Mother's Day

Chapter 1
May 12, 2013

At four o'clock in the morning, Adelle DeWitt gave up her attempt at sleep. Her mind was too unsettled by the events of the previous days, and she had important decisions to make.

She showered and dressed quickly. She had been sleeping in a small apartment she kept for herself in the Dollhouse, having been too tired to go home the night before. Besides, it was getting more and more dangerous to venture outside; she was safer inside the House, where her security team could block any attempt at intrusion, and where she was too deep underground for any rogue signal to penetrate and attempt to rewrite her mind.

Yes, it was much safer to stay where she was, for however long she could manage it.

She fought back the impulse to call Langton and find out whether or not Caroline and Ballard had returned yet – they'd been the only team outside the House when the attackers had struck. But DeWitt knew that her security chief wasn't in any position to answer her queries at the moment. It was partly because Boyd Langton was out of commission that she was anxious for Paul Ballard to return – he was Langton's backup.

She took the elevator to the main floor of the House. The lights were still dimmed for the night; all of the Actives were sleeping. An armed security operative challenged her, not letting her pass until he had verified her identity; she nodded in approval. Of course, anybody – even DeWitt herself – could be a sleeper agent, but she chose not to chase that particularly worrying rabbit at the moment. Instead, she headed for the imprinting room.

The lights were still on, and Topher Brink was eyeing his monitors carefully. Victor was seated in the imprinting chair behind him, occasionally twitching as the device literally re-wrote his nervous system.

"You're still at it?" DeWitt asked.

Topher nodded sleepily. "This is deep – way deep." He yawned. "Spent all day trying to root it out. I finally went for a deep wipe, all the way down to the basal ganglia. Full re-install of the operating system."

DeWitt walked over to Victor and looked down at him. "That sounds drastic," she said.

"It is," Topher agreed. "If the power had cut out to the chair – well, his brain didn't know how to tell his body what to do for a while there. It would have been bye-bye Victor."

"But this is working?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I did Charlie first – when he seemed stable, I turned him over to Dr. Saunders. She's got him in the infirmary. I've been monitoring him, and all looks A-OK. So I've been working on Victor since, um, what time is it now?"

"It's about four-thirty in the morning," DeWitt told him.

"Oh, wow," Topher said, blinking. "Uh, what day?"

"Sunday."

"Whoa." Topher shook his head. "That must be why I feel so tired."

"Any word from Caroline?" DeWitt asked.

"What? Oh, yeah, the recall signal." He yawned deeply. "I got a call from Paul. They're inbound. Soon as Caroline heard that her papa bear had been hurt…"

"She knows she's not really his daughter, Topher," DeWitt snapped.

"Yeah, well, that imprint was your idea, not mine."

"She had that imprint for all of twelve hours nearly four years ago."

"And neither one of them has ever gotten over it." Topher chuckled. "Besides, it's part of her composite, so she's got that inside her."

"But the imprints are supposed to be subsidiary to her original personality," DeWitt said.

"Yeah," Topher agreed. "But if an imprint happens to mesh with something that's part of her base personality – like, say, the need for a great big ugly man to be a daddy-figure…"

"He's not ugly," DeWitt protested.

Topher stared at her for a long moment, then burst out laughing.

"Did I say something amusing?" She glared at Topher, who was clearly struggling to regain his composure.

"Oh God, you really don't know, do you?" He wiped the tears from his eyes, and said, "I just still remember the look on your face when Echo got that imprint…"

June 21, 2009

"The House is hopping this morning," Paul Ballard said.

Boyd Langton nodded curtly in response. "It's Father's Day," he explained.

"Right," Ballard said, sounding skeptical. "Are there really that many guys desperate for someone to call them 'Daddy'?"

Langton chuckled as they walked into the imprinting room. "Hello, Topher," he said.

"Hi Boyd," Topher said, distracted. "She'll be done in a couple of minutes, Paul."

"Anyway, I asked the same question my first year with the police," Langton said. "Yeah, on Father's Day every hooker in town was booked by guys who wanted to hear them say that word."

"Great," Ballard said. "Pathetic losers with incest fantasies."

Langton shook his head. "What really surprised me was finding out how many of those men didn't want to have sex with the girls they hired. The guys in Vice had to be careful – there's no law against soliciting a woman to have dinner with you, after all."

"And I'll point out," said a voice from behind them, "that we don't book the Actives for romantic encounters on this day." The two men turned, and saw Adelle DeWitt smiling at them from the doorway. "There are a lot of men who regret the choices they've made – to focus on their careers instead of their families. We give them the opportunity to see what they've missed, if only for a day."

"Uh, yes ma'am," Ballard said. "Well, ordinarily that would be a low-risk engagement. There is one twist to this one – it's being done as a gift. The client doesn't know Echo's coming yet. Somebody else booked it for him."

