Murphy's Second Law: If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the first one to go wrong.
"Wake up Riley."
Lyle leaned down closer to his charge; she would never let him get this close to her had she been awake.
"Wake up Riley." he said the words louder this time and was gratified slightly by the flinch that crossed the young girl's face.
"Wake up Riley." he said again, placing his hand on her shoulder. Riley exploded at the touch; bolting upright, a panicked look marring her usually calm features. He felt a thrill of a satisfaction at being able to create this kind of reaction in her; it wasn't very often that Riley's mask of subservience fell so far as to show him her true feelings, but Raines sent him a hot glare from across the room and he pulled back from the girl enough for her to calm down again. It was not as though Raines even cared one way or the other what Lyle did with Riley, but the older man was bristling under the attention of the third party in the room. Even Lyle could admit; it hadn't been wise to do that with dear old Dad so close by. Certainly not with the way Riley was taking it.
Riley woke up to find Mr. Lyle in her face and scrambled away quickly, pressing herself as best she could against the headboard of the bed in her new room. Mr. Lyle moved further away from her, any sign of his false smile gone. His eyes passed just beyond her and Riley turned her head to see Mr. Raines in the room. Mr. Raines eyes were hardened at her reaction; she was supposed to be afraid of them, obey them, but she was also supposed to control her emotions; Riley felt a hard ball grow in the pit of her stomach. She would pay for this transgression later.
Taking deep breaths she tried to get her heart beat under control, calming down even more when Mr. Lyle stood up from his position of sitting on her bed. His closeness to her had frightened her; Mr. Lyle only got that close to her if she was doing a SIM, or or if she was in trouble, and since she obviously was not doing a SIM, well... that sort of left the other option. Riley's eyes dropped to the blanket covering her legs. This was a bad start to the day. Someone cleared their throat off to the side to beckon Mr. Lyle away, and it was then that Riley noticed the other man in the room, and she understood Mr. Raines' reaction all the better. She'd seen this man once before, when no one thought she was looking. He had been watching her from up on the catwalks above the SIM lab a few weeks ago. He was slightly overweight, with a large mustache and white hair, balding, but what scared her about his appearance was the fact that he was looking at her like Christmas had come early.
"Get up Riley." Mr. Lyle said.
She complied readily, noticing with a small tinge of indignation that her clothes had been changed while she was asleep. Riley had never been afforded even the illusion of privacy, so she didn't know why this bothered her so much. Perhaps it was because they had been changed while she slept; during a time when she was vulnerable. It gave her a little sick feeling inside, and made her shiver. It did not matter though, it was not the first time it had been done. She knew better than to start screaming about it, as she had when it had first happened. That time did not even bear mentioning. In any case, she did not feel like getting on Mr. Lyle's bad side today, not when she had already lost control once.
Her head was pounding and her throat was dry. Her mouth felt like it was gagged with cotton, like she couldn't swallow. Standing up had made the headache worse, and her legs felt shaky and unstable. She hated when they sedated her like this. Riley had been taught long ago to put her own comfort on hold during simulations, and was thankful for the ability now. She locked it in a little box in the back of her mind, next to her nightmares and fears. She could bother with all of those things later. Much later. The world still seemed a little fuzzy, but her stomachache was slowly dissapating, which was at least one thing she could be thankful for. She looked around for the first time at the barren room they had put her in. Cinderblock walls, unlike the austere white paint that covered her old room, made the whole atmosphere of the space dreary and remote. She shivered, suddenly overtaken by an unshakable feeling of cold. It felt lonely here. "Mr. Lyle, where am I?" She asked, forgetting in her confusion to get permission before she questioned him. "This isn't my room." It wasn't her room at the facility and she hoped it would not be her room here. She didn't like it in here. She hoped he might have understood that.
He turned away from the whispering conversation he was having with the mustachioed man and waved a laconic hand, which would have been rebuff enough without the curt order that followed it. "You've been moved. Now stop asking questions."
Riley dropped her eyes to the floor immediately, avoiding the stern look he was sending her. The look that made her stomach tie in knots and her throat stick up. The look that meant he was angry or disappointed with her. "Yes Sir."
"I can see what you mean Lyle," the older man stated, obviously referring to a previous conversation. Riley wished she could see what he meant. What had he been saying to the other man? That she was insubordinate and not worth the time or effort? Because that was what his order had made it seem like.
