Westheimer's Rule: To estimate the time it takes to do a task: estimate the time you think it should take, multiply by two and change the unit of measure to the next highest unit. Thus, we allocate two days for a one hour task.
Riley sat back on her haunches and pushed her hair away from her sweaty face, looking around herself, disoriented. Shafts of light cut through the dimness of the cold steel tunnels randomly; pushing in through the vent grates every few yards. The ventilation system of the Centre was a labyrinth, and she could only truly appreciate now how easy it had been for her to navigate around the small facility she had grown up in. Riley did not know where the renewal wing was located in respect to anything she might be familiar with, part of her thought it might be near the infirmary. It had the same sterile smell to it that seemed to permeate the very essence of every medical wing she had ever been in. The infirmary was on SL 14 if she remembered correctly. Another part of her mind, the one she was more inclined to listen to, seemed to think that the Renewal wing would be very deep under the main building of the Centre, on one of the lowest sublevels. It would be easier to hide. And easier for the people above to ignore.
Of course she had no way of knowing which guess was correct, she had only gone on two excursions through the vents since coming to the Centre; short little romps around the building- and she had used the elevator partway. Nothing she could spy through the grates looked familiar.
Riley crawled forward, looking through each grate she passed, keeping an eye on the sweepers below her. It was common knowledge that she had disappeared into the vent system; the grate cover she had left lying stranded on the floor was evidence enough of that. It wouldn't be long before sweepers began searching the vents for her. She stepped carefully over a motion sensor's invisible beam, noting the small black device attached to the shaft wall. She would have to look out for those. The devices were few in number here in the vents, but that hardly stopped them from being fully functional. If her movements registered to the security officials upstairs then this short-lived bid for freedom would be over all too soon. Stumble upon one of these and she may as well simply give herself up.
The ventilation shafts of the Centre all varied in size, becoming large enough to stand in near the larger rooms, such as the simulation laboratories. But the one she was in now was just big enough for an adult to crawl into, and even then it would be cramped and difficult to maneuver inside. As of yet, no sweepers had been sent inside after her, though she had no doubts that they would try entering through one of the larger vent systems. They would also be waiting outside every vent shaft that led to the outside of the building. If she were to get close to the simulation labs she would surely be caught, unfortunately, this was one of her few points of reference as to her location. The others being her own room and the few offices that were stationed in the sub-levels she frequented. There wasn't much to work with.
It didn't really matter anyways, or at least that was what she was trying to convince herself of. She needed to get out of the Centre, and quickly, and the only way she could possibly find an exit out of the building would be on the upper levels. She crawled to the end of the tunnel, and looked upward into the chute that led to the next floor up. It was a dark vertical tunnel, black like a sweeper's suit, or slowly drying blood. She couldn't tell how far it went up; the entrance to the next shaft was just as dark as the conduit that led to it. The small amount of light that filtered in through the grating next to her lit up the very bottom, and gave her an image of what she had to deal with. She could only assume that the condition of the bottom of the vent was the same through to the top. There weren't any purchases she could hold onto; the sides were a perfectly vertical square, going up for at least nine feet if not higher. The up-shaft would have to reach from the ceiling of one level to the ceiling of the next. The ceilings of the sub-levels had always seemed just a bit lower than the ones Riley had seen elsewhere, above ground-- the corridors down here were just a bit tighter, smaller and coiled tightly into one another. Riley liked the halls of the sub-levels better; the ones upstairs had always felt too open, too limitless. Judging off the measurements her memory provided, Riley thought the next level should be in the range of eight feet up from the bottom of the shaft, give or take an inch or two. She was certain of the height; she had been traversing these sublevels every day back and forth from the simulation labs for the past month. If her mind had not managed to retain any information in that amount of time about her surroundings, then she deserved to be caught.
Standing up straight from her crouched position at the bottom of the shaft, the top was only three feet or so above her head, with her arms outstretched it was probably only two or so. She jumped up, latching on to the top edge with one hand and managing to pull herself up enough to grab hold with the other. The cold metal bit deeply into her hands as she hefted herself up, the sharp edge slicing through her flesh with white hot precision. She managed to hoist herself up past her elbows, relenting the pressure on the gashes in her palms. Her hands slipped sporadically against the slick steel, and made the ordeal feel much harder than it actually was. She finally managed to pull herself over the edge, landing a kick on the opposite side of the tunnel and propelling herself over onto the floor of a shaft again. The blood rushing down her arms to the new gashes in her palms made them feel as though they were burning. She tore off small strips of cloth from the sleeves of her shirt- they had always been too long for her arms anyway- and tied them into crude bandages around her hands, her breath hissing through her teeth at the stinging sensation this triggered.
The vent here continued on in opposite directions, running off to her right and left. Not knowing where either one would take her and hoping it wouldn't matter in any case, she chose a path at random, trying to ignore the sharp stinging pain that sliced through her hands with each movement she made.
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Faizah Zurbin strode around the small room, examining the twisted remnants of the hatchway the missing pretender had fled through. She stood up, nudging at it with her toe, and focused her furious gaze on the only other occupant in the room.
"Correct me if I am wrong, but one of your selling points behind this girl was that she obeyed you?" She remarked snidely, giving a significant look up into the dark vent opening above her head.
Mr. Raines wheeled his oxygen tank further into the room from where he had been standing near the entrance, dragging it behind him as he walked, inhaling deeply before speaking.
"Sweepers are combing the Centre looking for her. She doesn't know the building well enough to get anywhere fast. We will have her back within the hour."
"Oh that's perfectly alright Dr. Raines," Zurbin remarked idly, toying with one of the many bottles residing along the countertop which ran against the wall, noting the syringes set off to one side, "After all, what with three successful escape attempts from this facility I suppose this is the conduct one should have expected from such an institution as The Centre."
"She thought you were going to kill her." Raines responded, trying to keep the highly accusatory tone out of his voice. His every instinct was against any form of sucking up; so used to being the person in power over another, however, his own survival was far more important in the end than a slight bruising of his ego.
Zurbin spun around to face him, knocking down one of the bottles in her anger, "Congratulations Dr. Raines! You really did create a genius!"
"The girl is merely following her programming... she understands her purpose to be that she serves the Centre... It is her sole reason for existing...She obviously cannot fulfill that purpose while she is dead, wouldn't you agree?"
"Yes well, she would serve me a lot better if she simply stood still while I had her shot!" Zurbin spat out, her rage controlling her speech more than anything. "That subject is a danger to this organization and she is only functioning currently to prove it!"
Raines gave up trying to explain motives to the enraged African, an old belief about women in the workplace running through his mind and opted for simple appeasement. "We will find her."
He left the room then, planning to do just what he had said. He, of course, did not plan on having the termination order completed once the pretender was found- not by any stretch of the imagination. It would be simple enough to fake her death and have the project moved underground; goodness knew he had done it before. And it would certainly be a more fruitful plan of action, no more answering to the higher ups, no more damn stipulations or constraints on the research he performed... Yes, Riley would be working for him alone, and now that Jarod was back as well... there would be no end to the possibilities.
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Riley shifted her weight even as she kept pressing forward, trying not to aggravate further the bruises currently forming on her knees. The vent was beginning to open up now, getting large enough so that she could walk in a sort of hunched style. She stood up and began traveling in this fashion, trading the discomforts of crawling on all fours for a dull ache running through the entirety of her curved spine. She kept moving in this direction despite her own inner warnings telling her that she would run into sweepers any minute. And then they would drag her out and then... and then... No. It wouldn't happen. She'd find a way out of the Centre and she'd be safe... or as safe as one could be outside of the Centre. If they thought she was enough of a security risk to warrant a termination order they would certainly come hunting after her... like they had with Jarod. But they wouldn't be trying to bring her back... they would be trying to kill her. Then again, the outside world may very well try to kill her too.
