****
Parker and Jarod had decided to climb the hill rather than go back through
the underground facility, but the wind and rain had grown steadily worse, so by
the time they were close to the top they were freezing cold and soaked to the
skin. Parker kept a determined pace, clutching her mother's file to her chest
and scrambling over rocks, and even though she slipped occasionally, she did not
slow down or look for an easier way. Jarod was still disturbed by her
hysterical crying earlier, and kept a close eye on her as they went, unsure of
her mental state. He tried to help her several times, however she just shook
him off and kept going.
Finally they reached the top, where the ground levelled out, and they
walked back to the barn along the dirt track they had come in on, now thick with
mud. They dashed the rest of the way, hurrying into the barn and out of the
rain. Water still dripped down in places, because of the holes in the roof,
however the back end of the barn was almost completely dry. Parker came to a
halt suddenly, crossing her arms over her chest and shivering. Jarod pointed to
a pile of old sticks in the corner.
"Do you want to get a fire started? I brought some supplies in case we needed
to stay the night, I'll just get them out of the jeep," he said.
"Can't we go back?" Miss Parker said, sounding miserable, and regretfully he
shook his head.
"We'd get bogged in all that mud. It may not be the best accommodation, but at
least we'll stay dry."
Parker said nothing, just placing her sodden file on the ground and
wandering off in the direction of the woodpile. Jarod watched her for a moment,
a frown marring his features, then shrugged to himself and turned away. He
dashed back out the jeep, rummaging through his supplies and taking what he
needed. He made several trips to get it all inside the barn, and by the time he
had brought the last of it in, Miss Parker had a small but cheerful fire going.
The holes in the roof allowed the smoke to escape, so there was no chance of
them getting smoked out, and it gave them a little warmth and comfort.
"Aren't you just a regular boy scout?" Parker said dryly, watching him drag all
his supplies over. He flashed her a quick grin.
"Always be prepared," he said.
First he set up a small tripod of metal rods over the fire, hanging a
billy full of water from it. Then he pulled out a couple of sleeping bags and a
large foam mat, about an inch thick. He was setting these up close to the fire,
when he looked up and stopped suddenly. Miss Parker had grabbed one of the
blankets he had brought in, had kicked off her boots and was now struggling to
get out of the top she had been wearing. She had it over her head, but was
fighting to get the wet material off her arms.
"Here," Jarod said huskily, going to kneel beside her, "Let me help."
Miss Parker stopped struggling, and he helped to slide the wet material
over her skin, so she could pull it off her arms and over her head, leaving her
in just her bra and jeans. Her gaze met his, and he shivered slightly as she
arched her back. Her hands went to her jeans, and she undid the buttons slowly.
She stood up, so his face was on level with her crotch, and slid the jeans off
her hips, stepping out of them. Jarod took a deep breath, letting it out on the
soft skin of her thighs, so her skin puckered with goosebumps.
"You should get out of your wet things too," Miss Parker said huskily, stepping
away from him, "You don't want to catch a cold."
Jarod rose to his feet jerkily, turning back to the fire as the billy
began to boil. With a metal hook, he took it off the fire, sitting cross-legged
on the dirt. He poured half of the water into a tin bowl, and added tea leaves
to the rest. To the bowl he added a little cold water, and thrust it at Miss
Parker, who was now sitting with the blanket wrapped around her.
"You can wash up a bit, if you want," he said gruffly, not meeting her gaze as
she accepted the bowl.
He tried to concentrate on making tea and warming some soup in a pot he
hung off the tripod, but could not help looking up in time to see Parker rubbing
warm water over her face and the tops of her breasts, where they were not
covered by the bra.
He shivered, starting to feel the cold. He unbuttoned his shirt and jeans,
shedding them and his boots in favour of another blanket. He took both of their
clothes and spread them out over the half-fallen down rail of a nearby pen, and
set their boots close to the fire to dry.
"Soups ready," he said a few moments later, dividing it evenly between two large
tin cups. Miss Parker accepted hers without comment, holding it between her
hands and close to her face. Jarod mimicked her, and watched her intently,
"Don't you have anything to say?"
"Like what?" Parker said bitterly, "Hey Jarod, my mother probably went into this
whole thing knowingly, how was your day?"
"Parker..." Jarod said in gentle rebuff, "You and I both know that your mother
would *never* have participated in something as inhuman as cloning."
"I know," she sighed softly.
"She thought she was infertile... she thought this was her chance to have a
child. You know she loved you," Jarod said.
"You think so?" Miss Parker asked, sounding incredibly vulnerable and insecure.
"Of course," Jarod said, smiling, "She loved you. If she were here today, she'd
tell you that right now. It doesn't matter about your DNA, or where you came
from, you are her daughter. She *loves* you."
"Thankyou Jarod," Parker said, smiling into her soup.
****
Even breathing hurts, Lyle thought to himself. He could hear the sound of
cars pulling up outside the quaint farmhouse where he had found September, and
knew it had to be his father, Raines and several sweepers. He wished now he
hadn't gone on ahead. Maybe they might not have arrived in time, but then he
wouldn't have had the crap beaten out of him by another one of the clones.
Sitting up gingerly, Lyle heard the front door bang open, and the sound of
sweepers rampaging through the house. One appeared in the doorway, Willie, and
looked at Lyle without emotion.
"Sir?" he asked.
"They're gone," Lyle said, shaking his head. His father appeared a moment
later, looking sternly down at him.
"Lyle! Did Jarod do this to you, son?" Mr Parker asked. Lyle winced, and shook
his head, climbing to his feet and wiping the blood from his mouth as Raines
wheezed into the room.
"The clones. One of the goddamn clones did it," he growled.
"The Distinction clones?" his father asked, alarmed.
"You mean a *woman* did this to you?" Raines asked
"TWO of the clones did. They... ganged up on me," he improvised, "They were
waiting in ambush for me, and they wanted blood."
He touched the lump on the back of his head from where the other one, he
wasn't sure which month she was, had hit him with a fry pan. He had been
delighted when he realised September was there, thinking she was alone. He had
not even thought about the fact that she might have teamed up with another one
of them.
"I thought the transmission came from Jarod?" Mr Parker asked gruffly.
"That's what I thought too!" Lyle said, shrugging, "Why would the clones be in
contact with Sydney?"
"Would you like me to find out, sir?" Willie asked, a dangerous gleam in his
eye.
"We could take him to Renewal..." Raines said.
"No!" Mr Parker said curtly, holding up one hand, "I don't want Sydney to know
that we're on to him, not while he could still be useful in finding Jarod."
"Sir," another faceless sweeper interrupted, emerging from the hall, "We've
searched the house. All four occupants are gone."
Lyle, Mr Parker and Raines all turned to look at him in surprise
simultaneously.
"Four?" Lyle asked. The sweeper looked nervous.
"Yes sir. From the looks of it - three females and a male."
****
"You know," Jarod said, "I can't help but wonder why... why your mother? Why
twelve?" he asked.
