Disclaimer: The characters and premise of the following
piece of fan fiction are not my property. They are solely
the creations of those who worked so hard to make "Prey"
a reality. I've just borrowed them for a bit, and hopefully
have treated them well.
Explanation: This story, my version of what would have
been Prey's Episode 19, carries on my alternate universe for
"Prey", in which Tom was captured by a secret faction of
the government, caged, experimented on, and eventually
rescued. This is the seventh Prey story I've written, and
the second in the series called "Conspiracies". In the first
of the series, Walter and Marcus Adams officially joined
forces, with two of Marcus's scientists, Martin Donovan
and Sarah Fielding, working as liaison between Walter's lab
and Marcus's. Tom, in turn, worked with Marcus and
his assistant Sam Anderson to assess how truthful an offer
of support was from Roger Abbott, a member of the dominants'
Head Council. On a personal front, Tom and Sloan settled into
their new roles as foster parents of a sort to Shane and
Trevor Baker, and Sloan fought off an attempt by the
boy's dominant mother to get them back. The episode
ended with news from an informant that one of Marcus's
people is secretly working with the Council to destroy Marcus's
peace movement.
As always, this story wouldn't be possible without the help
of Sharon, my writing partner and inspiration, and to Marruzella
and Pat, my two dedicated readers, who went way beyond
the call of duty this time in helping me fix mistakes and sort
out inconsistencies. I'm sure they wish I wrote shorter stories,
and had less complicated plots (so do I!), and I owe them all ink
cartridges to replace the ones they wore out printing off version
after version of this story, as well as a bottle of Tylenol each for
all the headaches I gave them. I owe Pat a special mention
.... she thought up all of the scientific aspects of this plot,
was the inspiration for the motivations of more than one of the
characters, and deserves full credit and my very grateful thanks for
all the time and thought she put into them.
"Conspiracies", Part 2
-----------------------
By Sue Burke
"A traitor?" Marcus looks Sam Anderson blankly. "In our ranks?"
Sam nods abruptly. "That's what we've been told."
"By who?" Marcus says, rising up from his chair to look at Sam
intently, his brow drawn in a frown. "By an informant? Someone
who's willing to sell out his own people?"
"Someone who was blackmailed into doing it," Sam reminds
Marcus, standing in front of his desk, his hands clasped behind his back.
He'd known Marcus would react this way and had warned Tom
that he wanted to break the news to the peace leader himself.
"Once he realized that Tom was willing to help him, he told us
what he knew .... more than he'd ever planned to tell Richards."
Marcus shakes his head at this and moves out from behind his
desk to pace over to the window, passing Sam in his wake without
a glance. "Tell me again," he says tensely. "Tell me what he said."
"Someone from our organization approached the Council with
a plan to bring us down," Sam says, turning to face Marcus,
watching his averted face carefully. "They would work from within
to destabilize and expose us, while Roger Abbott would be
planted as a spy in our ranks. Between the two of them, all of
our networks would be revealed, we'd be rounded up and
captured, and the peace movement would be wiped out."
"Roger Abbott," Marcus says, shaking his head again and
turning to look at Sam searchingly. "Damn it. I needed him to
gain the kind of credibility we need if we're going to succeed."
"I know that you wanted to believe him, Marcus," Sam says gently,
moving forward to stand in front of him. "But you have to accept
it .... masking is possible, and from what we've heard, Abbott has
been trained in it by the best there is for the past few months. He's
been telling you what you want to hear, and masking his real intent."
Marcus studies Sam's face silently, and then turns back toward
the window. "I'll call him in today and tell him that I've reconsidered,"
he says heavily. "He'll be suspicious, but what can he do without
exposing his own motives?"
"I'm sorry, Marcus," Sam says quietly.
"So am I," Marcus responds, his voice distant. Silence falls in the
room as the two men stand there, lost in thought, and then Marcus
seems to pull himself together and turns to Sam with a troubled
frown.
"What about the traitor?" he asks. "Do you really believe that
someone among us, someone we work with every day, has sold us out?"
"I do," Sam says heavily. "I can't afford not to, and neither can you."
Marcus nods slowly. "Then find him for me. Or her. Whoever it is,
they have to be stopped."
--------------------
"He says there's a traitor in the peace movement?" Walter asks
intently, leaning forward in his chair, his eyes on Tom's.
"He's seen the proof, or so he says," Tom agrees, sitting quietly
in a chair facing Walter's desk.
"And Roger Abbott is a plant."
"He has personally attended meetings in which Council members
and staff planned Abbott's infiltration of Marcus's organization,
and says Lewis's people spent months training Abbott in the art
of masking."
"Do you trust him, this informant of yours?"
"I do," Tom says, his gaze turning thoughtful for a moment. "He's
in a position to know, and he's grateful enough for our help to come
clean with us."
"Will he work with you to find out who it is?"
"I don't know." Tom rises from his chair to pace restlessly over
to the filing cabinets, his arms crossed in front of him. "I promised to
leave him alone once he'd answered our questions, and when we left
him last night he made me reiterate that promise. If we hear from him
again, it will be because he wants it."
"What do you think the odds of that are?" Walter asks,
leaning back in his chair..
"Not, good," Tom confesses. "But I'm hoping that what we did last
night .... helping him protect the woman that he loves ... will make
him rethink his loyalties and agree to work with us."
"I hope you're right," Walter says with a sigh, and then glances out
the glass windows of his office to the lab where Ed and Sloan lean
comfortably against the side of one of the counters, smiling down at
Trevor. "All of us will be at risk if your man is right and the peace
movement is destroyed. The Council will find out we've aligned
ourselves with Marcus and his scientists, and we'll be at the top
of their hit list."
"If we aren't on it already," Tom says with a frown, following
Walter's gaze out to the trio in the lab.
"Sloan told me about Trevor's parents," Walter says quietly, taking
in Tom's look of concern as he watches the small boy duck his head
shyly at a question from Ed. "It sounds as though you've made
some dangerous enemies."
Tom's face darkens at the thought of Charles and Judith Baker.
"So have they."
--------------------
"So Sloan tells me you'll be coming here with her each day," Ed
says encouragingly, lowering himself to sit on one of the lab stools
facing Trevor.
Trevor's gaze flickers to Sloan for reassurance, and then back to
Ed as he nods his head silently. "Just for a while," Sloan explains
with a smile. "Shane's helping our landlady's son do renovations
to the apartment next door, and I thought Trevor would have more
fun here with us, getting a look at the kind of work we do."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Ed says with a grin. "Do you
like working on computers, Trevor?"
Trevor gives him another silent nod, his gaze straying to the computer
by Ed's side, and Ed turns to pull a stool over beside him. "Sloan
says you're a pretty smart guy. What do you say to helping me enter
in some data I'm working on?"
"Could I?" Trevor asks, his eyes going round as he darts a hopeful
glance at Sloan.
"I don't see why not," she says with a grin, and walks over to stand
beside him as he takes a seat on the stool next to Ed, his eyes raptly
fixed on the screen. "That is, if you don't mind Ed making you work
while you're here," she adds teasingly, winking at Ed. "He always
did like to get other people to do his work for him."
"Hey," Ed protests laughingly, and turns to open up a file
folder placed next to the keyboard. "These are numbers I've compiled
on the latest tests I'm doing, Trevor. Why don't you key them in, I'll
check them, and then we'll see how they track on the charts that I've
set up?"
"Are these the latest results on Tom's tests?" Sloan asks, bending
over to scan the figures Ed has scribbled down in a series of handwritten
notes.
"Yeah." Ed leans back in his stool and looks up at her with a
reassuring smile. "Taken from the samples he gave me yesterday.
He's promised me more today before he leaves."
"Is he okay?" Trevor asks suddenly, the animation leaving his face
as he darts a worried look at Ed. "Is he sick?"
"No," Ed says hastily, reaching out a hand to pat Trevor awkwardly
on the shoulder. "He's fine .... he's just got a problem that we're
trying to fix for him if we can, but it's not making him sick or anything."
"Really?" Trevor asks, turning to look up at Sloan, his blue eyes
clouded with worry.
"Really, Trevor," Sloan says, looking down at him with a smile
and brushing his hair back gently with her fingers. "Tom's fine."
Trevor's face clears at the sound of her soothing words, and he
turns his gaze back to the screen and then to the file folder beside
him, hunching slightly as he begins to type in the numbers Ed has
scribbled out. Looking over his bent head at Ed, Sloan meets
his inquiring gaze, and touches Trevor's arm gently. "We'll
just be over in the corner, talking," she says to him quietly. "Okay?"
"Okay," Trevor says with an absent nod, already caught up in
his project.
Ed follows Sloan over to stools at the far end of the counter and
raises an inquiring eyebrow at her as he takes a seat. "What's
going on here, Sloan?" he asks curiously. "I know you couldn't
say much in front of the kid, but .... "
"His parents want Trevor back," Sloan says frankly. "They've given
up on Shane, but they're determined to do just about anything to get
Trevor back, including threatening him and us."
"So Shane's okay on his own, but not Trevor," Ed concludes,
glancing back at the boy.
"We can't let him out of our sight," Sloan confirms. "Not until we
find some way of neutralizing the threat."
"Have you tried threatening them back?" Ed asks, his eyes still
on Trevor as the boy reaches a finger over to track down the column
of numbers.
"I did yesterday," Sloan says on a sigh, and then gives Ed a wobbly
grin when he looks back at her. "You should have seen me .... you
would have been proud."
"I'll bet," he says with a crooked grin of his own. "But it wasn't
enough?"
"It got their mother out the door, but neither one of us think it will
end there." Leaning closer to Ed, Sloan looks at him intently. "If
anyone comes into this lab, even a deliveryman, and I'm not close
by, would you keep an eye on Trevor? I know our security is good,
but his parents are ruthless and I wouldn't put anything past them."
"They won't get by me," Ed says with a grin, and then looks at
her mischievously. "And hey, we could always sic Sarah Fielding on
them."
"The new liaison person from Marcus's lab?" Sloan asks, her eyes
lighting with interest. "What's she like?"
"Scary," Ed says with a rueful grin. "Every hair in place, every word
thought out ahead of time. No sense of humor .... she wouldn't know
a joke if it fell on her."
"In other words, just the opposite of you," Sloan says with a laugh,
and watches as Ed flushes a bright red and runs a flustered hand
through his hair.
"Okay, you got me with that one," he admits with a grin. "But it's
more than that." Growing serious, he leans forward in his
stool. "I can't figure her out, Sloan. She doesn't like humans ....
at least not that I can tell. She came in yesterday .... "
"Dr. Tate." Sarah Fielding's voice behind him has Ed freezing in
place as he looks at Sloan, a look of almost comical dismay on his
face. Sloan looks up to find a small, serious-faced woman standing
in front of them, her hands clasped in front of her.
"Dr. Fielding?" Sloan asks with an easy smile, rising up from her stool
and holding her hand out in welcome. "I'm Sloan Parker. It's good
to finally meet you."
"Thank you," Sarah says slowly, shaking her hand and avoiding Ed's
embarrassed gaze as he turns around on his stool. "I look forward
to working with you, Dr. Parker."
"As do I," Martin Donovan says with a grin, walking up behind
Sarah and reaching past her to reach for Sloan's hand. "Martin Donovan.
It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Dr. Parker .... I've heard so much
about you from Walter, and from Ed."
"Thank you, I think," Sloan says, her smile widening as she takes
in the friendly charm of Martin's expansive grin.
"We were so sorry that you weren't able to attend yesterday's
meeting," Martin adds, shaking her hand. "But Sarah here can bring
you up to date on everything that you've missed, can't you, Sarah?"
Sarah meets Sloan's eyes gravely and nods. "Certainly ....
whenever it's convenient for you, Dr. Parker."
"Please, call me Sloan," Sloan says, giving her a warm smile.
"I'd be happy to go over your notes with you now, if that's okay
.... I'll just check with Trevor first and see how he's doing, and
then we can meet in my office." Gesturing toward Trevor, who
had turned on his stool to watch as the two dominants talked
with Sloan, she adds, "Dr. Fielding, Dr. Martin, this is Trevor
Baker. He and his brother live with Tom and I, and he'll be
helping us around the lab for the next little while."
Trevor quietly moves off his stool to stand before them, his hands
clasped behind him, his serious eyes moving from Sarah's
face to Martin's.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Trevor," Martin says with a friendly
smile, holding out his hand. After a moment's hesitation, Trevor
shakes his hand, and Martin's smile widens as he looks down at
the boy. Trevor keeps the handshake brief, returning his hand
behind his back as quickly as possible, and gives Sloan a quick
glance before looking at Sarah, who gives him a small nod. As
Sloan watches carefully she's surprised to see Trevor give Sarah
a shy smile, one she returns so briefly that Sloan almost
misses it.
Walter and Tom's emergence from Walter's office is heralded
by a sudden glance in their direction by all three dominants, and
Walter observes the group before him with a pleasant smile. "I see
you've all finally had the chance to meet," he says. "Tom, I believe
you know Martin and Sarah?"
"We met at Marcus's lab," Tom says with a nod of his head.
"Tom briefed both of us on your work, and checked us out thoroughly
in the process, I might add," Martin says with a grin. "Very subtle,
but very careful all the same."
Tom meets his quip with a small smile, and Walter turns to Sloan.
"Sloan, has Ed brought you up to date on what we've done so far?"
"I haven't had the chance," Ed speaks up. "But Dr. Fielding has agreed
to fill her in." Uncomfortably aware of Sarah's silent presence nearby,
he gives her a quick glance, and then looks back at Walter. "Martin
and I came up with a few more ideas we'd like to run past you ....
we were going to suggest a meeting in the conference room between
the four of us once Sloan's been briefed."
"Fine," Walter says with a nod. "I'll be in my office .... just come and
get me whenever you're ready."
"And while Sloan and Dr. Fielding are meeting, I need a minute of
your time, Tom," Ed adds, rising up from his stool, and Tom nods
silently, remembering his promise to give Ed another sample this morning.
"Good," Martin says, checking his watch. "I have calls to make. Why
don't we set the meeting for half an hour from now? That gives us all
time to get caught up in our work, and then Ed and I can brief the rest
of you on what we've come up with."
"That sounds like a plan to me," Walter agrees. "Martin, the offices
I've set aside for you and Sarah weren't ready when you were
first here yesterday, but they are now. If you'll come with me, I'll
show you where they are."
Martin nods with a smile and follows him out of the lab, leaving
Sarah and Ed glancing awkwardly at each other, and Tom raises
an inquiring brow at Sloan as he senses their discomfort. She gives
him a puzzled shrug, and moves forward to touch Trevor's
shoulder gently. "Dr. Fielding and I will just be over there," she
says, indicating her office, "and Tom will be down the hall with Ed.
Call me if you need anything, okay?"
"Okay," he agrees, and returns to his seat in front of the computer,
his brow wrinkling in concentration as he studies the figures on
the screen. Sloan flashes one last smile at Tom, and leads Sarah
away to her office.
"How're you doing, champ?" Ed asks, moving forward to lean
over Trevor's shoulder and study what he's typed in.
"Good, I think," Trevor responds, and darts a quick, pleased
look up at Tom as he steps forward to lean over Trevor's other
shoulder. "Dr. Tate's letting me type in some of his results," he says
happily, and Tom smiles back at him in response. "So I see," he
says encouragingly. "That's pretty nice of Dr. Tate. Although .... "
"What?" Ed asks, lifting his head up at the sound of sudden doubt
in Tom's voice, and Trevor looks up curiously.
"I don't know," Tom says, his expression concerned as he shakes
his head. "Sloan did warn me that he always tries to get everyone
else to do his work for him. I'd be careful, Trevor, or he'll have you
working full-time for him before you know it."
"I what?" Ed echoes in indignation, and then stops as he sees the
glint in Tom's eye, and hears an unexpected chuckle from Trevor.
Rolling his eyes, Ed shakes his head, and turns to head off to his
office. "Dominant humor," he mutters to himself, his lips twitching
as Tom and Trevor exchange a grin. "I fall for it every time."
--------------------
David Armstrong studies the file in front of him with a frown. It had
been handed to him moments ago by one of his assistants, earmarked
for his notice by an unexpected request placed in it just last night.
Running his finger over the photograph attached to the first page
inside, he studies the face carefully. Tom Daniels, looking stoic,
blank almost .... a typical photograph from the chameleon files.
Not at all like the man he had met last night, who had been both
dangerous and compassionate, and whose complexities disturbed
and fascinated David.
He had spent his adult life dealing with chameleons, processing their
new identities and their assignments, and knew what to expect from
them .... a stare even more intense than that of a normal dominant,
and a single-minded drive that sometimes chilled him.
But Tom Daniels had been different. He had spoken of love on that
hillside last night, and had managed to put into words all of the feelings
that David had been struggling with for the last few months. He had
found a safe house for Laura, had listened to what David had to tell him
without judging him or demanding more, and in the end he had
promised to leave him alone, something Drew Richards or Lewis
would never have done.
Trust isn't something David or any dominant gives easily. Their
only trust is for the cause, and the Council. But somehow David
trusts Tom Daniels to keep his word .... Daniels won't call him
again. But can he sit on what he now suspects, and not warn the
ex-chameleon?
"What's going on, David?" David looks up to find Judith Baker
standing in the doorway of his office, her face tight with impatience.
"I was on my way to a Council meeting when your assistant stopped
me and told me that you wanted to see me."
"I do, Judith," he says, rising from his chair and waving her into his
office. "I had a question about a request your office put in last
night. You were asking for surveillance on Sloan Parker's apartment?"
Judith looks at him inquiringly, her brow raised. "I did," she
acknowledges, a chill entering her voice. "Is there a problem?"
"I'll have to ask why you requested the surveillance, Judith," David
responds calmly, refusing to be intimidated by her. Judith is well-
known for terrorizing her subordinates, but his rank is equal to hers
and he has no intention of letting her forget that.
"Tom Daniels remains a danger to us all," she says simply, walking
into his office and carefully placing her briefcase down on the floor
next to his desk. "I felt it necessary to keep an eye on him."
"And your sons?" David asks, letting a small measure of irony
enter his voice.
Judith's gaze sharpens as she studies him. "I don't know what
you're talking about," she says calmly, her self-control so great
that he can barely sense her unease.
"Your sons, Judith," he responds evenly, coming around his desk
to stand in front of her. "It's a well-kept secret, I'll admit .... not
many people in the Council offices know that Shane and Trevor
now live with Tom Daniels and Sloan Parker, but I'm one of
the ones who do. Shane left home some time ago, and has been
living with Tom Daniels for almost two weeks .... Trevor moved
in a week ago."
Judith stares at him silently for a moment. "Then you know
that Tom Daniels has taken two of our best young people from
us, and has to be stopped before he takes more," she says finally.
David returns her challenging gaze with a shake of his head. "Not
with my men, Judith," he says, and returns behind his desk. "The
Council has plans for Tom Daniels, and won't brook any interference
on your part, or on anyone else's. I can't authorize this."
