The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, the pessimist fears this is true.
Will flipped the blind up at the bottom, catching a glimpse of the car again. He dropped it the instant he saw the girl look his way. He was surprised a little to see her there, Jarod had gone to the Centre with the main goal of helping Miss Parker. If Will had expected anyone to be in the passenger seat of the car, it was she, not this young girl. He could hear his father and Jarod talking from the porch, their voices floating in through the screen door. He wanted to know what was going on, but wasn't sure if he could will himself to go meet Jarod again. His pride (among other parts of his anatomy) was still bruised by their argument before he left. Will stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked out of the room, moving towards the front of the house. He paused at the screen door, looking outside again, before shoving it open to stand next to the Major. Dad He corrected himself silently. The Major was his father, He should call him Dad.
Will sent another look towards the girl; her eyes were once again focused on their little group, and she looked positively terrified. She reminded him of the small rabbits that he would find grazing by the fence at the edge of their property, a sort of tensed stillness, looking as though she were deciding whether to bolt or not. Now that he was closer, she didn't look so young anymore; small, yes, but older than he had thought, twelve maybe.
"Is Miss Parker alright?" Jarod nodded but didn't elaborate. Damn him. Will balled his hands into fists in his pockets.
"How's the girl doing?" The Major asked, eyes drifting from his sons to the car. Will knew he was trying to get them off the subject of Miss Parker. He could always tell when a fight was brewing between his sons.
Jarod pursed his lips. "She won't talk to me."
"Have you told her anything about...?" Her parents? Will let the question hang unasked.
Jarod looked down at his shoes and then back at the car.
"I'll take that as one big fat 'no'." Will said; his tone accusing though he had tried to reign in the bitter resentment in is voice. If Jarod had allowed him to come along, Will could have at least managed that.
Jarod looked back at Will, his jaw clenching and unclenching. "Well, what am I supposed to tell her? It's not something you can just spring on a person!"
You didn't seem to mind doing that to me...
"Let me do it."
Jarod eyes widened slightly. "What?"
"Trust me Jarod, you lack a certain... finesse... for this." He said, strolling down the steps of the porch and off towards the car, sneering inwardly at the thinly veiled slight he had managed to stick into his argument.
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Riley stiffened in her seat as she watched the boy step off the porch confidently and begin walking over towards the car. She ignored him in the same manner she had ignored Jarod as he slipped into the seat next to her and slammed the door closed. He sat there for a few curious moments, as silent as she was, turned slightly in his seat and watching her profile as though it were the most fascinating thing he had ever encountered. After a fair amount of time had passed, he finally opened his mouth. "Now, I happen to know that Raines would never let you treat anyone with this much disrespect."
Riley's eyes widened in surprise and she turned halfway 'round, mouth opened to tell him to mind his own business, leave her alone. She just wanted to be left alone. She never got to speak the words though. He stopped her.
"And I'll tell you something else. I'm not going to do a thing about it. Neither will Jarod. And the same goes for the Major." He said. Will thought he might know what was going on; his own confused thoughts had traveled down this path with The Major on more than one occasion when he first left the Centre and Donoterase. "If you're looking for discipline for actions you feel you deserve punishment for, you won't find it here. So you can stop the silent act right now. You won't get what you're looking for. No one here is going to get angry, and I don't care how much more comfortable with that sort of treatment you'd feel. This isn't the Centre. Get used to it." He paused a moment to see if she might respond in some way to what he had said. To his surprise Will found himself steadily becoming more uncomfortable with each of his words. Perhaps it was the steadfast way that this girl was supposed to be like him, and yet was so obviously not. Perhaps it was the mere insinuation passing beneath the surface of his statements, dredging up unpleasant reminders of his own 'bringing up' by Raines. He didn't know, but it was making him ill at ease.
