Title: A Second Angel: Empty Hands (1/17)

Author:  Eva Parker



Disclaimer:  Concepts, characters, scenery, and psychotic corporations from the television show The Pretender are protected trademarks of MTM Television, Pretender Productions, and NBC.  I lay no claim to them; I’m just taking them out for a little spin.  All escaped characters will be returned immediately to the Centre.  All other characters, scenery, etc. belong to me.  Please note that fanfiction is covered under the “Free Use” clause of the copyright law.

Jarod  8/23/73  9:15 A.M.                           FOR CENTRE USE ONLY

   He lies on Sydney’s worn sofa, on his stomach, feet hanging over his head, dancing ever so slightly in the air.  It is his regular psychiatric session, a process Sydney initiated shortly after the “identity disorder” Jarod developed—and recovered from—at a mere eight years of age.
   Jarod stares at the wall, trying to keep his face bland, and only succeeding in making it look like an open wound to his psychiatrist.
Sydney is experienced enough with the precocious fourteen-year-old that his insight borders on telepathy; he perches his chin on his folded hands and waits, knowing that the young Jarod will speak.
   Jarod hums an old song he’d picked up at some point, the words so familiar that he feels a connection to some past long forgotten, as if he could sing to dinosaurs. 
He wishes he could tell Sydney about what he’s feeling; he really, honestly does: the aching pang in his fingers, the hollowness in his chest.
  He paces from the tiny library—he’s read, memorized, all the books—to the simlab in his Free Hours, desperate to do something, anything, in order to get his mind away from this unfamiliar and unusual despair.  But in all twelve languages and more than one-hundred-fifty dialects he knows, he cannot find the correct words to express himself.
The closest he can get is the new language he’s learned, Russian. It’s not because the Soviets had or have any overwhelming insight into the human psyche, but because the throaty sharpness of Russian—the images of bitterly cold Siberia, the pain, and fear, and strength of those bearing the iron hammer and sickle of Communism—the sound of it is the best way to re-enforce what he is saying. “?????? ????????,” he murmurs.  Empty hands.
  Sydney, forgoing the invisible wall that is created when one hides behind a desk, looks at his charge and feels a sinking of sympathy in his chest, a feeling which he knows will not be obvious on the DSA recording or to Jarod.  Empathy is frowned upon in the Centre.
  “Jarod,” he begins, but he does not know what he will say afterward.  There is nothing he can do for Jarod at the present moment, a familiar frustration that is made no less difficult every time he feels it.  Sydney massages the bridge of his nose, and says nothing.
  Jarod swings his legs over the side of the sofa, moving from a prone position to sitting upright in one smooth motion.  For a single moment, his expression has lost the usual self-control of geniuses and stoics; right now he is just a fourteen year old boy trying to figure out who he is and what he wants.  His innocent, chocolate brown eyes burn with sorrow and bitterness.  He spreads his hands out for Sydney’s inspection, though they both know he’s not talking about hands at all.
  Turning away again, he clenches his nimble fingers, so adept at typing and building, wielding a scalpel, guiding a stealth team; fingers that had built circuit boards and security systems, fingers that traced out complex mathematical problems with an ease even Sydney would never be able to achieve.  Right now, they offer him no more than his extensive vocabulary.  “?????? ????????,” he murmurs again, staring at the wood-paneled walls.

But this time, the words are devoid of emotion.
When the session is over, Sydney pulls a small, spiral-bound book from the bottom drawer of his desk, the drawer that locks.  The book is marked with the Centre insignia, and in smaller letters, identified as part of the Pretender Project. 
  It is a short list of vocabulary words not, under any circumstances, to be taught to the young Pretender at this stage in his psychological development or educational curriculum. Sydney had helped to write it, years ago. He traces his fingers down the dog-eared pages.
  Number forty-three is LONLINESS.

