Lord, Grant Me The Freedom…
"Eternal
vigilance is the price of freedom."
Raymonde Uy
26 weeks to
go.
Four years.
And now
another important date. Jarod hadn't slept the previous night, but that was no
great surprise. He could never sleep on the anniversary of his escape from the
Centre, reliving everything he had gone through on that night. But now, his
simmed escape complete, he couldn't avoid thinking about the coup. One of his
sims in the Centre had focused on D-Day and he couldn't help thinking that this
event would be equally as catastrophic.
Sitting in
the chair, his mind traveled back to the day, only twenty-four hours before his
arrest, that he had found the first hints of the impending disaster. Only a few
hints but it wasn't difficult to put all of the pieces together and work out
the full picture and then Jarod's only surprise had been that it hadn't
occurred earlier.
The way things
had fallen into place had been sudden but total, and now other factors showed
how complete the picture would be. The poisoning of Sydney - somehow Jarod knew
what had been done, and the sickness and weakness he had felt could be traced
back to Sydney, he was certain.
Since finding
out about the link that Miss Parker had with her mother, Jarod had tried to
cultivate a similar feeling. What he had first understood to be feelings
emanating from his father had eventually resolved themselves into the emotions
that were washing over Sydney.
He could
remember the first day, when Sydney had tasted the slight soapiness in his
food, which he had attributed to poor rinsing in the dishwasher but now
resolved itself into something more devastating.
And the helplessness
that Sydney had felt echoed itself in Jarod, but Jarod's feelings came as much
from the thought that he could do nothing for the people he had tried so
desperately to warn. At the memory, Jarod's eyes moved to the phone card that
lay on his bedside table, and which was one of his only links to the outside
world.
D-Day. Zero
hour. Brigitte waited outside the door to the small room. This was the best
part of the plan and one that she was thrilled he had come up with. It would be
so much fun. His calmness and insistence on knowing better had been the most
irritating thing in her years of working in the Centre and now he would be
destroyed.
Already
weakened from overdoses of sodium, one final dose of acetone would be enough.
And it wasn't even a big dose. Just a small shot and he would fade before her
eyes. Or he would. If she had the time to stay around and watch.
It was so
delicious that she could hardly keep the smile from her face. But she couldn't
smile. The person she was impersonating never smiled. A complete and total Ice
Queen - the epithet was particularly accurate and Brigitte had the greatest
enjoyment out of pretending to be her.
Pretending.
She had never realized what fun it could be and she wondered that Jarod wouldn't
return to the Centre where they would let him pretend all he wanted.
She clutched
the syringe somewhat more tightly and suddenly seemed not to be seeing the wall
of the Centre in front of her but instead the wall of a cabin as she went
through the last few stages of giving birth. The pain had seemed to tear her in
two but there was the comfort of what was coming. Death had been easy, when she
knew that it wasn't real death. Only a few minutes and she had heard the voices
of the people who would save her from death.
After Miss
Parker and her father had left with the baby, she recalled the twisted smile on
Cox's face as he helped her up and out of the cabin to a waiting car, before
the building went up in flames.
Of course she
hadn't seen the baby since then but it didn't matter to her. She had no
feelings for it and it was something she was rather proud of. Suddenly shaking
her head, she broke away from the memories, wondering what had prompted her to
think of it at all.
Entering the
room, she was unaware of the several pairs of eyes that watched her through the
air vent.
Raines waited
for the hands on his watch to reach a prearranged point, even as his hand
tightened on the gun. This was the part of the plan he liked least and the one
he hated to participate in. He wished that there was some way to just walk in
once the coup was accomplished and take his place as head. So his
co-conspirator thought he was weak. Of course he hadn't pulled the trigger. He
needed the man for this stage, and then there would be no weakness and no
trembling, only servitude and terror.
Just as he
liked it.
And so he
would continue to rule over the Centre, which should have belonged to him for
so long and finally would. The Triumvirate would have no part in the new order,
except as he chose to allow them, and now he looked forward to watching them
bow to his orders, rather than he to theirs. And if they thought that he had
been bad before, it would be nothing to what he would manage once he had
complete control. And anyone who got in his way would be erased, starting with
the pretender, and Raines had no doubt that his compatriot would find the
runaway and his family. What happened then would be completely up to them both.
And once that was complete, the other member of the pair would vanish for good.
Raines smirked as he looked down to see that, finally, time had come.