Part 14 : The Hero In My Head
-
When the wind howled and her mind whispered viciously in her ear, driving away sleep, she flicked on the light at her bedside and read for hours. She never slept much anymore; the endless mystery kept her awake, the blurred lines of the text soothing her tortured body in a way rest could not. She rejected fiction, biographies, best sellers or classics. She read the Notebook.
Careless, perhaps. Lying peacefully on her side table, unprotected, free to any burglars who miraculously made it past the battalion of hired guards scrounging the hallways.
At night, in the sparse quiet hours when her work let her rest, Irina ignored the call of sleep and read about her daughter. About her beautiful little girl, the woman of destiny, the champion the prophet had devoted his life to hundreds of years before she was even born. Irina was proud, and sickened. Sydney, though great, would never have a happy life. Nothing normal. Milo Rambaldi had been saddened by this. He wrote in his notebook with sadness, remorse. He'd written of her daughter as if he'd known her, as if she were a dear friend whose fate he'd much rather not know.
It'd taken years to decipher the notebook. When Irina had had it stolen from the CIA vaults, she'd thought only of one-upping her foes. Countless tricks and codes, jumbled lines of dizzying text that required careful calculations to read correctly. For all his grandiose plans Rambaldi's truest gamble had been his notebook: his artifacts, his machines, great in and of themselves but merely cover for his hardest puzzle. In the end he'd simply told a story. Nothing devastating, no weapons or instructions. A simple, dark story.
She read it at night, blackness surrounding her, doused in faded lamplight. Marveled at the detail of Rambaldi's knowledge, ached from the suffering he warned of. Sydney's life was foretold. It could be changed, of course. There was always a choice. Rambaldi was clear to a fault on this point. It could be changed. Irina would fight until death to ensure that it wasn't.
-
"OK, I'll bite. Why are you not freezing?"
She smiled lightly and sipped at her coffee, watching the orange crescent sun striking the still waters. "It's not so bad."
"No, Syd, it's really not."
He was looking at her again, with that serious, earnest look, partially unsettling because his customary smile was absent.
"Hey there, Mr. Double Meaning," she noted.
Absently Eric wrapped an arm around her shoulders, turning back to watch the shimmering sunrise. She'd insisted they come. January in L.A. and she'd woken him at 4:30 to go watch the sunrise on the beach.
"It's not so bad anymore, Syd," he told her.
No, it wasn't so bad. Everything was falling back into place. Yes, every relationship she had (omit Eric and, strangely, Sark) was based on some lie or another, on false affliction or feigned affection. Yes, she still lived in a world of madness, where she had a 9mm. put to her head almost weekly and she dressed as some type of hooker with shocking regularity. All true.
But it wasn't so bad.
This, she could handle.
"You did it, Syd. It's over." He sounded so sure. "You beat the Covenant."
Yes and no. It was a monster with its head cut off. She shook her head.
"Not completely. There's still one person left, Eric. There's still one person who could keep it going."
His grip tightened considerably. His smile entirely gone now, Eric seemed harsher, less of a teddy bear and more of a man, angry and helpless and dangerous. "No, Syd. Don't go down that road. She's you're mother, baby, she loves you. She won't take it up again. She wouldn't hurt you like that. I won't let you hurt yourself like that,"
She was unconvinced, staring guardedly at the flaming sunrise and wanting to believe him.
"You're safe here, Sydney. You're safe. Derevko won't take control of the Covenant. She's retired, remember? She's gone for good."
She'd accept that. For once she'd listen to a lie and let herself believe it.
"Besides," Eric added, "even if everything does hit the fan, I figure, hey, you an' me can just disappear and buy a beach house in Maui with that 800 million that mysterious showed up in my private account last month."
An impish grin, a ripple of laughter that bubbled up through her throat and blossomed. They were laughing, hard, wrapped firmly in a blanket atop the sand, and finally Sydney noticed the icy wind burning her skin.
-
"Haven't seen you in a while."
What did she expect? He'd cast her off like an ill-fitting jacket. So she was bitter. Since when was that his problem?
"So how's good ol' Syd?"
"Jealousy doesn't become you, Allison, dear."
He was half-hidden in the shadows, lost in the murk surrounding the silent warehouse where Allison had set up operations. A variety of computer technology on the stained metal table, a sleeping bag in the corner, but then she'd never been as finicky as Sark about her surroundings. Two years in prison and Sark was desperate to escape the feel of concrete beneath his feet.
