Post by Admin on Jan 4, 2014 18:26:56 GMT
ONE YEAR AGO
"I'm going to make you an offer." Adelle said.
Caroline glared. "I told you all I want is to be left alone."
Adelle tilted her head. "We both know we're past that."
Caroline laughed soundlessly. "Gee, what gave it away? The big, black van? Or the being held in this room for two days with no frickin' idea where I am?"
Adelle leaned forward. "My offer is this: Your life... for your life. I get five years, you get the rest. You'll be free."
Caroline scoffed quietly. "Is that you talking? Or the Rossum Corporation? Why me? Why did you pick me?
"Caroline, you picked us. This is a good thing, Caroline."
"I know what I saw! What started this."
"You and I have been doing this dance for almost two years." Adelle said tiredly. "I thought you'd have learned by now..."
Adelle poured herself a cup of tea.
"Nothing is what it appears to be."
*
Clive Ambrose dangled the vial of bright green liquid in Adelle's face. "That is one of only two existing vials of our most promising new memory drug. The other vial is missing. I don't need just one Active on this. I need an army."
Adelle leaned back and looked at Mr. Ambrose, a man in his fifties with a grey, receding hairline. "I've already rearranged the schedule. The boots are as good as on the ground."
The door clicked open and Topher slipped in, looking worried. "I-I-If this is about Foxtrot speaking Mandarin instead of Cantonese, it was a very--"
"Topher--"
Topher's eyes drifted to Ambrose. "...simple..."
"This is--"
"Clive Ambrose." Topher exhaled. "Co-chairman of the, uh, Rossum Corporation, third richest man in the country, nominated for a Nobel Prize." he chuckled. "I might throw up!" his eyes widened. "That's a compliment! Something really bad happened?"
Adelle nodded. "There's been an incident at Freemont College."
Ambrose showed a picture of a young man, stripped to his boxers, lying on the floor with a head wound. Looking dead. "Owen Johnson. He was a grad student at one of our premiere labs."
Topher gulped. "But not anymore."
"Owen ingested a psychotropic modification of aphenethylamine compound."
"One of the memory drugs Rossum's got in R&D?"
Ambrose held up the vial. "N-7316. It breaks down natural inhibitions in the hippocampus in order to awaken sleeping parts of the brain. We're still in the experimental stage. Phase one of N-7316 manifests like a recreational narcotic. Giddiness, light hallucinations."
"Munchies?" Topher chuckled. He immediately shut up at Adelle's death glare.
Ambrose was unfazed. "Phase two apparently manifests as a complete loss of impulse control."
Topher shrugged. "Could be phases, could be... a little thing I like to call body chemistry. We're all our own little cesspools of hormones, enzymes, chemical reactions. It's the same as any drug-heroin, cocaine, caffeine, how your body reacts depends on a multitude of indefinable factors. You snort horse once, don't like it; you go back to your organic tea, have a nice life. I do it once-Whoo!" he laughed to himself. "I'm doing two bags a day for 20 years." He pointed at Ambrose. "One toot for you, adios, amigo. That's what's so exciting about drugs!" Tophet caught Adelle's look. "Not that I'd know. We do biweekly drug tests. Just pure scientific observations."
"How did the drug find its way into the general campus population?" Adelle asked.
Ambrose shook his head. "We don't know. Maybe Owen was selling it. Maybe he or someone else put in the soda machine in the dining hall. One vial is enough to take out the entire student body."
"No antidote floating around, I'm guessing." Topher said.
"Right now, the best we can do is sedation. We're hoping you can help us do better. While you work on an antidote, a team of Actives will secure the campus and try to locate the missing vial."
"Oh, right. They'd be immune."
Ambrose's forehead creased. "How did you know that?"
"Well... All right, this baby attacks the inhibitors in the hippocampus to break down the repressed memory blocks, right? Actives don't have 'em. Stuff would bounce right off."
"Think you can help us, Mr. Brink?"
Topher shrugged. "Well, I can't hurt!" Again, at Adelle's look, he stopped laughing. "Prob-Probably..."
Ambrose handed him the vial. Adelle led Topher to the door.
"Start with the imprints and get the Actives in the field. If you need any extra help--"
"Cool." His tone indicated he didn't need help.
"Echo's on an engagement, right?"
Topher nodded. "Yeah, old client, new fantasy. I should call her back in?"
Adelle shook her head. "No. She can sit this one out."
*
"So," Matt asked. "What do you think?"
Alice stroked the blood red of the motorcycle and smiled. "Wow, I've never seen anything like it. It looks like a dragon. Is that stupid?"
Matt held out his hand, holding a matching helmet. "Here."
Alice shook her head. "Oh, no, thank you."
"Alice, you're gonna drive this bike."
Alice raised an eyebrow. "I am?"
Matt nodded. "Yeah. You're gonna do a lot of new things today."
Alice stood silent for a moment. Then she beamed and grabbed the helmet. "Okay!"
Matt held her close. But Alice only had eyes for the dragon.
*
Mellie nearly laughed when she found Paul in his kitchen. "You're making breakfast?"
Paul looked up from awkwardly frying the eggs. He nodded. "It's kind of late, but since I'm a gentleman of leisure, and you've taken up professional sleeping..." Mellie went for the coffee pot. "Didn't know I could cook, did you?" Paul asked.
"Nope."
"Good. Then you won't be disappointed when you find out I can't."
Mellie abandoned the pot and walked to him. "Paul, listen - take those off 'cause they're done - and listen. I'm a grown up person. We got... impulsive and, five minutes later, someone nearly killed me in your apartment. I know you feel an obligation--"
"That's not what I'm--" Paul started.
"Hey! I don't think you don't like me. But we don't fast forward to the honeymoon just because I had a bad day."
"I like taking care of you." Paul said it as if it was obvious.
"I'm glad. I think you're dreamy. But in my dream, I'm stronger than you know."
"I think you proved that when you--"
"That was luck." Mellie said, brushing it off. "I'm not a prizefighter. That Russian thug had two left feet."
Paul shrugged. "I wish he had. It would have been a lot easier to ID a guy with two left feet."
"They did ID him." Mellie pointed out.
"They got a name, which I guarantee you wasn't his. I took a set of prints myself, though. Got a friend who can access a few databases outside of the bureau's reach. The Dollhouse found this guy somewhere. Professional killers are made. They're trained..."
Paul stopped. He hadn't noticed Mellie had returned to the coffee pot.
He sighed. "I'm sorry. You don't want to talk about this."
"You're off the case..." Mellie replied meekly.
"Officially."
"They suspended you!"
"So far as the Dollhouse is concerned, I'm not a threat anymore! This is the perfect time--"
"You can't drop it?" she whispered.
"You... said you thought this was important..."
"And they tried to kill me!" she said resentfully.
"Mellie, I promise you--"
"You can't promise! It's blind luck that I'm not dead already. What you can do is drop the case. Let someone else handle it!"
Paul didn't speak. But his face said it all.
"Yeah." Mellie sighed. "You love taking care of me. I think you know your way across the hall."
Mellie turned and left. Paul stared at the eggs.
*
Laurence Dominic stepped out of the van onto the lawn of the Freemont College campus. "Let's go!" he ordered. "You guys are up there!" A group of his men swarmed the campus in seconds. "Come on, let's move it! Energy! We're gonna do the grid."
From another van emerged Victor, wearing a nice suit and an earpiece. His imprint was called Agent Tom Willick.
"All right, guys." Victor - or rather, Tom - said to his men. "Everyone knows where they're going? Six guys and girls - women - searching this campus top to bottom. I want that other vial."
As Willick's men dispersed, Sierra, imprinted as one Doctor Claudia Gawa, appeared at Dominic's side, wearing a white lab coat, hair in a bun. "Tom," Dominic said, approaching him. "This is Doctor Gawa from the Center for Disease Control."
"Super. I haven't heard a good flesh-eating-strain-of-something horrible story in a while."
"Yeah," Doctor Gawa said dryly. "I've got dozens."
"Hopefully today won't be worth talking about. Let's find these kids and get 'em better."
"I've got you set up at the Kappa Zeta Chi House." Dominic told Gawa. "And Tom, you'll be running the grid."
"Uh, the grid's taken care of." Tom said. "I'll be too busy rounding up our day-trippers to look under mattresses."
"That's my call." Dominic said firmly.
"Actually, it's mine."
Tom took out his shiny gold badge from his pocket. Dominic stared at it. "You're NSA?"
Tom nodded. "Which outranks Rossum private security by more than a whole bunch."
Dominic cursed Topher under his breath. "All right, fine, I'll stay here and be the communications command post."
"First, have someone show Dr. Gawa to Kappa House. You good?" he asked Gawa.
She nodded. "Yeah. I've always wanted to go to a frat party."
They dispersed, leaving Dominic alone on the lawn.
*
"Are you sure you're okay?" Alice asked, glancing at Matt tied to the bed.
He smiled. "I'm okay, if you're okay."
"I'm great! Is that terrible?"
"No, it's wonderful."
Alice exhaled and went to the TV. "I'm not sure how to work this, but.."
She picked up the video camera. What was seen on the camera was seen on the TV. "Oh, God, what if somebody sees it?"
"Only us." Matt reassured her. "Okay? My life on it."
"I never thought I'd--"
The screens went black.
"Oh, I've lost picture, sorry..."
"No, just, uh..." Matt tried to motion at the TV despite the ropes on his wrists. "On the side, there's a button..."
"Oh..."
Alice hit the button. The TV screen opened on a news report. There was a large building: the caption said Freemont College. Alice sat on the bed and listened.
"--The tragic suicide appears to be a case of a stressed-out student who didn't know how to ask for help. Freemont College officials have said that counseling will be available on the campus throughout the week..."
Alice stared at the college building. Freemont College...?
"I have to go." she said. "I have to help him." She stood.
"Alice, is everything all right?" Matt asked.
"I'm terribly sorry. I have to go."
Matt laughed. "Yeah, very funny."
"I have to get him out of there..."
Alice disappeared into the hall.
"Okay," Matt said. "It's... it's not actually that funny! Alice?"
Matt heard a click. He sighed. "That was a door..."
*
"Are you comfortable?" Topher asked November.
"Yes," November replied, looking up at him from the chair. "Thank you."
"I'm gonna give you a shot. And then I just need you to sit still for a while. Can you do that?"
"If you like."
"Just think about pretty things." Topher advised. "Rainbows."
Adelle rolled her eyes from the corner. Topher glanced at her. "She's immune, but dosing her will help me find an antidote." he explained.
He put the needle to November's skin and pushed on the plunger. Her face strained for a moment, but then returned to its serene blankness. Topher put the syringe down and pulled off his gloves. "All righty. Let's see exactly what this stuff is doing so we can undo it. This may take a while. Be patient." He rushed to one of his computers.
"What shall I do," Adelle asked. "Think about rainbows?"
Topher shrugged. "Go for it."
"Or shall I think about how that glorified dog's body, Clive Ambrose, can't keep his affairs in order?" she suggested, angrily passing a stress ball between her hands.
"Oh." Topher said. "You could have said no..."
"The Rossum Corporation is why we exist. And I believe in the work we're funding. I also believe that the only reason I don't have Clive Ambrose's job is because he couldn't handle mine."
Topher smiled. "Ooh. So, now we're sharing." he giggled.
"Can you just figure out a way to keep people from killing themselves on this drug?" she suggested. "We have more than a few in the early stages, and sedating then is hardly a cure."
"It'll buy me time." he replied. "As long as we keep the place locked down and don't have any more X factors, then here I come to save the day." He laughed again. Adelle pointed at the computer. "Yeah.." He began typing but paused. He looked at Adelle. "Can you get me a juice box?"
