My Name Is Sydney - by MMB

Chapter 1: Trapped


Not again...

Sydney stared down at the contents of the red folder he'd found laying smack in the middle of his desk blotter when he'd come to work that morning with an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach that was almost painful. He'd known that the Centre would be finding him new projects to work on now that Jarod had decided to leave few if any clues to his whereabouts or activities since his escape from the plane crash in Africa. Even Broots had found his computer talents reassigned from the search effort to more challenging programming projects, and Miss Parker had found her time more and more eaten up with more generalized security-related issues either for the Centre or even the Triumverate.

But this...

He picked up the phone receiver and punched in the extension number, then gently replaced the handset with a sigh when he finally accepted that the file folder, and the responsibility toward the person whose history it contained, would not have been placed in his hands capriciously. There was very little chance that he'd be able to argue his way out of the assignment, knowing Mr. Raines and the oxygen-starved ghoul's tenacity once he'd made a decision. What made it worse - by simply making it understandable - was that there was a certain logic behind the decision. Were he Mr. Raines, now saddled with responsibility for the entire Centre, he would more than likely make the very same decision for the very same reasons. Worst of all was the fact that the idea was not only intriguing but also exciting to contemplate.

Damn it.

He, Sydney, WAS the foremost authority on those gifted individuals known as Pretenders. There were few other professionals on the face of the globe with the experience of having mentored one from early childhood well into adulthood. With this new apparent orphan falling into the Centre's guardianship, it stood to reason that he, Sydney, would be the logical choice of mentor. He knew exactly where all the pitfalls of the process were, what the consequences of failing to avoid them might be, and the real intellectual stimulation that came with working with such a flexible and razor-sharp mind. Training a Pretender's mind to function at the high levels needed to run the complicated sims had stretched his own intellect immensely, and he had felt the dearth of that kind of mental challenge keenly because it was so addictive. To be able to stretch again...

What was he thinking?!

He sat back in his chair after flipping the file folder closed again. He now knew better than to trust the Centre's report of the child's personal history. He'd seen the same kind of report once before - a small boy discovered after both parents were killed in an accident. He'd bought into Jarod's manufactured history as an orphan for decades, and so followed the Centre's directives on how to train him, how to treat him, without question. At least, until Jarod had taken it into his head to escape the Centre and begin questioning everything he'd ever been told - by Sydney and by the Centre. And then Sydney had learned the depths to which the Centre had been capable of sinking, the obscene nature of the lies that he'd so quietly swallowed whole and then worked from.

He had yet to forgive himself, and really didn't expect forgiveness from Jarod - ever.

Now this...

The very first page of that file was a report of this little boy's discovery at an orphanage after his parents had been killed in an auto accident. Except for dates and circumstances of the accident - and the fact that the signature at the bottom was William Raines' rather than Jacob Green's - it could have been an exact duplicate of Jarod's intake form. That fact in and of itself gave Sydney pause.

Sydney steepled his fingers contemplatively under his nose and closed his eyes. He had spent the last six years of his life discovering and then struggling unsuccessfully to come to terms with the monstrous thing he'd been a part of - the theft and exploitation of another human life. He'd actually come to the point of quietly cheering on Jarod's ability to stay five moves ahead of the Centre retrieval effort, not to mention the do-good-ing that had so characterized his former protégé's interaction with the outer world.

What was more, he had been in exactly this position before when Gemini had come to his attention - only with the motivation to be a part of making sure that same monstrous process had been short circuited before it even got started. That move had almost lost him what few friends he had left in the world.

The condemnation in Miss Parker's face when she'd learned that he'd demanded to be put in charge of Gemini had only been bearable because he knew that he was taking that step in order to free the boy. Still, her censure, as well as Broots' obvious disgust, had been an outright agony that could never be expressed, and only their forgiveness when they figured things out had made his life bearable again. It seemed that deep within Miss Parker's conscience had grown the same reluctance to be a part of the obscenity any longer.

That wouldn't be the case now - would it? How could she ever forgive him if he went along this time...

The phone chose that moment to begin to ring. He sighed and picked up the handset. "This is Sydney."

"Syd? Got a minute?" Why didn't it surprise him that it was Miss Parker?

They had spent hours and hours together after her return from Carthis, very quietly and secretly exploring the limits and fine-tuning the capabilities of her inner sense. That time together in such close psychic proximity had welded a very clear connection between them that could spill open easily - and did so often quite unpredictably. He knew that all he would have to do would be to extend a mental tendril to be able to know not only her mood, but her physical condition - and he was quite aware that her skills in that respect so far outmatched his that it wasn't funny. She'd probably sensed his mental disquiet without even trying.

"What can I do for you?" he asked in a distracted tone, sensing the same disquiet and distress in her and knowing suddenly exactly what was coming.

"I received notice today that we're reactivating the Pretender Project, and I've been assigned to design improved security systems for the Sim Lab and associated living quarters. I was just wondering what you knew about this..." Her voice told him volumes, and his inner sense filled in the gaps quite capably. She was repulsed, disgusted, and very upset by the mere idea that another child would have to go through the same kind of upbringing that she'd slowly discovered had been Jarod's.

He sighed again. She was probably the one person to whom he could talk freely, and yet, if he told her... Then again, if she had been assigned security for the project, she'd find out eventually anyway...

"The project folder is sitting on my desk," he admitted, hoping his tone was communicating his own discomfort with the idea effectively and that her inner sense could pick up on his own revulsion at this development. "I've been assigned to mentor..."

"Don't tell me you're going along with this, Dr. Frankenstein?" Miss Parker's voice was aghast and appalled.

He closed his eyes again. She wasn't thinking or feeling beyond knowing something was amiss. "Are you?" he shot back gently. He'd learned with her that sometimes the tiniest of nudges was all the guidance she needed - in this instance, it would be only the tiniest of reminders that she was in very much the same position. He was trapped, as was she. Choice had very little to do with it for either of them.

His nudge worked. She was quiet for a while. Then, "What are we gonna do, Syd?"

"What we can, Parker, what we can."

Sydney heard the long sigh on the other end of the line, and knew that they were now functioning on the same wavelength as far as this new challenge was concerned. "Thanks, Syd," she said softly.

"Have dinner with me this evening?" he asked suddenly. "We haven't seen very much of each other lately, and this will give us a chance to catch up." And compare notes privately, he sent through the “inner” channels. "Pick you up at seven?"

