Shaddyr's Eclectic Collection > Pretender Fanfiction >

 

Reality Test
part 2

By Shaddyr and Liz Schobert

 

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5:40 PM
October 17
142nd Street NE, Bellevue
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Emily grabbed the kitchen towel and wrapped it around her hand, cursing herself inwardly for once again forgetting to buy a hot pad for Colin. How could someone go through life without a hot pad? He claimed that he had burned one by leaving it on top of the stove, and thrown another away when it had become too disgusting to use, but never replaced either. The next time she was out at the store, she told herself, she HAD to get one. Or ten.

Pulling the baking pan out of the oven with her towel-covered hand, she couldn't resist inhaling the aroma from the freshly baked French bread. Of all the things that her mother had taught her, this gave her the most joy. She tried to bake bread every week that she was in town, two loaves, one for herself and one for Colin and the boys - it was a good excuse to get together on Sunday to deliver it. Not that she needed an excuse. If Colin hadn't lived across the lake and at least forty-five minutes away in a traffic jam, she would probably have moved in with him already.

She glanced up at the clock - twenty minutes and Jarod should be here. Colin had picked her up earlier (she had wanted a chance to clean the house) and they had left her car at the office for Jarod to drive over later. He was always working, or so it seemed. They had spent the evening together three days out of the last week, but every other night he had been at his desk until the wee hours of the morning. Carl couldn't be more pleased, he had never expected an employee who would be so dedicated so quickly. The beta testing for the telecommunications program was going along rapidly, far outpacing the rate that Reality Test was being completed.

Emily smiled a little ruefully. If they could only work together on the game, it would be done well before the deadline. Jarod was a genius, that was obvious. He had the innate talent of looking at a problem and almost immediately seeing a solution, or two or three. His computer skills also impressed her, and that was saying quite a bit, concerning her own piecemeal but extensive computer and programming education. If only he could work on the game…

Putting the bread on a cooling rack, she turned toward the stove and stirred a pot of bubbling marinara sauce. The boys had begged for spaghetti, she had acquiesced, knowing that it was one of their favorites and likely to keep them quiet during the meal so that Jarod and Colin could get to know one another.

It had taken a few days for her to get up the nerve to explain to Colin exactly who Jarod was. Actually, she had been forced into the situation when Colin's patience had been tested one time too many with another cancelled dinner - he was not a jealous man, but it was obvious to him that something was going on. But how do you explain that you ran into your brother (literally) in the hallway at work, the brother you had never actually met before, and that you were getting to know him for the very first time?

She recalled the first time that she had met Colin. He had advertised for a nanny for his two little boys. She had just come up from San Francisco looking for a job that would make use of her computer skills, a job she had yet to find. Needing short-term employment, she had accepted the position, as long as he had understood that it was to be just that - short term. She had fallen in love with the two boys almost immediately, Ryan, just a baby, and Robin, two years older. It was with regret that she had eventually handed over the duties of caring for the boys to another woman, one whom she had helped to pick, but when the Teletronics position had opened up she had realized that she could just not let it pass. Since that time, she had continued to see Colin occasionally on a personal level. What had started as a need had developed into a friendship and in the last few months, into love.

As their relationship had deepened, she had told him a little about herself and her family, but was always afraid to say too much. It had taken her over a year to admit to herself that she was actually in love with him, that she trusted and relied on him, perhaps the only other person that she felt that way about. At least until now. In the same way, she wanted to protect him and the boys, shield them from the possibility of any harm coming from the people she now identified as The Centre. And so she had told him very little, only that her family was scattered across the country, and that she and her mother had spent the last 30 years moving from city to city. She had never really explained her occasional absences, when she would be gone for a few days or a weekend, travelling to another city on the never-ending quest for her father, her brothers. The job had covered it well enough without the need for her to say anything else.

Now, she had been forced into admitting a little bit more about herself and her family, that her brothers had been taken away when they were very young, and that one was now here, in town, in fact, working at the same place that she was. She smiled. What a crazy twist of fate.

She walked quietly into the boys' room and opened up the blinds. The late autumn sun filtered in through the trees but was not strong enough to wake either of the two children. It was a shame to wake them, but if she didn't start now, they would sleep right through until dinner, and then be awake all night long. If they hadn't stayed up so late last night - but then again, it had been a special occasion, a trip to their grandparents. Both had been tired all day long, and she had managed to get even the fiercely independent five-year-old to take a rest, which quickly turned into sleep. Neither of them were the type to be cranky when they awoke, she said a silent prayer of thanks for that and for their generally pleasant demeanor. Really, they were a couple of sweethearts, and sleeping like this, deceptively angelic. She picked Ryan's dozing form up and moved over to the rocking chair, singing softly and stroking the side of his tiny face. Robin would wake up soon, he was always aware of the presence of another in the room, no matter how stealthy they might try to be.

Two little boys. Like her brothers had been when…. Her throat tightened and she breathed deeply, trying to shake off the awful thoughts. She would do anything, she knew, anything at all to protect these little ones. Her parents had felt the same, and it hadn't been enough. But then again, they hadn't known who they were dealing with and she did. Better the devil that you know than the one that you don't. She would do anything…


*****************
5:58 PM
October 17
142nd Street NE, Bellevue
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Jarod slowly walked up the path to the front door, nervously checking his watch. He was early. Quashing the fluttering in his stomach, he mounted the few steps to the front door and knocked. Several moments later the door opened. A tall blond man who looked to be in his mid 30's gazed curiously at him from inquisitive brown eyes.

"Hello, Jarod. It's nice to finally meet the man who has been occupying all of Emily's time lately," the man Jarod recognized as Colin said with a smile. He reached out a welcoming hand, and Jarod grasped it gratefully, noting the other's firm and steady grip in the quick shake. "Please come in." Colin continued, moving backward to allow Jarod entry. "Emily is just waking the boys - she'll be out shortly. Can I get you a drink? Pop, juice.. a beer?"

Jarod thought a moment then nodded. "Yes, thank you. I think a beer would be just about right."

Colin gestured to the big comfortable leather sofa. "Make yourself at home," he said as he left to get the beer.

Jarod looked around the room, curious. Exquisite wood beams, gave a Tudor look to the space and set off the dark forest green of the walls. A massive stone fireplace with a huge mantle had a cheery blaze going, and he stepped up to it, warming his chilly hands in the heat it provided. His gaze trailed over the photos on the mantle. Two little boys were prominently displayed in most of the pictures - Ryan and Robin as he recalled. There were a few shots of Emily and Colin as well. One particular photo must have been from a camping trip. The 4 of them were all sitting in front of a tent, a fire pit in front of them, with camping gear strewn all about. A wistful sort of painful happiness tugged at his heart as he picked up the picture frame to get a better look. Emily was looking at Colin in the photo, and it was obvious they were in love. They looked like a very happy family. He gently replaced the photo as he heard Colin reenter the room.

"Here you go," he said, handing Jarod an ice cold Rainer. The two of them settled into opposing chairs and sipped in silence while eyeing each other speculatively. Colin made the first move. "So tell me, Jarod - how is it you just happened to end up at Teletronics?"