*
Alice threw her leg over the motorcycle and dismounted onto the sidewalk. She looked at the huge collection of buildings that made up Freemont College. Alice had never been here, not in her life.
Except she had. But how...?
"Are you lost?"
Alice turned around. A handsome man in a suit was standing there. He held up an NSA Badge: Agent Tom Willick.
"Hi." she said. "Um... no."
"Do you go to Freemont?" he asked.
"Um... I don't know." she said truthfully. "Th-There's parts that seem... I-I-I don't know..."
The Agent put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "You can come with us." as she followed, she heard him say "We got one more" into his Walkie Talkie.
*
"No, I don't know anything is wrong." Boyd told Adelle, glancing at the tracking device in his hand. "Maybe that's the client's new fantasy. Send a Doll to college."
"Well, which college?" Adelle said into the phone, pacing Topher's office floor.
"Uh, Freemont. I tracked Echo here."
Adelle closed her eyes, wanted to swear. "Oh, please, God, be joking..."
"Why?" Boyd asked. "What's up?"
"Phew!" Topher said to November from the adjacent imprint room. "Your brain rocks!" He held his hand up for a high five. November tentatively placed her own hand against his, mystified.
Adelle did her best to ignore them. "We have a major engagement happening there. Echo cannot interfere with it. Get her out of there quickly. And if you need assistance call Dominic."
Boyd was about to reply when a young, bizarre-faced college girl approached him.
"Do you understand?" Adelle asked in his ear.
"Hold on." He placed his palm over the mouthpiece and stared back at the girl. "Yes?"
"There are mansions in your eyes." she observed. "Did you know that?" She gasped and reached for his face. "You can see the doors!"
Boyd placed his hand on the girl's wrist and gently put it at her side. "Excuse me."
The girl turned and skipped away as Boyd turned his back. "No," he told Adelle. "I definitely don't understand."
*
"I don't think I'm supposed to be here." Alice said as a pretty blonde woman in a lab coat pushed her into a fraternity house. Dozens of students were there, all being tended to by other doctors.
"Sit down." the Doctor said. "I'm just going to give you a little shot. Sit down."
The doctor pushed her lightly onto a seat. "The television made me. I had to come here. A shot of what exactly?"
"You ingested a powerful narcotic." the doctor said, dabbing Alice's arm with a piece of cotton. "I need to make sure you don't hurt yourself."
"Oh, Matt and I don't do drugs." Alice replied, shaking her head. "I have somewhere to be, not here."
"Just relax."
Alice closed her eyes. Why had she come here? Why was she saying nonsense? She was saying things she hadn't planned on saying. Puppet strings. Odd. Freemont, why come here? Alice thought, searched her brain.
A cute man in a lab. "What do they need babies for?" he had said.
Alice opened her eyes. "Rossum."
Alice saw the doctor putting a needle to her arm. She batted her hand away, gasped. "No!" she protested.
"I don't think she wants the shot." a boy next to her said.
"I'm not on drugs!" Alice insisted.
A girl a few seats behind sat bolt upright, screamed. "The window glass! It's coming for us!"
"Fine." Alice's doctor said, massaging her temple. "I'll get you the liquid gel. You, too." she said to Alice's neighbour. She disappeared in a sea of scared looking students.
"Don't worry." the boy next to Alice said. "It wears off. I mean, I'm starting to feel normal again. Sort of. The walls stopped moving..."
Alice looked at him. He was cute, dark skinned with a shaved head, a tad younger than her, green t-shirt. "I'm not supposed to be here." she told him. "I have to save him."
"Who?" he asked.
Alice searched her mind for the cute man in the lab. "I don't know." she concluded. "Him. I have to get into Rossum."
"The Rossum lab? This about Owen? What do you know about Rossum?"
"Just that I have to get into that building."
"You know, I think they did this." the boy said. "Put something in the water, using us as guinea pigs."
"Guinea pigs?"
"Well, yeah, I mean, I'm guessing we're all nice, neat entries in someone's lab journal. You know, us, this many affected, this many hurt... gone. They killed my friend."
Alice didn't reply for a moment. "I have to get to the lab." she eventually said.
"Good luck. I mean, it's surrounded by security guards."
"No, I can get in." she said resolutely. "I just have to listen to myself."
The boy raised an eyebrow. "You're serious?"
"Yeah. I know a way in. I... I think. Which kind of freaks me out..."
"Okay, well, I'll help you. I mean, I know that lab like the back of my hand."
Alice shook her head. "Oh, no. You don't have to do that."
"Well, I'm not gonna let you go in there by yourself. Anyway, it's not just for you. I mean, I want to find evidence, prove they did this, and get their asses sent to jail." He extended his hand. She shook it. "I'm Sam. I think I'm glad I met you."
"Alice." she said.
"We got to get out of here--"
"No! Stop! It's all too big!"
Alice turned around. A hyper-looking woman was being yanked through the doorway by one of the agent men. The man abandoned the tugging and threw the girl over his shoulder. "No! Please! No! Please put me down. Where are you taking me?"
Sam tapped Alice's shoulder. This was their chance. As everyone stared at the dramatic scene, Alice and Sam scurried out the door and down the steps, outside.
"Wow, that worked." Alice said. "Thank you."
"Let's get out of sight, okay? Come on."
They both turned to find a tall man in front of them. He had light brown skin, receding hairline, middle-aged, bulky and gruff. He towered over them, arms crossed. "Would you like to have a treatment?" he asked.
Alice was puzzled. She didn't know this man. "No." she said. She and Sam walked away, leaving the stranger behind.
Boyd Langton watched them go. "Hey. Wow. Did not maintain control of that situation."
Slowly, Boyd began to laugh.
*
A FEW YEARS AGO
Caroline Farrell stared at the picture of Clive Ambrose on the open magazine page. "I don't want to say evil?"
"Yeah." her boyfriend, Leo, said. "Yeah, you really do." He passed the magazine across the dinner table to Caroline's friend Meredith.
"Ugh, the Rossum Corporation is evil." Caroline said matter-of-factly.
"'Minds Matter'?" Meredith read. "Ugh! This guy gives me the heebie-jeebies."
"Clive Ambrose, the face of Rossum."
"Marketing campaign that big? He's hiding something." their friend Trevor said.
"That whole company's hiding something." Leo agreed.
"Yeah, for instance, animal testing." Caroline said. "I mean, monkeys, puppies: they're torturing them."
Leo nodded. "Kicking it Mengele-style, all in the name of science."
"Monkeys should not be guinea pigs." Meredith said.
Leo shrugged. "Guinea pigs should not be guinea pigs.
"Whatever they say in those ads, the ends don't justify the means." Caroline insisted. "I have a plan. I have the beginnings of a plan."
"Is this when you free all the monkeys and they go nuts and bite you to death?" Trevor asked.
"No. This is where we film the monkeys in their cages and put the footage online."
"Yeah," Leo agreed. "Where millions can view it over and over again."
"Mmm-hmm. They'll be shamed into policy changes."
"And we get in how?" Leo asked. "I mean, Rossum's gotta have security."
"I'm working on that part."
"This is not how we used to party." Meredith breathed.
"I spent four years partying in the shadow of that building." Caroline said. "Do you know what they could have done in those four years? How many living creatures they... Ugh! Someone has to stand up. It doesn't have to be you guys. I-I wouldn't ask it. This is just... where I am."
Leo patted her leg. "Yep. That's my girl. That's my Caroline."
*
Laurence Dominic watched from his swivel chair as Tom stalked into the Rossum Building's lab, flanked by two other agents. "None of this is tagged. Get on all of this. James?" he said, tapping a man who had been dusting a computer.
"Nothing yet, sir." James said.
"Well, I don't have to tell you to keep looking, but..."
"Keep looking." they both finished.
"Sure, now you're experts." Dominic said quietly to himself. He took out his gun, removed the clip, put it back in and put away the gun: a game he had mastered over the past few hours."Four hours ago, you were discussing your love for applesauce..." He played another round of the game. Tom approached him.
"Well, my guys have got this fairly well-contained." he informed Dominic. "Fourteen subjects exhibiting erratic behavior, sedated."
He sighed. Dominic froze mid-clip removal. "What?"
We rounded up fourteen..."
Dominic smiled and shoved the clip in, quick as a flash. Tom looked concerned. "You okay?"
"I'm fine. Go on." Dominic began laughing. "Four-fourteen round what?"
Tom leaned in close, arms outstretched. "Buddy? How about we head over to containment?" he suggested tentatively.
"I'm fine."
"Dr. Gawa will give you a light sedative..."
Dominic stormed to his feet and backed away, gun in hand. "Hey, I'm fine!"
Tom put his hands up. "All right. Easy, buddy..."
Dominic pointed his gun between Tom's eyes, glowering. "I know how to solve problems."
"You bet." Tom said, slowly inching forward.
Dominic dropped the scowl for a whiney look: a pout. " Oh, man: this is SO heavy! It makes my arms tired!"
Tom looked bewildered. "Want me to help you out with that? Dominic nodded. "Okay, here we go." Dominic passed him the gun, acting like a big child. He let his head fall. Tom backed off and motioned to James. James approached Dominic slowly. In a flash, Dominic wrapped him in a tight hug. "Hey, wow. It's-it's so heavy." Dominic babbled. "Extremely. Everything's heavy."
"Right, okay..." James said awkwardly.
Tom, severely spooked, put his phone to his war. "Yeah, I need to speak to the person in charge at the security office..."
*
"I see." Adelle said. "Please, do keep me updated. And please, take care of him. Thank you, Agent." She hung up at looked to Topher. "This is unbelievable."
"What part was believable before?" Topher asked from one of his computers.
"The drug. It's not being sold, Topher. The effects are spreading. Mr. Dominic is exhibiting erratic behavior."
Topher looked like it was Christmas. "He didn't take any. There's no way Dom would consciously try to have fun. It could be airborne."
"We'd be seeing a lot more cases on the campus." Adelle pointed out "Beyond even."
"Exposure to a patient, whether viral or through touch..." He touched Adelle's arm to accent his point. "Sssss... That spreads more slowly, but pretty soon, that campus is gonna fill up with wacky time bombs."
"Well, we need to know what it is." Adelle said, glancing at Topher's grip on her forearm.
"Yes, well, we will... when I figure it out."
"And reversing the effect? Are you making any progress?" Adelle asked, indicating the monitor.
"I'm working!" Topher said resentfully. "What are you doing besides... being..."
"Being what?"
"Wait a minute." Topher said, eyes lost in the overhead light. He was looking for a word.
"Sarcastic?" Adelle offered. "Unfeeling? British?"
"It's an animal." he said.
Adelle jumped, looked behind her. "Where?!"
"No! The word!"
"Still, you have to admit, I am... very... British. I don't say hard Rs..."
"You know what I like?" Topher said, his eyes manic. "Brown sauce. What's it made of? Science doesn't know!"
"It's made of brown!"
"Brown... mined from the earth by the hardscrabble brown miners of North Brownterton!"
Adelle fell into a chair. "Oh, my God!" she exclaimed in horrified realisation. "I find lentils completely incomprehensible! What the sun-dappled hell is Echo doing at Freemont?"
"That's got nothing to do with the drug." Topher said. "Which means our problems are huge and indomitable."
"Ooh." Adelle oozed. "I could eat that word. Or a crisp. Do you have any crisps?" she asked anxiously.
Topher's face grew manically excited. "You haven't seen my drawer of inappropriate starches? Come on." he said, leading her away. "Come on, come on. Come on. Ah..."
Adelle threw her head back as she left the office. "Oh, my God: I'm having such a terrible day!"