The fire was now burning low, and they were sitting side by side on the
bedding he had set up. Miss Parker took another sip of her tea, her third for
the evening. "Who knows?" she asked, and picked up the still damp file from the
offices below, "Why clone anybody? Why twelve, why not twenty-four?"
"Yes, but why choose to raise you like that? Why give a clone to the original
as her own child?" he asked, "Why raise you as a somewhat normal child?"
"Maybe daddy got sick of Mama trying," Miss Parker said in sad reflection.
She paged through the file again, and then shook her head. Slowly, one
page at a time, she began to feed the file into the fire, everything except the
picture. Jarod watched her watch it burn, noting the darkly satisfied look on
her face.
"You know... I don't know for sure that I'm not a clone," he said softly. Miss
Parker just shrugged.
"Why? Afraid that mythical family unit of yours might not be your family at
all?" she asked flatly, then sighed, "I'm sorry. I'm being negative, and you
don't deserve it. You've done nothing but help me."
"I like helping you," Jarod said, taking her hand. He ran his thumb over the
backs of her knuckles gently, and she smiled.
"When you were a kid, you liked getting me in trouble," she said.
"I got *you* in trouble?" Jarod laughed incredulously, "I recall it being the
other way around!"
"Whatever," Miss Parker said breezily, and smiled. There was a short silence,
and then, "Even after all these years, we still wind up together."
"Yeah," Jarod said tenderly, "Fate just seems to keep drawing us together, no
matter what."
Miss Parker chewed her lip for a while, lost in thought. Jarod touched
her chin gently, and she looked at him. He tilted his head thoughtfully, "I
know you're never going to say sorry for all the years you've hunted me," he
said, "But can we at least put it behind us for now? The hate, the anger?"
"Yeah," she said after a long moment, "I suppose we can."
Jarod nodded, taking his hand away. For a long time they stared into the
flickering fire, saying nothing. Soon the fire had burned dangerously low, and
Jarod stood up, pulling his blanket around himself. He went over to the pile of
wood in the corner, bringing back several decent sized sticks, which he threw on
the fire. He circled the bedding, sinking to his knees behind Miss Parker, who
tried to crane her head to look at him curiously.
"Relax," he murmured, allowing his blanket to drop from his hands.
Gently he placed his hands on her shoulders, massaging away the tension he
found there. Parker remained stiff for a moment, then relaxed into his
ministrations, her head dropping forward. Jarod smiled to himself, shuffling
forward so his knees were on either side of her, and continued to work on the
muscles in her back, gently stroking and kneading. The blanket slipped slowly
away, so he was working on bare skin. On an even swipe across her shoulders, he
pushed her bra straps out of the way, before concentrating on her shoulders.
Parker let out a soft sound of appreciation, and he leant forward, placing
a chaste kiss on the curve of one shoulder blade, and he heard a soft hitch in
her breathing. He stroked her hair up against her head, holding it there with
one hand, and began to trail tiny kisses up her spine, to the nape of her neck,
and around to her ear.
"Are you trying to seduce me?" she asked huskily, and he nipped gently at her
earlobe.
"Maybe..." he murmured.
She raised her hands, covering his hand where it rested on the back of her
head, and he took the opportunity to loop his free arm around her waist, pulling
her firmly towards him, so her back was pressed against his bare chest. Her
hands slipped to the sides of his head as he bent his face to kiss the place
where her shoulder became neck.
"Is it working?" he asked.
"Maybe..." she whispered breathily, and he chuckled.
He brought both hands to settle on her stomach, still holding her against
him, splaying his hands across her taut abdomen, still kissing all the skin he
could reach. He rocked up onto his knees slightly, forcing her to rise up with
him, so she could feel the hard length of his erection, only his cotton boxers
and her silk panties between them. She groaned, rolling her head back onto his
shoulder, and he attacked the length of her neck with wet, hungry kisses. He
pulled her back even further, so when he relaxed back to sitting on his knees
again she was practically on his lap, his erection nestled between her buttocks.
"Jarod? January?"
Jarod swore softly, releasing her instantly, and Miss Parker slid forward,
off his lap, pulling her bra straps up. Jarod tossed a glance over his
shoulder, seeing a slight figure struggling with the barn door, and quickly
grabbed Miss Parker's blanket and draped it across her shoulders, dropping his
own across his lap just as December and September emerged into the light of the
fire.
"What happened?" Miss Parker asked, and September let out a soft sob, dropping
to her knees in front of Miss Parker and burying her face in her neck. Parker
held the sobbing woman with surprise, raising her gaze to look at December, who
was pacing angrily.
"Your *contacts*, in the Centre, whoever they were, must have given the game
away. They found us!" she growled, then stopped suddenly as she noticed Jarod
and Miss Parker's state of undress, "What the fuck happened to you?"
"We got a bit wet," Jarod said, and wished he hadn't as Miss Parker suddenly
flushed and looked down. September raised her face tearfully.
"It was... it was HIM!" she said.
"Who?" Parker demanded, wiping the tears off her face. September hiccoughed.
"Him!" December roared, "Bobby! That one-thumbed son of a bitch who fucking
*tormented* September!"
Jarod went cold.
"What did you say his name was?" he asked.
"Bobby," September mumbled. Miss Parker blanched.
"Oh my god," she whispered.
"What?" asked December, resuming her pacing.
"Bobby... Bobby is the given name of..." Parker gave Jarod a beseeching look,
while December looked back and forth between them. September raised her head.
"Who?"
"Bobby is the given name of Miss Parker's twin brother. Lyle is a pseudonym he
uses, and what we know him as, but Bobby is his real name," Jarod said softly,
"The yakuza took his thumb off several years ago."
December looked sick.
"You mean... he's *blood*? He's related?" she hissed. He nodded slowly, and
September suddenly put her hand over her mouth and bolted in the direction of a
dark corner. December gave them another despairing look, and then hurried after
her.
"That sick bastard," Miss Parker said, and Jarod grimaced at the sounds of
September being sick. Parker stared at him, looking shocked, "I'm going to kill
him. I'm going to take his damn head off."
****
It was after midnight by the time September was feeling better. Miss
Parker and Jarod had hastily pulled on their almost-dry clothes, not making eye
contact as they had dropped their blankets and dressed. Jarod had dashed once
more out into the rain, scrounging around in the back of the jeep until he had
found several more thick blankets and another large mat. Parker watched with a
sense of surrealism as he set the bedding up close to the fire. December and
September were now sitting on the sleeping bags, and Parker had the sinking
feeling that she and Jarod were going to end up sharing the blankets for the
night. December seemed to have assumed that they were an item, an assumption
well based on the fact that she had seen them not only emerge from Jarod's
bedroom together the night before, but found them both in his bed that morning.
When Jarod looked up at her with a gentle smile she returned it flatly,
sitting mechanically beside him and putting out her hands to warm them on the
fire. She still found it almost impossible to believe that Lyle, whom she had
believed to be her brother, her *twin* brother, was September's tormentor and
rapist. She knew he had expressed desire for her, and that he was a little
mentally off-kilter, but still... that degree of sadism was beyond
comprehension.