The ensuing conversation encompassed the next half-hour as the two men felt each other out, each of them thawing until they finally felt comfortable with one another. Soon enough, their conversation turned to Emily - and the 2 little boys that quite suddenly launched themselves like twin rockets towards their father. Colin laughed as Ryan jumped on him with his indomitable 3-year-old energy, and Robin stood beside him, clutching his arm, talking a mile a minute about something that had happened earlier in the day. Jarod sat back, bemused. It was quite a sight to behold.

"Okay, troops…supper is ready," Emily informed them from the doorway. She watched as her favorite 4 men in the world got up to make their way to the dinning room. She didn't think she could be any happier.



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6:25 AM
October 29
Teletronics, Seattle
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She walked out of the elevator, still sleepy, her eyes burning from the early morning ozone that had bathed the highway on her ride into town. You'd think, she mused as she veered off into the lounge to get the coffee machine going, that starting at this hour you'd be able to miss the traffic, but no. Seattle was getting bad, worse every year. She finally had found a town that she liked with people she loved there, and it had to have a traffic problem.

Resting her eyes, she leaned against the refrigerator while the coffeepot burbled and spurted, and she thought once again about the game. There was something there, something that didn't fit, and it was keeping her up at night trying to figure out what it was. The game was obviously going to be a smash, by this time next year they should all be rich enough to retire. Robin had loved the first rough version that she had brought home, or rather, put on the network here and logged into at home. That was the whole idea, really, that it would be a stand-alone game and multi-player. It was so complex, but still had levels easy enough for a five-year-old, although, she had to admit, Robin wasn't your average five-year-old. There were things that he could do, could "visualize", that taxed even her brain. Of course, as soon as he tired of making his incredibly complex wooden block skyscrapers, he got just as much of a kick out of mowing them down with his truck. She smiled at the thought - either he would end up an architect, or a demolitions expert.

Robin and Jarod had gotten on so well that first night at dinner; they almost seemed to speak the same language. Her brother had enjoyed Ryan, too, but the toddler hadn't held as much fascination for him as the older child had. At times Jarod had such a child-like quality himself, an endearing innocence, it was hard to remember that he was actually her older brother. She smiled at herself ruefully; he might be older, but he didn't have quite the "experience" that she had.

It had been almost two weeks since that wonderful evening as a "family," and as crazy as things were at Teletronics, Jarod had managed to work it out so that he had spent almost every other day with them. He was pulling 18 hour shifts the days he didn't and she was certain he couldn't continue like that, but he just shook his head at her concerns about his health and said that he had a lifetime of catching up to do.

That made her smile. It certainly felt as if he was trying to cram an entire childhood's worth of experiences into a few days. So far they'd taken the kids to the zoo, the aquarium, the Pacific Science Center, the Space Needle, several different museums and the IMAX Theater. He'd even managed to talk Colin into getting up early last Saturday so they could go on a day trip to Vancouver Island. Amazing. She could hardly get Colin to get up at all on a Saturday morning. Jarod certainly had an affect on people.

And the boys just loved him. On that Saturday outing, they'd gone hiking some of the trails. She'd told Robin to get Uncle Jarod to help him tie his shoe while she and Ryan spread out a picnic lunch for all of them. Colin had raised an eyebrow and smiled. But Jarod... she thought for half a second he was going to cry when he had heard his new moniker, but then he looked as if he might burst with pride. It had been absolutely the best day ever.

With a great effort, she dragged her mind back to the task before her. Sipping her coffee carefully, she held it in both hands, to ward off the chill that had crept in from the mountains that morning, and walked down the hall toward her office. An early morning, she should be able to get a few things done before the others came in and the phone started ringing. And maybe work on that nagging feeling in the back of her head…

She was surprised to see the lights on as she opened the door, and even more surprised to see Michael sitting at her monitor. She stopped in the doorway, disbelief on her face, slowly turning into anger.

"Emily!' Michael stood up suddenly, bouncing the keyboard on the desk and nearly tripping over the chair. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Should you?" Emily's voice was sarcastic. "Isn't this my office, as in I should be the one listening for people to walk in?"

It didn't seem possible, but the programmer looked even more disheveled, even more harried than usual. "I'm sorry, uh, my monitor wasn't working, and I didn't know anybody else who had access to the program. Uh, I just thought I could use yours for a little while, here, I'll close it out."

Before Emily could say anything to the contrary, he hit a few keystrokes and whatever had been on the monitor disappeared. She continued to look at him in doubt as he grabbed a notebook and moved toward the door, sidling to get past her. With a hand still warm from the coffee cup, she grabbed his upper arm as he moved toward her. "Michael." Her voice was stern but caring. "What is going on?"

The programmer looked at her with eyes that would have done a deer proud. "Nothing, really. I just, uh, wanted to, uh, pull an all-nighter. We have to get Reality Test out, right? And my monitor, uh, broke. That's it." He gave her a weak smile and she released his arm, then he scurried down the hallway to his own office.

Sitting down at her desk, Emily stared at the monitor. Michael had been doing something, and that something was making her unidentified nagging thoughts even more difficult to ignore. The way he had brought up the game without prompting didn't help, either; it was obviously at the top of his mind as he tried to talk his way out of a sticky situation. She tapped a few keys and attempted to access the log for her computer, and then sighed. Somehow, in those few moments, he had managed to erase it. The nagging was getting very loud indeed.


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4:45 PM
October 30th
Teletronics
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Carl poked his head into Jarod's office, his face radiant. "Jarod, come on, we're all meeting in the lounge," he invited, then scurried down the hallway to the next door. Jarod grabbed the jacket hung on the back of his chair and closed out the program he had been in, then followed a growing group of people as they converged on the small room.

There were almost twenty people in the lounge when Carl climbed up onto on of the rickety chairs around the table in the back of the room. In one hand, he held a jewel-case for a CD-ROM, in the other, a glass of champagne.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my dear colleagues, please," he shouted over the buzz of the room. "May I have your attention? I'd like to make an announcement." He held up the plastic case for all to see. "This morning, Michael walked into my office and gave this to me. The long wait is over, folks, I have here, for the first time, the FINISHED program of Reality Test!"

There was a stunned silence, and then the room erupted into applause. Emily stood near Jarod, her eyes wide. "I can't believe it," she said to no one in particular, "He said we were at least a week away. I can't believe he got everything done so fast, I thought there were still all sorts of problems."

Jarod was not quite as surprised. The version that Emily had given him last week had shown few glitches, and those quite minor, even through four hours and seventeen levels of play. The game was incredible, so complex and yet so involving. It reminded him of some of the more enjoyable sims that he had done growing up, before he had found out just why he had been doing them.

Glasses of champagne were passed around the room from hand to hand until everyone had one and Carl once again took to his "stage." "I know how much you people have sacrificed to get us to this point, I know all about the long hours and the bad pizza and everything else, and even the people who weren't directly involved in the development, I know that you have been working extra hard because all of our resources were pulled into this project. But I want to tell you all that it has been worth it, you've done an incredible job, and I can't thank you enough." He raised his glass. "To you, to all of you."

