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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.
Note: This is a sequel to Welcome Home, Jarod Read that one first
Unlikely allies
Chapter 1
Terri
The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
The hallways of the Centre were deserted except for Miss Parker who was striding confidently toward Sydney's office. The urge to look around and tread softly was overwhelming but stupid.
She had to appear perfectly normal in the security tape no matter how anxious she was to speak with Sydney. After all, there was nothing unusual about her roaming the Centre in the middle of the night, she did it all the time. Lately though, she couldn't shake the feeling her every move was being carefully scrutinized.
* * * *
Sydney sat at his computer watching a DSA of Jarod's last simulation before Raines had banished him to Sublevel 26. He looked intently at the screen, looking for any clues as to Jarod's state of mind as he ran the simulation. The sim completed, Jarod stopped to talk to one of the lab techs. The tech told a joke and Jarod smiled, but there was an emptiness to it.
Another keystroke and the image changed to a computer copy of a home video commandeered from one of the men of Unit 16 in Pittsburgh where Jarod had pretended to be a firefighter.
The video ran a tour of the firehouse and entered the rec room where Jarod sat cross-legged on the floor playing with a Dalmatian.
As the camera stopped on Jarod, he looked up and frowned.
"What's with the camera, Adam?"
"A tour of the firehouse for my Grandmother in Australia. Can you get the dog to do something cute?" A voice requested from behind the camera.
"Sure, Australia should be far enough away," Jarod agreed as he took hold of the dogs collar.
"What?"
"Never mind. Watch this, he just learned it today." Jarod turned the dog toward the camera.
"Ember sit. Good boy. Look at the camera. Ember, wave. Come on, boy, wave," Jarod encouraged, watching the dog intently. Ember sat up and pawed at the air.
Jarod's face lit up with a broad smile and Sydney froze the image. He stared at it and could not remember the last time he saw Jarod smile like that, if indeed he ever had.
"Torturing yourself isn't going to help him," Miss Parker announced from a few feet behind him.
Sydney let the comment slide off his back, his eyes never wavering from the picture.
"I never noticed that he didn't smile. Can you believe that? It's like looking at two different people."
Miss Parker glanced at the screen and felt a small pang of guilt for her part in Jarod's current dilemma but it passed quickly. If it wasn't for him, and the other little freaks in the Centre, her mother would be alive and the two of them would be far from this place.
She pulled a chair up to the side of Syd's desk and waited for a moment before she had his attention.
"Okay, you've had all day to come up with a good reason for what you did to Jarod. Lets hear it."
Sydney sighed as he leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. He didn't like this at all. No one, except himself and Raines, knew this story. He doubted even Mr. Parker had been told the entire story. Sydney had a lot to lose by telling Miss Parker the truth, but if he could finally save Jarod it would be worth anything.
"What were you told?" Sydney asked. Perhaps she knew more than she was telling.
"As far as the Centre's records are concerned, Jarod was an orphan that showed pretender abilities that were recognized by one of our outside consultants and his guardianship was transferred to the Centre at the request of Mr. Raines. The picture Jarod was given of his mother is real and any records of his whereabouts after he was brought here were destroyed. What's your story? And, this better be good," she challenged as she lit a cigarette and leaned back in the chair.
Sydney sighed, disappointed. She had swallowed the same Centre story that everyone else with any clearance was told. He would have to start at the very beginning. Sydney rose and began pacing the room as he spoke.
"Jacob and I had a younger sister, Emily. She was a genius and needed a more challenging environment than could be found in our village. A family friend arranged for a private school in the US when she was 14. We received regular letters from her and she claimed to be having a wonderful time and her teachers said she was doing well. The first summer she was home she seemed happy but distracted. Always needing to be doing something, never sitting still for more than a few minutes. She was home for two months when the school called and said classes were starting early that year and she had to come back. She said she didn't want to go but our father attributed that to homesickness and off she went. That was the last time we heard from her."
"What about the school?" Miss Parker cut in. "Didn't they know where she was?"
Sydney shook his head.
"We contacted the police in the US and they could find no record of the school ever having existed. The family friend was nowhere to be found and we hit dead ends at every turn for 7 years."
"A missing, gifted child in the 1950's? It has the Centre written all over it," Miss Parker commented knowingly.
"Yes, it does. Unfortunately no one knew it existed. In 1962 I was recruited by the Centre to work in Psychogenic Research. I was here almost a year when I received a call from my father. He said someone called claiming to be a friend of Emily's and he wanted me to go see her in El Paso. I'm ashamed to say I had given up hope of Emily being alive a long time before that. I had a great job and was in line for a promotion and I wasn't about to risk losing that by going across the country on a wild goose chase. I had a friend, Hans, go see the woman in my place. When he returned three days later he had a little boy with him. Emily's son."
"Jarod," Miss Parker stated, getting more and more interested in the story.
"Yes. Hans said Emily was afraid for her life. Her husband, a pilot, had disappeared and she wanted the boy taken and hidden. She didn't want to know where. She told him she would contact our father when she wanted her son back. When they arrived I was in the middle of a very important experiment. I had Hans put the boy in one of the labs to play until I was finished. When I looked in an hour later Jarod had dismantled one of our new computers and was redesigning it. Nobody knew Jarod was here or who he was so I had one of the other psychologists test his IQ and it was off the chart. I thought as long as he was here we could find some use for him so I told Mr. Raines what I was doing."
Sydney stopped pacing and stared off into space as he remembered that horrible day.
"He was very excited," Sydney continued so softly that Miss Parker had to strain to hear him. "Too excited and I didn't know why until he was good enough to enlighten me."
"He told you the Centre had taken Emily?" Miss Parker guessed as she ground out the cigarette in the ashtray on the desk.
"She had been given to them by my father's friend, probably in return for money or a favor. Four years later, she was pregnant with the child of a Pretender. Before the baby was born she and the man escaped."
Sydney stopped suddenly and laughed, the irony just now hitting him.
"I guess you could say Jarod was pre-programmed to disappear on us.
Miss Parker glared at him, clearly not amused.
"Go on," she instructed, searching her pockets for another cigarette and not finding one.
