General Hospital Synaptics Research Lab
With a bluetooth headset in one ear, a laptop on her lap, her feet propped on the edge of Robin's desk and a look of intense concentration on her face, Anna was entirely in her element. Her fingers flew across the keys while she carried on a long running conversation with Andrew and checked the departing team members' travel schedules. They would be in Europe and starting the hunt for Robin by tonight.
For his part, Andrew was poised over his displays in the Blue Room much like a tiger eyeing unsuspecting prey. On one display, a checkerboard of tiny pictures changed every microsecond as SIMON scanned satellite and surveillance pictures from 2001 and onward for faces matching Eve, Robin, Alex and Anna as well as imaging areas that they knew Robin had visited in that time period.
"It is a long shot, Mother, but we have the capability so we might as well use it."
"But why include me and Alex?" asked Anna.
"Because you and Alex are the only common links we have to Robin and Eve in that time period," explained Andrew. "The WSB surveillance pictures were not helpful being too infrequent, too grainy and out of context."
Anna knew of one other potential link - Vincent. However, that was one conversation that would have to remain in confidence. There was more between the Interpol agent and her daughter than either had let on. "I've finished going through Eve's documents on her terminal. Letters for Emma for every birthday until she's twenty. Andrew, I've transferred copies to SIMON for safekeeping. If I forget-"
"I shall remember to give them to Emma, Mother."
Joining in from the PCPD, Mac added, "I'll remind you if you forget."
"Thank you," said Anna. She sniffed once and took a deep breath before continuing, "Moving on. Anything from Robin's journals?"
Maxie's voice came on. She was in the Barn playing with Emma while calling in. "The last entry was back in 2001 after she met you in Pine Valley. I did notice that Eve's handwriting is a little different than Robin's. Enough to be noticed by someone who knows Robin's writing like I do. If I had paid attention, I could have spotted it."
"Eve must have practiced and changed her own writing," commented Anna. "It's doable."
"It still boggles my mind how Eve was able to fool all of us. We SHOULD have noticed something," said Mac.
"It wasn't an act for her. She WAS Robin. She was given a drug then subjected to deep knowledge immersion - listening to Robin recount her life and answer questions, read her journals, live in her flat, wear her clothes. They were very thorough."
"But one does not lose one's identity. The new one is a ... an overlay as an actor would assume a role for the duration of the work. In Eve's case, she submerged her identity completely," Andrew said. "Not even hypnotherapy can do that."
"Eve kept mentioning a drug that was intermittently given to her. She said that she seemed to absorb knowledge more efficiently when the drug was newly given to her," said Anna. "Couple that with the reinforcement from living in Robin's home, holding her things and living her life, the imprint had to take. Her imagination and calculated inferences filled in the blanks."
"Such a drug would be very useful in therapy especially in the chronically ill. Replace a troubled persona with a normal one," mused Andrew. "It would in effect change a person into an entirely new person - a clean slate which can be molded and shaped into whatever form was desired. Pygmalion in a bottle."
Anna gasped. Andrew's words sounded so familiar. A stream of words said by a whispery, masculine voice came to her mind.
It's like having a blank slate or a blank person that one can mold into an entirely new identity.
It induces such a degree of mental alteration that over time I can facilitate a change over personality and behavior.
And, as past cases have proven, the drug shall make your amnesia permanent.
You WILL be a new person.
Retraining is necessary so a new identity can be placed over the one you will shortly be losing.
I shall be Pygmalion to your Galatea. Your name is Natalie Taylor.
Anna's voice took on a dreamy quality. "My name is Anna."
"I'm sorry. What was that?" asked Andrew.
Anna sat up. "Oh, my god! HIM!"
"Mother? Is something wrong?"
Anna swallowed hard. Her throat was dry as a desert. "Peter Krieg."
"The doctor who treated you in Skyview. How DID you know he was Faison's cousin?" asked Andrew. "You never said."
"Aside from the facial resemblance, I don't know how ... why ..." Anna voice trailed away. She put her laptop on the desk. She rose. "A few more holes in my memory, yet again. I HATE this. I ... I should have told Cesar about Peter. He would have castrated him I'm sure. Wait! Could Eve had seen Peter and mistook him for Cesar? It has to be the answer. Cesar would never hurt a child of mine. Could he?"
"Anyone is capable of anything. Look at what Charlotte did to Alex, her own daughter," said Dimitri. He was at the Barn gathering room also tapping on his laptop.
Andrew tensed in his chair. If he could have traversed the phone line to the hospital, he would have. The hairs at the back of his neck rose at the very mention of the Krieg family name. "Mother, I don't understand what you're saying."
