Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: see part one
~~~~~~~
Turn Evil Into Good
Part 12
Starting business anew and old companions
“New business starting at the crime-company!
The place in Blue Cove, Delaware that has held our attention for some time now, is going to open its doors again.
Officials from the federal agencies confirmed the suspicions that there are plans to reopen the company that has been doing illegal business and awful experiments for so long without anyone noticing.
Federal agencies are supporting the plans the new leaders, who want to start the business anew, made up.
The persons behind the plans of reopening the Centre are not known to the public yet but a press conference is scheduled to take place today…,” the Major let the newspaper sink after reading the article out loud. “Are you sure that you want to do this?” he asked, looking at the others.
The family was eating breakfast with different newspapers sprawled over table.
“We don’t have much of a choice, now do we? At least not anymore,” Jarod retorted.
Everyone nodded sullenly.
“So, we stick to the plan?” Sydney asked.
“Yes, you all won’t show up there. Parker, Ethan and me are doing this alone. Jay will join us in a few days when the first wave of anger has evaporated,” Jarod confirmed.
“People, let’s bath in the feeling of calm. It won’t last much longer,” Parker grumbled.
Jarod took her hand and squeezed it lightly.
~~~~~~~
“Sorry, folks. The conference is concluded. We won’t answer any more questions. You got more than enough for now,” CIA Director Braff said loudly into his microphone.
Parker, Ethan, Jarod, Danny, Braff and Turner got up from their seats and purposefully walked over to the exit, followed closely by the reporters who still pushed their luck by posing questions.
No one paid attention to them and so the questions went unanswered.
Ethan drove them back from the Centre to Miss Parker’s old house.
Though the rest of the family stayed in the townhouse, they had agreed that Parker, Jarod and Ethan would go over to Parker’s old residence.
They didn’t want the reporters to make the connection to the others that soon. They would most certainly discover it but it would take them some time and so the family could stay in the background a bit longer.
The ride was spent in silence.
Not far away from home, Parker fell asleep with her head on Jarod’s shoulder.
Everyone was tired. Now that the adrenaline wore off, they all had difficulties to keep their eyes open. The press conference had been an ordeal. The reporters had cruelly picked upon the theme.
The three had answered all questions - mostly without hesitation - truthfully. The reporters on the other hand had also done their job and ripped into each and every aspect of the plan to reopen the Centre.
They displayed nothing but hostility towards them. It was also the public’s feedback to the news that the Centre would be brought back into business.
Though there was really nothing anyone could pick upon, the reporters did their best to make everything as hard as possible for them.
The articles would surely be no kind ones.
Jarod sighed. Well they had expected nothing less.
~~~~~~~
They had decided that they would start business as soon as possible so they were on their way to the Centre yet again to get things rolling. There was still a huge mountain of things to do before everything would run somewhat close to smoothly.
Again, Ethan drove the car, this time into the direction they had nearly fled from just yesterday evening.
In front of the entrance gate, the car came to a halt.
People were standing on the street, blocking their way. They had sings that clearly communicated their position against the Centre and more precisely against the people trying to reopen the company.
Parker groaned.
Jarod just grabbed her hand. “We expected the people to demonstrate against our plan. They will have to live with it nonetheless, so relax,” he soothed.
Parker nodded tiredly. “If I had known what difficulties we had to oppose, I wouldn’t have voted for this plan,” she sighed.
“Mel, you knew what difficulties would await us and you did vote for the plan,” Jarod smiled.
“I know. I just thought that maybe I would feel better after saying something like that,” she replied.
“And, do you?” he asked back.
“No,” Parker turned towards him and smiled sadly.
Ethan slowly eased the car through the people. “Hang on there. We are nearly through,” he said over his shoulder. “Is there another exit no one knows about; one we could use later without these disturbances?” he added.
Jarod grinned. “Yes, there is but we won’t get out of that one without crawling through air ducts and other dark tunnels. There will also be no car in the near distance,” he replied.
“No thanks,” Parker answered. “Business meetings would be a problem with dirty clothes, wouldn’t they?”
Jarod and Ethan both chuckled and Parker joined their laughter shortly afterwards.
Ethan accelerated and they were finally through the masses of people.
~~~~~~~
A few days later, the trio was in Jarod’s office, working separately on some files. Jay was somewhere in the archive - by now having joined his siblings in working to start business again at the Centre - searching for files that weren’t stored in the computer network.
They all had own offices that were lying directly next to each other but right now they tended to work together in one of them. They needed conferring over one or another file rather often and so they stayed in one office, minimizing the distance between them and therefore the amount of time needed.
