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Chapter or Story
Part 8
Ashe, New York
Sydney paused for a moment before he spoke. "Do you blame me?"
"To a certain degree, yes. The things I saw you do to Jarod and the way you treated him brought back to me the way I was treated at the hospital. Through my own investigation, though, I started to realize just how dangerous it was for people to defy the Centre. Although it didn't make me any less angry, I could at least blame the right people. The way you've treated Jarod since he got sick has also helped to change the way I feel about you."
"So what changed things in other ways? If you still feel as intensely angry as I can only imagine you must have felt then, how can you possibly deal with the burden of looking after children? We both know that's not easy, particularly when they're also clingy."
"Like Jarod was, you mean?" She smiled before becoming serious once more. "After I recovered enough to be able to walk, I was sent 'home'. A few weeks later, I could go back to class. Then I found out that we had a new teacher."
"Margaret?"
Helen nodded, smiling faintly. "I didn't think much about it at the time. I was having a hard enough time dealing with the fact that I couldn't have children - and I always dreamed of having kids of my own - and also I was still trying to get over the fact that I'd been 'abandoned' by people who were supposed to be taking care of me. Even the nuns, after I was allowed back in class, didn't seem to care about me. One night I decided that if they didn't want me, they wouldn't have me. I packed a few things in a bag, left money to try and pay for the clothes that I was taking, and snuck out. I didn't get far."
"The hallway?" the man suggested.
"A little further than that." Her eyes glistened, but she blinked away the unshed tears. "I was about two blocks away when I felt the hand on my arm. I turned to find the new teacher behind me. She said she’d understood students weren't allowed to leave without permission, and she couldn’t believe that someone as sick as me could have permission to wander the streets. I told her –I can't believe that I could ever have said this – that it was none of her business, and she ought to concern herself with her own children, not those nobody wanted."
Sydney raised an eyebrow, but remained silent.
"I still don't know, to this day, why she didn't turn around and walk away. Instead, she told me that it sounded like I needed to talk, and I said that all I needed to do was find somewhere that people were allowed to care. Then I started to cry. All this time, I'd been hiding my anger and bitterness, because I hadn't wanted to get angry at the wrong people or to look like a child. And there I was, doing exactly that in front of a complete stranger. So, in addition to making me upset, my tears also made me embarrassed and angry, so I broke away from her and started to run."
"Only a few weeks after major surgery?"
Helen grinned briefly. "Smart, huh? From memory, I got about eight blocks away and then I was in too much pain to keep going. I'd come to a park, so I went in and lay down under a tree. Luckily it was summer, or I'd probably have ended up with pneumonia on top of everything else."
"You fell asleep?"
"She tried to." Margaret walked into the room and sat in the chair that Miss Parker had occupied. Helen gave a half-smile.
"I didn't know we had an audience," Helen protested faintly.
"An audience who already knows what happened, Helen. Go on."
The younger woman looked up. "I opened my eyes a while later to find that I wasn't alone. There was a woman on her knees next to me, covering me with her jacket, but by then I was in too much pain to recognize her. She took me back to her apartment. It won't be a surprise to learn that I developed a fever and, by the time I figured out where I was and what had happened, I think I’d told her just about everything in my feverish ramblings. It also won't be surprising when I say that, as soon as I was aware of what was going on, I stopped talking. I kept waiting for her to treat me the way they had in the hospital, to turn away, but she never did."
Unable to continue, Helen glanced at Margaret, who smiled, turning to Sydney, her voice soft, as compassionate as the look in his eyes.
"From what she’d said, I could guess at the reason for her silence, her fear. She changed overnight from a girl who wanted me beside her, holding her every moment to a girl who hardly opened her mouth, refused to eat and wouldn't let me close. But I kept trying and finally, after ten days, she broke down."
Margaret reached over and put a hand on that of the woman sitting next to her, squeezing gently. The doctor looked up.