"Yes, Riley is very compliant, but only to Raines and me; she'll obey others only if we tell her to."
"Very well done. Finally one that won't be traipsing off to who-knows-where without so much as a by-your-leave. Thank goodness."
"Oh we'll have absolutely no problem going through with the plan. She'll find Jarod and we'll put him back where he belongs in no time. Then it's business as usual." Lyle replied. "With two pretenders." He laughed. Riley noticed the hint of pride in his voice, and smiled inwardly to herself, she hadn't realized he had that much faith in her. It felt good, knowing that. "Imagine the revenue we'll get for this."
"Indeed."
Riley bit her lip, a nervous habit, and kept her gaze on the floor. It wasn't uncommon for any of her handlers to speak about her as though she were not in the room, or as though she could not hear them, but it had always given her a small measure of annoyance, being ignored like that. Or rather, being treated as though she couldn't understand them. They spent half their precious time lauding her genius, and then acted as though she were some subspecies whenever they were not in a SIM lab. But she had half a brain-- she could pick out the import in what they were saying. It was about her new project, wasn't it?
Jarod will be back at the Centre... who's Jarod?... Why do they want him?... and the Centre... is that what this place is?
Mr. Lyle cut her musing short as he suddnely turned and addressed her. "Riley, this is Mr. Parker; you will refer to him as such, or Sir."
"Yes Mr. Lyle." Riley acknowledged the information, looking up at the older man she had noticed earlier. Only half of her concentration was on the adults before her though, she could tell this man was a piece of the puzzle, but he was not a scientist. She would not be working with him closely, she thought, so he would not be a threat. She did not need to understand his moods, like she did with Mr. Lyle and Mr. Raines. He actually seemed almost genial; but then, he was getting what he wanted, wasn't he? Riley's gaze rested again on the floor as the men turned away from her to talk in conspiratorial tones about a topic she did not know. She focused on trying to get the pain in her head to leave, but it was not working very well, as she could not keep the confusion in her mind at bay for long before another question zipped across it. She gave up in the attempt as she thought she heard a small scuttling in the vent above her; it didn't sound like a rat, it sounded... bigger... human...
That was weird, of all the conclusions her mind could have led her to... human?
Mr. Parker clapped his hands together as they finished talking, and Riley startled out of her thoughts.
"Well I don't see why we should not commence with the plan right now, follow me Riley."
Riley looked up quickly, alarmed, not to mention confused, by the direct interaction with Mr. Parker and looked almost unconsciously at Mr. Raines, who gave a small nod of approval, before she stepped out of the door and began following behind him. Maybe she had been wrong, and she would be working with him, since he had spoken to her? But that was strange, if Mr. Lyle was here, then she would be working with him, right? She looked uncertainly back at the man, who gave her a little encouraging wave forward before dropping deeply back into conversation with Mr. Raines. It felt weird being told to 'do for herself' like that. An insane feeling of abandonment crept into her chest; which was just foolish, right? But she had never been around people who were not constantly studying and scrutinizing her. And now everyone was focused on this... Jarod person. So maybe that little lost feeling chewing a nice wormhole into her heart had a right to be there after all. She decided she didn't really like this 'Jarod' very much at all.
She walked down the corridor, vaguely wondering where they were going, when Mr. Parker climbed into the elevator at the end of the hall, holding the door as she, Mr. Raines, and Mr. Lyle piled in. She watched with nervous anticipation as Mr. Parker pushed the button for one of the upper levels. And not just any level, it was above ground, and that meant windows, well... probably, and windows meant a glimpse at the sky. Such an occasion was always a treat, better if she actually had permission to be there. The elevator came to a slow halt and Riley walked out. There were offices around them, she saw a sign for the tech room pointing down an opposite hall and wondered if she might be allowed to make use of it; the tech room was always an interesting place to visit. It was always busy, so no one was really looking at her. But they were not ignoring her like the men downstairs had been either, they were just all focusing on their own jobs-- the same way she did. And everyone knew each other. They told tales, shared jokes, kept little pictures of their kids next to their computers, it was a sense of... community mostly. The sort that she did not get when she was with Mr. Lyle. Of course, she was not a part of their community either, but she could be content to watch.