The Falls Apartments
Boston, Massachusetts
November 7

   For a moment, Jarod almost wishes he was back in the car.  The men still holding him, bruising him with their touches, are just cruel; Jarod knows right away that the man standing before him will really hurt him.  This is the kind of villain in those grown-up books, the kind that hurts little kids for no good reason.
   He wants his mother.  He wants his father.  He wants to curl up in the little nook that belongs all to him in their attic at home, and pull the tiny brown baby quilt around his shoulders and cry and cry.
  “Hello, little boy,” the man growls.  “What’s your name?”
   Four year old Jarod, terrified and confused though he is, is not fooled by the man’s words.  Nothing that came from a place this bad could ever be nice, least of all this cigarette-smoking. . .monster.  He curls away, almost into the arms of his captors.  “Jarod,” he murmurs, but his child’s voice is small and tremulous.
   “What do you want us to do with him, Dr. Raines?”  This from the tall black man on Jarod’s left.
   The man, Dr. Raines, takes a drag on his cigarette and seems to think for a moment.  “Put him in isolation, twenty-four hours.” Dr. Raines commands.  “Find Sydney.”  He drops his cigarette onto the polished white tile and snuffs it out with a toe.
   Another long walk, this time without the stifling hood, through a labyrinth of corridors and doors, twisting and turning until Jarod doesn’t even know if he could find his way back.
   Then they shove him into a dark room.  A door slams.  Tumblers click harshly.
He is entirely, completely alone.  The shock is passing, and he is tired, overwhelmed, disoriented, crippled.  They have abandoned him.  They don’t even. . .they don’t even care.  The feelings he has stifled all night refuse to be pushed away; they rush over him, and he sobs.  Shaking, he drops to his hands and knees, in his choo-choo train pajamas and cries.
   And cries.
   Jarod blinked.
   He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, digging his fingers into his sleeping bag he used as a coverlet.  His fingertips still had a tremor, and sweat beaded on his forehead, but he did not permit himself to cry out.  He was woken by nightmares more often than not; this night was no different from a thousand others.
   He would not fall back to sleep.  After a few moments of half-hearted effort, he rolled out of bed, shuffled to the refrigerator, and made himself a glass of chocolate milk.
   The apartment was small, stark, and standard.  There was a living and dining room, with a not-too-old TV and a round dinner table for four, which he kept his laptop, notebook, and DSAs on.  Connected to the living room, but separated by a small bar, was a kitchen with a puce green fridge—empty save for the milk and a dozen eggs—a row of very empty cabinets, a set of pots and pans which had come with the apartment, a black Mr. Coffee, and a mug which read The Only Person Who Really Knows What’s Going On.
   It had also come with the apartment.
   There was a small bedroom, with a twin bed and one dresser, and a small, white-tiled, and nondescript bathroom, as well.
   He had paid extra for the furniture.
   Jarod had moved in yesterday morning.  He would be gone before the week was out.  The lack of permanence used to bother him, but in the two and a half years since he had run away from the Centre, he had gotten used to it.
   Or at least, he tolerated it.  He would never feel comfortable, especially at night, when shadows and silhouettes, combined with the lateness of the hour and his razor-sharp imagination, could easily flip him into a black-and-white flashback of his former life, or turn a bedroom into a Simlab so accurate, he could almost hear Sydney’s voice.
   He wrapped his hand around the chill glass and walked back out into the living room, snatching a Pez dispenser from the tabletop as he moved past.  It was grape-flavored, one of his favorites, and it came from a plastic turkey head, a reminder of the time of year.
   Jarod had become very interested in the tradition of Thanksgiving for a short while.  He was not particularly religious, or, he didn’t think so.  His experience with such a holiday was of a different and rather limited sort.  It was, to Jarod, a time when families got together around a dinner table to eat simple, good food and laugh and be together.  Apparently, people found a way to their families on this designated day, even going across the country to find people they loved.
   Jarod had been looking for his family forever; his first Thanksgiving had been a lonely one and it was likely the second one would be, too.
   He found a spot on the floor where he could watch the sun rise, through his east-facing window, and sat down.  The first few rays of red glowed over the horizon.  In a few hours, he would start getting ready for work.
   Jarod ate Pez and drank chocolate milk and hoped that the sugar rush and the events of the day would bury the empty ache of loneliness, which trailed him much more efficiently than the Centre ever would.  He would call Sydney, he decided.  Later.
It hadn’t always been like this.  Freedom treated Jarod better than his life at the Centre ever had.    Such an incredible amount of space!  So many things to do, so many interesting things to read and find and discover.  From Pez to blues to doughnuts, five hundred glasses of chocolate milk and two cavities later, and it was still fascinating. 
   That was it, though.  He was fascinated, diverted, entertained, amused.  He could become engrossed in his work; satisfied; exhausted, even. 

