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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Miss Parker stared out the windshield, keeping both eyes on the road ahead. She and Jarod had been driving down this stretching interstate for atleast an hour. She didn't really know where she was going. Soon, Jarod would have to take the reins. God, how she hated saying that. She had always known that eventually she would have to admit that she needed help. His help.
Miss Parker glanced over at Jarod. Both eyes were closed, but she knew he wasn't sleeping, but simming in his mind. Hopefully, he was formulating a plan to save their sorry lives before they got there.
Up ahead, she saw an intersection. It was the middle of the day, yet they hadn't seen one car the entire time they had been out. Slowly, she pressed the brake down until they were stopping. She hated to disturb Jarod while he meditated or whatever the Hell he was doing, but she had no idea if she was heading to Blue Cove or Timbuktu. Patiently, she eyed him until he realized that they had stopped.
"Is something wrong with the car?" Jarod asked, confused.
"Yeah, it doesn't know where we're going either," she replied, voice oozing in sarcasm.
"Did you know that one day they plan to create cars that actually do know where they're going?" He asked this in all serious and Miss Parker simply stared at him, "Oh, sorry. Well, we're going to Blue Cove, Parker. I thought you could infer that much."
"You mean to tell me that we're just going to march through the front doors and demand your sister before parading away to Never Never Land?" Her brows arched vividly exhasperated.
"Never a never land?" Jarod was utterly mystsified.
"Never mind!" She groaned and floored the pedal, tires screaching as they whipped around the curve.
"I will think of something, Parker. Just get us there. Okay?" Jarod's voice was much more considerate this time. She took note of that.
"Fine."
"Oh, and Parker?"
"What?"
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "Could you slow down just a tad? We need not double the speed limit."
Miss Parker glared at him, "Would you like to drive?"
"No, thank-you. I should figure out how to retrieve Emily."
She rolled her eyes and kept driving.
Fast.
*****
"Hello, Emily," Lyle's voice spilled out like oil, engulfing everything in its path.
"Leave me alone," Emily ejected from her spot on the floor.
Lyle sank to her level and leaned in on his haunches.
He grasped her chin roughly, forcing her to make eye contact, "Don't you want to hear the news I've got for you?"
The red head kept eye contact, but remained silent.
"I'll take that as a yes. Well, it seems that we recently had a late night visitor. Someone who will be staying with us forever," he stood and clasped his hands behind his back, grinning, "still no reaction? I believe the two of you have met. Hmm. Does the name 'Jarod' ring a bell with you."
He grinned evily, that got the reaction he wanted. Her eyes were wide and her mouth parted. It seemed all hope was erased from her young face. Tormenting naive prisoners- patients like Emily made his sick little day.
"Ahh yes. He certainly remembered you, even when we told him that re-education would begin in 24 hours. We told him how much you loathed him for putting you in this situation and we definitly-"
Emily gasped, "You bastard!" She shrieked mercilessly as she shot from the ground like a charged rocket. Bounding off the ground like a frantic cat, she threw herself on top of the shocked man. Fists pounding, she kicked and grunted until he was bloody and bruised. Realizing he had bullet wounds being reopened, she started clawing at those, too.
Suddenly, Emily felt the blow of a buff man whom she assumed had to be a sweeper. They carried the weak Mr Lyle out of her cell and she screamed out loudly for him to hear, "You'll never win, Lyle!"
*****
Wrapping up the finishing touches on the beautiful blonde maze, Debbie smiled at her accomplishment.
"Finished!" She clapped her hands together and picked up the hand-held mirror she had found in the bathroom, "Come on. You can see your hair in here." The little girl led Molly into the bathroom and while she stood facing the mirror, Debbie aligned the smaller one that she posessed so that she could see the criss-cross paterns she had created.
Molly gasped and smiled, "Debbie, its beautiful," she gently patted it as if to make sure it was really hers.
"Yeah, with your long hair, it was really fun to do," she replied excitedly.
"Who on earth taught you how to do something so magnificent? It couldn't have been your father."
Debbie giggled, "Not hardly. It was Miss Parker."
"Miss Parker?"
"Mm hmm. She said her mother taught her how to do it a long long time ago."
