Author: A Markov
Title: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Chapter: 11/17
Summary:Sequel to Vanishing Love. Violet thought growing up was hard, until she fell in love. Now she is struggling to build a future in a relationship that nobody, including herself, understands but the past won't leave them alone. Is love strong enough to overcome the sins of the past? Can she find balance between love, family and duty? The resurrection of a sinister Agency project and the return of an irate ex aren't going to make her life any easier.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: This story contains some explicit language and deals with mature themes including consensual sex between adults of the same gender.
Disclaimer: The characters and locations are property of Disney and Pixar. They are used here without permission or profit. You're welcome to sue me, I don't have anything.

Chapter 11: Europa Rising

Dicker paused the playback on the screen and turned to the young man studying it intently. "So you see, Dash. If you time it right, you can avoid slowing down to open doors. This time it didn't really matter, but practice that kind of timing and when you really need an extra half a second, you'll have it."

"Cool!" Dash nodded. "I never thought about it like that."

"That's why we try to have these debrief sessions occasionally." Dicker continued. "And now that you're a part of them, I'm going to expect to see improvement from you." He wiggled his eyebrows in mock seriousness, "That means I'm expecting you to spend some of your free time in training."

"Aw, Man!" Dash flopped back into his chair in an exaggerated manner. "That's like… homework!"

"Well, super-heroing is more than just punching bad guys and meeting pretty girls."

Dash sat back up. "There are pretty girls?"

"Of course there are, sport." Bob chimed in. "How do you think I met your mother?"

"EEEW!"

Bob reached across the round table and held out a hand, which Helen took with exaggerated coyness. "Pay no attention to the boy, my dear." He said with a slight bow. "He has no appreciation for true beauty." Bob finished with a wink and a light kiss on the back of his wife's hand.

Helen smiled appreciatively. "Don't worry, Dash," she said over her shoulder to the boy. "I'm sure there's a pretty girl out there who doesn't look anything like your ugly old mom."

"That's not what I meant. I just… uh… Well…" Dash reddened.

"Tell you what, Dash," Helen smiled. "You sit your brother tonight, so your dad and I can have some quiet time, and I'll forgive you."

The youngster flopped back in his chair in exaggerated relief. "It's a deal."

There was a light knock on the door, and Violet poked her head into the room. "Did I miss anything?"

Dicker beckoned her in. "Not really, just going over some timing techniques with Dash."

Violet gave her dad a quick one-armed hug and squeezed her mom's shoulder as she slipped into the open seat between her and Dash. She slid the satchel she was carrying under the seat with one hand and reached out to tousle Dash's hair with the other but he dodged out of the way. Violet giggled when he smashed his face into the force bubble she'd formed in anticipation of his evasion.

"No practical jokes at the debriefings, Violet," Bob admonished her with mock seriousness.

"Yeah, not since the terrible guacamole incident of oh-nine!" She smirked.

"We swore to never speak of that again," Helen chimed in, barely keeping a straight face.

Dash sat up a little straighter, rubbing his cheek. "What incident?"

Helen smiled indulgently and shook her head. "Never mind, Dash, there was no incident. We're just being silly."

Dash's eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out if he was being teased, or they were hiding something from him. His musing was interrupted by Dicker clearing his throat.

"Ahem. Violet, do you have anything specific for us?"

Violet's eyes lit up and a huge smile spread across her face. "Yes!" She pointed at the paused image of the court room on the screen across the table from them. "Do you have video of the part where I corralled Beast Boy—"

"Beastro."

"He named himself after a French cafe?"

"Kind of."

"What was his problem with the City Council, anyway?" Bob asked. "Why'd he kidnap them?"

Dash rolled his eyes. "Weren't you listening to him rant, dad?"

Bob leaned back and waved dismissively. "There's only so much monologueing a man can take."

"He blamed the City Council for the failure of his restaurant."

"What'd they do, pass some new ordinance or something?"

"No, they just stopped meeting there."

"And what did that have to do with the guy from the towing company?"

"I have no idea." Dicker cued up the video and, at a nod from Violet, began to play it.

"See right here?" she said breathlessly. "I used a toroid to corral him and his two dog things."

"What's a toroid?"

"A doughnut."

"What's so special about that?"

"I've only made globes before. This is the first time I made a different shape with my force projection."

"That's great, sweetie," Bob said, then frowned at the action unfolding on the screen. "Why does it look like my job was to be bait?"

Violet laughed. "Probably 'cause your job was to be the bait."

