CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
June 27 2001
Carla was lonely and Miss Parker sensed it. Frederick was now in the Dominant equivalent of College, taking courses likes "how to assassinate senators" and "how to rule the World in ten easy lessons." He was under the tutelage of an older Dominant who had infiltrated the CIA. Still she kept up with her work, preparing complicated dishes suitable for a pregnant woman and making sure that her master's mother got the best of care. Oh yes, the food processor no longer had that clunking sound and her warning signal worked. Five minutes before the man approached, she was already unlocking the front door.
Jarod threw Miss Parker one of the tapes. "Carla had better not be here when we see this," he said, "although it might be normal at the beginning."
"Put it in the VCR. Carla, necessito mi chaqueta roja." She gave her the dry cleaning ticket and a five-dollar bill.
"Si, senora." The Dominant girl gave a small bow and left the house.
Miss Parker removed the rest of the mail from the fireplace along with the report from Dr. Cox. "We have to give that girl English lessons. I hope some of these are retrievable." Suddenly her eyes widened. "That's not true. I just had an examination in New York. They said I'm fine."
"I believe you had one of those compulsory examinations."
"No, a special one. Oh, I might as well tell you, we're going to have a baby, well at least two."
Jarod sat down. "Babies? I'm going to be a father?"
"Yes, I forced you to get me pregnant. .Ironic isn't it? The Centre messed you up that the only way for you to learn is to read a book. You'd be wondering if you did it right. You do want children, don't you, Jarod?"
"You know I do and I don't want my children locked in The Centre, forced to do sims as I was."
"Neither do I and I don't trust Lyle or Raines." She spat that word out. "They would have shot me full of needles and given me an abortion. You know I always said I hated kids, didn't want any."
"When we were children, you were different and then you changed, but I saw right through you. That's why I made those phone calls, hoping to get you before your cold front kicked in."
"What did that do? The only reason, Frederick and Margaret were born was they wanted Pretenders with my mother's sensitivity. Only that did not work."
"Didn't work? I would consider Frederick and Margaret a perfect point for the Centre, not counting my brother whom Raines turned into a killer, as well as Ethan who almost blew up a meeting. Now Miss Parker, how are you going to accomplish this?"
"It will happen this evening, but before we do, I must tell you a story about a man whose evil was comparable to Raines." She turned off the video, went over to the laptop and inserted the Hercules CD. "My own grandfather, Mr. Lamech Parker, an ensign in the Royal Navy, caused the ship with the forefathers of the future Pretenders to crash. He's the one who decided that none of us Parkers should use our first names. He lured another ship on the same mission into a misguided rescue attempt. The survivors escaped. The remaining ships went on to Mexico. Your grandparents or great grand parents were two of the survivors on that first ship. Read this." She handed him a sheet of papers.
Jarod glanced through the transcript that Broots had brought over of Ensign Lamech Parker's remark to the Mexican proposal. He also wondered why the originators of the Hercules Project would allow such a junior officer to go on that undertaking, but when he read the date and compared it to what he learned about World War II on the outside, he knew. There were not many officers available. They had to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Quote: "As representative of the Royal Navy, I must strenuously object to this unthinkable idea. These people, if you must use the term, are a valuable resource, but dangerous. Why there are no records of their birth. We must keep them under control!"
Second quote from the Royal Army representative: "I must apologize for our Naval representative's outburst. I am sure the strain of seeing his friends drown in the attack of September the fourth, addled his mind."
If only they had not listened to the Army man. His parents would have been safe and he would have been with his family.
Miss Parker turned off the laptop and inserted the video tapes in the VCR. They watched, not believing at first, not until they saw the evidence before them. As was expected, a good ten minutes of the film showed the Disney story, until the scene shifted. They watched, Miss Parker with shock and Jarod, remembering and throughout the voice of Raines talking about the need to breed more Pretenders.
"He's young," Jarod heard Raines say, "and so is the female, but his responses are excellent. When will the fetuses be removed?"
"At four months. We cannot afford to have the young female in confinement that long.," came a voice that no one recognized.
Miss Parker involuntary closed her eyes.
"There's more," said Jarod, "do you want to see them?"
"Of course."
The other tapes showed more evidence of Raines's methods. Unlike his cold clinical detachment shown on the outside, these tapes showed his real depraved nature. He allowed no privacy in pairing boy and girl Pretenders together. He did not use the luxury of artificial insemination, let alone discretion. It was as if he regarded them as things. Miss Parker almost gagged.
"Cox said we must destroy the tapes," said Jarod.
"The grim reaper, but not until you tell me who the first girl is and what happened to her children?"
"I was brought there to impregnate her. The children were probably shipped out somewhere I hope she was a Dominant like me, for if she wasn't, both our species are in danger. Why did you say children?"
