Balancing The Scales - Part 9
by MMB

Jarod could hear the purring sound of the motor as Sam pulled the car into Sydney's driveway, and he came out the front door to meet his guests. He frowned when the only Centre sweeper he saw climbing out of the car was Sam. "Where's Willy?" he asked, concerned.

Sam's big smile quickly put him at ease, and he chuckled when the burly sweeper jerked his head toward the back of the car. "In the trunk. I figured Miss Parker would probably prefer that the man be... shall we say... incapacitated when he's anywhere near someone she cares for."

"Unarmed is good," Jarod commented with a smirk, "unconscious is even better." He turned to peer at the people still seated in the back of the car. "Our rescuees?"

Sam opened one back door, and the younger man immediately clambered out, followed by his far more cautious mentor. "This is Dr. Vernon Grey," the sweeper pointed to the older man. "And this is..."

"Shadow," Jarod grinned ear to ear and stuck out his hand. "Guess you didn't need quite as much patience as I thought you would, eh?"

The sandy-haired man blinked a couple of times, then began to smile in delight as he put out his hand in an unfamiliar gesture. "You're Prodigy." He felt the firmness and steady nature of the man's grip, and realized the gesture was a means of physical introduction that could communicate many things without words. "And this is a hand-shake."

"The name's Jarod, and it's kinda neat, isn't it?" Jarod remembered his first hand-shake, and how intrigued he'd been by a very practical application of non-verbal communication. "Welcome to freedom."

"I'm Kevin," the younger Pretender responded, then looked about him at the spacious lawn and street that stretched into the distance. "You mean, nobody can tell me..." He looked back at his mentor with a combination of hesitation and elation.

The mentor's eyes had bulged the moment the dark-haired stranger had mentioned his name. Few in the Psychogenics Department DIDN'T know the name of the Centre's prized Pretender, long gone these ten - twelve years. The face of the missing Pretender had been a weekly hand-out for years, so even the features of the man's face were easily called to mind - and only now were perceivable as carefully hidden behind glasses and beneath a silver-flecked beard. "My God..."

Jarod carefully pulled Kevin a few steps away from Vernon, and then looked over at Sam. "We're not going to be staying here, Sam. It's too close to the Centre for them, too close to US for us. You and Dr. Grey here can follow Kevin and me over to a place I've used as a lair more often than you'll want to admit."

"You had a lair HERE, in Blue Cove?" Sam's mouth hung open.

Jarod ignored the sweeper's obvious dismay and decided not to rub in the commentary on the hunting skills of Centre personnel the lair's existence implied. "Syd reminded me about it - I'd forgotten about it completely, to be honest - and it's a good place to take them, and to keep Willy on ice for a while too. All of 'em can be safe there while the rest of the house of cards comes tumbling down. We just need to wait for..." The sound of a car motor came closer, and Jarod peered down the street at the approaching vehicle. "Ah. There she is..."

"She?!" Kevin's head swiveled on his neck so fast it made him dizzy.

Jarod glanced at the younger and much less worldly version of himself understandingly. "Yeah, Kevin. A girl. Female of the species." They watched the little hatchback pull into the driveway next to Sam's big tank of a town car and sputter into silence, and then the slender girl climbed out. "This is Debbie Broots," Jarod introduced the young man with a grin. "Debbie, I'd like you to meet Kevin."

"Hi!" Debbie gave Kevin a cheery and informal wave and a smile, then turned to Jarod without noticing how suddenly intensely focused the young man had become at her very nearness. "Hi again, Uncle Jarod. How's Grandpa Sydney doing tonight?"

"I changed the dressings and gave him some more pain meds. He should be out like a light by now, and down for the count for the rest of the night. Thanks for coming back to spend the night," He pulled the girl to him for a quick hug. "I owe you huge for this."

She put her arm around the Pretender's waist and gave a quick responsive hug in return. "You just get me to college on time so I don't miss a term, and we'll call it even, OK?" she smirked back at him. "You have a week and a half yet..."

"You just hang in there," Jarod replied, letting her go. "The way things are going lately, you may make it yet." He jerked his nose in the direction of the house. "You'd better get in, though."

"OK, and thanks for giving me a break before dinner," she agreed easily. She put out her hand to the handsome young man Jarod had introduced her to. "Nice to meet you, Kevin. Maybe, since you're a friend of Jarod's, I'll see you around sometime?"

The younger Pretender slowly put his hand out and somehow managed to smile at the girl as he felt the softness of her hand and yet how steady its grip was in his own. "I... I... Yeah... I'd like that..." he stammered.

Debbie's soft, friendly and slightly confused smile was almost the young man's undoing. He had to feel her gently tug on her hand before he could remember to loosen his fingers to let her go. She retrieved her hand back, then with a tip of her head that indicated her continued interest, she widened her smile momentarily, then nodded silently in the direction of the older stranger who hadn't been introduced - Kevin's father? - and then shot a glance at Jarod before turning and trotting up to the house.

"She's... your niece?" Kevin stammered, turning a wide-eyed gaze on an older version of himself.

Jarod smiled. "Only in the very loosest of senses. Family ties for us around here are..." he struggled for an apt description, "...a bit untraditional." He heard Sam's muted snort of derisive amusement and decided not to try for more. "OK," he shook himself to action. "Now that she's taking over here, we can move. You come with me, and Vernon and Sam will follow us."

Kevin glanced over his shoulder at Vernon with almost a sense of triumph at an even greater separation, and saw how the burly man who had so unceremoniously rousted them from the only home he'd ever known put a heavy hand on his mentor's shoulder to get him to move. "Sounds good to me," the young Pretender nodded, testing the waters of freedom. "It'll be the first time I've gone anywhere, much less anywhere without Vernon."

"I remember feeling like that," Jarod said softly, signaling to his young comrade to join him in walking over to his sports car. "Everything out here is just so... different... from what I'd ever imagined it to be. It's neat and scary, all at the same time, at first."

"Yeah." Kevin studied the mechanism on the car door, then slipped into the seat next to Jarod. He watched carefully as the older man fastened his seat belt, and then followed suit figuring there must be a good reason for the belts. "Will we get to see CJ soon too?" he asked excitedly as Jarod turned the key and the powerful car roared to life. "I've been looking forward to meeting him at last, ever since you told me freedom was coming this Thursday."

Jarod's movements halted, his hands on the steering wheel, and he bowed his head for a moment. "No." The Pretender's voice was flat and emotionless. It took him a moment to gather his wits after the unexpected question, and then he looked over at the younger Pretender apologetically. "I'm sorry, Kevin. I have some bad news for you. CJ... his real name was Angelo, by the way... died... today."

