Forsyth's Second Corollary to Murphy's Laws: Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the roof caves in.

Her shoes clicked against the concrete floor regularly as she hurried swiftly down the hall; they made the perfect sound, the kind that only three-inch tall heels could properly make-- the sound of authority and power. Parker had both, and she would need them both if she were ever going to be able to do what she planned right now. God, what was she planning right now? Sydney was right, she shouldn't be interfering like this-- and Broots was right, Raines would probably take it out on Riley; but only if she was caught. And Parker did not intend to be caught at anything.

She kept to the shadows of the hallways, creeping through the wide access door that led to the main corridor of the floor. Now that she had reached the limit to her access, SL 20, she was hard pressed to avoid the security cameras. SL-25 was one of the most secure levels in the Centre; it was the deepest level that didn't require refurbishing, although the accommodations were less than satisfactory. It was easy to access for her handlers and hard to get out of for the girl. Three hours ago, Parker would have seriously wondered why Raines and Lyle kept this kid under such tight restrictions, but that was three hours ago. After the discussion she had had with her two compatriots in the pursuit team's main office, she'd believe anything.

"Have you found anything yet?" She asked, annoyed with the slightly defeated tone that had crept into her voice. Broots must have heard it, because his answer came out sounding more determined than she could ever remember him being before. It was as though the computer's lack of answers had somehow personally affronted him.

"Nothing yet. But I will. Don't worry." He told her, not even removing his eyes from the glowing monitor. He rubbed his palm across his mouth, biting a thumb nail in thought, then finally swiveled a bit to look back at her. "I can't even imagine... I mean, that little kid--"

The doors swung open just then, and Sydney entered, holding a green folder open in his palm. He caught the final words of the sentence and closed the file, taking a seat on the couch. "She's hardly a child anymore Broots." He said bitterly. "She's been working under Lyle and Raines most of her life, whatever innocence she had to begin with, it's probably long gone by now. Besides," He tapped the folder he had just tossed down atop the desk. "It says right here that she's fifteen."

Parker snatched the folder up and he let her. "Her file?"

Broots came over from his computer with a confused look. "But Sydney, how'd you get it?"

Sydney lifted his shoulders a bit. "Well apparently, due to circumstances beyond their control--"

"I thought that was impossible." Parker quipped.

He rolled his eyes and continued. "--Lyle and Raines feel that she may need some psychiatric help as she continues this simulation."

Parker gave him an incredulous look. "She's survived without a shrink before, what makes them think that she'll need one now?"

"Probably the fact that all other extended pretends have ended in the pretender taking on the personality of the person in the SIM indefinitely. And of course they don't want their beloved, obedient, project becoming another Jarod." He said in a mildly sarcastic voice.

"Oh no, because that would be just horrible." She snarked. And it would-- two pretenders calling her late at night with riddles to make Oedipus proud-- what a world.

"Riley did one of Jarod's pretends this afternoon." Sydney told her abruptly.

"And..."

"And... she finished before him."

-

-

Parker wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her hands up and down, trying to keep out the coldness of the lower level and failing to convince herself that that was the only reason for her shivering. She looked discreetly around the corner; she had finally gotten to the right level, now she only had to get past the guard in front of the kid's door. She decided that discretion was the best option, no walking straight up and telling the muscular sweeper that she was the chairman's daughter and forcing her way through... no, she had tried that too many times in the past, it hadn't worked then and it wouldn't work now. Even if she did manage to get inside, the guard would just run off to tell Raines or Lyle, and she wouldn't get any chance to talk to the girl. She thought back to that afternoon, if the girl really wanted to talk about it at all...

-

-

"Hey Syd," Parker called, looking up from a last page in the files, "What do you think these things are?" She asked, indicating the columns of gibberish running down the sheaf of paper.

He leaned over the desk at what she was looking at, "I couldn't figure that out either, it's a complete mystery to me."

Broots came to read over Parker's shoulder, the deviated septum in his nose clearly audible when he was so close to her ear. "Well that... that almost looks like..." He shot a glance at his computer, "But it couldn't be..."

"What, Broots?" She snapped, making him jump a little.

"O-oh well, it just looks a lot like code." He pointed at the page a little shakily. "I bet these little dashes separate the passwords to different areas of her electronic file."

"And what, pray-tell, is on this electronic file?"

