Jan. 1, 1984—

Sydney returned from his annual Christmas visit to his comatose brother, determined to start the year afresh. The infamous 1984 had finally dawned, and sometimes Sydney did feel he had voluntarily subjected himself to the inside of the Orwell novel. The Centre had always been domineering and oppressive, but slowly over the years the cameras and locked wards and sterile memos of Jarod’s blood and sweat closed in on Sydney like a prison. Of course he himself was free to come and go, so long as he continued to keep Jarod under metaphorical lock and key.

Lately, they had been forced to rely on physical deadbolts more and more.

Jarod had always had something of a rebellious streak, but in the past it could be redirected towards concrete tasks at hand. Over his own growing curiosity, Jarod valued the positive effects of their work on society at large. Sydney had repeated over and over through the twenty years Jarod had been with them that his main ambition in life — his gift to the world — was through the simulations, with the corollary that only the Centre could be their instrument. Thus far Jarod had accepted that logic, especially when he was kept on a stimulated knife edge — topics interesting enough to keep his expansive mind occupied, but not enough to spark that curiosity from wandering outside.

But at times like these, when Sydney himself took a small leave to deal with personal matters, Jarod always wanted to know why he couldn’t do the same. Why couldn’t he work on simulations and occasionally see the outside world? Why couldn’t he go home at night and come back the next morning like all the other adults at the Centre? The distraction argument was weak, and Sydney knew it. Jarod was twenty-five years old now, give or take, and the question of whether Jarod would ever be allowed to graduate to adulthood loomed large for Sydney outside the sim lab.

He went to meet his prodigy as he always did after vacation, finding Jarod in the cavernous sim lab, sitting at a table surrounded by stacks of books, briefings and reports. But, unusually, there was also a mainframe terminal in front of him, and Jarod appeared to be absorbed in it, his feet twisted below him to stretch after many hours. Sydney stopped cold at this unauthorized event. The Centre had been increasingly keen on expanding Jarod’s simulations to computer models, much to Sydney’s consternation. He’d argued over and over again to the Tower that the value of a Pretender lay in his unique ability to mimic irrational human behavior, not in logical deductive power. Obviously someone from higher up had decided to take advantage of Sydney’s absence to give their theories a whirl. Typical Centre, sneaking around the primary investigator’s back instead negotiating access to a subject like a civilized researcher. He could only hope that the fools hadn’t given Jarod a connection to the Centre’s ARPANET node as well.

“Hello, Jarod,” Sydney said softly. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on the intelligence information about Beirut?”

Jarod jumped, but then slid his eyes off the screen without a trace of guilt. He rarely showed remorse at breaking the rules, a fact that always concerned Sydney despite Jarod’s typical bland obedience. “Oh, Sydney. Hello. Welcome back.” He arched his back from poor height of the desk, and smiled in greeting at his old mentor.

He’d gotten tall, Sydney suddenly thought. For years now it seemed Jarod wouldn’t stop growing, like his body was stretching outward to catch up to his colossal mind.

“I finished up the written report two days ago, so Mr. Barnes requested a mapped-out model of the Beirut barracks to go with with it,” Jarod said. “A modern tactical drawing looks very convincing.”

“I see. So that’s what this is?” Sydney pointed at the screen, which was covered in small green points bouncing around the bubbling glass.

Jarod shrugged. “Fine, I finished that too. So I decided to write a little script for something fun. It involves repeating algorithmic graphics, and, uh, interterminal competition.”

“You invented a video game? Jarod…”

“The guys in the tech room loved it,” he protested. “It’s not like I had anything better to do.”

His voice slid into a petulant whine at the end, and Sydney restrained himself from wincing. Sometimes Jarod’s hidden feelings of boredom, alienation and anger bubbled up, although he’d gotten better at suppressing them as he grew. And Sydney had gotten better at soothing him too.

“Well, since I wasn’t here, I suppose a small vacation for you isn’t out of order,” he said mildly. Jarod’s face lit up at the affirmation from his authority figure, his entire demeanor shifting towards the positive again. So malleable, just as he and Jacob predicted a mature Pretender would be.

Before Sydney could switch Jarod over to an appropriate task, however, two sweepers entered the room. “Sir, the Chairman wants to remind you that you have a meeting in ten minutes,” one of the men droned.

“The weekly report? I’ve been gone all week, they know this.”

The sweepers stared at him, unmoving. They’d drag him screaming all the way to the elevator if they had to, not that Sydney would refuse to go of course. He sighed and swiveled away from Jarod, who had already sized up the situation and had gone back to his game.

“An hour, Jarod, and then it’s back to work for both of us,” Sydney said. Jarod accepted this with barely a flicker of his eyes up in acknowledgment. Totally absorbed, as if the light streaks were bouncing according some unknown physics inside his simming skull.

* * * * *

“Ah, Sydney, come in,” Mr. Parker greeted him through the conference room door. To Sydney’s surprise, the Chairman had four unknown people seated behind him at the long table, three men and one very young woman who smiled too broadly. Not Miss Parker, he was momentarily disappointed to see; Sydney had heard she’d come back from college and was working at SIS. “Your vacation treat you well? Sit down.”

