Chapter 11 – Getting All the Ducks in a Row

Sydney came down the stairs scratching his head. He'd slept better that night than he had ever since receiving that brief visit from Miss Parker almost three months earlier. Just knowing that Jarod was back, in body if not in spirit yet, and things might start to straighten out properly had been all the incentive he'd needed for a good night's rest. Still a creature of habit, he'd awakened at his regular time and arisen early enough that he'd have time for a leisurely breakfast before running for the Centre – until he'd remembered that he wasn't going back there anymore. Still, he'd grown accustomed to having his extra strong cup of coffee in the morning to help him get a jump-start on the day – and since vanishing with Debbie in tow, he'd missed his daily dose of the sludge Broots called 'espresso.' In those long weeks since he'd last seen Broots in the Sim Lab, he'd had to learn how to concoct something similar in his own kitchen.

He wasn't quite prepared, however, to amble into the kitchen to discover Jarod already up and dressed and in the process of making delicious-smelling coffee. A healthy serving of eggs already whipped together for scrambling was sitting in a bowl, waiting for the butter to melt in the frying pan already on the stove and heating slowly. "You're up early," Syndey commented in surprise.

Jarod flipped the switch on the coffeepot and turned to shoot his former mentor one of his trademark smirks. "Hi, Sydney," he tossed off as if it were something he said everyday and moved to the stove. "You still like your eggs scrambled in real butter don't you – or have you had a cardiologist try to talk you out of that now?"

Sydney's jaw dropped to the floor. "Jarod?" He moved quickly to the Pretender's side and stared up into the man's face before a smile began to slowly dawn. "You remember!"

"And the moment anybody begins to argue against the curative power of Pez, they'll have me to contend with," Jarod quipped and then chuckled, "although I could have done without the attack of vertigo."

"I was wondering what it was going to take," the old psychiatrist snorted sympathetically and went to fetch down three coffee mugs. "As for the disorientation, according to both Sam and Broots, that seems to be a major side effect of exploiting the flaw in the formula. At first, I thought it was the result of the injection you gave Sam, but when Broots had the same response with a dose of chloroform, I figured it had to be something connected with Formula 837A."

"I was wondering if we ever got through to Sam, after I finally remembered who Sam was and that he was the first one taken," Jarod nursed the melting butter in the frying pan and then dumped the scrambled eggs in when it was time. "And you say you have Broots back too now? Pretty good…"

Sydney slipped into a kitchen chair to watch his protégé make breakfast, perfectly content to let the Pretender do what he wanted for the time being. "Sam happened to see him – and we went after him with Angelo's help. It's been nearly six weeks since then."

Jarod ran his spatula expertly along the bottom of the frying pan and slowly coaxed fluffy scrambled eggs from the liquid goo he'd poured into the pan. "I know where she is, Sydney – or, at least, where she was the day I was caught…"

"Jarod, that was over three months ago, and…" Sydney wasn't exactly sure how to tell him what Sam had related as far as the Centre's intentions for her. "Knowing Raines and how determined he is, I need to tell you that Miss Parker is probably pregnant by now..." He gazed at Jarod in sympathy, knowing how hard this would be on the sensitive young man. "And from the information Sam got, it's reasonably certain that if she is, the child will be yours."

Jarod's hand stilled in the middle of stirring the eggs in the pan. "Damn them," he murmured forcefully, "damn them to Hell for playing God in the name of restarting the Pretender Project!" He forced himself to tend to the eggs. "Where did he hear this?"

"Sam was taken into Raines' 'elite unit', remember?" Sydney reminded him. "Part of that duty was standing around making sure the Tower stayed secure while Raines and Lyle discussed their 'Contingency' project…"

"'Contingency' – how appropriate," Jarod sneered bitterly. The thought of her trapped in that place, her memories of who she was and where she came from stolen from her and forced to have a child – HIS child – was almost more than he could bear without running to the bathroom and getting violently ill. "This has got to end, Sydney…"

"Broots said that some of the documents he's been data-entering lately have dealt with a pending sale of Formula 837A to some Arabs – representatives of Al Qaida – in the near future," Sydney decided that the sooner the Pretender had all the bad news, the better. "So yes, we need to put a stop to this – but we have to get Miss Parker and Angelo out of there before anything worse can happen to either one of them."

