“No kind of sensation is keener and more active than that of pain; its impressions are unmistakable.”

- Marquis de Sade

Broots could have sworn that he had been over this section of the Centre’s database a hundred times and never once saw anything that could have been remotely related to Project Heptagon. And then suddenly there it was- an email that had been sent to an unknown recipient. It was marked- Heptagon Dominatus Urgent and it was encrypted.

Had he been drinking anything, he would have done a spit-take.

“Sydney!” He spun around in his chair so fast he was nearly thrown out of it. At the animated expression on Broots’ face, the doctor rose to his feet and walked over to him.

“What have you got?”

“An email,” he explained, his voice trembling in excitement. “And I’m almost certain it’s regarding Project Heptagon. It’s in code at the moment and I don’t know whom it was sent to, but tracing it should be doable.”

Sydney was visibly impressed. “And where was this buried?”

Broots shrugged and shook his head as his fingers flew over the keyboard. “I don’t know. I’ve been over and over this area and found nothing. But when I stopped looking for something on Project Heptagon and starting looking for something on Mr. Raines, I found this.”

The doctor nodded knowingly. “Good work, my friend. How long do you think it will take to decipher it?”

The technician looked thoughtful. “Not sure yet.”

A noise from a darkened corner of the room caught their attention. Broots stopped his work and looked at Sydney inquisitively. “Is that coming from the airshaft?” he wondered.

By the time they reached the vent the grate had already been knocked off and was lying on the floor. Neither men were overly surprised when Angelo emerged, however Broots’ jaw dropped when the copper-trussed girl with Angelo materialized.

“Whoa, Angelo!” Broots exclaimed, staring at the girl. “Where’d you find her?”

Angelo looked at him without answering. Sydney stepped toward the girl who immediately backed up against the wall looking like a trapped cat. The doctor stopped as not to further upset her.

“My name is Sydney,” he told her as a way of establishing a sense of familiarity. “And this is my friend Broots.” As if cued, Broots stepped forward and gave her an uncertain smile.

Her gaze scanned over them, processing every detail of their physical appearance like a computer storing data. Simultaneously, she searched her memory banks for their names- her mind locked onto the information Lyle had fed her. He had not said anything particularly terrible about them, but he had also not said they were trustworthy.

“You seem upset,” Sydney continued kindly. He inched toward her, careful not to move too close or too quickly. “We want to help you. Can you tell us your name?”

Her great gray eyes stared at him with intense circumspection. She remained silent.

“Mia,” Angelo offered helpfully. He sank to the floor and watched the group from there.

Broots pursed his lips together in consideration. “That wouldn’t be short for Amelia would it?”

Sydney turned slightly to him. “That’s what I was wondering.”

“Seventh Member.”

In unison, Broots and Sydney looked at Angelo. Angelo was getting restless; he had something very important to do, but he did not want to leave before his friends had all the information they needed.

Broots looked terrified for a moment, but the longer he studied the girl the less convinced he became that Angelo was right. Sydney shared his skepticism.

“Angelo,” Sydney said perplexed. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He replied. His gaze darted about the room as his mind mixed with thoughts of the business he needed to attend. “Centre… assassin.”

This statement prompted the girl to frown and shoot Angelo a dirty look. Sydney noticed her change of expression and he turned to the nearest desk chair, pulled it out, and slid it near her.

“Would you like a seat?” he offered, his genial demeanor remained unchanged. “You look tired.”

She eyed him warily and, once he backed away, accepted the chair. Longs bangs spilled into her eyes and her hands fell limply in her lap.

“Mia,” Sydney tried again, “Do you know where you are?”

She wondered if they truly didn’t know who she was or if they were just playing one of those Centre games she had been warned about. She decided to answer at least some of their questions. Perhaps if she did, they’d answer some of hers.

“The Centre.”

Broots looked surprised that she actually answered. Sydney’s expression didn’t flicker and he pressed further. “How did you get into the Centre?”

“Walked in.”

Broots had to smile at the matter-of-fact answer. Mia turned her gaze to him and regarded him curiously. She would like him very much if Lyle said it was all right.

“Alone?”

“No.” And she did not offer anything more than that.

Sydney took a seat on the desk. His movement startled her and she became more reticent, ducking behind her hair.

“Who brought you?”

She did not answer.

Seeking to speed up the inquisition a bit, Angelo crawled up to her unnoticed. He reached out and touched the tip of the DSA that peeked out of her pocket. The discs cascaded to the floor.

“What’s that?” Sydney looked to Broots, who was already scooping up the discs. Mia stared hard at him, but did not try to stop him from taking them. “Angelo, what are these?”