The truth of the matter was that she was only trading one danger for another at the moment. Leaving everything and everyone whom she had ever known. The Centre was safe, it was filled with people she both knew and respected, the only people that had ever concerned themselves with her. Her own parents hadn't even wanted her. She had never been told this information directly, but she knew it all the same. They weren't here; they had never bothered with worrying about her, why should she bother to worry about them? The only people who had ever busied themselves to do anything with her were all here. She belonged here. If ever there was a home for a person like herself, the Centre was it, but her home wasn't safe any longer. Not for her.
Riley jumped as she heard a soft scuttling sound in front of her and her muscles tensed, ready to bolt. Sweepers! Her mind screamed. Run! It yelled at her. Run! Run! Run! She made a frightened move back the way she had come as another scuttling sound reverberated its way down the conduit, seemingly coming from all sides. Her eyes were wide, her mouth dry and her pulse racing. Her eyes darted from side to side, did that shadow just move? Or what about that one? Her legs propelled her backwards without thought, tripping her up over her own two feet. She skittered backwards, managing to roll back over her shoulder to land in a crouch. Her eyes peeled through the shaft in front of her, watching and waiting for an attack, but her eyes, so accustomed to the shadowy areas where she had lived her entire life, couldn't pick up any oddity.
After a few intense moments of waiting Riley pushed herself angrily up from the floor of the vent shaft, gazing at the surrounding darkness in the vent in front of her for a few moments, watching as it seemed to grow and envelop everything around. Taking a few slow steps backwards she whirled around and began darting back the way she had come, racing over her own footsteps. She would have to find another way out, she couldn't stand going down that way any further. She ran away fearfully, inwardly furious with herself for such cowardice. Mr. Raines would have been vehement if he were here now, but much more difficult to take would have been Mr. Lyle's disappointment in her. She glanced back over her shoulder and her footsteps slowly came to a halt. She didn't know where she was any longer, but it was far away from where she had been earlier. Slowly her heart rate returned to normal and her breathing calmed. She was back somewhere in the smaller vent system, and no longer panicked at the prospect that a sweeper might be lurking around the next corner, waiting for her.
She looked around herself slowly, trying to get her bearings. She rotated slowly on the spot, turning a full 360 degrees. There was an odd quality to part of the vent shaft off to her left; typically the silver metal of the vents was broken every yard or so by a streak of light coming in through a grate, the steel walls of the conduits reflected the light so that they seemed to glow all around, it wasn't usually all that dark. But down this shaft, right around the halfway mark between two grates, there was a dark, rectangular, patch of inky black lying in the middle of the floor. It was smaller than a vent grate, about a quarter of the size actually, and completely motionless, though she wondered why she expected it to be moving in the first place; what did she want it to do? Get up and start dancing? Riley scoffed inwardly at the thought and began advancing on the object, moving with an almost absurd amount of caution. It wasn't really all that absurd when you took into consideration how few objects she had encountered before which she couldn't identify right away- the few she had hadn't brought particularly good experiences with them.
As she approached her wariness eased as she recognized the object for what it was; though she had to admit confusion as to why it had been placed in the middle of a vent. Resting on the floor in front of her was what was unmistakably a file folder.
It was bright green, fraying around the corners as though it had been closed and reopened on many different occasions. Odd jumbles of paper stuck out haphazardly, the varying sizes, colors, textures even, making it impossible to organize everything uniformly. Several small disks slipped out between the pages as she picked it up, clattering as they landed, rolling for a few feet before they flopped onto their sides and stopped. She bent to examine the nearest one, noting the date printed on the front in black ink. She reached out to pick it up, hoping to make a closer inspection of it. What were these things? Her breath left her in a rush as her fingers wrapped around the small data disk, suddenly bombarded with more images and feelings than her mind could sort through. She dropped the disk in surprise, staring at it with wide eyes. When she picked it up, someone had been screaming.
Riley ripped off an edge of her shirt sleeve, wrapping the cotton loosely around her fingers, and determinedly picked the disk back up, encasing it back in the folder she still held in her hand. She walked further down the duct, picking up more of the disks in the same manner to avoid any further empathic fantasies. She placed each back into the file, intent on investigating them further once she was out. Riley reached the last disk in the passage, but even as she bent down to pick it up, a hand snaked out from the shadows to reach it before her. Riley froze, every muscle in her body tensing in preparation to run. A shadow detached itself from the aperture ahead of her and stepped forward.
Crisscrossing shafts of light played across his face as he moved over a grate opening in front of her. Reaching out, he grabbed her arm at her side and gently opened her hand, placing the small diskette into her palm with a crooked smile.
Riley looked from the disk to the man in a mild sense of confusion.
"Angelo?"
Angelo pushed her fingers to close around the disk he had handed her and allowed her arm to drop back to her side. He cocked his head askance, his smile broadening. He looked at her mutely for a few more moments, before turning abruptly and disappearing back down the shaft.
Riley shoved the packet of papers and disks into her waistband at the small of her back and pulled her shirt down over it. The shapeless grey top hid the bulge well and she darted after Angelo, barely managing to keep the enigmatic man in sight. She caught occasional glances of his figure as he moved lithely along, displaying an agile sense of confidence here in his own domain. It was obvious that these tunnels were as easily navigable to him as the corridors were for the people who used them every day. Riley realized with a small amount of anxiety that if she were to lose Angelo now, she would be utterly lost. This thought in mind she chased after him with renewed intensity. She truly hoped her assumptions were right that he was trying to help her.
Riley scrambled around a corner and saw Angelo sitting contentedly at the opposite end of the tunnel. Light fell across his face in shafts, pouring in from the vent in front of him. Riley crawled forward cautiously, waiting to see if he would suddenly begin the sprint away through the maze once again. She edged still closer and was gratified when he didn't move away. With growing confidence she made a determined stride forward... And found herself falling.
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Lyle strode down the deserted corridors of the Centre, a tension headache forming behind his temples. Every now and again he would pass a sweeper, but for the most part the building was deserted. Only members of the upper echelon would ever be into work at this godforsaken hour of the night. If the lower members of the Centre's society ever felt like their lives were in danger they had no idea what it must feel like to actually be of some importance. Everyone that was here at this time of night would be for the sole reason that they were trying to find dirt on other people's projects, information that they could get themselves involved in. Prove that they had some use for a little while longer. Keep themselves breathing for another day. When people got too much power around here, they became dangerous; they knew too much. And they were disposed of by the people who really held all the cards. When all was said and done, Lyle planned on being the person holding the trigger, not the one looking down the barrel of the gun like so many other ambitious recruits.
In a place such as the Centre, knowledge was power. And in most cases Lyle liked to think himself a pretty knowledgeable guy, he had always been very careful to keep himself in with the sort of people that would have intelligence on every thing that ever happened here. The ones with the secret projects, the ones who had been here long enough to know how to slip beneath the radar. And so, naturally, he was rather irked by the seemingly little amount of knowledge he had managed to dig up on anything of importance that had been going on with his own project. Oh yes, Lyle knew that for now, he was barred access from Riley, but that would soon change. The Centre could never keep him out of the loop for long. Lyle knew when he was beaten, and right now he wasn't- he just needed to think some strategy. Raines would expect some move like this, but that could be accounted for... just lay low for a while, get some inside information, and make your move. Tada, we are back in business. As a matter of fact, he was on his way to... collect some data... right at that moment.
Lyle reached the mezzanine, stopping short behind a pillar as he heard the elevator give off a small ding, preceding the doors opening. Scrutinizing with a cocked eyebrow the familiar pair of long legs and irritated behavior that disembarked from the carriage, Lyle's eyes became slits as he followed her passage down the corridor. The woman's flamboyant dress gave away her identity to Lyle without the need for him to ever see her face. Never in his life had he met a Triumvirate rep who could pull off that sort of garb and manage to be taken seriously. Not that most people didn't take anyone even remotely affiliated with the Triumvirate seriously... but he was certain that someone had at least had sarcastic thoughts about them at some point or another... or perhaps that was just him.