"I just wanted someone to talk to. I'd felt so lonely in the hospital and later, when I got back to the convent. Now there was a person who was acting as if it really mattered to her how I felt and how I was. Finally, after so long, I started to believe that maybe I did matter to her, that she did care, that it wasn't all just some cruel joke she was playing. Eventually I decided that I didn't care what would happen later, I just had to tell somebody. So I did. I don't know how long the conversation lasted, but it had to be hours. It started about ten minutes after she came home from work, and I have a memory of the sun rising as I finally fell asleep," she cast a loving glance at the woman beside her, "in her arms, worn out from all the tears I'd shed."
"And then?" Sydney's voice was as soft as Margaret's had been.
"While she was still too sick to go back to the convent,” Margaret stated, “Helen and I had long discussions after I got home from work. Generally they were philosophical and we’d emphasize points with examples from our own lives. That was when I told her some things about the loss of my boys, about the life I was forced to live, and that Charles and I had separated to keep Emily safe."
Helen looked up. "I started to feel that if she was willing to tell me so much about her life maybe it meant she would stay around for a while, that she wouldn't desert me like other people had. So I let myself get close to her. Unfortunately that 'a while' turned out to be only a little while."
Margaret continued. "I got word from Harriet Tashman to say that the Centre had found out where I was and were coming after me, so I fled. When I got to a place that I felt safe, I wrote a letter to Helen, explaining what had happened and giving her an address where she could write to me, as long as she didn't expect me to reply too quickly. I can't say it was a big surprise when she wrote. But I was so glad that she did."
Helen smiled. "It was a few days before I even knew she'd gone because we had the vacation for Christmas, but I got her letter before classes started again. I wrote to say that, as I was starting medical school after the coming summer vacation, I hoped she could understand if I didn't reply too quickly either but that I wanted us to stay in contact. I didn't feel the need to say why I felt that way and I'm sure you can imagine the reason."
Sydney nodded sadly but didn't interrupt.
"Our correspondence was fairly intermittent until we got access to email. It was a lot better after that. By then I was working at a large hospital in Chicago and had just started to specialize. That course in child psychology opened up a lot of old wounds that I thought had healed. If it hadn't been for Margaret's messages, I'm not sure whether I would have completed the course. Still, I managed it. Then, a few days before I finished it, in mid-1996, we lost contact."
"And then went to you find out about the Centre."
"Yes. I'd dealt with my loneliness, my fears of being abandoned, but I'd never got rid of my anger. I decided to take it out on the Centre but in a way that would take time before they knew about it. So I snuck in and began to do some investigation. I learnt about what was being done to Jarod and, which was much worse, what had been done to Kyle. I went to see him in prison, although I never told him about knowing his mother. As far as I know, he died in ignorance of the fact that I ever knew her."
"And," Sydney turned to the older woman, "did you know…?"
"I knew about Kyle, yes." Margaret spoke softly. "Harriet told me. She suggested that I could go and visit him but I knew the Centre would be keeping a very close eye on him and I also didn't know if he even knew who I was. Charles sent me a letter after he and Jarod found each other, telling me the details of his death."
Sydney turned back to the younger woman. "So, until you came up with the plan to destroy the mainframe, what did you do in the Centre?"
"I mostly stole DSAs so that I could find out what was going on there. Six months after my first 'break-in', I had a very complete picture for most facets of the place. Finally I made the decision that, to try and repay Margaret for everything, I would get Jarod out." She smiled. "He beat me to it by three days."
Sydney's eyes widened. "You…?"
"I had a plan all ready whereby Jarod could be spirited away from the Centre and nobody would be any the wiser until the next day. I'd organized with Angelo to be introduced to Jarod but that was the day Kenny was killed. Angelo met me at the entrance where I sneak in and showed me the DSA of what had happened. Then he took me down to Jarod's room. Jarod was much too distraught for me to even think about it that night. I also knew that Damon's betrayal would make it virtually impossible for Jarod to trust me." Helen laughed. "In a superb twist, I came back here that night, went down to my lab and created the gas that I would later use on the three of you in the car."
Sydney's lips twitched in amusement. "Now that's irony."
"Good, huh? My plan was that I would pump the gas into his room, disable all the cameras and then smuggle both he and Angelo out before he woke up. I'd bring them both back here and let Angelo prove to Jarod that he could trust me. What happened after that would depend on his reaction. As you might have guessed, I never got the chance to do it."