It was one of the difficult lessons of the outside world:  prisons are more than just physical, and freedom was more than that.  It was complicated.  Weighty.
   The apartment was small enough that Jarod could lean back and twist his body in an unusual way to grab his cell phone from the table.  It was a new one.  Smaller, more compact, easier and a little more fun to alter than his old one.  He had created a small scrambler chip for this phone; even if someone had had the will and motivation, they couldn’t triangulate his position by monitoring the waves.
He flipped through the numbers recorded in the phone’s memory, found Sydney’s, and hit the green button.
   He listened to it ring.  Two times, and then it was picked up so lightly that he didn’t even hear the click.  “Hello,” the psychiatrist’s slightly accented voice resounded over the phone. “This is Sydney.”
   Jarod didn’t say anything.  He called Sydney regularly, at least in part to ensure that he was all right;    Sydney ran or monitored many projects for the Centre, raised many children, but he was neither poisonous nor political.  The psychiatrist simply did his job and tried to stay out of the way.  He had effectively run the Pretender Project.  Someday, they would come after him.
   That, Jarod had decided long ago, was when he would have to disappear.  Because the day when Sydney didn’t answer his telephone was the day they would stop playing cat-and-mouse with Jarod and move in for keeps.
   “Jarod, is that you?” Sydney’s voice was always gentle and controlled.  It could even have a thread of tenderness, if you listened carefully.  “Are you all right?”
   But why talk with the man who manipulated your life, used you, turned a blind eye to any suggestion that you had been kidnapped?  Why ask him for refuge?  Continuing those weekly psychiatric sessions, Jarod?
    Why do you care?
   Those were the questions that came from the lips of anyone—limited few—that he had ever told of his time at the Centre.  It was what made any call to his psychiatrist, his doctor, slightly disconcerting.    More than just verification; Jarod could do that from a computer.  Less than, vastly different from, friendship.  Most of the time.
   “Jarod, can you hear me?”
   He waited another moment.  “Good morning, Sydney.”
   It was five-fifteen.  Jarod had called Sydney’s office.  In nearly two years of telephone calls, he had never woken Sydney up.  In his mind’s eye, he could see Sydney lean back in his office chair and glance through the doors for people who shouldn’t be listening.
   Contact with the runaway lab rat was a minor faux pas at the Centre.
   “Hello, Jarod.”  He sounded relieved.  “How are you?”
   Jarod sighed.  “It’s difficult.”
   “Do you feel like talking about it?”  That question.  He had heard it perhaps a hundred times, each time with a slightly different meaning, a slightly different offer.
   He watched the shadows dance on the wall.  The sun splashed pale yellow; his dark silhouette seemed to glow.  Jarod regretted calling Sydney now.  Talking with the psychiatrist often laid his emotions painfully bare, and today he had wanted to swallow his wounds and adjust.  His reply was traditional enough.  “No.”
   A short silence on Sydney’s end.  “All right.  Are you comfortable with answering a question?”
   Jarod felt something creep into his shoulders, a familiar guarded feeling.  A question from Sydney, even a yes or no question, could yield any one of a number of correct conclusions.  He didn’t want to take a journey through his jungle of childhood memories today. “Depends on the question.”
   He flipped up the turkey’s head and drew a small purple candy from its beak with his teeth.  He pressed the candy up against the roof of his mouth with his tongue.
  “Have you. . .anything to do with what is happening here?”
   Jarod sat bolt upright.  Sydney wouldn’t have shared that information with him unless it was important.  There was nothing like a crisis to put Jarod’s often overwhelming feelings back into perspective.  “What’s happening?”
  “Do you know anything about a Directive 410?”
   He leapt to his feet and nearly tripped over himself to get to the table.  He found his MUFON pen, from another Pretend, and scribbled Directive 410 on the open page of his journal, right on top of an article which headlined COMPUTER GENIUS MENTALLY HANDICAPPED IN CAR ACCIDENT.
  “Jarod, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to speak with you—”
   The line went dead, the low tone buzzing in his ear.
    Five-twenty.  If he was going to work, he would have to start now, and abandon Directive 410 for a moment.  Fortunately, at Eureka Technologies, he would have plenty of access to computers.
He flipped the telephone closed and turned on his laptop computer.  It was time to print all of his “records.”
   He moved in the direction of the bathroom, and whenever his emotions welled up and threatened to pull them under, he simply buried them in a fountain of other concerns.
Jarod’s hand’s felt hollow and clammy.  He shook his head.  He would, he decided, apply himself fully to discovering Directive 410.

Title: A Second Angel Part 2: A Critical Break

Author:  Eva Parker



Please refer to A Second Angel, Part 1: Empty Hands for author’s notes, disclaimers, and related information.  And stay cool, Jarod fans; we'll be catching up with him pretty soon in Part 4: Boston.