Her lips tightening, Judith looks at him mockingly. "I wasn't aware
that you used your valuable time to check each and every request,
David."
"I don't, Judith," he responds imperturbably. "But Daniels' file was
red-flagged .... anything goes into it, and I'm notified."
"Charles will go to the Council .... " she says tightly, but he
interrupts her with a raised hand before she can continue.
"And they'll tell him what I've told you, Judith," he says bluntly.
"No one touches Daniels. Not until the Council is ready."
Judith surveys him coolly for a moment, and then nods her head
silently, picking up her briefcase and leaving his office as abruptly as
she had arrived. David watches her go and then sinks back down into
his chair, his eyes fixed once more on Tom Daniels' face.
--------------------
Closing the door of his office, Ed edges past Tom and reaches
for the sample cup sitting on his desk with a rueful grin. "I imagine
you know the drill by now," he says wryly. "How are you feeling, by
the way? Any pain around the area? Any difference in the way you
feel .... mood swings, physical sensations?"
"There hasn't been any change that I can detect," Tom responds,
accepting the cup. "No change in mood or behavior, just some
tenderness around the area of the incision."
"Good," Ed says with a nod. "There hasn't been any change
in the sperm count either, but it's too soon to expect any. It could
take weeks before we see any significant change, or even months."
"Or it could be that there won't be any change at all," Tom says
realistically, looking down at the cup.
"It's a possibility," Ed acknowledges, and then hesitates, frowning
at Tom thoughtfully. "Tom .... what would you think if I told Martin
about your situation, and asked if he knows anything about the
implant or the tests done by Lewis's scientists?"
Tom looks up at him consideringly. "You think he could help?"
"It couldn't hurt," Ed points out, settling down on the edge of
his desk. "We're wandering in the dark here, Tom. What we've done
may help, but we're just guessing, and our examination of the implant
hasn't revealed much .... it's made of materials I haven't even seen
before, and I can't be sure what effect it's had on your system as a
whole."
Tom nods his head slowly. "It makes sense that Marcus's people
might know more about the implant than we would. Fine .... ask
Martin and Sarah what they think, and if they know anything about
the original implant experiments."
"Sarah .... " Ed says with a wince, and gives Tom a troubled look.
"You'll have to be the one to ask her for help. She doesn't seem
to think much of me."
Tom looks at him silently for a moment, and then lowers the cup
to the desk. "What's wrong between you two?" he asks curiously.
"You can't seem to even look each other in the eye."
Ed slumps a little and runs an impatient hand through his hair.
"I can't make her out," he confesses. "She came in here with a chip
on her shoulder a mile wide and announced that she was going to
screen us all to weed out mediocrity." Ed shakes his head with
frustration. "She looks at us .... at me .... like we're bugs under
her microscope, and not very interesting ones at that."
Tom bites back a smile at this, and watches as Ed surges off his desk
and begins to pace, his hands on his hips. "But then, just when I
think she's this cold, hard, judgmental person, she .... "
"She what?" Tom asks curiously.
"She looks .... lonely," Ed says with confusion. "Human."
Stopping in his tracks, he turns on Tom. "You met her when you
were screening Marcus's people. What did you think of her?"
"I thought that she was one of Marcus's best," Tom says slowly.
"Brilliant, dedicated to coexistence, incorruptible."
"But she hates us!" Ed bursts out, and then flushes at his vehemence.
"Or at least she dislikes us."
Tom looks at him searchingly. "Have you ever stopped to think that
she's afraid of you?" he asks quietly.
Ed looks at him blankly.
"Think of what your initial reaction to news of a new species
was," Tom points out. "To the way you reacted to meeting me. You
expected the worst because of what you knew about Lynch, and
your suspicions became worse after your ordeal with Copeland.
"So put yourself in Sarah's place. My species is raised to see humans
as the enemy, as inferior beings who are the one thing standing
between us and ownership of this planet. She's fought against all
that to get to the point where she believes in coexistence, in working
with humans instead of against them. But she's done it working in a
lab, with ideas and books and research. She has no practical
experience in working with humans, and while in theory she believes
in coexistence, reality is a lot more frightening." Tom shakes his head.
"Add to that the fact that she's awkward even around the people
in her own lab, and you've got someone who's nervous and defensive.
And what she's said and done has come out all wrong."
Ed stares at Tom silently for a moment, and then looks down, his
face flushing a little with embarrassment. "So you're saying I should
cut her a little slack."
"I am," Tom agrees. "You have to remember that members of my
species aren't all carbon copies of each other, just as humans aren't.
You can't lump us all into one category or another, labeling us as
either all good or all bad. We can be as complex as humans, and
as confusing to deal with sometimes."
"I guess so," Ed says reflectively, staring off into the distance, and
then looks back at Tom with a quick smile. "Thanks, man," he
says. Then, shaking his head ruefully, he gives a small chuckle.
"We've come a long way, haven't we? I didn't trust you in the
beginning, and you didn't say more than two words to me unless
you had to."
Tom smiles back at him, and picks up the cup. "Thank Sloan ....
she kept after us both to understand each other better, and she still
keeps encouraging me to open up more about things. It must
be working."
"Women," Ed says with a grin of commiseration. "They always want
you to talk about your feelings."
"So I've noticed," Tom says with an answering grin.
--------------------
"So Dr. Donovan and Dr. Tate will be filling us in later this
morning on what they've come up with in terms of our approach,"
Sarah Fielding concludes, her hands resting quietly on top of the
file of papers in her lap.
Sloan looks up from the notes she's been making to herself on
the mind-control experiments Marcus wants them to disrupt.
"Do we have a timeframe as to how quickly we're supposed to
move on this?"
"As quickly as possible," Sarah responds. "The experiments were
well underway by the time we managed to plant someone on the
staff there, and Marcus is afraid that they're close to launching their
first field test."
Sloan shakes her head, overwhelmed by the task ahead of them.
"If those tests succeed, none of us are safe," she says soberly.
"Having someone take over your mind is a terrifying experience."
Sarah looks at her with interest. "Dr. Attwood told us about your
experience with the boy whose natural father was a dominant.
You're the first person we've met who has encountered one of them
.... as soon as Dr. Attwood held his press conference, the Council
had the children go underground and none of us have been able to
find one since."
Sloan's eyes darken with remembered terror. "Kevin killed his
own father ..... or at least the man who had raised him .... and the
only reason he didn't kill me was that Tom interrupted him." She
gives a small shudder. "You don't know what it's like to come to
and realize that he's been directing your thoughts, that he could do
anything he wanted to with you and you couldn't stop him."
"That's why we have to stop the tests now," Sarah says with a
frown, "before the Council can put its plan into action."
"I agree," Sloan says, laying her pen down and gathering her papers
together. "Hopefully, Ed and Martin have come with some workable
ideas on how to do that. Ed's got an amazing mind when it comes to
solving unsolvable problems .... he was the one who discovered a way
to disable the nanites that had been used to poison those schoolchildren
in Bardsdale."
"So I understand," Sarah says slowly, dropping her gaze to her lap,
but not before Sloan catches the flash of doubt there.
"Sarah," she says, laying her papers down, "do you have a problem with Ed?"
As Sarah looks up, her face flushed with discomfort, Sloan tries to
explain. "I noticed the tension between you out there, and was surprised
by it. Ed's normally a pretty easy guy to get along with."
"Perhaps," Sarah acknowledges quietly. "But I find him ....
confrontational. Puzzling." Flushing again, she looks away. "Or
maybe it was me. As I told Dr. Attwood, I'm not good with people,
and I seem to have annoyed Dr. Tate from the start."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Sloan says with concern. "What do you find so
puzzling?"
Sarah bites her lip for a moment, and then looks back at Sloan. "His
dress, his behavior .... he makes a joke out of everything, and has no
respect for authority. He .... mocks me behind my back, I heard him.
How can I take him seriously, or get him to take me seriously?"
Sloan looks at Sarah with compassion, noting the white sheen of her
knuckles as she clasps her hands tightly together, and the confusion
in her eyes. Rising from her chair, she walks around her desk and
takes the chair beside Sarah's, leaning forward to place her hand on
Sarah's.
"Sarah, don't mistake Ed's easy ways for a lack of respect for what we
do," she says gently. "He's one of the most dedicated scientists I know,
and one of the most brilliant. He worked night and day on the juice-box
problem, and he wouldn't stop until he solved it. When he was sick with
the Spanish flu virus, he worked with me over the phone to develop a
vaccine when he could barely move or speak. He lives for what he does,
and has complete respect for the people he works with and for the
rules of science."
Sloan tightens her hold on Sarah's hand. "Don't judge him differently
because he dresses differently or acts differently than the people you
normally work with. And don't judge him by whatever happened when
you first met .... we've been working under so much strain for so long that
we've all got a short fuse, and we don't trust as easily as we used to.
You're not used to working with us, and we're not used to working
with you. Take the time to try to understand him, and the rest of us.
I think you'll find that Ed's a much different person than you think he
is."
Sarah looks at Sloan silently for a moment, and then gives a small nod.
"I will," she says quietly.
"Good," Sloan says with a warm smile, and gives her hands an
encouraging squeeze before checking her watch. "They're
probably ready for us now .... why don't we get back to the lab?"
Sarah nods her agreement and rises from her chair as Sloan springs
up to gather her papers from the desk, but hesitates before reaching
the door. "Dr. Parker," she says, and then gives Sloan a grave smile.
"Sloan .... before we go out, I wanted to tell you what an honor it is
to meet you. We all have enormous respect for Tom and what he's
accomplished since breaking away from Lewis and the chameleon
program, and for what you did when you first met him .... how you
protected him and worked with him instead of exposing him, and how
you've believed in coexistence despite what Lewis and Randall Lynch
did to you." She holds out her hand. "I'm very grateful for the chance
to work with you."
Sloan gives her a warm grin, and shakes her hand. "I'm just as grateful
to work with you, believe me. Knowing that there are people in your
species like Tom who want peace and are willing to work with us is the
biggest boost we've had since this all started." Hesitating, she looks at
Sarah thoughtfully. "Does Tom know the way the people at Marcus's lab
feel about him?"
Sarah looks surprised at her question. "I assume so," she says slowly.
"We don't speak of it, but I'm sure Tom senses our appreciation."
Sloan casts a look out the glass window of her office at Tom and Ed,
who have returned to Trevor's side, and then looks back at Sarah.
"Breaking away from his species has been very difficult for Tom, even
if it was the right choice to make," Sloan says carefully. "He's very
aware that he's seen as a traitor by most, and I think he still feels that
way himself at times. If you could say something to him .... tell him what
you told me .... it would mean a great deal to him."
Sarah's eyes have gone wide at Sloan's words, and she glances
out the window at Tom, who is bent over Trevor's shoulder, talking
to him. "I will," she says quietly. "The first chance I get."
--------------------
"Are we all here?" Ed asks, looking around the outer lab as
Sloan and Sarah emerge from Sloan's office.
"All of us but Walter," Martin from his perch on a lab stool nearby.
"Do you want me to get him?"
"Actually, I wanted to talk to you first, Martin .... you and Dr.
Fielding,"
Ed says, giving her an awkward nod. "Sloan and I have been working
on a problem Tom's run into recently, and he's given me his permission
to consult you about it, to see if there's anything you could do to help."
Flashing a quick glance of apology at Sloan, Ed adds, "I'm sorry, Sloan
.... I didn't get a chance to check with you beforehand, but it's a chance
I thought we should take."
"No problem," she says with a wave of her hand, settling back against
the lab counter beside Tom. "I'm just glad you thought of it."
Sarah and Martin have both flashed a quick glance of concern at Tom, and
are now looking back at Ed inquiringly.
"We're trying to reverse the effects of an implant Lewis had planted in
Tom when he was training to be a chameleon," Ed explains.
"An implant," Martin says thoughtfully.
"One that causes sterility?" Sarah asks curiously, and turns to nod her
head at Tom as he looks up in surprise. "I read about it when I
was researching the chameleon program some time ago. Lewis wanted
his students to be free of any sexual urges that could interfere with their
training or their missions, and so he proposed placing an implant in each
of them that would suppress their sex drive." She looks back at Ed
inquiringly. "I had understood that the implant was never used,
though. The Council banned it after the test subjects all became
sterile."
"They did, according to Marcus," he agrees. "But Lewis went ahead
anyway, at least with Tom. We found an implant buried just under
the surface of the skin in his groin area and removed it just a few days
ago."
"The problem is that his sperm count is almost negligible," Sloan explains.
"We hoped that removing the implant might help the count improve on
its own, but if it doesn't, we need to come up with other ways to improve
it. Is there any other information you might be able to find in your
databanks .... any results of experiments done on the test subjects
once they were found to be sterile?"
"None that I saw," Sarah says slowly, shaking her head. "But then
the files I read indicated that the implant was never used beyond the
test stage. If it was, they would have kept track of Tom's count, just
as a matter of scientific research, and the records they kept would be
somewhere .... I'd just have to figure out where."
"If you would, we'd be so grateful," Sloan says with a relieved smile.
"What results have you had so far?" Sarah asks curiously, and Ed
leads her over to where Trevor sits in front of the computer, checking
the numbers he has typed in. "There hasn't been any change yet,
but we're just in the very early stages," he explains. "We've been
tracking samples since before we removed the implant. Trevor's
been typing in the latest results for me."
Leaning over Trevor's shoulder, Sarah examines the computer
screen and the notes lying in the opened file beside him. "The approach
you've taken is very similar to the one used by the scientists studying
the implant," she observes. "Very efficient."
Flushing a little at her words, Ed gives her an awkward grin. "Why
thank you, Dr. Fielding," he says, and gives her a little bow.
Straightening up beside him, Sarah suddenly realizes her choice of
words and flushes herself. "Dr. Tate," she says hesitantly. "About
yesterday .... "
Martin, who had stood silently by during their interchange, checks his
watch
and suddenly speaks up. "Ed, we'd booked a conference call with
my people back at Marcus's lab for later. I'm sorry to interrupt, but if
we
don't get our meeting started now, we'll run overtime and miss it."
Ed, his eyes on Sarah's, doesn't respond for a moment, and then looks
up at Martin, his thoughts scattered. "The conference call?" he echoes.
"About the mind-control experiments," Martin reminds him. "You had
a series of questions you wanted to ask them."
"Right," Ed says slowly, and looks back at Sarah, giving her an
apologetic grin. "I'm sorry, Dr. Fielding. Could this wait until later?"
"Certainly," she says, clasping her hands in front of her and then
dropping her eyes back to the computer screen. "It wasn't important."
Ed hesitates a moment longer, looking at her downcast eyes. "No,
really," he says, "I'll talk to you later, once the meeting is finished
and we've made the call."
Sarah nods silently, her eyes still focused on the computer screen,
and Ed darts a quick look at Sloan. "I'll just fill Walter in on what
we've talked about here. We'll meet you in the conference room in,
say, five minutes?"
Sloan nods her head in agreement, and with one last curious glance
at Sarah, Ed heads for Walter's office. Sarah stays bent over Trevor's
shoulder, her eyes scanning the list of figures on the computer screen,
and Martin joins her there, murmuring quietly to her as they survey Ed's
results together.
"I'm so glad Ed thought to ask them about the implant," Sloan says
softly, turning to Tom. "They might be able to give us some of the
answers that we need."
"I hope so," Tom says quietly, and reaches out to smooth a stray
strand of hair away from her cheek. "Listen, I can't stay. Sam
called .... he and Marcus need me over there to plan our next
step in dealing with Roger Abbott."
"Then I'll see you at home later?" she asks, smoothing her hand over
the collar of his black jacket.
"I won't be late," he says reassuringly. "Do you want me to take
Trevor with me?"
"No," Sloan says, turning her head to watch him with a grin, "he's having
too much fun here. We'll find enough to keep him busy."
"Be careful," Tom cautions her. "We don't know what his parents might
do next."
"I will," she promises. "I've asked Ed to keep an eye on him when I'm
not around, and I'll talk to Walter as well about tightening security
even more around here."
"Good," he says. "I'll see you later."
Touching her cheek one last time, Tom leaves the lab quietly, and
Sloan turns to watch Sarah and Martin hover over Trevor as he scans
the columns of figures flickering in front of him. Catching an error
Trevor
has made, Sarah points it out to him on the computer screen and Sloan
finds herself tensing, not sure how Sarah will deal with his mistake. But
her fears are unfounded .... Sarah corrects him with a quiet voice, helping
him track down his mistake in the column of figures he'd typed in and
smiling down at him reassuringly when he darts a quick glance up
at her.
Liking what she sees, Sloan settles back against the lab counter,
her eyes on trio in front of her. Marcus's dominant scientists intrigue
her, Martin Donovan for his unexpected smoothness and charm, and
Sarah Fielding for her obvious intelligence and her quiet awkwardness,
particularly around Ed.
And, Sloan adds to herself with a grin, for Ed's equally awkward
reaction to her.
--------------------
"David?"
The diffident voice of his assistant breaks through David's concentration
as he studies the papers in front of him, a set of documents designed
for the latest chameleon about to be sent out on assignment.
Looking up, he waves Patrick Setter in and raises a brow at the
guarded look on his face. "What's wrong?" David asks, and
reaches out for the file Patrick holds out to him.
"Orders from the top," Patrick says in a low voice. "We're to
provide a secure phone line with only one connection, in Templeton's
office. Encrypted codes ..... no one gets copies, not even us."
David looks at Patrick with surprise, and then down at the file,
opening it curiously. The order was drawn up just that morning,
signed by Harris Templeton himself, second in command only to the
Head of the Council and the man in charge of the plan to destroy
the peace movement.
Scanning the papers attached, David looks up at Patrick sharply.
"There are also orders here from yesterday for wiretaps and bugs,
with no destination given, and no record as to who took delivery.
Why wasn't I told about this?"
Patrick nods his head with a troubled look. "They came in last
night, after you'd left. I was still here when Mr. Templeton's
aide found me, and was told to process them on the spot, without
waiting for your authorization. I'm sorry, David .... I meant to tell
you about it this morning, but then the Daniels file arrived red-
flagged, and I got sidetracked."
David shakes his head as he looks back down at the file. "Don't
worry about it. When Templeton wants something, he gets it,
and he's not willing to wait to go through proper channels."
After a moment spent deep in thought, he looks up again. "Have
the bugs been picked up yet?"
"They were delivered, actually," Patrick responds. "Left at a
drop-off point in the middle of the night."
"Any word on who's set up to monitor them?"
"None," Patrick says, and shakes his head. "Whatever this is, it's so
deep under cover that I doubt we'll ever know what they were for."
"Maybe," David replies with a frown, and then nods his dismissal as
a phone in the outer office rings.
With Patrick Setter gone, David lays the requisition file down in front
of him and retrieves Tom Daniels' file from a pile in his outbasket,
opening it as well and staring back down at Daniels' photograph.
His urge to contact him is getting stronger by the hour. First
Judith Baker's request to have Sloan Parker's apartment put under
surveillance, and now this .... both Daniels and the peace movement
are increasingly under siege, whether they know it or not. Only a
warning from David can prepare them both for what's to come.