She was about to continue down the hall after Mr. Parker when she heard Mr. Raines' wheezing voice. "Wait Riley." She stopped obediently and turned around to walk back to her two keepers, stopping about two feet away from them. Mr. Raines and Mr. Lyle were in a discussion with Willie, a tall black sweeper she had seen plenty of times over the years. He rarely smiled, and he wasn't particularly nice, but he seemed to recognize that Riley was important to Mr. Raines-- at least as far as projects went-- so he did not treat her like dirt either. Mr. Lyle called over his shoulder to Mr. Parker to continue without them and she quickly turned her attentions to the conversation. She could not make out all the words, they were talking in low voices and she would rather prefer it if she kept her eavesdropping to a low profile, she did however hear several mentions of a 'Miss Parker'.
Her thoughts turned immediately to the man she had just been introduced to and she wondered if there was any relation there. She could not be his wife, that would make her Mrs. Parker, if her knowledge of family ties was accurate. What then? A daughter? Niece maybe? A grandaughter to that man would have been awfully young to be around here, wouldn't she... it didn't seem like a place for a child.
The next name dropped was 'Sydney'. She had nothing to go off of with that name, not even a real guess at gender. The conversation seemed to run on the lines of them being in Mr. Parker's office. Mr. Lyle looked annoyed and Mr. Raines looked nothing short of fuming. Willie scurried away, and Riley wished she could run away too, a mad Mr. Raines was a side of the man she hoped was never directed at her. Riley wondered idly what could be so wrong about these people that they could cause this sort of reaction in the two men. Mr. Lyle was massaging the decimated stump of his left thumb, a sure sign of agitation, and started off again with long, quick strides. Riley nearly had to jog just to keep up with him. Mr. Raines was still trailing the rear, pulling his oxygen tank though, so it didn't matter too much if she fell behind. Exept that he was angry too, and she didn't really want to be around that.
They passed the large area of the tech department, which was her first indication of how much grander the Centre was in comparison to the facility she grew up in. The area was not a tech room it was a tech department. And she knew this must really be only a fraction of what they had on staff; they were on an upper floor, which meant that the people working here were only the ones working on particularly important projects. There had been a similar hierarchy in place at the facility, only there, the further you were stationed away from the outside door, the more important you were. Riley had her own section of the place near the very back, so it just went to show you. As Mr. Lyle and Mr. Raines passed by the fogged glass cordoning off the workers area, the rampant emotions of the few technologists in the office this early made her skin tingle, and the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
The hall opened up into a large area with tall windows reaching in thin towers from cieling to floor. It seemed that the elevator had taken them very high up as the windows looked directly out into the sky, and she knew she would have to be looking very close up to them if she wanted to see the ground. It was strange seeing the sky as it looked in the daytime, a lighter blue than its nightime mask, and the stars she was accustomed to finding were hidden from veiw. Riley had only ever seen the sky at night, stealing brief snatches of the outside world through windows, during the few times that she had snuck out of her room at the facility. The light outside looked odd compared to the florescent bulbs she was so familiar with, not quite as harsh, though significantly brighter. She wished she could take a closer look, but this would have to do. It was certainly more of a view than she had expected to ever have the night before.
Riley's glee must have been evident to Mr. Lyle, for he placed his hand on her shoulder in warning. She tensed immediately at his touch and her gaze dropped to the floor. She was in trouble for the second time that day and she had only been awake for 15 minutes! She would need to do well today in the briefing room if she were to redeem herself. He directed her across the room, all the while squeezing her shoulder with his good hand, purposefully putting all of the pressure on her collar bone, relenting just as Riley thought it would snap.
"Behave yourself Riley." Mr. Lyle bit out, before letting go of her shoulder as they entered yet another hall with large double doors near the end.
Ow. "Y-Yes Sir." She stuttered, her voice shaky from the slowly receding pain. She glowered inwardly. Riley understood the need for her to control her emotions, emotions threatened a person's objectivity, but she had always disliked that she was required to check them even during those brief periods that she was not working. Rules were rules though, and if she wanted to keep out of trouble, she had to follow the rules, no matter how menial.