Funny that. It used to be that Will would do anything he possibly could to get the Major angry at him. To see what the Major would do when he was angry with him. He would push the line as far as it went and further, and it used to make him uncomfortable that the old man would let him get away with it every time. It had been weird trying to get used to that much freedom. Now it was making him uncomfortable even talking about the time when he had no freedom at all, and everything that that entailed. The girl next to him wasn't having any such feelings though, at least- not that she was showing. The only thing that she looked was angry. Perhaps that was because he had caught on to her when no one else had, perhaps it was because she wasn't going to get her way. Will wasn't sure. But she could throw her little tantrum as long as she liked. He only hoped that she learned quickly it wasn't going to change anything. Will took a deep breath as he halted these thoughts where they were. He had come to talk to her for a reason. "There are some..." He stopped and started again, trying to choose his words but finding them all lacking. "I mean..." No, that was wrong. He tried over, "I need to tell you something and..."
Will gave up for the moment; he would improvise later. "C'mon," He said, beckoning as he stepped out of the car. He frowned when the girl didn't move from her seat, instead scowling down at the upholstery with her brows furrowed, probably using all of the defiance she knew how to muster, Will thought. Sighing as he moved around the front of the car over to her side, Will tugged open the door and leaned in to unbuckle her seatbelt, noting how she tensed fractionally as he came within touching distance. He grabbed up the DSA case at her feet along with the file folder that sat next to it. "C'mon, get out." If his own rearing was any indication, Will knew that she would hardly have the courage not to follow a direct order. Fear of consequences not withstanding— it just wasn't done when you worked under Mr. Raines. "You and I are going on a walk and quite frankly, you've got no say in the matter." He told her, stepping back from the car and moving off in the direction of the woods around the back of the house. He waited a few moments as he heard the sound of grudging footsteps begin to follow him.
Riley caught up with him within a second, scuffing her feet as she walked beside him, head down towards the ground and glowering. Keeping her eyes trained steadily on her feet and not on the fact that this was outside. And she wasn't supposed to be outside. And didn't he know they were going to be in trouble if anyone caught them out here?
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"I worked with Mr. Raines too." Will started, hoping that maybe if he began with something he knew, the right words would come to him. They had been walking through the woods for some time now, silently, as Will wracked his brain for something to say. "I suppose you would have called me Gemini then; that was my project name at least. I didn't really have a name... I never needed one at Donoterase." He paused before barreling right in. This conversation could end up lasting quite some time if she didn't know... well, if she didn't know what he hoped she already knew. "I'm guessing you know who... what... I am." He said haltingly, almost as though he were talking to himself. He may as well have been for how much response his companion was giving.
Riley swallowed hard, trying to work her throat past the pressure bubble lodged there. Yes, she had figured out what he was as soon as he had come close enough to see. He looked just like Him on the surveillance tapes. They didn't tell her they had cloned Him.
"Jarod... interfered... with Them transferring me to the Triumvirate headquarters a little more than a year ago." Will told her, trying to pick the best word to describe what exactly Jarod had done. His mind screamed stole, but he didn't want to use that word, because hadn't the Centre stolen him from Jarod in the first place?
Riley was keeping her eyes glued to the ground, kept trying to think of the Centre, the sub-level hallways, the four walls and low ceiling that always reminded her that she was surrounded and she was safe, but she wasn't able to trick her mind. She could smell the difference in the air here, and the crackling sound as their feet crunched over mostly dead leaves, and the strange noises that came from up in the trees which she could only assume were being made by animals. Riley's heart was hammering a quick tattoo against her chest and she couldn't seem to breathe fast enough to get the air she needed. She wanted inside somewhere, back to the familiar creaking and groaning of a building, and the sound of water running through pipes, and the air being pushed around vents.