Jarod silently dished the scrambled eggs onto three plates and carried two of them to the table. Sydney took his plate from the Pretender without speaking to him, seeing from the expression on his face and in his eyes that Jarod was thinking through all of the known facts of the situation in order to come up with some sort of plan.

"Good morning, Sydney – Jarod…" Debbie chirped from the kitchen door and bounced over to Sydney's side to claim a hug and kiss on the cheek. "How are we doing today?"

"He remembers," Sydney told her with a nod of the nose in Jarod's direction.

The girl eyed the Pretender with a knowing expression. "Good. But how…"

"The healing power of Pez…" Jarod muttered absently, returning to the counter to bring Debbie her plate of eggs.

"So why the long faces?" She put her plate down at her place and slid into her chair.

"I also just told him the latest news from Sam about Miss Parker – and from your father about the drug that was used on all of them," Sydney explained patiently. He took another bite of the delicious eggs.

Debbie looked back and forth between her erstwhile guardian and the prodigal Pretender and decided to just enjoy the meal and head off to the hospital. The signs of stress between the men was simply too much to try to battle both of them to lighten the mood at the table.

Hopefully things would be better when she got back that noon.

oOoOo

Parker's brow was beaded with perspiration, and her eyes were frantic behind the virtual reality goggles. "I can't breathe, Byron!"

"Concentrate, Parker! You can do it!" Byron Chambers urged his newest protégé from the sidelines. "Don't lose your focus!"

"It's all out of control!" Parker insisted desperately. "I'm going to crash – we're all going to die…"

"No, you're not!" the voice of her mentor came to her over her headphones. "Think! You can control the way the vehicle is behaving…"

"I can't!"

"YES YOU CAN!" he yelled back at her.

Parker gulped and swallowed hard. "Maybe if I eased the flaps up eight degrees…"

"That's it," Bryon crowed gently, watching the computer take the minor corrections that Parker was making into the control panel in front of her and translate them into practical applications affecting the simulated flight of the jet liner. "Keep it up…"

"And if I throttle back just a bit…"

"Careful…" he warned, keeping an eagle eye on the gauges. "Careful… There you are," he crowed again when he saw that she'd regained control of the vehicle, "You've done it!"

Parker reached up and lifted the goggles from her face and leaned her head back against the transparent plastic in exhaustion. "Please, Byron, let that be the end of it for today," she begged.

Byron pressed a button and watched the computer assemble the results of the SIM that had not only tested her reaction times and performance levels under extreme stress, but put her figures against the two other scores available for the same SIM – Jarod's and Gemini's. He smirked and felt his chest expand – her scores were virtually the same as those of either male subject.

"All right," he conceded, knowing that even if he'd wanted to continue with the testing for the day, Raines' orders had been very specific regarding the amount of work and stress that this Pretender would be allowed to handle while pregnant. The child she carried was to be his REAL protégé, trained from infancy to look to and receive guidance solely from HIM. He, Byron Chambers, would be responsible for the care and training of the world's first Super Pretender – and nothing, including overworking the woman carrying the child, would get in the way of that. He gave a quick gesture to the sweeper that was perpetually stationed in the corner of the Sim Lab to come forward. "You can take the rest of the afternoon and evening off – and rest up. Tomorrow, we start a new SIM that will challenge your abilities of concentration and focus."

Parker waited patiently for the sweeper to take a firm hold on her arm before beginning to move at all – knowing that this was how she'd been told was the proper way to wait for her escort. "Thanks, Greg," she told the young Texan gratefully and then leaned into his grip a bit.

"The doc sure put you through your paces today, didn't he?" Greg asked her cordially. Even though the woman was technically a permanent fixture in the Sim Lab lately, she was a gracious and kind lady whose care was his responsibility when not directly involved with her psychiatrist trainer. It didn't hurt to be friendly – especially when it meant full cooperation from the person he was escorting.

