Jarod crossed a city street, hearing alarms go off. Someone broke into a building. As nice as it would be to help out, there were another hundred going off somewhere else too. The city he was in had been like other cities he’d traveled to.

Panicked. Confused. Crime and murder sky-high due to the paranoia of not understanding what was coming. While the sun wasn’t burning some shade of red, everyone seemed to get the hint that something was coming.

People were looting each other, shooting each other and-

“Hey, you! Put your hands up! I mean it, man, put them up!” A weak, maybe twenty five year old who barely had stubble pointed a gun at him.

At other times, Jarod would have taken the gun away and dealt with him. This man clearly didn’t know what he was doing though, and it was obvious from his clothes he didn’t belong behind a gun. “You don’t want to shoot me.” He would try a gentle approach.

“I will if I have to!” The man demanded. “Empty out your wallet!”

Jarod didn’t move. “You really don’t want to do this, you’re choosing the wrong way to go.” He stared at him. “Tell me why you want that money and maybe I’ll give some to you.” It was risky. Anyone overhearing might come at him, but he handled worse.

“Few bucks,” he muttered, “just to get back to normal again. My wife went nuts, and she s-she, opened the door and ran into traffic. Just. Ran into traffic. Car was totaled. I went home to my kid and he was just glancing all around the house like some kind of bird.” He looked to Jarod. “Few bucks so I can feed him the birdseed he needs. Food he needs. Bird.” He looked at his gun and then pointed it at Jarod again. “Hand over your wallet!”

Jarod pulled a five out of his pocket. All he asked for earlier was a few, so hopefully he’d take it and run. He watched him pick at the five and run. I don’t know if he lost his wife and kid, or a bird flew out and another demanded food. It was hard to tell, but he couldn’t risk not helping and it being the first. After all?

He lost Parker.

“Jarod, over here!”

Jarod glanced at the direction of an old friend. One of his first pretends, an Elvis Impersonator. With the atmosphere of the city, he wasn’t wearing his costume at all. Jarod moved over toward him quickly and gave him what he needed. “Hit the most popular tables and some dice,” he said as he gave him the substance. “I know there aren’t as many, but money is still tempting, and people still risk everything to play those tables.”

“Got it.” He smiled and pocketed it. “Be careful, it’s rough out there. Loonies left and right. I wouldn’t be caught dead out here right now if it weren’t for you.”

“I know,” Jarod said. “Take care of it. I got to go, I have more people to meet.”

“You sure we can really cover this in time, Jarod?” his friend asked him. “Oh, and uh? The next person on this list, I hand it off to him? Who does he hand it off to?”

“He already knows, everyone knows,” Jarod said. “This is almost over. I can’t thank you enough.”

“If it stops the loonies, then it’s worth it,” he remarked. “Sorry about your bad luck though. They’ll get what’s coming to them.”

“It . . . had to happen,” Jarod said softly. “No one was to blame.” Parker. Onyssius. Little Angel. All of them. One day he had the entire world, and the next? Gone. Like so many other times in his life. They were taken away from him.

“Yeah but losing people you love. Especially a wife and child? Man, even the King don’t know nothing about how that feels,” he admitted. “I just know you must hurt.”

“Just do your part,” Jarod said not wanting to dwell anymore on it. “Thanks.” He started to head out. He was trying to spread his answer to what was happening out as fast as he could. He had to do something he never did before, nor wanted to, but he couldn’t do it alone.

Every single person he saved or helped that had known him, or could have known him, he called them up. He gave them proof of who he was, and asked them all for a big favor. They all found their way to help. Jarod couldn’t get to everyone individually, over the years, he’d helped way too many just to visit to get it out in time.

He would give his work to one of his friends, and they were then tasked to give it to another. He had friends all over America, which meant it was easier to get it out there. Over into other countries was more difficult, but some of his friends could be found out there too. It wouldn’t be spread half as well, but as long as it appeared in some shape or form, hopefully others would figure it out.

Then they could save themselves without his work. His Elvis impersonator friend was his last one to meet. Now he’d go and-

“Daddy, daddy!”

A business alarm was one thing, the sound of an innocent little girl’s voice was another. Jarod quickly ran and hunted down the voice as it continued to scream. The world really was going to hell if he didn’t stop this in time.

He jumped a fence and took down the man who had taken her. Crying and upset, he calmed her down as best he could. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. My name is Jarod. I took out the bad man so you would be okay.” He tried to speak down to her level. “Can you tell me where your daddy is?”

Jarod traced back the steps with her now in his arms. The little girl had long brunette hair. Stubby little fingers holding on. Four or five. She was bigger so her grip had been different than his children. He could imagine though, that if they had survived, one day he would have held them the same way. He could have even pictured their features. Smiling at him. Hearing and seeing their happy faces.

