MIRROR IMAGE
Rating: R
Timeline: Mid-season 3, after "Blowback."
Part V, Act 2
The halls were silent and empty, almost cold, as Sydney made her way slowly, cautiously, through them.
The ID card Sydney had been issued (her mother had brought it to her, with a bowl of chicken soup that Sydney hadn't been able to stomach) had let her into the hall where Sark slept—had that been his doing, or Irina's?—but there were limits to how free she was to wander the compound. Or at least there had been.
With Sark's all-access pass, she'd been able to move at will throughout the building. She'd made a sweep—she didn't want to be interrupted—but everything seemed quiet. Particularly the hall she now moved through, barely a shadow.
The door to Irina's study was coming up quickly, but she still had time to back out. There had to be another way.
There's not, she reminded herself grimly. She'd laid there, cold straight through, analyzing the situation from every angle. Sloane could kill Vaughn; she knew that like she knew the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears. And she could get the disk—as long as she managed to take Irina by surprise.
She thought of Sark, lying asleep in his bed, naked, expecting her to be there when he awoke.
She took a deep breath and, readying Sark's gun, kicked in the door.
Irina looked up; she was seated at the desk, spread with papers, hair pulled back and slender glasses frames perched on her nose. There was nothing on the desktop more deadly than a pencil.
Sydney aimed the gun at her mother's chest. "Hands where I can see them," she hissed.
Irina looked startled—nothing more. "Sydney?"
"Hands," Sydney insisted.
"What's wrong?"
"Stand up—slowly."
Irina obeyed, hands lax, but visible, at her sides. "Whatever it is, Sydney, I can help you."
But she couldn't. Or wouldn't. They were on opposite sides again—they always had been, she'd only let herself forget it for a time—and Sydney was surprised to discover how much it hurt. Still. Again.
"Everything I have is yours," Irina said soothingly, taking a step towards where Sydney stood, palms open and arms held out in front of her body. Sydney should have pulled the trigger—a warning shot, just off Irina's right shoulder—but she couldn't move, locked in her mother's gaze. She was remembering being five years old, making cookies—her mother had called her something different, something, Sydney later realized, in Russian. She was remembering falling asleep in her father's arms at the end of a day trip to the mountains, her mother's warm, honeyed voice in her ears. She was remembering being sung to, and tucked in. Tears stung her eyes. And she was just quick enough to block Irina's second blow; the first sent her gun skittering across the hard floor.
They fought. Irina delivered a punch to Sydney's gut that sent Sydney stumbling back, breath temporarily knocked from her lungs. She came back with a kick that Irina managed to barely block, but which put her off balance enough for Sydney to grab her arm, wrench it back and force her mother to the ground.
"Sydney, I don't want to hurt you," Irina pleaded, voice breaking, which was strange considering the fact Irina was the one on her knees.
Sydney's chest heaved painfully, but she didn't sacrifice her grip. Irina's skin was already reddening around Sydney's fingers, and tears were falling freely down her face.
"Just tell me what you want from me."
She yanked Irina's arm back further, eliciting a gasp of pain. "What I want," Sydney said, "is answers." The next part she could barely say without choking on a sob. "Why didn't you tell me I had a sister?"
Sydney felt her mother's shock like a jolt of electricity. Her body was preternaturally still. And then:
"Sloane," Irina whispered.
"Yes, Sloane," Sydney hissed. "I had to hear about my sister . . . about you and . . . from him."
"You can't trust him," Irina said.
No one knew that better than Sydney did. "You think I wanted to believe him?"
Irina turned her head, and Sydney saw her mother eyes. They were hard, narrowed. "I think that, when it comes to Sloane, you're too close."
Sydney stumbled back, stunned, and Irina 's foot shot out, tripped her, sent her sprawling on her back on the ground.
"You do have a sister," Irina told her as Sydney climbed to her feet and lowered into a defensive crouch. "Arvin is her father. That much is true. But you have to listen to me, Sydney. Sloane cannot be allowed to find her."
"Where's the disk?" Sydney demanded as they circled each other, both wary, neither eager to make the first move.
"So that's it." Her mother's laugher was full and rich as she took a testing step forward. "Oh Sydney, Sydney." She aimed an elbow at Sydney's windpipe; Sydney blocked. "What does Sloane have on you that you'd be so willing to work with him?"
She hated how her mother's words, her tone, made her feel; it was worse the blows they exchanged, the bruising she could already feel bursting beneath her skin. She felt like a child: shortsighted, irresponsible, foolish.
Grimly, she responded, "He has Vaughn." Then she struck.
Irina was getting older, and Sydney was in peak physical condition; the gunshot wound in her shoulder barely twinged. Or perhaps Sydney simply had more to lose. Within moments Irina was incapacitated, cheek pressed against the floor, and Sydney was pulling the length of rope from the waistband of her pants.
"You'd trade your sister's life for his?"
"I'm not trading her life for anything." Sydney secured the knot, then reinforced it with the handcuffs she'd borrowed from one of the guards who'd had the misfortune of coming across her in her initial sweep. She stood. "I'm trading a disk I stole to save a man's life."
"He betrayed you." The pity in her mother's eyes was sharp as knives, and there were places, apparently, though she would not have believed it until that moment, where Sydney was still tender enough to bleed. "You were gone six months and he was already seeing someone new."
"I was dead," she justified for what felt like the thousandth time. The words had turned weary with repetition. Raising her voice, she said, "He explained it to me."
"It isn't something you can explain away." Irina's gaze was penetrating, shrewd, filled with misused, misplaced sympathy. "It's something you feel."
