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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Author's Note: The end! The end! /sound of champagne bottle shattering/ Okay, this is only part one of the end, but still. Woo-hoo!
List Provided By: Unknown.
Summary: Miss Parker and Lyle finally discover who started it all. Now it's time for revenge!
Sibling Rivalry XXI
Part One
by: chopsticks
p g - 1 3
-----
When Lyle walked into The Centre that morning, there were two things that he noticed immediately. The first of which was that there was a wide variety of dead bodies lying about, most of them janitors. The second was that everyone was snickering at him. It was this that concerned him the most, and not just because they were laughing while sweepers were carrying around body bags.
Grinding his teeth, Lyle made his way through the mass of bodies and extremities that choked the fine marble floors, trying to resist all murderous impulses for only a few minutes more. He was quite angry with his sister, and had every intention of mentioning it to her. This had just gone too far, as far as he was concerned. E-mailing the entire planet about him was probably the straw that broke the camel's back, but that's only speculation.
On the elevator ride up, he considered what he would say to his sister. In truth, he hadn't the slightest clue. He hadn't even been able to sleep last night, he'd been so angry. So, now he was tired, cranky, and angry. Quite frankly, he didn't have the mental capacity at the moment to come up with something to say to her ahead of time. So, he decided he would simply fly by the seat of his pants, so to speak.
So, when the elevator doors opened and he spied his sister standing in the middle of the rotunda that was in front of her office, he took a deep breath to prepare himself. After all, he couldn't exactly start screaming at her in the middle of The Centre. That would not go over well with the Tower to be sure. So, after a few calming seconds, he began to walk out of the elevator, his narrowed eyes never leaving the sight of his sister. Unfortunately for him, he walked straight into the closing elevator doors. They quickly retreated, obviously aware that they had aroused the anger of Mr. Lyle. Either that or they were functioning properly and simply following the rudimentary program that ran them.
Lyle preferred to think it was the former, because that meant they had retreated just to spite him so he couldn't get a good solid hit in.
"Son of a bitch!" he cried out, obviously in slight pain. There was a small trickle of blood running from his nose, and he quickly wiped it away. He had managed to completely blow his quiet entrance, so he decided to completely scrap it and walked up to his sister, anger radiating in a heat wave from him. People scurried away, including Mr. Broots, whom she had been having a pleasant conversation with.
"Parker," he barked out, regaining her attention from her fleeting companion.
"Lyle," she acknowledged, a cool eyebrow raised in silent, unspoken, but certainly evident contempt. She had a feeling that he would do something completely idiotic this morning, and it appears she was right. As it was, she had a rather large migraine pounding behind her eyes, possibly looking for escape from her head, which she would consider a welcome relief if it weren't for the fact that she would need to sacrifice her eyeballs in order to allow it to escape.
"I am not happy," he declared, glowering at her.
"Obviously," she replied, resisting the childish urge to roll her eyes. Whenever she was around her maniacal brother, she always seemed to have the urge to do that. She just couldn't imagine why that would be.
"Why the fuck did you send this to every-fucking-body on the bloody planet?" he demanded, waving a printout of the e-mail in her face.
"Why the fuck did you set up a billboard display down one of the major highways in Delaware?" she demanded of him, standing up straighter, her heels and her sudden rigid form causing her to appear taller than him, if only by a little bit.
This only angered Lyle more.
"Why did you have the entire main rotunda repainted?"
"Why did you have the entire main rotunda repainted?"
"Because you did first! Why did you send that goddamn list to me in the first place?" Lyle demanded, a smug look crossing his features. He couldn't think of a single reason for her to have posted that first original list a few weeks back.
"What?" Miss Parker asked, confusion lacing her voice. "You posted the first list outside my door!"
"I did not! You posted first!" He crossed his arms, his expression becoming more childish every second.
"No, I can quite clearly recall that you posted the first list outside my door with no provocation whatsoever," Miss Parker replied in a slightly more regal manner, matching his crossed arms but not his attitude.
"Really? Because the first list that was ever exchanged between us came from you, Parker! Don't try to act the victim here, it won't work!" he snapped back, narrowing his eyes at her.