Helen relaxed in her chair. Violet seemed to be doing well. Her personal choices, while completely incomprehensible, were working for her. Helen considered the idea that she had misjudged that blonde woman, but was still unwilling to completely trust her. Of course, if Violet continued to bloom, she might actually have to forgive Mirage. While still distasteful, the thought no longer made her skin crawl. She glanced over at Dicker. The man had hinted at some kind of past connection between The Agency and that blonde; she would have to get him alone and grill him about it. Edna might know something too. A sidelong glance at her daughter brought a smile to Helen's lips. The girl's enthusiasm was catching and it was hard not to be drawn into it. She wondered if she'd ever been that optimistic and enthusiastic and looked over at Bob. He had a silly grin on his face and she could tell he was enjoying this aspect of their daughter's personality. She made a long foot under the table and stroked his calf. The smile that lit his face wasn't silly at all and it was just for her.

"And on that note," Dicker's voice cut through her reverie, as he stood up and began collecting the debriefing materials, "we're done for the day."

Helen looked at the clock. Where had her mind been for the last twenty minutes?

"Vi, do you have time for dinner tonight?" Helen felt a twinge of disappointment as her daughter hesitated.

"Well, Chi was asleep when I left…" Violet began but when she saw the look of disappointment on her mother's face she relented. "Tell you what, let me call and check on her real quick," she pointed to the phone on Dicker's desk, "and then we'll go grab a cup of coffee."

Helen nodded and started to say something but a shout from the outer office distracted her. "Mommy! Come see what I did to the heli-copper!"

When the door closed behind her mother, Violet reached not for the phone, but for the satchel she had stuffed under her chair when she first came in. Dicker regarded her silently as she pulled out a thick manila folder and set it on the table in front of him. She waited for him to say something, give something away, give her a sign that he knew what she was doing or where she got the folder, but he said nothing and his expression remained completely neutral.

She rolled her eyes and grumbled, "Remind me to never play poker with you." Violet put her hand flat on the folder and pushed it toward him. "This is Chi's file, from the old days. She says she never volunteered to go with Mr. Pine and I believe her but her file says something different." She paused and watched him carefully, but there was still no change in his expression. "There's a lot of stuff wrong with this file; page numbers skipped, pages that don't match, handwriting that doesn't match what's on the rest of the page… Makes it look like someone went through it and made some changes." She spent the next few minutes giving Dicker the Cliff-notes version of the story Chi had told her and an overview of her conversation with Honey. When she finished, she waited for him to say something, but after a few moments of dead silence and blank stares, she gave an exasperated sigh. "Something fishy went on and I'd like some reassurance that: a) you guys aren't in the habit of brainwashing people. And b)the woman I'm in love with isn't a sociopath."

"I'll look into it."

"And you'll tell me the truth?"

Dicker raised an eyebrow.

"I've been lied to a lot, Uncle Rick, and I'm getting really tired of it."

"I've never lied to you, Violet."

"Not that I know of." If the accusation stung, he didn't let it show. Violet chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. "That didn't come out right. What I'm trying to say is that I'm a big girl now. I don't need to be coddled." She locked eyes with him. Surprisingly it was Dicker who gave way first and gave her a little nod. With a grimace, Violet slipped out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Dicker let out a sigh and sank heavily into his chair. Violet was a good kid, and she deserved some answers. Unfortunately the questions she was asking were going to make several key people even more nervous than they already were. Add in the whole thing with her apparently hypnotizing the people around her… For the moment, she had no idea of what she was doing, but soon she'd figure it out, like the toroid thing. With Kari's situation and the breakdown of the MAR system, having a young girl with the ability to hypnotically influence everyone around her, including family and friends… That went beyond making a few people nervous straight to making a lot of people very afraid. If the director figured out her full potential before she did, she'd be in real trouble. He had the political pull to institutionalize her for the sake of "national security" or some other trumped up reason.

Dicker slapped his desk in frustration. He'd just got Violet calmed down and back on track after the screw-up with the McKeen family last year. He had to come up with some way to get her to realize what was going on so she could get some control of it. Maybe he could set up a meeting with Lucius and Honey at their place. The woman was paranoid and her house was as likely to be free of surveillance as anywhere on earth. He was getting old. If this blew up, who knew how far the repercussions would go? Mirage wasn't exaggerating very much when she said that Violet could pretty much make anyone do whatever she wanted and make them like it to boot. Right now, she was a relatively happy young woman in love. If The Agency handled this the wrong way, there was no telling what she might become.