"Well everything... recordings, images, DSA's, probably even some biographical information. I mean, every Centre employee has one actually-- it makes sense they'd store her information the same way. It's the most secure form of filing I've ever encountered... which makes sense of why I've been having so much trouble with the disk." He said, taking the file up out of her hand and moving back to his computer. He entered the first series of code into the processor and a file folder opened, displaying dates and times in the information bar. "Yeah, it's like I thought, this code here, that begins with an 'S', stands for surveillance. And the numbers running after it must be the numerical dates in time it covers... these are pretty early; the first one starts in '89."

Parker hurried over when she saw he'd met with success. "Well play it Broots, what are you waiting for, permission forms signed in triplicate?"

He clicked on the topmost one and the screen flickered black, with only the grey time code in the corner showing.

5/12/1989

FOR CENTRE USE ONLY

Parker stepped closer to the monitor, watching as the scene crackled to life. A young woman stepped over to the camera; she had dark hair and a cheery face, with just a slightly heavy jaw that made Parker think of chocolate chip cookies. She had a kindly look about her, and Parker felt as though she liked her immediately.

"Two years since Project Silence began, the subject is now four years old, and is showing promise, more than any of the others. Training required to do simulations is to begin today. --"

The woman turned around as the door on the opposite side of the room opened, revealing a sweeper and a small girl. The girl looked warily up at the sweeper before sprinting over to the young woman, fumbling with something in her pocket as she did so. "Sarah! Sarah, look, I made something for you!" The girl was all smiles as she procured the object; it was a neatly folded piece of paper. Sarah took the proffered gift, opening it so that the camera could see over her shoulder.

"Oh, Riley it's beautiful, you must have worked hard on this."

The little girl was bouncing on the heels of her feet, giddy with contained energy, she was the kind of child who needed to be running around, not staying in the same dusty halls over and over, hardly able to walk from her room to the lab. Parker took a closer look at the picture. It was beautiful, done with simple Crayola's, but the texture and light in the picture, was absolutely perfect. It looked like the drawing of a four year old, but like the girl's genius-- it showed promise. The picture depicted the night sky, a whirl of various blues, purples, and even blacks. Pinpricks of white and yellow wax broke into the swirl of darkness, stars shining brightly in a way that captured the imagination. Parker could make out a few constellations; it even seemed to her that they were interacting with each other. Up in the corner a single star shone brighter than any of the others, it looked over the whole scene. The North Star maybe?

"It's supposed to be impre- impers- impresi-" The little girl stomped her foot on the floor in frustration at being unable to pronounce the word. Her teacher smiled indulgently down at her, trying to contain her mirth at the scene. "Quit laughing! It's not funny!" The child screwed up her face, trying to show the young woman how angry she was, but it only managed to make the scene more comical, and Sarah was struggling to stop her persistent chortles. Riley turned her back on her teacher and fled towards the stairs. Sitting down on them, she hugged her knees to her chest and rested her head on her arms. Her face was still scrunched up in fury, the kind that only the small have the passion to feel. She obviously hated being made fun of. Sarah finally succeeded in controlling her laughter, slightly distressed at having made the little girl feel ashamed. She walked over to the child, a sad smile on her face. Riley scooted away from her as she sat down, and once again turned her back to her.

"Impressionism? Is that what you meant hon?"

"I'm not talking to you!" The girl growled out, sounding more like an animal than a little kid. "And I want my picture back."

"Oh come on kiddo, you know I didn't mean anything by it. It really is beautiful, I love it, I'm going to see if I can put it up on my filing cabinet, I've got the perfect space where I'll be able to look at it all day."

Riley turned her head tentatively around to look at Sarah, giving a hesitant smile. "Really?"

"Oh come on, when have I ever lied to you?"

"Well... That shot the doctor gave me hurt and you said it wouldn't."

Sarah frowned, "Okay, besides that."

"You said that the food around here would taste good, and it's icky."

The frown became slightly more pronounced, "And that."

"Okay. You said that sweepers didn't know how to talk so I shouldn't bother trying to have a conversation with them. But I tried talking with them in sign language, and one of them got so frustrated that he started yelling. If they can't talk how can they yell?"

Sarah's eyebrows furrowed in frustration "Oh please, I had to give you some reason not to talk to them, you wouldn't stop! You were keeping them from doing their jobs."

Riley was smiling again, really getting into the conversation "Or what about that time—"

"Okay! Okay! I'm sorry I asked." Sarah got up and moved to the center of the room, motioning for the little girl to follow her. She knelt down, placing her hands on the girl's arms, crouching so that they were at an equal eye level. "Riley, today we're going to begin doing something very important. I'm going to begin teaching you how to do a simulation."

"What's assimilation?"