She nodded tiredly. "I don't think I've been this tired in a long time," she replied, her voice giving evidence to her exhaustion.

Greg's grip on her elbow became more supportive than restrictive as he maneuvered her through the open elevator door and pushed the button that would take the two of them back to her room in the Renewal Wing. Parker used the relative privacy of the elevator car to lean against the wood-finished metal siding. As she had often, she raised her eyes to the upper back corner of the car and the small hole that penetrated the thin metal sheeting. "Do you ever wonder how that got there?" she asked, pointing.

Greg's gaze followed her pointed index finger, and then he looked back at her and shook his head. "Nope," he replied. "I heard some broad committed suicide in here a long time ago. Ya woulda thought that they'd have patched the hole…"

Parker's eyes rose up to the hole again as if drawn here by magnetism. In a very dark and distant corner of her mind, she thought she could hear the sounds of a child screaming for its mother, but as she tried to chase down the thought or memory, the further away it seemed to float. "You would think they'd have fixed it almost immediately," she agreed, forcing her eyes to focus on the silver of the elevator door in front of her. "Unless, of course, leaving it there served a useful purpose…"

Greg shuddered at the thought that a bullet hole in an elevator car might constitute a subtle message – to whom would such a message be aimed, and what would it be regarding, he wondered. He dismissed the troubling thoughts as he approached the security desk guarding the entrance to the Renewal Wing and signed himself and Parker through.

He'd heard all kinds of stories about things that had happened in the Centre before his time – stories he hoped were only company myths. He didn't need to upset the pretty lady when she was this tired. Maybe he'd share what he'd heard with her another day – and see what she thought. She was a sharp cookie, after all…

oOoOo

Sam chose not to pay the least attention to the security camera in the sweeper's locker room that slowly panned back and forth as he sat down at the computer terminal. All of the sweepers were allowed to use this terminal – and the several others like it scattered throughout the complex – during their breaks and off-hours time to check email and do a little web-surfing. Sam had taken advantage of the opportunity and created for himself an email account at one of those free web-based email services so as not to create as much of an email trail for himself on the Centre mainframe itself.

Now he moved smoothly into that interface intent on typing in Jarod's cryptic email address as the recipient. He HAD to get word to Sydney that at last he had an idea about how to find Miss Parker and get her out – especially now that he had Broots' reluctant permission to use Debbie as a diversion. Debbie would catch the attention of the twin monsters running the Centre at just the right moment so as to keep them from noticing all of the other, quiet activities going on elsewhere that would spell an end to the Centre as a malignantly viable and profit-making endeavor.

But when he opened the webpage with his inbox, there was a message from Broots' freebie email account – created for much the same reason – waiting for him. Sam's face lit up as he read the first line - the little computer tech had finally found Miss Parker! Almost immediately, however, his face folded into a deep frown as he continued reading. She was shuttled daily between her room in the Renewal Wing to a Sim Lab a couple of sublevels removed from Sydney's old lab – where she was slowly working her way through the Pretender training program and stood virtually on the brink of starting to run SIMs for profit as equally talented as Jarod had been.

Broots further reported that he'd discovered a doctor's report on the progress on her and something now being called Project Phoenix with details on the latest ultrasound and lab results from an amniocentesis test that had been run a few weeks earlier. They'd done it – she was pregnant – and the very thought turned his stomach.

Sam deleted the message immediately and opened a new email to Sydney – and hopefully to a recovered Jarod too – detailing what Broots had told him and explaining the particulars of the plan that he'd thought through several times over the last twenty-four hours and in which he still could see no flaws. He reiterated several times in the course of the email that Broots had agreed to the plan, just in case Sydney ended up being more overprotective when it came to Debbie's welfare than her own father was. He ended the note by requesting a time frame in which to make their move. Outside and inside arrangements would have to be fairly finely coordinated… especially when bringing in the authorities…

The door to the locker pushed open and Greg ambled in. Sam quickly hit the send button on the screen and logged out of the account before turning around. "You going to want this?" he asked as if turning the terminal over to another sweeper was a normal affair.