"Why don't you tell us what happened at the house?" Jarod asked, and Parker
shook her head slightly to clear her tangled thoughts.
"There was a message on you laptop, from somebody named CJ, telling us that the
Centre knew our location and to run," September said, staring into her mug.
"Angelo," Jarod said softly, nodding for her to continue.
"He... was alone. Just walked in the door. He thought I was you," September
said, nodding at Miss Parker, "And then... I turned around and he recognised
me... god, he was so *happy* to see me..."
She trailed off bitterly, tears trailing down her cheeks. December rubbed
her back soothingly. "I came downstairs and found him harassing her. I beat
the shit out of him. We left," she said bluntly. Jarod nodded.
"Sydney and Broots wouldn't have given us away," Miss Parker said firmly, "Lyle
must have traced our transmission today. We'll have to warn them."
Jarod patted down his pockets, and then turned to a knapsack he had
brought in from the jeep, pulling out his cell phone. He held it up to the
light of the fire, tilting it to see. He frowned. "No service. We'll call
from the first phone booth we come to on the way out tomorrow," he said.
"And where do we go tomorrow?" September asked softly.
"Away. Anywhere. We'll go," Miss Parker said.
"We'll keep searching for the others," Jarod said.
December shook her head. "No. It's too dangerous for now. They know
we've found each other, they know we're in the country. Any move we make and
they'll be onto us. We need time, space, we need to let things die down a
little," she said sadly. September nodded, looking appealingly to Miss Parker.
"Come with us. New names, new lives. We can start again, just the three of
us," she whispered.
Miss Parker looked back and forth between the two women. Could she call
them sisters? Her fellow clones, wanting to get away, go underground, and
wanting her to go with them. They had pointedly excluded Jarod, and she
realised he had not missed this fact, staring silently down into his lap. While
they trusted him, they did not feel he belonged with them.
"No," she murmured, "I think I'll travel with Jarod a little more, just until I
get the hang of life on the run. Then... I'll go out on my own."
Jarod said nothing, but smiled a little.
****
It was late before they got to bed, as they stayed up talking and
planning. The fire was burning low as December and September crawled into their
separate sleeping bags. Jarod, on the other side of the fire, couldn't see them
very well in the shadows, but could hear the faint sounds of them whispering.
He turned away from them, only to see Miss Parker peeling off her jeans once
more.
Jarod ducked his head, turning to the side slightly. He took off his own
jeans quickly, shivering in the chill night air, and hung them up again, as they
were still slightly damp. He shucked off his flannel shirt, so he was wearing
only cotton boxers. Shyly, he held out the shirt to Miss Parker, keeping his
eyes focused on the ground.
"You can wear this to bed, if you like," he said huskily, and she accepted it
with a small murmur of thanks.
Jarod crawled under the blankets, leaving enough room for Miss Parker on
the side closest to the fire. He laid his head on the blanket he had folded up
to serve as a pillow, watching her through slitted eyes. Parker hung up her
jeans too, and stood in front of the fire as she pulled off her shirt, a golden
silhouette. She turned away as she unclipped her bra, but as she pulled on his
much larger shirt, Jarod caught sight of the profile of one high, firm breast.
He closed his eyes quickly, and turned his face, but the image was burned into
his mind.
The blankets shifted and lifted as she slid in beside him, and he heard
her sighing and rustling about, trying to get comfortable. He concentrated on
keeping his breathing deep and even, turning on his side with his back to her
and pulling the blankets up over his shoulder, but the bed was narrow and he
could still sense her presence behind him. It was much nicer, he decided, when
she slept in his arms, like the night before, rather than with this enforced and
uncomfortable distance.
****
They left early the next morning. September sat quietly in the car,
watching Jarod and Parker loading their gear into the jeep. After her encounter
with Bobby, she had decided she would rather stay up all night than leave
herself vulnerable to the nightmares that would surely come. Long after the
others had all drifted off to sleep, she had crawled out of her bed and sat by
the fire, fighting exhaustion.
She found her eyes lingering on Jarod, on his easy strength as he lugged
everything from inside the barn out to the jeep. He was very handsome, she
decided, and very kind, but she was still wary. She wasn't sure she could ever
trust a man again, not after Bobby. He had been sweet too, and very charming,
at least in the beginning. Nobody had ever paid attention to her like Bobby
had, and she'd been so lonely at Alkina. He'd brought her flowers once, a
bouquet of gardenias. She had been surprised and flattered by his continuing
attentions - it was obvious that he was expending considerable effort in order
to see her as often as he did. But, even from the start, something had seemed a
little intense about his focus on her, a slight edge of hunger in his approach
to her.
September's mind shied away from what had happened later. It didn't bear
thinking about, after all this time. Briefly she brushed a hand over her smooth
abdomen, recalling the terrible pain, the blood and the agony of knowing; the
child, she was losing the child...
"Ready?" December asked, leaning close to the window, and September jumped a
little.
"Ready," she said, and smiled tremulously. She was ready to start a new life;
ready to move on.
****
"No, no, I want to choose," September said firmly.
They were at a small diner in the outer skirts of Douglas, a town a few
hours out of Phoenix and close enough to the Mexican border to spit to the other
side. The day had dawned bright and hot, and Miss Parker felt just a little
warm in her simple tank top and jeans. December had a baseball cap pulled low
over her face, in an attempt to hide the fact that the three of them happened to
look an awful lot alike. Not all of their features were the same, but enough so
that they drew startled glances on the street.
"You don't want to keep your name?" Jarod asked, very surprised.
September and December's decision to lay low for a while had prompted
Jarod to suggest he create fake identities for them, so they could move in
society with more ease. They were discussing their new identities over a greasy
bowl of chips - which only Jarod was eating.
"Would you want a name that's taken from the month you were born in? A name
that identifies you as a clone?" December asked scornfully. Jarod looked
aghast.
Parker smiled a little to herself. Jarod's name was sacred to him, part
of the identity that had been taken from him so long ago, and he was obviously
having problems coming to terms with the fact that a name wasn't as important to
everybody as it was to him.
"I think I want to be a Veronica," September said dreamily. December rolled her
eyes.
"Alright Veronica. I'll be Charlie," December said.
"As in, short for Charlotte?" Jarod asked, writing them down. December wrinkled
her nose.
"Hell no. Just Charlie, short for nothing!"
"My mother's maiden name was Jaimeson," Miss Parker said impulsively, "Maybe you
could be Charlie and Veronica Jaimeson..."
December, September and Jarod all paused to look at her, and she shrugged.
"She is what we came from," she said huskily. She rummaged in her bag, digging
until she retrieved the photograph she had rescued from her mother's file. She
slid it across the table towards September and December.
Neither of them said anything for a very long time. They both studied the
photo in absolute silence, their faces pinched and slightly hungry. Then, when
September sat back, December touched two fingers to the very edge of the
photograph and slid it back across the table.
"Thank you, but no. We need something of our own. Jarod, I trust you to pick
something at random, please," December said very quietly.
Jarod nodded, and took the photograph off the table.
