Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Chapter 2
During his years working at The Centre, Sydney had know but one true escape: botany. With no sign of Jarod for more than a month, and no other projects waiting for his attention, Sydney was able to give his plants the attention he would have wanted to give them all the time. When Miss Parker barged in his office, he was busy trimming a bonsai tree. She looked around as Sydney patiently put down his clippers.
"Where's Broots?" she inquired.
"I don't know," Sydney replied. "Is he supposed to be here?"
"He gave me a call this morning. He was all excited about something, and asked me to meet him in your office."
"He did call me, saying he would like to consult something in my files about Jarod," Sydney admitted, "but he did not give me much detail." While he was speaking, Sydney had gone to his desk, and opened a file he had left on it. He took a photograph from the file, and looked at it for a few long seconds. When he put it down, Parker saw that what she had thought was correct, that Sydney had been looking at a photo of his former protégé. But, as Sydney looked from the photograph to Miss Parker, he could see the mix of impatience and curiosity boiling beneath her calm surface. "Parker . . . what's up?" he inquired.
"I don't know . . . yet! But I'm working on it."
Parker and Sydney exchanged a few more pleasantries when Broots barged in the room. "Hi Sydney. Have you seen . . . . Oh, hello Miss Parker. You wouldn't believe the discovery I made last night!"
"Slow down, Broots," Miss Parker ordered, to try to calm him down.
"I broke into the OSI's computer base last night. There was only one reference to Col. Austin -"
"Col.. Austin?" Sydney asked.
Broots turned towards him. "Yes, why?"
"Never mind," Sydney brushed off the question. "Please continue."
"I only found one reference to Col. Austin," Broots repeated. "And it was to a project The Centre was involved with. But get this: when I checked in The Centre's mainframe, I could not find any reference to it. I had to ask my friend Amy, in the billings department. Joey in archives owed her a favor, so he took me to the archives section where all The Centre's dead project are classified. You wouldn't believe all the projects The Centre has been involved with that ended up going nowhere. For example," Broots was going on, turning to look at Sydney, and now talking to him more than to Miss Parker, "did you know that, until he disappeared in 1985, The Centre was financing the research of a Dr. Brown who was trying to build a time machine into -"
"Broots!" Miss Parker cut him off, rather impatiently. As fascinating as this probably was, that was not the information she wanted.
"Sorry," Broots mumbled. "Anyway, there's one project The Centre did some research for the OSI in the late sixties, and . . . . Well, here, read this." Broots handed Miss Parker a piece of paper.
Parker read it over. It was the a copy of the same letter Catherine Parker had written to Rudi Wells that Jarod had found just a few hours ago. When Miss Parker had read it, she asked, "What is the bionics project?"
"Only the most resounding and most frustrating failure of modern science," Broots explained, getting excited again. "It was an attempt to combine the biology of the human body with electronics in order to make artificial limbs that were better than the artificial limbs currently available. But the researchers never found a way to make patients accept those limbs."
"Jarod found a way."
That simple statement from Sydney caught both Broots and Parker by surprise. The both turned towards him. Broots handed him another piece of paper; Sydney looked at it, recognized it as an old invoice for a simulation billed to a client, and simply nodded.
"I remember it well," he started to explain. "It was the first project your mother was involved with when she joined The Centre," he said, looking at Miss Parker. "It was also then that she found out that The Centre was using children for their experiments. A short time later, of course, she started trying to rescue some of them. A year later, she was dead.
"But, to get back to bionics: Jarod found that, as long as you tried to make the patients accept the limbs as 'normal', you were asking them to accept a lie: you were basically telling the patient to accept as his limbs implants which he knew were not real. The only way to make bionics work was to make them stronger than human limbs. It was easier to accept psychologically: that way, not only did the patient not have to "accept a lie", but his new limbs were also performing better than the ones he lost.
"When your mother was told of this solution, Parker, she decided not to involve The Centre with the project any longer. She felt very strongly that the technology posed too much of a risk, should it fall in the wrong hands. The Centre classified it as a dead project, and forgot about it. Not too many people had known about it to start with, probably just Catherine, myself and Jarod. But it was the last we heard about bionics . . . Officially."
"Officially?" Parker asked.
"About six or seven years after we ran that sim, an OSI agent had come to The Centre, for a reason or another which I forget. Mr. Parker and I were discussing something with this agent in the biodome, when we became trapped. The OSI man rescued us - Mr. Parker and I owe him our lives. Of course, we couldn't actually asked the OSI about it, but I'm convinced there was no way for any normal man to do what that man did. I hadn't thought of Jarod's bionic sim for years, but, to this day, I still believe only a bionic man could have saved us."
Parker leaned in towards Sydney across his desk. "Do you remember this agent's name?" she asked him.
But Sydney didn't have the chance to reply, as there was a knock at his office door. "'Miss Parker?" came Austin's voice, as he opened the door before waiting for an answer.
"Yes?" replied Parker, most abruptly.
"Sam told me I would find you here," explained Austin as he walked in. "I wanted to find out when you plan to interrogate our prisoner."
"Col.. Austin?" Sydney asked, before Parker had a chance to reply.
"Yes?" Steve turned around, to see who had called him. At the same time he looked at Sydney, something in the folder on his desk caught his eye. He zoomed in, just as Sydney was closing the folder. But Steve had just enough time to see what he wanted. "Do I know you?" he asked Sydney.
"My name is Sydney. Years ago, you saved my life." As he said that, Sydney threw a meaningful glance at Miss Parker.
"The incident at the Biodome? Yes, I vaguely remember about that. But you'll have to excuse me, because, for me, such assignment were routine. I had even forgotten you name."
"As much as I appreciate reunions," Parker cut in, "you're right, Mr. Austin: we have a prisoner to interrogate. Shall we get to it?"
Steve motioned to her to lead the way.
Sam met them at the holding cell. "I got his name from the sweepers database," he informed Miss Parker. "He's Dave . . . and he's not currently assigned to work for anyone."
"I didn't think there was such a thing a free lance sweeper," Miss Parker asked Sam.
"They're rare, but there's a few of them."
Miss Parker thanked Sam. Both she and Austin then went into the holding cell. Dave the sweeper was sitting on a chair. He looked up when they came in, but looked down again, as if to show he could have no possible interest in either Austin or Parker.
Steve started the interrogation. "Who do you work for?" he asked. "And how much are they paying you?"
Dave the sweeper looked up and laughed. "You've got it all wrong," he said. "He doesn't care about the government secret. He's after the triumvirate."
"Who?" asked Austin, more insistently.
But Parker put her hand up, and cut in the interrogation. "What do you mean, he's after the triumvirate."
"The best way to get at the triumvirate is through Mr. Parker," Dave the sweeper explained. "So he came up with a plan to bring embarrassment to Mr. Parker by making sure an outside agency suddenly took interest in the activities of The Centre - we thought making it look like spies were working from The Centre would do the trick just fine, as it was sure to attract government attention. Once Mr. Parker knew about the outside investigation inside The Centre, we were sure he would put his daughter in charge of the investigation. And once you're investigating, it's just a matter of time before you fall into our trap - which means we have Parker, because everyone at The Centre knows that the way to get to Daddy Parker is through his little angel."
Miss Parker's blood boiled over at that last remark. She gave Dave the sweeper a resounding slap across the face, but it still was not enough to wipe his smirk off. Austin had to take her out of the room try to calm her down.
But, as Miss Parker was positively fuming, Steve thought it was better to let her pace out her frustrations before trying to talk to her. He waited a few minutes before saying "So it's personal. They're after you and your father. We can use it to our advantage."
"How?" Miss Parker asked, her anger still quite evident.
"Now that we know it is personal, we'll be on our guards more. Plus, that probably means that, as long as you don't fall in their trap, they'll keep making the transmission. And that gives us all the more chances to track down from where they originate - and capture whoever is responsible."
"And while we're waiting for that transmission," Parker continued, her anger still seeping through her words, "I'll continue the interrogation of that sweeper."
"Before you do that, Miss Parker," Steve stopped her, "I'd like to ask something. Would you be willing to go to your father, to present to him a new proposition from the OSI."
Parker turned around. "What?" she asked, her tone letting him know she thought it was a waste of her time.
"I don't care about the power struggle within your organization. But I do care about those leaked government secrets - even if that sweeper doesn't. And I am determined to stop them." Steve paused, for a fraction of a second. He was, after all, playing a hutch, and he was not sure which way it would go. But he had recognized that photo in Sydney's file - there was no mistaking it. And from the little he had heard during Miss Parker's conversations with her father of with Broots, he got the feeling this was important to them. "Now, what if, instead of just helping us put an end to the transmission, you were to deliver the man to us, in exchange for, say, Jarod?"
The proposition shocked Miss Parker - the shock of the unexpected. "Do you know where Jarod is hiding?" she asked, almost incredulous.
"That depends," replied Austin. "Why are you after him?"
"He's a psychiatric patient whom The Centre was looking after, for his family. He escaped from our care a few years ago, stealing some corporate secrets with him. We'd like to have back what he stole, of course, - but, he is also mentally unstable, and could be dangerous. We need to get him back, as much for his own good as to protect those he might hurt." Parker had used that lie a few times before. The more she used it, she thought, the more convincing she became. She put all her efforts of deception behind it this time.