“Fine, of course, sir. However, I just got back a few minutes ago, and do not have a report on Jarod’s progress this week.” This meeting wasn’t another round of progress reports from an anxious taskmaster, Sydney could already sense. Perhaps another sim for the military, whose dubious purposes Sydney would have to cover up? As always at the Centre, it paid to be patient and read between the lines.

Mr. Parker nodded at the inconsequential words. “Jarod was kept suitably busy while you were gone, I have been informed. That’s not why we are here today.” He motioned for Sydney to sit across from the others, then genially lowered himself into a seat as well. “The team you see before you are some of the world’s experts in genetics and developmental biology. They will need access to Jarod for some samples, but we also need to keep this… discrete. I don’t want to concern Jarod with the outcomes of this experiment.”

“Genetics,” Sydney said slowly. He’d have to think about the doublespeak ‘developmental biology experiment’ further before commenting. “Are you renewing the effort to look for the unique biological factor that creates a Pretender? Jacob and I researched that possibility many years ago, and concluded that the behavior was too complex to be the result of a single gene.”

“With all due respect, Dr. Sydney, biochemistry was in its infancy in the sixties, even with the Centre’s resources,” one of the men replied. “We now have access to tremendously improved techniques and computer power. Makes it much easier to hunt for complicated, interacting factors.”

And then hunt through the population for more Pretenders, thought Sydney. The idea didn’t fill him with excitement like it would have twenty years ago; he’d thought that the Centre’s business with new children had been over. Nowadays he was more interested in cultivating Jarod’s existing skills than putting in all the long years to mold a new Pretender.

“So what samples do you need? Jarod will recognize any attempt to collect genetic information.”

“We already have DNA samples,” the man told him, which made Sydney raise his eyebrows. “What we do need is a supply of stem cells.”

“A bone marrow biopsy? I cannot allow…”

“We believe we can extract acceptable pluripotent cells from blood,” the man interrupted. “An hour of phoresis should be enough. Perhaps sedation for your patient is in order, if he’s that sensitive?”

Sydney looked both shocked and amused at the man’s naivety. “Gentlemen, Jarod is not a patient, or some feeble-minded ward of the Centre. I will not allow you to simply drug him up and take what you want; this would be an irrevocable breach of trust. You need to convince him to cooperate with you, perhaps under some other pretense if the truth is unacceptable.” He still didn’t understand why they didn’t just come out with the truth, in fact. Jarod was endlessly curious about himself as well as every other human being, so he’d probably let himself be poked for some time in exchange for a simple conversation with a new person.

“We trust that you’ll come up with something plausible, Sydney,” Mr. Parker told him.

Sydney’s heart sank, for obviously his purpose here today was to convince Jarod to go along with this questionable scheme with a hidden purpose. How often had he done this before? How many times had he lied to Jarod, soothed his sensitive conscious while burying his own?

Yet again, though, he went along. Because if he didn’t, Jarod might be taken away from him, or handed over to someone without Sydney’s light touch. And with the likes of Raines, Jarod would either crumble or defect, Sydney was sure. Despite his Centre upbringing, Jarod was not a trained rat that would blindly sniff along a maze to his doom. He had to be coaxed and seduced, again and again.

“I’ll discuss it with him,” Sydney told the group. “I’ll tell him that you’re studying immune system function, since that’s an area we’ve always been worried about with Jarod in isolation. Have your technicians well-versed in this story, or Jarod will catch on that something’s wrong.”

Everyone at the table nodded, and smiled in relief at Sydney’s capitulation. Now he was the obedient monkey, playing the cameras. When had it switched from scientific insight to a performance? Hard to say. Sydney leaned back in his chair, deciding to play another favor, since he had just given one up.

“Tell me, what’s the true purpose of this experiment? Does Raines want to create more Pretenders? Our screening process from two decades ago was obviously adequate to find them.” He didn’t expect the real answer, only a hint at the new game.

“You’d be amazed at how far embryology has come in the past 15 years,” the man simply said.

“Fifteen?” Sydney said. What had happened fifteen years ago? Catherine Parker’s death, for one. And the many secrets and lies that had led to her murder. Plus: embryology. “Not… Are you reinstating the Gemini project?”

“No need to concern yourself, Sydney,” Mr. Parker soothed, and Sydney sensed the meeting was at an end. “I know you will cooperate with the team, just as you have for all other aspects of Jarod’s project. And if Gemini is successful, well, we’ll have need for another psychologist with intimate knowledge of Jarod, won’t we? We need to think of the future of the Centre. Jarod’s a healthy young man, but he still won’t live forever.”

Jarod would be outraged if he knew what you were doing. He would not only leave, but break this place down to a rubbled foundation. Jarod loved the idea of family above everything else. He couldn’t find out if any child was actually produced, let alone a genetically-identical son.

“That’s an ambitious project you have in mind,” Sydney said. “Of course, I will support you in any way I can. For his own good, Jarod must not discover your true purpose.”

“We are in agreement. Prepare him to take the samples, and its the last you’ll hear of it.”

Sydney doubted this could possibly be true, but he gave a curt nod anyway. A year from now or ten, eventually the truth would emerge. Jarod was a truth-seeker after all, no matter the pain. And Sydney could imagine Jarod’s fury then, a personality-consuming rage that wouldn’t be mollified with kind words or intricate mental projects.

He had to protect Jarod from certain truths, no matter his own cost either. Selling his ragged soul and chipping away at Jarod’s pure one, one more time.