Dicker made a fresh pot of coffee and settled in to read through the file carefully. He was about halfway through both when he was interrupted by a knock on his door.

"Agent Dicker?" Mirage's voice floated in. "I hoped I'd find you here."

Dr. Simmons waved the director toward a chair facing the large observation window. On the other side of it, a young red-haired woman was sitting on the floor surrounded by bits of broken machinery. She seemed to be intently searching for something specific in the piles of parts. The director watched for a moment before turning his attention to the doctor. "How is she? Any more rants about revenge?"

"Not since we put her on the Aripiprazole. She seems to have reached a stable mental equilibrium with the 'Syndrome' personality completely dominating."

"You've had her for several days now. Are you sure she's completely convinced that she's Buddy Pine?"

Dr. Simmons shook his head absent-mindedly. "That's not what I reported," he said slowly. "She believes she is Syndrome."

"Same thing." The director's voice was dismissive.

This brought a frown to the doctor's face, and he turned to face the director completely. "The mind is a funny thing, Director, and I am not given to imprecision of speech." He didn't even try to keep his annoyance out of his voice. "When I tell you 'the Syndrome personality is completely dominant,' I want you to understand that the personality in that mind doesn't think of itself as 'Mr. Pine,' but as a completely different entity with no real connection to him or to this place."

"Pine was Syndrome. Syndrome was Pine," the director snapped. "They're the same thing."

"That isn't the case here," Simmons insisted. "If you think along those lines, you might end up—"

The director cut him off with a gesture. "I'll leave the psycho-spiritual mumbo-jumbo to you and the chaplains, Doc." He jabbed a finger at the figure in the other room. "Is there any possibility that she'll inherit his genius, or is she just playing?"

The doctor pointed at an intricate device on the table to his left. "She's already built a continuous wave laser dazzler out of parts scavenged from a disk player and a television, and this morning I took away a device with the potential to be a universal remote control."

"For the laser dazzler?"

The doctor regarded him with narrowed eyes for a moment. "U-ni-ver-sal," he said through a clenched jaw, pausing between each syllable.

"You can't be serious."

Simmons bit back on his frustration. "I sent it down to the lab; you can go see it for yourself. At the very least, it would have been able to control everything in this room."

"I see." The director's eyes narrowed and he chewed on his lower lip for a moment. "Is she aware that she's a prisoner?"

"So far, we've kept her somewhat distracted and unaware that her movements are restricted. I don't believe we can keep the knowledge from her for more than another day at best, more likely a few hours. At that point, I can't predict how she will behave."

"Don't worry, Doc," the director said thoughtfully as he prepared to leave. "By then we'll be able to turn our full attention here and she won't be your problem anymore."

Violet rolled over and shut off the alarm. She'd already been awake for a while; she wasn't sure exactly how long. The bed seemed so much bigger without Chi in it and she had slept fitfully without her the last couple of nights. As she went through her morning routine, she wondered for the umpteenth time over the last two days where the blonde woman was and what she was doing. After the debrief a couple days ago and her subsequent talk with Dicker, she'd come home to an empty house and a note. She glanced over at the refrigerator where it was still held in place by a magnet.

Vi,
Everything is clear now. I know what I have to do.
If everything goes right, we'll be together soon.
If not, I want you to know that the time I spent
with you was the happiest of my life.
Love,
Chi.

It wasn't exactly the most confidence inspiring sentiment. The last part sounded like "goodbye." Violet wondered what the blonde was doing and what would happen if it didn't go right. Was she doing something illegal? Would getting away with it be "everything going right?" If she was doing something illegal, Violet wasn't sure she could force herself to bring her in. If she couldn't, did that make her culpable? An accessory? What would she do if Dicker called her up and told her she had to bring Chi in? She was positive that she could find Chi anywhere. But what then? Would she bring her in, or would the two of them run off together? If they did, would Dicker make her mom and dad come after them? Would they do it, or would they refuse? Could they do that? Maybe they would join them in exile rather than betray their own daughter? Would they all have to live life on the run? What about Dash? Jack? The whole thing was giving her a headache.

When the Incrediphone beeped at her, she was so relieved to have something else to think about she nearly tripped over a chair trying to reach it.

Dicker shut the file, yawned and glanced out the window. It was morning again. With one hand he rubbed the stubble on his cheek absentmindedly. How long since he'd been home? Two days? He grabbed a cup of coffee and a Danish from the break room then headed down to the basement of the Agency building. He took his time, making sure he wasn't observed as he entered the subterranean hallway. The long passage was dimly lit and the monotony of its dingy walls was only emphasized by the dozens of identical doors spaced at regular intervals along its length. He stopped in front of a door no different than any of the others and softly rapped on it with the knuckle of his index finger.