"I'd like that," she answered softly. The connection between them warmed perceptibly. Message received. "Talk to you later, then, Syd."

He replaced the handset thoughtfully, and picked up the file folder again and opened it to study the personality profile page at last. The boy's name was James, his age five and a half, his parents allegedly killed in an auto accident two weeks earlier, his IQ off the charts. It was déjà vu all over again, he thought unhappily, closing the folder again and getting reluctantly to his feet - surrendering to the inevitable, and yet being once again dedicated to a completely different outcome. He was getting too old for this.

But he could put off the next few minutes no longer.

Sydney pushed all his doubts and hesitations and apprehensions into a tiny mental box which he then stowed in a very dark and secret corner of his psyche, not to be opened again until that evening, when he was safely away from the Centre completely. He then carefully and deliberately pasted a well-practiced neutrality on his face as he put his hand on the button that opened the glass door to the Intake waiting room, where the small tow-headed lad was absently tinkering with the Erector set left there deliberately to see what would happen.

"Where am I?" the small voice demanded of the first adult he'd seen in what must have been hours. "Where are my mom and dad?"

"My name is Sydney," Sydney intoned for the third - and hopefully the last - time in his life, "and I'll be taking care of you for a while."

My Name Is Sydney - by MMB

Chapter 2: Decisions


[Six weeks later]

Sydney sighed tiredly as he slipped the CD into the player, and the opening strains of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony poured into the room like audio honey. It was late, and he was exhausted from not having slept well lately. In a fit of self-flagellation, he had figured that if he was going to be awake and alert at this hour, he might as well be sleepless at the Centre as anywhere else. After all, his behavior of late had proven to him beyond a shadow of a doubt that he belonged there, along with all the other monsters and horrors and things that go bump in the night and frighten little children. One terrified and homesick five and a half year-old in particular now. He planted himself behind his desk and sank his head in his hands, feeling the soothing power of the music but being unable to allow it to work its magic on him.

He didn't deserve comfort, or soothing.

He knew himself to be a damned traitor for complacently administering those intelligence tests and first exercises in stretching mental acuity to that very lost and frightened little boy. He damned himself for allowing himself, however briefly, to feel a sense of personal accomplishment in having assisted the lad's first halting steps in becoming a truly gifted Pretender of Jarod's caliber or perhaps even better. He damned himself for once more becoming a part of the theft and exploitation of another human being, his reluctance and qualms notwithstanding. And he damned himself most of all for the skill at which he was able to hide his ethical dilemmas behind a thick and almost impenetrable façade of scientific objectivity, frosted with just enough genuine humanity as it would take to elicit desired responses from the boy.

Yes, that odious façade of objectivity, painted over with minimal humanity, had finally grown very old and very heavy - transformed by revelation and guilt into an albatross that hung from Sydney's neck wafting the stench of his own betrayal at him every way he turned. As trapped as he was in the current endeavor, if he knew what was good for him AND the boy, Sydney the man wanted nothing more than to snatch the child up into his arms and hold him close when he grieved for his lost parents. It seemed a far more compassionate response than Sydney the scientist had been giving, merely standing back and calmly chiding the child into setting the grief aside and continuing with the task at hand.

Little James was spectacularly bright and talented, in so many ways reminding Sydney of Jarod during those agonized first days of his internment as prized Pretender. He was a sweet and compliant child, eager to please those around him but equally anxious to find out where those he loved had gone - why they were no longer included in his world. And he was a particularly athletic child, accustomed to spending hours in the open space and sunlight being physically active. For the last two weeks, his most poignant plea to Sydney, most often at mid-afternoon, smack dab in the middle of the more complicated mental acuity exercises and practice sims, was to be allowed outside to play for a bit before coming back and finishing.

Miss Parker knew what was happening - and he knew HER sensitivities to this kind of barbarism were the reasons he hadn't seen or spoken to her since the day James' keeping had landed in his lap. Her assigned task had been to design security systems upgrades to the Sim Lab and associated living quarters, and while she had slowly complied with the parameters of her assignment, she had carefully erected a wall between herself and what was going on in that Lab. He saw the reports of work done on his Sim Lab only. He knew this was her only way of refusing to be a part of the obscenity that was now his job.

Sydney missed her company and her friendship - however fraught with the verbal barbed wire of her own defensiveness they might be - desperately, and felt keenly her rejection of who and what this assignment had made him become again.

He sighed again, ran his fingers through his thinning hair in frustration, and punched the button to turn on his computer terminal. Very quietly, during these nights of insomnia and guilt, he had begun searching news sites on the Web for reports of missing children. He knew he was running a risk of being caught without a good excuse for his surfing, but he had to do SOMETHING to ameliorate the evil he was a reluctant part of. Tonight he focused his search on the Western US - California in particular.

He had steadfastly refused to believe any of the information that had been given him about the boy's past history - he'd been lied to before, and had no reason to believe he wasn't being lied to again. There was no date or place of birth in James' file, only the date and place of his 'discovery': Dover - only two hours' drive from Blue Cove. Considering that his first move had been to scour every local rag in Delaware for any news of a missing child, he knew James - or Jamie, as he was starting to call the lad - had to come from somewhere more remote than that. The only place more remote than California was Hawaii...

Wait...

There it was! In the San Jose Mercury, dated seven weeks ago, almost to the day - a young boy, James Milburn, had gone with some friends to the local park in Gilroy to play after school but had never come home again. His friends mentioned seeing men in dark suits in the distance, but had seen nothing truly suspicious about them. Then James had just vanished while chasing a softball.

Sydney narrowed the search until he had what he required to confirm his suspicions: a photograph of the missing boy which was of a happier, more relaxed Jamie than the one who now sat forlornly in a locked cement cubicle one level below the Sim Lab. He printed the page with the news article and associated photo and logged off the Internet and then switched off his terminal, intensely angry.

They HAD stolen another one - just as Jarod had been stolen!

The Beethoven surged majestically in his ears, but he couldn't hear the music at all. He had raised his head to stare out into the dimly lit and currently abandoned Sim Lab, his mind populating the room quite effectively with a vision of a young Jarod and young Jamie. Both of them were staring back at him with accusation and condemnation in their eyes. Then a younger Angelo, an image Sydney knew only from the DSA's he'd viewed over the years of the search for Jarod, came in to stand next to them and join in the ghostly vigil of condemnation.