Sometimes, it was very hard to be a Pretender. Just the slightest stimuli to simulate. Sydney. If only he had his voice in his ear, helping him cope. Luckily, the sound of her yelling father was heard. Jarod called for him and handed her back over to him.

He looked at the pair. Frightened but so happy.

“Thank you so much!” He thanked Jarod. “I can’t believe someone tried to take my little girl away from me. This world is going to hell. Thank you!” He clung to her tightly. “Don’t worry, daddy’s here. No one’s ever going to take you again. I promise.”

Jarod watched him go as he just stood there. He blinked very slowly.

That man had better keep that promise to that little girl, and treasure her. Treasure her because she could be gone forever. So fast. Like everything else.

Africa

When Jarod knocked on his dad's secret hideout door, he was expecting a warm and welcoming hug.

"Jarod, you're back?" His dad smiled.

"Hi, dad." Well, his father was Major Charles. Maybe he just didn't feel like a hug? "Sorry I haven't been in contact. I'm here though. Can I come in?"

"Something wrong?" His dad asked as he went past him.

Something wrong? Did he really ask Jarod if something was wrong? Yeah. My family is dead. How could he be that cruel about it? "You know what's wrong. I'm not here about that. I need to know if you know what's been going on with the Triumvirate? I've been watching one of the headquarters. Everything stopped. The orders, the researchers, it's a ghost town."

His father just raised his eyebrow. "Of course, Jarod. You successfully stopped them all."

"What do you mean I successfully stopped them?" Jarod asked. What he had made didn’t kill anyone.

"The distraction," his father said. "Distraction?"

"What I used on Hades?"

"Cure? The cure to the virus?" Jarod's father wasn't making any sense. "You cured it, Jarod, with the Distraction. Airborne."

What? "Dad. I didn't use distraction, I worked against distraction and this is the first time I've contacted anyone since . . ." He went quiet. He hated thinking about it again. "I've been Pretending and using different skills to figure it out."

"Jarod? It had to be you," his father said. "Who else knows where Gemini and I hide? Who else knew where Sydney and Broots had stayed?"

Wait. "Dad, are you saying someone called as me for them too?" Sydney knew him all his life. It was doubtful they could trick him, but they did hire someone to replace Miss Parker once upon a time.

"Not called, Jarod, it was you." He gestured up toward him. "It was completely you. You were here, talking and standing right here." His dad looked at him oddly. "He knew things only you would know, Jarod. Are you serious, son? That you haven't been up here?"

"I haven't been here at all." Jarod looked out the corner of each of his eyes. Someone was masquerading as him. Someone who knew as much as him.

"Then you don't know they are alive?" He asked Jarod.

"Who?"

"Miss Parker and the twins. Jarod Angel took them and cured them. Raines had stand ins. Broots and Thomas Gates found out."

Alive? "I . . ." He'd been tricked so much in the past, it hurt to put his hopes up once again. "I don't know what to say."

"Didn't you want to know? Haven't you been trying to figure it out?" His dad asked. "Her just leaping off to the death with them?"

"It's Parker," Jarod said as if that should explain everything. “I couldn’t think. If there was anything, someone would find a way. I had, literally, the world on my shoulders, Sydney.” Oops! I didn’t just do that to dad. “I mean, Dad. I wanted to, but . . .”

“No one wants to put anyone before their wife and children,” his father said. “I know you had to. The whole world’s health was on the line. There was no time to investigate and find a cure just for them anyway.”

“I assumed too much.” Jarod had assumed Parker accepted that they wouldn’t pull through, and if Jarod was wasting time on curing them? He would lose time to help the world, still killing them. “I moved onto finding a cure. It didn’t mean I forgot about them,” Jarod said. “I just. Tried to go on, like I always did, when I lost someone.” Still. “Scrolls had to come first. Can’t dupe them.”

"Yeah, I know the scrolls. I'd been quoted enough of them," his dad's voice, thick and burly, admitted. "It didn't say that exactly though, it said before you raged and the scrolls ended," his dad corrected him. "Which you did, all the way to the Triumvirate. They are gone, Jarod, mentally. As well as anyone with Parker blood from the Centre. Everyone but Miss Parker so far."

Miss Parker. His children. "Did you see her yourself? Are you sure it's not someone pretending to be her?"

"Broots and a man called Thomas Gates got in. Broots had the proof she wasn't the one before she even showed back up," his father said. "Still had meddlers who cared for her, even if you couldn’t be there. They found the truth. Babies weren't related."

