Resolutions - 3
Unexpected Insights
by MMB
"I'll have Miss Parker review our meeting notes and then be in touch if there are any points that she feels need further discussion," Tyler said, rising to shake the hand of the Dupont R&D representative.
"I'm hoping that this is the beginning of a very long and profitable relationship between our two companies," Frank McRainey shook the young Southerner's hand firmly as he rose too. He was impressed by both the resources that the Centre had to bring to this new collaborative effort and the willingness to compromise shown by the young man who had virtually closed the deal now. He bent down for his briefcase. "I look forward to hearing from you in the near future."
"Count on it." Tyler's hand rode McRainey's all the way to his office doorway. "Thanks for stopping by."
"You have a good day." McRainey nodded respectfully to the young Chinese receptionist and then swung into an easy and long-legged stride toward the new lobby door.
"It looks as if that went well," Mei-Chiang commented quietly.
Tyler smiled down at her. "If only all my appointments would go so easily," he replied with a shake of the head. "What's next?"
She checked her Day-Runner and looked up. "Nothing until two-thirty, sir."
"How about you let me buy you lunch then?"
Her expression was surprised. "Sir?"
Tyler chuckled. "It won't be much - our typical cafeteria fare - but..." He tipped his head at her continued hesitation. "What is it?"
"You don't have to..." she began shyly.
"I know I don't HAVE to," he replied with a smile. "But today is our last day working together like this, and I thought I'd at least treat you to lunch to say 'thank you' for your nurse-maiding me through Miss Parker's job for the past few days."
Mei-Chiang began to smile. "It was my pleasure, sir."
"That may be, but lunch is on me today." Tyler insisted stubbornly. "You've been indispensable to me ever since Miss Parker left me in charge - I don't think I could have handled things without you - and where I come from, one says 'thank you' when somebody's helped a person out a lot." He extended his hand over the desk. "C'mon - don't tell me you're not hungry..."
"No..." His impish grin finally broke through her reticence, and she put out her hand to his and let him pull her to her feet. "Thank you, sir. I'd like that very much."
"Good!" Tyler breathed a sigh of relief. She really had made his life sitting in Miss Parker's Big Chair a whole lot easier - sometimes just by being a breath of calm and tranquility when the day had been hectic. She'd kept him prompt with his appointments, supplied with ample resource material to fit whatever decision he was making as Chairman pro tem, and just generally made him appreciate the benefits of having a truly talented and efficient secretary.
Mei-Chiang stifled another small breath of surprise when Mr. Tyler tucked her hand into the bend of his elbow and seemed determined to give her a proper escort down the hallway. Just the gesture was enough to embarrass her - she was only doing her job, after all. She could remember the one time that Lyle had escorted her in this manner - it had terrified her like nothing in her life ever had. By that time, she'd heard the rumors and seen several of her Chinese coworkers simply vanish, never to be heard from again. A walk arm-in-arm with Mr. Lyle had been taken as a sign of 'you're next!'
Walking in a similar way with Mr. Tyler, however, was like being invited to dance with the Emperor's son himself. And if what Mr. Tyler had said was true, then this was a gesture of simple gratitude.
When they got to the cafeteria, Tyler released her so that he could hand her a tray and let her go ahead of him down the line to select some food. "Now you take what you want," he urged her as he dished himself up a healthy helping of potato salad. "If you want something, take it."
Even so, Mei-Chiang's choices were small portions and strictly vegetarian fare. She blushed as he pulled out his wallet and very matter-of-factly paid the cashier for the two of them and then, with a nod, let her lead the way to a table.
"Are you sure that's all you wanted?" he asked, not entirely convinced that someone could manage the rest of the day on the very Spartan helpings his companion had taken.
"Oh, yes, sir," she assured him, putting her napkin in her lap carefully. "This is more than I normally eat for lunch already."
"Hmmm..." he settled across the table from her and pulled his own napkin out. "I know sparrows who eat more..."
"They don't fly well, then, do they?" she asked with a twinkle in her eye.
Tyler chuckled heartily. "I am SO tempted to try to steal you from Miss Parker," he admitted. "You don't happen to have a twin down in Clerical, do you?"
Mei-Chiang looked at him sharply. "Steal me, sir?"
Tyler only belated remembered the assumed fate of other Chinese clerical workers under the previous administration. "I mean that I enjoy having you assist me," he clarified quickly. "You and I make a good team. I wish I dared lure you away from Miss Parker to be MY secretary."
She looked down into her plate, now thoroughly embarrassed. "I'm sorry, sir. I just..."
"I've heard the stories too," he told her in a gentle voice. "I'd just forgotten. I didn't mean anything untoward."
"I should have known better," she chided herself.
"But I'm serious that I wish that I could have a secretary half as good as you," he continued. "You know the clerical pool - IS there another whom you think could give me the same level of help..."
"Do you want Chinese secretary, sir?" she asked frankly. "Chinese secretaries are trained differently than American secretaries, I think."
Tyler popped a forkful of potato salad in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Maybe I do want a Chinese secretary," he said finally.
Mei-Chiang bent to her green salad. "Then I may know of someone. She came over from Hong Kong with me when Mr. Lyle contracted our services..."
Tyler looked up at her sharply. "What do you mean, 'contracted our services?' Do you mean something other than..."
The young Chinese woman kept her eyes trained on her plate. "We were purchased, sir, from a mail-order company specializing in..."
Tyler swallowed his half-chewed potato salad wrong and choked for a moment before bursting out, "PURCHASED? You mean, like slaves?"
Mei-Chiang had nothing to say. She simply let her head nod very slightly and picked up her Styrofoam cup to sip nervously at her tea.
"It isn't that way for you NOW, is it?" he demanded, outraged. Surely Miss Parker wouldn't have let something this obscene stand...
"Not entirely," Mei-Chiang answered softly. "Now I work for Miss Parker, and I don't have to worry about... some of the other services I would have been expected to perform... for Mr. Lyle..."
"Where do you live?" he asked tersely.
"Here, at the Centre," she answered even more softly. "There is a small apartment complex near the southern perimeter where we stay..."
"Are you paid - money?"
She nodded. "A small stipend to augment room and board."
"That's preposterous!"
She looked up and into the thoroughly outraged and frustrated dark eyes of her temporary employer. "But I'm not unhappy, Mr. Tyler. I come from a very poor part of Hong Kong. My father sold me when I was 12 to a clearing company which educated me in Chinese and English so I could qualify to be sold abroad as either a mail-order bride or clerical worker... Then Mr. Lyle..."
"Does Miss Parker know your situation?" he demanded even more tersely.
"I honestly don't know, sir," she answered gently. "But, considering all the other fates that could have been mine, I am telling you that I'm not unhappy." Her almond eyes gazed into Tyler's with infinite tranquillity. "I have a small place of my own, a job that keeps me from starving or freezing, interesting people around me..."
"And this other Chinese secretary you'd recommend - she has a history similar to yours?" Tyler's head was beginning to pound; they fought a War Between the States to prevent just such a thing, damn it!
"Yes, sir."
"What's her name?"
"Ping Xing-Li."
"I want you to make the necessary arrangement to have her in my office - my regular office, not this one - bright and early tomorrow morning." Tyler wielded his knife against his slice of beef roast angrily. "And I'll be talking to Miss Parker about your situation - I'll be damned if I'll just sit by and let you continue to work for us as an indentured servant. You're too damned good at what you do to be treated in that manner."
"I'll lose my job, sir?" Mei-Chiang looked up at him in consternation.
"Absolutely not - not if I have anything to say about it," he assured her firmly. "I just want to make sure you're working here and earning a reasonable salary for the kind and quality of work you do. And that you can choose to live here on the Centre grounds OR find a different place in Blue Cove or Dover if you wanted." He reached out and patted her hand. "Relax. I'm going to make it my business to improve your lot around here, Mei-Chiang, not ruin anything for you."
"You don't have to..."
"I know, I know," he smiled finally. "I don't HAVE to. But I want to - and when Miss Parker finds out what's been going on, I'm sure she'll want to too."
And by God, I'll make sure she wants to, Tyler promised himself.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Hello?"
"Dr. Mitchell?"
"Who's asking?"
"My name's Stiller. I'm a colonel in the Air Force. I was wondering..."
"I know who you are, sir," the scientist told the voice on the telephone curtly. "You were the military liaison on Veracity. I don't work on that project anymore." She made sure that the little red light on her telephone set indicated that the conversation was being taped.
Stiller smiled. "I realize that you don't. But I was just wondering..."
"You know, Miss Parker told us that we might be getting calls from you folks..."
The military man's smile evaporated. "She did, did she?"
"Yes, sir. She said that we might receive direct pressure from the military to put some of the projects we'd been working on back into the hopper, even though the Centre no longer wants any part of them."
"How do you feel about that - having your project just terminated like that and be summarily assigned to something else completely different?"
Dr. Lauren Mitchell smiled. "Actually," she told him frankly, "I'm glad to see Veracity finished and out of my hands. The very concept was dangerous past all standards of measure."
Stiller's face flushed. He'd been told Mitchell was one of the most approachable of the Centre team of scientists. He'd been hoping for an easy agreement. "What if I could make restarting the project worth your while?"
Mitchell looked down to the red indicator light. She was glad she was taping this. "Worth my while in what way, Colonel?"
"Well," Stiller's face smoothed. Maybe he'd misjudged the woman's tone at first. "For one thing, we can make a rather sizeable positive adjustment to your personal checking account once we receive proof that the project is back in the works..."
"I can't just restart Veracity in my lab, Colonel - my staff would know that something was going on."
"There are plenty of unused labs at the Centre now, aren't there?" Stiller asked pointedly. "You people have been closing down projects right and left - surely there's a cabinet, a Bunsen burner, a microscope somewhere..."
"I suppose," Mitchell conceded. "But the cost of being found out will be my job, not to mention that the project I'm working on now takes up a full day's worth of work. If I were to take on Veracity again, I'd practically have to live here at the Centre."
"If you're careful and make sure nobody DOES find out, the reward for finishing the project would be beyond your wildest dreams. It would make bunking down there at the Centre worth any discomfort."
Mitchell pushed her glasses up her nose a little and brushed one tendril of long, mousy brown hair out of her face and back toward the chignon from which it had escaped. "What reward is that?"
"The undying gratitude of your country - and the continuing opportunity to put your talents to use helping us keep the US safe." Stiller knew he was probably sounding like a recruiting film narrator, but there actually were those who bought into this kind of thing. "The monetary reward will be substantial, and will only increase as you continue to give your service to your country.
"I'll have to think about this for a while," Mitchell said after a pause. "Will that be all right?"