"That night I was terrified; I thought he was going to kill me." Will laughed a little at this statement, more out of nerves than any real humor, before continuing. "I guess I was thinking pretty much the same way you are now. I just wanted to go back home, back where things made sense anyways." Because it wasn't really home... "Most of all, I think I just wanted away from Jarod." He told her, trying to sort through the confused feelings of that night. This was really the first time he was looking at them himself. He could remember that first night in the cabin clearer than anything. He could remember the fireplace casting augmented shadows against the walls, and the heat of it against his back and neck, and the utter sense of dawning horror as Jarod just talked, and talked, and talked. He remembered feeling like he couldn't breathe, like he shouldn't be able to breathe. Feeling as though it were all a trick. He had wanted it to be a trick. He had wanted Jarod to be lying. But even then, part of him knew that Jarod wasn't. And after that it was just hurt. Just an overwhelming sense of confusion, and so intense that he couldn't really remember much more.
Will took a deep breath, trying to clear his head, shake it out of memory lane. "Mr. Raines... Raines told me that Jarod had murdered my parents and that was why I was at the Centre. He had shown me a picture of him, and had told me that Jarod was responsible for their deaths... and I believed him." Will paused for a moment, old emotions, anger really, at being told such a lie resurfacing again. "He abused his authority... our relationship... He was really the only person I knew. He wasn't a friend, I guess you really can't get friendly with a man like him, but he was my... (What was he anyway? Mentor? Parent? Provider? Support system?) ...teacher."
Riley swallowed again, keeping her eyes glued to the ground. She didn't want to hear this, didn't want any more of her little wall of familiarity to be torn down. Didn't want to. Didn't want to. Didn't want to. Her own experience was already showing her how much this man had lied to her, and she didn't want to know. She could still trust him. She had to still be able to trust him. If she couldn't, she'd be lost.
"That night, Jarod told me that he never killed my parents. He told me he couldn't have; setting aside the fact that Jarod doesn't kill, my parents never had..." he paused, "never had existed to be targets." Will focused on the trees towering overhead, the squirrel clambering up a trunk, the small sounds of birds as they passed by, the golden shafts of sunlight that would dart between leaves to spot the ground. Anything but what he was saying. "Jarod did say this though; he told me that I come from Him, and He comes from two people that love him very much. I'm still not really sure if that's enough." He admitted, "I guess it's going to have to be." It didn't feel quite right; talking about these sorts of thoughts to a girl he couldn't even claim to know. These were private, very private, so private that he hadn't even mentioned them to The Major. The sort of thoughts that he knew would get the old man upset- no these were thoughts better left unuttered. He wished he knew what he was doing, he wished there was a script for him, he wished he knew how she would react. Most of all he wished she'd say something. Will leaned against a tree trunk, sliding down to sit at its base, between two large roots, and set the DSA case down at his side. Riley sat down cross-legged in the dirt and leaves across from him. "I guess I want to tell you something similar, but I don't really know how."
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The boy walking next to her was having trouble getting words out, and Riley could feel why. The emotions rolling off of him were clogging her senses so that her thought processes were little more than step: right foot, left foot, right foot, he's saying something, can't understand... The boy, he hadn't introduced himself... no, he had, he said his name was Gemini, hadn't he? No, that was past tense, what did he say his name was now? He was saying something important, she could tell, and that knowledge alone was probably the only thing stopping her from running away right now. She wanted away from his confusion, wanted away from her own confusion really.
He hunkered down in between some tree roots and Riley stumbled into a sitting position across from him in the sweet smelling undergrowth that scattered the ground. She couldn't recall very much of his monologue thus far, though it must have been making sense in some part of her brain, because he was pushing a silver case across the ground to her, and a small sense of fear was developing as the thought surfaced in her mind that her eyes were strikingly similar to Jarod's.
Will opened the thick file folder on the girl across from him and scanned the pages of DSA slips, he plucked out the first one from the first row, dated in block-style handwriting 12/24/84He leaned over, opening the DSA case from behind so that the screen was facing her, and pushed the small disk into the playing slot. He pushed himself up off the ground, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans and looking down at the girl in front of him in worry. Somehow he felt that sticking around would only make things worse.