Lyle watched as the woman disappeared around the corner, headed towards one of the other areas of the building, thankfully away from the parking lot- which was his destination. He had the faintest temptation to follow her, find out what the Triumvirate was still doing here, for as far as his knowledge went they should have left at least two days ago.
"What the hell are you doing here Zurbin?" He spoke his thoughts aloud, muttering under his breath, his words lined with distaste.
"And I thought I had finally gotten rid of you." A voice piped up directly behind him.
Lyle didn't jump, though he did notice a small increase in his pulse rate, it wasn't of consequence to him, she wouldn't be able to tell that she had unnerved him, after all. He rotated slowly on the spot, half expecting to find her gun pointed into his face. To tell the truth he was rather impressed by her ability to sneak up on him so well. Elsewhere occupied as his attention had been, it still wasn't typically an easy thing to do. Parker stood not a foot behind him, hand on hip, tapping her foot on the tiled floor as though she wanted something from him. What, did she expect him to pay homage now? "Not now Sis." He said, annoyance etched in his voice. He didn't have the energy to deal with her. Too many conversations with Parker ended up turning into endless interrogations. Always poking her nose where it didn't belong, what had she found this time?
Parker ignored his less then amiable greeting and gave him a predatory smile. "What are you doing back here? Managed to worm your way back into the Centre's good graces so quickly?" She said, taking a few steps closer.
"Parker, it's late, and so am I. Not now." Lyle turned around to leave. In his mind he hoped the curt response would get her to leave, though he didn't really expect it to work. It certainly never had in the past
"Well in that case, I hope you weren't planning on meeting with anyone important." She replied, spinning him back around to face her.
Lyle rolled his eyes towards the ceiling in exasperation "Parker, what do you want?"
"You're the one who usually has the dirt on every little thing that ever goes on in this place..."
"And what makes you think I'd tell you anything?" Lyle said, seeing an opening to take control of the conversation.
"Information trade... I have information that you want, you have information that I want."
"You said so yourself Parker, I have a knack for knowing the stuff that happens around here-- what makes you think that I don't already know about the information that you have, and furthermore, what makes you think I'd want it?" He asked with a skeptical arch of his eyebrow.
"Well it really wasn't too difficult, all I had to do was assess your motives to find out what your next plan of action would be. All I had to do was think like a backstabbing little slug." She said this last part with a smirk. He missed the humor. "This is you, you'll want to get back into the inner circle, and if you want to do that you have to be of some importance-- and that means regaining control of junior genius downstairs. Am I right?"
"You have my attention." Lyle replied, letting off a few choice words of the four-letter persuasion in his mind. Were his motives really that transparent?
"What can I say Lyle, you've been out of the loop. I, on the other hand, happen to have some very important surveillance tapes that have everything to do with your pet project."
Lyle scoffed at that. "This is the best you've got? Please Parker, why would I be interested in surveillance tapes-- Raines cannot possibly have done that much in less than a week."
"You'd be surprised." Parker retorted, "I assure you, Doc Raines has been very busy."
Lyle tried not to show too much interest in her last statement. What could Darth have been doing that would get Parker's attention? "Fine, what have you got Parker?"
"Not here. We need talk about this somewhere away from prying eyes. C'mon." Parker started walking in the direction of her office, not bothering to see if he was following. He was, he was cursing in his mind the entire way there, but he was following.
Broots' head shot up like a groundhog from its hole as the door to Miss Parker's office was pushed forcefully open. Miss Parker stepped over the threshold and was followed after a pause by Mr. Lyle. Lyle caught his eye and Broots immediately ducked his head back down to his monitor, praying for Lyle's silent scrutiny to pass.
Lyle looked at the visible security camera positioned in the far corner of the room. "I can definitely see why you felt it was necessary to come here. Away from 'prying eyes' and all." He remarked sarcastically.
Parker sent him a glare before pushing him backwards to sit down in one of the armchairs in front of her desk. "You took care of surveillance Broots?"
Broots once again looked up from his computer screen, his eyes immediately darting over to Lyle's indifferent position in the armchair. Lyle caught his glance and gave a toothy smile from behind Miss Parker, watching as the tech's apparent unease grew, Lyle smirked inwardly at how easy the man was to manipulate.
Parker caught the silent exchange and snapped her fingers in front of Broots' face. "Over HERE Broots."
Broots snapped out of it with a jerk, turning his attention back towards his boss. "Wha- Oh yeah. Took care of it, according to the cameras you've been in here reading the same memo for the past 15 minutes. And while that may cause some speculation among security as to your literacy, they shouldn't be paying close enough attention to recognize the loop. Not at this time of night."
Lyle was sorely tempted to point out that that camera couldn't possibly be the only one in the room, but decided against mocking the tech's intelligence. As loathe as he was to admit it, Broots wasn't stupid, despite how easy he was to torment. There were more pressing matters to deal with. "So Parker, what was so important that you needed to tell me?"
"Nice try Lyle-" Parker spat, "you're telling me what I want to know first."
Lyle pushed himself up from where he was sitting. "Well that would be easier if you would tell me what that might be in the first place. And why should I just go spilling all my information, I don't even know if what you have is of any use to me--"
"It is." Parker interrupted. The conviction in her voice was so forceful Lyle was actually becoming a little anxious as to what she had found. He certainly hadn't managed to dredge anything up, though he hadn't had very much time either. He had also, however, been looking for surveillance tapes or memos coming out of Africa, as that had been where he thought Riley was transferred. What could possibly have happened to delay the transfer, and did it have anything to do with Parker's apparent anxiety?
"And I suppose I'm just supposed to take your word for it?"
Parker gave him an icy glare but relented. Pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation she ordered Broots to start up the DSA's and motioned for Lyle to have a closer look. She leaned against the wall, remembering the events that had led to their uncovering.
Parker had left the sub-levels after Jarod's capture, coming to take refuge in her office. Instead of the expected solace of an empty room however, she had found her other two team members. Both men had seemed relieved to find her, but their looks of joy had quickly left as she recounted what had occurred. They had been working ever since on finding the image stream linked to the cameras in Jarod's room. No such luck.
Broots licked his lips nervously as Mr. Lyle hovered behind him, waiting for the recording to boot up.
"I was um... looking for some ah... information Miss Parker wanted, and when I ran a search on recent images from the surveillance recordings, I came across this."
Lyle sent a smug look over to his sister, thinking he had a grasp on what sort of information she would have been looking for from surveillance. "Nosing into other people's business again Parker?" If he had been trying to get a rise out of her, then she disappointed him. Parker merely moved further back into the corner of her office, away from the recording. She had already seen it once, and didn't need any reminders to remember what was on it. Broots had been running a search through Raines' files, looking for any recordings from Jarod. But had instead managed to somehow stumble, as only he could, upon these. And that's when this idea came to her. If she couldn't find anything on Jarod, she would go to the one other person who was bound to know about it, and she would trade him for some information of equal value.
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Riley rubbed the back of her head, wincing as she passed over the quickly forming bruise there. She rolled off of her back where she had landed and managed to crawl onto her knees. Her head spun as she looked up at the ceiling and the grate being replaced by two hands with an ease born of practice. Angelo fixed the grate to open when pressure was applied to it- he had been leading her here! The question was why? Looking down the corridor Riley saw only the regular attributes of any sublevel. Grey concrete walls and unmarked steel doors, keypads next to each one. It looked like a resident wing, the type that contained the living quarters of the pretenders at the Centre. Riley of course had never seen any of the other pretenders. But she had figured out a long time ago that there must be others. There must be occupants of the other rooms that lined the halls; there must be other subjects that worked in the other SIM labs. But she had never seen any, and it didn't really matter to her- what they did never affected her so what did it matter? There were other people here, fine.