The question is, he muses, whether he can bring himself to make
the call.
--------------------
"I've asked Roger Abbott to come in this morning," Marcus says heavily,
sitting down at his desk. "He should be here at any minute. I plan to
tell
him that I'm turning down his offer to join the peace movement."
Tom pauses in the middle of taking his seat across from him, and glances
over at Sam, whose face reflects the strain of having to tell his boss
about Roger Abbott's deception. "What reason will you give?"
"The truth," Marcus responds, his face shadowed. "I'll tell him I don't
believe his motives, and can't trust this sudden conversion of his.
Hopefully, he'll believe that Sam's behind my doubts, and be so
disgusted with me for taking bad advice that he won't dig for more
information."
"How much has he seen of your organization?" Tom asks with
a frown.
"Nothing past these offices," Sam says wearily, leaning back against
the door of Marcus's office, his arms crossed in his customary position.
"We've kept security tight while he's been here .... I know for a fact
that he's been shown straight in and out each time, with no chance
to wander off or meet anyone we haven't wanted him to."
Marcus looks down at his folded hands. "Sam insisted on that,"
he says quietly. "He knew something was wrong, when I refused to
see it."
"Marcus .... " Sam begins, but Marcus waves him into silence, and
looks up at Tom intently. "Roger Abbott is the least of our problems
now. We've got a traitor in our midst, and I want them tracked
down before they do any more damage than they already have.
Any suggestions?"
"To be able to destroy your organization from the inside, they'd have to
have enough seniority to be a major player," Tom says reflectively.
"They'd be someone who has input in your decision-making process,
knows the movement's strengths and weaknesses, and knows the
people in the senior ranks well enough to know who to play
against each other. And they'd have access to information vital
to the Council .... the names of your contacts at all the dominant
labs, for instance."
"Couldn't it just be a junior lab technician with an axe to grind and
access to our files?" Sam suggests. "Someone would could disrupt
our daily activities?"
Tom looks at him thoughtfully, and then shakes his head. "It could
be, but that doesn't feel right. That would only be an annoyance ....
we're looking for someone who can cripple you so badly that they
leave you vulnerable to attack. We're also looking for someone
powerful enough in your organization to be taken seriously by the
Council. My advice is that we narrow our focus to your senior staff
... double-check their past histories and their recent activities, and
meet with each one of them to see what we can uncover."
"Could you get any more out of your informant?" Marcus asks. "Some
hint as to who the traitor might be, some detail he might not have passed
on to you last night?"
Tom shakes his head reluctantly. "I promised him we wouldn't contact
him again .... that was part of the deal to get him to talk in the first
place. If I go back on that now, we ruin whatever chance we have of
him coming to us voluntarily with more information."
"You think he'll do that?" Sam asked skeptically.
"I don't know," Tom admitted. "But I'm hoping that he will. All he
could focus on last night was getting the woman he loves safe, and
getting out from under Drew Richards' blackmail demands. But now
that he has, I think he'll start to question himself about what he believes
in and about what kind of future he can have with her if he continues
to work for the Council."
"I hope you're right," Marcus says with a sigh, and then darts a quick
look at his door, Tom and Sam following his gaze. "Roger's arrived,"
he announces unnecessarily, and then turns to them as he rises from
his chair. "I'd rather not have you here for this. No sense putting us
all in the crossfire .... I'll deal with him, and you start your search for
the traitor."
"We're staying," Sam says, straightening from his position at the door.
"You made this decision with our advice. We'll be here to back you
up when you tell him."
"Sam .... " Marcus protests, but Sam shakes his head firmly. "We're
staying," he repeats, and stands back as the knock comes at the door
and Roger Abbott is once more escorted into Marcus's office.
"Marcus," Roger says cordially. "Mr. Daniels." Reaching out a
hand, he greets each of them in turn, and gives Sam a brief nod.
"Anderson."
"Roger," Marcus responds, and waves him into a chair in front of his
desk.
Abbott narrows his gaze at Marcus's serious expression, and the
air of gravity in the room. "What is it, Marcus? I'd assumed you called
me here to accept my proposal."
"I'm afraid not, Roger," Marcus says slowly, lowering himself to sit
behind his desk. "Tempting as it is, I won't be taking you up
on your offer of support."
Abbott freezes in the act of leaning back in his chair, and his expression
tightens as he darts a quick look at Tom and Sam, and then back at
Marcus. "May I ask why not?"
Leaning forward, his elbows on his desk and his hands clasped in
front of him, Marcus looks at Abbott evenly. "I don't find your sudden
conversion to the peace movement credible, Roger. It's as simple as
that."
"More bad advice?" Abbott asks acerbically, glancing dismissively
at Sam, who is once more leaning against the door, his arms crossed
in front of him, his expression calm.
"Advice I should have taken from the start," Marcus responds levelly.
"I don't like your politics, Roger .... I never have. You've always fought
for complete domination, and that's still your end-goal .... you just see
us as a less costly way of achieving it." Tightening his clasped hands,
he shakes his head. "I won't let my people be used like that."
"Without my support, and the support of Council members like me,
you're doomed to be nothing more than a fringe movement, Marcus,"
Abbott says tightly.
"Possibly," Marcus acknowledges. "But my conscience will be clear,
and the movement will be safe from your machinations."
Abbott's face goes blank at the implied insult, and he studies Marcus
carefully for a long, uncomfortable moment before rising from his chair
and leaning forward over Marcus's desk, his hands braced on its
smooth surface. "I'd advise you to reconsider," he says softly. "You
don't want to make an enemy out of me."
Sam stiffens, ready to intervene, but Marcus ignores him, coming to
his feet and adopting the same threatening posture as Abbott
as he faces him down. "I'd rather have you as an enemy than as a
friend I can't trust," he says evenly. "That way, when you go for my
throat
I'll see you coming."
Abbott's face twitches with frustration, and he shoves himself back
from the desk with a sudden move, his eyes never leaving Marcus's.
The two old colleagues face each other in silence, broken only by the
click of the doorknob as Sam quietly opens the door and stands beside
it. Finally, in measured steps, Roger Abbott walks out of the office,
ignoring Sam and Tom as he leaves.
Marcus stays where he is, his head bent down in thought, as Sam
closes the door behind Abbott and takes up his position against
it.
"Do you think he'll be a problem?" Sam asks, looking over at Tom.
"Possibly," Tom allows. "But right now we have more immediate
concerns."
"The traitor," Marcus says, lifting his head to meet Tom's steady gaze.
"Yes."
"Then get him," Marcus says flatly. "I don't care how you do it ....
set up interviews with the senior staff, check their records, whatever
it takes. Just do it."
--------------------
"So our initial theory is that we use an airborne chemical .... odorless,
tasteless, undetectable to the dominant scientists in the rooms, that
would affect the human subjects enough to skew the mind-control
experiments," Ed concludes, glancing down at the last page of his notes.
"From what Martin tells me, his colleagues have worked on a number
of such chemicals in the past. What we need to do is design one
specifically for this purpose."
"Preferably something with a natural compound base that wouldn't
be easily detectable even if scientists ran routine tests on the air
supply," Martin interjects.
"How would you introduce it into the ventilation system?" Walter asks,
leaning back in his chair.
"That's still to be determined," Martin responds. "We've discussed
a number of possibilities .... the best being that we have our contacts
in the labs insert it into the air-supply system themselves."
"What could you come up with that wouldn't affect the dominant
workers in the facility?" Sloan asks doubtfully.
"That's the challenge," Martin admits. "We need something that
counteracts to some extent the effects of the mind-control drugs,
but that doesn't have any appreciable affect on the scientists
themselves."
"But Martin, hadn't we already explored this angle?" Sarah
interjects, a frown of concern on her face. "Peter's results had
been inconclusive when it came to an effective agent."
"True," Martin agrees, giving her a reassuring smile. "But the
compounds Ed has suggested point us down a whole new
avenue of possibility that I think should be explored."
Sarah looks questioningly at Ed, who nods his head in agreement.
"I want us to look at a range of wholly organic compounds, the kind
that would seem natural if detected in the air," he explains. "From
what Martin's told me, your scientists limited themselves to chemically-
based agents."
"That's true," she admitted, "but only after they had explored all
other possibilities."
"Sarah, the one fault we have in our own lab is our rigid protocols,"
Marcus says patiently. "We haven't shown the flexibility to explore
less traditional avenues of science. That's one of the reasons Marcus
wanted us to work with Walter's people .... to get fresh input,
consider new possibilities. What Ed's suggesting goes far beyond
any compounds we've considered."
Sarah falls silent, dropping her gaze to the notes in front of her,
and Martin turns back to the rest of the group. "Our next step is to
research all possible organic compounds. Ed tells me that you have
an extensive database .... my suggestion would be that Sloan and
Sarah take on the job of exploring it to see what they can come up with.
Ed and I will focus on any questions and concerns he has about past
testing in the conference call we'll place a few minutes from now,
and then set out a protocol for testing whatever compound or series
of compounds we focus in on."
Walter nods thoughtfully. "Then I suggest we split up at this point,
each person work on his or her task, and we meet back here
tomorrow at the same time to assess where we are."
"Agreed," Martin says, gathering his papers together.
"Sloan, I'll just take a minute before the conference call to show
you which databases I want you to look at," Ed says, rising from his chair.
"And we should check on Trevor and see how he's doing with the
files I gave him to sort."
"I was right," Sloan says, looking up at him with a laugh as she
moves to follow him out of the conference room. "You *are* going
to make him do all your work!"
"I resent that .... " Ed protests as they leave the room, and Walter
smiles at their amiable bickering as he crosses the room to stand
before Martin.
"I just wanted to congratulate you, Martin," he says warmly,
reaching out to shake his hand. "You and Ed have come up
with what I think will be a smooth working partnership between
our two labs, and I like your ideas on how to approach the mind-control
experiments."
"Thank you, Walter," Martin says with a smile. "Ed's been
very generous in giving me so much of his time, and his ideas."
"From what I've heard here, it was a team effort," Walter responds,
and includes Sarah in his smile. "You both promise to make a
considerable contribution to our work here, and I consider this
to be a promising start."
"Marcus will be happy to hear that." Reaching down to pick
up his papers, Martin prepares to leave the room with Walter,
but Sarah holds him back with a hand on his arm. "If you'd
excuse us, Walter?" she asks quietly. "I have some things
I need to discuss with Martin."
"Certainly." Giving them one last smile, Walter leaves
the room, and Martin turns to Sarah with an inquiring look. "What
is it, Sarah?"
"I need to talk with you," she says tightly, dropping her hand
from his arm and moving across the room to shut the door. "I
need to know what's going on, Martin."
"What do you mean?" he asks, settling back against the edge of
the conference table.
"The things that have been happening," she says, turning to
face him, her face filled with confusion. "The way you've been
behaving. The way you had *me* behave. None of it makes
sense."
"Sarah, if it's about our talk .... " Martin begins placatingly.
"You briefed me very specifically on how to deal with them, Martin,"
Sarah reminds him. "You told me to be aggressive. You told me
to demand individual assessments, to put them on notice that we
wouldn't accept any mediocre work on their part. But when I
did that and they resisted, you didn't back me up. You made it
look as though I had antagonized them on purpose."
"Sarah, I understand how you must feel," Martin says. "But
there's a reason for what happened. I'd talked with you, we'd
planned our strategy, and I was comfortable with our approach.
But then Marcus called me in for a last briefing and told me
about the kind of people we'd be dealing with, and I realized
that our plan wouldn't work. I'm sorry .... I meant to arrive
first and head you off, but my meeting with Marcus ran late.
By the time I arrived, Walter and Ed were upset, and I dealt
with things the best way I knew how."
Unconvinced, Sarah turns to pace the length of the room.
"What about this plan of yours to use an airbound compound?
You *know* that we examined that possibility for weeks ....
Peter researched every possible mix of chemical and organic
agents that he could find. Doing it all again is a waste of time
and resources, Martin .... I don't understand why you're
encouraging Dr. Tate to do this when we already know it won't
work."
"We *think* it won't work," Martin corrects her gently. "We don't
know it. I still say Peter gave up too quickly, and narrowed his
field of exploration too much. Ed's got ideas, Sarah .... and he's
got an amazing intuition for what works. He's not limited by
protocols and accepted practices .... he does what makes sense
to him. I think he can succeed where Peter failed, and that he
deserves a chance to prove himself."
Sarah looks at him with indecision, torn between his calm reasoning
and her own misgivings. "I don't understand, Martin," she says
quietly. "Nothing is going the way we'd planned."
"You worry too much, Sarah," Martin says with a small smile,
straightening up and crossing over to her. "You always have."
Staring up at his friendly, even features, she remains silent,
and he gives her an encouraging touch on the arm before passing
by her toward the door. "We'll be taking the call in Ed's office," he
says, looking back over his shoulder. "Let me know how you do
with your search."
"I will," she says automatically, and then turns to face him. "Martin,"
she says curiously. "What were you doing in Walter Attwood's
office early this morning?"
"I'm sorry?" he asks, his hand on the doorknob.
"I was in early as well, going over some of my papers, and I saw
you in Dr. Attwood's office. What were you looking for?"
"Oh," he says, his brow clearing. "I'd left one of my files there
last night when Walter let me use his phone. I missed it once I
was home, and so I went looking for it when I arrived this morning."
Giving her a quick smile, he opens the door. "I have to go or
I'll be late. I'll see you later, Sarah."
"Bye," she says quietly, bringing her arms up to fold around her
waist as he leaves the room and shuts the door behind him.
Watching with troubled eyes through the glass window that fronts
the conference room, she tracks his progress down the hall and
bites her lip uncertainly.
--------------------
"What we need is a way of accessing background files on all of
them," Sam says, pacing restlessly in front of the window of his
office. "Every member of our senior staff. Not just what we'd
have on file, but what exists on them anywhere .... even the Council
files."
Tom looks up from his seat behind Sam's desk, his eyes suddenly
intent. "Do you have that capability?"
Sam turns to look at him. "What are you thinking?"
"What if we could hack into the Council's database, collect the
information we need on each one of your people?" Tom suggests.
"They'd all have been under surveillance because of their work for
the peace movement .... the Council would have seen them as
potential enemies and checked them all out thoroughly. We'd learn
more from reading their files than we would your own, or than we
ever could from questioning each one of them individually."
"But how?" Sam asks, crossing over to stand in front of his desk.
"We can't use any of our computer experts on staff .... they're all
potential suspects."
"We use someone independent .... someone we trust completely,"
Tom responds. At a questioning look from Sam, Tom gives him a
small smile. "Ed Tate."
--------------------
Ed looks up at the sound of the quiet knock on his open door, and
the sight of Sarah Fielding hovering there uncertainly.
"Dr. Fielding," he says in surprise, and then remembers her request
to talk to him and rises out of his chair to beckon her into the
office. "Come in and take a seat, please."
"Thank you, Dr. Tate," she says with a grave smile, and sits down
in front of his desk, folding her hands in her lap.
"You said you wanted to talk to me?" Ed says encouragingly,
sitting back down and leaning forward, his elbows on his desk.
"Yes, I do," she responds, and then hesitates. "Dr. Tate .... I feel
that it's important to clear the air between us. Perhaps if I explain
my actions when we first met, and my reactions to you, we can
come to some kind of working relationship comfortable for us
both."
Ed, mindful of Tom's warning about Sarah's shyness, bites back
a smile at her awkward formality. "That sounds like a good idea,"
he agrees. "Maybe we can start by dropping the titles and calling
each other by our first names .... if that's all right with you, Sarah."
"Yes," she says, her face flushing a light rose pink, and shifts
slightly in her chair. "Dr. Tate," she begins, and then catches herself.
"Ed, I meant no insult when I requested the screenings of your staff.
I'm unfamiliar with your methods of research and the standards you
set for those who work here, and felt that the best way to familiarize
myself was to talk to people individually. And," she admits, lowering
her head to study her clasped hands for a moment, "I realize now that
you found my manner to be very insulting. I have no excuse ..... I'm
not familiar with working with humans such as yourself, and was given
the impression that the best way was to be assertive. Obviously,
that was the wrong approach to take."
Ed winces slightly, and gives her a self-effacing grin. "It did set off
a few sparks," he admits.
"I do want us to be able to work together," she says earnestly,
looking up at him. "If you think that's possible."
Ed finds himself at a loss for words for the moment, noticing for the
first time the wisps of honey-brown hair that have come loose from her
tightly-drawn bun, and the softness they lend to her face. Suddenly,
she seems neither formidable nor judgmental .... just shy, awkward,
and disarmingly pretty.
Feeling his antagonistic views of her softening, he gives her a quick,
apologetic smile. "You weren't the only one to take the wrong
approach, Sarah. I got pretty assertive myself there, if memory
serves me right. And you're not the first one to rub me the wrong
way lately .... just ask Tom."
"Tom Daniels?" Sarah looks at him curiously. "You seem to
be good friends."
"Now, maybe," Ed allows with a smile. "Or at least, we're getting
there. But when I first met him and we were dealing with this whole
new species thing, I was pretty antagonistic toward him and it
didn't take much to set me off."
"Sloan tells me that you've all had a difficult time adjusting to what's
happened in the last few months," Sarah said quietly.
"You could put it that way," Ed says with a wry laugh. "Finding out
there's a species out there who wants to kill us" -- catching himself,
he gives her an apologetic grin -- "well, not all of you, but enough
of you. And then there was Lynch, and Lewis, and Copeland."
His voice trails off at the mention of Dr. Ian Copeland's name, his
expression suddenly sobering at the memories that it stirs up.
"I understand he was a mentor of yours," Sarah says carefully,
unsure of how far to pry.
"He was," Ed admits, and looks down at his hands, fiddling with a
pencil. "But it seems he had an agenda I didn't know about."
Lost in thought, he falls silent for a moment, and then looks up to
see Sarah watching him quietly. "That's probably why I jumped
down your throat the way I did," Ed tries to explain. "What Copeland
did hardened my attitude about your species, and I've been pretty
tough on any dominant that I've come across since, including
Marcus and Sam."
"But not Martin," she says with a small, wry smile of her own.
"Well, Martin .... " he says, and then looks up at her with a grin.
"Martin's different, you have to admit that."
"Yes, he is," she admits, her clear, grey eyes suddenly looking
troubled.
Ed sees her unease, and leans forward in his chair. "I'm sorry," he
says gently. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No," she says distractedly, and then looks up at him with a small
shake of her head. "No, not at all."
Drawing herself up, she checks her watch. "I'm sorry .... it's almost
time to meet with Sloan to go over the databases you requested."
Standing up, she hovers in front of his desk for a moment. "Thank
you, for meeting me like this," she says shyly, and reaches out her
hand. "I hope it's helped."
"It has," Ed assures her, and stands up to take her hand in his.
"I think we understand each other a little better now .... or at least
I hope we do."
Feeling her hand enveloped in his large one, Sarah looks up into
his dark brown eyes, and gives him the first genuine smile he's
seen from her. "So do I," she says softly.