"Then she is alive. Where is she now?" Jarod asked quickly. He needed to get past the shock of her and his kids being alive. He had a doppelganger that somehow knew enough about him to trick everyone. If he didn’t move fast enough.

Then he’d feel all his hope lost again, and all of the pain for a second time. No more.

"With Sydney," his father said.

Jarod immediately dialed his phone.

"This is Sydney."

"Sydney, I need to talk to you about something," Jarod said. "It's important. Where is Miss Parker?"

"I don't understand, Jarod. You've been analyzing her for two days now," Sydney answered. "When did you leave the room, and why did you leave your children?"

That . . . That . . .

"You look like you're going to scream, Son."

Later. Oh would he later. Right now? He was dealing with new emotional stimuli. His children were alive, safe and sound. Miss Parker was alive, safe and sound. Someone was with her that she thought was him. She finally trusted enough to let him (what should have been him) analyze her. Not to mention, knowing that the whole Triumvirate and all of the Parker blood was now doomed?

She was in serious trouble. "Sydney. Peak through the door. Slowly."

"That isn’t a good idea, Jarod, you are analyzing Miss Parker. What are you trying to accomplish?"

"Just listen Sydney and do it," Jarod pushed. He waited. "If you don't see anything, push the door more open." He waited.

"Jarod, where are you?"

"Is Miss Parker there?"

"No."

"The children?"

"We are watching the children," Sydney said. "Jarod, what's going on? Where did you go?"

"I left with Miss Parker," Jarod said, "only I don't know where to. There is a clone that somehow knows everything about me, Sydney." The phone went silent for a little while. "I'm Jarod, Sydney, and I can prove it." He hated to. He didn't want to, but he needed something convincing enough. Something the other him would never say. "I think this has to do with Angelo.”

"Angelo does not look like you," Sydney reasoned. "If you is you."

"I know. A disguise, but it has to be him." He had to have fitted into the picture somehow.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Sydney didn't back off the phone or hang up. However, he was still in disbelief.

"My first pretend with you involved, you met me as a fireman," Jarod tried again. That might be in the records too. What wouldn't be in the records? He could have shared anything. Then? "I know who shot Raines. The first time, when I was meeting my mother."

"Reports were inconclusive, Jarod."

"I made it that way, but I know," Jarod said. It was some time back, several years back. But for this, he needed something solid. "Do you know? Do you want to know?"

" . . . you think it's Angelo then?" Now Sydney was on his side. "Wearing a face disguise is one thing, Jarod, but even the physique felt the same."

Angelo could have been buffed up for the role maybe? What about size? "Was he the same height?" Could he tell? "Sydney?"

"I don't know, it was a snowy night. Weather was terrible. He immediately took Miss Parker inside and sat down with one of your children. It's hard to tell, Jarod, but I saw nothing astray."

"Then it has to be him. Jarod Angel cured Miss Parker, right?" Jarod was still putting the puzzle together, but he was getting there. Angelo and Jarod Angel.

"Yes, and he stayed sane according to Miss Parker," Sydney said. "Even more so, he didn't speak in the way of Angels anymore. He even complained to her that she was, well, a bitch."

Jarod smirked. Small smirk. "Good." Then again? "Maybe. Sydney, what do we know about the clones? They used focus. What else?"

"What are you thinking, Jarod?" Sydney asked. "A clone can only pull an illusion of being you for a short time. Even Miss Parker can see through them."

"Yeah. They would need something more." Yeah, it had to be. That was Raines area. "They never perfected it. When they turned David. We stopped it." He saved the little boy, but . . . the technology was there. "David and Timmy."

"David and Timmy, Jarod? Neither could communicate the same way afterward. David was almost lost. Timmy gave him the chance to be a little boy again."

"Yes. Prodigy." Jarod squeezed the phone tighter. "Sydney. Why did they really want that kind of ability? To be able to lose themselves and become someone else? Feeling. Intense. Unable to communicate with the outside world, to become so absorbed they couldn’t remember themselves?  Why did they want that?"

"I'm afraid I don't quite see where you are going with this, Jarod," Sydney admitted. "David is too small to become you and he was cured. It’s doubtful Angelo could be you, and your clones aren’t good enough to pull you off this well."

"They have the technology, The Centre had it, and they were ready to hand him over. They were handing him over to the Triumvirate." They wanted David. They wanted that power. "Everything the Triumvirate has wanted had to deal with the scrolls. The boy Jarod. The cloning. This isn't coincidence." No. Yes. No. "Sydney. I think Jarod Angel is dead."

"Dead, by who?"

"If it's what I think it is? Angelo."