"Really?" Langton said. "That could get complicated. His long-lost daughter that he didn't know he had suddenly walks into his life for a day?"

"Not to worry, Mr. Langton," DeWitt said. "The client already knows about the Dollhouse, so he'll figure it out quickly enough."

"I just wonder how anybody's going to believe that she's his daughter," Topher said, grinning. "They don't exactly look alike. Just sayin'."

"Real ugly son of a bitch, huh?" Langton commented.

"No, just, um…" Topher looked nervous. "He's kind, of, well, you see… he's black."

"Ah." Langton grinned. "Don't sweat it. I had a cousin who married a white guy, and her kids – well, Echo wouldn't look too far out of place in one of their family pictures."

"Ah, genetics," Topher said. "Don't you just love how things get all mixed up? Anyway, she's just about done with the imprint. Three, two, one…"

The chair powered down, and Echo sat up. She looked around the room, blinked, and then focused on Langton's face. "Daddy!" she shrieked, bouncing out of the chair. She ran towards him and hugged him tightly.

Langton's eyes went wide. "What?" he said, astonishment covering his face.

"I'm just glad to see you, Dad," Echo said. "I've got the whole day planned out. We're going to have fun, whether you like it or not."

Langton cleared his throat. "Well, I, um…"

"Echo, why don't you go get ready?" Ballard suggested.

"Oh, right," Echo said, letting go of Langton. "Dad, have you met my friend Paul? You'd like him – he's a Federal agent. Just friends, by the way, nothing serious."

"Uh, yeah, we've met," Langton said, clearly uncomfortable.

"Well then," DeWitt said. "The sooner you get ready, Echo, the sooner the two of you can be off."

"Great!" Echo said. Then she gave DeWitt a quick hug. "Thanks for helping me set this up, Mom. I couldn't have done it without you!" Then she walked out the door, smiling and saying, "Back in a minute!"

Langton turned towards DeWitt with fury in his eyes. "You!" he said, pointing at her.

DeWitt suddenly realized that her mouth was hanging open in surprise. She closed it, and then turned quickly and pointed a finger at Topher. "You!" she hissed.

"Me?" Topher squeaked. "Uh-uh, not me."

"Is this some kind of a joke?" Langton asked.

"It's supposed to be a gift, Boyd," DeWitt said. "You're so paternal towards her, we thought we'd make it real for a day. What wasn't in the script was for me to be her mother."

"Hey, that didn't come from me," Topher protested. "All I put into the imprint about her mother is that her parents split when she was a baby. The rest is all Echo filling in the blanks."

"But the idea of it…" DeWitt shook her head. "I'm not even old enough to be her mother."

"Actually, ma'am, you are," Ballard said. "You're what, fifteen years older than her? I can look up the number of fifteen-year-olds who give birth every year if you like."

"But I wasn't a teenaged mother, thank you very much," DeWitt snapped.

"And Boyd didn't make a baby with you," Topher said. "We get that. But it's all real to Echo."

"Look at it as a compliment," Ballard suggested. "She was looking for a good mother figure, she picked you."

DeWitt fumed. "We'll discuss this in detail later, Topher. But I am not pleased."

Then Langton let out a low chuckle. "You know, I think I'm going to enjoy this engagement after all. So does anyone know what my daughter has planned for me?"

May 12, 2013

DeWitt shook her head sharply, her thoughts returning to the present. "Forget it. How is Victor progressing?"

"I'll have him back to the sweet, innocent blank slate we all know and love in a few minutes," Topher assured her. "After that – well, who do you want me to put in him?"

"Himself," DeWitt said. "All of him."

Topher looked confused. "Uh, what?"

"Composite him," she ordered. "His original personality, plus all of his imprints. No, wait; leave out the Dominic imprint, except for Mr. Dominic's knowledge of our internal security procedures. And his NSA experience. But leave the rest of him out."

"Hey, no argument there," Topher said. "And if he goes Alpha on us?"

"He won't," DeWitt said. "You said yourself – Alpha was Alpha because he was crazy before he came to us. Caroline's been composited for three years now without any glitches, hasn't she?"

"Except for the nasty migraines," Topher said. "Look, I can do this, but…"

"Yes, Topher, I understand the implications," DeWitt said. "I'm setting him free. If he wants to remain with us, that's his decision."

Topher whistled. "Okay. You're the boss."

"So you have no further objections?"

Topher shook his head. "After I saw what Rossum did to him? No ma'am. No objections."

DeWitt smiled. "That's my boy."

"I'll get right on it."

"Get some sleep after that," DeWitt ordered him. "You're going to be busy. I want you to composite the rest of the Actives too."

Topher's eyes went wide. "All of them?"

"Rossum has violated the terms of their contracts," DeWitt said. "So they're going free. All of them."

Topher whistled. "Of course, you know this means war."

"It already is war, Topher. They attacked us first." She turned on her heel and walked out.