"I'll, uh, I'll just go now." He started to step past her, footsteps crunching in the leaves and feeling that surely even Jarod could have done better than he just had, but he didn't make it very far. Riley's thin hand snaked out, locking in a startlingly strong grip (you wouldn't know it from looking at her) around his ankle as he passed. She was looking up at him with something very close to pleading in her eyes. Will hesitated only a moment before he sat down in the crunching fall leaves next to her and some of that desperation left her gaze. She reached out with a shaky hand and pressed the play button, before turning back to him.
Her eyes were speaking volumes to him, a simple demand that traveled up from the place where her fingertips still rested lightly above his sock, transmitting a weak feeling of terror and making her message that much more clear.
Don't Leave.
Will nodded and scooted closer.
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Parker stalked across the Mezzanine, poised as always, though she was roiling with anger inside. Immediately after Jarod and the girl had fled the building the typical maneuverings of the Triumvirate began in full force at the Centre, and while it had been no small triumph to watch Raines removed from his office by two triumvirate sweepers who looked as though they kept their brains in their biceps, the joy only lasted for a week. Raines had taken up his position once again as the Centre's resident specter; Parker could kill herself if she didn't think it would make him smug.
It was also a common gossip among the halls that Lyle had vanished from his own office hardly a minute after Raines stepped onto the Centre helipad, who knew what he had been doing in his office in the first place, he was still 'persona non gratis' as far as the Triumvirate was concerned. His disappearance had been a full three days ago, and still no sign of him. Not that she was concerned of course, but it was generally good to know what Lyle was doing, that was all. And if Broots was to be believed-- curse him, but he usually was right about this sort of thing, anyone who had contact with Riley before she deserted was next. And that included her.
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Her feet finally stopped when she realized that she had run to the edge of a small lake, and the water was coolly soaking through the tops of her canvas shoes, and the soles were stuck in the wet, muddy lakebed. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes were cold and stinging from the crisp fall air, and she was shivering in nothing but a tee shirt and jeans. She wanted to be able to run further.
She turned around to start walking back to the house where was she anyway? She couldn't be lost... couldn't be... had to be able to get back inside...a sweeper was going to catch her outside any moment now and then she was going to get it... when that boy emerged at the edge of the tree line. She glared daggers at him and turned back to the lake, glad that he had shown up; he could lead her to the house, and livid because she knew he hadn't shown up to play guide; he had shown up because he wanted to talk. She didn't want to talk. Never wanted to talk again. She could hear him scrambling over the rocks at the edge of the woods behind her and started to walk along the edge of the water, away from him.
The DSA had stopped playing and she had clambered to her feet, kicking up the crunching dead leaves on the ground, and she had run away. Couldn't he tell that she did not want to talk? She didn't want to rehash the events of her own birth. She didn't want to think about the fact that she had been born two months early.
How disappointed Mr. Raines must have been—all that planning and he still managed to get the runt of the litter... she thought bitterly.
She didn't want to think about the fact that the surrogate mother carrying her had been killed upon delivery. She didn't want to talk about the fact that among nearly fifty other initiated pregnancies she was the only one that came out resembling a homo sapient life form. She didn't want to talk about the gene splicing technique that allowed three different strands of DNA to develop in the same egg, and didn't want to talk about the enhanced genetic traits that developed. And most of all she did not want to talk about the three different donors of genetic material.
She couldn't help but marvel at that relatively low number of mutated births that did occur though; the Centre must have figured out what they were doing while they were trying to create the boy behind her... Riley shook her head out of these thoughts and continued her trek along the lake, speeding up slightly without trying to be too obvious about it. Now was not the time to be admiring the recent advancements of science. Especially not when you are one. She listened to the slapping footsteps in the mud as the boy caught up behind her, and realized that she couldn't get away from him.
"Riley, stop." Will clapped a hand on her shoulder to stall her, still trying to catch his breath from the run through the woods.
She spun around heatedly, knocking his hand away. "Get away from me!"
The boy (she would really have to learn his name sometime), who had up to that point merely seemed determined, now proved himself to be truly aggravating. His face took on a stiff look, and he sidestepped into her way as she tried to push past him. "No." He really was infuriating. Well, he is Jarod's progeny. Her mind chose that time to remind her that she was too.
