------------------------------
A New War #28: Consultations
by Lianne Burwell
December 1999
------------------------------

Sydney sighed and brought up the next list. Miss Parker had set Broots to 
keeping track of the files being taken to this Mulder person and a 
disturbing trend was starting to appear. At first there was no rhyme or 
reason to the subject matter. He wasn't even sure why the Center had 
files on some of them: none of the events seemed to be related to Center 
business. Maybe they had something to do with this Consortium that Broots 
had discovered.

However, now the files were all about Jarod. First the more recent, then 
the older files from before his escape. The implications were disturbing. 
The Center wanted Mulder to know everything about Jarod. Either they 
expected to get their hands on the man soon, or they expected Mulder to 
*help* them capture Jarod.

Speaking of whom, he hadn't heard from Jarod in several weeks now. No 
questions, no teasing hints of what he was doing and where. Sydney felt 
perversely abandoned, even though it was safer for Jarod *not* to contact 
him right now. He was sure that he was being watched by the powers that 
be or their flunkies. While he might work for the Center, he found 
himself working more and more at cross-purposes with them and they knew 
it.

He'd been warned when he was younger to be careful of getting too 
emotionally involved with his subjects, but that hadn't saved him. He'd 
been lost since the day they put him in a room to work with a young boy, 
a new intake at the Center. Very quickly, Jarod had become the son he'd 
always wanted. As a result, he couldn't seem to help looking forward to 
those calls these days, anticipating the brief contacts they had from 
time to time. And he was equally helpless to resist the need to interfere 
in the Center's attempts to recapture Jarod. The young man had obviously 
flourished since his escape, and both Sydney's parental and scientific 
instincts wanted to see what he would make of himself.

He was so distracted by his thoughts that when the phone rang it made him 
jump. He stared at it suspiciously for a moment before picking it up.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Sydney," said the voice of the man he'd just been thinking about.

Sydney felt a small burst of pleasure at the familiar voice before 
caution reasserted itself. With the heightened security, he was probably 
being watched. However, with any luck it was just visual, not audio. As 
long as he didn't make any unusual moves, no one should notice.

"Hello," he said pleasantly, leaning back in his chair casually. "It's 
been a while."

"Yes it has. Why, did you miss me?" Jarod teased, and Sydney smiled in 
response.

"Actually, yes. But now is not a good time. Things are a little... busy 
around here right now."

"Really? And would that have anything to do with a man named Mulder?"

Sydney froze in shock. How had Jarod known...? But then Jarod always 
seemed to know more than he should. It was one of the things that had 
made working with him so fascinating.

"How did you know that?" he asked, carefully keeping his surprise from 
his face. Meanwhile, he kept one eye on the clock, timing the call. The 
longer the call, the more likely that someone would get suspicious and 
start a trace.

"It seems that Agent Mulder has some very anxious friends," Jarod 
replied. "Can we meet?"

"Well, I'm not sure I can get away tonight," Sydney said. "I won't be 
home until late. In a couple days, perhaps?" he said, trusting Jarod to 
pick up on what he was really saying.

"Understood. Later, then."

Sydney hesitated, then said honestly, "Be careful."

He could almost hear the smile in the other man's voice. "I always am," 
Jarod said, then hung up.

Sydney leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. He'd leave his back 
door unlocked when he got home. While he was sure that Jarod knew where 
his spare key was -- and was fully capable of picking the lock if he 
didn't -- there was no point in making things difficult for him.

He opened his eyes and stared at the phone for a moment, fully expecting 
it to ring again, this time with either Mr. Raines or his unfortunate 
flunky, Mr. Lyle, on the other end. It didn't

Finally, Sydney straightened up and went back to work, this time with a 
feeling of anticipation to carry him through the day.

* * * * *

"So, how's she doing?"

Linda Malone, head of the gene-splicing project at the Consortium 
facility in the Yucatan province, looked up from her computer screen, her 
face twisting in annoyance at the interruption. Jeff Ericks, her second 
and a brilliant scientist in his own right, if a little too soft-hearted 
for her liking, was standing in front of the monitor showing the view 
from the security camera in test subject one-five-seven's room. On the 
monitor, the subject was talking animatedly with test subject nine-seven.

"Fine. The adjustment to the booster shots corrected the chemical 
imbalance in the subject's blood."

"I meant emotionally," Ericks said, frowning.

Linda shook her head, snorting in derision. "Don't get so attached to the 
subjects," she told him. "It just gets you in trouble." It was a warning 
she'd given to many a subordinate over the years.

Ericks sighed. "Emotional states affect the physical, you know. If she's 
overly upset or tense, it could harm the fetus."

The muscles around Linda's mouth tightened at the rebuff. While it was a 
good comeback, she didn't buy it. Ericks got emotionally involved with 
his subjects. He hadn't yet learned, the way that she'd learned, to see 
them as faceless, disposable lab rats. Of course, she'd also seen too 
many scientists over the years who got attached to their lab rats, even 
going so far as giving them names. You wouldn't catch *her* doing 
something that foolish. Numbers were adequate labels. Besides, it wasn't 
like they were going to be around for long.