"But we've already been through this, Jarod. Angelo couldn't be mistaken to be you. Miss Parker spent some time with Jarod Angel. He was the one who sealed her up in a cage and delivered her back here."

"I know, but everything inside of me is telling me that . . . that somehow, I'm close to it," Jarod said. "Or maybe." Oh. Oh no. "Did Miss Parker tell you what happened to Angelo?"

"I don't recall it coming up in conversation."

Oh. "Angelo was with Raines."

"Yes, Raines was shot, Jarod. He's dead. She swears it."

"But Raines held Angelo. The Centre was gone, and he took over the care of Angelo. What did he do to Angelo?"

"Well? I do remember Miss Parker saying Jarod Angel joked they would sew his tattoo on Angelo."

There it was. The clear answer. Jarod froze, staring ahead at his dad. "Because Angelo already had the Devil's. Which means Angelo, being . . ." Jarod touched the top of his head tenderly, rethinking about the days when he knew Angelo in the pipes. Spoke to Timmy. "Goodbye Angelo. You deserved better."

Sydney didn't speak for a second either. " . . . you think Angelo is dead?"

"It backfired on them, Sydney," Jarod explained, knowing he needed to move backwards in his thinking so Sydney could understand. "Jarod Angel was tracked. His mind was ripe for being overtaken. All that focus shoved into him." Jarod firmly placed his hands on his dad's wall. "He wasn't bad, just obsessed because of focus. He didn't deserve it either."

"Death?"

"Becoming the new Angelo," Jarod said. "Raines doesn't like the Triumvirate, I know that. They probably commanded him to 'defile' the work he put into Angelo. So he went out and made a new one." He smirked. "Only his new one didn't turn out the same way. He was different, not a kid, and his focus was on something else. What does he know better than anything?"

"Ah." Sydney paused. "You and Miss Parker."

"A new empath, that looks like me, and feels like me. Jarod Angel thinks he's me, and anything that isn’t a fact he knows, his focus takes care of with his own imagination. He can be a pretender, anyone he wants to be. Right now? He’s me."

"Not to mention, all the focus with the added distraction he placed in the air," Sydney said. "But he left as Jarod Angel."

"He's flipping between himself and me."

"I see. Raines own creation, destroyed him." Sydney waited a moment to talk. "You believe Angelo is dead?"

"Yes," Jarod admitted. "If Angelo had Hades tattoo sewed right into him, he couldn't escape it. He'd go mad. And, if Jarod Angel believes he's really me? Sydney." Jarod closed his eyes. "I could never leave Angelo in that kind of hell. Damage would be done. I’d have to."

"I know what you mean, Jarod. Angelo would want it stopped too. Then, are we looking for Jarod Angel with Miss Parker? Or you? How much control does he have between the two? The raging seas."

"Raging seas?" Jarod questioned feeling a degree of relief. Jarod Angel wouldn't hurt Miss Parker, and if he thought he was the real Jarod, he would also never hurt Miss Parker. It wasn't a hundred percent safe, and not someone he wanted to leave her with for long though. "What do you mean raging seas?"

"Just the end of the scrolls, Jarod. You were supposed to lose Miss Parker and the children, and then take down the Triumvirate in a fit of rage," Sydney finished. "But, that wasn't you. It was Jarod Angel the whole time."

"You're right, Sydney," Jarod said. "I wasn't the big bad after all, sorry to disappoint." He didn't really care about that.

"Then that means Jarod Angel was never supposed to find them alive," Sydney said confused. "Except his part said-"

"He would have them in Heaven," Jarod finished. "It's not a textbook, it doesn't read that way."

"Yes, I know. But. Jarod? Your mother believed you were the one. After what Jarod Angel posing as you said, she didn't look well. Hearing this may bring a degree of comfort."

"Me being responsible for thousands of deaths per day due to the distraction in the air?" Jarod said roughly. "Yeah, I imagine that would weigh heavy. Many things are weighing heavy, including the fact that distraction is in the air and Parker is full of focus!" No. Jarod paused. It wasn't Sydney's fault. "I need to get to her as soon as possible. How are my children? Are they healthy and well?"

"Yes, Margaret is taking good care of them," Sydney admitted. "They are healthy."

"Are you taking care of my mom?" Jarod noticed the strange look his dad gave him a second.

"I'm sure he is," his dad said beneath his breath. "Not my business anymore."

"Your mother is fine so far, Jarod," Sydney answered him. "If Jarod Angel thinks he is you now, where do you think you would take Miss Parker?"

Hm. "Triumvirate gone." No one bothering him except the clueless parts of the Centre that wouldn't go far. "I'd take her . . . home."

"Where is home, Jarod?"