*
"Well, sorry it's not much, but the, uh, scholarship doesn't cover a decorating fee." Sam apologised, opening the door of his dorm room.
"It's nice." Alice offered.
"So, you used to go to school here?" he asked, exchanging his shirt for a new one.
Alice shook her head. "No. I went back east. I think. I mean, I did. I went to Colby."
"Okay. So, someone you know went here. A boyfriend?"
Alice thought. "I don't know. I mean, I woke up this morning, and everything was normal. And then I met Matt, and... we did stuff. And then, I saw the Rossum Building on TV, and I had to leave, and... and I-I can't really deal with a lot of questions right now."
"Yeah. It's been a, um... weird, bad day." Sam agreed. "Say no more." He sat on the bed next to her, a map of the campus in hand. "Okay, so... we are here, and... Rossum Building is here. The lab is on the second floor."
Alice pointed at the building. "That's where I save him." she said, struggling to remember the handsome man in the lab...
"Well, Alice, I don't want you to expect too much. There may not be a 'him'."
"There might not be the proof against Rossum you're looking for, either, but that's not stopping you." she pointed out.
"Nothing stops me: my mother's voice is too loud in my ear."
"Awww: mama's boy." Alice cooed, nodding to a nearby picture of the mother and son.
"I ain't got no choice. I'm all she's got. So, you remember how to get in this building?"
Alice nodded. "Underneath. That's the way in."
"Okay, you're not overwhelming me with specificity."
She took the map and placed it on her lap. "Lily Foundry. We have to find Lily Foundry."
*
Topher flicked his hair away from his ear to make more room for the phone. "Listen to me carefully. I've got a huge phalanx of machines that go bing, and this is carried by anyone exposed to it. Through touch. It is mandated that you get any Rossum operatives off the grounds and send them back here."
Adelle waved from midair, jumping manically on the trampoline. "Say hi from me!"
Topher ignored her. "Nope, you Dolls, you're..." Topher flung the phone down and sucked in air. He had forgotten: THEY DIDN't KNOW THEY WERE DOLLS! Silly Topher, he thought. He brought it back up, laughing nervously. "By which, of course, I mean NSA, CDC folks... you're safe as houses. Because of the government. They do things. But anyone else who comes in contact with the drug is susceptible... Am I sure?"
Topher stared at his reflection. His hair was sticking every which way, his eyes were wide, his nails nibbled to their beds... and he was no longer wearing pants. "I am fairly sure." Topher lowered the phone. "Secret Agent Victor is so lofty." he observed.
Adelle made her way back to Topher. Rather than going up the small steps from his office's bottom floor to the top one - which, evidently, was only a metre or so higher - she clambered over the banister and collapsed on the ground, giggling. "I have a good story about him!" she began--
Topher's phone beeped. "Hold on, hold on." He stared at the screen, raised it to his ear. "I have a... I have another call." he told Secret Agent Victor. LI have another call. I have a better call!" He clicked over to the other line. "Boyd! Did you find Echo?"
Adelle snatched the phone from him. "Boyd. Did you find Echo?"
"It's all right, Ms. DeWitt. I-I've- I've worked it out."
"Worked out what? Is Echo contained?"
"Just listen." Boyd insisted. There was some fumbling, and then a piano started to play. It was beautiful. Adelle hit the speaker button and held it out to Topher.
They listened together. Adelle had to stop herself from crying. Topher had to stop himself from laughing.
*
Alice led the way out of Sam's dorm, cautiously avoiding a twirling woman who was laughing hysterically. "It's around here somewhere." she insisted.
"You mean SHE'S around here." Sam corrected.
Alice shook her head. "I don't think it's a person. I think Lily Foundry is an IT."
"So, we're looking for an it?"
"Uh-huh--"
"Caroline. Caroline Farrell!"
Alice turned around. The twirling woman had spoken and was now approaching them. "Excuse me?" Alice asked.
"I knew that was you!"
Alice shook her head. "That's not me. I'm sorry."
"Professor Janack." the woman said, indicating herself. "We charted the whole history of the Americas together!"
"Her name is Alice," Sam said. "But have a good day."
"I don't know this person, do I?" Alice asked Sam.
"I don't know, she's... she's tweaked. She needs to be sedated."
Alice gave the woman one last look before following Sam. Behind her, she heard the woman burst out laughing.
"The entrance is here somewhere." Alice said, leading the way down the path.
"Okay, we're nowhere near the Rossum Building, and I checked all the directories for all these buildings, and still no Lily Foundry." Sam replied.
Alice looked to the ground. "Because you're standing on her."
Sam looked under his feet. He was standing on a grate. Engraved on the middle bar were the words "Lily Foundry".
*
"We make choices." Adelle observed, fighting the urge to make angels in the snacks she was lying in on Topher's floor. "I'm well aware that there are forces beyond our control, but even in the face of those forces, we make choices. And then we live with them. And then we die with them. I know why Echo went to Freemont."
"To punish you?" Topher asked, sitting across from her, legs crossed.
Adelle stared at the ceiling. "To let Caroline punish me."
Topher sighed.
"Are you ever gonna shut up about her?"
Topher and Adelle whirled around. Standing in the open doorway of the Imprint Room was November, tears streaming down her face. "Is she what you think about when you're on me? Would you let me die, Paul? Would you be relieved?!"
She squatted down, hands to her temples, bawling. Adelle and Topher stared at each other. "You said it didn't affect them." she said.
"But she's not tripping. She's glitching. She's remembering..."
November stood up. She walked slowly towards them, face blank. Adelle tensed. If she could remember being Mellie...
November stopped walking.
"There are three flowers in a vase..."
*
A FEW YEARS AGO
"Then my odyssey takes me to the city clerk's office, where, it turns out, the counterjockeys aren't opposed to a little 'you scratch my back with a wad of cash, and I scratch yours with sealed planning records.' And voilà."
Leo, Trevor and Meredith watched as Caroline rolled out the blueprints. "Blueprints." Meredith observed. "I'm riveted."
"You are a snide bitch." Caroline counter-observed.
"I know: I love that about me."
"Me, too."
"Well, these look like... really boring building plans." Leo said.
"Yeah, I thought so, too, the first two hours I stared at them, but then I saw..." She pulled one of the pages from the pile and showed it to him.
"Oh. Nice work, babe..."
Trevor put up his hand. "Yeah, I'm totally in the dark here..."
"Well, they put in these utility tunnels here." she said, indicating the prints.
"Yeah, but according to these plans, the room they lead to is empty." Leo said.
Trevor looked like he was beginning to understand. "So, if you wanted to, say, move things in and out of the lab without opening the front door..."
"You'd go in here." Caroline finished, pointing. Leo stood and walked away, looking pensive. Caroline followed him to the corner. "Babe... this is good news. Where's your happy face?"
He turned, looking her in the eyes. "Rossum is seriously powerful, and this just... this just became real."
"Well, it's always been real to me."
"Caroline, I'm just saying you might not want to piss them off."
"Rossum is exploiting animals in the name of 'science,' and God knows what else. I might want to piss them off a real lot." she said. The matter was not up for discussion.
"Okay, okay. Go easy. I'm not backing out."
"You better not back out."
"I'm with you." he said.
"Damn right." she said.
Leo nodded. "Always."
*
Alice pointed at a red pipe. "There. We... we follow the red pipe. I've been here before, but... how can you not remember something and remember it at the same time?"
"I don't know." Sam shrugged, continuing down the tunnels. "That's just this drug making you act weird."
"No. I felt it before. It pulled me here."
He shrugged again. "Well, maybe you're crazy."
"Do you think so?" she asked, slightly insulted.
"What I do think is, when we get in there, we have to look for lab books, uh, logs, chemical samples, proof that Rossum is responsible for this mess."
He stopped talking as they came to a ladder. Alice indicated it. "Right there. That goes straight into the Rossum Building."
"Yeah?"
She nodded. They began their ascension and found themselves in a dark room. "Okay, we're gonna have to move like ninjas from here on out." Sam said.
"We're not gonna have to fight, are we?" Alice asked. "Because I don't even really know how to make a fist."
"Not if we do this right."
They exited and found themselves in a corridor. "Okay, the staircase to the lab is just beyond the lobby." Sam said. "Now, timing is everything." In the corner was a security mirror. Alice saw the reflection of the lobby. A guard was in view. "Just pretend like we're playing a video game and I'm gonna go first. And when he turns his back, then you go."
Sam ran. "I don't play video games..." Alice said meekly to herself. She readied herself to dart--
A cold hand planted itself on her shoulder. Alice whirled around to see a man in a finely-pressed suit, with silvery hair. She was trying to place him, but she barely glimpsed his face before he wrapped her in a very tight embrace. "You. I am so sorry that I tried to kill you!"
Alice patted him awkwardly. "It's okay--"
"No, it's not okay! I tried to burn you to death. Who does that?"
"What's the hold up?" Sam asked, appearing behind Alice.
"He says he tried to kill me." she said. She saw the stranger was experiencing his tongue in his mouth, as if for the first time.
"He's been exposed." Sam realised.
"Oh! Um... it's okay." she said, slowly pushing the man off. "Really, uh, whatever you think you did, I'm over it. You know, uh... water... bridge... under..."
"Please, I'm begging you." the man said, on the verge of tears. "Don't walk away. I just... I need your forgiveness."
"You got it." Alice said, backing away.
"You don't mean it. You still hate me! I can see it in your eyes, right, and you just keep looking at me with them."
"I mean it." she said desperately. "I forgive you."
"Look, the guns, right, the running around, the barking orders: this is not all there is to Laurence Dominic! No, ma'am, this is just my job. I'm not just hard edges. I mean, look at me. Check this suit out. Check this suit out!"
Alice and Sam walked away from the man - Laurence Dominic? - and passed the guard, who was shaking his leg. "No, no. No, no, no, no." the guard protested to no one. "How many times have I told you? He's not a nice doggie. I don't want to pet him."
Sam and Alice decided to break into a run.
*
Doctor Gawa found Dominic feeling his own suit in the lobby. She approached him slowly. "This is so soft..." he observed.
"Mr. Dominic?" she said. "Mr. Dominic. I, uh, hear you're feeling a little under the weather. I think I might have something that might help."
She led him to the guard station, where she found the guard fighting off a dog made of air. "He's not a nice doggie. I don't want to pet him. He'll attack me. NO!"
Doctor Gawa recoiled at the sound of gunfire. When she opened her eyes, Agent Willick and his men were there, at the guard's aid. "Hey." Willick said. "It's okay. It's okay..." He sat the guard down and put the gun on another desk. "All right." he turned to his men. "Everybody with a firearm, turn it in, now. Right here!" He slapped the desk. He turned to Doctor Gawa. "Let's get our friend sedated."
Gawa nodded and began walking towards them. Then stopped. She gasped. She couldn't see, reality was there again, memories she didn't have bleeding through...
You remember to be very quiet during the game, right?
Noise is upsetting...
Lift up your dress...
Gawa felt a hand on her. She screamed, pulled away, and pointed the gun she didn't know she had grabbed. "You stay away from me!"
She froze. Tom backed away cautiously, then stopped. Doctor Gawa went away, he was in a military uniform, screaming at a woman he didn't know, saying words he hadn't said in a time he hadn't lived...
No, it's okay. It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you. We gotta move now!
Reality bled through for a moment, he took a swipe for Gawa's gun, but then he was back in the uniform, a house in the Middle East, the woman in his arms.
Let's go, he begged, please...
Then Doctor Gawa was there, sobbing and beating at Tom's arms--
Then she was gone, lying in a room tinted blue, a man on top of her.
It's not a fun game. Please, stop...