Tat-tatta-tat-tat

The door opened almost immediately and an amused whisper escaped into the hall. "Two bits."

Dicker slipped into the room and shut the door softly behind him. He didn't notice the quiet whir of a camera's lens.

The room was crowded with boxes and ancient computer servers. Rectangular fluorescent light fixtures recessed into the low dropped ceiling provided harsh, flickering light. The inadequate air conditioning system struggled to keep the temperature at just below sweltering. On a rickety, pock-marked folding table against the wall, someone had set up a state of the art laptop station. Dry erase markers and paper plates with half-eaten pastries shared the remaining table space with stacks of used Styrofoam cups. A woman's tailored jacket, crumpled and creased, hung over the back of a beat-up folding chair that was pulled out just far enough from the table that he could make out a pair of designer sling backs carelessly discarded under it. The owner of the jacket and shoes was not immediately in evidence. File folders and loose papers covered every available horizontal surface. Above the table, attached to the wall was a large whiteboard with various papers and photos taped to it and what appeared to be gibberish scribbled into every available space. Circles and lines of many different colors surrounded the gibberish and linked it in patterns of clashing colors that, on first glance, appeared to be completely random; Mirage had been busy since his last visit to check on her. Dicker spent nearly a minute peering at it, but wasn't able to determine a pattern in the chaos on the wall in front of him. One word jumped out at him though: "Brutus." For a moment he was transported back in time.

"This isn't the Roman Empire, Jake, and you sure as hell aren't Caesar!"

"Calm down, Rick. It's just a code word."

"It's not just a code word. It's a brand. Just because someone has a mind of their own, doesn't mean they're a traitor!"

"Isn't 'shave and a haircut' a little stogy even for you, Dicker?"

The sudden emergence of Mirage from behind one of the servers and her mocking comment pulled Rick out of his memory. He gave a little shrug and sniffed. "I like the classics."

She held up a folder with the word "Brutus" stamped on it in large red letters. "There's a lot of that going around." In her other hand she had two pieces of paper. She held them out to him. "Everything boils down to this."

Dicker looked the woman over as he took the proffered pages. After two days stuck in a basement with no A/C, the usually immaculate blonde was showing signs of wear and tear. Her silk blouse was stained with sweat and her designer skirt was creased from days of wear and neglect. Her hair hung limply and looked a little greasy. Dark circles defined her eyes. From the moment she'd stormed into his office two days ago, she'd been working feverishly. First retrieving all of Buddy Pine's files then using her first-hand knowledge of his operation on Nomanisan to cross reference his activities with old agency records. The preliminary results had been chilling.

In the brief time that their eyes met, he could see the fatigue and the pain behind them. She was nearly spent. Most of the food he'd brought her was still sitting on the table and he wondered if she'd slept at all in the last forty hours. He turned his attention to the papers she'd handed him. The top page contained two lists of names of deceased supers. One column was headed by the word that had caught his attention on the white board: "Brutus." The second column was headed with the phrase "Natural causes."

Dicker paused reading about halfway down the second column and looked up at her with a bemused expression. "Getting strangled by having your cape get caught on a rocket is considered 'natural causes?'" he asked.

"It is if you're a superhero with an 80 IQ."

Dicker sniffed reflectively and nodded, conceding the point. "I hope you're not charging me extra for the irony."

Chi shrugged one shoulder. "No, the irony is included. It's sarcasm that I charge extra for." A sardonic smile tugged at her lips. "Which is, I suppose, ironic."

Dicker glanced back and forth between the next page and the white board. His brow furrowed. "You've got 'KRONOS'files cross-referenced with 'Brutus'files on all of these names." He sighed and dropped his chin to his chest, rubbing his forehead with the fingers of his free hand. "I didn't want to believe it," he said, dropping the papers on the nearest flat surface. "Everything Violet said pointed to it. All the data in the MAR report you sent over to my office earlier this week pointed to it, but I didn't want to believe it."

Dicker walked over to the table and faced the whiteboard. He only had eyes for the pattern that had now emerged from the chaos spread out on the wall. "Someone was feeding their names and locations to you." He muttered to himself. "Someone from The Agency was getting rid of the supers they considered unreliable by feeding their names to you. Someone who knew where you were and what you were doing. Someone very high up—"

A quiet sob interrupted his musings. Looking over at her he could see that she was trying to keep her composure, but her part in what had happened was weighing heavily on her mind. She was taking the whole thing personally and he couldn't blame her; she'd been used to accomplish some very nasty dealings.