Stiller grinned. "Of course it would be. When would you like me to call back?"
"Can you give me until tomorrow evening?"
The colonel nodded enthusiastically. "I'll call you at your home at seven-thirty tomorrow evening, then. Thank you for your time, Doctor."
"Until tomorrow, Colonel..."
Mitchell waited until the military man had hung up from his end and then pushed the button to end the recording. She'd have to requisition a recorder with a microphone to attach to her home phone for tomorrow evening as well. She dialed another Centre extension. "Can I speak to the director of SIS, please? This is Dr. Lauren Mitchell down in Pharmaceuticals."
There was a wait. Then, "This is Chip Harrison, assistant director of Security. What can I do for you, Doctor Mitchell?"
"I just got the most interesting telephone call from a Colonel Stiller, and I thought I should report it, considering what Miss Parker told us to expect..."
Lauren Mitchell calmly and determinedly related the gist of her entire conversation with Colonel Stiller, and once the call was concluded, popped the mini-cassette from the recorder to slip it into an envelope that would delivered to the Security office by courier within minutes. She dug in a drawer for a replacement cassette and popped it back into her recorder with a satisfied feeling.
It was only a few weeks since Miss Parker had come all the way down to SL-12 and made sure that she and all of her colleagues in Pharmaceuticals made it back to the surface in one piece after the bombing. There was no way in Hell that she'd betray Miss Parker after the woman had done that for her and over a hundred other people she didn't even know!
Mitchell turned back to her notes on her new project and buried her chin in her palm, trying to wrap her mind around this new chemical puzzle. As far as she was concerned, she had infinitely better things to do than mess around with bio-toxins for the military when it was becoming obvious that the top brass knew nothing of what was going on.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Kevin looked both ways before crossing the street in front of Sydney's house, then trotted across the pavement until he could wriggle his bare feet in the comfortably cool grass of the park. Over the last few days, he had started making a habit of taking an hour after lunch - an hour during which Sydney invariably was starting to nap - and go to the park to practice some of the complicated exercises that Ikeda had been teaching him.
The exercise never failed to work out many of the kinks and cramps that developed during an entire day spend basically reading and assessing the mountain of data that was the Centre's hardcopy archives. Sydney had approved the idea when asked, just as he had approved of Ikeda beginning to give the young Pretender an opening series of movements and stances to begin training muscles unaccustomed to use. The ninja had a great deal of patience with the unschooled and impatient young man - and Sydney could see that giving over a small portion of his evening protection duty to the most basic training was proving restful to his Japanese bodyguard.
Kevin found his favorite place beneath a stately elm tree and stood quietly, breathing in and out steadily in a calming pattern until his heart was beating steadily and without stress in his chest. Then he moved his feet to shoulder-width apart and sank slightly to begin the exercise.
"Who the hell do you think you are, Quay Chang Caine?" came a mocking voice from one side. Kevin's concentration faltered, and he straightened and turned.
"Who is Quay Chang Caine?" he asked the young woman standing with one hand on her hip, leaning against an elm tree a few yards away. It took a moment for him to recognize her and put a name with her face - her name was Crystal.
"Don't you know anything?" she straightened and walked toward him.
"I know plenty," he replied defensively. "Just not the person you mentioned."
She shrugged. "He was a character on an old TV show - 'Kung Fu'..."
Kevin's frown deepened slightly. "This isn't Kung Fu," he explained to her. "This is Ninjitsu."
"It's all Greek to me," Crystal tossed off with a tone of derision. "You look like you were trying to fight shadows in slow motion."
The young Pretender could tell that she was trying to upset him, so he closed his eyes briefly and began anew the breathing exercise. When he'd put down the feelings of frustration, he bent his knees and began the exercise again.
"What about jumping up in the air and doing flying kicks and stuff. Do you do that too?" Crystal asked from a little bit closer.
"Right now I'm just trying to learn this kata," Kevin grumbled at her, peeved that her question had once more broken into his concentration and disrupted the exercise. "And I can't do that and talk at the same time."
"So how about being social and talking to me, rather than doing that stupid exercise and looking like a geek?" she smiled at him and plunked herself at the base of his favorite elm tree, obviously having no intention of leaving him alone in the near future.
"What do you want of me?" Kevin straightened and went over to lean against the tree and look down on her.
"I didn't know you lived here," she said brightly, glad that she'd finally caught his entire attention.
"You didn't ask."
"OK," she agreed reluctantly. "So, let me put that in the form of a question then. You live around here?"
The young Pretender's first inclination was to tell her everything, but very quickly he remembered what could happen when unwelcome people were made aware of where people lived. "Yeah," he said, deliberately letting his answer be vague for the time being. "What about you - you live here in Blue Cove too?"
"I live wherever I feel like living," Crystal answered with a toss of her head.
"What about your family?" Kevin was confused.
"Them." Her voice left no doubt that she thought very little about her family. "They live in Boston. I haven't seen them in a long time." She looked up at Kevin. "What about you? You live here with your folks?"
"My uncle," Kevin said proudly. He had never realized until that horrible night in the hospital how much he had wanted to belong to someone. Now that Sydney had given him permission to claim the older psychiatrist as family, he felt a thrill every time he had the opportunity to bring up the relationship.
Crystal could hear the fondness in her companion's voice for his uncle. "How nice for you," she said with a stab of jealousy. "Do you get along with him?"
Kevin looked down at her, startled. "Of course I do. He takes very good care of me."
"You're lucky then," she replied, looking down and playing with the blades of grass.
"Where DO you live?" Kevin inquired more closely.
She glanced up at him and then looked down again. "There's an old house outside of town a ways that nobody lives in anymore," she finally explained. "Me and a couple of others found a broken window and unlocked it."
"Don't you have a real home?" the young Pretender folded his legs and dropped to the ground next to her.
She tossed her head and looked at him defiantly. "You mean like with a Mommy and a Daddy or an Uncle to 'take care of me?' No, thank you! The last time I had a 'real' home like that, it took me a month to lose the bruises of my Dad 'taking care of me.'" She laughed, a bitter and pained sound, at her companion's look of outright shock and dismay. "Oh, come on now! Surely life with that uncle of yours isn't all peaches and cream all the time..."
"It's a lot better than the place I was before," Kevin snapped defensively. "They didn't let me go anywhere, do anything, talk to anybody..."
"Sounds like my folks," Crystal commiserated. "My mom never did approve of the friends I'd bring home..."
"No," Kevin shook his head firmly. "I mean that I literally wasn't allowed to go anywhere. There was this one man, Vernon Grey, he was my teacher, mentor, trainer... For years, he was one of only eight people I ever saw..." He'd been watching her expression as he tried to explain his background and could see that she wasn't believing a word of what he was saying. "Sydney takes good care of me," he insisted stubbornly, "and I take good care of him now too."
"You sound positively domesticated," she shook her head at him. "Good little lapdog..."
"It isn't like that!" Kevin snapped again. "I know what it means to be all alone in the world - and I like what I've got now a whole lot more."
"Oh, yeah? Well, I bet you had to ask permission to go outside, didn't you?"
"No," he retorted in the same derisive tone as her question, "I didn't have to ask permission to go outside. All Sydney asks is that I tell him where I'm going and how long I think I'll be gone."
"OK, so you're not caged - but you sure are on a leash!"
The young Pretender stared at her in open confusion. "What are you so mad at me for?" he asked finally. "Why is it that my living in a good home bothers you?"
Crystal stared up at him for a moment, her rebellious certainty shattered by his pointed questions. "I gotta go," she said finally, climbing quickly to her feet. "I'll see you around, Lapdog." She began to walk away quickly.
"The name's Kevin," he called after her, "not Lapdog."
She tossed her hand casually into the air to acknowledge that she'd heard him but kept right on walking across the park away from him.
Kevin found himself thinking back to the first time he'd met Crystal - in the hospital waiting room right after Sydney was injured. She'd been an angry young woman then too, openly rebellious of official hospital policy and - with her companion that night - ready to cause trouble. Deb and Davy, the only other young people he'd met so far, had seemed happy with their lives - what would have made Crystal so suspicious and bitter about staying with family?
He rose to his feet and tried to start the breathing exercise once more, only to find the disturbing sound of Crystal's voice in his mind still distracting him. What was a 'geek' and did he truly look like one while he practiced his kata? Would Sydney know?
He glanced over at the front of Sydney's house. The psychiatrist was probably fast asleep still. He wouldn't be able to put his puzzlement at his mentor's feet for explanation for - he looked at his watch - half an hour yet.
With a sigh, he deliberately dismissed all thoughts of the contrary young woman from his mind and began his breathing exercises again. When the time came, he moved his feet into position and bent his knees and began the slow and studied movements. He was astonished that as time passed he was able to relax from the defensive attitude his encounter had caused in him. With a smile he remembered one of the first things that Ikeda-sensei, which is what his ninja teacher had asked to be called, had told him about the power of the kata: "Mind and body, when linked though mindfulness and concentration, become a powerful team."
He reached the end of the movements that his teacher had presented to him so far and, as instructed, calmly and smoothly moved back into the opening moves again to repeat the exercise. The half-hour would pass quickly enough.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Chip Harrison walked up to the desk in front of Miss Parker's office and gently tapped on the top of the monitor screen to catch the young Chinese secretary's attention. "Is he free?" he asked casually, nodding his head in the direction of the office door.
"Yes, sir," Mei-Chiang smiled graciously at the man who was standing in for Sam while he was in California. "Let me tell him you're here."
"Send him on in," came the voice over the intercom, and Mei-Chiang gestured for the hulking assistant director of Security to continue in.
"So," Tyler said, leaning back in his chair as Chip carefully closed the door behind himself, "what's up?"
"Do you remember yesterday asking me to make a DSA of your meeting with a Colonel Stiller?" Harrison asked as he took a seat and stretched out his long legs in front of him.
"Yeah?" Tyler's brows folded together.
"Well, a couple of hours ago, I got a call from a Dr. Mitchell down in Pharmaceuticals, telling me that she'd just received a call from Colonel Stiller too. Seems the colonel is trying to go behind our backs and get his projects up and running again."
Tyler shook his head. "Miss Parker was afraid that might happen. She warned..."
Harrison held up a hand with a chuckle. "I heard about what Miss Parker said to the staff involved in the cancelled projects. Lemme tell you, if Dr. Mitchell is anything like the rest of the staff, the military bigwigs we just stepped on will have a helluva time recruiting our staff to moonlight on the cancelled projects."