"Why did you have to tell me!" She screamed at him, and he looked a little blown away, as though her fury was a physical force. She felt as though her fingernails were going to break into the flesh of her palms if she clenched her fists any tighter, and she could feel the small places bruising in the shape of crescent moons and didn't care. "WHY!" She howled again, venting her frustration over everything that lay buried over the past week and a half. She could feel the boy growing angry as well, thought she could feel his outrage that she wasn't even the tiniest bit grateful for what he had tried to give her. Too bad for him, she thought, because this was one gift she had never asked for. She watched a muscle ticking in his jaw, waited for him to erupt. He was there, she could tell. He was ready to. But he wouldn't and that almost made her angrier. Because as much as she knew it would probably hurt her empathic side when he did let off that much resentment, it was always worse when people repressed it. There was never any release, no evaporation, no low point where there was simply no feeling at all. It just stayed there, and pounded on the edge of her vision like a lancing migraine. And he was just letting it stew beneath the surface, putting up a stoic façade just like every other person she had ever met! Riley practically growled at him. "I NEVER WANTED TO KNOW!" She snatched a rock up from the cold mud of the lakebed and pitched it out onto the glassy water, feeling only a little bit satisfied as it broke out in a ripple with a loud thunk.
She was absolutely livid. She wanted to break something else, wanted to shatter something else. Wanted to calm down. But there was nothing else to break. She scooped another handful of pebbles and flung them with a force born of desperate agony, watched them scatter out and fling up small droplets of water as they hit. There was a way to calm down, she knew. She glowered over in the boy's direction. She could do it—she could and there would be no one to stop her this time. No one to catch her this time.
I had to run away from home last time I did that...
What did it matter? She didn't want to be here anymore did she?
Mr. Raines will be mad if he finds out I killed his pet project...
If he finds out...
He finds out about everything...
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Will watched as she pitched another handful of stones out into the lake, watched her pace around heatedly and knew that when he was in her position less than a year ago he had been ready to do much the same thing. He had done much the same thing during the long, slow time since then. It simply wasn't fair—he was supposed to have a family; a real family, and a real past, he was supposed to be normal, but he wasn't, and he never would be again. Will had hidden it well while he was with Jarod. He had pushed his feelings to the background and pretended like everything was alright. (Play nice with the other kiddies...) and no one had ever been the wiser. And really, this had to be better than Triumvirate station in Africa. He watched as Riley's tantrum dissipated, and she looked over him with a calculating gaze that Will wasn't sure how to respond to. She looked murderous and it was peculiar how he could see Mr. Lyle in her actions and Jarod in her features.
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Lyle leaned back in his seat, stealing a furtive glance out the open door at the two sweepers guarding it. They were talking in conspiratorial whispers, just a friendly conversation between coworkers it seemed. There had been at least twelve shift changes of the sweepers in front of his door so far, new ones arriving to relieve the old ones every six hours like clockwork. He could (and had) set his watch by them. He passed a hand over his face, ignoring the stubble growing along his jaw line, his red-rimmed eyes stinging with tiredness when they closed. The Triumvirate had been perfectly civil to him throughout these proceedings, odd as that was, and Lyle had been granted all of the barest necessities exempting sleep. What did it matter though; he had gone without sleep before and survived.
His interrogator (he still didn't know his name) had left with the stenographer and entire written report of the examination sometime in the early morning, according to his watch about two o'clock AM. He had had no contact with anyone else for the rest of that time, though it was now late in the day, around seven o'clock. Someone had brought him lunch, but he had been snoozing with his head on his arm and had only woken up to find food (cold food at that), never seeing anyone. He supposed he should be happy they hadn't given him more permanent accommodations; at least he could assume he wouldn't be here for much longer. Mind you, there were worse places he could be sent, and Lyle had to keep that small thought foremost in his mind. Now was not the time to be breathing sighs of relief.