Tom was in the house, asking her to leave--
Gawa was in the room, crying--
The woman ran, into the path of an explosion--
The man didn't stop, didn't get off--
Tom and Doctor Gawa fell back to reality, on the floor of the lobby. Dominic was mumbling how his suit was soft like a kitty.
Doctor Gawa looked to the floor. Tom was holding her hand.
*
"I don't hear anything." Adelle whispered over her pillow. "She didn't finish the trigger code. She's probably right as rain."
"Go check." Topher suggested, curled up on the floor.
"I am your superior!" she hissed.
Topher nodded. "In every way. Go check."
Adelle glared before climbing up onto the couch and looking through the banister to the office's upper level. November was lying inches from her face. "He dumped the stock. He ran out of options..."
"Help me get her into the chair." Adelle whispered.
"Uh, I can't deal--
"Help me get her into the chair!"
They climbed up the railing onto the upper floor. Topher did it with ease, while Adelle got a face full of carpet. They each took one of November's arms and heaved. "You need to wipe this out of her."
"It doesn't make any sense." Topher insisted.
"Then you make it make sense!" They grunted as they each swung an arm over their shoulder, dragging November towards the Imprint Room. "You think I float around like a balloon untethered to your muck? Flip!" They flipped November onto her back and pushed her into the Imprint chair. "I run this house!"
"No, no. It doesn't make any sense. Except... Active's brains aren't like ours." he said, gripping November's scalp. "I mean, we alter them this way and that, so... N-73... blah, blah, blah...it hit the Actives later, right? And differently. Like... a memory glitch. Which means..." Topher scurried to the computer. "The compound is breaking down into a protease and zipping right through our manmade memory blocks. November glitched to a traumatic memory. I bet the same thing is happening to the other Dolls. Upside is the drugs devolving. A couple hours, it will be gone."
"How do you explain the man who lost his brain down his shirt?"
Topher was getting back to normal, but the mad eyes hadn't left. "Had an extreme dose. Way more than you can absorb. Way more than...he would have taken..."
He stared at Adelle. She stared back as she realised.
"It's a murder."
*
"It's different." Alice noted as she entered the lab.
Sam pulled on a nearby glove and rushed to the fridge cases. "Yeah? What did it used to be like?"
"...I don't know." She turned to see him taking a vial full of murky green liquid from the fridge. "I have to stop him."
"Who?"
Alice was unsure. "Something awful."
Sam took the vial to a sink as Alice wandered around. She watched him place his finger over the tube's opening and turn the vial over. The green ran through his fingers, revealing a smaller vial of bright green within. "Is that the drug?" she asked. "You found it..."
He pulled a cloth out and poured some liquid on it.
Something occurred to Alice. "You found it really fast..." Sam turned towards her, cloth in hand. Alice began backing away. "Sam? What are you... OH MY--"
Sam grabbed the back of her head and shove the cloth to her lips. The foul-smelling liquid seeped in, and Alice got lost in a sea of apologies and darkness.
*
A FEW YEARS AGO
Leo flipped the light switch of the lab and hit the button on the camera. "We're in."
Caroline moved her ponytail from her ear at a sound. It repeated. A howling, from the wall.
"Leo, over here." she said, approaching the cages. At least a dozen varieties of animals, whimpering. Leo approached a jar that held something that looked suspiciously like a fetus. "What do they need babies for?"
"This is Rossum." Caroline said bitterly. "They don't care about souls. Human or animal." She fingered the cage of a lonely monkey. "What are they doing to you?" she whispered. "Are you getting this?" she asked Leo.
She turned to see him at a computer monitor showing a brain. "Babe." he breathed. "You gotta see something..."
"What is it?" she said, trying to see over his shoulder.
"Science fiction. They're not just experimenting with animals."
"Babe, we got to get footage of--"
She stopped when she caught a glimpse of the screen. She approached cautiously. On the screen beside the brain were pictures of a brain, a fetus and something Caroline didn't recognise. "Are they...? What the hell are they doing?"
Leo didn't look away. "Something really not good."
"I told you Rossum was evil."
Leo passed Caroline the camera. "Here, take this. You get the animals. Let me see what I can find on here."
"Yeah..."
Caroline opened the camera and began filming a sickly dog in the nearest cage. "Look at her. Do we have to just leave her here?"
"Babe, it's not a pet shop. We can't take them with us." he said regretfully.
Caroline fingered the lock longingly.
"Hey! Don't move!"
Caroline whirled around. A guard was entering through the door at the back of the lab."Go! Run!" Leo ordered, and they did, racing out of the room as the guard followed.
*
"What... did you do?" Alice asked numbly. She was relatively sure she was propped against the wall, but everything was swirling and sickly. "Make it stop, please..."
"I'm sorry about this, okay?" Sam said. Through the blur, Alice saw him remove his glove. "I-I didn't want to do this. Any of this."
"All these people... why did you hurt them?"
He held up the bright green vial. "This right here is my chance for something. Owen and me were gonna take this over to Bel Med Tec."
"I-In Switzerland?"
"It's the number two drug company in the world, right after Rossum. You know what they'd pay for this? Billions."
"You're insane." Alice whispered.
Sam shrugged. "Nobody's perfect."
Alice yelped as her mind grew hot, like red hot pokers in her brain. Images of a girl and the man, the handsome man from the lab, running, running away...
"You're a killer." she managed as Sam turned to leave.
Sam froze. "Listen, Owen was my best friend. And him dying... I didn't want that. I just wanted to get him out of the way long enough for me to get out of town. I didn't know he'd hurt himself like that, okay?"
"He knew what you were gonna do..."
"It was his idea! And then he got scared, said Rossum would come after us. He tried to stop me."
Alice shook her head, barely. "Just because you didn't mean it doesn't mean you didn't kill him. You're responsible."
"You think about it your way and I'll think about it mine. Enjoy your trip."
"No." Alice said, and she meant it. With all her strength, Alice staggered to her feet, nearly toppled over immediately, but held onto a stool for support. She glimpsed Sam's form leaving and she stumbled after him, trying to ignore the other thoughts in her head...
*
Leo tried desperately to pass the camera to Caroline as they ran, the guard gaining quick. "Here, go!"
It left his grasp, Caroline swiped desperately, but it clattered to the ground. For a split second, Leo looked as if he might go back for it. "Leave it!" Caroline ordered. "Leave it!" Something caught her eye: the guard had a friend. "Leave it!" she yelled.
"Go!" Leo screamed. She didn't know if he had gotten it, didn't care, just kept running, had to get away. She barely heard the gunshot as it fired, but she glimpsed Leo's hand trying to stem a river of blood--
*
"No!"
Alice stopped running, panting. He had gotten shot. The man she somehow new, Leo, he was shot here.
Alice tore after Sam, not paying the slightest attention to the drug. "You're a killer, Sam!" she screamed. "You killed him!"
She began gaining, closer, closer--
*
Caroline ducked into the broom closet, Leo right behind her. He shut the door, gasping for breath. "I love you." he panted. "And you're gonna be okay..."
Caroline looked to Leo's side. No camera. His T-Shirt was drenched a blood red. "Oh, my God! Come on, we have to get out of here--!"
Leo shushed her. They heard footsteps whizz by them. "Okay, okay..."
"Leo, come on!" Caroline turned the knob and tentatively stepped out, holding Leo's arm...
*
Alice ploughed through the guard station, glimpsing the pandemonium, ignoring the stranger in the suit's apologies for attempted murder, barely glancing at the pretty blonde doctor rocking in a fetal position, just charged through the door out onto the lawn. She saw Sam, grabbed him by the bag and tackled him, sending them both into the ground, Alice on top--
*
"Stay with me." Caroline told Leo, collapsed on the grass, unmoving. "I need you! Leo, please!"
She crawled on top of him, slapped his chest, again and again as blood trickled from his lip, trying to get him to speak or move or do anything except lie there, except be dead...
Caroline felt tears sting her eyes as Leo stopped blinking.
"I'm your girl..."
*
"Leo, stay!" Alice begged. "Please stay!"
Sam pushed Alice off of him and stood. "Get off of me, you crazy bitch!"
He turned to run, only to get a face full of the gruff man's fist. He went down, unconscious, and the gathering crowd quickly began to retreat. Boyd Langton spoke to Alice. "Echo?"
"Mm?"
"Would you like a treatment?"
Alice stared at Sam's unmoving form for a moment. "Yes."
Boyd took her by the hands and hoisted him up. They began to walk, and Alice could've sworn that Boyd had a bright green vial in his other hand.
*
A FEW YEARS AGO
"Ms. DeWitt. I'm glad you could come."
"You seemed quite confident she fits the profile." Adelle said as she stepped out from the elevator into the medical corridor.
"Yes." The man nodded. "She's been through a lot."
"Well, you were right to call."
Adelle strode towards the room, the man following. She pushed the door open to see an empty bed with crumpled sheets and abandoned machines. Adelle hurried to the open window where the curtains billowed in the wind.
"She was just here." the man said, clearly frightened.
Adelle began to smile. "She won't get far."
*
"Mr. Dominic, please come in."
"Thank you."
Adelle stood aside to let him into the office. They stood a moment, silent. Awkward.
"Would you like a drink?" she offered.
"No, thank you." he declined. After a moment's silence, he continued. "All the Actives have been evaluated and processed. Everything seems satisfactory."
"Wonderful news."
She walked to her desk, desperate to escape the awkwardness. She picked up a heavy handgun and held it aloft. "Yours, I believe."
Dominic rushed forward and took it. "Yes. Uh, thank you." He stepped back again. "The, uh, press is running with the story we sold them. 'Student drugs classmates before committing suicide.'"
"And Echo? I suppose you'll be recommending she be sent to the Attic."
Dominic squirmed. "That's entirely your call, ma'am."
Adelle rolled her eyes. "For God's sake, quit calling me ma'am. We got drugged. We behaved like idiot children. It happens. It's over. You may go."
Dominic nodded and exited.
Adelle opened the security feed. Echo was just wandering the Dollhouse. She paused for a moment. Adelle could've sworn she looked directly at the camera. But then Echo walked, and was gone.
Adelle went looking for a drink. She strongly believed that Dominic went looking for something to shoot.
*
"Were you gonna say anything?"
Mellie looked guiltily at the suitcases in the hallway at her feet. "I just need to get away." she told Paul. "It's not forever."
"I get it. I'm sorry."
"Debbie might crash here sometimes, if you hear a noise. If you need to reach me--"
"You know what? Maybe it's better if I don't know where you are. In case."
Mellie nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. Okay. Okay..."
She grabbed the suitcases and began walking.
"Mellie?"
She stopped and turned to look at Paul. He looked intently at her "You know where I am."
Mellie gave the tiniest smile before leaving. Paul shut the door of his apartment.
*
"This should help you relax." Adelle said, pushing the tea across the table. Sam didn't sit. He continued pacing.
"Well, I don't want to relax. I want the hell out of here!"
"I understand--"
"You can't hold me. Y-You have to have cause, evidence!"
"I'm not with the government." Adelle said flatly.
"Well, then who the hell are you?" he spat, finally sitting down.
"I'm someone who can give you what you want."
Sam leaned back. "And what do I want?"
"A new life. A better life." Adelle opened the file on the desk. "Your mother, Antoinette Jennings of 483 Helena Street. I understand she's experiencing some financial difficulties. In fact, she's about to lose her home."
"Do not threaten my mother!"
Adelle glanced at him. "Quite the opposite." She presented him some forms and a pen. "Once you sign these papers, your mother will begin receiving a monthly stipend large enough to solve her financial problems. It will continue for five years, and at the end of that time, you will be quite capable of supporting her all on your own."
Sam looked pensive. "How?" he asked.
