CHAPTER 5

SAM I AM

Blue Cove, Delaware

The Centre

February 25, 2003

9:30 am

Miss. Parker finally made it to her office. Once the alarms had stopped blaring Center employs cold be found milling about the corridors. Parker had passed groups of sectaries gossiping about the disturbance. Even Sydney and Broots were discussing the chaos that had occurred.

"Vinnie, the guy down in mailing, you know the one missing his left ear, said that one of the projects escaped." Parker heard Broots telling Sydney.

"Do you know what the disturbance was about Parker?" The Belgium asked her.

"Well it would appear that Broots' friend Vinnie was right. On of Lyle's and Raines' projects escaped. The Black file I believe they're called. Have you ever heard of them Sydney?"

"No, I can't say I have."

"Broots, I want you to dig up every detail on the Black Files. Ages, Parentage, favorite color, everything." Parker said walking to her office. Just before entering Parker turned around. "Broots' who or what is the Fantastic Four?"

"The Fantastic Four is a Marvel comic book series. It was first published in November of 1961. It revolvers around Reed Richards- Mr. Fantastic, Sue Richards- The Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm- The Human Torch, and Ben Grimm- The Thing. The series..."

"That's enough information Broots'." Parker said as she entered her office. Parker was confused. What did the Centre want with all of those twins and triplets? Were they pretenders? Or did they have some other ability? How had those children know who she was? And how in the hell have those kids known about the Fantastic Four? Unless policy had changed recently, all projects were to be kept isolated from the out side world. Parker paced for another twenty minutes, -her mind racing with thoughts- until there was a knock at her door.

"Come in Sam." She commanded the sweeper. Sam entered with an arm full of files and a guilty look on his face.

"How did you know it was me?" He asked her.

"My brother nor Raines knock. Sit down old friend." She stated simply

"I assume you want to know about the children and my involvement with them." Sam said sitting down.

"You would be correct." Parker said as se sat at her desk.

"I've been working with the children for the past eight years. Jake and Rach are the oldest. The original intent of the Black Files is much like that of Project Prodigy. In fact the Black Files is considered to be the second generation of Prodigy. There are some slight differences. All of the children are fully aware of each other. Also, they all share the same room.

All fourteen children are pretenders. It is suspected that they may possess other gifts but it has yet to be proven. No one is truly sure what the children are capable of. None of them will reveal their full potential at the warring of Jake." Sam explained

"Smart boy." Parker commented

"Not as smart as Alex and her brothers." Sam said. Parker said nothing in comment but raised an eyebrow.

"Why twins?" She asked him

"For a few reasons. The main reason was to find out if the Girls would be smarter than the boys."

"The Centre spent millions of dollars to find out which sex is smarter? Any idiot would know that girls are smarter than boys are. Then again a man was in charge of the project." Parker said smirking. "What were the other reasons?"

"Motivational purposes. Lyle and Raines felt that if one child refuses to perform they could punish the other child."

"Do as I say or I'll hurt your sister."

"Exactly. Another reason that they are either twins or triplets is because it is hard to get more that one child out of the Centre at a time. And because of the mental bond each set of siblings share, it would be next to impossible to separate them.

"This bond you speak of?" Parker questioned

"A mental bond between that exist between each set of siblings. It's a cross between telepathy and empathy. They are capable of felling each other's pain and mood. They are also able to hearing each others thoughts."

"And this bond only exist between a set of siblings? Because Alex, Andros, Arron, Michael, and Michelle seem to be pretty connected.

"Well Arron and his little group have always been a bit odd. Even for Center standards. You see all five of them were born on the same day within the span of two hours. Michael is the oldest, Maddie -I mean Michelle- was born fifteen minutes later. Arron is the oldest of his group followed by Andros. Alex is the baby.

No one knows why – its believed that because they were all born on the same day- but those five children have always shared a strong bond."

"Could it also be the fact that they are related?"

"That too could be a possibility."

"So Sam how did you end up babysitting pretenders?" Parker asked.

"I got shot."

"Care to elaborate?"

"I just so happened that the same day I got shot Jake and Rach were brought in to the infirmary. The doctors though that the kids were sick. The kids were running a fever, they weren't eating or sleeping and they cried all day long. No one could get those kids to stop crying. It was driving the nurses and patients crazy.

I couldn't stand it any more. So I got up and walked – or crunched – my way over to their cribs. I picked up Jake from out of his crib and Rach from hers. They stopped crying immediately. Turned out that the two just wanted to be together. Their nurses had separated them and it drove the two kids crazy that they couldn't be next to each other. Once the two stopped crying their fever went down.

I thought that that would be the end of my time with the twins but I was wrong. No one was able to feed the twins. Turned out none to the idiots knew how to take care of babies. For a week I became the twins nanny. The Centre wouldn't let me go home until they found someone with competence to look after the kids.

Two days after I was allowed to go home one of your father's sweepers shows up at my house and says that you father needs to speak with me. I show up in his office an hour later. He than offers me a job of being the twins "supervisor until they were old enough to start their training" in other words I was to raise these kids. I took the job with out a moments hesitation. I was tired of getting shot at and I assumed that this job would be less stress. How wrong I was as you can see from today's events.

Later on your father deiced that he wanted be to be in charge of all of the children. When Jarod escaped your dad decided to put me on the hunt. That didn't float so well with the kids. You see the kids began to throw temper tantrums every day and generally make life a living hell for everyone. In the end your dad decided that I would work with both you and the kids." Sam finished.

"Why didn't you tell me Sam."

"For one thing I was sworn to secrecy. For another I didn't think that you would care."

"Sam you and I have been friends since we were kids. You know that I would have wanted to know. What aren't you telling me."

Sam sighed. "I was specifically told not to tell you about the Black Files. Raines knew about our friendship. He even went as far as to threaten you."

"Why didn't he want me to know about the Black Files?"

"I have no idea." He said shaking his head.

"All right then I have one last question."

"I know you Parker, you always will have at least one more question," he said smiling "but ask away"

"Where the kids born here or did the Center steal them and kill there parents..."

"Like they did to me." Sam said interrupting her the smile leaving his face.

"Sam" she said

"It's okay Parker. At least they let me go. It's more than I can say for Jarod and the others."

"Is that why you really took the job Sam? You couldn't watch them hurt those kids like they hurt you."

"Don't you mean like they hurt all of us? I know that your office is clean so I know I can say this and not have the powers that be over hear. I hate hunting Jarod. But I know that as long as I do he will be safe. Jarod was our friend when we were younger. I may be lacking in the pretender gene, but that dose not make me have a bad memory. The Centre had my parents killed because they believed that I was a pretender. Now they believe that I'm going to sit by and let them destroy those kids' lives like they did ours. Because of me those children know what it is like to have someone care about them. They know what it is like to know that someone would die for them to keep them safe." Sam said eyes blazing with anger. "I'm a prisoner of this place just as much as those kids are." He spoke again after taking a moment to compose himself. "If I'm going to be kept here against my will I'm going to do some good."

"Well then old friend, I guess you better get back to your chargers."

"Your right I've left them alone to long." Sam said getting up. "By the way I got you copies of their files" Sam said placing the files on her desk.

"Sam?"

"Yeah"

"I have another question."

"Surprise, surprise."

"How did the kids know about the Fantastic Four?"

"They don't always set off the alarms when they want to get out of their room's Parker. Those kids have known how to get out of their rooms for the past six years. They have also discovered the staff lounge and the library. It's not that often you find a book missing from the library or the television on a cartoon show." He said. "Not to mention I might have dropped a couple of comic books in their room by accident." The sweeper said, smiling as he left her office.