“We should get ourselves a secretary one of these days,” Parker grumbled.
Ethan only nodded while Jarod didn’t even acknowledge her statement. He was too deeply immersed in the file he was reading.
They were organizing the first meetings on the way to take the Centre legit. The first step to make was getting a meeting with an attorney to set up the formalities.
There was a knock on the door.
Jarod looked up and over to the other two, who merely shrugged their shoulders equally puzzled at the interruption. The building was still empty, only Jarod, Jay, Parker and Ethan working were working. Staff had not been organized. Too many things had to be done before that. The only people visiting could be federal agents, asking for some information or stepping on their toes as to how far they were and what exactly they were doing.
“Come in,” Parker ordered brusquely.
The door opened and Parker gasped, a file falling from her hand and hitting the floor, scattering the papers all over the ground. “Sam,” she breathed.
“Yes, Ma’am,” her former personal sweeper straightened but his face gave away some of the satisfaction at hearing her greeting. There was also satisfaction at catching all of them off-guard.
“Sam, what are you doing here?” Jarod asked, when he saw that Parker was still not quite ready to speak.
“I heard about some new developments and I thought that you might need me,” Sam answered truthfully.
“What makes you think so?” Jarod questioned.
“The people standing in front of the gate with signs that communicate their position towards this, the articles of the reporters, the public opinion,” Sam suggested.
Jarod rolled his eyes and smiled. “Ok, you have a point. What job do you think you can do for us? The old one doesn’t exist anymore,” Jarod said and quirked an eyebrow.
“A job in the security maybe,” Sam answered without hesitation.
Jarod grinned. “You didn’t really come here without preparing yourself,” he chuckled. “You do know which cards to play.”
Sam smiled at the genius’ compliment. “I practised in front of a mirror for half a day. I sure as hell didn’t come here unprepared.”
Parker chuckled. “You have the job, Sam.”
“Not so fast, Mel. We do have a say in that one, too,” Jarod reminded her.
Sam winced slightly at the somewhat sharp tone in his former prey’s voices.
Ethan and Jarod shared a look. Without turning back towards Sam, Jarod said: “Make yourself useful. There are lots of things to do around here. We need a new security system.”
Just then, Jay returned to the office, balancing a stack of papers and files in front of him. “Hey, would one of you mind helping me?” he asked breathlessly. He walked further into the office and came to stand directly in front of Sam. He pressed the pile he had in his arms into Sam, who just took it, too stunned to react otherwise. Jay nodded and then took some files from the top of the mountain. “Thanks,” he mumbled and then he turned and calmly strolled over to the desk where he sat down.
Parker and Ethan both chuckled at the expression on Sam’s face, which caused Jarod to finally turn back towards the former sweeper.
Jarod started chuckling along with Parker and Ethan and Jay looked up from his place and smirked boyishly.
Sam was standing there, stunned. His jaw had dropped and there was an incredulous expression in his eyes.
“So, why are you still standing here, Sam? Get it going, you heard Jarod. We need a new security system. Get that done!” Parker snapped, only a minimum of the old venom in her voice and the smile on her face betraying the words.
Sam snapped to attention. “Yes, ma’am,” with that he turned towards the door to get the task done. He turned around again, frowning and walked over to the desk. He put the pile of files down in front of Jay which caused the others to laugh softly. Sam just blinked and then started grinning. Finally he turned and headed out of the office.
Parker chuckled and shook her head at the retreating back of the burly ex-sweeper.
Jarod turned towards her and shot her a smile. “You’re happy now, aren’t you?”
”Yes, I am,” she grinned back. “He will do a good job. We really need someone in the security and he will do the job well.”
“I know, otherwise I wouldn‘t have allowed him to stay,” Jarod replied and Ethan grinned at the slight bather.
“Back to business, people. Sam will not get everything done alone!” Ethan called.
“He is right you know,” Parker winked at Jarod.
“Then we better get on it,” he replied.
Everyone concentrated back on the files in front of them.
~~~~~~~
Parker stalked into the office.
“That’s it! Enough is enough! This has to change,” she muttered angrily under her breath and strode over to her desk, grabbing the telephone receiver somewhere along the way.
Jarod, Ethan and Jay looked up, frowning.
“Parker, what is it?” Jarod asked.
“Shut up, I’m on the telephone,” she snapped.
Jarod’s frown deepened. Her reaction confused him.
“No one picked up your call until now,” Jay objected and earned himself a deadly glare from the woman. He raised his hands, backing down from the argument.