Adelle sat forward. "I'm going to make you an offer."
"I'm going to make you an offer." Adelle said.
Caroline glared. "I told you all I want is to be left alone."
Adelle tilted her head. "We both know we're past that."
Caroline laughed soundlessly. "Gee, what gave it away? The big, black van? Or the being held in this room for two days with no frickin' idea where I am?"
Adelle leaned forward. "My offer is this: Your life... for your life. I get five years, you get the rest. You'll be free."
Caroline scoffed quietly. "Is that you talking? Or the Rossum Corporation? Why me? Why did you pick me?
"Caroline, you picked us. This is a good thing, Caroline."
"I know what I saw! What started this."
"You and I have been doing this dance for almost two years." Adelle said tiredly. "I thought you'd have learned by now..."
Adelle poured herself a cup of tea.
"Nothing is what it appears to be."
*
Clive Ambrose dangled the vial of bright green liquid in Adelle's face. "That is one of only two existing vials of our most promising new memory drug. The other vial is missing. I don't need just one Active on this. I need an army."
Adelle leaned back and looked at Mr. Ambrose, a man in his fifties with a grey, receding hairline. "I've already rearranged the schedule. The boots are as good as on the ground."
The door clicked open and Topher slipped in, looking worried. "I-I-If this is about Foxtrot speaking Mandarin instead of Cantonese, it was a very--"
"Topher--"
Topher's eyes drifted to Ambrose. "...simple..."
"This is--"
"Clive Ambrose." Topher exhaled. "Co-chairman of the, uh, Rossum Corporation, third richest man in the country, nominated for a Nobel Prize." he chuckled. "I might throw up!" his eyes widened. "That's a compliment! Something really bad happened?"
Adelle nodded. "There's been an incident at Freemont College."
Ambrose showed a picture of a young man, stripped to his boxers, lying on the floor with a head wound. Looking dead. "Owen Johnson. He was a grad student at one of our premiere labs."
Topher gulped. "But not anymore."
"Owen ingested a psychotropic modification of aphenethylamine compound."
"One of the memory drugs Rossum's got in R&D?"
Ambrose held up the vial. "N-7316. It breaks down natural inhibitions in the hippocampus in order to awaken sleeping parts of the brain. We're still in the experimental stage. Phase one of N-7316 manifests like a recreational narcotic. Giddiness, light hallucinations."
"Munchies?" Topher chuckled. He immediately shut up at Adelle's death glare.
Ambrose was unfazed. "Phase two apparently manifests as a complete loss of impulse control."
Topher shrugged. "Could be phases, could be... a little thing I like to call body chemistry. We're all our own little cesspools of hormones, enzymes, chemical reactions. It's the same as any drug-heroin, cocaine, caffeine, how your body reacts depends on a multitude of indefinable factors. You snort horse once, don't like it; you go back to your organic tea, have a nice life. I do it once-Whoo!" he laughed to himself. "I'm doing two bags a day for 20 years." He pointed at Ambrose. "One toot for you, adios, amigo. That's what's so exciting about drugs!" Tophet caught Adelle's look. "Not that I'd know. We do biweekly drug tests. Just pure scientific observations."
"How did the drug find its way into the general campus population?" Adelle asked.
Ambrose shook his head. "We don't know. Maybe Owen was selling it. Maybe he or someone else put in the soda machine in the dining hall. One vial is enough to take out the entire student body."
"No antidote floating around, I'm guessing." Topher said.
"Right now, the best we can do is sedation. We're hoping you can help us do better. While you work on an antidote, a team of Actives will secure the campus and try to locate the missing vial."
"Oh, right. They'd be immune."
Ambrose's forehead creased. "How did you know that?"
"Well... All right, this baby attacks the inhibitors in the hippocampus to break down the repressed memory blocks, right? Actives don't have 'em. Stuff would bounce right off."
"Think you can help us, Mr. Brink?"
Topher shrugged. "Well, I can't hurt!" Again, at Adelle's look, he stopped laughing. "Prob-Probably..."
Ambrose handed him the vial. Adelle led Topher to the door.
"Start with the imprints and get the Actives in the field. If you need any extra help--"
"Cool." His tone indicated he didn't need help.
"Echo's on an engagement, right?"
Topher nodded. "Yeah, old client, new fantasy. I should call her back in?"
Adelle shook her head. "No. She can sit this one out."
*
"So," Matt asked. "What do you think?"
Alice stroked the blood red of the motorcycle and smiled. "Wow, I've never seen anything like it. It looks like a dragon. Is that stupid?"
Matt held out his hand, holding a matching helmet. "Here."
Alice shook her head. "Oh, no, thank you."
"Alice, you're gonna drive this bike."
Alice raised an eyebrow. "I am?"
Matt nodded. "Yeah. You're gonna do a lot of new things today."
Alice stood silent for a moment. Then she beamed and grabbed the helmet. "Okay!"
Matt held her close. But Alice only had eyes for the dragon.
*
Mellie nearly laughed when she found Paul in his kitchen. "You're making breakfast?"
Paul looked up from awkwardly frying the eggs. He nodded. "It's kind of late, but since I'm a gentleman of leisure, and you've taken up professional sleeping..." Mellie went for the coffee pot. "Didn't know I could cook, did you?" Paul asked.
"Nope."
"Good. Then you won't be disappointed when you find out I can't."
Mellie abandoned the pot and walked to him. "Paul, listen - take those off 'cause they're done - and listen. I'm a grown up person. We got... impulsive and, five minutes later, someone nearly killed me in your apartment. I know you feel an obligation--"
"That's not what I'm--" Paul started.
"Hey! I don't think you don't like me. But we don't fast forward to the honeymoon just because I had a bad day."
"I like taking care of you." Paul said it as if it was obvious.
"I'm glad. I think you're dreamy. But in my dream, I'm stronger than you know."
"I think you proved that when you--"
"That was luck." Mellie said, brushing it off. "I'm not a prizefighter. That Russian thug had two left feet."
Paul shrugged. "I wish he had. It would have been a lot easier to ID a guy with two left feet."
"They did ID him." Mellie pointed out.
"They got a name, which I guarantee you wasn't his. I took a set of prints myself, though. Got a friend who can access a few databases outside of the bureau's reach. The Dollhouse found this guy somewhere. Professional killers are made. They're trained..."
Paul stopped. He hadn't noticed Mellie had returned to the coffee pot.
He sighed. "I'm sorry. You don't want to talk about this."
"You're off the case..." Mellie replied meekly.
"Officially."
"They suspended you!"
"So far as the Dollhouse is concerned, I'm not a threat anymore! This is the perfect time--"
"You can't drop it?" she whispered.
"You... said you thought this was important..."
"And they tried to kill me!" she said resentfully.
"Mellie, I promise you--"
"You can't promise! It's blind luck that I'm not dead already. What you can do is drop the case. Let someone else handle it!"
Paul didn't speak. But his face said it all.
"Yeah." Mellie sighed. "You love taking care of me. I think you know your way across the hall."
Mellie turned and left. Paul stared at the eggs.
*
Laurence Dominic stepped out of the van onto the lawn of the Freemont College campus. "Let's go!" he ordered. "You guys are up there!" A group of his men swarmed the campus in seconds. "Come on, let's move it! Energy! We're gonna do the grid."
From another van emerged Victor, wearing a nice suit and an earpiece. His imprint was called Agent Tom Willick.
"All right, guys." Victor - or rather, Tom - said to his men. "Everyone knows where they're going? Six guys and girls - women - searching this campus top to bottom. I want that other vial."
As Willick's men dispersed, Sierra, imprinted as one Doctor Claudia Gawa, appeared at Dominic's side, wearing a white lab coat, hair in a bun. "Tom," Dominic said, approaching him. "This is Doctor Gawa from the Center for Disease Control."
"Super. I haven't heard a good flesh-eating-strain-of-something horrible story in a while."
"Yeah," Doctor Gawa said dryly. "I've got dozens."
"Hopefully today won't be worth talking about. Let's find these kids and get 'em better."
"I've got you set up at the Kappa Zeta Chi House." Dominic told Gawa. "And Tom, you'll be running the grid."
"Uh, the grid's taken care of." Tom said. "I'll be too busy rounding up our day-trippers to look under mattresses."
"That's my call." Dominic said firmly.
"Actually, it's mine."
Tom took out his shiny gold badge from his pocket. Dominic stared at it. "You're NSA?"
Tom nodded. "Which outranks Rossum private security by more than a whole bunch."
Dominic cursed Topher under his breath. "All right, fine, I'll stay here and be the communications command post."
"First, have someone show Dr. Gawa to Kappa House. You good?" he asked Gawa.
She nodded. "Yeah. I've always wanted to go to a frat party."
They dispersed, leaving Dominic alone on the lawn.
*
"Are you sure you're okay?" Alice asked, glancing at Matt tied to the bed.
He smiled. "I'm okay, if you're okay."
"I'm great! Is that terrible?"
"No, it's wonderful."
Alice exhaled and went to the TV. "I'm not sure how to work this, but.."
She picked up the video camera. What was seen on the camera was seen on the TV. "Oh, God, what if somebody sees it?"
"Only us." Matt reassured her. "Okay? My life on it."
"I never thought I'd--"
The screens went black.
"Oh, I've lost picture, sorry..."
"No, just, uh..." Matt tried to motion at the TV despite the ropes on his wrists. "On the side, there's a button..."
"Oh..."
Alice hit the button. The TV screen opened on a news report. There was a large building: the caption said Freemont College. Alice sat on the bed and listened.
"--The tragic suicide appears to be a case of a stressed-out student who didn't know how to ask for help. Freemont College officials have said that counseling will be available on the campus throughout the week..."
Alice stared at the college building. Freemont College...?
"I have to go." she said. "I have to help him." She stood.
"Alice, is everything all right?" Matt asked.
"I'm terribly sorry. I have to go."
Matt laughed. "Yeah, very funny."
"I have to get him out of there..."
Alice disappeared into the hall.
"Okay," Matt said. "It's... it's not actually that funny! Alice?"
Matt heard a click. He sighed. "That was a door..."
*
"Are you comfortable?" Topher asked November.
"Yes," November replied, looking up at him from the chair. "Thank you."
"I'm gonna give you a shot. And then I just need you to sit still for a while. Can you do that?"
"If you like."
"Just think about pretty things." Topher advised. "Rainbows."
Adelle rolled her eyes from the corner. Topher glanced at her. "She's immune, but dosing her will help me find an antidote." he explained.
He put the needle to November's skin and pushed on the plunger. Her face strained for a moment, but then returned to its serene blankness. Topher put the syringe down and pulled off his gloves. "All righty. Let's see exactly what this stuff is doing so we can undo it. This may take a while. Be patient." He rushed to one of his computers.
"What shall I do," Adelle asked. "Think about rainbows?"
Topher shrugged. "Go for it."
"Or shall I think about how that glorified dog's body, Clive Ambrose, can't keep his affairs in order?" she suggested, angrily passing a stress ball between her hands.
"Oh." Topher said. "You could have said no..."
"The Rossum Corporation is why we exist. And I believe in the work we're funding. I also believe that the only reason I don't have Clive Ambrose's job is because he couldn't handle mine."
Topher smiled. "Ooh. So, now we're sharing." he giggled.
"Can you just figure out a way to keep people from killing themselves on this drug?" she suggested. "We have more than a few in the early stages, and sedating then is hardly a cure."
"It'll buy me time." he replied. "As long as we keep the place locked down and don't have any more X factors, then here I come to save the day." He laughed again. Adelle pointed at the computer. "Yeah.." He began typing but paused. He looked at Adelle. "Can you get me a juice box?"