****
The end, it seemed, came upon them quicker than any of them could imagine.
Jarod had called Sydney and advised him that he and Broots were in danger due to
the Centre being aware of their contact, Centre accounts had been raided once
more for funds, and there was little left for them to do as a group, asides from
saying goodbye.
The four of them stood in a bus terminal, three gazing at each other with
emotion, while Jarod stared at the ground. He knew that two thirds of the
clones division standing under the Greyhound sign tolerated him, and only
because of what he could provide.
It wasn't that September and December had been hostile, Jarod mused, they
just hadn't been incredibly welcoming. They had only travelled to America with
him because of his assurances that Miss Parker was one of them. He couldn't
quite pin their attitude towards him on a distrust of all males in general,
although there was certainly an element of that. Instead he had come to realise
that they were jealous of his involvement with Miss Parker, and extremely
protective of her.
"Come with us!" September said plaintively.
"I can't," Miss Parker replied softly, "I need to see the world on my own. I
need to find my own footing. But we'll keep in contact. And when it's safer,
we'll find the others."
Jarod stared at a piece of gum stuck to the floor. He had delved once
more into the Centre's mainframe that morning, and was now aware that they were
on the look out for three clones and himself travelling together. Pretty soon
they would realise they weren't together, and the search would intensify.
Together, they held a dangerous amount of knowledge about the Centre and it's
practises; a danger the Centre would do everything in its power to have
nullified. Just quietly, he feared that if December and September were ever
recaptured, they would be killed instantly.
Not September and December, they were now Charlie and Veronica Bell, he
reminded himself. They had enough false documents to allow them to travel
without arousing suspicions for the time being. He would later send more
concrete identification to a neutral postal box, once he was sure none of them
were being followed.
"I'm... I'm going to miss you," Charlie/December said stiffly, obviously
uncomfortable with voicing her emotions so openly.
"I know," Miss Parker said.
They all hugged, and Jarod carefully kept his eyes averted, watching buses
being loaded and unloaded. Finally they separated, and Veronica/September was
scrubbing tears from her cheeks
"Okay," she said.
Abruptly, Veronica and Charlie turned around and walked away. They didn't
look back, simply disappeared into the crowds. Miss Parker turned to face
Jarod, looking pained.
"They have a noticeable lack of social graces," she said wryly. Jarod shrugged.
"Isolation does that to you."
He held out his hand, and Miss Parker took it, smiling slightly, and
slowly they walked out of the terminal.
****
Miss Parker missed her home. She hadn't really thought about it in the
days since Jarod had nabbed her, but it was forming like an ache in her chest
now that things had slowed down. She stood at the window of the small, seedy
motel room they had rented, flipping a dime over her fingers rapidly.
"We could go north-west... San Francisco? Seattle? LA is too crushing..."
Jarod was saying absently. He had a road map of America spread over the little
rickety desk, and while his questions were directed at her, she didn't feel he
was really focusing on her.
She realised, sadly, that she didn't even have a photograph of Dante, her
little brother; the chirpy little boy who had been a shimmering moment of light
in each day. She supposed he would forget her in time - grow up with a cold and
distant father and memories of a loving, blue-eyed woman the same way she had.
And she hadn't turned out so bad...
"I've never been to Oklahoma," Jarod was saying, and raised his face to her
distractedly as she turned around, "Do you have a preference?"
"You know," Miss Parker said slowly, ponderously, "I don't think I've ever been
this alone before."
Jarod opened his mouth, as if to say something, and then closed it again,
staring at her mutely. Parker continued to flip the dime over the tops of her
knuckles, pondering what she had said, the implications. She shook her head.
"I'm all alone," she said.
"You have..." Jarod trailed off. He didn't need to finish the sentence - 'You
have me.'
"No support network. No Sydney, no Broots, no background or family power. It's
all gone," Miss Parker said.
The dime slipped from suddenly numb fingers, falling to the floor.
"Maybe it's time you were on your own," Jarod said quietly, staring down at his
map, "Where would you like to go, Miss Parker? Or do you just want me to create
an identity for you so you can go?"
She'd hurt him, she realised. She hadn't meant to. She'd just been
thinking that everything she had ever known, every truth she'd built her life
upon, was gone. She had nothing now. She had to begin with nothing. Just
Jarod, giving her a helping hand. Maybe that she was all she needed.
"We'll go wherever you want to go," she said with a smile, and Jarod looked a
little better about things.
****
Jarod was awakened in the middle of the night by strange dreams, full of
fear and shadows, that seemed to all revolve around the ringing of a cell phone.
It was only once he sat up in bed, panting heavily, that he realised his cell
phone *was* ringing, which was what had been interfering with his dreams.
He leant over the side of the bed, digging in the pocket of his leather
jacket until he found the phone and flicking it upon. "Jarod," he said
groggily. The adjoining door between his and Miss Parker's room, left slightly
ajar, was pushed open all the way and her shadowy figure leaned in the doorway,
watching him.
"Ja-Jarod?" came a soft, hesitant voice.
"Broots?" Jarod asked incredulously. Miss Parker gave him a look of surprise,
coming into the room as he asked, "How did you get this number?"
"I, uh, well, I trapped the signal from the call you made to Sydney... you-you
must be getting careless..." Broots gave a short, hysterical laugh, and then
went quiet suddenly.
"What is it, Broots?" Jarod asked, sensing urgency in the other man's tone.
"Well, Sydney and I, we're getting out, you know, it's just not safe anymore,
and I've got Debbie to consider and everything, and well, I had a bit of money
saved up, so I'll be leaving Delaware tomorrow, but well..." Broots' rambling
trailed off abruptly.
Miss Parker had come to sit on the bed beside Jarod, watching his
reactions carefully, and she gave him a questioning look, to which Jarod
shrugged. "I wish you the best of luck then, and I hope we can stay in
contact... is everything alright?" he asked, and there was a long silence on the
line.
"Well, the last thing I'd been doing at the Centre was searching some of the
Centre archives for that project you mentioned, the Distinction Project, and I'd
been focusing in the archives from around the middle of the century, cause you
know, that's when everything big and bad *really* went down in the Centre, but-"
"The point, Broots," Jarod interrupted, and Broots took a deep breath.
"Well, the thing is, I did turn up something, but more recently than I had
expected," Broots said, lowering his voice, and Jarod could almost imagine him
looking around in paranoia, "And I found a reference to the Distinction Project
in a file called Vita Nuova, so I pulled it, and it, well... it's Dante's file,
Jarod. Miss Parker's little brother."
Jarod felt his breath slowing down. He licked his lips carefully,
flicking a glance at Parker, who was watching him intently, then looking away
quickly. "Dante?" he asked, and saw Miss Parker's fist clench on the bed.
"In the file they refer to him as the Twelfth Distinction: Factor Male, and
there are several references to techniques used in the Distinction Project and-"
Broots continued.
"Whose? Whose clone?" Jarod demanded, and heard the other man gulp.
"Yours, Jarod. I compared the DNA and it's identical," Broots whispered
miserably, "He's your clone."
