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Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintended by the author. "The Pretender" is a protected trademark of MTM Television and NBC and the characters of that series are used herein with no mean intent or desire for remuneration. It is, instead, a tribute to innovative television, that rare and welcome phenomenon.


Bodyheat
Chapter 1
Terri




Nightfall was only an hour off and the sky was an ominous shade of gray. There would be snow soon, and from the looks of it, it was going to be a big storm. The temperature had been dropping steadily for the last several hours and as it did, the comfort level in the cabin went downhill too.

Jarod glanced at his watch and looked outside. He had planned on leaving several hours ago but his Jeep wouldn't start and he had spent the afternoon playing around, trying to fix it. Around 3:30 he had given up. He now wished that, just once in his life, Sydney had made him pretend to be a mechanic so he might have had some idea what he was doing.

There was no way he would be able to hike down the mountain and make it into town before the storm hit and to make matters worse, he didn't have a heavy coat with him. He had been told the weather in the mountains was unpredictable this time of year but had incorrectly assumed bad weather would be rain, not snow.

Jarod put his jacket on and picked up the canvas sling that was used for hauling firewood. If he was going to be stuck here for a day or so, he was at least going to be warm.

* * * *


Miss Parker was breathing hard as the one room cabin came into view. She leaned against a tree to rest as she surveyed the area in front of her. It was pure luck that she had tracked Jarod to this rustic hellhole.

Just yesterday, she had been talking to an old college friend that lived in the town at the bottom of this mountain. After catching up on what they had both been doing the conversation lagged and her friend started describing some hunk that she had run into at the general store. It only took a minute for Miss Parker to realize her friend was describing Jarod.

She grabbed the first flight west and had stopped in town long enough to find out where Jarod was staying before she started up the mountain. Unfortunately, in her haste, she had taken a curve too fast and slid off the road into a ditch about three miles from the cabin. Undeterred, she started hiking and now she had finally reached her objective.

After resting for a minute she reached into her pocket for her cigarettes then let loose with a string of curses when she realized they were still in the car. She wasn't sure how, but that had to be Jarod's fault.

Wanting to get this over with quickly, she pulled out her gun and darted from tree to tree, getting closer and closer to the cabin. She saw a Jeep sitting by the tool shed with the hood up and there was smoke coming from the cabin's chimney. Jarod was still there.

Crouching down, she ran the last dozen feet to the side of the cabin, flattening herself against the rough, log wall. Very carefully, she eased her head alongside the window and peeked in.......to an empty room.

"Damn!" She snarled softly, looking around. "Where is he?"

She searched the outside of the cabin for any sign of him, but found nothing. The wind was picking up and a few snowflakes swirled around her face as Miss Parker made her way along the rickety porch and to the front door.

* * * *


Jarod picked up another dead branch and added it to his collection. As he straightened, he saw the snow begin to fall through the trees and noticed the temperature had dropped at least another 10 degrees in the last few minutes.

He zippered his jacket up to his chin and picked up his firewood. It wasn't a lot, but it would last through the night and he would hopefully be on his way in the morning.

Jarod was enjoying the sound of the wind whistling eerily through the trees and the crunch of dead leaves and twigs under his boots as he made his way back to the cabin. As he passed the treeline he was happy to see smoke still emanating from the chimney and was anxiously anticipating a somewhat warmer climate inside.

He opened the cabin door and had to back his way in so the door wouldn't be ripped from his hand by the wind. He pulled it closed and latched it securely before dumping the wood onto the floor.

"Hello, Jarod."

He froze, momentarily thinking he was imagining Miss Parkers' voice. That fantasy evaporated when he heard a metallic clank as a pair of handcuffs landed on the floor beside him and slid to a stop against his boot.

"You do know what to do with those, don't you?" she asked as he
slowly turned around.

She was sitting in a rocking chair in the far corner, her feet up on an ottoman, legs crossed, clearly enjoying herself. Jarod's eyes settled on the gun in her hand, noticing, not for the first time, how natural it looked there.

Miss Parker was still basking in the surprised expression she had briefly seen on Jarod's face when he'd turned around. She gestured with her weapon toward the cuffs and Jarod slowly bent and picked them up, his eyes never leaving her.