"Why not?"
"Angelo met me again the following night and said that Jarod was considering an escape plan of his own. Who was I to compare my ideas with those of a genius?" She shrugged, laughing. "Still, I thought about it. I knew that any plan Jarod could come up with had to mean that security was alerted whereas I expected my plan would have been able to pass almost unnoticed. Angelo kept me informed of what Jarod was organizing, though, and that it wouldn't only be Jarod escaping."
"And how did he know?"
Helen smiled. "Sydney, Angelo's an empath, remember? He could empath Eddie's feelings, and Alex's as well, as much as he could feel mine."
Sydney nodded. "So he told you about Eddie and Alex?"
"No," Helen stated firmly, a smile curling the corners of her mouth. "No, he never mentioned them to me, at least not by name."
"So how did you know…?"
"Like I said, I knew what was planned. I came to Blue Cove that night and 'drove by' just in time to see a figure running through the darkness. Being as you called me a considerate person, I picked him up."
"Jarod?"
"Eddie." Helen smiled. "They split up after getting out and as I'd expected he made his way down to the road where I was waiting. As we drove back here I told him a little of who I was and what I knew about Jarod and the others. Thanks to Angelo's information, I even had his files as well as Jarod's. It took time, but he finally began to trust me. He stayed for a while to keep an eye on the Centre and when we worked out that they weren't searching for him, I began to introduce him to the world." She smiled. "It was such an amazing experience, doing that. Eddie, seeing everything for almost the first time, made me see everything in a new way as well, and it's something I've tried not to lose. We watched the sun rise and set every day, and he sat in every single rainstorm until he got a cold and I made him stay inside. The sight of his first rainbow was pretty incredible. But it was just his curiosity about everything that was so much fun. He had to know what it was, how it worked, what it was made of, where it was made and, once he finally got a feel for money, how much it cost."
"I suppose,” Sydney's voice was wistful, “Jarod must have been the same."
"I would imagine so." Helen smiled. "The first few days were the best. Everything we saw during the drive from the Centre - and it wasn't very much in the darkness - he asked me about. I started to explain it, but it was too much. Despite being so highly intelligent, it was just too large for him to take in all at once. He simply couldn't understand many of the things that I was trying to explain to him. Eventually we had to begin with the small stuff, like the CD player in my car and the electric windows. When we got here, he was too tired to deal with any more. I thought it would be better if he slept in an environment similar to what he had been used to." She laughed. "In fact, that’s the reason that I even bought this house in the first place. I knew it had a substantial cellar area with several rooms, and I thought it would make an ideal place for Jarod and, when I knew about him, Eddie as well."
"So you really thought about it all."
"Oh, yes. There was a lot of planning involved. I’d even thought about how they might feel. On that first night, for instance, I worried that Eddie might have to take in too much at once and wouldn't cope, so he slept down there, but I left all the doors open and all the lights were still on in the hall and up here in the kitchen. Eddie was totally exhausted when we got here. Despite that, though, I'm not sure whether he slept that night."
Helen glanced around the room. "When I came downstairs, the next morning, he was standing at the window, staring out through the glass. When I suggested that we go outside so that he could have a proper look, he looked at me like I had two heads. So I made him breakfast instead."
"What did you give him?"
"Cereal, toast, coffee - and pancakes." She grinned. "He liked those best."
Sydney smiled. "I bet he did."
"Finally I convinced him that we could go outside. The back garden, as you can see, is very well protected so I knew nobody would see us. But I gave him some clothes to change into first, and which I'd purchased for Jarod when I made that plan, and I let him have a shower for as long as he wanted. But finally we got outside. He sat down on the grass - wet with dew but he didn't care - and silently looked around. At last I went back into the house, got a book and sat on the step, waiting until he was ready to talk."
"How long did it take?"
"Almost four hours." She smiled at the memory. "Finally he got up and came over to sit beside me. Then he asked me the most impossible question I've ever been asked."
"And that was?"
"'What's the world like?'"
Laughing, she watched the expressions on the faces of the other people sitting at the table.
