He arrives at the Joint Task Force rotunda hollow and jittery, after maybe an hour's sleep. Running on a triple from Starbucks, downed in his car on the way here. In through the 20-floor office building that serves as a front for the JTF, all the way to the back and pressing the intercom button.

It takes a guard five minutes to open the door. Vaughn hands over his credentials wordlessly, waits for the man to give him a flimsy laminate visitor pass. He clips it to his suit lapel and follows the guard inside.

"I need to meet with Kendall," he says.

The guard motions him to the left. Surely this guy must be aware that he already knows the way. It hasn't been that long.

The rotunda staring at him, again, as he walks through. Weiss looks up from his computer on the far side of the place, a little startled. Vaughn doesn't acknowledge he's seen him.

Down one of the hallways, into the small waiting area outside Kendall's office. Still early for a Saturday morning, and no sign of Kendall's secretary. The guard thumbs the intercom button outside the office door.

"Agent Vaughn here to see you, sir."

The door opens with a light click, swinging mechanically towards them.

He wasn't even sure Kendall would be in today. But he is there, sitting up straight behind the desk in the dark office, stack of file folders in front of him.

"Come in."

"Thank you," to the guard. He walks inside, hears the door close behind him.

"I know Agent Weiss has already talked to you, about my status here."

"Yes, he did. He said that you were considering terminating your relationship with Agent Bristow in order to return to the Task Force. And I told him that it would have to be clearly over before I'd consider such a request."

"That's why I'm here, sir. We're — it is over. As of last night." His eyes move to glance out the window, but Kendall has closed the blinds, the sun glowing orange behind the silver slats. "I've completed my brief on the investigation of the Tokyo mission, and I would be willing to work on anything else needed on that out of this office. I wrapped up briefs on my other pending investigations last night. I would like to return as soon as possible."

"I appreciate your sense of urgency, Agent Vaughn." Kendall pauses. "I will approve the transfer back. Pending, of course, confirmation from Agent Bristow. And you do realize that we will be keeping a close eye on the two of you."

"Yes."

"Good. I'm glad we're understood. Now, as soon as we're able to reach Agent Bristow, we can finalize your transfer."

"You haven't been able to reach her? Was she due in? Do you have any idea where she is?"

"No. She was supposed to be on call, but she hasn't responded to her pager or her cell phone."

"Have you sent a team over to her place?"

"Not yet. We were going to try to reach her by cell one more time. It is rather early for a Saturday morning."

"I've never had her not respond to a phone call. Ever." Where did you go, Syd? Are you okay? "I'm going to go try to find her. I'll call you if I do."

"Same here," Kendall says. "I'm sure she's fine, though. I trust you can see yourself out?"

"Yes, sir."

He's at the door long before it swings open far enough for him to slide through. Walking across the rotunda, past Weiss, past all of them before they can stop him.
 

———
 

It is early enough that traffic on the way to her apartment is light. He speed-dials her cell, listens as it clicks straight over into voice mail.

"This is Sydney. I'm not available. Please leave me a message."

Pause. Beep. Deep breath.

"Syd, it's me. I don't — they said at JTF that you hadn't responded to your phone. Just please, call me — call somebody — and let us know you're okay."

He hits end, calls Will.

"Will Tippin. Leave a message."

"Hey, Will, this is Michael Vaughn. I was just wondering if you've heard from Sydney. Give me a call. Thanks."

He wonders if Will knows yet what happened last night. If Sydney came back into the apartment in tears and ran into her friends.

He sees her Land Rover, briefly, around a curve on Highway 1. Over the cliff and smashed, smoking. Into the ocean, sinking, Sydney inside, unconscious. After everything, you could have driven her into what you feared the most.

He tries Francie. Another message. Maybe it's just too early in the fucking morning for anyone to answer their phone.

Onto her street, into the driveway. No cars parked there. He puts the car in park, turns it off but doesn't lock it when he gets out.

A light couple of knocks on her front door. If she is here, she's not going to be happy to see him.

No response. He knocks harder. Nothing.

Harder still. Shouting, "Sydney?" Rapping his knuckles against the white-painted wood.

Still nothing.

He tries the knob. Locked, which he'd expected. Unlocked and no answer would have been far more frightening. He pulls out his wallet, fishes under the lining in the seams made by the folds, pulls out two thin metal rods. She may well hurt him for this if she is here.

The lock is standard, and he is surprised that someone, SD-6 or CIA, hadn't wanted to fortify it before now. It takes him less than 10 seconds, and then he is turning the knob, stepping cautiously inside.

Lights off, nothing disturbed. Francie is probably at the restaurant, Will too. He moves through the apartment, calling her name. Maybe she went for a long drive, and she's out of cell service. Maybe her battery died. Maybe she turned off her phone because she didn't want to hear from you.

He opens her bedroom door. Her suitcase is sitting in the middle of the floor.

He walks to the kitchen, to the small whiteboard they keep on the refrigerator door. It is blank.