He knew what he had to do, if he intended to be able to live with himself one moment longer.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and pushed a few buttons. His eyes sought out the digital clock on his desk, and then he knew he would most likely be waking her. Now that Jarod had pretty much vanished from their lives, chances are she actually would have been asleep.

"What?!" He HAD awakened her, but her sharpness was more habit than anger.

"Parker, its Sydney."

"Syd?" Now the voice on the other end of the line was confused. "What time... Are you... Is everything OK?"

Now, with her confusion making her defenses drop a bit, Sydney could push open the gates to those “inner” lines of communication between them that he'd so willingly allowed her to lock shut weeks ago and flood her with his mental anguish and determination. "I know it's late, and I'm sorry to wake you, but I was wondering if you could join me for a cup of coffee?"

"Do you have any idea what time it is, Freud?" she groaned back at him in frustration, accepting the broadcast of anguish and sending back her worried concern in return.

"Please, Parker. It's important."

She groaned again, and the rustling in the background told him that she was slowly pulling herself out of bed. "Pick me up in half an hour - and you're going to owe me a helluva lot more than just a cup of coffee."

Sydney smiled for the first time that evening. "I'll be there." He disconnected the call and rose. He snatched the paper from the printer, folded it into his shirt breast pocket, grabbed up his customary beret, and made a beeline for the automatic door of the Sim Lab.

It didn't take him a half-hour to get to Miss Parker's house, so he sat quietly in the car waiting and trying to organize his thoughts until she came out her front door and slipped into the seat next to him. "Where are we going?" she asked him quietly, scanning his face and seeing a turbulent toss of emotions there.

"There's a small all-night diner about twenty minutes from here," he told her in an equally quiet voice. "It isn't someplace either of us frequents, and we'd be able to see if we're being followed or staked out." He steered the car onto Highway 36 and away from the ocean.

"Am I going to like what I'm going to hear, Sydney?" she asked finally, letting her concern and worry come to the front of her consciousness at last.

"Do you remember asking me what we were going to do when we first heard that the Pretender Project was being reactivated?" he asked instead of replying.

"Yeah..."

"Well, I think I have an idea - but I need your help."

She sat silently next to him for a long time, watching the night-time scenery flow past the windows of his comfortable car and listening to her “inner sense” connection between them for the first time in weeks now. She didn't need to tell him how much she had missed their conversations, not to mention their psychic connection - no matter how necessary it had been to her own peace of mind that they both cease. She could feel the resonance of that absence in the back of Sydney's mind, along with a calm sadness that was his understanding of her need to pull back and shut off the contact. And over it all sparkled his joy at having been able to breach the wall that she'd thrown up between them and get away with it.

Twenty minutes later, she was sitting across from him in a 1950's style diner booth, steaming mugs of coffee on the table between them, the print-out of the San Jose Mercury article with Jamie's picture on it in her hand. She was staring at him in surprise and consternation at what she'd just heard him spell out to her.

"You're kidding?!"

He lifted his coffee mug and took a long sip, never taking his eyes from her face. "You have a better idea?"

"That is sheer suicide, Sydney! What..."

"I think," he contemplated and spoke slowly, "that would be a far better way for me to go than just continuing on as I have, waiting for... whatever - participating... Tell me the truth, Parker - if you were me..." He left the rest unsaid.

Her grey eyes studied him in urgent consternation. "I don't want to lose you," she admitted finally in a slightly shaky voice.

He reached across the table and put one hand on hers. "These past few weeks have been as if neither of us was alive for the other - and we chose to let things stand that way. The only difference between that situation and death is a matter of permanency." He patted her hand. "I don't want to lose you either, Parker - but I can't live this way anymore. Not again. I HAVE to do this."

Miss Parker looked down into her coffee, knowing his absolute sincerity and dedication to the path he'd set out for himself. What he intended was downright dangerous - fatally so, should he be found out ahead of time. She was frightened for him, but knew there would be no way to dissuade him. Her choices of response were limited to two.

Finally she sighed and shook her head in resignation. "OK. What is it you want me to do?"

My Name Is Sydney

Chapter 3: Help


Damn it - where was it? Merde!!

Sydney knew he had put that drawing that Jarod had sent him years ago of himself and Jacob at their confirmation SOMEWHERE in his home filing cabinet, but until this moment had had no urgent reason to keep track of it. But Jarod had given him a very precious gift at the bottom of that drawing: a phone number - and now Sydney needed desperately to use that number.

Miss Parker had done as he had asked her to do. Over the past two weeks, while he had continued to act the quintessential mentor and train little Jamie to be a crackerjack Pretender, she had carefully and quietly collected all of the schematics and specifications for all the upgrades made to the various Centre security systems over the past six years. The mini-CD she had given him that afternoon contained it all - from simple video/audio surveillance systems enhancements to motion detectors to infrared cameras, magnetic locks, pass codes, swipe keys and retinal scanners.

"I trust you will see to it nobody else finds out what's on this," she suggested soto voce as they stood together, ostensibly meeting serendipitously in the cafeteria and sharing a cup of coffee. Her left hand touched his right hand and transferred the little disc into his keeping with very little fanfare.

He had slipped the CD into his pocket and simply gone about his business, returning to the Sim Lab and introducing Jamie to yet another practice round of climbing into the minds of others. The little boy had been restless, however, asking for permission to play outside more than once for a change and showing the first signs that proved the old Pretender Project axiom that great minds held the potential for great resistance to assigned tasks. He had struggled with obviously contrived non-answers to his questions for over an hour with his face painted with a shatterproof and slightly frustrated neutrality. Then, as his vaunted ability to remain aloof and objective threatened to disintegrate completely, he had signaled for Sam to escort the young genius back to his space for the rest of the day.

But Sydney knew he was wearing down, slowly but surely, day after day. He knew too much to believe the lies the Tower would feed him or have much stomach for the task he'd been set. It was getting more and more difficult to turn a deaf ear to heart-breaking pleas for reconsideration as a sweeper would drag the boy away after either resistance or the close of the day's work. Harder still was continuing to ignore the tears of a small child still in deep mourning for parents now inexplicably lost to him. Afternoons - that time of day when the freshness of morning and a youthful, bushy-tailed curiosity about what Sydney might have in store for him had worn off, that time of day when a tired five and a half-year old had re-emerged from the Pretender chrysalis - they were the worst.

Today, Syd had simply shut down the Sim Lab and left for home not long after summoning Sam, not having the energy or even the slightest inclination to document the day's general lack of progress. He wanted to go home, pour himself a very tall and stiff drink, and boot up the brand-new laptop Broots had helped him buy a week ago so he could continue to follow the San Jose Mercury's coverage of the on-going search for James Milburne.

