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Author's Chapter Notes:

Sorry for the delay in posting – I’ve been battling a migraine all week. Will try to get a little more posted over the weekend!

As always, thanks for the reviews and please continue letting me know what you think! Enjoy!


Part Four

“Friday night was a quick in and out. One security guard was easy to dodge. We just timed his rounds and acted appropriately. No one would ever have known we were there,” Major Charles spoke, taking the carrots his son offered, and nodding toward the countertop when Jim held up a bag of potatoes. The boy set the bag beside the sink and turned to the opposite counter to make sandwiches.

“Except the blue box would be missing,” Parker interjected, twisting the cap off of her bottle of water.

Major Charles shook his head. “Broots, Jim, and Ethan built a supplemental blue box to go in its place. No one would have detected the absence of the real box until 11:59 last night. Without the proper passcodes, it would simply fail to back up. The Centre personnel will probably think it was a hardware failure and send someone to check up on it next week.” He glanced to the side, taking in her appreciative glance as she patted her brother’s hand. She raised her eyebrows, indicating that he should continue.

“Saturday wasn’t as simple,” he continued, beginning to slice the carrots. “There were four sweepers at the storage facility and three computer technicians. There were also six other Centre employees there, from management to the night janitor. We used a volatile anesthetic in small doses through the ventilation system to render them unconscious.”

“A volatile anesthetic?” Parker repeated, one eyebrow arching even closer to her hairline. “Isn’t that what the Russian authorities used to gas those terrorists a few years ago?”

The Major grimaced, then nodded. “We used much smaller doses,” he qualified, “and not a fentanyl derivative. No permanent damage, just a quick nap. The three of us had gas masks just in case. Ethan stayed at the ventilation system and was in charge of slow dosing the employees. Jim stayed in the hotel room and remotely turned the security cameras onto a loop and shut off the alarms. Broots and I waited until the sweepers and technicians all appeared to have dozed off and dropped out of the ventilation shaft. We went to the main storage room and Broots hooked up the blue box for decryption, the additional external hard drive for the decryption codes, and a few other things he and Jim put together.”

“A transmitter and remote access card,” Jim supplied. “He also had a flash drive with a malicious virus on it that was set to go off at 12:30.” At Major Charles quick look of surprise, the boy shrugged. “We figured that it might distract them, make them think we were just there to infect their computers. They probably won’t realize that we are remotely accessing information right away if they’re too busy cleaning up the mess we left them.”

“But how are you going to access the information if the computer has a virus?” Parker questioned, leaning her back against the table behind her.

Jim quirked a smile at her as he separated the slices of ham he was putting on the sandwiches, “Simple. We control it,” he cocked his head to the side, “I built in a password that will allow us to go behind the virus, so to speak, to the actual files. It’s only going to create havoc with certain programs, not with the actual information we need to access.”

Shaking his head, a grin painted across his face, Major Charles continued his story. “We didn’t run into trouble until after midnight. One of the sweepers recovered from the small dose of gas faster than we expected. Ethan had already turned it back on but it hadn’t been running long enough to knock him back out,” the older man shrugged. “Luckily, we had the blue box and hard drive back in the bag and were on our way out the door. The sweeper caught sight of your friend’s bald head and must have realized there were intruders on the premises. He fired off a shot.”

“Dad knocked him out of the way,” Ethan supplied, trying to hold back the smile of pride that fought its way onto his face.

“The shot went a little wild anyway,” Major Charles stated. “Before I could even get to him to knock him out, the gas had done the job. I grabbed Broots by the arm and dragged him back to the ventilation shaft. We got out of there and to the car as fast as possible, then picked up Jim and boarded the plane. It was fairly obvious that, while bloody, his wound wasn’t fatal. Jim treated him on the plane until Broots was finally tired of the poking and prodding.” A smirk stretched across the older man’s face, “Of course, he didn’t mind your poking and prodding last night.”

