Chapter Seven

The Dean stepped just inside the doorway and stared coldly at Jaime. His eyes were hard, cruel and as different from the eyes of the 'family friend' she'd known since childhood as they could possibly get.

"You set me up," she said softly, while her mind scrambled to come up with a new plan of action.

"You always were a smart girl," Branson countered. He pulled a pistol from his suit jacket and leveled it at Jaime.

"You know her, Boss?" someone asked.

"We all do. She's James Sommers' daughter." His eyes never left Jaime, even as he cocked the gun. "Now that she's found us, she'll have to meet the same fate he did."

"She's just a kid!"

Jaime struggled with her conflicting emotions. "You...killed them."

"Well, I can't personally take credit, but it was unavoidable. You've succeeded in making your own death equally inevitable, my dear."

Jaime turned away from him, toward Oz and the door that opened into the next room. Oz pulled and aimed his own gun, sneering at her. "Did you see the door?" Oz marveled to his boss.

Branson looked briefly at the entryway. "What door?"

"Exactly. This little bitty girl did that."

"Did she? Perhaps my old friend's daughter and I need a bit of 'catching-up' time...before I kill her." He grabbed Jaime's left arm, his fingers digging deeply into her flesh and his gun pressing firmly into the small of her back as he shoved her toward the other side of the room. "We're going back there, to the office," he told her, pulling her with one hand and pushing her with the gun. "Wave goodbye to your new friends here, because I really don't think you'll be coming back out."

- - - - - -

"Do you have the address?" Steve asked anxiously.

"They're in Virginia, about five miles south of Bowling Green – two blocks from the Dean's office," Oscar told him, thankful for the cooperation of a very frightened receptionist.

"We'll never make it in time!"

"I've already got our teams and the Virginia State Police headed that way, and we're taking the Medivac; be there in less than 15 minutes. Let's go."

Jack stood up as well. "I'm coming with you. I'll help in any way I can."

Fifteen minutes...Jaime's gonna need more than a Medivac, Steve thought, following Oscar and Jack out the door.

- - - - - -

The Dean forced Jaime into a chair and then sat down across from her, his gun still raised and threatening. "I got a phone call, right before coming over here to meet you. Guess who it was from?" Jaime stared at him mutely. "Oscar Goldman; he was oh-so-worried about the daughter of his deceased operative and her also-deceased husband. Seems the poor, little orphan heard something that upset her and took off, all by herself without saying 'boo' to anyone first."

Even though the word 'orphan' cut Jaime to the core – always had – and she was shocked that Oscar was already trying to find her, she kept her face neutrally blank and her voice silent. Branson shook his head. "You didn't just knock down that door – you annihilated it, and you've got Oscar Goldman looking for you. You're not just the daughter of an operative, are you?"

Jaime was waiting for the right moment, and realized she'd better find one soon. The Dean pulled his chair closer and gave her a look that was almost a leer. "You must work for good old Oscar yourself. I doubt he'd be this worried about the mere daughter of someone who's been dead ten years."

"Someone who was your friend...someone you killed," Jaime said.

"That's old news, ancient history -"

"Not to me," she insisted stubbornly, trying to ignore the gun.

"How did you destroy the door, my dear? Judo kick? Karate? Bionics? I'll bet that's it. I met Rudy Wells back when creating cyborgs was just an idea in his head. Those gorgeous legs of yours aren't really flesh and blood, are they? I think we should find out." He turned and opened a drawer in the little table behind him. When Jaime saw that he was grabbing a knife, she knew this was the moment she had to act. The gun was still pointed at her, but Branson's attention, for a split second, was diverted.

Jaime reached over and grabbed the gun by its barrel, twisting it into a pretzel before the Dean had time to react, then, as he spun around to face her, she planted her foot squarely in the center of his chest and sent him (along with his chair) crashing to the floor. Not allowing him to regain his senses, Jaime lifted him up by the front of his shirt and punched him in the stomach. "That's for my parents," she told him, then slapped him hard (but not bionically) across the face. "And that's for me," she said, exorcising her demons and rendering him unconscious at the same time.

"Very impressive," Oz said from the office doorway. "Must've forgotten there are seven of us between you and the outside world, though."

Gut instinct told Jaime that this was the man she'd been looking for – the one who'd killed her parents – and she knew if she hit him, he'd be dead. She was far too angry to let him off that easily. Instead, she locked her eyes into his and slowly walked straight toward him, staring at him instead of his gun and stunning him with her apparent lack of fear.

"Are you crazy?" he snarled. "Do you want me to shoot you?"

Jaime was undeterred. "Do you know how old I was when you made me an orphan?" She advanced toward him very slowly, her eyes boring into his. "Sixteen. I was a sixteen-year-old kid, and thanks to you I was all alone in the world! Do you know what that did for me, though?" They were nearly toe-to-toe now, and the gun was pointed directly between her eyes. "I learned to fend for myself at a very early age." Very calmly, she wrapped her left hand around the barrel, and his shock allowed her to reposition it to point toward the ceiling. He attempted to bring it back down, but she caught his arm with her right hand and held it straight up and motionless as he pulled the trigger. The bullet tore into the ceiling, and Jaime tightened her grip. "I'll break your arm, if you make me," she stated in a matter-of-fact voice. "Drop the gun - now."

With her now-free left hand, she reached into her pocket and removed the pretzel-gun, holding it up where he could see it. "This used to be your boss's gun. Now, you have two choices: I can do this to your weapon...or to you. What'll it be?" Wordlessly, he released the weapon. "Wise choice. Now, get on the floor and don't move." As her parents' murderer obediently hit the ground, Jaime looked up at the half-dozen wide-eyed men in the next room. "Who's next?" she asked.

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