Most of all, when all that had been done, he wanted to find that damned drawing with Jarod's private cell phone number at the bottom. The time had come for him to reach out for effective and expert help in resolving this untenable situation. And there would be no better help to be had at extracting a kidnapped child from the monstrosity known as the Centre than the man who had gotten in and out several times without getting caught. Jarod had managed to spirit away two other innocents in danger of having their lives narrowed to the path between Sim Lab and living space - Sydney could only hope that he'd be interested and willing to do it one more time.

So here he stood in his shirtsleeves at nearly ten o'clock at night, slowly disemboweling his entire filing system looking for one 10 x 15 inch page of drawing paper with a phone number in the bottom right corner. He was beginning to think he'd actually filed it in his work office when the page seemed to slip of its own accord from the folder he was pulling from the bottom of the bottom drawer.

Sending a quick and fervent prayer into the beyond that neither the number was no longer good nor that he would be endangering his former protégé, he punched in the numbers written at the bottom of the drawing and held the phone to his ear. Then, amazingly, he heard a slightly sleepy-sounding but very familiar voice on the other end of the line say, very hesitantly, "Hello?"

"This is Sydney," the psychiatrist announced in an equally hesitant voice. "Are you able to talk?"

"Sydney?" Jarod's voice instantly was sounding infinitely more awake. "What's wrong?"

Leave it to the genius to know instinctively that his old mentor would NEVER have made use of this number if it hadn't been an emergency. "I need your help, Jarod. They're doing it again - and they have me trapped in being a part of it."

Jarod was silent for a long moment. "They took another child with Pretender potential?" he asked finally, sounding very disgusted.

"Yes."

"And you were given the assignment to train this child? To do to another innocent..." Jarod's voice was rising as his anger grew.

"Jarod..." Sydney put up his hand defensively, as if the man on the other end of the line would be deterred by it. "I'm calling you to help me get him out. Miss Parker has given me a detailed summary of all upgrades and modifications to Centre security since the day you escaped. I'm hoping... it will help you get that little boy to safety - and back to his family."

"Miss Parker? She knows what you're doing?" Jarod was astounded.

"She doesn't approve of this anymore than I do, Jarod. She wasn't all that hard to convince."

Jarod was quiet again, and Sydney knew that he would find that latter bit of information difficult to believe. Then: "How do you know this isn't just another Centre trap for you - a loyalty test to see whether you'd still be willing to do their bidding..."

Sydney was shaking his head halfway through the question. "To be honest, Jarod, I really don't give a damn if it is or it isn't. That little boy..." He closed his eyes. "I tell you, I come home from work every night, Jarod - and I can't get his face out of my mind. I feel... dirty... criminal... for what I'm expected to do - what I HAVE to keep doing, to keep playing the game so that no suspicions arise."

"Syd..." Jarod's voice was much gentler now. "OK. I get the picture, and I'm sorry I doubted you. So... What have you managed to find out about the boy's origins? Do you have a name, a region? Anything?"

Sydney smiled grimly at the opposite wall. "I know his full name, his parent's name, where he lives, when and where he was taken."

"Learned to surf the 'Net and find what you're looking for now, eh?" Jarod sounded impressed. "Good for you!"

"Jarod..." Sydney's supply of patience was fairly well depleted from eight to ten hour days participating in something he knew was nothing even remotely beneficial to anyone.

Jarod at least had the decency to sound apologetic. "Sorry. It's just that up until now, you've really resisted learn..." He heard the roaring silence and knew that he'd just about gone as far as he dared in tweaking the man for his anachronistic tendencies. His former mentor DID have a temper, after all - one he'd just as soon not see again, either. "Never mind. Look, are you able to write things down? An email address?"

Sydney moved quickly behind his file-encumbered desk, quickly cleared a small space and pulled out a pad of Post-It's. "Shoot." He copied the information Jarod dictated to him letter by letter and then read it back to him to verify he had it correctly. "OK... Now what?" he demanded.

"I take it that if you've been surfing the 'Net, you have a computer that doesn't run through the Centre mainframe, right? A PC at home?"

"Broots helped me choose it and set it up for me," Sydney admitted easily. "It's completely independent of the Centre, to the best of his ability to make it, that is..."

"Broots is good - you're about as safe from snooping as you're gonna get, then. So now I want you to sit down at that brand new computer and send me everything you have - everything Parker gave you, and every webpage dealing with your new Pretender - and then you need to be patient and let me think up something that will work." Jarod paused. He knew what he was going to say next was not going to sit well. "While you wait, I'm afraid you'll need to continue to play the game, Syd, as if nothing else were going on in the background. I'll be in touch when I'm ready to move and need you to take care of your end of things."

Now it was Sydney's turn to be overwhelmed enough at his former protégé's willingness to drop everything to help him rescue another innocent from the Centre. "I... don't know how to thank you..." he said with a voice ragged with his emotions.

"You just did," the Pretender responded quietly. "By not being able to sit by and let it happen again." He paused, as if not sure how to continue. "I'll be in touch, Sydney, as soon as I have things figured out. You take care of yourself in the meanwhile, OK?"

Sydney closed his eyes, this time in relief. "Thanks, Jarod," he managed before he heard the connection between them severed from the other end. Carefully he laid the cell phone down onto the pad of Post-It's and leaned back in his chair. A weight seemed to have fallen from his shoulders, and yet he knew that it wasn't over yet.

The ride only promised to get bumpier from here on.

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...

My Name Is Sydney - by MMB

Chapter 5: Consequences


The Pepto Bismol bottle was nearly empty already, but Sydney reached for it anyway and tipped what little was left into the little plastic cup and downed it with one gulp, then grimaced. This bigger bottle hadn't lasted much longer than the previous one, and the medicine didn't seem to be even coming close to touching his heartburn today. The aging psychiatrist sat down heavily in his office chair, nearly doubled over with the pain and glad that the day was winding to a close so that he could go home. IF he could straighten up enough to walk, that was...

He had known this day would come weeks ago, when he'd first felt that twinge. Not that there had been anything he could do about it - Mr. Raines didn't recognize physical illness as a reasonable excuse for taking time off. Not with the success of the simulation for the government still ringing in Corporate ears. Not with the sudden influx of new simulations for Jamie that the man had just handed over to Sydney to prioritize and get started on. Just that stack of folders alone constituted what would amount to six months' worth of work to plow through.