"I felt as if I'd just been set a really difficult philosophical exam, like a certain one that I completed just before my favorite teacher disappeared." She smiled. "For about five minutes I just sat there in silence, trying to work out how to explain the world to a person who hadn't really experienced it. Eventually, I said that it was impossible to tell him, that he’d have to see it and feel it for himself, but that I would help him. We went back inside and started discussing the things he'd never seen before or heard of."
Sydney leaned back and looked at her. "And how did he cope with you?"
"At first it was hard for him but I was, in a way, a little bit of continuity. Every woman Eddie knew in the Centre had been a doctor and there I was, just like them. At the same time, though, I wasn't like them. I had no power over him but it took some time before he realized that and longer before he could understand it."
"In what way?"
"We were washing the dishes and Eddie was so fascinated with the detergent that he wasn't paying attention and dropped a glass. Of course it smashed. The second it happened, he looked at me, waiting for me to punish him, and absolutely terrified because he didn't know me, and so didn't know what form the punishment would take. His face became totally expressionless and he didn't move."
"What did you do?" Sydney prompted.
"That was the hard part. I wasn't sure what to do. But eventually I got a broom and cleaned it up, telling him it was just a glass and it wasn't the end of the world. When that was done, I looked up and he hadn't moved. He was just stood there, waiting for his punishment. I just couldn't stand the terror in his eyes so I put my arms around him and said that it was all right, that I wasn't going to get angry and that he didn't need to worry or to be scared of me. He froze for a second, and then began to cry. I never saw an adult - I never even saw a kid - cry the way Eddie did that morning. He tried to hide it, to turn away, because he thought it would definitely make me angry. But I wouldn't let him hide it from me. I sat him on a chair, holding him and just letting him cry."
She smiled faintly, remembering that morning.
"My shirt front was soaking wet by the time he stopped. When it was finished, I sat down in front of him and he asked if I was still mad. I said I'd never been mad, that it was only a glass and I was just glad he wasn't hurt. That was something he simply wasn't able to cope with - that someone would actually worry about him. To take his mind off it all, we went into the living room. I sat down on the sofa and he stood off to one side, like he was waiting for directions. After I told him for about five minutes to do so, he came and sat next to me. Then, like a child, Eddie tried to curl up in my lap. Finally, realizing that he was too big, he lay with his head on my leg and we watched TV for a while."
She smiled at Sydney.
"Yes, inane cartoons again, except that it wasn't early morning anymore. Eventually he fell asleep." Pausing, Helen's face became sad. "He had nightmares, such terrible nightmares. After about ten minutes of him crying out, I woke him. I wouldn't have left it that long, but I knew he needed sleep and was hoping that he'd get past the dreaming stage. When it didn't happen, I roused him. As of that moment, he became the same sort of clinging person I'd been, wanting to be near me all the time. I became his security blanket and he even followed me from room to room. That night, and for a lot of nights after it, Eddie slept in my bedroom. It wasn't really planned."
"In what way?"
She smiled. "He gave every appearance of going to bed quite happily, and I was naïve enough to think that he was planning to sleep there all night, but I woke up a few hours later to find him lying on the end of my bed with his hand resting on my foot, sound asleep. He looked so peaceful that, considering what he'd gone through that day, I didn't have the heart to wake him, so I covered him with a blanket and let him stay there. The next morning, I watched him trying to sneak out of the room so I wouldn't know he'd been there and I asked who he thought put the blanket over him."
Helen looked at Sydney sadly. "Eddie said that he knew I'd only done it to make sure he wouldn't get sick, so he could keep working. I reminded him that he didn't have to work and he said that he fully expected me to take him back to the Centre. It took me almost an hour to persuade him that I wouldn't, that he really was safe with me. And when, eventually, he did believe me, he cried in the same way that he had the day before."
She looked over to see the tears glistening in Margaret's eyes and gently placed a hand over that of the older woman.
"I put a camp bed into the room so he could sleep comfortably. That situation lasted for a week or so until he became confident that I wouldn't disappear during the night. After that happened Eddie slept in the next room."
"So you became his substitute mother?"
