Murphy's seventh Law: Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

Riley couldn't for the life of her understand why Mr. Lyle had told her that the SIM she was doing might be too difficult for her. It wasn't that bad, difficult yes, but not too difficult. She sat in a large plastic bubble, trying to figure out how she could bring the Apollo mission back to Earth safely. The mission had run out of fuel, and was leaking more; her problem was that she no longer had the fuel, or the materials to bring the mission back home.

"If you don't find the answer soon, you and your crew will die." Mr. Lyle's voice floated to her.

Well if that wasn't totally obvious before, it certainly is now

Riley tamped down on the sarcastic thoughts running through her head, focusing on the simulation. It wasn't altogether extremely difficult, but it was a much higher level than any of her other simulations had ever been before. She relished the challenge. She closed her eyes, trying to focus her thoughts, pulling them like threads from one end of her mind to meet in the center, holding them all there where she could see them. She was in the cockpit... she was responsible for the lives of herself and of her crew... she was going to come home, she could feel it. She knew how...

"Okay, I got it!"

Lyle stood up, shooting a look at Raines, the SIM was not supposed to end yet... It had taken Jarod at least another five minutes... what was going on?

"I can use the moon's gravitational pull to sling-shot us back to earth, that would conserve the fuel enough to allow us to use the back up boosters to slow our descent into the Earth's atmosphere. I just have to shut off or lower the settings on the electronic equipment. That will allow me to conserve the energy we need!" Riley said, opening her eyes once again.

Lyle looked at her disbelievingly. Riley was smart, there were no doubts of that, but Lyle had no illusions when it came to how well she had been trained as a pretender by him. Sydney had practically devised the training method, which was one reason why Jarod himself was such an incredible pretender. Lyle had only been able to try to tell Riley how things were done; he didn't understand half of the things himself. By no possible stretch of the mind should Riley have finished the simulation before Jarod. It defied all logic, part of the reason Raines and he had thought that having her do this project would be a good thing was that it would allow Riley to understand the thought processes of a pretender better than herself. That way it would hopefully teach her to think like him, but if she was already better at pretending than he was, it was quite probable that her pretending ability would diminish. Not that she wasa better pretenderthan Jarod. She simply couldn't be. Not possible.

"That's..." Lyle shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "That's very good Riley."

Riley looked at him confusedly, trying to understand what had made him so... spooked. Did I do something wrong? She wondered, she didn't think so, the answer seemed right to her. She knew that the answer worked; perhaps Jarod had come to a different conclusion? She waited while some sweepers removed the top of the bubble, allowing her to get out. She was glad the SIM hadn't lasted any longer than that, she kept getting distracted by the bubble, she couldn't relax in it; it made her feel claustrophobic. The closed in walls and detachment reminded her too much of the isolation chamber which had been a common punishment when she was younger. She felt as though she couldn't focus inside it, maybe she hadn't done the SIM quickly enough, and that was the reason Mr. Lyle was acting so strange. Perhaps she could have done it faster if the bubble hadn't been distracting her thought processes.

She watched as Mr. Lyle conferred with Mr. Raines about something, Mr. Lyle may have been acting disturbed about her simulation, but Mr. Raines looked like his day was going better than he ever thought it could; as though he had just been promoted. Of course, his outward appearance revealed no different a demeanor than that of his typical irritability, but Riley could feel the satisfaction surrounding the man like a thick cloak.

Weird...

She watched from a distance while Mr. Parker approached the two men. She had seen him watching the whole SIM, periodically glancing at what looked like a computer screen as he did so. Riley didn't know what he was watching, but it had been unnerving to surface from the simulation and find him up on the catwalks, conferring with Mr. Raines. Mr. Raines rarely watched her simulations unless something important was going on, and Riley knew how influential Mr. Parker apparently was. It made her nervous to think she might have failed in the simulation in some way, in front of two such important men. That feeling of anxiety hardly scratched the surface when it came to Mr. Lyle- she hated to disappoint him, and she knew how irate he would become should she embarrass him in front of his father and boss, as she had yesterday.

Mr. Parker's white mustache ticked in annoyance as he listened to something Mr. Lyle was saying to him. She attempted to read his lips, but he wasn't facing her, and she could only see the side of his face. She looked up at the walkway that overlooked the simulations laboratory and saw Dr. Sydney standing up there; she hadn't known he was watching. He was standing behind her, so as to be less of a distraction. She waved up at him, miming her confusion about Mr.'s Lyle, Raines, and Parker's discussion. He merely shrugged his shoulders, but a little voice at the back of her head said that he knew what was going on.

Riley glanced back at the discussion, before she cautiously began walking up the stairs to meet him. She looked once more back over her shoulder, ensuring that her sneaking away had gone unnoticed. She shouldn't get into trouble even if it was, it wasn't as though she planned on leaving the lab, she was just going to the catwalks. She tried to convince herself that she wasn't doing anything wrong as she walked, but part of her knew she wasn't fooling anyone.

