For information on the Hercules Project mentioned, please read my story, The Hercules Project,

http/ NINE

March 16, 2001

As soon as they entered her house, Miss Parker said she would get a sample of Jarod's hair, and pulling her gun, ordered him to come in the bedroom with her. It took a little longer than expected. She did more than get a sample, thought Rachel.

"Here you are," Miss Parker said, giving the hair to the Profiler, "but what do you want it for?" She straightened her skirt. There was a showing of black lace beneath it.

Jarod came out of the other room with a slight smile, now in a new pair of slacks and smelling of Aqua Velva and Zest. He went over to 'his' lap top, putting a Cd in it, while Broots set up the equipment. When he saw it was the wrong one, showing a man who looked like Mr. Parker but in a Royal Navy uniform of the nineteen forties, he took it out, but not before examining it further.

By the grain of the original film on the Hercules Cd, the picture was dated around nineteen forty four, thought the Pretender. Someone had done a rush job not using a software program that would fix up the dents and discolorations. They had also put it in a place where he would find it or perhaps it was not a rush job at all, but the attempt of a man of a damaged mind, someone like Angelo.

"Who's that?" asked Broots, looking over Jarod's shoulder. .

"Oh," said Miss Parker, "that's my grandfather."

The scene showed a fishing boat, but without the usual all male crew. "Looks like a honeymoon or marriage counseling trip," said Broots, "My ex and I went horseback riding before we broke up. Oh it looks like someone getting out of an automobile and talking to your grandfather, but it looks too fussy."

"Maybe you should keep it, Miss Parker," said Jarod, taking it out and handing it to her with a slight bow. He then inserted the proper disc and checked the connections. The lights started to flicker. They would have gotten Angelo to steal a power source, but it seemed the Centre had him working on something —what they did not know.

"There's a generator in the pantry," said Miss Parker, looking at the Cd in her hand and thinking that now Jarod knew his place. "'Project Hercules': Sounds like an unlikely crew to search for the Seven Wonders of the World."

"Project Hercules," said Sydney, "I heard about it. The Allied Command planned to defeat Hitler's breeding of a Master Race by creating one of our own. According to hearsay, they wanted to go back to our roots."

"The stone age?"

"No Miss Parker, Hercules was the son of a god. They figured that those early Greek legends had some basis in fact, that men were stronger and more intelligent than now, killing wild oxen with bare hands, building a city with only a few men —can one do it now?"

Miss Parker looked toward the kitchen. "Do you think that my grandfather had anything to do with the Pretender gene?"

"Well if through hundreds of generations, it was destroyed and with careful breeding, it was regenerated, perhaps he did. Ah hello Jarod."

A few minutes later, Jarod set it up the generator and the power went back on. "We don't want anyone to be suspicious. I'll connect the computer to the generator and use the regular voltage for the house. What was that I heard about the Pretender gene?"

Sydney and Miss Parker told him the conversation and their theory that with the end of the war, the new breed became a liability. That did not reassure Jarod. It sounded too familiar, like the Centre going after him and his family and anyone with the Pretender gene.

"What happened to the others?" he asked.

"I have no idea," said Miss Parker, "Maybe Miss Burke knows."

"I suspect most of them went to Mexico," she said. "When did the Centre come in existence?"

"It has always been here. Daddy had quite a bit of money and scientific knowledge."

"Rather unusual for a man who quit college in his first year," said Jarod, "and went to business." He took a few pieces of Cracker Jacks from his pocket. Even though he had been rummaging around, the Pretender looked immaculate.

.To Rachel, this confirmed her suspicions that he was a 1.6r, more than his statement about the various items that Broots had set up. "It's from the CIA."

"Start of the art. The Centre got this on loan from a branch in Los Angeles. Scientific research, "said Sydney.

"Maybe I should phone Quantico and inform them."

"They had no need to ask for it back," said Sydney. "Jarod, why did you kill those guards? You wouldn't have done it before."

"I felt I had to. It was either them or me. Survival."

"Survival. Jarod, you're not a killer."

"But you told me I was free, but I wasn't. Killing has nothing to do with it, Sydney. They would have killed me without hesitation. In fact, until a few years ago, Miss Parker would have done the same and if I had shot back in self-defense and perhaps killed, let's say Mr. Lyle, you would have accused me of being a murderer."

"I always believed in a peaceful solution."

"Compromise at whatever cost, Sydney? Is that why the Centre recruited you?"

Sydney remained silent. Jarod was right. He had gone along with the Centre because he was afraid to speak up. He checked for Miss Parker for reassurance but her expression was, "deal with it yourself, Sydney. You raised him."

At that moment, her phone buzzed. "What is it?" she asked and after a while hung up. "Jarod, did you write on the wall?"

"With what? I couldn't even lift a pen without you being wise."

"Well someone wrote two messages over and over again, 'We will rule in the kingdom of man' and 'You will all die!' Apparently the writer is sort of an egotist."

"Or maybe he has a grudge against the Centre, could be anyone. .Maybe one of those 1.6rs, Rachel mentioned. I am one, but I certainly would not write on the Centre walls. I'm more subtle than that!"

"I doubt that you are one. It must be the strain of what you just went through," said Sydney. He separated the hairs from the Pretender's jacket to eliminate those of the guards and Miss Parker. He asked Frederick and Margaret to give a sample of theirs. He pulled one of his hairs from his own head, telling Broots he did not need to make the sacrifice.

Jarod started to get up. He looked furious, but his voice was calm, too calm... "Maybe you should have prepared me for that strain," he said, "Oh you had to keep me from knowing something, Sydney, but was I so horrible that I couldn't even be allowed to father children, to start a family? Is the Pretender gene that dangerous? Do you know what I feared most was dying alone."