Angelo retreated to his corner.

Without a word, Broots loaded one of the DSAs into the computer. He let out a low whistle when he saw the screen. “Syd, you gotta see this… we gotta a big break on Project Heptagon!”

“Heptagon?” the doctor repeated confounded. “That means she would had to have been in Raines’ office.”

Broots eyes widened in amazement. “Oh, my,” he murmured as the disc played. “Holy Cow! Did Raines just kill that guy?”

Sydney didn’t respond. He had a terrible sinking feeling that settled into his stomach. He had a strong sensation as to what Project Heptagon might possibly be.

Each one of the five DSAs showed in significant detail the Initiation Process conducted on the first five members of Project Heptagon as well as their subsequent deaths. Raines’ narration was vague on the reason for the experimentation as though whoever might be viewing the video later already knew the details of the Project, but his explanation of what was happening to the subjects was explicit.

“So…” Broots hesitated, not sure if he really wanted an answer to his question. “Raines’ is splitting personalities? Why?”

Sydney closed his eyes to block the images from his mind. Anguish and disbelief settled into his weary features. He stood up and began to pace the room.

Mia watched him closely, interested by his distressed behavior. While she had not seen the DSAs, she assumed they had something to with her and Lyle and if her assumption was correct, she wanted to know what he knew.

“I can only speculate,” the doctor replied grimly. “This type of psycho-experimentation was stopped years ago. Of course, the Centre would continue to pursue it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“In the early 70s, it was discovered that the CIA and military were funding behavior-modification and mind-control drug experiments where mental patients and prisoners were secretly used as disposable lab rats, so to speak. They were Project Bluebird, Project Artichoke, and MK-ULTRA.” Sydney paused and glanced at Mia before continuing. “A few years later, there were found to be psychiatric slave labor camps run by a profit-making corporation in South Africa.”

Broots shivered as the information sunk in. “The Centre…?”

The doctor nodded, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Experimenting involved everything from radiation and LSD to shock therapy and sensory deprivation. All done in the effort to exert control over the human psyche.” Sydney began to pace again. “There was once an area below the Centre, below the known sub-levels, that was dedicated to psychiatric research. We were always told that the projects that went on down there were to find a cure for mental illness and we were just naïve enough to believe what we were told back then.”

Broots’ attention drifted to the still-playing DSA of one the subjects suffering a violent hallucinatory episode. “Do you know what this is about?”

“I know what I was told,” he sighed in resignation, wondering how he could have been so oblivious to the horrors that surrounded him for so long. “I had a friend who worked in the Psychiatric Research Wing and he was absolutely convinced that what he was involved in was for the benefit of mankind. During one of the last conversations I had with him, he told me that they had begun work on a drug that created a blank personality that could be,” he grimaced as he searched for the right word, “programmed. The theory was to incorporate the all aspects of the subject’s persona into the blank personality except the mental illness.”

“But of course that’s not what the Centre was doing,” Broots thought aloud, clicking off the visual; he couldn’t take any more of the patient’s torment.

“No, and research was in its formative stage at the time. There was no real way to ethically conduct the experiments and there were too many unknown variables to continue the Project.”

“What happened to your friend?”

“We were informed that the Psychiatric Wing had been shut down as research had hit an area where it would be unethical to continue experimentation. Everyone involved had been released from Centre employment. At the time, I thought nothing of it. Of course, I never heard from Kensington again. I had forgotten all about it until those pictures that Jarod sent struck me. Then I recalled that the murder victims had all been colleagues of Kensington’s.”

“Does Jarod know about this?”

“No,” Sydney sank into the nearest chair. Broots looked at him worriedly as the doctor suddenly seemed exhausted. “By the time I realized the connection, things with Miss Parker were escalating. I was worried about her and unfortunately, never got the chance to connect with Jarod about it.”

Broots considered this carefully, and then shrugged off-handedly. “Guess you could tell him now since he is here.”

This garnered a slight smile from the older man. “I don’t care to arouse anyone suspicions by consorting with Raines’ new sweeper,” he said. “Jarod will have enough to deal with.”

“This still doesn’t make much sense,” Broots sighed. He sat up straight suddenly. “I wish Miss Parker would come back.”

Mia was fairly certain that she could get up and walked out without them noticing; her problem was that she didn’t know where she’d be if she walked out. From what she gathered, the Centre had eyes everywhere and she wasn’t willing to risk winding up in a dungeon somewhere. However, she’d about had it with their chatter and wanted something to happen.

She got her wish when a tall, brunette beauty entered the room with hurricane force. She sank down further in her seat hoping she wouldn’t be noticed. She had a bad feeling about what was to come.