They had come to the end of the hall. A bench stood off to one side outside a pair of large double doors. They were made of fogged glass, and it seemed that even more of the light she had seen in the area at the end of the hallway was flooding this room. She smiled inside. There would be windows in there as well. Riley trailed after Mr. Lyle, resisting the urge to rub her throbbing shoulder, as she knew this action would only cause her further pain; Mr. Raines, behind her, would not like the show of weakness. She settled for grasping one hand in the other and clenching it tightly to focus on something else. She stepped past the empty receptionist desk and suddenly felt emotions hit her as though she had walked into a wall. She stopped short before the doors, her brain actually hurting with the emotions diffusing from the room. There were too many of them. Too loud. Too uncontrolled. Someone inside was furious. The anger hit her like a cresting wave and she had to force herself to calm down before it overwhelmed her.
Mr. Raines sped up behind her, and she heard him let out an angry little snarl. No more anger...no more no more... she wanted it to stop. He wrapped one annoyed hand around the back of her neck to drag her forward, jarring her so badly that she brought her hands up out of pain to grab at the sides of her head, just behind the temples. She let out one quiet whimper of pain as something audibly shattered in the room, and he let go of her almost immediately.
"Lyle." He rasped, stopping the other man short just as he was about to enter the office. "Take care of her." He said, motioning back shortly at Riley before continuing into the room.
Mr. Lyle came around in front of her, kneeling down at eye level, about an arms length away. Not close enough to strike a decent blow, so she must not be in trouble again. She could not believe she was loosing it again today in front of him; and she could not believe he was letting her. He must have known it was an emotion that was troubling her, and must have thought it was not her fault. But that wasn't right; it was her fault. She had been trained to deal with this and she couldn't. She just couldn't. It hurt too badly. She needed it gone.
"Make it stop. Please. Make it stop. It's too much. I-I can't--"
Through blurry, watery eyes she saw him shake his head. "Riley. I can't stop it; I'm not controlling this one."
But he had to be. He controlled every one. And she couldn't take it, she needed it gone. "Yes you can. You have to. It hurts and I haven't done anything wrong! Please. Make it stop. Make it stop." she sobbed, her body shaking with the foreign emotions of other people.
She felt a hand on her shoulder start to steer her awkwardly off to the side, but it was not a bad hand, so she let it without protest. He sat her down on a hard metal bench against the wall, again kneeling down on his haunches in front of her. She sobbed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. For this morning and questions and the windows and I'm just-- please make it stop. I'm sorry."
"Riley--" He grabbed her hands away from their grip on her head and sandwhiched them between his own, as though she might end up doing damage to herself with them. "Riley, listen to me, Riley. This isn't a punishment. I'm not doing this. I can't make it stop. You need to work through it on your own."
No. No. She couldn't. She'd told him that. It was too much. She shook her head, clenching her eyes shut tight against the pain, tugging on her hands to release them from his grip, but he wouldn't let her go.
"Riley I can't help you if you won't tell me what's wrong. What's happening?"
"I-I can't--"
"Riley, it'll get better once you figure it out. You know that. You've been trained to know that." Lyle told her, trying to appeal to the logical side of her mind, knowing any emotive pleas or angry demands weren't going to make it through her overloaded empathic senses. She gave him a quick bob of the head, as though any more movement would cause her more pain.
"Someone'sreallyangry." she slurred, like she couldn't get in control of even her own speech, and Lyle figured that he would have to help her. Riley was a good empath, but she needed proper training; the sort that Lyle couldn't give her. He hardly claimed to be a psychologist, and the most that he ever had to go off of when training Riley was instinct and a select few DSA's of the other Centre inmates. Unfortunately, even when he did know what was going on, Lyle really didn't have many opportunities like these to deal with some of the harsher emotions. He could imitate them himself, and usually did when training her as an empath; which was obviously manifesting itself in this misplaced understanding that he could stop whatever was doing this. In her training, he could, and in the beginning, he often did. She had slowly built up a tolerance to feeling other people's emotions, but when something was over her head, he would often water it down a little. His sister's anger, though, only seemed to be building. Looking at the girl's face now, it was as though someone was burning her.
"Okay Riley, I want you to listen to my voice, now I want you to relax. Just take a deep breath and relax. Just calm down." He was coaching her like he always did before a simulation and it seemed to be working. She was calming down slightly, but not enough, this was always the hardest part with Riley; she was always so afraid to let go of herself, especially when she was younger, it had not been much of a problem since then, but she was still afraid that she would not be able to come back.
"Riley I need you to let go, just let go, I promise you'll come back, just relax." That was it. Lyle prided himself on having been able to keep every last promise he had made to the girl. He did not make very many, and they were not always huge, but they were always kept. Her trust was an effective training tool for times like these; he had gotten her into the state she needed to be in, step one over.