--------------------
"Marcus turned me down," Roger Abbott says grimly.
Charles Baker looks up from his seat in Harris Templeton's
office with shock, his hand poised over his notes. Templeton had
called in all the senior staff involved in the plan to insert Abbott into
Marcus Adam's peace movement, and they had expected good news.
Templeton looks at Abbott evenly. "What reason did he give?"
"He didn't buy my story that I'd changed my views," Abbott responds.
"At least, that's what he said."
At Templeton's questioning look, Abbott's expression tightens. "Daniels
and Anderson were there with him, and it was obvious they were the ones
behind Marcus's sudden change of heart. Anderson's been against it all
along, and Daniels must have backed him up."
Charles drops his gaze down to the papers he clutches in his
hand to hide his turmoil. He had counted on Abbott penetrating the
peace movement with ease. With Abbott inside, the movement would
be doomed and everyone involved with it earmarked for capture
and execution .... including Tom Daniels.
"I want a complete de-briefing, and a report on my desk by the end
of the day," Templeton orders, scanning the faces of the
assembled group in his office. "I want to know what went wrong,
and why. I also expect recommendations on our next move.
Roger, Charles, get your teams together and draw up a list of
proposals .... if we can't infiltrate the peace movement one way,
we'll do it another."
Giving everyone in the room one last cool look, Templeton nods
his head. "Dismissed."
His office empties quickly, with Charles catching up with Roger Abbott
in the hallway outside. "What happened?" he asks in a low voice,
drawing Roger back against the wall.
"Tom Daniels happened," Roger says tightly. "And Sam Anderson.
Marcus was ready to accept my plan, I know it .... even today I
could tell he wanted to. But Anderson never trusted me, and he got
Daniels on his side."
Charles shakes his head in frustration, scanning the faces of Council
staff passing by. "I warned you about him. As long as Daniels is in
the picture, we're all in danger."
Following his gaze, Roger nods his head abruptly. "You're right .... I
see that now. But what can we do? The Head of the Council has put
a hold on any attempts to bring Daniels in .... our hands are tied."
Charles looks back at Roger, thinking furiously. "I'll meet you later
tonight, after our teams have come up with the report for Templeton.
There has to be a way of taking Daniels out that doesn't implicate us.
And once it's done and the peace movement is destroyed, the Head
of the Council will see the wisdom of our actions."
Roger returns his gaze silently, and then nods his head. "My office.
At 2100 hours." Turning to leave, he suddenly pauses and glances
back at Charles. "Bring Judith."
--------------------
Reaching under his desk, Harris Templeton presses a small buzzer
and looks toward the side door to his office, his gaze expectant as
his aide silently enters. "Have you heard from our contact?"
"Just a few minutes ago, sir."
"Are the bugs in place?"
"Yes, sir."
"You passed on the number of the encrypted line?"
"Yes, sir. The contact said to expect a call tonight."
"Good." Templeton reflects silently for a moment, and then looks up.
"That will be all."
--------------------
"I'm so glad that you don't mind working out of my apartment," Sloan
says over her shoulder, giving Sarah a grin as she opens the door
to her apartment. "I wanted to get Trevor home, and check up
on some renovations we're doing."
"I don't mind," Sarah responds, following Sloan and Trevor into
the brightly-lit apartment, and glancing around curiously. White sheets
cover what appear to be chairs in front of a brick fireplace, and debris
litters the area in front of a large open doorway next to the fireplace,
more
suddenly dropping to the ground as a teenager dressed in dusty jeans
and a T-shirt wields a crowbar against a green wooden frame fitted
around the doorway.
"Excuse the mess," Sloan explains with a quick smile. "We're expanding
into the next apartment through this old doorway."
Sarah looks on as the teenager gives Sloan a wide grin, his face dusty
with grime, and waves the crowbar he's holding in her direction.
"What do you think?" he asks, stepping forward through the pieces
of wood scattered on the floor.
"I'm impressed," Sloan says, picking her way through the debris to look
more closely at the doorway. Glancing back at Sarah, she explains,
"There was a green cupboard here just this morning. What you see on the
floor is what's left of it. And this, by the way, is Shane Baker, Trevor's
brother," Sloan explains. "Shane, this is Sarah Fielding .... she's one
of Marcus's scientists."
"Hi," Shane says, giving her a quick nod and a smile, and Sarah smiles back
hesitantly, still hovering by the door. Trevor, standing by her side,
looks
up at her encouragingly. "They're building us both bedrooms in there,
and a living room of our very own. Shane's helping Mrs. Peabody's son
with the renovations, but they wouldn't let me help."
Sensing movement in the next room, Sarah looks up just in time to see
an older woman suddenly pop her head around the edge of the doorway,
her bright blue eyes twinkling. "You're home!" she says delightedly,
and picks her way through the debris, resting her hand for a moment
on Shane's shoulder to steady herself. "I'm so glad .... I wanted to be
here to show you all that Davey and Shane have managed to accomplish
today."
"I know," Sloan says, reaching out a hand to help the woman over the
last of the broken bits of wood on the floor. "I had no idea they'd
get this far." Turning to Sarah, Sloan introduces her to the woman,
dressed in a bright pink sweatsuit smeared with dust and grime.
"Sarah, this is our landlady, Ellen Peabody. Ellen, this is Sarah Fielding
.... she's working with me at the lab at the moment."
"Pleased to meet you, Sarah," Ellen Peabody says with a warm
smile, and then grins down at Trevor. "You're a little too young
yet to help with the demolition, but I've got some boxes next door
that need unpacking .... would you like to help me with that?"
After a quick glance for approval from Sloan, Trevor nods his head
eagerly, and Ellen holds her hand out. "Good, then .... you get me
over all that wood on the floor, and we'll see what we can find."
Sloan watches them indulgently as Trevor takes Ellen's hand and
carefully leads her over the debris, Shane standing to one side
as they pass.
"Here, let me take your things", Sloan says, turning to Sarah and
helping her off with her coat. Leaving her own coat and Sarah's
on the nearby, white-sheeted chair, she leads Sarah over to her
work area and turns her computer on. "It'll be a bit of a squeeze,
but we can both fit in here," she says with a smile, dragging over
a wooden chair from its place near the front door. Then, pausing,
she asks, "Are you hungry? Can I get you something to drink?"
"There are freshly-baked chocolate-chip cookies on the counter,"
Ellen calls out, popping her head once more around the corner of
the open doorway. "I made them earlier this afternoon, when the boys
started getting hungry."
"Wonderful!" Sloan calls out, and then gives Sarah a grin.
"Home-baked chocolate chip cookies .... I think I'm in heaven.
Would you like some?"
Sarah nods silently, and sinks down into the chair in front of the
computer as Sloan heads into the kitchen, feeling overwhelmed
by the friendly bustle of Sloan's apartment. Looking around
curiously, she surveys the long couch in the corner filled with
plump pillows, and the richly-colored bedspread on the bed
she glimpses through a set of open white doors. The apartment
is filled with the smell of the fresh-baked cookies, and
with the sounds of dishes clattering in the kitchen, Mrs. Peabody's
voice calling to Trevor as they work in the apartment next door,
and the steady crack of wood as Shane Baker applies himself
once more to the green wood frame. Looking down at the
computer desk, Sarah reaches out to touch two picture frames
set next to the monitor, one holding a picture of a smiling Sloan,
her arm around a woman slightly older than her, and a second
one holding a picture of Tom, his face both serious and content.
Moving on, Sarah runs her fingers over the satiny petals of a small
bouquet of cream-colored roses set in a crystal vase,.
"I really am sorry," Sloan says again, appearing before Sarah with
a plate of cookies and leaning forward to make a space for it in
the clutter of papers in front of the computer. She gives Sarah
a rueful grin as another piece of wood crashes to the floor behind
her. "I hadn't planned on things being quite so chaotic when I
suggested that we work here."
"Please, don't apologize," Sarah says, looking up at Sloan with
a small smile. "This is .... " Shrugging her shoulders as she looks
past her to the bright, warm apartment, her smile widens. "This is
nice."
--------------------
"You want me to what?" Ed asks in disbelief, leaning back in his
office chair.
"We want you to hack into the dominant Head Council's database,
Tom explains. "Access the files they have on every senior member
in Marcus's organization, find out what they've got on them, and pass
it on to us."
"And just how do you expect me to do this?" Ed demands, tipping
his chair forward and staring first at Tom, and then at Sam Anderson.
"You know how technologically advanced they are .... I'd have to go
through layers of security I couldn't begin to hack through. You don't
know what you're asking!"
Tom glances over at Sam, who steps forward from his position near
the closed door of Ed's small office and hands him a folded piece of
paper. "These are the access codes to get into the main database,"
Sam says quietly. "It will only get you through the first few layers of
security .... our computer people are still in the process of trying to
penetrate farther than that. Tom tells me you're very good at getting
into sites you shouldn't be able to to gather information .... we're
hoping that this gives you enough to break through."
Ed flushes at the compliment and gives Tom a quick grin before
turning serious again. 'This is different, though .... this isn't hacking
into the phone company records, or City Hall, or even the CIA, for
God's sake. This is the dominant Council we're talking about. Even
with these access codes, the chances of me actually getting the kind
of information you want are slim to none."
"We know that, Ed," Tom says patiently, "but you may be the only
chance we have of exposing someone who may be putting all our
lives at risk." Glancing up to make sure that Sam is standing guard
at the door, his hand on the doorknob, Tom leans over the desk
to speak in low tones. "Ed, there's a traitor in the peace movement.
Someone who has guaranteed the Council that he can destroy them
from within. Very few people know about this .... Walter, Marcus,
Sam, Sloan and myself. I can't tell you how we found out about
this, but I can tell you that we suspect someone on Marcus's senior
staff, someone with enough knowledge to carry through on his or her
promise and have everyone in Marcus's organization rounded up,
questioned, and killed. Martin's life is at stake, here .... so is
Sarah's,
and Sam's, and Marcus's. And when the traitor tells the Council
we've been working with Marcus, we'll be right up there on the hit
list with the rest of them."
Ed stares at Tom silently.
"You can't tell Martin and Sarah what you're doing," Tom warns him.
"Right now everyone in Marcus's lab is a suspect .... Sam and I have
agreed that even his file and Marcus's will have to be examined for
possible evidence, and that only you and I will see what's in each one.
Sloan can know what you're doing, and Walter, but that's it. No
one else."
Ed's gaze drops down to his computer screen for a moment, and
then back up to Tom, his mouth working silently for a moment. "So
this is life and death, huh?"
"It is," Tom confirms. "Can you help us?"
"I'll do what I can," Ed says, taking a deep breath and reaching
for the paper Sam had given him. "But if you were the praying type,
I'd tell you to pray, because what we need right now is a miracle."
--------------------
The sight of Judith and Charles Baker entering Roger Abbott's
office has David pausing in the act of closing his own office door.
Most of the Council staff have left for the day, as have most of
the Council members, so the sight of these three together instantly raises
his suspicions. Each of them had approached him separately to insist
that surveillance of Tom Daniels be reinstated immediately, blaming
Daniels at least in part for Marcus Adams' rejection of Roger's proposal.
Frowning slightly, he hesitates in the large, open office area that
spans his office and Roger Abbott's. He still hasn't called Tom,
unable to bring himself to take that final step in cutting
his loyalties to the Council. But the sight of three of Daniels' enemies
gathered together after hours in an unauthorized meeting has him
questioning the wisdom of hesitating any longer.
Looking down for a moment, he ponders his options, and then
opens the door of his office once more, entering quickly and
dropping his briefcase on the chair facing his desk. Scanning
the files on his desk, he reaches for the one on Roger's debriefing, and
returns to the open office area, the file tucked under his arm.
Taking a deep breath, he prepares himself for what he is about
to do. If he allows himself to think about Tom or about his own
doubts, the three will sense it instantly. But if he approaches
them like the efficient bureaucrat they believe him to be,
focused only on carrying out orders, the odds are good that
they won't sense any deception on his part. They may, he
thinks grimly, even try to enlist him to their side. All three
are well-known for playing power games within the Council,
and using Council staff to further their ambitions. Stiffening
his shoulders, he deliberately clears his mind and crosses
the office floor to Roger's office.
Even before he raises his hand to knock on the door,
he can sense the tension inside, with a heated debate falling suddenly
silent as the three sense his presence outside. At a response
from Roger Abbott, he opens the door and finds Roger seated
behind his desk, and Charles and Judith seated in the two chairs
facing him. "Is there a problem, David?" Roger asks evenly.
"Harris asked me to go over your debriefing with you, Roger,"
David says cordially. "He wanted more on your reactions to
Tom Daniels .... his behavior, what part you think he's playing
in the peace movement, what kind of influence you think he might
have over Walter Attwood and Marcus Adams."
"I went into all that with the examiners, David," Roger says curtly.
"If you'll check the report .... "
"I realize that, Roger," David responds. "But Harris wanted me
to talk with you personally because of my work with chameleons
.... he's hoping I'll be able to get more from you, a better feel for
the way Tom Daniels operates these days."
Roger looks at David thoughtfully. "I thought the Council had ordered
a hands-off policy on Daniels."
"They have," David acknowledges. "But that doesn't mean they aren't
keeping a close eye on him. The more we know the better, for when
it comes time to act." Giving Charles and Judith a quick nod, he
moves as if to leave the office. "If you're busy, I can call first
thing in the morning and schedule a meeting with you."
Roger exchanges a quick glance with the Baker couple and then looks
back at David consideringly. "If you don't mind Charles and Judith
being here, I'll be happy to answer your questions now. You've made
it clear that you're aware of their contact with Daniels .... they may be
able to add to my own observations."
David nods his agreement, and Roger leans back in his chair with a
small smile. "Take a seat, David, and we'll get started."
--------------------
"Damn," Ed mutters to himself, staring at the computer screen.
"Still no luck?" Tom asks, rising up from his chair across the
desk from Ed and leaning over to study the monitor.
"None," Ed says with frustration, leaning back in his chair and
linking his hands behind his head as he turns his gaze to Tom's.
"It's been two hours now, and I keep coming up against the same
brick wall. Those codes you gave me only get me so far, and
nothing I've tried gets me any further."
Glancing over at Sam, who stands silently against the door, Ed
asks, "Can you put me in touch with someone in your lab who's
been working on this? At least that way I can get a better grasp
of what they've tried."
"Sorry," Sam says with a shake of his head. "No one can know ....
we may be zeroing in on the senior staff at the moment, but nobody
in our organization is clear of suspicion until we have proof of who the
traitor is."
"Right," Ed acknowledges glumly, and glances up at Tom. "I could be
here all night. Why don't you go do whatever you need to, and check
back in with me occasionally?"
Tom nods his agreement. "You've got my number .... call if you have any
questions, or find out anything."
"You bet," Ed says absently, already turning his attention back to the
screen.
Tom and Sam leave Ed's office quietly, Sam turning to Tom as he shuts
the door behind him. "I've got to head out to a meeting," he says quietly.
"Marcus wants us to keep as normal a face on things as possible, and has
asked me to keep my appointment with one of our contacts."
"I'll call you as soon as Ed finds anything," Tom promises.
"Good," Sam says. "Marcus also wants to go ahead with your regression
therapy session, and has scheduled the first one for 0900 hours tomorrow,
if that's convenient for you."
Tom looks at him with surprise. "I'd assumed we'd put that off until we've
dealt with the traitor."
"So had I," Sam agrees. "But Marcus is insisting that we go ahead with it.
He doesn't want anyone on the staff questioning a sudden cancellation,
not after all the work they did to come up with a way of circumventing your
shut-off mechanism."
Tom nods. "I'll let Walter and Sloan know."
The ringing of his cell phone interrupts him, and Sam turns away as Tom
answers it. "Daniels," Tom says tersely, and at the sound of the recorded
message on the other end, he darts a quick look at Sam.
"What is it?" Sam asks curiously, sensing Tom's sudden tension.
"It's David Armstrong," Tom says slowly, ending the call and pocketing
his cell phone. "He sent a coded message requesting a meeting later
tonight."
"What do you think he wants?"
Tom looks at him thoughtfully. "I don't know. But this may be the
miracle Ed needs." At a questioning look from Sam, Tom gives a
small shrug of his shoulders. "David would have access to the
computer codes we need to get to those files. If he's willing to meet
with me again, he may be willing to give them to us."
--------------------
Sarah makes her way slowly through the offices of Marcus's lab, a
frown on her face. Hours of searching Ed Tate's databases had
resulted in a small list of organic compounds that could be used to
test his theory of an airborne contaminant that could disrupt the mind-
control experiments. But she can't shake the sense that it's all a
waste of time, that her own colleagues had already researched and
dismissed the idea with good reason.
Searching the faces of those still at work in their offices this late
in the day, she spots the man she's looking for, bent over his
desk, his eyes scanning a series of reports on his latest experiment.
"Peter," she says softly, hovering in his doorway. "Do you have
a minute?"
Looking up absently, Peter Samuels gives her a small nod and
waves her into his office. "I thought you were working over at
Whitney Labs these days, Sarah," he observes, settling back in his
chair with a sigh. "What are you doing here?"
"I had some questions I needed to ask you," she replies,
lowering herself into the chair facing his desk. "It's about the tests
you did on the mind-control experiments, the ones using an airborne
compound that could affect the test subjects."
Peter nods his head. "What do you want to know?"
"You explored the idea of using an organic compound, didn't
you?" she asks curiously.
"I tried several," he agrees, rocking back in his chair. "Some were
wholly organic, others were a combination of organic and chemical,
but I could never find the right combination."
"What about these?" she asks, reaching into her briefcase and handing
him the list of organic compounds she and Sloan Parker had come
up with. "Did you try any of these?"
Taking the list from her, Peter scans the sheet quickly and shakes his
head. "I tried all of them, each on their own and then in various
combinations. Some worked, some didn't, but all left a signature trail
in the air that the Council scientists would have picked up in a routine
air-quality test." Looking up at her curiously, he asks, "What's this all
about, Sarah?"
"Did you take part in the conference call this afternoon with Martin
and Ed Tate?" she asks him intently, taking the paper back from him.
"No," he says slowly. "I was stuck in the lab waiting for my latest
experiment to finish. Why?"
"Have you ever talked to Martin about your results?" she persists.
"Of course," he says with surprise. "I gave him a full briefing before
he met with Walter Attwood and Ed Tate for the first time .... he'd asked
me to, so that he'd be fully informed before he started working with
them on a new option for stopping the experiments."
"I see," she says, leaning back in her chair. "Is there any chance that
Ed Tate could come up with his own combination of compounds that
could do the job and evade detection by an air-quality test?"
Peter shakes his head firmly. "No chance that I can see. We covered
every possible option. Going through it again would just be a waste
of time." Looking at her curiously, he leans forward in his chair. "Is
that what they're planning on doing?"
Sarah stares down at the paper she still holds in one hand, and then
up at Peter. "Nothing's decided at this point," she hedges. "Thank you,
Peter," she adds, rising from her chair and fumbling to put the paper back
in her briefcase. "I appreciate this."