"The Centre had hired me hoping to have a connection back to her should she ever contact the family. Thanks to me they now had a good idea where Emily was and she would be brought back and......'re-educated.' "
Sydney looked at Miss Parker, his eyes begging for understanding.
"All I was thinking about was my sister, I didn't know Jarod. In a panic I offered to keep quiet about him in exchange for her life and that of her husbands should he ever be found. I called my father and told him that Hans' car had crashed on the way to my home and he and the boy were killed. The car had burned and there were no bodies. Then, I calmly introduced myself to Jarod and told him I would be taking care of him for a while."
"What about your father and Jacob? When Emily contacted them didn't they tell her where you were working?"
"She didn't call, her friend did. Jacob told her what had happened and she promised Emily would contact him. She never did. A year later our father died and Jacob came to work here, never suspecting that his favorite little Pretender was our nephew."
"I never thought it would happen," Miss Parker announced, her voice dripping with amazement.
"What?" Sydney asked anxiously, turning toward her. Was she going to help him?
"For a moment I felt sorry for Jarod. On the other hand, I never knew you could be so devious and calculating. We needed to see this side of you more often when we were tracking him. I'm impressed," she admitted, smiling at the older man.
"I didn't tell you this to impress you," Sydney complained angrily. "You said that you wanted to kill me for giving Jarod to the Centre and now that you know the details you want to put me on a pedestal?"
"Wanting to kill you was a gut reaction. If Jarod ever hears this story he'll no doubt have the same reaction but I'm willing to bet he'll act on it."
"Jarod must never know who his parents are. He's been told they're dead."
"Oh, yeah, I've seen how he believes that one. Don't worry, he won't hear it from me. At least not all at once."
"Your father would be very upset if he found out you had this information. Raines would be homicidal." He looked her squarely in the eye to make his point. "You would not be safe."
"I'll worry about me, if you don't mind. I know what it's like to be on the other end of one of the Centre's secrets. You all know what really happened to my mother. Hell, even Jarod knows. I just wanted the same kind of leverage for the next time he plays his little 'what happened to your mommy' game with me."
"So, that act in the hall...?"
"Just that. An act. I don't care if Jarod ever sees the light of day again. Everyone has a story. Now, yours was one of the best I've heard, but it doesn't give me a reason to help you get Jarod out of the Centre."
"Don't get him out of the Centre. Just get him back up here where he belongs and out of isolation," Sydney begged desperately.
"My God, Syd, he's only been down there for a day. I hardly think he's permanently damaged. It's dark and there's nothing to do, big deal."
"It will be for him. It hasn't been pure altruism that has been driving him to help all these people on the outside. He can't just exist, he has to be doing something, be stimulated, at all times or it could drive him over the edge. Do you understand? He's locked up with absolutely nothing to do, nobody to talk to, in complete darkness. He's probably beginning to feel the effects already."
"Before I even consider thinking about helping you, I have to know the answer to one thing."
"Just one? That doesn't sound like you."
Miss Parker chose to ignore the uncharacteristic barb.
"If you had all this guilt over stealing his life, why help recapture him? You've been helping him escape for months-"
"I have not," Sydney protested indignantly, cutting her off in mid sentence.
"Oh come on, Syd," Miss Parker sneered. "Every time we got within fifty feet of him you would holler his name at the top of your lungs and he'd bolt. How, exactly, was that helping us to catch him?"
"I wasn't warning him, I was just excited," Sydney explained sheepishly.
"So then why, all of a sudden, do you do something that gets him caught and turns you into instant pond scum where he is concerned?"
That was the hardest decision he had ever made. After years of looking for a way to get Jarod away from the Centre Sydney had been delighted to discover he had escaped. It was only later that he realized the potential danger for both the outside world and Jarod himself.
"You wouldn't understand," he proclaimed, trying to brush her off.
"Try me," she demanded softly, "and maybe I'll help you."
Sydney thought about it for a moment . He had already given her enough information to get them both killed. If there was a chance in hell of helping Jarod now he had to go all the way.
"When he first escaped, the first person he helped was a child. He pretended to be a doctor. His 'revenge' on the attending physician was to make the poor man believe he was dying and was going to be operated on by a drunk. Now that was.....poetic justice. Remember how we all thought it was a bit amusing if you weren't the doctor."
Miss Parker did remember having a good laugh on the way home. She wouldn't have found it so funny if she had known that was the start of a year long chase.
"So? I'm sure you have a point coming up eventually," she yawned, looking at her watch.
"So, ever since he got away with that, his revenge scenarios have been getting more and more violent. He caused the cave-in that trapped the ranger in Oregon. He left a man dangling in a net in the path of a hurricane. He let that murderer in Las Vegas get beaten nearly to death."
"He had that one coming," Miss Parker argued. "What are you saying? You think Jarod is going to go too far and kill someone? Even I don't buy that. He's not the type."
"That's what we thought about the others," Sydney admitted sadly. He saw her look up suddenly. That got her attention.
"Others? What others?"
"The other Pretenders. Years ago, before Jarod, the Pretenders were never locked up. We wanted them exposed to everything so they could simulate whatever we asked of them. It was too late when we discovered that there was such a thing as too much information. Two of them ran a simulation for a bank in New York City. It was supposed to be theft proof and the owners wanted to be certain. The Pretenders were, of course, given every detail of the bank and the security system. After a few simulations we decided it was indeed theft proof. Unfortunately, once they left here, the two decided it would have been more accurate running the simulation in person. They went to the bank the next day and tried to rob it. They killed two security guards and a customer before the police gunned them down. They didn't mean to. As far as they were concerned they were running a more accurate simulation. They lost themselves in the roles they were playing."
"And you really think that, given time, Jarod would get carried away and kill someone?"
"Intentionally? Never. Accidentally? Yes. And I can guarantee you that if it happened it would devastate him. He would immediately turn himself in to the authorities and even if the Centre was able to get him out of prison, his mind would be lost to both us and him. I had to get him back here to save him from that."
"How am I supposed to help him?" She asked out of curiosity and dreading the answer.
"Talk to your father..."
