CHAPTER TWO
March 14 2001
Miss Parker hid her anger. Maybe she should have told that woman to get out of here and let us finish what we were doing, but she accepted the cup of tea. Now Jarod was gone, and she was back on the chasing routine again. She was so tired and that dream she had of her being an old woman alone in a nursing home was starting to become a reality.
She also thought about Jarod years later being in another nursing home with no one to visit him except the people he had helped. Maybe the Centre should have provided him with a little female companionship. . Why I would do it if they asked me, but no one did.
Once she had asked her father, "What happens when Jarod is in the Centre and he dies? Where will you get your next Pretender?"
Mr. Parker had smiled and told her not to worry. "The Pretender project will go on. The Centre made sure of that."
When she was a little girl, she imagined her father saying one day, "Angel now that you're a young woman, I decided that you and Jarod belong together." but then the hate grew. She had no idea where it came from or why she and Jarod could talk civilly on the phone and yet snap at each other in person.
And she thought about the curse. Maybe Jarod was right. It made her the pursuer and he the prey. So she decided to do something, get the curse removed. And that's what made her angry. Apparently exorcists took various training. The one that could really remove the complete curse was not at the Cathedral. Not one of the esteemed destroyers of the works of Satan had appeared since before she was born.
"I am only able to do a minor removal. The curse given by these scrolls is powerful, equivalent to what was on that lad which fell into the fire and the water."
"Well give it to me."
"Very well, Miss Parker, but I might warn you that it might not work as you wish."
"I must return a certain person." Now, came the lie. "He stole money from the Centre. My father wants him to make amends without the embarrassment of a prison sentence. What do you mean, it might not work?"
"Well you might get him, but he might die. Or instead of allowing you to leave the Centre, your father might offer you a better position."
Miss Parker's eyes glinted at the thought. "How do you know so much about the Centre?"
"Because your mother came in and confessed to my predecessor. Before he left, he told me what went on. Although the Sanctity of the Confession is inviolable, your mother's death voids her confession. Shall we begin? This is to enable you to get what you have been searching for. For that, we need something of yours and what you desire. However, he would have had to be in this Church."
"Don't worry, he has." Actually she had no idea if Jarod had been there, but her inner sense told her different. He had been here, hiding, sometime before he visited Broots, and told him of his daughter. This was the first place a fugitive would come.
She gave the priest her mother's bible and the last red notebook that Jarod had. She listened to the archaic Latin phrases, the priest sprinkling the holy water, the saying, "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" —in Latin for the curse was ineffective if said in the vulgar tongue. The priest gave her back the Bible and the notebook. These items were protected.
"Remember you must return with personal items from the Centre. This section of the curse only gave you what you wished and can be revoked if what you want is killed by your own hands or by your words."
"What?" She couldn't kill Jarod and she couldn't say aloud 'oh I wish someone would get rid of Jarod.' . "What if I do something accidentally, like run him over with my car?"
"I said deliberate, not accidentally. Remember if that happens, the curse will return with more intensity."
Miss Parker brought herself back to reality. Once Jarod was in the Centre, she was out or perhaps she would be given the position of Chairman. Perhaps she would be the head at the London Office, or the one in Mexico, or wherever. Then perhaps they would put her in the sublevels with Jarod. They said she was a Pretender, but she doubted it. She remembered Timmy. They thought he was one too. Besides she did not have the correct blood type. And she thought of what had happened when she grew up in the Centre, when she became a teenager.
If she had asked for one night with Jarod, Raines would refuse. He was in charge now and he would make sure they never came in contact and she would go back to oogling that Hunk in sublevel three. He was so handsome! Dark eyes, dark brown hair. He's a little shorter than Jarod, but he's so sexy!
And then she became once more the cold Miss Parker. When I get a hold of Jarod, I'll have him and the Centre be dammed. She wanted Jarod to feel the pain she had in pursuing him. When they captured him, Jarod's fate would not be so easy.
Mr. Lyle motioned his sister into his office. "Sydney, Broots," he said, "I want to speak to Miss Parker alone." He pressed a button.
"Another reprimand?"
"No sis," he said. He reached into his desk, and brought out a compact. "Open it. You'll have no trouble capturing Jarod now."
She shook her head. "Really if putting all those posters out to the police and FBI accusing him as practically a child abuser was not enough?"
"Alex had the right idea. I'd congratulate him if I could find him, but he disappeared. I found it in your father's possessions, or rather Mr. Raines's, along with this document, yesterday when you were out, it was about three forty five pm."
Miss Parker stifled a gasp. Three forty five pm, yesterday was when the priest finished saying, "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen." It worked!