"Good. That's it. Now Riley I want you to center your attention on the person who is angry. What are they feeling?" He asked her, keeping his voice calm, trying to calm her. He wanted to remove her just enough from the emotions of the room that she could still feel them, but was not being consumed by them. He placed a hand on her shoulder, kneaded the muscle lightly, trying to transfer some little bit of tranquility over to her. He, of course, was not actually calm at all. Not on a day like this, and not with his prize pet playing mental disorder with him; but he had a memory and he knew how to use it. That was all he needed. The feeling that happened for him just about ten minutes after one of his brides had stilled beneath his hands, around the time that he removed his fingers from around her throat. That was peace.
It seemed to do at least a little bit for Riley, because she aborted the 'make it stop' mantra for the moment. "Sh-she... Miss Parker... She's really angry and... I-I don't know-- sickened?" The voice answering him was hesitant. She was always hesitant, so afraid of making a mistake.
"Don't ask me Riley, you are the only person who can describe what she's feeling." Lyle admonished quietly, coaxing her to continue.
"She feels...b-betrayed; 'cause someone... someone close... or she thinks they're close...er.. they're going along with something she doesn't think is... good... right." Gaining some measure of confidence now, she hadn't asked his help at least, though her eyes still held confusion.
Lyle regarded this information with some worry, If Parker didn't hold her tongue in front of Riley-- there were too many things that might be said that would tell the girl more than she was ever supposed to know. The Centre could only keep control of its subjects by restraining the amount of information they held. The little freaks were raised knowing they were smarter than their keepers-- the Centre had to keep them dependent. Lyle was not about to lose Riley to one stupid emotional outburst.
"Good Riley, your doing this well. Now what other emotions are in the room?" He directed her away from Parker, sending her to pick up the next strongest trail of emotions she could find. This next set of emotions did not seem as volatile-- and of course not, they were probably Sydney's. The old goat surely had some strong feelings toward the project, but he would be restraining himself. And if he was restraining himself on the outside, then he would be doing the same on the inside; which scaled the problem down from a lava-spewing volcano to a rice-paddy in vietnam. The trick was just to avoid the little things that went 'click.'
"Someone else is d-disgusted... only I-I think it's with himself... he finds the...um... the subject?...interesting, but he also kinda feels like he's b-betraying someone else." Hesitating again. Halting and wanting him to tell her if she was right or wrong. So utterly dependent. Definitely Sydney's thoughts there. Poor little fence-rider Syd, seemed to have some barbed wire up his butt on this one. He needed to learn how to get off his high-horse and do his friggin job.
Now to try Mr. Ambiguous himself, dear old Dad.
"That's good Riley. Now tell me what Mr. Parker is feeling." This would be good. To see if she could pick Mr. Parker's emotions away from the rest of the occupants of the room, to see if she could unravel them as well.
"I...I don't..."
Lyle almost hung his head in frustration but stopped himself and kept his tone neutral. "Just try Riley, think about it, you've met him, now what is he feeling?" He persisted.
"...He's... frustrated... why won't she just cooperate! she's too much like her mother...This is all for the greater good...the project has made amazing advancements in science, the genetic engineering alone is incredible!...And with Jarod gone the SIMs she's performed are nothing short of a miracle...Why can't she see that!"
Lyle frowned in some disappointment, the differences of pretending and empathy were very slight, but it was obvious that Riley had reverted to the option she found easiest. She had pretended to be Mr. Parker just now, rather than simply analyzing his feelings, she had gotten into his head.
"No Riley, that isn't what I asked you to do. I need you to empath these people, not pretend to be them." He asserted some control back over her mind and the pretend stopped.
"I'm sorry Sir, I'm trying..." She answered him, running a frustrated hand through her hair. She looked worn out, exhausted was more the word. Thankfully her expression was not one of pain any longer, though her hands were doing some residual trembling.
"Alright," He conceded. He knew she was trying. But at the Centre, it was either do or don't, there simply was no try. "But you aren't working hard enough, let's see if you can do one more for me. I want you to empath Mr. Raines."
Riley's attention came back to earth with a jolt.
"You want me to what? I can't... Mr. Raines...He's...He's..." she drew her knees up to her chest, sitting with her feet on the bench, pushing away from him, a stricken look of fear on her face. "Mr. Lyle... I-I can't...Please don't make me..."