"No..." Kevin felt his breath catch and his chest grow tight just at the thought that he would never get to meet in the flesh the friend through whose efforts he had finally been pried free of that oppressive house. "H... how?"

Jarod manipulated the clutch and put the car in gear and started them moving slowly and smoothly. "It's complicated," he hedged carefully. "But the nutshell version is that he was shot yesterday trying to protect Sam and Sydney... the man who owns the house we were just at... while they were getting something important out of the Centre. He died today while warning M... another friend that your life was in danger. He was half the reason Sam came to get you this afternoon rather than us following our plan to pick you up in the dirty laundry tomorrow night."

"CJ... Angelo... he was my first outside friend." Kevin's voice had a small and lost tone to it that tugged hard on Jarod's heartstrings. "I don't know anybody else out here..."

"Angelo had been a friend of mine for almost as long as I can remember," Jarod responded, having to work hard to keep his voice steady. "He was very special. You were lucky to have found him."

"He found me, really," Kevin corrected, leaning his head against his door window and finding his sorrow enough to prevent him from fully enjoying the scenery moving past him. "What am I gonna do..."

Jarod's hand left the steering wheel and landed firmly on the younger man's shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to start out your new life with this," he said compassionately, "but believe me, you're not without friends out here. You were Angelo's friend - and you're a Pretender, like me - that makes us connected in many ways. You won't be alone. Trust me."

Kevin turned and studied the face of the man next to him. "What about Vernon? What's going to happen to him now?"

Jarod glanced at his young friend. "Worried about him?"

Shadow shook his head. "Not really. We've never really gotten along very well. He was always just this authority figure who never seemed to like me for ME, never answered any of my questions, never..." He paused. "I think I know more about you in the little time I've known you than I know about him. He was always just a face above a clipboard, with a new set of directions and sim parameters, and orders he expected me to obey without question or do without food. I was a job to him, a specimen to put under a microscope - not a real person."

Jarod frowned. Sydney may not have been emotionally sustaining in an open sense as a surrogate father would have been, but it was rapidly becoming apparent that he had still managed somehow to communicate his deep caring despite the façade of objective scientific inquiry. Jarod had never questioned that the caring was there - only the reasons it had never been openly expressed for so long. He found it difficult to picture life locked away doing sims day after day without the comfort that subtle caring, however unspoken. "Didn't you have any other friends there at the house you grew up in?" Jarod inquired, now worried about the younger man's emotional health after all that isolation.

"Sometimes, when Vernon would be sick or leave early, the research assistants and I would sit around and play cards," Kevin admitted in a stage whisper that indicated what a breach of protocol such an activity must have been. "I got pretty good with Rummy and Poker after a while. And the cook would sometimes come down and talk to me about his family when he and his wife had had a fight." The young man sighed. "But mostly I just read the books that Vernon gave me to prepare for sims or one of the others would smuggle in to me. Lance, the cook, even smuggled in a Bible to me once - but Vernon found that one and took it away. I like the "Bullfinch's Mythology" better anyway, though..."

"You're going to discover that life here on the outside doesn't go the same way the books do all the time," Jarod warned gently. "Actually, Real Life out here is a heckuva lot more complicated and hard on a person than anything you've ever read."

"How'd you get used to being on the outside?" Kevin asked hesitantly.

Jarod shrugged. "You have to understand. In some ways, my upbringing prepared me better for social interaction than yours did - but the downside was that the people in charge of me did a lot of really horrible things to me that you didn't go through, thank God. And even the personality of our mentors was apparently different. I knew Sydney cared back then, even if he didn't say it. And he still cares today - and now he's not afraid to say it."

"Vernon doesn't care, except for sim results and efficiency reports - never did."

Jarod didn't reply, but steered the car around another corner and onto a back street, making sure Sam made the same turn behind him. The lights were already lit illuminating the piled and tumbled contents of the Blue Cove auto wrecking yard, in front of which Jarod pulled his sports car to a halt. "Well, such as it is..." he commented, pulling the key ring free of the ignition and climbing out of the car to unlock the chain that held the gate closed and push the gates to open inward.

"You... LIVED... here?" Kevin gaped in dismay.

"Among other, even less fancy, places," the older Pretender admitted, putting the car back in gear and driving slowly and carefully into the yard and down first one narrow lane between piled cars and then another, heading constantly toward the center of the yard. "I lived on the run for five years. When you're on the run, you don't have the luxury of being picky all the time. Besides," and now Jarod turned to his younger companion with a truly mischievous grin on his face, "where else could I have access to all these neat tools without causing comment, eh?"

The sports car pulled to a halt in front of a rather sprawling metal building that served as office and garage to the yard. Jarod led Kevin over to a side door, then waited for Sam and Vernon to join them before inserting another key and opening the door to an unexpectedly open and well-maintained living quarters.

Sam whistled as he looked around. "Living in style in the midst of squallor. Jarod, I gotta hand it to you - no wonder we could never catch up to you."

"I'll have to go to the store and stock you up," Jarod admitted, opening the refrigerator door to show that the appliance was completely empty, then opening cupboard doors to show that they were not much better. "Kevin can come with me - it'll give him just a bit of guided interaction in public as an introduction to his new life."

"Now wait here, just a moment," Vernon declared as he stepped forward. "All this is going to horribly distract Kevin - he'll never be able to do sims with the same level of objecti..." The psychiatrist's words died when he saw the hard looks of rejection and outright dismay on the three faces looking at him. He backpedaled slightly. "I mean, when all this crisis is over, how do you expect him to be able to..."

"You still don't get it, do you." Jarod's question wasn't a question. He stepped closer to the mentor, noting the sallow complexion and expressionless gaze of hazel eyes that had stayed for too long doing the Centre's bidding without any question at all. This man was Sydney the scientist, but without his soul or sense of ethics. Sydney had gone through a personal Hell of being torn between having Jarod returned to the Centre and quietly aiding or abetting his continued freedom, where this man had no concept of the injustice he'd been perpetuating or suggesting be resumed post-haste. Jarod's appreciation of just how lucky he HAD been to have the mentor he'd had increased geometrically.

"Kevin isn't going back to doing sims for the rest of his life. The Centre canceled your meal ticket, Doctor. You're out of a job - and damned lucky to have your life right now. 'When this crisis is over,' as you so aptly put it, Kevin is going to be free to make his own way in the world - with all the help he'll need to make a go of it too. As for you..." The Pretender shrugged nonchalantly. "I would imagine the Triumverate will be the ones responsible for whatever happens to you."

Finally expression found its way into those dead hazel eyes - fear. "You wouldn't..."

"You said we had to go shopping?" Kevin interrupted his former mentor with a deliberate and outright rudeness that Jarod understood too well to want to correct.

Jarod nodded at the younger man and turned to Sam. "You gonna need help unpacking Willy?"