"Sarah .... " he begins, but she leaves the office without answering him,
striding quickly down the hallway as she turns over Peter Samuels' words
in her mind. Almost without conscious thought, she heads for Sam
Anderson's office, and arrives out of breath, her spirits dropping as she
discovers it empty, his desk clear of any papers. "Is he in, Anna?" she
asks,
popping her head into the next office to ask his secretary.
"He's out for the rest of the day, Sarah," the secretary replies, and
Sarah considers her options. Glancing further down the hallway,
she asks, "What about Marcus?"
"He's gone as well," the secretary says apologetically. "Do you want
to leave a message?"
"I'll leave one on Sam's desk," Sarah responds, and ducks back into
his office, pulling a sheet of paper out of her briefcase and scribbling
a quick note on it, asking him to meet with her in the morning.
Laying the note down on the desk, she places her hand on it for
a moment and deliberates what to do next. Going over Martin's head
makes her uneasy, but so does his apparent dismissal of Peter's carefully-
researched test results. She could talk to Walter Attwood about this,
or Tom Daniels, but she's not ready for that yet, not until she's talked
to her own bosses first.
--------------------
Tom stands in the same position on the hillside for his second
meeting with David Armstrong .... hands in his pockets, looking
out over the lights of the city below him. It's David's arrival that
marks this meeting as considerably different as he makes his
way quietly down the side of the hill. There's no gun this time
and no deadly intent on David's part, just a sense of unease as
he takes his place at Tom's side, looking silently at the flickering
lights.
"I'm glad you called," Tom says quietly. "I'd hoped that you would,
but I wasn't sure."
"I wasn't sure either," David admits. "I'm grateful for what you did for
us,
but .... "
"But going against your species isn't an easy thing to do," Tom finishes,
and glances over at David sympathetically. "I know what it's like."
David looks back at him thoughtfully. "I imagine you do."
"What's wrong, David?" Tom asks gently. "Why did you call?"
"To warn you," David responds, turning to face Tom. "You're in
danger, Tom, not just from the traitor I told you about but from certain
people on the Council."
"I've been in danger since the moment I sided with Sloan," Tom says
with a glimmer of wry humor, but then falls silent at the sight of
David's grim expression.
"Charles and Judith Baker both approached me today demanding
surveillance on you," David says evenly. "Roger Abbott demanded
it too, and none of them were pleased when I turned them down."
At a questioning look from Tom, he explains, "The Council's put a
hold on all plans to get you back, Tom. I don't know why .... all
the Head of the Council will say is that he has plans for you that
he's not ready to act on yet, and he's put a strict curtailment on
surveillance lately."
Tom's face tightens, and he turns to look out over the city lights.
"And then tonight, I saw all three of them .... Charles, Judith and Roger
.... meeting privately in Roger's office," David continues. "I made
up an excuse to walk in and in the end they included me in their
meeting, thinking they could make me an ally."
David leans forward, his voice dropping. "Tom, they're determined
to eliminate you in any way they can. When I couldn't give them
the surveillance they asked for, Roger went to sources of his own and
authorized them to start watching your place twenty-four hours a day,
and following both you and Sloan wherever you go. They're also
watching Shane and Trevor Baker .... Charles and Judith want them
back, and are just waiting for their chance to move."
Tom looks back at David sharply, and pulls out his cell phone. "I need
to call Sloan and warn her," he says tightly, but David stops him with
a hand on his arm.
"There's more .... something you're going to want to warn both her
and the rest of the staff at Whitney Labs about," he says urgently.
"I can't be sure, but I suspect that the traitor bugged Whitney Labs
last night or early this morning. I saw a requisition form this morning,
already authorized and acted on, for state-of-the-art listening devices,
enough to bug both Whitney and at least some of the offices at Marcus
Adams' lab. There was also an order for a secure line to be set up
in Harris Templeton's office, with encrypted codes that no one is
to see but him. Harris Templeton heads the team assigned to destroy
the peace movement .... my guess is that the only other person who
has the codes to the secure line is your traitor."
Tom's face whitens at the news, and he stares back out at the lights
below him for a moment, thinking rapidly, before lifting his phone again
and punching out a familiar number. "Ed," he says abruptly as Ed Tate
answers. "Something's come up. Take everything you're working on,
and head over to Sloan's place now .... I need you there to watch over
her and the boys until I can get home. And call Walter and ask him to
meet you there .... I need to talk to all three of you." At the sound of
Ed's confused questions, Tom shakes his head impatiently. "I don't
have time to explain, Ed. But I will when I see you."
Ending the call quickly, he dials Sam's number. "Sam, I need to meet
you at your lab as soon as possible," he says as soon as Sam answers.
"But not inside .... meet me outside in the parking lot."
Glancing up at David, who is watching him patiently, Tom dials
Sloan's number. At the sound of her voice, he closes his eyes for
a moment, and turns away. "Sloan, it's me. I'll be late getting home
.... something's come up. But Ed will be there soon to keep you
company, and Walter too. I'll explain why when I get there
myself." Walking a short distance away from David, he stares out
over the city lights "I can't tell you more, Sloan," he says quietly.
"Not
over the phone. Just stay inside, and don't answer the door to
anyone but Ed and Walter, no matter who else might come by."
Bending his head, he listens to the fear in her voice. "I'm all right,
Sloan," he says soothingly. "I can take care of myself. I just need
to know that you're safe until I see you again."
With a few final words of reassurance, Tom ends the call, and stands
looking down at his cell phone thoughtfully before pocketing it.
"Is she all right?" David asks, walking up behind him.
"She will be," Tom responds, and turns to look up at him. "Thank
you for the warning, David. I owe you."
David shakes his head dismissively. "I owe you, for what you've
done for Laura and for me. This just balances my debt to you."
Tom watches him silence for a moment. "What will you do now?"
he asks finally. "Continue to work for the Council's goal of
domination?"
David gives him a troubled look and swings away from him to gaze
blindly out over the hillside. "I've been asking myself that ever since I
called you. It's not an easy question to answer."
"You don't owe me anything more, David," Tom says steadily. "You
didn't even have to do this .... I promised you that I wouldn't contact
you again, and I meant it. But we can use you .... we need you ....
if you're willing."
"What would you want?" David asks reluctantly.
"The security codes to break into the files the Council holds on
the members of the peace movement, for a start."
David swings back to look at Tom in astonishment. "You want me
to help you break into the Council's records?" he asks incredulously.
"Why?"
"We need to find out everything you know on Marcus's people,
and even on Marcus himself," Tom explains. "We know the Council's
been watching them for years, and would have more complete records
than anything we could come up with on our own. We've
managed to break through the first few layers of security codes, but
there are several more than we can't get through .... not without
your help."
David backs away a few steps, shaking his head. "I can't," he
protests. "Warning you is one thing. But helping you break into
Council files .... You're asking me to actively betray the people
I work with, Tom."
"What I'm asking you to do," Tom responds evenly, "is make a choice.
"Do you want a war with humans, which is what we're headed for if
the Council gets its way, or do you want peace, and a chance at a life
with Laura?"
David looks at Tom doubtfully. "Do you really think peace is possible?"
"It can be, if enough of us are willing to fight for it." Tom shakes his
head, and glances out over the city spread out below them. "I can't give
you any guarantees, David. All I know is that if we don't fight and the
Council wins, humans will die or be subjugated. And if the Council loses,
our own species will be destroyed in the process."
David winces at the blunt truth of Tom's words. "The Council makes
domination seem inevitable," he says quietly.
Tom turns to David, his face grim. "And what will happen to Sloan,
and to Laura, if the Council is right?"
David returns Tom's gaze pensively, and then slowly nods, holding out
his hand. "Then I guess your fight is my fight," he says simply.
-------------------
Sloan is on her feet and heading for the door when Tom lets himself
in, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes huge with concern.
"Are you all right?" she asks in a low voice, reaching out to help him
take off his jacket.
"I'm fine," he says reassuringly, and reaches a hand up to cup her
cheek. "What about you?"
"Better, now that you're here," she responds, lifting her hand to
press against his briefly. His expression softening, Tom flexes his
fingers against her cheek, and then he drops his hand, looking past
her to Ed, sitting hunched over Sloan's computer, and Walter and
Shane, seated together on the couch watching them. "Shane insisted on
staying up," Sloan explains quietly. "Trevor tried to as well, but we
put him in bed after he fell asleep an hour ago."
"What's this all about, Tom?" Walter interjects, coming
to his feet.
Without answering, Tom lifts his finger to his lips and shakes his head.
"I'll just go check on Trevor," he says in a normal tone of voice, looking
at Sloan warningly, "and then we'll talk."
Crossing the room to the computer, Tom reaches for a piece of
paper and quickly writes a note that he shows first to Ed, and then to
Walter, Sloan and Shane. After receiving a startled, silent nod from each
of
them, he takes a small black scanner out of his jacket pocket, one that Sam
had given him during his quick visit to Marcus's labs, and begins to
sweep the apartment for bugs. Behind him, Walter and Sloan strike
up an awkward conversation to cover his movements, with Ed and Shane
joining in after a moment. Moving quickly, Tom does a sweep of the
computer area, kitchen, living room and bedroom, his hand directing the
scanner expertly. His movements in the bedroom rouse Trevor from a
restless sleep, the boy opening his eyes to watch him in the dimly-lit
room.
"Tom?" Trevor asks groggily, and Tom leans over to brush Trevor's tousled
hair back from his forehead. "It's okay," Tom says softly. "Go back to
sleep."
Minutes later, he's back in the living room, pocketing the scanner and
crossing
the room to the computer to hand a folded piece of paper to Ed. "These are
the security codes you need to break through to the Council files," he says
briefly.
Then, moving over to Walter, he reaches into his other jacket pocket and
brings out a small beige-colored plastic disc that he lays in Walter's
hand.
"This is one of a series of listening devices planted in the lab." At a
startled
look from Walter, he nods his head. "They're everywhere .... I found discs
in your office, and Ed's and Sloan's; in the conference room; and in the
general area of the lab itself. Sam found more in Marcus's office and his
own, and in the offices of some of the scientists at Marcus's lab. They
were all planted at least a day ago, according to my informant." Scanning
the apartment with weary eyes, Tom adds, "I didn't think the apartment
was bugged, but had to be sure."
"Did you find anything?" Sloan says uneasily.
Tom shakes his head. "It's clean. There wouldn't have been much
chance to plant any bugs here, with Shane and Trevor here all the
time, and Mrs. Peabody and Davey."
Walter stares down at the disc in his hand, and drops down heavily
onto his seat on the couch. "Who .... ?"
"The traitor," Tom says succinctly. "Whoever it is obviously has
access to the lab, and has been listening in on our conversations.
They know that we're looking for a traitor in Marcus's organization,
and they've heard us talk about our informant. Fortunately, I've
never used his real name when we've talked about him -- only his
code name, Jacob -- and I won't until all of this is over." He turns
back to Ed. "They also know that you've been trying to break into
the Council records. I found a disc under your desk, and another one
attached to your phone."
"But the only dominants who've been in our offices the last day or
two have been Martin and Sarah," Walter says with shock. "You
don't think it's one of them, do you?"
"They weren't the only ones," Tom corrects him. "Someone
from Marcus's office showed up early this morning to deliver
some papers to Martin and spent some time up there with him,
and, according to the security guards, someone making a
delivery to an office one floor up from us last night disappeared
from security camera view for a while due to a malfunction of
one of the monitors. They don't know where he went, but they
did say he was there longer than they'd expected. Either one
of them could have planted the bugs, or it could be someone
else entirely, someone trained by Lewis's men to break through
the security system."
Walter frowns at this. "I'll have to tighten security even further,"
he said, almost to himself.
"Not yet," Tom warns him. "At least not visibly. Any increase
in security could warn the traitor that we're on to him, or her."
"How did you find out about all this?" Ed asks curiously.
"I met with Jacob tonight," Tom explains, glancing over at
him. "He saw requisition orders today for listening devices by the man
responsible for destroying the peace movement, and warned me that
they might be planted at your lab and at Marcus's."
"That's why you wanted me out of there," Ed says slowly.
"I needed both of you out of there until we could decide what to
do," Tom agrees.
"What do you mean, we decide what to do?" Sloan echoes curiously.
"Why not just remove all the discs?"
"If we did, it would tip our hand," Tom explains, turning to face her.
"Whoever we're dealing with knows we're suspicious, but that's
the extent of it. They don't know we've gotten our hands on all of the
security codes we need to hack into the Council files, and they don't
know that we've discovered the labs are bugged. We could keep them
guessing by leaving the discs where they are and carrying on as though
nothing's happened. We could even stage conversations to make it look
as though we're getting nowhere in our investigation."
"Thus convincing the traitor that he or she still holds the upper hand,"
Walter concludes.
Tom nods silently, and moves over to sink down on one of the stools
lining the kitchen island. "Exactly. In the meantime, Ed will be
searching
through the Council's files on Marcus's people, and Jacob will see what
he can find out on his end."
"He's agreed to work with us?" Sloan asks eagerly, moving to stand
by his side.
"He has," Tom says, rubbing the back of his neck wearily. "He's
going to see what his contacts in the Council can tell him about the
key players in Marcus's organization, in case he can find out anything
that's not in the security files."
Looking up at Sloan, he reaches for her hand, holding on tightly.
"He also warned me that we're now being watched twenty-four hours
a day. Charles and Judith are still determined to get Trevor back,
and Shane as well if they can, and they want me to pay for taking
them in. They've teamed up with Roger Abbott, who's not too
happy about my part in Marcus's decision to reject his offer of
support, and together they've set up surveillance on us and the boys."
Looking over at Shane, who stays seated on the couch, his face pale
with strain, Tom warns, "We'll have to be even more careful. Neither
of you can be left alone here, not without someone to guard you.
Don't answer the door, or the phone. They're just watching you for
now, but they'll move when they think they've got the advantage."
"I can have men here watching you," Walter offers, but Tom shakes
his head. "Thank you, but no," he responds. "If we had men here,
Charles and Judith would realize we've been tipped off, and Jacob
could come under suspicion. The longer he's able to operate in secrecy
at the Council offices, the better for all of us."
"So what do we do?" Walter asks.
"You act as though none of this has happened," Tom says simply. "Carry
on with normal lab business, work with Martin and Sarah on the mind-
control experiments .... just don't discuss anything to do with the traitor
or our hunt for him or her, not unless I'm there and we're carrying on a
scripted conversation. I've spoken to Sam, and he'll ensure that the
same thing happens at Marcus's lab."
Squeezing Sloan's hand, he looks up at her. "We'll keep doing
as we've been doing .... we'll take Trevor with us wherever we go, and
Shane will work here at the apartment with Davey and Mrs. Peabody.
Charles and Judith won't want any witnesses .... I'm betting that they'll
hold off until they can get the boys alone, and we won't let that happen."
Glancing over at Ed, he adds, "Ed, it's safer for you to work on the
security files here, where there's no one to see what you're doing or
listen in on any conversations you might have. Call in sick tomorrow,
and stay here as long as you need to."
"Does Marcus know what's going on?" Walter asks.
"Some of it," Tom acknowledges. "Sam and I agreed when this started
that we wouldn't let any of the senior people in Marcus's lab know
everything, not even Marcus, and Marcus agrees. No one is free of
suspicion until we've cleared them. Sam has warned Marcus about the
bugs, so that he'll watch his words, but that's it. He doesn't know we've
got the codes to break into the security files, and not even Sam will be
told what Ed finds there."
"What about Martin and Sarah?" Ed asks uneasily.
"They don't know anything, and they won't until this is all over," Tom
says evenly. "They're suspects, just as the rest of their colleagues are.
I want you to check every one of them out in the security files, even
the regular workers in Marcus's lab. Sam's given me a list of everyone
on the peace movement payroll .... it's in my jacket pocket."
Walter stares down at the disc in his hand, and stands up with a sigh.
"Then I guess it's business as usual tomorrow morning."
"Actually, Marcus wants you and Sloan and I at his lab at nine in the
morning," Tom says, standing up as well and slipping his
arm around Sloan. "He's scheduled my first regression therapy session
and wants you there to observe and help out if necessary."
Walter looks at him in surprise, and Tom shrugs slightly.
"I questioned the timing myself, but Marcus is determined to carry
on as if nothing has happened and he's convinced that canceling
the session would raise questions among his staff."
"He has a point," Walter agrees, and crosses the room to stand in
front of Tom. "Fine .... I'll meet you there." Frowning slightly, he
looks
at Tom intently. "Are you ready for this, and what it might reveal?"
Tightening his arm around Sloan's waist, Tom meets Walter's gaze
evenly. "I've been ready for some time, Walter," he responds. "I
need to find out about my past."
Walter studies him silently for a moment, and then nods his head.
"Then I wish you well, and I'll be there to help in any way I can."
Turning to look at Ed and Shane, he gives them both a quick nod
of farewell, and leaves the apartment quietly, Sloan locking the door
after him.
Studying Shane's pensive expression, Tom crosses the room to
sit down beside him on the couch, his hand coming to rest on Shane's
knee. "Are you all right?" Tom asks quietly.
Shane stares back at him silently for a moment. "Maybe we should
go somewhere," he says hesitantly. "Back to the rooms I was staying
in before I got here. Just until my parents leave you alone. I can keep
Trevor safe there, Tom, I promise."
Tom shakes his head, and squeezes Shane's knee gently. "That's not
an option, Shane," he says evenly. "We stay together, and we don't
give them a chance to get to you." Watching as Shane ducks his head,
Tom asks, "What about Davey? Has his mother told him about the
problems you're having with your parents?"
Shane nods, lifting his eyes to Tom's. "He's told me to keep away from
the door whenever any of the delivery men arrive with the building supplies
he's ordered, and he's offered to have his other brothers stay here if we
need them, just as protection."
"That's good to know," Tom says quietly. "You like him, don't you?"
Shane flashes him a quick smile. "A lot. He's really patient with me
...
he explains what he wants me to do, and says I'm picking things up
pretty quickly." Flushing a little, Shane adds, "He's even invited me out
with some friends of his some night, to a movie, once things are safer
for me."
"I'm glad," Tom says with a smile. Looking over at Ed, who is now
furiously typing codes in on his keyboard, he adds, "Are you going to be
able to get any sleep here on the couch with Ed working on the computer?
I'll be staying up in case he needs me, but you need your rest. Maybe
we could set up a cot for you in the next apartment."
"I'd like to stay up with you and watch, if that's okay," Shane says
hesitantly. Seeing the look of reluctance on Tom's face, he turns to face
him. "Please, Tom. I know it doesn't make sense, but it would make me
feel like I'm doing something .... helping you in some way."
Tom studies him silently for a moment, and then nods his head. "Just
promise me you'll get some sleep when you need it."
"I promise," Shane with a quick grin, and looks up as Sloan walks
toward them stretching wearily. "Sleep?" Sloan echoes with a grin of
her own. "What *is* that? I used to get sleep, you know .... back
in the days before dominants and traitors and late-night meetings.