Jamie - Sydney struggled nightly to compartmentalize his mind and keep his deep concern for the little boy's mental condition firmly under lock and key, each night with less and less success. While Jamie continued to prosper intellectually under the accelerated learning program that Sydney had developed for Jarod years ago, emotionally the lad was becoming more and more withdrawn. The hunger strike that had started with that one little demonstration of spirit and rebellion had lasted nearly three days until Sydney had sat down and literally force-fed the boy himself to keep him from complete physical collapse.

After that, the boy's spirit seemed broken. He ate, seemingly without tasting; he learned, seemingly without interest. He worked, doing exactly what he was told when he was told to do it - no more and no less. And no more questions or pleading. There was a defeat and a submission in the boy's bearing and voice that tore at Sydney's heart every moment he was with him and accompanied him home to echo in his mind, in his dreams. Only the dreams weren't dreams anymore, but nightmares.

There was a knock on his office door, and Miss Parker pushed her way into the room without waiting for permission to enter. He had been afraid of that, too. It had been he who had closed down their inner communications this time - over a week ago, when the pain had really started to mount and become agony. But from the look on her face, this evening's sudden agonizing acid burn from his meeting from Raines had apparently broken through all the barriers he'd so carefully constructed. Damn... Now she'd know...

"Syd! What the hell are you doing to yourself?" she demanded worriedly as she crossed the room and came over to put a finger under his chin. The sight of his pallor was frightening, as was the expression of deep and agonized pain. Her eyes flew to the empty bottle on the desk. "Christ, Sydney..."

"Go home, Parker. You know you don't want to be a part of this," he warned her in a voice made rough and harsh with pain. "I'll be OK..."

"Sydney..." She squatted down next to him and brushed back the grey hair from where it dangled limply in his face with a gesture that was practically a caress. Her voice was soft as she chided him. "Why didn't you let me know it was getting this bad?"

"What good would it do?" Guilty chestnut eyes flicked up and touched hers very briefly. "There's nothing you could do anyway..."

"The Hell there's not..." she growled defiantly. She rose, strode to his coat rack and reclaimed his beret and jacket. "C'mon. I'm taking you home."

"Parker..."

"Shut up, Syd. You're in no shape to argue." She helped him into his jacket and smoothed back his hair so that the beret looked right perched on his balding head. "Can you stand?" He nodded, slowly, so she stood back and gave him room to move.

He grunted heavily and leaned hard on his desk to give him support as he struggled to his feet. Miss Parker immediately lifted the arm closest to her and slipped beneath it, her arm wrapping around his back as he leaned heavily on her now. "I'm taking you home and calling you a doctor," she announced firmly as she helped him walk slowly toward the Sim Lab door. "And then I'm going to sit on you to make sure you start taking care of yourself better."

"Parker," he complained as his feet stopped moving and he pulled her to a halt too. "I HAVE to come in to work. Raines is determined to move the Pretender Project back into full operation as soon as possible - illness is simply not an option."

"Damn it, Syd, losing the one man capable of pulling off moving the Pretender Project back into full operation in record time simply isn't an option either." She tugged at him to get him moving again. "I'm not going to let Raines push you into an early grave."

"I have to be there for Jamie..."

She punched the button to summon the elevator. "Sydney, look at yourself! You're barely functional! How can you possibly be there for Jamie if you refuse to be there for yourself too? Besides, we both know that it's working with that boy that's tearing you apart at the seams." She shook her head disbelievingly and then got him moving into the elevator car the moment the door swooshed open. "You've been working with no days off for too long. Jamie could use a day of rest, and so could you." At his glare of disbelief she merely added, "I'll clear it with Raines."

Another stab in the stomach made him groan and practically double over again, and only Miss Parker's support kept him from falling. She braced herself; keeping Sydney on his feet was taking every bit of energy she possessed. The elevator ride seemed to take forever, but in that time the older man seemed to rally from his latest cramping and straighten a bit. By the time the elevator had found the parking level, he was once more only leaning heavily on her shoulders and moving under his own steam more or less.

She hit the lock button on her key as they made their way slowly down the line of cars, then maneuvered Sydney into the passenger seat of her Boxster and quickly buckled him in. Glancing at his face as she slipped behind the wheel, she could see the small beads of perspiration on his forehead and upper lip. "Hang in there, Syd," she soothed, catching herself as she reached out to brush his pale cheek with the backs of her fingers, and instead she reached for the ignition. "You'll be home in just a bit."

Sydney leaned his head back against the headrest of the seat, too exhausted to want to watch out the window. He was disgusted with himself more than anything else. His was the easy task - all HE had to do was keep playing the game for the Centre surveillance system. It was Jamie who was suffering greatly, who HAD already suffered more in the little time he'd been in custody than any child should have. Just as it had been Jarod who had suffered for decades. He, Sydney, deserved every twinge and stab that his treacherous body chose to inflict on him now for all the past and present suffering he himself had inflicted on innocent people.

The ride to his home on Washington Street was made in silence except for the occasional whimper or involuntary groan he made when the cramping would start up again. He could hear, from the sound of the car's engine when his pain let up enough so he could focus on something else, that Miss Parker wasn't letting any moss grow under her wheels. The tires were not quite squealing around corners, but coming close to it. There was one time when he could have sworn he felt her put a hand on his shoulder in the midst of a hard cramp, as if wishing to comfort and soothe - but he didn't have the energy to look or acknowledge the gesture.

He felt the bump as she pulled up the driveway apron and stopped in front of his house. "How are you doing?" she asked, her voice clearly worried. "Can you make it inside?"

"I don't know," he admitted, and he didn't. "I'll try," was all he could promise.

Miss Parker came around the front of the car and opened the passenger door, then tried not to panic at the sight of how transparent his face had gotten during the ride. She reached across him and unbuckled his seat belt, then grasped his feet and twisted him around on the seat so that he wouldn't have to work so hard to stand.

She was so busy trying to figure out how to get him out of the car and into his house that she didn't hear the sound of the front door opening behind her. Nor did she know anybody else was present until gentle hands grabbed her shoulders from behind and carefully moved her out of the way. Jarod reached past her into the car and lifted the older man up into his arms like a child. "What the Hell's going on here?" he demanded as he led a stunned Miss Parker quickly back into the house. "What happened?"