He pulls out his cell phone and dials Kendall, but central dispatch picks up. For a moment, he's relieved that someone — anyone — answered.

"I need to speak with Director Kendall, please."

"I'm sorry, but he's not in the office right now."

"Okay, then, ah — Agent Weiss?"

"Let me transfer you."

A few moments of static silence — no hold music at the JTF — and then Weiss answers.

"Hello?"

"It's me."

"Hey, Mike. You could have stopped to say hello, you know."

I could have, if I didn't know about the fucking secret you've been keeping from me for the last week. "Sydney's missing. Nobody's been able to contact her today, and I'm at her apartment — she's not here."

"I know they haven't been able to contact her, Mike, but that doesn't make her missing. Wherever she is, I'm guessing she might not want you to find her. Assuming you went through with things last night."

"I did." He gives the apartment one final scan, then walks to the front door.

"Then just give her a little time. It's possible her cell phone just died, you know?"

"Kendall said they paged her, too." Front door locked, and only a pro could tell he's picked it. Sydney will know, but maybe that's not a bad thing.

"Okay, then she could just be ignoring all of us."

"I'm just worried about her. After we — after we fought, she drove off. What if there was an accident? What if she never made it home?"

"Mike, you can't think that way. Have you called LAPD?"

"No."

"Okay, then let me do that. You just go and calm down."

"I'm going to go look for her."

"All right, then be careful. Don't get yourself so worked up over this you can't think straight."
 

———
 

Weiss calls back as he's walking the pier, searching for a sad silhouette in the morning sun. Boards thunking hollow under his feet and salt in his nose. It has been a long time since he's come here.

"LAPD says they have no record of a Land Rover matching hers in any accidents over the last 24 hours. No Sydney Bristow, and no Jane Does matching her description, either. So wherever she is, Mike, she probably just doesn't want to be found. But I'm sure she's okay."

"Thanks."

"Where are you?"

"The pier."

"Any sign of her?"

"No. There are a couple of other places I want to try."

"She's a spy, Mike. If she wants to get lost, she'll get lost."

"I know," he says. "But I can't just sit around and wait for her to reappear."
 

———
 

He gives up the search hours later, heads back to his old office, the one he'd hoped to vacate today, and decides he'll try to wait for word here. Calls Weiss from the parking garage.

"Hey, Eric. You heard anything yet?"

"No, but when I do, you'll be the first to know."

"I've looked everywhere I know to look. I think we need to designate her as missing. And I know maybe she's just avoiding me, or avoiding work, or whatever. But what if she's not? It's been hours, now, Eric."

"I know. Look, I'll try to track down Kendall and get him to approve it, but he left the office this morning and nobody's seen him since."

"Keep trying. Something — something about this feels really bad to me."

"I will. Hang in there, Mike."

His cell phone rings as he's striding down the temporary divider hallway to his office, Will Tippin on the display.

Send. "Have you heard from Sydney?"

"I — " Perhaps he should have let Will talk first. "That's why I was calling. She's — she's with me, or at least she was."

"What are you talking about?"

"She came to me last night. She told me — she told me they'd called her, that someone had kidnapped Francie. She said she needed my help to try go after her."

Jesus, Syd. Hand to his head. Turning around to go back to his car. "Will, what happened? Where is she now?"

"I'm in a van outside this old school in Chicago. She had me work comms — she went inside. But she went in half an hour ago and I lost contact and I haven't heard from her since. She hasn't come back out. I didn't know who else to call. She said the two of you — "

"How long has it been since you lost contact?" He'll take the stairs, so he doesn't lose the signal.

"About 20 minutes, I think."

Shit. "Why did you wait so long? She could be dead in there!"

"It sounded like she found Francie. I thought maybe she turned it off."

"For 20 minutes?"

"I don't know! I'm out here and I don't know what the fuck I'm doing and I'd go in there after her myself, but all I've got is this pistol, and — "

"Will?"

"What?"

"Listen to me. You stay put. You do not go in there. I'm going to be out there as soon as I can. Call me and let me know if anything changes."

"Okay."

End. Out the door, into the parking garage. He calls Weiss, pulse pounding at his throat.

"I need you to meet me at LAX in 30 minutes."

"What?"

"LAX. 30 minutes. Start moving and I'll explain." At his car, single click on the remote keyless and in.

"Okay, moving."

"Will Tippin just called me. Apparently someone kidnapped Francie and Syd went after her."

"By herself?"

"With Will." Pulling out backwards faster than he should. Straightening and then forward, speeding through the garage.

"Close enough. Where is she?"

"Some old school building in Chicago. She went in half an hour ago and Will hasn't heard from her in 20 minutes."

Thirty miles an hour down the last ramp, the car bouncing hard where the pavement flattens.

"Okay, Mike, I want to go out there and help, but now is the time we need to bring in the cavalry."

"There's a mole in the JTF, or there may be." Swiping his access card, out into daylight, tires squealing the first few feet. "That must have been why she didn't tell them in the first place."

"And she didn't tell you because you had a spat."

