Book I - ch 16. Random-Access Memory

* * *

Startled by his suspicion, Robyn pulled her hand back before she could control herself. “That’s ridiculous.”

He shrugged. “Once stabbed, twice shy.”

Right. They’d had a previous infiltration attempt some years ago. She didn’t know all the details, but she’d heard the impostor made it into the compound. Maybe it would be helpful to do some research.

Griffon was thoughtful. He signaled Pegasus to turn the com back on so Scorpion could hear them.

Robyn shook her head. “She’s Sarah. She even knew about the accidental plant ingestion chaos when we were kids.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Pegasus whispered. “People will throw little details here and there so you don’t pay attention to the big picture. Even we do it all the time.”

Griffon took a seat at the corner of the table, facing away from the monitors. “And you took her outside.”

“I followed procedure all the way,” Pegasus said. “Cypher even had someone monitoring us, and she never left my sight. There’s no way she could’ve talked to anyone or left anything behind.”

“Hey!” She couldn’t let them lock Sarah up for real. “This is still my little sister we’re talking about. The girl they tried to kill and failed.”

“Did they fail?” Griffon turned his calculating stare towards her. “What if they already made the switch and it was all staged, so we’d bring her here, exactly like we did?”

“If that’s true, it would explain why they’d have to kill Dragon and their parents. It gets rid of the two people with enough experience with this place to recognize a switch.” Pegasus held up a hand to stall her protests. “But then why the undo attention towards her? And why would she have evaded us so hard?”

Robyn’s mouth opened to protest, but she got cut off by Griffon.

“A ruse?” he suggested. “Something else to convince us she’s for real?”

“Wait. Wouldn’t we have believed it much more easily if we hadn’t found this part out?” Robyn asked.

Pegasus looked concerned. “She asked me about staying here. If there was a way for her to stay with Dragon.”

Griffon nodded. “That would be a good way to infiltrate us. The plan could have been to seek us out at the W.R.O. and pretend to want retribution for the death of her family. Under those circumstances, we would certainly take her in.”

In the other room, Scorpion laughed. “You think you can simply decide to be someone else?” There was more than a trace of mockery in her voice.

“Is that a weird way to ask if I’m lying?” Sarah asked.

Robyn hadn’t been paying attention to what they’d been talking about before, but it seemed like Scorpion had suddenly switched gears.

“You wanna pretend that you can have a greater purpose?” Scorpion gestured towards the walls. “You think you could adapt to this place? That you can be useful?”

Sarah looked startled.

Scorpion smiled, but it was not kind. Robyn knew that smile all too well. “Yes, he told me.”

“Belle,” Pegasus warned.

Scorpion visibly flinched at his use of her nickname.

“It was about Robyn,” he said. “She wanted to be with her sister.”

“You really love your sister that much? Enough that you would give up everything you know for her? Just like that?” Scorpion snapped her fingers. “I can’t believe you’d be so quick to throw away your life.”

Sarah’s eyes were cold. “You don’t know me at all.”

“This is a mess.” Griffon sighed. “What else did you tell her about us, Pegasus? About the W.R.O.?”

“I didn’t tell her anything someone with a basic knowledge of this place wouldn’t already know,” Pegasus said.

Robyn raised a hand. “I told her even less.”

“What the hell is going on?” Sarah shouted in the other room.

Robyn turned back to the screen at the outburst.

“Why are you asking me these weird questions?” Sarah asked.

“We’re trying to be sure of your role in all this,” Scorpion answered.

“I’m not telling you anything else until you give me a straight answer. Are you thinking I had something to do with killing my parents and trying to kill Robyn? Is that really what you guys think?”

“Give her something,” Griffon instructed. “Let’s see what happens.”

Scorpion’s eyes narrowed. “Actually, we think you’re not you, but someone impersonating you, and that the real Sarah was killed along with her parents that night.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Sarah stared at Scorpion for several seconds. She leaned her forehead onto the table. “You know, that sounds very, very crazy. So, either you guys are sharing some kind of collective delusion, or—and this is the simplest explanation—I’ve lost my mind.”

Pegasus chuckled. Robyn turned to glare at him.

He raised his hands defensively. “Sorry, but there’s something to be said for Occam’s razor.”

Robyn wanted to smack that smirk right off his face.

“I don’t think logic stands a fair chance here,” Griffon said. “Scorpion, leave her for now. We’ll have her tested.”

Without further explanation, Scorpion announced to Sarah they were done and left the room.

Robyn swallowed her protests. Of course this was Sarah, but she would shut up and let them take her through the quizzes and whatever else they wanted. The end result was inevitable, and they would confirm this really was her.

“You know, there’s a flaw in your theory,” Scorpion said as she came in. “Her blood wasn’t found at the scene.”

“Wouldn’t have to have been at the house. The switch could have been earlier, or even after she ran away from the attack,” Griffon said. “What do you think, Pegasus?”

“The few times we’ve seen them replaced people, it was done discreetly. So I don’t think they were after replacing her. They could do it at the university, or when she was on the move, or even home by herself…” Pegasus shrugged. “So why such an attack? Why leave bodies all around? And what about the phone call she said they got before it happened? What was its purpose? If only to draw her away from the others, why? Why talk at all when she herself answered the phone? And assuming they wanted her dead, question becomes why.”

“The phone call separated her from the others at a convenient time. It could have been planned that way,” Scorpion suggested. “To make sure she got away.”