"Suppose I was to tell you I know where you can find him - do we have a deal?"
"I'll talk to my father," she replied, before leaving him, presumably to go to Mr. Parker's office.
Steve watched her as she was leaving. What she had told him worried him - for Jaime.
*
* *
"Good morning, Ms. Callahan. Is Ms Sommers in her office?" Jarod asked Jaime's secretary.
"Oh, hello, Dr. Olivet. Yes, she came in about five minutes ago."
"Good. I need to talk to her privately. Please hold her calls," he ordered, before walking into the office.
"Jaime - I need to talk to you privately!"
Jaime looked up. Jarod was standing by the door, holding a silver Haliburton briefcase. There had been, in his voice, a hint of . . . well, not exactly brusqueness, more like urgency. His face showed the same. She motioned him to a seat. "What can I do for you, Jarod?"
"It concerns Sue Davidson. If we want her to get better - and I presume we both do- we're going to start to trust each other. It's been obvious to me that there's more to you than meets the eye - like it's probably been obvious to you that there's more to me than meets your eyes. In the interest of helping Sue, I thought I'd come here so we can make a clean slate.
"I'll start. I'm not really a psychiatrist - I'm not even a doctor."
Jarod paused to let that simple statement sink in, watching her carefully for the first reaction.
After a few seconds, Jaime picked up her phone and called her secretary. "Judy - hold my calls." She put the phone down, looked at Jarod, taking a few more seconds to study him before continuing. "Who are you with? The OSI?" she asked, initially assuming Jarod was some kind of investigator.
"I'm not with anyone," he replied. "I'm a pretender. I have the ability to become anyone or assume any profession I want or need. For example - I read about Sue and wanted to help her, so I became a psychiatrist."
"Jarod, this is rather hard to believe. Do you really expect me take you seriously?"
"Oh, I have proof, and I will show it to you in just a minute," Jarod replied. "When I was little, I was taken from my family by a corporation know as The Centre that wanted to exploit my talents. They kept me in isolation, and had me run simulations, which they recorded. When I was younger, they insured my collaboration by saying the simulations were to benefit mankind. As I grew up, I realized it wasn't always exactly true. Three years ago, I escaped, taking the video records of the simulations with me. The Centre has been trying to recapture me ever since.
"Since I broke out, I've been using my talents to help individual people - rather like what I'm doing with Sue. But for obvious reasons, I've kept these skills of mine a secret. I don't want anybody else exploiting me because they see the talents and ignore the individual."
That struck a chord with Jaime. It hit a little too close to home, she thought. It was almost like he knew the reasons why she had left the OSI all those years ago, vowing never to accept another mission, never to let them use her bionics while ignoring her. To this day, she still had bitter memories of the beauty pageant they had forced her to enter. Since her resignation, of course, she had come to make peace with herself, Oscar had strongly defended her point of view with his superiors, and she had started again doing the occasional undercover mission. But she had never let herself get exploited again like she had been during those early years.
She took another good look at Jarod. What could he possibly want, she thought, with that revelation out of the blue? "If you want to keep this secret, Jarod, why tell me?" she inquired.
Jarod hesitated. All he had told her so far were generalities. Now, he had to admit to doing something criminal - and to probing into her past. He wasn't sure how she would take it. But he had to tell her. "Because there's more to my abilities than what I've told you. One of the things that I can do is simulate anyone's personality. When it became obvious to me that someone did not want Sue to recover, I assumed, successively, the personality of each staff member of the clinic until I could eliminate them as a suspect. But there was something about you that I could not simulate at all - a complete mystery. That's why I was starting to suspect you.
"I was determined to find out what it was. So, last night, I broke into the OSI database to find out what the link was between them and you. What I did find out was that, in 1969, the OSI contracted The Centre to run a simulation for them. This is what the simulation was."
Jarod put his Haliburton briefcase on Jaime's coffee table, and revealed the DSA player. He put the disk into the drive and played the recording for her. At first, she was pretty confused. But when the young Jarod explained why he was "running slowly", she shuddered. Only Jamie and Steve could understand that sensation, for they experienced it themselves every time they accelerated past human limits: that no matter how fast they ran, it still felt exactly like slow motion. And as far as she knew, neither of them had described the effect to anyone else, not even to Rudi. As for Michael and Kate, whose bionics were more advanced than their predecessors', they did not have quite the same feeling. And when the young pretender proclaimed that "that's the only way anyone will psychologically accept bionic implants," Jaime's shock was total.
Jarod turned off the DSA player and waited for a few seconds to let Jamie absorb everything. "That's why I told you my secret: because I found out yours. I know you're bionic. Your secret is safe. I hope mine is also."
It took a few more moments before Jaime could speak. "You're asking me to believe that bionics, a highly sophisticated scientific development that required years or research, succeeded because of the . . . simulation . . . of a ten year old?"
"That is correct."
There was a long pause while no one said anything. Jarod thought the air was getting heavier and heavier as he was waiting for a response from Jaime, as he really did not know how she would react.
"Uh - could you give me some time alone, Jarod, please? I really need to think this out. I'll have to get back to you on this later today."
*
* *
Broots barely looked up when Miss Parker came into his office. "I searched the OSI personnel files like you wanted," he reported. "There's only one Jarod listed for the whole organization."
Parker did not even wait for Broots to finish as she turned his computer screen towards her. "Jarod Bond," she read aloud. "Figures - he's getting more and more obvious, tough"
"Miss Parker" Broots tried to get her attention.
She ignored him. "Good work, Broots. We won't even have to accept Austin's proposal," she continued thinking aloud.
"Ha, . . . Miss Parker," Broots tried once more, still to no avail.
"Maybe we could send Sydney with a sweeper team while we're finishing here. I'd love to see the colonel's face when we show him we've got Jarod as a prisoner and that he's got no deal."
"Miss Parker," Broots tried again, getting more insistent.
"What!?" she finally acknowledge him.
"Jarod Bond is described as five foot two, with blond hair and an amputated left arm. He's a cafeteria worker in the OSI's Colorado base."
Miss Parker's face - and her good humor - sank. "If you see Austin," she ordered, as she left the room, "let him know my father accepts his proposal."
*
* *
Rudi Wells' laboratory
OSI West coast headquarters
Rudi looked up from the processor he was trying to rebuild. "Jaime! This is a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Rudi, there's something I need to know. I've wondered about it from time to time, late at nights when I can't get to sleep. You know, just thinking about how lucky I am to still be alive after the skydiving accident.
But now, something happened, and I really feel I have to ask you. When you were developing bionics for the first time, did you always meant for them to be better than normal human limbs? Wouldn't it have been safer to develop bionics that duplicate normal human skills? More people could have benefited from them, and there would be no danger of the technology being used by the wrong people."
Rudi Wells' expression changed. "Jaime, you just reminded me of my one failure - my one major regret in life. That was the first intended purpose of bionics - to replace limbs of paraplegics, to eventually make wheelchairs obsolete. But, before we tested them on humans, we had to make sure it would work, that humans would psychologically accept them. So we had a study done by a private corporation -"
"The Centre?" Jaime asked.
"Yes, that's right - The Centre. At that time, we had them do a lot of theoretical work for us. If I remember correctly, they're also the ones who came up with that experimental procedure we used to save your life when you were rejecting your bionics.
Anyway, we had them do a psychological simulation of patients, to see if humans could accept bionic limbs. Their results were clear. Bionics as regular human limbs were a failure, but would succeed if they surpassed regular human abilities. Further research indicated that, once the patient had adapted to bionics, we could tone the strength down - but it still required that we wait until the patient had adapted to bionic limbs, before we could tone it down.
"When I got those results, I decided to see the bionics project reach its logical development - which ended up being Steve - and then pursue research to find a way to adapt our finding to develop more normal human limbs. Unfortunately, funding stopped for that part of the research. I was ordered to concentrate my efforts on perfecting bionics as we know them, and forget about them as regular prostheses replacement."
Jaime waited a few seconds, out of respect for her friend's sense of failure, then asked, hopefully: "Do you know how The Centre conducted its study?"
Rudi was caught by surprise by the question. He thought about it, then admitted "I really don't know. All I know is that The Centre handled many research contracts for the government at that time, and had a solid reputation. I remember that the woman who had conducted the research for us. . . . What was her name again? Oh yeah, Parker! Well, the poor woman committed suicide less than a year after working on the bionics project."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jarod's office
Jaime Sommers' rehab clinic
Jaime walked into Jarod's office, and closed the door behind her. He looked up, silently, waiting for her to speak.
"It was a skydiving accident," she answered his unvoiced question. "Somehow, my parachute got tangled, and I crashed down. Both my legs were crushed, my right arm broken, as well as some internal damage to my right ear. My fiancé at the time, Steve, who's now my husband, and whom you met last week, knew about bionics, and convinced the OSI to operate on me. It seems I owe you some thanks for making it possible to save my life." An edited version, Jaime thought, but there were some things he doesn't need to know, such as the fact that Steve was also bionic, or that she had rejected her bionics and almost died from it.
"And I owe you some thanks too. Before meeting you, I did know for sure whether or not all those sims I performed for The Centre had actually helped someone."
Jaime came to sit down beside him. "What can you do to help Sue, Jarod? You said you can assume someone else's personality. Can you assume Sue's personality and find out who's trying to hurt her?"