Yep. That was the answer she saw coming. Why was it every time someone wanted her help it involved talking to father?
"My father is not going to listen to me where Jarod is concerned. I don't even know if I want to put up the effort. It's been kind of nice not having to traipse all over the country and clean up after him with dozens of police forces and rangers and fire officials and hospital boards and-"
"I get the idea," Sydney cut her off. He sat down in his chair behind the desk and hit the space bar, turning off the screen saver as Jarod's smiling face reappeared.
Miss Parker stood and started from the room, her heals clicking loudly on the tiled floor.
"If you come up with something that doesn't involve me talking to my father, give me a call."
She left the room and headed for the staff lounge and her favorite vending machine. She needed a cigarette in the worst way.
Sydney stared at the picture of Jarod with the dog and shook his head.
"What have I done to you?"
* * * *
Isolation room, Sublevel 26
Jarod smiled as he laid back on his new bed. Alone at last. What a relief. He hoped his final, desperate plea for help hadn't been too much. He hadn't planned on saying anything when the guards took him away, but when he had caught sight of Sydney looking so miserable he couldn't resist.
Poor Syd. He was probably thought Jarod was bouncing off the walls by now. It was true that the last time he was here he had been on the verge of losing his mind when they finally let him out, but he was only a boy then. He was unprepared and his skills were not sharpened to a fine edge like they were now. And there was that little problem of being afraid of the dark.
Of course, once exposed to something new, a Pretender never forgets. That's why Jarod found it amusing that they thought they could punish him again by locking him away. This was no longer virgin territory. Jarod knew what to expect and was actually enjoying being on his own again after six weeks of constant attention up above. He rolled over in bed and grimaced at the pain in his abdomen. Sam packed quite a punch. Jarod would remember that too.
* * * *
Four days later Jarod was laying on his back, pretending he was an astronaut lost in space when the lights came on. He covered his eyes with his arm and let them gradually adjust to the fluorescent light. A moment later the door cracked open and Sam looked in. Jarod briefly thought it might be fun one day to be standing there when it opened and scare the hell out of Sam, but that's as far as the thought got. He wasn't up to plotting further.
Sam placed a tray with soup and salad on the table and stepped back, waiting for Jarod to eat so he could get back to the upper levels. He didn't like it down here at all.
Jarod rolled slowly off the bed and wandered over to the table where he poked at his food for a minute before a wave of nausea made him push the tray away.
"Take this back out with you. I don't want it," Jarod told Sam softly.
This was now the fourth meal Jarod was going to skip. Since Sam's orders didn't include starving anyone to death he risked speaking to his prisoner.
"Something wrong with your food?"
"No. I don't feel well. I can't eat." Jarod looked at Sam thoughtfully. "Maybe I need a doctor."
Sam laughed, but there was no humor in it. He was getting tired of games. He had just spent four hours trying to convince payroll that Jarod was behind his sudden wealth. Not that fifty thousand dollars wouldn't come in handy but it would be hard for a corpse to spend.
"Maybe you need to stop thinking I'm an idiot. You're not getting out of here by pretending to be sick. Didn't you learn that as a kid? It never works."
"I never pretended to be sick as a kid because I never got to be a kid," Jarod snarled irritably as he headed for the bathroom.
Sam watched him warily, one hand on gun at his waist, waiting for any sudden moves. When Jarod started complaining about a gnawing pain a few days after he was brought down here, Sam had attributed it to the blows to the stomach that he himself had administered. After being made to look like a fool in front of Raines, Sam had hit Jarod harder than he had ever hit anyone before. There was bound to be some tenderness for a few days at least, but this was going on too long. One thing was for sure, he wasn't falling for another one of Jarod's tricks.
When Jarod slammed the bathroom door Sam picked up the tray and left the room. The door clicked shut behind him and he inserted the key that would turn the lights off again. He hesitated, thinking for a moment that he would leave them on for a while, then changed his mind. With his luck, this would be the day Mr. Raines decided to stroll down here.
* * * *
Mr. Parker looked around furtively as he slipped into the kitchen where the residents' dinner was being prepared. The cook, who was becoming used to her Boss's daily visits, looked up from chopping vegetables and smiled.
"Looking for another recipe?" She asked, her thick, German accent echoing around the large room.
Mr. Parker answered warmly.
"I've tried all of them so far Mrs. Luger. None come out as good as yours. I just stopped by to say hello."
"Ah, good. I like the company," she admitted happily. She dumped a sack of red potatoes into the sink to wash and tossed the sack in the trash.
"Can I help you with anything? Maybe I can stir the soup for you," he offered, picking up the ladle.
Mrs. Luger laughed heartily. "I never see a man so interested in soup before. Always with you its the soup."
Parker smiled as he began stirring. "Well, I just can't explain it. Really, I can't."
"Well, you go and stir. I go get more vegetables and I be back."
Mr. Parker watched her trudge over to the walk-in pantry and disappear inside.
Quickly, he pulled a small envelope from his pocket and emptied the contents into the soup. When Mrs. Luger came back a minute later the gray powder was dissolved and the envelop was back in Mr. Parker's jacket. He was stirring the soup as if nothing had happened.
* * * *
Jarod sat on the floor in the far corner of the dark room, knees bent and pulled to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. The room was silent except for an occasional groan of pain as he tried for a more comfortable position.
It had been nine days since he had been dumped here and the novelty was wearing off. He didn't mind the boredom, he could run any number of simulations in his head to take care of that. He did however miss talking to people and being outside. Worst of all, he felt like crap.
Jarod shifted again and gingerly stretched his legs out in front of him, leaning back against the wall. A moment later he heard the key turn in the lock and closed his eyes as the light came on and his pupils fought to adjust to the new brightness. The door opened quickly and Broots came in, carrying dinner and a notebook.
He looked at Jarod sitting on the floor in the corner and then at the bed a few feet away.
"Camping out?" Broots asked as he put the tray on the table and walked over to stand in front of Jarod.
Jarod squinted, waiting another few seconds for his eyes to adjust and then looked up and gave Broots a grim smile.
"Stuck again? I thought you'd have all those files put back together by now."
Broots looked around to make sure the door had closed behind him. He didn't want this to turn into a suicide mission.