“That’s unlikely,” Robyn said. “It could’ve just as easily been me picking up the phone.”

“Who usually answers the phone at your house?” Griffon asked.

“Me or Sarah, or Mom. But Sarah and I usually got the short straw.”

“Could someone have predicted who would be answering?”

Robyn shook her head. “Only if there was no difference between me and Sarah. When it rang, I told her it was her turn. I was tired, and I didn’t feel like it.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference, except maybe she’d be dead,” Pegasus said. “If she is Sarah.”

“She is,” Robyn said. But she knew why they wouldn’t readily believe her. She wouldn’t believe a grieving sister either.

“But why send someone to kill her?” Scorpion asked. “That’s what we keep coming back to. It doesn’t make any sense, especially if she is the real Sarah.”

“They might have known about her connection to this place through Robyn, but then why go after her at all? If some sort of warning or threat, any of them would have been enough of a target,” Griffon said, softening his tone as he met Robyn’s gaze. “No one would have needed to single Sarah out.”

Pegasus spun his chair around, looking away from where the monitor showed Sarah looking at Gellman’s photo. “Either they know something about her we don’t, or they think she knows something she doesn’t.”

“Or maybe they think she was already replaced,” Robyn joked.

“And they’re trying to get at the replacement?” Pegasus asked, giving her suggestion more thought than she intended. “What for? It’s theirs. And if it’s not… Then we’re in worse trouble than when we started.”

“Too much speculation and very few answers won’t get us anywhere,” Griffon said, putting an end to their brainstorming session. “Hopefully, we should have some leads after she’s tested.”

“Can I do the interrogation?” Robyn asked.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Pegasus said. “She could get her cues from you without you noticing.”

“Agreed,” Griffon said. “Dragon will go back to Gellman. Scorpion, you’ll help her. Let’s check everything he told us. See if Python and Hydra have anything new. Pegasus, you’re in charge of Sarah’s interrogation since you’ll be out of the game for a few more days.”

Pegasus nodded, looking not too happy with his assignment.

“We’ll call if we need you,” Griffon promised. “Send the report over to Athena when you’re done.”

Robyn didn’t want to give up yet. “Can I at least watch? Please? She’s my sister.”

“I can get started by myself,” Scorpion said. “I’ll call Robyn when I’ve finished compiling everything and making an initial assessment.”

Griffon nodded. “Fine. I’ll tell Cypher to prep the other room.”

Pegasus squeezed Robyn’s arm gently. “We’ll figure it out. It’s only a matter of time.”

Robyn resisted the urge to pull away. “Yes, I know.”

* * *

Sarah looked down at the last of the little wires Pegasus had connected. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me the truth if you were planning to shock me with a thousand volts or something?”

Sarah hadn’t been expecting a reaction, but Pegasus’ lips twitched.

“No. But I would’ve strapped you in.”

Emboldened by the response, she refused to let the silence settle again between them. “Is this gonna prove I’m telling the truth?”

“It’s not foolproof.” He checked the screen on the device, then tapped something on the console. “But it’s better than nothing.”

There had also a sizable amount of anger directed at Pegasus occupying her mind. She admitted she had no right to feel betrayed, but she couldn’t help it.

She was also angry at being interrogated and at not having seen Robyn for a while, but she believed Pegasus when he said Robyn was fine.

Sarah tried her best not to fidget. Nervousness and outrage had battled for a while, and now nervousness was winning. Maybe it was the exhaustion.

When Pegasus explained they planned to test her using something like a polygraph, worry replaced whatever emotions were there. How reliable were polygraphs anyway? What were the chances it would identify a truth as a lie?

Not that she had a choice in what they did to her. And if playing along stopped them from suspecting her of murdering her own family, then she could play along. Reminded of the unfairness of the accusations, anger threatened to return to the forefront.

“Okay.” Pegasus pulled his chair over and sat down facing her. He opened a thin folder he’d carried into the room, flipping over the first few pages. “When’s your birthday?”

“I thought the point of polygraph tests was answering yes or no.”

“This is not a polygraph test,” was the only explanation he gave.

Sarah really was thinking this was all madness.

Likely unaware of her thoughts, Pegasus smiled. “Let’s try again. How old are you?”

What was the date again? Were they in May already? “I’m gonna be twenty in about a month.”

He kept looking at her and didn’t write anything down.

“And when is your birthday?”

She gave the wires a suspicious glance. “June second.”

“What was the first word you ever said?”

“This is important?”

“You weren’t that prolific as a baby, I’m sure.”

Yeah, madness. If not hers, then definitely theirs.

“My first word was bear. Apparently, I thought it was Robyn’s name.” Neither her parents nor Robyn understood how that happened.

Pegasus still didn’t write anything down or type anything into the machine. He barely looked at the blasted thing. He watched her, nothing more.

“What time did you wake up the day your parents died?” His tone was softer, the only consideration she was to receive for being reminded of that horrible night.

She’d rather not think about it. But these sorts of questions were easy to answer mindlessly. “Probably seven forty-five. That’s when I usually get up.”

“What classes did you have?”

“Didn’t Scorpion already ask me this?” She was sure they’d gone over that during the five or six hours she’d spent with Scorpion. Well, she’d felt like it’d been five or six. She wouldn’t be surprised to find it’d been a couple of hours instead.

“Humor me, please. Which classes?”

“Introduction to Economy. And the other professor forgot about us and didn’t show up.”

“And the day before?”

“Are you serious?”