After everyone had drunk to the toast, Carl continued. "Of course, we all know that there is one person who has been eating, drinking and living this game for the past year, and I want to make sure that we all acknowledge his huge contribution. "Michael?" He searched around the room and found the programmer leaning against the refrigerator, a smug smile on his face. "Michael, we couldn't have done it without you, thank you." A smattering of applause mixed with the congratulations from his co-workers. "Of course, this doesn't mean that everything is over, we still have marketing, distribution and the final parts of the website to finish up, but as far as I'm concerned, the war is just about won, and you all deserve a break. Tomorrow is business as usual, but starting Thursday, you're all on holiday until next week. But..." Carl picked up a stack of disk cases. "If anyone would like to take home the final version of the hottest PC game in the world, and spend the time playing, I'm all for it."



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5:56 PM
October 30th
Teletronics, Seattle
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Jarod noticed the open door at the far end of the hallway as he passed by on his way to the elevator. It struck him as odd, especially as almost everyone had taken a copy of the game and vanished as soon as the words "day off" had escaped Carl's lips. Now that the pressure was off, at least in one area, the concept of a job that ended at a normal hour had been too tempting for all of them. Carl himself had mentioned leaving and taking his family out for a long-overdue night on the town, so who was in his office?

Emily sat at her boss's desk, a ream of printout cascading onto the floor beside her. On the desk, a monitor flashed the bright graphics of the fourth level of Reality Test, but her attention was on the paper and not the screen.

"Hey, Sis."

She waved absent-mindedly and continued to peruse the printout.

"The boss said to go home, or did you miss that part?"

Emily leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Her eyes moved to the screen and she frowned. "I don't get it."

"Get what?" Jarod sat on the corner of the desk and leaned over to see what she was looking at.

"I don't know how he did it so quickly. I mean, I've got a list here," she picked up three pieces of paper, stapled together and filled with a variety of detail. "These are all the things that were found in our last beta test, and there were a ton of problems. Most of them weren't a big thing; I let some of our other programmers deal with them, you know, instructions that didn't load properly, a missed link here or there, a wall that appeared and disappeared, but a few of there were pretty major. I gave those to Michael, hell, this is his puppy, and I told him to fix them, even if it meant completely rewriting a section. In one place, I'm pretty sure that's what it did take, but he got it all done." She looked up at Jarod seriously. "He got it done in four days. It should have taken at least a week, if not two, and he did it in four days."

"So what are you saying?"

Emily rubbed her forehead. "I don't know, that's the problem. I mean, I know that he's capable, it's just that lately, he's been getting less done than usual, and suddenly he gets more? It doesn't make a lot of sense."

"Do you think that he is lying about the rewrites? Are the glitches still there?"

"No, it's all fixed. I printed out the program, ran the game, everything seems right. All the way up to the twenty-fifth round, it's fine."

Jarod leaned over to look at the printout. It was huge. "So if the problems are gone, but there wasn't time to fix them, were the problems ever really there?"

"That's what I'm wondering." Emily nodded. "Or were the problems put there for some reason we don't know about, and then easily fixed by the person who put them there."

"Michael."

Emily looked at him silently, her eyebrows raised, then back at the printout. "I don't know, and staring at this thing isn't giving me any answers." She folded the pages back upon themselves and tossed it one of the drawers of her boss's desk. "That's it, I'm sick of it. I'm going over to Colin's for dinner, do you want to come along?"

Jarod smiled. "No, you go and have a nice dinner alone - I've been seeing you more than he has lately, and I think he's getting jealous. I might just take Carl's advice and take a little Reality Test of my own tonight."

"It's addicting, I have to admit." Emily stood up from the chair and reached for the purse and disk sitting on the corner of the desk. "Robin is absolutely enraptured by it, he's going to love me for bringing home this copy. He was so frustrated when he couldn't get past the third level. I don't think I'll give this to him until after supper, though. I doubt I'll be able to get him to eat if he starts it before."

They walked out of the office together and into the elevator. "So now that we have this long weekend, would you like to do something with the boys?" Emily looked up at her brother eagerly. "I don't think that Colin can get off until Friday, and Robin has kindergarten, but maybe we can go out to the mountains or something, you know, as a family."

As a family. The idea sounded wonderful to Jarod. "Yes, I'd like that very much."


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7:45 am
October 31
Teletronics
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Jarod walked into the front office of Teletronics, surprised to see the lobby lit up and the front door open. Lights on or not, no one seemed to be around, the offices were silent. Someone must have forgotten to lock up in their glee to escape to their extended weekend. Emily had given him a key after a few days, when she had noticed his penchant for staying late and coming in early, there were a few others with similar privileges. He thought about how she would laugh at him when she found out he had come in on his day off, but she didn't yet know the real reason that he had been putting in all the extra hours.

That was going to change soon. After their discussion about Michael and his odd behavior, and the mysterious appearing and disappearing glitches, he was sure that the programmer, and not his sister, was the one working with the Centre.

He still didn't understand how. If Michael had slipped something into the program, if he had rigged it somehow, Jarod wanted to know. He walked directly to his office and turned on the monitor, then put first one and then another CD-ROM into the drives. His laptop at his hotel hadn't had the capabilities to compare the two disks, the first version of Reality Test that Emily had burned for him, and now the "distribution copy" that Carl had given out. The mainframe here could do it - he mentally kicked himself for not thinking about it yesterday when he had been at work, but he had written the comparison program last night on his own computer and fed it into the A drive of the Teletronics unit now.

This was going to take a little while, but a lot less than it would have had he searched the reams of code on paper. Almost instantly, lines of changes showed up on his screen, he grabbed the list of problems that Emily had had, and one by one checked them off.

The answer didn't show up until the very end. "RTHPTDB.EXE" It was so obvious, Jarod shook his head at himself. The locked box; it didn't just need a key, it was the key. Now all he had to do was determine what it meant.

The first thing to do was to find out exactly where the .exe file was inserted. It had to have a trigger to set it off, it was not part of the core program or Jarod would have noticed it from the start. His mind wandered as he searched backward through the code - what could it be? He was sure that Michael had put it there, was it the back door that he had talked about before, or was it some kind of a virus? Just what was the Centre having him add?

It took half an hour, but he found it, then, using the master program on the mainframe accessed the exact spot. Level seventeen, one of his favorites. It was very like a simulation that he had done years ago, where the player was inserted into a top-secret lab and had to not only win the trust of the personnel, but copy and escape with a special disk. Jarod once again was amazed at the complexity of the game. It required technical as well as personal skills, and was layered so that even a young child would be able to pull off the heist, if the child was good enough. For the adult, the complexity increased, but the core of the task remained - insinuate yourself into the personnel, find the necessary information, copy it and get out. Any wrong move, any lapse in judgement or in word choice (and there were thousands) or even a momentary delay in a decision caused the cyber guards to descend and cart the unfortunate game-player off to a virtual cell.

As Jarod played again, he was struck once more by how the game was so like his lab sims. Was it that the gaming world was moving into the realm of his past, finding enjoyment in the tasks that he had been forced to do for so many years, or was there something more sinister?

It took him nearly fifteen minutes to complete the level. The reward on the program was nominal, just the ability to advance to the next level. He waited, hoping to catch some little clue. This must be what triggered the additional program, yet nothing was happening.

He waited an additional ten minutes, nothing. He tried advancing and completing the next level, one deceptively simple. Nothing. There were no hidden surprises, no attacks or meltdowns. Frustrated, he shut the game off and resorted to the log to see if anything had happened to the mainframe. God forbid he had let a virus loose in it, it might take him all day to sterilize it.

