mr. Raines would like us to do a complete maintenance check and overhaul of all security systems," Broots told her, reading from the memo that had been left on his desk in the computer lab.
"He wants what?" She was incensed and appalled. "We just…"
Broots just held out the paper to her. "Don't kill me," he whimpered, "I'm only the messenger."
Miss Parker read the memo and then looked at her computer technician through narrowed eyes. "Didn't we do something very much like this a few months ago?"
"Yes – about six months ago."
She tossed the memo on her desk with a frustrated hand. "Then why do we have to do it again?"
Broots shrugged at her. "Because the security systems need regular checking – especially here at the Centre, where we have to be ready for Jarod or some other industrial saboteur to try to hack their way to sensitive material."
"As if Jarod could be stopped by any security systems we could think up," Miss Parker sniffed diffidently. "Oh, all right – we might as well pretend that this is top priority work for the top brass."
"How do you want to divide the work load this time around?" Broots asked, reaching across the desk for the pink box in which he knew there was at least one jellied donut left. "Do you want to sift through interdepartmental communications, or…"
"You do the hardware analysis, I'll do the interdepartmental communiqués again," she answered before he could finish. "That seems to be the one approach that fits our individual strengths in the field."
"If you say so, Miss Parker," Broots nodded. "I'll be down in Electronics Engineering, getting current schematics and checking out any new developments we might want to incorporate this time around."
Miss Parker settled herself into her comfortable chair behind her clear plexiglass desk and pulled the keyboard of her terminal closer to her. "I'll be right here, sorting through the detritus of six months' worth of interdepartmental gossip, kvetching and just general gab."
"Have fun," Broots smiled encouragingly at her.
"Get out of here before I rethink what would qualify as 'fun', Scooby," she snapped at him and then sighed as the balding technician obediently slipped from the room. These twice-annual security systems sweeps were getting very old. Aside from the occasional hardware upgrade that Broots was inevitably able to implement over the course of the review, her part of the process was almost boring – especially in the beginning, going through the interdepartmental yakking.
True, her perusal had uncovered a couple of conspiracies to steal Centre property and sell it on eBay last year – and demoted one department head for sexual harrassment of a secretary a couple of years ago – but these were the exceptions rather than the rule. For the most part, Centre personnel were too harried, too busy or too intimidated to try very much of anything original and/or against regulations. So many of the emails and communiqués were simply business-related or cross-departmental collaborations on certain projects.
She typed her password into her terminal that gave her access to level five clearance material, then started with the Behavioral Science email archive. The first three emails she read were regarding a project involving chemical intervention in behavioral conditioning in rats. At first, seeing the name 'Cox' appended to the notes caught at her attention – but when the emails continued to deal solely and specifically with lab rats of the rodent variety rather than the human, she lost interest. She saved Cox's entries into a folder of their own for later review – on a day when she was ready to be bored out of her skull – and moved on to the next researcher on the list.
After about another half-hour of boring statistics and requisition forms and progress notes for everything from pharmaceuticals to animal food, she decided to give herself a treat. One of the real perks of doing these endless systems checks was the opportunity to peek into the private communications of people who wouldn't normally be open to scrutiny. Smiling with perverse pleasure, she typed in the password that gave her access to the email accounts of many of the upper level executives at the Centre. She aimed her focus specifically at her twin brother, knowing that some of his email in earlier systems checks had been more than just entertaining. Perhaps she'd be able to garner more ammunition that would get her leverage with another in-depth probe.
What was this? She stared at the most recent email sent to Mr. Raines just that morning: "Am ready for you to assume control of my projects – briefing to be held at your earliest convenience before my departure. RSVP w/ appt for meeting."
Departure? Lyle was leaving the Centre for somewhere? In the middle of a systems check? That was unheard-of, because policy mandated that essential personnel remain available for consultation during that time.
Miss Parker hit the button to go to the next to last email sent from Lyle's terminal – and found it to be a note responding back to Mr. Cox: "Understand requisites. Have discussed potential population pools with Willy and have a couple of possible sources from which to gather the subjects you want. Will be in touch when I know more. L."
Finely manicured eyebrows rose. What the hell was Lyle doing talking about population pools and sources – sources of WHAT?
The answer, she knew, lay somewhere in the archive of Cox's email. But when she went to access his portion of the archive, she hit the wall of needing a level twelve clearance. That made the brows rise even higher. Since when was Mr. Cox's security clearance even higher than Lyle's – and what the hell would he be working on that would require that level of security?
She picked up the receiver and dialed an extension. "Broots," came a far more assured and calm voice than she was used to.
"Get your ass up here, Scooby," she said without any preamble. "I've tripped over something…"
"What's up?" he asked after a hushed consult with someone evidently in the room with him.
"Not over an unsecured line," she hissed at him in frustration. "I need your skill at decoding."
Broots was silent for a moment, obviously trying to read what she was trying to say between the lines and coming up with nothing that made sense. "On my way," was his eventual comment.
Miss Parker sipped at her espresso – now cold – and relaxed back into her chair to wait. If there was anybody able to help her decipher what was going on with Lyle, it was Broots.
