AN: Thank you all for your patience while I've been working out the kinks in this trip. Happy reading.

Wondergirl: I must admit- I do, do it on purpose! My hope is to keep you off guard so that the story is never predictable. ;) Thank you for your kind words- only the best for my readers.

LJP: I'm sorry you're so lost; I hope I can offer some clarification on certain areas: 1) Most of the questions you have can be answered in Tourniquet. The Director really isn't new. She is actually a character from the series of whom little is known; she is mentioned in the first season. We saw more of her in Tourniquet: In Chapter 9, the Director instructs the Sentients (Black Coats) to find Mia and perform a Selective Recollection Deletion to remove memories of Lyle from her consciousness. In that same chapter Lyle discovers that the Sentients answer only to the Director. In Chapter 10, Mr. Parker and Raines face the Director at her undisclosed headquarters. In Chapter 22, Puccini reveals to Lyle and Mia the nature of Project Heptagon and their subjection to the project and that the Director was the one who commissioned Project Dominatus. 2) As for Lyle and his relationship with Parker, it has been very slowly changing since the events of Tourniquet and it will continue to evolve; just don't expect them to attend any twin conventions together. No trips to the Renewal Wing for Lyle… yet. His problems are a direct result of Project Heptagon as is his connection to Mia. 3) Jarod and the City: his accidental detour to New York was really just a reminder that the great Pretender is also human and no one can be on their guard 24/7. Plus, as we'll see in this chapter, it works out to his advantage. I hope that helps some. If you haven't read Tourniquet yet, it might help alleviate some of your confusion! Thanks for keeping me on my toes- I love it!

Gemini: As always, you're reviews are so encouraging. Thanks.

Phi4858: Ah, you're thinking in the right direction. Brigitte hasn't had the baby yet so… Baby Parker could very well be the intended victim. We'll have to see. But you are definitely on the right track! Oh, and thank you for making me your first signed (with working email addy) review. I feel special. 

Imag1ne: You haven't missed anything! I just threw in that little teaser to keep you guessing. You know how I love my cliffhangers! ;)

This chapter occurs prior to the episode "Til Death Do Us Part."

Chapter 5: The Shape of Things

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces." – Sigmund Freud

Kip twisted his napkin in his hand until it shredded in corkscrew ribbons. Jarod's piercing gaze unnerved him inestimably. They were seated at a table in the Lemon Grass Grill amidst jungle-themed décor. After a light a meal, which Kip couldn't force himself to eat, they got down to the business at hand.

"Let me go over this once more," Jarod said, furrowed his brow. "I want to make sure I have the details right. You say that your girlfriend was supposed to meet you for lunch, but didn't show until three hours later and couldn't remember anything."

"Right," Kip downed the largest gulp of water he could muster. "I don't know what could have happened to her. She wouldn't, or couldn't, say."

"How long have you been dating?"

"Uh," Kip was momentarily stumped. "About almost three weeks." He reasoned that a shorter period of dating would explain why he knew so very little about her.

"Okay." Jarod drew in a deep breath. So far Kip had provided him with such minimal information about her, aside from a vivid description, that even he wasn't sure he could do anything with it.

"I'm sorry I can't give you much else to go on," Kip lamented. "I guess I shoulda gotten to know her better."

Jarod nodded sympathetically. He could understand that a young man smitten by a beautiful girl might tend to be occupied with other things than her last name, still… Something was amiss but the Pretender could quite put his finger on what it was. He sighed.

"How do you spell her name?" he asked, tapping a pen against the description he written down on a napkin.

"S-I-E-R-R-A." Kip's heart skipped a beat as the fib slipped out. He wasn't quite sure why he was withholding Amelia's real name from Jarod; even in his infatuation-clouded mind it made no logical sense.

"Do you know where she's from?"

"Brooklyn."

Jarod looked up with a bit of a smirk. "You sure about that?"

Kip shrugged sheepishly. "Pretty sure." In truth, he had no idea.

"Can you tell me what the man who took her looked like?"

As Kip depicted the man with his imaginative and dramatic description, Jarod's smirk dissolved into a frown. Yet if he had any inkling as to who the man might be, he did not share it with the boy.

