Sydney raised his head as the lights flickered on in the Sim Lab and then nodded in satisfaction as he moved smoothly around the furniture and equipment toward the door of his office. It was seven thirty-seven in the morning – more than enough time to skim through the Dover newspaper that should already be folded neatly on his desk before rising promptly at eight oh-five to welcome the day’s research subjects.

This had been his set pattern for decades – to enjoy a little time to catch up with the world before focusing his attention on Centre-related activities. In years past, those activities had been complex and occasionally dangerous SIMs and the days and sometimes weeks of prep work that would need to go into them on his part. Then, after Jarod had escaped, for over five years those Centre-related activities had involved attempting to understand so as to second-guess and thus recapturing the valuable Pretender whose SIMs had been the cornerstone of the Centre’s profitability.

Nowadays, however, with clues to the elusive genius’ whereabouts becoming virtually nonexistent, those Centre-related daily activities tended to revolve around research projects that he’d once presented to the head of the department and now had received permission to undertake. Unless, of course, Miss Parker decided she needed his assistance – at which point any semblance of a routine schedule went straight out the window.

He pushed through the office door and settled his beret on the top knob of his coat tree next to his sports jacket before heading for his desk. Harrison was a dependable assistant – the newspaper was right where it belonged, along with a steaming cup of coffee fresh from the cafeteria two levels up. Sydney picked up the mug and sipped at it, grateful for an assistant who not only was just as dismayed as he at the quality of coffee in the Psychogenics lounge on any given day, but was willing to bring back TWO mugs of coffee in the early morning, rather than just his own.

Strange, he thought as he seated himself behind his desk, he’d never thought of himself as so much of a creature of habit before. His parents, he knew, had lived a very flexible, almost bohemian lifestyle. His mother had been quite artistic, and his father had been equally capable of creating furnishings that were works of art. The Nazis who had had charge of him and Jacob for years, on the other hand, had kept everything running like clockwork – and his life from that moment onward had always been lived at the rhythm of a ticking clock.

He stretched back into his chair and hugged his coffee to his chest. The only exception to that had been his all-too-brief time with Michelle. She had fretted dreadfully under his punishing obeisance to the clock on the wall – and had been slowly in the process of prying him free to resume a more flexible schedule again when she’d suddenly vanished from his life. With her gone, the clock and all it signaled had become all-important. He’d run his life by it – he’d run Jarod’s by it too, in his time.

From the moment that Jarod was brought from his space and into the Sim Lab – usually around eight-fifteen – until nearly two in the afternoon, he had immersed himself in the work. Lunch had been a fifteen minute break – enough time for Jarod to choke down a dish of nutritional supplement and him to have his sandwich in his office – and then it had been back to work for the both of them. The afternoon ended at four-thirty on the dot, and he was usually ready to walk out of the Sim Lab at five-thirty sharp after spending an hour doing the requisite reports on the day’s activities.

This was the schedule he’d returned to after the chaos of the hunt for his elusive protégé began to ebb. Once the day’s research was begun, it ran until two, then broke for fifteen minutes for lunch, then ran again steady until four-thirty. On most evenings, he could still count on being ready to lock up the Sim Lab and head for the elevator at five-thirty sharp, with all the requisite activities reports duly filled out and research notes entered into the computer log for compilation by the night clerical shift.

On the way home from work every Tuesday and Friday, he would stop at the grocery store for food supplies to get him through the next few days – lunch meats and eggs for sandwiches for lunch, ingredients for a hearty stew or roast for baking for suppers. He took his time preparing his evening meal – a good pot of hearty stew could last him three days – a roast often twice that in leftovers. His later evenings were spent in reading through psychiatric journals and newly published doctrinal theses to keep his knowledge base and psychiatric skills honed to the latest developments in his field. Without fail, he was in bed by eleven so that he could get seven full hours of sleep before his alarm woke him again at six.

Only on his weekends and vacation days did that schedule vary at all – and even then, he rose at his usual hour; had his coffee and newspaper at the regular time, had lunch at two and supper at six-thirty and spent the evenings reading like always. What would have changed were his daytime activities. He had his bonsai collection to water and care for, his topiary bushes to keep manicured, correspondence to catch up on with colleagues and friends, laundry and other personal chores to get done. Occasionally, he drove up to Albany to visit with Michelle and even more occasionally, visit with his son, Nicholas. Very occasionally.

He sniffed, sipped at his coffee again and then put the mug on the desk to reach for the newspaper. So what if he was a creature of habit? Thing were done by the time they needed to be done, he didn’t spend hours locked in a battle with boredom. Schedules were good things.

His eyes wandered over the headlines on the front page, finding them to be pretty much the same as they’d been for the last week or so – with the exception of the one local story about a young woman – oriental, if her name was any indication – who’d been found dead and dismembered in the woods to the north of Dover. The article, which he actually began to read, indicated that this was the third such killing in the last ten months.

“Hey Syd…”

He looked up to see Broots’ bald head poking through his office door. “Yes?”

“Raines wants to see us in his office,” the computer tech announced with a tone of trepidation. “Now.”

Sydney sighed and put his paper down.

This, too, was starting to happen on a fairly regular schedule, now that he started to think about it. Ever since the plane crash that had put Mr. Raines in charge of the Centre, he and the other members of the team in charge of finding Jarod were being called into the Chairman’s office in the Tower – if not put in the spotlight in a hideous procedure the Centre called a “t-board” for the shape of the table at which the victim was interrogated – almost weekly.

He doubted today would be so extreme. When Raines decided to convene a t-board, the person or persons to be interrogated were kidnapped from their homes – often straight out of their sleep – and dragged to the Centre in their pajamas and robes. This more straight-forward summoning probably meant a simple ‘talking-to’ – something someone as twisted as Raines would consider more in line with a pep-talk.

Sydney smiled to himself as he rose and moved to follow Broots back through the Sim Lab and toward the elevator. He’d not thought about it before, but keeping notes on and then doing an in-depth analysis of the new Chairman and his behavior might make points for him with the Triumvirate. After all, it would be an unofficial project, done completely on his own time…

The smile faded. Then again, what better way than to make an already confrontational relationship with his nominal employer worse than to write a scathing and critical review and send it to his boss’ bosses.

He looked up as Miss Parker joined the two of them in waiting for the elevator. “You too, huh?” he asked dryly.

“Let’s go see what Nosferatu has for us today, boys,” she replied sarcastically. “I’m sure it will be just riveting.”

Just the kind of remark that he’d expect from Miss Parker – and delivered right on cue. Sydney blinked at his own thoughts. What was it about him and his fixation with schedules today?

He’d have to do some serious thinking while setting up his research subjects later that morning. After all, he couldn’t let anything like an obsession – however small – get in the way of his day’s work…

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