“Parker?” Sydney seemed relieved to have a change of subject. “Is everything all right?”

The hard look on her face withered and she knotted her hands into fists at her side. She was pale and visibly upset. “No,” she said thickly, avoiding eye contact with them. “Everything is all wrong.”

Sydney knew instinctively that something had to be very grave for her to show such emotion. Broots fidgeted nervously with the keyboard in front of him, not wanting to hear more bad news.

“My father is missing again and Jarod’s been captured.”

Mia noticed the distinct change in atmosphere. She watched the trio carefully. The two men were clearly stunned by this news and the older man looked devastated. Going strictly on what Lyle had told her, she thought the capture of this Jarod was good news. She wondered why they were so disconcerted.

Broots was the first to speak. “H-how?”

She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know how or when or why. I just know that when I called to warn him that he was in serious trouble he didn’t answer… Raines did.”

“Well,” Broots stammered, trying to hope in a rather hopeless situation. “Maybe… maybe Jarod lost the phone somehow and Raines found it. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything?”

Parker rolled her eyes skyward. “He called me by name when he answered, Broots. Tell me that doesn’t mean something.”

Broots clammed up. There was nothing he could say.

“What made you think that Jarod was in trouble, Parker?” Sydney’s calm façade was back in place, but it didn’t fool Parker; she knew how distressed he was.

“My father’s disappeared again without a trace. Raines tells me that Lyle’s returned to Centre for no reason. And now Lyle’s gone, too?” She was agitated and it showed, simply because she couldn’t offer a decent explanation for calling him. “I just-“

Parker did not get any further. The mention of Lyle’s name had caught Mia’s attention and she was instantly at Parker’s side.

Parker raised an eyebrow. “Babysitting, guys?” she asked sounding more like her normal self. “Who’s this?”

“Meet the Seventh Member,” Sydney said simply.

“You’re kidding… her?” Parker nearly laughed. The girl was about as intimidating as a kitten. However, the look in Sydney’s eye told her that he wasn’t joking. “What’s going on?”

Sydney informed Parker of Mia’s appearance, the DSAs, and what he had told Broots about the Centre’s now closed region.

“How many more skeletons are we going to find in the closets around here?” she muttered under her breath at the conclusion of the doctor’s speech.

Broots swallowed hard as he showed Parker the DSAs. He really hoped they didn’t find any literal skeletons anywhere; the figurative ones were bad enough.

Parker didn’t view all the footage the discs held; there wasn’t enough time for that. She let out a long sigh and cast a brief sympathetic look at the girl. “Poor kid,” she muttered. She turned fully on Mia who was still staring hard at her with her strange eyes. She looked back at the doctor.

“What do you think was the point of this, Syd?” she asked, gesturing at the screen.

“I would assume the Centre was attempting to create the perfect assassin, though there isn’t enough information to draw any solid conclusions.”

“They wanted someone who get away with murder.” It was the first full sentence Mia had spoken to them.

Parker raised her eyebrows. “Go on,” she coaxed.

Mia studied her intently and took her time answering. “The sub-personality,” she said finally, “was the one that was programmed to do the killing and is only active long enough to carry out the order. Then the,” she tried to recall the terminology Lyle had used, “Primary personality takes over again with no memory of what has happened.”

Parker looked to Sydney who nodded.

“It makes sense,” he said, mulling over the information. He gestured to Mia. “Who would ever even suspect someone like her? None of us believed it at first”

She turned back to Mia. “You obviously remember though.”

The girl shook her head.

Parker didn’t quite buy the innocent act. “Then how do you know about this?”

“Read the file.”

“And where’s that?” She sounded extremely annoyed with the minimal information that was being given.

“In the airshaft in…” she gritted her teeth as the man’s name was hazy. “Raines… office.”

Broots couldn’t contain his amazement. “We’ve been trying to get in there forever. How’d you do it?”

She turned her eyes on him. “I didn’t.”

Parker was loosing patience. “Want to elaborate on that?”

“Bobby did.”

“Oh, well that explains it,” Parker retorted sharply. Pulling herself up to her full height and cast a steely glare at the girl. “Who is Bobby?”

Mia gave the other woman a curious look as though trying to determine if she was serious or playing dumb. Parker shifted very slightly under her penetrating gaze, feeling like she was trapped under a microscope.

“Bobby.” She said matter-of-factly as though they should all know whom she meant. If anyone was playing ignorant it was Mia. She could have told them Bobby was Mr. Lyle, but she had not yet decided how she felt about these people and how much she was going to trust them.