"What the Hell are YOU doing here?" she demanded in return, kicking the door closed with her foot, then following him up the stairs and into Sydney's bedroom in time to watch him gently lay his mentor on his bed.

"I asked first," he retorted, moving to remove Syd's shoes and beret. "What's wrong with him?"

"What does it look like, Boy-Wonder?" she snapped at him, moving to Sydney's side defensively. "He's sick. Now, answer MY question."

"I needed... to... talk... make some arrangements..." Jarod hedged after casting a wary glance in her direction.

Miss Parker put up a hand. "OK. Stop right there. I don't want to know. It's bad enough that I know you're here and don't intend to do anything about it." She looked down at the ill man on the bed who had simply closed his eyes to let whatever discussion was to happen go on without his participation for as long as he could. "What's more important to me right now is Syd and what he's doing to himself. He's downing antacids by the pint and damned near collapsed on me several times just now..."

"I can speak for myself," Sydney ground out at that point. "It's just heartburn..."

"Bullshit, Syd. Remember, I've been there." Parker's voice was brusque with her concern. "You're courting an ulcer to match mine - or better."

Jarod's gaze flew from Parker's face to Sydney's. "Syd?"

Agonized chestnut eyes opened and peered apologetically up into chocolate concern. "I had to keep... playing the game... nnnnnnnnn!" He couldn't continue as his statement ended in a moan. He curled away from the others into a tight ball of pain.

"Geez!" Jarod was nonplussed. "If I had known..."

"Can you DO anything for him, Jarod?" Miss Parker called him back from his ruminations.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I can." Jarod moved to Miss Parker's side. "But I'm going to need your help. I want you to go to the store and get him some mint tea bags - he's going to need to drink mint tea exclusively for the next few days, as well as be on a soft, bland diet until his stomach settles down again. But the bitch of it is, to REALLY take care of things, to take care of the cause of all of this, I'm going to need you to make sure and get him in to work tomorrow and to see to it that he's at work all day."

Sydney reached up to touch fingers to the back of Jarod's hand. "Tomorrow?" Jarod looked down and nodded.

"I don't want to hear this either," Miss Parker reminded them both. "I think I'll go get that tea you were speaking of." She bent over Sydney, deposited a kiss on his cheek and smoothed his tumbled grey hair back into place again in an obvious caress this time. "I'll be back in a bit, I promise. You rest easy." She aimed a calculating gaze at Jarod as she straightened again. "As for you, I suggest you tell him what you need to set his mind more at ease, but that you be gone when I get back. Capice?"

"Crystal."

"And I'll see to it he's at work tomorrow, one way or the other."

Jarod held out a hand to her. "Thanks - for that, and for taking care of Syd."

She demurred for a moment, then shook his hand very briefly before pulling back. "Thanks too, Jarod." She looked up, her eyes speaking volumes that she couldn't bring herself to say in words. "For everything." Then she spun on her stiletto heels and headed towards the stairs and the front door beyond.

"Tomorrow, Jarod?" Sydney inquired from the bed. "Really?"

"Really, Syd. Rest easy. I'm sorry I took so long - had I known what this was doing to you, I'd have moved faster. But it's almost over - only one more day." Jarod sat down on the edge of the bed, pulled by the desperate hope on his mentor's tortured face, and began to explain.

My Name Is Sydney - by MMB

Chapter 6: Settling Accounts


Sydney moved the file folders of pending simulations to the front end of the top drawer of his file cabinet, his face carefully schooled into completely expressionless neutrality all the while dancing for joy on the inside. There would be no simulations run today or any other day - not with Jamie, at any rate. The little boy was gone, and the Centre was in a complete uproar.

Jarod had not told him the exact details of his plan to extract the child from inside a Centre holding cell - Sydney hadn't asked, nor wanted to know THAT much. The less he knew about the specifics, the less he might be forced to disclose later. But Jarod had told his former mentor enough that he knew that it was Jarod who had literally entered the Centre, found the boy, and spirited him out again without being detected. Sydney also had his suspicions that Jarod had made use of the help of the one loose cannon inmate the Centre possessed. Angelo had been scarce and hard to locate lately, and it was likely that he had been in contact with the little boy - to comfort and soothe him, if nothing else. Angelo would be a likely ally for any attempt by Jarod at a rescue, and Sydney had quietly kept that suspicion to himself.

However, if all was holding to the elements of the plan that Jarod had given him the night before, Jarod had the boy with him and would be taking him back to California in very short order. The two of them would want to lay low for a while until the Centre's intense scrutiny of public transportation channels abated somewhat. In the meanwhile, Sydney knew the older Pretender had already made arrangements for the boy's parents' relocation with a new name and history, with more than sufficient money to last them until Mr. Milburn had managed to find another job that would support them all. The Milburns would have a chance to establish themselves a bit before contacted, and then Jamie would be returned to them in their new home, given a new name himself, and a chance to live a normal life.

As it was, Raines was livid and on the warpath. No sooner had Sydney's report to the Tower that the sweeper sent to fetch Jamie to the Sim Lab to work had found the boy missing been received but the oxygen-starved titular head of the Centre had made his way down. Once there, he had railed at Sydney at length in a voice that sounded at the virtual edge of doom itself, obviously wanting to blame the psychiatrist for aiding and abetting the boy's escape. But, with the evidence of Sydney standing right in front of him, he was unable to justify, and thus reluctant to voice, such a ridiculous charge. A five and a half-year old simply couldn't have pulled this escape off on his own, nor remained without supervision for long. Sydney's being present and accounted for in the Sim Lab ready to work and obviously with no intention of leaving before the end of the day logically disqualified him from consideration. That, in itself, rankled the Chairman more than anything else.

A new Pretender hunt was launched - this time for a child Pretender. Sydney found himself once more teamed with Miss Parker and Sam this time to check out possible places to look for the boy. The three “hunters” had stared at each other in amused dismay at the idea of trying to figure out where a small child could be hidden, whether it was inside or outside the Centre walls, or how to detect clues that would lead them to their goal. They all knew their job was probably futile - and none of them were really all that anxious to succeed.

Miss Parker and Sydney had shared a quiet look between them around the middle of the afternoon while they were alone briefly, that clearly established that the head of SIS would NOT be putting her best effort into this latest boondoggle. And, it appeared, she would not be asking for the head of Psychogenics Department to do much better.