This time, it was Miss Parker who smirked and rolled her eyes. “Do we know what was on the drive yet? You said last night there were no files pertaining to anything called Illusion…”

“Nothing that I’ve seen yet,” Jim interrupted. “Mr. Broots is going to work on it some more today. We also haven’t tried to remotely access the mainframe or the satellite office yet. Theoretically, that would give us more information to work from… if it works.” Catching Miss Parker and Ethan’s matching lifted eyebrows in his peripheral vision, he hastened to add, “It will work, we just haven’t tried yet.”

After a short contemplative pause, Parker asked, “Will we be able to access the Blue Cove mainframe remotely through the storage facility?”

Jim shook his head, “I’m not sure, Miss Parker. At 11:59pm on Friday nights? Sure. The rest of the week? Only if the computers are somehow connected and communicating with each other. If there is some sort of communication, we can piggyback it into the mainframe and set up our own. We’ll have to try it first. The only problem with that is if the Centre picks up our signal, it could lead them to us.”

“Jarod used to… borrow, shall we say, money from the Centre’s offshore accounts when we began transactions. He would reroute the signal through different satellites so that it looked as if he was moving every second to a different city or country,” Miss Parker crossed her legs, then uncrossed them, fingers tapping the wooden post on the back right side of her chair. “Could we do something like that?”

Jim nodded, “With the proper equipment, I’m sure Mr. Broots, Ethan and I can figure something out. Probably something even better,” the boy offered. “But nothing with a computer is foolproof.”

Parker let out a soft sigh and nodded. “You know how important this is, Jim, and the three of you know what you’re doing.” Pausing for a second, she added, “Do whatever you think is best. I can’t promise you I won’t be down behind you all the way,” she glared at Ethan from the corner of her eye as he smothered a grin. “But I do trust that you’ll get us the information we need without landing us in Raines’ clutches.”

“Of course, Miss Parker,” Jim agreed, placing slices of bread on top of the sandwiches in front of him. “Ham and cheese, or ham and extra cheese?” the boy asked pleasantly a moment later, serving plate in his hands.

With a chuckle, Parker took the two nearest sandwiches, handing one to her brother. “Thank you, Jim. For lunch and for your help.”

He smiled brilliantly at her, then took the seat opposite and grabbed the biggest sandwich left. Ethan laughed at his brother while Parker contemplated her sandwich.

Before taking a bite, Parker looked at Major Charles, watching him as he began peeling the potatoes in the sink. Chewing thoughtfully, she waited until he met her eyes. She swallowed, took a swig of her water, and offered, “I wasn’t on the phone this morning.”

Major Charles nodded knowingly, and her shoulders tensed slightly. “I was… I was talking to Tommy.”

“Tommy?” Ethan questioned around his sandwich, food tucked into the side of his mouth.

“You look like a squirrel, Ethan. Chew and swallow first,” she suggested with a forced smirk. “I… sometimes I see our mother, like the premonitions?” Parker’s words were geared toward her brother. “I see Tommy, too. Every now and then.” Modifying her thought slightly, “Only a few times, actually… but more often than I’ve seen Mama. There have been three people I’ve seen in my… my visions. I’ve seen Tommy the most, I suppose.” Her words trailed off, picking back up again when Jim clinked his watch against the sandwich platter. “I’m not sure Thomas comes because he’s supposed to or if I conjure him myself, but this morning he told me to make sure I protect the baby.” Shrugging, she took a small bite of her sandwich, chewing slowly. “He said the baby was ‘the one’, whatever that means. I asked him what he meant, and he just said ‘the one they’re looking for’. I was never able to find out who they were, but I think we can safely assume he meant the Centre. It wasn’t anything we didn’t already know,” her words had dropped in volume.

Ethan laid his hand on her forearm but did not say what she was afraid he would. Maybe you only saw him because you wanted to. With a sigh, she opted to give voice to her own thought, feeling Ethan’s answering squeeze of her arm.