"It was a little more than that."

"Whatever."

"I don't think we can go in with anyone we can't trust 100 percent. I'm going to try to get a hold of Jack Bristow, but — "

"He's still out on a mission."

"With Derevko."

"How did you know that?"

"I know a lot of things that have been going on over there, now." Silence over the line, for a moment. He wonders if Weiss gets the barb.

"Okay, so we get to this place, then what?"

"Then we go in and hope it's not too late."
 

———
 

They're in a rental car, I-190 out of O'Hare in under six hours. He has spent most of the plane ride wondering if this was a bad idea, if they should have called someone already in the city. The CIA has a few agents here — maybe the FBI could have even handled it.

But using assets in Chicago would have meant going through the JTF, through Kendall. And even if Kendall would have approved it, there's still the issue of the mole. No, you're doing the right thing. Just please let us not be too late.

Weiss is driving, quickly, recklessly, but it is probably better that Vaughn didn't drive. Left hand lane, close to tailing the car in front of them, until Weiss flips his arms on the wheel, pulling into a narrow slot one lane over. Around the car and back into the left, pushing 100. God, don't let us get pulled over now.

He stretches his seat belt, reaches into the backseat for the black nylon duffel bag he'd tossed there in the airport lot. He'd stopped at his apartment only long enough to pull together the contents of the safe in his bedroom closet: large Maglite, Kevlar vest, enough ammo to survive a fairly substantial firefight, backup H&K USP and spare holster. Weiss had done the same, and they'd pooled everything in the bag and credentialed their way through security, changed into black pants and jackets in the airport bathroom while their plane was boarding first class.

He checks guns first, straps a holster for the spare onto his thigh and then slides it in. Clips a Maglite onto his belt as they scream around a left-hand exit, onto the Dan Ryan. Back up over 100. So close, after so much waiting. So close to finally being able to do something. Adrenaline rush, humming around his head. They will find her. She will be okay.

Comm wire around his ear. Weiss brakes hard, crosses three lanes and swings off, their final exit. Flying through the surface streets, now, and glad traffic is relatively light. They run a red light, hard around a right-hand turn, and there, ahead, is the van Will described over the AirFone. Weiss squeals to a stop behind it, rips the keys from the ignition, takes guns and comm from Vaughn's hands.

Vaughn does not wait for him, out of the car and running to the van. He knocks on the door three times, as they've discussed. It opens immediately. Will looks frightened, harried.

"Have you heard anything? Seen anything? Any changes?" Vaughn asks.

"No. It doesn't look like there's anyone in there, but it didn't look like anyone was in there when she went in. I haven't seen anyone leave or anything, but they could have gone out the other side."

The school down the street, most of it visible through the van window. Three stories of maroon brick and a rusting playground in the small lot next to it. Several of the windows are covered with plywood, and the first story has been thoroughly graffitied.

"It's been closed for almost 10 years," Will says. "The property was purchased by Tensa Corp. three years ago."

"Front company for the Alliance."

"That's what Sydney said."

"How did she even know to go here?"

"She called her mother."

"Damn it." Trust Irina Derevko one too many times —

"Ready to go, guys," Weiss huffs behind him, slipping inside the van, still pulling his comm link on. He looks to Will. "We'll be on channel four."

They back out of the van, and Vaughn takes lead as they start down the street, close to the buildings. He hates that it is still daylight, that they have no plan, no map, no intel. His hand tight on the gun, held low, down around his thighs.

Across the street, boots slapping on asphalt. He eyes the front door, scans the building for a better-looking entrance. There, to the right, a smaller door.

Turning on his comm link. "Will, we're about to go in. Do you copy?"

Static and then a simple "yeah."

The door is steel, painted maroon to match the rest of the building. Recently padlocked, the lock cut clean and lying on the ground by their feet. This must be the way she went in, and maybe that makes it a dangerous entrance. But they could be running out of time.

He thumbs the control lever on the H&K, holds it steady. Swings the door open so hard it claps against the side of the building. Easy, easy. Dark, inside, no threats that he can see. He pulls the Maglite from his belt and clicks it on.

The long, narrow beam bounces down an empty hallway. He steps inside, Weiss close behind, soon a second flashlight beam. It smells damp, musty; plenty of rodents must have lived and died here. The hallway is sided by doors, likely classrooms. He moves swiftly to the closest one, swings it open. Nothing but old wooden desks, stacked against the far wall.

Weiss spins behind him and he follows, across and down the hallway a bit to the next room. Door open and nothing, again.

"Will, we're in the building but we're not finding anything so far." Back in the lead, across the hall to the next classroom. "Do you have any idea where Sydney went when she got inside?"

"No, but it took her a long time to find Francie, I know that."

They're approaching an intersection — maybe there's something down the other hallway. Maybe her, maybe her body, god, not her body —

Last classroom, empty. They hug the wall on the left side of the hallway, sliding up to the corner and then around. He waves his flashlight across an even longer hallway in front of him, Weiss checking the other side.