"Just find me a nice, fresh roll of duct tape and I'll be fine," the ex-wrestler answered confidently. "Me and Vernon can make small talk while you two do your thing."

With a guffaw at the thought of how Willy was going to feel waking up all trussed up like a piece of leaky plumbing, Jarod slipped through the door between the living quarters and the garage and was just as quickly back with the requested roll of duct tape. "I'll stick around until you have him secured," Jarod announced after taking another look at the face of the unhappy mentor, "and we'll leave then."

Sam took the duct tape from Jarod and walked out the door and back to the car to secure Willy before bringing him in. Vernon moved about the open space of the living quarters nervously, peering out first one window after another before finally finding a place on the end of one long couch to sit himself down and pull himself into an uncommunicative ball.

Kevin stood close to Jarod and watched his formerly composed and in-control mentor's nervous pacing and then withdrawal, comparing it to the confident and assured way the older Pretender was behaving. "I've never seen him this way," the younger man commented in wonder.

"You've never seen him out of control of the situation," Jarod informed him pointedly. "I've seen many men like him - assertive and bullies when in charge of things, then either cowards or withdrawn when their control is taken away." He would have said more, but Sam chose that moment to come back through the side door with Willy thrown casually over one shoulder.

He dragged out a straight chair from the small table and helped Sam settle a rather limp Willy into a seated position. Then Sam went to work with the duct tape again, fastening each hand straight down to the leg of the chair nearest it, and each foot to the leg nearest it. Then with several extra wrappings, Willy had become a part of the chair. Sam straightened and surveyed his work with satisfaction, then turned to Jarod. "That should hold him for a while, at any rate. I think I can handle things here for a while."

The Pretender summoned the sweeper closer. "Keep an eye on the mentor. I don't think he can be trusted a whole lot more than Willy there."

"Gotcha." Sam looked over his shoulder at the man on the couch. "You can count on me."

"C'mon, Kevin, let's go get us some decent food," Jarod suggested, and wasn't surprised in the least to find the younger man eager to leave his mentor behind and go on what would be, to him, another adventure.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Debbie peeked her head in around the corner of the door to Sydney's bedroom, just to make sure for herself that the older man was resting comfortably. Although obviously not in any pain, Sydney was apparently defying Jarod's prediction and was still awake. "Hey!" she said softly, coming more fully into the room. "I thought you were supposed to be asleep."

"I've been sleeping all day," Sydney grumbled good-naturedly, knowing it wasn't Debbie's fault that he was laid up. He shifted carefully on the bed so as not to make his side twinge despite the medication and then patted the edge of the bed next to him. "Come. Talk to me a bit."

The young girl approached the bed and then sat where he indicated. Her brow furrowed in worry. For the past few years of her life, this man had been a very important part of her life, taking the place of grandparents she had never had the chance to know. As she and her dad had become close to Miss Parker, to help her out after her accident, she had had the added benefit of getting closer to Sydney and gaining the kind of indulgent and spoiling affection of a respected elder person she'd never known before. She loved him dearly and was very worried that he was laying here pale and drawn - from gunshot wounds, of all things!

"How are you, really, Grandpa?" she asked hesitantly, her worry obvious in her voice and her sky-blue eyes deeply concerned.

"I'll survive, ma petite," Sydney smiled up at her, then reached up a comforting hand to her. "Don't you worry about me now. Is Jarod gone?"

Debbie nodded. "Sam was here when I got back, and he had a couple of people I'd never met before with him. Jarod introduced me to Kevin."

"So you met Kevin, did you?" Sydney smiled up at her, very interested. "What did you think of him, this Kevin?"

Debbie's smile got a little embarrassed and flustered. "He's really CUTE, Grandpa! Who is he?"

"Cute, you say?" Sydney avoided the question deftly. "How did he act? Shy? Bold? Smart? Dumb as a brick..."

"Grandpa..." Debbie complained gently. "Geez! I only got to see him for a minute or so. He was a little shy... seemed OK, I guess..."

"Am I going to have to tell your Dad that he has a new hazard on his horizon?"

"GRANDPA!" Debbie was outraged until she saw that he was only teasing her, and then she was flooded with a sense of relief. She and her Grandpa had been verbally sparring since she'd been old enough to begin defending herself effectively, and she had been worried that that part of their relationship was going to have to go by the boards now, so close to when she was going to be leaving. "You're picking on me. Not fair - you're hurt and I can't pick back."

"Oh, you can pick on me anytime, cheri. Just make it verbal, not your regular slug on the shoulder, OK?"

The girl smoothed some of the greying hair back into place. "Anything I can get you?"

"Now that you mention it," Sydney replied, giving her an assessing look. "I have a book of poetry sitting on my dresser that I wouldn't mind having with me here." He pointed. "There - 'The Essential Rumi'."

"Do you need your glasses too?" Debbie inquired as she returned to his side, the book in her hand.

"You know what I'd really like, cheri?" Sydney asked gently. "I'd really appreciate it if you could just read a bit of it to me, to help me to sleep."

"OK," she replied, a little intrigued by the strange request yet remembering how she'd loved it when her Dad had read her bedtime stories right after she came to live with him. Maybe the pleasure didn't go away simply because a person grew up after all. "Where do you want me to start?" She opened the book at the bookmark and showed it to him.

"Start there," he pointed, "'A Just-Finishing Candle'," then settled himself down into his pillow and closed his eyes to listen with his soul as well as his ears.

Debbie looked at him skeptically for a moment, then began to read:

"A candle is made to become entirely flame.
In that annihilating moment
it has no shadow.

"It is nothing but a tongue of light
describing a refuge.

"Look at this
just-finishing candle stub
as someone who is finally safe
from virtue and vice,
the pride and the shame
we claim from those.

"I've said before that every craftsman
searches for what's not there
to practice his craft.

"A builder looks for the rotten hole
where the roof caved in. A water carrier
picks up the empty pot. A carpenter
stops at the house with no door."

Debbie looked down at Sydney, noting that a tear had slipped from beneath one closed eyelid and was rolling slowly down the side of his face. "Grandpa? Are you..."

"I'm alright, Debbie. Keep reading. Please."

She sighed, suddenly realizing there was more going on here than just getting read to, and found herself willing to do just about anything to ease the pain her grandfather was obviously going through - pain that evidently had nothing to do with his wounds. She looked down into the book and continued:

"Workers rush toward some hint
of emptiness, which they then
start to fill. Their hope, though,
is for emptiness, so don't think
you must avoid it. It contains
what you need!"

"Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting your net
into it, and waiting so patiently?

"This invisible ocean has given you such abundance,
But still you call it "death,"
That which provides you sustenance and work.