“Sydney.” Parker snapped, motioning for him to take over. She didn’t feel like pulling teeth at the moment and walked away.

“Mia,” he said gently. She smiled slightly as though to encourage him. “We don’t know who Bobby is? Could you tell us about him?”

Right before she answered, it became crystal clear to the trio who she was referring to. Mia looked straight at Parker with a doe-eyed expression.

“Miss Parker’s brother.” There was the faintest hint of spite underlying the ingenuousness.

“You mean Lyle?” Parker’s eyes darkened several shades as she locked gazes with the girl.

“No,” she said mulishly. “I mean Bobby.”

Sensing that the situation was quickly deteriorating, Sydney stepped in and tried to regain control. “You were with Ly- Bobby and he brought you to the Centre?”

The terseness disappeared when she answered him. “Yes.”

“Why did he take you to Raines’ office?”

“To find my file.”

“Do you know why he wanted the file?”

“Yes. He wanted to know what they did to me.”

“Where is Bobby now?”

“If I knew that I wouldn’t be here.”

Parker snorted. “What a trip.” She put both hands on her hips and addressed Sydney. “This is getting us nowhere. We need to find Jarod and figure out what’s really going on.”

Sydney ignored her for the moment and rephrased his question. “Mia, why aren’t you with Bobby now?”

Her expression darkened and her eyes deepened to storm cloud gray. “They took him.”

“Who did?” Parker’s interest was piqued again. She certainly wouldn’t mind having Lyle out of the way…. permanently.

“That…that… I don’t know!” she cried in frustration. “I don’t know who these people are! They took him. That creepy guy and some other people.” She returned to her chair, plunked down in it, and folded her arms over her stomach. Her expression clearly stated that she was finished talking.

Questions, questions! They ask questions I don’t know the answer to!

“Describe them.”

She glared with unveiled disdain at Parker. “Some… some big dudes, a black guy and guy with a bad bleach job and a couple of others.” As though sensing the woman’s next question, she quickly added snappishly, “And no, I don’t know their names!”

“My, my, my,” Parker said in a low tone. Internally, she was nearly panicked with this news on Jarod; she feared that Lyle also had his slimy hands on her Pretender. “Little girl’s got a big attitude.”

You ain’t seen nothing yet, Lady, the little girl thought darkly.

Oh Ho! Do you believe us know? You thought you were so smart…. You thought you were so clever… You thought you’d be king of the world… Oh, Ho! He, he, ha, ha. But we always knew better! Too stupid, too dim to be such grand things! No, not a king are you, but court jester! How fitting… Yes, yes, we approve! Hail to the king of fools!

And on and on they goaded him. He fought to open his eyes, to see his scorners face-to-face. He felt so odd as though he were floating… suspended in a warm cocoon that constricted his range of motion to nothing…

His eyes suddenly snapped open…

His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton and his throat burned. Every pain nerve in his body was screaming in protest. His eyes cracked opened, slowly letting the light in. When the brightness no longer bothered his vision, he opened his eyes fully and scanned his surroundings, trying to make sense of where he was.

Lying on his back, he had clear view of the stark ceiling. There was little else he could see as he found that he could not move his head or any other part of his body for that matter. His jaw, it seemed, was wired shut and his neck in brace. He strained his eyes looking down as far as he could. He caught a glimpse of his black shirt. He deduced that there was nothing binding him as he originally thought; he simply could not move.

And the room began to spin…

Something impossible was happening to him. He was trapped underwater, but he was not drowning or even gasping for air. It was as though time at stop at the moment he had taken that deep breathe before going under thereby sustaining him continually.

Above him, through the watery envelope around him, he could see a peeling gray ceiling far above him. In his peripheral vision, the foreboding sides of the ceramic bathtub surrounded him and it gave him the acute feeling that he had been in the same situation many times before. Somehow he was also keenly aware that this was the first time he had ever been conscious during the experience. It was more than a little disconcerting.

His attention was drawn back to his liquid tomb. Crimson drifted in the water in long ribbons. The bands that flowed all around him mesmerized him. They reminded him of something he missed. The voices faded to the background as visions danced before him. He smiled dreamily as the scarlet strips thickened, swirled into clouds, and stretched out again.

It never occurred to him that it was his blood that composed the ribbons...

He was constantly falling in and out of consciousness. The weight of his conscience bore so heavy upon him that it began to manifest itself in strange dreams. His last conversation with her played over and over again like a demonic recording on eternal repeat.

“You lied to me. You are in the Centre.”

“Don’t get holier-than-thou on me, Jarod. Face it, you are no more a saint than I am.”