"What do you want?" She lit a cigarette, sit atop the table and exhaled white smoke through her nose. Petulant, now. She hated being second best.
"I'm going to Chicago tomorrow," he explained. "Perhaps you'd like to help."
Her eyes snapped up at that, stared at him incredulously for a moment. "You're good, Sark, but not that good."
He shrugged. First and foremost, Sark was an arrogant bastard. "I beg to differ," he drawled.
Another pull on the cigarette, a cliched distraction. Finally, "Why me?"
A hollow laugh, cruel and taunting. "I thought you might like some action, what with your employers mysteriously quiet these past weeks."
She ground the frail burning stick into the tabletop, leaving a blackened mark on the rusted surface. "Do you really think you can keep her, Sark?"
Changing subjects abruptly, sudden movements. Old school tricks to keep him off balance. She'd get nothing from him.
"Honestly? I don't think she has much of a choice." Answered truthfully, show her who held the power in this cutting little web of theirs.
Allison hissed through her teeth. Defeated and she knew it. She crossed her legs, just to be moving. "Do you love her?"
Sark leaned his head against the filthy granite wall, shook his head in exaggerated annoyance, spoke as if to a child. "I want her, Allison. Love doesn't exist in our world."
She nodded. She couldn't blame him, not really. Didn't mean she wouldn't try.
"I can pay you depending on the success of the mission. You know how it goes," Sark said, hands in his pockets, unconcerned. "I want you on surveillance. I've procured invitations. You'll be in the crowd, watching in case any of our beloved friends show up. I'll do the op work."
She was trapped. Yes or no, screwed either way.
"Let's go."
-
They watched with a smile. It'd been years since they'd seen her innocence shine through.
Oblivious, she giggled aloud as Weiss pushed against the armrest, sending her chair spinning in a tight circle.
"She's still our Syd," Dixon observed.
"No," corrected Jack. "But she can still take our breath away."
Suddenly Weiss whirled around, pinned the two men with a deer in headlights look through the glass walls of the conference room, uttered a syllable with which lip-reading skills was not required. Sydney braked with her heel, saw her father and boss, and let out a howl of mortified laughter.
"We were early," she explained, blushing madly as the entered the room.
"She'd never sat in the new chairs," Weiss offered.
Any reprimands were delayed by the arrival of the Vaughns, Marshall trailing behind them, fumbling with the papers he carried in his arms.
"Good morning, everyone," Dixon began. He continued over the half-hearted chorus of responses. "As we all know, we've recently enjoyed something of a hiatus of major operations from opposing organizations. If it sounds like a positive thing, I assure you that it is quite the contrary. It makes the NSC extremely, and rightfully, nervous."
Lauren stiffened slightly. Her pale face was ragged from overwork.
Dixon briskly punched the button on the tiny black remote, a grainy mugshot appeared on the slide screen, and instantly Sydney's good humor evaporated. She had not missed that slide projector.
"This," Come to think of it, she hadn't missed that grave, serious tone, either, "is Maxwell Quick. He's a prominent Chicago businessman with reputed ties to the black market."
Sydney stirred uneasily. Chicago. Sark.
Oh, hell.
"He's extremely reclusive, lives in the outer city in a mansion guarded at all times by a 50-man taskforce."
Hesitantly Marshall slid her an open file, an endless line of black texts detailing Quick's versatile life.
"Once a year he opens his doors to society's best, in an extravagant gala tomorrow night. We always send in surveillance teams to infiltrate the party, just to see if anything's amiss."
"This year," Jack cut in, "we have good intel that Quick is currently safekeeping a disk in his vault containing a master list of several well-known arms dealers and the location of their respective stockpiles. Needless to say, anyone with the disk and the resources could amass a huge collection of weaponry. In the wrong hands, it could be catastrophic."
Sounds like Sark, all right.
"Sydney -" Dixon began.
"Why me?" she whimpered under her breath.
Across the table, Vaughn smothered a laugh.
"I'm sending you in alone this time. Agents Weiss and Vaughn will be on communications. I want you to go in, locate the disk, and switch it with a decoy before it can be stolen. Marshall can set you up with your op tech. Any questions?"
This mission was suicide.
"No, sir."