"I do," he whispered, squatting down in front of Jarod, " but I thought you could use a visitor so I dumped last years tax records. I told Mr. Raines that I needed a password from you to retrieve the file."
Jarod's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You lied to Raines? I'm impressed."
"Yeah, well.......I'm not going to make it a habit. I like being alive." He looked over to the table and back at Jarod.
"Are you getting up or should I put your dinner on the floor?"
Jarod thought it over for a moment. He had been carefully drinking small amounts of water all morning and although he was hungry, he wasn't sure how his stomach was going to react.
"Give me a hand?" he asked, extending his arm toward Broots who immediately took hold of it and stood.
Jarod supported his midsection with his right arm as he carefully, painfully pulled himself up.
Broots looked at him incredulously.
"Are you still sore from Sam hitting you?"
"No, " Jarod mumbled, wishing he had stayed on the floor. "I just don't feel well."
"Have you told the guards?" Broots asked as he pulled the metal chair out from the table and waited while Jarod eased himself into it.
"I told Sam but he didn't believe me. He thinks I'm running a simulation on him...pretending to be sick so I can get out of here."
"Are you? Pretending, I mean?" Broots wondered aloud as he pushed the tray of food in front of Jarod.
"No. I don't know what's wrong," Jarod replied, pushing the tray to the other side of the table.
"You've been a doctor, can't you tell what's wrong with yourself?"
The tray came back at Jarod who stared at it dejectedly.
"I'm not really a doctor. I know only what I've read and I didn't read anything that sounds like what I have. It's probably the flu. I hear it makes you feel horrible."
"You're telling me you've never had the flu?" Broots asked, wishing he could say the same thing. The last time he had the flu Miss Parker made him come to work anyway. When she went to lunch he had gone into her office and breathed on everything hoping to pass it along.
"Not that I remember. Sick people aren't allowed around little Pretenders that have work to do."
"So, uh, why were you sitting on the floor?"
"Every time I sit on the bed I fall asleep. Too much sleep dulls the brain."
"Not enough keeps you sick," Broots reasoned, sticking a spoon into Jarod's hand.
"Well, you might have a point there" Jarod conceded. " I don't have any experience at this. You'd better go, and for your own safety, I don't think you should come back. I don't think even Sydney knows that we're friends."
"I can guarantee that," Broots laughed knowingly. "When you disappeared he had me read your bio. I almost pointed out an error on your computer skills."
Broots looked down at the floor and nervously fiddled with his watchband.
"Look, Jarod. I'm sorry about blocking you from that keyboard. I have to -"
"Think about your daughter," Jarod cut him off, dropping the spoon onto the tray and pushing it away for what he hoped to be the last time.
"I know. It's fine. I'm sure we can find some way to blame this whole mess on Sam."
Broots smiled and handed Jarod the notebook and pencil he had with him.
"Here, I almost forgot. I came for a password. If anyone asks, I want it in your writing."
Jarod took the offering and stared at the blank paper for a moment.
"Does Sydney still spend a lot of time in the lab when your working?" He asked thoughtfully as he tapped the pencil on the table.
"Yeah, he's still cataloguing all your red notebooks. Why?" Broots questioned suspiciously.
"No reason." Jarod wrote a fictitious password on the paper and handed back the pad and pencil.
"I'd better go," Broots announced as he removed the bowl and spoon from the tray and set them squarely in front of Jarod. He went to the door and raised a fist to knock, then turned back toward his friend.
"I hope you know what you're doing."
"Don't worry, I'm fine," Jarod assured his friend, hoping it was true.
Broots knocked on the door and it was opened immediately. He hurried past the guard, a plan already forming in his head.
Jarod sat and slowly swirled the spoon around in his soup, watching the vegetables pop to the surface and then quickly sink. The aroma lured him into trying a small amount of broth and after the first mouthful went down fine he waited to see if it would stay there. After a few tense moments he was satisfied he was making progress and continued to eat, even trying a few veggies. He was on his fourth spoonful when his stomach cramped, doubling him over.
He barely made it to the bathroom before the lights went out again and dinner made a return appearance.
* * * *
Broots sat at his computer working on bank records for every person in the US that had the first or last name of Jarod. The Centre was still very interested in what was left of the $500,000 that Jarod had commissioned from their Wall Street deal last year and that was one piece of information Jarod would never part with. Broots suspected Jarod had given most of it away, but looking for it kept him from being reassigned to another case.
He had just cleared the state of Colorado when Sydney wandered in.
"I hear you had to get some information from Jarod yesterday. Did you speak to him?"
Broots swallowed hard and looked away, suddenly very interested in a scratch on his desk.
"I had to ask a question, get a password, but he wrote it down and I left. I didn't talk to him, he didn't talk to me."
Sydney shook his head in amazement. He had never seen anyone so transparent. That was probably why the Centre had hired Broots. They didn't like deception that wasn't their own.
"I hope you can be more believable if Raines asks you that question. If you act any more guilty he's going to think you were in there planning an escape."
Broots looked around before grudgingly admitting was lying.
"Well, maybe I stayed a minute. I just helped him to the table and made sure he was going to try and eat before I left."
"Why would he need help to the table?" Sydney asked, worry clear on his face.
"Oh, haven't you heard," asked Broots casually, dying to get the information out. He turned back to his computer and pulled up the banking records for Connecticut.
"Heard what?" Sydney asked, irritation edging his voice. He was getting too old to play cloak and dagger with the underlings.
Broots looked around carefully and Sydney caught himself doing the same thing.
"He's sick," Broots whispered conspiratorially. "Really, sick. He told Sam but Sam doesn't believe him. He thinks Jarod is pretending."
"What do you think?" Sydney whispered back, wondering himself if Jarod was up to something.
Broots appeared to be deep in thought before he replied.
"I'd say yes, he is sick. I grabbed his arm to help him up and I could feel the heat coming off of him. I didn't even think he could hold the pencil to give me this password."
Sydney glanced down at the pad of paper Broots had gestured toward and felt a shock ripple through him The word Jarod had carefully printed was clearly meant for Sydney.
Refuge.