“If this is how you want to play. Fine. But you’d better be careful, Wonder Boy, because I won’t come to your aid if you get caught. You are on your own.”

On your own… on your own… You are on your own!

No! He wanted to scream, to put an end to the torment. He didn’t want to be on his own. He didn’t want to be alone.

But he knew was…

Buried deep with the heart of the Centre no one could them scream…

“Amelia, why do you call him Bobby?” This was something that had been troubling Sydney for quite some time.

Her legs were folded close to her chest and she was glaring at Parker over her knees. For the last fifteen minutes the other woman had been trying to coerce her into helping her find Jarod. Mia was not interested in helping to rescue anyone who had tried to kill Lyle. Parker did not take her refusal well and was currently stewing off to the side. She lifted her chin slightly and glanced at the doctor.

“That’s what he prefers to be called.”

Sydney exchanged surprised looks with Broots. He was still processing the information gained from Mia, but a theory had begun to form in the back of his mind.

From across the room, Parker gave a derisive snort. “Lyle’s certainly got you under his thumb.”

Mia sat up straight with an icy look in her eyes. “Why are you so jealous of Bobby?” It wasn’t a question asked entirely out of spite; it was, as all her judgments of them were, based on unwavering faith in what Lyle had told her. She was simply curious.

Parker responded with a toothy and deadly smile. “Are you serious?” she asked amused. “Am I jealous of Lyle? Please…” In an instant, she was upon Mia, turning the girl’s chair sharply to face her. “Listen up, sweetheart,” her voice was laced with arsenic and her ice blue eyes were cold enough to freeze the Sahara. “I don’t know what he’s told you, but let me tell you something about dear ‘Bobby’.”

Against Sydney’s advise, Parker vindictively informed Mia of all of Lyle’s past sins, from the faked deaths and murdered mail-order brides to twisted liaisons with the Centre’s enemies and sinister pastimes. When she was finished she stood back from the girl fully expecting her to realize the monster Lyle was and come around to them. Of course, Parker had a ulterior motive for revealing her brother’s past; she wanted to gain Mia’s alliance because she believed the girl would be critical in Jarod’s recovery.

“So what do you think of your Bobby now?”

Mia’s response shocked them all. She just shrugged. “I already know all that. Bobby told me,” she remarked, sounding exasperated. She blew her bangs out of her face.

“Whoa,” Broots let out the breath he had been holding, “this is getting too weird.”

Parker threw up her hands in disgust and aggravation. Deciding she couldn’t waste any more time with the futile interrogation, she stalked away practically dragging Broots with her. Sydney remained near Mia who staring through him with a vacant expression. She was quite an enigma. The doctor was willing to wager that she knew much more about Mr. Lyle, but was withholding the information. She knew who Lyle was and was still protecting her. But why? What was he holding over her?

“Hey, Freud,” Parker’s voice broke through his thoughts. “Are you going to help or go catatonic?”

A humorless smile broke his grim expression as he went to his colleagues.

Angelo had slipped away a long while ago. When he slipped back in all was silent. Parker, Broots, and Sydney were huddled together in intense conversation while Mia sat sullenly in her seat facing the opposite direction.

Angelo went to Mia first. He approached her cautiously, maintaining a safe distance. He prodded at her hand with a folded piece of paper. She glanced down at him with a frown. He pushed the paper at her and finally she took it. She opened it up and saw that it was a map of the Centre. One corner was circle in bright red ink.

Mia looked at him as though to ask him what this was. He smiled slightly to himself, avoided her eyes, and scurried away. As studied the map trying to make sense of it, she heard a commotion from the other people in the room. “Jarod…” she heard Angelo say. “Here…hurry.” She lost track of what they were doing until she heard Parker speak again.

“What about her?”

Without thinking, Mia quickly folded the map up and shoved it into her pants pockets. When they reached her, she was staring blankly at the wall again.

“We have to do something with her until we can get to the bottom of all this,” Parker continued. “I’m not going to just hand her over to Raines, but she can’t be loose to roam around the Centre either.”

Mia’s resolved wavered and in a moment of deep worry and fear, she grabbed onto Parker’s hand. Parker regarded the physical contract with annoyed wariness.

“Are you going to find Bobby?” her eyes brimmed with concerned and petition.

Parker might have had some compassion if the subject had not been Lyle. As far as she was concerned, Lyle’s disappearance was a blessing.

“Look,” Parker said quietly, taking her back from the girl. She leaned over until they were nose-to-nose. “I have nothing against you. But as for Lyle, I hope he rots wherever they buried him.”

And so the line had been drawn and teams chosen with the women on opposing sides.