Riley stood up slowly, shaking off the remaining dizziness and trying to figure out where to go from there. There was a faint sound coming from a room up ahead and to the left of her. She had to think for a moment before she recognized it; it sounded like... the radio she had built once. Mr. Lyle had allowed her to go up on the roof of the Facility to try it out because there wasn't any reception in the sublevels. But who in the sub-levels would have a radio? The sound was cut off by someone speaking words she couldn't quite hear, and followed by a response that sounded much closer.
"...looking into a disturbance on Sub-Level corridor..."
Riley felt her heart catch in her throat as the door to the room began opening from the inside. A dark suited sweeper stepped out, looking down the corridor in the opposite direction before turning to look directly at her. He raised his hand to his mouth and spoke into something he held there, standing with an almost baffled expression on his face.
"I have a sighting of subject #8256 on-"
Riley's legs propelled her into action before he could get anything else out and she barreled into him, knocking the radio-device out of his hand. She ducked under his arm before he could inflict any damage and grabbed the gun from the holster at his side and hit him over the back of the head with it; using all the force she could. He toppled over unconscious, but Riley doubted very much whether he would stay out for long. She shot at the camera in the corner, allowing herself the small sense of power she felt as the glass lens shattered and the wiring behind the camera sparked violently, spewing ignited bits of metal and plastic onto the floor where they died quickly. She hesitated before tucking the gun securely into place at the small of her back, resting on top of the file folder stashed there. More static issued from his communication device and Riley picked it up from the floor, trying to figure out what to do with it.
"...detain subject- use any means necessary... give us your location and we will be sending backup..."
Riley flipped a switch on the side of the radio and the voice cut out instantaneously. She handcuffed the sweeper and stole the metal key ring at his side, there weren't very many manual locks in the Centre, but these might come in handy at some point. She darted in the open door at her left with the full intention of using it to access the vents again. She didn't care what Angelo wanted her to find down here, sweepers would be flooding the corridors of SL 20 in any matter of minutes and she didn't have the time. She stopped in her tracks as she walked into the room.
Chained at either end of the bed, Jarod was laying off to the side of a barred off section of the room. He craned his head back behind him to look at her, getting an upside down view of the person that had just entered his room. His expression registered shock for a moment, but then switched to something related to caution. His expression became guarded and for the first time Riley recognized the expression she often gave people when she didn't want them prying into her thoughts and feelings. Riley ignored the man, walking over to the vent and prying loose the cover.
"That's the first place they'll look."
Riley jumped at the deep voice behind her, not having expected him to speak. She continued working on the vent cover, unscrewing the second clasp.
"I'm serious. You'll be caught in an instant if you go that way."
Riley gave up momentarily on her assault of the vent grate and turned towards the man with a scowl. "It was working just fine earlier."
Jarod shifted his position on the cot to view her better, though Riley was surprised by the fact that the man could move at all. "Well, then by all means go ahead." He said nonchalantly. Riley turned back to the grate and went back to her task, trying to get the urgency out of her mind that was insisting sweepers would be there any second. She froze as she heard Jarod speak again under his breath, just loud enough to hear. "It's your funeral."
Riley turned away from the grate for the second time and walked over to the bars, glaring at the man intensely. "What would you know about it? You're just as stuck in here as I am." She pointed out, hoping he might drop it.
"It took me nearly three months to find a way out of here Riley. And they have only gotten better at stopping escapes since that time." He said urgently, looking out past her shoulder to the open door behind her. "And all you are doing right now is wasting valuable time."
Riley gave him a calculating look. "You know one of the first things to do when trying to persuade someone of a course of action is to narrow their view of events enough that they can only see your solution?" she asked him casually, trying to ignore his last comment. "I think that you just want out of those handcuffs."
Jarod looked as though he had just been slapped. "I'm not trying to trick you Riley."
"Well, if you aren't, then maybe you should be. If only for the sake of self preservation." She responded quietly, it's what she would be doing.
Jarod turned away from her after the last statement. "The Centre really has taught you well."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Riley didn't like the bitter tone underlying Jarod's words.
"You don't trust anyone," Jarod answered here query with a question of his own, "do you?"
Riley sent him a heated glare that could rival any one of Miss Parker's. That was actually where she had first encountered the look. "I don't trust you, no." She spat, Mr. Raines was right- Jarod was obviously not someone she could consider a friend. It was only too obvious that he was trying to direct her emotions to serve his purposes.
"If you trust the people around here so well Riley, then why are you running?"
Riley swallowed hard as Jarod probed at one of the fears niggling away at the back of her psyche. "That's none of your business."
Jarod looked past her again out the door. "Sweepers will be coming soon. You're running out of time." He said casually.
Riley turned back to the vent with a huff but didn't even reach out to the grate this time before she heard Jarod give an exasperated sigh behind her. "I already told you that way wouldn't work."
Riley clenched her fists at her sides and tried to reign in her temper. "Fine then, if I'm doing such a horrible job finding a way out of here, then why don't you just tell me where to go? It doesn't take an idiot to follow directions after all."
Riley could see Jarod shake his head even from where he lay. "It's very doubtful that you wouldn't get lost. Genius or not, the way I'm suggesting isn't exactly on a set path."
"So what are you proposing? I let you out of this cell and you show me the way out of the Centre?" Riley asked him disbelievingly. "Nice try Jarod, but I just got you back here."
"It's a little late to be thinking about what the Centre wants from you now, isn't it?" Jarod made a furious move to sit up, but was pressed back onto the mattress by the restraints. "You've already made 99 of your escape in just deciding to leave. If they catch you now, they are going to ship you off to Triumvirate headquarters and fry your brain for so long that you won't be able to tell which way is up anymore." He told her, not bothering to find a more eloquent wording. Perhaps being blunt would penetrate her thoughts further anyway.
Riley gave a short laugh devoid of real humor. "I doubt I'll even make it to Africa." She said, not bothering to explain further. Let him wonder for all she cared. Riley reached out to the door on the barred cell and matched the key on the ring with the lock. She looked at him once more, searching his eyes. "You're positive you know a way out of here?"
Jarod returned the look earnestly. "Trust me Riley."
Riley turned the key in the lock and hurried over to unlock the chains binding him hand and foot. "Trust is something you have to earn Jarod." She told him, dropping the key ring in his lap once she was finished. He stood up, rubbing halfheartedly at his wrists, as though he didn't expect it to do much good.
"Well, I'm ready to start trying." Jarod told her, sounding hopeful. She gave him a derisive look in response. He stepped quickly out of the barred cell and made towards the door. He peered out; ready to duck back in the instant he saw a sweeper. "So partner, ready to blow this Popsicle stand?"
Riley pushed past him after seeing that there was no one coming. "We aren't partners." She told him, not looking back to meet his eyes. "I don't know what a Popsicle is. You have something I need. Period."
Jarod frowned after her. "You know, the least you could do is give me a chance to prove I'm a nice guy."
Riley didn't feel the remark warranted an answer. She strode mutely over to the dark form of the sweeper on the floor and checked to make sure that he was still unconscious. Jarod peered around anxiously, trying to imagine where the sweepers would be. He knew the one in his room had called in a disturbance, but he had never managed to say which floor. It would be a very bad move if Riley and he were to set off on their escape only to run right into a literal army of the black suited guards. "Wish I knew where they were..."
Riley bent down into a crouch and picked the radio up off the floor next to the sweeper. She flipped the switch at the side again and listened as it crackled to "...we're checking out SL-18...just about to go to 19, this level appears empty..."
Riley handed the radio to Jarod. "We should be able to monitor their movements through this." She told him.
"They're on the floor above us. We need to go-" He said urgently. "If they find us they'll set off alarms along the entire sub-level, and it'll go into a lockdown mode. The cameras in the room will have already caught us on tape, but those only link to Raines' office. Unless he's monitoring them right now, no one will find them for another few hours at least." He spoke all this very fast while setting off down the corridor, in the opposite direction of the elevator. Riley could tell that he was restraining himself from breaking into an all-out run as he explained things to her. As it was she was practically jogging just to keep up with his long strides. "If I tell you to run, you run as fast and as hard as you possibly can, got it? And don't stop even after you think we've lost them. Don't ever stop running, understand?" The anxiety in Jarod's voice washed over Riley's system, setting her senses on edge. Her throat felt dry and her hands were sweaty, but more than anything, she could hear her heart rushing blood past her ears in quick beats.