"Really?" Somehow, Tyler wasn't all that surprised. Pharmaceuticals had been one of the departments that he and Miss Parker had 'liberated' after the bombing - and he'd been there at the meeting after all were safe. The morale of the workers, far from being abysmal at the events they'd survived, had been bolstered by the knowledge that their Chairman herself had gone down those many flights of stairs after them all on her own. Since then, company loyalty had been at an all-time high, according to those who were in a position to know such things. "I take it Dr. Mitchell told him to take a hike?"
"Actually," Harrison grinned, "she told him that she'd need some time to think about it. He's going to call her back at her home tomorrow evening at seven-thirty. I'm thinking..."
"I'm thinking that maybe we should find out who is Colonel Stiller's direct superior at the Pentagon, bring that person up to speed on what is being done. We should know soon enough whether Stiller is working outside his authority or not." Tyler leaned forward in his chair. "Getting these guys in trouble with their own superiors would seem to me to be the wisest move on our part."
"We're going to need to have a meeting with Miss Parker and Mr. Atlee first thing in the morning, to bring them up to speed on what seems to be a developing trend," Harrison told his boss firmly.
"Mei-Chiang," Tyler punched the intercom button, "I need you to make an appointment for Mr. Harrison and myself to meet with Miss Parker and Mr. Atlee first thing in the morning. Make it her very first order of business, if you can."
"Yes, sir."
"Tell Xing-Li that I need her in my office a half-hour before work normally starts then. I want the chance to get her settled before I have to start this business."
"Yes, sir." Mei-Chiang smiled. Xing-Li would find Mr. Tyler a very good boss to work for - and Mr. Tyler couldn't want a more efficient or capable secretary.
"So," Harrison crossed his long legs and rested his long arms on the padded cushions of the arms of his chair, "do you think that getting Stiller slapped down by the Pentagon will put an end to all this skullduggery?"
Tyler shook his head. "I doubt it. For one thing, we've had more than just Stiller in my office - Miss Parker's office - complaining about having projects cancelled. At least one of the people Miss Parker spoke to was a Senator." His face grew serious. "I have a hunch that we're just at the beginning of this one."
"You don't think that they'll cause problems for the Centre, do you?"
"I'm not sure," Tyler replied with a shrug. "Remember, this is the US government we're talking about here, in all its permutations. It has more tentacles than an octopus, and half the time one tentacle doesn't have the slightest idea what the rest of 'em are up to."
Harrison looked disgusted. "Thrills."
"I'm betting that Stiller is one of the lower lackeys of something fairly unorganized. I mean Stiller's single big worry was about a project codenamed Veracity." Tyler reached out for the folder of cancelled projects that he'd made a point of keeping very close at hand on his desk. "But this thing is FULL of projects just like Veracity - and each with a different government liaison officer."
"Hell, that could mean that we could end up hearing from each and every one of those guys!"
"That's right." Tyler didn't look at all pleased with the idea.
"You know, I'll be glad when Sam gets back and I can hand over his department back," Harrison said tiredly.
"Let me tell you, I'll be just as glad when Miss Parker's back in THIS saddle too," Tyler agreed. "I'm glad she got a vacation, but I'm glad she's coming back. She and Sam are better at this kind of underhanded political stuff."
"I'll be glad when we don't HAVE anymore of that underhanded political stuff to worry about around here," Harrison nodded his agreement.
Tyler leaned back in his chair tiredly. "That's for damned sure."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"What time are they supposed to be here?" Kevin asked, putting down the folder regarding one of Jarod's old security protocols for the Centre mainframe and looking across the room at his mentor.
Sydney looked up, then looked over at the clock on the wall of the den. "Provided that they're on time, they should be landing in about a half-hour." He watched his young protégé fiddle with the folder he'd been studying. "Getting anxious, are you?"
"Aren't you?" Kevin asked back.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am." Sydney smiled a smile that was slightly less than enthusiastic. He had missed his foster daughter and her son desperately - not having had them removed from his life for any length of time for years - but well aware that their return marked the end of his holding back information about Davy. He'd have to talk to Davy about the pressing need to share years-old confidences at long last with Miss Parker, and then he'd have the gargantuan task of getting her to understand what he'd done and why.
"Is Deb still going to be staying here with us?" Kevin inquired, setting the folder aside entirely at last.
"Yes," Sydney answered patiently. "We've already discussed this, you know..."
Blue eyes touched him with a hint of guilt and then looked away. "Sydney, what's a 'geek?'"
Sydney's chestnut gaze didn't waver. "A 'geek' is someone who behaves or dresses differently or more idiosyncratically than most people. Why?"
"Someone told me that I looked like a geek while I was doing my kata..." Kevin explained painfully, not at all happy about that part of the explanation he'd needed.
"Who told you that?"
"A girl I met in the park..."
"Mmmmmm..." Sydney nodded his head knowingly. "A girl?"
"Mmm-hmmm." Kevin nodded with a stricken look on his face. "Do I really look like a geek when I do the kata?"
"Kevin," Sydney sighed. "Maybe a young girl who doesn't understand what a kata is or what it is supposed to accomplish might make that assessment. To others, however, the movements are beautiful to watch, like a dance. To people like that, you most certainly would NOT look like a geek." He gazed at his protégé with sympathy. "If you enjoy doing the kata, then don't let what other people think be any of your concern. You want to learn from Mr. Ikeda, don't you?"
"Yes, but..."
"Are you ashamed of what Mr. Ikeda has taught you so far?"
"No, of course not..."
"Then don't let the comment of a girl whom you don't know well make so much difference to you," Sydney summed up the line of reasoning for him firmly. "Be who you want to be without apology, Kevin. Provided that what you do is not against the law, NOBODY has any business telling you what you can or can't do."
Kevin blinked. "Not even you?"
"Not even me," Sydney nodded. "I can put my wishes to you in terms of preference - such as I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me when you leave where you're going and about how long you're going to be gone - but ultimately, if you decide not to do that, I have no way of preventing you from taking off." He gave the young man a sharp look. "Of course, the situation here when you return from such a trip might be much different than the one you'd have found had you done as I'd asked, but that's another matter entirely."
"Would you throw me out?"
Sydney blinked. "Of course not! Whatever gave you that idea?"
"I just thought..."
"When we agreed that you'd stay here, it wasn't under the condition that you continually do as I ask like a good little Pretender robot, Kevin." Sydney shook his head. "Vernon might have approached this in that manner, but not I."
"She called me a lapdog," Kevin mumbled.
"What?"
Kevin looked up into his mentor's warm gaze with an expression of disgust. "She called me a lapdog for saying that I'd tell you when I leave, where I'd go and how long..."
Sydney finally chuckled. "Sounds like you ran into a true rebel, Kevin - someone for whom any authority is too much."
"Am I?"
"A lapdog?" Kevin nodded, obviously hanging on his mentor's assessment. "God, no! I'd be doing my level best to teach you not to be if you were, I promise you!"
"Why would she think it's such a bad thing to live in a good home with family?" Kevin was genuinely confused now.
Sydney sighed. "Because not all families work properly. Not all parents are good ones, and sometimes the family unit breaks apart due to violence in the home or disrespect between the members."
"She said that her father gave her bruises..."
"She was probably an abused child then," the old psychiatrist shook his head sadly. "For her, there has never been such a thing as a 'good' home. So when she hears about yours, she has no standard of measure outside the Hell that she escaped."
"Parents abuse their kids?" The young Pretender was appalled. "Do you think... mine..."
"Some parents do," Sydney admitted. "But yours probably won't - and if they did, you'd always have a place here with me if you wanted to come back." He gazed at his young friend. "So... Do you feel better now?"
Kevin gave him a shaky smile. "I think so..." he replied. "In case I haven't said it before, and in case I forget to ever say so again, thank you for letting me stay here."
The old psychiatrist shifted on his couch. "It's my pleasure, Kevin - especially if I can talk you into taking me off of this gizmo a few minutes early today."
Kevin's smile grew. "I think I can do that," he said, rising and coming over so that he could turn the machine off. "And I won't even tell Peter you fudged your time today." He knew Sydney's physical therapist would scold the older man for short-changing himself at all on the therapy machine.
"I knew I could count on you, dear boy," Sydney laughed. He then watched with fondness as the sandy-haired Pretender began to undo the straps that kept his leg tied to the machine. The young man so deserved a family of his own. Sydney prayed, not for the first time, that somewhere in those boxes in his living room would be the key to giving Kevin his family back.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Well?"
Colonel Stiller smiled at the sound of the voice in his cell phone. "I'm supposed to call this Dr. Mitchell tomorrow evening, sir. From the sounds of things, she MAY be willing to restart Veracity."
"Good work." General Curtis ran his fingers across his buzz cut. "Have you had any luck with any of the other Centre staff?"
Stiller shook his head. "I'm having to really dig to find out who the scientific staff were in charge of those other projects, sir. Veracity I knew about because it was MY baby. But Black Hole, for example..."
"Look," Curtis' voice became firm and cold. "We need those projects back on line, and we need to get moving on them NOW. Find out who you need to talk to and get things moving. You don't want my boss breathing down MY neck - because that will mean that I'll have to start breathing down YOUR neck, and then we'll ALL be very unhappy campers." The voice had gained an unpleasant and lethal tone. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
Stiller swallowed. "Yes, sir! I'll get right on it, sir!"
"See that you do!" Curtis barked and then hung up abruptly.
Stiller swallowed hard again. No, he didn't want any of the shit to start rolling downhill from the Capitol and landing on his collar. But Curtis and anybody above him in authority in this effort just didn't understand the magnitude of what was being asked.
Each of the projects that the Centre had taken on had its own liaison officer from one branch of the service or another. In order to avoid mass disclosure of these quiet efforts, there was no central office where these liaison officers or their related projects were listed. Finding out which scientist at the Centre had been responsible for which project was going to take time and careful investigation. The last thing any of them needed was either the Pentagon OR the Centre authorities figuring out what was going on.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"We're landing, Deb," Miss Parker said gently and smoothed her hand down Deb's arm in the seat next to her until the young woman began to rouse. "We're landing," she repeated and then felt Deb straighten slightly in her seat.
"Already?" was the sleepy question.
"You slept most of the way," Davy commented from the other side of the jet.
"I hope you can get some sleep tonight too," Miss Parker said quietly, "and not have mixed your days and nights up for yourself."
"I'll be OK," Deb insisted firmly, pulling the comfortable blue blanket down from her shoulders and beginning to fold it up again. "I didn't sleep well in the hospital anyway."
"I can't wait to see Grandpa!" Davy bubbled happily. "And Kevin!"