"Oh, she just um you know, doesn't exactly seem like the kind of person-"
"Miss Parker doesn't seem like a lot of things she really is. I don't know why she tries to hide it. She doesn't around me."
"Yes. One day she won't though." Molly started to gently massage her temple.
"Are you okay?" Debbie asked innocently.
"Oh," Molly halted her movements when she realized what she was doing, "yes, just a- headache."
Debbie nodded and stared at the woman as she continued to rub her head. The bathroom was a little suffocating, so she headed out to the living room where her father and Sydney were conversing.
"Where are Miss Parker and Jarod?" she asked.
"B- uh they um they had to go," Broots informed her generically.
"Where?" She looked from one face to the other and back again.
Sydney cleared his throat, "They had a pressing engagement and will be returning shortly."
"Umm okay. Daddy, how much longer are we going to be here?"
"Actually, we were just discussing that. Right, Syd?" Broots looked affirmedly at the elder man lying on the worn couch who gently nodded beneath the quilt he was enveloped in. "Anyway, we think it would be a good idea if the two of us went home. What do you say, Sweetie?"
"Why just us? I thought The Centre would be angry with you. You could lose your job, Daddy!" she protested.
A lot more than a job, Broots thought to himself. He began again, contradicting her, "Honey, I won't lose my job. We decided that it would actually be safer- more beneficial if we went home since they have no idea we are even involved. They'll assume that we just hid in order to deny interrogation."
"Are you sure?" she questioned, worry evident in her young eyes.
Broots sighed, "You're too smart for your own good, Deb. Yes, I'm sure."
"Don't we need to help Miss Parker and the others though?"
Sydney watched the exchange, admiring the way father and daughter consoled and proteced eachother without thinking. The one time that Broots actually seemed at ease was with his little girl.
"That's another pro, we can help them from inside The Centre. Why don't you go pack some of your stuff up," he comforted his daughter with a gentle hand, rubbing her shoulder compassionately.
"All right," she shrugged her shoulders before heading down the hall.
"I feel bad about having to lie to her like that, Syd."
"You didn't really lie."
"All right, stretched the truth."
Sydney was about to begin the next sentence, but stopped himself. He realized that throughout the thirty-some years he had been "caring" for Jarod, he had told himself the exact same thing he was advising Broots to do. He had simply been "stretching the truth" he had told himself, never lying. The guilt enveloped him and this didn't get past Broots who never ceased to notice things that most people would assume the skittish man would brush off.
"Syd, you okay?"
"Fine, Broots. You do what you feel is right with Debbie. I personally do think it would be safer if the two of you went back."
"Yeah, me too. All right, thanks Syd. We'll leave in 24 hours."
"Hmm," Sydney nodded.
Two more innocent lives corrupted by The Centre.
*****
Cox looked around him, completely frustrated. He had been in here for two hours and yet nobody seemed to have noticed. Stuck, he was stuck. Almost at level 24, he groaned. This was just what he needed. He knew this had been intentional, but who would have done it? Perplexed, he sank back into a corner and waited. Waited. Waited.
*****
"We're here," Miss Parker announced as the dark van pulled up on the road leading toward The Centre. She could see the powerful stance of the mighty walls looming over all in its presence, and yet they wern't even down the road yet, "Figured out how to make Emily appear before us, yet?"
Jarod opened his eyes and looked around cautiously. Parker could see his hands trembling, not intensively, but still trembling while his eyes darted from one window to the next.
Always looking over his shoulder.
"Here already? I told you to slow down," he muttered.
"Yeah I did and I would have been here two hours ago if I hadn't. Wait a minute. Jarod, are you telling me that you do not have a plan to get Emily out?"
"Well, I have a vague idea. Where did you put my laptop?"
She pointed to the back seat, "I can't belive you have spent hours contemplating an escape route and yet here we are at The Centre's door, ready to take the thousands of operative's by gunpoint!"
"That would not be a good idea. The only reason I didn't have a plan was because I'm not certain of anything. None of the variables at all. The only thing I know is that Emily is here and she's on sub level twenty-six and I can assume that she will be heavily guarded, both physically and electronically. What do you expect me to do with that scenario?"
"You're the genius! You figure it out!" she retaliated.
