Resolutions – 6
Connections
by MMB
Davy sat in his tree house, his legs dangling over the edge and swinging back and forth in an arrhythmic fashion in the late afternoon breeze. He was bored stiff. He didn't begrudge Deb her time with Grandpa Sydney that morning – even he could see that things weren't going so well with her since their kidnapping adventure to California. He had a sneaky feeling it had something to do with the way that man was touching her while they were tied up and in that horrible house, but she was unconscious when that had happened, so maybe it was something else. He blinked and rubbed his eyes to dispel the memory of one of the two faces that tended to haunt his dreams nowadays and make him feel frightened and lost.
He'd been glad to get home, to be with Grandpa and Kevin again. It was good to see that, while both had been hurt in the attack that had captured Deb, both were nicely on their way to healing. But it seemed that some things had changed since they'd left, and not necessarily for the better as far as HE was concerned.
Kevin was no longer a constant playmate, asking questions about all sorts of things while either over at the park or on his stomach on the floor of the den playing video games. No, Kevin was now spending a great deal of his time reading – and reading stuff that Grandpa very quietly but firmly told Davy that he really didn't want him to be reading too. The papers, he knew, were from one of the heavy boxes that had been stacked against a wall in the living room.
It was finally from Kevin, in order to convince Davy to leave him alone to read in peace, that he had discovered that the papers had to do with the many projects that had been done over the years where his Mommy worked. Kevin told him that when the Tower had been bombed, much of this information had been lost in electronic format when the Centre's mainframe computer had been destroyed. Kevin explained that Mommy wanted to know what was in the boxes so that the important stuff could be typed back in, while the other stuff could be thrown away.
That made sense, but it still didn't leave Davy with a lot of options when it came to ways to spend his day. Grandpa had spent the morning in the den with Deb talking about the stuff that was bothering her – which meant that he couldn't play his video games in there like he used to. Kevin was busy reading – although for an hour or so after lunch, while Grandpa had napped, Kevin had come out to the back yard to practice some really neat body movements that he said Mr. Ikeda was teaching him. Davy had been intrigued and struggled to copy his friend's movements to the best of his ability, and that had managed to make that first after-lunch hour fly by and leave him tired and sore in new and interesting ways.
But now Kevin had gone back to his reading again. Deb had jumped into her car to go to Dover to visit with her dad and Grandpa had awakened from his nap and was now reading through the pile of papers as well. Mommy had gone back to work that morning, and Sam was working too, leaving him with nobody to be with and nothing interesting to do. His regular softball playmates didn't meet on Thursdays, so going to the park would be an exercise in futility. Daddy was in California and so was Ginger…
Maybe that was it, Davy decided as he pulled his legs back into the tree house and went over to the pile of Superman comic books that some of his favorite reading material. He missed his little sister. He sat down on the floor of the elevated abode and closed his eyes to remember the face of the little girl who had been one of the biggest and nicest surprises of that whole adventure. He missed her, and missed the way she looked up to him and followed him around as if HE were the grown-up! He'd never imagined being a big brother could make him feel so good, so needed.
He leafed through a couple of the comic books, trying to allow the storyline to carry him away in his imagination the way it had so many other times in the past – to no avail. Superman was make-believe – but he had lived through his own adventure where it had been HE who had rescued everyone. It had felt good to see the respect and admiration of all those strangers – especially the police officers – while waiting for his Mom to come get him out of the hospital. Sam had been very open in telling him what a good job he'd done.
And now he was expected to go back to quietly living life as David Parker, eight year old elementary school kid with nothing special going for him? He knew better than that. The past week had taught him in no uncertain terms that he had much more going for him than just that.
He was just going to have to figure out a way to tap into that extraordinary person who had commanded the admiration and respect again without having to get himself into trouble again in the bargain.
"This is Sydney."
"Hi, Syd," Miss Parker said into her telephone. "How are things going over there today?"
Sydney let the papers he'd been reading fall into his lap. "About as I expected," he reported. "I spent most of the morning with Debbie – and I think we made some genuine progress."
"What's Davy up to?"
"He's been spending a lot of time in his tree house today," he told her. "I'm thinking that later this afternoon, I'll call him in and talk with him a bit. He has a lost look about him today that bothers me."
"Well, you'll have plenty of time when you do decide to talk to him," Miss Parker said, stretching back in her chair. "I'm going to be working late tonight – babysitting a phone tap, to be precise."
Greying eyebrows climbed high. "A LEGAL phone tap, I hope?"
"As legal as they get," she said with satisfaction. "A representative of the Pentagon pulled some strings and got the Blue Cove P.D. on line. When he heard what we were dealing with, Chief Harrison had a man out here so fast…"
"Is everything OK?" Sydney asked in concern. "I've been so out of the loop lately…"
"We're just hoping to tie a knot in the tail of a military problem child," she told him vaguely, "and we're doing it by going through proper channels, no less. Ever heard of a man by the name of Stiller?"
Sydney smiled. That was the name that Tyler had run past him not all that long ago. "Can't say that I have," he told her firmly, preserving the story he'd promised Tyler he'd tell. "What is this all about?"
"Projects that we put a stop to that don't want to stay dead."
"Just be careful, Parker. You're playing footsie with the US government."
"And they're playing footsie with the Centre, Sydney. If they think that we're just going to roll over and be intimidated by a fancy uniform and hash marks on sleeves, they are very much mistaken." Miss Parker sighed. "Anyway, I'll give you call when I'm just about on my way, so that Davy will be ready when I get there."
"How about I call Deb and have her pick up some late supper from some fast-food place," Sydney suggested. "You're not going to be in any mood to cook, I don't do too well on my feet right now, and Deb doesn't need to worry about that too after everything else she's faced today."
"As long as it's nutritious," Miss Parker sighed again. "Thanks, Syd."
"Take care, Parker."
She disconnected the call and then pushed away from her desk. She gathered some file folders and a couple of legal pads from her inbox and walked out her office door, pausing at her secretary's desk. "I'm off to that administrative meeting. If I'm not back by five, just leave me a note with tomorrow's schedule on it and take off." She smiled down at Mei Chiang. "I'd imagine you and Xing-Li have something to celebrate tonight."