"It . . . it doesn't work exactly that way," Jarod tried to explain. "I did assume Sue's personality for awhile. When I did, I could see a great fear, but there was also . . . something . . . like a wall that I couldn't get through. Now the fear is normal, after the ordeal she went through, but even that does not explain why I have to start over every day with her. Unless someone is undermining my efforts."
"That's why you're so sure someone's trying to hurt her?"
Jarod nodded. "To find out who, I've had to assume the personality of all the staff members at the clinic."
"And...?" prodded Jaime
"Nothing," Jarod admitted. "I had kept you for last. And when I did try to simulate your personality, as I explained this morning, I could feel I was missing a piece of the puzzle, which ended up being your bionics, and that made me suspect you. Now that I know you can be trusted...." Jarod left it unsaid, but Jaime knew what he meant. All his efforts had been for nothing - or almost for nothing - and he did not know what to do now.
They both sat silently for a few minutes, mulling the problem over. Suddenly, Jaime thought of something. "Jarod, you said you tried to simulate Sue's personality. Would you be willing to try it again - with a variation, this time?"
"What do you have in mind?"
"I'll explain later, but I have an idea. Can I have Sue's file? I'd like to go over it, to see if my idea fits the facts."
Jarod handed it to her, intrigued.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jarod's hideout
Later that night
Jaime hesitated as she walked into Jarod's hotel room. Like most hotels Jarod had stayed in since escaping, it was in bad need of renovations. The room held nothing more than a bed, a few chairs, and a table, where Jarod's few possessions were cluttered. Jaime grabbed a chair, and sat down across the table from Jarod. "How can you stand this?" she asked.
"I don't have much choice," he explained, as he helped himself to a candy from his Pez dispenser. "The Centre has people that can hack into almost all computer bases around the country. If I went into one of the more upscale hotels, if I ever were to rent a condo, Mr. Broots would probably find out about it, and report to Miss Parker. At least here, I can stay hidden - . . . for some time."
"Now that I know about you," offered Jaime, "I can offer you shelter for a time. Steve and I have a guest room - you're more than welcome to it."
"Thank you, but the longer I stay in any one place, the greater the risk that The Centre will find me. In fact, I've stayed at your clinic longer than I've stayed at any other jobs before - and that was only to help Sue."
"Well, let's talk about that, since that's why I came here."
"You said on the phone that you might have found something in her file."
"Yes, I think I might I've picked up on something you overlooked. I called a friend of mine in Ottawa, Dr. Crane - he's a well respected psychiatrist with an international reputation. He's going to be the keynote speaker at a conference I'm attending in a few days, so I thought I'd ask him for some help while I'm there. Anyway, I gave him a call to consult with him, and I think I might be on to something."
"What?" Jarod asked, hopeful
Jaime hesitated before replying. What she was going to ask of Jarod was all new to her, and she did not want to hurt her chances by spoiling the results beforehand. "Jarod," Jaime almost whispered, "Sue has gone through hell long enough. We have to find out what is wrong. If I tell you what I suspect, can you do another simulation of Sue's personality, to determine if I'm right or wrong?"
Jarod looked down for a second. It wasn't from shame, Jaime thought upon seeing his reaction. It was more as if Jaime had touched on something extremely personal with her question. She almost wished she hadn't asked.
"I had already decided to do one," Jarod finally stated after a moment.
"Then you'll have to tell me how you want it done. Should I tell you my theory before, or after you've performed your simulation?"
Jarod got up, and went to the window. He stared out, looking at nothing in particular. He knew it would be coming up, eventually, but it was still hard to let someone else through. No one, except for Sydney, had ever been present while he was doing a simulation. When he had escaped from The Centre, he had promised himself nobody else would ever be. It wasn't so much because the simulations were personal, but he always felt so vulnerable while performing them. And he did not want to let anyone else ever see him in that vulnerable state. And, he was also afraid that having someone else see the simulations would lead, once again, to the exploitation he was so desperately running away from.
After a moment, he went back to where he had been seated. He helped himself to another Pez candy, and offered one to Jaime, who politely declined. "I think it would be best," he finally said, "if you were to test out your theory during the simulation."
"How can I do that?" ask Jaime.
"Question me as if you would question Sue. For all intends and purposes, you will be."
"That's not exactly what I meant, Jarod. In the bionic simulation you showed me, you were still definitely Jarod, even if you were acting and feeling like a bionic person. Will you still be conscious - will I still be talking to Jarod? Or to Sue?"
"It's hard for me to explain," admitted Jarod. "In a way, I will be Sue. But my subconscious will still be Jarod. My reactions will be Sue's reactions - but at the same time as I instantly react, I will be able to analyze objectively the reactions in the part of my mind that is still Jarod. Even if Sue is not able to answer you, Jarod might."
"When do you want to do it?"
Jarod looked up. "Now?" he answered. Jaime nodded in agreement.
Jarod got up, and went to the bed. From underneath it, he pulled out a box, and took out some dolls. "Some of Sue's toys - it helps me get a handle on her personality," he explained.
"One more thing," Jarod asked Jaime. "If we don't succeed, please don't say it's because I don't want to help her!" Jaime agreed, not fully understanding the reasons behind the request.
Jarod sat on the bed, holding Sue's dolls. He started staring into nothingness. After a short moment, he let go of the doll, and held his knees as he was sitting.
"Sue?" asked Jaime.
"I want to answer, but can't," replied Jarod, his tone of voice sounding different. "I'm scared."
"Because your parents are dead?" continued Jaime.
Jarod nodded, then added, "There's more to it."
"It's OK." Jaime had switched to same tone she would have been using if she were really trying to help a child. "Someone will be there to take care of you."
"It's not just that," Jarod replied. Again, his voice sounded different than usual.
"If you'd only tell us, Sue, we could help you. We could help you to get better."
At this, Jarod looked down. He acted like someone trying to withdraw upon himself.
"What is it, Sue?" Jaime inquired, gently, but feeling she was definitely on the right track. "Don't you want to get better?"
"It's my fault," Jarod started to say. "It's my fault." All of a sudden, Jarod stopped. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes again, and turned to look at Jaime. His eyes reflected his sense of triumph. "She's blaming herself for her parents' death," he stated, his voice back to his normal, confident self.
"That's why she doesn't want to get better," Jaime concluded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
Once again, Steve, Parker, Broots and a team of sweepers were waiting more of less patiently by Broots surveillance equipment. Broots had reconnected it, both directly to Lyle's line, and to the retransmission box their unknown antagonist had set up in SL-18. The team had turned an unoccupied room on SL-16 into a makeshift war room. Both Parker and Austin thought it more likely that Mr. X., as Broots had started calling him, was operating in the lower levels of The Centre, rather than on the main floors, where the "corporate" offices were.
Just as Miss Parker was looking at her watch for the umpteenth time, Broots called her over. She looked at the information displayed on his laptop, then looked down at him with a quizzical look, as she did not understand the information displayed. Broots looked back up and explained, "It's coming from the Tower."
"Let's go!" Miss Parker ordered
Miss Parker led the way, with Austin besides her, as the small troop made its way to The Tower. Once inside, they rapidly ran down two flights of stairs. But, just as they were to get to their destination, the third sub-level, they were met by two armed men. "That's far enough, Miss Parker," greeted one of them. The whole troop stopped.
One of the two men started towards them. As he was going up the stairs, he was unaware that Steve was evaluating the situation: the other man would be about ten steps below, somewhat to the side, but at the right angle. All Steve had to do was to let the man come to them. So he did.
The man stopped two steps below the group. "Your gun, please, Miss Parker," he demanded, with mock politeness.
That's what Steve had been waiting for. With bionic-quick reflexes, he used his left leg to kick the man in the stomach. The bionic kick had enough force to not only knock the wind out of the man, but send him stumbling down the stairs on his stunned accomplice.
Miss Parker and the sweepers quickly ran down the remaining steps to encircle the two men, and turn the table on them. "Your guns, please, gentlemen," she ordered, taking delights in using the same mock-polite phrase. Once she had safely disarmed the two, she turned towards her sweepers. "One of you bring them up to the same holding cell as the other one. The rest continues with me.
Miss Parker drew up her gun, and carefully opened the stairwell door. She drew a glance down the corridor. It looked safe enough. She nodded to Austin, then threw the door wide open. She and Austin went first, with guns pointing at opposite ends of the corridor. After a second, when they were sure it was safe, the let their guns down, and signaled to the rest to follow them. They made their way towards the only room in that section of The Centre - the room that Broots equipment had identified as the source of the transmission.
When they got to the door, Parker positioned herself right in front, while Austin was off to the side, right against the wall. Miss Parker drew up her gun once more, and gestured a "1-2-3" signal to Austin. On "3", he opened the door wide, and Parker, gun ready, got into the room -
- and looked at a half a dozen sweepers waiting for her with guns drawn and aimed.
She dropped her weapon.
The sweepers quietly gathered the guns and cell phones from Miss Parker and her troop, and led them to a holding cell.
"Great!" Commented Miss Parker, as the door was closed and locked on them. "Now what?"
"Patience, Miss Parker," Steve commented. "We will get out of here. But we don't want to get out just to walk in another trap."
"So now we wait?" she asked.