"I'm sorry, Parker. Now is not the time to be arguing," he apoligized, eyes scanning the screen of his computer rapidly.
Miss Parker sighed heavily, "What are you doing?"
"Looping the camera in her room."
"How long can you keep it up?"
"Well, I'm thinking no more than approximately 24 minutes. I think you should start driving again. Go to the back around in the yards, but not in the same place as Broots was last time."
She put the car into gear and slowly drove around to the back of The Centre where the ocean was clearly visible, "Jarod, isn't it a little risky to be doing this in broad daylight?"
"That's just another part of the plan. It'll be the last thing they expect and security will be minimized during the day."
"Its 1:30. It couldn't be more day."
"1:30? Good! That means some securtiy guards will be on lunch break."
"Oh goody! This day does just keep getting better and better!"
"Doesn't it though?" Jarod added with his trademark grin, "Oh my God."
"What?" her voice was full of uncharacteristic concern.
"Its her. She's there. I mean- I see her. Emily. She looks so sad. She's crying, Parker! My sister is crying! Its all my fault."
"Oh please, save the pout party! I'm sorry Jarod, but every time a star dies out, its not your fault. Is this a newsflash to you?" Parker's eyes were sympathetic and irate at the same time, something only she could manage.
"I know. Camera's taken care of. I'll be back," he said, quickly changing the subject, before stepping out of the passenger's side door.
Outraged, Miss Parker threw open the door like a gale in Kansas and spun him around by the lapels of his leather jacket, "I'm no sidekick, chauffering you around! I'm here to help you get Emily out of this snake pit! I'll be damned if I'm going to wait around for you and have you never come back!"
"But what if they see the car?" Jarod protested calmly.
"Then they would have seen it with me in it as well. I'm coming, with or without your consent."
"So I figured. Come on. We don't have much time. 24 minutes."
Parker adjusted her lips to the plastic smile he was familiar with, "And in 24 minutes, we will be back here. With Emily."
She let go of him, and smoothed his jacket primly before stocking her gun with plenty of ammunition for war. That's exactly what this had turned into, war. Flipping her dark hair over her shoulder, she stalked towards the building in her knee-high leather boots, a trailing, midnight leather coat hanging below her knees. Jarod smiled slowly before following his huntress eagerly.
Miss Parker glanced over at Jarod. Both eyes were closed, but she knew he wasn't sleeping, but simming in his mind. Hopefully, he was formulating a plan to save their sorry lives before they got there.
Up ahead, she saw an intersection. It was the middle of the day, yet they hadn't seen one car the entire time they had been out. Slowly, she pressed the brake down until they were stopping. She hated to disturb Jarod while he meditated or whatever the Hell he was doing, but she had no idea if she was heading to Blue Cove or Timbuktu. Patiently, she eyed him until he realized that they had stopped.
"Is something wrong with the car?" Jarod asked, confused.
"Yeah, it doesn't know where we're going either," she replied, voice oozing in sarcasm.
"Did you know that one day they plan to create cars that actually do know where they're going?" He asked this in all serious and Miss Parker simply stared at him, "Oh, sorry. Well, we're going to Blue Cove, Parker. I thought you could infer that much."
"You mean to tell me that we're just going to march through the front doors and demand your sister before parading away to Never Never Land?" Her brows arched vividly exhasperated.
"Never a never land?" Jarod was utterly mystsified.
"Never mind!" She groaned and floored the pedal, tires screaching as they whipped around the curve.
"I will think of something, Parker. Just get us there. Okay?" Jarod's voice was much more considerate this time. She took note of that.
"Fine."
"Oh, and Parker?"
"What?"
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "Could you slow down just a tad? We need not double the speed limit."
Miss Parker glared at him, "Would you like to drive?"
"No, thank-you. I should figure out how to retrieve Emily."
She rolled her eyes and kept driving.
Fast.
*****
"Hello, Emily," Lyle's voice spilled out like oil, engulfing everything in its path.
"Leave me alone," Emily ejected from her spot on the floor.
Lyle sank to her level and leaned in on his haunches.
He grasped her chin roughly, forcing her to make eye contact, "Don't you want to hear the news I've got for you?"
The red head kept eye contact, but remained silent.