"Yes, ma'am!" Mei Chiang smiled back at her boss. "Good luck with your meeting."
"Thanks." The Chinese woman watched with genuine appreciation and almost devotion as Miss Parker walk off down the hall toward the conference room into which people had been flocking for the last half-hour. She still was having a hard time wrapping her mind around the new terms of her employment – not service anymore.
A very small value had been set on the room and board she'd been receiving all along, while her over-all stipend had been doubled several times over. Even with the room and board value deducted, she was soon to be amazingly rich – and so was Xing-Li. What was more, the Centre lawyer had taken a look at the green card that Lyle's money had provided her and clucked in dissatisfaction. He had then taken down her particulars and then Xing-Li's to get more proper sets of documents so that their stay in the country would be totally legal for the first time.
But most amazing of all was the check that was now residing in her purse – a check of several thousand dollars back wages. There was enough there for her to purchase a small and economical car, if she wanted – or to put into a bank and watch grow in the American way. If Miss Parker had wanted to assure that she continued to work for the Centre, she had done everything absolutely right. There was no way Mei-Chiang would ever consider working anywhere else.
Xing-Li's check, while not as sizeable as Mei-Chiang's, had been substantial enough to cause the younger woman to ask her roommate in hushed Cantonese, "Are we dreaming, Older Sister?"
Yes, there would be plenty to celebrate tonight. And Mei-Chiang's face softened as she considered that she would be able to celebrate her good Karma with Sam. Life was looking up for her indeed, in many, many ways.
Ginger pushed the sheer curtains back for what seemed like the millionth time, and then smiled as she saw her Grandma Maggie's powder blue sedan pull back into The Family's driveway. Behind her, on the hardwood floor, she could hear the Other Boy playing noisily with his cars and trucks like always. She didn't like to play cars with him – he was constantly crashing his cars into hers and knocking her stuff all over. She missed The Boy — HE would have taken care of her…
She especially hadn't been in the mood to put up with the Other Boy's high-spirited play after the events of the morning. Once That Man had finally left, it had taken a long time to stop shaking from the memory of That Woman's loud voice and angry, demanding tone. She'd climbed up into His lap as He sat on her bed and He had held her close and cuddled her for as long as he could, but then had taken her and The Toy — her constant companion and defender — over to Grandma Maggie's before leaving for work. Grandma had listened as He had told the story of what had happened that morning, and when He had left, she had sat down in her Big Comfy Chair and had Ginger climb up into her lap for a big hug.
Grandma had held her close for a very long time, as if knowing how upset she was, and begun rocking her and singing a strange little song about toad's feet and barefoot geese over and over again until it had eventually calmed her. Ginger had lain in her grandmother's arms wishing she knew how to tell Grandma of all the things that had been done to her – or better, how to tell Him. She wanted so desperately to tell Him all of her secrets so He could understand her at last that the silence had become almost painful now. She had told The Toy everything, of course – the silence had never stopped The Toy from understanding her — but The Toy hadn't been able to help her overcome the silence that had been her defense ever since things had gotten so bad.
Then Grandma had needed to go shopping, and had brought her over to The Family's house for some playtime with the Other Boy. How she wished she could tell Grandma that the Other Boy was just too loud and rough — that when he'd ram his cars into her legs, it HURT! But Grandma said she'd only be gone for a bit, so Ginger had decided to just move herself up to the couch in front of the front window and watch the world go by while the Other Boy played away on the floor. It was a plan that had worked the last couple of times she'd been brought over here. After all, it was the Other Boy who had hurt The Toy — and Ginger had yet to forgive him for that.
"Grandma!" the Other Boy cried and ran towards the sound of her voice. Ginger turned toward the sound of the voice, but didn't budge an inch. She knew better than to try to compete for attention – getting punched in the stomach by the other children or harshly set back into 'Time Out' for her efforts had long ago erased her eagerness at the sound of a trusted voice. She had learned the hard way the value of waiting until the Big Person was ready to be approached.
After all, she didn't belong here — not really — the Angry Lady had told her that often enough so that she could always remember. She had no family — nobody wanted to keep her around for long. And while the family she was living with may have changed, her situation within The Family had not — she still didn't belong. She wanted to belong to HIS family very much — to Him and Her and The Boy and Grandma — but she knew she didn't, and thus knew her limits. So she turned to sit properly on the soft near the front window and cuddled her teddy bear in her arms and waited for Grandma to remember that she was there.
"Sprite?" she heard Grandma call out into The Family's house. NOW she could slip to her feet and trot toward the kitchen, where The Family Lady was starting to prepare supper. "There you are!" Grandma smiled at her as she rounded the corner of the kitchen door. Grandma put out her arms to gather her shy little granddaughter close again and then looked up at her daughter. "Any trouble?"
"With Sprite? Not at all," The Lady answered without looking up from what she was doing at the sink. "She was quiet as a mouse – like always. I hardly knew she was here."
"Look what I got for you while I was shopping," Grandma smiled and put her hand into her trousers pocket and pulled out a little plastic card on which were two beautiful butterfly barrettes. Ginger took the card and admired the way the butterfly wings moved and glittered in the afternoon sunlight. Then she handed the card back to Grandma. These were just too beautiful to play with…
"You put them in your hair," Grandma explained patiently. "Come on – I'll show you." She put out her hand and Ginger let herself be led into the bathroom and picked up to sit on the counter next to the sink. Grandma carefully removed the butterflies from the card one at a time and affixed them into the dark hair to hold back some of the grown-out bangs that seemed always to be in her face. Ginger's eyes found her grandmother's in the mirror and sparkled almost as brightly as did the butterfly wings. "Do you like them?" Grandma asked with a smile.
Ginger nodded vigorously, and again the butterfly wings moved and shimmered against her dark hair like fairy wings. She looked back up over her shoulder at her Grandma in wonder. Nobody had ever brought her anything THAT beautiful before.