The radio in Jarod's hand gave off a large amount of static again, sounding like an explosion to Riley's tensed body. "This level's clear too... Sending team 4 in lower... Team's 5 and 6 covering exits upstairs..." Riley turned as the elevator at the end of the corridor gave a loud ding.
Jarod pushed her off in the direction of a hallway to their left. "Run!"
-
-
Lyle pushed himself up from where he was leaning forward over Broot's chair to watch the DSA, and noticed that the tech seemed to settle lower in his chair, the tensed posture subsiding once Lyle was out of his 'bubble'. He clapped the tech on the shoulder, making the man flinch and allowed himself an evil smile. "Relax Broots. I'm not gonna bite you." He paced away from the desk, trying to reign in his sudden need for a good stiff drink of... anything that burned going down. He restrained himself from rubbing at the bridge of his nose, conscious of the three other forms in the room and the fact that a slip in his demeanor was strictly out of the question.
"So, we know they have a termination order out on her, but what I need to know is what happened after. Your damn feed just stops with Zurbin yelling her head off at Raines. For all we know, Riley's occupying a body bag in the Centre morgue right now. I mean, Parker, that feed is almost an hour old. A lot can happen in that much time."
Parker folded her arms across her chest, taking a few steps forward. "You know, I would have been satisfied with a simple 'thank you', but you're right. Getting my ass chewed out over giving you information that you didn't even have before is so much better." She bit out sarcastically.
Lyle controlled the instinct to roll his eyes, though the disdain still appeared in his expression. "Don't act all high and mighty on me Parker. The only 'thank you' you expect is your information in return. You hardly decided to show me this out of the goodness of your heart."
Parker raised her eyebrows with a smirk. "Oh, you are smarter than you look."
"Which is still better than looking smarter than I actually am. At least in my opinion. So Parker, what do you want?" Hopefully it was something he could easily lie about. Lyle had every intention of telling her something about whatever it was that she wanted, but that hardly meant he was going to tell her everything. Provided of course, he did in fact know anything at all concerning what she wanted to know. If anything proved that he hadn't been in the loop for the past couple of days, that DSA had certainly been it. He needed to get away from Parker in order to look further into that... better yet, he needed to answer Parker's question in such a way that she would get Broots to look into the matter for him... appeasement could be a very good thing at times...
"What do you know about Jarod?"
Lyle cocked an eyebrow in mild confusion. "What's there to know? Monkey boy flew the coop and now I get to spend an unhealthy portion of my time chasing after him, with the company of some people who more often than not wish me nothing but ill." He gave Parker a pointed look as he finished, sitting down partially on the edge of her desk.
Parker rolled her eyes to the ceiling and walked back over to her desk. "That's bull Lyle. You cannot possibly convince me that you weren't in on the whole thing. You got your info, now I want mine."
"In on the whole what Parker?" Lyle asked, allowing some if his exasperation flow through his words. "I honestly don't have the foggiest--"
"-You're telling me you have no clue that Jarod is currently in residence at the Centre?"
Lyle jerked up from his seat, a look of intent disbelief marring his features. Battling for prominence with the satisfied grin he was very tempted to let show. "He's here? Now? For how long-"
Parker nodded. "Trussed up like Thanksgiving turkey down on SL-20 for the past hour. You really didn't know?"
"Would I be here in your office if I did Parker?"
Parker threw her hands in the air futilely. "So this whole thing was a waste of time! Perfect."
Lyle held up his hands in defense. "Patience Parker. I don't have information right now, but I can get it."
"No. Your information gathering will take too long." Parker derailed that train of thought. "I'll just have Broots get it. Besides, I'm not even sure I can trust your informants."
"Who said anything about informants?" Lyle asked, a plan already forming in his mind. "I can get your information. And I'm sure as hell I can get it faster than Broots. At least in this scenario. Mind you, it would come at a price."
"You're joking right. You want to bargain with me over information you already owe me for?"
"Ah, but you just said I didn't have to do it anymore. You said Broots could do it." Lyle indicated the tech behind the computer, who seemed like he wanted to disappear for the moment. "I'm offering that I get you files direct from Raines' computer all about Jarod's recent acquisition. I just want a little something in return."
"I can hack into Raines' computer on my own thanks." Parker told him snidely.
"Oh hacking... I have no doubts in your team's abilities there... but that takes time. And you can simply never be sure that he won't find out..."
"And how else do you propose that I get 'files direct from Raines' computer'? To use your words..." Parker asked him incredulously. "It's not like I can just access his hard drive anytime I want."
"Well maybe you can't. But then again, none of you all, have his password."
Parker raised a carefully penciled eyebrow. "And you do?"
Lyle slid over to the computer with a knowing smirk and began the log on sequence to access Raines' computer from the network. He didn't know very much about computers to tell the truth. Didn't trust them in the first place, he liked things on file- if a file went missing you knew about it. Computers were far too easy to gain access to. But in working within a world where people seemed to think computers were the beat-all 'best invention since the wheel', he couldn't avoid using them at times. Lyle watched it log on, smiling slyly at the password prompt. He turned his attention over to Parker.
"Tell me Parker, did you know that Raines had a wife? Has really, but it's a pity about her. She's currently spending her time in the Delaware home for the perplexed; a couplet short of a sonnet. However, before she lost her marbles, she gave the then Dr. Raines something very near and dear to him. A beautiful baby girl named..."
"Annie." Parker said with a dawning look of comprehension.
"And Bingo was his name-O." Lyle confirmed in a mock sing-song voice, typing in the password. The screen opened onto Raines desktop and Parker ambled over to take a look.
"You really do have your hands in a lot of cookie jars."
"Oh, you have no idea." He responded in a self-satisfied manner. "Informants... honestly Parker, I'm insulted."
Parker's rolling eyes were the only response he received.
"If the information you're looking for is anywhere, it'll be here."
"You wanted something in return, correct?"
Lyle nodded, trying to decide how to best phrase his request. "Password access is one thing, but hacking is something different entirely... you could say it isn't my specialty."
"Ah, I think I understand now." Parker finished for him. "Broots."
"Broots."
The man in question seemed to have lost all ability blink. Lyle leaned over the desk towards him. "I need you to find the feed that starts where this one leaves off." He said, tapping the DSA with his forefinger. "And I need any and all of the recent DSA's from the past few days. Anything relevant."
"And while you're looking, I need anything from Raines' files relating to Jarod." Parker said.
Lyle stood up to leave the room when he turned around. "Broots, find out why the Triumvirate is still in town."
Parker turned her attention away from the tech, who was already beginning his first search, and moved over to block the doorway in front of Lyle. "What exactly do you have against this... Zurbin... chick?"
"Why do you want to know Parker?"
"Oh I don't know, sensing a good story maybe."
"Oh, please." Lyle scoffed at that. "Zurbin doesn't have the good sense that God gave an animal cracker. The woman doesn't just not know anything; she doesn't even suspect much. She's made it to the top of the power structure purely through heredity and a cute little ass and no amount of ambition of her own. It just so happens that I don't have any respect for her as a human being. She's the kind of person who rips off insect antennae simply for the pleasure derived from watching them squirm."
Parker raised an eyebrow at his final comment as if she didn't think that he was much better. He continued. "She doesn't even have the courtesy to hide behind the advancement of science."
"Which is so much better." Parker drawled sarcastically. "You seem to know her pretty well."
"Oh we go way back." He remarked derisively. He looked back at where Broots was working on the computer. "Look Parker, take a lesson from Mom. Don't go sticking your nose into Raines' personal affairs without expecting retaliation." He said, trying to push past her out the door.