*
Alice threw her leg over the motorcycle and dismounted onto the sidewalk. She looked at the huge collection of buildings that made up Freemont College. Alice had never been here, not in her life.
Except she had. But how...?
"Are you lost?"
Alice turned around. A handsome man in a suit was standing there. He held up an NSA Badge: Agent Tom Willick.
"Hi." she said. "Um... no."
"Do you go to Freemont?" he asked.
"Um... I don't know." she said truthfully. "Th-There's parts that seem... I-I-I don't know..."
The Agent put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "You can come with us." as she followed, she heard him say "We got one more" into his Walkie Talkie.
*
"No, I don't know anything is wrong." Boyd told Adelle, glancing at the tracking device in his hand. "Maybe that's the client's new fantasy. Send a Doll to college."
"Well, which college?" Adelle said into the phone, pacing Topher's office floor.
"Uh, Freemont. I tracked Echo here."
Adelle closed her eyes, wanted to swear. "Oh, please, God, be joking..."
"Why?" Boyd asked. "What's up?"
"Phew!" Topher said to November from the adjacent imprint room. "Your brain rocks!" He held his hand up for a high five. November tentatively placed her own hand against his, mystified.
Adelle did her best to ignore them. "We have a major engagement happening there. Echo cannot interfere with it. Get her out of there quickly. And if you need assistance call Dominic."
Boyd was about to reply when a young, bizarre-faced college girl approached him.
"Do you understand?" Adelle asked in his ear.
"Hold on." He placed his palm over the mouthpiece and stared back at the girl. "Yes?"
"There are mansions in your eyes." she observed. "Did you know that?" She gasped and reached for his face. "You can see the doors!"
Boyd placed his hand on the girl's wrist and gently put it at her side. "Excuse me."
The girl turned and skipped away as Boyd turned his back. "No," he told Adelle. "I definitely don't understand."
*
"I don't think I'm supposed to be here." Alice said as a pretty blonde woman in a lab coat pushed her into a fraternity house. Dozens of students were there, all being tended to by other doctors.
"Sit down." the Doctor said. "I'm just going to give you a little shot. Sit down."
The doctor pushed her lightly onto a seat. "The television made me. I had to come here. A shot of what exactly?"
"You ingested a powerful narcotic." the doctor said, dabbing Alice's arm with a piece of cotton. "I need to make sure you don't hurt yourself."
"Oh, Matt and I don't do drugs." Alice replied, shaking her head. "I have somewhere to be, not here."
"Just relax."
Alice closed her eyes. Why had she come here? Why was she saying nonsense? She was saying things she hadn't planned on saying. Puppet strings. Odd. Freemont, why come here? Alice thought, searched her brain.
A cute man in a lab. "What do they need babies for?" he had said.
Alice opened her eyes. "Rossum."
Alice saw the doctor putting a needle to her arm. She batted her hand away, gasped. "No!" she protested.
"I don't think she wants the shot." a boy next to her said.
"I'm not on drugs!" Alice insisted.
A girl a few seats behind sat bolt upright, screamed. "The window glass! It's coming for us!"
"Fine." Alice's doctor said, massaging her temple. "I'll get you the liquid gel. You, too." she said to Alice's neighbour. She disappeared in a sea of scared looking students.
"Don't worry." the boy next to Alice said. "It wears off. I mean, I'm starting to feel normal again. Sort of. The walls stopped moving..."
Alice looked at him. He was cute, dark skinned with a shaved head, a tad younger than her, green t-shirt. "I'm not supposed to be here." she told him. "I have to save him."
"Who?" he asked.
Alice searched her mind for the cute man in the lab. "I don't know." she concluded. "Him. I have to get into Rossum."
"The Rossum lab? This about Owen? What do you know about Rossum?"
"Just that I have to get into that building."
"You know, I think they did this." the boy said. "Put something in the water, using us as guinea pigs."
"Guinea pigs?"
"Well, yeah, I mean, I'm guessing we're all nice, neat entries in someone's lab journal. You know, us, this many affected, this many hurt... gone. They killed my friend."
Alice didn't reply for a moment. "I have to get to the lab." she eventually said.
"Good luck. I mean, it's surrounded by security guards."
"No, I can get in." she said resolutely. "I just have to listen to myself."
The boy raised an eyebrow. "You're serious?"
"Yeah. I know a way in. I... I think. Which kind of freaks me out..."
"Okay, well, I'll help you. I mean, I know that lab like the back of my hand."
Alice shook her head. "Oh, no. You don't have to do that."
"Well, I'm not gonna let you go in there by yourself. Anyway, it's not just for you. I mean, I want to find evidence, prove they did this, and get their asses sent to jail." He extended his hand. She shook it. "I'm Sam. I think I'm glad I met you."
"Alice." she said.
"We got to get out of here--"
"No! Stop! It's all too big!"
Alice turned around. A hyper-looking woman was being yanked through the doorway by one of the agent men. The man abandoned the tugging and threw the girl over his shoulder. "No! Please! No! Please put me down. Where are you taking me?"
Sam tapped Alice's shoulder. This was their chance. As everyone stared at the dramatic scene, Alice and Sam scurried out the door and down the steps, outside.
"Wow, that worked." Alice said. "Thank you."
"Let's get out of sight, okay? Come on."
They both turned to find a tall man in front of them. He had light brown skin, receding hairline, middle-aged, bulky and gruff. He towered over them, arms crossed. "Would you like to have a treatment?" he asked.
Alice was puzzled. She didn't know this man. "No." she said. She and Sam walked away, leaving the stranger behind.
Boyd Langton watched them go. "Hey. Wow. Did not maintain control of that situation."
Slowly, Boyd began to laugh.
*
A FEW YEARS AGO
Caroline Farrell stared at the picture of Clive Ambrose on the open magazine page. "I don't want to say evil?"
"Yeah." her boyfriend, Leo, said. "Yeah, you really do." He passed the magazine across the dinner table to Caroline's friend Meredith.
"Ugh, the Rossum Corporation is evil." Caroline said matter-of-factly.
"'Minds Matter'?" Meredith read. "Ugh! This guy gives me the heebie-jeebies."
"Clive Ambrose, the face of Rossum."
"Marketing campaign that big? He's hiding something." their friend Trevor said.
"That whole company's hiding something." Leo agreed.
"Yeah, for instance, animal testing." Caroline said. "I mean, monkeys, puppies: they're torturing them."
Leo nodded. "Kicking it Mengele-style, all in the name of science."
"Monkeys should not be guinea pigs." Meredith said.
Leo shrugged. "Guinea pigs should not be guinea pigs.
"Whatever they say in those ads, the ends don't justify the means." Caroline insisted. "I have a plan. I have the beginnings of a plan."
"Is this when you free all the monkeys and they go nuts and bite you to death?" Trevor asked.
"No. This is where we film the monkeys in their cages and put the footage online."
"Yeah," Leo agreed. "Where millions can view it over and over again."
"Mmm-hmm. They'll be shamed into policy changes."
"And we get in how?" Leo asked. "I mean, Rossum's gotta have security."
"I'm working on that part."
"This is not how we used to party." Meredith breathed.
"I spent four years partying in the shadow of that building." Caroline said. "Do you know what they could have done in those four years? How many living creatures they... Ugh! Someone has to stand up. It doesn't have to be you guys. I-I wouldn't ask it. This is just... where I am."
Leo patted her leg. "Yep. That's my girl. That's my Caroline."
*
Laurence Dominic watched from his swivel chair as Tom stalked into the Rossum Building's lab, flanked by two other agents. "None of this is tagged. Get on all of this. James?" he said, tapping a man who had been dusting a computer.
"Nothing yet, sir." James said.
"Well, I don't have to tell you to keep looking, but..."
"Keep looking." they both finished.
"Sure, now you're experts." Dominic said quietly to himself. He took out his gun, removed the clip, put it back in and put away the gun: a game he had mastered over the past few hours."Four hours ago, you were discussing your love for applesauce..." He played another round of the game. Tom approached him.
"Well, my guys have got this fairly well-contained." he informed Dominic. "Fourteen subjects exhibiting erratic behavior, sedated."
He sighed. Dominic froze mid-clip removal. "What?"
We rounded up fourteen..."
Dominic smiled and shoved the clip in, quick as a flash. Tom looked concerned. "You okay?"
"I'm fine. Go on." Dominic began laughing. "Four-fourteen round what?"
Tom leaned in close, arms outstretched. "Buddy? How about we head over to containment?" he suggested tentatively.
"I'm fine."
"Dr. Gawa will give you a light sedative..."
Dominic stormed to his feet and backed away, gun in hand. "Hey, I'm fine!"
Tom put his hands up. "All right. Easy, buddy..."
Dominic pointed his gun between Tom's eyes, glowering. "I know how to solve problems."
"You bet." Tom said, slowly inching forward.
Dominic dropped the scowl for a whiney look: a pout. " Oh, man: this is SO heavy! It makes my arms tired!"
Tom looked bewildered. "Want me to help you out with that? Dominic nodded. "Okay, here we go." Dominic passed him the gun, acting like a big child. He let his head fall. Tom backed off and motioned to James. James approached Dominic slowly. In a flash, Dominic wrapped him in a tight hug. "Hey, wow. It's-it's so heavy." Dominic babbled. "Extremely. Everything's heavy."
"Right, okay..." James said awkwardly.
Tom, severely spooked, put his phone to his war. "Yeah, I need to speak to the person in charge at the security office..."
*
"I see." Adelle said. "Please, do keep me updated. And please, take care of him. Thank you, Agent." She hung up at looked to Topher. "This is unbelievable."
"What part was believable before?" Topher asked from one of his computers.
"The drug. It's not being sold, Topher. The effects are spreading. Mr. Dominic is exhibiting erratic behavior."
Topher looked like it was Christmas. "He didn't take any. There's no way Dom would consciously try to have fun. It could be airborne."
"We'd be seeing a lot more cases on the campus." Adelle pointed out "Beyond even."
"Exposure to a patient, whether viral or through touch..." He touched Adelle's arm to accent his point. "Sssss... That spreads more slowly, but pretty soon, that campus is gonna fill up with wacky time bombs."
"Well, we need to know what it is." Adelle said, glancing at Topher's grip on her forearm.
"Yes, well, we will... when I figure it out."
"And reversing the effect? Are you making any progress?" Adelle asked, indicating the monitor.
"I'm working!" Topher said resentfully. "What are you doing besides... being..."
"Being what?"
"Wait a minute." Topher said, eyes lost in the overhead light. He was looking for a word.
"Sarcastic?" Adelle offered. "Unfeeling? British?"
"It's an animal." he said.
Adelle jumped, looked behind her. "Where?!"
"No! The word!"
"Still, you have to admit, I am... very... British. I don't say hard Rs..."
"You know what I like?" Topher said, his eyes manic. "Brown sauce. What's it made of? Science doesn't know!"
"It's made of brown!"
"Brown... mined from the earth by the hardscrabble brown miners of North Brownterton!"
Adelle fell into a chair. "Oh, my God!" she exclaimed in horrified realisation. "I find lentils completely incomprehensible! What the sun-dappled hell is Echo doing at Freemont?"
"That's got nothing to do with the drug." Topher said. "Which means our problems are huge and indomitable."
"Ooh." Adelle oozed. "I could eat that word. Or a crisp. Do you have any crisps?" she asked anxiously.
Topher's face grew manically excited. "You haven't seen my drawer of inappropriate starches? Come on." he said, leading her away. "Come on, come on. Come on. Ah..."
Adelle threw her head back as she left the office. "Oh, my God: I'm having such a terrible day!"
*
"Well, sorry it's not much, but the, uh, scholarship doesn't cover a decorating fee." Sam apologised, opening the door of his dorm room.