Once more, the silence had become more painful than she could have ever imagined it being. The silence had been a necessary tool during the days when any attempt to explain or ask for help against the Big Man hurting her at night after she'd gone to bed had been met with the back of a hand of the Big Man's wife. Then, in the house she'd been in just before being Taken Away, any attempt to answer or even speak at all had been met with the Angry Lady shouting angry words at her and putting her in 'Time Out' – and once more, the silence had become very necessary. But now… Perhaps the time had come for the silence to go away.
Ginger's face worked, and finally she got the beginnings of a hum out.
Margaret had been watching her little granddaughter carefully the moment the little face had folded into effort, and she blinked at the sound of a voice coming from that throat. "Sprite?" she asked, amazed. "What is it?"
Ginger sighed and tried it again. Why was it so hard to say something when she could understand it when others said things to her? "Mmmmmmaaa," she finally managed in a flat voice that sounded as if it had been unused for a long time. "Ttttta-kooo."
"My God!" Margaret put her hand to her mouth in astonishment, and then pulled the little girl tightly into her arms as she sat there on the sink counter. "You're welcome, baby," she soothed very softly into the side of the girl's head. "What a gift you just gave me – to try to talk!"
Grandma DID understand how hard it was! Ginger pulled back a little and reached up to touch her grandmother's cheek gently in appreciation and pulled her fingers back in amazement when she found them wet. Dark eyes met Margaret's brilliant blue in deep concern, and the little head shook back and forth. She didn't mean to make Grandma sad…
"No, no, Sprite," Margaret soothed. "Those are happy tears. I'm OK." She gently pulled her granddaughter back into her arms. "Those are happy tears. I'm so proud of you! Just WAIT until your Daddy gets home and I tell him what you were able to do today! He's going to be so proud of you too…"
Ginger smiled then and nestled into her grandmother's embrace. Happy tears? She'd never heard of such things. But yes, maybe the time had come for the silence to start to go away. Maybe, just maybe, it was finally safe.
"Hi, Daddy."
"Deb!" Broots closed the lid on his laptop and shoved the rolling table aside so that he could hold out his arms to his little girl. Gladly Deb rushed to her father's side and let him pull her close. "God, I'm so glad to see you," he told her in a tight whisper. "I was so worried…"
"I'm OK," she reassured him quickly. "A cut on my foot and a nip gave me an infection but…"
"Deb," Broots smoothed her hair back as she lay against his chest, "I know what happened — at least, what Miss Parker told me before she left for California." His hazel eyes were vulnerable. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to defend you…"
"It's OK, Daddy," Deb leaned against her father. "I'm OK, really."
Broots held his daughter tightly. He had never felt so helpless and useless than lying here in a hospital bed while his daughter was going through all kinds of hell at the hands of kidnappers. "I'm just so glad to have you back," he exclaimed sincerely. He held her close for another long moment, just soaking up the reality that she really was home, and safe, and then let her straighten up. "So. Are you letting Sydney help you?"
"Yes," she told him, cringing inside that even her father knew what had happened to her. "I talked to him most of the morning."
"That's good…"
"But I'm going to have to see about changing that, because I'm going to see if I can go back to work at Oggie's…"
"Deb, it's too soon. You just got back from…"
"I know, Daddy," she patted his hand and tried not to see the depth of the concern and worry in his eyes. "But I can't just sit around the house all day — I'll go nuts. And I can't just bother Grandpa with my problems all day — HE'LL go nuts probably a lot sooner than I would."
"Have you talked this over with him?" Broots insisted.
Deb looked away guiltily. "Not yet. I was going to tell him tonight when I got home."
"I really wish…" Broots saw the stubborn look that had come over his daughter's face and knew that he would be making no further progress with her. Still… "You need time to decompress from everything that happened," he told her gently. "Nobody's going to think you're being lazy if you…"
"I can't just let this put my life on hold," she exclaimed, having to swallow hard against an up swell of anger that she knew was unreasonable. "I'm walking better every day — my foot's hardly bothering me anymore. Working for Oggie would at least give me something else to do than sit around the house and mope."
"What about school? I thought you and Kevin were going to take evening classes?"
Deb shook her head. "We missed the first whole week of class, Dad. It would be awfully hard to try to play catch-up now — especially for Kevin." She looked down at her hands. "And, to be honest, I don't want to go to school right now…"
"What is it, SweetPea?" Broots asked gently, framing his daughter's face with a hand. "You can tell me…"
"I'm not doing a very good job of concentrating right now," Deb admitted finally with a small blush. "I don't want to do a poor job and have to repeat the class later."
"Have you told that to Sydney?"
She shook her head silently. Her long session with her grandfather had dealt with something far more painful. It had taken the better part of lunch and then the drive to Dover to get herself calmed down again. "Not yet."
"It sounds like there's a lot of stuff you need to talk over with Sydney," he commented dryly. He knew her — she was being defensive and closed in a way that he'd never seen before, and for the first time since he'd breathed his sigh of relief at her being rescued alive, he felt fear for her well-being.
"I will," she hedged. As much as she wanted to push away and run screaming from her father's room, all she could think about right now was Jarod's question the day before: "What about your Dad? Are you going to cut him off and push him away too?" She'd thought the idea ridiculous at the time — now, she wasn't so sure. But the one thing she DID know is that she didn't want to hurt him any more than he'd already suffered. "I promise, Daddy."
"I love you, SweetPea," Broots said softly and reached to pull his daughter close to him once more, frowning as he felt just that slight twinge of hesitation and resistance. "Everything will be all right now."
Maybe.
The intercom on Tyler's desk buzzed. "A Colonel Fox to see you, sir," Xing-Li's musical tones announced.
"Send him right in," Tyler responded immediately and then pushed back his chair from his desk. He was just rising as the door opened and a very slender middle-aged man in a smartly pressed dress uniform marched in. "Colonel Fox. I'm Cody Tyler."
"It's a pleasure to meet you face to face, son," the military man responded with an extended hand. "So, am I in time for the festivities?"