Even nine-seven, the longest resident test subject, was headed, 
inevitably, for the dissection table once his usefulness came to an end.

"Check the results of the latest blood-tests," she said, prodding him to 
get to work. He headed for his own terminal, obediently. At least he knew 
how to follow orders.

Linda turned her attention back to her screen, pushing gray hair out of 
her eyes. It was time to get it cut again, she reminded herself. It was 
becoming a distraction. Then she lost herself in the gene-sequences that 
danced on the screen before her. She'd been working on this program for 
more than forty years and she was determined to produce a complete 
success before she died. The fetus that one-five-seven carried was that 
success. She was sure. One-five-seven and the other three surrogates 
would produce the perfect human-feline hybrids in just three months, 
thanks to techniques that sped up the development of the fetuses.

When she'd first joined the project, she'd been fresh out of school, full 
of confidence. She'd been set to work on a project to combine human DNA 
with that of animals. They'd tried several different types before 
settling on felines as a source. Primates were more compatible, but 
feline were more... elegant. And more inspiring of fear, she knew. It was 
obvious from the start that the project was intended to produce soldiers. 
She didn't really care. It was the science involved that interested her.

Unfortunately, there were still a lot of unknowns involved. The first 
batch of hybrids produced had been completely psychotic. While this 
wasn't necessarily a bad thing in a soldier, in their case it made them 
uncontrollable. The entire batch had been terminated before their fifth 
birthday.

Dissection and analysis had suggested ways of making the next batch a 
little more biddable, but they'd over-compensated. The result had been 
pacifists unless they were directly threatened. It was better, but still 
not usable. That batch had also been destroyed.

Linda's expression tightened. Destroyed except for one. Somehow, not long 
after the birth of group two, one of the technicians had managed to steal 
one of the subjects and escape. Their employers had caught up with the 
woman, but the infant was gone. The woman had refused to say what she'd 
done with it before she died. It was one of the reasons that the project 
had been quickly moved from New York to the middle of the Mexican jungle.

Since then, there'd been three more test batches. Nearly a dozen had been 
deemed worth preserving. They'd been raised at the facility, then shipped 
off for training. Nine-seven had been part of one of those batches. It 
wasn't considered aggressive enough, but had been allowed to live to see 
if the hybrids would breed true. Unfortunately, they hadn't. Bred with 
humans, they produced fully human offspring. Bred with large cat breeds, 
they produced fully feline offspring. The only interesting result was 
that the one third of the humans had shown signs of being Sentinels and 
the felines had all showed higher than average intelligence and 
trainability.

That's why she had suggested something new for this batch. The three 
subjects currently developing in-uterus were all female.

Her employers had resisted the idea. Up until now, all the hybrids had 
been male. Linda snorted softly to herself. It was pure sexism on their 
part. They wanted to breed soldiers and they refused to see that females 
might be better choices than males. After all, wasn't the female called 
the deadlier of the species? She'd pushed for the chance for several 
decades and she'd finally gotten them to agree to one batch of females. 
In the end, it had been the suggestion that they find out if female 
hybrids would breed true, especially if mated to male hybrids.

Linda looked forward to finding out, although she would probably be at 
the end of her career by that point. It didn't really matter. She'd 
devoted her life to this project. All she wanted was to see it succeed.

* * * * *

Sydney hadn't lied about being busy. It was almost midnight before he 
managed to get away from the Center. By the time he got home, he was 
exhausted. He started a pot of coffee brewing and settled down to wait 
for Jarod to show up.

The sound of the back door woke him up. He'd sat down on the sofa, just 
intending to close his eyes for a moment. A glance at the clock said that 
nearly an hour had passed since then. Ignoring the sounds of footsteps 
coming down the hall, he went to check the coffee. It was a little 
strong, but drinkable. Sydney pulled out several mugs, filled one and 
took a long swallow before turning around.

Jarod was standing in the kitchen doorway, a small smile on his face. 
Behind him were two men. Both had dark hair and an air that said they 
were dangerous. *Very* dangerous. Presumably the anxious friends that 
Jarod had mentioned.

"Coffee?" Sydney asked mildly, then had to suppress a yawn.

One of the men with Jarod smiled, but the other one just shook his head. 
"Mulder," he said bluntly.

Sydney waved them towards the kitchen table. He brought over the mugs and 
the pot of coffee. "Milk's in the fridge, sugar's in the bowl," he said, 
nodding towards where it sat on the table. "Help yourselves."

Jarod poured a cup and added a disgusting amount of sugar. Jarod had 
developed a definite sweet-tooth since leaving the Center. No doubt a 
reaction to the carefully controlled diet he'd been on since he was a 
child.

The man with the smile also poured a cup. He drank it black. The third 
member of the group ignored the coffee. "Mulder," he said again in a hard 
voice.