Miss Parker just ignored him, but something nagged in her mind. Jarod has changed. "Broots," she said, "you got some hairs on your chest. Pull one of those."

"Nervous of the results, Miss Parker?" asked Jarod as he put the samples under the Computer microscope and stepped away.

"One more remark like that and I'll take you into the bedroom again or use the cellar floor. I talked about putting chains on the wall down there. Hurry up, Broots."

Jarod had no idea what she was talking about and just watched as Broots inserted the samples under the microscope. They waited for the charts to appear on the screen, hovering over Broots so close that he told them. :"I need some elbow room." He then moved away from the scene. "Who do you want to see first?"

"Jarod's, of course," said Miss Parker. She had her arm underneath his sweater, around his waist. She could hear his heart speeding up. Her feelings towards Jarod, although she did not know it, were beginning to change. She wanted to make love with him, not just have sex, and forget about the consequences. She did not care that she no longer used protection. She threw away her diaphragm years ago when she went back to work permanently at the Centre and never took to using the pill. Not counting Thomas and Jarod, whom would she sleep with anyway?

Sydney checked first Jarod's and then the others, including those of Frederick and Margaret. "I don't believe it," he gasped, but it was true. Frederick and Margaret were definitely Jarod's children and Miss Parker was not a Pretender.

e also "There's something else about Jarod," Broots said, "he's not as old as you think. He looked older when the Centre first stole him. Oh and the two older children are also yours, Miss Parker. Miss Burke you were right."

"Mine?" asked Jarod, "Do you mean that the Centre not only stole me, but also kept me from being a father to my own children?"

Sydney looked ashamed and more so because Jarod gave him a look that said, "You should be."

Miss Parker, too, seemed upset. "I don't recall anything, must be something wrong with the records. Raines should have a talk with Security and Records," she said glancing at the chart, and at Jarod.

"He can try," said Broots, "but if Mr. Raines scolds Security and Records, Security and Records will—I don't want to think about it. Practically broke my wrist. All I did was ask him why he has so many WB posters around. Said he should put something more in keeping with the Centre theme. I didn't even see it coming. For a sixteen year kid, he's quite strong."

"And you let a half starved teenager overpower you? Is he a Pretender or a 1.6r?" She dropped what she was doing and walked over to Rachel. "Do you mean that Jarod's one of those who can snap someone's neck just like that?" She snapped her finger.

"I'm afraid so," said Rachel, "your father didn't know what he was getting into when he and Raines kidnapped those children."

"My father wouldn't do such a thing! He was the kindest man, like grandfather."

"Your grandfather may have caused the Pretenders to come here, and since Jarod is the same as the Dominants, your grandfather might have furnished the Centre with purloined knowledge and finances," said Sydney. "Who knows what information they were sending to Mexico?"
"

"That is a lie!" Miss Parker was furious. "Grandfather was just on the dock to bring those criminals to justice!"

Jarod sat in a chair, enjoying himself. "This puts a different slant on things, Miss Parker. Now I know why the Pretender gene is so prominent here,—A shipwreck!. Maybe if I look through the ship records, I'll find more about my family. Why I might have a great uncle or great aunt living nearby."

"Forget it! There are no records. I have a headache! I'm going to lie down," she said, "Come on Jarod!"

"Using me to push Lyle out the Centre? I'd prefer shoving his face into a cement wall."

Broots could not believe his ears. "That's not Jarod talking. It's someone else."

Rachel was starting to have misgivings. She could hear the noise in the other room from Parker and Jarod moving on the bed. He did not protest, except once.

"Miss Parker, I don't think children are not made that way. It says it here in the book,"

"You do what I want or else!"

At about eleven o'clock, Miss Parker came out of the bedroom. "Sorry I kept you," she said, "Oh about Frederick and Margaret, we've decided to have them stay with us after this case is over."

"We decided, Miss Parker?" asked Rachel.

"Yes. Lyle's terrified of them and Jarod was quite eager as he is in his present condition with the suggestion. Jarod may be nothing but a-property—I could use another term, but with the children present— this school is a boarding school, correct?"

"Of course."

"Summer and holidays: I doubt that they'd want to convert to Judaism— now about your triplets."

"Charles, David, and Naomi. Not Huey, Duey, and Louisa. I don't think you know much about raising children, Miss Parker."

"We've been prevented from doing so, as you can attest." She walked towards the kitchen. "Miss Burke said something about her children, seeing you're the father. She also inferred that neither of us are good parents," she said to Jarod who was drinking some coffee.

He had his slacks on, but his shirt hung over the back of the chair. His hair was loose over his shoulders. For some reason, he let his hair grow long. "I can always read a book." He ran his hand across his face. He needed a shave.

"Here," said Miss Parker, handing him a razor and several blades. "Be quick about it."

She waited until he had removed the stubble. "Books don't do anything. I can see if I can sneak some of the younger children from the Centre. With my new authority, I could do this. Of course, they're probably Pretenders, I mean, Dominants. I know Spanish. Perhaps I teach Carla, English. It'll be a change from hunting you."

Jarod doubted this. When he was young, the Centre never permitted him to leave and the only time he was ouside, they erased his memory. He knew this because he was able to tap into the Centre DSAs, those still on the mainframe and those Angelo hid. He could hardly believe he was that boy. However, Jarod did not know what he looked like when he was young except when he saw his face in a mirror and that was one time only.

"The triplets are a handful." He said this with pride.

"They're normal, Jarod, we aren't. Oh I see that Miss Burke is waiting."