Vaughn glances over to that side when he's certain his is clear, finds that there's nothing more than another door outside. He turns and starts down the hallway. The doors here are only on the left side, the right covered with bulletin boards, paper faded and torn.

First door, nothing. Second door, nothing. What did you find, Sydney? What was here?

He feels the frustration well as he opens the third door, tells himself to stay sharp, she needs him to stay sharp, there's got to be something here, somewhere. And yes, inside here, a lone wooden chair in the middle of the floor. Ropes on the floor, knotted and cut — someone was tied up and later released. Sunlight sliding around the plywood on the windows. Dusty cobwebs glittering in the light. Empty syringe on the floor.

"Shit." This from Weiss.

Vaughn leans over and touches the side of the syringe. Tortured? Sedated?

"Come on," Weiss says. "She could still be here."

He forces a step backward, turns and follows Weiss outside the classroom, starting further down the hallway.

Weiss stops, arm raised, pointing. Just into view, the lone door on the right side of the hall, faint light streaming out from beneath.

Across the hallway, against the wall, fluid, twenty steps to the door. Weiss gestures for him to take lead when they enter, then wraps his hand around the knob. Turning. Pushing. The door clapping open and then he is swinging around Weiss, gun up, stepping forward, into the light —

There are people here.

He sees Arvin Sloane first, maybe fifteen feet to his left, standing next to Emily Sloane, seated in a wheelchair. Next to them, Sark, Francie. Kendall.

A large group of people — 30, maybe — standing in a half-circle around the edges of an old gymnasium. Two stories, the second floor only a balcony at the back. Still a net on one of the basketball hoops. Half of the lights are burnt out, but it is still far brighter than the hallway.

Weiss rushing in behind him, the sound of guns pulled from holsters, guns cocked. He follows the sound, finds Irina Derevko, part of the circle and pointing a Glock at him, Jack Bristow standing beside her, a gun in his hand as well.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He doesn't dwell on Kendall, Emily or Francie, standing there with a Glock pointed at them. Scanning the line of people instead, trying to determine how many are armed. He recognizes many of them. Alain Christophe, on the far side, whom he knows only from grainy surveillance photos. Sided by members of the Alliance, high-ranking agents of the CIA, Mi5, FBI, SVR.

He counts eight guns pointed at him, and thinks they are not going to have a chance. He should have gotten backup, should have called the Agency. But how would that have helped? They're already here.

He keeps his gun trained on Derevko, glances toward the center of the room, the focal point of the crowd before Vaughn and Weiss burst in.

He notices the water first, a large clear plastic tub, at least 10 feet high, the water boiling. In front of it —

Sydney.

She is gagged, strapped into a chair. Wide leather straps, big metal buckles. Looking pale, drugged, her eyes dull and half open. Oh god. Electrodes taped to her head, wires running between them and a mess of ancient machinery, connected to the tub. Rambaldi.

A man, barely visible, stands on the far side of the water, leaning over the equipment. The man rises, strides around Sydney's chair. Into full view now —

It is, undoubtedly, his father. Aged 30 years, but still the same man from fuzzy eight-year-old memories and old pictures. He feels briefly dizzy, but does not allow the reaction his body threatens. He must hold it together. Sydney needs him. Even if this is hopeless, she needs him to try.

His father steps around the mess of Rambaldi devices, around Sydney, and halts beside her. Tall, poised, unarmed.

"Michael." One hand comes up to rest on his hip. "I thought you might make an appearance." He speaks the same way he did to Vaughn's 8-year-old self. "Now, why don't you put that gun down, because you're obviously outnumbered, and I don't want these people to have to hurt you."

He glances at Weiss, who has trained his gun on Sark, Francie and Sloane's portion of the human crescent. A slight nod from Weiss — they'll never survive a shootout.

He extends his arm, drops the gun. Watches where it lands, just in case.

"The leg, too," his father says.

Vaughn slides the other H&K from the holster on his thigh, drops it close to the first, hears Weiss do the same. Glances back up at his father, Sydney, whatever contraption this is. He recognizes the flower they retrieved in Kashmir, sitting at the bottom of the boiling tub.

"Michael." His father has taken a few steps closer to him. "I had hoped you wouldn't find out like this. But please allow me an explanation, now that you're here."

His father steps closer still. "You know that Arvin, Jack and I all worked for the CIA in the '70s, I'm certain."

Vaughn balls his hands into tight fists at his sides, does not respond.

"What you don't know is that the three of us were friends. Still are."

Vaughn glances over at Jack. What part do you play in all of this? I thought you, of all people, were on her side?

"Arvin came to us one day. He'd been on an extended assignment in Algeria and he'd found some things that gave him pause. Manuscripts, by the man we came to know as Milo Rambaldi. At the end of the assignment, he turned in everything he'd found except those documents. In them, Rambaldi detailed some of his inventions and described his jubilation at finding the secret to preserving life. Eternal life, Michael."