He nodded, smiled briefly, called the meeting to an end. Jack gave her shoulder a squeeze as he followed Dixon out.
Eric was grinning at her. She could feel it drilling into the back of her head.
She loitered to be the last one out. Eric fell into step with her.
"So how's it going with you and your dad? Every day this week, you know. I take it you've heartily forgiven him?"
Sydney couldn't repress a smile, and a shrug. "Well, yeah. No. I'm not sure. He's been really..."
"Fatherly?"
In the past week Jack had cooked for her, listened to her ramble on about her aches and about absolutely nothing. He'd taken her to the park, pushed her on the swing set. Made her feel like she was 9 years old again.
Fatherly. Yeah.
"We're building. Repairing bridges. You know." She made a meaningless gesture with her hands.
"Hey, Syd!" Marshall, from his cluttered desk across the way. Waving in frenzied panic for her attention.
Shooing Eric off, she plodded through the electronic jungle to Marshall's side. Glancing sideways, he auspiciously heralded her into his office.
"I-I wanted to, y'know, your mission tech," he began, sliding shut the door. Scrambling to his table he snatched up a familiar wristwatch and pressed the sequence of buttons to transmit the bug killer.
"OK, umm, first I've got for you this new comm piece, see, an earring, it's zircon, by the way, not real diamond. That might've interfered with the frequency and besides, who has that kind of funding? So, audio in the earring, your mic is in this bracelet, right, so you'll have to be like, you know, 'I'm just lifting my champagne glass, see, not talking into a hidden mic at all, no sir.' Oh and it's completely untraceable, fools almost any detectors, shouldn't be a problem -"
"Marshall!"
His mouth closed with a click of his teeth.
She was caught between laughing and having an emotional breakdown. Both sounded appealing.
"You did not just wipe out surveillance in your office to tell me about my op tech." She sounded incredulous. "Right?"
"Oh, no, yes, just - y'know, it's kind of awkward." He rolled the wristwatch between his palms, desperate for a distraction.
Sydney took him gently by the shoulders and forced him to look her in the eye. "Marshall," she commanded.
"I know where you were," he blurted out.
The incessant beeping of Marshall's endless supply of technology was the only sound filling the air. He watched her as she reeled back, released her grip on him and held a stiff stance.
"When Sark came to my house," he elaborated. "He wanted me to decode this disk, right. We told you about that."
She was nodding slowly. "You said it was blank."
"It wasn't." He winced as he admitted his lie. His job was his world, his galaxy, albeit far, far away. "It was really - I mean, wow, that was a wicked job of security, whoever did it. There was... written into the firewalls. There was this report. It said you'd escaped Covenant custody and was working with Simon Walker. Didn't say how." He was looking at her pleadingly. As an after-thought, "I didn't tell anybody. Don't worry."
She exhaled deeply, gathering her thoughts before responding. "Listen, Marshall..."
"You don't have to explain," he interrupted hastily. "I understand. Deep cover stuff, right? Like at SD-6. You can't tell any of us what's really going on because it's too dangerous."
He knew. Some if not all of it. He'd skimmed the same report Sark had, gotten an idea of what had happened to her those cruel two years. He hadn't told a soul.
Damnit. More tears in her eyes. She swiped at them in irritation. "Thanks, Marshall."
"Hey, no problem. I'm just tech guy." He hesitated. "It's just, Syd..."
She couldn't manage a word. Just urged him to continue with a nod.
"I wouldn't have even brought it up, just I wanted you to know…" He coughed, began fiddling with the wristwatch again. "I wanted you to know you were really brave. Are really brave, I guess. Fighting the Covenant, doing what you had to do no matter how much it hurt. You were really brave."
Sydney let out an anguished laugh. "Oh, Marshall, no I wasn't. I was just really, really pissed off."
After a confused moment, he matched her grin.
Abruptly the abused wristwatch emitted a tinny, repeated beep. Times up. Masks back on.
Instinctively Marshall jumped, set the watch down guiltily and blustered around his office in search of miscellaneous gadgetry. "So... Yeah, oh, this is pretty stylin'." He held up a random object, a pair of faintly pink-tinted eyewear, neither sunglasses nor reading glasses but somewhere in the useless between, with a transparent computer screen plastered on the left lens to transmit tactical maps and night vision.
On impulse she gave him a hug.