"I'll take that as a yes. Well, it seems that we recently had a late night visitor. Someone who will be staying with us forever," he stood and clasped his hands behind his back, grinning, "still no reaction? I believe the two of you have met. Hmm. Does the name 'Jarod' ring a bell with you."
He grinned evily, that got the reaction he wanted. Her eyes were wide and her mouth parted. It seemed all hope was erased from her young face. Tormenting naive prisoners- patients like Emily made his sick little day.
"Ahh yes. He certainly remembered you, even when we told him that re-education would begin in 24 hours. We told him how much you loathed him for putting you in this situation and we definitly-"
Emily gasped, "You bastard!" She shrieked mercilessly as she shot from the ground like a charged rocket. Bounding off the ground like a frantic cat, she threw herself on top of the shocked man. Fists pounding, she kicked and grunted until he was bloody and bruised. Realizing he had bullet wounds being reopened, she started clawing at those, too.
Suddenly, Emily felt the blow of a buff man whom she assumed had to be a sweeper. They carried the weak Mr Lyle out of her cell and she screamed out loudly for him to hear, "You'll never win, Lyle!"
*****
Wrapping up the finishing touches on the beautiful blonde maze, Debbie smiled at her accomplishment.
"Finished!" She clapped her hands together and picked up the hand-held mirror she had found in the bathroom, "Come on. You can see your hair in here." The little girl led Molly into the bathroom and while she stood facing the mirror, Debbie aligned the smaller one that she posessed so that she could see the criss-cross paterns she had created.
Molly gasped and smiled, "Debbie, its beautiful," she gently patted it as if to make sure it was really hers.
"Yeah, with your long hair, it was really fun to do," she replied excitedly.
"Who on earth taught you how to do something so magnificent? It couldn't have been your father."
Debbie giggled, "Not hardly. It was Miss Parker."
"Miss Parker?"
"Mm hmm. She said her mother taught her how to do it a long long time ago."
"Oh, she just um you know, doesn't exactly seem like the kind of person-"
"Miss Parker doesn't seem like a lot of things she really is. I don't know why she tries to hide it. She doesn't around me."
"Yes. One day she won't though." Molly started to gently massage her temple.
"Are you okay?" Debbie asked innocently.
"Oh," Molly halted her movements when she realized what she was doing, "yes, just a- headache."
Debbie nodded and stared at the woman as she continued to rub her head. The bathroom was a little suffocating, so she headed out to the living room where her father and Sydney were conversing.
"Where are Miss Parker and Jarod?" she asked.
"B- uh they um they had to go," Broots informed her generically.
"Where?" She looked from one face to the other and back again.
Sydney cleared his throat, "They had a pressing engagement and will be returning shortly."
"Umm okay. Daddy, how much longer are we going to be here?"
"Actually, we were just discussing that. Right, Syd?" Broots looked affirmedly at the elder man lying on the worn couch who gently nodded beneath the quilt he was enveloped in. "Anyway, we think it would be a good idea if the two of us went home. What do you say, Sweetie?"
"Why just us? I thought The Centre would be angry with you. You could lose your job, Daddy!" she protested.
A lot more than a job, Broots thought to himself. He began again, contradicting her, "Honey, I won't lose my job. We decided that it would actually be safer- more beneficial if we went home since they have no idea we are even involved. They'll assume that we just hid in order to deny interrogation."
"Are you sure?" she questioned, worry evident in her young eyes.
Broots sighed, "You're too smart for your own good, Deb. Yes, I'm sure."
"Don't we need to help Miss Parker and the others though?"
Sydney watched the exchange, admiring the way father and daughter consoled and proteced eachother without thinking. The one time that Broots actually seemed at ease was with his little girl.
"That's another pro, we can help them from inside The Centre. Why don't you go pack some of your stuff up," he comforted his daughter with a gentle hand, rubbing her shoulder compassionately.
"All right," she shrugged her shoulders before heading down the hall.
"I feel bad about having to lie to her like that, Syd."
"You didn't really lie."
"All right, stretched the truth."