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Time passed, not a great amount of time, but it still seemed like an eternity to Riley, in reality it was hardly a week. Days at the lake house were a strenuous exercise of ignoring any and all attempts of communication and interaction between herself and her companions. Nights were the best time at the house. The Major went to bed early, around ten o'clock. Will stayed up a bit later, though most of the time was spent sequestered in his room; Riley had the inkling that he didn't enjoy spending a great deal of time around Jarod any more than she did. She hadn't yet learned of his reasons, but she figured those would come out in due time. Jarod haunted the halls, hardly ever sleeping. When he did, he usually sprawled out on a couch; looking as though he had lain down for a moment and simply never gotten up again; Riley had seen him tossing and turning where he lay, suffering from nightmares. The man slept so fitfully that he typically woke up just from the noise of her passing by a room. But with the other occupants of the house out of the way, and with all of her practice sneaking around the sweepers in the facility, Riley found him easy to avoid.
Creeping down the hallway, floorboards sending up muffled creaks under her feet, she padded in her socks. No one could hear her, she knew, and if they did, Riley was of the mind that they probably wouldn't do anything about it anyways. The Major and Will had the best of intentions, but her standoffish attitude was beginning to weigh on their last nerves. Jarod hardly seemed to notice or care. Riley knew that he was just as exasperated as any of them with her; he just didn't show it. Jarod never showed anything.
Now Riley tiptoed down the hallway, stomach complaining loudly. She had left the dinner table earlier after having hardly eaten anything (the Major always tried to prod her into eating more "You need to put some meat on those bones," and the like, but Riley had never been disposed of much of an appetite.) Used to more sporadic meals, food showing up in her room after a SIM or snacking periodically while reading a book (this usually ended in her skipping the meal; cold nutritional supplement was even more detestable than it was hot) Riley always seemed to get hungry at the most unusual times of day, including, unfortunately, eleven o'clock at night.
The piece of toast she was munching on now was doing a small amount to help with that current problem, and with the immediate trouble taken care of her mind turned to more pressing matters. She still hadn't been able to contact Mr. Lyle, or anyone else for that matter. She didn't even know what she would say anymore. There was of course the matter of Sarah, but how exactly did one open a conversation on a woman that had been dead for years?
'Hello Mr. Lyle, I'm very sorry that I decided to run away despite having been told on numerous occasions that running away is wrong and the outside world is a dangerous place and that the Centre is the only place that I'll ever be safe. Yeah, sorry about that. Now, tell me about the woman you killed eleven years ago...'
No, Riley doubted very much if that would go over well. And then she needed to find out what she could do to get her life back. It was obvious enough that she would never go back to the facility, or live the life she had had before Jarod came into things. Funny how her life seemed divided like that, into two periods of time, like b.c and a.d, only hers were Before Jarod and After Jarod. No, there was no way she would live the life that she had lived before, after being brought to the Triumvirate's unscrupulous attention in such a forceful manner as this, they would never leave her alone again. And in any case, she was a genius and she couldn't seem to think up anything, what made her think Mr. Lyle would be able to help her? As far as she knew, he was having a hard enough time getting out of his own trouble.
This thought really led to another pressing matter. Riley tiptoed past the door to her left, with the sliver of light coming out the crack at the bottom, and reached the end of the hallway. She pushed open the door to her own room, which Major Charles said had been his daughter's old space, and walked in, quietly closing the door after her. She crossed to the bed that lay underneath the window and knelt down in front of it, giving a tentative look around, as though reassuring herself she was really alone. She hefted up the mattress in both hands and tipped it on its side against the window, feeling in the dark for the sheaf of papers she knew was under it. Her hand came in contact with the papers just as her hold on the heavy mattress slipped and she dropped it back down onto the bed. She hefted herself up onto the bed and crossed her legs one over the other, laying the papers out in an array in front of her. She reached over to her nightstand, looking for the flashlight she had confiscated from the garage of the house, and slid the button on the front into the 'on' position, blinking in the bright light. Her eyes took a long time to adjust to light changes, after having never experienced natural light, and Will told her that it was a pretty common affliction around this house.