"Yeah?" he asked as he pushed into her office without knocking. He glanced around nervously. "You think we can talk here?"
"I had Sam sweep it for bugs this morning, right on schedule," she sighed. "Yes, we can talk here. Lyle's up to something – and it involves Cox."
Broots shuddered. "Those two make my flesh crawl, Miss Parker. Why would they be working together on something?"
"I'm not entirely sure that they are," she explained and typed in a few keystrokes. "Here," she said, pointing to the monitor screen and pushing back and climbing out of her chair so that Broots could move in closer, "read that."
Broots scanned the email and then looked at his superior. "Sounds like he's going on a shopping trip for Dr. Death," he commented and shuddered again. "Did you try to access Cox's email yet?"
"Level twelve clearance," she sighed and looked back at the enigmatic email. "Out of reach." She finally glanced at Broots' face when he didn't respond, and found him wearing the oddest of expressions. "What?"
"Out of reach," he repeated, "UNLESS you happen to know a few hacks…"
"I think I love you," Miss Parker blurted ecstatically, and then sobered and shook a finger at his nose. "Professionally speaking, of course – and don't even think…"
"Of course not," Broots kept his smirk hidden in his soul and pushed himself into her chair to pull the keyboard into a more comfortable position. "Let a professional show you how it's done." He began to type – his fingers moving almost faster than Miss Parker could follow. What was appearing on the screen was line after line of gibberish – and he sniffed in frustration a couple of times before typing furiously again. Suddenly: "There you go," he announced, hit the enter key, and a listing of Cox's email archive ran down the entire screen.
Miss Parker waited for Broots to vacate her chair before planting herself in front of the monitor screen and examining each of the entries. "There!" she pointed, then shifted the select bar and brought up the email to Lyle.
"Candidates for the Hydra process must be the absolute dregs of society – cast-offs that nobody will miss. Previous drug involvement not an issue. Look for latent signs of intelligence, however – this will be needed during dormant phase. Sex not an issue. Cox" she read aloud and raised her eyes to Broots. "That doesn't make a lot of sense…"
"'Dregs of society' sounds like… you know… folks with no families, no homes, no jobs…" Broots offered.
Miss Parker's face folded into a disapproving grimace. "True – but this Hydra… I can't quite place the reference."
Broots shrugged. "Sydney would probably know."
She nodded. "Print those out and bring them with us."
"To the Sim Lab?"
"To the Sim Lab."
oOoOo
The Sim Lab was silent – only the sight of people sitting at tables gave any hint that something was happening. Sydney, his silver hair shining in the bright light of the overhead fluorescents, was sitting at a table between two identical young girls – each of whom wore a metal band around their foreheads with wires protruding that led to a black box on the table before them. Both girls were wielding pencils with single-minded focus, drawing on the white papers in front of them. Sydney, on the other hand, was looking back and forth between one and the other – with a card with a symbol in a clip held up so that the child couldn't see it in front of each.
The girl on the right suddenly looked up, her face creasing in a wide smile, and held up her drawing. It was an approximation of the symbol that was sitting in front of her facing Sydney. "Veerrry good, Elise," the Belgian psychiatrist purred. "Let's wait for Elsie now, shall we?"
Miss Parker cleared her throat to announce their presence, and Sydney glanced in their direction and gave a quick nod to let her know that he'd seen them. Patiently, however, he waited for the other child to suddenly look up and hold up her drawing – once more correctly approximating the card in front of her. "Veerrry good, Elsie. In fact, so good that you've earned yourselves a break." Sydney beckoned to Charlie, the sweeper that had been assigned to the Sim Lab at the end of the hunt for Jarod. "Charlie will take you both down to the cafeteria and buy you an ice cream." He pulled out his wallet from a back pocket and slipped the sweeper a bill. "Go on – enjoy yourselves."
The two girls rose – absolute mirror images of each other, and took the hand of their twin before letting themselves be guided by a hand on the shoulder from the sweeper. Sydney made some notations on the paper on the clipboard in front of him and collected the two drawings, then beckoned. "Well, well! It isn't often I get a chance to see you down here anymore, Miss Parker – especially in the middle of a workday."
"Nice to see you too, Freud," Miss Parker remarked in a tone of voice that blunted the sting from her words otherwise. Until that moment, she hadn't realized how much she missed seeing him on a regular basis. "I see you haven't given up playing with human bookends yet…"
"Yes, well, we psychiatrists rarely give up on an obsession," Sydney smiled, recognizing the reference and appreciating the insider feeling it evoked, and gestured for his two friends to lead the way into his office. "Now, to what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked as he discretely closed the door behind them. "I'm assuming this is NOT a social call…"
"We need your encyclopedic brain," Miss Parker seated herself in the closest, most comfortable chair in the office – with the exception of Sydney's own – and crossed her legs comfortably. "What do the words 'Hydra's Teeth' mean to you?"