Back when my life was quiet and peaceful."
"And dull and boring," Tom teases, rising up from the couch to take
her hand. "Come on," he adds, glancing over at the clock on the mantel.
"I'll put you to bed and you can get four whole hours of sleep before it's
time to get up again."
"Only four hours?" Sloan groans, and lets Tom tug her into the bedroom,
closing the white doors behind them.
Shane watches them go and then turns back to find Ed with his eyes on
the closed white doors, his eyes alight with humor. The two exchange
indulgent grins before Ed turns his attention back to the computer screen
and Shane slides down under the afghan on the couch, preparing to keep a
night-long vigil.
--------------------
"What does 'the fourth of four' mean?" Ed asks, breaking the early-morning
silence in the living room.
Tom looks up from his resting place in the large chair, and Shane shifts
on the couch, lifting the arm he had flung over his eyes to look over
at Ed.
"What do you mean?" Tom asks, rising up out of the chair to come over
to the computer.
"'The fourth of four'," Ed repeats, staring at the computer screen with a
puzzled expression. "It's a notation in Sarah Fielding's file. Under a
box called classification, they list her as 'the fourth of four'."
"I don't understand," Tom says, leaning down beside Ed to examine the
file on the screen.
"Every file has this classification box, and every one I've come across so
far lists the person as 'the first of four', but Sarah's says 'the fourth
of
four'. You don't know what that means?"
"I do," Shane says, trying to untangle his legs from the afghan. "It's a
birth classification." Both Tom and Ed look up questioningly, and Shane,
finally freed of the afghan, stands up and crosses the room to perch on
a stool at the kitchen island. "You know how each woman has four
wombs, and carries four babies in each pregnancy?" At a nod from Ed,
Shane continues, "The theory is that the baby born first in each pregnancy
is usually the strongest and the smartest. So they classify the order of
birth in a pregnancy .... the first one out is called the first of four,
the
second one born is the second of four, and so on." Shane shakes
his head in amazement. "Sarah's a fourth of four? Wow .... I didn't
think one could get as far as she has."
"What do you mean?" Ed asks, glancing up at the teenaged boy.
"And why would there be an asterisks beside that classification?"
"Because it marks her," Shane says. "The third and fourth children of
a pregnancy are considered less promising, less intelligent, and there's
a real stigma attached to them. I wouldn't want to be one .... they're
mostly trained to be soldiers, and do the grunt work in our species.
I've never heard of one being able to get enough education to become
a scientist."
"I don't understand," Ed protests, glancing over at Tom. "Isn't the whole
point of your women having four wombs that you can propagate at a
faster rate, and turn out more perfect little dominants?"
Tom looks at him with a frown, and then at Shane. "I don't understand
either. It doesn't make sense, Shane."
"That's the way it started out," Shane explains, "but something happened
after a while. People living among the humans could only keep one
baby out of each pregnancy, and so they'd choose the best of the four
and the rest would be farmed out to orphanages or foster homes. The ones
who were farmed out would have less advantages in life, get less education,
and pretty soon a prejudice built up against them .... like a class system.
As a fourth of four, Sarah would have been given away to foster parents
or to an orphanage, and she would have met a lot of prejudice." Shane
shakes his head, and leans over to stare at the computer screen. "Man,
she must have had to fight hard to get where she is today."
Ed stares at the screen silently, his brow drawn down in a troubled frown.
"She must have resented that," Tom says thoughtfully. "Maybe that's why
she joined Marcus's peace movement. The last thing she'd want to do
is work for a Council that perpetuates a prejudice against her and
others like her."
Ed nods absently, his fingers working restlessly against the mouse
his hand.
"Have you found anything suspicious on any of the others yet?" Tom
asks. Getting no reply, he looks down at Ed with concern, and touches
him gently on the arm. "Ed?"
"What?" Startled out of his reverie, Ed looks up at him. "Sorry, what
did you say?"
"Have you found anything suspicious on any of the others?" Tom
repeats patiently.
"Not so far," Ed confesses. "There's a few who used to be radical
advocates of the Council, and who switched sides pretty abruptly.
One or two have odd time gaps in their records, months when they
just seemed to disappear. But it's hard to know what to read into that
at this stage. I need more time, Tom."
"Take as long as you need," Tom says, and glances up at the clock on
the mantel. "It's almost time for Sloan and Trevor to get up .... why
don't we start breakfast, Shane?"
Shane nods agreeably, and follows Tom into the kitchen, leaving Ed
staring at the computer screen and the small picture at the top left of
the screen. It's of Sarah Fielding, taken on a street somewhere with
her glancing almost directly into the camera, her face solemn and pale.
Reaching up, Ed unthinkingly traces the line of her cheek, wondering
at the woman pictured there. And then his hand drops down to the
part on the form that lists her as fourth of four, the last, unwanted baby
of a dominant pregnancy. Running his hand over the three short words,
he looks back up at the picture of Sarah, and into her clear, grey eyes.
--------------------
Sarah swallows her disappointment at the sight of Sam Anderson's
empty office. She had hoped to catch him first thing this morning to
air her concerns, but he's nowhere to be seen, despite the note she'd
left on his desk asking for a meeting.
Marcus's office is empty as well, and Sarah hesitates uncertainly in his
doorway, debating what to do next.
"They'll both be unavailable until later this afternoon, Sarah," Marcus's
secretary says, looking up from her desk nearby. "I'm sorry .... I know
you were looking for them yesterday."
"I left a note on Sam's desk asking for a meeting," Sarah says slowly.
"He must have missed it, or been too busy."
"That's strange," the secretary says with a frown. "I remember
you saying that you'd leave a note, but I didn't see one when I
was in there first thing this morning, before he arrived. Where did
you leave it?"
"Next to his phone," Sarah responds, stepping back as the secretary
rises from behind her desk and brushes past her to enter Sam's office.
Following her, Sarah stares down at Sam's desktop, and at the single
pile of file folders placed there. "I left it right here," Sarah says,
almost to herself, reaching to lift the folders, and then the phone
and the desk blotter. "But I don't see it anywhere. Did Sam
mention anything to you about it, Anna?"
"Not a thing," the secretary replies with concern.
"Is he in the testing room?" Sarah asks, and Anna gives her a quick nod as
she heads back to her own office, Sarah following behind. "He and
Marcus scheduled Tom Daniels' testing for first thing this morning,
remember?" Anna reminds her.
"That's right," Sarah says slowly. "Well, I've got work I can do here
.... I think I'll stay and wait until Sam's free. Will you let me know as
soon as he can see me?"
"I'll page you the minute he's back in his office," Anna promises.
Sarah gives her a quick smile of thanks, and turns back into the
hallway.
"Sarah!" Martin emerges from an office nearby, a set of files in
his hand. "Are you ready to head over to Whitney Labs?"
"Not yet," Sarah says, scanning the hallway and the people passing
by. "I have some things to do here first. Are you headed over
there now?"
"I was planning on it," Martin responds, and checks his watch. "Not
much need too, though .... I saw Walter, Tom and Sloan here just a
while ago, and they told me that Ed's not even coming in today. I guess
I could get just as much work done here as I could over there. Let me
know when you're free, and we'll head over together."
"Fine," Sarah says absently, spotting Peter Samuels down the hall.
"I'll do that."
"Is there anything I can help you with?" Martin asks curiously, but she is
already headed down the hall at a brisk pace, leaving Martin to shake
his head with amusement at her abruptness and turn to head toward his
own office.
"Peter!" Sarah calls out, moving almost at a run to catch up with the
older scientist, who is striding down the hall, his head bent over a thick,
disordered file he holds in his hands. "Peter!"
Looking up distractedly, Peter Samuels glances around him and spots her.
"Sarah!" he says with a welcoming smile. "I didn't expect to see you here
again today."
"I didn't think I'd have time for more than a quick visit, but it turns
out that I do," she replies, and falls in step with him as they walk
down the hallway leading to the scientists' offices. "Do you have some
time to talk to me? I have an idea about the mind-control experiments,
something we haven't tried yet."
Peter glances at her curiously. "What do you have in mind?"
"Nanites," she explains. "The kind that Dr. Copeland used in the
juice boxes. Only this time we'd use them for good, to help humans
rather than destroy them."
The older scientist stops in the middle of the hall, staring at her
thoughtfully. "What are you proposing?"
"What if we could develop a nanite that would disrupt the test subjects'
brain function enough to skew the test results?" Sarah suggests, looking
at him earnestly.
"But they would be detected in the blood, as soon as the scientists
did blood samples," Peter points out.
"Not if we created them out of a substance compatible with human
blood," Sarah counters. "We could program them to self-destruct
after they deliver their message to the brain, and what's left of
them will be absorbed into the test subject's blood, hopefully,
and would leave no trace behind."
Peter thinks intently for several seconds, and Sarah finds herself
holding her breath as she awaits his verdict, only to let
it out with a whoosh when he finally speaks. "I always knew you
were smarter than the rest of us," he says with a sudden grin, and
reaches out to take her arm and pull her down the hall toward his
office. "Come on .... tell me more."
--------------------
"These electrodes will deliver the current we need to disrupt your
self-destruct mechanism," Sam explains, carefully applying a series
of electrodes to Tom's wrists and temples. The electrodes are
connected by thin green wires to a small black power generator set
up on a bank of tables near the chair Tom sits in, and Sam painstakingly
untangles each wire as he moves to be sure that all of the electrodes
are in place and secure.
"We've measured the amount of current you'll need," Marcus
adds, hovering over the computer set up next to the generator, "and
calculated the precise point at which the current should be delivered.
From what Walter's told me, your body begins to shut down as
you're pressed to reveal significant information from your past .... the
more you're pressed, the more your heart and breathing are affected.
The challenge is to deliver the current just as you reach the crisis point,
when the self-destruct mechanism activates. One keystroke from me,
and the computer will send the current through the electrodes to short
out the mechanism, leaving you free to access the information buried in
your subconscious."
"How dangerous is this?" Sloan asks with concern. Standing back
against the wall of the large, sparsely-furnished testing room, Walter
at her side, she watches anxiously as the last of the electrodes are
put into place.
"Dangerous enough," Marcus admits. "If we deliver too much current,
Tom's heart could stop on its own. Too little, and the self-destruct
mechanism isn't affected. But we've taken all of that into account,
and tested this thing again and again to make sure we've come up with
the right voltage. It will be a quick, short current, just enough to do
what it needs to."
Tom looks up at Sloan's pinched expression, and then over at Marcus and
Sam. "We need a minute to talk before this begins," he says quietly,
and the two men nod and back away after one last check of the
electrodes, joining Walter against the wall to talk in lowered voices.
Sloan moves forward to kneel in front of Tom, her hands on his knees.
"Are you sure about this, Tom?" she asks, looking up at him.
"I need to do this, Sloan," he responds softly, moving his hand
carefully to cover hers. "If I don't understand my past, I can't move
ahead as freely as we both want. I'd always be haunted by what
might have happened to me, and how it might affect me in the future.
Can you understand that?"
Sloan looks up at him silently, and then rises up to kiss him gently
on the lips. "I'll love you no matter what you find out," she says
gently, pulling back just far enough to look into his clear blue eyes.
"You know that, don't you?"
"I do," he says softly, and leans forward to kiss her one last time before
she rises to her feet and returns to stand beside Walter, her arms hugging
her waist tightly. Seeing him watch her, she gives him a tremulous
smile, and he gives her a small, reassuring nod.
Sam, pulling a chair up to sit in front of Tom, glances over his shoulder
at Walter. "What I'd like you to do is stay close by, if you would,
Walter," he instructs. "You've seen Tom under regression before,
and know what to expect."
Walter, after touching Sloan's arm reassuringly, steps forward to
pull another chair up in front of Tom and sit down quietly.
"Now, Tom," Sam says, "we'll be giving you an injection that will put
you under. Are you ready?"
Tom, with a last quick glance over at Sloan, nods his head briefly.
"I'm ready," he says quietly.
--------------------
"Damn," Ed mutters softly, staring fixedly at the computer screen.
"What?" Shane asks, raising his head from where he kneels on the floor
across from Ed, clearing up the last of the rubble left from the frame
of Sloan's old green cupboard. Trevor, perched on the couch, his
drawing pad in his hands, looks up as well, his pencil poised over a
drawing he's been doing of Shane. Tom and Sloan had agreed they
didn't want Trevor with them during Tom's regression therapy, in the
fear that what Tom might reveal would upset the boy, and so they had
left Trevor behind in Ed's care.
"I've hit another wall. I'm on the very last file, I've got almost
everything
I need, and suddenly I've hit another wall." Ed rocks back in his chair,
plowing his hand through his hair in frustration.
"What do you mean?" Shane asks, standing up and dusting dust and
dirt from his jeans.
"There's an added security level in this file, one that Tom's informant
either didn't tell us about or didn't know about himself." Ed shakes his
head, and picks up the sheet of codes to stare at it intently. "There has
to be a way of figuring out what it is."
Coming over to stare at the screen and then the paper Ed is holding,
Shane thinks intently. "Is there a pattern to the codes?" he finally
ventures. "If there was, you could predict what the final code might
be based on the way the others are configured."
Ed looks up at Shane blankly, and then gives him a rueful grin. "I have
had way too little sleep if a teenaged kid can come up with what I
should have half an hour ago."
"A teenaged dominant," Shane corrects him, and grins back. "We
tend to be a little smarter about some things than humans our age."
"Smart enough to help me figure out the pattern?" Ed asks, and Shane,
his eyes lighting with interest, pulls the chair over from beside the door
to sit next to Ed.
--------------------
"You're twelve years old, Tom," Sam says softly. "Where are you?"
"At the school," Tom responds, his voice pitched higher than
usual.
"At Lewis's school?" Sam asks, leaning forward in his chair,
his elbows resting on his knees.
"Yes." Tom sits quietly, his eyes closed, his hands lying slackly on
his thighs.
"Where are you in the school, Tom?"
Tom shivers slightly, and Sloan bites her lip as she watches quietly from
the
corner.
"I'm in the room," Tom replies, his voice suddenly hushed.
"The room?" Sam darts a quick glance at Walter, aware that Tom has
voiced memories of time spent locked up in a small room in Lewis's
chameleon school. "What room is that, Tom?"
"The white room." Tom's fingers flex against his thighs nervously. "It
has
no windows, and the door is locked." Shivering again, he clenches his
hand tightly. "It's hard to breathe."
"Why are you there, Tom?"
"Because I was bad," Tom responds in a low voice. His head drops
slightly, as if he is concentrating. "It's where they put you to punish
you."
"What did you do that was so bad?" Sam asks quietly.
Tom shakes his head slightly. "I can't tell."
"It's all right, Tom," Sam says soothingly. "You're safe here. No one can
hurt you. You can tell me."
Tom sits silently for a moment, and then leans forward. "I tried to run
away," he says, his voice so low that Sloan has to strain to hear it.
"But they caught you?" Sam asks. At his question, Tom slumps back
in his chair, and nods.
"How long have you been in the room, Tom?"
Tom looks puzzled at that, fingering his pant leg as he thinks. "I
don't know," he finally confesses. "They don't let me sleep .... the
lights are on all the time."
Stiffening suddenly, Tom jerks back in his chair, and his hands
tighten into fists. "No," he says tightly.
"What is it, Tom?" Sam said, sitting up alertly. "What's happening?"
"Someone's opening the door." Tom braces himself against the unyielding
wooden back of his chair, the knuckles of his hands whitening.
"Who?" Sam asks. "Who is it, Tom?"
A look of sheer dread crosses Tom's face.
"It's Lewis."
--------------------
"Oh my God." Ed stares at the information scrolling down his computer
screen, his eyes scanning each sentence with growing horror.
Shane sits beside him silently, reading off the screen as well and shaking
his head. "It has to be wrong," he says finally, turning to look at Ed.
"It has to."
"It's in their records, Shane," Ed says grimly. "They'd have no reason
to lie .... this is stuff that only their most senior people would see."
Shane stares at the screen, a stunned expression on his face. "What
do we do?"
"We call Walter, and let him know right away," Ed says,
reaching for his cell phone and punching in Walter's number, waiting
impatiently as it rings. "Damn," he says after several unanswered rings,
and ends the call. "He's not answering."
Thinking rapidly, he stares at his phone. "I'll try Sloan," he says,
punching
in another series of numbers. "She'll pick up."
Several more unanswered rings, and he hangs up again, his hand
clenched tightly over the phone. "No answer," he says tersely, and
looks over at Trevor, who sits watching them silently, his eyes huge
in his face, his hands clutching his drawing pad to him. "They may
have turned their phones off if they're in the same room as Tom
when he's under."
Staring back at the computer screen for a second, Ed firms his jaw
and looks at Shane. "Okay, here's what we do. You and Trevor
come with me to Marcus's lab .... we need to let them know about this
before they go any further. While we're in the car, you keep calling
for me, every few minutes. Got that?"
"Got it," Shane says with a nod, scrambling out of his chair to grab
his coat. Trevor jumps up from the couch and reaches for his coat
as well, while Ed grabs his things and the papers he's just printed off
and herds the two of them to the door.
"Davey!" he yells out, opening the door and turning back as Shane and
Trevor slip past him. "If Tom and Sloan call, tell them the boys
are with me."
"No problem," Davey's voice calls out, and Ed slams the door shut,
racing down the stairs after the two boys.
--------------------
"What does Lewis want, Tom?" Sam asks gently.
"To hurt me," Tom says on a sob, his breathing becoming ragged.
Sloan finds herself digging her hands into her waist so tightly that they
ache, and she holds her breath as Tom trembles in his chair, his hands
still clenched in fists.
"How, Tom?" Sam presses him. "What is he doing?"
"He's got a needle," Tom says. "A big one. And wires."
"Wires?" Sam frowns at that, and darts a questioning glance
at Walter. "What kind of wires, Tom?"
"To .... to put on me," Tom gasps, beginning to rock slightly in
his chair. "To hurt me."
"How, Tom?" Sam questions him. "How can the wires hurt you?"
"I can't," Tom gasps, his rocking increasing. "I can't .... don't make
me."
Walter gives Sam a warning glance, and Marcus holds his finger over
the computer key that will trigger the generator, alert to any signal from
Sam or Walter.
"Tom," Sam says soothingly. "He can't hurt you. He's not really
there, only in your mind. You can tell me what's happening. It's
all right."
"No," Tom says, shaking his head repeatedly. "No, I can't. I can't.
Please don't make me."
His breath hitches in his throat, catching several times, and then
his hands suddenly fly up to his chest, clutching his black
woolen sweater. "Sam .... " Walter says warningly..
"Tom," Sam says urgently, leaning out to touch Tom, and his
movement propels Tom backwards, leaping up from his chair
with a strangled scream and then toppling to the floor.
"Now!" Sam shouts, and Marcus activates the generator, shooting a
current of electricity through Tom that has his body jerking
uncontrollably on the floor. Marcus gasps at the sight of the rate
of current shooting through Tom, which has risen far above the level it
should have for the small amount he had administered, and cuts
it off instantly.