"God has allowed some magical reversal to occur,
so that you see the scorpion pit
as an object of desire,
and all the beautiful expanse around it
as dangerous and swarming with snakes.

"This is how strange your fear of death
and emptiness is, and how perverse
the attachment to what you want." *

She looked over again at her beloved grandfather and saw his breathing had evened out, despite the continued flow of sorrow from beneath sealed eyelids. "Grandpa?" she whispered, this time with no response.

Quietly, she replaced the bookmark where she'd stopped, then put the book on the nightstand where Sydney would be able to retrieve it easily for himself. She rose, straightened the covers over the sleeping man, extinguished the lamp next to the bed, and made her way silently from the room.

As Sydney heard the door close behind the girl finally, he drew a long and painful sigh as the rebellious tears flowed just a bit harder from his eyes. The time he had spent with Jarod after his former protégé had brought him the news of Angelo's death had been spent more in preparing himself to help Miss Parker deal with her grief at the loss of her twin than anything else. His own despair he had folded very carefully and locked away until later.

And just now, he hadn't wanted to show Debbie how deeply he was grieving, but had wanted very much to hear the words of the poet so as to frame his grief once she was gone and he could be alone with the silence. "Ah, Angelo! God's speed!" he whispered into the night's darkness, wishing he could roll over and curl up without doing himself another injury.

And, at long last, he allowed himself to cry.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Kevin turned his eyes away from the flickering screen of the television, as entertaining and intriguing as it had been for the past few hours, and looked over at his fellow Pretender. Jarod seemed to understand him like nobody ever had in his life - down to the most subtle nuance of emotion at his first taste of ice cream. The trip to the market in Blue Cove had been a true adventure, and Kevin could still get himself excited at the idea of being free to mix with all those people without anybody to say him nay. After eighteen years cooped up in the same house, this freedom was a far headier experience than he'd ever been able to imagine in his wildest dreams.

Now, with a tasty dinner of hamburgers and chips filling empty stomachs, Jarod had set up his laptop at the table, plugged in the modem and had been madly typing for the better part of an hour while his young friend experienced his first immersion in popular culture. The young pretender gave a cursory glance at Vernon, sprawled and snoring on the wide bed, then at Willy, wild-eyed and furious but silent in his prison chair. He then glanced at Sam, who sat back against the wall near the door with a watchful eye moving steadily and constantly about the room. Finally he rose and sauntered over to Jarod's side and peeked over his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"Something that can finally be finished now," Jarod replied cryptically. The older Pretender glanced up at his younger counterpart. "The Centre has some skeletons in some deep, dark closets that are going to be coming to light to the right people. And, as the result, there will be some significant changes at the Centre itself. I'm just shining the light where it needs to be."

Kevin read part of what Jarod was manipulating. "Those are transcripts of some of the sims I've been running lately for the government!"

"For the government?!" Jarod's fingers ceased their incessant typing, and the older Pretender turned to stare at his young comrade. "No way! Then again..." He turned back and opened a new window and opened another, completely different document. "Here. See what was done WITH your sims."

Kevin bent over Jarod's shoulder and started reading, and his forehead slowly became more and more creased in concern and anger. "Who are these Tanakas?" he asked half-way through the document.

"They are the head of one of the more powerful crime syndicates in Japan, known as Yakuza."

"And... what is 'crack'?"

"A form of cocaine - a drug sold on the street to addicts at a huge profit."

"So, let me get this straight..." Kevin stepped back and mused when he'd finished reading. "When I was simming bringing in a shipment of armaments for freedom-fighters around the military might of the dictator, I was really helping this... Yakuza... bring drugs into the country around the police?"

"Yup." Jarod closed the window and continued with his typing. "Most of your sims over the past few years have been directly linked to Yakuza drug and gun trafficking, both here in the States and over in Japan. The Centre sold your sims to criminals, who then used the information to hurt any number of people."

Kevin's gaze landed on Vernon's sleeping form on the bed. "Did he know?"

"I doubt it," Jarod had to concede. "Until he had the evidence thrown in HIS face, Sydney had had no idea what the Centre was doing with my sims either."

"So what is it you're doing, exactly?"

Jarod sighed. "In the first place, the Pretender Project, of which you are a part, was SUPPOSED to have been closed down completely about seven years ago. That you were still kept and still kept churning out sim after sim will be seriously distressing to the folks who hold the financial control of the Centre - because the patent illegality of involuntary servitude, if brought to public attention, would be VERY hard on their bottom line. Then there's the question of all the illegal activity that was being deliberately aided and abetted otherwise - the kind of research being conducted by you and the reports being sold to Japan as well as other, even less ethical endeavors. The Triumverate is very sensitive to anything that would impact the stockholders negatively."

"So these people won't be happy to hear anything of what has been going on, huh?" Kevin was beginning to get the idea.

"Nope. Not at all. I've been slowly feeding them bits and snippets in order to unbalance things at the Centre - make them wonder what is known and how the Triumverate found out about it - while trying to get certain people clear of any repercussions. You were one, Angelo was another - so with Angelo gone now and you in the clear, I can finish with a single bulk uploading of all the incriminating information to the Triumverate mainframe - and then all we have to do then is sit back and watch the fireworks."

"AH!" Kevin nodded with sudden revelation. "THAT'S what you were talking about with Vernon - you intend to turn him over to this... this... Triumverate as a living, breathing witness to all of this." Jarod nodded, keeping the better part of his attention on his typing. "What about me, though?"

The older Pretender paused again and looked up. "What about you?"

"Are you going to turn ME over to this... Triumverate... too?"

"Do you want us to?"

"NO!" Kevin's answer was explosive enough to rouse Vernon momentarily, and bring Sam's full attention to the two men at the table. Kevin brought his voice down again. "I want to be free, Jarod! I... I don't even know what it means - and I'd like to."

"I can understand that - I've been where you are, just finally safely outside Centre control, looking around and wondering where to go and what to do next." Kevin nodded - that was exactly how he felt. Jarod tipped his head. "Do you remember your mom and dad?"

The younger Pretender shook his head slowly. "For a long time, I never even knew I had parents. I thought I'd always been in that house."

"Well," Jarod turned back to his typing, "maybe you'll want to spend some time finding out just who YOU are, and see if you can find them."

"And if I can't find my parents?"

The fingers on the keyboard hesitated. "Then you'll have to decide who you WANT to be, and start working toward that."

"Is that what you did?" Kevin's question was wistful.