Note: This is a sequel to Welcome Home, Jarod Read that one first
Unlikely allies
Chapter 1
Terri
The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
The hallways of the Centre were deserted except for Miss Parker who was striding confidently toward Sydney's office. The urge to look around and tread softly was overwhelming but stupid.
She had to appear perfectly normal in the security tape no matter how anxious she was to speak with Sydney. After all, there was nothing unusual about her roaming the Centre in the middle of the night, she did it all the time. Lately though, she couldn't shake the feeling her every move was being carefully scrutinized.
* * * *
Sydney sat at his computer watching a DSA of Jarod's last simulation before Raines had banished him to Sublevel 26. He looked intently at the screen, looking for any clues as to Jarod's state of mind as he ran the simulation. The sim completed, Jarod stopped to talk to one of the lab techs. The tech told a joke and Jarod smiled, but there was an emptiness to it.
Another keystroke and the image changed to a computer copy of a home video commandeered from one of the men of Unit 16 in Pittsburgh where Jarod had pretended to be a firefighter.
The video ran a tour of the firehouse and entered the rec room where Jarod sat cross-legged on the floor playing with a Dalmatian.
As the camera stopped on Jarod, he looked up and frowned.
"What's with the camera, Adam?"
"A tour of the firehouse for my Grandmother in Australia. Can you get the dog to do something cute?" A voice requested from behind the camera.
"Sure, Australia should be far enough away," Jarod agreed as he took hold of the dogs collar.
"What?"
"Never mind. Watch this, he just learned it today." Jarod turned the dog toward the camera.
"Ember sit. Good boy. Look at the camera. Ember, wave. Come on, boy, wave," Jarod encouraged, watching the dog intently. Ember sat up and pawed at the air.
Jarod's face lit up with a broad smile and Sydney froze the image. He stared at it and could not remember the last time he saw Jarod smile like that, if indeed he ever had.
"Torturing yourself isn't going to help him," Miss Parker announced from a few feet behind him.
Sydney let the comment slide off his back, his eyes never wavering from the picture.
"I never noticed that he didn't smile. Can you believe that? It's like looking at two different people."
Miss Parker glanced at the screen and felt a small pang of guilt for her part in Jarod's current dilemma but it passed quickly. If it wasn't for him, and the other little freaks in the Centre, her mother would be alive and the two of them would be far from this place.
She pulled a chair up to the side of Syd's desk and waited for a moment before she had his attention.
"Okay, you've had all day to come up with a good reason for what you did to Jarod. Lets hear it."
Sydney sighed as he leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. He didn't like this at all. No one, except himself and Raines, knew this story. He doubted even Mr. Parker had been told the entire story. Sydney had a lot to lose by telling Miss Parker the truth, but if he could finally save Jarod it would be worth anything.
"What were you told?" Sydney asked. Perhaps she knew more than she was telling.
"As far as the Centre's records are concerned, Jarod was an orphan that showed pretender abilities that were recognized by one of our outside consultants and his guardianship was transferred to the Centre at the request of Mr. Raines. The picture Jarod was given of his mother is real and any records of his whereabouts after he was brought here were destroyed. What's your story? And, this better be good," she challenged as she lit a cigarette and leaned back in the chair.
Sydney sighed, disappointed. She had swallowed the same Centre story that everyone else with any clearance was told. He would have to start at the very beginning. Sydney rose and began pacing the room as he spoke.
"Jacob and I had a younger sister, Emily. She was a genius and needed a more challenging environment than could be found in our village. A family friend arranged for a private school in the US when she was 14. We received regular letters from her and she claimed to be having a wonderful time and her teachers said she was doing well. The first summer she was home she seemed happy but distracted. Always needing to be doing something, never sitting still for more than a few minutes. She was home for two months when the school called and said classes were starting early that year and she had to come back. She said she didn't want to go but our father attributed that to homesickness and off she went. That was the last time we heard from her."
"What about the school?" Miss Parker cut in. "Didn't they know where she was?"
Sydney shook his head.
"We contacted the police in the US and they could find no record of the school ever having existed. The family friend was nowhere to be found and we hit dead ends at every turn for 7 years."
"A missing, gifted child in the 1950's? It has the Centre written all over it," Miss Parker commented knowingly.
"Yes, it does. Unfortunately no one knew it existed. In 1962 I was recruited by the Centre to work in Psychogenic Research. I was here almost a year when I received a call from my father. He said someone called claiming to be a friend of Emily's and he wanted me to go see her in El Paso. I'm ashamed to say I had given up hope of Emily being alive a long time before that. I had a great job and was in line for a promotion and I wasn't about to risk losing that by going across the country on a wild goose chase. I had a friend, Hans, go see the woman in my place. When he returned three days later he had a little boy with him. Emily's son."
"Jarod," Miss Parker stated, getting more and more interested in the story.
"Yes. Hans said Emily was afraid for her life. Her husband, a pilot, had disappeared and she wanted the boy taken and hidden. She didn't want to know where. She told him she would contact our father when she wanted her son back. When they arrived I was in the middle of a very important experiment. I had Hans put the boy in one of the labs to play until I was finished. When I looked in an hour later Jarod had dismantled one of our new computers and was redesigning it. Nobody knew Jarod was here or who he was so I had one of the other psychologists test his IQ and it was off the chart. I thought as long as he was here we could find some use for him so I told Mr. Raines what I was doing."
Sydney stopped pacing and stared off into space as he remembered that horrible day.
"He was very excited," Sydney continued so softly that Miss Parker had to strain to hear him. "Too excited and I didn't know why until he was good enough to enlighten me."
"He told you the Centre had taken Emily?" Miss Parker guessed as she ground out the cigarette in the ashtray on the desk.
"She had been given to them by my father's friend, probably in return for money or a favor. Four years later, she was pregnant with the child of a Pretender. Before the baby was born she and the man escaped."
Sydney stopped suddenly and laughed, the irony just now hitting him.
"I guess you could say Jarod was pre-programmed to disappear on us.
Miss Parker glared at him, clearly not amused.
"Go on," she instructed, searching her pockets for another cigarette and not finding one.