“Yes, hello? Listen. There is a problem with our elevator… no, I don’t need to call a mechanic… no, the thing works… Yes, it’s still going up and down…,” she spoke into the receiver, getting angrier with every word.
Jarod, Jay and Ethan could easily see that she had nearly reached boiling point.
While Jay and Ethan were still clueless, it dawned on Jarod what she was up to.
“… no, you listen to me now, you idiot. I said that the elevator is still working. Damn it, just shut up and listen!” she screamed.
Jarod got up from his seat and walked over to where Parker was. He came up behind her and took the receiver out of her hand.
“Hello… yeah, yeah… yes, I know… Well… yes…. Yes, ok but would you please stop talking and listen to me now… yes, thanks. Ok, well we need a new façade for the elevator cabin. The one that is in there is not… acceptable anymore… What? Why I didn’t say that before???” Jarod asked incredulously into the receiver. He blinked. “It’s not like if you gave me a chance to do so. Well anyway, we would like to see what you could offer. Yes…,” the conversation went on for some more time.
When Jarod put down the receiver to terminate the call, he shook his head. “Idiot,” he grumbled.
“Just what I said,” Parker looked at Jarod. She had calmed down considerably while Jarod had been on the phone.
Jarod grinned. “Yes, you did,” he replied and the addressed to his brothers and Parker. “Ok, people. Melina just gave us a start signal. I think it’s time to clean house. We have a whole building to sweep clean of what we don’t want or need here anymore. So, I think we should call some people to arrange the rubbish we have in the bowls of the building to be taken away.”
Everyone nodded approvingly. “About time we start this!” Jay said.
They all went to work again after arranging a meeting with a firm the following day. Each of the four was thinking about the time to come.
They were slowly working through the layers of dust and evil that were still upon every item in the near grasp of the Centre, but the first steps towards a new Centre had been made.
The time to come would prove if they were able to not only convince themselves but more importantly the public that they could take the Centre legit and into clean business.
Time would tell if the public would accept that the evil past of the Centre was gone and new winds were blowing inside the intimidating building, showing the sincerity of those in power now.
Together they would try to reach their ambitious goal.
To be continued…
Sorry, just couldn’t resist Parker’s outburst. I don’t think you mind, though.
~~~~~~~
Part 12
Starting business anew and old companions
“New business starting at the crime-company!
The place in Blue Cove, Delaware that has held our attention for some time now, is going to open its doors again.
Officials from the federal agencies confirmed the suspicions that there are plans to reopen the company that has been doing illegal business and awful experiments for so long without anyone noticing.
Federal agencies are supporting the plans the new leaders, who want to start the business anew, made up.
The persons behind the plans of reopening the Centre are not known to the public yet but a press conference is scheduled to take place today…,” the Major let the newspaper sink after reading the article out loud. “Are you sure that you want to do this?” he asked, looking at the others.
The family was eating breakfast with different newspapers sprawled over table.
“We don’t have much of a choice, now do we? At least not anymore,” Jarod retorted.
Everyone nodded sullenly.
“So, we stick to the plan?” Sydney asked.
“Yes, you all won’t show up there. Parker, Ethan and me are doing this alone. Jay will join us in a few days when the first wave of anger has evaporated,” Jarod confirmed.
“People, let’s bath in the feeling of calm. It won’t last much longer,” Parker grumbled.
Jarod took her hand and squeezed it lightly.
~~~~~~~
“Sorry, folks. The conference is concluded. We won’t answer any more questions. You got more than enough for now,” CIA Director Braff said loudly into his microphone.
Parker, Ethan, Jarod, Danny, Braff and Turner got up from their seats and purposefully walked over to the exit, followed closely by the reporters who still pushed their luck by posing questions.
No one paid attention to them and so the questions went unanswered.
Ethan drove them back from the Centre to Miss Parker’s old house.
Though the rest of the family stayed in the townhouse, they had agreed that Parker, Jarod and Ethan would go over to Parker’s old residence.
They didn’t want the reporters to make the connection to the others that soon. They would most certainly discover it but it would take them some time and so the family could stay in the background a bit longer.
The ride was spent in silence.
Not far away from home, Parker fell asleep with her head on Jarod’s shoulder.
Everyone was tired. Now that the adrenaline wore off, they all had difficulties to keep their eyes open. The press conference had been an ordeal. The reporters had cruelly picked upon the theme.
The three had answered all questions - mostly without hesitation - truthfully. The reporters on the other hand had also done their job and ripped into each and every aspect of the plan to reopen the Centre.