Digital Security Recording  9/31/74                  FOR CENTRE USE ONLY
                                              Centre Satellite 04/London

   The psychiatrist is a middle-aged Brit, with long, flowing blonde hair, silver-rimmed reading glasses, and a motherly demeanor.  She signs a paper with a flourish while her companion, a young American man, fidgets in his seat and clutches a file.
   There is a black-and-white photograph on her desk, framed in aluminum and discreetly turned face-down, so the young man cannot see the girl in the photograph.  Her eyes alight on the photograph for an instant, and then, for a longer moment, at the man sitting in the chair across her desk.
   Only after she has pulled another paper from the stack in her IN box does she drop her gaze and continue her work. A sidelong glance at the American reveals him adjusting his trim black suit, rustling the papers in his thick file folder, and noisily clearing his throat.
   “Ma’am?” The man murmurs tentatively. His accent grates coarsely in her ears.
    Ma’am, poppycock, she thinks, with an indulgent and well-hidden smile, but she does not respond.
   “Doctor.” He speaks louder this time, more confident, or simply annoyed.
   She drops her Centre pen, removes her reading glasses, and finally focuses her attention. “What is it, Peter?”
   Now, the man cannot look at her. He drops his gaze submissively.  “Events. . .are moving along at an alarming rate.”
   “Would you care to elucidate?”
   “Now, May, you know I’m not permitted to explain this business any further. Actually, I’m not to speak of it at all—-”
   She dismisses the statement with a wave of her pale and bony hand. Gathering information around this place, even where it concerned Anabelle, was like trying to fish in a swimming pool. “Get to the point. I’ve got to finish these reports and make rounds.” So many more important things to do, she thought sarcastically.
   “We need to get rid of the girl,” Peter says shortly.
   There are many implications to this statement, so many that May does not bother with a fearful reaction. Ana is too valuable to destroy; it is far more likely that she is being taken away. May even had a number of likely destinations in her head.
   And only one suggestion for a psychiatrist equal to May herself in dealing with young Ana’s... proclivities.
   “She cannot be here,” Peter continues. “She infers too much, May. And, of course, it could be dangerous for her here” He cocked his head a bit, turning over the little piece of information she guessed he was about to share.  “A. . .a Doctor Raines is here to supervise the proceedings. She makes him uncomfortable.”
   “Where?” May mutters.
   “There is a place for her in the States,” he said. “Actually, they run their own Pretender Project there, with a full facility and, ah, support staff.” Another pause, another turn of his head. “Better than ours.”
   He slid the file across her desk.  She flipped it open. The first photograph was of the Centre headquarters, a beautiful facility near the sea. She’d visited there, once; the corporate offices were lush but a bit intimidating, the laboratories light and airy but sterile, quiet and frozen-in-time like some hospital ward.
   “They’re sending her to Blue Cove,” Peter explained. “Actually, I will be taking her myself.”
   The second photograph was an Annual Identification Photograph, an image of a handsome young boy, with a gentle smile and a solemn sharpness in his eyes. He was identified as Jarod, aged fourteen.
   Ah.  The other Pretender Project. There would certainly be... interesting results from all this. The impact on the boy would also have to be studied, though it didn’t take an Oxford degree to make a guess at the outcome of this move.
   “Will I have the chance to say goodbye?” she breathed. Ana’s mischievous grin and flint-and-steel green eyes flashed in her memory.  She had just seen the girl three hours ago.
   Peter dropped his eyes again. “She’s already in the helicopter. They’re waiting on me.  I’m sorry, May.” Then he got up and walked through the inlaid glass doors.

London, England
November 7, 4:25 a.m.