He tried to reassure her. "It wasn't your fault, you know. You weren't—"

She cut him off with a glare and a snarl. "I was."

"You know what I mean."

She nodded curtly. "And you know what I mean." She tapped her forehead. "It's all up here. I was there. Me." Her thumb jabbed into her chest. "People are dead because of me, because of what I've done. Good people. And you've got no business telling me it that wasn't really me or that I didn't have a choice, because you weren't there. I was. And I did those things. Me. And it doesn't matter to me why I did it, only that I did. So you can keep you little platitudes to yourself because I'm the one who has to live with it."

"You don't have to remember…"

"Don't you dare!" she shouted, backing away from him. "Don't you even think about it! There is no way it'll ever happen!" Her left hand found the back of the folding chair, her knuckles whitened by the strength of her grip. Her right hand fluttered around in front of her warding him off. "I'll kill myself before I let you near me with that thing again!"

"I wasn't the one who—"

"I DON'T CARE!" she screamed, moving behind the chair and holding it between them defensively. "BACK OFF!"

He regarded her carefully. She was on the edge of hysteria and he recognized that he was a symbol of what had been done to her. Deliberately, he spread the fingers of his free hand and took a step back. She relaxed slightly, but still held the chair in front of her, a combination shield and weapon. With exaggerated care, he moved over to the whiteboard. Chi moved to keep the chair between them as he approached. He stood facing the board for several minutes, nothing moving but his eyes. They flicked back and forth across the board, absorbing the information and storing it. Abruptly, he grabbed a dry eraser and started cleaning everything off. He ignored her sounds of protest and spoke without turning. "Please put all the files back where you found them. I'll have a car take you…" This time her sharp intake of breath gave him pause. "No, I don't suppose you'd be comfortable with that right now. Maybe not ever. Call for your own car. Have your own people get you home." He finished erasing the board and turned to face her. "And, Chi, it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep a couple of them around. Just in case."

Dicker helped her restore the files and collect her electronics before he cracked the door and checked the hallway. Before she could slip out, he held up his hand. "I have one more question before you leave." Her eyes narrowed and she regarded him with defiant suspicion. He tried to gesture reassuringly. "I just need to know who your handler was."

"Jacobs." With that, she was out the door before she could see his look of dismay.

Violet arrived at the address her brother had given her over the Incrediphone and looked around wondering if she'd come to the right place. Dash had been frantic when he called, maybe he'd been confused about where he was. She did a quick three-hundred-and-sixty degree sweep before reaching for her phone. The building next to her exploded. She threw up a force shield to protect herself from flying debris. When the dust cleared, she could see her dad standing in the remains of the building's foundation, straining against a massive robot. The thing looked like a tank, but where the gun turret should have been, there were two articulated hydraulic arms ending in massive claws. It looked like the robot was winning. She looked around, frantically. What had caused the explosion? And where were her mom and Dash?

"SPEEDY!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, as she ran toward her dad. A whistling noise alerted her to an attack from behind. She threw out another force shield bubble, and spun around in mid-air to face her attacker. She had just enough time to see a long flexible metal arm sweeping toward her before it made contact with her force shield and sent her flying sideways. She expanded the bubble slightly, and made it as flexible as she dared. She was still spinning and caught only a quick glimpse of her attacker. It was another robot. This one had the same tank-like base, but in place of the articulated claws, there were several metal appendages sprouting from the top of it like Medusa's locks.

"ELASTIGIRL!" Why couldn't her family have picked one syllable names? Her bubble rebounded off a concrete wall. She wasn't ready for the rapid direction reversal and her shoulder smashed into the wall. She bit off an exclamation of pain, then allowed herself a small curse under her breath when she saw that she was headed straight back at the robot. It was winding up for another swing. Violet concentrated on keeping the bubble intact while she faded from view but the robot's sensor array still seemed to be tracking her. She tried not to panic, but realized there was no way the thing was going to miss her unless it thought she was somewhere else. At that moment the robot's sensors jerked upward and the flexible arm continued toward her, but at an angle that put it slightly above her. She watched in confusion as it passed through a flickering image above her head. Something about the image was familiar but before she could figure out what happened, the sensors jerked again and another arm snaked directly toward her.

