A/N: A few bits and pieces of actual biology and technology were researched and referenced; but mostly, the science fiction elements of this story are very much the figment of my imagination and creative license. Please enjoy accordingly.

#*#*#*#*#

It was amazing, really, what could be accomplished with binary code and satellite signal. Garrison marveled . . . it seemed more magic than science, even to him, one of the foremost experts in the field. The idea that information and instructions could manipulate data and machines, of course, was nothing new . . . but integrate it with a human nervous system, and the possibilities were . . . endless.

He smiled to himself as his fingers flew over the keyboard, typing in line after line of code that transmitted images of Steve McGarrett directly into the lateral geniculate nucleus. He had so many images from which to choose . . . these images, of him undercover . . . these would do nicely. The images would be streaming rapidly now. Excellent.

Garrison turned to a second computer. Time to send his nanorobotic army into the subject's amygdala. It was a thing of beauty, really, how the one-step process of stimulating the fear center of the brain in turn released the norepinephrine, adrenaline, and cortisol which made the subject feel yet more fear. On to the parietal lobe . . . pain was easy to stimulate in the presence of fear. It was a beautiful closed circuit.

Shelburne watched in satisfaction as the incoming data stream revealed the desired results . . . heartrate and respiration were elevated; fear hormone readings were off the chart . . . it took mere moments to establish an inexplicable, irrevocable association between the images of Steve McGarrett and pain and fear.

"Do you want me to imply an instruction?" Garrison asked. "A reaction? As we did with Charlie Fong?"

"No, not yet," Shelburne murmured. "I just want to collect the data when Riley wakes up. I want to see what her own response is, first." She sighed. "I only wish we could collect data on him, as well. It would be fascinating." She studied the lines of data stream; she couldn't read it as effortlessly as Garrison. She pointed to a line that spiked irregularly. "What is this?"

Garrison studied it for a moment. "There seems to be some damage to the bilateral amygdala; probably from the seizure."

"And?" Shelburne asked impatiently. "What does that mean?"

"The subject may have difficulty distinguishing between anger and fear," Garrison shrugged. "Not really relevant to our purposes, unless there is a violent response."

"Hmmm, that would be interesting as well," Shelburne said. "Is the damage extensive? Permanent?"

"Impossible to tell, right now," Garrison said. "I'll be sure to monitor it."

Shelburne continued to watch the information stream across the screen. "You were never meant to find her," she murmured to herself. "You'll wish now you never had."

#*#*#*#*#

"How do we wake her up?" Jerry asked anxiously. "Shouldn't she wake up?"

Steve had rolled Riley gently onto her side and was continuing to monitor her breathing and heartbeat. "We don't," he said kindly to Jerry, brushing Riley's hair out of her face. "She should wake up on her own, but it's not unusual for someone to take a while to regain consciousness."

"I didn't mean to make her sick," Jerry said.

"You couldn't have known," Fielding said. "None of us did. She might be getting increasingly sensitive, since epinephrine was administered at the hospital. The usefulness of epinephrine in cardiac treatment is questionable, anyway; largely because of longterm side effects. They probably shouldn't have given it to her; who knows how it affected her technology?"

Joe put a hand on Steve's shoulder as he looked up sharply at Fielding. "Her technology?" Steve spat. "They should have just let her heart stop beating, so as not to interfere with her technology?"

"You really have no comprehension of the value of the science -" Fielding started, before Joe cut him off with a withering glance.

Riley stirred, a low sound escaping her. Her hand twitched under Steve's.

"Hey," Steve said softly, kneeling on the sofa next to her. "Riley? Are you okay?"

He could see her eyes moving beneath her eyelids, her eyelashes twitching a bit.

"Riley, can you open your eyes for me?" Steve asked gently. "Are you ready to wake up?"

Her eyes fluttered open and locked on Steve's.

"Hey, sweetheart," he said. He reached toward her, slowly, to brush her hair back again. She shrank back from him, whimpering; her eyes were filled with terror, the pupils dilated unnaturally.

"No," she whispered, looking around frantically. "No, don't . . . please . . . "

"It's okay," Steve said, glancing up at Joe with a worried expression on his face. That proved to be a mistake: in the split second his attention was diverted, Riley tried to launch herself away from him, succeeding in slipping past him, but just - her heart still racing dangerously, and her balance wrecked, she collapsed just steps from the sofa.

Steve turned and reached for her. "Riley, hey, it's okay -" he was cut off short as Riley cried out in fear, and swept her leg out, catching him just at the knees and taking him down. He hit the floor hard, rolling to try to avoid landing on top of her.

Jerry was on the floor, kneeling in front of Riley, with a speed and grace that surprised the others.

