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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
My Name Is Sydney - by MMB
Chapter 4: Playing the Game
Sydney sat down heavily at his desk, his heart sinking to his feet. There, sitting in the middle of his blotter where he couldn't miss it, was the kind of folder he hadn't seen for nearly six years - a formal simulation proposal for Jamie to run for the Centre. The orders had come down from on high: Jamie was to start working - NOW.
It was too soon.
Sydney knew that Raines was pushing the project along faster than it could reasonably be expected to progress. There had been a backlog of simulations awaiting Jarod's attention when the Centre's prized Pretender had up and escaped. That backlog had been added to for the first year of Jarod's freedom - until either the clients lost hope or the Tower decided to put a moratorium on accepting new assignments requiring Jarod's talents. Sydney had never been sure which. Once Jamie's testing results had been reported up the chain of command, however, Sydney had known that this day would come, more likely sooner than he'd want.
But this was TOO damned soon.
He'd only had the little boy eight weeks, for pity's sake! Training a five and a half-year old all the ropes of effectively running simulations was an exact science - one he, Sydney, had single-handedly developed, no less. And he was having genuine success with Jamie now, the lad having started to come out of the deep mourning for his parents and reluctantly allowing Sydney to cajole him into not losing concentration in the middle of the afternoon so often anymore.
The very first, beginning mental exercises were now behind the boy, and the actual task of teaching that incredibly flexible mind to stretch in ways the lad would never have even considered was well underway. Sydney had been both sickened and elated with the ease with which Jamie was adapting to the accelerated learning process. He could already sense the germinating bud of a genius that would equal, if not surpass, that of Jarod himself.
And, as had happened with Jarod, he could also sense the very beginnings of a transferring of affections from the memory of lost parents to Sydney himself. The modest accolades the psychiatrist allowed himself to give the boy when he did particularly well were rare enough to have become desired treats. Conversely, the dismissive coldness with which he summoned the sweepers to take the boy away when he was being stubborn was a more than adequate mode of discipline. It was a game he, Sydney, excelled at. But he now knew it for the psychological and emotional manipulation and abuse it truly was, given that he could never allow himself to show any fondness for the boy at all in the process without running the risk of losing the assignment - just as he had been with Jarod. He hated himself for both being such an expert and for not being in a place where he could stop - and more than anything, he hated being stuck in the same situation all over again.
Sydney opened the folder and glanced inside. It was a sim that was almost within the boy's reach - a strategy was needed to address various weaknesses in the government's current push for counter-terrorism at major public sites. He sighed and let the folder cover fall closed from his fingers. God only knew if the TRUE purpose of this sim was to prevent terrorist attacks or plan them - with Raines currently in charge, the chances were just as great that it was the latter as the former.
He looked over at the little digital clock on his desk and sighed deeply. It was time to fetch the boy from his living space and put him through his paces again. Sydney picked up the folder and transferred it from his office to the desk in the Sim Lab, then nodded at Sam that he was ready.
Walking down a Centre corridor with the hulking ex-wrestler a pace or two behind him always gave him the sense of being a prisoner. Sydney no longer minded the impression - it was true to the situation nowadays. Standing next to the man in the elevator, he looked up into that bland and expressionless face and wondered what Sam himself thought of this entire situation. There had been a couple of times when he'd summoned the sweeper to return Jamie to his space that Sam's eyes had flashed with something... something other than blind acquiescence... something Sam had quickly stifled in order to follow his orders... something Sydney suspected he was never supposed to have seen.
He would like to think that the sweeper had a conscience too, and felt the injustice and barbarism of the process he was involved in, but didn't dare trust in the presence of that conscience very far. After all, Sam was Miss Parker's sweeper, on loan to him at those times of day or in those situations when Miss Parker either wasn't on duty or didn't need his services. Sam's loyalty lay firmly and unquestionably with Miss Parker - and Miss Parker, at least officially, had to condone the new Pretender Project.
Sam waited for the psychiatrist to join him at the boy's door before punching in the security code that unlocked the heavy metal door and opening the door to let Sydney enter the featureless little cement-walled room. As had been the case for the last two weeks, Jamie was up and seated at his small table, poking with barely-disguised revulsion at the green and brown sludge that was the “optimal nutritional supplement” he had existed on since he'd been locked away in this prison.
"Finish up your breakfast, then, Jamie. It's time to get to work now," Sydney intoned with very mild reproach in his voice. Inwardly he cringed - HE wouldn't be able to stomach the crap that sufficed for “food” for the little Pretender either, yet he had to insist his charge down his helping without fail three times daily.