She dispersed her bubble and planted her feet firmly on the ground, concentrating on a spot several feet in front of her. As the arm rapidly approached, she expanded a force bubble vertically between it and the ground. It deflected the arm upward, but not quite enough. She felt a metal clamp close around her upraised wrist, and she was pulled violently into the air. Fresh pain shot through her already sore shoulder. She clenched her teeth against the pain and concentrated on fading out once more. The robot's sensor array moved in a rapid semi-random search pattern and she breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't thermal, like she had feared. Her thoughts flashed back to the flickering image above her that the robot had swung at a moment ago. Had she done that? It was very difficult to concentrate with the robot swinging wildly around and the sounds of combat coming at her from every angle, but she did her best to imagine an image of herself directly in front of the robot.

She was rewarded with a flickering effigy right where she'd pictured it, and the robot immediately released her and brought two arms to bear on the spot. She lost her concentration when she hit the ground. The pain in her knees was a nice complement to the ache in her shoulder. The hologram disappeared and she reappeared. The robot found her again in almost no time. This time she was ready for the attack and her force bubble held. The snake like arms pummeled impotently against her shield as she carefully regained her feet. She spared some concentration for a quick look around. Her dad had managed to rip one of the claws off of the robot in front of him and was trading blows with it. Her mom and Dash were still nowhere to be seen. She spotted an electrical distribution panel about thirty feet away from her and imagined an in image of herself moving toward it. This time the image was steadier and one of the flexible arms tracked it, stabbing at it ineffectually. When it reached the panel she stopped it and the robot pounced, putting two of its arms through the image and the electrical distribution panel behind it. Electricity coursed through the tank-like thing and it flopped around like a dying fish, emitting blazing showers of sparks and small explosions. Violet headed for her dad.

As she approached him she realized why he was having such a hard time with the robot. Jack-Jack was hiding behind the big man, obviously scared and not sure what to do. Bob was hampered by not being able to maneuver and his worry about letting the boy get hurt. Even unable to move around, her dad was holding his own pretty good. She concentrated and an image of her dad appeared about ten feet to his left. The robot's sensors flicked back and forth between the two images of her dad and it hesitated for a split second. That was all Bob needed. He moved underneath the upraised claw and delivered a disabling blow to the robot's tread mechanism. Violet let the hologram disappear and put a small force bubble around Jack. "I've got him, dad!" she called out. "Finish off the robot!" She let herself become visible so Jack could see here and beckoned him to come to her.

The blow came from her right side without warning and left her breathless on the ground. She looked up at Dash, and then over at the crater where she had just been standing and tried to force out a "thanks" as another tank towered over them. This one was equipped with a crane and wrecking ball. Violet got her breath back and rolled out of the way as the ball fell out of the sky and created another crater where she had just been. She grabbed Dash's arm and dragged him toward Jack.

"How many of these crazy robots are there?" she gasped out, as the three of them took shelter behind a pile of rubble.

"Five, I think," Dash wheezed back, standing up to take a look around.

Violet grabbed his collar and pulled him down. "How can you be out of breath? How long were you fighting these things before you called me? Why is Jack-Jack here and where's Mom? You think there's five?"

"Geez, Vi." He rolled his eyes. "Give a guy a chance, 'kay?"

An explosion and a shout of: "HAH! TAKE THAT!" reached them from the other side of their sheltering debris followed almost immediately by a loud thump and an"OOF!"

"Whatever!" Violet grabbed Dash and pulled him close enough that their noses were touching. "First, I need to know if mom is OK. Second, you need to get Jack somewhere safe. Third, you need to come back here and help. Got it?" She punctuated each point with a little shake.

She must have really got to him because Dash's eyes were as big as saucers as he tried to answer all her questions in one breath, "Mom's-in-Chicago-that's-why-Jack's-here-and-we-thought-there-was-only-one-robot-that's-why-we-didn't-call-you-but-there's-a lot-more-and-Jack-freaked-out-and-I've-been-trying-to-keep-the-other-robots-off-dad's-back-but—"

"STOP!" Vi shouted, cutting him off. Dash jumped a little at her shout but he shut-up and reached for Jack. She put a hand on each of their shoulders. "Jack, you be light, Dash, you be fast."

"M'kay, Vi'let." "You got it, sis."

Violet blanked herself and popped up to look for her dad.

Without his youngest son to worry about, Bob was making up for lost opportunities. He had torn the wrecking ball from the crane robot and was using it like a flail against the other two robots. He had them spaced so that he could alternate blows between the two of them without moving his feet. He had a nice rhythm going, but he didn't see the third one coming up behind him. It might not have its wrecking ball but it was picking up speed to ram him. She created a force bubble underneath the front section and expanded it rapidly. The tank flipped up onto its back with a loud crash and Bob turned around.