"It will be good to be home again," Miss Parker agreed easily. She had missed her foster father a great deal while in California, making do with regular phone calls. All during the flight home, she'd been mulling over what Sydney could possibly have been doing with Davy that he didn't feel comfortable talking about over the phone. But in the end, all she wanted to do, once she was back on the ground, was give her foster father a huge hug. She didn't even want to have that discussion with him until she was rested up from her trip. She looked over at Deb. "You ready to be home again?"
"Absolutely," Deb said firmly. "I want to see my dad."
"I'm sure he wants to see you too, sweetheart." Miss Parker put a careful and gentle arm around her foster daughter's shoulders and gave her a quick hug.
Deb suffered the quick and careful embrace without a single flinch. Davy was wrong - she hadn't slept the entire trip. She'd been reviewing what Jarod had told her and talking herself into honoring the boundaries that she and Miss Parker had finally agreed to earlier. Part of those boundaries were to allow random and spur-of-the-moment demonstrations of affection, provided those demonstrations didn't come with an 'are you OK?' But Miss Parker had gone back to calling her 'Deb' - that would have to be something she'd work at fixing. She still didn't want to be 'Deb' anymore - but getting everybody to call her 'Debbie' again as they had in years past would take some time.
Sam watched over the three of them with an expressionless face, his fondness for them warming the depths of his heart. Miss Parker had been very thorough in making it clear to him that he was a part of her family, and she had chided him several times privately when he would let his continuing guilt at failing to protect her and her family show again. Even Jarod had done his best to let the ex-sweeper know that he didn't hold him responsible - but it made no difference. Deep down, Sam knew it would be a long time before he'd finally forgive himself. And until that day, he'd only work that much harder to earn the respect and affection that was so liberally coming his way.
Davy had been unequivocal - Sam had always been one of the boy's favorite people, and that fact hadn't changed a bit over the last week. In fact, if anything, Davy seemed even more willing to hang close to his foster-uncle now. He'd relocated to sit next to Sam during the flight so that they could play Battleships to pass the time while Deb and Miss Parker had dozed in their seats. And Sam could remember that Davy had practically begged for his beloved 'tips' while still at Jarod's. Poor little Ginger had been terrified - and would have been even more so had he reached down and actually given Davy what he asked for. For a short time, that little face remained at the front of his mind while he wondered if she would ever see him as something other than huge and scary.
His gaze eventually landed on the young woman now gazing out the window of the jet at the darkness around them. Deb had allowed him to begin calling her 'Short Stuff' again - an old nickname of his for her from years ago. He'd done it to make her more at ease with him in the hospital, but found that once started, he didn't want to stop. She seemed more responsive to it than when he called her by name now - and maybe that was something that Sydney needed to know about.
Then the wheels of the little jet touched back down to solid ground and rumbled over the pavement as the plane headed for the small hangar that the Centre maintained at the airstrip. Sam was out of his seat and had the hatch open almost as the jet came to a gentle halt. He dropped the steps so that the passengers could disembark and leaned out of the jet, checking the darkened tarmac to make sure that his phoned-in order for the Centre limousine to be on hand and ready when they landed had been followed. A quick wave of the hand summoned the limo driver to pull the car forward.
"Limo's here," he announced, watching Deb get slowly and painfully to her feet.
Deb could feel his eyes on her, measuring whether or not he should move forward to offer to carry her down the steps. The long trip with her foot once more propped up on the box and pillow had made her foot tender to the point that it was very painful to put any weight on it at all. She shot a sideways glance at Miss Parker, helping Davy stick his games away in his small overnight bag, and then looked back up into Sam's waiting face. "Could you help me, please?" she asked softly.
"Sure!" Sam moved forward with a contented smile and lifted her up into his arms.
Miss Parker noted the request and nodded in satisfaction. After a very difficult time in the early morning hours, the two of them had spent part of the first hours of their flight discussing boundaries and expectations. It seemed that Deb was willing to live up to her part of the bargain too - and that would make life easier. "I'll get the bags, Sam," she called after her Security Chief after putting Davy in motion to follow him down the steep steps.
Sam let the duty sweeper drive the car from the airstrip into Blue Cove, feeling the fatigue of seven hours of flight time in his bones. He was getting WAY too old to be gallivanting across the continent with any frequency - and the thought of actually sleeping in his own, comfortable bed that night was almost intoxicating. He did sit up front next to the driver, however - his place was to safeguard the people behind him after all.
Deb and Davy both leaned into Miss Parker tiredly as they made the last, short, leg of their journey from California to home. All of them were too tired to be talkative, and Deb was feeling insecure enough that she leaned heavily against the older woman's shoulder. Miss Parker settled back against the comfortable seat and put her arm around the young woman's shoulders and held her close.
Finally the limousine turned into the driveway of Sydney's Washington Street house, where the porch light had been lit in expectation of their arrival. Sam was out of the front passenger seat and opening the door to let Davy out first when the front door of the house opened and Kevin bounced down the walk. "You're home!" he announced happily, and gave Davy a big welcoming hug.
Davy gazed up into the face of the young Pretender and eyed the small bandage that covered a portion of a cheek that looked in the dim porch light as if it were sporting a fading bruise. "What happened to you?" he asked, then looked down in chagrin. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it," Kevin told his young friend as he let him go and began watching the car door for Deb's emergence.
"Grandpa!" Davy finally caught sight of his grandfather making his way out the front door slowly on his crutches. Sydney moved the right crutch to join its twin under his left arm and held out the right arm to his grandson. Davy closed in and wrapped his arms around his grandfather tightly. "You're OK," Sydney could hear the boy reassuring himself again and again. "You're really OK."
"Let me look at you," the psychiatrist said, putting the boy away from him slightly so he could get a good look. Davy's skin was dark - the sunburn had mostly faded away to a very dark tan - and his voice was a little rough, but he was OK. Sydney pulled the boy close again, delighting in the feel of those arms around his waist once more. "I'm really OK," he assured his grandson gently.
Miss Parker emerged from the car next, then turned to Sam. "Would you mind hanging around long enough to take Davy and myself home, please?"
"Sure thing," he replied with a nod, not at all surprised. After all, this stop was to drop off Deb with her grandfather for the night and to say a quick hello to Sydney and Kevin before heading home. He bent down and peered in at the young woman who was shifting slowly to a place close to the door. "Need a hand?"
"I'm OK this time," she told him and still grabbed onto his hand and leaned hard as she pulled herself to her feet to find herself looking straight at an absolutely delighted Kevin. "Hi," she said softly, her blue eyes resting for a moment on the bandage on his face and the mottled look of the skin around it.
"Hi," he answered back and then threw his arms around her. "I'm SO glad you're home!"
This she still wasn't prepared for, no matter how often she'd reminded herself that this would probably be how she'd be greeted. She flinched back hard and became rigid, not returning the hug at all. Kevin could feel immediately that something was wrong, and he backed away with a shocked and worried look on his face. "I... Did I hurt you?"
Sam looked down. The moment Kevin had moved forward, Deb's hand on his had tightened almost painfully - and now she was standing there almost in a daze. "Short Stuff?" he questioned quietly, bending to speak into her ear and try to break the trance of terror that she'd so abruptly slipped into.
Miss Parker saw what had happened too late to prevent anything, but she moved quickly to Deb's side even as Sam spoke and put an arm around her shoulder protectively. "Come on, sweetheart," she murmured gently. "It's OK. C'mon, Deb..." She rubbed the far shoulder briskly and finally, together with Sam's question, broke through Deb's torpor. The young woman blinked as if awakening, then flinched again back into Miss Parker.
"I'm sorry..." Kevin was heartbroken. Sydney had tried to warn him, but nothing could have prepared him for the emptiness and distrust that was in Deb's eyes when she looked at him. She looked at him as if he were a complete stranger.
Sam could feel the young Pretender's pain. "It's not your fault, Kevin," he said quickly. "She'll be better once she's used to being around you again - but it's gonna take a little time."
Miss Parker peered up into Sydney's face pleadingly, and he nodded understanding. He patted Davy's shoulder and caught the boy's attention. "Kevin, why don't you take Davy inside for a little bit. I'm sure you two have some catching up to do too." He bent to his grandson. "You and Kevin go on in for a while, so I can be with Deb and your mother."
Miss Parker looked over at Sam. "Maybe you can go with them..."
Kevin backed away from Deb cautiously and then turned to do as Sydney asked. All of his joy at the return of his friends had been dashed, and he was completely confused. Sam came up behind him and clapped a friendly and sympathetic hand to his shoulder and to Davy's, and the three made their way through the front door.
Once it was just herself and Sydney with Deb, Miss Parker bent to her foster daughter. "What do you say that we go say hello to your grandfather and get you into the house?" she asked, tightening her arm around Deb's shoulder. Deb's eyes flicked up into hers filled with empty terror. "I'm right here," she reassured her. "You're safe."
Sydney didn't make a single move - both because he knew better and because he was stable with the two crutches under one arm at the moment and didn't want to jeopardize that stability as yet. "Debbie," he called softly, "it's all right, ma petite. Nobody will harm you here."
The softly accented voice shattered the hold her inner terrors had on her, and she blinked again. "G.. grandpa?" she asked in a small voice, taking a step away from Miss Parker in the direction of the beloved voice.
"Right here, cheri," Sydney replied and put out his free arm. "Right here." He nodded at Miss Parker to release her hold on Deb, and she let the young woman limp slowly away from her hold and toward the house.
"Grandpa..." Deb limped up to the older man and looked at him for a long moment, making sure that her eyes weren't deceiving her, and then leaned against the solid chest and felt him enfold her close. "I heard you," she remembered suddenly. "I heard you yell for me to run..."
"You're safe now," he carefully took his hand from his crutches so he could embrace her more completely. "And everything will be all right soon." He stroked the long and slightly mussed blonde hair gently. "I promise."
Sydney looked over the top of Deb's head as she huddled against him and into Miss Parker's face. She was tired and truly saddened, he could tell, at the way in which Deb was behaving. This entire episode had done her easily as much harm inwardly, where only the truly aware would notice, as it had done to any of the rest of them outwardly. Without even thinking, he lifted his free arm from Deb and extended it to her, inviting her to join in the hug - to lean too.
It was an offer that Miss Parker couldn't resist. She moved into his embrace, leaving plenty of room for Deb to huddle against him while she rested her head wearily on his right shoulder. "I missed you," she told him very softly as her arm wound around him to hold him back. "I am SO glad to be home."
"I'm SO glad to have you back," he replied, giving her cheek a gentle peck. "I've missed having my girls around me."
Miss Parker sighed and closed her eyes. Long and difficult talks about mysterious mind games could wait - right now, all that mattered was that she was home where she belonged, and that Deb was home where her healing could begin in earnest.