The look of understated satisfaction on Sydney's face and the current of relief along their shared inner channels, not to mention the general lack of pain and worry in his expression and voice, was like a soothing balm to Miss Parker. She had packed a large thermos of the mint tea Jarod had prescribed against the psychiatrist's digestive woes that morning, but she knew that even that couldn't have made THAT much difference already. No, it was the knowledge that Jamie, an innocent child, was no longer in the clutches of the Centre that had worked magic on the man's very being.

But Sam's sympathy for the boy - once carefully kept hidden but now revealed clearly to two others who shared the sentiment - had flabbergasted both the psychiatrist and the head of SIS. The sweeper had been taken aback momentarily at the apparent lack of concern shown by the psychiatrist at the news his little charge had vanished, as well as at the lack of fire in Miss Parker's demeanor while organizing the hunt. The hulking ex-wrestler had observed both of them very carefully over the following hours, and discovered that the scientist's façade of unfeeling neutrality that he'd grown accustomed to seeing in Sydney all these years had been ONLY a façade. What was more, Miss Parker had in some way reclaimed the serenity she'd exuded since the hunt for Jarod had ended. In a moment of revelation, Sam knew he could trust his coworkers with his true feelings.

Still, those traitorous feelings had to be kept inside while the three of them outwardly processed information and brainstormed possible ways and means for a little boy to have vanished from his locked room. A secondary sweeper team was dispatched to track down and locate Angelo on the premise that the empath would be able to tell them how the deed was accomplished. Sydney's subsequent interview of the odd little man who lived more in the Centre's ventilation ducts than anywhere else accomplished a duo purpose - he prepped Angelo for “helping” the hunt and with repeated questions gave the autistic man training on how to avoid answering questions.

As the day wound down to its conclusion, Sydney felt as if he'd spent the entire time spinning his wheels uselessly. He was ready at the stroke of five for Miss Parker to stop by and take him home again after having driven him into work that morning herself. She had been so worried about him the evening before that, while doing the shopping Jarod had asked of her, she'd packed a quick overnight bag and parked herself in his guest room to help nurse him through the night. Jarod's prescription had made short order of his cramping, however, and they both had been amazed that such a simple thing could ease such desperate pain. The thermos of the soothing tea was now empty, however, and Sydney was ready to make a fresh pot to see him through the evening - knowing that he'd already had the best medicine for what ailed him he could have gotten.

"You gonna be OK tonight, Syd?" she asked him as he collected his briefcase from the floorboard of her Boxster after climbing out onto his driveway pad.

"I'll be fine, Parker, don't worry," he responded gently and with feeling. "I have a feeling I'll be resting very well tonight for a change."

She nodded in the fading twilight. "You'll call if you need..."

"I'll be OK," Sydney insisted with a smile and extended a hand into the car to smooth against her shoulder. "I have a hunch that the worst is past for me now."

"See you in the morning, then," she said, catching at his hand and squeezing it briefly before letting it go again.

Sydney straightened out of the car and closed the passenger door, then waved her on her way to her own home before turning to his front door. He had made it just inside the door when his telephone began ringing. "This is Sydney."

"Syd." It was Jarod. "You're home."

"Thank you." Sydney couldn't think of another thing he needed to say to his former protégé - a man he secretly thought of as a son. "Thank you."

"Thank YOU." The Pretender's voice was soft and forgiving. "Do me a favor, though?"

"What's that?"

"Unlock your patio door. Jamie and I spent the day in a safe place, but it's no place for a little boy to spend the nights before we begin his trip home. I was thinking..."

"Say no more. You're both more than welcome to my guest room and couch for as long as you need it. I'm going to unlock the door as we speak," Sydney said, carrying the wireless handset with him as he walked through his dark house into the kitchen-dining area and flipped the lock on the arcadia door there. "Are you two hungry? I can throw together something simple..."

"Any ice cream?" He could hear the smile in Jarod's voice, and knew he was looking down at a child who had been sweets-deprived for far too long.

"As a matter of fact, I do," the older man smiled at his phone. "It's only vanilla, though."

"That'll do," Jarod sounded pleased. "We'll be there shortly."

Sydney busied himself while waiting for his guests to arrive with getting a pot of cream of chicken soup cooking and then setting his little kitchen table for three. He was just setting glasses of milk on the table for his guests, knowing Jarod's love for the white stuff, when he heard the glass door behind him slip in its channel. He turned to greet Jarod and a wary and distrustful Jamie.

"Supper will be ready in a few minutes," he announced, clapping the Pretender on the back in a warm embrace. He looked down at Jamie's closed face and didn't even try to approach the boy.

Jarod saw the direction of Sydney's glance and followed it, then looked back up at his former mentor with a small sigh. "We've been doing a lot of talking today, Syd. Jamie is very angry at you."

"I'm not surprised," Sydney shrugged and turned back to his cooking. "I'd be angry at me too in his position. I made him do things no child should ever have to do; and to make matters worse, force-fed him something disgusting and unappetizing that looked like it came out of a horror movie." He carefully carried the heavy pot of soup to the table and began ladling it into their bowls. "For all he knows, I'm a monster. He had no time or reason to learn otherwise."

The psychiatrist met his protégé's gaze unflinchingly. "You were very angry with me for a long time too, Jarod. Remember? You still are a bit as well, when something catches you unexpectedly."

Jarod's expression grew thoughtful, but he set those musings aside to put a warm hand on the boy's back and urge him into a chair between himself and Sydney. "I told you he'd understand," he stated pointedly to the boy.

Jamie merely glared up at his former mentor, then very gingerly lifted his nose over his bowl and sniffed. This stuff was definitely NOT the same yucky stuff Sydney had been thrusting under his nose in that dark place! With a look of surprise and pleasure, the boy lifted his spoon and took a careful sip - then dug in.

"There's some French bread to go with your soup," Sydney mentioned, holding out a platter of warmed and buttered bread. Jamie looked up at him with surprise, and then warily snagged a piece of bread and nibbled. "It's good," he admitted begrudgingly.

Sydney nodded graciously but didn't try to draw the boy out. He turned his eye to his older protégé. "How long do you need to stay here?"

"At least tonight and tomorrow," Jarod said after doing a few quick calculations in his head. "The Centre is going to be watching every possible avenue of escape very closely for the next day or so - but their attention will thin as they have to expand their arena of study."

"Technically, it's Miss Parker and I and Sam who will be supposedly “after” Jamie," Sydney informed them after swallowing some of his soup. "But I think it safe to say that none of us are going to be giving this task our best efforts. It seems even Sam didn't approve of what he had to do."

