Interlude time. Dun dun duuuun... Summer semester finally over, whew! I'll see about updating more frequently before classes start up again in August.

Thanks to DalamarF16 for the encouraging review. And thank you to all who are following this story. I will say that all you guys encourage me to stick to this story!

"There's only one slight difference between/ Me and my epic brethren gone before./ And here the advantage is my own."–Lord Byron, "Don Juan"

It hadn't been an ordinary drug overdose. Vosen reads through the chemical listing—no it's not familiar, but he can tell it isn't a simple mixture either. Eric wouldn't be the type to take drugs, it had been enough watching all the program participants downing the pills. It was curious that both the DNA samples taken off Eric were both woman, meaning that one or both could have poisoned him. And who had they been working for? More questions arise from the answers as Vosen tries to piece together Eric's final hours. By the state of the assassins left behind, someone experienced was behind this—his suspicion instantly goes to rival organizations, CIA intruders or defective participants… Bourne. Whenever something like this arises, he instantly thinks of Bourne. Jason Bourne started the rebellion.

Dita had been in the sidelines since the program began, always one step after Eric, would she have killed him to take his place after they'd pursued an affair together? He had never presumed anything about his assistant's personal life. It hadn't been his way after all; employees knew better than to come to work with their private lives and morals in tow… it had been Eric after all who'd coined the term "sin eaters", not that Vosen had always agreed with it. He sat back in his chair, setting down the report to take off his glasses and wipe a speck of dust away.

Back in the early stages of the program, he'd been here. Right here.

It had been one thing to hand blue chems to outcomes one through four, who'd already had average intelligence levels; those findings hadn't been the ones Vosen had been waiting for. At the start of the program, he'd imagined the intelligence-increasing pills for another set of participants. Outcome Five was the first real test subject.

"Two weeks on the chems and we're already seeing a one point nine percent increase in his response and brain functioning. Long term, the results would be…"

"Above average intelligence," Vosen looked up from the report to Eric, noticing his furrowed brow. "This was how I'd planned the program—to take those small sampling of unremarkable people and give them a new chance. You don't agree?"

"You know the mess we had with Bourne."

"That was memory wiping, not intelligence."

"Exactly my point. We take this "small sampling of unremarkable people" as you call them, boost their IQ and then we deal with those agents turning against us?"

"Don't forget who's running this program, Eric," he said warningly. Skepticism from the deputy director of Outcome wasn't enough to dissuade him from continuing the program he'd been mapping out for twenty years when he finally had the perfect test subject. "If this works, we'll have the CIA begging for our agents."

Eric didn't bother trying to hide his scoff of distain. "This could all go south on us. And why this one?" He jabbed a finger at the open file. "What's so special about him?"

"I have my reasons. When I saw this soldier, I saw untapped potential." He glances at the picture again—the rounded, boyish face, storm-grey eyes full of doubt and tension. After intensive training, he'd be faster, stronger and smarter than anyone else would think possible. It's true he could've taken any of a dozen people, but he'd had Kenneth Kitsom in mind from the beginning.

All the advancements had started from that one participant. When intelligence could be increased and success proven, then other behaviors could be altered, like obedience and program commitment the LARX agents were known for.

If he'd known, would he still have left? If he'd had understood the impact he'd made, would he try to destroy the organization all the harder? But it couldn't be stopped now. With the data Vosen had taken from the past programs—the strengths and weaknesses of each—the superior line of agents were yet to be made. There was only this mess of Eric's death to clear up first and after some searching in the organization files, he found the name he wanted.

"If you thought you could murder the director of Outcome and get away with it, what will you do when the entire city is looking for you. Clearly we were wrong to trust you." One more fugitive for the public to find for him, one more accomplice of Bourne's to be destroyed.

"The question now is where to pick up where you left off, Eric," murmured Vosen, scanning through some recent program files where Bourne is mentioned. He might've humiliated the CIA, but he wasn't the main target now. "I only ever had this organization in mind, while it seems you were the one to stray from our final objective." He pulls up a new file and studies the new participant profile photo. The agent's eyes are no longer full of doubt and conflict, but rather hard with purpose…and defiance.

"As I understand it, you consider yourself the director of the program with Eric Byer dead." Siobhan Kane didn't waste a single word when she entered the apartment. She paced a single perimeter around the main room, taking in Parsons, the files from Outcome that were spread across the table and stopping in front of Mandy. "If you thought I was walking into this blind."

"There are two dangerous fugitive agents out there. I was in direct contact with Byer up until his death and I can assure you I know the situation better than you do." She met Kane's stare, knowing that the agent was likely filing every bit of information away to tell her father later. "His priority was these agents. How do you think he died—or didn't you know that already?"

Kane folded her arms. "I was monitoring the situation including your lack to get anything done. My last count was five agents down, was that right?"

She'd had the suspicion this wouldn't play out well, but it was her final chance. "If you've been watching the situation, you know the risks and what these agents are capable of."

"It's a shame Byer had to die for you both to finally figure that out." Kane adds in a lowered voice, "he was a family friend."

"I tried to warn him," Mandy muttered. "He was obsessed."

And how much was she falling into his own mistakes when she saw an opportunity and seized it without fully understanding what she was involving herself with. Like Treadstone taking a soldier, wiping his memories and enlisting him in a program against his will. This agent might be LARX, a more reliable programming, but she's still a program participant.

"The last female operative compromised herself through forbidden emotions" she can't resist just a small reminder where Kane's place is in the scheme of things. "How do I know you won't fall in the same traps she did?"

Kane takes a seat at the table, shifting through the files. She pulls one to the front, opening it to skim as she tugs back her blonde hair carelessly to keep it out of her face while she's focused on the information in front of her. "I hope you aren't suggesting that all female operatives will be in danger of similar compromise. After all, the more you try to discourage something in program participants—especially in Outcome agents who already are crippled by their emotions—the more likely the situation you try to avoid will happen." This time she faces Mandy. "LARX 2 used to be an Outcome agent. I've been LARX all my life."

Mandy cast a quick glance at Parsons who was watching Kane closely. Her silence only reminding Mandy that Parsons conversion to LARX was still unstable and near to being broken if one more thing went wrong. "The longer this situation progresses with the fugitive agents, the closer it's getting to it destroying everything we've worked for the past thirty years."

"Is that a resignation from your self-promotion as director?"

Mandy barely resisted the urge to shoot back a very unprofessional comment, but she forced herself to remain impassive.

"Here's my offer." She closed the file she was reading. "I can smooth things over for you with the director, but you'll stop playing by your own rules and follow those of the official director. Agreed?"

Her only response was a brief, stiff nod. The resentment she forced down to simmer hungrily in the pit of her stomach.

Kane smiled— if the slightest curve of one side of her lips could be considered a smile. "I'll let him know."