"Nah," Greg replied, sitting down in front of his locker. "I think I'm just going to head to the rack. I just watched that woman down in the Sim Lab get put through Hell today – I don't want to do anything but watch some mindless reality show on TV."

"She got put through Hell, eh?" Sam rose, stretched with deceptive casualness, and then strolled over to his own locker and began to remove his suit. "How so?"

Greg shrugged. "They had her in that plastic bubble again, suspended in the air," he tried to explain what had been a fairly unusual sight, "with V.R. goggles over her eyes and this control panel in her lap. Chambers had her believing she was in the cockpit of an airliner that had been hit by a rocket and was falling out of the sky."

"And they did this to a woman?" Sam let being appalled at the thought be clearly heard.

"Evidently she pulled off whatever it was they wanted her to do – and the doc gave her the rest of the day off as a reward." Greg slipped out of the black silk trousers and reached for the denims that he wore normally. "I don't know how they can treat a pregnant gal that way, you know… That much stress must be a bitch on the blood pressure!"

"You'd think…" Sam agreed, keeping his head down as he removed his tie and then his fine, linen shirt. They were doing THAT to Miss P – and she pregnant with what they hoped would be a Super Pretender? His blood boiled, but he carefully kept his voice neutral. "You sound like you're a little sweet on her, man. Better watch it – keep it quiet…"

"What's not to like? She's pretty," Greg admitted with a quick smile at his colleague, "and real smart. Plus she's just got this… NICE… attitude about her – makes a man want to stand up and protect her, ya know?"

Oh yeah, Sam thought to himself, you have NO idea how many people are wanting to protect her – almost as much as others were wanting to use her. He had to admit that 'nice' had never been a word that he would have associated with the Ice Queen of the Centre, however. "You're lucky to have a chance to see her once in a while – since she's part of a pretty high-security project. What I haven't figured out yet is how you managed to get Sim Lab duty so soon out of training," he commented almost jealously, deducing that part of the reason was that as a neophyte, Greg wouldn't recognize the dreaded and feared 'Miss Parker' in the demure woman he observed and guarded. It still made him mad. "What do you do there – just sit and play guard dog?"

"Seems like it most of the time," Greg chuckled. "I'm there mostly to haul her back and forth from the Renewal Wing, and just sit around on my duff otherwise watching the proceedings. I guess the Big Boss Upstairs keeps a real close track of her, being pregnant and all…"

"That must be it," Sam said encouragingly. "Well, I'm off too – wanna join me in the cafeteria for a bite?"

"I'm back to quarters, man," Greg shook his head and pulled his sweatshirt over his head before leaning down to grab his sneakers. "You go on – and stop by and lemme know if they have anything actually edible there tonight, OK?"

Sam chuckled coldly. "You got it, buddy."

Greg finished getting dressed and trotted out of the locker room after giving Sam a companionable high-five. Sam reached for his sneakers and took his time tying them. He'd have to get in touch with Angelo too. Once things started to go down, the odd little empath's importance would be even greater than before. With a little bit of luck, maybe Angelo was already looking for HIM…

oOoOo

Jarod had long since made a habit of doing his hacking into the Centre mainframe while leaving his email client active, so when it chirped at him while he was looking through a document pertaining to 'Contingency', he barely even moved. He switched to the email program and brought up the message from Sam to read it quickly.

"Sydney," he called after a long moment, "you need to see this."

"What is it?" The psychiatrist looked up from his continued study of the translated research notes.

"From Sam – and from the sounds of it, he's ready to put an end to what's going on too."

"He's the one that's been undercover in the Centre the longest – except for Angelo," Sydney remarked as he rose, stretched and moved to bend over and look over Jarod's shoulder.