"Through default, yes. I felt like I was torn between wanting to be somebody he could rely on and not wanting him to depend on me too much. Finally we talked about it, all the things that I felt and what he felt. He was mature and intelligent enough to understand what I was trying to tell him and we found a happy medium." The doctor laughed for a moment. "But I still had to answer all of his questions!"
Helen looked up at Sydney.
"Eddie didn't have anybody he wanted to call to ask them about things, so he asked me instead. Boy, did he ask me!" Rolling her eyes, she smiled. "I've dealt with curious kids, but they all pale in comparison to Eddie. Luckily for my sanity his intelligence meant that he could grasp concepts pretty quickly, even vague ones, like emotions."
"Vague?" Margaret looked over quickly. "I don't think you can ever call emotions 'vague', Helen."
"That's true, but how do you explain them to somebody who never had them all described to him? How do you explain why it's okay to cry when you're happy, but also when you're sad? How do you explain that the feeling in your stomach when you're nervous isn't because you're about to be sick? How," she eyed the psychiatrist thoughtfully, "do you explain to somebody new to it all that what they feel when they fall in love for the first time is normal?"
"You explain the biology of it..."
"And then they turn around and ask 'But why? Why is it that way? Why don't we do this?' Please, Sydney, you must remember how difficult those conversations in the first months with Jarod were. If you don't, I can find the recordings for you. I have them floating around somewhere."
Sydney shook his head, smiling faintly. "So how did it go with Eddie?"
"I think to a certain degree I was successful." She paused. "In a lot of ways, and this sounds very immodest but I think it's true, Eddie was luckier than Jarod, having somebody there who knew the situation. He could ask me things without needing to go into a detailed explanation about why he didn't know them. I think that probably made it easier for him to adjust to the world outside." Helen glanced up at Sydney. "I also wasn't constantly encouraging him to go back the Centre. I suspect that that kind of pressure probably made it a lot harder on Jarod."
"So what happened later?"
"Later?" Helen smiled. "Oh, later was a lot of fun. Showing him the world was fun. I took him with me when I went to treat some of my patients and he loved the fact that kids wouldn't think that he was so weird if he didn't know about things. Then, one day, I taught him about my pet hobby."
"Chemistry?"
"Theft." She laughed. "Well, pick pocketing, to be exact. He always had fun with it, but he was too honest to carry it all the way. Eventually he started treating it like a party trick, and he could deal with that a lot better."
"You encouraged him?"
"Not exactly. But then he never really needed encouragement. He was so eager to do everything anyway..." She trailed off and shrugged. "As for the chemistry, he did help me with that too. A few of my drugs are his creation."
She stopped briefly and a spasm of pain crossed her face, but she drove it away and smiled again.
"While I was helping Eddie to adjust to the world, I introduced him to a friend from school. They married six months after his escape." Helen's voice became sad. "I helped him get his job with the NSA, too, and because of some vague suspicions he had about the 'Chameleon' project, we discussed it before he started working on it. We could never have imagined that it would result in his death at the hands of another Pretender."
"How did you...?"
"The Centre received a report from Africa about Alex and sent people to find him. They saw the reports that Jarod and the other agents had to file after Alex killed Eddie at the hospital. I read them about two hours later." She sighed sadly. "I'd love to have seen Eddie and Jarod together. I watched the security tape from the hospital and I could see that Eddie was wary but also thrilled to see Jarod again." She smiled. "When he pulled Jarod's gun on him, I couldn't help but find it funny. With what came next, of course, it wasn't, but to see him get it out of Jarod's gun holster without him even noticing and to see the look on Jarod's face, knowing that they were tricks I’d taught him, it was just priceless. Not that I think Eddie would ever have shot him, at least not to kill him. He might have left Jarod with a wound in the arm so he could get away, but that would have been it. He realized pretty soon that Jarod was still the person who'd helped him to escape all those years earlier and, if Alex hadn't killed him..."
She stopped and sighed again, staring at the table. Then she looked up. "After I watched Eddie die, I decided that enough was enough. I'd already been running the Great File Shuffle at the Centre for several months but it was without any real aim in mind, other than to prevent projects like Gemini." She saw the curiosity in Margaret's eyes and shook her head. "That night, after I talked to my friend and comforted her as well as I could, I sat down and began planning the stages of my theft of the mainframe codes." A slightly bitter smile twisted her lips. "I wish Eddie had lived to see it happen. It's the kind of beautiful irony that he'd have loved."