"Riley," he said quietly, his huge frame looming in front of her, blocking her view of everyone else in the room. "You're scaring me."

She stilled immediately, her slim frame still visibly shaking, and looked at Jerry, her eyes huge and almost black. She sat up, hugging her arms around her knees.

"I'm afraid you're going to hurt someone," Jerry continued, speaking softly to her.

To their amazement, she reached out a trembling hand and touched his hair, patting his head weakly. "I don't want to hurt anyone," she said, her voice raspy. "I don't," she repeated, as if trying to convince herself and the rest of them.

"I know that," Jerry answered, "but something is wrong, and you might, without meaning to. Let's just sit here a minute, okay, until you feel better, and then we'll try to figure out what's going on."

Riley nodded, still focused completely on Jerry.

"This is hurting my knees, so I'm gonna sit next to you, if that's okay," Jerry said, smiling at her.

"Jerry," Fielding said suddenly, "don't move until we get out of the room. Stay right where you are."

Jerry glanced back over his shoulder, curious, but did as he was told and stayed put, continuing to block Riley's line of vision while he heard the others move quickly back into the study, Steve protesting quietly.

"She was unconscious for a significant amount of time," Fielding said, taking Steve forcefully by the shoulders and demanding his full attention. "And Shelburne and Garrison more than likely saw the seizure happen in real time."

Joe nodded as realization struck. "Loss of consciousness . . . her brain activity itself compromised . . . you're saying they would have taken advantage of the opportunity?"

"The opportunity . . . " Steve repeated, his mind filling with dread as he followed their line of thinking.

"They got to her, somehow, and convinced her . . . " Fielding said, hesitating. "They've somehow altered her perception of you."

"Like Charlie?" Steve asked, pinching the inner corners of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. This was too much to process. "They want her to take me out?"

"If she was really trying to take you out, Steve, she wouldn't have stopped with a sweep to the knees," Joe said, squeezing Steve's shoulder. "I trained her myself, I can promise you that. She was trying to get away from you."

Fielding nodded. "From where I was standing, that's certainly what it looked like, although we can't take any chances."

"So they've managed to make her terrified of me," Steve said dully.

"And likely created a significant pain response," Fielding added. "The established protocol was to link the pain and fear centers; it makes the subject easier to manipulate, as the violent pain response negates the likelihood of resistance to suggestion." His voice was filled with disgust and regret. "God help me, I was part of the program that did this."

"What now?" Steve asked, his voice hoarse with restrained emotion. "What can we do?"

"Well, just before she started waking up, we were discussing the idea of a chemical catalyst," Fielding reminded them.

"Yeah, the epi they gave her at the hospital to restart her heart," Steve said. "You thought that might have been what triggered the fancy show and tell technology to integrate with her central nervous system."

"That's my best guess, based on what I did pick up from the science end of things," Fielding said. "They did keep things compartmentalized, and my role was primarily to orchestrate - sorry - playing agents and agencies against each other in this shell game. But I know there are chemical catalysts and mechanical catalysts."

"She tried to pull the delivery device out of her arm," Steve remembered, "and the nurses did recover something hollow. But she was still convinced that Shelburne was 'watching'. She said she could feel it."

"Okay, think back," Fielding said, somewhat excited about the science of it all, he couldn't help himself. "That would have activated the central nervous system integration. Something before that would have activated the original system. Think."

Steve paced around in the study for a moment. "When we first got her back from WoFat . . . he'd waterboarded her and shocked her with a damn cattle prod. She stopped breathing, her heart stopped . . . in the ambulance. They used a defibrillator."

"Mechanical catalyst," Joe murmured.

"Oh my God," Fielding mumbled, horrified. He stumbled to the edge of the desk, falling to his knees and retching into the trash can.

"What, what is it?" Steve demanded.

"I gave WoFat the device. The original device. I gave it to WoFat's handler."

Steve and Joe looked at Fielding in horror as he continued.

"The Special Activities Division . . . Shelburne . . . was controlling both the Shelburne project and WoFat. WoFat knew he was cooperating with the SAD, had been for a long time - with the promise that the SAD would help him find Shelburne. But Garrison was his contact in the SAD, working under direct order of Shelburne. I was in contact with WoFat's handler," Fielding said. He stopped, dry heaved again into the wastebasket. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he continued. "Shelburne knew that Joe had gone off the reservation, and was working independently to try to bring WoFat down so that Riley could come out of hiding, which would of course inevitably have meant that Joe could bring Riley to you."

Steve glanced at Joe, remembering Riley's comment that Joe seemed almost afraid. No wonder.

"Garrison was feeding WoFat information; they knew, somehow, where Joe had taken her. They used WoFat . . . I didn't know. I thought it was just a tracking device. I didn't have all of the pieces," Fielding said. "When she started working with Five-O, and there was the museum incident . . . that's when they started acting like mad scientists; pushing the limits, collecting the data."