"The Centre doesn't make mistakes."
"So where are Frederick and Margaret's true siblings?" he demanded, "Did the Centre kill them?"
"Probably the Centre Doctors did not know how to keep them alive"
Jarod knew this was a lie. Mr. Parker wanted to save the best of each lot and he wanted one of each sex. However in the case of Miss Parker's first pregnancy, the other three may have perished in the embryonic transfer. "Rachel said she lost one of her four, a miscarriage while in prison." Jarod said and told Miss Parker of the conversation Rachel had with Lewison about the triplets. "I suspect that Ed, one of the Pretenders who married on the outside after escaping with me had a son like that. Now if he's still alive. The Dominants have a mentoring program."
Miss Parker shook her head. "You think that the Dominants found Ethan, trained him as a mentor and sent him out to find out if Ed's son was a killer progeny? Gives the Centre an excuse to imprison Pretenders to keep them from producing people, who can dupe both races let loose on the earth? It sounds like doing the world a favor and what about my children?"
"Will this Official Joining save them? What is it?"
Miss Parker told Jarod to sit down, telling him the conversation she had with Carla and more. "So it is not just the Official Joining, a priest will be there to remove the Curse."
"Why after these years of me running and you chasing?"
"As soon as I got back from Carthis, I wrote to the Vatican asking for an exorcist. They sent a Father Dominito, but he never arrived. I later learned he died in a car accident. Do you remember me telling you about the Renewal Wing?"
He nodded. "So what's different this time?"
"I figured there was a leak. Remember when we talked on the phone and that either of us had to hang up before the Centre traced the call?"
"Yes."
"I knew that is probably how they found my mother rescued the children, monitoring her mail and her phone calls. So I got Broots to scramble the Centre monitoring system, and made a long distance call to the Vatican. They looked up the records and said that a Catherine Parker made numerous requests and that the priests either disappeared or round up dead. I didn't know what to do, so I called Lewison. Made it look like an inquiry on Frederick's progress He heard the fear in my voice and came to Blue Cove."
"So what did Lewison do?"
"After I told him my suspicions, he made a call. I couldn't hear it, but when I went to the Centre, Marcia told me that one of the staff was dead. His neck was broken. He was the leak, but how could Lewison know?" Her eyes lowered. "If he knew and all the time, the Centre killed the priests!"
"He didn't. You were raised Roman Catholic, you should of suspected."
"But I didn't until Carthis. Besides, if I left The Centre would kill me and who would protect the children still there? I knew what happened to the six and to Ed. It took at least twenty years. When the Centre wants someone dead, they don't do it immediately. They wait until the victim feels safe. I learned they were given a derivative of the Spanish flu."
"—and since they had the chip in their skulls, The Centre knew how to find them. Yes, Miss Pasrker, but once the world knows about the Pretenders, the Centre will have no power over them".
"Sure Jarod," she said sarcastically, "Once the world knows about Dominants or Pretenders, do you suppose they'll want them free? No. They'll pass a law saying it's okay to enslave them, just like that law regarding visitors from other planets. You know that law, don't you? It gives the authorities the right to hunt them down, kill, or imprison them."
"That law's in those Supermarket Tabloids is of no consequence."
"If you want to discredit something you put it in the tabloids." She went to the closet and threw out a white shirt, trousers, and his jacket."
"I've always worn it. Did you have to keep everything of mine?" He grew quieter. "I didn't mean it, but I had this since I first escaped the Centre. It's like the way you wear your hair. This is me." He looked at the jacket. "You got it cleaned."
"Oil stains. Now we have to hurry. I made them promise to give Frederick and Margaret freedom and rank, but that's all, because Daddy planned it. Their condition is precarious now that Raines is in control. These children I carry were not in their plans." She pointed to her belly. "If we don't go through the Official Joining, Raines will lock them in the subterranean levels and will bring out the evil in them, so they will be worse than Kyle ever was."
Jarod grabbed the white shirt, trousers, and tie she tossed to him along with his jacket. He dressed so fast, Miss Parker had to blink. "When do we leave?"
"Now: After the ceremony, we'll disappear for a while." She thought she heard him say, "Love you Miss Parker," but figured it was her imagination.
Miss Parker had waited too long to want to wear her usual black outfit. It was a white silk dress, more like a party dress, low cut and above her knees. She had put together some white carnations for a bouquet and her boots were white over her similar colored pantyhose. She dispensed with the veil. "Just in case, someone finds a way to take out the chip and to keep quiet any innuendoes."
Jarod put on his jacket over his new clothes. "Miss Parker," he said, "why do you have on that heavy coat? Are you wearing anything underneath?" He grinned and his eyes seemed to narrow.
"Stop dreaming Jarod, and get in the car. You're driving this time."