Jarod looked up at the young man again. "I found my family, after I'd been on the run and tripped over one or another of them those first five years. Then I decided what I wanted to make of my life after I was finally free of the Centre, and I did what I had to to make it as I wanted it." His chocolate eyes seemed to bore holes into the depths of Kevin's soul. "If I can do it, so can you."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The chirping noise took a while to penetrate Jarod's consciousness. Roused but not in any mood to actually BE awake, he muttered, "Cripes! It's not even daylight," to nobody in particular as he shrugged away the blanket he'd pulled over himself when he settled down into the easy chair to sleep. He then made his way clumsily in the dawn's semi-darkness to the kitchen table and his cell phone. "What?" he demanded sleepily.

"Daddy! They came and took Mommy away!"

"Davy?!" He came awake immediately. "Who took her? When?"

His son was crying. "They just busted in through the front door and grabbed her out of bed! She was mad - yelling - and I think one of them hit her, because she suddenly got real quiet... Daddy, I'm scared..."

Jarod was up and moving, shaking Sam awake in his easy chair. "Davy says somebody just grabbed Parker from her house - slugged her to make her shut up - how much do you want to bet it was..."

"...Raines," Sam finished for him grimly.

"Daddy..." came the plaintive voice from the cell phone.

"Hang on there, Davy. I'll be there to pick you up in just a few minutes. Before I get there, I need you to go stuff your school backpack with some underclothes and clean clothes for yourself - as much as you can stick in it - and then wait for me by the door."

"OK, Daddy... Can I wait under my bed, though... Maybe the bad men will come back..."

"OK, Davy, under the bed is fine. You go pack now, and I'll see you in just a few." Jarod disconnected the phone and turned to the sweeper standing at his elbow. "Call Debbie and get Sydney roused and up. You need to head for White Cloud NOW!" He glanced over at the bed, where a sleepy Kevin was halfway sitting up in bed, peering at them with curious and still half-dazed eyes. "Take Kevin with you over to Sydney's - I'll meet you there with Davy. Then you get Davy, Deb, Kevin and Syd out of harm's way. Got it?"

"Wait a minute..." came from the bed, and Kevin rolled himself to his feet.

"Not now, Kevin," Jarod cautioned with grim emphasis. "I have to go get my son. We'll discuss things at Sydney's."

Sam jerked his head in the direction of Willy. "What about him - and the mentor?"

Jarod paused on his way out the door at the good question. "Handcuff Grey to the bed. That should make it OK to leave them unattended until I can get back."

"Be careful, Jarod," Sam called out as the side door swung open.

"You too, Sam. See you in a bit."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Miss Parker was furious, and she wasn't being shy about letting everybody around know it. But a roundhouse blow to her chin at the house and the fact that the two sweepers were holding her arm in such a way that if she tried to struggle she risked breaking it were, at the moment, holding her in check. She was far from surprised when, after being dragged into the Centre via the back entrance even though it was too early in the morning for her treatment to earn any notice, the sweepers thrust her into the Tower elevator.

This was Raines' doing - she was certain of it! She tested the limits of the sweepers' current hold on her as she worried about Davy, left alone and probably scared half to death after watching her be hauled so unceremoniously away. Then the quick lift on her arm to the point of almost breaking it could justify the worried whimper. There was no way in Hell that these goons were going to know that she was beaten.

Yup. She was right. The sweepers made clear tracks from the elevator door down the short hallway of the top floor of the Tower to the Chairman's office, pulled open the frosted glass doors and dragged her into Raines' office. The ghoul was seated at the desk, but looked as though he hadn't rested in weeks. His suit was rumpled, and his always sallow complexion had a decided pallor to it that was new.

"What in the Hell do you think you're doing?" Miss Parker demanded as the sweepers roughly positioned her in front of the carved desk.

"What in the Hell did you think YOU were doing, poking around in my files and sending information to the Triumverate?" Raines wheezed back at her, then drew on his oxygen hard.

Miss Parker shook herself at least somewhat free of her jailers' hold. "My job," she spat. I got a call from Ngawe with orders to look and report back - and a password to take me places my own wouldn't go. And," she bent over the desk only briefly before the sweepers hauled her back, "if you don't remember, I work for the Triumverate - NOT you."

Raines had to admit that his daughter was truly magnificent, even clad in only the silken pajamas she'd been wearing in bed. "Your loyalty belongs to the Centre, to your family!" he gasped at her. "What did you tell them?"

"I'm sure you already know what I told them," she hissed. "You didn't need to haul me out of bed at this hour to have me tell you what you already know."

"TELL ME what you've found!" he screamed at her, then spent the next few moments drawing in noisy draughts of oxygen.

"Financial records for the Shadow Project, including invoices for sims sold to the Yakuza, the Mexican Mafia, and other criminal elements - and an interesting assortment of bank accounts into which you funneled the profits from those sales. Interesting that a Centre-related project, when sold, goes into private coffers." She drew herself to her full height - which was a bit less impressive in bare feet rather than three-inch stiletto heels - "All this time, you and Lyle have been a very busy boys, doing exactly what your bosses in Africa told you specifically NOT to do..."

"What about Redux?"

Miss Parker's mind spun even as she carefully disciplined her face to not show any emotions whatsoever. "Is that a project name? I found no information about that one - what ELSE have you two been up to that you shouldn't have?" She shrugged nonchalance and prayed that she was even half as good as Jarod at Pretending.

Raines' extreme agitation seemed to ebb as he watched her closely for any reaction to the project name and didn't get any. He looked up at the sweepers. "Take her down to Renewal and have her restrained. We don't want her to hurt herself before we can see if we can salvage at least a little of what we've lost this week..."

"What the... Raines! You can't do this..."

The oxygen-starved old man wheezed at her, "As a matter of fact, Miss Parker, not only can I, but will I." He glanced at the sweepers. "Now, gentlemen. I have work to do..."

Miss Parker lunged suddenly out of the sweepers' grasp and made a line for heading across the desk at Mr. Raines, but was again stopped and cruelly hauled back and then out of the office doors again. The husky blonde sweeper at her right sneered down at her, "Go ahead and struggle, honey. I like it like that." The bald man at her other side merely chuckled coldly and nodded agreement.

Miss Parker's writhing ceased almost immediately at the threatening tone and unhealthy leer from both men. She didn't need to invite further physical torture, if she had any hopes of being able to walk out of this place alive again. Once more she shot a worried thought to her little boy, hoping that the lad would know enough to call his father for help. Thank heavens she had taught him Jarod's cell phone number the night before.

The elevator door swished open again, and Miss Parker closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She wasn't ill. Her trek to the Renewal Wing had to be for some other purpose than genuine health-care - and something told her that she was NOT going to like what was intended to happen to her there.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jarod frowned at the sight of the front door of Miss Parker's summerhouse being quite obviously forced open, the dusty imprint of a shoe clearly visible on the panel near the doorknob. He pushed the door open slowly, looking around for any other signs of what had gone on here, but other than scuff marks on her otherwise clean wood floors, there wasn't anything out of place. "Davy!" he bellowed, knowing his voice would carry up the stairs and bring his son out of his hiding place. The last thing he wanted to do was to stomp up the stairs and scare his son out of his wits all over again thinking the kidnappers had returned.