"That's when you started questioning the program," Steve said. "And eventually followed in Joe's footsteps and refused to participate."

"Yes," Fielding said. "But the original device . . . I understood, at the time, so much time, so much planning, so much effort. Technology beyond . . . I thought Shelburne just wanted to be able to keep track of Riley's location . . . I didn't know. When you knew I had your Five-O computer bugged, and you knew we were monitoring . . . the day WoFat had Riley, you asked me to tip him off, get him to flee, hoping that was your chance to save Riley. We were all being played by Shelburne. Of course WoFat would leave Riley behind, he'd placed the device, probably with promises that he'd have access to the tracking."

"Could he have access to the tracking?" Joe asked.

Fielding shook his head. "No way. Shelburne would have lied; she never would have given WoFat that much control. But he would have willingly placed the device, if he thought that Riley could eventually lead him to Shelburne." Fielding paused. "And no doubt, he was given a tidy sum of money to cooperate," he added bitterly.

Fielding stopped again, closed his eyes as a wave of nausea passed over him, the full implications of his actions crashing down on him. "WoFat placed the device, and probably activated it with the cattle prod. If that wasn't sufficient, the defibrillator would have been."

"If Shelburne has been tracking Riley's location all this time, why hasn't she made a move?" Steve demanded. All of this bordered on the unbelievable, as far as he was concerned.

"Because Riley's not a person, not to Shelburne, and Garrison, and the rest," Fielding said. "She's a project. And she's still yielding interesting data. The project has stages; it was after WoFat that they started collecting basic data; it was after the museum that she started exhibiting the accelerated healing; it was after Charlie that the system integrated - they're just beginning to be able to see the full scope of the program."

"And in the meantime, WoFat is more motivated than ever to reclaim Riley," Joe added, "knowing that Riley was used to double-cross him."

"It's a perfect closed circuit, with Riley caught in the middle," Fielding said tiredly.

"We have to stop it," Steve said, pacing again. "It has to stop. No other priority right now, but to somehow break this . . . connection, this control that Shelburne has over Riley. You have to know something, Fielding. We know there's chemical and mechanical catalysts involved to set off these different stages. If these things can start it, can they stop it? That's where we were going with this conversation to begin with."

"It's possible," Fielding said. "There are failsafes built in. I know that much. Chemical and mechanical failsafes, to crash the whole system. But my understanding was that was worst case scenario; doomsday plans. When they said they could crash the whole system, I think they meant . . . "

"Terminate," Joe said. "They have an option to terminate."

"Yes," Fielding said.

"Okay, what's the next stage?" Steve demanded. "You think the original device was activated by electricity; the second stage, the integration, you think was activated by the epi. What's the next stage?"

"That's it," Fielding said, and Steve sighed in relief. He couldn't have imagined another stage that didn't involve catastrophic damage. "I mean, it's nanotechnology; so theoretically, all of her enhancements should continue to progress, to some extent."

"Meaning?" Joe said, brow furrowing in confusion.

"Meaning, she'll continue to get a little faster, a little stronger; just not at the exponential rate we've seen this far. That's why the original genetic enhancements had to take place," Fielding explained. "She had to be genetically, physically capable. Her physical DNA had to be carefully constructed to be able to keep up with what the nanotechnology could do."

Steve stared at Fielding. "So, physically, she could withstand . . . " he drifted off in thought. Pieces were coming together; ultimately, this was a code, an algorithm, and he was pulling from every bit of his training in Naval Intelligence to solve it.

Fielding picked up the train of thought. "Mechanical and chemical catalysts . . . physically, she can survive what we couldn't. It would be a risk, but . . . if you're thinking what I'm thinking, it's our only shot."

Joe looked at both of them in confusion. "I'm not sure I follow. I'm not sure I want to follow."

"Massive. Massive chemical and mechanical catalysts," Fielding said. "If that's what initiates the technology, that has to be what destroys it."

"Without destroying Riley in the process?" Joe asked, quietly.

Steve was silent for a long moment, looking out to where Jerry sat, his arm around Riley's shoulders, apparently keeping up a running litany of nonsense to distract her.

"Shelburne is destroying her, right in front of us, right this minute," Steve said. "We have to try." He turned to Joe and Fielding. "Not here; we can't possibly do it here, it's not safe. We have to get her to Tripler. I'll call, have them set up a secure wing, get us a team that's been vetted."

"Okay," Joe said. "But we need to figure out where we stand with her; what the extent of the manipulation is. We need to know which of us can safely interact with her. Jerry, obviously."