At first Jarod could tell the older man was elated at the news that Miss Parker's whereabouts had been uncovered – and once more he wondered at the depth of that particular relationship. But as Sydney continued reading, the Pretender could almost sense the hackles rising on the older man's neck, although the only indication that Sydney was anything but his normally calm, cool and collected self was a slight increase in respiration. "He's crazy!" Sydney straightened finally and stomped away in disgust and dismay, his Belgian accent thicker with his distress. "This is sheer madness!"

The Pretender read the note again. "Actually…" he began, having to admire the sweeper for his audacity and sheer courage for even suggesting such a thing, "it's a good plan – one that just could work." Already he was sifting through various scenarios in his head, examining what kinds of unexpected obstructions, consequences and reactions could be.

"What REALLY gets me is how Broots could be convinced to agree…" Sydney continued, waving a hand in the air.

"I think he realizes that she has a stake in this too, you know," Jarod defended Sam. "As long as the Centre thinks that it can pull these kinds of stunts with impunity – haul her father, Sam, Miss Parker, you, me, in and erase our memories of who we are and our place in the scheme of things – none of us is safe. That applies even IF we get Miss Parker and Angelo out of there and run like rabbits for cover. Not to mention that this will give her an active way to feel like she participated in the payback for what was done to her and hers."

"This isn't about payback…" Sydney began.

"Of course it is," Jarod interrupted forcefully. "The Centre has played God for the last time, Sydney. Miss Parker is pregnant with my child – and neither of us had any say in the matter. All THEY want is a Super Pretender that they can train from early infancy – the way they trained my brother Justin – and make him into their idea of a robot with no feelings…" Jarod got to his feet violently and stalked around the table. "Do you know what my father went through, just convincing that young man that having emotions wasn't a sign of weakness and failure, Sydney?"

Sydney cringed – he'd seen signs of this kind of emotional abuse even in the little time that he'd spent with Gemini. "I know," he countered.

"Do you honestly think that I want that for my son or daughter?" Jarod's voice was dying into a lethally soft tone. "Do you think Parker would stand for such a thing for HER own flesh and blood?"

Sydney flinched again, but then faced Jarod's anger directly. "But if you make this all about payback and revenge, rather than keeping it about righting wrongs being done right now, you'll never be satisfied in the end. I know – I've tried!" He turned away. "Do you honestly think that when Dachau was liberated, all the Nazis had completely vanished into thin air? Can you imagine what happened when a group of us – children most of us – came upon a German soldier one night?" The chestnut eyes flashed with anger and regret. "What we did that night was as inhuman as what was done TO us. I…" He took a deep breath. "I fell to a level of savagery that shames me to this day."

Jarod stared at his mentor. "You never told me…"

Sydney gave his former student a brief glare. "There are many things I've never told you, Jarod – for your own good as well as my own. I tell you this now so that you won't make the same mistake I did – and lose your humanity in the name of revenge."

Jarod backed down slightly – Sydney really did have a valid point to make as well as the experience to back it up. "We don't have to lose our humanity in the name of payback, Sydney – Sam won't be letting Debbie do much of anything except play poor little captive in order to divert their attention to what Broots and Angelo are doing for Miss Parker. Then, once those two are out of harm's way, it will be the authorities themselves that will vouch for her safety." Jarod walked back over next to the chair he'd been sitting in and faced his old teacher. "She deserves a chance to help make things right so that they'll never attempt to steal her father away from her again."

Debbie popped her head through the kitchen door. "My ears are burning," she grinned, and then sobered when she saw the expression on the men's faces was still as stressed and concerned as when she'd left. "What?" she demanded, sighing inwardly. She'd thought that getting Jarod back would have been a good thing – raising everybody's spirits. Apparently not…

Sydney huffed and walked over to the refrigerator, knowing that if Debbie was home, it was lunchtime for all of them. Jarod shot Debbie a sympathetic look. "We got an email from Sam that has Sydney a little upset. Sam has a plan that is going to need your participation as an important element in getting Miss Parker and Angelo out of the Centre – and then we can finish bringing the roof down on the monsters that did this to us, once and for all."