She stopped him, sending him a look of pure poison. "Don't talk to me about my mother."
"It's just a word of caution Parker."
Parker scoffed. "And why do you suddenly care?"
"Would you believe me if I said family?"
"No." Parker responded curtly.
Lyle shrugged and decided to humor her with a real motive. "Power base. You and I could make a great team Parker." He said with a charmed smile. The kind that allowed him to slip beneath most people's radar as a good guy. He took advantage of Parker's sudden immobilization at even the thought and stepped past her, finally managing to push out the door. Lyle was halfway out to the parking lot once more when the lights abruptly flickered out and sirens started wailing. He caught a sweeper running past by the arm and spun him around. Hardly able to hear his own words over the bellowing sirens.
"What's going on?"
"There's an escape attempt in progress Sir."
Lyle nodded his understanding before dashing off in the direction of the security rooms. He met Parker and Broots by the door, walking in after them to find Raines and Zurbin already commanding several groups of sweepers as they combed the levels, searching.
"Jarod?" he asked no one in particular.
"Lyle, so good of you to join us." Zurbin turned around to face him with a strained smile "But I'm afraid you're only partially correct. You'll never imagine who sprung him from his cell." She said with an 'I-told-you-so' air.
"Riley." He barely suppressed the urge to growl. "Perfect." he strode over to the security monitors. "Have you managed to locate which sub-level they're on?"
"The last reported sighting was on SL-20. But we haven't gotten any reports for a while." Some underling replied, a man of little consequence not worth trying to remember the name of.
"What about the lock-down process?"
"We've been working on engaging it on every sub-level. But our main focus has been on the levels above 20. They should be trying to go up and that's where we'll catch them."
-
-
Riley dashed down a corridor after Jarod, sprinting all out to keep up with his longer strides. She could see a lockdown barrier closing off at the end of the corridor, a large rounded obstacle that sealed off the passages one by one. They had just barely made it past the last two, and Riley doubted they would make this one at all. Jarod reached the door just as it slammed home against the opposite wall. Jarod let off a stream of expletives, reminding Riley of the immediate memory of Zurbin cursing at the vent shaft in the same manner. She came to a halt and took a few wary steps back from the volatile man, trying to decide if she were in any danger here.
"Dammit!" Jarod pounded on the door with his fist, venting mingled horror and frustration. "That's the only way out."
Riley scanned the small area they were trapped in; locked between the barrier behind them and the one in front. She walked over to the single door locked in the confines of the two, scanning it for any obvious defects. The sweepers would enter through this door to collect their captives. That was the best assumption she could make. Turning to Jarod she asked, "What about this way?"
Jarod shook his head in the negative. "We can't hack through the lock system, there's no keypad access, only keycards can get through."
Riley pulled the sweeper's keycard out of her waistband, "A keycard like this?"
She stepped closer to the door and pushed the card in the slot, noting the red light at the side turning to flash green.
"Where did you get that?" Jarod asked, sidling up to her. "You'd have to pry that thing from a guard's cold, dead, fingers before they gave it up."
Riley swallowed against the dryness in her throat at Jarod's choice of words. "He... wasn't using it at the time." She pushed the door open forcefully and peered down a little-used corridor that ran parallel to the one they were just in.
Jarod hurried out after her, beginning off down it one way. "This should lead us to the Centre Rehydration Core. The door will be closing there any minute!" He said, taking off at a mad sprint with Riley following.
-
-
Zurbin was issuing orders as sweepers left the room, a camera had caught sight of the two would-be escapees running off down SL-24 and they had quickly taken the hint that they needed to move their focus to locking down the lower levels over the priority of the higher ones.
"Use whatever means necessary with the female but we want Jarod alive!" She called out to the sweepers heading out of the room.
Lyle exited the office to head down to the sub-levels with the rest of them. Perhaps if he could reach Riley and Jarod before the others he could fake her death. He certainly had experience in that arena. Yes, fake her death and take her to a private facility where the research could continue under his sole direction. Riley had always been his ticket to the top, and he didn't plan on losing her now. She was never meant for the outside world! She wouldn't be able to handle it. There had been implements in her training designed for that very purpose. Riley wasn't programmed for that sort of lifestyle.
Lyle stopped the train of thought as Parker caught up behind him. "So, a shoot-to-kill order. This chick means business doesn't she?"
Lyle gave a non-committal grunt. Parker was trying to weasel into his thoughts on the matter. But if she thought he was going to break down and start screaming because of his 'emotional attachment' to the subject she was sorely mistaken. He wasn't Sydney. Riley was a good kid. And he had known her since she was a toddler. But he wasn't emotionally invested. He wasn't. She was a project, an experiment. It didn't matter.
"Why go through with the termination order anyway?" Parker continued. "I mean, two geniuses are better than one."
"Yeah, well. The Triumvirate's been trying to keep this pretty hush-hush- though I'm sure you've already had suspicions on the matter- but without the revenue Jarod used to bring in, this company has been leaking out of it's bank accounts. A ton of clients had been lined up for simulations when he left, and over half of them had paid in advance. Factor in the clients that came knocking on our door saying that our wayward pretender had sabotaged the simulations they had tried enacting. A ton of those people only just managed to avoid jail."
"I thought Jarod rigged them so they had to confess. Wouldn't those recordings come up in court?"
"Played off as under duress or some shit like that I'm sure. Still, not too many got off, and the ones that did had criminal records. They lost all respect within their community. And let's not forget about the money it costs just to run his damn pursuit. The money he steals from us- Parker the list is endless."
"Still Lyle, that doesn't explain why, if this is all Jarod's fault, it's being taken out on Riley." Parker told him, matching him step for step as they walked down the corridor. Lyle was headed in the direction of the stairs, knowing the elevators would be crammed with sweepers.
"It's being taken out on Riley, because the Triumvirate is trying to stop a problem before it escalates out of proportion. 'Nip it in the bud.' They want to dispose of her the instant she shows signs of disloyalty; Jarod was uncooperative for months before he escaped. The Triumvirate is trying to learn from its mistakes. The problem is, Riley just showed them the 'disloyalty' they have been looking for. Parker, she killed someone. And they know that if she ever got loose, the next person she goes after might be one of them. At least- that's what they think."
Parker reached out and stopped Lyle, pulling him back by his arm. "But that isn't what you think?"
"Riley has no possible motive to move against the Triumvirate. I trained her myself Parker; she thinks that the Centre is the only place that she will ever belong."
"Then why is she running Lyle?"
"She's scared." Lyle responded easily. "Hell, she's terrified."
"Well who wouldn't be," Parker said, resuming the quick pace down to the sub-levels. "If what you're saying is true then she thinks that the only place she has ever, and could ever, feel safe in is actively trying to kill her." Parker paused for a beat. "The only question is what you plan on doing when you find her." She said, giving Lyle a pointed look out of the corner of her eye.
"Well, I sure as hell don't plan on shooting her."
Lyle gave her a sidelong look as he continued down the stairs. He wanted Parker gone. He couldn't do what he wanted with her around—it would be hard enough getting Riley out of the Centre, but to have Parker watching… But watching what? He could make it seem like he was helping her. Score brownie points, and really smuggle Riley off to a facility somewhere. He could cover that up easily enough, and even Parker couldn't deny what she had seen with her own eyes. He hid a sly smile as ran across a landing and down another flight of stairs. It was perfect.
-
-
Riley sped through the rapidly closing door at the end of the rehydration core, actually feeling a breeze at her back as the door closed and locked.
Jarod was prying the cover off of a large access in the wall. He stuck his head in and peered up and down both ways before coming back out and looking at Riley. Riley felt herself pale as she looked in at the dark column, there was no light coming out or into the wide shaft at any point. Jarod must have noticed her discomfort.