His father walks back to the machine, checks the wires running between Sydney and the equipment, his fingers plucking at them like guitar strings.

"Arvin looked at those documents and knew he had to find it — the formula, the pieces, whatever it was Rambaldi had found. I'm sure you're thinking it was hard to believe that the manuscripts were legitimate, that this Rambaldi person really had found some sort of secret to eternal life. But do you know what one of the inventions was, Michael? Schematics, for a flying machine so similar to what Orville and Wilbur Wright took out over Kittyhawk it was uncanny. Drawn up in the sixteenth century! How could one not be awed? How could you not believe?"

Another pause. He watches Sydney, tries gauge her health. What have they done to her already? What are they planning to do?

"But he knew it would be too difficult, too extensive a search, to do this by himself. So he approached his friends in intelligence — Jack and I," his father continues. "At first, we were shocked that he had withheld information from the CIA. We thought about turning him in. Could we do that, to a close friend? And then he showed us the documents. We were awed, Michael, awed. And after a lot of discussion, we decided that if there was a chance — if we could somehow find everything Rambaldi had been working on, and provide it for ourselves, for our families, we had to do it.

"We made a pact that day, Michael, that we would each do whatever possible to acquire Rambaldi's secret to eternal life. We knew it might take us out of the CIA, into other organizations — things like the Alliance, that could operate outside the constraints of American law. But Rambaldi's immortality would always be the central goal."

His father turns back toward him. Still tall, stately, although less so, now that Vaughn has long since grown to nearly his height. His hair the biggest change in his appearance, almost entirely gray. Deeper lines in his face, and no sign of the smile he'd always worn when he greeted Michael after a long time away.

How could you still be alive, Dad? How? Why? Why all those years and then you just appear now, like this?

"Less than a year after we made the pact, I was pursuing a Rambaldi lead in the states — an auction yard in Texas, off the books. The CIA didn't know I was there," his father says. "And who did I run into but Laura Bristow. Or Irina Derevko, as we soon learned. She was there for the Soviet Union, also onto Rambaldi early. I gave her a choice. I would turn her in to the CIA, or she could go back with me and join in our pact, tell Jack and Sloane. She chose to tell them."

Weiss shifts beside him. How long will his father talk? What is his explanation delaying?

"Jack was understandably shocked, but eventually we were able to work things out. They — Jack and Irina — repaired their relationship as best they could, and we all moved forward. Over the years, we brought in more people, those you see here, minus a few who didn't make it. We were able to cover a broad range of organizations. CIA, FBI, KGB — then SVR, MI-5, Alliance, K-Directorate. It made our search all the more effective," his father says. "I'm sure you're wondering about my disappearance, or death, as you knew it."

"I have more pressing concerns right now." Trying to maintain control, watching Sydney as her head lolls sideways, her dull eyes looking somewhere in his direction.

His father starts, anyway. "Irina came to me one night. My name was on a list of CIA operatives she had been ordered to kill, and they would kill her, and her family, if she didn't follow the order. We had no choice but to make plans to fake my death."

"That's why they had to identify you by your dental records." How many times has he looked at those dental records, read that file, looked at those pictures and felt sick? All for something false. All for a lie and someone else's body in those pictures and a father you mourned who was still alive all those years.

"Dental records are easy to fake," his father says. "Especially when you have someone inside the Agency who can switch the real records with the fakes."

He glances down at the floor, and for a moment, he looks like the father Vaughn remembers, like the kind man who kissed his mother and ruffled his hair. "It so was hard to leave you and your mother, Michael, but I had to. I had no other choice. I laid low for awhile, and then the formation of the Alliance gave me an opportunity to get back into the game. Eventually, I found myself heading SD-2."

"So the Alliance was formed so you all could follow this Rambaldi quest?" Glancing at Christophe, standing there amidst the crescent, unarmed in a three-piece suit.

"No, but we saw an opportunity, and so some of us defected. The rule was always to each do what would best further the quest. In some cases, such as Jack's, we doubled up, worked two organizations at once. In the beginning, the Alliance was not even aware of Rambaldi, and they didn't know the Rambaldi artifacts we were recovering were as valuable as they were." His father pauses. "For a few years, the search seemed to stagnate, and we were concerned. Then K-Directorate uncovered a cache of Rambaldi artifacts in Tunisia, and we were off and running again."

His father glances over in Sydney's direction. "In recent years, Sydney has unknowingly done most of our work for us. That's why this is so unfortunate."

"Unfortunate? What do you mean, unfortunate?"

"The last documents we found detailed how to assemble the machine that would bring us what we had been seeking for so long. But there were a few things missing."

"The flower." He looks at it, there in the midst of the boiling water, seemingly unaffected by the heat.

"Yes, but there was more. Rambaldi detailed one person with a unique electrochemical brain composition, someone necessary to activate the process. Some of us suspected Sydney Bristow right away, because of the prophecy. But Jack and Irina argued that we needed more proof. It could have even been Irina. The prophecy could have been completely separate. So the group decided that we would wait, until we could uncover definite proof. Unfortunately, as it was drawn by Rambaldi, whomever underwent the procedure would not survive. I assure you, we did not take that lightly. Not when it was one of our own children whose life would be required."