Damn. She'd been doing well and then the damnable stuttering and pleading. He understood her not wanting to become Raines, Raines scared her, and it was far more obvious than she thought it was. But the fact of the matter was, he had spent the past eleven years teaching her to obey him unconditionally, and she should not even have the courage to think of disagreeing, much less follow through with it. He had told her to do something; 'no' or any variation thereof was not an acceptable response.
"Riley stop!"
She stopped.
"Come here now." He growled at her between clenched teeth, his voice low, menacing. She was wringing her hands, biting her lip. She slipped off the bench; took one halting step forward. Another. Another. Until she was directly in front of him. Good.
"You have become men like him before, now what is so different this time?" His anger was still present in his voice and she flinched almost as though he had struck her.
"Mr. Lyle... Please don't ask me to pretend to be Mr. Raines... Please...Sir...I just can't..."
"I'm not asking, I'm ordering. And I'm ordering you to empath him, not pretend; it isn't that difficult."
"...I-I... please don't make me do this...Please..." He knew she was itching to move away from him, looked about ready to cry, but she didn't. It was a good thing that she didn't too, because that was yet another thing that was against the rules, and she did not want to break yet another rule today. Not in front of him.
"Riley, you do not want to upset me further than you already have." She flinched again under his livid gaze. But she was not following his order either. "Think what he is thinking Riley, feel what he feels," Lyle had not had to force her into a simulation like this in a very long time and his annoyance was evident.
"No...Don't...Stop." Her voice was pleading with him even as her mind began setting up the pretend.
"Stop struggling Riley." He grabbed her arms and forced her to be still. "Relax. Become Mr. Raines Riley." He demanded. "Tell me what he's thinking. What is he feeling? You are Mr. Raines!"
Riley stopped struggling, her face was blank again, her breathing regulated, there was no sign on her face of the struggle for dominance over her mind that had just occurred.
"Good Riley, now what is Mr. Raines feeling?"
"Mr. Raines is angry. The project belongs to him... someone is trying to take her... but he won't let them...he's put much too much work into the project..." She said, her voice escaping in a monotone, her eyes dull and unfocused, deeper into the pretend than she had been all morning. She probably wouldn't remember anything she had said, which was just as well, with the unguarded sorts of thoughts floating around the mercurial soup in Raines' brain.
"That's good Riley, that's very good. Now, what am I feeling? What are my thoughts on the discussion going on in that room?" Now was Lyle's real chance to find out how good Riley's empathy ability was. "Riley, what am I thinking? What am I feeling?"
Riley felt her psyche slip and give into his gentle nudging. "You're angry; the Project has made up your life's work... It's your project and you've spent more time on it than Raines ever has... You aren't going to allow anyone to take her from you...And you're frustrated; someone... wasn't supposed to find out about this so soon... you don't want anything to go wrong..."
"That's excellent Riley, a perfect explanation. You're finished." He said, snapping her out of the pretend she'd slipped so far into. He wanted her to hear him, and he wanted her lucid. "Now what are my thoughts on the discussion going on out here?" Lyle looked at her unsympathetically, clearly conveying his thoughts on the subject.
Riley hung her head, focusing on the marble pattern of the tile beneath her to escape his eyes."You're angry, and frustrated. You've worked harder and longer than anyone to teach me to obey, without any questions or demands about the assignments you order me to do... I shouldn't argue with you. You don't want me to ever disobey again. I should be able to put my own feelings aside before a SIM. You should never have to force me into a SIM, and I should always do it willingly regardless of the material content...I shouldn't disobey you." Riley said in a defeated manner, reciting the lessons she had been taught as a small child.She didn't need to be a genius to know that she was in serious trouble. She looked up at him in trepidation, waiting for him to do something, or say something. She had disobeyed a direct order, surely she would be punished for such a failure.
Mr. Lyle slapped her across the face. Hard.
Riley flinched, but didn't cry out. She couldn't imagine what he would do if she did. Her head swung to the side with the force of the blow and her mind positively reeled. Her cheek stung, hurting so badly that it was nearly numb. She had to force herself not reach up to touch it. She could feel blood rushing to the area, making her face throb hotly.
"You never disobey me again! Do you understand?"