   She pressed her back against the rough, cool brick of the building and held her breath.  The sweeper was so close that she could reach out and touch his coat, could see the flickering intelligence in his blue eyes as he flipped off his flashlight and cocked his head to listen.
Her clenched fists trembled so badly that she scraped her knuckles on the brick, but she didn’t cry out.  The sting kept her awake, she told herself, kept her alert.
   Is this my destiny?  Will they hunt me down like an animal wherever I go?
   They would be able to spot her if her eyes reflected the streetlights, so she closed them.  She had to concentrate.  Fear was good, but only to a degree, and she was in danger of passing from alarm to panic.  I’m smarter than they are, she whispered in her head, as if the sweeper could hear the fire in her thoughts.  I can do things they cannot.  There will be people here soon, and I will find away out of this place and to Blue Cove, where I will find Jarod.
  Brown eyes in a serious young face.  He reaches out to hold her hand.  She smiles and shivers at the contact, as they both watch the meteors paint white trails on the sky.
   Involuntarily, she smiled at the memory.  Jarod would be able to extricate himself from this one.  He wouldn’t feel her panic.  He would disappear into the early morning as if he had never existed.  And that assessment, to her surprise, actually made her feel better.
   No, she corrected herself suddenly.  Thinking like that was dangerous.  It could lead her into a trap she’d refused to ever walk into.  The Jarod she had known, fifteen years old, innocent and brilliant and good, would have been able to extricate himself from this situation with tact and skill.   The adult Jarod she had come to know through security tapes, pirated records, sparse American newspaper articles, and that terrible, choking DSA of Sydney’s murder, the desperate and violent man on the run might have been able to get out of this one, too, but not without spilling blood on the streets.
   That’s what should make her more determined to survive.  To escape.  She had to find him, to ask him why, to close all the old wounds his escape had opened up.  She had resolved in her heart the death of poor nurturing Sydney, so caring that he hadn’t seen the change in Jarod’s psyche—never mind the fact that she hadn’t been able to accept Jarod’s insanity or Sydney’s blindness at first—but she would never be able to understand this new Jarod unless she found him herself.
   And maybe, she hardly dared to hope, she could help him.  Get him some help.
   I’m just as smart as you, Jarod.  The Centre is stupid, because they try everything big and look for none of the details, but I don’t have that problem.  I’ll get you, Jarod, and it’ll be sooner rather than later.  I know you too well; I know how you think.
   It was this mantra, she decided, which would carry her through this.
   She heard the crackle of the sweeper’s radio as all the teams were recalled.  They didn’t want to get involved with the morning commute; it was too likely that a nosy constable would get in the way.  The sweeper breathed a curse, and she felt and heard it as he moved away from her.
   Ana’s breath hissed through her teeth, and she blinked against the first morning rays of sunlight.  The black-coated, blue-eyed sweeper would never know how close he’d come to capturing her.  She waited another minute, than moved expertly out onto the sidewalk, perfecting her nonchalance.  She was just a passerby. . .if she could get to a place with a lot of people, she would be safe, and not just because the sweepers could no longer operate without care or secrecy.  With her finely-honed Pretender skills, she could take up aspects of the crowd like a chameleon, she was sure, until it would be nearly impossible to notice her, much less keep up with her for any length of time.
   As she walked, she tried to keep herself awake.  Despite her best efforts, the only thoughts that came to her were the memories of her time at Blue Cove, her only years at the Centre which had ever meant anything to her, and the years which now gave meaning to her quest.  She felt herself weakening; anything to keep her feet moving now, she thought, and submitted herself to the memory.
   The early years of her life had been right here, or rather, back there, at her old alma mater, Centre Satellite #4—London.  Then, shortly before her fifteenth birthday, they hastily loaded her into a Centre helicopter and they made the long, lonely trip across the Atlantic to another satellite in Blue Cove, Delaware.
   They landed once, on the runway of ship massive enough to be a Centre satellite all its own, but she hadn’t been allowed to get off while they tuned-up and re-fueled the chopper.  She doubted they would have, even if they told her to; it was her first day beyond Centre walls, and she was confronted with an ocean so expansive that she had a terror that it would never end, that she would fly forever with the blank-faced, silent Centre security head who was her escort.  She was without May’s smile and rational, logical voice to banish her fear; she slept fitfully without the reassuring enclosure of her room and the sound of tumblers clicking.
    When they landed, she was almost in tears.  The Centre she knew was that way, so very far that way that she knew she would never see it again.  She failed to see the beauty of Blue Cove because she ached for London.
   And then Sydney appeared from a doorway on the roof, ducking his head against the slowing blades of the helicopter.  Part of her could see immediately that Sydney was no May.  With May, there was always a degree of oily distance, try though both of them might to erase it.  Sydney may not have been the better psychiatrist, but he was a far more skilled nurturer.  He smiled warmly, and clasped her hands as if he’d been awaiting her arrival for a very long time.  He introduced himself, and informed her gently that he would be taking over her care for an indeterminate amount of time—two years, almost to the day, it turned out—and suddenly, the journey didn’t seem as lonely.
   She had met Jarod after three days.  It was Free Hour on Corridor Fifteen, a different one from hers, and she wandered the halls, looking for a library to lose herself in, and then someone else was walking beside her, a boy.  He walked near her for a few minutes without speaking.
   He had short, dark hair and arresting brown eyes.  At fifteen, Ana was all knees and ankles, but, though he couldn’t have been much older, he had already grown into someone less angular.  He looked at her as if she were the most interesting thing he’d seen in years.
   She didn’t think she liked him.
   He cocked an eyebrow at her.  “What’s wrong with this place?” he asked her, unexpectedly.
   She wiped her hands on her jeans.  “What do you mean?”
   “Sydney said you’re not very happy here, and I saw you crying in your room one day on my way to the SimLab.  I was just wondering why you don’t like it here.”
   She sucked in a breath through her teeth.  The revelation that Sydney discussed her with one of his test subjects was disturbing, especially considering the kind of people she’d met here so far.  Either the projects were very different, or project security was much looser here in Blue Cove.  But if this boy was one of Sydney’s special projects, care, tact, and a quick answer would probably get rid of him.  “I don’t belong here,” she said honestly.