"Thanks, sweetie."

"You got it, Dad." She looked around warily. "Is that all of them?"

"I think so," he grunted as he went over to disable the upended tank with a massive blow to its underbelly.

Violet scanned the area and couldn't see any new threats. Her mind raced, going over the brief but intense battle. Did I really…? She concentrated briefly and a shimmering holographic image of Chi's face appeared in the air in front of her. She let it fade and looked over at a piece of broken concrete. If I can make things appear, I wonder if I can… She concentrated again but the block was unaffected. Hmm… She reached out and laid a hand on the block. It shimmered and disappeared. Oh, yeah. It popped back into view when she removed her hand.

"Violet, did I just see you make that rock disappear?"

"That was nothing, Dad," she laughed. "Watch this!"

Chi woke to the scent of freshly cooked bacon. It made her happy on two levels. First, she was going to be able to eat bacon soon. And, while that was enough to make anyone happy, it also meant that Violet was home. She glanced out the window and saw the rising sun. She tried to remember what time it had been when she got home, mid-morning at least, possibly noon. Had she slept all day and night? Violet hadn't been home when she got back from The Agency. There'd been a mess in the kitchen; the girl had obviously left in a hurry. Something one of her security men said on the way home percolated up from the back of her mind; something about giant killer robots destroying the cannery. That's probably where Vi had been. Why she wouldn't have been worried about her being gone. She'd been so tired. She remembered being very angry at her body guard who had insisted she eat something after her shower. A bagel. She didn't remember going to bed.

Chi made her way into the bathroom. Hydraulic pressure dictated a slight delay in her quest to find out if the aromatic promise of bacon would actually be fulfilled. Her robe was hanging near the shower and as she reached for it, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Oh, God! She stood there for a moment torn between the desire to make herself presentable and her desire to eat bacon. She obviously hadn't dried her hair before climbing in bed and it was a tangled mess. The bags under her eyes were huge and her cheeks were sunken into her face. How much weight could a person lose in two days? Her stomach voted for eating bacon over making presentable loudly and quite clearly. Trying to pull her fingers through the snarled mass of her hair, she headed off to the kitchen to follow the promise of bacon.

"Perfect timing" Violet said as she walked into the kitchen. "I was just about to come wake you up."

"How long was I out?"

"More than eighteen hours." Violet slid the plate of eggs, toast and bacon across the table to her and poured her a cup of coffee. "You must be famished. Uncle Rick said you worked two days straight through without sleeping or eating, as far as he could tell."

Chi paused with the fork about halfway to her mouth. "About that, Vi, I have to tell you—"

"What you have to do right now is eat."

"But—"

"Eat."

"…"

"Eat!"

"Yes, Mommy," she grumbled, but took a bite before Violet could yell at her again.

Halfway through her second plate, she slowed down enough to take a breath and a sip of coffee. She glanced up at Violet but the girl seemed absorbed in a crossword puzzle.

"Vi?"

"Hmm?"

"Did Dicker tell you what we were working on?"

Violet waved one hand dismissively, "Something about Syndrome and the records from when you were on the island with him." She cocked her head and looked up at the ceiling. "He was actually pretty excited," Violet grimaced and shrugged a shoulder, "well as excited as he ever gets anyway." She paused to fill in another crossword clue before looking back at Chi. "He did say that he was a lot closer to knowing exactly what happened to you."

Chi's food felt like a rock in her stomach. Her mouth went dry. Violet was sitting across from her acting like this was all good news. Didn't she know? Hadn't she been paying attention? Didn't she know what kind of monster she was eating breakfast with? She didn't know. And when she found out… Chi panicked. Violet had to go before she found out.

"You have to go." She recognized her own voice, but it was coming from far away.

"What?"

"You have to go." It was her voice and she didn't really want to say it, but it was true.

"I don't have to go anywhere, Chi." Violet stood, a concerned expression on her face. "You could probably use some more sl—"

"YOU HAVE TO GO!" Violet's arms were around her. She tried to push her away, but it was like pushing a wall. She gave up and sobbed, "I'm a horrible person."

"No you aren't."

"Yes I am! You don't know what I've done! You don't know I'm—"

"I know what was done to you."

"What I did." She strained backward trying to break free.

"I know what you did." Violet held her shoulders in an iron grip refusing to let her get too far away.

