Section II:

Part Two

Major Charles entered the smaller living area quietly, taking in the couches seated strategically against three of the walls and the lack of people occupying them. The living room, kitchen, and a single guest room were located on the main floor, while the study, an office, gym, and six other bedrooms were located in the three levels of the house located below. The house had been a convenient find, Major Charles knew, for the only road that would lead a vehicle by the property allowed only a small portion of the house to be visible. The three lower floors were visible only from the other side of the small canyon the house was built near, as the western face opened onto a large ledge below the road level. He had just come from downstairs, where Sydney, Debbie, and Broots were enjoying themselves in the small study he had furnished. Ben was on the lower porch, whittling away at what the Major thought would likely be a gift for Parker’s child.

Parker was curled into the side of one of the beige, well-cushioned couches, squinting at a book as she slowly flipped the pages. Occasionally, her eyes drifted from the paper to the corded phone sitting nearby, built to reroute and configure all calls from the private number Jarod and his father had shared over the last two years.

“He’ll call soon,” she offered, bending down the corner of the book’s page and placing it on the table beside her. A hand drifted to move her hair behind her ear as she shifted further into the couch cushion.

He nodded, moving slowly to sit in the matching recliner, which was positioned near where Parker lay. “Do you know where the boys are?”

“I think they’re working on cleaning the grill they found in your storage unit. Jim said something about establishing normalcy by grilling out like a normal family,” Parker shrugged, chuckling to herself.

“Jim is a genius,” the Major nodded, “every bit as smart as Jarod. But he’s a boy, and he wants to see the people he loves happy, not miserable.”

The brunette drew in a sharp breath, “You know, I did not intend to make this move with you.”

“I know,” he nodded. “The boys aren’t the only ones who can pick up on subtle contextual clues. What I don’t know,” the older man stated, meeting her eyes with his own, “is why you did.”

Miss Parker sighed, knitting her fingers together in her lap and shifting in her seat, eyes locking onto the telephone. “I don’t know what to do,” she shrugged. “On some levels, I know what needs to be done. I know that above all things, the Centre must not find us. But there are things that the Centre knows, things that are in the mainframe, things that we’ve all buried in our own minds, that we need to know. Is finding out these potential truths worth the risk of the Centre finding us? And Jarod… Jarod is caught somewhere between a peter pan complex and a superman complex, and somedays the differentiation isn’t that easy to make. This could be a lot easier with his help, but he doesn’t always understand that there are lines, boundaries.” Pausing, she pulled her clasped hands tighter against her abdomen and grimaced. “He seems to have this inability to do anything without recognition, and I’m afraid that asking for his help too soon may expose us to unnecessary risk. Unfortunately, he’s already involved and the best way to proceed seems to be evading me.”

The Major nodded, “Jarod could be a big help here, but it would be best if we could wait until we can determine…” he sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “the risk in bringing him into this.”

“Until we can determine the paternity of the child, you mean,” Parker interrupted.

“If Jarod is the father, there is nothing that is going to stand between him and ripping the Centre into a thousand tiny pieces. The file you showed us, the one about your brother – baby Parker? The child that died? The parents were listed as numbers, with genetic profiles.” She nodded as he continued, dark hair falling over his face. “Raines played God with Ethan, played a different kind of God with Donaterase, but the Centre sanctioned the creation of that child, your brother. Is it possible that they have…”

“He wasn’t… he wasn’t my brother,” she struggled against the knot forming in her throat, the anger that had taken up residence at the Centre’s audacity. “He was Angelo’s son, Angelo and Brigitte. They tried… a variety of insemination techniques with Centre employees, even some ‘motherless’ pregnancies in which the embryos were grown in amniotic chambers. According to the files, Baby Parker was the only success. They wanted a Pretender, they’d do anything to get one. That’s how, in part, they were able to determine that the Pretender gene was recessive, that it skipped generations.”

“Jarod has mentioned Angelo in the past,” Major Charles offered, leaning over in the chair so that he could better hear her lowly-spoken words.

“His name was Timmy,” Parker began, turning sideways and pushing her hair from her face. “My mother… my mother loved him, he was a special boy.” Tears glistened in her eyes, “But Raines. God, Raines destroyed him! Turned him into a mush-head, an empathy with no ability to function on his own, no ability to be himself. Then he was Angelo, not Timmy. Not Timmy.” The Major watched as her words faded, her face pulled tight and eyes blinked shut. “All Mama wanted was to save the children so the Centre couldn’t hurt them anymore.”

After a moment, she felt a hand on the side of her face and the shift in the air as the Major stood and then bent over her. “You are your mother’s daughter, Miss Parker. This house is full of the Centre’s children, those you have saved in one way or another. Jim, Ethan, even little Debbie. She may not have been one of their experiments, but she certainly would have fallen victim to them had you not arrived here and asked for protection. When you came to us in North Carolina, you said it was for protection for them, your friends.” Her eyes slid open and she blinked into his face as he continued, “You are your mother’s daughter. The best way to protect these children of the Centre,” he removed his hand from her cheek, sweeping it through the air, “is to stay with us, to be safe here. We can do more working together than we ever could apart.”

Nodding, she pushed herself backward, lifting into a seated position and indicating to the Major that he should take the seat beside her. “The Centre had access to a limited amount of genetic material to use at their discretion. The selection includes samples ranging from forty-years old to four years old, and was accessed through fertility clinics,”

“Like NuGenesis,” the Major interrupted.