His father walks around the water tank. Behind it, barely visible from Vaughn's vantage, is a large gas generator, a white box enclosed in a red steel frame. His father flips a switch on the front panel, and it shudders, vibrating on the floor, a loud buzzing noise.

"Two weeks ago, we found another document." his father continues, walking back around to look at him. "It detailed the specific genetic profile of the one. Mr. Sark?"

Sark leaves the line, walking behind the circle and then returning with a large manila envelope in his hand, the old-fashioned kind, string twisting around two circles to close it. Sark unwinds the string, then lifts up the flap on the envelope, slides out the contents.

He holds up an old piece of parchment first, clearly a Rambaldi document, dotted with what looks like a genetic map. Then a piece of clear plastic, another genetic map. Sydney's DNA profile — a copy of what had been in her file.

Sark slides the plastic in front of the parchment. Perfect match.

He turns to Jack. "You pulled her DNA profile. To see if it was her."

Jack says nothing, only nods slightly, gun still trained on Vaughn and Weiss, cold stare on his face.

"How can you do this? How can you send your daughter off to slaughter like this? Eternal life? Is it really worth it?"

Jack doesn't answer, but Sloane does. "All of us have made sacrifices to be here today. Some of us, admittedly, far greater than others. We would have liked to have waited longer, to give Sydney a few more years, but we are running out of time."

Emily Sloane looks sick, very sick, gaunt and stoic in the wheelchair beside her husband. They must have faked her death, but she's still dying. They must think this can save her.

"You're crazy," he says. "You're all crazy. Eternal life? It's not possible. And this — whatever this contraption is, you honestly think this would be the way to do it? That you would have to electrocute one specific person? That Rambaldi could have predicted her entire DNA structure umpteen centuries ago?"

"We were all skeptical at first, Michael," his father says. "But every prediction Rambaldi has made has come true, and every device he's designed has functioned flawlessly. In the face of that, we concluded that it must be genius we did not understand."

"So you're going to kill someone to further your own purposes."

"She's far from the first person to die as a result of this quest. It is unfortunate, Michael, but necessary."

"But this is different. She's their daughter."

"It is necessary." Irina speaks for the first time. Cold, articulate.

"This was all decided long ago," Jack says, gun hand steady as his voice. "It was part of the pact. Whatever it takes."

"No pact should make you have to kill your own daughter."

He is getting nowhere with them — cold, clinical Jack and Irina, willing to kill their daughter to live forever. They are going to kill her, right here, he thinks, and it overwhelms him.

Looking straight into his father. "You know I love her."

"Yes."

"You can stand there, and kill her, knowing that I love her?"

"You've heard them, Michael. It is a necessary sacrifice," his father says. "One you will ultimately benefit from, as well. It was always my intention to bring you and your mother into this. Everything I've done has been for our family."

Anger welling deep within, the image of his mother, asleep on the couch in her pink scrubs because she was too exhausted to make it upstairs to the bedroom. "What you could have done for our family was be there for us while I was growing up. While mom was working double shifts at the hospital trying to make ends meet."

"Michael, I know it was difficult, but we'll have forever to be together. Twenty-six years pales in the face of an eternity."

"I don't want an eternity without her." Looking at Sydney, pale in the chair. He thinks of her the last time they spoke, upset and hurt.

"In time, you'll get over her, Michael. I know it's hard to believe that now. But you'll have forever to find someone else."

"There's not anyone else. There's never going to be anyone else. And if it takes her death — "

Choking on it. He can't finish, could never finish that.

"This is not your decision to make, Michael. Regardless of what you choose, we must move forward." His father walks back toward the generator.

It's now, it's coming — they are going to kill her, electrocute her somehow with this mess unless he does something. His mind spinning through the possibilities, the guns on the floor in front of him.

His father's hand moving toward the large black knob on the generator's front panel —

He is weak in the right hand, but the left, yes, he could do it. Dive and come up firing and there's just enough of a path between here and his father to have a clean shot. Devote the right hand to Jack and Irina and Sark and whoever else with a gun he can hit before they get him, and maybe with Weiss there it will be enough to save her. It is their only chance.

He braces himself. He doesn't love you. He never did.

His father's hand on the knob —

He dives. Down on the floor, grasping for a gun with each hand, favoring the left — leave the right for later. He only needs to land one shot right away.

Grasping metal, arm up and ready to fire. He looks at his target just in time to see the explosion, the blood, on William Vaughn's forehead, his body collapsing on the floor beside the generator.

His finger tight on the trigger. He has not fired a shot.

Turning, a quick glance over his shoulder.

Irina Derevko.

Her Glock pointed toward his father and now turning, opening fire on Sark, Sloane. Jack beside her, doing the same. Vaughn aims for Christophe and the other side of the gym, Weiss down on the floor beside him, searching for his own gun, coming up firing. The crescent dispersed, all of them running, those with guns firing back.