They displayed nothing but hostility towards them. It was also the public’s feedback to the news that the Centre would be brought back into business.
Though there was really nothing anyone could pick upon, the reporters did their best to make everything as hard as possible for them.
The articles would surely be no kind ones.
Jarod sighed. Well they had expected nothing less.
~~~~~~~
They had decided that they would start business as soon as possible so they were on their way to the Centre yet again to get things rolling. There was still a huge mountain of things to do before everything would run somewhat close to smoothly.
Again, Ethan drove the car, this time into the direction they had nearly fled from just yesterday evening.
In front of the entrance gate, the car came to a halt.
People were standing on the street, blocking their way. They had sings that clearly communicated their position against the Centre and more precisely against the people trying to reopen the company.
Parker groaned.
Jarod just grabbed her hand. “We expected the people to demonstrate against our plan. They will have to live with it nonetheless, so relax,” he soothed.
Parker nodded tiredly. “If I had known what difficulties we had to oppose, I wouldn’t have voted for this plan,” she sighed.
“Mel, you knew what difficulties would await us and you did vote for the plan,” Jarod smiled.
“I know. I just thought that maybe I would feel better after saying something like that,” she replied.
“And, do you?” he asked back.
“No,” Parker turned towards him and smiled sadly.
Ethan slowly eased the car through the people. “Hang on there. We are nearly through,” he said over his shoulder. “Is there another exit no one knows about; one we could use later without these disturbances?” he added.
Jarod grinned. “Yes, there is but we won’t get out of that one without crawling through air ducts and other dark tunnels. There will also be no car in the near distance,” he replied.
“No thanks,” Parker answered. “Business meetings would be a problem with dirty clothes, wouldn’t they?”
Jarod and Ethan both chuckled and Parker joined their laughter shortly afterwards.
Ethan accelerated and they were finally through the masses of people.
~~~~~~~
A few days later, the trio was in Jarod’s office, working separately on some files. Jay was somewhere in the archive - by now having joined his siblings in working to start business again at the Centre - searching for files that weren’t stored in the computer network.
They all had own offices that were lying directly next to each other but right now they tended to work together in one of them. They needed conferring over one or another file rather often and so they stayed in one office, minimizing the distance between them and therefore the amount of time needed.
“We should get ourselves a secretary one of these days,” Parker grumbled.
Ethan only nodded while Jarod didn’t even acknowledge her statement. He was too deeply immersed in the file he was reading.
They were organizing the first meetings on the way to take the Centre legit. The first step to make was getting a meeting with an attorney to set up the formalities.
There was a knock on the door.
Jarod looked up and over to the other two, who merely shrugged their shoulders equally puzzled at the interruption. The building was still empty, only Jarod, Jay, Parker and Ethan working were working. Staff had not been organized. Too many things had to be done before that. The only people visiting could be federal agents, asking for some information or stepping on their toes as to how far they were and what exactly they were doing.
“Come in,” Parker ordered brusquely.
The door opened and Parker gasped, a file falling from her hand and hitting the floor, scattering the papers all over the ground. “Sam,” she breathed.
“Yes, Ma’am,” her former personal sweeper straightened but his face gave away some of the satisfaction at hearing her greeting. There was also satisfaction at catching all of them off-guard.
“Sam, what are you doing here?” Jarod asked, when he saw that Parker was still not quite ready to speak.
“I heard about some new developments and I thought that you might need me,” Sam answered truthfully.
“What makes you think so?” Jarod questioned.
“The people standing in front of the gate with signs that communicate their position towards this, the articles of the reporters, the public opinion,” Sam suggested.
Jarod rolled his eyes and smiled. “Ok, you have a point. What job do you think you can do for us? The old one doesn’t exist anymore,” Jarod said and quirked an eyebrow.
“A job in the security maybe,” Sam answered without hesitation.
Jarod grinned. “You didn’t really come here without preparing yourself,” he chuckled. “You do know which cards to play.”
Sam smiled at the genius’ compliment. “I practised in front of a mirror for half a day. I sure as hell didn’t come here unprepared.”
Parker chuckled. “You have the job, Sam.”
“Not so fast, Mel. We do have a say in that one, too,” Jarod reminded her.
Sam winced slightly at the somewhat sharp tone in his former prey’s voices.
Ethan and Jarod shared a look. Without turning back towards Sam, Jarod said: “Make yourself useful. There are lots of things to do around here. We need a new security system.”
