Last Requests
Part 4

Patrick and Andrea had just finished cleaning up after dinner and were settling down in front of the fire when the doorbell chimed and the psychiatrist rose to open it.

"Marcus," he announced, holding the door wider open. "Come in."

"Thanks, Patrick," the familiar voice responded, and then Andrea could hear the stamping of feet on the mat before she rose to see Marcus move into the living room doorway.

He was in his mid-forties, with piercing blue eyes in a tanned face and dark hair, graying at the temples, cut short in a flattering style. A heavy coat blocked out the cold air, and the icy wind had blown color into his cheeks. His welcoming smile showed straight, white teeth and a dimple in his left cheek, as he stepped forward with his right hand outstretched.

"Andrea," he greeted her. "We're so glad you made it."

She responded with the smile that had seemed so easy since leaving Blue Cove and returned the handshake, her eyes widening slightly at the feel of his cold lips on her cheek.

"Come out and have a look around," he invited, guiding her to the door. "I can tell you something about this place."

"Gladly," she replied. "And maybe you can answer a few questions."

"I bet I can," he smiled, helping her on with her coat as Patrick retreated to the living room and sat down on the sofa, picking up a book from the coffee table.

Knowing his preference for early hours, Andrea wished the older man goodnight, ensuring that she had the key he had given her before following Marcus out into the cold night air. Taking in a deep breath, she exhaled a cloud of steam before getting into the luxury car, seeing the man smile.

"We all feel a little like that, coming back here, even after only a short time," he told her. "It's like getting out of prison. Probably a little ironic that such a small place can give us the only real freedom we'll feel for the rest of our lives."

"Did Jarod feel like that, too?" she asked suddenly.

"Jarod was never here," Marcus answered, and she picked up a sad tone in his voice. "We took him photos, so he knew what it looked like, but he was too ill to travel by the time we found him." He sent her a half-smile. "He could be a hard man to find."

"You're telling me." She gently stroked the soft leather of the armrest before looking around at the well-lit streets, lined with houses, admiring the more attractive buildings, before looking back at the driver. "So why is this place so safe, when the rest of the world isn't?"

"We keep an eye on the Centre from here, and we know that they've never found out about us."

"I thought they knew about everywhere," she suggested. "It certainly seemed like it when I was head of SIS."

"And yet you didn't know about SL-27," he offered with a grin. "It took Jarod to tell you about it."

She smiled acquiescence, before seeing that they had traveled from a residential area to one that appeared to be more industrial.

"Canning and bottling plant," Marcus told her, pointing at one of the largest and most impressive looking buildings. "We bottle and sell our own drinks and as many of our groceries as we can. We tend to buy wholesale from nearby cities and towns." He slowed as they passed another. "This is one of our clothing factories - mostly jeans and t-shirts. We have a lot of teenagers and younger people here," he added in explanation, "and they make up a large proportion of our market."

"This really is a complete city," she murmured in surprise and he nodded.

"We try to be as self-sufficient as possible. That way we make less of a blip on the radar - either of the Centre or anyone else who might be interested in us."

At the next lights, he turned right onto a strip containing offices and various other assorted large buildings.

"That's our main high-school," Marcus stated, pointing to an attractive brick multi-storey complex. "It teaches more general subjects. The others are more specific, mostly for students who want to study medicine or law later."

"Of course you have your own medical and legal schools," Andrea suggested knowingly and was unsurprised when he nodded.

"And the graduates are quietly added to the Canadian medical and legal registers so that our students could practice outside the town if they wanted to," he finished with a proud smile.

A block further on, light streamed onto the road from a massive building that covered the whole length of the street. Marcus turned into the carpark and removed his card from his shirt pocket, swiping it through the security lock for the boom gate, which rose immediately.

"Our security center," Marcus announced. "Like to take a look?"

"Sure," she agreed, beginning to guess that the Board of this town planned to use her expertise in security to benefit their own cause. The idea appealed to her. She had enjoyed the organization and the occasional adrenalin rush that went with the job when she did it for the Centre, and it had to be easier here than it had been under the Triumvirate.

The building was bright and airy, with high ceilings giving it a feeling of space and large windows adding to the affect. Marcus showed her through the ground floor, which contained offices, all of which were dark at this hour apart from guardrooms located near the emergency exits. It was the floor above that buzzed with activity.

The room's ceiling was twice as high as the floor below had been, and massive screens on all four walls jumped every twenty seconds between camera vantage points in and around the Centre. Andrea recognized that the four screens showed scenes from the four separate security systems that controlled the cameras in the entire Centre complex, and which she had advised to try to avoid external sabotage.

"Impressive," she murmured, and saw the man beside her smile in satisfaction.

The room was partitioned into four sections, each close to the screen that, she guessed, they had responsibility for overseeing. Within those partitions, security staff with their own computers could view any room or hallway in the entire facility. At the same time, they shared messages and other information. There was a low undercurrent of speech, but it wasn't loud enough to distract anyone from his or her work.

Her eyes slid from person to person, seeing them taking notes and zooming in on particular parts of an office or cell to examine something more closely.

Then she saw the brightly colored shirt and the balding head, covered by a sheen of sweat.

"Broots!"

The name burst from her before she could stop herself and she saw the man start, before turning to see her, his eyes lighting up as he hurried over.

"Miss Par -- Stevens," he corrected hurriedly, as Marcus sent a mock glare at him. "I'm so glad to see you got here okay."

"Debbie?" she asked anxiously.

"Babysitting," he replied, after glancing at his watch. "When Mike and I finish in an hour, I'll get a lift home with him and take her home with me."

"Mr. Morris," the call came, and he half-turned before glancing back at her.