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com
Unexpected Insights
by MMB
"I'll have Miss Parker review our meeting notes and then be in touch if there are any points that she feels need further discussion," Tyler said, rising to shake the hand of the Dupont R&D representative.
"I'm hoping that this is the beginning of a very long and profitable relationship between our two companies," Frank McRainey shook the young Southerner's hand firmly as he rose too. He was impressed by both the resources that the Centre had to bring to this new collaborative effort and the willingness to compromise shown by the young man who had virtually closed the deal now. He bent down for his briefcase. "I look forward to hearing from you in the near future."
"Count on it." Tyler's hand rode McRainey's all the way to his office doorway. "Thanks for stopping by."
"You have a good day." McRainey nodded respectfully to the young Chinese receptionist and then swung into an easy and long-legged stride toward the new lobby door.
"It looks as if that went well," Mei-Chiang commented quietly.
Tyler smiled down at her. "If only all my appointments would go so easily," he replied with a shake of the head. "What's next?"
She checked her Day-Runner and looked up. "Nothing until two-thirty, sir."
"How about you let me buy you lunch then?"
Her expression was surprised. "Sir?"
Tyler chuckled. "It won't be much - our typical cafeteria fare - but..." He tipped his head at her continued hesitation. "What is it?"
"You don't have to..." she began shyly.
"I know I don't HAVE to," he replied with a smile. "But today is our last day working together like this, and I thought I'd at least treat you to lunch to say 'thank you' for your nurse-maiding me through Miss Parker's job for the past few days."
Mei-Chiang began to smile. "It was my pleasure, sir."
"That may be, but lunch is on me today." Tyler insisted stubbornly. "You've been indispensable to me ever since Miss Parker left me in charge - I don't think I could have handled things without you - and where I come from, one says 'thank you' when somebody's helped a person out a lot." He extended his hand over the desk. "C'mon - don't tell me you're not hungry..."
"No..." His impish grin finally broke through her reticence, and she put out her hand to his and let him pull her to her feet. "Thank you, sir. I'd like that very much."
"Good!" Tyler breathed a sigh of relief. She really had made his life sitting in Miss Parker's Big Chair a whole lot easier - sometimes just by being a breath of calm and tranquility when the day had been hectic. She'd kept him prompt with his appointments, supplied with ample resource material to fit whatever decision he was making as Chairman pro tem, and just generally made him appreciate the benefits of having a truly talented and efficient secretary.
Mei-Chiang stifled another small breath of surprise when Mr. Tyler tucked her hand into the bend of his elbow and seemed determined to give her a proper escort down the hallway. Just the gesture was enough to embarrass her - she was only doing her job, after all. She could remember the one time that Lyle had escorted her in this manner - it had terrified her like nothing in her life ever had. By that time, she'd heard the rumors and seen several of her Chinese coworkers simply vanish, never to be heard from again. A walk arm-in-arm with Mr. Lyle had been taken as a sign of 'you're next!'
Walking in a similar way with Mr. Tyler, however, was like being invited to dance with the Emperor's son himself. And if what Mr. Tyler had said was true, then this was a gesture of simple gratitude.
When they got to the cafeteria, Tyler released her so that he could hand her a tray and let her go ahead of him down the line to select some food. "Now you take what you want," he urged her as he dished himself up a healthy helping of potato salad. "If you want something, take it."
Even so, Mei-Chiang's choices were small portions and strictly vegetarian fare. She blushed as he pulled out his wallet and very matter-of-factly paid the cashier for the two of them and then, with a nod, let her lead the way to a table.
"Are you sure that's all you wanted?" he asked, not entirely convinced that someone could manage the rest of the day on the very Spartan helpings his companion had taken.
"Oh, yes, sir," she assured him, putting her napkin in her lap carefully. "This is more than I normally eat for lunch already."
"Hmmm..." he settled across the table from her and pulled his own napkin out. "I know sparrows who eat more..."
"They don't fly well, then, do they?" she asked with a twinkle in her eye.
Tyler chuckled heartily. "I am SO tempted to try to steal you from Miss Parker," he admitted. "You don't happen to have a twin down in Clerical, do you?"
Mei-Chiang looked at him sharply. "Steal me, sir?"
Tyler only belated remembered the assumed fate of other Chinese clerical workers under the previous administration. "I mean that I enjoy having you assist me," he clarified quickly. "You and I make a good team. I wish I dared lure you away from Miss Parker to be MY secretary."
She looked down into her plate, now thoroughly embarrassed. "I'm sorry, sir. I just..."
"I've heard the stories too," he told her in a gentle voice. "I'd just forgotten. I didn't mean anything untoward."
"I should have known better," she chided herself.
"But I'm serious that I wish that I could have a secretary half as good as you," he continued. "You know the clerical pool - IS there another whom you think could give me the same level of help..."
"Do you want Chinese secretary, sir?" she asked frankly. "Chinese secretaries are trained differently than American secretaries, I think."
Tyler popped a forkful of potato salad in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Maybe I do want a Chinese secretary," he said finally.
Mei-Chiang bent to her green salad. "Then I may know of someone. She came over from Hong Kong with me when Mr. Lyle contracted our services..."
Tyler looked up at her sharply. "What do you mean, 'contracted our services?' Do you mean something other than..."
The young Chinese woman kept her eyes trained on her plate. "We were purchased, sir, from a mail-order company specializing in..."
Tyler swallowed his half-chewed potato salad wrong and choked for a moment before bursting out, "PURCHASED? You mean, like slaves?"
Mei-Chiang had nothing to say. She simply let her head nod very slightly and picked up her Styrofoam cup to sip nervously at her tea.
"It isn't that way for you NOW, is it?" he demanded, outraged. Surely Miss Parker wouldn't have let something this obscene stand...
"Not entirely," Mei-Chiang answered softly. "Now I work for Miss Parker, and I don't have to worry about... some of the other services I would have been expected to perform... for Mr. Lyle..."
"Where do you live?" he asked tersely.
"Here, at the Centre," she answered even more softly. "There is a small apartment complex near the southern perimeter where we stay..."
"Are you paid - money?"
She nodded. "A small stipend to augment room and board."
"That's preposterous!"
She looked up and into the thoroughly outraged and frustrated dark eyes of her temporary employer. "But I'm not unhappy, Mr. Tyler. I come from a very poor part of Hong Kong. My father sold me when I was 12 to a clearing company which educated me in Chinese and English so I could qualify to be sold abroad as either a mail-order bride or clerical worker... Then Mr. Lyle..."
"Does Miss Parker know your situation?" he demanded even more tersely.
"I honestly don't know, sir," she answered gently. "But, considering all the other fates that could have been mine, I am telling you that I'm not unhappy." Her almond eyes gazed into Tyler's with infinite tranquillity. "I have a small place of my own, a job that keeps me from starving or freezing, interesting people around me..."
"And this other Chinese secretary you'd recommend - she has a history similar to yours?" Tyler's head was beginning to pound; they fought a War Between the States to prevent just such a thing, damn it!
"Yes, sir."
"What's her name?"
"Ping Xing-Li."
"I want you to make the necessary arrangement to have her in my office - my regular office, not this one - bright and early tomorrow morning." Tyler wielded his knife against his slice of beef roast angrily. "And I'll be talking to Miss Parker about your situation - I'll be damned if I'll just sit by and let you continue to work for us as an indentured servant. You're too damned good at what you do to be treated in that manner."
"I'll lose my job, sir?" Mei-Chiang looked up at him in consternation.
"Absolutely not - not if I have anything to say about it," he assured her firmly. "I just want to make sure you're working here and earning a reasonable salary for the kind and quality of work you do. And that you can choose to live here on the Centre grounds OR find a different place in Blue Cove or Dover if you wanted." He reached out and patted her hand. "Relax. I'm going to make it my business to improve your lot around here, Mei-Chiang, not ruin anything for you."
"You don't have to..."
"I know, I know," he smiled finally. "I don't HAVE to. But I want to - and when Miss Parker finds out what's been going on, I'm sure she'll want to too."
And by God, I'll make sure she wants to, Tyler promised himself.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Hello?"
"Dr. Mitchell?"
"Who's asking?"
"My name's Stiller. I'm a colonel in the Air Force. I was wondering..."
"I know who you are, sir," the scientist told the voice on the telephone curtly. "You were the military liaison on Veracity. I don't work on that project anymore." She made sure that the little red light on her telephone set indicated that the conversation was being taped.
Stiller smiled. "I realize that you don't. But I was just wondering..."
"You know, Miss Parker told us that we might be getting calls from you folks..."
The military man's smile evaporated. "She did, did she?"
"Yes, sir. She said that we might receive direct pressure from the military to put some of the projects we'd been working on back into the hopper, even though the Centre no longer wants any part of them."
"How do you feel about that - having your project just terminated like that and be summarily assigned to something else completely different?"
Dr. Lauren Mitchell smiled. "Actually," she told him frankly, "I'm glad to see Veracity finished and out of my hands. The very concept was dangerous past all standards of measure."
Stiller's face flushed. He'd been told Mitchell was one of the most approachable of the Centre team of scientists. He'd been hoping for an easy agreement. "What if I could make restarting the project worth your while?"
Mitchell looked down to the red indicator light. She was glad she was taping this. "Worth my while in what way, Colonel?"
"Well," Stiller's face smoothed. Maybe he'd misjudged the woman's tone at first. "For one thing, we can make a rather sizeable positive adjustment to your personal checking account once we receive proof that the project is back in the works..."
"I can't just restart Veracity in my lab, Colonel - my staff would know that something was going on."
"There are plenty of unused labs at the Centre now, aren't there?" Stiller asked pointedly. "You people have been closing down projects right and left - surely there's a cabinet, a Bunsen burner, a microscope somewhere..."
"I suppose," Mitchell conceded. "But the cost of being found out will be my job, not to mention that the project I'm working on now takes up a full day's worth of work. If I were to take on Veracity again, I'd practically have to live here at the Centre."
"If you're careful and make sure nobody DOES find out, the reward for finishing the project would be beyond your wildest dreams. It would make bunking down there at the Centre worth any discomfort."
Mitchell pushed her glasses up her nose a little and brushed one tendril of long, mousy brown hair out of her face and back toward the chignon from which it had escaped. "What reward is that?"
"The undying gratitude of your country - and the continuing opportunity to put your talents to use helping us keep the US safe." Stiller knew he was probably sounding like a recruiting film narrator, but there actually were those who bought into this kind of thing. "The monetary reward will be substantial, and will only increase as you continue to give your service to your country.
"I'll have to think about this for a while," Mitchell said after a pause. "Will that be all right?"