"We have everything set up in one of our security offices," Tyler explained, gesturing for the Air Force officer retrace his steps out the office door. "You go ahead and take off for the night," he told Xing-Li as he walked by, "and thanks for staying late."
"Yes, sir," the young Chinese woman nodded at him with the proper degree of respect.
"You civvies always get the pretty secretaries," Fox commented once they had moved far enough down the corridor that he wouldn't be overheard. "We tend to get the warhorses who are wonders of efficiency but not as easy on the eyes… if you know what I mean…"
Tyler smiled in response. "Yes, sir," he replied. Xing-Li was not quite as efficient as Mei-Chiang had been, but he had put that down to simple inexperience in running an upper-level office. In many ways, she was just as good — and that gave him hope for the rest. She was shier, more retiring, though — and Tyler had decided that one of the things he'd be working on with her would be self-confidence. "Here we are," he said and ushered the military man into the main security office, where banks of monitors had been set up to keep track of unused areas of the below-ground facility. Miss Parker was already standing by the desk with the police officer manning the listening device. "This is Miss Parker, the Chairman of the Centre. Miss Parker, may I present Colonel Fox, our Air Force liaison to the Pentagon."
"So you're the little lady who's set some of our independent officers in such a tizzy," Fox said with a smile and an outstretched hand. "Bravo."
As tired as she was from her meeting with scientific staff, Miss Parker's face cracked into a smile at the sound of another drawl almost as broad as that of her assistant. "It's good to meet you, Colonel. I take it you're from Texas too?"
Fox glanced over at Tyler. "Why, yes, ma'am. Y'all are surrounded today, it seems."
Miss Parker chuckled at that one. "So it seems," she said with a smile. "So… What have you found out about this Colonel Stiller?"
"Actually, not as much as I'd hoped," the Air Force officer admitted. "We have his intake records, reports regarding his training in pharmaceuticals and covert operations during the Vietnam War and Desert Storm. Technically, he's on staff in Bethesda, which is where his military paychecks are sent — but an inquiry sent to the Chief of Operations at the hospital shows no employment records there." Fox ran a thoughtful finger up one side of his nose. "You seem to have stumbled over quite an interesting mystery for us."
Miss Parker nodded as he rattled off the facts he did know. "He trained in pharmaceuticals — which explains why he was made contact person for Project Veracity."
Fox shook his head. "That is one nasty little piece of research, Miss Parker. Why one earth would your organization take on such a thing in the first place — even if it was commissioned by the US military, you would have thought…"
"The previous administration of the Centre had a habit of working on projects that pushed the envelope as far as ethics were concerned," Miss Parker explained in a deliberately dismissing tone. "That's part of the reason the men in charge are now referred to as the 'previous' administration — if you get my drift."
Fox nodded. "Perfectly, Miss Parker. Rest assured that I have informed my superiors of the events of today and this evening — and they have assured me that a full investigation into how such projects were commissioned and who is responsible will be undertaken immediately."
"That's good to hear," Tyler commented dryly. "I've had to meet with several of those people over the last few days, and Miss Parker met with her share not long before that…"
"Actually, I met with a Senator and an Army officer," Miss Parker informed them.
Fox's brows raised in surprise. "A Senator?" He frowned in consternation. "I wasn't aware that legislators were involved in the commission of military projects…"
At that moment, the telephone rang. All conversation in the room immediately ceased, and the police officer pushed the record button on his equipment as the others grabbed for headphones.
"Hello?" Dr. Mitchell answered her telephone nonchalantly.
"Dr. Mitchell, this is Colonel Stiller. How are you this evening?"
"Fine thanks."
"I'm hoping you gave my offer some serious consideration…"
"I thought it over very carefully, I assure you," Mitchell said crisply. "And I've decided I'm not interested."
There was a pause. "Are you certain you don't want to reconsider your decision?"
"You know, I have to wonder just what is going on when a high-ranking military officer like yourself feels he has to appeal to me — a research scientist — to continue a project that my employer has suspended."
"That was an unfortunate decision on your Chairman's part," Stiller admitted, "one that she will eventually come to regret."
"Is that a threat against my employer, Colonel?"
"No. I'm just pointing out that the people I'm working for do not take 'no' for an answer. We're determined to protect our country with the latest innovations in technology."
"That may be an admirable goal, Colonel, but it still makes me wonder why you are making an end run around my employers and offering me money under the table to essentially do a perpetual double-shift. Why don't you simply farm your obscene little project out to somebody else…"
"Because YOU were the one who worked on it originally, Doctor." Stiller's voice was growing tight, angry. "YOU are the one who knows the most about what stage of development the drug was in — what testing remained to be done."
"I turned all my records over to Centre Security when the project was closed down," Mitchell said flatly. "I was told they then forwarded all that material on the to Pentagon. Even if I wanted to begin work on Veracity again, I have no notes, no data, no preliminary…"
"What if I told you I could get you access to all your old files?"
Fox looked up at Miss Parker and Tyler in consternation. The way the recorded conversation was proceeding, it seemed that there was a fairly large and well-imbedded conspiracy at work. The data from the projects the Centre had returned had been put under lock and key at the Pentagon itself — even Colonel Fox didn't have the authority to request that data without permission from above. For Stiller to make such an offer there had to be an accomplice placed high in the chain of command.
"I'm still not interested, Colonel. I told you when you called earlier, I was glad to see Veracity shut down the first time — I'll be damned if I'll be a part of starting it up again."
"You will regret your decision, Doctor," Stiller's voice had grown dangerously quiet.
"Good night, Colonel. Please don't call again."
The call was disconnected when Dr. Mitchell evidently put the receiver down. The police officer stopped recording and looked up at the people surrounding his desk. "I take it you'll be wanting copies of this tape?"
"Two copies," Miss Parker interjected quickly. "One for Colonel Fox here, and one for Centre records. Providing you have no objections?" she asked, turning to the Air Force officer.
"None, ma'am." The colonel looked shocked and dismayed. "Not only did you people trip over a mystery, but it seems you've tripped over the tip on helluva conspiracy within the military machine itself. God only knows how long this has been going on, or how much money and information have been exchanged…" He paused, still dumbfounded by the audacity of the man on the phone. "…or how far up the chain of command it goes."