The aging psychiatrist paused on his way to his desk to turn to a bookcase, linger a moment checking titles; and then he pulled a large volume from the shelf and carried it over. "The hydra is a creature of Greek mythology," he began, his accented voice slipping easily into the tones of an experienced lecturer. He opened the book to the front, ran a finger down what was obviously a well-used table of contents, and then sifted through the pages for the one he was looking for. "It was a serpent with seven heads, which was slain by Heracles. The teeth of the hydra reportedly held magical powers…" he added, bending down and reading a little further along, "and if planted and watered with blood, were said to hold the power to germinate into the skeletons of dead warriors." He looked up at Miss Parker as he seated himself and closed the book. "What's this all about – Greek mythology and the undead?"
"It's Mr. Lyle and Mr. Cox…" Broots started anxiously, shifting nervously in his chair, and then lowered his voice. "Although when it comes to the Centre, that's about as close as you can get to the undead – unless you talk about Mr. Raines himself…"
"Broots!" Miss Parker hissed and scowled. "We're in the middle of another security maintenance period," she then hurried to explain as her former colleague as he turned back to her with heavy silver brows rapidly chasing a receding hairline. "My half of the fun – if that's what you want to call it – is to sort through interdepartmental communiqués for suspicious information, evidence of theft, that sort of thing." Sydney nodded and leaned forward with his elbows on his desk, his fingers steepled beneath his nose, and waited for her to continue. "I started looking at Lyle this morning, and…"
"You have clearance to look at Lyle's personal emails?" Sydney asked in surprise, his hands plopping to the desk limply.
"I have clearance to look into many people's person email – since this is the Centre, any email sent here is considered anything BUT personal," she clarified with a glance that told the older man that she was issuing him a warning – if he needed it. "Can I continue?"
"By all means."
"I started with his most recent email – and found out that he was handing his oversight of several research projects to Mr. Raines himself and getting ready to leave…"
Sydney frowned behind his re-steepled fingers. "But that's against…"
"Policy, I know," she finished for him. "That got me wondering, but then I looked at the next to his last email and found it to be to Mr. Cox – and he was discussion potential population pools and requisites and sources of something. When I went to follow the line of communications back to Mr. Cox…"
"…she found out that Mr. Raines has him classified as level twelve security!" Broots exclaimed. "Even Mr. Raines himself doesn't have THAT high clearance…"
Sydney relaxed back into his chair, his one arm across his chest and the other nestled comfortably beneath his nose. "I take it that didn't stop you," he observed, knowing well Miss Parker's persistence when her curiosity was piqued.
As he'd expected, Broots began to smirk proudly. "I haven't exactly met a security clearance I couldn't get around one way or another…"
"Anyway…" Miss Parker barked, scowling a command to her computer technician to rein in his enthusiasm, "Mr. Cox's email to Lyle gave specific instructions to him about 'candidates' for the 'Hydra' process – about how they needed to be the 'dregs of society'…"
"Dregs of society," Sydney observed with a start. "Analogous to being undead in a social sense, I suppose..."
Broots shivered. "That doesn't sound good."
Sydney shrugged. "When one is dealing with either Lyle or Cox, nothing they're involved in 'sounds good.' When one is dealing with them working together…" He looked back at Miss Parker. "And that's it?"
She nodded. "Pretty much so. The project is called 'Hydra's Teeth,' and Lyle's evidently been sent on a recruiting expedition." She sighed.
"Who would Lyle be recruiting on such an extraordinary basis?" Broots asked, looking back and forth between his colleagues. "And why now, when he's supposed to be staying close to home – as it were?"
Sydney's finger slowly rubbed back and forth beneath his nose. "That phrase – 'dregs of society' – could refer to the homeless…" he suggested finally.
"But what does that have to do with Greek mythology?" Broots asked pointedly. "We know that project names are meaningful – and generally have something to do with the kind of work being done."
"More to the point, what does this all have to do with a many-headed serpent whose teeth, when watered with blood, give rise to an army of undead?" Miss Parker asked, her sense of unease rising.
Three pairs of eyes flitted futilely from one to the other.
"I hate this," Miss Parker hissed. "They're up to something again."
"Something unspeakable," Broots added, nodding vehemently.
"This is the Centre," Sydney philosophized fatalistically. "You were expecting something different?"
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Broots shuddered.
"You ain't the only one, Scooby," Miss Parker thwacked her colleague on the shoulder. "And I guess the only thing to do is to keep digging."
"Be careful, Miss Parker," Sydney warned her as he had so many times before. "And watch your back."
"Thanks, Syd," she replied, flashing him a smile of pure bravado. "And thanks for your help." She snagged a firm grasp on Broots' tee shirt sleeve and pulled him to his feet and toward the door after her. "C'mon, Watson. The game's afoot."
Sydney couldn't help sympathizing as Broots shot him a glance of a condemned man over his shoulder as he followed his boss from the office. Through the open door, he could see that Charlie had brought the twin girls back to the Sim Lab. Sighing, he rose to his feet and pasted a smile on his face. "Ah. You're back. Let's resume, shall we? Elise? Elsie? In your places, please…"