After a long pause of silence, Jarod leaned forward, intently looking at Kip. "Honestly, Kip," he said, sounding apologetic, "It's going to be tough- I really don't have anything to follow here. I'll pull some strings to see if I can find anything out, but…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Kip stood with Jarod, picking up the check as he did so, but the Pretender took it from him. "I mean, it may be nothing anyway, but I have to be sure."

"Absolutely," Jarod agreed. "Better safe than sorry."

"Thanks, you know, for helping a nobody like me." Kip felt immensely guilty about lying- Jarod seemed like a decent guy. However, it was too late to change what had already been done- if he confessed then his new friend would most certainly abandon him.

"Everybody is somebody," he replied with a slight smile. "I'll be in touch."

He started to walk away but stopped and looked back over his shoulder with a serious expression. "Are you sure you've told me everything?"

"Everything," Kip confirmed trying to sound fervent. He worried that Jarod's penetrating gaze might somehow detected his lying. As soon as the Pretender was gone, Kip sunk back into his chair. A cold sweat broke out over his face.

He had told him everything, that is, except the number that she dropped and the office it was for.

The Centre halls were quiet as Broots made his way down them at a quick pace. Abruptly, he stopped dead, turned on his heel, and made his back in the direction he had come from. With his nose buried in the document he held in his hands, he rounded a corner and slammed into a wall that had not previously been there. Papers flew everywhere.

Reeling slightly from the impact, Broots attempted to collect himself and his papers before investigating the new wall. Upon study, the new wall, it turned out, wore shoes and dressed like a sweeper.

"Oh," Broots uttered weakly, his face flushing in embarrassment. "Oh, sorry, Willie, I didn't see you there."

Willie, Raines' right hand man, folded his arms over his chest and frowned. Behind him the door to the computer lab opened. All color fled the technician's features.

"Hello, Mr. Broots," Cox flashed a toothy smile at the man. "Looking for something… again?"

"N-no," Broots tried not to swallow his tongue as he replied. "I just came to check s-something."

"Well, you'll just have to do it elsewhere, Mr. Broots. This lab is off-limits indefinitely."

"O-okay," Broots sighed and withdrew from the hallway. "In that case."

Feeling queasy as he always did after a run-in with the ultra creepy Cox, Broots headed off to find Sydney when another sweeper swept passed him, nearly knocking him off his feet. Once more, Broots found himself collecting his papers. As he reached around the corner for the last page, he glimpsed the new sweeper talking to Willie.

"… Cox is searching for… the files regarding MELPOMENE and ARES…"

Broots froze. ARES? Melpomene? "Oh, I've gotta find Miss Parker!" he exclaimed to himself. Shoving the last of the papers under his arms, Broots took off at full speed.

"Think. Just think about it." Lyle paced the floor at a furious rate. His uncharacteristically disheveled appearance underscored his high level of anxiety. "You got back forty-five minutes ago after being gone for three hours. Forty-five minutes ago, Amelia! You have to known where you've been!"

"Don't you think I know that?" The redhead stood with her back against the living room wall. She pulled her long front locks down in front of her face as though to shield herself from the verbal onslaught- one he had been hurling at her for the past fifteen minutes.

He turned on her suddenly, livid as he advanced. "What happened in those three hours!"

"Stop yelling at me!" she hollered back at him. "It's not helping me remember anything!"

"Then tell me where you've been!" He made no effort to tone down his demands, despite his voice going hoarse due to the constant screaming.

She opened her mouth to retort, but no sound came out. Instead, she pursed her mouth together in a tight line, glaring at him from beneath furrowed brows. He instantly realized his poor choice in tactics when she stormed out of the room. A moment later he heard a door slam.

"Amelia!" He rolled his eyes skyward and followed the path his wife had taken. The path ended behind a closed bedroom door. "Amelia…" there was a plaintive note to his tone as he jiggling the doorknob. It was locked.

"Mia, come on." He placed his left hand against the door and rubbed his smarting eyes with his right.

The door stared back at him mutely.

"Look," he tried a different tactic, "Mia, unlock the door. I won't yell at you anymore."

There was only silence in response to his request. He stood there for a long while feeling utterly foolish for being locked out of his own bedroom before finally turning away.

"Promise?" Her soft voice drifted faintly from the other side of the door.