"I'm having experts go through our hard-copy archives," Miss Parker told him grimly. "I've no doubt that they will run across even more projects which were completed that were commissioned by this same group of individuals. I'm assuming you will want to be kept informed when we do run across them?"
"Absolutely!" Fox confirmed vehemently. "I will be reporting to my superiors the moment I get back to Washington — but I want you to feel free to give me a call at any time on this matter."
"Thank you for your time and inconvenience, Colonel," Miss Parker said, shaking the man's hand yet again. "It is good to know that we're now working with people with the best interests of the country at heart for real."
"Thank YOU, Miss Parker. Mr. Tyler." Fox shook Tyler's hand and then marched from the Security office.
"Looks like this is just a little bit bigger than we thought," Tyler commented to his boss.
"I'd say things might get a bit bumpy for us again," she replied in a similar tone.
"Shit. You'd think we'd catch a break sooner or later," he turned around scratching his head.
"With the Karma the Centre has been building for years, I'd wager good money that our break won't come until much, much later," Miss Parker responded wryly. She looked up at him. "Ah well, I promised you a challenge…"
Tyler turned and stared at her for a moment before shaking his head and chuckling. "I think this falls into the 'be careful what you wish for — you might just get it' category."
"Either that or the Chinese curse, 'May you live in interesting times.'"
"Wonderful," he said walking toward the office door. "Just wonderful!"
Davy slid the arcadia screen door aside quietly and stepped into the den, trying to be careful not to disturb his grandfather's reading. It was growing late, and the light in the tree house had gotten to the point where it was hard to read. He'd heard Deb's car pull into the drive a while ago, and he imagined that his cousin was probably puttering with putting dinner together. Maybe she could use some help…
"Davy?" came the accented voice of his grandfather from the daybed.
"Yeah?"
"Come on over here for bit," Sydney said, shifting on the cushions until there was room for Davy to sit next to him. "We haven't really had much of a chance to talk today."
"You've been busy," Davy shrugged his understanding.
"You're important too," Sydney reached out a hand to the boy, who eventually let himself be pulled closer and seated on the daybed. "I heard about everything you did — how you kept your wits about you and thought your way to rescue."
Davy's lips twitched. Even Grandpa Sydney couldn't help praising him! "I did OK, but…"
"But…"
Davy watched the CPM machine move his grandfather's knee slowly. "But Deb got cut and got really sick from that, and we almost didn't make it."
"Deb cutting her foot wasn't your fault," Sydney began.
"Yes, it was!" Davy insisted. "I couldn't get mine up high enough to break the glass — it had to be her."
"But if you hadn't broken the glass, you'd have never gotten away," Sydney reminded the boy. "It was a reasonable risk. And she survived…"
"I did what I had to do," Davy mumbled, picking at some lint on his pantleg.
Sydney smiled at the boy. "I know that," he said gently. "But you've been walking around here today as if you lost your only friend." Davy's head ducked down lower, and he knew the boy knew exactly what he was talking about. "Tell me about that."
Davy opened his mouth, then thought better of it and closed it again while he thought about his response. Finally: "Everything's changed now."
"What's changed?" Sydney asked patiently.
"Everything," Davy reiterated. "You're stuck on that… thing…"
"I was stuck before then," Sydney reminded him with a smile. "I've been under the weather for a while now. That isn't anything new."
"But the machine is," Davy insisted, "and you're on crutches now." His voice grew stronger as he began to list off the things that he felt had changed. "And Kevin is always busy reading now, and you're in here all the time reading or talking to Deb."
"Do you feel forgotten?" Sydney asked pointedly.
Davy shot his grandfather a sharp look, and then dropped his gaze again. "A little."
"What else?"
"It's hard, you know?"
"What is?"
Davy shrugged and wiped his hands on his pants. The tree house was dirtier than he remembered it — he'd have to go out with a broom and take care of that when he got back in the morning. "In California, I was like the hero — I'd managed to get Deb and me out of that house and somewhere where we could be found. And now, here, I have to go back to being…"
"The same kid you were before all this happened?" Sydney finished for him.
"Yeah," Davy acknowledged in a sour tone. "It sucks."
"Because you don't feel like the same kid you were before all this happened?"
"I'm not." Davy's tone was convinced. "Back then, I was a little kid who did everything he was told and played our special 'what if' mind games every once in a while. Now I played a 'what if' game in my own head to figure out what to do — and the grown-ups are all telling me what a good job I did." The storm-grey eyes, so much like his mother's, were serious. "Deb was hurt, and I had to make the decisions."
"What would you like to see?" Sydney asked, genuinely curious.
Davy shrugged again. "I don't know — but I can't just be a stupid kid anymore. I'm not a stupid kid."
"No, you're not." Sydney settled back into his cushions and gave his grandson a piercing look. "But you still are only eight and a half — not quite nine — years old. You've learned how to turn a 'what if' into a plan for action — but you have a long ways to go to be a grown-up."
"Remember how it was before we started those 'what ifs', Grandpa?"
"I remember." Sydney could hardly forget. Davy had come over to visit his grandfather one weekend day and almost exploded from all the repressed anger and resentment that had been building up at school that he didn't dare air with his mother. Small for his age at the time, he was being bullied by one of the bigger boys in his class and laughed at by the others for not standing up for himself. What was more, the material was being presented at too slow a speed for a very intelligent child — he was on the verge of failing due to sheer boredom. That first 'what if' game had been a safety valve that had released pent-up anger and thought through various scenarios to address the entire school situation.
"I feel like that's what I'm starting again."
Sydney sighed.
"You know," Sydney decided that he needed to tell his grandson about the probability that his mother was going to be asking questions soon, "your Mom knows about the 'what if' games. She wants to talk to me about them one of these days. Are you going to be OK with that?"
"Do I have a choice?" Davy asked, not entirely happy about it, but aware of why it had come. "Deb told her about them. I suppose she's curious."
"You could say that," Sydney agreed. "I just wanted you to know…"
"Thanks for the warning."