Sarah chuckled at the gaffe. "No no no, a sim-u-la-tion. A simulation is a way to gain very important information, and has the potential to help people. Assimilation is the Borg."

"The what?"

Sarah chuckled lowly. "Nevermind, it's not important. What is important, is that you Riley, have a very special purpose in life. Not many people are capable of doing simulations, but you can. Do you want me to show you how?"

The girl nodded her head, "Uh-huh. But what do I do?"

"You pretend to be someone else, and you tell me what that person is thinking and feeling, what influences the decisions they make, and the things they do-- hang on a moment kiddo... just stay here." The door opening at the far end of the room interrupted her speech. Sarah stood up to go talk with the men who entered. Parker watched as Lyle and Raines stepped into the room, flanked by sweepers. It was silent, like the calm before the storm. A sweeper snuck up behind Riley, placing a hand over her mouth and pinning her arms behind her. Riley gave a muffled scream and struggled to get away. The noise alerted Sarah who turned around and began rushing over to her young charge.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She screamed, pulling Riley away from the man angrily. Lyle caught her attention by undoing the safety on his gun and cocking it. As Sarah whirled around, the gun's aim shifted to her chest. The sweeper came over and scooped Riley up again, and Sarah could make no protest.

"We're pulling you from the program; we don't feel that you are pushing the project in the right direction." Lyle explained. "Did you really think we wouldn't find out?"

"Find out?"

"Last night's little excursion Sarah. You were seen. You never should have tried to take what was ours; Say goodbye, Sarah." He said, raising the aim by only a few inches, he fired the gun and the bullet tore through her. She collapsed on the ground, blood gushing from the circular hole in her forehead.

Riley escaped her captor with a heart wrenching scream. She ran over to Sarah's body, pounding her fists on the floor, sobbing. "Nonono, wake up! Wake up!" She shook the woman's shoulder roughly, oblivious to the dark stain seeping along the ground, soaking into her pant legs. The sweeper came to his wits and grabbed the young girl again, pulling her, screaming, away from the corpse. The camera caught her face as she finally looked up, and she was glaring at Lyle with an intense fury. Lyle looked indifferently back at her. The young girl's body shifted, and Parker could see, with years of training, what she was going to do. Riley blinked once, then she pitilessly elbowed the sweeper in the groin. He immediately released her arms, sinking to the floor, clutching at himself. Riley spun around, racing for the exit door. She pushed it open and began sprinting wildly down the hall. The camera turned to center on Lyle as he watched her retreating form.

"Get sweepers down here, Now!"

Riley turned corners, zigzagging her way through the building, trying to avoid the men chasing her. She turned another corner, looking behind her to see if anyone was closing in, and ran into something solid. She stumbled back, startled, and looked up at the man she had run into. Lyle looked down at her; he grabbed her from the floor, tugging her to a standing position by her shirt. She looked absolutely terrified, but only to the point that she didn't look furious anymore, only angry.

"You're never going to escape Riley. Never. You will stay here and work with me. And there is nothing you can do about it."

Riley kicked him in the shin, pulling from his grasp for a moment, but he grabbed the collar of her shirt, and picked her up in one fluid motion, walking down the hall, back in the direction of the lab.

"No! No! I hate you! Let me go! Put me down! I'll never work with you! Never! You killed Sarah! You killed Sarah! Help! Somebody help me!"

"No one is listening Riley." He snarled, struggling to hold the girl as she twisted in his arms. "No one can even hear you. No one is going to help you. No one around here cares."

Riley kept screaming at the top of her little lungs, she was trying to hit him, trying to kick him, just trying to hurt him as much as he hurt her, but he had turned her around, so that she wasn't facing him. They finally reached the lab and Lyle kicked the door open, dropping Riley in the middle of the floor, where some sweepers quickly surrounded her, ensuring that no further escape attempt would occur.

"You work with me now Riley."

No Way! Let me go!" The stubborn child tried to push her way out of the circle of sweepers, failing in all of her attempts, they were quite simply too strong.

"Riley stop screaming."

"Leave me alone! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! Let go of me!"

"Riley stop screaming or you will find that you can hate me a lot more."

"There's no way that I could ever hate you more! One person can't have that much hate! Let me go! I'm not working with you!"

Lyle slapped her across the face, sufficiently causing her to quiet. She sat, stunned, breathing harder and harder as tears sprang into her eyes. "Now Riley, I mean it. Stop screaming."