The mainframe log showed very little activity, just the game and an automatic connection from the personnel files to an off-site computer. Thursday morning, he thought, probably payroll being downloaded for processing the direct-deposits for tomorrow.

The personnel files.

Jarod snapped out of his chair and ran down to Emily's office, slamming the door and snapping on the lights. The monitor took forever to come online, or so it seemed. Once he had a screen, he easily recalled the steps that he had taken to break into the personnel folder. RTHPTDB.EXE, it was gone, but another took its place, RTADCDB.EXE. Again, it was encrypted, he had no easy way of finding out what it contained, but that didn't matter. All he needed to do was go back in the history files and figure out exactly where that connection had been made.

The URL appeared on the screen before him. His heart skipped a beat as a cold shudder gripped his body and his head began to pound. There was no question, the message, whatever it was, had gone back to the Centre.

And now he understood why Level 17 had felt so familiar.

The sound in the hallway took a few moments to register. Someone else was there. Jarod moved toward the hall cautiously, peering from behind the door to see.

Michael moved into his line of site, using a wheeled office chair as a makeshift cart, loaded with two large and very full boxes. The sound that Jarod had heard was a low grunting as he tried get the chair to move across the thick carpeting of the lobby and toward the elevator door.

"Can I help you with that?" Jarod's tone did not convey any desire to help, nor did his body language as he leaned casually against the corner of one wall with his arms crossed.

"Oh, God! Jarod!" The programmer perceptively jumped, and the top box on the chair shifted, spilling out a variety of items; a Rubik's cube, a souvenir mug, a framed picture of George Lucas. "You scared me half to death!" he cried, trying to pick up the spillage.

"You look like you're moving out. Don't you like your neighbors?"

Michael made a point of not making eye contact. "No, man, I just gotta get out. I finished that damn game, everything's done, and I'm outta here. I'm sick of this whole place."

"Aren't you going to miss out on all the financial rewards of your work? That doesn't seem very smart of you, Michael. And I had heard that you were such a bright student at MIT."

"I don't need the mo-" He stopped in midsentence, remembering, perhaps, that he was supposed to be intelligent. "I'm okay, I'll still get royalties even if I leave. It's in my contract."

"But not as much as you would if you were working here. Or is it," Jarod moved in closer, "that your other employer has paid you well enough."

Michael's eyes snapped up. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Jarod smirked as he started to circle the younger man in the lobby. "Come on, man," he mocked, "I know about the glitches that weren't really there. You had to make those up to stall until you created, or got, the .exe program that you stuck in at the end. I know about the download program in the personnel files, and I know that you put it there. I also know who you're dealing with." He thrust his face into the programmer's. "Do you?"

"I don't know-" Michael immediately saw that the lie was not going to work. "Yeah, I know, it's the VC people, the ones that bankrolled this whole thing for 2 mil." He straightened up, feeling more secure in his version of things. "They wanted me to add in the extras, so? Like I said, they paid for it."

"But they paid you, not the company, Michael. Ever wonder why they did that? Ever wonder why they were so worried about hiding what they were doing from Carl, from Emily? Or were you too busy counting your money?"

"So they wanted feedback, big deal. They wanted profiling of the players, I don't know, for marketing or something. Plenty of internet companies do it, nobody even knows half the time. I didn't think it was a big deal, but Carl would have said no. So I did it. I didn't do anything wrong."

"If your conscience is so clean, why are you leaving?"

There was silence between them. Jarod tried another tactic. "What do the files do?"

"You can't get them out, man. I integrated them, they game won't run without them."

"What do they DO?"

"It's just a simple download. If the player scores a certain score on Level 17, it dials up our site and i.d.'s their ISP account onto our mainframe. Then it tracks them every time that they log onto the network. It's just like a scorecard."

Jarod felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. They were using the ISP accounts to identify people. "And what about the program in the personnel file. What does that do?"

Michael looked at the floor again. "It sends the info to the money man's mainframe."

"Where they can then backtrack and find the players." Jarod finished for him, his voice filled with disgust. The Centre was using the game to find potential pretenders. Even if they found only two or three, it was well worth the investment. "You stupid son of a bitch, you have no idea what you've done."

"What? They paid me to do it. It's no big deal, just profiling." He tried to sound brave, but his voice cracked midway through the protestation.

Jarod snorted. "They paid you, in blood money." His mind was scrolling now. "How often does the download happen?"

"Every time there's a high scorer. Why?"

He had set it off when he had played Level 17 today. Emily had been playing the game yesterday, as had Robin. Emily had called to brag about the little boy's ability, how he had loved the game so much that he had achieved Level 20 for his age group on Wednesday night. Jarod thought about the boy, five years old, smart as a whip, with a natural gift for problem solving and visualization. Could he be a potential pretender?

Jarod looked at the programmer once again, then shook his head in disgust. The damage was done, he had to warn Emily. He turned without another word and walked back to his office.

He was just reaching for the telephone when he saw the icon on his VDO that told him of his waiting e-mail. Highlighting it, a message from Emily appeared.

Jarod,
I tried getting you at your hotel but you didn't answer, so I figured you might be at the office. I think I figured out what is wrong with the Reality Test game - I was playing it last night again and my modem went off, all by itself. It sent something back to our server, but I don't know what. The thing that worries me is that I thought I heard Colin's modem hook up while Robin was playing of the disk the other night. I don't like it - I'm going over there to check his history file and see if it did the same thing or if mine was a fluke.

I tried calling over there, but I bet Robin's playing online before school again and Colin only has the one line. I have to go finish up the kids Halloween costumes, so I thought you could meet me there. When I'm done maybe we could take Ryan out to McDonald's or something.

Give me a call at Colin's,

Em

She had included the telephone number and Jarod punched it in, only to be rewarded with a busy tone. He checked the date stamp, only a half-hour before. She might not even be to the house yet anyway.

Grabbing the jacket he had tossed over the back of the chair, he ran out of the office and to the elevator. The programmer was stepping through the door as he arrived. Jarod grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and spun him around, throwing him up against the wall. "You are going NOWHERE until you figure out how the hell you can trace the information that was sent out of here." He smashed a piece of paper into the programmer's hand, taking the keys that were in it. "I'm taking your car so that I can try to prevent a tragedy. You call me the instant you find out-that's the number. If I don't hear from you in the next two hours, I will personally hunt you down and make you pay for what you did."

Michael cowered against the wall. "I told you, I didn't do-"

Jarod turned on him as he walked into the elevator, shutting him up with a violent look. "Just find it, now." He hit the button for the ground floor and the doors closed.

The programmer collapsed onto the floor, quivering. What the hell had he gotten himself into this time?



Emily looked up at the grey sky and wondered for the umpteenth time why traffic had to be so bad, and why Colin insisted on living across the bridge from her. The road crews had one lane closed, as usual; she swore that she had never seen this road completely open. Sometimes it was actually faster to go south through the city and take the other freeway across, just to come back north again. It certainly was a faster way when she left from work to visit him and the boys. The thought of the boys sent a little shiver through her again. The game, once so much fun, had turned sinister in her mind with the unexpected connection of her modem, and she was sure that Robin was playing it right now. She thought of the people on the other end of that Internet connection as the unnamed "they," and her use of that term again chilled her through and through.

For God's sake, people, she thought, move!