Sure enough, there was a scrabbling sound over his head the moment he opened his mouth, and soon his little boy was rocketing down the staircase, bulging backpack in hand, and throwing himself desperately into the arms of his father. "I've got you now," Jarod soothed, scooping the boy up into his arms and hugging him tightly, feeling the little arms twine around his neck tightly, the little body tremble in his grasp and the bulky backpack impact softly against his shoulder blade.

"Where's Mom?" he asked in a very frightened voice, sniffling.

"I'm not sure yet, Davy," Jarod answered truthfully. "But I have a pretty good idea where to start looking. We just need to get you someplace safe first, though..."

"Will the bad men come for me too?" Davy continued, feeling his father begin to walk toward the door.

"That's why we're going to make sure you're safe, son," Jarod stated in a very determined voice. "But I promise you that if there's any way at all, I'll bring your Mom back to you. OK?"

The little boy sniffed. "OK," and laid his head on his father's shoulder and tightened his hold around the man's neck.

Jarod carried Davy out to the street where he'd left his car running, then opened the passenger door and put the boy down in the front seat. "Buckle up, kiddo," he advised after taking the backpack from Davy's fingers and tossing it in the back. Davy started doing as he was asked, and Jarod closed the door and went around the front of the car and climbed in behind the wheel. Then, after thinking a moment, he pulled out his cell phone and punched in a couple of numbers and then listened.

"Wha... Hello?" a sleepy voice answered.

"Broots? This is Jarod. Wake up NOW. Raines' has had Miss Parker taken in."

"Holy Shi..." Rustling in the background told the Pretender that he had brought the sleeping man straight up out of bed. "What now?"

"Get in to work ASAP, log into the system and leave me a back door to the mainframe propped open. There's going to be a trail of information from this - there HAS to be - and given the nature of the stuff we've been sending the Triumverate, this won't help Raines' case a bit."

"You ARE going to get her out of there?" Broots asked, breathless in surprise at no mention of mounting a rescue attempt.

Jarod closed his eyes in frustration, then breathed it out. Now was NOT the time to lose his cool or his focus. "Of COURSE I'm going to get her out of there. But I'm also not going to let an opportunity to put another nail in Raines' coffin slip through my fingers. Get your ass moving, Broots - I need an inside man in place more than ever, especially now that Angelo..."

"Oh yeah. That's right..." Broots' voice backed down from his own over-enthusiasm. "What about Davy? Did they take him too?"

"No. I've got him next to me - and I'm heading off to Syd's so I can have Sam take Syd and the kids and Shadow up to White Cloud..."

"Uh, Jarod? I don't think you ought to send them there," Broots said slowly. "Syd and I DID make mention of a weekend trip to the cabin - making a show of it, you know, the way we'd planned... So if the sweepers that took Miss Parker missed Davy by mistake and then come back and find him vanished, that's going to be one of the first places they look."

Jarod frowned and put the car in gear to get moving. "You're right..." He thought for a while, then his face cleared. "OK. I have an idea where they can be safe, Broots - one that doesn't take them all the way across the continent to my family either. I'll let you know where when we talk next. But don't worry - I'll keep Deb safe too."

"Let me know what I can do to help get Miss Parker out again, OK?" Broots said. "I'll leave you a port open as soon as I get there."

Jarod steered the car around a corner with one hand. "Thanks, Broots. See ya." He disconnected the call and tucked the cell phone into his shirt pocket. "Did you pack like I asked you to?" he asked the boy at his side.

Davy nodded wordlessly, and Jarod looked over to see big tears rolling down his boy's cheeks.

"I know. I miss her too," he soothed, putting his big hand on his son's shoulder and squeezing. "We'll find her, Davy. I promise."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The scene at Sydney's house, when Jarod walked through the garage door with Davy firmly in hand, was organized pandemonium. Debbie was helping Sydney move from the stairs to one of the easy chairs in the living room - the aging psychiatrist moving very slowly and carefully - while Kevin and Sam were having an agitated discussion in the foyer next to the front door.

"Look, kid, I know you want to help. But if Jarod thinks that it would be best if you come with us..." Sam had finally managed to get a word in edgewise with the young man he'd rescued only hours earlier.

"What's going on here?" Jarod asked, then set Davy back down on his feet, then cautioned before the boy had managed to trot more than a couple steps, "Don't jump on your Grandpa, Davy - he still hurts pretty bad."

Davy slowed immediately and approached his grandfather with wide and worried grey eyes. "Grandpa Sydney? You OK? Did the bad men hurt you too?" His dark eyes began to swim again.

Sydney put out a hand to draw Davy closer to him and then sat back and let Debbie help Davy up into his lap. The older man then wrapped his arms around his grandson and shushed softly and privately at the traumatized child. Jarod, seeing the situation on that front handled adequately for the time being, turned to Sam and Kevin. "Well?"

"The kid here doesn't want to go with us..." Sam began, but Kevin jumped right in to his own defense.

"I know that whatever's going on is partly my fault," he admitted with some chagrin - a new feeling for him. "I was the one who was hacking into the Centre mainframe all the time. I didn't know you... I tipped them off that things were compromised."

"I figured that," Jarod acknowledged with a nod but without rancor. "But..."

"That means that I'm just as involved in what's happened as any of you. I want to help. I want to help make thing right again."

Jarod put an arm around the younger Pretender. "You would be helping, because I would be counting on you to do a very important job for me," he told the young man fervently. "I'd be trusting somebody that I love very much to your care. You HAVE simmed being a doctor, haven't you?"

"Yes, but..."

"Sydney, there," Jarod pointed, "suffered gunshot wounds just a little more than a day ago. When Sam takes Deb and Davy and Syd to the safe house, I'm not going to be able to go over there everyday to take care of changing dressings and watching for infections and distributing pain meds. I need someone I know who knows what they're about taking care of him for me."

Kevin turned and eyed the older man, who now had Davy perched on his lap with the boy's head on his shoulder, and spoke dryly. "That is your mentor, isn't it?"

"Yes," Jarod stated the obvious. "And unlike you, I happen to care what happens to him very much. He was my father - until I had a chance to find my real Dad." He took a shaky breath. "Don't you see? I can't function properly and get Miss Parker - the woman who was taken is the mother of my son, by the way - out of the Centre if I'm constantly worried about what's happening with Davy, or Sydney. Going up against - or even back into - the Centre will take focus and concentration. Worry will only make the job more dangerous for me - and for all of you in the end."