"How did you find me?" he asked as he unzipped his jacket and slipped it off. The cabin suddenly seemed very warm and very small.

Miss Parker smiled, not about to satisfy his curiosity.

"Let's just say......it pays to keep in touch with old friends."

Jarod tossed his jacket onto the bed and looked at the cuffs in his hand. The metal was cold against his skin and he opened them slowly, trying to delay his surrender just a little longer.

"Do it," her angry voice shattered the silence in the room.

Jarod looked at the gun again. Would she really shoot him? He believed the answer was yes. Not to kill, to wound. The results would be the same. He would not only still be a prisoner, but he would be a prisoner in pain with no medical help, unable to escape if the opportunity arose.

Jarod placed one of the cuffs on his left wrist and slowly locked it on, then raised his eyes to Miss Parker for further instructions.

"Bedpost," she told him succinctly.

Jarod stepped over to the bed and sat down. Raising his left arm
to the bedpost, he secured the other cuff, sealing his fate. Jarod sat, completely dejected, as he watched Miss Parker lay her gun on the table, well out of his reach, then set the key to the cuffs next to it.

Miss Parker strolled toward her trophy, reveling in his capture. While one part of her brain plotted his return to the Centre, another couldn't help noticing how great he looked in the worn jeans and flannel shirt. She had to admit, the handcuffs set the outfit off nicely.

Jarod watched her watching him and started to feel like a new animal at the zoo. He gave the cuffs an experimental tug then looked back at her.

"Now what?" he wondered, leaning back against the headboard.

Miss Parker smiled, pulling her cell phone from her pocket.

"Now I tell everyone I caught you and to send someone to pick us up," she informed him, quite pleased with herself.

"You didn't bring a car?" he asked, a little surprised. He never thought of her as the hiking type.

"Of course I brought a car. I just had a little trouble with it down the hill. Besides, I'm not falling for anymore of your little tricks. When those cuffs come off I want a dozen guns pointed at your head."

"Such a nice thought," Jarod responded sarcastically. "Wouldn't Daddy be a little upset if you had me killed?"

"Dead or alive, Jarod, that was always the deal," she reminded him, shrugging her shoulders.

"Then why haven't you killed me?" he asked quickly, thinking he had her.

She looked at him as if that was the dumbest question she had ever heard.

"Because then I'd have to listen to Sydney bitch about it for the rest of my life!"

Jarod grinned, picturing that. "Oh, I don't think it would be for the rest of your life, just the rest of his."

"Either way, I'd rather keep you alive, if you don't mind."

"Now why would I mind? That's kind of along the same plans I had. Of course, in my plan," he continued bitterly, "I wasn't a prisoner."

"You were quite happy in the Centre for 33 years, Jarod," she sighed heavily, tired of his complaining. "There's no reason to think you can't stay there for 50 or 60 more."

Jarod chose to ignore the thought of 60 more years in the Centre and argue her first point instead.

"Who the hell told you I was happy?" Jarod demanded to know, sitting up again. "Sydney? Your father? Raines? Do you know how many times I tried to escape before I made it?"

That got her attention.

"What? You never tried before last year," she argued, dismissing his story. She was the head of security for 3 years. If he had tried something there would be records and she would know every detail.

Jarod shook his head wearily and thought back to that first time he had climbed through the vents to play in the snow. It hadn't been an escape attempt, but it had given him the idea.

"When you were away at school I made it as far as the parking garage," he told her smugly. "Four years later I was caught in the maintenance tunnel. Six months after that I tried to rappel off the roof but one of the sweepers cut the rope and I fell."

He saw the expression on her face change as she grabbed hold of a long forgotten memory.

"Was that the summer you spent with a broken leg?"

He nodded his head remembering that fall. It was a miracle he wasn't more seriously injured.

"You told me you fell down the stairs," she reminded him accusingly, taking a step toward him.

"That's what Sydney told me to say. I was always brought back to him and he paid off the guards to keep my attempts a secret. If anyone in the Tower knew I was actively trying to leave, I would have been killed."

"You were a kid, they wouldn't have killed you," she told him confidently. Her father was capable of many things, but killing children wasn't one of them.

"No? You're 100 percent certain of that?" he asked, trying to feed any doubts she might have.

Uncomfortable with where this conversation was leading, she looked around the room, her eyes settling near the door.