"I'll probably see you around soon, but right now..." he edged away without finishing the sentence and she had to smile at how familiar it seemed.

"There's a lot more to see," Marcus told her, drawing her back through the doorway, "and you two can catch up tomorrow or the next day."

She glanced back over her shoulder as the door closed, thinking that it would be pleasant to work in an environment without the constant stress that had been present at the Centre. She had been able to feel the undercurrent of warmth and comradeship that was apparent in that room.

"So what else is there?" she asked as they ventured out of the building into the cold night air and got into the car.

"Just one more stop for tonight," he replied with a grin. "I don't know how much you'll like this one."

"I like everything I've seen so far," she responded. "It's a very impressive set-up you have here."

"Thank you," he replied lightly. "We think so, too."

The headlights reflected off the snow as the car drove along a cleared road away from the offices and headed up into the buildings built higher into the mountains. Andrea's eyes were fixed on the sparkles against the white background, but her mind was thinking of other things.

"As you know so much about the Centre," she began, so suddenly that the driver jumped, "why don't you close them down, or expose them publicly?"

"Because any exposure would necessarily expose us as well," came the immediate retort. "There aren't just Pretenders and computer techs here. The Centre was playing with a lot more than that. Ryan is just one example of a project that could have us being as attacked as the Centre itself would be. Most of the people who worked on the Gemini project have been brought here because they were to be killed so that they couldn't tell anyone about it. There are plenty of ethicists who are so against the idea of human cloning that we possibly wouldn't be safe. Do you remember all the fuss about the Raelian sect a few months ago?"

She nodded, understanding what he meant, allowing him to continue.

"And then there's the possibility of us being exploited by some other group for financial gain just as much as the Centre ever did. Every adult in this place, and several of the younger people, are able to remember what it was like being forced to do things they didn't want to do or didn't believe in. None of us want to go back to that." He sighed before glancing at her. "We also had one of our men clean out your car. I can imagine what you were planning with the information you left in the trunk, but for the reasons I just told you, we couldn't risk the authorities finding it."

There was a slightly uncomfortable silence as the car made a final turn and a massive building loomed into view ahead of them.

"Our hospital," he announced, "as well as a medical research facility, where I'm afraid you'll have to spend the night. We need to test you for the virus ASAP so that we can start treatment."

Her eyes were wide as she turned to him. "I what?" she spluttered.

He smiled understandingly. "The Centre seems to have infected everyone who was ever tested for anything in their facility, and we know that you were tested as one of the Red Files, so the likelihood is that you will have been given it. As long as you were at the Centre, you were receiving something during your monthly medical that would keep the virus from beginning to develop. As soon as you leave there, it starts growing and attacking your immune system. The sooner we start treating it, the fewer treatments you'll have to have."

He pulled the car into the parking lot, choosing a space near the door, and then turned in his seat to face her.

"Figures Jarod drew up for us show that the virus is most violent during the first forty-eight hours, while it weakens the immune system, so the sooner you start the treatment, the more quickly the virus will be destroyed and the fewer days you'll have to have the injections. Have the first one tonight, stay here in the hospital to be monitored in case you have any allergic reactions to any components of the treatment, and possibly you'll only need one more shot tomorrow and then a blood test to check that the virus was destroyed. If not..."

"Okay, okay, I get the idea," she snapped. "Fine, we'll do it now."

She got out of the car and grumpily followed him into the building, submitting to have a hospital-style band attached around her wrist, but relieved when told that she could remain dressed. Then Marcus, who had left while she was being checked in and having an initial blood sample taken, returned with a bag in his hand, which he put on the bed of her private room.

"These are things you might need," he offered. "Night things, toothbrush and paste, a change for tomorrow..." He broke off as she glared at him and innocently raised his hands, the corners of his lips twitching. "What?"

"Where did you get my things?" she growled.

"From your house in Blue Cove," he admitted. "We had two people go there after you left for the Centre. Jarod had guessed that you wouldn't stay after we had his body taken back there, so we had a pretty good idea of what you'd do - though shooting Raines went above our expectations."

His eyes were twinkling in obvious delight and she wondered, her curiosity replacing her anger at the invasion of her privacy. "Did you work under him?"

"Unfortunately, yes," he admitted. "For nearly twenty years. I got out about four years ago and was brought here almost immediately. I was about to have to give up my position on the Board because of the virus, but fortunately Jarod managed to come up with a treatment just in time to save me from that."

"A lot of people have died from it?" she suggested gently, and he nodded.

"More than any of us really want to think about," he replied. "And the hardest part was knowing that, until Jarod managed to come up with something, we couldn't do anything to help those who had it, except help them die in as little pain as possible and, as we did for Jarod, bring families to have a chance to say 'goodbye'."

"So that was his sister," she murmured, thinking back to the woman she had seen in the hallway of the hospital.

"Yes," he agreed. "We were glad to be able to do that for him, when he'd done so much for us. It's given the people here a future, instead of the ticking time bomb most of us were sitting on before. And he was urgent that you receive it, too. Anyone he cared about dying that way was obviously something that haunted his thoughts during his last few days."

She nodded, twisting the ring of plastic on her right wrist and trying to think of a way to change the subject, but suddenly Marcus shook himself and the sad expression was gone from his eyes when he looked up again.

"I'll leave you to get some rest," he told her. "I'll come by tomorrow morning and show you around some more."

Andrea saw a nurse and doctor appear in the doorway as Marcus stood up and quickly left the room before she could respond. The doctor began an explanation of her blood test results and the necessary drug she would receive. Allowing them to administer the injection, she waited for them to leave before changing into the nightclothes that the bag had contained and getting into bed.