Sam and Walter drop to their knees by Tom's side, horrified
at the spasming of his body. "Get them off!" Sam gasps, ripping
the electrodes off Tom's temples as Walter scrambles to pull the
ones off Tom's wrists. Sloan is at their side, crouching down and
reaching for Tom's pulse, her eyes wide with fright. "Nothing," she
says rapidly, and Sam quickly rolls Tom onto his back and
moves to take up a position next to him, his hands
on Tom's chest. "I'll do the compressions," he instructs tersely,
and Sloan moves to put her hand under Tom's neck, arching his
head back, and placing her hand on his nostrils. "Walter, you check
his pulse," Sam snaps out, and Walter nods quickly.
"One and two and three and four and five and breathe," Sam counts off,
pausing as Sloan pinches Tom's nostrils and gives him a life-giving breath,
turning her head to watch his chest rise. "One and two and three and four
and five and breathe," Sam counts again, and darts a look at Walter.
"Nothing yet," Walter says, and Sam resumes his compressions, counting
down each one and pausing after the fifth one to let Sloan breathe more air
into Tom's lungs.
Picking up a phone, Marcus orders both medical help and security, and
dashes to the door to the room, flinging it open to make way for the teams
when they arrive. "How is he?" he demands seconds later as he returns
to crouch by Walter's side, and Sam pauses in his count to look at Walter.
"Still nothing," Walter says heavily.
"Come on, Tom," Sam gasps, and continues the count. "One and two
and three and four and five and breathe." Sloan, her hand pinching
Tom's nostrils, breathes once more into his lungs, turning her head to
watch his chest rise and fall.
"Again," Sam instructs. "One and two and three .... "
"I've got something," Walter says suddenly, his face intent as he monitors
Tom's pulse. "It's weak," he adds, looking up at Sloan, "but it's there."
Sam gives a sigh of relief and leans back on his heels, dropping
his head down. Sloan hovers over Tom, smoothing his hair back.
"Tom?" she says softly. "Tom, can you hear me?"
Tom stays still, his eyes closed, so white and silent that if it weren't
for the beat of the pulse under her fingers she would think he was
dead. "Tom?" she repeats. "Can you hear me?"
"He came out of it more quickly than this last time," Walter
mutters to Marcus. "What happened?"
"I don't know," Marcus says helplessly. "The current went far
above what we'd programmed .... he got several times what he should
have before I could turn it off."
Lifting his head to look toward the door, he motioned Walter back.
"They're here," he said, and stepped back as several of his med
techs poured into the room, two of them pushing a stretcher and the
rest carrying equipment, and four of his security men followed. "Secure
the room," he orders the security men. "Nobody comes in, nothing gets
touched without my permission."
Walter looks over at him in shock, and Marcus's expression tightens.
"Something went wrong, and I'm not ruling out anything until we find
out why," he says tersely.
Sloan edges back from Tom as the med techs take over, reaching out
to touch his hair with her fingers in a last attempt to stay connected
with him. Looking up, she exchanges an anguished look with Sam, and
then focuses on the med techs as they check Tom's vital signs and fix an
oxygen mask over his face, firing a rapid series of questions at Sam
and Sloan about what had happened and how long it had taken to revive
Tom.
With a last set of instructions, the leader of the team rises to his feet
and backs away, leaving the team enough room to load Tom onto the
stretcher and move him quickly out of the room, Sloan following at their
heels.
"He's breathing," the head med tech tells Marcus, "but his heartbeat is
sluggish and I don't like his blood pressure. We're moving him into our
unit, and giving him something to try to regulate his heartbeat. The fact
that
he hasn't come to yet is another concern, but it's not unusual in cases of
electrical shock." Walter winces at his words, and stares over at the
generator, now guarded by one of Marcus's men. "Some people are
unconscious for only a short time," the med tech explains, "but others
sometimes suffer from a prolonged period of unconsciousness. We're
going to need to keep him here for observation either way to see what
damage he may have suffered to his heart or his nervous system."
"I want to know the minute he comes to," Marcus instructs him, and
nods his dismissal, his head bent in thought as the leader leaves the
room swiftly.
Walter stares around the room as silence suddenly falls, taking in the
chair lying on its side on the floor, knocked over by Tom in his panic;
the litter on the floor left by the med techs as they worked over Tom;
and the sight of Sam Anderson, still kneeling on the ground, his hands
on his knees, his eyes stark.
"What the hell happened here?" Walter asks dazedly.
--------------------
Sarah lifts her head from her study of the papers spread out on Peter's
desk to see a med tech team racing past Peter's office, their faces intent,
pushing a stretcher between them. "What's happened?" she asks curiously,
straining to see out the glass windows of the office and watching other
people in the hall all turn in the direction the team was headed.
"Hmm?" Peter asks, his head still bent over a report Copeland had
filed on his test results on nanites.
"The med techs just ran by," Sarah says uneasily. "I wonder
what's wrong?"
"Someone's sick?" he says absently, shuffling through a pile of
papers for the one he's searching for. Casting him one last look,
Sarah edges to the door and looks out, feeling more and more
uneasy. After a few moments, the crowd in the hallway parts to
let the med tech team back through. Sarah feels her heart go still
at the sight of Sloan Parker following behind, her face tight with strain,
her hand to her mouth. Looking down at the man lying on the stretcher
as the med tech team passes her by, Sarah sees Tom Daniels' face, pale,
slack, his eyes closed, and finds herself gripping her hands tightly
together.
Starting to follow them, Sarah finds herself being held back by
one of the secretaries from the front office, who is speaking to
her urgently. "What?" Sarah asks in confusion, darting a look
down the hall at the med tech team and them back at the secretary.
"What is it?"
"Ed Tate from Whitney Labs is at the front desk, demanding to speak to
Walter Attwood or Tom Daniels," the secretary says. "What should I
do?"
Sarah nods distractedly, too confused to wonder why Ed is at the
front desk. "I'll come and see him," she says, and follows the
secretary out to the desk, where Ed is pacing anxiously, Shane
and Trevor standing close by.
"Sarah," Ed says with relief, lunging toward her. "Where is Walter?
I need to see him right away."
"Ed," Sarah says hesitantly, glancing over at Shane and Trevor, who
watch her silently, their faces growing pale as they sense her distress.
"Here, come with me," she says, beckoning the three of them to follow
her into an empty office nearby. Ed brushes past her into the room,
the two boys following him, and turns on her impatiently as she shuts
the door behind them. "Sarah, this is important," he says. "Where
are they?"
"Ed," Sarah begins, and then takes a step closer to him, seeing
the panic in his eyes. "Ed, something's happened to Tom," she says
more softly. "I don't know what .... I was just headed to the medical
ward to find out what when you arrived."
"Tom .... " Ed echoes, and darts a quick look over at Shane and Trevor,
who now stand close together, Shane's hand resting on Trevor's shoulder,
their eyes dark with worry. "When? During the regression therapy?"
"I think so," Sarah replies, and turns her gaze on Shane and Trevor as both
boys stare at her with wide eyes. "He's with our medical people now,
and I'm sure they're doing the best they can for him. Why don't I go check
on him now, and then I'll be able to tell you more?"
Shane nods his head silently, and Sarah turns back to Ed. "I haven't
seen Walter, but I imagine he's with Tom and Sloan now. I'll find him
for you, and send him to meet you here."
"Good," Ed says with an abrupt nod of his head. "Fine." Sarah turns
to leave and has her hand on the door when he calls her back, his eyes
shadowed with strain "Sarah .... tell Sloan that I'm here, that we're
here,
if she needs us."
"I will," she promises, and gives him a grave, reassuring smile before
leaving the room.
--------------------
"How is he?" Walter asks Sloan anxiously, hovering over her shoulder
as the two of them watch the med techs settle Tom into a bed and
check his vital signs, one of them hooking him up to a heart monitor.
"Still unconscious," Sloan says tightly, her eyes fixed on the wavering
blue images that appear on the screen. His heart is still beating
sluggishly,
and even as she frowns over the slowly-moving blue images of his
heart rate appearing on the screen a nurse swabs his arm and injects an
intravenous needle. "They told me they'd be giving him something to
get his heart beating regularly again .... or at least that they'd try."
"At least it's beating again," Walter says, trying to comfort her.
"You're right about that," she says hollowly, and turns to look at Walter
searchingly. "What happened in there, Walter? Do they know yet?"
"Sam's examining the computer and generator now to see if he can find
a defect, or signs of tampering." Sloan looks at Walter in shock, and he
nods his head grimly. "Marcus can't rule out that possibility, and has
security set up in the room to guard the generator until they can figure
out
what happened."
"But why?" Sloan asks despairingly, turning back to watch as a nurse
smoothes Tom's blanket down and checks the intravenous fluid just
beginning to drip into Tom's i.v. line. "This is Marcus's lab .... who
would
want to hurt him here?"
"The traitor, maybe?" Walter speculates, lowering his voice so that
the nurse nearby can't hear him, and Sloan looks at back at him
questioningly. "Maybe Tom was getting too close to revealing his
or her identity, and whoever it was panicked," Walter suggests.
"But Marcus checked it himself just before we arrived," Sloan whispers
back. "He said it was working fine."
"I know," Walter says with a frown, and then, at a nod from the nurse,
touches Sloan gently on the arm. "Why don't you go and sit with him?
I'll check back with Sam and see if he's discovered anything."
Sloan nods silently and moves to Tom's side, reaching out to lay her hand
on his as it lies still at his side.
Turning away, Walter leaves the room quietly and finds Martin waiting
for him, his face tight with concern. "I just heard, Walter," Martin
says in a low voice, glancing past him to Tom. "How is he?"
"Alive," Walter says heavily. "Still unconscious, though."
"What happened?" Martin asks tensely.
"That's what I'm about to find out," Walter says grimly, striding down
the hallway with Martin keeping step behind him. "What do you know
about the regression therapy session Marcus had scheduled for Tom?"
"Enough," Martin replies. "I was part of the team Marcus put together
to come up with a way of short-circuiting his self-destruct mechanism.
What went wrong? Didn't it work?"
Walter glances at Martin, his eyes shadowed. "Tom took several times
the amount of current he should have. It put him into cardiac and
respiratory
arrest .... Sam and Sloan performed CPR on him to bring him back."
Martin glances back at Walter in shock. "That doesn't make sense,
Walter," he protests. "We spent days calculating the right amount of
current to use."
"Maybe you did, but something went wrong," Walter says, rounding
the corner and nodding at the two security men stationed outside the
testing room, one of whom opens the door for them.
"Anything yet?" Walter asks as they enter the room, and Marcus
looks up distractedly and shakes his head. "How's Tom?" he asks.
"They're working to regulate his heartbeat," Walter says briefly,
and crosses the room to stand across the table from Sam, who sits
in front of the computer keying in a series of commands as Marcus
hovers behind him.
"Is there anything I can do?" Martin offers, coming to stand beside
Walter, and Sam glances up briefly. "Take a look at these figures,"
he says abruptly, and pulls back in his chair to give Martin room as
he rounds the table and stares down at the computer screen.
Seeing the level of current registered there, Martin shakes his head.
"Is that what Tom got?" he asks in a hushed voice.
"That's what was programmed into the computer," Sam says in a
hard voice.
"No," Marcus protests. "I checked the program this morning to make
sure the levels were right. They were only a fraction of the levels
shown here."
"When did you check them?" Sam asks, turning to glance up at
Marcus.
"At about 07:00," Marcus replies. "I wanted an early start today, and
checked the levels as soon as I got in, before I went to my office."
"Did you see anyone else in this area of the building at that time?"
Sam asks intently.
"Not that I noticed," Marcus says slowly. "I went straight from here
to my office, and spent the next two hours working there with the door
shut."
Sam stares back down at the computer screen. "What security
locks do we have on this system?"
Marcus exchanges an uneasy glance with Martin. "The only people
who had access to the program were on the planning team .... Martin,
Andrea Scott, Sarah Fielding and myself."
"You didn't have access?" Walter asks sharply, looking down at Sam.
Sam shook his head. "I was too wrapped up in other things, so Marcus
left me off the team."
Marcus stares down at the computer screen, and up at one of
the security men stationed just inside the door of the room. "I want them
in my office now, all of them. Don't tell them why .... just get them
there."
A soft knock sounds at the door, and Sarah Fielding sticks her head
inside, a look of relief on her face as she spots Walter. "I'm sorry to
interrupt," she says quickly, "but I need to speak to Walter."
"What is it, Sarah?" Walter asks impatiently, glancing over his shoulder
at her.
"Ed Tate is here, Walter," Sarah explains. "He's very insistent on
seeing you as soon as possible."
Walter darts a quick glance at Sam, and then nods his head. "I'll see
him now, and then meet you in your office, Marcus," he says abruptly,
turning to look at Marcus. "I want to be in on any questioning
that you do of the people on the team."
Marcus nods his agreement, and looks across the room at Sarah.
"Take Walter to meet Ed, and then meet me in my office. Jeffries
here," he says, indicating one of the security men standing near the
door, "will escort you."
Sarah glances at Jeffries in surprise, and then back at Marcus. "Yes,
sir," she says evenly, and steps back to allow Walter to pass by her
and out the door.
--------------------
"Tom?" Sloan says softly, leaning forward in her seat on the edge of
Tom's bed as she holds his hand in his. "Can you hear me, Tom?"
Straining unsuccessfully to feel any movement in his hand, Sloan finally
shakes her head and looks up at the head med tech standing beside her.
"Still nothing," she says softly.
Frowning, he studies the monitors at Tom's side, and points to the slightly
elevated pattern of heartbeats shown crossing the screen. "We've had
some success," he tells her. "His heart is responding to the medication,
although it's taking longer than I'd like."
"Is there any indication yet of permanent damage?" Sloan asks, studying
the monitors anxiously.
The med tech shakes his head. "It's too early to tell about his
nervous system, but his heartbeats are even. We'll know more when he
comes to." Turning toward the door as a nurse beckons to him, he gives
Sloan a small nod of farewell. "I've got a call to take .... I'll be right
down
the hall if you need me."
"Thank you," she says sincerely, and then turns back to Tom, holding
his unresponsive hand up to her chest and cradling it against her. "Come
back to me, Tom," she says softly. "You can do it."
--------------------
"He'll be okay," Shane tells Trevor quietly. "Tom's strong .... no matter
what's happened to him, he'll fight back."
Ed pauses his restless pacing around the small office to look over at the
two boys and wait for Trevor's response, recognizing the same fear as his
own in the eyes of the small boy.
"But what if he isn't?" Trevor asks tensely, staring up at Ed, and then at
Shane. "What happens then, Shane? Without Tom .... "
"He'll be okay, Trev," Shane repeats patiently. "Just wait and see."
Ed wavers indecisively, wanting to comfort them but not knowing
what to say, and looks up in relief when the door suddenly opens
and Sarah and Walter walk in. "How is he?" Ed asks, taking
a step toward them. "What happened?"
Walter turns to Sarah with a tired smile. "Thank you, Sarah. I'll see you
in Marcus's office in a few minutes."
Sarah nods silently, backing out of the room with the armed guard at
her side and closing the door quietly behind her.
"He's all right for the moment, Ed," Walter says reassuringly, and looks
over at Shane and Trevor. "Sloan's with him, and the med techs are doing
everything they can for him."
"What happened, Walter?" Ed repeats. "Sarah said something was wrong,
but she didn't know what."
"The test they were doing on Tom this morning went awry," Walter
explains, choosing his words carefully. "He received an electrical shock
to his system, and had to be revived. He's still unconscious, but he's
breathing on his own, and the doctors are keeping a watch over him until
he wakes."
"An electrical shock," Ed mutters, his face growing pale. "How much?"
"Enough to give us all a scare," Walter allows, "but Sam and Sloan
started working on him right away, and had him breathing again before
the medical team arrived."
"Can we see him?" Shane asks, his voice rusty with emotion.
Walter looks over at Shane, and gives him a small smile. "I think
he'd like that," he says encouragingly. "And I'm sure Sloan would like to
see you as well. I'll take you there myself before my meeting with
Marcus."
Then, turning to Ed, Walter pulls him aside. "Now, what was so important
that you had to come here? Did you find something in the security files?"
"Oh yeah," Ed says, and rubs the back of his neck in agitation. "Walter,"
he says, leaning close and lowering his voice, "I found out who the traitor
is. Or at least who I think he is."
"Quietly," Walter says tensely, holding a finger to his lips to remind
Ed that parts of Marcus's lab have been bugged.
Ed nods silently, and hands him a sheaf of papers. Walter, with one
last questioning glance up at Ed, looks down at the top sheet of paper
and stares at the incriminating evidence there. "Damn," he whispers.
"What I don't understand is how no one here knew about this," Ed
whispers back. "How could they not have known?"
Walter shakes his head silently, and continues to read, shuffling through
the
computer print-outs Ed had handed him.
"And who can we trust to tell this to?" Ed asks, his voice low. "I
mean, we're surrounded by them here .... they're not going to
accept anything we have to say, not against someone who's so well-
liked and well-respected."
Walter stares up at Ed thoughtfully, his hands automatically restoring
the papers to some semblance of order. "How did Sam Anderson's file
read?" he asks in a hushed voice.
"Basic stuff," Ed says quietly. "He's been with the peace movement
almost since its start .... everyone says he's dedicated, loyal, the one
guy
everyone trusts."
"Tom trusts him too, doesn't he?"
"Enough to let him know we were searching through the Council's security
files," Ed agrees. "Tom said Sam wouldn't be shown the results of our
search, not without Tom checking them first, but I think that was just to
make everything look above board." Tilting his head, he looks at Walter
curiously. "Why? Do you think we should tell him?"
Walter stares back down at the papers in his hand, and nods slowly.
--------------------
Sarah takes one of the chairs in front of Marcus's desk, and looks over
at Martin curiously. Standing against the nearby wall, his arms crossed in
front of him, he shrugs and shakes his head, as concerned as she is
about why they're there, and under armed guard.
Glancing over, they both watch as Andrea Scott is ushered into the
office and shown to a chair beside Sarah, her escort leaving as
silently as he came once she is seated.
Sarah, counting the people in the room, realizes that Marcus is
assembling the team he had appointed to deactivate Tom Daniels'
shut-off mechanism.
"I heard what happened," Andrea says to Sarah quietly. "Do they
know why yet?"
Sarah shakes her head silently, and looks over at the open door,
watching as Marcus strides in. The three scientists in the
room exchange concerned glances as they take in his somber
expression.
Marcus takes up a position behind his desk, staring down at it
for a moment but without sitting down. Finally, he looks up, surveying
each one of them in turn. "The computer program designed to
deliver the right amount of current to Tom Daniels was tampered
with," he says bluntly. "We don't know how yet .... Sam is still
working on that. The fact remains that the only people with the
security codes to access that program are sitting in this room."
"Tampered with in what way?" Andrea Scott asks curiously.
