CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

June 27 2001

While Miss Parker called Broots, Jarod hopped over the Centre fence. He bypassed security, and trod the Centre floor while recalling places forgotten since a youngster. Now, no fog crowded his mind. He remembered his father and mother being so happy. He recalled other things, how the emotions of other children disgusted him, how he could sense their fear, and knew someone was coming to harm him five minutes before they arrived.

As he walked into the main lobby of the Centre, no one rushed up to him with guns drawn, and no sweepers grabbed him nor handcuffed him to drag him off to whatever torture they devised in the sublevels. It was as if he were not there, although he did get quite a few glances. Even Mr. Lyle seemed preoccupied, saying something like, "he's changing into him," and staring at the Pretender.

"What was that about?" Jarod asked one of the staff who painted in oils, a vase containing yellow flowers.

The artist continued with his work, standing back to admire it, and did the "ignore that Pretender" thing like the others.

Jarod thought of saying something like, "I am in rather deep with the Chairman's daughter, by the way," but he decided to phrase the question another way. "Who's this one who's changing into me? Another duplicate?"

"Dora head of the Barbie Gang snatched Ted," said the artist with annoyance.

"The Barbie gang? Whose this Barbie?"

The artist reached into his bag and brought out a female doll dressed in a miniature prom dress with a small tiara on her head and showed it to Jarod. "That's a Barbie doll."

"It looks like a miniature female but with the proportions all wrong. Who's Ted."

"Oh your replacement," the painter said as he dipped his brush into some linseed. Property No. SL20-C4."

"Oh Ted! So what's mine?"

"Property No. Sl26-C2. The former occupant vanished."

"Vanished?"

"Died. My father was a Cleaner. They removed the bloodstains, fixed the holes, disinfected the walls, floors, and ceilings, did that with the other cells on that level. They do not put outside ones in new cells."

Jarod kept his expression calm. He knew what had happened. The Pretenders occupying the cells on SL26 had somehow displeased the Centre and were eliminated.

"Why kill them?"

"Why not? The property of the Centre is at the disposal of either the Parkers or the Triumvirate. Mr. Parker told my father that they needed the cells, besides they already had spawn. Amazing, you Pretenders have a high rate of multiple births." He stopped when he saw Jarod's expression. He had said too much. "But then again so do the Parkers."

"Hmm" Jarod made an effort of scratching his chin. "So, Mr. Parker thought the tendency to multiple births increases one chances of being a Pretender. Did he succeed with his own children?" When the man shook his head, he continued. "I gather Ted was the result of putting two DNAS together or rather one sperm and one egg from two Pretenders." They used the sperm and ova of two of the other six young Pretenders. "How did Dora snatch Ted?"

"Someone forgot to set the correct locking code to his cell. We've improved since you escaped. I don't blame Dora. Her boyfriend Neal Shuster's serving time for drug dealing. He's the head of the local Hells Angels chapter. She can't last five minutes with a man, even a Pretender."

"Maybe he should leave Ted there and teach Dora a lesson," said Jarod who figured Ted was changing from 1.2 to 1.3. Now if Ted was still with Dora when he changed to 1.4 and if the Centre recaptured him and someone could keep his food free from Neogenesis, he might solve the problem of the Centre. He gave the painter his rather disarming smile, but there was snarl underneath.

"Well I've got to get back to my painting," said the staff member nervously splashing globs of yellow on the pedals and just as nervously wiping them off, creating a bigger mess.

Jarod walked towards Raines's office, but the bald man was not there. The man sitting behind the desk had an English look, rather suave, but with a calculating coldness.

"What are you doing here, Cox?" Jarod demanded.

Cox put his finger on the 'hold' button. "Raines's getting treatments." He opened the top drawer of his desk. "Oh and you better read this," he said in malicious satisfaction.

The Pretender looked at it. "Is it true?"