****
Parker and Jarod had decided to climb the hill rather than go back through
the underground facility, but the wind and rain had grown steadily worse, so by
the time they were close to the top they were freezing cold and soaked to the
skin. Parker kept a determined pace, clutching her mother's file to her chest
and scrambling over rocks, and even though she slipped occasionally, she did not
slow down or look for an easier way. Jarod was still disturbed by her
hysterical crying earlier, and kept a close eye on her as they went, unsure of
her mental state. He tried to help her several times, however she just shook
him off and kept going.
Finally they reached the top, where the ground levelled out, and they
walked back to the barn along the dirt track they had come in on, now thick with
mud. They dashed the rest of the way, hurrying into the barn and out of the
rain. Water still dripped down in places, because of the holes in the roof,
however the back end of the barn was almost completely dry. Parker came to a
halt suddenly, crossing her arms over her chest and shivering. Jarod pointed to
a pile of old sticks in the corner.
"Do you want to get a fire started? I brought some supplies in case we needed
to stay the night, I'll just get them out of the jeep," he said.
"Can't we go back?" Miss Parker said, sounding miserable, and regretfully he
shook his head.
"We'd get bogged in all that mud. It may not be the best accommodation, but at
least we'll stay dry."
Parker said nothing, just placing her sodden file on the ground and
wandering off in the direction of the woodpile. Jarod watched her for a moment,
a frown marring his features, then shrugged to himself and turned away. He
dashed back out the jeep, rummaging through his supplies and taking what he
needed. He made several trips to get it all inside the barn, and by the time he
had brought the last of it in, Miss Parker had a small but cheerful fire going.
The holes in the roof allowed the smoke to escape, so there was no chance of
them getting smoked out, and it gave them a little warmth and comfort.
"Aren't you just a regular boy scout?" Parker said dryly, watching him drag all
his supplies over. He flashed her a quick grin.
"Always be prepared," he said.
First he set up a small tripod of metal rods over the fire, hanging a
billy full of water from it. Then he pulled out a couple of sleeping bags and a
large foam mat, about an inch thick. He was setting these up close to the fire,
when he looked up and stopped suddenly. Miss Parker had grabbed one of the
blankets he had brought in, had kicked off her boots and was now struggling to
get out of the top she had been wearing. She had it over her head, but was
fighting to get the wet material off her arms.
"Here," Jarod said huskily, going to kneel beside her, "Let me help."
Miss Parker stopped struggling, and he helped to slide the wet material
over her skin, so she could pull it off her arms and over her head, leaving her
in just her bra and jeans. Her gaze met his, and he shivered slightly as she
arched her back. Her hands went to her jeans, and she undid the buttons slowly.
She stood up, so his face was on level with her crotch, and slid the jeans off
her hips, stepping out of them. Jarod took a deep breath, letting it out on the
soft skin of her thighs, so her skin puckered with goosebumps.
"You should get out of your wet things too," Miss Parker said huskily, stepping
away from him, "You don't want to catch a cold."
Jarod rose to his feet jerkily, turning back to the fire as the billy
began to boil. With a metal hook, he took it off the fire, sitting cross-legged
on the dirt. He poured half of the water into a tin bowl, and added tea leaves
to the rest. To the bowl he added a little cold water, and thrust it at Miss
Parker, who was now sitting with the blanket wrapped around her.
"You can wash up a bit, if you want," he said gruffly, not meeting her gaze as
she accepted the bowl.
He tried to concentrate on making tea and warming some soup in a pot he
hung off the tripod, but could not help looking up in time to see Parker rubbing
warm water over her face and the tops of her breasts, where they were not
covered by the bra.
He shivered, starting to feel the cold. He unbuttoned his shirt and jeans,
shedding them and his boots in favour of another blanket. He took both of their
clothes and spread them out over the half-fallen down rail of a nearby pen, and
set their boots close to the fire to dry.
"Soups ready," he said a few moments later, dividing it evenly between two large
tin cups. Miss Parker accepted hers without comment, holding it between her
hands and close to her face. Jarod mimicked her, and watched her intently,
"Don't you have anything to say?"
"Like what?" Parker said bitterly, "Hey Jarod, my mother probably went into this
whole thing knowingly, how was your day?"
"Parker..." Jarod said in gentle rebuff, "You and I both know that your mother
would *never* have participated in something as inhuman as cloning."
"I know," she sighed softly.
"She thought she was infertile... she thought this was her chance to have a
child. You know she loved you," Jarod said.
"You think so?" Miss Parker asked, sounding incredibly vulnerable and insecure.
"Of course," Jarod said, smiling, "She loved you. If she were here today, she'd
tell you that right now. It doesn't matter about your DNA, or where you came
from, you are her daughter. She *loves* you."
"Thankyou Jarod," Parker said, smiling into her soup.
****
Even breathing hurts, Lyle thought to himself. He could hear the sound of
cars pulling up outside the quaint farmhouse where he had found September, and
knew it had to be his father, Raines and several sweepers. He wished now he
hadn't gone on ahead. Maybe they might not have arrived in time, but then he
wouldn't have had the crap beaten out of him by another one of the clones.
Sitting up gingerly, Lyle heard the front door bang open, and the sound of
sweepers rampaging through the house. One appeared in the doorway, Willie, and
looked at Lyle without emotion.
"Sir?" he asked.
"They're gone," Lyle said, shaking his head. His father appeared a moment
later, looking sternly down at him.
"Lyle! Did Jarod do this to you, son?" Mr Parker asked. Lyle winced, and shook
his head, climbing to his feet and wiping the blood from his mouth as Raines
wheezed into the room.
"The clones. One of the goddamn clones did it," he growled.
"The Distinction clones?" his father asked, alarmed.
"You mean a *woman* did this to you?" Raines asked
"TWO of the clones did. They... ganged up on me," he improvised, "They were
waiting in ambush for me, and they wanted blood."
He touched the lump on the back of his head from where the other one, he
wasn't sure which month she was, had hit him with a fry pan. He had been
delighted when he realised September was there, thinking she was alone. He had
not even thought about the fact that she might have teamed up with another one
of them.
"I thought the transmission came from Jarod?" Mr Parker asked gruffly.
"That's what I thought too!" Lyle said, shrugging, "Why would the clones be in
contact with Sydney?"
"Would you like me to find out, sir?" Willie asked, a dangerous gleam in his
eye.
"We could take him to Renewal..." Raines said.
"No!" Mr Parker said curtly, holding up one hand, "I don't want Sydney to know
that we're on to him, not while he could still be useful in finding Jarod."
"Sir," another faceless sweeper interrupted, emerging from the hall, "We've
searched the house. All four occupants are gone."
Lyle, Mr Parker and Raines all turned to look at him in surprise
simultaneously.
"Four?" Lyle asked. The sweeper looked nervous.
"Yes sir. From the looks of it - three females and a male."
****
"You know," Jarod said, "I can't help but wonder why... why your mother? Why
twelve?" he asked.