Just then, Jay returned to the office, balancing a stack of papers and files in front of him. “Hey, would one of you mind helping me?” he asked breathlessly. He walked further into the office and came to stand directly in front of Sam. He pressed the pile he had in his arms into Sam, who just took it, too stunned to react otherwise. Jay nodded and then took some files from the top of the mountain. “Thanks,” he mumbled and then he turned and calmly strolled over to the desk where he sat down.
Parker and Ethan both chuckled at the expression on Sam’s face, which caused Jarod to finally turn back towards the former sweeper.
Jarod started chuckling along with Parker and Ethan and Jay looked up from his place and smirked boyishly.
Sam was standing there, stunned. His jaw had dropped and there was an incredulous expression in his eyes.
“So, why are you still standing here, Sam? Get it going, you heard Jarod. We need a new security system. Get that done!” Parker snapped, only a minimum of the old venom in her voice and the smile on her face betraying the words.
Sam snapped to attention. “Yes, ma’am,” with that he turned towards the door to get the task done. He turned around again, frowning and walked over to the desk. He put the pile of files down in front of Jay which caused the others to laugh softly. Sam just blinked and then started grinning. Finally he turned and headed out of the office.
Parker chuckled and shook her head at the retreating back of the burly ex-sweeper.
Jarod turned towards her and shot her a smile. “You’re happy now, aren’t you?”
”Yes, I am,” she grinned back. “He will do a good job. We really need someone in the security and he will do the job well.”
“I know, otherwise I wouldn‘t have allowed him to stay,” Jarod replied and Ethan grinned at the slight bather.
“Back to business, people. Sam will not get everything done alone!” Ethan called.
“He is right you know,” Parker winked at Jarod.
“Then we better get on it,” he replied.
Everyone concentrated back on the files in front of them.
~~~~~~~
Parker stalked into the office.
“That’s it! Enough is enough! This has to change,” she muttered angrily under her breath and strode over to her desk, grabbing the telephone receiver somewhere along the way.
Jarod, Ethan and Jay looked up, frowning.
“Parker, what is it?” Jarod asked.
“Shut up, I’m on the telephone,” she snapped.
Jarod’s frown deepened. Her reaction confused him.
“No one picked up your call until now,” Jay objected and earned himself a deadly glare from the woman. He raised his hands, backing down from the argument.
“Yes, hello? Listen. There is a problem with our elevator… no, I don’t need to call a mechanic… no, the thing works… Yes, it’s still going up and down…,” she spoke into the receiver, getting angrier with every word.
Jarod, Jay and Ethan could easily see that she had nearly reached boiling point.
While Jay and Ethan were still clueless, it dawned on Jarod what she was up to.
“… no, you listen to me now, you idiot. I said that the elevator is still working. Damn it, just shut up and listen!” she screamed.
Jarod got up from his seat and walked over to where Parker was. He came up behind her and took the receiver out of her hand.
“Hello… yeah, yeah… yes, I know… Well… yes…. Yes, ok but would you please stop talking and listen to me now… yes, thanks. Ok, well we need a new façade for the elevator cabin. The one that is in there is not… acceptable anymore… What? Why I didn’t say that before???” Jarod asked incredulously into the receiver. He blinked. “It’s not like if you gave me a chance to do so. Well anyway, we would like to see what you could offer. Yes…,” the conversation went on for some more time.
When Jarod put down the receiver to terminate the call, he shook his head. “Idiot,” he grumbled.
“Just what I said,” Parker looked at Jarod. She had calmed down considerably while Jarod had been on the phone.
Jarod grinned. “Yes, you did,” he replied and the addressed to his brothers and Parker. “Ok, people. Melina just gave us a start signal. I think it’s time to clean house. We have a whole building to sweep clean of what we don’t want or need here anymore. So, I think we should call some people to arrange the rubbish we have in the bowls of the building to be taken away.”
Everyone nodded approvingly. “About time we start this!” Jay said.
They all went to work again after arranging a meeting with a firm the following day. Each of the four was thinking about the time to come.
They were slowly working through the layers of dust and evil that were still upon every item in the near grasp of the Centre, but the first steps towards a new Centre had been made.
The time to come would prove if they were able to not only convince themselves but more importantly the public that they could take the Centre legit and into clean business.
Time would tell if the public would accept that the evil past of the Centre was gone and new winds were blowing inside the intimidating building, showing the sincerity of those in power now.
Together they would try to reach their ambitious goal.
To be continued…
Sorry, just couldn’t resist Parker’s outburst. I don’t think you mind, though.