He smiled.  She didn’t believe she’d said anything humorous.  “Nobody belongs here,” he chuckled, “but you get used to it.  Even the cameras. . .”  He trailed off, gesturing widely toward a video camera on the wall.
   “I’m from London,” she clarified.
   This wasn’t working; that comment only increased his curiosity. “Really?” Interest colored his voice.  “What is it like over there?”
   She took in the entire Centre with a smooth motion of her hand.  “It’s got walls, windows, cameras, locks, a SimLab—”
   “Optimized nutritional supplement?” he interrupted jokingly.
   “It’s like here.  Only, it’s in London.”
   “Why do you like London better than Blue Cove?” he persisted.  “There’s got to be a difference.”
   “More Brits,” she said shortly.  “And fewer loonies.”
   He leaned close to her, as if to offer her a secret.  “My name’s Jarod,” he murmured.  “Do you know Morse code?”
   He had showed her to the small library reserved for the Pretender Project.  Most of the books were the same references, picture books, and carefully screened novels she’d memorized in London.  There was a real treat, a Rand McNally’s World Atlas, but any pages pertaining to any of the locales where there was a Centre satellite were marked out or removed.  The closest she could get to seeing a road map of London or Blue Cove were large, political maps of Great Britain and Delaware.
   Later, he showed her how to re-wire the intercom system in her room so they could use Morse code to talk.  He showed her all his tricks, from how to make it onto the roof during Free Hour, to how to get around the security alarms in the ventilation ducts, to the topical anesthetic he’d developed by playing tricks with floor mold and fermenting nutritional supplement.  It smelled terrible, but she had to agree that it numbed effectively.  It even had potential as a sedative, with a tweaking of the formula.
   They set up and learned to interpret a shorthand Morse which threw the Centre from some of their private conversations.  They shared ideas at a phenomenal rate; for the first time, someone could keep pace with her.  It was exhilarating.  Before she had met someone almost like her, she hadn’t known how alone she was.  Even her simulations improved, as Jarod’s practical intellect and incisive observations systemically eliminated errors from her work.
   He had wanted to know every small detail of her life in London.  It wasn’t very different; divergent schedules, a slightly different ONS formula, a different security system.  Ana had been quite surprised to learn how much Jarod had contributed to the Centre headquarters security system himself.  Not that he was interested in making an escape attempt, but it fascinated her how he offhandedly described the keypad system he had designed which would even defeat Jarod.
   And the parts of it which would never defeat him.
   She ran into somebody else, hard, and was jolted out of her reverie.  A man scrambled to catch his glasses, and did, expertly, before they fell to the ground.  He settled them back on his face and took a couple of steps away.
   Her ribs and shins stung.  They’d probably bruise.  “I’m. . .” she started, “I’m sorry.”
   “Oh, it’s all right,” the man chirruped, and he smiled.  “Two people, out in the wee hours. . who would have thought?  Though I must say, you do look a fright, miss.”
   He was about her age, she guessed, though he had a clean-cut look and unhindered smiled that made her wonder if he was younger.  His hair was chopped short, and honey blonde, and his wire-rimmed glasses and worn, brown leather coat made him look like a scientist or a scholar.  For a moment, she wondered if he worked for the Centre. . .but he wasn’t physically strong enough to be a sweeper, and the Centre kept its techies close to home.
   So.  Her first outside-world person.  She put on a good act of looking down at her ragged clothing—it was damp with the night’s rain, and covered in the smudges and dirt from the streets of London—smiling, and blushing.  “I suppose I do,” she said cheerily.
   “My name is Christopher Patterson,” he said, extending a hand into the air in front of him.
   She stared at it.  What was this?  Something. . .she searched through her head for some little piece of data that would help her here.  The handshake, first established when two countries made a treaty, to ensure that neither leader held a weapon; now used as a standard greeting.  She reached up and clasped his open palm, awkwardly.
   “Listen,” he murmured, grinning.  “I feel really bad about this.  Maybe I could get you something to eat?  There’s a bakery around the corner.  Its, ah, it’s warm.”
   Food, and a promise to get out of the cool morning breeze.  She had to remind herself to be cautious.  She was out of her depth here; she’d never seen a city before and didn’t quite know what to do with it.  An ally, even for a short time, could be important.  He could also betray her.  It was silliness, or paranoia—logically, everyone in the world could not be associated with the Centre, and she had run into this man by chance in a huge city.  But there were times when paranoia could save her little Pretender tail.
   “That would be nice,” she agreed, finally, but she decided to leave this man as soon as possible.
   “All right.  This way.”
   It was a short walk, and while they trotted toward the bakery on the corner, she got used to her new self.  She was Ana Brown, on the run, not from the Centre, but from an abusive boyfriend.  She had solved a crime like that once, in a simulation, so she already knew the feelings, the trials.  It was good to give voice to her fear of capture, and she relaxed into the role, painting a picture using the medium she was most familiar with:  emotions.
   Christopher—he insisted on her calling him by his first name—was sympathetic, even horrified by her carefully made-up stories of the crazy boyfriend.  She was only a few hours away from the Centre, and she had been lucky enough to find a caring friend; it made her feel more confident in her escape.
   The bakery was small and cozy, and Christopher knew the baker by name.  He asked her what kind of doughnut she wanted.
   Doughnut?  She stared at the thick, circular bread.  It had a hole in the middle.  It was, indeed, made of dough, but it was certainly not a nut.  Except, perhaps, for that honey-walnut one on the end.  Interesting.  She grinned.  The outside world would certainly be a new experience.  “You pick for me, Christopher.”
   He nodded.  “Um, I’ll have the honey glaze.  And the lady will have chocolate.”
   “Coming right up.”
   “And two hot teas.”
   She wondered, what did they do with the dough they took from the middle?  Getting rid of it would be a waste.  They probably made it into more doughnuts.