*****************
9:12 AM
October 31
142nd Street NE, Bellevue
******************

The dark sedan pulled up in front of the house, slowed, and continued down the block where it turned around again. This time, it stopped two houses down from their potential target and waited. The phone call was not long in coming, a second transmission had been made and the target was verified. Mr. Raines spoke into a cell phone, his voice raspy as always, and instructed the other car to meet them at the site in ten minutes. He wanted to watch the house for a little while to determine what method of access would be best. He preferred the direct approach, talking his way through the front door on a mission of mercy or some such lie, but occasionally other methods had to be used.

He could see only a solitary woman walking around the house, seen through the big windows. The child would most likely still be on the computer, his wonderful little mind sorting through the maze of the game, the game that had worked out better than he had ever expected. Success already and it hadn't even been distributed yet. He smiled gruesomely at the thought of the boy; it had been so long since he had had a new pretender.




Jarod's phone rang and he flipped it open with one hand, the other doing its best to maneuver through the traffic on the way out to Bellevue. "What is it?" he snapped.

"I, I tracked down the information th-that was sent."

Honestly, Jarod thought to himself, Michael was worse than Broots. "And?"

"It sent four times. Once it was from here, once from Emily's and twice from a place with the address," here he spelled it out, "C-O-L-I-N-W-E-S-T-B-Y-@WASHINGTON.EDU."

Jarod swore under his breath. They knew about both Emily and Robin, and the Centre moved fast.

"Is th-there anything else I should do?"

"Yes. You can unplug the server, and then go find Carl and tell him what you did. And you can pray that I'm not too late."



The doorbell rang and Mrs. Atkins, the boys' nanny, walked across the living room to answer it. The floor was quite the obstacle course right now, but she would soon have it tidied up again. She was happy that their father wasn't as much a stickler for neatness as he was for a happy, playful and challenged child.

She opened the door to see three gentlemen in suits standing on the threshold, looking very solemn. One of them had a green oxygen tube draped around his bald head. "Good morning, ma'am," the bald one rasped. "We're here to spread the Good Word, may we come in?"



Emily pulled the ancient Toyota into the driveway of Colin's house and scanned the neighborhood. A dark sedan drove past slowly, not uncommon here but too much like the one that was parked in front of the house two doors down for her comfort. Warning flags were waving all over her mind right now.

She jumped out of the car and walked briskly up the path to the front door. Before she had a chance to reach for the doorknob, it opened before her. A strange man in a dark suit stood there with a gun trained on her. From behind him she heard a familiar voice. "Please come in Emily. How fortunate, the proverbial two birds with one stone."

Numbly, she stepped in, and the nameless man closed the door after her. She turned into the living area to find the raspy voiced bald man with whom she and Carl had been dealing for the last eight months. Terror and confusion mingled, and she found herself babbling. "Mr. Raines! What are you doing here?" Indignation won out over fear. "What are you doing in Colin's home? Where is Mrs. Atkins? And what's the gun for?" Raines sat on the couch examining what appeared to be readouts of some sort, apparently oblivious to her and everything she'd just said. She went to take a step towards him when an athletic black man in a dark suit blocked her path.

"Sit," he instructed.

She ignored the command and attempted to step around him. A second later she was on her knees on the floor with her arm twisted up behind her. As tears of pain came to her eyes, she heard Raines speak.

"From this moment forward, do not speak until you are spoken to. Silence is... good for the soul. It would be wise for you to obey..." He paused a moment before continuing. "Willie is quite effective at insuring cooperation... and it would be less painful for you to simply do as you're told."

Willie released her. She remained silent.

The bald man went back to his reading. Emily felt lightheaded, her hands began to shake as she started to put everything together. He was with them - he was from the Centre! Panic gripped her. The boys! He was here for the boys! A sharp prod from Willie brought her back to the awareness that Raines was talking to her once again.

"You need to pay attention when I'm speaking to you. You won't be drifting off on me again, will you?" He gave her a piercing look and she shook her head. "Good. Well, to the business at hand." He indicated the readouts spread out on the coffee table in front of him "The nanny has been... neutralized. The children are safe. The younger is quite happily playing. The older one is still on the computer. We brought a program with us that he is presently working on," he gave her a thin smile, then directed his comments toward the men standing near her, the gloat evident in his voice. "It seems that the game was quite effective... he is every bit as accurate on the simulation as his game scores indicated. He's a prodigy of Jarod's caliber. "

She stiffened at the mention of Jarod's name, but he didn't seem to notice. Oh God, Jarod! He would be here any minute. Raines continued.

"There were high scores that also originated from your office and your home. Am I to assume that it was you who achieved these?"

She nodded, although it was a lie. The modem coming on hadn't been a fluke, but Jarod must have been the one to trigger it at the office - she had never had the time to do anything but work there. But they knew about her, and not about him, yet. The game obviously had a hidden command for sending information about the user to the Centre. Another mystery solved.

"The three of you will be coming with us. The younger boy, although untested, has the genetic potential. We can't squander such God-given talents as you posses, out here," he indicated expansively, waving an arm. "You may have a few moments to gather things... that you think will assist the children with acclimating to their new environment." He rose from the couch, and pushed his oxygen tank in front of him as he made his way to the door.

"If you cooperate fully, I might even allow you periodic interaction with the children," he commented as he walked. He stopped on the threshold and turned back to give her a final pinning stare. "You really have no choice. Please make it as easy on yourself and the children as possible. Re-education is a chore, and as tedious for me as it would be painful for you."


**********
9:25 am
October 31st
I-295 Seattle
**********


Jarod growled in frustration. They were inching forward at barely 15 miles per hour. At the moment he was fighting with the urge to jump out, simply abandon the vehicle where it was and run the rest of the way. As tempting as that thought was, he knew once he got past the upcoming merge traffic would move more quickly.

He flipped open his cellphone and tried Colin's number again. Still busy. He snapped it closed and threw it onto the passenger's seat. If only he could get through to them, at least he could warn Emily.

He let out a string of invectives that would have done Miss Parker proud as he not so patiently slogged through Seattle's morning commute.


************
9:27 am
October 31st
142nd Street NE, Bellevue
************
Emily sorted carefully through the stack of clean laundry that she had folded just the other day. She absently pulled out a few tiny shirts and pants, socks and underwear, and stuffed it all in a big red duffel bag. Her silent watcher followed every move she made. She picked thought the toy box, stopping to watch Ryan as he obliviously build a tower out of wooden blocks.

She had to do something! She couldn't just allow the people she had been running from all her life to swoop down and carry off these precious children without a fight. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the dark man moving forward, no doubt to prod her into movement again. Thought crystallized into action as she grasped the heavy-bottomed lamp sitting on the desk beside the toy box.

"I think this lamp," she began, carefully unplugging it, then wrapping the cord around it, "is the perfect thing." She hefted it, then whirled with cat-like speed and agility, cracking Willie right upside the head. He dropped like a stone.

I'm glad I insisted Colin put in that lead weight to keep the boys from knocking it over so easily, she mused as she grabbed Ryan and shushed the wide-eyed and now frightened child.

"It's okay honey. Now I need you to listen to me and do exactly what I say, all right?"
He nodded vigorously.

"We're going to play a game of hide and seek. I want you to go to Andy and Darren's house, just like you and Robin do after he comes home from school sometimes. Only today, you get to go by yourself. You need to tell their mommy to call the police. Can you do that for me?"