"The current levels I read on the screen were exactly as we had
programmed them," Marcus says evenly. "But at the moment the
current was administered, the levels jumped up to five times what
they should have been. Enough to stop Tom Daniels' heart and
shut down his respiratory system .... if it weren't for the quick
actions of Sam and Sloan Parker, Tom Daniels would be dead
right now."
Sarah tightens her clasped hands into fists as she stares at
Marcus. Tom had almost died at the hands, presumably, of
someone in this room.
"Whoever tampered with the system knew enough about our
plans and the calculations we'd made to know what would kill
him," Marcus continues, "and they knew how to mask the real
figures to make the test look normal."
Marcus surveys them all intently. "I don't want to believe that it
was one of you, but I can't ignore the evidence. Each of
you will be questioned in turn, and I will submit to that same questioning.
None of you will leave this building until you have been questioned,
and your offices will be searched."
"Marcus, surely there must be some mistake," Martin protests,
straightening from his position against the wall. "Couldn't someone
have hacked into the security system, broken through the codes we
set up? It's possible, isn't it?"
Marcus nods his head wearily. "It's possible, and it's one avenue Sam
will be exploring. But as I said before, I can't ignore the evidence.
One of us is very likely guilty of attempted murder. And I won't rest
until I find out who."
--------------------
"Something's come up, Sam," Walter says, once more standing in front
of the computer in the testing room, Ed at his side. "Something that we
think points to who did this."
Sam, who had been staring intently at the computer screen when Walter
and Ed were allowed into the testing room, leans back in his chair and
looks at Walter carefully. "What is it?"
"This," Walter responds, handing Sam the same sheaf of papers that Ed
had given him in the empty office minutes before.
Sam takes the papers from him cautiously, his eyes darting to Ed and taking
in his tense expression. "Have a seat," Sam says, nodding to two
chairs nearby, and then he looks down at the papers, his lips tightening
as he scans the first one quickly.
He reads in silence, the only sound in the room the ruffling of papers as
he goes through them methodically, his brow drawn down in concentration.
Ed shifts restlessly in his chair, his arms crossed in front of him, while
Walter
sits quietly, his eyes on Sam's still figure, his hands playing idly with a
pen
he has taken from his pocket.
Finishing the last page, Sam restores the papers to their former order
carefully, and then looks up at the security man posted inside the door.
"Out. Now."
"But sir .... " one of the men protest. "Marcus made it clear .... "
"I'll take full responsibility," Sam says, interrupting him. "There are
already two men stationed outside .... that should be enough."
The man hesitates, but at a steely look from Sam he leaves quietly,
shutting the door behind him.
"How accurate is this?" Sam asks tersely, looking at Ed. Ed looks at
Walter questioningly, and Walter raises a brow at Sam. "Is it safe to
speak here?"
Sam nods his head impatiently. "I've swept all the main floor offices,
and only a few were bugged. This wasn't one of them."
"In that case, I retrieved the information from secure files in the
Council's database," Ed replies. "There was an added level of security
codes just to break into his file, which made me wonder. It's obvious
they didn't want anyone to see this."
"There's no possibility that it was planted?" Sam asks shrewdly.
Ed shakes his head automatically, and then gives a slight shrug. "All I
can tell you is that it was Tom's informant who gave us the codes to
break into these files, and that each one was identical in terms of format.
What sense would it make for the Council to fake this one file,
especially when it reveals a secret I'm sure none of them would want
revealed?"
Sam stares at Ed challengingly. "Why trust me with this information?
If you accept his guilt, you could just as easily suspect me. How do
you know I won't turn around and kill you to keep you quiet?"
Ed pales at this, and flashes an uneasy glance at Walter.
"Tom trusts you," Walter says simply, drawing himself up in his chair. "We
needed someone to turn to, and knew that he'd advise us to go to you, if
he could."
Sam falls silent at this, fingering the papers idly, and then shakes his
head.
"It looks bad, I realize that. But I can't .... " His voice trails off
for a
moment. "I can't believe that there isn't some kind of explanation for
this.
That he has a reason for everything he's done."
Walter leans forward in his chair. "The evidence is there in black and
white, Sam," he says quietly. "We can't ignore it."
Sam meets Walter's gaze evenly, and he gives an abrupt nod. "I know
that."
--------------------
A slight shift of Tom's hand has Sloan leaning forward in her perch on
the edge of his bed. "Tom?" she says softly. "Tom, it's Sloan. Can
you hear me?"
Shane and Trevor, both sitting in chairs drawn up close by Tom's bed,
lean forward as well, their eyes anxiously studying Tom's face for any
sign he might be regaining consciousness.
"Tom," Sloan says again, holding his hand carefully in hers. "Move your
hand if you can hear me."
Another slight movement of his fingers has her looking up at Shane and
Trevor with excitement. "Get the doctor," she says urgently, and Shane
springs up out of his chair for the door. Trevor stands as well, edging
closer to the bed and to Sloan's side as he watches Tom anxiously.
"Wake up, Tom," Sloan says softly, moving her hand up to trace his cheek
with her finger. "Come on, wake up."
Tom's fingers move again, and then his head, and Sloan holds her breath
as he makes a small sound and slowly opens his eyes. Unfocused at first,
he stares at her groggily, and then, as she watches, his eyes clear and he
gives her a small, weary smile. "Hi," he says slowly, his eyes dropping
closed again for a moment.
"Hi yourself," Sloan says softly. "How do you feel?"
"Hmm." Tom shifts slightly in the bed, and opens his eyes again, wincing
as he does so. "Like a truck hit me."
"Almost," Sloan says teasingly, and then backs up slightly to let Trevor
move forward. "Trevor's here, and Shane. We've been waiting for you to
wake up."
Tom opens his eyes again, and reaches out to touch Trevor's hand as it
rests on the side of the bed. "You okay?" he asks slowly, and Trevor nods
his head silently, his fingers moving to clutch Tom's for a minute.
"Well, Tom, you're finally awake," the head med tech says, striding into
the
room with Shane at his heels. "It's about time. How do you feel?"
Tom shifts again, carefully. "Sore. What hit me?"
"What do you remember last?" the med tech asks carefully, checking
Tom's eyes and pulse.
"I .... " Tom begins, and then falls silent for a minute, thinking hard.
"I
don't remember much of anything," he confesses. "This is Marcus's lab,
right?"
"Yes," the med tech says with a small smile. "You should recognize it
.... you've been a patient here twice before."
"We were coming here for a regression therapy session," Tom says
slowly, looking up at Sloan. "Weren't we?"
Sloan nods. "Do you remember anything else?"
Tom concentrates, and then shakes his head wearily. "Nothing .... it's
all a blank. What happened?"
"Something went wrong with the test, Tom," Sloan says gently. "The current
they gave you was several times stronger than they'd planned, and your
heart stopped."
Tom frowns as he looks at her. "I don't understand."
"Neither do I, not yet anyway," Sloan says in a troubled voice. "Sam's
investigating what happened now. It could have been an accident, but
both he and Marcus don't think so."
"Meaning?" Tom asks, tilting his head to study her expression.
"Meaning it was done deliberately, Tom. To kill you."
--------------------
Marcus is working alone in his office when Sam arrives at his office
door. "Any news on the investigation?" Marcus asks Sam intently.
"The evidence is inconclusive at this point," Sam replies. "It's obvious
the current levels were tampered with, but we haven't been able to
determine how or when. Not yet, at any rate."
"I've been thinking about that," Marcus says thoughtfully. "Is there
a way we can trace the changes made in the current levels back to the
computer where the commands originated? Some signature that
narrows it down to a specific computer?"
"If the traitor were sloppy enough to leave a trail," Sam acknowledges.
"But if they were smart enough to be able to mask the changes they
made, they'd be smart enough not to leave a trail."
"True," Marcus says, rubbing his forehead distractedly, and then
suddenly looking up at Sam, sensing his turmoil. "What is it, Sam?
What have you found out?"
"It's nothing about the test, Marcus," Sam says with a frown.
"I've gotten a message from one of our contacts at the Council's
main testing lab. He's asking for a meeting with the two of us
right now, at the safe house nearby .... he thinks he's been
detected."
"Now, Sam?" Marcus protests. "I can't leave now, not with Tom
still unconscious and the investigation underway. You go, and let
me know what happens."
"He's asking for both of us, Marcus," Sam insists.
"Sam," Marcus protests again, and then falls silent as Sam holds
his finger to his lips and points to Marcus's desk, reminding him of
the listening device Sam had discovered there during his sweep of
the building in the early morning hours.
"You're sure it's that important," Marcus says searchingly, looking
up at Sam.
"It is, Marcus," Sam says warningly, and reaches for Marcus's coat.
Marcus nods slowly, meeting his assistant's eyes, and then darts a
look at his phone. "I should check with security and tell them where
we'll be, in case anything happens," he says, and reaches out to
pick up the receiver, but Sam stops him. "I've already done that,
Marcus," he says evenly. "It's time to leave."
--------------------
Marcus's sense of disaster grows as Sam silently drives him to
the safe house. "What is so bad that you can't tell me now?" he
asks for the second time, glancing over at his long-time assistant.
"You'll need to see the evidence yourself before you'll be
convinced," Sam says quietly, his eyes never leaving the road.
Marcus watches him speculatively, his senses increasingly unsettled.
Sam has always been reserved, standing back in every meeting,
only speaking when necessary, but his silence now is ominous
and Marcus can't sense any emotion from him at all. It's almost,
he thinks to himself uneasily, as though Sam has shut down.
Giving up, he lapses into silence himself, and the forty-minute drive
is completed without another word being spoken. It isn't until Sam
pulls into the driveway and Marcus spots the small grey sedan that
Marcus speaks. "Walter Attwood's here?" he asks, and darts a puzzled
glance at Sam.
"Walter Attwood and Ed Tate," Sam confirms, bringing their
car to a stop and turning off the engine. "They're the ones who've
come up with the evidence."
"Evidence of what?" Marcus asks, getting exasperated, but Sam
shakes his head. "I think it would be better if they explained,"
he responds, and opens his car door, climbing out and waiting
for Marcus to get out on his side and walk up the few short steps
to the front door of the small bungalow before following him.
Once inside, Marcus finds Walter and Ed waiting for him in the
shabby living room, sitting together on a small couch. "So," Marcus
says slowly, his uneasiness growing as he senses the waves of
antagonism pouring off the younger man, "what have you found?"
"We've found out who the traitor is," Ed says bluntly, coming to his
feet to stand in front of Marcus, a sheaf of papers in his hand.
Marcus looks at him silently as Ed holds the papers out to him. "Tom
and Sam asked me to hack my way into the Council's security
records to see what I could find on the people in your lab," Ed says
tightly. "I came across these during my search."
Marcus goes still at Ed's words, and then looks over at Sam, who
has taken up his customary position in a corner of the room, his
arms crossed, his expression carefully blank. "I hadn't realized that
you and Tom had been able to break your way through the security
codes," Marcus says evenly.
"We had help," Sam replies. "Tom's informant gave him the
codes last night."
"I see." Marcus takes the papers from Ed without looking at
them, his attention still on Sam. "What did you find out?"
"I think you know," Sam responds quietly. "It was all there, Marcus.
Records of your training programs, how they groomed you for infiltration,
chose the people you were to connect with." There is a flicker of
emotion on his face. "Names of potential opponents that you had
killed."
"You were assigned by the Council to destroy the peace movement,
weren't you?" Ed bursts out. "Your job was to wipe out any other possible
leader, take control of the movement, and then sabotage it just enough to
keep it marginal. And you did your job until Tom came along and
suddenly threatened your position, and so you had to stop him."
"Ed," Walter warns him quietly, coming to his feet to stand beside the
young scientist.
"Can you deny that the Council planted you here to bring us all down
eventually?" Sam asks evenly, his face a still mask.
"No," Marcus says with a sigh, staring down at the papers in his hand.
"No, I can't." Shaking his head, he looks back up at Sam. "I knew this
would happen, sooner or later. I'd just hoped it would be later."
"When I first met you, and you convinced me to work with you, were
you working for the Council?" Sam asks hollowly.
"Yes, I was," Marcus replies. "You were one of my best recruits, Sam.
I'd hoped in the early days to turn you to my side eventually, but I
realized you were too honest, and too committed to peace."
"How could you do it?" Ed asks incredulously. "How could you
betray so many people?"
"Because," Marcus says simply, looking over at him. "It was my job."
Sam shifts from his position in the corner, pacing over to the window,
his hands in his pockets. "When did it stop being your job, Marcus?"
Ed looks over at Sam in confusion, but Marcus's expression doesn't change.
"A long time ago, Sam. I hope you can believe that."
Sam turns to face Marcus, his eyes bleak.
"Did you try to kill Tom today?"
"No," Marcus replies steadily.
"Are you the traitor we're looking for?"
"No." Marcus gives a small shrug of apology. "I know I can't ask you
to trust me .... I've lost all right to that by keeping this from you for
so long. But I will ask you to trust your instincts about me enough to
know that what I've done for this movement for the last twenty years,
I've done willingly. I turned my back on the Council the day I
realized that I wanted what you believed in, and I've never looked
back."
"Wait a minute," Ed protests, rounding on Sam angrily. "You're
going to buy all this, after what you read in that file? After the lies
he told? He was the one who pushed Tom to do this test today,
Sam. He was the one who assured Tom the test was safe,
and he was the one at the controls .... and now Tom's in a hospital
bed!"
Sam meets Ed's hot gaze unflinchingly. "He was, wasn't he?" he says
reflectively. "Stop and think about it, Ed .... if Marcus really wanted
Tom
dead, he'd do it in a way that left no fingerprints behind, no hint that he
had done it. The last thing he would do is openly push Tom into a test he
planned to use to kill him, or be the one to actually turn on that
current."
"He's right, Ed," Walter says with dawning realization. "It doesn't make
sense."
"But .... " Ed protests helplessly. "How can you ignore what he's done?
Where he comes from?"
"I can't," Sam says starkly, and Marcus flinches at the pain on Sam's
normally stoic face. "And I won't. But he's not the traitor. At least,
not the one we're looking for now."
"Which means that the real traitor is still out there," Walter says
somberly. "And judging from the attack on Tom, he or she is starting
to feel the pressure and may act again."
"Exactly." Sam looks at Marcus questioningly. "What have you done with
the other members of the team who worked on Tom's project?"
"They're in their offices under guard," Marcus replies. "I told them
they'd be questioned individually, and that their offices would be
searched."
"Good," Sam says with a nod. "I suggest we use the testing room to
question them in. Putting them in the same room where Tom almost
died may make them uncomfortable enough to make a mistake. I'll
set up the first interview as soon as we get back. Walter, you're
welcome to attend."
"Thank you, I will," Walter says, rising up from the couch and giving
Sam a small nod. "I'd like to check on Tom first, though, to see how
he's doing. I imagine the two of you need time alone to talk .... Ed
and I will head back now, and we'll see you there later."
Ed looks Walter incredulously. "You mean we're just going to leave?"
he protests. "But we've got the evidence .... "
"Evidence of Marcus's past, Ed," Walter answers him heavily. "But not
of anything he's done now."
Ed looks at him in mute protest, and then storms out of the room, Walter
giving both Sam and Marcus a small nod before following in his wake
and shutting the front door quietly behind him.
"Thank you, Sam," Marcus says quietly, looking up at his assistant.
"For standing up for me, after all I've done. I won't forget it."
"Don't thank me, Marcus," Sam says distantly, turning to stare out the
window at Walter and Ed as they climb into Walter's car, and quickly
drive away. "I didn't do it for you .... I did it for the movement."
Marcus drops his gaze, and an awkward silence falls on the room.
"How did you do it, Marcus?" Sam asks finally, his voice still detached.
"How did you lie to us all that time, without any of us sensing it?"
Marcus winces slightly, and looks up at Sam with haunted eyes.
"Because I was so good at it, Sam. They didn't always rely on masking
.... they used lies instead. They searched the population to find people
who could tell a lie without any change in emotion and do it consistently.
And that's what they found in me .... I was a consummate liar. I could
convince anyone of anything, and passed every test they gave me."
"So what changed?" Sam turns to look at Marcus, his eyes hard. "What
made you want what we had?"
Marcus's expression softens in memory. "Because you believed so
completely in what you were doing. You had enthusiasm, you had
commitment, and you'd formed a kind of family among you of believers.
I'd never had that .... you know what life is like for most people in our
species .... and I found that I wanted it. Then, the more time I spent
with you, the more I came to believe what you believed."
"And you had the smooth tongue to convince other people to follow
you."
"I did," Marcus acknowledges.
"You had me feeling so guilty each time I pressed you to believe
in masking," Sam says, watching him steadily. "It wasn't until Tom
joined us that you finally relented, and even then I felt as though we
were ganging up on you. Why, Marcus? More manipulation?"
Marcus meets his gaze unwillingly. "I knew about it, but I never
trusted it," he admits. "I thought I could see through anyone
who used it on me."
Sam looks at him silently for a moment and then turns away,
the pain of betrayal clear on his face. Marcus, shifting uneasily
in place, looks down and realizes he's still holding the sheaf of
papers that Ed had thrust at him. Leafing through them, he
winces at the stark language detailing his repeated betrayals
of the peace movement in the first year of his assignment.
Names he had given to the Council of people who had disappeared
soon afterward. Locations of small activist groups that he had
passed on in order to have them closed down, or
eliminated .... whichever the Council thought best. Following
those were the terse reports cataloguing his activities once
he had switched sides and decided to betray the Council instead.
"Interesting reading, isn't it?"
Marcus looks up to see Sam watching him, his expression now
cool and distant. "You were so incredulous that someone inside
the movement could actually betray us. And yet you betrayed us
yourself, and then betrayed the Council in turn. You more than
anyone should find the idea of betrayal from within a possibility."
Marcus looks down again at the papers he holds in his hands.
"Maybe so," he says quietly. "I guess I just wanted to believe
that the people we work with are better than that .... are better
than I ever was or could be." He shakes his head despairingly.
"I didn't want to believe that someone could betray us as easily
as I betrayed you."
Sam closes his eyes for a moment, and Marcus takes a step
forward. "Sam, I need to explain .... " he begins.
"We should get back to the lab," Sam says expressionlessly,
opening his eyes again and fixing them on Marcus's. "You'll be
questioned along with the rest of the team. I need to know what
happened at the moment you turned the current on, anything you
might have noticed that was out of the ordinary."
"What about .... ?"
"What happened here between us stays just between us," Sam
continues with pause. "I'll talk to Walter and Ed, and when he's
well enough I'll talk to Tom. We can't afford to let news about
this get out, not now when the Council is working so hard to
destroy us." He looks at Marcus distantly. "You'll continue as
leader of the peace movement. When he's well enough, Tom
and I will continue to hunt for the traitor."
"Sam, please," Marcus persists. "I need to explain myself to you.
To try to earn some of your trust back. When you're ready."
Sam looks at him silently, and crosses the room to the entryway
and the front door, pausing only as he opens it and prepares to leave.
"At some point, Marcus," he agrees finally, and turns to give Marcus
one last look. "But to be honest? I'm not sure I'll ever be ready."
The End
>
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