-
She hadn't planned on wearing red.
Really.
It went with the earrings, she argued in her head. It went with the shoes - stylish red stilettos with heels lined with titanium in the inevitable event of having to run like hell. It went with her mood - furious. At the world. At her friends. At Sark.
"OK, not to diss the Mystery Machine or anything," Eric observed, "but this really beats the van."
A VIP party. They couldn't show up in a traceless white van. The minibar had been taken out and lined with computers; The tiny television cut into the wall was wired to receive transmissions from CIA headquarters. Sydney, the main attraction, sat in the back of the stretch limousine, preparing herself for action.
The tires scraped against the curb.
"Au revoir," she told her two handlers. French. Slip of the tongue.
"Be safe," Vaughn said quietly. Her guardian angel trying to earn back his wings.
Nodding, she waited for the valet to open the door. She stepped out gracefully, casting one glance at the tuxedo-clad men discreetly staring at her in frivolous clusters by the door. She walked with a purpose down the carpeted walkway, through the hall and into the main ballroom.
Fashionably late. They'd timed her entrance for just when the clutter was rising. She took a champagne glass and familiarized herself with the landscape.
The entrance corridor was a dark, whispering hall filled with lush rugs and understated paintings, paneled with mahogany and lit in grey tones. A hundred and one doors were passed on the route to the ballroom, each noted and memorized for their specific signs and locks, some rudimentary and some deadbolts. Polished wood was the groundwork of the décor at Maxwell Quick's estate. It lined every floor, accented every chair, and blocked every doorway. Everywhere, from the bathroom to the veranda, Sydney spotted hidden cameras, recording devices secreted beneath tables and indoor ferns. The third and fourth floor, made tantalizing by a sprawling carpeted stairwell, were strictly off limits.
All this, and she also had to mingle.
Escaping the leering of a half-dozen business associates of Quick's, Sydney spirited away into an alcove of the main room.
"I'm just lifting my champagne glass, see, not talking into a hidden mic at all," she muttered irritably to herself, raising her glass as if to take a sip.
"Could you repeat that, Mountaineer?" Vaughn, instantly, his filtered voice chirping in her ear.
"I've spotted Quick. The third and fourth levels are closed off. There's security everywhere," she murmured, forcing a smile toward a passing business mogul.
"See if you can sneak in. His office should be on the third floor, at the very end of the second hallway to the right," Eric instructed, reading off the blueprints displayed on the screen.
"I can't get up there from the inside. Not from here, anyway. I need an alternate route," she droned into her bracelet.
"Copy that, Mountaineer. Stand by." It was Vaughn again, barking at Eric to find him coordinates. "OK, listen, Syd. There's a balcony on the third floor just above the veranda. See if you can climb up."
Sighing, she passed her champagne glass to a passing waiter. Through the chittering mass of partygoers, onto the darkened, abandoned portico. It was cold; a frigid wind whipped at her carefully curled hair. Dressed to impress, no one dared the icy outdoors.
Up, up, up. Surrounded by creeper vines, narrow and lined with cast-iron railing. On the third floor.
She took off her shoes.
A wall covered in dense ivy. A tasteful, slated overhang. She could work with this.
Groaning at the necessity of it, Sydney gathered the hem of her form-fitting dress and ripped it to her thigh. Expensive or not, formal wear was in no way suitable for missions.
She moved to the wall, putting her back against the rough pillar supporting the roof of the veranda. Grasping thick handfuls of the vines covering the complete west side of the house, she climbed, her back braced against the pillar, her feet tearing through the vines as she worked her way slowly up.
Her bare feet touched down upon the cool, gritty surface of the sought-after balcony. Before her, a glass door. Locked. She withdrew a pin from her hair. Turned the handle within moments.
Plush carpet beneath her toes as she crept into the room. A bedroom, it seemed, unused and musty, satin sheets aging on the untouched bed. As Sydney passed the full-length mirror on the way to the door, she regretted it. Her appearance, ten minutes ago sleek and alluring, was no disheveled, her hands and face streaked with dirt, her shoeless feet scratched and stinging. Sighing, she drew out the hand pistol strapped to her upper leg and warily peeked out into the hallway.
"When you get in through the balcony, go left and then turn down the right corridor. At the end there's a door. Should be pretty heavily guarded. That's Quick's office," Eric's monotone read into her ear.