Christopher paid, and laughed at her for staring at the pastries.  She was surprised at how much his laughter stung, and she glared at him. “So I’ve never had a doughnut before,” she snapped, but she enjoyed the strange feel of the word in her mouth.  The Centre had never been dull, not intellectually, but in a way her secluded life had lacked texture.  She liked London.  It was so uncontrolled.
   This only caused the young bespectacled man to laugh more.  “You’ve never had a doughnut before?” he gasped incredulously.  “Where were you raised?  Mars?”  He was chuckling so much that he had to adjust his glasses to keep them from sliding off his face.
   She frowned, but she found that she couldn’t keep an angry look on her face.  “I lived a very sheltered childhood,” she sighed, and it was with those words that she became morose. 
What they had taken from her, she marveled.  They had given her a life, a good life away from parents who never wanted her:  healthy, and safe, a place where she could use her gifts to do something real in the world, a chance to meet Jarod and Sydney and see Blue Cove.  But she had lost cities, and birthday parties, and handshakes, and doughnuts with strangers, in the early morning, in warm bakeries while the fog lifted.
   In the end, maybe it wasn’t worth it.  It certainly wasn’t fair.
   Her new friend pressed the doughnut, wrapped in a paper napkin, into her hand.  It was still a bit warm.
  “You think too much,” he informed her cheerily, and led her to a seat.
   The doughnut was sweet, surprisingly good.  She savored each little bite.  And the tea was very hot, and he prepared it correctly, with milk and two spoonfuls of sugar for them both.  She was surprised at how hungry she was.  Running all those miles from the Centre, hiding for hours among the alleyways of London. . .she was fit enough. 
   But she’d never done anything like that before, of course.
   Across from her Christopher chattered about the weather, and the gossip from Scotland Yard—he was some kind of civilian, on retainer for the police force.  He re-constructed accident scenes, he told her.  She had examined her share of accidents through simulation, and they’d had a measured effect on her; she wondered how someone so young and innocent-seeming could endure such a horrific job for any length of time.
   At length, but before she finished the last few sips of her hot, sweet tea, he told her how terrible he felt about the abuses her imaginary lover.  She closed her eyes, savoring the taste in her mouth and the warmth in her stomach, but at last she felt the wince at the word lover, the memory and pain of bruises long healed, the shock of leaving what she’d known all her life—that one, at least, wasn’t difficult to muster.  A Pretender created a new personality by mixing up old experiences, and this was what she did to create the fantasy of Ana Brown.
   “It’s all right,” she breathed, and her voice trembled.  She let the ache of betrayal become the sting of loss.  I miss him, she realized with surprise, and she wasn’t thinking of the make-believe boyfriend.  Pretending came with risks like these.  “I just wish I could find some way out of here.”
   Christopher reached out and touched her hand.  She jumped, and that wasn’t a pretend feeling, either.  Well, like the old joke went, it wasn’t a pretend feeling, it was a Pretend feeling.  She almost smirked at that.  “I want to help you,” Christopher said, his eyes full of compassion.  “I’ll buy you an airplane ticket.  The airport’s only a short walk away from here.”
Airport.  That was exactly what she needed.  “Thank you, very much. . .” she said tearfully.  “But you don’t. . .you don’t have to. . .”
   “Miss Brown,” he said firmly, “I want to.  And don’t worry, I have enough money to pay for it.”
   Ana felt a sinking feeling in her chest, an unclenching.  It took her a moment to realize it was gratitude.  “P-Please,” she stuttered, surprised and humiliated at the dampness on her face, “call me Anabelle.  Or Ana.”
   Christopher smiled gently.  “Ana.  Pretty.”
   The walk to the airport was short indeed, and he held her hand most of the way, until she felt comfortable enough without him.  She must be tired, she thought.  She was supposed to be paranoid, and here she was opening her soul to someone she didn’t even know.
   They stopped at the desk and ordered one ticket for Dover, Delaware, on her insistence.  Dover was the nearest big city to Blue Cove, she thought, though where she pulled this information from, she’d never know.  Ana’s mind often seemed like a cobwebbed filing cabinet.
   He walked with her until they reached the security check.  The only baggage she was carrying was her jade necklace, a birthday gift from Sydney, and the DSA of his murder.  She put the disc and its plastic container in the little change cup the security man gave her, and no one gave it a second look.  Not even Christopher.
   The young man waved to her brightly from behind.  “Enjoy Blue Cove!” he called.
She thanked him for all his kindnesses.  Ana was so sleepy, and so touched by his simple caring, that it took a long moment for the fear to shock down her spinal cord, cue the adrenaline to leak from behind her ears, and shudder.
   She had not told him she was going to Blue Cove!
   She whirled to look at him.  But he was already gone; he hadn’t followed her through the security console.  Yet.  She waited, waited and watched until the final call for her gate went up.  Dover would be like London, probably.  She had lost herself in this big city, and she could abandon herself in the next.  Yes, she answered, to the question she’d almost forgotten.  This is what it will always be like.
   She shrugged it off.  She’d probably mentioned it at one point or another.  Yes—now she was almost sure of it.  Still, there would be something waiting for Christopher if he showed up on the next flight to Dover.
   And it would not be his own, personal sweeper team.
   She scampered off toward the gate.