"But back to our discussion. You don't necessarily need me to think through the 'what ifs' to what's going on with you right now, Davy. You've already proven you can do quite well at that on your own. You just have to realize that part of your frustration is going to be your age being an obstacle for a very long time — until you ARE a grown-up in your own right. Any 'what if' about this will have to consider your age as an inflexible and permanent detail that will have to be worked around in each alternative."
"But Grandpa," Davy complained bitterly, "for a while there I felt like Superman, you know? I may not have been able to leap tall buildings, but I rescued the girl."
Sydney couldn't help smiling at the allegory Davy was making of his favorite super hero — and he marveled at how precise the allegory had been drawn. "And you want to feel like Superman more often?"
The small, dark head nodded vigorously.
"Then you'll have to find other damsels in need of rescue, and use your 'what if' power to think your way to a solution for them. And between times, you'll have to remain in disguise as…"
"David Parker, elementary school geek," Davy grumbled unhappily.
"Do you ever read about Clark Kent being unhappy about being a fumbling reporter?" Sydney asked the boy point-blank. "Think about it — he can't even get Lois to give him the time of day as Clark Kent — while she's falling all over herself drooling over him as Superman!"
"I suppose," Davy sighed heavily.
"Even he knows that it isn't all fun and games being a super-hero, Davy," Sydney told him compassionately. "A lot of the time being a super-hero is about swallowing a lot of garbage and smiling, playing at being the regular guy without a clue." He gave him a pat on the shoulder to draw up his attention so that the boy was looking at him. "Not everybody has what it takes: to be able to stay in the background until he's needed and then be able to just slip back into the background once the rescue is finished. That's why there are so few real super-heroes. And all the failed super-heroes had the same flaw: they liked the notoriety. Are you going to make that same mistake?"
Davy's grey eyes stared deeply into his grandfather's. So being plain old Davy Parker was the harder part of being the extraordinary person? "I can do anything I put my mind to," he said proudly.
"Then I guess you'll have to learn how to be plain David Parker again, won't you?"
Davy nodded. "I suppose."
Sydney ruffled his grandson's hair. "So, plain-David-Parker, how do you feel about going out to the kitchen and helping Deb get that pizza and salad ready for us to eat when your mother gets home?"
The smile that Davy bestowed on the old psychiatrist was the closest he'd seen to the old, mischievous Davy-smile since the boy's return from California. Sydney breathed a small sigh of relief as the boy trotted obediently toward the kitchen. At least that was a small crisis. He'd have to watch, though — some of the statements Davy had made signaled the potential for a deeper problem that would be much more difficult to manage.
"This is Parker."
"Hey, Miss Parker…" Broots greeted his friend.
"Hey there yourself!" Miss Parker paused walking from the office annex to her car, her sweater tossed over one arm since it was still almost too hot to breathe. "How did you do?"
"I ran all the project names you gave me," he told her, "and several popped up. I sent Deb home tonight with a list of the files that include those project names in the text."
"Thanks, Broots. How are you, anyway? What does your doctor say?"
"I have at least three more weeks in this plaster of Paris prison," he grumbled, "and then at least three to four weeks of therapy before I'm in any shape to even think about coming home to Blue Cove."
"Anything I can get for you in the meanwhile?"
Broots' eyes began to twinkle. "A nice, tall, cold beer sounds REALLY good at the moment," he told her in a voice that sounded as if he was dying.
Miss Parker smiled softly. "I suppose I could bring one of those extra-large purses the next time I come into Dover," she mused to herself.
"Miss Parker, please!" Broots exclaimed. "You don't want to mess with an invalid man's mind like that if you don't mean it!"
"Your nurses would kill me."
"They'd kill me too, but what a way to go!" he chuckled.
"You're in a pretty good mood for being flat on your back."
He smiled softly. "I had a nice visit with Deb this afternoon," he told her. "I'm feeling a whole lot better about some things, and more than a little concerned about a whole lot of others."
"Yeah," Miss Parker could sympathize with him. "She's got a long road ahead of her, my friend."
"As long as she keeps talking to Sydney she stands a chance at getting through it though," Broots said seriously. "The problem is that she told me a number of things that evidently she hasn't mentioned to Syd yet."
"Oh?" She wasn't really all that surprised. "Like?"
"Like going back to work for Oggie soon…"
"It's too soon!" she barked with a frown.
"Tell that to her," he retorted. "She says she would rather go to work than sit around the house going stir-crazy."
"Well, you have to give her that one," Miss Parker conceded, seeing the logic to Deb's reasoning. "What else?"
"She's having trouble concentrating. That came up when I asked why she didn't go back to school."
Now she frowned again. "That I didn't know. You want me to mention it to Syd when I see him tonight?"
"No," Broots said after thinking about it for a while. "But I'll keep bugging Deb about whether she's talked to him or not – and if it goes too long…"
"I'll keep my mouth shut for the time being," she promised, "until you tell me I need to put my nose in."
"How are things at the Centre? Things started settling down to a dull uproar yet?"
She shook her head. "Not in the least. Looks like our suspending all those questionable projects I had you checking on today has turned up an interesting case of the left hand of the US military not being up to speed on what the right hand has been doing."
"Ho boy, that doesn't sound good…"
"Nothing's getting dire yet. But we are going to have to put additional security on at least one of our pharmaceutical researchers, now that she's stood up to one of those military mavericks and told him to shove his project."
"You be careful, Miss Parker," he warned her seriously. "If people within the Centre itself can cause the kind of trouble we're just now coming out of, how much worse can it be running up against the US government?"
"C'mon, Broots, don't get your panties in a bunch yet," she said in a tone that clearly communicated how little humor she was finding in the situation. "We've started to gather allies within the military hierarchy ourselves, and we're keeping records of every meeting, every phone call we get from these yahoos."
Broots shook his head. "Still, Miss Parker, it doesn't pay to underestimate these folks."