Nodding, Parker continued, “and specimens taken from Centre subjects. The cryogenics lab only had samples labeled by number, but the numbers corresponded to either Red File, Blue File, or donor sample numbers. All of the donor sample numbers were stored in the mainframe, and the other records we’ve had access to on paper for years. I didn’t… I don’t remember all of the numbers, but I was able to destroy the storage facilities for several of the samples and then altered the thermostat on the preservation chamber for the rest. It would only take 72 hours for the chamber’s altered temperature to destroy any chance at viability than any embryos or genetic samples might have had.” Her fingers unwound, her hands coming to rest on her own arms. “They had material from all of us. Me, Jarod, Angelo, you. Even Ethan,” she shrugged, voice lowering, “and Kyle. Nothing from your wife that I could see. Her samples were probably used at the same rate my mother’s were, in the unsuccessful trials. I’m reasonably certain Raines and other members of the Centre’s staff had samples stored as well, but I was too angry to be concerned with their samples.”

“Do you have access to any information on known genetic pairings?” Major Charles asked, settling into the cushions in a movement that mirrored her own.

“Some,” she hesitated. “They were unsuccessful.”

“I would like to know,” the Major replied, offering what he hoped was a small but strong smile.

“There were several attempts made using Jarod, Angelo, Kyle, Ethan and my DNA,” she shuddered, “even my own brother. They wanted to create a child half-me, half-Ethan.”

“The Centre knows no ethical boundaries,” he growled, voice low and hands curling into fists as he leaned over his lap.

“Or evolutionary ones,” she added, “those embryos failed to implant with the exception of one, which resulted in an early spontaneous abortion at five weeks. The only minor successes they had with the program were with embryos built prior to Jim’s creation. It seems they experimented with multiple clones and with various genetic combinations at Donaterase. No children were successfully born of any of their combinations, and there were three failed clones before Jim. The cost of the experimentation limited them to the one living, breathing clone of Jarod. Otherwise, we’d probably have dozens roaming the halls.”

“Thank God even the Centre has a budget,” Major Charles snorted, “and a desire to please its shareholders. God, what would people think if they knew what that place was really doing? What they were supporting?”

Parker shook her head, hands again going to cross over her middle. “There was a premature stillbirth at Donaterase, a combination of your DNA and mine. A boy born at 22 weeks a few months after Jim was born.”

Major Charles sucked in a breath, face snapping to the left to look at the woman beside him. “I… how do you…?” he began, watching as her shoulders tensed under his gaze.

“It was in the files, toward the back. I don’t think…” she laughed, the sound hollow and a little hysterical, “I don’t think you got that far.”

“That’s why you found us, isn’t it?” the Major asked quietly, “You knew I would fight, that we would fight, given the motivation.”

“In part,” Parker nodded, swallowing. “You deserved to know, so do Ethan and Jarod. There were several fetuses created from Jarod and my DNA, but they all resulted in early termination. It seems that they harvested eleven successful ova from me and a seemingly unlimited supply from the males. My mother’s DNA must have run out shortly before the experiments at Donaterase began, and Brigitte did not arrive until Jim was about seven years old. For a long time, they were very careful with the genetic material they had, as mine was the only female samples maintained in storage.”

After a moment of silence, the Major shifted toward her, grabbing her clasped hands and pulling one loose. Taking her hand in his own, he held them between the two on the couch. His eyes could not meet her face, so they focused in on the slender, pale fingers. “How did they get it?”

Parker frowned, leaning her head back against the couch. “My appendix was removed when I was sixteen, during summer vacation. And then, before Tommy was killed,” her voice caught in her throat. “before Tommy was killed, I had surgery to repair a bleeding ulcer.”

“They were harvested then,” the Major spoke, “is it possible that they simulated appendicitis and exacerbated your ulcer with fertility treatments? That would have allowed them to harvest a large number of ova at once.

“More than possible,” Parker sighed, eyes dropping closed. “The exact manner is in question, but it is the Centre.” A dry chuckle escaped her a few moments later. “They even tried experimenting with combining DNA from the male samples into a genetically empty ovum. It was not very successful.”

A smile stretched across the Major’s face, “Guess there are a few things even the Centre can’t do.” He patted her hand, then stood to his feet and stretched. “Jarod will call soon, Parker. In the meantime, why don’t you rest?” He tugged at her ankles, causing her to slide down into the couch. “Think I’m going to have to go buy my son a new pair of shoes. Doesn’t look like your vomit stains are going to come out of a pair of white crosstrainers!”

Groaning, Parker threw an arm over her face and slid further into the couch. “The last house was in the country,” she stated, “this is the middle of nowhere. When you said Wyoming, I imagined Cheyenne or Cody, a city of some sort at least. Not… this!”

Chuckling, the older man straightened and flung a blanket over her somewhat haphazardly. “Hiding can be done in a variety of ways,” he agreed. “But there are a few tricks hidden in this house that I have yet to show you.” Having made his way to the door, Major Charles turned back to her and offered a quick wink. “Enjoy your nap, and let me know what Jarod says. I have a feeling that is going to be a very interesting phone call.”

Emitting another groan, the brunette turned into the pillow and sighed. We were friends once, Jarod, Miss Parker thought. Remember that.