Her pupils finally shrank enough that she could see without blinding herself, and she scanned the flashlight over the room around her. The shade was drawn on the window she sat next to, Riley kept it that way at all times, and her... companions, they weren't her family despite what they believed... seemed to be slowly catching on that she didn't enjoy going outside. There was a closet opposite the bed, and it was currently filled with several articles of borrowed clothing, some from Will and some of Emily's that the Major had located locked away in a suitcase in the attic. Everything was ill fitting, Emily was taller than Riley by at least eight inches, and the shirts were all too large in the bust and long in the sleeve. Will's additions weren't much better; though the baseball tee's were built to work as a three quarter sleeve, and as such came down to hang just beyond her wrists, so that she didn't have to roll them every time she wanted to use her hands. The jeans were tailored to fit baggy, and thus didn't look quite as ridiculous on her as some of Emily's pants, which were all styled to hug curves, and only ended up looking strange when they didn't. As long as she wore some of the too-large, wide shoes that Will had also leant to her, the end of the pants just bunched around her ankles rather than running along the floor. It was no big matter either to cinch the waist with one of Will's belts so the pants stayed around her hips and not her feet.
The matter of finding Riley some actual clothes was a slight problem. Riley refused to go anywhere outside where there were that many people, thank you very much, and despite Jarod's protestations on other matters, he seemed to understand, or at the very least tolerate, her feelings on this one. Of course, the next option was that someone go to the store and get clothes for her, but Riley was also uncomfortable having anyone quite close enough to be taking her measurements. It didn't really matter to her at any rate; she wouldn't be needing their clothes much longer if she had anything to say about it. Buying herself clothes would be committing to permanent accommodations; it would be like admitting that she was never going home.
Riley continued to scan the room with the flashlight; it was a find of Will's actually. The house was set off in a less habitated part of the state, and the electricity was prone to outages. There were flashlights and batteries all over the house in strange little alcoves, covered in dust with leaking batteries. Will was an okay sort really, the only person around the house she could stand. They spent most of their time during the day in the detached garage off the side of the house, tinkering around with the mechanical things they found there, or searching through the odd moving boxes that had never been unpacked, despite being opened and closed on several occasions. There was an old truck in there that Will was working on, fixing the engine and such in small spurts, so that it was an ongoing project. The garage was roughly the size of a small SIM lab, and the blank plaster walls and concrete floor made the run through the side yard each day worth the terror to Riley, if she might feel at home when she got there. Riley didn't talk much, she still stuttered every time she worked up the resolve to open her mouth, though she listened to Will attentively as he thought aloud or told her those bits of information about Jarod and his family that he had managed to gather. He was a good source of information, and the insights into the dynamics of the family were slowly helping Riley to get a hang on whatever it was she had gotten herself into. He seemed to be the only person in the house who didn't expect anything out of her.
Riley didn't really need to look at the papers on the bed to know what was in them; she had read them more than once. They were memos, memos coming through the lines of communication between the Centre and the Triumvirate station in Africa. Riley had been hacking into the recent records at the Centre through Jarod's computer after everyone in the house had gone to sleep. It had started as an attempt to plan a way to get her life back, but now it was her only way of knowing what was going on with the people she had left at the Centre. Riley had known when she left that Mr. Lyle and Mr. Raines would have to explain her disappearance somehow, and the entire corporation's hierarchy would be in trouble over Jarod and her managing to beat the Centre's infallible security system, but Riley didn't realize it would be this bad. It had been naïve of her to think that Mr. Raines was above that much scrutiny by the Triumvirate, but the man had hardly ever dissuaded her of the opinion, and the same went for Mr. Lyle. It was strange to think that the men who controlled her life had to answer to someone even higher than them.
