Chapter Fourteen – Broken

As they returned to the lobby via elevator, Miss Parker told Broots, "I want you to get me everything there is on security here."

"Um, okay," he replied. "Can I know why?"

"Step two of my plan," she began. "We're going to sneak Jarod out of here from right under Lyle's nose."

"We?" Broots repeated.

"You're just going to set him free?" Sydney asked.

Miss Parker took a devil-may-care attitude. "Sure. Why not?"

Reminding her of a crucial fact, he said. "You'll have to hunt for him again once he disappears."

"I can always find him again."

The doctor gave her an eyebrow quirk.

The elevator opened with a ping and Broots scurried away to do Miss Parker's bidding. Sydney and Miss Parker split up, and as he walked, he ran into Lyle. "Fancy meeting you here," the man with the missing thumb remarked.

"This is the way to my office," Sydney said matter-of-factly.

"So it is," he replied distractedly. "Anyway, I just came here to tell you something: You're barred from seeing Jarod."

Sydney was shocked. "What? Why not?"

"I'm afraid you have a bad influence on him," Lyle explained. "You see, the last time you took care of him, he ran away."

"Who wouldn't try to get away from this place?" he asked.

"See, this is exactly what I was talking about," Lyle said as he guided Sydney into the doctor's office. "It'd be better if you just kept to your psychogenic research. We don't want someone in their dotage affecting the genius."

"And I suppose you'd be better?" Sydney inquired, his voice rising.

Pretending not to hear him, Lyle bid him goodbye and left. The doctor was left murmuring to himself. "'In my dotage' indeed."

In SL-14, Jarod sat in a corner of the cage, curled up and trying to ignore the blinking strobe. His ability to blink in time with the strobe only slightly improved his situation.

Presently, the light stopped flashing. A little later, Jarod looked up, and gradually, Lyle's figure came into focus as it drew nearer and nearer. When he was close enough, the captive asked irritably, "What do you want?"

Feigning innocence, Lyle answered smoothly, "Nothing, Jarod. I just thought I'd talk with you."

Turning away, Jarod remarked, "No one at The Centre ever wants 'nothing'."

Lyle mulled this over for a brief while and then said, "Do you want to take a gander at the list of passengers who died in the plane that crashed three days ago?"

Jarod sighed. "I don't see how that would help things."

"Oh, it would," Lyle disagreed. "I assure you, it would make things much easier of me." He handed the man a list, and he took it. Lyle circled the outside of the cage as the other scanned the document.

After a while, Jarod looked up. "Margaret Russell? Is that ... my mom?"

Not feeling the least bit sad, Lyle answered, "I'm afraid it is."

In shock, Jarod refused to believe. "No, it can't be!" He blinked away a tear. "No, no, no, no, no! Mom, no!"

Lyle tore his gaze from the anguished Pretender and turned to the Sweeper. "Turn the lights off after I leave," he instructed. He can be left alone with his thoughts."

Jarod threw himself at the bars nearest the man with the gloved hand, who retreated a small step. "You did this, didn't you?!" he yelled. "You killed my mom!"

"Tut, tut, Jarod," Lyle reprimanded. "Innocent until proven guilty. What do you have to incriminate me?"

The lights turned off. Jarod slid down the bars, sobbing. "You killed my mom! You killed her! My mom ..."

Broots timidly knocked on the jamb of the door. When Miss Parker looked up, he crossed the distance to her desk quickly so that he could speak very softly and still be comprehended. "Here they are: schematics for the security and a record of what every single guard here does."

"Thanks," she said out of habit and looked through it.

The computer technician began wringing his hands. "Mr. Raines isn't going to like this."

She did not look up. "Leave him to me. Just worry about who you're going out with on your next blind date."

As day turned to dusk and people began leaving, Jarod stewed in his despair, depression and anger. His situation infuriated him to no end. Of a whim, Lyle had decided to kill his mother and keep him captive for weeks. It was a pity that murder was against the law.

Then he would steer clear away from the dangerous train of thought. He'd try to remember his mother, but it was difficult because he hadn't seen her in such a long time.

After a while, his mind would turn to Lyle again, and so it went, in circles and circles of endless thoughts.