"I hate this stuff," Jamie mumbled rebelliously. "I want something GOOD to eat."
"That “stuff” is very good FOR you," Sydney countered. This was almost a routine exchange between them now. He looked up at Sam, standing just outside the open door with arms folded over his chest. If he didn't know better, he would have thought the expression on the sweeper's face were one of sympathy. "Eat up now. You don't want to spend the entire morning hungry, do you? C'mon..."
"No!" Jamie exploded and, with a sweeping arm, swatted his bowl across the little room to splat unappetizingly against the wall. The now-empty bowl clattered to the floor, leaving the “supplement” to slowly ooze after it in semi-congealed blobs and glops. "I HATE this stuff! I WON'T eat it anymore, Sydney. I WON'T."
Sydney blinked - no, he HADN'T been mistaken! When Jamie had sent his bowl flying, a very fleeting and subtle smile of amusement and encouragement HAD crossed Sam's features. So the sweeper was tickled by the boy's small act of rebellion, was he? Well, so was HE for that matter; he just didn't dare show it.
The psychiatrist firmly disciplined his own expression into one of moderate frustration instead, and with a quick gesture summoned Sam to take a firm hold of the boy. "Now, Jamie, I've been telling you that you need to eat and keep your strength up. There is a simulation waiting for you in the Lab that will require all your attention. But now your breakfast is all over the wall. I guess the only way to convince you not to do this again is to let you go hungry for the morning. And if you balk at your lunch, you can continue to go hungry for the rest of the day. And if you balk at your supper, perhaps by breakfast time tomorrow, you will have seen the error of your thinking." Sydney hated himself for making the lesson a harsher one than he had previously, but the child needed to eat and keep his strength up. What if Jarod should announce that he was ready to make his move, and the child were too weak from a hunger strike to participate in his own rescue...
"Sydney, can't I PLEASE just have something else instead - some cereal, or some toast? I'll eat, I promise, just not THAT stuff! It's yucky!" Jamie's blue eyes were swimming as he squirmed against Sam's firm but not painful restraint.
"I'm afraid not, Jamie. If you are hungry enough, you'll eat your nutritional supplement. You must not be very hungry today." Sydney nodded, and Sam pulled the little boy from the room and started him marching toward the elevator. Sydney flipped a switch near the pass code mechanism that indicated that the room needed to be cleaned while its inhabitant was elsewhere, then followed the huge sweeper and the tiny child in his grasp.
"Why are you being so mean today, Sydney?" the boy asked his mentor in a small voice as he was maneuvered into the elevator. Sydney was both gratified and appalled that the tears had been successfully swallowed back while they had been waiting for the door to swoosh open.
"I am not being mean," he explained in a voice carefully schooled to utter neutrality. "You threw your food against the wall. I'm just working with the information you're giving me. If you don't want to eat, you must not be hungry. When you're hungry, you WILL eat. This is simple logic, Jamie, cause and effect."
"Do you ever eat that stuff?" the child inquired, his voice taking on an almost accusatory tone.
Sydney gazed down at the towhead with an expression of mild frustration. "What I eat is not at issue here..."
"But have you ever tasted that stuff?" Jamie insisted.
"Of course I have," Sydney responded immediately, but didn't expound further. The elevator arrived across the hallway from the Sim Lab. "Come on, now. We've wasted enough time for today. We have a new simulation to start, and we're already behind schedule for the day." He assumed physical custody of the boy from the sweeper, taking the boy's hand firmly but gently in his own and accompanying him into the Sim Lab.
"I'm sorry, Sydney," the boy said sadly as he moved slowly to his place at the table, where he could be wired into the biofeedback machine. "I AM hungry. I promise I'll eat... Please..."
Sydney shook his head. "The time for breakfast is finished. Perhaps you'll reconsider your picky eating habits when lunchtime comes. For now, however, I want you to settle back into your chair so we can begin..."
His lightly accented voice gained its customary hypnotic rhythm and tone as he led the child through the light meditation technique that prepared the child to intake as much information as he could possible throw at him. Raines may want that simulation started immediately, but he, Sydney, would have him start it at what he knew was a more proper time - when Jamie's mind was fully warmed up for the day and beginning to approach a pinpoint focus.
He was glad Jamie's head was so encumbered with wires that the boy couldn't turn and see his face, because he couldn't hold back a grimace as a sour burn at the bottom of his stomach threatened with a wicked twinge to make the day genuinely unpleasant for him. He wondered very briefly if Miss Parker still had some Pepto Bismol in her office - or whether he'd be further ahead just buying a bottle of his own.
God, Jarod, he thought desperately, call SOON! I can't take much more...