Chaos, all of them running toward the exits. Running, falling, either out or dead. Someone — Mi5, he thinks, approaches the generator. Vaughn shoots him, once, twice, until he drops.

Sark and Francie out the door together before he can get a shot in their direction. Gunfire ringing in his ears, muzzles flashing orange across his vision. On his stomach on the floor, trying to hit as many as he can. Stop them all. They all want to kill her. You have to get her out of here.

Sydney still stranded in the middle of the gym, strapped to the chair, defenseless. They may want to keep her alive until they can use the device, but there are too many guns, too many bullets streaking across the gym.

He pulls his body up into a crouch and prepares to go to her, but her mother is already there, ripping at the leather straps, unbuckling them. She turns toward him as he starts to approach.

"Go after Sloane!" Irina's hair whipping around, gun hand pointed at the far exit and Arvin Sloane, pushing his wife's wheelchair out the door. Her shots miss, sparking off the metal door as it closes. "Go!" She returns her attention to Sydney.

No one from the Agency has been this close to Arvin Sloane since the Alliance fell, had this good a chance to catch him. He sprints across the open floor, feels someone firing at him from a corner but missing wide. He glances back at Sydney and her mother as he reaches the door. Irina with Sydney's arm draped over her shoulders, supporting her to standing. Jack running up behind them to assist, gun hand swaying back and forth to cover them.

He wants badly to help them, to be with her now. But she would want him to go.

The door swings open in front of his hand, out into daylight. Sloane maybe 15 feet ahead of him, pushing his wife down the long concrete ramp that leads from the door to a crumbling parking lot.

Stop and aim, his best Weaver stance, hands out in front, one supporting the other, feet solid underneath him. "Freeze!"

Sloane makes no indication he's heard anything. Twenty feet away now, approaching the pavement.

"Arvin Sloane! Freeze!"

Twenty five. He'll have to shoot him in the back, shoot him trying to save his wife. Is Arvin Sloane really the bad guy, anymore?

She would want him to shoot.

Thirty feet. He has three rounds left on this clip; he's been counting. Raising his aim slightly, well high of the top of Emily's wheelchair, just in case.

He pulls the trigger, twice. One, two, into the base of Sloane's neck. He topples over, the wheelchair shooting out in front of him, rolling forward, bouncing along the ragged asphalt.

Vaughn runs forward, kneels next to Sloane. Fingers down on his wrinkled neck, carotid artery, searching for a pulse. There is nothing. He looks up, at Emily. She has fallen out of the chair, crawling across the ground.

"Arvin! Arvin!" Tears streaming down her face as she reaches the body, crying his name again and again. Her hand — pallid, skeletal — reaches out, comes to rest in the blood on the back of Sloane's head.

She looks up at Vaughn, blue eyes striking in the dark holes of her emaciated face. "I didn't want them to do it. I didn't. When Arvin told me it was Sydney, I told him no. I couldn't let them do that to her for me. I wouldn't want them to do that to anyone."

He has never met Emily Sloane in person before, but he believes this is the truth. She is the kind woman from Sydney's stories, a good person inexplicably in love with an awful, evil man.

"I believe you," he says. It seems inadequate.

"Arvin told me he couldn't lose me. He said they were going to do it anyway, regardless of whether I wanted it or not, and if they did it now I could live. I could be healthy. I wish I would have been stronger. I wanted to call, to warn someone, but I couldn't — "

"It's okay. Sydney's safe. She's with her parents."

Emily shakes her head, fingers stroking the silver, blood-speckled hair on the crown of Sloane's head. "If I would have called, this wouldn't have happened. He would have been with me for the end."

"I'm sorry," he says, and means it. Sorry he took Emily's husband, not that he's killed Arvin Sloane, even if they are the same.

She nods.

"They'll consider you an accessory to everything that went on here. They'll want to talk to you, maybe even charge you. You shouldn't have to go through that. Do you think you can get out of here on your own? It should be awhile before our backup arrives."

"Yes. Thank you."

He rises, suddenly remembering Sydney inside, needing to get back to her.

"He was my strength, you know." Emily looks up at him. "In spite of everything."

Vaughn turns, begins to run back to the gym. He's nearly at the top of the ramp when he hears the gunshot. A flash of betrayal, checking over his body to see if he's been hit. She must not have been who he, who Sydney thought she was, must have been more involved than he thought —

He hasn't been hit, as far as he can tell. He turns around to look at her.

A bloody mess of curly blond hair, draped over her dead husband's body. Gun on the ground by her hand. It's clear he won't need to go back to check for a pulse.

He'd forgot to check Sloane for a gun.
 

———
 

Still shaken by the image of Emily Sloane, he swings open the gym door, new clip in his gun and ready to go. But the place is eerily silent, no sign of Sydney, Jack, Irina. No sign of movement, period.

He surveys the carnage on the floor, notes Kendall among the dead. That explains a lot. It's why he was so adamant about keeping us apart until he thought it wouldn't matter anymore.