"Is that all the firewood you could carry?"

Jarod let the conversation drop and joined her new train of thought.

"It was enough for tonight. I planned on hiking out tomorrow." He looked out the side window at the thick wall of falling snow. "Looks like we may be here a few days now."

"I am not spending days stuck in this rustic hellhole with you," she informed him, flipping her phone open. She dialed the Centre and waited with the phone to her ear while Jarod smiled at her.

"What is so damn amusing?" She asked, finding the answer in that same instant. "The phone won't work in this storm."

"It's not the storm," he informed her, looking out the window again. "It's the mountain. The signal can't get past the taller peaks around us. No TV or radio either," he added, loving the expression on her face.

"If you let me go, we can play cards," he offered, jerking on the cuffs again.

"You planned this," she accused him, knowing full well there was no way for him to have done so, but it made her feel better.

Jarod shivered and looked at the fireplace. The fire had burned down to almost nothing and was no longer throwing off measurable heat. He reached over with his free hand and grabbed his jacket, then realized he couldn't put it on with one arm chained to the bed.

"Better fix the fire, woman," he told Miss Parker. "The man of the house is cold."

He didn't dare look at her or he would have laughed and ruined the moment. As it was, he found out she had quite a good throwing arm as the phone came soaring through the air, hitting him solidly in the leg.

"Play nice and I'll share the bed later," he offered, wrapping a quilt around his shoulders.

She stood, glaring at him, with her hands on her hips.

"What makes you think you're keeping the bed?"

He sighed and tugged on the cuffs to remind her.

"We're quite attached to each other," he informed her, loving this turn of events.

"You can be attached to something else in a heartbeat."

Jarod looked around the room as did she. There was nothing else as solid as the bed to chain him to.

"What did I ever do to deserve you?" she moaned as she went to tend the fire.

Jarod shrugged his shoulders and snuggled down deeper in the quilt.

"Just lucky, I guess."

* * * *


Miss Parker had pulled the rocking chair close to the fire and sat with a blanket around her. After a meal of soup and crackers she had ignored all of Jarod's attempts at starting a conversation and he had finally given up and gone to sleep.

She leaned forward and tossed another bunch of sticks into the hearth then got up to wander around the one room cabin. She had only taken a few steps when she saw it; the DSA case. It was sitting in the corner behind a butter churn and she stole a glance at Jarod as she bent down to pick it up.

Miss Parker took the case to the table and sat down, reverently running her hand along the cool, metal surface. She felt her excitement level increase dramatically as she imagined her father's pleasure when she turned over both Jarod and the DSA's.

She jumped at the soft voice from the bed.

"Go ahead and open it, the battery is charged. It should last for about 10 hours."

She turned to Jarod who was watching her, his face expressionless. She stared at him for a minute then he closed his eyes and apparently went back to sleep.

Miss Parker had been a spectator at several of Jarod's simulations when she was a child and had found them to be rather boring. As an adult, she knew he had run a great many sims for the military and government, but assumed they were basically all the same.

She fumbled with the latch for a moment then opened the case and turned it on. Pulling out one of the small disks, she examined it closely. To her disappointment, they were not labeled except for a string of numbers across the middle. She could not choose what simulations she wanted to see.

She slid the small disk into the reader and sat back to watch.

For Centre use only
Jarod : 3/10/91
Grady Prison Break


She heard Sydney screaming for help before the picture came on. He was on his stomach, reaching into a hole in the ground as a cloud of dust rose out of it. Men were running from all directions, several of them carrying shovels. They reached the hole and pulled Sydney away as they started digging furiously. In the background, several of the Centre medical doctors came running into view.

It was only a minute before one of the diggers said he hit something and everyone dropped to the ground to dig with their hands. Dirt flew in all directions until one of the men yelled as he uncovered an arm, shoulder and head. Seconds later they dragged Jarod from the hole. The medics started CPR as Sydney paced in the background, stealing looks every few seconds to see if Jarod was breathing yet.

Miss Parker looked at the screen, horrified. This wasn't a simulation, this was an accident during a simulation. She looked at the date on the screen again: Spring of 1991. She had been in Hawaii with a group of friends while Jarod was buried alive during a sim.

