Disclaimer: Sigh…Sadly, I do not own the characters of The Pretender. I in no way wish to defame any of its affiliates nor NBC or TNT. That's it.Read it now!
Summary: Clues to the past bring Ms. Parker and Jarod back together again. Very involved in IOTH, but you can understand it without having seen it. Ties up most story lines. Mostly from Ms. Parker's point of view. Chapters are short.
The Truth Is Waiting
By Bec-Bec
Chapter 14
Project Emptiness
Broots Desk at the Centre
Broots silently mumbled to himself as he typed in key codes trying to figure out if Jarod's mysterious empty box had anything to do with the Centre's past. He wished he was at home, Debbie had come down with a fever and needed to stay home from school. He was worried about her and, unfortunately, he had to be at the Centre because Raines had been extremely strict about people showing up to work. Besides, Ms. Parker's suddenly deciding to take a vacation had left the search for Jarod in his and Sydney's hands.
It struck him as odd that Ms. Parker would take off on a vacation out of the blue. So, like any employee at the Centre who noticed someone was mysteriously absent, he worried when she didn't show up. It was very unlike Ms. Parker to skip going to work. She was extremely dedicated to the search for Jarod and never took much time away from the Centre. He feared the worst, that something horrible had happened to Ms. Parker and the Centre was trying to cover it up. As a result, he was even more jittery than usual and when Sydney approached him from behind without making a noise, he practically jumped out of his skin.
"Oh! Syd…God, you nearly gave me a heart attack."
"What's the matter Broots?"
"Well, don't you think it's a little odd that Ms. Parker, queen of working overtime, suddenly took a week's vacation?"
"She was tired, Broots, she hasn't been sleeping well."
Broots wasn't convinced. "Still, when people," he gulped, "take vacations from the Centre, they usually don't come back."
"Broots, everything is going to be fine; Ms. Parker is a very smart woman. You know she wouldn't let anybody hurt her." Broots just stared at Sydney, not as assured as the older man. Sydney tried to change the subject. "So, how is the search for the meaning of the empty box coming up?"
"Well, so far, I've found out that there was a project called Emptiness in which children were locked up in rooms for two years without human contact and shown films on wars and brutal attacks…Later, they were studied to see if they showed suicidal or aggressive tendencies when released."
"How terrible, when was this project in effect?"
"The late 1950s…the file says that…" Broots leaned in toward Sydney to avoid being overheard. "…it was one of Raines first assignments."
Sydney stroked his chin, as he sometimes did when he was deep in thought. "I wonder what relevence it had to Jarod."
"Well, I uncovered another file after about two hours of run around passwording through about twenty backdoors into a very restricted section of the Centre's history, according to what I read, Project Emptiness was the prelude to the pretender program. That's when the Centre first uncovered the talents of a pretender."
"How?"
"Apparently, one of the children in project emptiness, Tyrone Black, was released after the two year period and as they were studying the effects of the seclusion, they found that he had developed the ability to predict the outcome of certain situations and what had gone wrong, causing certain ones to fail. Supposedly, they had been trying to find out if, when presented with a murder situation, they would become as full of anger and hate as the killer…Syd, they were trying to breed hit men."
"I still don't understand why Jarod felt this particular piece of information was something we needed to find. I don't remember anything about Project Emptiness."
There was a long pause. "Syd…that's because you weren't the psychiatrist for the project…Jacob was."
"Jacob!?" Sydney said in awe.
They were interrupted as a window opened up on Broots computer screen, signaling that he had an e-mail. Broots quickly opened the e-mail. A list of ten words popped up on the screen:
Vengeful
Man
Helped
Nurture
Parker's
Have
Couldn't
Benefit
Torment
And
"It must be some sort of word puzzle. Who sent it Broots?"Sydney said, after leaning in to read the screen.
Broots quickly tried to trace the message. "It doesn't have a source. How's that possible? It must be from Jarod, if anyone…besides me…can figure out how to send a message without any remnants of a source, it's Jarod. I can probably pull the source up, but it's going to take a long time. Why would he send another clue before we finished with the first one?"
"I'm sure he's got a reason, this one must take precedence over the other one."
"Well, what should I try to do with it?"
"Broots, what do we usually do with a clue?"
"T-try to figure it out. I end up hacking into someplace restricted, Raines starts snooping, and Ms. Parker yells and drinks a lot."
Sydney laughed at Broots' nervous rambling. "Broots, you don't need Ms. Parker to tell you what to do. Just start running it through the computer. If nothing comes up, we'll get help from Angelo."
"Y-yes, alright."
"Broots, I'm sure Ms. Parker is fine, don't worry so much."
"Syd, worrying is what I do, that's my primary job, you think, Ms. Parker directs, and I ramble about everything that worries me that could go wrong."
Sydney just smiled, then his smile faded, he remembered what Broots had found out about Project Emptiness. "Broots, when you get a chance, try to find out more about my brother's involvement with Project Emptiness."
Broots nodded, still facing his computer, not wanting to meet the troubled look on Sydney's face.