Chi opened her eyes and gazed into Violet's. There was no hesitation in them, no hedging; only love and concern.

"Oh, Vi…" All Chi had to do was relax slightly and their lips met, softly at first, but with a growing urgency.

It felt so wonderful that she didn't want it to stop, but her guilt wouldn't leave her alone. "No…" she whispered, pulling away slightly.

"Chi…?" Violet's voice came from far away.

"I want to but…" Tears streamed down her face. "I've done so much. I've hurt so many people." She sobbed and tried to pull away but Violet held her firmly. "I'm not worth it, Vi. How can you love me?" She stopped trying to pull free and buried her face in Violet's shoulder. "I want you… I want to be with you… but I'm… I… don't deserve this. I don't deserve you."

Violet rocked her gently from side to side. "What happened to you is just that, Chi. It's what happened to you and you certainly didn't deserve that. But that doesn't mean you don't deserve to be loved." Violet's hand stroked her hair. "Never think you don't deserve to be loved, Chi, because I love you." Violet's fingers brushed her cheek softly. "I know all about your past. What's been done to you and, yes, what you've done," she kissed Chi tenderly on the forehead, "and, Chi…" Violet clutched the trembling blonde even tighter. "I love you." Violet's whispered assurance poured into her and covered her like a soft blanket.

"But…?"

Violet's mouth covered hers in a soft kiss. "Let me love you, Chi."

Chi surrendered herself to Violet's embrace and the promise it held and, for the first time, she believed.

Violet ended their tender kiss and cupped Chi's cheek with her hand. "You're crying." She whispered.

"I'm happy." Chi whispered in return, and no more words were necessary.

Joe Bartel had no idea what he was going to say. He put off the inevitable by ducking into the break room for a cup of coffee. Despite the director's insistence and explanations, he didn't understand how the McKeen family posed a serious threat to The Agency's mission. He'd spent eleven hours with them on a trans-Atlantic flight. If they were aware of what was going on, they were masters of deception. For that matter, how could a middle-aged couple and their crazy daughter pose a threat to anyone? Supposedly, the girl had been hypnotized and indoctrinated by Buddy Pine during the 'Syndrome Incident.' But that incident had happened nearly five years ago. Why would it take until now to affect her?

The idea of Dicker working with Mirage to bring back Syndrome made even less sense. The evidence the director had shown him all pointed to it but where was the motivation? Why would he do it? The Agency was Dicker's whole life. Hell, in many ways, Dicker was The Agency. There was hard evidence like the video of Dicker sneaking Mirage into a restricted records room and the worm programs introduced into the MAR system at the same time the ChiMera hardware upgrades went on-line last year, but where was the soft evidence? Where was the motive? Where was the emotion? Only psychopaths did things without a recognizable motive. Dicker was a lot of things; psychopath was not among them. The director had implied that Mirage seduced Dicker but Joe couldn't see it. There had to be something else going on.

He poured his untouched coffee into the sink and filled the cup again. If the girl was such a threat why move her? She wasn't in the secure wing anymore. She wasn't in the hospital wing either. Joe looked down at his coffee and knew he was just procrastinating. He might be confused about what was going on and who was responsible but his duty and his orders were crystal clear. He couldn't put it off any longer. He had to go arrest Dicker.

In a nondescript warehouse near the marina, Syndrome wandered through the debris of the killer robots in a seemingly random fashion, occasionally stopping to ask the attending agent a question.

"What happened to them?"

"Mr. Incredible destroyed them."

The name raised some interesting feelings but they were put aside; right now satisfying curiosity was more important than anything else. A particular circuit board caught Syndrome's attention.

"This looks like an adaptive programming reallocation module."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm just a grunt."

The concept was very interesting. The robots would have been able to carry out their tasks under hundreds of different conditions. Of course they wouldn't have been really independent; they would have been, in effect, carrying out variations on a theme. Not like… there was a memory there, but it was elusive and curiosity about the robots won out again. With a couple of tweaks, the circuitry could support true adaptive learning. With that kind of flexibility and learning potential, the robot could make its programmer equal to anyone or anything. Mr. Incredible and the interesting feelingscame to mind once more.

"Are there any tools in here?"

"Right over there."

Next Time: The Puppet Master

Author's Note: This chapter ran quite long and I considered breaking it into two parts, but I didn't. I'd like to thank my beta readers (King in Yellow, audi katia, mewpainappuru, otherrealmwriter and kittyore9) for their help in making sure that it flowed well despite the length and for keeping me pointed in the right direction.