“I didn’t see him,” Ethan spoke cautiously, “But I never knew him. You… you see things I don’t, sister. Like I hear things you don’t. If you saw Thomas, for whatever reason – he was there. That’s what matters.” He watched as his sister blinked hard, offering him a thankful smile. She laid her right hand over his and took another lazy bite of her sandwich.

Major Charles looked up from the counter and glanced quickly at his youngest son, then offered a smile to the older siblings. “If we can find out what’s in those files,” he used the flat side of the knife to push the diced potatoes into a bowl, “We can probably figure out what he means.” Without looking up, he knew Parker’s eyes had widened in surprise and settled on him. “Parker, everything you’ve told us so far has made sense, whether you read it from a file or quoted it from a dream. If you saw your Thomas, then I have no doubt in my mind that what he said was not only true, but also important.”

This time, blinking did little to staunch the trickle of tears.

--

“Daddy? What happened?” Debbie asked, knitting her brow as she stopped at the door of the living room. Broots was seated on the floor, knees crossed under the coffee table as he tapped away at the keyboard.

“Huh?” he asked, barely sparing her a glance as he reached forward to plug in the external hard drive.

“Your face – you’re hurt,” she reminded him, watching as his hand came to touch the bandage on his temple.

“Oh, that. Nothing really, Debbie. I’m fine now. Miss Parker took good care of it last night,” Broots smiled, attempting to divert her attention from the gauze. “Honest.”

After a few moments, Debbie let her concerned expression fade. “I tried to stay awake until you got back, but it must have been really late.” Her father gave a quick nod and smile, eyes quickly drifting back to the screen in front of him. With a sigh, she rolled her eyes and crossed the room. “Can I help?”

Debbie’s words snapped him from the trance-like state he was rapidly falling into. Sucking in a deep breath, Broots hesitated, cocking his head sideways and blinking at her.

“I’m not a little girl anymore, Dad,” she sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “I know why we’re here; I know what those people did to Miss Parker and her mother, and I know where Jim and Ethan came from. I want to help,” her words were adamant, expression determined. “Miss Parker is my friend.”

Broots couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face at her stance, so reminiscent of the older woman. “You do help, Deb, just by being here,” he offered hopefully, then sighed as a scowl flitted across her face. Clearing his throat, the tech pushed himself from the floor and onto the couch behind him. Patting the seat beside him, he made no move to close the laptop. “Some of the things the Centre has done… I don’t want you to see, Debbie. It’s… it’s not a nice place and some of the people are very… very bad,” he frowned, struggling with the words.

“I know, remember? Jim told me about some of his time there, about being Jarod’s clone. And Miss Parker talks in her sleep sometimes,” Debbie shrugged, “she’s told me a little, anyway. You’re not as good at keeping secrets as you think, either,” she pointed out. “You’re very loud on the phone.” The girl paused, taking the seat beside her father, knees turned inward toward her father, “I know you stay because they’re your friends - because you want to help. I want to help, too.”

Broots eyed his daughter, realizing once again that he didn’t have to bend down to meet her eyes anymore. His little girl, the man sighed, wasn’t a little girl anymore. Sighing, he nodded, waving the fingers of his right hand toward the laptop screen. “This hard drive came from the satellite office in Denver. We’re trying to find anything we can about a project that may be called Illusion.” With a light shrug, he added: “I don’t think there’s anything here, but we have to check anyway. Want to help me run a few searches?”

Smiling, the girl slid down on the floor, barely noticing as her father followed suit. Leaning over the laptop keypad, she ran her fingertips over the touchpad and began running through the search options on her father’s quick-search program.

Broots barely hid a look of amusement when she began tapping her pinky against the side of the keyboard, trying to come up with a set of search terms. Her movements mirrored his in some ways, her infamously impatient role model in others. “Miss Parker talks in her sleep?”

He had not realized his question was spoken aloud until Debbie groaned, “Da-ad!”










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