"And Alex?"
"I don't know." Helen stared at a point above Sydney's head for a moment before focusing on his face. "I've been trying to find out, but there's nothing to find about him or what happened. The police requested a report from the clean-up teams - I have no doubt that you won't be surprised to learn they were teams managed by the Centre - but they never got one. There's no sign, either that he's alive or that he's dead. However, if Alex is still alive, they won't make the same mistake twice. It's my belief that he'll be brainwashed or given drug-treatments to make sure he won't be able to escape again." She smiled faintly. "I'm also positive that this time Lyle wouldn't have been in charge before he was killed."
"If he is alive...?"
"If Alex is alive, I really hope he isn't here in America. After they dragged the water, I did a sweep of the Centre. He wasn't in any of the rooms where I looked, so I'm fairly confident he's not there. I think it most likely that the powers that be will ship him off to Africa again and try to retrain him there."
"And do you think they'll succeed?" the psychiatrist asked.
Helen shrugged. "To be honest, I think that, at the first opportunity, Alex will try to kill himself. He hates his life, hates the fact that he's not as good as Jarod, hates the people who did everything to him, particularly Mr. Parker and Lyle, and I think he probably also hates himself now. With that much bitterness building up inside, I can't imagine that he'd want to live, can you?"
"No," admitted Sydney slowly. "No, I don't think he would either."
"Unless they manage to completely strip his old identity and make a new one, I don't think they'll ever be able to control him, but he might let them think they've succeeded for a while and then use the first chance to destroy them."
"And how do you know so much about it?"
"I've been trying to find out everything I could about him ever since I learned that he killed Eddie. Although the Centre mainframe doesn't have a lot, all the African files certainly do. Really the only thing they don't have is any details of his current 'status'. But the information they do have was more than enough for me to create a pretty good picture of what he must have been like." She paused. "I'm not sure I liked what I found either."
Sydney glanced through the first few pages of the reports that Helen had taken from Mr. Parker's office, putting them down with a sigh. Looking up, he saw Jarod gazing at the ceiling. Getting out of the chair, Sydney walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"What is it, Jarod?"
"Where were you and Mom before?"
"We were down in the kitchen, talking to Helen, but your sister was in here with you, wasn't she?"
"Yes, but..." Jarod studied at the ceiling again for a moment, before looking back at Sydney. "It's not the same."
"We can't all be here all the time, Jarod. And if Miss Parker gets sick..."
"You'd sit with her, too?"
"I'd have to. I couldn't leave Helen to do all the work, or she might get sick as well, and none of us want that to happen."
"I thought she'd had this already."
"She has. I meant more that she might suffer from overwork and exhaustion." He smiled. "She's been working pretty hard, taking care of both of you."
"You have, too."
The psychiatrist smiled. "I've been sitting here with you, but I haven't really been here in the role of doctor."
There was a pause before Jarod spoke again. "I'm glad you're here."
Sydney put out a gentle hand and stroked the younger man's hair. "I am, too."
"Is the Centre looking for us?"
"Not exactly. They're in damage control mode right now. I think they're looking a lot harder for the person who shut down the mainframe."
"Helen?" There was a sudden light of fear in Jarod's eyes. "Do they know who it was? That it was her?"
"No, of course they don't. They have suspicions, of course, but they can't prove them. Don't worry about Helen. She, and all of us, are safe." Sydney could still feel the tension in younger man's hand leaned forward. "Jarod, it's okay. We're safe here, I promise you. Just try to relax now. Try to sleep."
Nodding slightly, Jarod closed his eyes, feeling the comforting touch on his hair as he began to slowly sink down into the darkness.
"How's she doing?"
Broots looked up at Helen as she appeared in the doorway and smiled. "You know how you said that rash would be itchy?"
She laughed softly and opened a drawer of the bedside table. "I've been waiting for that to start. As soon as she's awake..." Helen looked down to see Debbie's eyes open and the girl stared blankly at her for a moment before sitting up and holding out her hands. Sitting down on the bed, the doctor picked up the girl and cuddled her.