Stiller grinned. "Of course it would be. When would you like me to call back?"
"Can you give me until tomorrow evening?"
The colonel nodded enthusiastically. "I'll call you at your home at seven-thirty tomorrow evening, then. Thank you for your time, Doctor."
"Until tomorrow, Colonel..."
Mitchell waited until the military man had hung up from his end and then pushed the button to end the recording. She'd have to requisition a recorder with a microphone to attach to her home phone for tomorrow evening as well. She dialed another Centre extension. "Can I speak to the director of SIS, please? This is Dr. Lauren Mitchell down in Pharmaceuticals."
There was a wait. Then, "This is Chip Harrison, assistant director of Security. What can I do for you, Doctor Mitchell?"
"I just got the most interesting telephone call from a Colonel Stiller, and I thought I should report it, considering what Miss Parker told us to expect..."
Lauren Mitchell calmly and determinedly related the gist of her entire conversation with Colonel Stiller, and once the call was concluded, popped the mini-cassette from the recorder to slip it into an envelope that would delivered to the Security office by courier within minutes. She dug in a drawer for a replacement cassette and popped it back into her recorder with a satisfied feeling.
It was only a few weeks since Miss Parker had come all the way down to SL-12 and made sure that she and all of her colleagues in Pharmaceuticals made it back to the surface in one piece after the bombing. There was no way in Hell that she'd betray Miss Parker after the woman had done that for her and over a hundred other people she didn't even know!
Mitchell turned back to her notes on her new project and buried her chin in her palm, trying to wrap her mind around this new chemical puzzle. As far as she was concerned, she had infinitely better things to do than mess around with bio-toxins for the military when it was becoming obvious that the top brass knew nothing of what was going on.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Kevin looked both ways before crossing the street in front of Sydney's house, then trotted across the pavement until he could wriggle his bare feet in the comfortably cool grass of the park. Over the last few days, he had started making a habit of taking an hour after lunch - an hour during which Sydney invariably was starting to nap - and go to the park to practice some of the complicated exercises that Ikeda had been teaching him.
The exercise never failed to work out many of the kinks and cramps that developed during an entire day spend basically reading and assessing the mountain of data that was the Centre's hardcopy archives. Sydney had approved the idea when asked, just as he had approved of Ikeda beginning to give the young Pretender an opening series of movements and stances to begin training muscles unaccustomed to use. The ninja had a great deal of patience with the unschooled and impatient young man - and Sydney could see that giving over a small portion of his evening protection duty to the most basic training was proving restful to his Japanese bodyguard.
Kevin found his favorite place beneath a stately elm tree and stood quietly, breathing in and out steadily in a calming pattern until his heart was beating steadily and without stress in his chest. Then he moved his feet to shoulder-width apart and sank slightly to begin the exercise.
"Who the hell do you think you are, Quay Chang Caine?" came a mocking voice from one side. Kevin's concentration faltered, and he straightened and turned.
"Who is Quay Chang Caine?" he asked the young woman standing with one hand on her hip, leaning against an elm tree a few yards away. It took a moment for him to recognize her and put a name with her face - her name was Crystal.
"Don't you know anything?" she straightened and walked toward him.
"I know plenty," he replied defensively. "Just not the person you mentioned."
She shrugged. "He was a character on an old TV show - 'Kung Fu'..."
Kevin's frown deepened slightly. "This isn't Kung Fu," he explained to her. "This is Ninjitsu."
"It's all Greek to me," Crystal tossed off with a tone of derision. "You look like you were trying to fight shadows in slow motion."
The young Pretender could tell that she was trying to upset him, so he closed his eyes briefly and began anew the breathing exercise. When he'd put down the feelings of frustration, he bent his knees and began the exercise again.
"What about jumping up in the air and doing flying kicks and stuff. Do you do that too?" Crystal asked from a little bit closer.
"Right now I'm just trying to learn this kata," Kevin grumbled at her, peeved that her question had once more broken into his concentration and disrupted the exercise. "And I can't do that and talk at the same time."
"So how about being social and talking to me, rather than doing that stupid exercise and looking like a geek?" she smiled at him and plunked herself at the base of his favorite elm tree, obviously having no intention of leaving him alone in the near future.
"What do you want of me?" Kevin straightened and went over to lean against the tree and look down on her.
"I didn't know you lived here," she said brightly, glad that she'd finally caught his entire attention.
"You didn't ask."
"OK," she agreed reluctantly. "So, let me put that in the form of a question then. You live around here?"
The young Pretender's first inclination was to tell her everything, but very quickly he remembered what could happen when unwelcome people were made aware of where people lived. "Yeah," he said, deliberately letting his answer be vague for the time being. "What about you - you live here in Blue Cove too?"
"I live wherever I feel like living," Crystal answered with a toss of her head.
"What about your family?" Kevin was confused.
"Them." Her voice left no doubt that she thought very little about her family. "They live in Boston. I haven't seen them in a long time." She looked up at Kevin. "What about you? You live here with your folks?"
"My uncle," Kevin said proudly. He had never realized until that horrible night in the hospital how much he had wanted to belong to someone. Now that Sydney had given him permission to claim the older psychiatrist as family, he felt a thrill every time he had the opportunity to bring up the relationship.
Crystal could hear the fondness in her companion's voice for his uncle. "How nice for you," she said with a stab of jealousy. "Do you get along with him?"
Kevin looked down at her, startled. "Of course I do. He takes very good care of me."
"You're lucky then," she replied, looking down and playing with the blades of grass.
"Where DO you live?" Kevin inquired more closely.
She glanced up at him and then looked down again. "There's an old house outside of town a ways that nobody lives in anymore," she finally explained. "Me and a couple of others found a broken window and unlocked it."
"Don't you have a real home?" the young Pretender folded his legs and dropped to the ground next to her.
She tossed her head and looked at him defiantly. "You mean like with a Mommy and a Daddy or an Uncle to 'take care of me?' No, thank you! The last time I had a 'real' home like that, it took me a month to lose the bruises of my Dad 'taking care of me.'" She laughed, a bitter and pained sound, at her companion's look of outright shock and dismay. "Oh, come on now! Surely life with that uncle of yours isn't all peaches and cream all the time..."
"It's a lot better than the place I was before," Kevin snapped defensively. "They didn't let me go anywhere, do anything, talk to anybody..."
"Sounds like my folks," Crystal commiserated. "My mom never did approve of the friends I'd bring home..."
"No," Kevin shook his head firmly. "I mean that I literally wasn't allowed to go anywhere. There was this one man, Vernon Grey, he was my teacher, mentor, trainer... For years, he was one of only eight people I ever saw..." He'd been watching her expression as he tried to explain his background and could see that she wasn't believing a word of what he was saying. "Sydney takes good care of me," he insisted stubbornly, "and I take good care of him now too."
"You sound positively domesticated," she shook her head at him. "Good little lapdog..."
"It isn't like that!" Kevin snapped again. "I know what it means to be all alone in the world - and I like what I've got now a whole lot more."
"Oh, yeah? Well, I bet you had to ask permission to go outside, didn't you?"
"No," he retorted in the same derisive tone as her question, "I didn't have to ask permission to go outside. All Sydney asks is that I tell him where I'm going and how long I think I'll be gone."
"OK, so you're not caged - but you sure are on a leash!"
The young Pretender stared at her in open confusion. "What are you so mad at me for?" he asked finally. "Why is it that my living in a good home bothers you?"
Crystal stared up at him for a moment, her rebellious certainty shattered by his pointed questions. "I gotta go," she said finally, climbing quickly to her feet. "I'll see you around, Lapdog." She began to walk away quickly.
"The name's Kevin," he called after her, "not Lapdog."
She tossed her hand casually into the air to acknowledge that she'd heard him but kept right on walking across the park away from him.
Kevin found himself thinking back to the first time he'd met Crystal - in the hospital waiting room right after Sydney was injured. She'd been an angry young woman then too, openly rebellious of official hospital policy and - with her companion that night - ready to cause trouble. Deb and Davy, the only other young people he'd met so far, had seemed happy with their lives - what would have made Crystal so suspicious and bitter about staying with family?
He rose to his feet and tried to start the breathing exercise once more, only to find the disturbing sound of Crystal's voice in his mind still distracting him. What was a 'geek' and did he truly look like one while he practiced his kata? Would Sydney know?
He glanced over at the front of Sydney's house. The psychiatrist was probably fast asleep still. He wouldn't be able to put his puzzlement at his mentor's feet for explanation for - he looked at his watch - half an hour yet.
With a sigh, he deliberately dismissed all thoughts of the contrary young woman from his mind and began his breathing exercises again. When the time came, he moved his feet into position and bent his knees and began the slow and studied movements. He was astonished that as time passed he was able to relax from the defensive attitude his encounter had caused in him. With a smile he remembered one of the first things that Ikeda-sensei, which is what his ninja teacher had asked to be called, had told him about the power of the kata: "Mind and body, when linked though mindfulness and concentration, become a powerful team."
He reached the end of the movements that his teacher had presented to him so far and, as instructed, calmly and smoothly moved back into the opening moves again to repeat the exercise. The half-hour would pass quickly enough.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Chip Harrison walked up to the desk in front of Miss Parker's office and gently tapped on the top of the monitor screen to catch the young Chinese secretary's attention. "Is he free?" he asked casually, nodding his head in the direction of the office door.
"Yes, sir," Mei-Chiang smiled graciously at the man who was standing in for Sam while he was in California. "Let me tell him you're here."
"Send him on in," came the voice over the intercom, and Mei-Chiang gestured for the hulking assistant director of Security to continue in.
"So," Tyler said, leaning back in his chair as Chip carefully closed the door behind himself, "what's up?"
"Do you remember yesterday asking me to make a DSA of your meeting with a Colonel Stiller?" Harrison asked as he took a seat and stretched out his long legs in front of him.
"Yeah?" Tyler's brows folded together.
"Well, a couple of hours ago, I got a call from a Dr. Mitchell down in Pharmaceuticals, telling me that she'd just received a call from Colonel Stiller too. Seems the colonel is trying to go behind our backs and get his projects up and running again."
Tyler shook his head. "Miss Parker was afraid that might happen. She warned..."
Harrison held up a hand with a chuckle. "I heard about what Miss Parker said to the staff involved in the cancelled projects. Lemme tell you, if Dr. Mitchell is anything like the rest of the staff, the military bigwigs we just stepped on will have a helluva time recruiting our staff to moonlight on the cancelled projects."