"'Act the victim?' When have I ever. . ." she argued, glaring at him. But he was suddenly distracted when he noticed Sydney lurking behind one of the columns, a small notepad that Lyle recognized as the one he used when observing an experiment. Sydney was busily writing in his notepad, and it was quite clear from the quick glances he was sending the twins' way, he was observing them. It was at that point that inspiration struck, and Lyle knew who was really behind this whole mess.
". . .and the last time I checked, you're the one who always-"
"Parker," Lyle interrupted, earning a death glare from his hung over sibling. "Let's move this out of such a public forum, hmm?"
Miss Parker looked around, noticing the people that had congregated in the rotunda, though they were attempting to make themselves look busy, which was rather hard since they were all standing in a large circle around the duo.
"Yes. . ." she said slowly, "Let's." She spun on her heel (her trademark move, which had taken nearly a year to perfect), and marched toward her office, Lyle following in his wake and planning slow deaths for all those that were watching them.
The door whished shut behind them, the hydraulics doing an excellent job. In fact, they did such a good job that they had earned an "Employee of the Month" award several times in the past few years, generally after Mr. Parker endured a lunch meeting where the champagne was free flowing.
Miss Parker opened her mouth to begin berating her brother once again, but was cut off by him raising a hand, signaling she should stop. She glared indignantly at him, but did as he requested.
"I know who's behind this entire fucked-up situation."
"Really? And who might that be?" she asked sarcastically, crossing her arms again in an annoyed manner.
"Sydney." If Miss Parker had been drinking something, she most certainly would have spit it out right then, and probably all over Lyle. It took a few seconds for this to penetrate her addled brain, and then a few more for it to make itself into something coherent, and then a few more for her to understand it.
"Syd-ney," she said meditatively, trying to understand her brother's (probably illogical) reasoning.
"Yes, Sydney," he said patiently, as if explaining this concept of a person named "Sydney" to a small child.
"And what is your reasoning for this?" she demanded, regaining her wits.
"I saw him taking notes as we were arguing just out there," he replied, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "And, it explains why we both think that the other was the first to start this little war. He obviously posted the first list outside my door, knowing I'd react by assuming it was you-"
"Yes, and why would you immediately assume it was me?" she interjected, but he ignored her and continued on.
"-and serving up some kind of retaliation. Quite frankly, I think it we must be involuntary subjects in one of his little experiments. He's obviously bored with zapping people's food for his twisted experiments."
"Okay, you might be right about this. Surprisingly." Lyle glared, but said nothing. "So, what should we do in response to this little 'experiment?'"
Lyle stared at her as if the answer was obvious (which, of course, it really was quite obvious). "Post a list."
-----
Lyle marched down the hallway, a rare smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He and his sister did, on occasion, make a really good team. They had managed to combine their efforts with minimal quarreling and compiled the list he was now carrying, built upon all the wondrous advice Sydney had imparted to them over the years.
She had left the matter of posting it up to him, as he had been the most recent recipient of a list in this long, now-proven-unnecessary war. And he had the perfect idea for how to thoroughly embarrass Sydney, though it would never quite equal out, since Lyle and Miss Parker had received the majority of the ego-bruising and embarrassing blows.
Honestly, there wasn't much left to do by the way of posting a list and Lyle liked to fancy himself as a creative person. (Apparently, to him, creative meant being entirely incapable of even drawing an adequate stick figure and knowing only insulting adjectives.)
But this idea was truly original. So original that it would go down in the annals of entirely irrelevant and pointless list wars, if there even was such a thing. Nevertheless, Lyle was extremely proud of his idea.
He only needed to find the one person that might actually benefit from this list. This, of course, was not a hard task, as a serial killer can always easily manage to find a serial killer. Must be the smell.
-----
Sydney was happily typing away at his computer, a device he barely understood but nonetheless took great pleasure in using. He had, as the whispers amongst The Centre's employees theorized, gone peculiar with Jarod no longer around.
It was during his "Happy Time of Clicking" that the P.A. system shuddered into life, obviously a little worn from terminal non-usage. A metallic squeal echoed throughout his office, and he glanced worriedly at his computer. Nothing seemed to be amiss on his screen, but that wasn't necessary very reliable, as was proven when his computer had caught on fire. The monitor was working perfectly well, showing everything being in tip-top shape, though the leaping flames coming from the plastic casing of the computer had quite a convincing argument for the opposite idea.