"You aren't afraid of the dark are you?" He asked, not unkindly, though Riley couldn't help hearing accusation in his tone as she thought back to every time she had ever admitted to being scared of anything. The encounters had never met with understanding.
Riley slipped into the column, grabbing onto the ladder-like bars she found lined up next to the access. "I'm not afraid of anything."
Jarod didn't comment and Riley dropped down a few rungs to allow him to gain access to the ladder. Jarod told her to just keep going down until she hit the very bottom of the shaft. "We're in the boiler system right now. These tunnels run throughout all of the levels of the building, above and below ground. Once we reach the bottom, if we walk along for a while, we should reach a similar shaft that will take us up. It opens up right along the edge of the Blue Cove Woods." He said, climbing down, placing his feet rung by rung where her hands had occupied space moments before.
-
-
Lyle reached the bottom of the stairs that led to SL-26 and dashed off down the hall to the sewer access leading to sub level 27. Parker's stilettos clicked against the concrete floor at measured lengths behind him. How she ever managed to run in those heels Lyle would never understand. Parker pulled up to a stop next to him and looked down at the sewer entrance. "What makes you think they're in SL-27?" She asked him.
"They haven't tripped a motion sensor in the past two hours Parker. Sub-Level 27 is the only level in the Centre that doesn't have any. None of them survived being blown up... twice." He explained, momentarily thinking back to the bomb Sydney had planted in the corridor. That incident had actually been blamed on Gar; it never seemed to matter to anyone that Gar wasn't even in the corridor when it blew. Everyone had also been told that the man was dead, but no one ever questioned the fact that he kept showing up for work. Everyone knew that Sydney had done it, whether that was what had gone into the report was irrelevant. Lyle unscrewed the cover and lifted it up out of the floor. "There's more than one way out of SL-27, and if their pattern of movement continues then I'm willing to bet this is where they end up." He hopped through the hole, landing in the hollowed out floors of the Centre's deepest sublevel with a wet slap. Parker followed him in and they worked through the hallways. Flashlights sent beams of thin light through the gloom, reflecting lightly against the water on the floor left from where fire extinguishing systems in the ceiling engaged. Debris littered the floor in places, one small metal tricycle sticking out in Lyle's mind particularly. Reminding him that they were working their way through Raines' old playground.
-
-
Riley jumped the last few rungs on the ladder, landing lightly on the balls of her feet. Her arms were burning and her hands had started bleeding again, making the metal bars difficult to grasp as she had steadily headed lower. Jarod mimicked her movements, landing on the floor with a heavy thud. He strode over to another access entry and kicked it open- there was no way to unscrew it from the inside. Riley ducked through the hole, eagerly anticipating lighted corridors again, but instead walked out into an abandoned hallway that looked as though no one had entered it for a great many years. Riley's empathic senses picked up on several decades worth of layered emotions, stronger in some places than in others.
"Jarod, where are we?" she asked, turning around to face the man that had crawled out the access after her, but her companion had suddenly become very still. He made a hushing motion with his arms and Riley stifled the question she was about to ask. Jarod looked very on edge, as though straining to hear something.
"What's going on?" Riley asked in a hushed voice.
Jarod began hurrying off past her, speaking in a similarly hushed voice. "Something's wrong, someone's down here." He motioned with his hand that Riley should continue down the corridor with him, taking extra care not to make too much noise. As they walked further down- running would be noisier- Riley began to hear it too. It sounded like...
"Voices."
Jarod shook his head. "Miss Parker's high heels."
Riley could hardly see where she was stepping as she followed Jarod's black form down the hallway. She was following more the traces of emotion he left behind him than anything she could actually see or hear, but Jarod's fear was slowly mingling in her mind with the rest of the fearful emotions of pain flowing all around the corridor. Riley felt the fear in one area of the hallway spike dramatically; a seeming change in the emotional levels that Riley had only ever encountered around a living person. The emotion was emitting from an area that veered off to her left and Riley followed, thinking she was walking after Jarod. A door stood open in front of her and Riley ventured into the room warily.
She ran into something inside the room and felt a current of long-dead electricity run up her spine, sparking behind her eyes in a wave of memory that wasn't hers.
"...no more Timmy. From now on..."
Riley ripped her hand from whatever it was touching, feeling as though the flesh had been scalded. Burnt by an electric current. She stumbled backward out into the corridor with a strangled, but loud, cry, running into a rolling tray against the far wall. The metal contraption clattered to the ground, echoing with her scream off around the walls. Her hand flew to cover her mouth as though her very soul would escape and she looked to Jarod guiltily. He stood about ten feet away from her with a horrorstruck expression on his face. Riley listened to the sounds of running footsteps and a startled cry from up the corridor, where it twisted away down another hall.
"Listen! Did you hear that?"
"How could I not hear it Parker- It sounded like someone was being murdered!"
Jarod pulled Riley out of her state of shock, tugging her forward. "Something he would know…" He pushed her forward, "Go!"
Riley started running blindly, flashlight beams bounced along at the heels of her feet and she heard Miss Parker call out at Jarod to stop. Jarod ignored it and Riley followed suit, picking up her pace a bit to try to catch up with the man in front of her.
"Riley! Stop! That's an order!"
Riley's steps faltered before her mind even processed the decision, following the command unthinkingly as she had for every year that she could remember. She spun around to look face to face with Mr. Lyle. Miss Parker had her gun drawn though Mr. Lyle didn't. Her breathing was labored and her head spun as it tried to reach a decision.
"Riley, come here. The Centre is your home, it's the only place you're safe." Mr. Lyle reasoned, and some preprogrammed area of Riley's brain was struggling to come to the foreground. He was right- why was she running away from her home? She shouldn't be running away from the Centre. The outside world was dangerous. Why was she trying to go somewhere that was dangerous? It was illogical.
Jarod had stopped his run when she did; he hadn't made a move though as Parker's gun was trained on his chest. He didn't seem to care however, as though he doubted very much whether she would pull the trigger. His eyes were locked with the man's down the hall, a gleam of intense hatred burning there even as Lyle tried to reason with the girl he was helping escape. Riley was about convinced to come back. What she was doing was wrong; running away was wrong. She took a step forward. Her eyes were drawn past Mr. Lyle's form however as the sound of running footsteps resounded down the hall, flashlight beams appeared around the corner. Miss Zurbin and entourage appeared barely moments after. The corridor was lit with flashlight beams as she and two sweepers rounded the corner and came to a halt just behind Mr. Lyle and Miss Parker. Riley raised a hand above her face to block the lights shining in her eyes as the subtle voice in her head surrendered to the part of her mind that was really hers. Riley felt her skin pale as the African woman sent her a smug smile and looked to her sweepers.
"Shoot her!"
Riley felt a bullet whiz past her cheek, leaving a searing cut in the flesh there, but she knew that it was only a flesh wound. She pulled the gun out of its position at her back and aimed, firing three rounds within a span of five seconds, listening to the sweepers and Zurbin's muffled hisses and shrieks of surprised pain as their guns dropped out of their hands. She hadn't aimed anywhere fatal, only at their gun hands, though for all the noise of outrage Zurbin was making you'd have thought she had given her a mortal wound.
Riley turned the aim of her gun at Miss Parker "I'm giving you the option of just dropping it." She said in an apologetic tone. She was a project- she shouldn't be demanding anything out of these people. And yet, they were following orders.
Miss Parker held her gun out to her side before tossing it over in Riley's direction. Riley sent Mr. Lyle a last look. "An apology is simply never going to make this up, is it?" She swallowed, glancing down at Miss Parker's gun. Riley didn't pick it up, tossing her own gun to the floor instead before making a breakneck dash to the end of the hall; Jarod reached it first and unscrewed the access; pushing Riley through before clambering in himself. He pulled the cover up after him, blocking it off from the inside by pushing one of the pieces of old boiler equipment over in front of it. Riley listened as the people out in the corridor scrambled over to the access and she heard Mr. Lyle berate Zurbin from somewhere that sounded further away; near the back of the group.