As she reached up to remove the disk she saw her father run into the picture and her hand froze. He had a panicked look on his face and as he came up alongside Sydney, he put a comforting hand on the other man's shoulder as they both watched the medics work on Jarod.

Miss Parker watched, transfixed, as someone called out that he had a pulse. As an unconscious Jarod started to breath on his own, Sydney knelt down and gently brushed the dirt from Jarod's face as the screen went dark.

She sat perfectly still, trying to process the information she had just received. Why hadn't she ever heard of the accident and why was her father there?

She wanted to ask questions, but she could tell by Jarod's even breathing that he had, indeed, gone back to sleep. She pulled out the disk and replaced it with another. This time it was a standard sim with Sydney asking questions and Jarod answering them. She went through a dozen disks and was growing tired of watching them when she found it; the last sim he had done in the Centre, two days before he escaped.

* * * *


Jarod lay in bed and listened to the sounds coming from the DSAs. He knew what she was watching as soon as he heard the roar of a fiery explosion and the screams; his screams.

He had assumed the role of pilot on a 757 that had just taken off with 6 hours of fuel and 159 passengers and crew. Within moments after takeoff, a warning light had come on. They had a hydraulics failure in the landing gear. He knew the procedure. He was to turn the plane around and land normally. The gear was already down and locked from takeoff and there shouldn't be a problem. He informed the crew and passengers then circled the airport for an hour burning off fuel and giving the ground crew a chance to get ready in case something went wrong.

When it was time, Jarod kept his eyes on the runway, his co-pilot calling out instrument readings. Jarod worried about the co-pilot. He had been suspended once for drinking and Jarod had smelled liquor on his breath when he reported for duty tonight, but hadn't said anything. Now, he found his attention divided between flying the crippled plane and worrying if the readings he was being given were correct. He found himself looking at the control panel more than the runway that was coming up fast.

Jarod had the plane 100 feet off the ground and seconds from touchdown when he thought he saw the copilot reach for the landing gear controls. Jarod lunged for the switch and accidentally knocked into it with his hand. Seconds before the plane touched down, the gear unlocked and the plane smashed into the runway, bursting into flames and killing everyone onboard.

Miss Parker watched the end of the sim, tears running down her cheeks as Jarod was injected with a tranquilizer and carried from the room. She removed the disk and closed the case, vowing to never watch another sim as long as she lived, knowing that choice was no longer an option for Jarod.

* * * *


Jarod was feeling pretty miserable. His arm was sore from being held up all night by the handcuffs, he had an upset stomach from Miss Parker's attempt at omelets, he was cold and he had been arguing with her for 20 minutes over who was going out in the storm after more firewood.

"Just take the cuffs off and I will go find some," he told her again, rapidly becoming irritated with her.

"I am not turning you loose so forget it. I have a heavy coat and I will get the wood."

Jarod tried to speak calmly but failed.

"You don't know the area, you don't know where there is deadfall and you're too damned scrawny to be hauling wood!"

Jarod regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

"I'm going," she told him through clenched teeth. And when she came back she planned on showing him just how scrawny she was when she tied him up and took the bed.

"At least fasten the rope to yourself and the other end to the porch," he reasoned with her. "That way you won't have to worry about getting lost."

As much as she hated to admit it, that made sense. She grabbed the coil of rope she had found earlier off the chair and stepped out into the blizzard without a look back.

As the door slammed behind her, Jarod rolled off the bed and knelt down, reaching underneath it with his free hand. He felt around until his fingers brushed against the object of his search.

"Got ya," he said happily as he pulled out a fishing pole and a few pounds of dust-bunnies.

Jarod held the pole in his right hand and stretched as far as he could toward the table. With several inches to spare, he was able to knock the handcuff key to the floor and then pull it toward him.

After he unlocked the cuffs, Jarod removed the bullets from Miss Parker's gun then replaced the clip. He put the fishing pole back, blew the dust-bunnies into their home under the bed and sat down where he was supposed to be like nothing had happened.

Jarod waited for fifteen minutes, yet there was still no sign of Miss Parker. Worried, he put on his jacket and went to the door, cracking it open against the wind. The front of the cabin, without the protective cover of trees, showed the true fury of the blizzard. Jarod stepped outside and tried to shield his eyes against the razor sharp sting of icy snow as he called for her.