He stared suspiciously at his computer, trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong. It was then that a voice began speaking, and Sydney nearly flew out of his seat, shock written across his features.
At this point, it seemed to him that his computer was actually speaking. Though, for some reason, it found saying, "Testing. . . One. . .two. . .three. . .four. Onetwothreefour!" extremely hilarious, as evidenced by the exuberant giggles emanating from it.
After his brain had a few seconds to process this information, a part of his brain that was still sane smacked the part that was insane upside its head, telling it in no uncertain terms that, "Damnit all, it's just the bloody P.A. system!" and then proceeding to swear in a few languages.
"Oh," Sydney said out loud, just as a voice could be heard floating throughout the office and adjoining Sim Lab. It was after the title of the marvelous little piece this person—the serial killer that had escaped but no one actually knew about, since Mr. Lyle had deleted that important bit of information from the announcements—read across the entire system, that Sydney realized the jig was up. Or, in this case, the experiment had elapsed and it was time to give them all their checks and shove them out the door, back into the world, which would no doubt react unfavorably to their re-entry.
Sydney's Words of Wisdom
- Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.
- Stupidity got us into this mess — why can't it get us out?
- Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
- There is always death and taxes; however death doesn't get worse every year.
- People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first.
- It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
- I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path.
- It hurts to be on the cutting edge.
- If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.
- I am a nutritional overachiever.
- My inferiority complex is not as good as yours.
- I am having an out of money experience.
- Not afraid of heights — afraid of widths.
- Practice safe eating — always use condiments.
- Life is an endless struggle full of frustrations and challenges, but eventually you find a hair stylist you like.
- You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
- It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
- The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
- Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.
- Life not only begins at forty, it begins to show.
"Damn," Sydney muttered, quite unhappy that the little experiment had to end. On the plus side, this was proving fascinating in itself, and he might be able to use it. It was quite obvious that this one was from Lyle, as he would be the only person in the entire complex capable of finding the serial killer. (Though why no one thought of this when hunting the guy down didn't really make a lot of sense, but when did anything The Centre do make sense?)
Sydney anticipated that there would be one coming from Miss Parker as well, and tried to figure out what it might be, notebook out and pen poised to take more notes.
-----
to be continued.
feedback welcomed at spacedoutwriter@hotmail.com.
List Provided By: Unknown.
Summary: Miss Parker and Lyle finally discover who started it all. Now it's time for revenge!
Part One
by: chopsticks
p g - 1 3
-----
When Lyle walked into The Centre that morning, there were two things that he noticed immediately. The first of which was that there was a wide variety of dead bodies lying about, most of them janitors. The second was that everyone was snickering at him. It was this that concerned him the most, and not just because they were laughing while sweepers were carrying around body bags.
Grinding his teeth, Lyle made his way through the mass of bodies and extremities that choked the fine marble floors, trying to resist all murderous impulses for only a few minutes more. He was quite angry with his sister, and had every intention of mentioning it to her. This had just gone too far, as far as he was concerned. E-mailing the entire planet about him was probably the straw that broke the camel's back, but that's only speculation.
On the elevator ride up, he considered what he would say to his sister. In truth, he hadn't the slightest clue. He hadn't even been able to sleep last night, he'd been so angry. So, now he was tired, cranky, and angry. Quite frankly, he didn't have the mental capacity at the moment to come up with something to say to her ahead of time. So, he decided he would simply fly by the seat of his pants, so to speak.
So, when the elevator doors opened and he spied his sister standing in the middle of the rotunda that was in front of her office, he took a deep breath to prepare himself. After all, he couldn't exactly start screaming at her in the middle of The Centre. That would not go over well with the Tower to be sure. So, after a few calming seconds, he began to walk out of the elevator, his narrowed eyes never leaving the sight of his sister. Unfortunately for him, he walked straight into the closing elevator doors. They quickly retreated, obviously aware that they had aroused the anger of Mr. Lyle. Either that or they were functioning properly and simply following the rudimentary program that ran them.
Lyle preferred to think it was the former, because that meant they had retreated just to spite him so he couldn't get a good solid hit in.
"Son of a bitch!" he cried out, obviously in slight pain. There was a small trickle of blood running from his nose, and he quickly wiped it away. He had managed to completely blow his quiet entrance, so he decided to completely scrap it and walked up to his sister, anger radiating in a heat wave from him. People scurried away, including Mr. Broots, whom she had been having a pleasant conversation with.