"I had quite a time trying to keep the old man out of this." He smiled. "Jarod has a bar code in his skull, placed there when he was born."
"But Jarod was not brought into the Centre until he was about four or six years old. Wasn't it dangerous? What about the Pretender gene."
"The doctor who inserted it telephoned us giving the code, one to a family. In this case, there were three. Jarod had a younger brother between him and Kyle, who died shortly after birth. Mr. Parker agreed that those with the Pretender gene would be more manageable if they didn't have any social event connected to their life, like birthdays. As soon as Jarod and others were brought into the Centre, we took steps to remove any identifying records such as birth certificates, and baptism papers."
"I guess with their superior intelligence and ability to blend, you need a control. Maybe a dog chain would be better or a whistle."
"I'll ignore that last remark." He reached into the desk and brought out an envelope. "This is for you," he said and turned on the intercom. "James, bring in the compact and the disc I asked you to hold for me."
"So you had this all along saying Jarod's mine? What about the promise you gave me, that when I brought The Pretender, I could leave?" she asked, ripping open the envelope and removing a formal contract and a certificate.
"With our 'father's' demise, Raines and I figured that you are needed here in an executive position in the Tower." He smiled. "You and I will be partners. You realize that unlike your present position, those in the Tower are allowed extensive benefits. In fact, our father, during the time of Jarod's confinement, went to various locations outside the Centre. It was only when Jarod escaped, did he feel the need to stay here, but if you want to, you can remain and watch Jarod at his simulations."
"I didn't know the Tower gave so many benefits. I never had them when I was there." She glared at her brother.
"Did you bother to read the Centre brochure? Of course not. You just sat in your leather backed chair and watched the world passing by and occasionally turned on the wide screen which you know was ahead of the time What was that show you liked?"
Miss Parker leaned forward and whispered in his ear.
"Yes that one. Now we are making sure that you are given the choice of his appropriate punishment before putting him down below. Perhaps we can use him to create Pretenders in house."
"Did one of the Centre see him enter a hotel with a bimbo and he's no longer a virgin? Sounds like you believe in fairy tales! Next time you'll tell me that a Unicorn is in the Centre's basement!"
"You know very well the Pretender is not a virgin. However, the Centre has been unable to track if there were any results and the one we have now was created in the Centre, but he's not Jarod."
"No one is."
"—Except Gemini. Just hand me the compact and none of this foolishness. Don't worry, I'm just calibrating it. Raines stole the certificate and the information on the chip." He inserted a cord from the computer to the compact. "There, that's it." He handed it back to her. "Open it and press the mirror on the right side, that small indentation."
She did so, and a small map appeared as well as two lines with N, S, E, W. in the middle. She found that by pressing them, the map moved in a particular direction. She moved the letters back and forth, until she saw a flashing red dot. "Is there something wrong with me?"
"Why if Thomas had lived, I would have had a couple of nephews or nieces at least. As for the present Pretender, our laboratory is quite efficient, and there are plenty of surrogates around. Security and Records then told me that Raines did a little creation on his own and acquired results."
"So the new Pretender may or may not be Jarod's offspring. Wonder what happened to that one's parents."
Mr. Lyle smiled. "You know what happened to them. We cannot have our Pretenders form attachments. It would spoil their concentration."
She thought of the possibilities, now knowing that she was not one. The years of assuming that her father's insistence that she take multiple subjects, the acting coach he brought into the Centre had not given her the natural ability that Jarod and the other Pretenders had. She could not switch and for a time become a certain person. In her mind, she was always Miss Parker.
The acting coach, a loyal Centre employee, and a confident of Raines and Mr. Parker, said that method acting was the nearest equivalent of the category of a Pretender, but it took longer and much studying. At least, Raines had not done to her what he did to Timmy. She read the certificate, finding it rather incredible.
The Centre would never give Jarod to her. However, if they showed it to Jarod and said "you belong to Miss Parker and I'm sure she would be disappointed if you did not do the sims," then they would have him in their power completely. She now considered that Jarod was hers, even though deep down in her heart she knew that Raines and Lyle never intended to honor that certificate and her suspicions that it was really to control Jarod was true.
Suddenly her fingers pointed to a small paragraph at the bottom of the document "Wait a minute, this small print says the certificate is not legal until both it and the legal document have the official Centre seal. Where is it?"
Mr. Lyle put a finger to his mouth. "Don't worry, I'll put it on after you return, and you can have anything you want. Raines and I want you to have a one on one encounter of a violent sexual nature with Jarod's non cooperation, of course." He ignored her startled face. "If you complete this, you can have a high position in the Centre, and anything you want."