The fire was now burning low, and they were sitting side by side on the
bedding he had set up. Miss Parker took another sip of her tea, her third for
the evening. "Who knows?" she asked, and picked up the still damp file from the
offices below, "Why clone anybody? Why twelve, why not twenty-four?"
"Yes, but why choose to raise you like that? Why give a clone to the original
as her own child?" he asked, "Why raise you as a somewhat normal child?"
"Maybe daddy got sick of Mama trying," Miss Parker said in sad reflection.
She paged through the file again, and then shook her head. Slowly, one
page at a time, she began to feed the file into the fire, everything except the
picture. Jarod watched her watch it burn, noting the darkly satisfied look on
her face.
"You know... I don't know for sure that I'm not a clone," he said softly. Miss
Parker just shrugged.
"Why? Afraid that mythical family unit of yours might not be your family at
all?" she asked flatly, then sighed, "I'm sorry. I'm being negative, and you
don't deserve it. You've done nothing but help me."
"I like helping you," Jarod said, taking her hand. He ran his thumb over the
backs of her knuckles gently, and she smiled.
"When you were a kid, you liked getting me in trouble," she said.
"I got *you* in trouble?" Jarod laughed incredulously, "I recall it being the
other way around!"
"Whatever," Miss Parker said breezily, and smiled. There was a short silence,
and then, "Even after all these years, we still wind up together."
"Yeah," Jarod said tenderly, "Fate just seems to keep drawing us together, no
matter what."
Miss Parker chewed her lip for a while, lost in thought. Jarod touched
her chin gently, and she looked at him. He tilted his head thoughtfully, "I
know you're never going to say sorry for all the years you've hunted me," he
said, "But can we at least put it behind us for now? The hate, the anger?"
"Yeah," she said after a long moment, "I suppose we can."
Jarod nodded, taking his hand away. For a long time they stared into the
flickering fire, saying nothing. Soon the fire had burned dangerously low, and
Jarod stood up, pulling his blanket around himself. He went over to the pile of
wood in the corner, bringing back several decent sized sticks, which he threw on
the fire. He circled the bedding, sinking to his knees behind Miss Parker, who
tried to crane her head to look at him curiously.
"Relax," he murmured, allowing his blanket to drop from his hands.
Gently he placed his hands on her shoulders, massaging away the tension he
found there. Parker remained stiff for a moment, then relaxed into his
ministrations, her head dropping forward. Jarod smiled to himself, shuffling
forward so his knees were on either side of her, and continued to work on the
muscles in her back, gently stroking and kneading. The blanket slipped slowly
away, so he was working on bare skin. On an even swipe across her shoulders, he
pushed her bra straps out of the way, before concentrating on her shoulders.
Parker let out a soft sound of appreciation, and he leant forward, placing
a chaste kiss on the curve of one shoulder blade, and he heard a soft hitch in
her breathing. He stroked her hair up against her head, holding it there with
one hand, and began to trail tiny kisses up her spine, to the nape of her neck,
and around to her ear.
"Are you trying to seduce me?" she asked huskily, and he nipped gently at her
earlobe.
"Maybe..." he murmured.
She raised her hands, covering his hand where it rested on the back of her
head, and he took the opportunity to loop his free arm around her waist, pulling
her firmly towards him, so her back was pressed against his bare chest. Her
hands slipped to the sides of his head as he bent his face to kiss the place
where her shoulder became neck.
"Is it working?" he asked.
"Maybe..." she whispered breathily, and he chuckled.
He brought both hands to settle on her stomach, still holding her against
him, splaying his hands across her taut abdomen, still kissing all the skin he
could reach. He rocked up onto his knees slightly, forcing her to rise up with
him, so she could feel the hard length of his erection, only his cotton boxers
and her silk panties between them. She groaned, rolling her head back onto his
shoulder, and he attacked the length of her neck with wet, hungry kisses. He
pulled her back even further, so when he relaxed back to sitting on his knees
again she was practically on his lap, his erection nestled between her buttocks.
"Jarod? January?"
Jarod swore softly, releasing her instantly, and Miss Parker slid forward,
off his lap, pulling her bra straps up. Jarod tossed a glance over his
shoulder, seeing a slight figure struggling with the barn door, and quickly
grabbed Miss Parker's blanket and draped it across her shoulders, dropping his
own across his lap just as December and September emerged into the light of the
fire.
"What happened?" Miss Parker asked, and September let out a soft sob, dropping
to her knees in front of Miss Parker and burying her face in her neck. Parker
held the sobbing woman with surprise, raising her gaze to look at December, who
was pacing angrily.
"Your *contacts*, in the Centre, whoever they were, must have given the game
away. They found us!" she growled, then stopped suddenly as she noticed Jarod
and Miss Parker's state of undress, "What the fuck happened to you?"
"We got a bit wet," Jarod said, and wished he hadn't as Miss Parker suddenly
flushed and looked down. September raised her face tearfully.
"It was... it was HIM!" she said.
"Who?" Parker demanded, wiping the tears off her face. September hiccoughed.
"Him!" December roared, "Bobby! That one-thumbed son of a bitch who fucking
*tormented* September!"
Jarod went cold.
"What did you say his name was?" he asked.
"Bobby," September mumbled. Miss Parker blanched.
"Oh my god," she whispered.
"What?" asked December, resuming her pacing.
"Bobby... Bobby is the given name of..." Parker gave Jarod a beseeching look,
while December looked back and forth between them. September raised her head.
"Who?"
"Bobby is the given name of Miss Parker's twin brother. Lyle is a pseudonym he
uses, and what we know him as, but Bobby is his real name," Jarod said softly,
"The yakuza took his thumb off several years ago."
December looked sick.
"You mean... he's *blood*? He's related?" she hissed. He nodded slowly, and
September suddenly put her hand over her mouth and bolted in the direction of a
dark corner. December gave them another despairing look, and then hurried after
her.
"That sick bastard," Miss Parker said, and Jarod grimaced at the sounds of
September being sick. Parker stared at him, looking shocked, "I'm going to kill
him. I'm going to take his damn head off."
****
It was after midnight by the time September was feeling better. Miss
Parker and Jarod had hastily pulled on their almost-dry clothes, not making eye
contact as they had dropped their blankets and dressed. Jarod had dashed once
more out into the rain, scrounging around in the back of the jeep until he had
found several more thick blankets and another large mat. Parker watched with a
sense of surrealism as he set the bedding up close to the fire. December and
September were now sitting on the sleeping bags, and Parker had the sinking
feeling that she and Jarod were going to end up sharing the blankets for the
night. December seemed to have assumed that they were an item, an assumption
well based on the fact that she had seen them not only emerge from Jarod's
bedroom together the night before, but found them both in his bed that morning.
When Jarod looked up at her with a gentle smile she returned it flatly,
sitting mechanically beside him and putting out her hands to warm them on the
fire. She still found it almost impossible to believe that Lyle, whom she had
believed to be her brother, her *twin* brother, was September's tormentor and
rapist. She knew he had expressed desire for her, and that he was a little
mentally off-kilter, but still... that degree of sadism was beyond
comprehension.