He walked back to the door. "Promise what?"

He heard her exasperated sigh and a noise near the door. "That you won't yell at me anymore."

"Oh, that," he muttered. Louder he said, "Yeah, okay, I promise. Open the door."

"Open the door what?"

He gritted his teeth. "Open the door now." He found it difficult to refrain from just breaking down the door and pulling her out.

"Open the door what?"

"Open the door," He was about to yell at her again for testing his patience when it dawned on him what the 'what' was. And it forced him to swallow his pride temporarily. "Open the door, please."

The lock clicked, allowing him entrance to the room. She was standing in at the foot of the bed, looking ridiculous in a plaid button-down shirt of his. He swept a critical gaze over her, noting with annoyance how wrinkled his shirt was and how cock-eyed the collar was lying. Even more annoying was the doe-eyed expression she regarded him with.

"I really don't remember what happened, Bobby," she said sinking down onto the bed. "If I did I'd tell you."

"Okay, fine." Lyle settled next to her with a deflated sigh. "Tell me what you do remember."

Folding her hands in her lap, she frowned slightly. "I remember large gray doors and opened into a huge room. The man named Cox and two other men were there. Mr. Cox had me sit in a chair in the center of the room." She paused as her frown grew. "I remember hearing a squeaking noise behind me… then nothing." She shrugged. "I'm sorry. But that's all I know."

Lyle nodded morosely and lightly touched her hand. They sat in silence for a time before Amelia spoke again.

"Have you taken an injection lately?"

He stared hard at her. "What?"

She looked startled, upset even. "I don't know."

"What about the injection?" Anxiousness mixed with hope came escaped in the words as he thought they might have reached a breakthrough. "Why do you want to know if I've taken an injection lately?"

"I don't know," she said, at a loss for words. There was nothing solid behind the query; no images to support a reason for asking such a thing- she just instinctively knew. "I don't know… It just came to me. Am I wrong?"

His face fell. "No, no, you're not wrong."

"I'm…" A ringing phone cut her off.

Lyle swore as he went to answer it. "What?" he snapped irritably into the receiver.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Lyle, but…"

Lucy? What the-

Lyle glanced over his shoulder at Amelia who was now lying on the bed with her eyes closed. "I thought I told you never to call me hear," he hissed in a hushed tone.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lyle," she sounded truly sorry, "But this is very important."

"What is it!"

"There has been a very persistent young man calling all morning for you."

Lyle frowned. "So?"

"So, he's been calling about an Amelia. He says another man been asking for a woman that looks just like her."

His blood ran cold at this news. A thousand thoughts flooded his mind. "What man?"

"He says the man is her fiancée."

Anger flooded his system, taking over his mental processes. "Did he leave a number?"

"Yes, sir."

He leaned over the side of the bed, taking a possessive hold on a handful of her amber locks.

"Give me the number, Lucy."

Lucy gave him the digits, inadvertently helping to put into a motion a dark plan to eliminate the competition for Amelia.

Jarod was not happy. In fact, he was angry and getting angrier with each passing moment.

Sitting in a park bench beside him was Sierra- the real Sierra. After making no progress in the search for Kip's missing girlfriend and finding a myriad of details that didn't make sense, Jarod had gone back to the scène of the alleged crime. His intent was to question Kip further about the inaccuracies of his tale and, since he was not answering his phone, went to the vending cart to speak to him. However, only Anthony and Sierra were working- neither had seen Kip all day. An aggravated Sierra was all too eager to tell him about Kip's obsession with Amelia and his quest to find her regardless of logic or reality and seemed genuinely shocked to learn that Kip had lied to Jarod; it was very un-Kip like.

"Are you positive that he wasn't dating anyone?"

Sierra nodded assuredly. "Positive," she confirmed, the added regretfully, "Believe me, I'd know."

Jarod asked to replay the scene in detail, including everything she could possibly remember, even facts that seemed inconsequential. He found that the entire scenario had been witnessed by a multitude of people- yet another fact Kip had fudged on; the boy claimed only a few uninterested people saw the exchange. When Sierra described the object of Kip's obsession, a frown came over Jarod's features and Sierra notice a change in his demeanor. The worry on his countenance became stronger when she described Amelia's husband.