Again he nodded, looking a little happier as an adventure loomed ahead. She opened the window and looked around. It was clear for the moment. Gently, she dangled the little boy down, and he dropped the last foot to the ground, landing in a crouch.

"Hurry Ryan! Run fast, and go the back way!" she whispered as loudly as she dared, and he smiled back up at her before scampering off. Like a rabbit, he was through the hole in the back fence and down the lane to his friend's house down the block.

She heard a groan behind her and spun around to see her watcher beginning to stir. Without a second thought, she picked up the lamp and hit him again, hard. He was still. Okay. That next? Robin. She searched the man on the floor and relieved him of his gun. Now the field felt a little more even. She doubted that Mr. Raines was aware of her many self-defense courses or the fact that she was a crack shot with a variety of weapons. He mother had been very serious about keeping her free from these people, and it looked like it was time for all the money that had been spent to pay off.

For a moment she wondered if Raines knew whom and what she was - Jarod's sister. Her brother had told her horror stories of a wheezing nameless man, the memories of which goaded her into action, although the desire to hide in the nearby closet and cry was just as strong. Never, she swore silently, never would he have Robin or Ryan, never would he have the opportunity to create another pretender. He would also never have her, or Jarod, if there was anything she could do about it.

Robin was in the office - she could hear the chirp of the computer as he played the disk that Raines had brought along. Another, what was it that Jarod had called them, oh, yes, sweeper, stood at attention to one side of the door. That made things more difficult, but as she peered around the corner once more and ducked back into the room, a plan began to develop in her mind. She wondered where Raines was.

The squeaking of wheels told her that, and she gently closed the door to the room, her back pressed up against the wall to one side. The squeak stopped just outside, and the door slowly, cautiously pushed open. "Willie?" he rasped.

One more step - there! Emily reached around behind Raines' neck with one arm, the crook of her elbow forcing its way to his esophagus and further limiting his air supply. With the other hand she ripped the plastic tubing away and then pushed the barrel of Willie's gun to his temple. "Don't move, you bastard, or I swear I will shoot."

For someone supposedly ill, her captive had struggled with considerable strength, but his cries for help were strangled sounding and did not reach to the other sweeper. Feeling the cold metal of the gun and hearing the intensity of the woman's voice, he stopped. At the moment, this was not a fight he could win, but it would matter little in the long run. Away from her gaze, a smile flitted across his features.

"I can't breathe," he choked out.

"I don't care." Emily pushed him out of the room and into the hallway, her arm never loosening on his neck. She knew exactly what amount of pressure would close the airway, and as of yet had held herself back. "Get your other goon in here." She let up only slightly on his throat.

Raines breathed in deeply, calling out twice before his voice carried far enough to be heard. Emily could hear the heavy steps of the other sweeper as he cautiously moved toward them. The tip of his gun showed around the corner before his head.

"Stop right there!" Emily barked out. "I've got a gun to your boss's head and believe me, I will shoot first and be afraid later. Drop your gun and kick it this way."

Both Raines and his captor could see the hesitation. Emily shoved the barrel into his bald head harder and Raines added his own exhortation. "Do it. Now."

The gun skidded across the hardwood floor. As soon as it was within reach, Emily kicked it behind her. "Now move toward the office, your hands laced behind your head."

The sweeper did as commanded, glancing backward at Raines for approval. Together, the three moved a few feet along the hallway, Raines stumbling as his head was still held firmly between Emily's strong arm and the gun.

They reached the doorway of the office and she motioned the sweeper further on. "Robin!" she called out. "Sweetie, come here, right now."

The little boy appeared in the doorway. She could see the flush in his face that appeared when he had been thinking hard and fast, and enjoying every minute of it. "What, Em?" Suddenly his eyes became very wide as he took in the situation, especially the gun.

"Come here, sweetie," Emily pointed to the hallway on the other side of the door. "Stand right over there." He did as she asked, then watched as she shoved the bald man into the office, then waved the gun at the other man to follow.

Her eyes glimmered with intensity as she trained the barrel on them once again. "Don't even think about moving. I will shoot you before you get two feet." Never taking her eyes off of her captives, she lowered her voice and spoke gently to the child. "Robin, honey, I love you very much. You need to do what I say, okay, no questions. I want you to run over to Darren's, right now. Run sweetie, don't stop for anyone but Jarod, got to him or to Darren's. Now, RUN!"

The little boy took off down the hallway, scooting behind her and toward the front door. She could hear his footsteps as she tried desperately to come up with the next part of a plan.

Raines looked at her in amazement. His mouth formed the words. "Jarod. Emily"

Emily watched him, saw the dawning of understanding in his eyes as she heard the door open and the little boy run outside.

Without warning, she heard Robin cry out.

"Robin!" Screaming the boy's name over and over, she ran after him, forgetting completely about Raines and the sweeper. She skidded across the floor and out the door, coming to a dead stop as she took in the scene on the lawn. Another dark sedan, another pair of athletic men in suits. This time, one had Robin in his arms and his hand wrapped around the little boy's mouth. Struggle as he might, there was no way the boy could break free of his grip or get a sound out in his defense.

In her periphery, Emily could see another car approach and slow down, but she did not recognize it. There was no one to help her right now, to help them. "God help me," she whispered as she raised the gun up and looked along the sight. "Let him go, let him go now!" Her voice quaked with emotion, she only hoped that the man could sense her determination.

He didn't move.

Emily blinked back tears that threatened to wash across her vision. This was it, this was the moment that all the training and all the hiding and all the running of her past life had prepared her for. The irony of it was that the struggle was not only for her freedom from the Centre, but of Robin and Ryan's, possibly even Jarod's.

She noticed how tiny Robin looked against the bulk of the other man; he barely came up to his hip. That set the target, her one chance. She knew that she could do it, she only had to believe that she…would…not…hurt…the…child…. Her jaw set, the gun firm in her hands, she yelled through clenched teeth. "Robin, RUN!"

The blast from the gun rang in Emily's ears while she saw the bullet lodge in the sweeper's chest. The force of the shot propelled him backwards and he unconsciously released the little boy. Crying but nonetheless running as fast as his legs could carry him, Robin sped across the lawn toward the street. No one could catch him now, Emily thought, he was free.




Jarod drove along the picturesque highway toward Colin's house as fast as he dared. The car that he had "borrowed" from Michael was new, responsive and quick, and probably paid for with Centre funds. He shifted down as he turned the corner into the subdivision, every part of him wanting the nightmare visions that he had been thinking of on the drive to be just that - a nightmare. Could the Centre possibly have moved so quickly? He had tried Colin's number again and again and come up with a busy signal, but that didn't necessarily mean anything nefarious. But as much as he tried to quell the uneasiness inside of him, he knew too much about Raines and his ambitions not to be afraid.

The sight of the two black sedans, one parked two houses down, and the other in front of Colin's residence made his blood run cold. He pulled the sports car to the curb violently and jumped out.

The sound of a gun shook him inside and he ran toward the house. Without warning, Robin ran into him, nearly sending them both to the ground. He grabbed the little boy by the arms and was rewarded with a violent attempt at escape. "Robin, it's me, it's Jarod. It's okay, I've got you."