His voice was thrown back at him while Jarod tried to find the rope that she was supposed to have tied to the porch. Running his bare hand along the rough, wooden railing, he finally located the knot and began pulling. The rope came easily, too easily, and Jarod felt a lump form in his stomach. In another instant he held both ends of the rope in his hands and he looked out into a sea of swirling white hoping for a miracle.

Jarod quickly tied the free end of the rope securely around his waist, hopped over the railing and headed for the woods. He pulled the collar of his jacket up as high as it would go and buried his hands deep in his pockets as the snow began to stick to him.

He was at the treeline when he was stopped in his tracks as the rope ran out. He could see into the woods where the blizzard was being blocked by the trees and dozens of fallen branches lay there, tantalizingly out of reach. He now had a pretty good picture of Miss Parker untying the rope to reach the wood, then losing the end of it in the snow.

He yelled her name again and waited. He imagined her looking for the rope then stubbornly deciding she knew the way back to the cabin. She walked out of the woods, immediately becoming disoriented in the snow.

Jarod began walking toward the cabin, zigzagging his way through the storm, calling her name. He was a few dozen yards from the trees when he heard his name being carried on the icy wind. He spun around, cupping his frozen hands to his mouth and yelled for her again. She called to him, weaker this time, but it was enough to guide him. Moments later he found her sitting beside a tree stump he had used yesterday to cut wood. He now knew exactly where they were in the yard and approximately how many steps it was back to the porch.

Miss Parker looked up as Jarod appeared out of the swirling blanket of white. He looked like a walking snowman, half frozen and never seeming as wonderful as he did at this moment. She put her arms around his neck as he effortlessly picked her up and headed unerringly back to the cabin.

Jarod carried her inside and leaned back on the door, their combined weight just enough to keep it closed against the wind as he latched it. He brought her over to the bed and sat her down, his own discomfort forgotten. Her clothes were soaked through and had begun to freeze. He removed her coat and put a blanket around her shoulders while he worked on getting her shoes and socks off. She was shivering violently and he could hear her teeth chattering behind her slightly blue lips. Jarod looked at her for a moment and decided this was no time for modesty.

"We're going to have to get those wet clothes off before you freeze to death," he told her, expecting an argument. But, Miss Parker was too cold to worry about anything at the moment. She let the blanket drop from her shoulders and tried to unbutton her shirt, but her fingers were too numb and the fabric was too wet. She looked up at Jarod who took the situation into his own hands. He quickly warmed his own hands by the fire then efficiently unbuttoned and removed her shirt and helped her stand while he got her wet jeans off.

"Um....better get rid of the wet underwear too," he told her as he turned his back. He waited a full minute but there wasn't any discernible activity behind him. He heard a soft whimper and turned to find her in tears.

"I can't," she told him in between sobs. "I'm too cold."

Jarod reached out and pulled her into his arms, holding her against his chest until the tears stopped. When she was calmed down he reached inside the blanket and unhooked her bra. She let it drop to the floor and wrapped the blanket around herself as he slipped his fingers into the waistband of her panties and slid them down her legs. She kicked them free of her feet as he picked her up in his strong arms and carried her to the bed.

Jarod was still amazed at how light and fragile she seemed. He could feel the chill coming off of her through the blanket and didn't want to let her go. He laid her on the bed and quickly covered her with every blanket in the cabin, yet she still shivered violently.

Throwing every piece of wood they had into the fire, he watched as the flames ate it greedily. It wasn't going to last long and there was no way he could risk going outside until the storm abated.

He knew of only one way they would both have a chance at staying warm. He tossed his jacket on a chair and walked over to the bed, hesitating for a moment before realizing he wasn't going to get an objection from his frozen companion.

Miss Parker watched intently from under the blankets as Jarod removed his clothes. She knew he only planned on sharing body heat, and that was most likely the only thing on his mind, but the thought of what they could do was enough to get her blood flowing. She closed her eyes briefly, wondering where that thought had suddenly come from.

Jarod stripped down to his briefs then pulled back the blankets. Any reservations he had were quelled when Miss Parker's cold body
nuzzled up to his before he could even cover them both. He lay on his right side, facing the wall, with her back to his chest, the covers up to his neck and his left hand on her arm. She was like ice to his touch and he instinctively began running his hand up and down her arm to warm her.