"Yes. Lyle was planning to ship you out to Africa. The Triumvirate wanted you to install a bomb to kill a certain president. You were to believe you could get out in time because it was set for four hours later. The truth is that they already set an explosive device. You would have been found in ten million little pieces." His eyes shifted to a photograph on the desk of a young woman with four small children. Jarod saw them too. The mother looked barely in her teens.

"Robbing the cradle?" He waited while Dr. Cox finished his call, fighting the Dominant urge to kill. "Miss Parker wants to know if Raines messed up more than her and me. I really don't care about me, I can survive. It's the others."

"You should. They could have done a better job with Ethan than trying to turn him insane, but there was a flaw in his character," said the doctor, putting down the telephone.

"Raines turned Kyle into a criminal and almost succeeded with Ethan to have an excuse to kidnap and keep anyone with the Pretender gene."

Jarod understood when the obstetrician told of a young boy who turned on two bullies, killing one and seriously injuring the other. Ethan was a specific kind of Dominant who could mesmerize both species.

"It was Raines's idea. He planted the seed into Catherine's mind, to create a special child one with the Inner Sense and the Pretender gene. After all, she knew her husband was sterile. Raines was quite a charmer when he was younger and Catherine Parker a neglected wife."

"I doubt she would, even if given no choice."

And then Cox did another insult. "Of course, Ethan was raised in a family long enough to get a sense of it, but Raines messed up you so much, that you can't be alone with a female. You have to have someone without shouting distance."

Jarod started clenching his fist and eying the doctor's neck. It would be so easy to snap. .

"Why did you think that the Centre sent Miss Parker out with Sydney and Broots? You can thank Raines for that. Oh I hear you're a father, how many times? One, two, three, four." He snapped his finger. "Five! Congratulations and that's not counted who you don't know about." He spoke in the telephone, "Yes, Aisle two B, seats one to four, just in case." and hung up. "Go down the hallway, take the elevator to the basement, walk ten paces. You will see a room with a green metal door. The combination is 2-left 4-right 16-3."

"No Dvds?" He spotted a woman in her twenties coming down the hallway. She smiled at Cox.

Jarod unclenched his hands. Witnesses, that'll never work

"I'm taking some notepads to Mr. Lambourni," said the woman, but before she went, she looked at Jarod with the Dominant expression of recognition. .

"All right Marcia," Cox replied, "Popularity. That lawyer just snaps his fingers and everyone's so eager to please. What has he got?"

"Well," said Jarod, "he could be a Pretender." His Dominant instinct was on high alert. He tried to place her, but could not. Her face was too fair for that of the Sicilian girl in his dreams. Could she have been one of the Raines's experiments? Why was she not under the influence of Neogenesis as he had been and why did she talk to Cox as though she was not afraid of him Perhaps those tapes would tell me, the Pretender thought.

"—doubtful, or The Centre would not have hired him, they would've just kidnapped hm," said Cox breaking Jarod's train of thought, "Oh you don't seem frightened now. Sydney told me you never wanted to go that way."

"I matured," said Jarod, leaving the office.

Along the way to the Inner Sanctum, he saw no cameras, hidden or otherwise which was a good or bad thing, depending on whether the victims wanted some privacy or Raines wanted to hide his crimes. Jarod checked the various rooms, and saw one with a blue painted door. Someone painted on the door the name of a notorious firm on a popular show dealing with the undead. This must be Security and Records, he thought and decided to check back later. He continued further until reaching another room. This had a green metal door with a lock, which thanks to Cox's information, Jarod had no trouble opening.

Boxes with videos of Walt Disney productions filled the room, and Jarod imagined himself a fool until he felt around the edges of one. It felt sticky, as if someone put a tape over it. He did not have much time. The guards would come around in about five minutes.

Yes, that's it. Whatever was on these tapes was not'Snow White and the SevenDwarfs or Dumbo. It was something else. "I wonder if they have the complete set," he said and checked. Several were missing, that is, The Sorcerers's Apprentice, Sleeping Beauty, and Fantasia. He inserted the tapes into his inner jacket pockets and walked out. The Centre guard did not look up when he left, after all, Jarod was just property.