Miss Parker suddenly beamed at that idea. Anything you want, he says, but kept her expression cold. "Perhaps, a new Mercedes or a Rolls Royce if I bring Jarod in?" She bent over him. "So why not let me bring him to the sublevel myself, hook him up to electrodes, and let him believe it is happening? The thought of me having his prick inside of me makes me vomit! And does he have one?"
"Of course he does and it works perfectly. Of course, he was unaware of its function and we made sure to keep it that way." He snickered. "No, I don't mean, deliberate impotency, I mean erasing his memory after we took a sample for our-ah files."
"So you mean Raines went to all that trouble to create Etham and Gemini for nothing?"
"Not nothing. We first had to find how two boys in a family happened to be Pretenders. We had to eliminate their father and then their mother. Unfortunately Margaret disappeared."
"So why this experiment now? Couldn't Raines have done it when I was twenty-one or eighteen. Oh why this now?"
"And have you get romantically attached to the Centre Property. I always hated Jarod. I want him to suffer and I'm sure you want to produce a little Parker."
She paled. "And pass down the family curse?"
"We're the only ones left who can get rid of the curse. Emily is not available so it's up to you, Sis and someone found part of a scroll saying that a boy named Jarod would save the Centre. It didn't say a man, but a boy. I know you're thinking of our little brother, but we can't depend on him. It's up to you sis. You can do anything to our Pretender as long as he's not permanently damaged."
He did not specify what anything was, but Miss Parker knew. She with one of her lovers had acted them out. It was a game where she played the French schoolgirl captured by the Arabian Shriek and later, he, the American pilot in the hands of the Amazon queen. Oh they had fun with the mock screams of terror and "I'll do anything you ask!" and in reply, "Okay kiss my foot and—" Well the other suggestions were usually what the girls and boys that stood on street corners got paid to do.
Miss Parker was thankful that she took advantage of the Centre's outside medical branches to make sure she never had negative results from her encounters and since her periods were regular, she was very successful with the rhythm method. Not that she had to worry in the Centre. Lately, she was usually too busy to date and when one of the staff she went out with suggested because "we've been together, so why can't you persuade Mr. Parker to get me a large office with an outside view," she decided to become a secondary virgin. Besides, after Thomas, there was no one she could feel close to and the one man she could was so far beneath her that she dared not think about it except with contempt. .
According to her calendar that she kept in her purse, it was ninety- nine percent true now that pregnancy would result if she did have that "one on one encounter of a violent sexual nature with Jarod's non cooperation" and the baby would stand a good chance of being a Pretender.
She looked at Lyle with suspicion. Perhaps he knew she no longer used the pill. No, that must have been Raines. Yes, it was him. He knew that the doctors advised her that the pill interfered with her ulcer medicine and she should use another method of conception. Anyway, sex was becoming boring: too many sexual partners and not enough lovers. She had to take her temperature every morning to see whether she could have that little intimacy with the hunk that worked on Sublevel three, but every time she thought aboutl him, she saw Jarod's face. Now, she would be seeing it in person again, just like the Island. Only this time, he would not escape.
"So you want me to use Jarod to create a new Pretender." She sneered. "The best education, the finest schools and that's all you suggest so that twenty years hence my son who I'll never get to see will save the Centre and since he has Jarod's genes in him that will banish the curse. You think it's that easy?"
"Yes. We'll find new parents for him. He'll have their last name so technically he won't be a Parker. Oh and about the Pretender, when I see his face, I'll know—oh, the red dot's Jarod. Now you know where he is." Mr. Lyle pressed the button once more. "James, give Miss Parker the directions to our special house in that area." He did not tell her that he already set up a Surveillance system. Jarod was a Pretender. They needed physical evidence rather than his words. Besides Mr. Lyle was sure that Jarod would lie and say he was indifferent to the experience. Jarod would now know his place. Mr. Lyle was sure his sister would not be gentle.
"Yes sir and anything else?"
"Take her to the supply room. She'll tell you what she needs. Oh and my dear, don't let Broots or Sydney know what we were talking about."
Miss Parker knew her brother. There would be no outside parents for him, just the cold floor of one of the sublevels and a nurse until he was old enough to do the Sims. In a fit of anger she blurted out, "If you think I'm going to turn any of my offspring over for you to corrupt, think again!"
Her brother's face grew red with anger. Before he could stop her, Miss Parker had slammed the door behind her and walked out into the hallway.
"Who were you talking about?" Broots asked as Miss Parker shoved him aside. .
"Jarod of course. Come, we're heading for Connecticut."