But she did not have to wait too long, as the door opened, and someone walked in. He had the self-assured look of someone in charge whose plan was progressing exactly as he intended. As the light came over his face, Miss Parker recognized him.
"You're one of Raines man!" she exclaimed. "I should have known that wheezing old fool was behind the attempt to harm my father."
"Really, Miss Parker, you must not know Julius or Raines all that well if that's what you think. Julius in no one's man but his own. And as for Raines, that old man has neither enough motivation nor imagination to pull off what I did. As much as he would like to see your father removed so that he can run The Centre, he would never dream of humiliating your father in the eyes of the Triumvirate by exposing us to outside investigation - which is what I've managed rather well to succeed. And, don't forget, your father is not the real target here, the Triumvirate is. Your father is just a convenient step on the ladder to my goal. Do you really think Raines would have the nerves to go against the hand that fed him? It takes guts to do that - something Julius has a lot more of than Raines."
Steve stepped up to stand beside Miss Parker. "OK, so you've got us, now. What do you intend to do with us?"
Julius looked at him. "You must be the OSI agent. Unfortunately, Mr. Agent, you're a liability that I can afford to keep much longer. But, don't worry, once I've disposed of you, I'll contact Snow White, whoever he is, to let him know where he can find your body. Oh, and I'll also assure him that the transmission he cares so much about have ended."
"And the rest of us?" asked Parker, defiant.
"Well, I do need you to get to your father - but Mr. Broots is not so valuable to me, and neither is the rest of your team." Concluding his little cock-a-doodle of victory on this threat, Julius got out of the room, leaving his prisoner to their thought.
Before she got the chance to say anything, Steve walked up to Miss Parker. "Now, we know what we wanted to know," Steve told her. "We know who's in charge, and we can guess from where he's operating. Let's wait five minutes or so, to give him a false sense of triumph - and then, we act."
"What do we do?" asked Miss Parker.
"Leave that to me - it's my playing field now," Steve replied. "Now, if we were to be successful, but something was to happen to me, get my cell phone, call the number memorized in speed dial "1", and let Snow White know the results. My code name is Bashful - yours is Little Red Riding Hood."
Upon hearing this, Broots let out a chuckle. Parker turned around and sent him a look which, even in the dim light of the holding cell and a five feet distance between the two, made Broots cower back a few steps.
Steve continued taking charge of the action, and went up to Broots. "Mr. Broots, do you know where the power switches for this floor would be?"
"I think so, yes"
"Good. I'll need you to turn the lights off on this floor. All of them. Can you do that?"
"Sure, if you get us out of this room first."
"Consider it done."
Steve then went up to the door. He tried scanning it in the infrared frequencies, but it was useless. The door and the walls were thick enough to block anything that would be on the other side. He put his ear flat against the door, but could not hear anything. He wished he had Jaime's bionic ear. At least, she would be able to hear even just the breathing of the guards posted outside - if there were any. Steve had no way of knowing.
Steve turned his attention away from the door, and looked at the holding cell. The sole source of lighting came from a light bulb. The lighting in the halls had also been dim, and nothing from there was leaking into the cell. Chances were, then, that the guards, if they were there could not see anything in the cell if there was no light in it. "Miss Parker," he asked, "may I have one of your shoes?"
"One of my . . . shoes?" she repeated.
"Yes, that's right, on your shoes," Steve insisted.
Miss Parker sat down, took off her right shoe, and handed it to Steve. Taking it, he went to stand directly below the light bulb. He looked up to judge the distance and then jump up ten feet or so. As soon as he got close enough to the bulb, he used Miss Parker's shoe to smash it, and throw the room into darkness. Back on the floor, he once again switched his bionic eye to the infrared frequencies. He went back to where Miss Parker was sitting and handed her shoe back, after making sure there was no glass in it.
"OK, now, everyone be as quiet as possible," he ordered. "Stand on both sides of the door - you'll know when to act."
Steve waited until his instructions had been followed, then went up to the door. He jumped on it, and smashed it down.
The two guards on the opposite end we stunned as they witnessed the door crashing down. Before any of them had time to react, Steve was back up on his feet. He grabbed one of the guards, and shoved him against the other, sending both of them falling out on the floor. Miss Parker and the sweepers were on them in no time, disarmed them, and locked them up in the holding cell besides the one they just crashed out of. Once that was taken care of, Steve held another quick briefing. "Mr. Broots, you take care of the lights. Can you get to them within ten minutes?"
Broots nodded an answer, then added "You'll only have a two or three minutes before maintenance checks out the problem, and turns the switch back on - five at the most."
"That's enough for my needs. Let's synchronize our watches. Don't kill the lights before it's exactly 27 minutes after. That will be our cue.
"Miss Parker," he continued, once Broots had left to carry out his instructions, "did you have any chance to notice anything about the room where the trap had been set?"
"Yes, it was an old stockroom which looked like they turned into their point of operation."
"Stockroom? Did it still have crates, or anything like that?"
"Yes"
"Good - they'll give us something to hide behind if we need it. I'll go in the room alone - I'll have more chances to defeat them if they think I'm by myself. Don't come in unless I call.
"Oh, and the first thing I'll do is disarm them, and throw their weapons towards the door. Make sure you pick them up. Now, let's our way to the stockroom by keeping to the shadows. Once there, we'll wait for Mr. Broots to take care of the lights."
The team did as Steve instructed. When they were a couple of feet from the stockroom, they stopped. Steve checked his watch. They still had two minutes to wait before the lights went out. They held their breath.
Right on cue, the darkness came.
Inside the stockroom, Julius and the four sweepers still with him were thrown off by the sudden power failure. "Get the flashlights," Julius ordered. But, as the sweepers scrambled to find the hidden flashlights, a shout of panic interrupted them. Because of the darkness, they could not see what had caused it. Otherwise, they would have seen that the sweeper who had been closed to the door had been lifted from his feet, disarmed, then thrown towards the general direction of the wall, only to come crashing in some of the crates.
But, only one person had seen what had happened, and Steve was already running towards the next closest sweeper. This one had had time to get his gun out. But, whereas Steve could see him, he could not see Steve. All Steve needed to do was to give a good chop on the sweeper's hand, who let out a cry of pain as he dropped his gun. Steve immediately picked it up, shoved it towards the door like he had promised Miss Parker he would do, and had done with the other man's gun. He shoved the sweeper aside.
When Steve turned around, he had a light flashed in his face. Julius and the two remaining sweepers had taken their flashlights out, and had hoped to blind Steve. But it only blinded his human eye, on which he hadn't relied on during the fight. He jumped to the side, and rolled behind some crates. He pulled out a couple of planks from the crates, and threw them towards the two remaining sweepers, aiming for their hands.
By reflex, the sweepers put their hands up to protect themselves, as they saw the planks coming at them. This had the effect Steve had been aiming for, as they dropped their gun. One of those two sweepers was infuriated enough by this turn of even that he decided to make a run for Steve.
Steve let that man get closer to him. When this third sweeper was close enough to throw a punch, Steve effortlessly jumped up about seven feet in the air, and landed on the other side of the surprised attacker. Steve turned around, and, because of his momentum, used his left arm to punch him in the stomach. With the wind knocked out of the sweeper, Steve used his right arm to push him away.
As he was about to turn his attention to Julius and the last sweeper, Steve felt a "thump" against his legs. Turning around, he saw the last of Julius's men, holding a four-feet metal pole. He had obviously hoped to knock Steve down with it, and had aimed for the legs. He was now holding it higher. Steve backed up as the man raised it up to try to take another hit, grabbed the pole, and with one quick "swooch", sent the man flying halfway across the room.
But, just as Steve was letting go of the metal-pole, he was attack from his left side. One of the first sweepers he had knocked up had recovered, and had taken Steve by surprise. With Steve down on the floor, the sweeper punched him in the head once or twice. But Steve was not to let himself get beaten so easily. And brought his two feet together and hit the sweeper's ankles on his right feet. The pain and surprise felt by the sweeper gave just enough room to Steve to first fold up his legs in between himself and the sweeper and then use them to push his attacker away. The sweeper arced through the air, and came crashing down on the floor.
Steve turned on his side, and looked straight at Julius, who was looking back with his gun aimed straight at Steve. It was easy for Steve to figure out what had happened. While he was busy fighting off the sweepers, Julius had picked up one of the flashlights and one of the guns which had been dropped. But the metal pole was still lying on the ground near Steve. He grabbed it and threw it towards Julius.
Just as the pole hit Julius and made him drop his gun, the lights came back on. "Now, Miss Parker," called out Steve, as he got up and ran for Julius.
Miss Parker, Broots and their sweepers ran into the room, guns drawn. This time, what they saw was considerably different than what they had seen the first time: their would be antagonists were mostly lying on the ground, in no condition to put up a fight; Steve was holding Julius up and the air, carrying him across the room, finally sitting him rather unceremoniously atop of a crate by Miss Parker. With a few silent commands, Miss Parker had her sweeper escort their new prisoners out of the room.
When only she, Broots and Austin were left, she turned towards Steve. "Where can I find Jarod?" she asked, all other preoccupation now gone with the successful capture of Julius and his men.
"Give me a day," he asked. "I have to contact my superiors, so that arrangements are made for receiving Julius and his eventual trial. Then, you can come with me to California - I'll take you to Jarod once Julius is safely in the care of the OSI."