"It's nice." Alice offered.
"So, you used to go to school here?" he asked, exchanging his shirt for a new one.
Alice shook her head. "No. I went back east. I think. I mean, I did. I went to Colby."
"Okay. So, someone you know went here. A boyfriend?"
Alice thought. "I don't know. I mean, I woke up this morning, and everything was normal. And then I met Matt, and... we did stuff. And then, I saw the Rossum Building on TV, and I had to leave, and... and I-I can't really deal with a lot of questions right now."
"Yeah. It's been a, um... weird, bad day." Sam agreed. "Say no more." He sat on the bed next to her, a map of the campus in hand. "Okay, so... we are here, and... Rossum Building is here. The lab is on the second floor."
Alice pointed at the building. "That's where I save him." she said, struggling to remember the handsome man in the lab...
"Well, Alice, I don't want you to expect too much. There may not be a 'him'."
"There might not be the proof against Rossum you're looking for, either, but that's not stopping you." she pointed out.
"Nothing stops me: my mother's voice is too loud in my ear."
"Awww: mama's boy." Alice cooed, nodding to a nearby picture of the mother and son.
"I ain't got no choice. I'm all she's got. So, you remember how to get in this building?"
Alice nodded. "Underneath. That's the way in."
"Okay, you're not overwhelming me with specificity."
She took the map and placed it on her lap. "Lily Foundry. We have to find Lily Foundry."
*
Topher flicked his hair away from his ear to make more room for the phone. "Listen to me carefully. I've got a huge phalanx of machines that go bing, and this is carried by anyone exposed to it. Through touch. It is mandated that you get any Rossum operatives off the grounds and send them back here."
Adelle waved from midair, jumping manically on the trampoline. "Say hi from me!"
Topher ignored her. "Nope, you Dolls, you're..." Topher flung the phone down and sucked in air. He had forgotten: THEY DIDN't KNOW THEY WERE DOLLS! Silly Topher, he thought. He brought it back up, laughing nervously. "By which, of course, I mean NSA, CDC folks... you're safe as houses. Because of the government. They do things. But anyone else who comes in contact with the drug is susceptible... Am I sure?"
Topher stared at his reflection. His hair was sticking every which way, his eyes were wide, his nails nibbled to their beds... and he was no longer wearing pants. "I am fairly sure." Topher lowered the phone. "Secret Agent Victor is so lofty." he observed.
Adelle made her way back to Topher. Rather than going up the small steps from his office's bottom floor to the top one - which, evidently, was only a metre or so higher - she clambered over the banister and collapsed on the ground, giggling. "I have a good story about him!" she began--
Topher's phone beeped. "Hold on, hold on." He stared at the screen, raised it to his ear. "I have a... I have another call." he told Secret Agent Victor. LI have another call. I have a better call!" He clicked over to the other line. "Boyd! Did you find Echo?"
Adelle snatched the phone from him. "Boyd. Did you find Echo?"
"It's all right, Ms. DeWitt. I-I've- I've worked it out."
"Worked out what? Is Echo contained?"
"Just listen." Boyd insisted. There was some fumbling, and then a piano started to play. It was beautiful. Adelle hit the speaker button and held it out to Topher.
They listened together. Adelle had to stop herself from crying. Topher had to stop himself from laughing.
*
Alice led the way out of Sam's dorm, cautiously avoiding a twirling woman who was laughing hysterically. "It's around here somewhere." she insisted.
"You mean SHE'S around here." Sam corrected.
Alice shook her head. "I don't think it's a person. I think Lily Foundry is an IT."
"So, we're looking for an it?"
"Uh-huh--"
"Caroline. Caroline Farrell!"
Alice turned around. The twirling woman had spoken and was now approaching them. "Excuse me?" Alice asked.
"I knew that was you!"
Alice shook her head. "That's not me. I'm sorry."
"Professor Janack." the woman said, indicating herself. "We charted the whole history of the Americas together!"
"Her name is Alice," Sam said. "But have a good day."
"I don't know this person, do I?" Alice asked Sam.
"I don't know, she's... she's tweaked. She needs to be sedated."
Alice gave the woman one last look before following Sam. Behind her, she heard the woman burst out laughing.
"The entrance is here somewhere." Alice said, leading the way down the path.
"Okay, we're nowhere near the Rossum Building, and I checked all the directories for all these buildings, and still no Lily Foundry." Sam replied.
Alice looked to the ground. "Because you're standing on her."
Sam looked under his feet. He was standing on a grate. Engraved on the middle bar were the words "Lily Foundry".
*
"We make choices." Adelle observed, fighting the urge to make angels in the snacks she was lying in on Topher's floor. "I'm well aware that there are forces beyond our control, but even in the face of those forces, we make choices. And then we live with them. And then we die with them. I know why Echo went to Freemont."
"To punish you?" Topher asked, sitting across from her, legs crossed.
Adelle stared at the ceiling. "To let Caroline punish me."
Topher sighed.
"Are you ever gonna shut up about her?"
Topher and Adelle whirled around. Standing in the open doorway of the Imprint Room was November, tears streaming down her face. "Is she what you think about when you're on me? Would you let me die, Paul? Would you be relieved?!"
She squatted down, hands to her temples, bawling. Adelle and Topher stared at each other. "You said it didn't affect them." she said.
"But she's not tripping. She's glitching. She's remembering..."
November stood up. She walked slowly towards them, face blank. Adelle tensed. If she could remember being Mellie...
November stopped walking.
"There are three flowers in a vase..."
*
A FEW YEARS AGO
"Then my odyssey takes me to the city clerk's office, where, it turns out, the counterjockeys aren't opposed to a little 'you scratch my back with a wad of cash, and I scratch yours with sealed planning records.' And voilà."
Leo, Trevor and Meredith watched as Caroline rolled out the blueprints. "Blueprints." Meredith observed. "I'm riveted."
"You are a snide bitch." Caroline counter-observed.
"I know: I love that about me."
"Me, too."
"Well, these look like... really boring building plans." Leo said.
"Yeah, I thought so, too, the first two hours I stared at them, but then I saw..." She pulled one of the pages from the pile and showed it to him.
"Oh. Nice work, babe..."
Trevor put up his hand. "Yeah, I'm totally in the dark here..."
"Well, they put in these utility tunnels here." she said, indicating the prints.
"Yeah, but according to these plans, the room they lead to is empty." Leo said.
Trevor looked like he was beginning to understand. "So, if you wanted to, say, move things in and out of the lab without opening the front door..."
"You'd go in here." Caroline finished, pointing. Leo stood and walked away, looking pensive. Caroline followed him to the corner. "Babe... this is good news. Where's your happy face?"
He turned, looking her in the eyes. "Rossum is seriously powerful, and this just... this just became real."
"Well, it's always been real to me."
"Caroline, I'm just saying you might not want to piss them off."
"Rossum is exploiting animals in the name of 'science,' and God knows what else. I might want to piss them off a real lot." she said. The matter was not up for discussion.
"Okay, okay. Go easy. I'm not backing out."
"You better not back out."
"I'm with you." he said.
"Damn right." she said.
Leo nodded. "Always."
*
Alice pointed at a red pipe. "There. We... we follow the red pipe. I've been here before, but... how can you not remember something and remember it at the same time?"
"I don't know." Sam shrugged, continuing down the tunnels. "That's just this drug making you act weird."
"No. I felt it before. It pulled me here."
He shrugged again. "Well, maybe you're crazy."
"Do you think so?" she asked, slightly insulted.
"What I do think is, when we get in there, we have to look for lab books, uh, logs, chemical samples, proof that Rossum is responsible for this mess."
He stopped talking as they came to a ladder. Alice indicated it. "Right there. That goes straight into the Rossum Building."
"Yeah?"
She nodded. They began their ascension and found themselves in a dark room. "Okay, we're gonna have to move like ninjas from here on out." Sam said.
"We're not gonna have to fight, are we?" Alice asked. "Because I don't even really know how to make a fist."
"Not if we do this right."
They exited and found themselves in a corridor. "Okay, the staircase to the lab is just beyond the lobby." Sam said. "Now, timing is everything." In the corner was a security mirror. Alice saw the reflection of the lobby. A guard was in view. "Just pretend like we're playing a video game and I'm gonna go first. And when he turns his back, then you go."
Sam ran. "I don't play video games..." Alice said meekly to herself. She readied herself to dart--
A cold hand planted itself on her shoulder. Alice whirled around to see a man in a finely-pressed suit, with silvery hair. She was trying to place him, but she barely glimpsed his face before he wrapped her in a very tight embrace. "You. I am so sorry that I tried to kill you!"
Alice patted him awkwardly. "It's okay--"
"No, it's not okay! I tried to burn you to death. Who does that?"
"What's the hold up?" Sam asked, appearing behind Alice.
"He says he tried to kill me." she said. She saw the stranger was experiencing his tongue in his mouth, as if for the first time.
"He's been exposed." Sam realised.
"Oh! Um... it's okay." she said, slowly pushing the man off. "Really, uh, whatever you think you did, I'm over it. You know, uh... water... bridge... under..."
"Please, I'm begging you." the man said, on the verge of tears. "Don't walk away. I just... I need your forgiveness."
"You got it." Alice said, backing away.
"You don't mean it. You still hate me! I can see it in your eyes, right, and you just keep looking at me with them."
"I mean it." she said desperately. "I forgive you."
"Look, the guns, right, the running around, the barking orders: this is not all there is to Laurence Dominic! No, ma'am, this is just my job. I'm not just hard edges. I mean, look at me. Check this suit out. Check this suit out!"
Alice and Sam walked away from the man - Laurence Dominic? - and passed the guard, who was shaking his leg. "No, no. No, no, no, no." the guard protested to no one. "How many times have I told you? He's not a nice doggie. I don't want to pet him."
Sam and Alice decided to break into a run.
*
Doctor Gawa found Dominic feeling his own suit in the lobby. She approached him slowly. "This is so soft..." he observed.
"Mr. Dominic?" she said. "Mr. Dominic. I, uh, hear you're feeling a little under the weather. I think I might have something that might help."
She led him to the guard station, where she found the guard fighting off a dog made of air. "He's not a nice doggie. I don't want to pet him. He'll attack me. NO!"
Doctor Gawa recoiled at the sound of gunfire. When she opened her eyes, Agent Willick and his men were there, at the guard's aid. "Hey." Willick said. "It's okay. It's okay..." He sat the guard down and put the gun on another desk. "All right." he turned to his men. "Everybody with a firearm, turn it in, now. Right here!" He slapped the desk. He turned to Doctor Gawa. "Let's get our friend sedated."
Gawa nodded and began walking towards them. Then stopped. She gasped. She couldn't see, reality was there again, memories she didn't have bleeding through...
You remember to be very quiet during the game, right?
Noise is upsetting...
Lift up your dress...
Gawa felt a hand on her. She screamed, pulled away, and pointed the gun she didn't know she had grabbed. "You stay away from me!"
She froze. Tom backed away cautiously, then stopped. Doctor Gawa went away, he was in a military uniform, screaming at a woman he didn't know, saying words he hadn't said in a time he hadn't lived...
No, it's okay. It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you. We gotta move now!
Reality bled through for a moment, he took a swipe for Gawa's gun, but then he was back in the uniform, a house in the Middle East, the woman in his arms.
Let's go, he begged, please...
Then Doctor Gawa was there, sobbing and beating at Tom's arms--
Then she was gone, lying in a room tinted blue, a man on top of her.
It's not a fun game. Please, stop...