"Hello Doctor," She greeted the man upon reaching him. "What are you doing here? If you don't mind me asking, that is, Sir..." She hesitated, this man had seemed very laid back to her in their first meeting, allowing her to ask as many questions as she liked—encouraging them, in fact. But she still did not know him very well, and his reactions to certain happenings were completely mysterious to her. He shrugged at her though, sending out the same comfortable persona to her that he had the day before. "Just watching. You did that SIM well, better than most would really." The man replied cordially, giving her a strangely protective sort of smile. Riley breathed a small sign of relief that he hadn't rebuked her for her impudence- it wasn't her place to question him on what he did. He seemed to pay it no mind however, which was a good thing- surely he would have reported her behavior to Mr. Raines if it had bothered him, though it didn't seem as though he would now.

"I was having trouble focusing while I did it, I probably could have done it better if I wasn't getting distracted so often." She told him, leaning her forearms on the railing in front of her, looking down at the lab from the perspective of someone who didn't work in it; thinking about what they would think and feel as they watched a young investment undergo the things inflicted upon them in the lab below. Looking at it from their perspective she could understand how people like Mr. Parker could watch without showing any emotion, it looked like she was just pretending, just caught up in a game of someone else's design, it didn't look like anything wrong was happening. But Riley knew from experience that pretending to be someone else was not all fun and games. It had always struck her as odd that the act of simming a person was called pretending. There couldn't be a bigger paradox. While she was acting out a simulation she wasn't pretending, it felt as though everything was happening to her, and some of the things that happened in the lab were positively terrifying. Thinking like a serial killer, feeling the emotions of a dying person, these things were horrifying. The kind of things that made you wake up in the middle of the night wonderingwhere you were,wondering whoyou were. But from up here it just looked like a child had gotten wrapped up in a world of make-believe. She snapped herself out of the pretend she had begun to create for herself and turned back to Dr. Sydney.

"I don't understand why they're all acting strange, you just said yourself that I did the SIM well, so why does Mr. Lyle look so... disturbed?" She asked him, voicing her previous concerns. She realized that this was another one of those dangerous questions; the kind that should have the man fuming, but Dr. Sydney still did nothing. She felt she could push the protocol with this man, and she was going to take advantage of that as far as she could. She wanted answers.

"Disturbed? Well I don't really know for sure, but I'm certain that if you had done anything wrong they would let you know. Don't worry about it, you'll find out eventually."

Riley knew he wasn't telling her everything, watched his eyes flicker downward and the way his shoulders tensed a bit while he was thinking of an answer for her. She let it slide, he didn't owe her anything.

"I guess you're right, it's just that, I'd like to know if I did something wrong so I know how to act later, anticipate other people's reactions, you know, but right now I'm lost." She told him as she walked over to the keypad by the door, looking at it closely, it was different than the ones at the Facility, and it looked to be of higher quality as well.

"Mr. Lyle might not appreciate you looking too closely at the security systems around here you know." Sydney cautioned her, but made no move to stop her. She looked back at him, and for a short moment Sydney saw a look of almost pure terror cross her face at the thought of what Mr. Lyle would do to her if he knew what she was doing.

"You're right, I shouldn't be up here, I should really go, g-goodbye Dr. Sydney." She backpedaled, turning around and running down the stairs. She reached the bottom of the steps and sat down, waiting for her handlers to finish their discussion. Mr. Raines and Mr. Parker walked out of the room still talking, and Mr. Lyle turned toward her.

"Riley come here." Riley followed his order, getting up from her position and walking over to him.As she nearedMr. Lyle, she began gauging his feelings, trying to empath him so that she might be able to anticipate his actions. His feelings were cloudy though, and she was left in the dark.

"Do you think you had a good grasp on that SIM?"

"It was more difficult than the ones that I'm used to, but I think I understood it Sir." She responded, wondering why he was asking.

"Good. You did well; did you feel like you had any problems with it?"

"I don't think so." She said truthfully, while debating internally, "May I ask a question Sir?" She looked up at him, a pleading look in her eyes.

"Go ahead." He was pleased that she had remembered to ask permission before questioning him.

"Well, it's just that you were acting... strangely after the SIM, I was just wondering if I had done it wrong."

"Why would you think that you had done it wrong? Weren't you sure you had reached the correct conclusion?" Lyle looked down at her sternly; Riley was supposed to always make sure that she had the correct answer.

"Of course I was sure!" She looked up at him indignantly.

"Riley, I'm going to ignore the disrespect you just showed me, but you had better not make another outburst like that again or I will not be so easily swayed next time."

Riley took a deep breath, calming down before continuing. "I knew that I had the correct answer, but there were multiple scenarios to that SIM and I wasn't sure if I had chosen the same one that Jarod had. That's all; I was just confused by your reaction to my answer, so I thought I might have been incorrect in my findings."

He nodded in understanding of her answer, and she noticed he was massaging the decimated thumb of his left hand. She knew he wasn't telling the whole truth then; he was nervous about something. He seemed to notice what he was doing as well, because he quickly seperated his hands before looking down at her again. "Well, rest assured that you're answer was satisfactory, a bit more than satisfactory actually, you did nothing wrong. Don't think about it, if I thought it necessary for you to know about, then I'd tell you."