During his years working at The Centre, Sydney had know but one true escape: botany. With no sign of Jarod for more than a month, and no other projects waiting for his attention, Sydney was able to give his plants the attention he would have wanted to give them all the time. When Miss Parker barged in his office, he was busy trimming a bonsai tree. She looked around as Sydney patiently put down his clippers.
"Where's Broots?" she inquired.
"I don't know," Sydney replied. "Is he supposed to be here?"
"He gave me a call this morning. He was all excited about something, and asked me to meet him in your office."
"He did call me, saying he would like to consult something in my files about Jarod," Sydney admitted, "but he did not give me much detail." While he was speaking, Sydney had gone to his desk, and opened a file he had left on it. He took a photograph from the file, and looked at it for a few long seconds. When he put it down, Parker saw that what she had thought was correct, that Sydney had been looking at a photo of his former protégé. But, as Sydney looked from the photograph to Miss Parker, he could see the mix of impatience and curiosity boiling beneath her calm surface. "Parker . . . what's up?" he inquired.
"I don't know . . . yet! But I'm working on it."
Parker and Sydney exchanged a few more pleasantries when Broots barged in the room. "Hi Sydney. Have you seen . . . . Oh, hello Miss Parker. You wouldn't believe the discovery I made last night!"
"Slow down, Broots," Miss Parker ordered, to try to calm him down.
"I broke into the OSI's computer base last night. There was only one reference to Col. Austin -"
"Col.. Austin?" Sydney asked.
Broots turned towards him. "Yes, why?"
"Never mind," Sydney brushed off the question. "Please continue."
"I only found one reference to Col. Austin," Broots repeated. "And it was to a project The Centre was involved with. But get this: when I checked in The Centre's mainframe, I could not find any reference to it. I had to ask my friend Amy, in the billings department. Joey in archives owed her a favor, so he took me to the archives section where all The Centre's dead project are classified. You wouldn't believe all the projects The Centre has been involved with that ended up going nowhere. For example," Broots was going on, turning to look at Sydney, and now talking to him more than to Miss Parker, "did you know that, until he disappeared in 1985, The Centre was financing the research of a Dr. Brown who was trying to build a time machine into -"
"Broots!" Miss Parker cut him off, rather impatiently. As fascinating as this probably was, that was not the information she wanted.
"Sorry," Broots mumbled. "Anyway, there's one project The Centre did some research for the OSI in the late sixties, and . . . . Well, here, read this." Broots handed Miss Parker a piece of paper.
Parker read it over. It was the a copy of the same letter Catherine Parker had written to Rudi Wells that Jarod had found just a few hours ago. When Miss Parker had read it, she asked, "What is the bionics project?"
"Only the most resounding and most frustrating failure of modern science," Broots explained, getting excited again. "It was an attempt to combine the biology of the human body with electronics in order to make artificial limbs that were better than the artificial limbs currently available. But the researchers never found a way to make patients accept those limbs."
"Jarod found a way."
That simple statement from Sydney caught both Broots and Parker by surprise. The both turned towards him. Broots handed him another piece of paper; Sydney looked at it, recognized it as an old invoice for a simulation billed to a client, and simply nodded.
"I remember it well," he started to explain. "It was the first project your mother was involved with when she joined The Centre," he said, looking at Miss Parker. "It was also then that she found out that The Centre was using children for their experiments. A short time later, of course, she started trying to rescue some of them. A year later, she was dead.
"But, to get back to bionics: Jarod found that, as long as you tried to make the patients accept the limbs as 'normal', you were asking them to accept a lie: you were basically telling the patient to accept as his limbs implants which he knew were not real. The only way to make bionics work was to make them stronger than human limbs. It was easier to accept psychologically: that way, not only did the patient not have to "accept a lie", but his new limbs were also performing better than the ones he lost.
"When your mother was told of this solution, Parker, she decided not to involve The Centre with the project any longer. She felt very strongly that the technology posed too much of a risk, should it fall in the wrong hands. The Centre classified it as a dead project, and forgot about it. Not too many people had known about it to start with, probably just Catherine, myself and Jarod. But it was the last we heard about bionics . . . Officially."
"Officially?" Parker asked.
"About six or seven years after we ran that sim, an OSI agent had come to The Centre, for a reason or another which I forget. Mr. Parker and I were discussing something with this agent in the biodome, when we became trapped. The OSI man rescued us - Mr. Parker and I owe him our lives. Of course, we couldn't actually asked the OSI about it, but I'm convinced there was no way for any normal man to do what that man did. I hadn't thought of Jarod's bionic sim for years, but, to this day, I still believe only a bionic man could have saved us."
Parker leaned in towards Sydney across his desk. "Do you remember this agent's name?" she asked him.
But Sydney didn't have the chance to reply, as there was a knock at his office door. "'Miss Parker?" came Austin's voice, as he opened the door before waiting for an answer.
"Yes?" replied Parker, most abruptly.
"Sam told me I would find you here," explained Austin as he walked in. "I wanted to find out when you plan to interrogate our prisoner."
"Col.. Austin?" Sydney asked, before Parker had a chance to reply.
"Yes?" Steve turned around, to see who had called him. At the same time he looked at Sydney, something in the folder on his desk caught his eye. He zoomed in, just as Sydney was closing the folder. But Steve had just enough time to see what he wanted. "Do I know you?" he asked Sydney.
"My name is Sydney. Years ago, you saved my life." As he said that, Sydney threw a meaningful glance at Miss Parker.
"The incident at the Biodome? Yes, I vaguely remember about that. But you'll have to excuse me, because, for me, such assignment were routine. I had even forgotten you name."
"As much as I appreciate reunions," Parker cut in, "you're right, Mr. Austin: we have a prisoner to interrogate. Shall we get to it?"
Steve motioned to her to lead the way.
Sam met them at the holding cell. "I got his name from the sweepers database," he informed Miss Parker. "He's Dave . . . and he's not currently assigned to work for anyone."
"I didn't think there was such a thing a free lance sweeper," Miss Parker asked Sam.
"They're rare, but there's a few of them."
Miss Parker thanked Sam. Both she and Austin then went into the holding cell. Dave the sweeper was sitting on a chair. He looked up when they came in, but looked down again, as if to show he could have no possible interest in either Austin or Parker.
Steve started the interrogation. "Who do you work for?" he asked. "And how much are they paying you?"
Dave the sweeper looked up and laughed. "You've got it all wrong," he said. "He doesn't care about the government secret. He's after the triumvirate."
"Who?" asked Austin, more insistently.
But Parker put her hand up, and cut in the interrogation. "What do you mean, he's after the triumvirate."
"The best way to get at the triumvirate is through Mr. Parker," Dave the sweeper explained. "So he came up with a plan to bring embarrassment to Mr. Parker by making sure an outside agency suddenly took interest in the activities of The Centre - we thought making it look like spies were working from The Centre would do the trick just fine, as it was sure to attract government attention. Once Mr. Parker knew about the outside investigation inside The Centre, we were sure he would put his daughter in charge of the investigation. And once you're investigating, it's just a matter of time before you fall into our trap - which means we have Parker, because everyone at The Centre knows that the way to get to Daddy Parker is through his little angel."
Miss Parker's blood boiled over at that last remark. She gave Dave the sweeper a resounding slap across the face, but it still was not enough to wipe his smirk off. Austin had to take her out of the room try to calm her down.
But, as Miss Parker was positively fuming, Steve thought it was better to let her pace out her frustrations before trying to talk to her. He waited a few minutes before saying "So it's personal. They're after you and your father. We can use it to our advantage."
"How?" Miss Parker asked, her anger still quite evident.
"Now that we know it is personal, we'll be on our guards more. Plus, that probably means that, as long as you don't fall in their trap, they'll keep making the transmission. And that gives us all the more chances to track down from where they originate - and capture whoever is responsible."
"And while we're waiting for that transmission," Parker continued, her anger still seeping through her words, "I'll continue the interrogation of that sweeper."
"Before you do that, Miss Parker," Steve stopped her, "I'd like to ask something. Would you be willing to go to your father, to present to him a new proposition from the OSI."
Parker turned around. "What?" she asked, her tone letting him know she thought it was a waste of her time.
"I don't care about the power struggle within your organization. But I do care about those leaked government secrets - even if that sweeper doesn't. And I am determined to stop them." Steve paused, for a fraction of a second. He was, after all, playing a hutch, and he was not sure which way it would go. But he had recognized that photo in Sydney's file - there was no mistaking it. And from the little he had heard during Miss Parker's conversations with her father of with Broots, he got the feeling this was important to them. "Now, what if, instead of just helping us put an end to the transmission, you were to deliver the man to us, in exchange for, say, Jarod?"
The proposition shocked Miss Parker - the shock of the unexpected. "Do you know where Jarod is hiding?" she asked, almost incredulous.
"That depends," replied Austin. "Why are you after him?"
"He's a psychiatric patient whom The Centre was looking after, for his family. He escaped from our care a few years ago, stealing some corporate secrets with him. We'd like to have back what he stole, of course, - but, he is also mentally unstable, and could be dangerous. We need to get him back, as much for his own good as to protect those he might hurt." Parker had used that lie a few times before. The more she used it, she thought, the more convincing she became. She put all her efforts of deception behind it this time.