"Funny- but she wasn't even trying to run until you decided to come along." She could hear the smirk in his voice. "And I assure you, I'll be putting that into my report."
It seemed like hours later that Jarod lifted off the large metal cover at the top of the boiler access. Lifting himself out and jumping to the ground. Riley followed out mutely. Jarod had explained to her that this was where the running would begin again. Guards would be at every exit to the building, and they would be combing the grounds as well. The Blue Cove Woods were off to the south west of them, and directly to Riley's right. Riley didn't even look at Jarod as they dashed off in the direction of the dark horizon line. She hadn't said a word since entering the boiler room below.
She ran full out for what felt like miles, dodging in between trees and watching out for the raised roots in the ground that Jarod had warned her against. Her legs were burning, protesting every bound forward with a shock of agony. Her chest felt as though it was on fire, and she had long forgotten the feel of cold air rushing into her lungs- she felt as though they had gone numb. Sweat blurred her vision and stung at her eyes, and her hands were trembling even as she pumped her arms in rhythm with her strides. Dancing light beams chased her through the night, mingled with the shouts of sweepers as they combed the grounds, though they never managed to get close enough to catch her. Every time she heard footsteps behind her she would speed up, running with renewed vigor. Forcing herself to press forward with the memory of Miss Zurbin's voice down in the tunnel.
"Shoot her!"
Her feet pounded against the grass, slipping in the dirt and mud. Thousands of foreign smells and sensations assailed her, but she was going far too fast to analyze any of them. New ones popped up to take other's places as she sped past each one with rapid movements that made them blur in her mind. Crisp night air pushed her hair off her sweaty forehead as she pressed ever forward. Darkness like one she had never known before smothered her- pressed in on every side like a swaddling blanket; twisted tightly when you woke up from a nightmare. This darkness lasted forever, it didn't stop at a ceiling, and florescent bulbs would not flicker into life with the press of a button or flip of a switch. The only sources of any light in this darkness were the stars above her, and the moon shining through layers of cloud cover. Its light hung in blankets in the sky, but never reached the ground. The turf was springy beneath her step, and the dew on the grass soaked though her canvas shoes and tickled at the skin above them; a band that ran around her ankle, just below her pants. The world she was passing through felt completely foreign.
Jarod veered sharply to the right in front of her, jumping inside a black automobile and turning the key in the ignition. Riley catapulted in the open door on her side, sitting in the seat as Jarod reached across her to close it. He pressed a button on the side of his armrest and Riley heard the locks click into place automatically.
The vehicle pealed away from the Centre with screeching tires, running along grass and ducking between trees as Jarod maneuvered it expertly. It bumped onto the road jarringly, and Riley threw her arms out against the dashboard to avoid being thrown form her seat.
"Are you alright?" Jarod asked, unable to take his eyes from the road or stop for the headlights Riley could see catching up behind them. "Try putting on your seatbelt." He suggested, tugging at the length of flat cord running along his chest. Riley felt for the cord hanging beside her curiously, clicking the metal end into place at the receptacle next to her.
The trip proceeded in silence even after the sweepers had long given up chase.
Jarod looked over to the girl next to him in concern. Her back was straight against the seat, as though an iron rod had been inserted next to her spine. Her eyes faced forwards, never leaving the twin pools of light cast in front of the car. Her knuckles were white where they gripped the armrest. Jarod reached into the backseat for his leather jacket and draped it over her wiry frame.
"Try to get some sleep. You're safe here."
Riley nodded but didn't close her eyes. She couldn't possibly be safe here.
Mr. Lyle knelt down next to the bed, sitting across from the trembling six year old girl in front of him. Riley hugged her knees to her chest tighter, blinking her eyes against the fatigue niggling away at the far corner of her psyche.
"Riley you haven't slept in three days. You need to go to bed." Mr. Lyle reasoned, tugging the cotton blanket out of her grasp.
Riley shook her head in the negative. "I don't wanna sleep, I wanna go with you." She pleaded, her words slurring together slightly as she tried to suppress an exhausted yawn.
"You can't come with me Riley, I'm going home. I'm going to bed." He said, picking her up and laying her back down on the mattress, pulling the covers up to her chin. "Riley, why are you so scared to go to sleep?"
"There are monsters in my room."
"Riley, who told you about monsters?" Mr. Lyle asked her, his voice going hard.
Riley didn't look at him, playing with a loose thread on her blanket. "Nobody."
"And just what did 'Nobody' say about monsters?"
"They live under my bed."
"Heh. Okay, come here." He said, plucking her out from between the sheets and setting her down on the floor. He crawled down next to her, sinking to his hands and knees as they peered beneath the cot. "Riley, if monsters live under your bed, where are they?" he asked, indicating the empty space between the concrete floor and the bare bed springs holding up the mattress.
"He said they were invisible." She told him matter of factly.
"Riley, there is no reported evidence of any physical object ever being proven invisible, it would follow that the monsters that presumably live under your bed cannot be invisible either." He said, trying to allay her fears with logic.
"Oh, I don't believe him that they're invisible." Riley told him. "They just vibrate at a faster frequency than we do. That's why we can't see them."
"That's it Riley. I'm not indulging these fantasies any longer." He said, picking her up once again and depositing her on the bed. "There's no such thing as monsters. They don't exist outside the realm of fiction."
"Yes there are!" Riley argued the point further, stubbornly fighting him as she had for the past three days. "They come out after you leave!"
"No Riley, you mean they come out after you fall asleep." He tapped her forehead lightly. "They are figments of your imagination. They can't hurt you."
"But they're scary. They're really, really, really, scary."
"It's just a nightmare Riley. A bad dream. It isn't real."
"But the monsters are really real when I'm awake. I see them all the time."
"For the last time Riley, monsters aren't r-"
"You aren't a monster. I don't have bad dreams about you. But everybody else is a monster! And they wanna do bad things!" She cried, tugging her knees up to her chest again and hugging them tightly. She had to make him understand. The monsters were real; maybe not the ones that 'nobody' had talked about, but the ones that scared her even as she was awake were very much real entities.
"Riley, this your room, and this is your bed. You are safe here. This is your home; you will always be safe here. No one wants to do bad things to you here." Mr. Lyle tugged the covers back up to her chin for the final time that night. "The monsters can't get you- you're safe. You are safe here. Do you believe me?"
She gave him a hesitant nod because she knew it was what he wanted. He smoothed the covers out over he small body. "Good. Because you know I never lie to you. Now go to sleep. Big day tomorrow."
Riley watched him leave the room, feeling the smallest bit safer. Mr. Lyle said she was safe, Mr. Lyle would know that... Riley listened through the door as the man paused to talk with the sweeper outside.
Lyle stopped outside of the young girl's cell, sending a glance back at her through the slit in the door. He turned to continue down the hallway, but paused again as he heard the sweeper outside the door snigger as he passed.
"Yur kid's not afraid of the boogeyman, is she?" The man asked, obviously trying not to show the amused grin spreading across his face.
Lyle stepped closer to the guard, who seemed to realize that he should have kept his mouth shut.
"No," Lyle replied casually, luring the guard into a false relaxation. "Not of the boogeyman." He paused for a moment before moving ever closer to the guard, who tensed up once again. "Tell 'Nobody' that I'll cut out his tongue and feed it back to him the next time he decides to go spewing his mouth off." The sweeper swallowed hard, nodding his head emphatically as he watched Lyle walk away, looking afraid to open his mouth.
Riley sat on her bed and stared after Mr. Lyle as he walked down the hall, smiling to herself as she pulled the coverlet up past her head and hunkered down under the blanket to go to sleep. Now, she was safe here.
Riley's hand clenched tightly around the edge of the jacket as she tried to shake off the memory, leaning her head against the cool window and watching the world go by in a never-ending stretch of darkness. She couldn't sleep here. It wasn't safe here. Not for her.