"I'm in," she said without an instant of hesitation. From the other side of the kitchen, Sydney huffed again and refused to look at her as he assembled sandwich makings from the fridge. "Don't be angry," she pleaded and then moved to her guardian's side. "I wanted to help before; and now I not only can, but have to," she explained to him, and grabbed a forearm when she couldn't get him to look at her otherwise. "They took my father and stole his memory from him, Sydney – they took away Miss Parker too, from the both of us. I owe them, and you do too."

"Sam's plan is solid and feasible," Jarod argued, hoping that Sydney wouldn't be able to withstand the both of them trying to reassure and convince him to go along. "It will work – it will accomplish everything that we want accomplished when all's said and done – and it will be safe for Debbie."

Sydney capitulated by reaching out and drawing Debbie close to him and holding her very tightly. His golden brown eyes glared a warning to Jarod over her shoulder – and to Sam by inference – that any harm befalling her would not be forgiven. Jarod accepted the warning and turned his back to sit down to type out a response to Sam. "We do this day after tomorrow afternoon," he told the others quietly, "hopefully before anything else can happen."

oOoOo

Parker lay on her bed, counting the ceiling tiles in the dim light that never seemed to be extinguished. She smoothed her hand over her lower abdomen, even though it hadn't started to swell or indicate in any way that a new life was steadily growing in there. SHE knew it was there – she sent it love and concern every time she was alone and could focus her thoughts on it. On her. Mr. Raines had told her that the results of the amniocentesis had shown that she was carrying a daughter. A little girl.

Her lips curled in a gentle smile. In the back of her mind's eye, she could see herself hand in hand with a small, dark-haired child with dancing dark eyes – long hair neatly braided into pigtails that hung nearly to her waist. "Catch me, Momma," the vision called to her in a small voice, and she heard herself laughing out loud as the two of them raced around a lush, green area.

The air conditioning kicked on, and the vision faded with the scent of overly-processed air. Parker grimaced her complaint and opened her eyes again to resume counting the ceiling tiles in her little space. No matter how many times she counted, they always added up to the same number – never more or less. She would have to tell Byron that she was finished with the latest mystery novel and wanted another – and then hope that he'd be a little quicker in finding another one for her than he was the last time she'd made such a request.

There was a rattling within the air conditioning that she hadn't heard before, and she raised her head to stare at the metal grating that covered the vent. Slowly it opened and a man's head began to protrude through the opening. Before she could react, the man had put a finger to his lips and shaken his head. "Be ready," was his soft whisper. "Friend will come for you tomorrow – go with him. You will be safe."

Brows that were finely arched flew high on her forehead, but the man once more had his finger to his lips. "Say nothing, just nod."

Slowly she gave a very tiny nod. The man's face broke into a smile. "They miss you – be glad to have you home." And with that cryptic remark, he pulled his head back into the vent and closed the grate after himself.

Parker relaxed and lay back on her pillow, her mind racing. Who was this "Friend" this odd little man spoke of? Who was it that missed her and would be glad to have her home? Did she have family after all, despite what Mr. Raines and Byron and Fran had told her – and if so, why had they lied to her? Once more her hand smoothed over her lower abdomen protectively. Would it be safer for her to follow this 'Friend' – or to stay here, where they had taken such good care of her after the accident?

The delicate brows furled together. Questions that she'd wanted to ask but had never had the opportunity to voice properly swelled within her. Why did she never see the light of the sun? Where WAS she? Why couldn't she remember her own name or what her husband had looked like yet? Why were they having her do all of these psychological tests and simulations now – when nearly every experiment they threw at her now left her both physically and emotionally exhausted? Surely that couldn't be good for the baby…

The odd little man had said she'd be safe with 'Friend' – and that others had missed her and would be glad to have her back. How glad would they be when they found out that she couldn't remember them? How safe would that make her?

When would 'Friend' come for her? Where? In the Sim Lab? Here?

Parker rolled into a ball and turned on her side. With all these questions, it was likely that she wouldn't be able to get much sleep that night at all.