Chapter 4: Playing the Game
Sydney sat down heavily at his desk, his heart sinking to his feet. There, sitting in the middle of his blotter where he couldn't miss it, was the kind of folder he hadn't seen for nearly six years - a formal simulation proposal for Jamie to run for the Centre. The orders had come down from on high: Jamie was to start working - NOW.
It was too soon.
Sydney knew that Raines was pushing the project along faster than it could reasonably be expected to progress. There had been a backlog of simulations awaiting Jarod's attention when the Centre's prized Pretender had up and escaped. That backlog had been added to for the first year of Jarod's freedom - until either the clients lost hope or the Tower decided to put a moratorium on accepting new assignments requiring Jarod's talents. Sydney had never been sure which. Once Jamie's testing results had been reported up the chain of command, however, Sydney had known that this day would come, more likely sooner than he'd want.
But this was TOO damned soon.
He'd only had the little boy eight weeks, for pity's sake! Training a five and a half-year old all the ropes of effectively running simulations was an exact science - one he, Sydney, had single-handedly developed, no less. And he was having genuine success with Jamie now, the lad having started to come out of the deep mourning for his parents and reluctantly allowing Sydney to cajole him into not losing concentration in the middle of the afternoon so often anymore.
The very first, beginning mental exercises were now behind the boy, and the actual task of teaching that incredibly flexible mind to stretch in ways the lad would never have even considered was well underway. Sydney had been both sickened and elated with the ease with which Jamie was adapting to the accelerated learning process. He could already sense the germinating bud of a genius that would equal, if not surpass, that of Jarod himself.
And, as had happened with Jarod, he could also sense the very beginnings of a transferring of affections from the memory of lost parents to Sydney himself. The modest accolades the psychiatrist allowed himself to give the boy when he did particularly well were rare enough to have become desired treats. Conversely, the dismissive coldness with which he summoned the sweepers to take the boy away when he was being stubborn was a more than adequate mode of discipline. It was a game he, Sydney, excelled at. But he now knew it for the psychological and emotional manipulation and abuse it truly was, given that he could never allow himself to show any fondness for the boy at all in the process without running the risk of losing the assignment - just as he had been with Jarod. He hated himself for both being such an expert and for not being in a place where he could stop - and more than anything, he hated being stuck in the same situation all over again.
Sydney opened the folder and glanced inside. It was a sim that was almost within the boy's reach - a strategy was needed to address various weaknesses in the government's current push for counter-terrorism at major public sites. He sighed and let the folder cover fall closed from his fingers. God only knew if the TRUE purpose of this sim was to prevent terrorist attacks or plan them - with Raines currently in charge, the chances were just as great that it was the latter as the former.
He looked over at the little digital clock on his desk and sighed deeply. It was time to fetch the boy from his living space and put him through his paces again. Sydney picked up the folder and transferred it from his office to the desk in the Sim Lab, then nodded at Sam that he was ready.
Walking down a Centre corridor with the hulking ex-wrestler a pace or two behind him always gave him the sense of being a prisoner. Sydney no longer minded the impression - it was true to the situation nowadays. Standing next to the man in the elevator, he looked up into that bland and expressionless face and wondered what Sam himself thought of this entire situation. There had been a couple of times when he'd summoned the sweeper to return Jamie to his space that Sam's eyes had flashed with something... something other than blind acquiescence... something Sam had quickly stifled in order to follow his orders... something Sydney suspected he was never supposed to have seen.
He would like to think that the sweeper had a conscience too, and felt the injustice and barbarism of the process he was involved in, but didn't dare trust in the presence of that conscience very far. After all, Sam was Miss Parker's sweeper, on loan to him at those times of day or in those situations when Miss Parker either wasn't on duty or didn't need his services. Sam's loyalty lay firmly and unquestionably with Miss Parker - and Miss Parker, at least officially, had to condone the new Pretender Project.
Sam waited for the psychiatrist to join him at the boy's door before punching in the security code that unlocked the heavy metal door and opening the door to let Sydney enter the featureless little cement-walled room. As had been the case for the last two weeks, Jamie was up and seated at his small table, poking with barely-disguised revulsion at the green and brown sludge that was the “optimal nutritional supplement” he had existed on since he'd been locked away in this prison.
"Finish up your breakfast, then, Jamie. It's time to get to work now," Sydney intoned with very mild reproach in his voice. Inwardly he cringed - HE wouldn't be able to stomach the crap that sufficed for “food” for the little Pretender either, yet he had to insist his charge down his helping without fail three times daily.