"The Centre had hired me hoping to have a connection back to her should she ever contact the family. Thanks to me they now had a good idea where Emily was and she would be brought back and......'re-educated.' "
Sydney looked at Miss Parker, his eyes begging for understanding.
"All I was thinking about was my sister, I didn't know Jarod. In a panic I offered to keep quiet about him in exchange for her life and that of her husbands should he ever be found. I called my father and told him that Hans' car had crashed on the way to my home and he and the boy were killed. The car had burned and there were no bodies. Then, I calmly introduced myself to Jarod and told him I would be taking care of him for a while."
"What about your father and Jacob? When Emily contacted them didn't they tell her where you were working?"
"She didn't call, her friend did. Jacob told her what had happened and she promised Emily would contact him. She never did. A year later our father died and Jacob came to work here, never suspecting that his favorite little Pretender was our nephew."
"I never thought it would happen," Miss Parker announced, her voice dripping with amazement.
"What?" Sydney asked anxiously, turning toward her. Was she going to help him?
"For a moment I felt sorry for Jarod. On the other hand, I never knew you could be so devious and calculating. We needed to see this side of you more often when we were tracking him. I'm impressed," she admitted, smiling at the older man.
"I didn't tell you this to impress you," Sydney complained angrily. "You said that you wanted to kill me for giving Jarod to the Centre and now that you know the details you want to put me on a pedestal?"
"Wanting to kill you was a gut reaction. If Jarod ever hears this story he'll no doubt have the same reaction but I'm willing to bet he'll act on it."
"Jarod must never know who his parents are. He's been told they're dead."
"Oh, yeah, I've seen how he believes that one. Don't worry, he won't hear it from me. At least not all at once."
"Your father would be very upset if he found out you had this information. Raines would be homicidal." He looked her squarely in the eye to make his point. "You would not be safe."
"I'll worry about me, if you don't mind. I know what it's like to be on the other end of one of the Centre's secrets. You all know what really happened to my mother. Hell, even Jarod knows. I just wanted the same kind of leverage for the next time he plays his little 'what happened to your mommy' game with me."
"So, that act in the hall...?"
"Just that. An act. I don't care if Jarod ever sees the light of day again. Everyone has a story. Now, yours was one of the best I've heard, but it doesn't give me a reason to help you get Jarod out of the Centre."
"Don't get him out of the Centre. Just get him back up here where he belongs and out of isolation," Sydney begged desperately.
"My God, Syd, he's only been down there for a day. I hardly think he's permanently damaged. It's dark and there's nothing to do, big deal."
"It will be for him. It hasn't been pure altruism that has been driving him to help all these people on the outside. He can't just exist, he has to be doing something, be stimulated, at all times or it could drive him over the edge. Do you understand? He's locked up with absolutely nothing to do, nobody to talk to, in complete darkness. He's probably beginning to feel the effects already."
"Before I even consider thinking about helping you, I have to know the answer to one thing."
"Just one? That doesn't sound like you."
Miss Parker chose to ignore the uncharacteristic barb.
"If you had all this guilt over stealing his life, why help recapture him? You've been helping him escape for months-"
"I have not," Sydney protested indignantly, cutting her off in mid sentence.
"Oh come on, Syd," Miss Parker sneered. "Every time we got within fifty feet of him you would holler his name at the top of your lungs and he'd bolt. How, exactly, was that helping us to catch him?"
"I wasn't warning him, I was just excited," Sydney explained sheepishly.
"So then why, all of a sudden, do you do something that gets him caught and turns you into instant pond scum where he is concerned?"
That was the hardest decision he had ever made. After years of looking for a way to get Jarod away from the Centre Sydney had been delighted to discover he had escaped. It was only later that he realized the potential danger for both the outside world and Jarod himself.
"You wouldn't understand," he proclaimed, trying to brush her off.
"Try me," she demanded softly, "and maybe I'll help you."
Sydney thought about it for a moment . He had already given her enough information to get them both killed. If there was a chance in hell of helping Jarod now he had to go all the way.
"When he first escaped, the first person he helped was a child. He pretended to be a doctor. His 'revenge' on the attending physician was to make the poor man believe he was dying and was going to be operated on by a drunk. Now that was.....poetic justice. Remember how we all thought it was a bit amusing if you weren't the doctor."
Miss Parker did remember having a good laugh on the way home. She wouldn't have found it so funny if she had known that was the start of a year long chase.
"So? I'm sure you have a point coming up eventually," she yawned, looking at her watch.
"So, ever since he got away with that, his revenge scenarios have been getting more and more violent. He caused the cave-in that trapped the ranger in Oregon. He left a man dangling in a net in the path of a hurricane. He let that murderer in Las Vegas get beaten nearly to death."
"He had that one coming," Miss Parker argued. "What are you saying? You think Jarod is going to go too far and kill someone? Even I don't buy that. He's not the type."
"That's what we thought about the others," Sydney admitted sadly. He saw her look up suddenly. That got her attention.
"Others? What others?"
"The other Pretenders. Years ago, before Jarod, the Pretenders were never locked up. We wanted them exposed to everything so they could simulate whatever we asked of them. It was too late when we discovered that there was such a thing as too much information. Two of them ran a simulation for a bank in New York City. It was supposed to be theft proof and the owners wanted to be certain. The Pretenders were, of course, given every detail of the bank and the security system. After a few simulations we decided it was indeed theft proof. Unfortunately, once they left here, the two decided it would have been more accurate running the simulation in person. They went to the bank the next day and tried to rob it. They killed two security guards and a customer before the police gunned them down. They didn't mean to. As far as they were concerned they were running a more accurate simulation. They lost themselves in the roles they were playing."
"And you really think that, given time, Jarod would get carried away and kill someone?"
"Intentionally? Never. Accidentally? Yes. And I can guarantee you that if it happened it would devastate him. He would immediately turn himself in to the authorities and even if the Centre was able to get him out of prison, his mind would be lost to both us and him. I had to get him back here to save him from that."
"How am I supposed to help him?" She asked out of curiosity and dreading the answer.
"Talk to your father..."
Yep. That was the answer she saw coming. Why was it every time someone wanted her help it involved talking to father?
