Mr. White had never liked Mr. Lyle, but it was a fact he had kept to himself while employed by the Under-Director and, consequently, the Centre. But now, now that he was in charge and Mr. Lyle was nothing, it was no longer necessary to mask his contempt of the man. White watched with delight as his ex-boss was half-dragged, half-pushed by a giant in black down the corridor to the room in which White awaited him and his cohort.

White took this opportunity to better study the elusive Seventh Member without concern that his nose

could be snapped off. It was odd, he concluded after extensively looking the redhead over, that Mr. Lyle should care anything at all for this one- she was hardly his type. Though, if truth be told, he had never seen Mr. Lyle treat his Asian girls with anything that could be labeled as care.

Now at his feet, he regarded his quarry with silent superiority. Lyle was like a rabid dog, practically foaming at the mouth and full of frenzied violence. Mia, in contrast, was strangely subdued with no discernable emotion expressed on her fair features. Her eyes were just as blank.

Less to contended with, he thought with a shrug.

With ceremonious deliberation, White finally addressed his captives. “Mr. Lyle, Miss Amelia, welcome… to your new home.”

Lye tilted his head to the side and rolled a crazed glazed glare over White. “And where, pray tell, is home exactly.”

White was unspeakably riled by the younger man’s ingratiating tone. Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself up to his full, intimidating height.

“Think of it as a control room,” he hissed through clenched teeth. He stared Lyle down. When he spoke again, White’s tone was dark and steely. “You’ve both have caused us a lot of trouble. You, especially, Mr. Lyle- you’ve always been a thorn in the Centre’s side. However,” he smiled a delightfully malevolent grin, “this time you’ll pruned. We’ll make sure you never pose such problems again.”

White’s voice had become an annoying buzz in Lyle’s ear as a bizarre spectacle occurring over the man’s shoulder held his attention. A young man in his teens was being strapped down to an operating table. Obviously drugged, the boy’s head lolled to the side as his subjugators busied themselves with some sort of preparation. Dark blonde bangs were plastered to his fair forehead as sweat poured down his face. His blue eyes stared unseeing into Lyle’s.

White stepped to the side to allow Lyle full view of the scene. He watched Lyle watch the boy with vague amusement.

One the Black Coats held up a hypodermic needle to the light and tapped its side to expelled the air bubbles. The syringe was filled with an inky black liquid. The other Black Coat held the boy’s head so that the back of his neck was exposed. The Black Coat with the hypodermic held the needle to the base of the boy’s skull briefly before suddenly and ruthlessly plunging it in.

Lyle unconsciously held his breath in. In the moments that followed, all was still. Lyle exhaled and the boy began to convulse. So violent was the shaking that the boy was nearly thrown out of his bonds. When he began to throw up, the Black Coats released him from the straps so that he would not choke on his vomit. Another injection of the Serum halted the tremors. The boy’s skin was as pale as milk and his fingertips were tinged with blue. He wasn’t breathing…

The two Black Coats, unperturbed the lifelessness of the child, blocked Lyle’s view for several moments. When they moved again, the boy was breathing shallowly and staring once more at Lyle, only this time his gaze was a black abyss.

Lyle shuddered and glanced away. When he looked back White was in his face.

He sighed as he studied the predicament from every conceivable angle- they needed to get to where Lyle and Mia were without being detected but that was a feat that seemed more and more impossible. The weary Pretender sighed again and his shoulder sagged as though weighed down under a heavy burden. He had thought escaping from the Centre was his ticket to freedom, but he was losing faith quickly in that theory. He wondered what he had really gained in fleeing; he never had a moment of peace and he was still tormented by his past. The only benefit to the outside world seemed to be that he at least had the opportunity to thwart the Centre and the chance to atone for the damage his projects had done. He sighed again.

“Is there something wrong or are you just leaking air?”

Jarod started slightly and glance at Parker. He could not read her expression because he refused to look into her eyes. “Just thinking,” he muttered, pulling away from her. He stood and stretched his crumpled frame as he began analyzing the schematics of the underworld he had compiled in his head.

Parker frowned and hesitated, wondering what had offended him this time. When she stood, Mario met her, his gray eyes clouded with agony.

“This is hopeless,” he stated in defeat. “It is, isn’t it? Even if we could get down there, we’re completely outnumbered. We don’t have a chance- my sister doesn’t have a chance.”

Parker wished she had not given into Jarod’s insistence to the let the boy come. Whether Mario had a right to be there or not, the last thing she needed to deal with was a hysterical male- especially when she already had a brooding one on her hands. She placed a hand on Mario’s shoulder. “It’s not over yet,” she said summoning up as much confidence as she could. Nodding to Jarod she added, “He’ll figure something out.”