"It's good to know that my faithful Scooby Doo still knows how to recommend a strategic retreat," she teased him gently. "I tell you, I've missed having you and Sydney at my side, Broots. Tyler's good, but you guys have been my backup for too long. So get your ass out of that hospital bed as soon as you can — and that's an order!"
"Yes, Miss Parker," he teased back.
"You take it easy, my friend," she said then in a far less teasing and more fond tone. "I have an errand to do in Dover in the next couple of days — I'll stop in to see you and bring you your beer then."
"Oh, Miss P, you're a life-saver!"
"Just don't drool too much between now and then — you'll give the game away."
Broots chuckled. "I'll try. Say hello to Sydney for me too, will ya?"
"Will do."
Sam frowned as he took in the slightly run-down appearance of the apartment complex. He hadn't even known that this building existed on Centre property. It was protected from the sight of the main facility by a curtain of tall cypress trees. And only one apartment looked like it was occupied: the one Mei-Chiang had indicated was the one she lived in. He looked around, deciding to have a talk with Miss Parker about some general maintenance if she was going to be renting to employees, and then climbed the short flight of stairs and knocked on the door.
Almost immediately, the door was opened, and Mei-Chiang's roommate, an even tinier Chinese girl, was bowing him into her home. "She's almost ready, sir," she said in her musical accent — so much like Mei-Chiang's — and gestured toward a futon couch. "Please have a seat. May I bring you some tea?"
"No, thank you," Sam said kindly. He blinked and looked at the young woman again. "Aren't you Cody Tyler's new secretary?"
The pretty face broke into a shy smile. "I'm honored that he is testing out my abilities, yes," she said softly.
"If you're half as good as Mei-Chiang, I'm sure Tyler will be more than satisfied with you," Sam told her with a smile. "I heard him bragging today about having had the luck to find the one other GOOD secretary at the Centre."
Xing-Li smiled widely at the second-hand praise, her smile politely hidden behind a cupped hand to her face. "I shall try to fulfill his expectations, sir."
"I'm sure you wi…" Sam's reassurance broke off the moment he caught sight of Mei-Chiang. She had set aside her meager Western wardrobe and pulled out her simplest and most elegant cheongsam of the finest cobalt blue silk brocade. "Oh, my!" he breathed, barely able to believe that this lovely creature had agreed to go out to dinner with him.
Mei-Chiang smoothed her hands down the front of her cheongsam nervously. "I hope this is appropriate," she said in a soft and hesitant voice. "I have never been to Dover…"
"That is definitely more than appropriate," Sam nodded, starting to feel that HE was the one underdressed. "I'm parked just outside…"
"I don't know when I'll be back," Mei-Chiang told her roommate in rapid-fire Cantonese. "Don't wait up for me. Just don't use the security chain when you lock up."
"Enjoy your time, Older Sister," Xing-Li replied in the same language. "Are you sure you're not afraid of this big American?"
Mei-Chiang looked into Sam's blue eyes and shook her head. "I think I'll be safer with him than I would be with almost anybody else," she said, then let her tall and imposing date capture a hand and nestle it into his arm.
"Ready?"
"Yes!" Most definitely, on this day above all, she was ready for something new and exciting — including getting to know this gentle giant better.
Discussion around the dining table had been thin — Deb had grown quiet and introspective since her return from visiting her father, Miss Parker seemed tired from her first day back at work, and Kevin was still very uncomfortable with Deb's reticence. A break had come when Mr. Ikeda had knocked and been allowed into the house, a break that Kevin immediately took advantage of. He cornered his sensei and convinced the man to come out to the backyard with him to work once more on the complicated kata exercise he was learning.
Davy, still intrigued and interested in seeing just exactly what his friend was learning about, followed the two out into the back. Ikeda bowed to the young son of his new employer and began running over details that he'd explained to Kevin days before. The young man could always use a refresher, and it appeared after not very long a time that he had gained another student. And when told that what he would be learning was called Ninjitsu — or the Art of the Ninja — Davy's enthusiastic response had been "Cool!" and an immediate tight concentration on the beginning moves of the kata as taught by a real teacher.
Miss Parker and Sydney sat at the kitchen table after the meal, watching the goings on in the back yard while Deb made quick work of cleaning up after the meal and then retired to her room. Sydney nursed his mug of root beer carefully, taking occasional glances at his foster daughter. He knew very well what she was working up the nerve to talk about, and he decided the time had come to just have the discussion over and done with.
"About three years ago," he began in simple narration, "Davy came over to visit me one weekend. He needed to talk to somebody, and he was afraid to talk to you."
"Afraid of me?" That took Miss Parker aback. "For God's sake, why?"
"Because things at school were spinning out of control for him. He was being pushed around by a schoolyard bully…"
"I wouldn't have been angry about that…" she interrupted defensively.
"And he was bored, Parker. He learned far faster than the other kids in his class, and he'd gotten a progress report from his teacher that he was afraid to show you. He was failing — failing because he already knew what he was being taught and no longer had the patience to pay attention in class." Sydney's face grew soft with recollection. "He was so afraid of disappointing you because he knew that YOU knew he could do better."
"And you didn't tell me?" Her voice grew slightly accusing.
"He made me promise to tell you nothing," Sydney said simply. "But what disturbed me more than anything else was the burden of anger that he was starting to carry around with him. He was furious with the harassment he was being put through — the humiliation of being laughed at by kids who didn't understand the concept of walking away from fights…"
"I taught him to never start a fight," she remembered with a hard swallow, "that to be drawn into a fight was a sign of failure."
"Admirable goals in an ideal situation, Parker, but very difficult for a small boy under tremendous stress. The fact is that he was a little nuclear bomb ticking away, ready to explode when he hit his final straw. That's the day we started the mind games. I sat him down and had him help me think through all of the possible alternatives that he could use to address his situation, and then think through the responses of the others. We spent the entire day in 'what if' scenarios — about the bullying, about the humiliation, and about the schoolwork."
"There's nothing wrong with that," Miss Parker said, some of her dismay addressed by the truth of the matter. "I just wish you had told me SOMEthing after a while…"
"A promise is a promise, Parker. I don't make any of mine lightly." The chestnut eyes sought her grey ones. "Whether to a child, or to an adult on the verge of pretending to commit suicide, my word is my bond. Knowing this discussion was coming, I had to warn Davy today."