Jarod couldn't believe this strange turn of events. The logical, rational part of him found this to be mildly interesting but medically necessary. His self-preservation instincts wanted him as far away from her as possible. But, in the lead at the moment, was the part of himself that he had been forced to deny his entire adult life.

Miss Parker sighed as she finally started to get warm. She wasn't sure if it was Jarod or his body heat that was doing it, but she had her opinion. As he rubbed her arm she snuggled closer to him, so close she could feel his heartbeat against her back. He let his hand drop to her bare thigh as his movements slowed. He ran his hand down her leg very lightly then back up again. She shivered, but this time it wasn't from the cold. Maybe he had learned a few things while he was gone.

Jarod drew his hand along her hip, up her side and around the curve of her shoulder before lightly caressing her breasts. He felt her nipples harden at his touch then his hand continued its exploration southward. As he passed over her belly she groaned and turned onto her back, giving him better access. He watched her face as he drew lazy circles on her tender flesh as he eased his way toward his ultimate goal.

Miss Parker closed her eyes and moaned in pleasure as Jarod's hand slipped between her legs. As he rubbed her in just the right way she gave up trying to think and pulled his head down to hers, capturing his lips and probing his mouth with her tongue.

"This changes nothing," she told him in a throaty whisper as she buried her face in his neck. "I'm still taking you in."

Jarod grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head up so he could reach her lips again.

"I can't wait," he responded as his explorations of her continued unabated.

She parted her legs as he slipped a finger inside her and she could feel his erection straining against her side. She slid her free hand down his chest and into his briefs as she tried to remove the last barrier between them.

Jarod felt the tugging at his waist and quickly helped her pull off his underwear which were kicked away under the blankets and forgotten. He rolled over on top of her, his knee parting her legs and took one, rosy nipple in his mouth, using his tongue to bring it to a hard peak before kissing his way up her throat and back to her lips. As his mouth devoured hers he guided his erection to her wet core and plunged inside. She wrapped her legs around him, trying to drive him in deeper, harder, faster.

Miss Parker couldn't get enough. She wanted all of Jarod in her and she met him thrust for thrust. As he strained to stay in control until she was ready, Jarod dropped his head to his chest and tried to focus. Unfortunately, he was now in a great position to watch her breasts bouncing inches from his mouth. He felt her tighten around him and he let the pressure begin to build. Her nails dug into his shoulders as a great shudder ripped through his body and her back arched, driving him in deeper than either had believed possible. Miss Parker was wracked by an orgasm so strong she was certain she would never breath again, and didn't care. As it finally faded away, Jarod collapsed on top of her then rolled over, taking her with him and still inside her.

The cold was forgotten as two sweaty bodies began to move together again as one. Miss Parker was enjoying her new position as she now had what she'd always wanted; complete control over Jarod. He reached up to touch her breasts but she seized his hands and pushed them back over his head. She laid forward on his chest and traced his lips with her finger. As she did it a second time Jarod opened his mouth, captured her finger and started sucking on it suggestively.

Miss Parker needed no further encouragement. She rolled off of him and started to slide down to the end of the bed but he caught her hand and stopped her. Jarod smiled and pulled her back to him and whispered in her ear. Surprised and delighted she lay on top of him again. As she took him in her mouth she thought she had died and gone to heaven when she felt his tongue returning the favor.

* * * *


The wind was howling outside the cabin when Miss Parker awoke with her head on Jarod's chest. She was warm and more content than she had ever been in her life. She carefully raised herself on one elbow and watched Jarod sleep. He looked so peaceful that she hated to disturb him, but she needed something he had.

She let her hand trail down his chest and abdomen until she found her prize between his legs. She ran her nails lightly along his dormant shaft and felt it stir. She looked back at Jarod's face and he was watching her closely.

"Are you serious?" he asked in amazement.

"I'm willing if you're able," she told him as she leaned over and ran her tongue lightly over one of his nipples.

"Oh, I'm able all right," he assured her. "But don't plan on me moving
tomorrow."

"You don't even have to move now," she told him as she licked her way down his body.

Jarod groaned in pleasure as she again took him in her mouth. If he had known this was going to happen, he would have surrendered an hour after he first escaped.









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