"How are you feeling, sweetie?"
"It itches, Mommy." She wriggled as if to prove the statement and Helen smiled.
"I know it does, baby, but I've got something that'll help. If you lie down again I'll rub it all over you so it feels better. But first you have to take your medicine." She handed the glass to the girl, who drank the contents before she gave it back with a small smile.
"When I'm sick next time, will you make me more medicine that tastes nice?"
"Why don't we get you over this one first, and then we'll think about what disease you're going to get next, huh?"
She put the girl down on the bed and took a jar out of the drawer, opening it. Gently undoing Debbie's pajama top, she rubbed the cool cream onto the girl's warm skin, feeling the child tense slightly and then relax.
"That's nice, Mommy."
"I'm glad, sweetheart." Helen rubbed a generous amount over the rash and then gently rolled the girl onto her back, applying it to her chest and arms. By the time she had finished, Debbie was asleep again and Helen was able to do up the top and put her back against the pillow without her waking. Replacing the jar lid, she rolled her eyes and then rubbed her hands on a damp cloth.
"We've got an entertaining few days to look forward to."
"Oh?" Broots looked up. "In what way?"
"Well, she's not feverish anymore and I'd be rather surprised if she went up more than a point or two tonight..."
"So she's getting to the grumpy stage?"
"Or she soon will be. With any luck, though, it should only last for a few days and then I would expect her to be close to fine, except, as I said, for that lingering cough and a tendency towards weariness for the next few weeks."
"And Jarod?"
"He's about a day behind in terms of recovery."
"You'd better not say that to him."
"Oh, really?" Helen raised an eyebrow. "And why not?"
"Well,” the technician responded in amusement. “He always likes to be ahead of other people..."
The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
"So now what?"
"We'll have to wait a few weeks until the first of the projects can give us a result to compare with what we have here." The man flicked the pile of pages in front of him, a look of irritation on his face. "Then we’ll know whether to trust what we have here or if we need to perform more tests to check all of our results."
"And what prices are we looking at for buying back some of our older material?"
"Inflated ones," the third man growled. "Highly inflated ones. If I didn't know better, I’d say these companies know what's been happening."
The first man turned to the second. "Let's get a complete staff run-down started. I want detailed information on every staff member working at this place, the same way we used to have on the mainframe. But I also want to find out if any of them might have other agendas."
"Yes, sir." The second man glanced at another, sitting in the corner of the room, who immediately rose and walked toward the door.
"And Cox?"
"Sir?" The man turned, his face expressionless.
"This is your test. If we find a single error in it, you won't get a chance to make a second one, if we have to coat your desk with Ammon too, to make certain of it."
Ashe, New York
"I want to get up!" Debbie sat up in bed, glaring at her father when he appeared in the doorway.
"Good morning to you, too, sweetie." Broots walked in and sat down on the bed next to her. "You're obviously feeling better today."
"I'm sick of bed."
"You're also just plain sick and sick people should stay in bed."
"I'm tired of this room." Her voice contained the hint of a whine and, in an attempt to distract her, Broots looked around.
"Where's Helen?"
"In with Jarod." The girl folded her arms sulkily. "She said she'd spend more time in here with me now that his mommy's here, but she hasn't."
"Oh, she has, baby." He stroked the side of her head. "But you've been too sleepy to notice it."
"I want her here with me. I can't sleep when she's not here."
"And if I am here, will you try to sleep, Debbie?"
The girl glanced up to find the woman in the doorway and the sulkiness vanished as she nodded. "Uh huh."
"Is that a promise?"
"I'll try." She paused, nestling against Helen as she was picked up. "Can I get up today?"
"No, not today, baby."
"Tomorrow?"
"We'll see how you are then."
Nodding, Debbie closed her eyes, feeling the woman's touch on her hair, and she could hear the muffled sound of the heartbeat in her ear as she began to relax. A few moments later, her arms slipped down from around Helen's neck and Debbie was sound asleep. Gently, the woman put her down on the bed, covering her and then walking over to the chair, casting a rueful glance at the girl's father as he sat beside her.