"This girl," he said slowly as though taking the utmost care in choosing his words "was her last name Micelli?"

Sierra shrugged and tossed a lock of hair over her shoulder. "I don't know. I never heard a last name given. Why? Do you know her?"

Jarod's grimace deepened. "Possibly."

"Small world," she commented lamely, but he didn't seem to hear her.

"The man," Jarod wanted to know. He turned a staid gaze on her. "Was his name Mr. Lyle by any chance?"

"He never gave a name, not even when Kip asked for it."

"Did you happen to see his left hand?"

"N-no." Sierra was upset now, wondering what it was that had Jarod so distressed. "He kept his hand in his pocket."

Jarod withheld a sigh as he tried to figure out how a trio of college kids got caught up in Centre intrigue. As angry as he was with Kip for lying, he knew he had to stop him from foolishly pursuing the matter.

"So," Sierra blurted suddenly, bothered by the silence, "You know these people? Is he really her husband? Kip doesn't believe it, though he has no reason not to."

Jarod gave her a half-shrug. "I don't know about that, Sierra, but I do know that Kip needs to stay away from them."

"Good," she sighed with relief. "Please tell Kip that- I'm sick to death of hearing about Amelia."

"Where's Kip now?"

"Who knows? He's probably on the phone calling that number Amelia dropped."

Jarod looked up sharply. "What number?"

"And then Mr. Cox came out and-"

"Broots!" Miss Parker whirled on him. "Stop babbling about Cox. I don't want to hear about it."

"Sorry, Miss Parker." Broots gave her a wan smile before submerging himself in sorting the mess of papers piled in front of him.

There was a long bout of silence.

"Are you going to tell me what you found out on Jarod or do I have to wait until you finish your paper sorting?"

Broots gulped and dropped the disheveled documents immediately. "S-sorry, Miss Parker." Pushing his chair away from the table so not to be tempted to cataloging the papers again. "I really haven't found much on Jarod."

"Have you found anything at all?" Parker regarded him through narrowed eyes.

Broots bit his bottom lip thoughtfully. "Well, I did find that a Jarod Delta purchased a ticket for a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, but there's no record that he ever got on the flight."

"So he's not on the passenger manifest," she folded her arms across her waist, tapping the heel of her Prada against the tile floor. "That means what exactly?"

"Probably nothing," Broots wheeled his chair over to the computer and logged on. "I mean he could have found a way around that. However, he hasn't surfaced in Charlotte yet, either, and the ticket was purchased two days ago." At the exasperated look on his boss's face, he quickly added, "Of course, he could just be lying low."

"Search," she snapped. "Everywhere. Then search again. I want a flight to North Carolina on alert around the clock so that the second he does come up to breath, we'll be there. And get Sydney."

"Yes, Miss Parker." Broots was about to bury his nose in his work when he spun around suddenly. "Oh! Miss Parker!"

Parker shot him a withering look. "What?"

"What I was going to tell about running into Mr. Cox was that afterwards, I overheard a sweeper tell Willie something about Mr. Cox looking for files on Melpomene and ARES."

"And?"

"And that's all."

"Hmm." Parker seemed to chew on the new information for a moment. "Broots?"

He glanced up at her hopefully. "When you get finished here, I want those files before Cox gets them."

Broots sighed and nodded his acquiesce.

Kip was pacing the area round the coffee table in living room of campus suite he shared with four other guys. Every few minutes he wiped the sweaty palms of his hands on the thigh of his jeans. Every whisper of a sound in the empty house made him tense. The source of his fear was two-fold: 1) he was anticipating the call from a Mr. Lyle, who's secretary promised he would hear from her boss and 2) he was overwhelmed by the guilt caused by his lying to Jarod. His anxiety had elevated to nausea.

Ding- dong.

Kip nearly had an accident and a coronary when the doorbell rang. The bell continued to chime as he tried to recover. Finally, with one last deep breath, Kip wobbled weak kneed over to the front door and unlocked.

He was surprised to see Jarod standing on the stoop. His surprised turned to dismay when he saw the look on the man's face.

He knows! He knows I lied! I'm dead…

Kip saw his short life flash before his eyes and realized that it may not have been prudent to trust a stranger so extensively.