She flinched. "Point taken," she allowed begrudgingly. "But from the sounds of things, that wasn't the end of it."
Sydney sighed. "It wasn't. School soon became a part of the mind games, because keeping his grades up within the school learning structure was important to maintaining the idea that he was just a normal kid. But he was back talking to me a couple of weeks later about how he was still having trouble keeping himself LOOKING like he was paying attention. That day, we played a new set of games, using the information he was supposed to be learning in school and taking the level of understanding up a notch or two — whatever he could handle. We went through his reading, and I gave him the challenge to not only understand the readings, but to go to the school library and bring me additional information on the same subject. In mathematics, I brought out word problems that addressed the concepts he was learning at a much more advanced level. Our 'what ifs' that day were about alternatives on how to keep ahead of his studies just enough that he could start dreaming up his own word problems, or write essays telling me all about the extra information he was finding."
"You kept him from letting his studies get boring," Miss Parker nodded. Again she understood exactly what he'd done and why. "I still don't see…"
"This went on for about a year and a half," Sydney continued as if telling her a bedtime story. "But one day, he brought me a problem that had played itself out in front of him involved two other children at school — and the consequences had bothered him greatly. So I led him through a simplified exercise where he identified all the pertinent emotional and psychological factors in the situation, developed a set of alternative scenarios to resolve the situation, and then thought through each of those scenarios one at a time. Once we had discovered what would have been the best alternative, we went back over the reality of the situation and discussed where the mistakes had been made that had led to one child breaking an arm and another being suspended from school."
Miss Parker was staring at him. One part of her could understand precisely what he was doing and why — her son WAS intelligent, after all and had asked for the help. But the other side of her, the side the Centre had trained, could see the pattern developing. "You made him SIM out the situation."
Sydney nodded. "When we were done, he felt much better about the whole thing because he understood the mechanics of the situation from the inside out. About two weeks later, he brought me a scenario he'd seen in a TV program — and we worked through it using the same basic techniques." His chestnut eyes watched her closely. "As time went by, the scenarios he'd bring to me grew more complex, and the technique we used to work them through became more complex as well. By this time he was reading far ahead of his grade level, and absorbing just about everything he read like a sponge."
"Please don't tell me you tested him as a Pretender, Syd," Miss Parker pleaded with her foster father.
"I never formally tested him, no. I would never do that — not to my own grandson!" Sydney shook his head vehemently. "All it would take would be one word of such results in the wrong ears, and Lyle or Raines would have gladly put us all in our graves to bring Davy back into captivity in the Centre."
"But still, you trained him…" She glared at him.
The psychiatrist shook his head. "By then, Davy was enjoying the challenges — he came to me often, asking for more. I tried to tell him that you wouldn't appreciate it, but I could see that he was far more intelligent than any of us had wanted to consider and that his intelligence was just starting to assert itself. And I didn't need to teach him to Pretend, Parker. He was already Pretending every day he went to his elementary school and brought you home glowing report cards. Academically, he's been doing high school level work for nearly six months now. But emotionally, he's still very much an eight year old. By Pretending to be a regular kid with the obstacle of academic boredom removed, he's been progressing emotionally at a very healthy rate toward being a well-adjusted and happy individual."
"And that's how he knew what to do to get them free and rescued." Miss Parker leaned her chin into her hand. "He'd been working problem situations for months, maybe years."
"He'd been taught to think them through, yes. But this was the first time he was in a position where he'd had to act on his 'what if' himself since those first few." Sydney could see she was working at trying to understand him. "Parker, when I found out whose child Davy really was, I stopped being surprised at his abilities. He's the son of a documented genius and a mother whose intelligence also pushes envelopes. He comes by his skill naturally."
She put up her second hand and rested her face between her hands, looking at her foster father. "You have to realize that one side of me is just furious with you for training my son — your grandson — to be a Pretender. You took a big chance, Sydney, with his life."
"Parker…"
"Let me finish," she said, moving one hand to put up a single restraining finger. "But the other side of me is so damned grateful that you helped smooth Davy's life — made it so that he COULD become part of the crowd and not stand out and draw Raines' or Lyle's attention to him. And, I know, the training you gave him eventually saved his life and Deb's." She put her face back between her two hands. "I just don't know how I should feel right now."
Sydney reached out and put a hand on one elbow as it rested on the table. "Listen to me. I love Davy more than I love life itself. I love YOU more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I did what I did because I thought it was the best for Davy and you at the time. I never had anything BUT Davy's best interests at heart. You HAVE to know this."
"I do know it," she said softly. "That's why I'm finding it so hard to just blow up at you — you were using all the skills you had to help my son when he needed the help. I guess…" she paused, "I'm incredibly disappointed that neither of you felt you could trust me."
Sydney's chestnut gaze was sad. "I'd have told you a long time ago — but I seriously doubt you would have been able to see both sides of it like you do now. And I had given my word to Davy."
Miss Parker's eyes flitted to the backyard and the trio standing on the grass and moving slowly and steadily through the dance-like exercise, and then came back to rest on Sydney's face. "There aren't any MORE secrets that I might trip over unexpectedly some day, are there?"
Sydney shook his head. "I swear to you there's nothing else." He watched her process the information. "The big question is whether or not you'll let Davy continue if he wants to." Her eyes came up to meet his. "He's been the impetus behind the training for quite a while now — he thrives on the extra information. He may not be very happy if you decide to pull the plug on this…"
She sighed. "Just promise me you won't seek him out," she said finally with a piercing look. "If he comes to you, that's fine. But don't train him if he doesn't ask for it."
Sydney sighed and nodded. "I can live with that, and I think Davy can too. I promise I'll wait to be asked."
"Then thank you for giving my son the skills that save his life," she said finally. "And thank you for your promise not to push."
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Parker — I hope you know that…"
She patted his hand on her elbow. "I do know it, Sydney. It doesn't help much right now, but I do know it."
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