Sydney steeled herself. "It doesn't matter what he did to me. I can't let him die."
"We can find another way," Irina said.
"I can't risk it." Sydney felt hysteria rising in her once more, nearly blinding her with its panic. "I won't."
"You're putting her life in danger."
"Her life is in danger no matter what I do. He'll find her eventually, even without my help. He told me—it's why he created Omnifam. To find her. To get access to genetic databases."
"Then why does he need the disk so badly? Think, Sydney."
She had thought. "It's the only way." The lines of her face were cold and hard.
"Sydney—" Irina's voice was reedy with anguish, with desperation, but it was a desperation Sydney knew better than to trust. Particularly with Irina. Even bound and handcuffed, she was far from helpless. "Finding your sister . . . . That's not what the disk does."
"But Sloane said . . . ."
Of course he had lied. When had he ever told her the truth about anything? Their whole association had been a lie. She was so stupid. Over and over again.
Quietly, her mother said, "Did you really believe after what it did to you that the disk's purpose could be something so simple? So . . . harmless?"
No. No of course not. And she'd been a fool to think it. She asked, "What does it do?"
Irina looked up at her. "If you're going to do this . . . . It's better for you if you don't know."
"Tell me what it does. If I . . . ." She swallowed, hardened herself. "I need to know what I'm handing over in exchange for Vaughn's life."
Irina's voice was distant, and though her face was turned towards Sydney, she was looking beyond her, seeing somewhere else. "The powder from the disk is the final ingredient in a serum that, when injected into her veins, will allow her—your sister, Nadia—to channel Milo Rambaldi."
Nadia, Sydney thought, heart in her throat. My sister's name is Nadia.
And then the rest of her mother's words sunk in. Rambaldi. Again. Of course.
Irina continued. "That's why the powder was able to affect you—your genetic makeup is close enough to your sister's that a similar transference must have taken place."
"Except instead of Rambaldi, I got Lauren Reed." Sydney frankly wasn't sure which one was worse.
"The rest of the serum's components were designed to intensify the effect, and allow Nadia to transmit a message. Sloane can't be allowed to obtain to the disk, Sydney. Channeling Rambaldi . . . . It could kill her."
And Sloane would have Rambaldi's message. And with Rambaldi, it was rarely something good. In Sloane's hands, it could be catastrophic.
"Sloane has all the other ingredients?"
"I believe he does."
"Then you'll have to make sure he doesn't find her." Sydney retrieved Sark's gun from the corner of the room, between the wall and the dresser, and returned to her initial position. "Where's the disk?"
"I wish you could trust me, Sydney."
"And I wish you could trust me. Tell me where it is," Sydney said. Slowly, steadily, she leveled the gun at her mother's breast.
Irina wasn't fooled. "You won't kill me."
Sydney lowered the gun. "Mom," she said, gambling on the regret she had always thought she'd seen in her mother's eyes not having been just wishful thinking on her part, "I can't lose someone else I love."
Irina's expression melted. "Sydney—"
"Mom, please. We'll keep her safe from him." Her voice broke on the next part, and it was only partly artifice. "I'll keep her safe."
There were tears in Irina's eyes when she finally spoke. "You always wanted a sister."
Relief rushed through Sydney's veins. She hadn't realized how close she had been to panicking. She was all too aware of how close she had been to losing Vaughn. Again. For good. She closed her eyes.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"The disk is in a lockbox in the storage facility on three. The key is in the vault behind the tapestry. The combination is 04-13-80." Her gaze flickered. "Nadia's birthday."
Sydney worked quickly. The key was in her hand—it felt hot, like a live thing; it burned its impression into her palm—almost before Irina finished speaking, and she was headed or the door. Nearly there, she turned back.
"If I could untie you—"
"Go," Irina said, then as Sydney turned around, "Sydney, if I don't . . . when find your sister, tell her . . . tell her that everything I have ever done, I did to keep her safe. To keep both of you safe."
Sydney smiled, dimpling, the best she could through the fresh tears. "I'll . . . I'll tell her. If you don't see her first."
Irina's smile was sad; Sydney thought there was something else there, some knowledge of the future to which Sydney was not privy, but she didn't have the time. It was already later than she'd planned, between the time it had taken to . . . borrow Sark's card key, and this.
"Go on," Irina said again, and Sydney went, leaving her there cuffed to the leg of the heavy oak desk.
The storage facility was easy to find, and Sark's badge let her right in. The room was tall and long and barely, eerily lit, the walls covered, floor to ceiling, in metal boxes like so many silver bricks, each marked with a number and adorned with a single keyhole.
How many are filled? she wondered. And with what? Were they all Sark's secrets, her mother's, others', all locked up in these little metal boxes the way her memories were locked up in her mind? She lay her hand on the wall, traced her fingers along the grooves. She felt nothing but cool metal. Nothing of what was concealed inside.
Her mother hadn't given her a number. She tried 47; nothing. 4, 13, 80. But of course Irina was smarter than to reuse those. Sydney tried all the permutations of her own birthday. Then Sloane's. She didn't have time to try them all. She'd have to go back; precious minutes wasted. Her urgency, temporarily assuaged by the stillness of the room, came back to her in a rush. Then—
It was Jack's that fit the key. She pulled the façade open and pulled out the narrow plastic case inside. The disk was there. Tucking the case into the back of her belt; she pushed everything back into place and sprinted the few steps back to the door. She flung it open and ran, physically, into Sark.
Her father was standing behind him, looking grim.
"Excellent," Sark said. "You already have it."