She didn't answer quickly enough, and he delivered another slap to her face. She recoiled, this time bringing her hand to her cheek, and feeling it burn beneath her palm. Hot tears threated to spill behind her eyes but she pushed them away ruthlessly, crying would only get her into worse trouble.
"Do... You... Understand... Me?"
"Y-Yes Sir, I-I understand." She answered more quickly this time, afraid of another blow.
"Good. Now, we'll continue this discussion later. Right now, we are going down to the infirmary for some ice, I can't afford to have you walk into that room looking like you just got into a fistfight."
"Y-Yes Mr. Lyle." Riley fell into place at his side as he herded her off in the direction of the infirmary.
-
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Inside Mr. Parker's office, things were not going much better than they had outside. Miss Parker was fuming, fuming in a way that she had not been since Gemini had come to the Centre.
"Daddy I will not tolerate this! How could you have possibly allowed him to? Did you even know?" Parker stalked in front of her father's desk, gesticulating wildly as she talked.
"Angel-" The older man tried to placate her, holding his palms up in front of his chest, in the universal gesture for surrender. "Now just hold on—"
"Don't you 'Angel' me daddy! Did you know that Raines had created a child pretender, again. And one that's related to us! What were you thinking? Were you thinking at all?"
Raines chose that moment to enter the room, picking up the conversation before Mr. Parker could answer. "Yes Miss Parker... Your father did know about the project...It has been one of the Centre's most important...endeavors for the past eighteen years..."
Parker glared at the bald man in annoyance that he chose that moment to show up, but turned back to her father as though the emphezema-riddled walking corpse had never entered the room. "Daddy you can't have, this is sick! You let him play God—again! Look what happened the last time he did this! Or don't you remember Project Gemini? You remember right? The one that helped Jarod plot your kidnapping so that I could go get a bullet through my back? Of course, it was a little while ago so maybe you've forgotten! Allow me to remind you; we had Major Charles, and then Gemini, who was supposed to be perfectly obedient to Charro-Bizarro over there decided to shack up--"
"Project Gemini... was working fine... until you decided to interrupt it!" Raines threw in heatedly.
"How many more screw ups are you going to allow him to make Daddy, before you stop him!" Parker continued, ignoring the comment.
"Angel, I have no intention of stopping Raines. The project is one of the most important Centre assets right now." Mr. Parker cajoled. Trying to win his daughter over with a small smile. "Without Jarod, this is almost the only project bringing in any considerable profit. The genetic engineering alone is incredible-"
"Oh yes Daddy, care to elaborate on the genetic engineering?" She spat the words as though they were something foul. "How about the fact that he took material from, Jarod, Angelo, and Lyle-" The last one came out with some incredulity, in all technicality, the girl they had created was actually her niece. As much as her father spoke of family ties, he seemed to have overlooked that one.
Raines interrupted her "-Lyle, happens to have volunteered."
"-and decided that he was going to combine them to create Frankenstein's friggin' grandaughter! And you!" Parker turned to look at Raines, "How badly did you decide to screw it up? What is your precious project this time? I mean you already have a psychopath, a sociopath, an empath who may as well be cata-blinking-tonic-"
"The project, is a natural pretender, like Jarod... there was no need to use other methods-"
"Yeah like frying her brains into yesterday's eggs?" Parker uttered the sentence just loud enough for the room to hear, rather than yelling it. She knew this would get a better reaction.
"Angel, before you decide to continue your little...tirade... maybe you could let him explain-" Her father tried once more to get her to listen.
"He can try, but he will never justify this." Her face was filled with contempt as she eyed the man.
"Well Raines, I think you should at least tell her about it."
Raines wheeled further into the room, and though he did not bother hiding the contemptuous look he was throwing at Miss Parker, he did begin explaining. "The project is an empathic pretender... whose skills in those areas rival... both Jarod and Angelo's own...it has been raised in an environment... almost identical to Jarod's... with a few differences-"
"Namely you and Lyle."
"It has ground rules!... that it is not allowed to cross... The project has been taught to obey..."
Parker thought of mimicking him, 'The project is taught to obey...,' in a high pitched falsetto, but decided against it. Even so, she couldn't quite contain her look of disgust every time he called the girl 'it'. Nevermind that she had been doing it only a few moments before.
Sydney finally spoke up from where he was standing against the wall. "Obey?"
"Yes Sydney... obey... as in, if I tell it not to run away...it won't!"