Jarod glance at Parker, still avoiding her eyes, and then at Mario before looking away without a word. He remained silent as he did not want to give the boy false hope.

White was in a talkative mood and taking great pleasure in gloating over Lyle’s situation. Not only was he dreadfully boring, Lyle found the unnecessary chatter to be immensely annoying- it was quite possibly the worst form of torture ever devised.

He was, however, temporarily distracted from the dreary ramblings by Mia. Her head rolled off of his shoulder and briefly jogged her awake. She looked up at him with the same bleary eyes of the boy-turned-creature then pressed her face into his chest so hard it was a wonder she didn’t asphyxiate herself. Lyle looked up from her fiery hair to give White an equally scorching glare.

“Oh, come now, Mr. Lyle,” White words slithered off of his tongue, “such a nasty look is really uncalled for. She’s only been sedated like the others were, like you were.” His lips parted in a tooth-baring grin. “Of course, we suspected that we might have a discipline issue with you and so took the necessary precautions. We didn’t think it would be needed to bind Amelia- she has always been most obedient- however…” White pursed his lips in a thoughtful pose. “She’s been increasingly rebellious since she met you.”

Lyle snorted derisively. “I do what I can,” he managed to spit out before a searing pain pierced his temples, forcing him to close his eyes. The gravity of his injuries was being to take its toll.

When he opened them again, White was still regarding him with that detestable grin. “Do you have any final questions, Mr. Lyle?”

“Just one,” he raised his chin defiantly. “What’s the point of all? Why are the Seven Members so important?”

White tossed back his head and laughed. “Congratulations, Mr. Lyle, you just defied the odds!”

Lyle stared at him as though he had sprouted another head. He fired a string of expletives at the other man.

“No one thought you’d ever figure things out this far, but they were positive you’d never get around to asking The Question.” White’s expression twisted into one of mock sympathy. “Oh, but I always had faith in you, Mr. Lyle.”

Lyle swore under his breath that as soon as he got out of this mess, White would be his next victim. Macabre hope filled him as he thought of the most gruesome ways in which he would purge White from the world.

“Picture this if you will, Mr. Lyle,” White went on, unaware that his demise was being plotted. “An army of soldiers at your command. An army without fear, morals, or remorse- no petty emotions to clouded their directions. Their loyalty is to you, the Programmer, alone. Whatever you wish is their command. Imagine the possibilities, Mr. Lyle. Imagine the power…”

Lyle imagined it and all the things he could do and he could not suppress his jealousy or his desire to be the Programmer. Then something troubling occurred to him. He thought it over and then something else came to him.

“That’s all well and good,” he said finally, “but that doesn’t come close to answering my question.”

White hissed air between his teeth. “Patience was never one of your virtues was it?” he snarled.

“I don’t have many virtues,” Lyle countered. “Answer my question.”

“I suppose our whistle-blowing doctor Puccini informed you of the difference in the experimentation on the Members and the others and the resulting effects.” White glared at him dourly. “We could control some of the others- we call them Sentients- completely or all of them partially. During further testing we found that the more Heptagon Members working together to manage the Sentients the more control we had of the collective consciousness. However, there were still unresolved issues. It appears that the Sentients are aware that there are parts of their consciousness missing and results in their stupidity. They lack the ability to continue with their mission when one of them is incapacitated or encounters a problem. So we felt that if we reunited them with their missing Members, these issues would become obsolete.”

For as long as Lyle could remember, his intelligence had been underestimated and ridiculed, particularly by those in the Centre. And perhaps he wasn’t as smart as he would like to think he was and perhaps he didn’t understand everything involved in Project Heptagon, but he did understand that Dominatus was a flawed plan and he was smart enough to keep this to himself.

Unbeknownst to Lyle, Parker and company were getting closer and that Jarod, with his ear against a pipe, had heard everything that White had said. For the first and probably last time, the two archrivals were thinking the same thing: Dominatus was structurally unsound and therein was the key to their survival.

White left them momentarily and returned with syringe in hand. He made a great show of preparing the hypodermic for injection into its victim. While watching the Serum drain into the glass vial with one eye, he kept the other on Lyle whose eyes were transfixed on what White half between his fingers. It had been White’s intention to inject Mia first, be he changed his mind when he saw the beads of perspiration dripping down Lyle’s face.

“You seem concerned, Mr. Lyle,” White sneered, tapping the side of the syringe for effect. “Something troubling you?”

“W-what are you going to do with that?” the Under-director’s voice broke uncharacteristically.

White arched an eyebrow. He could sense Mr. Lyle’s anxiety spike. Perhaps the syringe and its contents were an effective intimidation technique for the man.

