A Pretender Story
part IV
by Evanescent

Annie’s B & B Hotel
Madison, Wisconsin
900 Hours

"Hold on a minute Jarod, let me just check my mail first" Major Charles chuckled. (We see the cursor moving to the mailbox and clicked on it).

Major Charles opened the file and was surprised by the picture of Jarod shown at the front.  "Come on Dad!" Young Jarod cried, he walked over to where Major was sitting was as shocked as Major when they both saw the picture.

No one said a word as Major and young Jarod absorbed the 100 page information in the matter of seconds.  "Oh my God," Major whispered as he covered his head with his hands, "My boy, my poor boy,"

Young Jarod thought quietly, "Maybe if you bring me back to the Centre, they’ll let my brother go—"

"NO! Jarod, I am not going to allow you to go back into the Centre—"

"But my brother’s in there!  And he’s your son, we could not let him die in there—"

"He’s not going to die, just wait a second—"

"Yes, he will, the Jarod we both know will die if we don’t help him," Young Jarod’s eyes glistened with unshed tears.

Sighing, "I said wait a second Jarod, it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to rescue him but I can’t let you go back,"

"If you were Jarod, what will you do?" Young Jarod asked, Major Charles remained silent, he was stunned by his son’s question. "I know what he’ll do, he will try his best to get us to safety even if it meant sacrificing his own life but I’m not Jarod, I’m Jarod’s brother.  When you told me how Jarod was willing to give up anything to save his brother, I understood because I was him, and now I want to do the same because--" A tear rolled down to Major’s cheek, "He’s my brother, and I can’t let him die."  He stood quietly for a while; "Do you understand what I’m trying to say?" He asked.

"Yeah son, I do.  In other words, you’re coming with me whether I like it or not right?" Major asked with a half-grin.

"Yeah."

"Then get your things Jarod, we’re going back to the Centre."

****
 

SL-30
1200 Hours

"Is he ready yet?" Mr. Raines asked.

"The subject seem to be fighting the treatment Mr. Raines.  He refused to give up, no matter how many doses of the treatment we gave him, he always fights it off but he’s growing weaker so it’ll be another 12 hours before we know for sure if the treatment really works," Dr. Kosin replied.

"I’ll be back in 2400 hours."

"Yes Mr. Raines."

The doctor looked back at the sleeping man on the table, he heard of him, in fact, more than once, the one and only Jarod, the hero of mankind, the savior of the weak, and, he thought with a laugh, Onyssius, God of retribution.   He walked over to the table where Mr. Raines given him a box of Jarod’s things, things he had to go through before Jarod wakes up.  He took out a videotape from the box, walk over to the VCR that’s next to bed where Jarod was being kept and pop it in.  He sat down on a chair, turned on the TV and hit the play button. As he watched, he slowly began to understood why so many people would die for him, he had innocence and mischief of a child, filled with wonder and mystery and above all, a compassion that was beyond compared.  Not only that, he has an off the scale IQ and a face that any women would fall for. He played the whole tape, and especially like the part where Jarod was waving to the camera when he was pretending to be a firemen, it was like he was a child again, free of worry and danger, just free.

 Shaking his head to clear any emotional thoughts out of his head, he got up and walked toward the box again, this time picking up a red book from the box. He flipped through the pages, realizing every one of those pages was covered in newspaper articles, he glanced over at Jarod, who still remained motionless and was shocked, these were all the cases he solved, cases that would’ve remained unsolved if Jarod hadn’t done something about it.

Realizing that he need to remain objective, to not develop any emotional connection with this man, he decided to listen to some of Jarod’s phone conversations with Sydney, he pick up a tape player and press the play button, (Tape recorder playing)

"I….never pulled the…..trigger before," Jarod said brokenly,

"You saved countless number of lives! And untold number of people!" Sydney replied,

"Just feel so…….empty," Jarod said, his voice filled with pain and anguish.

Quickly shutting the tape recorder off, Dr. Kosin began to pace, unable to think, only to feel.  Admiration, fondness, hate, sorrow flooded into him in a wave of emotions, I can’t do this he thought to himself, but when he heard a groan coming from Jarod, he knew that Jarod will soon lose the battle and the Jarod everyone knew and loved will be gone forever.  The surveillance cameras he thought, he acted quickly, positioning himself between the camera and Jarod, he cautiously grabbed the IV bag and formed a needle-size hole in it with his ballpoint pen.  Then he pretended he was going to check Jarod’s analysis and walked over to the end of the bed and waited.  Soon the hole got bigger, he swore, pretending to not know what’s going on and get a new bag, this time it was only filled with substances that will not harm Jarod, just nutrients for his body.

He walked back to the box, is it going to work? He thought, Jarod already consumed about 90% of the treatment already, he may not even remember anyone when he wakes up.  Hopefully, he thought, when he wakes up, there are still 10% of him that would still be Jarod because the Alternation will fail if, and only if the subject wants it to fail.  And if Jarod only has 10% of what he was before, he still got a chance to regain what he had lost…that is, if he still wants to after the Alternation.
 
 
 

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