"I told you we'd hit the grumpy stage soon. This is the time when I generally don't visit my patient any longer." She rolled her eyes. "They go from perfect angels to sulky devils in the wink of an eye. It's most disillusioning."
He laughed softly. "Is it because she's tired or...?"
"No, it's a reaction to so many days of doing nothing. They don't have enough energy to get up to anything yet but they're bored and want to try anyway. If you let them do whatever they want then they exhaust themselves very quickly. That's how she fell asleep so fast. She used up her limited energy reserves on getting angry. If we'd let her get up, she would have drowsed off again before she even got downstairs and that's no use at all. She'd still be complaining."
Broots grinned, pushing the computer over to her. "Want an update on what your brother's up to?"
Helen groaned and swatted him with a cushion. "I told you, I don't want to have it forced on my attention right now." She slumped back in the chair. "But you might as well tell me what plans the Triumvirate's made about stringing me up from the nearest tree for destroying the mainframe."
The technician smiled. "Well, they've set Cox to make personnel profiles, Raines to go through the entire Centre - all 27 Sublevels - and see what stray hints are floating around from projects of bygone days and Mr. Parker is interviewing all of the lab staff, technicians, etcetera, to find out what they can remember."
"Since when does Mr. Parker have skills in the interviewing department?"
"Actually I think they were just desperately trying to find a job for him and neither of your brother's fellow Triumvirate members," he grinned and ducked as Helen swatted him again, "seem too keen to do that himself."
"And me?"
"You're Public Enemy Number 1. If they could get hold of you right now..."
"...family connections wouldn't count for anything. I know."
The technician raised an eyebrow and Helen laughed. "I was just getting a jump on you. Oh, and I thought you might like to know that it doesn't seem as though you were generous in handing the measles on to Miss Parker. If she does get it now, we won't even know for sure if it was from you, Debbie or Jarod."
"Still, she'll no doubt try to blame me."
"Has she bitten your head off once since she got here?"
"Just because she hasn't done it yet..."
"Stop jumping to conclusions. Miss Parker is well rested, enjoying a vacation in which she doesn't have to do anything but sleep and, for those reasons, has no basis on which to treat you the way she used to at the Centre. Although, if you're missing it, I'm sure I could put in a request..."
"Thanks." Broots grinned. "But I'll pass."
Helen opened the bedroom door softly and looked in to find Jarod lying against Margaret's shoulder, his eyes shut as she stroked his hair.
"I told him that he should ask you to do that." She looked down with a smile as the man drowsily opened his eyes. "Nice?"
"Mmm hmm." Jarod closed his eyes again, moving a hand slightly on his chest in a vain attempt to scratch before giving up and relaxing.
"How much longer will he be like this?" Margaret asked quietly.
The doctor tried not to laugh. "Indefinitely, if you'll let him. But he's probably up to the last days of the fever, and then we'll have another week before the rash fades to nothing. He'll have a couple more days of coughing and reduced energy before he's basically back to normal. Then I suppose we'll come up here one morning and find the window open in an empty room, the way I did with Eddie."
"He ran away?" Margaret raised an eyebrow. "I got the feeling he'd stay around."
Laughing, Helen sat down. "Actually, he did. It was the first snowfall of winter and the first that he could remember seeing. Unlike your son Eddie didn't sneak out to see snow as a kid and cause the Centre all sorts of stress." Helen laughed again. "In fact, I have the feeling that Jarod was just a troublemaker."
Margaret rolled her eyes, but didn't comment.
"I woke up, feeling cold, and went into Eddie's room - this room - only to find that the window was wide open and his pajamas were lying in a crumpled heap on his pillow. Like you, I thought that he'd run away and, to tell you the truth, I was a bit disappointed. I never planned on forcing him to stay, but I hoped that he would at least say goodbye. Just as I arrived at that gloomy decision, an impeccably aimed snowball came flying in through the window and landed in front of me. He saw me come into the room and thought that would be the best way of letting me know that he was nearby."
"So what did you do?"
"What else could I do? I got dressed, went downstairs and scrubbed his face for scaring me like that." She laughed. "I have to say he got that idea very quickly. I never got so close to him again, at least not while we were outside."