"Why don't you tell us what happened at the house?" Jarod asked, and Parker
shook her head slightly to clear her tangled thoughts.
"There was a message on you laptop, from somebody named CJ, telling us that the
Centre knew our location and to run," September said, staring into her mug.
"Angelo," Jarod said softly, nodding for her to continue.
"He... was alone. Just walked in the door. He thought I was you," September
said, nodding at Miss Parker, "And then... I turned around and he recognised
me... god, he was so *happy* to see me..."
She trailed off bitterly, tears trailing down her cheeks. December rubbed
her back soothingly. "I came downstairs and found him harassing her. I beat
the shit out of him. We left," she said bluntly. Jarod nodded.
"Sydney and Broots wouldn't have given us away," Miss Parker said firmly, "Lyle
must have traced our transmission today. We'll have to warn them."
Jarod patted down his pockets, and then turned to a knapsack he had
brought in from the jeep, pulling out his cell phone. He held it up to the
light of the fire, tilting it to see. He frowned. "No service. We'll call
from the first phone booth we come to on the way out tomorrow," he said.
"And where do we go tomorrow?" September asked softly.
"Away. Anywhere. We'll go," Miss Parker said.
"We'll keep searching for the others," Jarod said.
December shook her head. "No. It's too dangerous for now. They know
we've found each other, they know we're in the country. Any move we make and
they'll be onto us. We need time, space, we need to let things die down a
little," she said sadly. September nodded, looking appealingly to Miss Parker.
"Come with us. New names, new lives. We can start again, just the three of
us," she whispered.
Miss Parker looked back and forth between the two women. Could she call
them sisters? Her fellow clones, wanting to get away, go underground, and
wanting her to go with them. They had pointedly excluded Jarod, and she
realised he had not missed this fact, staring silently down into his lap. While
they trusted him, they did not feel he belonged with them.
"No," she murmured, "I think I'll travel with Jarod a little more, just until I
get the hang of life on the run. Then... I'll go out on my own."
Jarod said nothing, but smiled a little.
****
It was late before they got to bed, as they stayed up talking and
planning. The fire was burning low as December and September crawled into their
separate sleeping bags. Jarod, on the other side of the fire, couldn't see them
very well in the shadows, but could hear the faint sounds of them whispering.
He turned away from them, only to see Miss Parker peeling off her jeans once
more.
Jarod ducked his head, turning to the side slightly. He took off his own
jeans quickly, shivering in the chill night air, and hung them up again, as they
were still slightly damp. He shucked off his flannel shirt, so he was wearing
only cotton boxers. Shyly, he held out the shirt to Miss Parker, keeping his
eyes focused on the ground.
"You can wear this to bed, if you like," he said huskily, and she accepted it
with a small murmur of thanks.
Jarod crawled under the blankets, leaving enough room for Miss Parker on
the side closest to the fire. He laid his head on the blanket he had folded up
to serve as a pillow, watching her through slitted eyes. Parker hung up her
jeans too, and stood in front of the fire as she pulled off her shirt, a golden
silhouette. She turned away as she unclipped her bra, but as she pulled on his
much larger shirt, Jarod caught sight of the profile of one high, firm breast.
He closed his eyes quickly, and turned his face, but the image was burned into
his mind.
The blankets shifted and lifted as she slid in beside him, and he heard
her sighing and rustling about, trying to get comfortable. He concentrated on
keeping his breathing deep and even, turning on his side with his back to her
and pulling the blankets up over his shoulder, but the bed was narrow and he
could still sense her presence behind him. It was much nicer, he decided, when
she slept in his arms, like the night before, rather than with this enforced and
uncomfortable distance.
****
They left early the next morning. September sat quietly in the car,
watching Jarod and Parker loading their gear into the jeep. After her encounter
with Bobby, she had decided she would rather stay up all night than leave
herself vulnerable to the nightmares that would surely come. Long after the
others had all drifted off to sleep, she had crawled out of her bed and sat by
the fire, fighting exhaustion.
She found her eyes lingering on Jarod, on his easy strength as he lugged
everything from inside the barn out to the jeep. He was very handsome, she
decided, and very kind, but she was still wary. She wasn't sure she could ever
trust a man again, not after Bobby. He had been sweet too, and very charming,
at least in the beginning. Nobody had ever paid attention to her like Bobby
had, and she'd been so lonely at Alkina. He'd brought her flowers once, a
bouquet of gardenias. She had been surprised and flattered by his continuing
attentions - it was obvious that he was expending considerable effort in order
to see her as often as he did. But, even from the start, something had seemed a
little intense about his focus on her, a slight edge of hunger in his approach
to her.
September's mind shied away from what had happened later. It didn't bear
thinking about, after all this time. Briefly she brushed a hand over her smooth
abdomen, recalling the terrible pain, the blood and the agony of knowing; the
child, she was losing the child...
"Ready?" December asked, leaning close to the window, and September jumped a
little.
"Ready," she said, and smiled tremulously. She was ready to start a new life;
ready to move on.
****
"No, no, I want to choose," September said firmly.
They were at a small diner in the outer skirts of Douglas, a town a few
hours out of Phoenix and close enough to the Mexican border to spit to the other
side. The day had dawned bright and hot, and Miss Parker felt just a little
warm in her simple tank top and jeans. December had a baseball cap pulled low
over her face, in an attempt to hide the fact that the three of them happened to
look an awful lot alike. Not all of their features were the same, but enough so
that they drew startled glances on the street.
"You don't want to keep your name?" Jarod asked, very surprised.
September and December's decision to lay low for a while had prompted
Jarod to suggest he create fake identities for them, so they could move in
society with more ease. They were discussing their new identities over a greasy
bowl of chips - which only Jarod was eating.
"Would you want a name that's taken from the month you were born in? A name
that identifies you as a clone?" December asked scornfully. Jarod looked
aghast.
Parker smiled a little to herself. Jarod's name was sacred to him, part
of the identity that had been taken from him so long ago, and he was obviously
having problems coming to terms with the fact that a name wasn't as important to
everybody as it was to him.
"I think I want to be a Veronica," September said dreamily. December rolled her
eyes.
"Alright Veronica. I'll be Charlie," December said.
"As in, short for Charlotte?" Jarod asked, writing them down. December wrinkled
her nose.
"Hell no. Just Charlie, short for nothing!"
"My mother's maiden name was Jaimeson," Miss Parker said impulsively, "Maybe you
could be Charlie and Veronica Jaimeson..."
December, September and Jarod all paused to look at her, and she shrugged.
"She is what we came from," she said huskily. She rummaged in her bag, digging
until she retrieved the photograph she had rescued from her mother's file. She
slid it across the table towards September and December.
Neither of them said anything for a very long time. They both studied the
photo in absolute silence, their faces pinched and slightly hungry. Then, when
September sat back, December touched two fingers to the very edge of the
photograph and slid it back across the table.
"Thank you, but no. We need something of our own. Jarod, I trust you to pick
something at random, please," December said very quietly.
Jarod nodded, and took the photograph off the table.