"Yes Mr. Lyle." Riley was a little disappointed that she wasn't allowed to question him more. She just wanted to know why everyone was acting the way they were, especially if she was the cause.

A sweeper walked over to them and whispered something in Mr. Lyle's ear. "Coming here?" Mr. Lyle repeated back to him, wondering if he had heard him right. The sweeper nodded once before walking back out the way he had come. Riley looked up at Mr. Lyle curiously, asking her unspoken question. "Everything's fine Riley, in fact because of how well you did we may have just captured the interest of the Triumvirate."

"T-The Triumvirate?" A look of pure terror crossed her face before she got her emotions under control enough to slip her neutral mask in place.

"Riley, the last time you met with the Triumvirate, you were in trouble, and this time it's because you've shown how good of a pretender you are. I think that they'll be a bit happier with you, there is no need to look so frightened." He looked at her sternly, understanding her reason for being scared, but still frustrated by how much she had been allowing her emotions to control her reactions lately. "The pursuit team doesn't have any immediate leads on Jarod, is there anything you'd like to do, rather than go to your room?"

"I get to choose?" She looked up at him barely masking the eagerness in her voice.

He gave an encouraging smile "Never let it be said that I don't reward good work."

Her brows furrowed as she made her decision "Do you have anything that needs to be done in the Tech room?"

"Come to think of it we have a new security system that we need checked, want to try hacking into it?"

"I can't believe you're asking me to hack into your security system." She gave him a bemused look as she followed him from the room.

"It was your idea."

She had to lengthen her strides to keep up with him as he walked over toward the elevators. "When's the T-Triumvirate gonna be here?" She asked, keeping herself just far enough behind him that it would make reaching back to smack her more of an effort than it was worth. She knew the question was impertinent after he had just closed the subject, but she couldn't help it-- she needed to know.

He got into the elevator and leaned up against the back wall, crossing his arms over his chest and his feet at the ankle. "I don't know Riley; I'm not their travel guide." He said, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"But-- do you know if all of them are coming? What am I gonna have to do? How long are they going to be here? And--"

"Riley. I told you not to worry about this. Stop hyperventilating."

"But..." She gauged his mood before stepping over to be on the same wall he was. "What if I do it wrong?"

He opened his eyes and peered down at her, and it suddenly felt like she was impossibly small, a little speck on the floor staring up at him. "You won't."

She nodded immediately, taking a small step back over to her own wall of the elevator, not daring to speak again even after it came to a stop and they left for the tech room. Riley caught a parting glance at the lighted floor above the elevator doors: SL-5.

-

-

Broot's poked his head quietly into Miss Parker's office, clearing her throat to get her attention. She looked up from the file folder she was perusing, hurriedly ushering him in once she saw who was standing at the door. "Tell me you have good news, Broots."

"Uh... I have good news?" He said, waiting until the office door hissed shut behind him before amending, "I have really good news." He stepped further inside before taking a quick look up at the surveillance camera in the corner.

"It's off, Broots." Miss Parker snapped peevishly. "You don't think I'd really let them record me, do you?"

"Oh, uh, okay then." He said, moving over to stand in front of her desk, leaning forward conspiratorially. "You'll never guess who I met in the tech room today."

"Another one of your buddies missing body parts?" She hazarded. "You know, tongue, eyes, fingers, teeth?"

"Not even close." He told her, giving off a nervous laugh. "Riley." He mouthed.

"In the tech room?"

"Lyle's personal pet project herself." He rushed excitedly. "Yeah, apparently she was up there to work on the security system we just installed. Anyway, I walked in and there she was, sitting at the desk right next to mine. And we got to talking--"

"Where was Lyle?"

"In the tech room? He hates computers-- gives me the willies--so around there he's useless. He just left a sweeper standing over by the door, and with everything that goes on around that room, the guy couldn't see or hear a thing. And anyway, Lyle doesn't really expect her to break any rules, does he? The sweeper could have been a cardboard cutout for all that he did in there." Broots rushed to explain. "Anyway, I was still coming up with no leads on getting her file, and I must have shown it, because in the next second she was bulldozing right through the security blocks for me!"

"Did you get her file?"

"Right out of Raines' database." Broots said with a huff, as though he still didn't believe it himself, and produced a small disk from his jacket pocket. "She didn't know or anything-- just thought she was helping a Centre employee--"

"Which is, of course, what Raines and Lyle will have trained her to do."

Broots nodded, swallowing audibly against a dry throat."It should all be right here."

"What does it say?" Parker pressed, snatching the disk from his fingers.

"To heck if I know." He admitted. "It's all encrypted, and none of my programs seem to be having any luck unraveling the code. But, there is a but, I used to do work unraveling these things all the time. It might take me a few tries, but it is possible. We'll figure out what's on this thing." He assured her. Truth to tell, he wanted to know about her almost as much as Miss Parker did. She was right-- the girl was just tiny. Vulnerable. Like Debbie... and she deserved their help. Whatever they could afford to give her, anyway.