The little boy sobbed and screamed. "Gotta get away, Jarod, Em said run, we gotta run!"

Jarod looked across the lawn toward the door. Emily stood frozen, a gun in her hands, pointed at a sweeper, while another one lay on the grass, obviously wounded. Behind her, he could see another sweeper in the doorway, taking careful aim.

"Emily!"

For a split-second, she looked over at him, then back at the men in front of her. Her voice was manic, but still determined. "Get him out of here, Jarod, save the boys! Save yourself!"

Robin grasped desperately at the older man's hand and tried to pull him away. "Bad men, gotta run!"

Jarod shook off his hand, moving toward the house. Already things were happening, he could see it in the sweeper's eyes, in his sister's stance. He was too far away, unarmed, impotent to stop what was about to occur. He screamed, his voice mingling with that of another man - Raines!

"N-N-O-O-O-O-O!"

The bullet struck her in the spine, flinging her head back and throwing her off balance in a kind of slow motion ballet. Her arms spread open as she fell, one hand reaching out toward Jarod and the boy, her eyes locked on them as her body hit the ground. For a moment, Jarod forgot how to breathe, caught with his sister in the moment of her death.

Robin's screams brought him back. He scooped up the child, ran to the car and shoved him inside. He took one painful glance back and saw Raines running toward Emily's body, screaming as loudly as his ravaged lungs would allow. At that moment only he and Jarod understood just how very much he had lost.

How much they had both lost.



************
1:00 PM
November 3th
Church of the Blessed Sacrament
Seattle, WA
************

Jarod had been walking aimlessly in the rain for hours, still uncertain why he had returned to Seattle. After he had returned the two boys to their shocked grief-stricken father, he had run away to leave behind the pain as he left behind the city, but it was to no avail. A frenzied and barely remembered two day chase across six states had guaranteed that the Centre could not find him right now, but he couldn't escape the reality of his sister's death, or of the role that he had played into it.

He'd made the decision not to attend the funeral, knowing that his heart couldn't handle the pain of losing yet another family member. The Centre was methodically stealing everything and everyone he loved and he just couldn't take it anymore. He'd gone into a haze, overwhelmed with grief and sorrow. It was even worse than when he'd lost Kyle.

Not again, please God, not again, he sent a beseeching cry heavenward. As usual there was no answer.

Without meaning to, he found himself in front of the small church about 10 minutes after the service had begun. After debating the wisdom of doing so, he slipped into the back of the building. Colin and the boys were sitting in the front row, and there were several plainclothes police officers standing around, trying to blend in but obvious even in their attempts to not be. At the front was the open casket with Emily's body. Emily's body. He felt like a huge vice was compressing his chest crushing his heart, making it impossible for him to breath. A man who appeared to be an usher approached him.

"Can I help you sir?" he asked, concern apparent on his face.

"No. No one can help," he replied bleakly, then stepped into the sanctuary to sit in a back pew. He shivered, his soggy clothing holding the chill in. He placed his hand on the pew in front of him and leaned forward until his forehead rested between them. The smooth wood felt cool against his fevered brow.

There was someone speaking from behind the pulpit, but he couldn't focus on the words. It all seemed so inconsequential now. All the prayers in the world weren't going to bring her back. Extolling her virtues as a good person and a wonderful friend seemed meaningless in the face of the lack of her. It was... empty.

The enormous loss crashed into him afresh and he felt tears welling up again. He'd thought he'd cried himself out in the last four days, he hadn't thought that there was anything left in him to grieve with. As liquid pain dripped down his chin, he drew his hands back to cover his face and quietly cried deep body wrenching sobs into them.

He had no idea how much time had passed, only that somewhere along the line the tears had dried up and he had resumed his penitent position, leaning forward onto the pew in front of him. It had become very quiet in the church when he felt a hand light on his shoulder, a tentative touch. He looked up into a pair of sad brown eyes.

"Uncle Jarod?" asked the little boy, his tear stained face puffy from crying and a lack of sleep.

"Yes Robin?"

"Emily said that you were going to be part of our family. Now that she's..." a little sob escaped the child's quivering lip. "Now that she's gone, does that mean you won't be anymore?"

Jarod saw Colin standing a few steps back his face sad and angry. He could see that the last thing their father wanted or needed was Emily's brother hanging around, a constant and painful reminder of his loss. He also knew that Colin would do anything for his boys even if it caused him personal grief.

"Of course I will be Robin," he chided the boy gently and drew him into a tender embrace. "Always and forever." He held the boy back at arms length to look him straight in the eye. "But there's something I have to do, so I am going to be out of town for awhile. It's all the way on the other side of the country. I have to make sure that the people who hurt Emily and tried to take you away can't ever hurt anyone ever again. When I'm done I'll come and see you then, okay?"

Robin nodded seriously, then gave Jarod a convulsive hug. "What if they take you away?"

The fear in the little boy's tone tore at Jarod's heart and he stroked Robin's hair comfortingly. "Don't you worry. You just help your dad look after Ryan and let me worry about the bad guys, okay?" This time he felt rather than saw Robin nod in agreement. Slowly the boy withdrew and returned to his father's side.

Colin spoke. "Are you going to be okay?" His voice was strained almost to the breaking point, but Jarod could hear the honesty in the question. The boy's father was genuinely concerned for him even in the midst of his own pain. That brought another pang. His sister had chosen a fine man.

Jarod nodded, unable to speak, unable to even meet Colin's eyes. I should have saved her he wanted to cry out. I'm the genius. I should have figured it out sooner. But I didn't, not until it was too late. Not until they found your son... until they found her. I should have been there to protect her. But he remained mute.

As if he could read Jarod's mind, once again the grieving man stepped outside of his own torment to lay a hand on Jarod's shoulder.

"It wasn't your fault. Those people would have found Emily and the boys even if you weren't there. And if you hadn't been there, they probably would have been able to capture Robin, maybe even figure out where Ryan was and get him too. You saved my boys, Jarod, and that's what Emily would have wanted."

Jarod finally looked up at this man who he would have been honored to call brother and saw that tears flowed freely down his face.

"Don't do something stupid like getting yourself killed, Jarod. They've already lost the woman who would have been their mother, don't rob my children of their new uncle, too.

All the slowly swirling thoughts about making the Centre pay and stringing Raines up by his oxygen hoses evaporated as Jarod thought about it in that way. Don't rob my children.

He stood then swayed slightly, suddenly light headed. Colin shot him a concerned look but he just shook his head. "I'm okay... just a lot to deal with." He looked the other man in the eyes and wondered if he could see that fact that Jarod had done little in the last few days but run and think, rarely eating or sleeping. "I promise not to do anything stupid, but I do need to go away for awhile to figure out what to do."

Colin didn't look convinced.

"I promise that I will call you as soon as I come back in town." Jarod looked with fondness at the somber five year old standing beside Colin and the three year old asleep in his arms. "I'll miss them." Jarod reached out his hand, and Colin clasped it in his own, the sealing of an agreement between them.



**************************
6:10 pm
November 4th
Forest Lawn Cemetery
Seattle, Washington
**************************

He knelt for a long time before the grave, watching the rain collect on the bare earth, puddles forming amidst the clumps of soil. He shivered as the dampness seeped into his body, but yet he could not raise the strength to get up from his knees. A dozen different prayers from a handful of religions wandered through his mind, but none of them offered any solace.