****
The end, it seemed, came upon them quicker than any of them could imagine.
Jarod had called Sydney and advised him that he and Broots were in danger due to
the Centre being aware of their contact, Centre accounts had been raided once
more for funds, and there was little left for them to do as a group, asides from
saying goodbye.
The four of them stood in a bus terminal, three gazing at each other with
emotion, while Jarod stared at the ground. He knew that two thirds of the
clones division standing under the Greyhound sign tolerated him, and only
because of what he could provide.
It wasn't that September and December had been hostile, Jarod mused, they
just hadn't been incredibly welcoming. They had only travelled to America with
him because of his assurances that Miss Parker was one of them. He couldn't
quite pin their attitude towards him on a distrust of all males in general,
although there was certainly an element of that. Instead he had come to realise
that they were jealous of his involvement with Miss Parker, and extremely
protective of her.
"Come with us!" September said plaintively.
"I can't," Miss Parker replied softly, "I need to see the world on my own. I
need to find my own footing. But we'll keep in contact. And when it's safer,
we'll find the others."
Jarod stared at a piece of gum stuck to the floor. He had delved once
more into the Centre's mainframe that morning, and was now aware that they were
on the look out for three clones and himself travelling together. Pretty soon
they would realise they weren't together, and the search would intensify.
Together, they held a dangerous amount of knowledge about the Centre and it's
practises; a danger the Centre would do everything in its power to have
nullified. Just quietly, he feared that if December and September were ever
recaptured, they would be killed instantly.
Not September and December, they were now Charlie and Veronica Bell, he
reminded himself. They had enough false documents to allow them to travel
without arousing suspicions for the time being. He would later send more
concrete identification to a neutral postal box, once he was sure none of them
were being followed.
"I'm... I'm going to miss you," Charlie/December said stiffly, obviously
uncomfortable with voicing her emotions so openly.
"I know," Miss Parker said.
They all hugged, and Jarod carefully kept his eyes averted, watching buses
being loaded and unloaded. Finally they separated, and Veronica/September was
scrubbing tears from her cheeks
"Okay," she said.
Abruptly, Veronica and Charlie turned around and walked away. They didn't
look back, simply disappeared into the crowds. Miss Parker turned to face
Jarod, looking pained.
"They have a noticeable lack of social graces," she said wryly. Jarod shrugged.
"Isolation does that to you."
He held out his hand, and Miss Parker took it, smiling slightly, and
slowly they walked out of the terminal.
****
Miss Parker missed her home. She hadn't really thought about it in the
days since Jarod had nabbed her, but it was forming like an ache in her chest
now that things had slowed down. She stood at the window of the small, seedy
motel room they had rented, flipping a dime over her fingers rapidly.
"We could go north-west... San Francisco? Seattle? LA is too crushing..."
Jarod was saying absently. He had a road map of America spread over the little
rickety desk, and while his questions were directed at her, she didn't feel he
was really focusing on her.
She realised, sadly, that she didn't even have a photograph of Dante, her
little brother; the chirpy little boy who had been a shimmering moment of light
in each day. She supposed he would forget her in time - grow up with a cold and
distant father and memories of a loving, blue-eyed woman the same way she had.
And she hadn't turned out so bad...
"I've never been to Oklahoma," Jarod was saying, and raised his face to her
distractedly as she turned around, "Do you have a preference?"
"You know," Miss Parker said slowly, ponderously, "I don't think I've ever been
this alone before."
Jarod opened his mouth, as if to say something, and then closed it again,
staring at her mutely. Parker continued to flip the dime over the tops of her
knuckles, pondering what she had said, the implications. She shook her head.
"I'm all alone," she said.
"You have..." Jarod trailed off. He didn't need to finish the sentence - 'You
have me.'
"No support network. No Sydney, no Broots, no background or family power. It's
all gone," Miss Parker said.
The dime slipped from suddenly numb fingers, falling to the floor.
"Maybe it's time you were on your own," Jarod said quietly, staring down at his
map, "Where would you like to go, Miss Parker? Or do you just want me to create
an identity for you so you can go?"
She'd hurt him, she realised. She hadn't meant to. She'd just been
thinking that everything she had ever known, every truth she'd built her life
upon, was gone. She had nothing now. She had to begin with nothing. Just
Jarod, giving her a helping hand. Maybe that she was all she needed.
"We'll go wherever you want to go," she said with a smile, and Jarod looked a
little better about things.
****
Jarod was awakened in the middle of the night by strange dreams, full of
fear and shadows, that seemed to all revolve around the ringing of a cell phone.
It was only once he sat up in bed, panting heavily, that he realised his cell
phone *was* ringing, which was what had been interfering with his dreams.
He leant over the side of the bed, digging in the pocket of his leather
jacket until he found the phone and flicking it upon. "Jarod," he said
groggily. The adjoining door between his and Miss Parker's room, left slightly
ajar, was pushed open all the way and her shadowy figure leaned in the doorway,
watching him.
"Ja-Jarod?" came a soft, hesitant voice.
"Broots?" Jarod asked incredulously. Miss Parker gave him a look of surprise,
coming into the room as he asked, "How did you get this number?"
"I, uh, well, I trapped the signal from the call you made to Sydney... you-you
must be getting careless..." Broots gave a short, hysterical laugh, and then
went quiet suddenly.
"What is it, Broots?" Jarod asked, sensing urgency in the other man's tone.
"Well, Sydney and I, we're getting out, you know, it's just not safe anymore,
and I've got Debbie to consider and everything, and well, I had a bit of money
saved up, so I'll be leaving Delaware tomorrow, but well..." Broots' rambling
trailed off abruptly.
Miss Parker had come to sit on the bed beside Jarod, watching his
reactions carefully, and she gave him a questioning look, to which Jarod
shrugged. "I wish you the best of luck then, and I hope we can stay in
contact... is everything alright?" he asked, and there was a long silence on the
line.
"Well, the last thing I'd been doing at the Centre was searching some of the
Centre archives for that project you mentioned, the Distinction Project, and I'd
been focusing in the archives from around the middle of the century, cause you
know, that's when everything big and bad *really* went down in the Centre, but-"
"The point, Broots," Jarod interrupted, and Broots took a deep breath.
"Well, the thing is, I did turn up something, but more recently than I had
expected," Broots said, lowering his voice, and Jarod could almost imagine him
looking around in paranoia, "And I found a reference to the Distinction Project
in a file called Vita Nuova, so I pulled it, and it, well... it's Dante's file,
Jarod. Miss Parker's little brother."
Jarod felt his breath slowing down. He licked his lips carefully,
flicking a glance at Parker, who was watching him intently, then looking away
quickly. "Dante?" he asked, and saw Miss Parker's fist clench on the bed.
"In the file they refer to him as the Twelfth Distinction: Factor Male, and
there are several references to techniques used in the Distinction Project and-"
Broots continued.
"Whose? Whose clone?" Jarod demanded, and heard the other man gulp.
"Yours, Jarod. I compared the DNA and it's identical," Broots whispered
miserably, "He's your clone."
****