Sydney shifted his gaze to Jamie. "You should have seen Sam's face when you threw your breakfast against the wall. He may not have said anything, but he was cheering you on the inside - just like I was." He saw the boy give him a glare of utter disbelief. "I know you don't believe me - I don't blame you - but it's the truth. I couldn't show you how I felt, ever. If the people who had ordered me to work with you had known how much I wanted you to be free, how sad I was that they'd found you and locked you up in the Centre, they'd have taken you away and made it impossible for anyone to help you."

"Sydney's the one who called me, Jamie," Jarod added gently, drawing the little boy's attention. "He asked me to help get you out, get you back to your mom and dad."

Now the little boy's gaze came back to Sydney's, and this time it was full of questions. "You... called Jarod? To get me out of there?"

"Yes." Sydney sighed. "Jarod was another little boy given to me to work with, much like I was working with you, only a very long time ago. I worked with Jarod until long after he was grown up. Then, when he got away, I started to learn that he'd been stolen - just as you were stolen. I couldn't change what happened to Jarod, but when I saw them trying to do it again with you, I couldn't let it continue." He turned in his chair to face the boy straight on. "I am sorry I had to make you eat that horrid food, and go through those simulations."

The little boy's eyes were boring holes directly into the heart of Sydney's soul. "You didn't really want to do that? Any of it?"

"No, I didn't." Sydney felt a faint surge from his still-touchy stomach. "What I really wanted to do was pick you up and carry you right out the door and back to your parents. But I knew if I tried, we'd both get hurt - maybe killed. I had to have help and play the game the people there wanted me to play until you were free again." He felt his stomach stab at him again viciously for the first time all day and turned away to sip carefully at his freshly-brewed mint tea, willing the liquid to work quickly.

Jarod had seen the subtle grimace. "Sydney made himself sick worrying about you, Jamie. He's still hurting."

Jamie looked at the older man quickly. "Sydney?" he asked, his voice concerned for the first time.

The psychiatrist laid a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. "Don't worry about me, Jamie," he soothed, shooting Jarod a pointed look of frustration for handing the boy any guilt at all. "Once I know that you're safe with your parents again, I'll be just fine."

"I didn't know," the little boy said softly, then got out of his chair and came over to Sydney, putting a hand on his arm. "I don't want you to hurt, Sydney."

"I know, Jamie," the older man said, turning in his chair to face the child.

"I'm not mad at you anymore," Jamie added, his eyes growing hopeful. "Will that help you feel better?"

Touched beyond words, Sydney reached out and very carefully gathered the little boy to him and held him very gently.

"I'm not mad anymore either, Syd," Jarod added his voice to Jamie's, his eyes on his mentor and saying what had been in his heart for a very long time. "I haven't really been mad for a very long time. You were as trapped as I was - as Jamie was. I know that now."

Sydney closed his eyes against the tears that threatened to overwhelm him. He hadn't deserved this forgiveness, but they were forgiving him anyway. He felt Jamie's little arms hold him back as best they could, and at long last let that release - that unexpected and oh-so-sweet forgiveness - soothe him.

Maybe, someday, he might even be able to see himself as a human being again.

My Name Is Sydney

Chapter 7: Epilogue


He rolled down the window and let the soft, warm air caress his face. What a change this was from Delaware, where the weather was already starting to have that chilly feeling that signaled autumn moving into winter. He had his suspicions that by the time he got back, there might even be snow on the ground.

Still, it was a pleasant change to be where it was warm this late in the year, although he wondered absently as the cab drove down the boulevard how Californians could tell their seasons apart. Without falling leaves or snow on the ground, how could they tell summer from autumn, or fall from winter? Ah well, he wouldn't be out here long enough to worry about it. His job would only take a day or so, and then he could climb back into the Centre jet and head home.

He was still amazed that the federal authorities had had the audacity to just march into the Centre foyer as if they owned the place and flash warrants that gave them access to the Chairman himself. It seemed that a federal lawsuit had been filed against the Centre and against Mr. Raines in particular, and that criminal charges had also been filed against Mr. Raines in the apparent kidnapping and detention of a child named James Milburn. And then the flood of subpoenas had begun.

That his name was high on the list of witnesses for the prosecution was no big surprise - considering his position at the Centre, he not only expected it but would have been downright amazed if he hadn't gotten one. After all, his role in this attempt to reactivate the Pretender Project had been substantial.

He closed his eyes as the cab rounded another corner and began to slow. He suddenly decided he was getting tired of palm trees standing like telephone poles with green pom-poms at the top, planted here, there, and everywhere. They were ugly things - especially the ones that hadn't been trimmed down to that naked wood but wore a silver-grey floor-length skirt of dead and dried fronds. He pictured the reds and yellows and golds of the trees that bordered and arched majestically over the road leading to the Centre gates and found himself vaguely homesick.

"Here you are, sir. That will be twelve-fifty." The cabbie's announcement brought him back from his musings.

He reached for both his briefcase and duffelbag after handing a twenty over the front seat. "Keep the change," he directed magnanimously, and the cabbie nodded his head in gratitude.

"Thank YOU, sir!" The cab peeled away from the curb the moment the cabbie was sure his passenger was completely disembarked.

He looked up. The façade of the building was old, but probably not as old as the building across the way. He'd heard tell that the courthouse itself had been damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake, but renovated and improved in the years since then. He shuddered. Old buildings were not his favorite place. Still, he had a job to do. He took a deep breath and headed inside.

The corridors were wide, clean, and mostly empty. It was, after all, not yet one o'clock in the afternoon. Court had adjourned for the lunch break over an hour ago. He had plenty of time to get his bearings. He looked into several rooms that were apparently abandoned, checking the view. Finally he found the room that would serve the best, and he closed and locked the door behind him.

He moved to the window and looked out and down. He could see right into the courtroom; he could see the people still milling around before taking their seats. He could see familiar faces too - Mr. Raines at the defendant's table, Miss Parker... He opened his briefcase to begin removing and assembling the pieces secured within their protective grey foam.

Willy put the ocular lens to his eye and watched as the judge came through the door behind his bench, and the trial was once more in session. A tall, distinguished-looking man rose from the audience and came down the aisle. He turned just before he reached the witness stand and raised his right hand.

Willy didn't need to hear the lightly accented voice recite the traditional promise to tell the truth. He simply moved the crosshairs to a point between the man's eyes as he saw the lips begin to speak the words, "My name is Sydney..."

Fin.