"Really?" Somehow, Tyler wasn't all that surprised. Pharmaceuticals had been one of the departments that he and Miss Parker had 'liberated' after the bombing - and he'd been there at the meeting after all were safe. The morale of the workers, far from being abysmal at the events they'd survived, had been bolstered by the knowledge that their Chairman herself had gone down those many flights of stairs after them all on her own. Since then, company loyalty had been at an all-time high, according to those who were in a position to know such things. "I take it Dr. Mitchell told him to take a hike?"
"Actually," Harrison grinned, "she told him that she'd need some time to think about it. He's going to call her back at her home tomorrow evening at seven-thirty. I'm thinking..."
"I'm thinking that maybe we should find out who is Colonel Stiller's direct superior at the Pentagon, bring that person up to speed on what is being done. We should know soon enough whether Stiller is working outside his authority or not." Tyler leaned forward in his chair. "Getting these guys in trouble with their own superiors would seem to me to be the wisest move on our part."
"We're going to need to have a meeting with Miss Parker and Mr. Atlee first thing in the morning, to bring them up to speed on what seems to be a developing trend," Harrison told his boss firmly.
"Mei-Chiang," Tyler punched the intercom button, "I need you to make an appointment for Mr. Harrison and myself to meet with Miss Parker and Mr. Atlee first thing in the morning. Make it her very first order of business, if you can."
"Yes, sir."
"Tell Xing-Li that I need her in my office a half-hour before work normally starts then. I want the chance to get her settled before I have to start this business."
"Yes, sir." Mei-Chiang smiled. Xing-Li would find Mr. Tyler a very good boss to work for - and Mr. Tyler couldn't want a more efficient or capable secretary.
"So," Harrison crossed his long legs and rested his long arms on the padded cushions of the arms of his chair, "do you think that getting Stiller slapped down by the Pentagon will put an end to all this skullduggery?"
Tyler shook his head. "I doubt it. For one thing, we've had more than just Stiller in my office - Miss Parker's office - complaining about having projects cancelled. At least one of the people Miss Parker spoke to was a Senator." His face grew serious. "I have a hunch that we're just at the beginning of this one."
"You don't think that they'll cause problems for the Centre, do you?"
"I'm not sure," Tyler replied with a shrug. "Remember, this is the US government we're talking about here, in all its permutations. It has more tentacles than an octopus, and half the time one tentacle doesn't have the slightest idea what the rest of 'em are up to."
Harrison looked disgusted. "Thrills."
"I'm betting that Stiller is one of the lower lackeys of something fairly unorganized. I mean Stiller's single big worry was about a project codenamed Veracity." Tyler reached out for the folder of cancelled projects that he'd made a point of keeping very close at hand on his desk. "But this thing is FULL of projects just like Veracity - and each with a different government liaison officer."
"Hell, that could mean that we could end up hearing from each and every one of those guys!"
"That's right." Tyler didn't look at all pleased with the idea.
"You know, I'll be glad when Sam gets back and I can hand over his department back," Harrison said tiredly.
"Let me tell you, I'll be just as glad when Miss Parker's back in THIS saddle too," Tyler agreed. "I'm glad she got a vacation, but I'm glad she's coming back. She and Sam are better at this kind of underhanded political stuff."
"I'll be glad when we don't HAVE anymore of that underhanded political stuff to worry about around here," Harrison nodded his agreement.
Tyler leaned back in his chair tiredly. "That's for damned sure."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"What time are they supposed to be here?" Kevin asked, putting down the folder regarding one of Jarod's old security protocols for the Centre mainframe and looking across the room at his mentor.
Sydney looked up, then looked over at the clock on the wall of the den. "Provided that they're on time, they should be landing in about a half-hour." He watched his young protégé fiddle with the folder he'd been studying. "Getting anxious, are you?"
"Aren't you?" Kevin asked back.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am." Sydney smiled a smile that was slightly less than enthusiastic. He had missed his foster daughter and her son desperately - not having had them removed from his life for any length of time for years - but well aware that their return marked the end of his holding back information about Davy. He'd have to talk to Davy about the pressing need to share years-old confidences at long last with Miss Parker, and then he'd have the gargantuan task of getting her to understand what he'd done and why.
"Is Deb still going to be staying here with us?" Kevin inquired, setting the folder aside entirely at last.
"Yes," Sydney answered patiently. "We've already discussed this, you know..."
Blue eyes touched him with a hint of guilt and then looked away. "Sydney, what's a 'geek?'"
Sydney's chestnut gaze didn't waver. "A 'geek' is someone who behaves or dresses differently or more idiosyncratically than most people. Why?"
"Someone told me that I looked like a geek while I was doing my kata..." Kevin explained painfully, not at all happy about that part of the explanation he'd needed.
"Who told you that?"
"A girl I met in the park..."
"Mmmmmm..." Sydney nodded his head knowingly. "A girl?"
"Mmm-hmmm." Kevin nodded with a stricken look on his face. "Do I really look like a geek when I do the kata?"
"Kevin," Sydney sighed. "Maybe a young girl who doesn't understand what a kata is or what it is supposed to accomplish might make that assessment. To others, however, the movements are beautiful to watch, like a dance. To people like that, you most certainly would NOT look like a geek." He gazed at his protégé with sympathy. "If you enjoy doing the kata, then don't let what other people think be any of your concern. You want to learn from Mr. Ikeda, don't you?"
"Yes, but..."
"Are you ashamed of what Mr. Ikeda has taught you so far?"
"No, of course not..."
"Then don't let the comment of a girl whom you don't know well make so much difference to you," Sydney summed up the line of reasoning for him firmly. "Be who you want to be without apology, Kevin. Provided that what you do is not against the law, NOBODY has any business telling you what you can or can't do."
Kevin blinked. "Not even you?"
"Not even me," Sydney nodded. "I can put my wishes to you in terms of preference - such as I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me when you leave where you're going and about how long you're going to be gone - but ultimately, if you decide not to do that, I have no way of preventing you from taking off." He gave the young man a sharp look. "Of course, the situation here when you return from such a trip might be much different than the one you'd have found had you done as I'd asked, but that's another matter entirely."
"Would you throw me out?"
Sydney blinked. "Of course not! Whatever gave you that idea?"
"I just thought..."
"When we agreed that you'd stay here, it wasn't under the condition that you continually do as I ask like a good little Pretender robot, Kevin." Sydney shook his head. "Vernon might have approached this in that manner, but not I."
"She called me a lapdog," Kevin mumbled.
"What?"
Kevin looked up into his mentor's warm gaze with an expression of disgust. "She called me a lapdog for saying that I'd tell you when I leave, where I'd go and how long..."
Sydney finally chuckled. "Sounds like you ran into a true rebel, Kevin - someone for whom any authority is too much."
"Am I?"
"A lapdog?" Kevin nodded, obviously hanging on his mentor's assessment. "God, no! I'd be doing my level best to teach you not to be if you were, I promise you!"
"Why would she think it's such a bad thing to live in a good home with family?" Kevin was genuinely confused now.
Sydney sighed. "Because not all families work properly. Not all parents are good ones, and sometimes the family unit breaks apart due to violence in the home or disrespect between the members."
"She said that her father gave her bruises..."
"She was probably an abused child then," the old psychiatrist shook his head sadly. "For her, there has never been such a thing as a 'good' home. So when she hears about yours, she has no standard of measure outside the Hell that she escaped."
"Parents abuse their kids?" The young Pretender was appalled. "Do you think... mine..."
"Some parents do," Sydney admitted. "But yours probably won't - and if they did, you'd always have a place here with me if you wanted to come back." He gazed at his young friend. "So... Do you feel better now?"
Kevin gave him a shaky smile. "I think so..." he replied. "In case I haven't said it before, and in case I forget to ever say so again, thank you for letting me stay here."
The old psychiatrist shifted on his couch. "It's my pleasure, Kevin - especially if I can talk you into taking me off of this gizmo a few minutes early today."
Kevin's smile grew. "I think I can do that," he said, rising and coming over so that he could turn the machine off. "And I won't even tell Peter you fudged your time today." He knew Sydney's physical therapist would scold the older man for short-changing himself at all on the therapy machine.
"I knew I could count on you, dear boy," Sydney laughed. He then watched with fondness as the sandy-haired Pretender began to undo the straps that kept his leg tied to the machine. The young man so deserved a family of his own. Sydney prayed, not for the first time, that somewhere in those boxes in his living room would be the key to giving Kevin his family back.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Well?"
Colonel Stiller smiled at the sound of the voice in his cell phone. "I'm supposed to call this Dr. Mitchell tomorrow evening, sir. From the sounds of things, she MAY be willing to restart Veracity."
"Good work." General Curtis ran his fingers across his buzz cut. "Have you had any luck with any of the other Centre staff?"
Stiller shook his head. "I'm having to really dig to find out who the scientific staff were in charge of those other projects, sir. Veracity I knew about because it was MY baby. But Black Hole, for example..."
"Look," Curtis' voice became firm and cold. "We need those projects back on line, and we need to get moving on them NOW. Find out who you need to talk to and get things moving. You don't want my boss breathing down MY neck - because that will mean that I'll have to start breathing down YOUR neck, and then we'll ALL be very unhappy campers." The voice had gained an unpleasant and lethal tone. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
Stiller swallowed. "Yes, sir! I'll get right on it, sir!"
"See that you do!" Curtis barked and then hung up abruptly.
Stiller swallowed hard again. No, he didn't want any of the shit to start rolling downhill from the Capitol and landing on his collar. But Curtis and anybody above him in authority in this effort just didn't understand the magnitude of what was being asked.
Each of the projects that the Centre had taken on had its own liaison officer from one branch of the service or another. In order to avoid mass disclosure of these quiet efforts, there was no central office where these liaison officers or their related projects were listed. Finding out which scientist at the Centre had been responsible for which project was going to take time and careful investigation. The last thing any of them needed was either the Pentagon OR the Centre authorities figuring out what was going on.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"We're landing, Deb," Miss Parker said gently and smoothed her hand down Deb's arm in the seat next to her until the young woman began to rouse. "We're landing," she repeated and then felt Deb straighten slightly in her seat.
"Already?" was the sleepy question.
"You slept most of the way," Davy commented from the other side of the jet.
"I hope you can get some sleep tonight too," Miss Parker said quietly, "and not have mixed your days and nights up for yourself."
"I'll be OK," Deb insisted firmly, pulling the comfortable blue blanket down from her shoulders and beginning to fold it up again. "I didn't sleep well in the hospital anyway."
"I can't wait to see Grandpa!" Davy bubbled happily. "And Kevin!"