"Suppose I was to tell you I know where you can find him - do we have a deal?"
"I'll talk to my father," she replied, before leaving him, presumably to go to Mr. Parker's office.
Steve watched her as she was leaving. What she had told him worried him - for Jaime.
*
* *
"Good morning, Ms. Callahan. Is Ms Sommers in her office?" Jarod asked Jaime's secretary.
"Oh, hello, Dr. Olivet. Yes, she came in about five minutes ago."
"Good. I need to talk to her privately. Please hold her calls," he ordered, before walking into the office.
"Jaime - I need to talk to you privately!"
Jaime looked up. Jarod was standing by the door, holding a silver Haliburton briefcase. There had been, in his voice, a hint of . . . well, not exactly brusqueness, more like urgency. His face showed the same. She motioned him to a seat. "What can I do for you, Jarod?"
"It concerns Sue Davidson. If we want her to get better - and I presume we both do- we're going to start to trust each other. It's been obvious to me that there's more to you than meets the eye - like it's probably been obvious to you that there's more to me than meets your eyes. In the interest of helping Sue, I thought I'd come here so we can make a clean slate.
"I'll start. I'm not really a psychiatrist - I'm not even a doctor."
Jarod paused to let that simple statement sink in, watching her carefully for the first reaction.
After a few seconds, Jaime picked up her phone and called her secretary. "Judy - hold my calls." She put the phone down, looked at Jarod, taking a few more seconds to study him before continuing. "Who are you with? The OSI?" she asked, initially assuming Jarod was some kind of investigator.
"I'm not with anyone," he replied. "I'm a pretender. I have the ability to become anyone or assume any profession I want or need. For example - I read about Sue and wanted to help her, so I became a psychiatrist."
"Jarod, this is rather hard to believe. Do you really expect me take you seriously?"
"Oh, I have proof, and I will show it to you in just a minute," Jarod replied. "When I was little, I was taken from my family by a corporation know as The Centre that wanted to exploit my talents. They kept me in isolation, and had me run simulations, which they recorded. When I was younger, they insured my collaboration by saying the simulations were to benefit mankind. As I grew up, I realized it wasn't always exactly true. Three years ago, I escaped, taking the video records of the simulations with me. The Centre has been trying to recapture me ever since.
"Since I broke out, I've been using my talents to help individual people - rather like what I'm doing with Sue. But for obvious reasons, I've kept these skills of mine a secret. I don't want anybody else exploiting me because they see the talents and ignore the individual."
That struck a chord with Jaime. It hit a little too close to home, she thought. It was almost like he knew the reasons why she had left the OSI all those years ago, vowing never to accept another mission, never to let them use her bionics while ignoring her. To this day, she still had bitter memories of the beauty pageant they had forced her to enter. Since her resignation, of course, she had come to make peace with herself, Oscar had strongly defended her point of view with his superiors, and she had started again doing the occasional undercover mission. But she had never let herself get exploited again like she had been during those early years.
She took another good look at Jarod. What could he possibly want, she thought, with that revelation out of the blue? "If you want to keep this secret, Jarod, why tell me?" she inquired.
Jarod hesitated. All he had told her so far were generalities. Now, he had to admit to doing something criminal - and to probing into her past. He wasn't sure how she would take it. But he had to tell her. "Because there's more to my abilities than what I've told you. One of the things that I can do is simulate anyone's personality. When it became obvious to me that someone did not want Sue to recover, I assumed, successively, the personality of each staff member of the clinic until I could eliminate them as a suspect. But there was something about you that I could not simulate at all - a complete mystery. That's why I was starting to suspect you.
"I was determined to find out what it was. So, last night, I broke into the OSI database to find out what the link was between them and you. What I did find out was that, in 1969, the OSI contracted The Centre to run a simulation for them. This is what the simulation was."
Jarod put his Haliburton briefcase on Jaime's coffee table, and revealed the DSA player. He put the disk into the drive and played the recording for her. At first, she was pretty confused. But when the young Jarod explained why he was "running slowly", she shuddered. Only Jamie and Steve could understand that sensation, for they experienced it themselves every time they accelerated past human limits: that no matter how fast they ran, it still felt exactly like slow motion. And as far as she knew, neither of them had described the effect to anyone else, not even to Rudi. As for Michael and Kate, whose bionics were more advanced than their predecessors', they did not have quite the same feeling. And when the young pretender proclaimed that "that's the only way anyone will psychologically accept bionic implants," Jaime's shock was total.
Jarod turned off the DSA player and waited for a few seconds to let Jamie absorb everything. "That's why I told you my secret: because I found out yours. I know you're bionic. Your secret is safe. I hope mine is also."
It took a few more moments before Jaime could speak. "You're asking me to believe that bionics, a highly sophisticated scientific development that required years or research, succeeded because of the . . . simulation . . . of a ten year old?"
"That is correct."
There was a long pause while no one said anything. Jarod thought the air was getting heavier and heavier as he was waiting for a response from Jaime, as he really did not know how she would react.
"Uh - could you give me some time alone, Jarod, please? I really need to think this out. I'll have to get back to you on this later today."
*
* *
Broots barely looked up when Miss Parker came into his office. "I searched the OSI personnel files like you wanted," he reported. "There's only one Jarod listed for the whole organization."
Parker did not even wait for Broots to finish as she turned his computer screen towards her. "Jarod Bond," she read aloud. "Figures - he's getting more and more obvious, tough"
"Miss Parker" Broots tried to get her attention.
She ignored him. "Good work, Broots. We won't even have to accept Austin's proposal," she continued thinking aloud.
"Ha, . . . Miss Parker," Broots tried once more, still to no avail.
"Maybe we could send Sydney with a sweeper team while we're finishing here. I'd love to see the colonel's face when we show him we've got Jarod as a prisoner and that he's got no deal."
"Miss Parker," Broots tried again, getting more insistent.
"What!?" she finally acknowledge him.
"Jarod Bond is described as five foot two, with blond hair and an amputated left arm. He's a cafeteria worker in the OSI's Colorado base."
Miss Parker's face - and her good humor - sank. "If you see Austin," she ordered, as she left the room, "let him know my father accepts his proposal."
*
* *
Rudi Wells' laboratory
OSI West coast headquarters
Rudi looked up from the processor he was trying to rebuild. "Jaime! This is a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Rudi, there's something I need to know. I've wondered about it from time to time, late at nights when I can't get to sleep. You know, just thinking about how lucky I am to still be alive after the skydiving accident.
But now, something happened, and I really feel I have to ask you. When you were developing bionics for the first time, did you always meant for them to be better than normal human limbs? Wouldn't it have been safer to develop bionics that duplicate normal human skills? More people could have benefited from them, and there would be no danger of the technology being used by the wrong people."
Rudi Wells' expression changed. "Jaime, you just reminded me of my one failure - my one major regret in life. That was the first intended purpose of bionics - to replace limbs of paraplegics, to eventually make wheelchairs obsolete. But, before we tested them on humans, we had to make sure it would work, that humans would psychologically accept them. So we had a study done by a private corporation -"
"The Centre?" Jaime asked.
"Yes, that's right - The Centre. At that time, we had them do a lot of theoretical work for us. If I remember correctly, they're also the ones who came up with that experimental procedure we used to save your life when you were rejecting your bionics.
Anyway, we had them do a psychological simulation of patients, to see if humans could accept bionic limbs. Their results were clear. Bionics as regular human limbs were a failure, but would succeed if they surpassed regular human abilities. Further research indicated that, once the patient had adapted to bionics, we could tone the strength down - but it still required that we wait until the patient had adapted to bionic limbs, before we could tone it down.
"When I got those results, I decided to see the bionics project reach its logical development - which ended up being Steve - and then pursue research to find a way to adapt our finding to develop more normal human limbs. Unfortunately, funding stopped for that part of the research. I was ordered to concentrate my efforts on perfecting bionics as we know them, and forget about them as regular prostheses replacement."
Jaime waited a few seconds, out of respect for her friend's sense of failure, then asked, hopefully: "Do you know how The Centre conducted its study?"
Rudi was caught by surprise by the question. He thought about it, then admitted "I really don't know. All I know is that The Centre handled many research contracts for the government at that time, and had a solid reputation. I remember that the woman who had conducted the research for us. . . . What was her name again? Oh yeah, Parker! Well, the poor woman committed suicide less than a year after working on the bionics project."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jarod's office
Jaime Sommers' rehab clinic
Jaime walked into Jarod's office, and closed the door behind her. He looked up, silently, waiting for her to speak.
"It was a skydiving accident," she answered his unvoiced question. "Somehow, my parachute got tangled, and I crashed down. Both my legs were crushed, my right arm broken, as well as some internal damage to my right ear. My fiancé at the time, Steve, who's now my husband, and whom you met last week, knew about bionics, and convinced the OSI to operate on me. It seems I owe you some thanks for making it possible to save my life." An edited version, Jaime thought, but there were some things he doesn't need to know, such as the fact that Steve was also bionic, or that she had rejected her bionics and almost died from it.
"And I owe you some thanks too. Before meeting you, I did know for sure whether or not all those sims I performed for The Centre had actually helped someone."
Jaime came to sit down beside him. "What can you do to help Sue, Jarod? You said you can assume someone else's personality. Can you assume Sue's personality and find out who's trying to hurt her?"