"Parker," he barked out, regaining her attention from her fleeting companion.
"Lyle," she acknowledged, a cool eyebrow raised in silent, unspoken, but certainly evident contempt. She had a feeling that he would do something completely idiotic this morning, and it appears she was right. As it was, she had a rather large migraine pounding behind her eyes, possibly looking for escape from her head, which she would consider a welcome relief if it weren't for the fact that she would need to sacrifice her eyeballs in order to allow it to escape.
"I am not happy," he declared, glowering at her.
"Obviously," she replied, resisting the childish urge to roll her eyes. Whenever she was around her maniacal brother, she always seemed to have the urge to do that. She just couldn't imagine why that would be.
"Why the fuck did you send this to every-fucking-body on the bloody planet?" he demanded, waving a printout of the e-mail in her face.
"Why the fuck did you set up a billboard display down one of the major highways in Delaware?" she demanded of him, standing up straighter, her heels and her sudden rigid form causing her to appear taller than him, if only by a little bit.
This only angered Lyle more.
"Why did you have the entire main rotunda repainted?"
"Why did you have the entire main rotunda repainted?"
"Because you did first! Why did you send that goddamn list to me in the first place?" Lyle demanded, a smug look crossing his features. He couldn't think of a single reason for her to have posted that first original list a few weeks back.
"What?" Miss Parker asked, confusion lacing her voice. "You posted the first list outside my door!"
"I did not! You posted first!" He crossed his arms, his expression becoming more childish every second.
"No, I can quite clearly recall that you posted the first list outside my door with no provocation whatsoever," Miss Parker replied in a slightly more regal manner, matching his crossed arms but not his attitude.
"Really? Because the first list that was ever exchanged between us came from you, Parker! Don't try to act the victim here, it won't work!" he snapped back, narrowing his eyes at her.
"'Act the victim?' When have I ever. . ." she argued, glaring at him. But he was suddenly distracted when he noticed Sydney lurking behind one of the columns, a small notepad that Lyle recognized as the one he used when observing an experiment. Sydney was busily writing in his notepad, and it was quite clear from the quick glances he was sending the twins' way, he was observing them. It was at that point that inspiration struck, and Lyle knew who was really behind this whole mess.
". . .and the last time I checked, you're the one who always-"
"Parker," Lyle interrupted, earning a death glare from his hung over sibling. "Let's move this out of such a public forum, hmm?"
Miss Parker looked around, noticing the people that had congregated in the rotunda, though they were attempting to make themselves look busy, which was rather hard since they were all standing in a large circle around the duo.
"Yes. . ." she said slowly, "Let's." She spun on her heel (her trademark move, which had taken nearly a year to perfect), and marched toward her office, Lyle following in his wake and planning slow deaths for all those that were watching them.
The door whished shut behind them, the hydraulics doing an excellent job. In fact, they did such a good job that they had earned an "Employee of the Month" award several times in the past few years, generally after Mr. Parker endured a lunch meeting where the champagne was free flowing.
Miss Parker opened her mouth to begin berating her brother once again, but was cut off by him raising a hand, signaling she should stop. She glared indignantly at him, but did as he requested.
"I know who's behind this entire fucked-up situation."
"Really? And who might that be?" she asked sarcastically, crossing her arms again in an annoyed manner.
"Sydney." If Miss Parker had been drinking something, she most certainly would have spit it out right then, and probably all over Lyle. It took a few seconds for this to penetrate her addled brain, and then a few more for it to make itself into something coherent, and then a few more for her to understand it.
"Syd-ney," she said meditatively, trying to understand her brother's (probably illogical) reasoning.
"Yes, Sydney," he said patiently, as if explaining this concept of a person named "Sydney" to a small child.
"And what is your reasoning for this?" she demanded, regaining her wits.
"I saw him taking notes as we were arguing just out there," he replied, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "And, it explains why we both think that the other was the first to start this little war. He obviously posted the first list outside my door, knowing I'd react by assuming it was you-"
"Yes, and why would you immediately assume it was me?" she interjected, but he ignored her and continued on.
"-and serving up some kind of retaliation. Quite frankly, I think it we must be involuntary subjects in one of his little experiments. He's obviously bored with zapping people's food for his twisted experiments."