Kevin looked down at his shoes. "Is it that I don't have enough experience on the outside? Or that it's partly my fault..."

"No! Absolutely not!" Jarod sighed. "It's just that none of us are ending up doing or going where we'd really rather be or do. Deb's been pissed that she was being sent off to safety ever since this first started going down. Sydney wasn't a whole lot happier about it either when he found out HE was begin sent off to help take care of Davy. Now, however, I think he realizes that in the shape he's in, he wouldn't be able to do much even if he DID stay behind to help. I'd be willing to bet that Sam here will be biting nails until he knows Miss Parker is OK - he's been her personal bodyguard for years now, and having her snatched like this really pisses him off big time."

Jarod patted the younger man on the back as Sam nodded his agreement with a taciturn face. "The only one who HASN'T complained about having to go anywhere at any time is Davy - and that's because either he didn't know about it, or now the poor kid has been scared half to death when big men dragged his mom away. So, you see, you aren't the only one."

"But I want to help."

"Trust me, you will be. You take very good care of Sydney for me while you're away, and you'll have done me a kindness I'll have a hard time repaying," Jarod said with obvious feeling.

Kevin's ice-blue gaze bored a hole straight through the older Pretender. "Really?"

Jarod met that gaze with a steady one of his own. "Really. Your job is no less important than Sam's, as far as I'm concerned." The chocolate eyes began to twinkle slightly as a thought occurred. "Besides, you know, you'll have Debbie to keep you company..."

Kevin swiveled around to watch the young woman mentioned descend the staircase with her own overnight bag in hand as well as one she'd thrown together for Sydney, then turned back to his older counterpart. "There IS that..." he admitted with the beginnings of a smile.

"OK." Jarod breathed a sigh of relief, then raised his voice to address everyone in the room. "Listen up, people; we don't have a lot of time. I'm going to want you folks on your way in just a few minutes. But you're not going to White Cloud - the way things are going, that would probably end up being one of the first places Raines would send his goons to look for Davy or Syd. Sam, I want you to drive everybody up to Ben Miller's place. It's out of the way, and I don't think Raines has any idea about it at all. I'll call him and set it up before you get there."

"What are you going to do?" Sydney demanded from his chair.

"Broots is already on his way in to work, and I've asked that he leave a backdoor to the mainframe open for me. I'm going to find Miss Parker, find any relevant information about her that can be forwarded to the Triumverate to punctuate the danger of leaving Raines in charge - and then I'm going in after her, as soon as I know where they're keeping her."

Jarod looked around the room at the expectant or worried faces. "By now, the Triumverate has all the information Broots and I gathered - if they're going to act, they'll act soon. I'm counting on that to help the chaos element that will make it possible for me to slip into the Centre and get Parker out again alive. Broots will keep me posted as to when the sh..." he caught himself and looked over guiltily at Davy. Miss Parker would kill him so very dead if he taught his son to swear like a sailor at the tender age of eight. He'd have to watch his language more closely when Davy was around. "Broots will let me know when things start to fall apart, and that's when I make my move. Any questions?"

Even Kevin seemed satisfied with the explanation.

"OK. Kevin, you and Deb get all the gear out into Sydney's town car. It's the roomiest and will be the most comfortable for the five of you to travel long distances in. Davy, I really need you to be your Grandpa's hands and feet on this trip - you do for him so he doesn't have to move around very much. Sam, you're with me." He clapped his hands sharply. "Let's move."

Jarod pulled Sam to the side as the others began their preparations to leave. After he gave the big sweeper directions to Ben Miller's inn, he nodded in the direction of the others. "Even if things seem stable and secure there, don't leave them to come back and help me. Miss Parker's main concern was to keep her family safe. I need you and Kevin doing just that."

"You can count on me, Jarod," Sam assured him confidently, then narrowed his eyes. "You just make sure that whichever bastard slugged Miss Parker gets it back in triplicate. Deal?"

"Oh yeah," Jarod nodded, already considering possible payback schemes. "If the opportunity presents itself..."

Only minutes later, the entire group was gathered in the garage. Kevin was finishing stowing all the luggage in the trunk and slammed the lid down solidly. Sydney had been carefully placed in the roomy front passenger seat of the town car, while the others were still gathered in a small bunch next to him. Jarod grabbed Deb and gave her a quick hug, then pushed her into the open back seat door. He shook hands with Kevin firmly, seeing in the young man's face his apprehension but willingness to do as he'd been asked to do, then pushed him into the open back seat door after Deb.

"Daddy?" He felt a tug on his belt.

"What is it, Davy?" he asked gently, hoisting his son up into his arms again.

"You won't let the bad men get you too, will you?" the little boy asked, deep fear lodging in his expression.

Jarod pulled the little boy into a very tight hug. "No, I won't. I'll be OK, you'll see - and I'll get your mom back for you too. You just keep sending me good thoughts to help me through, OK?"

"I love you, Daddy."

"I love you too, son. See you real soon." Jarod kissed the little boy's forehead and then passed him down to Kevin - who let him crawl over his legs and find the seat between him and Debbie.

Jarod turned to Sam and shook the big ex-wrestler's hand firmly. "Thanks." Jarod couldn't think of anything better to say.

"You take it easy, Lab-rat," Sam said with a smile that drew one like it from the Pretender, then moved swiftly to the driver's door. "I'm going to stop at my place and pick up my stuff, and then we're gone."

"Call me when you get there," Jarod instructed him, then bent to speak to Sydney through the open window. "Syd... You rest easy now, and take care of yourself..."

Sydney stuck his hand out to his protégé. "Jarod..." He really didn't need to say more - his facial expression spoke volumes very clearly.

Jarod grabbed the hand and squeezed it tightly. "I know, Syd. I know. I'll be very careful, and I'll bring her back to both you and Davy. I promise. You just rest and let Kevin take care of you until I get back."

With that, he backed away from the car and watched as Sam started the quiet and powerful motor of Sydney's town car, opened the garage door behind him, and carefully backed down the driveway and then turned to drive up the street. Jarod sighed and turned back to the house, punching the button by the kitchen door that closed the garage door.

He carefully went through the house turning off lights and then locking up. He didn't want to be here when they came looking - and he didn't want to leave any signs of rapid or panicked departure either. When he climbed into his sports car and revved the engine, all the beds were made, dishes were being washed, and not a thing was out of place.

To all intents and purposes, as far as the Centre was concerned, Sam, Sydney, Debbie and Davy had now vanished into thin air.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Joshua straightened his suit for the fourth time, then pushed through the frosted glass doors to face his new direct superior. He had done as Mr. Raines had asked - gone to that house in Dover and taken out the sweeper teams assigned there. But the house itself had been abandoned, empty. Only twelve bodies burned in the house late last night, rather than the nearly nineteen he'd expected to cremate.