"It . . . it doesn't work exactly that way," Jarod tried to explain. "I did assume Sue's personality for awhile. When I did, I could see a great fear, but there was also . . . something . . . like a wall that I couldn't get through. Now the fear is normal, after the ordeal she went through, but even that does not explain why I have to start over every day with her. Unless someone is undermining my efforts."
"That's why you're so sure someone's trying to hurt her?"
Jarod nodded. "To find out who, I've had to assume the personality of all the staff members at the clinic."
"And...?" prodded Jaime
"Nothing," Jarod admitted. "I had kept you for last. And when I did try to simulate your personality, as I explained this morning, I could feel I was missing a piece of the puzzle, which ended up being your bionics, and that made me suspect you. Now that I know you can be trusted...." Jarod left it unsaid, but Jaime knew what he meant. All his efforts had been for nothing - or almost for nothing - and he did not know what to do now.
They both sat silently for a few minutes, mulling the problem over. Suddenly, Jaime thought of something. "Jarod, you said you tried to simulate Sue's personality. Would you be willing to try it again - with a variation, this time?"
"What do you have in mind?"
"I'll explain later, but I have an idea. Can I have Sue's file? I'd like to go over it, to see if my idea fits the facts."
Jarod handed it to her, intrigued.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jarod's hideout
Later that night
Jaime hesitated as she walked into Jarod's hotel room. Like most hotels Jarod had stayed in since escaping, it was in bad need of renovations. The room held nothing more than a bed, a few chairs, and a table, where Jarod's few possessions were cluttered. Jaime grabbed a chair, and sat down across the table from Jarod. "How can you stand this?" she asked.
"I don't have much choice," he explained, as he helped himself to a candy from his Pez dispenser. "The Centre has people that can hack into almost all computer bases around the country. If I went into one of the more upscale hotels, if I ever were to rent a condo, Mr. Broots would probably find out about it, and report to Miss Parker. At least here, I can stay hidden - . . . for some time."
"Now that I know about you," offered Jaime, "I can offer you shelter for a time. Steve and I have a guest room - you're more than welcome to it."
"Thank you, but the longer I stay in any one place, the greater the risk that The Centre will find me. In fact, I've stayed at your clinic longer than I've stayed at any other jobs before - and that was only to help Sue."
"Well, let's talk about that, since that's why I came here."
"You said on the phone that you might have found something in her file."
"Yes, I think I might I've picked up on something you overlooked. I called a friend of mine in Ottawa, Dr. Crane - he's a well respected psychiatrist with an international reputation. He's going to be the keynote speaker at a conference I'm attending in a few days, so I thought I'd ask him for some help while I'm there. Anyway, I gave him a call to consult with him, and I think I might be on to something."
"What?" Jarod asked, hopeful
Jaime hesitated before replying. What she was going to ask of Jarod was all new to her, and she did not want to hurt her chances by spoiling the results beforehand. "Jarod," Jaime almost whispered, "Sue has gone through hell long enough. We have to find out what is wrong. If I tell you what I suspect, can you do another simulation of Sue's personality, to determine if I'm right or wrong?"
Jarod looked down for a second. It wasn't from shame, Jaime thought upon seeing his reaction. It was more as if Jaime had touched on something extremely personal with her question. She almost wished she hadn't asked.
"I had already decided to do one," Jarod finally stated after a moment.
"Then you'll have to tell me how you want it done. Should I tell you my theory before, or after you've performed your simulation?"
Jarod got up, and went to the window. He stared out, looking at nothing in particular. He knew it would be coming up, eventually, but it was still hard to let someone else through. No one, except for Sydney, had ever been present while he was doing a simulation. When he had escaped from The Centre, he had promised himself nobody else would ever be. It wasn't so much because the simulations were personal, but he always felt so vulnerable while performing them. And he did not want to let anyone else ever see him in that vulnerable state. And, he was also afraid that having someone else see the simulations would lead, once again, to the exploitation he was so desperately running away from.
After a moment, he went back to where he had been seated. He helped himself to another Pez candy, and offered one to Jaime, who politely declined. "I think it would be best," he finally said, "if you were to test out your theory during the simulation."
"How can I do that?" ask Jaime.
"Question me as if you would question Sue. For all intends and purposes, you will be."
"That's not exactly what I meant, Jarod. In the bionic simulation you showed me, you were still definitely Jarod, even if you were acting and feeling like a bionic person. Will you still be conscious - will I still be talking to Jarod? Or to Sue?"
"It's hard for me to explain," admitted Jarod. "In a way, I will be Sue. But my subconscious will still be Jarod. My reactions will be Sue's reactions - but at the same time as I instantly react, I will be able to analyze objectively the reactions in the part of my mind that is still Jarod. Even if Sue is not able to answer you, Jarod might."
"When do you want to do it?"
Jarod looked up. "Now?" he answered. Jaime nodded in agreement.
Jarod got up, and went to the bed. From underneath it, he pulled out a box, and took out some dolls. "Some of Sue's toys - it helps me get a handle on her personality," he explained.
"One more thing," Jarod asked Jaime. "If we don't succeed, please don't say it's because I don't want to help her!" Jaime agreed, not fully understanding the reasons behind the request.
Jarod sat on the bed, holding Sue's dolls. He started staring into nothingness. After a short moment, he let go of the doll, and held his knees as he was sitting.
"Sue?" asked Jaime.
"I want to answer, but can't," replied Jarod, his tone of voice sounding different. "I'm scared."
"Because your parents are dead?" continued Jaime.
Jarod nodded, then added, "There's more to it."
"It's OK." Jaime had switched to same tone she would have been using if she were really trying to help a child. "Someone will be there to take care of you."
"It's not just that," Jarod replied. Again, his voice sounded different than usual.
"If you'd only tell us, Sue, we could help you. We could help you to get better."
At this, Jarod looked down. He acted like someone trying to withdraw upon himself.
"What is it, Sue?" Jaime inquired, gently, but feeling she was definitely on the right track. "Don't you want to get better?"
"It's my fault," Jarod started to say. "It's my fault." All of a sudden, Jarod stopped. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes again, and turned to look at Jaime. His eyes reflected his sense of triumph. "She's blaming herself for her parents' death," he stated, his voice back to his normal, confident self.
"That's why she doesn't want to get better," Jaime concluded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
Once again, Steve, Parker, Broots and a team of sweepers were waiting more of less patiently by Broots surveillance equipment. Broots had reconnected it, both directly to Lyle's line, and to the retransmission box their unknown antagonist had set up in SL-18. The team had turned an unoccupied room on SL-16 into a makeshift war room. Both Parker and Austin thought it more likely that Mr. X., as Broots had started calling him, was operating in the lower levels of The Centre, rather than on the main floors, where the "corporate" offices were.
Just as Miss Parker was looking at her watch for the umpteenth time, Broots called her over. She looked at the information displayed on his laptop, then looked down at him with a quizzical look, as she did not understand the information displayed. Broots looked back up and explained, "It's coming from the Tower."
"Let's go!" Miss Parker ordered
Miss Parker led the way, with Austin besides her, as the small troop made its way to The Tower. Once inside, they rapidly ran down two flights of stairs. But, just as they were to get to their destination, the third sub-level, they were met by two armed men. "That's far enough, Miss Parker," greeted one of them. The whole troop stopped.
One of the two men started towards them. As he was going up the stairs, he was unaware that Steve was evaluating the situation: the other man would be about ten steps below, somewhat to the side, but at the right angle. All Steve had to do was to let the man come to them. So he did.
The man stopped two steps below the group. "Your gun, please, Miss Parker," he demanded, with mock politeness.
That's what Steve had been waiting for. With bionic-quick reflexes, he used his left leg to kick the man in the stomach. The bionic kick had enough force to not only knock the wind out of the man, but send him stumbling down the stairs on his stunned accomplice.
Miss Parker and the sweepers quickly ran down the remaining steps to encircle the two men, and turn the table on them. "Your guns, please, gentlemen," she ordered, taking delights in using the same mock-polite phrase. Once she had safely disarmed the two, she turned towards her sweepers. "One of you bring them up to the same holding cell as the other one. The rest continues with me.
Miss Parker drew up her gun, and carefully opened the stairwell door. She drew a glance down the corridor. It looked safe enough. She nodded to Austin, then threw the door wide open. She and Austin went first, with guns pointing at opposite ends of the corridor. After a second, when they were sure it was safe, the let their guns down, and signaled to the rest to follow them. They made their way towards the only room in that section of The Centre - the room that Broots equipment had identified as the source of the transmission.
When they got to the door, Parker positioned herself right in front, while Austin was off to the side, right against the wall. Miss Parker drew up her gun once more, and gestured a "1-2-3" signal to Austin. On "3", he opened the door wide, and Parker, gun ready, got into the room -
- and looked at a half a dozen sweepers waiting for her with guns drawn and aimed.
She dropped her weapon.
The sweepers quietly gathered the guns and cell phones from Miss Parker and her troop, and led them to a holding cell.
"Great!" Commented Miss Parker, as the door was closed and locked on them. "Now what?"
"Patience, Miss Parker," Steve commented. "We will get out of here. But we don't want to get out just to walk in another trap."
"So now we wait?" she asked.