"It will be good to be home again," Miss Parker agreed easily. She had missed her foster father a great deal while in California, making do with regular phone calls. All during the flight home, she'd been mulling over what Sydney could possibly have been doing with Davy that he didn't feel comfortable talking about over the phone. But in the end, all she wanted to do, once she was back on the ground, was give her foster father a huge hug. She didn't even want to have that discussion with him until she was rested up from her trip. She looked over at Deb. "You ready to be home again?"
"Absolutely," Deb said firmly. "I want to see my dad."
"I'm sure he wants to see you too, sweetheart." Miss Parker put a careful and gentle arm around her foster daughter's shoulders and gave her a quick hug.
Deb suffered the quick and careful embrace without a single flinch. Davy was wrong - she hadn't slept the entire trip. She'd been reviewing what Jarod had told her and talking herself into honoring the boundaries that she and Miss Parker had finally agreed to earlier. Part of those boundaries were to allow random and spur-of-the-moment demonstrations of affection, provided those demonstrations didn't come with an 'are you OK?' But Miss Parker had gone back to calling her 'Deb' - that would have to be something she'd work at fixing. She still didn't want to be 'Deb' anymore - but getting everybody to call her 'Debbie' again as they had in years past would take some time.
Sam watched over the three of them with an expressionless face, his fondness for them warming the depths of his heart. Miss Parker had been very thorough in making it clear to him that he was a part of her family, and she had chided him several times privately when he would let his continuing guilt at failing to protect her and her family show again. Even Jarod had done his best to let the ex-sweeper know that he didn't hold him responsible - but it made no difference. Deep down, Sam knew it would be a long time before he'd finally forgive himself. And until that day, he'd only work that much harder to earn the respect and affection that was so liberally coming his way.
Davy had been unequivocal - Sam had always been one of the boy's favorite people, and that fact hadn't changed a bit over the last week. In fact, if anything, Davy seemed even more willing to hang close to his foster-uncle now. He'd relocated to sit next to Sam during the flight so that they could play Battleships to pass the time while Deb and Miss Parker had dozed in their seats. And Sam could remember that Davy had practically begged for his beloved 'tips' while still at Jarod's. Poor little Ginger had been terrified - and would have been even more so had he reached down and actually given Davy what he asked for. For a short time, that little face remained at the front of his mind while he wondered if she would ever see him as something other than huge and scary.
His gaze eventually landed on the young woman now gazing out the window of the jet at the darkness around them. Deb had allowed him to begin calling her 'Short Stuff' again - an old nickname of his for her from years ago. He'd done it to make her more at ease with him in the hospital, but found that once started, he didn't want to stop. She seemed more responsive to it than when he called her by name now - and maybe that was something that Sydney needed to know about.
Then the wheels of the little jet touched back down to solid ground and rumbled over the pavement as the plane headed for the small hangar that the Centre maintained at the airstrip. Sam was out of his seat and had the hatch open almost as the jet came to a gentle halt. He dropped the steps so that the passengers could disembark and leaned out of the jet, checking the darkened tarmac to make sure that his phoned-in order for the Centre limousine to be on hand and ready when they landed had been followed. A quick wave of the hand summoned the limo driver to pull the car forward.
"Limo's here," he announced, watching Deb get slowly and painfully to her feet.
Deb could feel his eyes on her, measuring whether or not he should move forward to offer to carry her down the steps. The long trip with her foot once more propped up on the box and pillow had made her foot tender to the point that it was very painful to put any weight on it at all. She shot a sideways glance at Miss Parker, helping Davy stick his games away in his small overnight bag, and then looked back up into Sam's waiting face. "Could you help me, please?" she asked softly.
"Sure!" Sam moved forward with a contented smile and lifted her up into his arms.
Miss Parker noted the request and nodded in satisfaction. After a very difficult time in the early morning hours, the two of them had spent part of the first hours of their flight discussing boundaries and expectations. It seemed that Deb was willing to live up to her part of the bargain too - and that would make life easier. "I'll get the bags, Sam," she called after her Security Chief after putting Davy in motion to follow him down the steep steps.
Sam let the duty sweeper drive the car from the airstrip into Blue Cove, feeling the fatigue of seven hours of flight time in his bones. He was getting WAY too old to be gallivanting across the continent with any frequency - and the thought of actually sleeping in his own, comfortable bed that night was almost intoxicating. He did sit up front next to the driver, however - his place was to safeguard the people behind him after all.
Deb and Davy both leaned into Miss Parker tiredly as they made the last, short, leg of their journey from California to home. All of them were too tired to be talkative, and Deb was feeling insecure enough that she leaned heavily against the older woman's shoulder. Miss Parker settled back against the comfortable seat and put her arm around the young woman's shoulders and held her close.
Finally the limousine turned into the driveway of Sydney's Washington Street house, where the porch light had been lit in expectation of their arrival. Sam was out of the front passenger seat and opening the door to let Davy out first when the front door of the house opened and Kevin bounced down the walk. "You're home!" he announced happily, and gave Davy a big welcoming hug.
Davy gazed up into the face of the young Pretender and eyed the small bandage that covered a portion of a cheek that looked in the dim porch light as if it were sporting a fading bruise. "What happened to you?" he asked, then looked down in chagrin. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it," Kevin told his young friend as he let him go and began watching the car door for Deb's emergence.
"Grandpa!" Davy finally caught sight of his grandfather making his way out the front door slowly on his crutches. Sydney moved the right crutch to join its twin under his left arm and held out the right arm to his grandson. Davy closed in and wrapped his arms around his grandfather tightly. "You're OK," Sydney could hear the boy reassuring himself again and again. "You're really OK."
"Let me look at you," the psychiatrist said, putting the boy away from him slightly so he could get a good look. Davy's skin was dark - the sunburn had mostly faded away to a very dark tan - and his voice was a little rough, but he was OK. Sydney pulled the boy close again, delighting in the feel of those arms around his waist once more. "I'm really OK," he assured his grandson gently.
Miss Parker emerged from the car next, then turned to Sam. "Would you mind hanging around long enough to take Davy and myself home, please?"
"Sure thing," he replied with a nod, not at all surprised. After all, this stop was to drop off Deb with her grandfather for the night and to say a quick hello to Sydney and Kevin before heading home. He bent down and peered in at the young woman who was shifting slowly to a place close to the door. "Need a hand?"
"I'm OK this time," she told him and still grabbed onto his hand and leaned hard as she pulled herself to her feet to find herself looking straight at an absolutely delighted Kevin. "Hi," she said softly, her blue eyes resting for a moment on the bandage on his face and the mottled look of the skin around it.
"Hi," he answered back and then threw his arms around her. "I'm SO glad you're home!"
This she still wasn't prepared for, no matter how often she'd reminded herself that this would probably be how she'd be greeted. She flinched back hard and became rigid, not returning the hug at all. Kevin could feel immediately that something was wrong, and he backed away with a shocked and worried look on his face. "I... Did I hurt you?"
Sam looked down. The moment Kevin had moved forward, Deb's hand on his had tightened almost painfully - and now she was standing there almost in a daze. "Short Stuff?" he questioned quietly, bending to speak into her ear and try to break the trance of terror that she'd so abruptly slipped into.
Miss Parker saw what had happened too late to prevent anything, but she moved quickly to Deb's side even as Sam spoke and put an arm around her shoulder protectively. "Come on, sweetheart," she murmured gently. "It's OK. C'mon, Deb..." She rubbed the far shoulder briskly and finally, together with Sam's question, broke through Deb's torpor. The young woman blinked as if awakening, then flinched again back into Miss Parker.
"I'm sorry..." Kevin was heartbroken. Sydney had tried to warn him, but nothing could have prepared him for the emptiness and distrust that was in Deb's eyes when she looked at him. She looked at him as if he were a complete stranger.
Sam could feel the young Pretender's pain. "It's not your fault, Kevin," he said quickly. "She'll be better once she's used to being around you again - but it's gonna take a little time."
Miss Parker peered up into Sydney's face pleadingly, and he nodded understanding. He patted Davy's shoulder and caught the boy's attention. "Kevin, why don't you take Davy inside for a little bit. I'm sure you two have some catching up to do too." He bent to his grandson. "You and Kevin go on in for a while, so I can be with Deb and your mother."
Miss Parker looked over at Sam. "Maybe you can go with them..."
Kevin backed away from Deb cautiously and then turned to do as Sydney asked. All of his joy at the return of his friends had been dashed, and he was completely confused. Sam came up behind him and clapped a friendly and sympathetic hand to his shoulder and to Davy's, and the three made their way through the front door.
Once it was just herself and Sydney with Deb, Miss Parker bent to her foster daughter. "What do you say that we go say hello to your grandfather and get you into the house?" she asked, tightening her arm around Deb's shoulder. Deb's eyes flicked up into hers filled with empty terror. "I'm right here," she reassured her. "You're safe."
Sydney didn't make a single move - both because he knew better and because he was stable with the two crutches under one arm at the moment and didn't want to jeopardize that stability as yet. "Debbie," he called softly, "it's all right, ma petite. Nobody will harm you here."
The softly accented voice shattered the hold her inner terrors had on her, and she blinked again. "G.. grandpa?" she asked in a small voice, taking a step away from Miss Parker in the direction of the beloved voice.
"Right here, cheri," Sydney replied and put out his free arm. "Right here." He nodded at Miss Parker to release her hold on Deb, and she let the young woman limp slowly away from her hold and toward the house.
"Grandpa..." Deb limped up to the older man and looked at him for a long moment, making sure that her eyes weren't deceiving her, and then leaned against the solid chest and felt him enfold her close. "I heard you," she remembered suddenly. "I heard you yell for me to run..."
"You're safe now," he carefully took his hand from his crutches so he could embrace her more completely. "And everything will be all right soon." He stroked the long and slightly mussed blonde hair gently. "I promise."
Sydney looked over the top of Deb's head as she huddled against him and into Miss Parker's face. She was tired and truly saddened, he could tell, at the way in which Deb was behaving. This entire episode had done her easily as much harm inwardly, where only the truly aware would notice, as it had done to any of the rest of them outwardly. Without even thinking, he lifted his free arm from Deb and extended it to her, inviting her to join in the hug - to lean too.
It was an offer that Miss Parker couldn't resist. She moved into his embrace, leaving plenty of room for Deb to huddle against him while she rested her head wearily on his right shoulder. "I missed you," she told him very softly as her arm wound around him to hold him back. "I am SO glad to be home."
"I'm SO glad to have you back," he replied, giving her cheek a gentle peck. "I've missed having my girls around me."
Miss Parker sighed and closed her eyes. Long and difficult talks about mysterious mind games could wait - right now, all that mattered was that she was home where she belonged, and that Deb was home where her healing could begin in earnest.
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