"My father is not going to listen to me where Jarod is concerned. I don't even know if I want to put up the effort. It's been kind of nice not having to traipse all over the country and clean up after him with dozens of police forces and rangers and fire officials and hospital boards and-"
"I get the idea," Sydney cut her off. He sat down in his chair behind the desk and hit the space bar, turning off the screen saver as Jarod's smiling face reappeared.
Miss Parker stood and started from the room, her heals clicking loudly on the tiled floor.
"If you come up with something that doesn't involve me talking to my father, give me a call."
She left the room and headed for the staff lounge and her favorite vending machine. She needed a cigarette in the worst way.
Sydney stared at the picture of Jarod with the dog and shook his head.
"What have I done to you?"
* * * *
Isolation room, Sublevel 26
Jarod smiled as he laid back on his new bed. Alone at last. What a relief. He hoped his final, desperate plea for help hadn't been too much. He hadn't planned on saying anything when the guards took him away, but when he had caught sight of Sydney looking so miserable he couldn't resist.
Poor Syd. He was probably thought Jarod was bouncing off the walls by now. It was true that the last time he was here he had been on the verge of losing his mind when they finally let him out, but he was only a boy then. He was unprepared and his skills were not sharpened to a fine edge like they were now. And there was that little problem of being afraid of the dark.
Of course, once exposed to something new, a Pretender never forgets. That's why Jarod found it amusing that they thought they could punish him again by locking him away. This was no longer virgin territory. Jarod knew what to expect and was actually enjoying being on his own again after six weeks of constant attention up above. He rolled over in bed and grimaced at the pain in his abdomen. Sam packed quite a punch. Jarod would remember that too.
* * * *
Four days later Jarod was laying on his back, pretending he was an astronaut lost in space when the lights came on. He covered his eyes with his arm and let them gradually adjust to the fluorescent light. A moment later the door cracked open and Sam looked in. Jarod briefly thought it might be fun one day to be standing there when it opened and scare the hell out of Sam, but that's as far as the thought got. He wasn't up to plotting further.
Sam placed a tray with soup and salad on the table and stepped back, waiting for Jarod to eat so he could get back to the upper levels. He didn't like it down here at all.
Jarod rolled slowly off the bed and wandered over to the table where he poked at his food for a minute before a wave of nausea made him push the tray away.
"Take this back out with you. I don't want it," Jarod told Sam softly.
This was now the fourth meal Jarod was going to skip. Since Sam's orders didn't include starving anyone to death he risked speaking to his prisoner.
"Something wrong with your food?"
"No. I don't feel well. I can't eat." Jarod looked at Sam thoughtfully. "Maybe I need a doctor."
Sam laughed, but there was no humor in it. He was getting tired of games. He had just spent four hours trying to convince payroll that Jarod was behind his sudden wealth. Not that fifty thousand dollars wouldn't come in handy but it would be hard for a corpse to spend.
"Maybe you need to stop thinking I'm an idiot. You're not getting out of here by pretending to be sick. Didn't you learn that as a kid? It never works."
"I never pretended to be sick as a kid because I never got to be a kid," Jarod snarled irritably as he headed for the bathroom.
Sam watched him warily, one hand on gun at his waist, waiting for any sudden moves. When Jarod started complaining about a gnawing pain a few days after he was brought down here, Sam had attributed it to the blows to the stomach that he himself had administered. After being made to look like a fool in front of Raines, Sam had hit Jarod harder than he had ever hit anyone before. There was bound to be some tenderness for a few days at least, but this was going on too long. One thing was for sure, he wasn't falling for another one of Jarod's tricks.
When Jarod slammed the bathroom door Sam picked up the tray and left the room. The door clicked shut behind him and he inserted the key that would turn the lights off again. He hesitated, thinking for a moment that he would leave them on for a while, then changed his mind. With his luck, this would be the day Mr. Raines decided to stroll down here.
* * * *
Mr. Parker looked around furtively as he slipped into the kitchen where the residents' dinner was being prepared. The cook, who was becoming used to her Boss's daily visits, looked up from chopping vegetables and smiled.
"Looking for another recipe?" She asked, her thick, German accent echoing around the large room.
Mr. Parker answered warmly.
"I've tried all of them so far Mrs. Luger. None come out as good as yours. I just stopped by to say hello."
"Ah, good. I like the company," she admitted happily. She dumped a sack of red potatoes into the sink to wash and tossed the sack in the trash.
"Can I help you with anything? Maybe I can stir the soup for you," he offered, picking up the ladle.
Mrs. Luger laughed heartily. "I never see a man so interested in soup before. Always with you its the soup."
Parker smiled as he began stirring. "Well, I just can't explain it. Really, I can't."
"Well, you go and stir. I go get more vegetables and I be back."
Mr. Parker watched her trudge over to the walk-in pantry and disappear inside.
Quickly, he pulled a small envelope from his pocket and emptied the contents into the soup. When Mrs. Luger came back a minute later the gray powder was dissolved and the envelop was back in Mr. Parker's jacket. He was stirring the soup as if nothing had happened.
* * * *
Jarod sat on the floor in the far corner of the dark room, knees bent and pulled to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. The room was silent except for an occasional groan of pain as he tried for a more comfortable position.
It had been nine days since he had been dumped here and the novelty was wearing off. He didn't mind the boredom, he could run any number of simulations in his head to take care of that. He did however miss talking to people and being outside. Worst of all, he felt like crap.
Jarod shifted again and gingerly stretched his legs out in front of him, leaning back against the wall. A moment later he heard the key turn in the lock and closed his eyes as the light came on and his pupils fought to adjust to the new brightness. The door opened quickly and Broots came in, carrying dinner and a notebook.
He looked at Jarod sitting on the floor in the corner and then at the bed a few feet away.
"Camping out?" Broots asked as he put the tray on the table and walked over to stand in front of Jarod.
Jarod squinted, waiting another few seconds for his eyes to adjust and then looked up and gave Broots a grim smile.
"Stuck again? I thought you'd have all those files put back together by now."
Broots looked around to make sure the door had closed behind him. He didn't want this to turn into a suicide mission.