Tom was in the house, asking her to leave--
Gawa was in the room, crying--
The woman ran, into the path of an explosion--
The man didn't stop, didn't get off--
Tom and Doctor Gawa fell back to reality, on the floor of the lobby. Dominic was mumbling how his suit was soft like a kitty.
Doctor Gawa looked to the floor. Tom was holding her hand.
*
"I don't hear anything." Adelle whispered over her pillow. "She didn't finish the trigger code. She's probably right as rain."
"Go check." Topher suggested, curled up on the floor.
"I am your superior!" she hissed.
Topher nodded. "In every way. Go check."
Adelle glared before climbing up onto the couch and looking through the banister to the office's upper level. November was lying inches from her face. "He dumped the stock. He ran out of options..."
"Help me get her into the chair." Adelle whispered.
"Uh, I can't deal--
"Help me get her into the chair!"
They climbed up the railing onto the upper floor. Topher did it with ease, while Adelle got a face full of carpet. They each took one of November's arms and heaved. "You need to wipe this out of her."
"It doesn't make any sense." Topher insisted.
"Then you make it make sense!" They grunted as they each swung an arm over their shoulder, dragging November towards the Imprint Room. "You think I float around like a balloon untethered to your muck? Flip!" They flipped November onto her back and pushed her into the Imprint chair. "I run this house!"
"No, no. It doesn't make any sense. Except... Active's brains aren't like ours." he said, gripping November's scalp. "I mean, we alter them this way and that, so... N-73... blah, blah, blah...it hit the Actives later, right? And differently. Like... a memory glitch. Which means..." Topher scurried to the computer. "The compound is breaking down into a protease and zipping right through our manmade memory blocks. November glitched to a traumatic memory. I bet the same thing is happening to the other Dolls. Upside is the drugs devolving. A couple hours, it will be gone."
"How do you explain the man who lost his brain down his shirt?"
Topher was getting back to normal, but the mad eyes hadn't left. "Had an extreme dose. Way more than you can absorb. Way more than...he would have taken..."
He stared at Adelle. She stared back as she realised.
"It's a murder."
*
"It's different." Alice noted as she entered the lab.
Sam pulled on a nearby glove and rushed to the fridge cases. "Yeah? What did it used to be like?"
"...I don't know." She turned to see him taking a vial full of murky green liquid from the fridge. "I have to stop him."
"Who?"
Alice was unsure. "Something awful."
Sam took the vial to a sink as Alice wandered around. She watched him place his finger over the tube's opening and turn the vial over. The green ran through his fingers, revealing a smaller vial of bright green within. "Is that the drug?" she asked. "You found it..."
He pulled a cloth out and poured some liquid on it.
Something occurred to Alice. "You found it really fast..." Sam turned towards her, cloth in hand. Alice began backing away. "Sam? What are you... OH MY--"
Sam grabbed the back of her head and shove the cloth to her lips. The foul-smelling liquid seeped in, and Alice got lost in a sea of apologies and darkness.
*
A FEW YEARS AGO
Leo flipped the light switch of the lab and hit the button on the camera. "We're in."
Caroline moved her ponytail from her ear at a sound. It repeated. A howling, from the wall.
"Leo, over here." she said, approaching the cages. At least a dozen varieties of animals, whimpering. Leo approached a jar that held something that looked suspiciously like a fetus. "What do they need babies for?"
"This is Rossum." Caroline said bitterly. "They don't care about souls. Human or animal." She fingered the cage of a lonely monkey. "What are they doing to you?" she whispered. "Are you getting this?" she asked Leo.
She turned to see him at a computer monitor showing a brain. "Babe." he breathed. "You gotta see something..."
"What is it?" she said, trying to see over his shoulder.
"Science fiction. They're not just experimenting with animals."
"Babe, we got to get footage of--"
She stopped when she caught a glimpse of the screen. She approached cautiously. On the screen beside the brain were pictures of a brain, a fetus and something Caroline didn't recognise. "Are they...? What the hell are they doing?"
Leo didn't look away. "Something really not good."
"I told you Rossum was evil."
Leo passed Caroline the camera. "Here, take this. You get the animals. Let me see what I can find on here."
"Yeah..."
Caroline opened the camera and began filming a sickly dog in the nearest cage. "Look at her. Do we have to just leave her here?"
"Babe, it's not a pet shop. We can't take them with us." he said regretfully.
Caroline fingered the lock longingly.
"Hey! Don't move!"
Caroline whirled around. A guard was entering through the door at the back of the lab."Go! Run!" Leo ordered, and they did, racing out of the room as the guard followed.
*
"What... did you do?" Alice asked numbly. She was relatively sure she was propped against the wall, but everything was swirling and sickly. "Make it stop, please..."
"I'm sorry about this, okay?" Sam said. Through the blur, Alice saw him remove his glove. "I-I didn't want to do this. Any of this."
"All these people... why did you hurt them?"
He held up the bright green vial. "This right here is my chance for something. Owen and me were gonna take this over to Bel Med Tec."
"I-In Switzerland?"
"It's the number two drug company in the world, right after Rossum. You know what they'd pay for this? Billions."
"You're insane." Alice whispered.
Sam shrugged. "Nobody's perfect."
Alice yelped as her mind grew hot, like red hot pokers in her brain. Images of a girl and the man, the handsome man from the lab, running, running away...
"You're a killer." she managed as Sam turned to leave.
Sam froze. "Listen, Owen was my best friend. And him dying... I didn't want that. I just wanted to get him out of the way long enough for me to get out of town. I didn't know he'd hurt himself like that, okay?"
"He knew what you were gonna do..."
"It was his idea! And then he got scared, said Rossum would come after us. He tried to stop me."
Alice shook her head, barely. "Just because you didn't mean it doesn't mean you didn't kill him. You're responsible."
"You think about it your way and I'll think about it mine. Enjoy your trip."
"No." Alice said, and she meant it. With all her strength, Alice staggered to her feet, nearly toppled over immediately, but held onto a stool for support. She glimpsed Sam's form leaving and she stumbled after him, trying to ignore the other thoughts in her head...
*
Leo tried desperately to pass the camera to Caroline as they ran, the guard gaining quick. "Here, go!"
It left his grasp, Caroline swiped desperately, but it clattered to the ground. For a split second, Leo looked as if he might go back for it. "Leave it!" Caroline ordered. "Leave it!" Something caught her eye: the guard had a friend. "Leave it!" she yelled.
"Go!" Leo screamed. She didn't know if he had gotten it, didn't care, just kept running, had to get away. She barely heard the gunshot as it fired, but she glimpsed Leo's hand trying to stem a river of blood--
*
"No!"
Alice stopped running, panting. He had gotten shot. The man she somehow new, Leo, he was shot here.
Alice tore after Sam, not paying the slightest attention to the drug. "You're a killer, Sam!" she screamed. "You killed him!"
She began gaining, closer, closer--
*
Caroline ducked into the broom closet, Leo right behind her. He shut the door, gasping for breath. "I love you." he panted. "And you're gonna be okay..."
Caroline looked to Leo's side. No camera. His T-Shirt was drenched a blood red. "Oh, my God! Come on, we have to get out of here--!"
Leo shushed her. They heard footsteps whizz by them. "Okay, okay..."
"Leo, come on!" Caroline turned the knob and tentatively stepped out, holding Leo's arm...
*
Alice ploughed through the guard station, glimpsing the pandemonium, ignoring the stranger in the suit's apologies for attempted murder, barely glancing at the pretty blonde doctor rocking in a fetal position, just charged through the door out onto the lawn. She saw Sam, grabbed him by the bag and tackled him, sending them both into the ground, Alice on top--
*
"Stay with me." Caroline told Leo, collapsed on the grass, unmoving. "I need you! Leo, please!"
She crawled on top of him, slapped his chest, again and again as blood trickled from his lip, trying to get him to speak or move or do anything except lie there, except be dead...
Caroline felt tears sting her eyes as Leo stopped blinking.
"I'm your girl..."
*
"Leo, stay!" Alice begged. "Please stay!"
Sam pushed Alice off of him and stood. "Get off of me, you crazy bitch!"
He turned to run, only to get a face full of the gruff man's fist. He went down, unconscious, and the gathering crowd quickly began to retreat. Boyd Langton spoke to Alice. "Echo?"
"Mm?"
"Would you like a treatment?"
Alice stared at Sam's unmoving form for a moment. "Yes."
Boyd took her by the hands and hoisted him up. They began to walk, and Alice could've sworn that Boyd had a bright green vial in his other hand.
*
A FEW YEARS AGO
"Ms. DeWitt. I'm glad you could come."
"You seemed quite confident she fits the profile." Adelle said as she stepped out from the elevator into the medical corridor.
"Yes." The man nodded. "She's been through a lot."
"Well, you were right to call."
Adelle strode towards the room, the man following. She pushed the door open to see an empty bed with crumpled sheets and abandoned machines. Adelle hurried to the open window where the curtains billowed in the wind.
"She was just here." the man said, clearly frightened.
Adelle began to smile. "She won't get far."
*
"Mr. Dominic, please come in."
"Thank you."
Adelle stood aside to let him into the office. They stood a moment, silent. Awkward.
"Would you like a drink?" she offered.
"No, thank you." he declined. After a moment's silence, he continued. "All the Actives have been evaluated and processed. Everything seems satisfactory."
"Wonderful news."
She walked to her desk, desperate to escape the awkwardness. She picked up a heavy handgun and held it aloft. "Yours, I believe."
Dominic rushed forward and took it. "Yes. Uh, thank you." He stepped back again. "The, uh, press is running with the story we sold them. 'Student drugs classmates before committing suicide.'"
"And Echo? I suppose you'll be recommending she be sent to the Attic."
Dominic squirmed. "That's entirely your call, ma'am."
Adelle rolled her eyes. "For God's sake, quit calling me ma'am. We got drugged. We behaved like idiot children. It happens. It's over. You may go."
Dominic nodded and exited.
Adelle opened the security feed. Echo was just wandering the Dollhouse. She paused for a moment. Adelle could've sworn she looked directly at the camera. But then Echo walked, and was gone.
Adelle went looking for a drink. She strongly believed that Dominic went looking for something to shoot.
*
"Were you gonna say anything?"
Mellie looked guiltily at the suitcases in the hallway at her feet. "I just need to get away." she told Paul. "It's not forever."
"I get it. I'm sorry."
"Debbie might crash here sometimes, if you hear a noise. If you need to reach me--"
"You know what? Maybe it's better if I don't know where you are. In case."
Mellie nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. Okay. Okay..."
She grabbed the suitcases and began walking.
"Mellie?"
She stopped and turned to look at Paul. He looked intently at her "You know where I am."
Mellie gave the tiniest smile before leaving. Paul shut the door of his apartment.
*
"This should help you relax." Adelle said, pushing the tea across the table. Sam didn't sit. He continued pacing.
"Well, I don't want to relax. I want the hell out of here!"
"I understand--"
"You can't hold me. Y-You have to have cause, evidence!"
"I'm not with the government." Adelle said flatly.
"Well, then who the hell are you?" he spat, finally sitting down.
"I'm someone who can give you what you want."
Sam leaned back. "And what do I want?"
"A new life. A better life." Adelle opened the file on the desk. "Your mother, Antoinette Jennings of 483 Helena Street. I understand she's experiencing some financial difficulties. In fact, she's about to lose her home."
"Do not threaten my mother!"
Adelle glanced at him. "Quite the opposite." She presented him some forms and a pen. "Once you sign these papers, your mother will begin receiving a monthly stipend large enough to solve her financial problems. It will continue for five years, and at the end of that time, you will be quite capable of supporting her all on your own."
Sam looked pensive. "How?" he asked.
Adelle sat forward. "I'm going to make you an offer."