“You’re reluctance to cooperate has forced us into extremes measures.”

The distinct look of terror filled the younger man’s eyes. “No. No, let’s work something out.” He tried to moisten his cracked lips but his mouth was too desiccated to do so. “I can help you,” he insisted desperately. “I have connections- powerful connections- inside and outside of the Centre. And I know things about the Centre. I can help you…”

White shook his head and snickered. Mr. Lyle was falling apart in typical fashion- the instant he was threatened with physical harm he dissolved into a sniveling informant ready to do whatever it took to preserve his worthless life.

“You’re connections mean nothing to us,” White informed him cruelly.

Realizing that he was running dangerously short on time, Lyle went to his last resort- unabashed begging. He was down on his knees by the time White reached him.

“No, please… no.” Lyle’s voice was barely above a whimper.

“All right, Mr. Lyle,” White knelt down to jeer into the other man’s ear. “You’ve convinced me not to use this.” He dangled the syringe between his thumb and forefinger.

Lyle’s chin dropped to his chest with weary relief. White positioned the needle above the nape Lyle’s neck with a victorious smirk.

“On second thought,” White plunged the needle into Lyle’s spine and braced himself for the scream that never came.

Lyle began to laugh. White frowned, thrown by this unanticipated reaction. Lyle lifted his head and locked gazes with White. A deranged smile danced on his lips. “You never were the sharpest tool in the shed were you,” he practically threw the words at White. “You couldn’t even complete a simple task like blowing up a building.”

White stood abruptly, swearing as he did. “What are you babbling about?”

“Didn’t you read my file?” Lyle staggered to his feet, still in excruciating pain, but he could the strength returning to his being. “Or didn’t you think that was important?”

“Of course, I read the file,” White fumed in confusion. “What kind of fool do you take me for?”

“A pretty big one,” Lyle chuckled until he began to cough. “You should have read the fine print- those injections don’t have the same effect on me as they do the others.”

The costly nature of his mistake dawned on White and he backed off from Lyle. However, he knew he still the upper hand as there was one more way to make the other pliable- at least he thought there was. White spun on his heel and retreated to the far side of the room. He nodded to several Sentients standing at attention nearby. Before Lyle had the chance to process what was happening, several of the beings snatched hold of Mia and dragged her to the table White stood by.

White smiled obscenely at her as the Sentients strapped her down. From seemingly nowhere he produced another syringe. Catching her head with the palm of his large hand, White forced her head to the side and held it there.

Instinctively, Lyle lunged for White and suddenly found his hands free, which he thought was a result of his rage. He grabbed White by the throat and slammed him into a wall. The Serum had revitalized him, but his earlier injuries bound his full strength thus sparing White’s life for the time being.

The Sentients were frozen by the outburst. Mia, who had been feigning her haze all along, discover that the restraint around her left wrist had not been tightened and she was able to slip out of it and undo the rest of her bonds.

Lyle was rapidly losing strength and his hold on White who was able to eek out a command to his minions. Several Sentients descended on Lyle while the others went after Mia. Like a switch had been flipped, Mia found her body responding in ways she didn’t know it could. White came after her again with the syringe for a dagger. He swung at her and she kicked the hypodermic from his hand, sending it flying through the air to shatter against a wall. White glared at her murderously.

“How dare you use your tricks on me!” He rasped. He nodded sharply and seven Sentients instantly surrounded her. She was as bewildered by White’s statement as she was by her sudden ability to excel in the martial arts. While fending off her attackers with relative ease, Mia attempted to figure out where these new found talents had come from.

Lyle, too tired to fight his captors, watched with equal puzzlement. As he watched he began to wonder if this was a demonstration of what Puccini had told postulated regarding Mia’s ability to control her sub-personality. The pressure around his upper arms suddenly relaxed as the Sentients released him.

Every Sentient was backing away from Mia and him with identical expressions akin to fear on their faces.

Mia, still crouched in a defensive posture, blinked several times in confusion. She glanced at Lyle then at White.

“Freaks!” The word was uttered like a curse and shot at them from a Sentient in the far corner of the room.

“Evil,” proclaimed another.

They continued retreating from them. Lyle joined Mia in the center of the room to watch the strange spectacle.

“Monster,” they accused. “Possessed.”

Lyle was not unaccustomed to such allegations; on the contrary he frequently heard such comments. He just didn’t understand it coming from them.

“Enough!” cried a furious White. He dabbed at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “This is child’s play and nothing more! Now finish your mission!”

Mia edged closer to Lyle and slipped her hand in his. She had the sinking feeling that their time was up. There was a long pause in which no one moved.