But she did not have to wait too long, as the door opened, and someone walked in. He had the self-assured look of someone in charge whose plan was progressing exactly as he intended. As the light came over his face, Miss Parker recognized him.
"You're one of Raines man!" she exclaimed. "I should have known that wheezing old fool was behind the attempt to harm my father."
"Really, Miss Parker, you must not know Julius or Raines all that well if that's what you think. Julius in no one's man but his own. And as for Raines, that old man has neither enough motivation nor imagination to pull off what I did. As much as he would like to see your father removed so that he can run The Centre, he would never dream of humiliating your father in the eyes of the Triumvirate by exposing us to outside investigation - which is what I've managed rather well to succeed. And, don't forget, your father is not the real target here, the Triumvirate is. Your father is just a convenient step on the ladder to my goal. Do you really think Raines would have the nerves to go against the hand that fed him? It takes guts to do that - something Julius has a lot more of than Raines."
Steve stepped up to stand beside Miss Parker. "OK, so you've got us, now. What do you intend to do with us?"
Julius looked at him. "You must be the OSI agent. Unfortunately, Mr. Agent, you're a liability that I can afford to keep much longer. But, don't worry, once I've disposed of you, I'll contact Snow White, whoever he is, to let him know where he can find your body. Oh, and I'll also assure him that the transmission he cares so much about have ended."
"And the rest of us?" asked Parker, defiant.
"Well, I do need you to get to your father - but Mr. Broots is not so valuable to me, and neither is the rest of your team." Concluding his little cock-a-doodle of victory on this threat, Julius got out of the room, leaving his prisoner to their thought.
Before she got the chance to say anything, Steve walked up to Miss Parker. "Now, we know what we wanted to know," Steve told her. "We know who's in charge, and we can guess from where he's operating. Let's wait five minutes or so, to give him a false sense of triumph - and then, we act."
"What do we do?" asked Miss Parker.
"Leave that to me - it's my playing field now," Steve replied. "Now, if we were to be successful, but something was to happen to me, get my cell phone, call the number memorized in speed dial "1", and let Snow White know the results. My code name is Bashful - yours is Little Red Riding Hood."
Upon hearing this, Broots let out a chuckle. Parker turned around and sent him a look which, even in the dim light of the holding cell and a five feet distance between the two, made Broots cower back a few steps.
Steve continued taking charge of the action, and went up to Broots. "Mr. Broots, do you know where the power switches for this floor would be?"
"I think so, yes"
"Good. I'll need you to turn the lights off on this floor. All of them. Can you do that?"
"Sure, if you get us out of this room first."
"Consider it done."
Steve then went up to the door. He tried scanning it in the infrared frequencies, but it was useless. The door and the walls were thick enough to block anything that would be on the other side. He put his ear flat against the door, but could not hear anything. He wished he had Jaime's bionic ear. At least, she would be able to hear even just the breathing of the guards posted outside - if there were any. Steve had no way of knowing.
Steve turned his attention away from the door, and looked at the holding cell. The sole source of lighting came from a light bulb. The lighting in the halls had also been dim, and nothing from there was leaking into the cell. Chances were, then, that the guards, if they were there could not see anything in the cell if there was no light in it. "Miss Parker," he asked, "may I have one of your shoes?"
"One of my . . . shoes?" she repeated.
"Yes, that's right, on your shoes," Steve insisted.
Miss Parker sat down, took off her right shoe, and handed it to Steve. Taking it, he went to stand directly below the light bulb. He looked up to judge the distance and then jump up ten feet or so. As soon as he got close enough to the bulb, he used Miss Parker's shoe to smash it, and throw the room into darkness. Back on the floor, he once again switched his bionic eye to the infrared frequencies. He went back to where Miss Parker was sitting and handed her shoe back, after making sure there was no glass in it.
"OK, now, everyone be as quiet as possible," he ordered. "Stand on both sides of the door - you'll know when to act."
Steve waited until his instructions had been followed, then went up to the door. He jumped on it, and smashed it down.
The two guards on the opposite end we stunned as they witnessed the door crashing down. Before any of them had time to react, Steve was back up on his feet. He grabbed one of the guards, and shoved him against the other, sending both of them falling out on the floor. Miss Parker and the sweepers were on them in no time, disarmed them, and locked them up in the holding cell besides the one they just crashed out of. Once that was taken care of, Steve held another quick briefing. "Mr. Broots, you take care of the lights. Can you get to them within ten minutes?"
Broots nodded an answer, then added "You'll only have a two or three minutes before maintenance checks out the problem, and turns the switch back on - five at the most."
"That's enough for my needs. Let's synchronize our watches. Don't kill the lights before it's exactly 27 minutes after. That will be our cue.
"Miss Parker," he continued, once Broots had left to carry out his instructions, "did you have any chance to notice anything about the room where the trap had been set?"
"Yes, it was an old stockroom which looked like they turned into their point of operation."
"Stockroom? Did it still have crates, or anything like that?"
"Yes"
"Good - they'll give us something to hide behind if we need it. I'll go in the room alone - I'll have more chances to defeat them if they think I'm by myself. Don't come in unless I call.
"Oh, and the first thing I'll do is disarm them, and throw their weapons towards the door. Make sure you pick them up. Now, let's our way to the stockroom by keeping to the shadows. Once there, we'll wait for Mr. Broots to take care of the lights."
The team did as Steve instructed. When they were a couple of feet from the stockroom, they stopped. Steve checked his watch. They still had two minutes to wait before the lights went out. They held their breath.
Right on cue, the darkness came.
Inside the stockroom, Julius and the four sweepers still with him were thrown off by the sudden power failure. "Get the flashlights," Julius ordered. But, as the sweepers scrambled to find the hidden flashlights, a shout of panic interrupted them. Because of the darkness, they could not see what had caused it. Otherwise, they would have seen that the sweeper who had been closed to the door had been lifted from his feet, disarmed, then thrown towards the general direction of the wall, only to come crashing in some of the crates.
But, only one person had seen what had happened, and Steve was already running towards the next closest sweeper. This one had had time to get his gun out. But, whereas Steve could see him, he could not see Steve. All Steve needed to do was to give a good chop on the sweeper's hand, who let out a cry of pain as he dropped his gun. Steve immediately picked it up, shoved it towards the door like he had promised Miss Parker he would do, and had done with the other man's gun. He shoved the sweeper aside.
When Steve turned around, he had a light flashed in his face. Julius and the two remaining sweepers had taken their flashlights out, and had hoped to blind Steve. But it only blinded his human eye, on which he hadn't relied on during the fight. He jumped to the side, and rolled behind some crates. He pulled out a couple of planks from the crates, and threw them towards the two remaining sweepers, aiming for their hands.
By reflex, the sweepers put their hands up to protect themselves, as they saw the planks coming at them. This had the effect Steve had been aiming for, as they dropped their gun. One of those two sweepers was infuriated enough by this turn of even that he decided to make a run for Steve.
Steve let that man get closer to him. When this third sweeper was close enough to throw a punch, Steve effortlessly jumped up about seven feet in the air, and landed on the other side of the surprised attacker. Steve turned around, and, because of his momentum, used his left arm to punch him in the stomach. With the wind knocked out of the sweeper, Steve used his right arm to push him away.
As he was about to turn his attention to Julius and the last sweeper, Steve felt a "thump" against his legs. Turning around, he saw the last of Julius's men, holding a four-feet metal pole. He had obviously hoped to knock Steve down with it, and had aimed for the legs. He was now holding it higher. Steve backed up as the man raised it up to try to take another hit, grabbed the pole, and with one quick "swooch", sent the man flying halfway across the room.
But, just as Steve was letting go of the metal-pole, he was attack from his left side. One of the first sweepers he had knocked up had recovered, and had taken Steve by surprise. With Steve down on the floor, the sweeper punched him in the head once or twice. But Steve was not to let himself get beaten so easily. And brought his two feet together and hit the sweeper's ankles on his right feet. The pain and surprise felt by the sweeper gave just enough room to Steve to first fold up his legs in between himself and the sweeper and then use them to push his attacker away. The sweeper arced through the air, and came crashing down on the floor.
Steve turned on his side, and looked straight at Julius, who was looking back with his gun aimed straight at Steve. It was easy for Steve to figure out what had happened. While he was busy fighting off the sweepers, Julius had picked up one of the flashlights and one of the guns which had been dropped. But the metal pole was still lying on the ground near Steve. He grabbed it and threw it towards Julius.
Just as the pole hit Julius and made him drop his gun, the lights came back on. "Now, Miss Parker," called out Steve, as he got up and ran for Julius.
Miss Parker, Broots and their sweepers ran into the room, guns drawn. This time, what they saw was considerably different than what they had seen the first time: their would be antagonists were mostly lying on the ground, in no condition to put up a fight; Steve was holding Julius up and the air, carrying him across the room, finally sitting him rather unceremoniously atop of a crate by Miss Parker. With a few silent commands, Miss Parker had her sweeper escort their new prisoners out of the room.
When only she, Broots and Austin were left, she turned towards Steve. "Where can I find Jarod?" she asked, all other preoccupation now gone with the successful capture of Julius and his men.
"Give me a day," he asked. "I have to contact my superiors, so that arrangements are made for receiving Julius and his eventual trial. Then, you can come with me to California - I'll take you to Jarod once Julius is safely in the care of the OSI."
