Loyalties

            “You are not welcome here.”

            “All I have to do is call a sweeper team.”

            She’d hated using that voice and that threat on him. But he’d startled her with his sudden aggression—Sydney, who was never aggressive!—and he was impeding the search for Jarod. What could possibly be a bigger priority for Sydney than the Centre’s bidding?

            He let her into the room. He sat down in the chair and took the hand of the man in the bed. The world was swirling around Miss Parker. Why hadn’t she ever known Sydney had a brother? A twin brother?

            It was strange how her instinct was to protect. One moment she was threatening Sydney with threats she knew she would not fulfill, and the next she was reaching out in ways she didn’t know she was still capable of. Pulling out the whole story and being there with Sydney. Showing that she cared.

            Then Raines’ order—kill Sydney’s brother? It was laughable, that they thought she would actually kill Sydney’s twin. She comprehended suddenly that it was possible to have loyalties that went beyond the Centre. Sydney’s was to his brother, and hers…was to Sydney. To the past.

            Miss Parker showed me something today. Frightened, I wanted to keep her out at all costs. I had not protected Jacob for so long to see it end now.

            But she showed me that I was right about her, before fear for Jacob clouded my mind. She showed me that somewhere inside her was still the little girl I had once been kind to, that once we had shared more than a job description. She saved Jacob’s life, at risk to herself. There is much more to Miss Parker than what the Centre has made her. I can trust her.

Oliver

            He stood in the doorway listening to Steven’s father reading the last words of Oliver Twist, by now so familiar a tale. It ended better for Oliver than for Steven. He watched them turn off the machines, pull out the needles, watched barren grief fill the faces of parents who had fought so hard.

            The sims weren’t the same as the real world. He had fought for these parents, and now their grief penetrated him like sharp needles sinking slowly through his skin. He stood in the doorway and cried with them. He hadn’t known it would be like this.

Hope

           In the midst of death there is life. Dickens was right. Even the most painful circumstances can have a glimmer of hope. He failed to save Steven Chambers. He failed Steven’s parents. He couldn’t save everyone. But he could save another boy. Steven’s death meant that another family would not have to suffer what the Chambers were suffering. His death gave hope. What agency had determined that such hope should exist in the midst of despair?

            He didn’t know that one day it would be his brother’s heart he would be giving up, offering hope out of his own despair.

Instinct

            Jarod’s instinct was to help me. After perceived betrayal, after the discovery of all the Centre had done to him—all I had done to him, he still reached out to help me. How did he possibly turn out like this? After everything we did to him, after the stunted life we gave him, how is it that his instinct is to give and protect? How did a boy who was never loved become a man who pours his love out on others? Even on Jacob. Even on me. I raised him. Is it possible that I did something right?