"Going radio silent," she whispered, and pressed the clasp twice. With a slight beep her microphone went dead, leaving Vaughn and Eric in silence.
Gripping the AMT .380 pistol against her shoulder, she crept out of the dank bedroom, sliding against the wall with the barest rustle of chiffon scraping against her ankles. The hallway was bare, bereft of tables or chairs or paintings which could hide security cameras. Sydney trod down the hall silently, stopping at a fork - right or straight.
Cautiously she inched her head around the corner, taking a swift look before ducking back. A blossoming fern beside the door, obviously hiding a camera, two guards stationed at the end of the hall, each armed with a SIG and a M-1 rifle, probably a Garand. All this taken in at a split-second glance.
No backup coming, no other way in.
She heard footsteps approaching from behind her.
-
In, out, breathing through her nose, slow and even. Her muscles seared with the strain.
Beneath her, two guards passed, rounded the corner and approached the duo guarding Quick's office. Their voices, loud and authoritative, reported on the stillness of the upper levels. Slowly, deliberately, she lifted one foot off the wall and stretched to catch the opposite corner.
A suicidal, ill-conceived plan, and damned near impossible to execute. In her utter lack of concealment, Sydney had hidden on the ceiling, scrambling up with her hands and feet supporting her by pushing against opposing walls.
And now she was screwed. Dropping down would be heard by the soldiers chatting down the corridor. Her only hope was getting close enough to catch them by surprise.
Hence the navigating around a corner while clinging to the ceiling. She clamped her teeth to her lips and strenuously forced her legs to comply.
In the open, with her gun tucked into the holster on her thigh. A sitting duck. All they had to do with glance up.
Diligently she inched forward, hand-over-hand along the walls, terrified that even a single lock of hair would swing loose and alert the extremely armed guards. With a small bit of luck, the dynamic duo known as Team 6 said their adieus and scooted off. Vigilantly, she crept forward.
For the moment Sydney was out of sight of the security camera, but when she dropped down to go medieval on the guards she'd be seen. A little more smash-and-grab than she preferred, but some things had to be sacrificed.
She was preparing her attack when the door to Quick's office swung open, and Sark placed a bullet at the base of each guard's skulls. He was dressed for work, in loose black clothing and a Kevlar vest. He had a minor arsenal of weaponry clipped to his belt, and he briskly pocketed the coveted disk. Sydney went desperately still, extinguishing her breath. Three steps and she could strike from behind.
"Syd, what's going on?" Vaughn said without warning, and with a slight grunt of surprise, her hand slipped marginally.
Instantly Sark drew up his Browning, aiming it at the ceiling before his face could even register disbelief.
Her limbs wobbled with the effort as they held each other's indecisive stares.
Sydney's arms buckled from the stress. Sark caught her as she fell.
"Well, isn't this romantic," he noted sardonically, cradling her in his arms.
She half-heartedly punched him in the jaw. "Where's the disk, Sark?"
Grinning ruefully, he lowered her to her feet. "You've gotten rusty, darling."
Indignation. She aimed another punch at his head. He grasped her fist and laughed.
Caught sandwiched between Sark and the wall, she had no escape as he pinned her arms back and smothered her lips with his own.
She thrashed, squirmed against him, turned her head to avoid his kiss - which did nobody any good when he instead ran his mouth along her neck, teeth grazing skin.
"Syd?" Eric this time.
She shoved against him. Sark complied, inching back, close enough for her to feel his warm breath. Acridly Sydney wished for his arrogant smirk to replace the intense, apprehensive look he fixed on her.
"You don't owe them anything," he repeated.
She might've been made of stone.
Violent with frustration, he released his hold on her with a jerk, turning away. On impulse Sydney grabbed his arm.
She hated that look. She really did. That questioning, haughty look he gave her whenever she did anything less than expectedly heroic.
Screw it. She grabbed him and kissed him and slid her body against him when he grunted with pleasure.
Up against the wall, undignified but it didn't matter. His hands, his mouth everywhere, scratching and caressing, and Sydney just as hungry. Vaughn talking in her ear, wondering why she wasn't turning her mic back on. Sark was close enough to hear, familiar enough smirk at the absurdity of her handler obliviously hoping to chat.