Divide and conquer, and it nearly worked.

They'd done a lot of damage in a short time, but a lot of the group still got away. His scan halts on Weiss, doubled over and pained on the other side of the gym. Vaughn runs, watching where his feet land on the bloody wood floor.

"Hey, buddy, you okay?" Leaning over Weiss, hand on his friend's shoulder.

Weiss nods. "Got hit in the vest. Just a little winded."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Weiss says. He leans back a bit, attempts a deep breath. "Irina and Jack took Sydney. I don't know where they went. I think she's safe, though. I don't know what the hell is up or down anymore. I mean, look at — "

The gym door bangs open. Two black-clad men flow in, armed with assault rifles, ski masks on their faces. Vaughn scrambles for his own gun, aiming at them as four more run in behind them.

"Vaughn, stand down." One of the first two men. He reaches up to the top of his head, pulls the ski mask off. "We're with the Bureau. Backup's here."

"You're too late, backup," Weiss wheezes. "Anybody that was a threat in here's dead, or close."

"They say we're clear in here. Have somebody check the perimeter just in case. We're gonna look around in here." The man reaches up to his ear. "Copy that."

Vaughn remembers his own comm link. Was it on this whole time?

His answer comes when Will Tippin runs in, halting at the site of the bodies on the floor. "Whoa." He walks gingerly over to Vaughn and Weiss. "You guys okay? Where's Sydney?"

"We're fine, and we think she's with her parents," Vaughn says.

"Is that good?"

"As far as we can tell."

Will gestures to the tactical team. "I heard everything on the radio and I didn't know what to do, so I called my supervisor in Analysis. It took me awhile to convince him this was legit."

Vaughn looks up at the team, busy checking pulses of the bodies on the floor. One stops over Kendall's body. "Hey, guys, I think we're gonna have to get some sort of authority figure in here."

"I've got a live one!" Another agent, not far from the one that discovered Kendall. He watches a few of them rush over to him, the rest fruitlessly checking elsewhere.

Some of them leave, eventually, replaced by paramedics carrying a medical board. He looks at Weiss. "You need a medic?"

"No, I think what I need would be more along the lines of a beer. Or six. I'm fine, Mike."

Vaughn stands, scans the gym again, glancing over the pockets of activity. Looks for the first time since he's been back here at the center, the Rambaldi device and his father's body next to the generator.

He walks there in slow, stiff steps, gun still hanging from his hand. Someone has turned the generator completely off, and the water in the tank no longer boils, the flower inside still intact, still perfect.

William Vaughn lies at an awkward angle, arms and legs splayed where he fell. The blood from his forehead pooled around his head. Eyes wide open and shocked below the hole. Square jaw still clean.

He is vaguely aware of the gun slipping from his hand, landing with a clunk on the floor. Of his body swaying and his knees buckling. Landing, kneeling beside the body.

He feels light-headed, wonders briefly if this is shock. Lays his head in his hands but doesn't cry. He is not ready for that, yet.

———

"Mike." Weiss' voice from far away, hand on Vaughn's shoulder. "Hey, Mike."

He pulls his head out of his hands, the gym light bright, jarring on his eyes. How long has he been here?

"Sydney was dumped at a local hospital," Weiss says. "She's in Agency custody now."

"Is she okay?"

"She was pretty heavily drugged, but she's going to be fine. No injuries. I'm sorry to interrupt, but you've — you've been here a long time. I thought you'd want to know."

"Yeah, thanks. I just — it's a lot to take in."

"I know. Did Sydney tell you, before, that we thought he was alive?"

"Yes, she did." He searches for the old anger and finds he no longer cares that Weiss knew. That particular lie seems trivial, now. "I never thought we'd confirm it like this."

"I told her to wait, Mike. I didn't want to worry you until we were sure. That was wrong. I should have — "

"Doesn't matter. I don't care about any of that now."

Weiss nods. "Why don't we get you out of here and go see Sydney?"

"Yeah." He stands with Weiss, and they start across the gym, mostly clean now. Two members of the tactical team carry a body bag past them.

"Hey," a third, walking behind the body bag. "I don't know where you two think you're going, but I've got orders to get you both on a plane back to L.A. You're in for one hell of a debrief."

"We'll do that as soon as we have a chance to go visit Agent Bristow in the hospital," Weiss says.

"You're too late," the agent says. "She's already on a flight back. Now, we're out of here in 10 minutes. Be ready."

The agent follows the other two out the door, leaving Vaughn and Weiss alone in the gym.

"Where's Will?" Vaughn asks.

"With Sydney, I think. I kind of lost track of him, but I think they wanted to get someone she knew over there with her, and you weren't exactly — how are you doing, Mike?"

Vaughn shakes his head. "I'm fine, I think. I don't even know why I was over there. I shouldn't be upset that he's dead. He wasn't the man I thought he was. He wasn't anything close."

"He was still your father."

"I'm not sure what that means, anymore."