Summary: "We're leaving the lies and we're going home"
Categories: Post Pretender 2001 Characters: Miss Parker
Genres: General
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 1
Completed: Yes
Word count: 856
Read: 2020
Published: 04/05/05
Updated: 04/05/05
1. My Boys by ndv
My Boys
I’ve known since birth that I was different, but I figured maybe it was my IQ or my competence, maybe even my inconquerable spirit.
I never realized how utterly different until I met someone who materialized my thoughts and tried to take advantage of my mind. I do not need a keeper.
There was once a man similar to me, they called him the imposter. He could do anything as long as he had read the manual-even brain surgery. (A manual for brain surgery?)
I am not an imposter, nor am I an empath. They say artists have a sixth sense, and that some see ghosts. However, I do not see dead people and I do not hear their voices, and I do not steal their identities.
I get inside their heads.
I am not a shrink, and by definition I am not a manipulator.
Give me evidence, give me a person I have never met and I can predict anything, I can understand their motivation, I can become them. I hear only my voice and see only my son.
Granted, I have no son. But in my dreams, I survive for him.
And I see their memories.
I’d almost forgotten the brief I held in my hands. I’d written it myself in college, when I was studying human factors psychology on a whim. As I’d written then, in the time that had passed, I’d seen and done many things and met many people that I understood better than myself.
And, though Daddy would be angry, I’d almost manage to forget where I came from and the insanity I left behind. Even Jarod had become a faint memory and gunshots no longer shattered the silence of dreams.
And then Daddy called me back to Blue Cove and Corporate, and before long I was chasing the boy I once called friend, even love.
And then I had two brothers, a dead sister, and voices inside my head that conducted my actions and pushed me to survive for myself. And I had lost Daddy and Thomas, and Mama and Faith all over again. Mirage was chasing me as I was chasing Jarod and Jarod was chasing the truth.
And now as I sit here looking at my mother and his mother together in a picture from a man I can not name, but know is my father, my phone has landed in my lap and I know Raines was right.
Everything is about the Centre - because the Centre is everything. And once again, images of a dark-haired boy dance across my mind. He looks strangely like Jarod but his eyes are too wide and his face too sincere. I slid Lyle’s passkey from the top of my boot and headed for SL-15. The labrats were there and somehow I knew I’d find one answer and a child alone in a corner, guiding Onysseus through the air. My mother’s voice urged me onward and Mirage seemed to make sense, but my mother slipped up as a terrible liar. Mirage is a vision of thing(s) not really there, and my mother seemed too kind to be devious, but again they were wrong. My mother was strong but I am stronger, and I will save Jarod and myself and my nephew-almost-brother, and the child I know is in the room down the hallway.
Broots thinks I’m stupid but I am a Pretender too, am I not? I loop the video cameras myself and follow the pathway down the hall. Angelo will help me because the airvents are not sealed and I have 19 minutes to escape with him and children, and grab what’s left of the notebook for Timmy’s antidote. I could not forget Timmy’s cure.
I will have my three brothers, my Jarod, my son and my mother’s voice; and I will be rid of this place and my father and the man I call ‘daddy’ as well. 16 minutes and the lab records are inside my coat and I slip into the room where my littlest brother lay sleeping. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, and squeeze a drop of liquid into his mouth so he will not wake for a few more minutes. 11 minutes. I hand the child up to Angelo-Timmy and point to the Pretender-child’s room, my son, I know now.
8 minutes and a few tears later I whisper, “Hello sweetheart, I’m your mother. It’s safe now, come.” And he falls into my arms without a moment’s hesitation. WIth 2 minutes to spare, Angelo, my baby brother-nephew, Nikolas-the boy, and I, are running through the Centre gates. I close my eyes briefly as I crank the enging, and answer Angelo’s unasked question.
“Refuge. Jarod and Ethan are waiting at our Refuge. From there, we go home. I don’t know where that is yet, but we’re going to find it boys,” I pause, “We’re leaving the lies and we’re going home.”
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.