She was laying there, in the ground, dead. His sister, his dear Emily. His head pounded with the guilt - it should have been him, not her! The thought crowded out the prayers, silently screaming its accusation at him, until he could do nothing but grasp his head in his hands, falling into the mud of the grave. His cry of anguish echoed though the cemetery, until it was eventually swallowed up by the never-ending rain









Jarod awoke, gradually, aware of a light shining in his eyes that had not been there before. A voice, feminine but unfamiliar, said something but he was not able to make out the words, and turning his head to see who it was seemed too much of an effort. He was aware of the passage of time, a few minutes, a few hours? The voice returned, along with another, again female. He felt a cool hand rest gently upon his forehead, and with effort, he opened his eyes.

It was - it was -no. He sighed audibly, closing his eyes again. For a moment, it had seemed too good to be true, for a fraction of a second he had thought that the intelligent, beautiful face that looked into his belonged to Emily, but it was not so. A tear pushed its way through his clenched eyes.

"Hey, Mr. Michaels, don't leave us now," the new voice called.

A hand gently grasped Jarod's and squeezed tightly, almost painfully. He opened his eyes again to look at this stranger who was talking to him. She wore a white lab coat and a name tag, "Carlotta Owens, CDC." The name meant nothing to him, but the lab coat did, as did the letters "CDC." Center for Disease Control. He looked around the room, realizing finally that he was in some kind of hospital, in a bed, and IV attached to one arm and a blood pressure cuff on the other.

"I opened up the drapes, and then I was just checking his pressure when he started coming around," the first woman spoke up. He could see now that she was in the casual uniform of a nurse. "He was calling out a name, then he woke up, well, at least a little."

"Thank you, Betty." The doctor smiled at Jarod again. "It's nice to finally get to meet you, Mr. Michaels. You haven't been too talkative so far. How are you feeling?"

Jarod licked his lips, they were surprisingly dry and chapped, and tried to speak, but only a hoarse whisper came out. He swallowed and tried again. "Where am I?"

"You're at Presbyterian Hospital in Atlanta," the doctor explained. "Do you remember how you got here?"

Jarod shook his head but only briefly. Both his head and neck ached intensely, and there was a ferocious pounding somewhere inside his skull. He winced.

"Don't worry about it, it's not uncommon to have a little amnesia after a high fever, and that pain should subside in a day or so, now that you're responding to treatment." The doctor smiled again, sympathetically. "Just so it doesn't bother you, let me tell you what you've been missing. You collapsed in the airport between flights, and the ambulance brought you here. I was called in because you had a very serious case of meningitis, and we wanted to make sure that you hadn't infected anyone else on the plane." She patted his hand when she saw the concern in his eyes. "Don't worry, everyone else is fine, we tracked them down and all are under supervision, it doesn't look like this went any further than you.

"But to quite honest, for you, this strain was more than a little life-threatening. When you're feeling up to it, I'd like to discuss with you specifically where you've been for the last few weeks, restaurants and the like, so maybe we can get a handle on where you contracted this, I'd prefer not to see it again.

"I've been in…Seattle." The memories that the name brought back tore through his mind, through his heart. The pain in his expression deepened and without realizing it, he whispered her name, the name of his now dead sister. "Emily."

The doctor looked at him quizzically. "Are you sure about that? Do you live there?"

"No," he responded. "I was only visiting for a few weeks. And then I went back, for the funeral."

Dr. Owens reached for the chart that she had laid on the nearby table. "I guess I'm a little confused here, Mr. Michaels. According to this, you've been working for the State Department for the last month, updating one of their databases. And that was in New York City. The flight you were supposed to take, before you collapsed, was to Seattle."

Jarod stared at her intently, his breath becoming rapid. Overhead, a monitor started to blink, a yellow warning light that threatened to turn red if the situation warranted. The doctor glanced up at it, them down at her patient again.

"What day is it?" he asked.

"It's Halloween." Her expression held a mixture of caring, pride and humor. "Not a bad choice when it comes to bringing someone back from the dead."

"What do you mean?" His eyes were bright. "This should be November, not Halloween."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Michaels, you seem to be a little disoriented. That's common, too, when you've been as sick as you have been. After all, you've been in a coma for the last eight days."

Jarod looked at her, unbelieving. "What is this, one of the Centre's tricks? Where am I?"

"I told you, you're in Atlanta, in the hospital. I don't know what the Centre is, unless you are referring to the CDC." She pushed gently on his shoulder as he attempted to rise. "Let's see if there is something we can't do to help you with your confusion. I'll make you a deal. I'll go get you a newspaper, and you can see for yourself, as long as you promise to stay in bed."

He nodded, still suspicious, but relaxed back into the bed. The doctor backed out of the room until she was convinced he was staying, then walked out the door, to return a moment later with the newspaper.

"As promised, Mr. Michaels. The Atlanta Constitution, and you'll notice the date, October 31."

Jarod scanned the front page, his arms so weak that he could barely hold it. As far as the paper was concerned, she was telling the truth, it was October 31. The paper was crisp and cool in his hands, this wasn't something that she had pulled from a recycling bin, it must have been delivered just recently.

"Do you trust me now?"

Once again, Jarod nodded. He had seen something on the bottom of the page that caught his attention. The doctor said a few things about resting, then took her leave, but he listened with only half an ear. The words on the page were much more interesting

Second Kidnapper/Shooter Caught in Seattle Sweep

A second man has been arrested and charged in the attempted kidnapping of two young boys and the subsequent death of their live-in nanny, authorities in King County claimed yesterday. Paul Jenkins, a convicted criminal, was apprehended at the home of his girlfriend late last night.

Jenkins, along with Herbert Wong, another Seattle resident, are awaiting a preliminary trial on two charges of attempted kidnapping, two charges of attempted extortion and one charge of first degree murder. No plea has yet been entered.

The two would-be kidnappers entered the home of the owner of a local software-development company on October 20th and attempted to remove the man's two sons at gunpoint. Their live-in caregiver, Emily Watkins, discovered the crime before they were able to escape with the two boys and called 911. In her struggle to keep them from leaving the premises while police responded, Watkins was shot in the back and died later that evening at King County Memorial Hospital.

Since both children were minors, the names of the boys and their father were not released. Neither child was harmed in the attempt. (Pictures and more on page 16A)

Jarod turned the pages of the paper slowly, not only due to the weakness in his arms, but from the fear of what he might find there. The story was familiar, had he read the first developments before he fell sick, or had he lived it? Had his mind, in its fevered state, taken the facts of this Seattle drama and transformed them into a long, twisted dream? He had been on his way to Seattle, to work for a software developer, and, as always, to look for his sister. Had he found her there, and then lost her, or had he instead lost eight days of his life laying in a hospital room? Until he saw the pictures, he could not know, but if it was Emily, if he had lived this awful nightmare…

Page 16A. The faces of two men, completely unknown to him, filled the right side, Wong and Jenkins. And on the left, Emily Watkins. Poor, selfless Emily Watkins, who gave her life for the life of two little boys. A picture of Emily and her… grandchildren, all four of them, nearly grown. Jarod felt a sob catch in his chest, felt the tears burn in his eyes. Bless you, Emily, he prayed, you are a saint. But you are not my sister.