Sydney ignored the implied insult, catching the message behind the words and commenting on those instead. "But only if you say so?"
"I knew you couldn't be as stupid as you look..." Raines brushed him off snidely. "That is another one of the benefits... to the disciplinary method that has been devised... Absolute control... for one or two people... A way to ensure that someone like Jarod, or another company, doesn't gain control..."
"Oh well that's convenient." Parker quipped from where she was standing. Imagining Raines' 'disciplinary' methods had nearly made her nauseous, now she just wanted to rip his throat out. "Mind control, through torture! That's all it is! A new experiment in mind control." She turned angrily towards her father. "And you allowed this! You allowed him torture a little girl! How could you let him use those methods?"
"Mr. Raines is allowed to use those methods, because they work." He replied with a voice of steel, cold eyes turned against his daughter.
"Parker," Sydney said her name, attempting to calm the fiery young woman down, "If you were listening you would know that this project is obviously a bit more than just a mind control game-"
"Don't tell me you agree with this Syd! Look at your flippin' forearm--You out of anyone would know that you can't control people like that-"
"I never said I agreed with these methods Parker, but if the experiment is really as extraordinary as Mr. Raines proposes it to be than wouldn't you say that it could probably be an amazing asset to the search for Jarod?" Sydney said, uttering the last bit of the sentence with a questioning look towards Raines. Showing him how easily he had caught onto the game they were playing.
"Which is exactly... what we will be having the project do. Now... if you'll excuse me for a moment... I'd like to begin the assignment... before Jarod finds out about it."
-
-
"I-I--" Riley slowly mustered up the courage to speak around him again. "I-I didn't mean--"
"Don't tempt me Riley. You were better off silent."
She dropped her eyes back to the ground, playing with the ice pack between her hands.
"I-I'm really sorry--"
"As well you should be. There's no excuse."
"No Sir."
"You had better be thankful if I don't mention this to Mr. Raines," he said, irately grabbing up the ice pack and holding it against her face until she brought up own hand to hold it in place. The ring on his hand had split open a small cut against her cheekbone-- they were high, like Jarod's-- so it really didn't matter if Lyle told the older man or not, because he was bound to notice the evidence. Which meant that everyone else would as well. Aside from relieving pain, pain which she deserved at the moment, the ice pack was practically useless. He reached over and wordlessly dumped it in the trash.
"You aren't gonna tell him, are you? P-please, I'm really sorry--"
"Quit whining. That includes all forms of begging and crying."
Riley and Mr. Lyle were sitting on the bench outside the office again. After their 'discussion,' wasn't that much talking really...he had lapsed into almost total silence, refusing to even look at her. It hurt too. Riley may have been afraid of Mr. Lyle on many different levels, but he was the only companion she had known in a long time, She had seen him almost every day, directing her in SIMs and just checking up on her in general, and most of the time he was friendly, she usually didn't give him a reason not to be.
I shouldn't have reacted like that...I should have obeyed
He was much easier to handle than Mr. Raines. She had hardly ever seen him for more than 30 minutes at a time, and he only showed up maybe once every two or three weeks. Mr. Raines would come in the evening, check her progress, which there was usually an obscene amount of, and then talk to her for 5-10 minutes maximum about what her work was and what she might be doing soon. It was odd that this new assignment had never once come up, but they obviously wanted everything to happen so fast that she wouldn't be able to think about it much.
The squeaking of wheels hit her ears and she stood up quickly as Mr. Raines opened the door to the office from the inside.
"Come in, and we'll begin briefing you on your new assignment."
Riley nodded her understanding and marshaled her confidence around her. She hoped that false bravado would suffice for the time being because that was all she seemed to have. Squaring her shoulders, she walked into the room. She was almost certain Mr. Raines had seen the cut on her cheek-- it was hardly hidden-- and she shirked in habit out of the way of his hands, just in case. She heard Mr. Lyle get up to follow her, but as she passed into the room the door behind her swung abruptly shut against the two men outside.
-
Raines grabbed Lyle by the arm as he made to pass him, moving forward so that the door swung shut in front of them. "Did you have a problem out here?"
Lyle jerked his arm out of the other man's grasp, straightening his jacket and tie out of habit. "Everything's been settled, I have the situation under control." He assured, avoiding any discussion of the matter by following his project into the office. Raines and his squeaking wheels tailed him closely.