When Riley was truly young she hadn't even known there was someone higher than them. The Triumvirate was just a word to her, an unknown body that was constantly shouting things like "Stop That!" and "Not good enough!" And if she thought hard about it she could vaguely remember times when Mr. Raines would tell her, "The Triumvirate isn't pleased with your results Riley." This sort of statement was always followed by bad things happening, things that she didn't like to think about. The Triumvirate was just this big bad entity that made her life miserable.
Evidently, her youthful minded reasoning was very and truly wrong. It was spelled out rather clearly in the sheets of paper in front of her, dates of departure, dates of arrival, the vaguest of catalogs about the events afterward. Riley knew there would be more detailed records somewhere, but she wasn't going to bother trying to find them. She had the information she needed right here, and had little time as it was to sneak aboard Jarod's computer to go on her hacking expeditions. She had pieced together a good deal about what had happened to her links so far, now was just a matter of what would happen next.
Mr. Raines had been sent to Africa. He had gone on the morning of November the 24th and arrived at Triumvirate station sometime very late that night, or early the next morning given how you looked at it. There were also records of several meetings he had engaged in with various members of the upper echelon, but they were all encrypted, and with Jarod constantly lingering about the computer room like some lost specter, Riley hadn't yet had a great deal of time to try to decode them. There was another memo sent from Triumvirate station to the Centre, Mr. Parker's office if one was looking for specifics, which said Mr. Raines would be returning to his position shortly. Nothing more than that though, and Riley had yet to find a memo stating date of departure or arrival, and could only assume the older man had not yet been allowed to leave.
The mystery of Mr. Lyle was unfortunately, not nearly as completed. It seemed for all purposes that he had just vanished. The rent for his apartment had been paid on the 30th, two days ago, straight through the Centre accounting branch, and actually from a Centre owned account, and not through his own. His computer had last been accessed through the network on the 28th, and only the haziest of dispatches was sent to the Triumvirate station, merely stating that someone, somewhere, somehow, had gotten him into custody.
Riley tensed, eyes immediately seeking the light beneath the crack of the doorjamb, looking for the dark shadows of feet as she heard the floorboards creak outside her room. She held her breath for a moment, praying for the steps to pass the entryway, before gathering up the papers and shoving them hastily beneath the pillow behind her. The light in the hallway clicked off but Riley kept her eyes glued to the crevice at the bottom of the door. She heard the sound of typing moments later and allowed herself a breath of relief. Riley groped behind her for the pillow, but decided against bringing the sheaves of paper back out, she wouldn't risk the crinkling while someone else was up and about.
Bringing her hands back in front of her, she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms about the top of them, resting her chin on the small space between her kneecaps. Riley curled herself inwards as she thought, a habit formed at the age of five that no one had ever bothered breaking her of. It was a pose she could take up practically anywhere, sitting in a chair or hunkered down at the base of a wall, or like this, sitting on her bed; Riley had long ago learned to still her body even as her mind overloaded itself.
She had to talk to Mr. Lyle; she had to find out what was going on. How? Jarod would never let her... Jarod doesn't have to know... how would she get rid of them?... how could she reach Mr. Lyle? Office phone... no, tapped... anything she did was going to be tapped... she needed an encryption...
Riley paused in her thoughts as she heard muffled voices coming from the study down the hall, Jarod's dulcet tones being answered by another man who was most certainly not the Major, she was positive. Riley slid off the bed noiselessly and toed over to the door, opening it a hairsbreadth and peering out into the hallway. The door to the study was open and Riley could make out Jarod's back from her skewed angle, better hearing now the voice of his companion. But it didn't matter how well she heard, as Riley could also see Dr. Sydney sitting at his desk at the Centre, and she could recognize the kindly paternal look blooming across his face that had marked the entrance to each of her psychiatric evaluations with the man. Jarod was speaking with him face to face via computer, which Riley realized, smiling deviously inside, had an encrypted connection. Riley closed the door, holding the knob in her fist to silence it, and slipped back to her bed.
She began to formulate a strategy.