Fielding nodded. "One at a time, we go out. It seems obvious that they've somehow manipulated her impression of Steve. I'll go first, then Joe. Then Steve."

With that, Fielding stepped cautiously out of the study. "Jerry," he said quietly. "We think we have some ideas. Can you hang tight right where you are? Riley, I want you to try to understand that what you think you see and feel . . . it might be very confusing, and very frightening, but I want you to understand that no one here is going to hurt you. Do you understand that? You are safe here. No matter how you feel, the reality is that you are safe. Can you try to hang on to that for me?"

Riley nodded.

Joe stepped out next. "Riley, we are going to need you to trust us. I know that I'm the last person who has the right to ask that of you. Can you tell me, though, who is the one person that you trust, implicitly? The one person who's earned it, completely." He paused. "Besides your friend Jerry, there," he added, smiling.

"Steve," Riley answered, without hesitation.

"Yes," Joe nodded. "You can trust Steve completely. You know that. That's reality, Riley. I want you to hang on to that, okay? You are smarter, much smarter, and even stronger than they give you credit for; and I want you to hang on to the reality that you can trust Steve. No matter what; no matter what you might feel, the reality is that you can trust Steve. Got it?"

Riley nodded again, confused.

Joe motioned, and Steve stepped out of the study, into Riley's line of vision. He looked at her hopefully; maybe the whole thing had just been a reaction of confusion, coming out of a seizure, and regaining consciousness.

Riley gasped, her hands flying to the sides of her head, and she made a heart-wrenching keening sound, low in her throat. Jerry's arm tightened comfortingly around her shoulder as her feet scrambled for purchase on the smooth floor, trying desperately to back away from Steve.

"Riley, it's really okay, I promise," Jerry whispered.

"No, please . . . please, I can't . . . please," Riley choked out, hiding her face in the crook of Jerry's neck. "Make it stop . . . please make it stop."

"Make what stop, Riley?" Joe asked, standing helplessly next to Steve.

"It hurts . . . I don't understand . . . " Her shoulders began to shake in silent sobs against Jerry.

"Riley," Steve said, his voice wrecked with pain. To their surprise, she stilled a bit.

Fielding grinned. "Well, damn," he said quietly. "I guess they didn't have any audio files. Try talking to her," he instructed Steve quietly, motioning to Jerry to keep Riley's face tucked away.

As Jerry awkwardly patted the back of Riley's head, Steve tried talking to her again.

"Riley, you had a seizure, and while you were unconscious, we think that -" he stumbled over the words 'our mother' and then continued, "that Shelburne tried to manipulate you, like with Charlie. But remember what Joe said: you're smarter, and stronger. You can trust me, Riley, I swear to it, no matter what your mind is telling you. Try to hang on to that. I love you, Riley," he said, his voice breaking, "I love you, and we have an idea of how we can begin to fix this, but you're going to have to trust us, okay?"

Riley nodded, and Steve turned to go back into the study to make calls.

"Steve?" she called out, keeping her face hidden in Jerry's shoulder.

He paused; she sounded so young, so frightened. "Yeah, honey?" he said, his voice betraying how much this was killing him.

"Remember your promise," she said. "No matter what, remember that I trust you. I trust you to keep your promise."

"Riley," Steve said, leaning against the door of the study. "Riley, I -"

"You promised!" she shouted, struggling to turn around, to look at him regardless . . ." Jerry wrapped both arms around her as she began to sob quietly again.

"Okay, Riley," Steve said, "Okay. I remember. I promise." He stepped into the study, stumbled to the desk, and leaned on it, hands in a white knuckle grip on the edge.

Joe stood quietly next to him, his hand wrapped around the back of Steve's neck.

"What the hell was that about, son?" he asked quietly.

Steve rubbed fiercely at his eyes. "She made me promise to take her out, rather than let her hurt anyone," he said. "I promised her, because I assumed I'd always be able to just . . . just stop her, overpower her. But God help me, Joe, I promised her, and she's going to hold me to it."

Joe put his other hand over Steve's on the desk, lending him what he could of his solid strength, sending up silent and fervent thanks that Steve was allowing him this small gesture of support and comfort. "Then we'll keep that promise, Steve; we'll keep that promise by figuring out how to get her away from Shelburne, once and for all. Okay?"

Steve nodded. "Okay, Joe. Okay." He took a shaky breath. "I'm calling Catherine to help set up a team at Tripler. I don't trust anyone else to vet them. Can you call Danny? I don't know what to tell them . . . just . . ."

"I've got it, Steve," Joe said. Before they each reached for their phones, Joe put his hand on Steve's shoulder. "Steve," he said, "we're going to keep your promise to Riley, and I'm going to keep my promise to your father. I'm going to do everything in my power to help you, son. You have my word."