"I hate this stuff," Jamie mumbled rebelliously. "I want something GOOD to eat."
"That “stuff” is very good FOR you," Sydney countered. This was almost a routine exchange between them now. He looked up at Sam, standing just outside the open door with arms folded over his chest. If he didn't know better, he would have thought the expression on the sweeper's face were one of sympathy. "Eat up now. You don't want to spend the entire morning hungry, do you? C'mon..."
"No!" Jamie exploded and, with a sweeping arm, swatted his bowl across the little room to splat unappetizingly against the wall. The now-empty bowl clattered to the floor, leaving the “supplement” to slowly ooze after it in semi-congealed blobs and glops. "I HATE this stuff! I WON'T eat it anymore, Sydney. I WON'T."
Sydney blinked - no, he HADN'T been mistaken! When Jamie had sent his bowl flying, a very fleeting and subtle smile of amusement and encouragement HAD crossed Sam's features. So the sweeper was tickled by the boy's small act of rebellion, was he? Well, so was HE for that matter; he just didn't dare show it.
The psychiatrist firmly disciplined his own expression into one of moderate frustration instead, and with a quick gesture summoned Sam to take a firm hold of the boy. "Now, Jamie, I've been telling you that you need to eat and keep your strength up. There is a simulation waiting for you in the Lab that will require all your attention. But now your breakfast is all over the wall. I guess the only way to convince you not to do this again is to let you go hungry for the morning. And if you balk at your lunch, you can continue to go hungry for the rest of the day. And if you balk at your supper, perhaps by breakfast time tomorrow, you will have seen the error of your thinking." Sydney hated himself for making the lesson a harsher one than he had previously, but the child needed to eat and keep his strength up. What if Jarod should announce that he was ready to make his move, and the child were too weak from a hunger strike to participate in his own rescue...
"Sydney, can't I PLEASE just have something else instead - some cereal, or some toast? I'll eat, I promise, just not THAT stuff! It's yucky!" Jamie's blue eyes were swimming as he squirmed against Sam's firm but not painful restraint.
"I'm afraid not, Jamie. If you are hungry enough, you'll eat your nutritional supplement. You must not be very hungry today." Sydney nodded, and Sam pulled the little boy from the room and started him marching toward the elevator. Sydney flipped a switch near the pass code mechanism that indicated that the room needed to be cleaned while its inhabitant was elsewhere, then followed the huge sweeper and the tiny child in his grasp.
"Why are you being so mean today, Sydney?" the boy asked his mentor in a small voice as he was maneuvered into the elevator. Sydney was both gratified and appalled that the tears had been successfully swallowed back while they had been waiting for the door to swoosh open.
"I am not being mean," he explained in a voice carefully schooled to utter neutrality. "You threw your food against the wall. I'm just working with the information you're giving me. If you don't want to eat, you must not be hungry. When you're hungry, you WILL eat. This is simple logic, Jamie, cause and effect."
"Do you ever eat that stuff?" the child inquired, his voice taking on an almost accusatory tone.
Sydney gazed down at the towhead with an expression of mild frustration. "What I eat is not at issue here..."
"But have you ever tasted that stuff?" Jamie insisted.
"Of course I have," Sydney responded immediately, but didn't expound further. The elevator arrived across the hallway from the Sim Lab. "Come on, now. We've wasted enough time for today. We have a new simulation to start, and we're already behind schedule for the day." He assumed physical custody of the boy from the sweeper, taking the boy's hand firmly but gently in his own and accompanying him into the Sim Lab.
"I'm sorry, Sydney," the boy said sadly as he moved slowly to his place at the table, where he could be wired into the biofeedback machine. "I AM hungry. I promise I'll eat... Please..."
Sydney shook his head. "The time for breakfast is finished. Perhaps you'll reconsider your picky eating habits when lunchtime comes. For now, however, I want you to settle back into your chair so we can begin..."
His lightly accented voice gained its customary hypnotic rhythm and tone as he led the child through the light meditation technique that prepared the child to intake as much information as he could possible throw at him. Raines may want that simulation started immediately, but he, Sydney, would have him start it at what he knew was a more proper time - when Jamie's mind was fully warmed up for the day and beginning to approach a pinpoint focus.
He was glad Jamie's head was so encumbered with wires that the boy couldn't turn and see his face, because he couldn't hold back a grimace as a sour burn at the bottom of his stomach threatened with a wicked twinge to make the day genuinely unpleasant for him. He wondered very briefly if Miss Parker still had some Pepto Bismol in her office - or whether he'd be further ahead just buying a bottle of his own.
God, Jarod, he thought desperately, call SOON! I can't take much more...