Christopher rounded a corner before he dared remove the glasses.  He opened and airport locker with an orange plastic key, and he exchanged his coat for a crisp black business jacket and a tie.  As he stared at himself in the locker’s tiny magnetic mirror, the earthy, sickeningly sweet smile faded, and the brightness in his eyes dimmed to a practiced harshness.  He looked like he’d aged ten years in about four seconds.
   And the man called Christopher Patterson, who he had been for so many years, ceased to exist.  It wasn’t a perfect change, not the way the girl or the first Pretender, Jarod could manage, but it was close.  Close enough for the work he did.
   He reached into the locker, dumped the glasses on the shelf, and pulled out a cellular telephone.  He pulled up the antenna and dialed a telephone number he had meticulously memorized, and now would meticulously forget. 
   The voice on the other end of the line hissed in and out, as the man who owned it struggled to breathe.  “SL. . .” Breath. “Twenty-Seven”
  “Is this a secure line?” he asked, his British accent breaking slowly back into the original American.  He would not speak unless it was.
   There was a click, and a short fuzz.  “Report.”
   “This is Proteus.”  That was not, of course, his correct name, but it was the one that got paid, and he used it often enough.  “We may have a problem, Mr. Raines.”
   Breath.  “What?”
   “I followed the girl, as you instructed.  She just got on an airplane bound for Dover.”
   Breath.  And another.  “This is a. . . difficult situation.”  Breath.  “Why didn’t you act?”
   “I was not informed that I was to take further action upon her escape.”
   “Get. . .on the next flight.  Do not lose her.” Breath. “And do not, under any circumstances, allow her to come in contact with. . .” Breath. “. . .the original subject.  That is of the highest priority.”
   “One of them will die before he or she meets the other,” he promised.  But this was not entirely true.  Proteus believed in giving the other players a fighting chance.  It made the game interesting.  But the Centre would get them both in the end.  The game was entertaining, but it was the money—and his obedience—which kept Proteus alive.
   “Your check will be dropped in the regular box.”  Breath.  Breath.  “And there will be a bonus for discovering the girl’s escape.”
   Proteus cut the line first, as a matter of asserting his authority; Raines was only a bit player, and Proteus saw fit to remind him of that often, so there would be no difficulties in their arrangement.    The Centre, and the other organizations Proteus had the pleasure of working for, had quite the way of tying off the strings, when they thought they were in power.
He assumed a businesslike façade, and tossed the cellular telephone into the nearest trash can as he passed. 
   Then he went back to the American Airlines desk and booked a ticket for the next flight to Dover. 
   He would leave in an hour.