"I do," he whispered, squatting down in front of Jarod, " but I thought you could use a visitor so I dumped last years tax records. I told Mr. Raines that I needed a password from you to retrieve the file."
Jarod's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You lied to Raines? I'm impressed."
"Yeah, well.......I'm not going to make it a habit. I like being alive." He looked over to the table and back at Jarod.
"Are you getting up or should I put your dinner on the floor?"
Jarod thought it over for a moment. He had been carefully drinking small amounts of water all morning and although he was hungry, he wasn't sure how his stomach was going to react.
"Give me a hand?" he asked, extending his arm toward Broots who immediately took hold of it and stood.
Jarod supported his midsection with his right arm as he carefully, painfully pulled himself up.
Broots looked at him incredulously.
"Are you still sore from Sam hitting you?"
"No, " Jarod mumbled, wishing he had stayed on the floor. "I just don't feel well."
"Have you told the guards?" Broots asked as he pulled the metal chair out from the table and waited while Jarod eased himself into it.
"I told Sam but he didn't believe me. He thinks I'm running a simulation on him...pretending to be sick so I can get out of here."
"Are you? Pretending, I mean?" Broots wondered aloud as he pushed the tray of food in front of Jarod.
"No. I don't know what's wrong," Jarod replied, pushing the tray to the other side of the table.
"You've been a doctor, can't you tell what's wrong with yourself?"
The tray came back at Jarod who stared at it dejectedly.
"I'm not really a doctor. I know only what I've read and I didn't read anything that sounds like what I have. It's probably the flu. I hear it makes you feel horrible."
"You're telling me you've never had the flu?" Broots asked, wishing he could say the same thing. The last time he had the flu Miss Parker made him come to work anyway. When she went to lunch he had gone into her office and breathed on everything hoping to pass it along.
"Not that I remember. Sick people aren't allowed around little Pretenders that have work to do."
"So, uh, why were you sitting on the floor?"
"Every time I sit on the bed I fall asleep. Too much sleep dulls the brain."
"Not enough keeps you sick," Broots reasoned, sticking a spoon into Jarod's hand.
"Well, you might have a point there" Jarod conceded. " I don't have any experience at this. You'd better go, and for your own safety, I don't think you should come back. I don't think even Sydney knows that we're friends."
"I can guarantee that," Broots laughed knowingly. "When you disappeared he had me read your bio. I almost pointed out an error on your computer skills."
Broots looked down at the floor and nervously fiddled with his watchband.
"Look, Jarod. I'm sorry about blocking you from that keyboard. I have to -"
"Think about your daughter," Jarod cut him off, dropping the spoon onto the tray and pushing it away for what he hoped to be the last time.
"I know. It's fine. I'm sure we can find some way to blame this whole mess on Sam."
Broots smiled and handed Jarod the notebook and pencil he had with him.
"Here, I almost forgot. I came for a password. If anyone asks, I want it in your writing."
Jarod took the offering and stared at the blank paper for a moment.
"Does Sydney still spend a lot of time in the lab when your working?" He asked thoughtfully as he tapped the pencil on the table.
"Yeah, he's still cataloguing all your red notebooks. Why?" Broots questioned suspiciously.
"No reason." Jarod wrote a fictitious password on the paper and handed back the pad and pencil.
"I'd better go," Broots announced as he removed the bowl and spoon from the tray and set them squarely in front of Jarod. He went to the door and raised a fist to knock, then turned back toward his friend.
"I hope you know what you're doing."
"Don't worry, I'm fine," Jarod assured his friend, hoping it was true.
Broots knocked on the door and it was opened immediately. He hurried past the guard, a plan already forming in his head.
Jarod sat and slowly swirled the spoon around in his soup, watching the vegetables pop to the surface and then quickly sink. The aroma lured him into trying a small amount of broth and after the first mouthful went down fine he waited to see if it would stay there. After a few tense moments he was satisfied he was making progress and continued to eat, even trying a few veggies. He was on his fourth spoonful when his stomach cramped, doubling him over.
He barely made it to the bathroom before the lights went out again and dinner made a return appearance.
* * * *
Broots sat at his computer working on bank records for every person in the US that had the first or last name of Jarod. The Centre was still very interested in what was left of the $500,000 that Jarod had commissioned from their Wall Street deal last year and that was one piece of information Jarod would never part with. Broots suspected Jarod had given most of it away, but looking for it kept him from being reassigned to another case.
He had just cleared the state of Colorado when Sydney wandered in.
"I hear you had to get some information from Jarod yesterday. Did you speak to him?"
Broots swallowed hard and looked away, suddenly very interested in a scratch on his desk.
"I had to ask a question, get a password, but he wrote it down and I left. I didn't talk to him, he didn't talk to me."
Sydney shook his head in amazement. He had never seen anyone so transparent. That was probably why the Centre had hired Broots. They didn't like deception that wasn't their own.
"I hope you can be more believable if Raines asks you that question. If you act any more guilty he's going to think you were in there planning an escape."
Broots looked around before grudgingly admitting was lying.
"Well, maybe I stayed a minute. I just helped him to the table and made sure he was going to try and eat before I left."
"Why would he need help to the table?" Sydney asked, worry clear on his face.
"Oh, haven't you heard," asked Broots casually, dying to get the information out. He turned back to his computer and pulled up the banking records for Connecticut.
"Heard what?" Sydney asked, irritation edging his voice. He was getting too old to play cloak and dagger with the underlings.
Broots looked around carefully and Sydney caught himself doing the same thing.
"He's sick," Broots whispered conspiratorially. "Really, sick. He told Sam but Sam doesn't believe him. He thinks Jarod is pretending."
"What do you think?" Sydney whispered back, wondering himself if Jarod was up to something.
Broots appeared to be deep in thought before he replied.
"I'd say yes, he is sick. I grabbed his arm to help him up and I could feel the heat coming off of him. I didn't even think he could hold the pencil to give me this password."
Sydney glanced down at the pad of paper Broots had gestured toward and felt a shock ripple through him The word Jarod had carefully printed was clearly meant for Sydney.
Refuge.