"Well, he did drug you, didn't he, Andrew, when you were little? And attempted to kidnap Robin several times. He kidnapped Felicia and Lucky." Anna blathered in a tone and manner utterly unlike her usual self. "Robert's right. I HAVE to face facts. Cesar is capable of anything. I HAVE to see HIM for what he is and not what he could have been. What am I? Fourteen or fifty?"
"You're fifty?" exclaimed Maxie.
"I should start a bonfire and feed all the little bits of my past into it. All the guilt and the regrets," said Anna. "Acknowledge them and move on. What the hell am I waiting for anyway? Robert is dealing with his problem and I ought to do the same."
"Mother? Andrew to Mother."
"Aunt Anna, you're scaring me," said Maxie. "This is not normal."
"Robby's got a problem?" asked Mac.
"It's me! I'm holding myself back. That's what Tom said and he was right," said Anna continuing her monologue.
"Mother!" roared Andrew.
Anna winced at the loud volume of her headset. "Oh, sorry. Thinking out loud. Where were we?"
"Peter Krieg. You said it was him. What about him?" asked Andrew.
"I remembered things that he said when he was treating me. He sought out amnesia patients and he had a drug that he was giving to me via injection." Anna closed her eyes and recalled the unpleasant memories of Skyview. "He said that the drug affected the mind to a point that over time personality and behavior could be changed permanently."
"That's not possible."
"But it's because ... because his drug made the pre-existing amnesia permanent. That's it! That's what he said. Permanent amnesia," said Anna. "He would ... could retrain the amnesiac to become a wholly different person. One of his design and choosing. He called me Natalie. Natalie Taylor. I wonder if she was real?"
"Obviously, it did not work."
"He said that I was the fourth to get the same treatment. He must have had some success or some results from the others." Anna paced in the office. "I was drugged most of the time. And, that bloody straitjacket!" She shuddered in disgust.
"Straitjacket as in an asylum?" asked Maxie.
"Oh, yes, Maxie. I was considered dangerous and crazy," said Anna. "I had to fight to remember my name. It was hard. I could feel the drug wanting to ... to take over."
"So, the drug could have worked?" asked Dimitri.
"I think it did for those before me, at least to some degree. Enough to encourage Peter to keep trying." Anna snapped her fingers. "He could have refined it and ... and used it on Eve to turn her into Robin."
"Peter Krieg left Skyview under a cloud of scandal and lawsuits in 1994. He died a year later," said Andrew consulting his display. "He stopped publishing his research results in 1991. The dates don't fit an involvement with Eve or Robin."
"Death isn't as terminal as it should be, Andrew. Look at me and your father. And Faison has faked his death three times that I know of. How and where did Peter die?" asked Anna.
"Lausanne, Switzerland in a motor accident," replied Andrew. "His grave is in the area. That's that."
Anna shook her head. She sat down on the edge of the desk. "The man is dead but, maybe, not his research. Skyview. It keeps popping up in my head."
"Hard to forget a place like that. I wouldn't want to visit it again not even in my head," said Maxie. "Yuck!"
"Did he have assistants? Other people he worked with who could have the recipe?" asked Mac.
"Charlotte!" exclaimed Anna.
"What about her?" asked Andrew.
"She went to Skyview. We know she did. Why?"
"What could she have to do with this?" asked Mac.
"Was she there for Krieg or for Faison? Or both?" Anna groaned in frustration. "It's all about the dots. We need to connect the dots. Just because we don't see a picture or know there's a picture doesn't mean that there isn't one. Right?"
"I would agree if I knew what picture you were talking about, Anna," said Mac.
"Faison's first death was in 1977. The death certificate is Swiss. P.K. SInclair's citizenship is Swiss. His next faux death was in 1992 along with you and Father," Andrew said.
"We all know how that turned out," said Mac dryly. "Thank you WSB."
"I was in Skyview from 1992 to 1993," said Anna. "Robert was in ... on assignment for those years and some after."
"Peter Krieg left Skyview in 1994 then died the following year in Switzerland. Papa ... Faison maintains a residence there still."
"He reappeared here in 1999 to 2000 as Herr Krieg or Anton Gardner," put in Mac getting into the spirit of things. "The last time I saw him he was on a motor launch heading fast out of the harbor. I shot at the boat. It blew up."
"A rigged explosion no doubt," said Andrew.
"Alex found me in Canada in 2000," added Anna.
"Robin was here for the Nurses' Ball that year," said Maxie.
"Robin came to see me in May 2001," said Anna. "Eve took Robin's place shortly thereafter. About June, Charlotte was incarcerated in Weltonby. If I HAD joined Robin in Paris like she ... she pleaded for me to, could I have stopped the ... the switch?"
Mac said thoughtfully, "You know Robin, I mean, Eve traveled a lot that year - London, Madrid, Rome."
"She didn't come home for Christmas," said Maxie. "I was majorly bummed that year."