She tore at his shirt, battling the enigmatic buttons, and he drew back to laugh cavalierly at her. "I knew you couldn't resist," he taunted breathlessly. "I knew you couldn't resist the danger."
It wasn't news to her. She'd known and denied it for a lifetime. "Maybe," she playfully nipped at his ear. "But what's your excuse?"
He froze. His jarring laughter disappeared and he drew away from her like she was acid. Conflict, confusion written clearly across his stoic face. He watched her with an expression of indistinct turmoil.
Sydney glanced momentarily into Quick's pilfered office. It was cluttered, elaborately furnished, with a row of surveillance screens lining the wall. The half-dozen screens viewing cameras on the third floor depicted a troop of guards running hectically toward them.
Sark followed her glance. Of course, the camera 'hidden' in the plant. A myopic 3rd-grader could have seen it faster. Though, admittedly, he'd been distracted.
A split-second stand-off, glaring at each other like a Sergio Leone tribute.
Oh, right. The disk.
In an instant their staring match was broken, and he bolted for the door, Sydney charging after him. Rounding the corner, bullets from both their guns brutalized the 5-man group of toadies blocking the hallway.
Abruptly Sark cut a corner, shots sizzling into the wall inches from his head as Sydney gave chase. Down the corridor, through the labyrinth of Maxwell Quick's fortress, leaving disaster in their wake.
Sydney sincerely hoped he knew where he was going.
All at once they arrived on the banistered walkway overlooking the packed ballroom. Callously, Sark shot down the forbidden staircase.
Belatedly Sydney re-activated the mic in her bracelet, snapping, "Sark's got the disk! He's headed toward the front door!"
Immediately Vaughn sent Eric to intercept, as he himself circled around back for perimeter backup. Sydney barely heard a word; Sark chose that moment to abandon the stairs and vault over the side, landing at a crouch on the buffet table.
Running on adrenaline, Sydney followed suit, catching the railing with her bare foot and jumping after him, tumbling less gracefully onto the floor and tackling him around the legs. Without pause Sark bloodied her nose with his knuckles.
She sprang backwards off the ground, somersaulting to her feet and kicking the Browning from his hand in the process. He rose to his feet and ground a blistering right hook into her ribcage. As she reeled back, he hit her twice more, to the shoulder and cheekbone. Sydney clocked him with the handle of her empty .380 pistol.
It wasn't about the disk anymore, wasn't about the CIA capturing an escaped terrorist, wasn't about revenge for the endless list of injuries they'd afflicted on each other. It was about winning, a barbaric passion to gain symbolic control.
Lunging forward, Sark struck her across the jaw, catching her by the hair as she fell and dragging her sideways. Letting out an uncharacteristic squeal, she nailed him in the chin with her heel and rolled to the floor. He went at her again, and pulled up short when she came up brandishing his forgotten Browning.
"On your knees," she commanded harshly, swiping at the stream of red flowing quite freely from her nose.
He tried to grin, to smirk rebelliously at her, but his bottom row of teeth had gauged into his tongue, metallic blood filling his mouth, and truth be told he knew this was inevitable.
The ball was in her court now.
Bad metaphor, considering.
"On your knees, now!" she shouted, wavering. Present a strong front even if you're turned to ashes.
Nearly snarling with frustration, he withdrew the disk from his jacket and held it aloft. "Come and get it."
She rolled her eyes. No, really. "Grow up and toss it to me, Sark."
Quick's guards were creeping down the staircase. Time was up.
"Sydney!" A thick, female voice. Definitely (well, hopefully) not her handler.
Her gaze flickered to the emptying, chaotic ballroom. There, by the door leading to the library. Dressed in gold and smiling. Allison.
A procession of emotions, disbelief, terror, rage, dismay and a smattering of self-loathing, displayed in Sydney's familiar eyes as Sark watched, tensed. This was why she was here, of course. Who would actually hire Allison for surveillance? She had the stealth of a break-dancing mountain goat.
Sark could have slapped himself for causing the look of blinding confliction she turned on him. Or, more accurately, for the bewildering urge he had to hug her. Yes, hug her.
Dear god, he was becoming Michael Vaughn.
Without another word Sydney turned and sprinted toward Allison, who had enough sense to run like hell. Sark replaced the disk in his jacket and headed to the front door. Just for a laugh he slammed the oncoming Eric Weiss headfirst into the door jam on his way out the door.