"He's in the Center. A cozy little cell on Sub-Level twenty-five. Broots 
spoke to him, "he told Jarod in an aside. "He's fine, but angry. Or at 
least he was a few days ago. Unfortunately, his cell was bugged. They 
knew someone was down there, but not who. The whole level is being 
monitored now."

"Any way in except through the front door?" the other man said. He had an 
unusual accent. Sydney would guess that the man had spent a lot of time 
out of the country.

Sydney glanced at Jarod, then nodded. "Most of the other entrances have 
been sealed since Jarod escaped. But there are still a couple that the 
powers that be don't know about."

"Really?" Jarod said, his eyebrows going up. "I didn't know that."

"Miss Parker found one of her mother's diaries recently," Sydney said. 
"It was well-hidden. It detailed her work trying to free some of the 
children that the Center took. She found a couple escape tunnels, built 
into the Center to allow the management to leave if there was trouble. 
I'm not sure how, but she managed to destroy all reference to them, and 
I'm not sure that anyone currently know where those exits are. Except us, 
that is."

The hard-faced man pulled a pad of paper and a pen from under his leather 
jacket. "I assume you can draw us a map," he said, pushing them towards 
Sydney. There was no please in his voice, just an order.

Sydney frowned. He was beginning to dislike this man. Intensely. He 
didn't bother saying so, since he doubted that the man would care. He 
would also guess that the man would cheerfully hurt him if he said no. 
Not that Sydney intended to. Jarod had asked him and he had a hard time 
telling *Jarod* no.

So he took the pen and paper and started sketching. It didn't have to be 
too accurate. Jarod already knew the area, so as long as he and his new 
friends could follow it to the entrance, it would be enough. Besides, if 
something happened and they were captured or lost the paper, no one else 
would be able to make heads or tails of it. "It opens into Sub-Level 
fourteen," he said as he wrote. "Not far from the north stairwell. The 
stairwell will take you straight down to twenty-five. However, the moment 
you open the door onto Sub-Level twenty-five, the alarms will go off. As 
well, there are cameras in all of the stairwells that are being 
monitored. You'll have to move fast to get your friend out before 
security arrives."

"Can you do anything about the alarms?"

Sydney shook his head. "They're on a stand-alone system that I don't have 
authorization for. However..." He paused, thinking about it.

"Yes?" Jarod asked, leaning forward eagerly.

"Well, we *might* be able to arrange a short in the system that would 
take out all of the security cameras. It's something Broots and I have 
been working out. Just theory, you understand, but it might give you a 
little more time to work with." Jarod nodded.

The unfriendly member of the trio opened his mouth, no doubt to say 
something scathing, but the other man broke in before he could say 
anything. "Don't, Alex. If it's all he can do, it will have to be enough."

Sydney pushed the pad over to Jarod, who tore off the top page, folded it 
and put it in his shirt pocket. "I'll get Broots to arrange it," Sydney 
told them. "But a short won't last long. You'll have to let me know 
*when* you plan to make your move."

"So you can tell your bosses? I don't think so," said the man who'd been 
called Alex. Again, his friend shushed him up.

"Thank you, Sydney," Jarod said, getting to his feet. "I'll let you know 
when." When the other man made to protest, Jarod frowned. "I trust 
Sydney," he said. Sydney felt a warm glow swell inside him at the words. 
Not many people *truly* trusted him, not even his own son.

"Fine," Alex said, pushing to his feet. "But if you betray us," he said, 
turning ice-cold eyes on Sydney, "I will kill you."

Somehow, Sydney didn't doubt it.

Sydney watched as the three men headed for the back door again. Once they 
were gone, he collected the mugs and washed them all. When they were back 
in the cupboard where they belonged, he decided to be paranoid. He wiped 
down the table and everything else that the three men might have touched.

After he finished, he locked all the doors, turned out the lights and 
headed for bed. In the morning he would talk to Broots. He wasn't sure 
how the tech would react to the idea of trying out their theories in real 
life, though. Either excited at having the chance to prove he was right 
or piss-your-pants terrified.

Sydney was betting on terrified.

But he didn't think he would tell Miss Parker what was going on. While 
the woman was growing more sympathetic over time as she learned more 
about her mother and what had really happened to her, her feelings 
towards Jarod were rapidly reaching the point of obsession. He couldn't 
be sure that she wouldn't take the chance to get her hands on her 
nemesis. He was a challenge. He was the only assignment she'd failed in.

And she was showing signs of a more personal interest that Sydney knew 
Jarod would never return. While Jarod showed a great deal of fondness for 
the emotionally-damaged woman, his feelings showed a more fraternal 
leaning, while Miss Parker's were anything but, Sydney would guess.

Despite the thoughts and plans racing through his mind -- not to mention 
the caffeine racing through his veins -- Sydney was yawning again by the 
time he made it to the bedroom and changed into his pajamas. After a week 
of heavy overtime, he was asleep almost the moment his head hit the 
pillow.

Morning would be soon enough for making firmer plans.


TO BE CONTINUED