"Alex and I left Pine Valley around July," said Dimitri. "According to Scotland Yard's report, Charlotte's double took her place in 2002."
Andrew added, "That timeline fits with Charlotte holding Faison in 2003."
"I divorced David then went to Zurich in January 2003 because Leora needed in-utero surgery. Robin was so supportive," said Anna. Her eyes snapped to the door hearing a quick series of raps. "I don't remember anything different but my mind was on the baby not Robin ... Eve."
Robert came into the office. He stood in front of Anna and held his arms open. Silently, she leaned into him and let him hold her close.
"Mama left for Texas that year," said Maxie very quietly.
"Robert's here. I'm going to go to speakerphone," said Anna adjusting her phone.
"Father got me full-time. We went to Australia after we, um, found Faison," said Andrew.
Robert smiled and said, "The good old days. Sorry, I'm late. Deconstructing the timelines?"
Robert took a seat in the armchair. He waggled his eyebrows at Anna then patted his lap. Anna grinned and gracefully sat on his lap wrapping one arm around his neck. His arm wound around her waist and held her firmly in place.
"Yes. We're in September 2003 at which time I moved to Paris," said Anna.
"Eve as Robin was here for Lila's funeral in 2004," said Mac. "She was more subdued than normal but it wasn't an occasion for fireworks, was it? She said she was busy with her research. I assumed she was happy in Paris."
"Father joined the World Health Organization. He would leave me with my three shadows - Simms, Edgar and Salim," said Andrew.
"I freelanced that year. I wanted to see if I could still do the job," said Anna. "I should have been paying more attention to my own backyard."
Robert looked at Anna. His mouthed the words "not your fault." He said out loud. "Didn't Robin move back here in 2005?"
"Yes, she did. Robin came back because of Jason's injury. I thought she seemed distant with him," said Maxie. "Given their past, they should have been closer."
"Was it me, Maxie, or did she avoid us a little bit?" asked Mac.
"She was always at the hospital, Dad," replied Maxie. "That was her excuse - work, work and more work."
"Probably getting used to the environment and minimizing her contacts until she felt more secure," said Anna.
"I disrupted her life the next year," said Robert.
"Disrupted the entire town you mean," added Mac. "You quarantined the city to try to contain that virus outbreak."
"Followed by the disastrous island adventure. I remember it well," said Anna smiling at Robert.
"After that, Father forced us to relocate to Paris," said Andrew.
"I persuaded you. Besides, Tanganeva was finished teaching you. It was time for new teachers, new experiences and new beginnings," said Robert looking meaningfully at Anna.
"Yes, you're right. It was the time to return to civilization," said Andrew.
Holding Anna's gaze, Robert said, "You can't hide forever. You miss too much when you do."
"Dot, dot, dot," whispered Anna into Robert's ear. Out loud she said, "We come full circle in 2007 and 2008. All the dots converge here - us, Faison, Charlotte, Helena, Eve. There's a picture, a grand design but we just can't see it."
"What do we have? Births, rebirths, resurrections, death - all here," said Dimitri. "The only connections that I see are Anna and Robert."
"And Faison," said Anna. "Oh, Robert, I have to tell you. I think we found the source of the drug that was used on Eve."
"What? where?"
"It's a starting point. Peter Krieg, the doctor who treated me in Skyview and -"
"And is Faison's cousin? That Peter?" asked Robert.
Anna nodded. "He was testing a drug on me that affects memory by making amnesia permanent then he tried to transform me into another personality."
"Where is this wonderful doctor?" asked Robert snidely. "We need to have a long chat with him."
"He's dead," said Anna.
"Things are never what they seem with Faison. I'm betting the cousin is the same way. Where's his grave?" asked Robert.
"Lausanne, Switzerland," said Andrew.
"Before I request an exhumation, do we have other proof that Krieg's really dead?" pressed Robert.
Andrew asked SIMON to display Krieg's death certificate. "We have a death certificate signed by Dr. T. Trigano and certified by the appropriate Swiss authorities."
"Did you say Trigano?" asked Robert urgently.
"Um, Thibault Trigano," said Andrew reading off his display.
"Bingo!" shouted Robert. "He's the link!"
"You know who he is?" asked Anna.
"The last name, Anna, doesn't it ring a bell?" asked Robert excitedly. "When I questioned Renard after his failed assassination attempt on me, he said that Elena was treated by a Doctor Pascal Trigano at Beauchel. And, the name on Faison's death certificate was-"
"Thibault Trigano!" exclaimed Andrew. "Both are registered in Switzerland. How convenient."
Robert looked at Anna. He said for her ears only. "And who arranged THAT death, hmm?"
"Sean," said Anna. She said just as quietly. "He's admitted he's perfected the art of resurrections. We need to talk to Sean."
"Do we ever," said Robert.