Sydney was about to begin the next sentence, but stopped himself. He realized that throughout the thirty-some years he had been "caring" for Jarod, he had told himself the exact same thing he was advising Broots to do. He had simply been "stretching the truth" he had told himself, never lying. The guilt enveloped him and this didn't get past Broots who never ceased to notice things that most people would assume the skittish man would brush off.
"Syd, you okay?"
"Fine, Broots. You do what you feel is right with Debbie. I personally do think it would be safer if the two of you went back."
"Yeah, me too. All right, thanks Syd. We'll leave in 24 hours."
"Hmm," Sydney nodded.
Two more innocent lives corrupted by The Centre.
*****
Cox looked around him, completely frustrated. He had been in here for two hours and yet nobody seemed to have noticed. Stuck, he was stuck. Almost at level 24, he groaned. This was just what he needed. He knew this had been intentional, but who would have done it? Perplexed, he sank back into a corner and waited. Waited. Waited.
*****
"We're here," Miss Parker announced as the dark van pulled up on the road leading toward The Centre. She could see the powerful stance of the mighty walls looming over all in its presence, and yet they wern't even down the road yet, "Figured out how to make Emily appear before us, yet?"
Jarod opened his eyes and looked around cautiously. Parker could see his hands trembling, not intensively, but still trembling while his eyes darted from one window to the next.
Always looking over his shoulder.
"Here already? I told you to slow down," he muttered.
"Yeah I did and I would have been here two hours ago if I hadn't. Wait a minute. Jarod, are you telling me that you do not have a plan to get Emily out?"
"Well, I have a vague idea. Where did you put my laptop?"
She pointed to the back seat, "I can't belive you have spent hours contemplating an escape route and yet here we are at The Centre's door, ready to take the thousands of operative's by gunpoint!"
"That would not be a good idea. The only reason I didn't have a plan was because I'm not certain of anything. None of the variables at all. The only thing I know is that Emily is here and she's on sub level twenty-six and I can assume that she will be heavily guarded, both physically and electronically. What do you expect me to do with that scenario?"
"You're the genius! You figure it out!" she retaliated.
"I'm sorry, Parker. Now is not the time to be arguing," he apoligized, eyes scanning the screen of his computer rapidly.
Miss Parker sighed heavily, "What are you doing?"
"Looping the camera in her room."
"How long can you keep it up?"
"Well, I'm thinking no more than approximately 24 minutes. I think you should start driving again. Go to the back around in the yards, but not in the same place as Broots was last time."
She put the car into gear and slowly drove around to the back of The Centre where the ocean was clearly visible, "Jarod, isn't it a little risky to be doing this in broad daylight?"
"That's just another part of the plan. It'll be the last thing they expect and security will be minimized during the day."
"Its 1:30. It couldn't be more day."
"1:30? Good! That means some securtiy guards will be on lunch break."
"Oh goody! This day does just keep getting better and better!"
"Doesn't it though?" Jarod added with his trademark grin, "Oh my God."
"What?" her voice was full of uncharacteristic concern.
"Its her. She's there. I mean- I see her. Emily. She looks so sad. She's crying, Parker! My sister is crying! Its all my fault."
"Oh please, save the pout party! I'm sorry Jarod, but every time a star dies out, its not your fault. Is this a newsflash to you?" Parker's eyes were sympathetic and irate at the same time, something only she could manage.
"I know. Camera's taken care of. I'll be back," he said, quickly changing the subject, before stepping out of the passenger's side door.
Outraged, Miss Parker threw open the door like a gale in Kansas and spun him around by the lapels of his leather jacket, "I'm no sidekick, chauffering you around! I'm here to help you get Emily out of this snake pit! I'll be damned if I'm going to wait around for you and have you never come back!"
"But what if they see the car?" Jarod protested calmly.
"Then they would have seen it with me in it as well. I'm coming, with or without your consent."
"So I figured. Come on. We don't have much time. 24 minutes."
Parker adjusted her lips to the plastic smile he was familiar with, "And in 24 minutes, we will be back here. With Emily."
She let go of him, and smoothed his jacket primly before stocking her gun with plenty of ammunition for war. That's exactly what this had turned into, war. Flipping her dark hair over her shoulder, she stalked towards the building in her knee-high leather boots, a trailing, midnight leather coat hanging below her knees. Jarod smiled slowly before following his huntress eagerly.