"Okay, you might be right about this. Surprisingly." Lyle glared, but said nothing. "So, what should we do in response to this little 'experiment?'"
Lyle stared at her as if the answer was obvious (which, of course, it really was quite obvious). "Post a list."
Lyle marched down the hallway, a rare smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He and his sister did, on occasion, make a really good team. They had managed to combine their efforts with minimal quarreling and compiled the list he was now carrying, built upon all the wondrous advice Sydney had imparted to them over the years.
She had left the matter of posting it up to him, as he had been the most recent recipient of a list in this long, now-proven-unnecessary war. And he had the perfect idea for how to thoroughly embarrass Sydney, though it would never quite equal out, since Lyle and Miss Parker had received the majority of the ego-bruising and embarrassing blows.
Honestly, there wasn't much left to do by the way of posting a list and Lyle liked to fancy himself as a creative person. (Apparently, to him, creative meant being entirely incapable of even drawing an adequate stick figure and knowing only insulting adjectives.)
But this idea was truly original. So original that it would go down in the annals of entirely irrelevant and pointless list wars, if there even was such a thing. Nevertheless, Lyle was extremely proud of his idea.
He only needed to find the one person that might actually benefit from this list. This, of course, was not a hard task, as a serial killer can always easily manage to find a serial killer. Must be the smell.
Sydney was happily typing away at his computer, a device he barely understood but nonetheless took great pleasure in using. He had, as the whispers amongst The Centre's employees theorized, gone peculiar with Jarod no longer around.
It was during his "Happy Time of Clicking" that the P.A. system shuddered into life, obviously a little worn from terminal non-usage. A metallic squeal echoed throughout his office, and he glanced worriedly at his computer. Nothing seemed to be amiss on his screen, but that wasn't necessary very reliable, as was proven when his computer had caught on fire. The monitor was working perfectly well, showing everything being in tip-top shape, though the leaping flames coming from the plastic casing of the computer had quite a convincing argument for the opposite idea.
He stared suspiciously at his computer, trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong. It was then that a voice began speaking, and Sydney nearly flew out of his seat, shock written across his features.
At this point, it seemed to him that his computer was actually speaking. Though, for some reason, it found saying, "Testing. . . One. . .two. . .three. . .four. Onetwothreefour!" extremely hilarious, as evidenced by the exuberant giggles emanating from it.
After his brain had a few seconds to process this information, a part of his brain that was still sane smacked the part that was insane upside its head, telling it in no uncertain terms that, "Damnit all, it's just the bloody P.A. system!" and then proceeding to swear in a few languages.
"Oh," Sydney said out loud, just as a voice could be heard floating throughout the office and adjoining Sim Lab. It was after the title of the marvelous little piece this person—the serial killer that had escaped but no one actually knew about, since Mr. Lyle had deleted that important bit of information from the announcements—read across the entire system, that Sydney realized the jig was up. Or, in this case, the experiment had elapsed and it was time to give them all their checks and shove them out the door, back into the world, which would no doubt react unfavorably to their re-entry.
Sydney's Words of Wisdom
- Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.
- Stupidity got us into this mess — why can't it get us out?
- Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
- There is always death and taxes; however death doesn't get worse every year.
- People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first.
- It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
- I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path.
- It hurts to be on the cutting edge.
- If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.
- I am a nutritional overachiever.
- My inferiority complex is not as good as yours.
- I am having an out of money experience.
- Not afraid of heights — afraid of widths.
- Practice safe eating — always use condiments.
- Life is an endless struggle full of frustrations and challenges, but eventually you find a hair stylist you like.
- You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
- It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
- The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
- Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.
- Life not only begins at forty, it begins to show.
"Damn," Sydney muttered, quite unhappy that the little experiment had to end. On the plus side, this was proving fascinating in itself, and he might be able to use it. It was quite obvious that this one was from Lyle, as he would be the only person in the entire complex capable of finding the serial killer. (Though why no one thought of this when hunting the guy down didn't really make a lot of sense, but when did anything The Centre do make sense?)
Sydney anticipated that there would be one coming from Miss Parker as well, and tried to figure out what it might be, notebook out and pen poised to take more notes.
to be continued.
feedback welcomed at spacedoutwriter@hotmail.com.