"Well?" The sound of the man behind the desk taking a breath sounded more like a death rattle, making the hairs stand up on the back of the sweeper's neck.

"Everyone at the house and all sweepers were sanctioned, as you requested," Joshua reported truthfully. "Although the house was abandoned when I arrived."

The deep-set eyes drilled holes in the man's skull. "What do you mean, 'abandoned'?"

"Nobody was there."

Raines' voice rose. "Nobody?"

"No sir. I took out twelve third-rate sweepers, and that was it." He swallowed. What did the man expect him to have done?

"Unacceptable!"

Taking a deep breath, he faced his boss squarely. "What else could I have done?"

Raines found himself unable to answer the question and so dropped his gaze to the documents on his desk. "And the house?"

"I made sure that nothing would be left when it cooled, sir. When it went up, it went up like a blast furnace." Joshua pronounced with no small measure of pride. It was the first time he'd been allowed to set a fire in years. He'd sat on the running board of his town car and enjoyed a strong orgasmic release while watching from a safe vista while the flames reach three stories high in the distance. It had been a release the like of which he hadn't had since torching a warehouse in New York several years earlier. Arson - and his ability to leave few hints as to the perpetrator - had been his specialty in his days prior to being recruited as a sweeper. It was good that he was able to enjoy and practice that art again every once in a while.

The skeletal man behind the desk nodded. "Very well. With the exception of not taking care of everyone I told you to, you did well. You show potential, initiative." A bony finger pointed to a chair against a far wall. "Take a seat, Joshua. You will be my personal sweeper for today."

"Yes, Mr. Raines. Thank you!" Joshua didn't pause to wonder about the tall black man who had held that post for years, who apparently was no longer present. He simply moved with grace and confidence to the chair indicated and sat down, remaining crisply at attention and alert. Mr. Raines would soon see he'd made a good choice in replacing Willy.

Raines dismissed the entire Shadow Project from his mind, as he had done what he could to shove it so far under a rug as to be nothing but a paper trail leading to a pile of ashes. He turned instead to pick up the phone and dial the extension of the Renewal Wing, and his compliant medical accomplice there. "Dr. Warner, have you run the necessary tests on the patient?"

"Yes, sir. According to my findings, she's just a day or so past ovulation. We should be able to collect..."

"Good!" Raines was delighted. Perhaps a way to salvage at least one of the ravaged projects was at hand. "Prepare her for extraction."

"But, sir..."

"Just DO IT!" he fairly screamed into the receiver then slammed it back on its base, wheezing painfully from the exertion. He leaned back in his comfortable chair and noted that his personal sweeper for the day was managing to give the impression of not being affected by anything he was hearing. Good. That was another mark in the man's favor.

Then the intercom buzzer sounded. "Mr. Raines, there's a large group of men..."

The voice broke off as the glass doors to the office were thrown back so violently they nearly shattered hitting the walls behind them. Into the Chairman's office stalked a full cadre of burly, husky black men, two of whom immediately surrounded and contained a wary Joshua before he had a chance to rise to his feet. Two others dragged the sweepers stationed in the outer office in between them and then cleared a path down the center of the mob.

The moment the securing activity ceased, a stately elderly black gentleman with a brilliantly multicolored fabric swath across one shoulder to make his way leisurely through them to stand before the carved desk. As he did, two more of the intimidating black bodyguards posted themselves at both of Raines' elbows, clearly intending to keep the man pinned safely behind his desk. The elderly man gazed at the skeletal ghoul before him with gentle-looking and sympathetic eyes, then bowed ever so slightly from the waist.

"Mr. Raines," he began in a lyrically African accented English. "Our name is Otamo Ngawe. We are here to hear your explanations for certain pieces of information that have come to our attention." When Raines attempted to rise and speak, a simple gesture from the unassuming elder man had two huge black hands pushing the bald man back forcefully into his chair. "Understand this, Mr. Raines: we ARE the Triumverate. You WILL answer to us."

Raines swallowed hard. Little else could go wrong worse than this.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"A thousand pardons for the interruption, Tanaka-sama, but Yoshikata-san would like a word with you," the secretary announced deferentially over the intercom.

"Send him in," Tanaka growled, then rose to look out the window behind his desk at downtown Tokyo. The city spread below him in a massive sea of humanity and concrete, so much of it indirectly under his control. This vista never failed to inspire him - and bring his mind to a peaceful place where it could deal with new information.

"Tanaka-sama." Yoshikata's bow was deep. "I have the biologist's report, as you asked."

"And?" Tanaka turned from his window and gazed at his right-hand man evenly. "Are the embryos Mr. Lyle procured for us viable?"

Yoshikata's eyes narrowed. He knew what was coming, and it was unavoidable. "Viable, yes. But not human."

"WHAT??" Tanaka exploded around the end of the desk and soon had the man by the throat.

"The embryos are not human, Tanaka-sama. Hideo-san says they are rodent - rat embryos." Yoshikata stood very still, knowing that it was only his superior's mood that would determine if the man would let go or finish the job.

"That ronin Lyle wasn't even intelligent enough to steal the right vial?"

"Apparently not, Tanaka-sama. Gomen nai." [I'm sorry.]

Tanaka dropped his hand from Yoshikata's throat and began to pace back and forth in agitation. "We know that we stepped into a small executive squabble when first Raines tells us we're out of Redux entirely and then Lyle offers to steal it for us for a price." He stopped and looked out his favorite window again. "Maybe that bald-headed demon was smarter than we gave him credit for. He figured out Lyle was selling him out and had the vials switched. We took out Lyle for him, saving him the effort, and walked away with nothing after all for our trouble." He fingered his chin thoughtfully.

"If so, what are your intentions, dozo?" Yoshikata inquired with another deep bow of gratitude for his continued existence.

Tanaka's gaze came up and met Yoshikata's the moment the man came out of his bow. "We need to make sure the Centre never toys with us again. And we need to make sure Mr. Raines-san doesn't have the opportunity to cheat another living soul again." He spun on his heel and reached for his phone. "Have Torii-san meet me in the hangar within two hours." He replaced the phone and looked at his associate. "Go home and pack, Yoshikata-san. We're heading back to Delaware to finish this once and for all."


* (Author's note: I have learned that Patrick Bauchau, who portrays Sydney so capably, enjoys reading Rumi. It stood to reason in my twisted little brain, then, that Sydney might share some of M. Bauchau's taste in poetry. And for what its worth, this excerpt from 'A Just-Finishing Candle' from "The Essential Rumi" [Translated by Coleman Barks, 1995 Harper Collins] happens to be one of MY favorite passage.)

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