Parker stopped the DSA; she couldn't watch it any more. There had been parts of it that were just too... similar. Too similar to the way her own mother had died. Next to her, Sydney looked as though he were physically sickened, and Broots had stopped watching a minute ago, she had heard him step out of the door muttering about 'child abuse' and 'Debbie'.

-

-

Parker watched as the sweeper got a call on his walkie talkie, and began walking down the hall, she had clearly heard the words 'shift change' and rushed over to the door. She punched in the code for the keypad; Broots had found it in his search of the file folder's contents, and she was suddenly, very, very, thankful. She heard a small 'beep' right before the door opened and darted inside. Parker looked distastefully around the bland chamber. It was a prison cell furnished to look like a room. It looked much as Jarod's had, grey concrete walls, a small toilet area, a table pushed up against the walls, and a thin mattress atop a metal frame. The rooms were kept barren; there were too many tools that could be found in a regular bedroom. The pretender she had come to see was not in the room at the moment, though the schedule said she should be here. Strange, that was. Parker thought back to the few nights previous, as Sydney had been walking her out to her car. It seemed that Riley got around as much as Angelo did.

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling in frustration. It was probably for the better. She didn't know what she would have done anyway; it wasn't like she had suddenly decided to whisk her away from the Centre. She couldn't, she'd probably be killed, and she couldn't imagine what would be done to Riley. She looked around the room one last time and her eyes rested on a pile of papers. She walked over and realized that they were drawings; the girl's skill had only improved with time. Before her eyes lay almost perfect portraits of her, Sydney, and Broots. Parker noticed with a slight curling of her lips that her portrait portrayed her looking a bit more sinister than she was used to seeing.

Don't hold back kid, tell me how you really feel.

Sydney could have a field day with these.

Parker spun around and pulled her gun as she heard a clatter from the vent. She stepped closer to the large metal grate, keeping her eyes peeled for any sign of movement, but there wasn't any-- none at all. She waited a few more tense moments before re-holstering her 9mm at her back.

"Alright Angelo, you don't want to come out today, that's just fine by me." She said with a huff, crossing her arms in front of her, but she let her hands drop limply to her sides after only a moment; she had thought that would get the empath to come out, usually to say his name was to conjure the little man up, but that method was apparently no going this time. She turned to head out the door, but paused as she reached the threshold; what if it was Riley? After all, there were two empaths running around the Centre now, weren't there? She went back over to the desk, standing just parallel to the vent, making as though she were looking over the ink-design portraits again. She picked up the pen on the desk and quickly scribbled a line on the back of her own, then slipped it to the bottom of the pile. She sent a short look over at the vent grating, then turned heel and headed back out the door.

-

-

Riley crawled through the vent shaft, stopping to breathe just a moment. She'd overheard the sweepers in the break room arguing over who was going to go get 'the kid' and dare meeting with Mr. Lyle. They'd finally agreed to ask Willie to go do it when he got in, and Riley had left before he'd even shown up. It was a good thing that the sweepers had unwittingly given her a head's up, because she hadn't expected to have another simulation that day. She reached the up and down shaft that would take her down a floor, back to her room, and after easing herself out on the ledge, dropped to land cat-like at the bottom. The vents made a horrible clanging sound when she landed, and she hurried over to the grate in her wall, to slip into the room quickly in case anyone had heard and decided to investigate. As she reached the room though, she noticed that someone was already in it. Her heart leapt into her throat-- it was Miss Parker. Oh no, she'd tell Mr. Lyle that Riley wasn't in her room, and then she'd be in trouble-- again. And he'd already been so mad at her lately for disobeying them; he'd probably do well on his threat and send her to the Renewal Wing.

"Alright Angelo, you don't want to come out today, that's fine by me." Miss Parker said, and Riley dropped back along the side of the vent, so that the woman wouldn't see her. What was she gonna do? What if she slipped back out once Miss Parker was gone? Mr. Lyle and the woman didn't get along at all; maybe Riley could just deny she had ever left? Or would that just land her in worse trouble if the truth came out? She leaned over and peered back out of the grate, to see if Miss Parker had gone. The woman had instead, dropped back to Riley's desk, and was looking over the little doodles Riley had done in her spare time. She picked up a pen and scratched something out on the back, then quit the room.

Riley cautiously opened the vent grate and then slipped down to the floor, replacing the vent cover as silently as possible. She went over to the paper Miss Parker had placed on the bottom and flipped it over to read whatever the woman had penned there.

I won't tell a soul.

Reviews are always appreciated, and if everyone's a critic (including you, dear reader), then what's to stop you from reviewing? Ha! My logic is infallible. The friendly purple button... it beckons to you...