AUTHOR'S NOTE: THANKS FOR THE REVIEWS. NEXT WEEK OR SO I'M GOING TO TRY TO START POSTING MORE. IT JUST DEPENDS ON HOW MUCH MY WORKLOAD IS AT SCHOOL.
CHAPTER 29
HOUSEGUEST
April 7, 2003
Russell Family Home
Charlottesville Virginia
11:36 am
The weeks had flown by quickly. Jarod and Morgan's relationship had blossomed. They no longer shared a separate room. Jarod's family was quite happy with the two's romance. They were relived in fact that the two had finally gotten together. And Chris was happy because he was able to collect his fifty dollars from Ethan.
Morgan and Emily had become fast friends much to every ones surprise. Their friendship was partly due to being the only mature females in a house full of males. Morgan had given up on trying to get her daughter to act as though she were a girl. She realized that Alex was a tomboy at heart and there was nothing she could do to change that. Jarod and Morgan's little girl was just like one of the boys. She would often return home from excursions with her brothers and uncle dirtier than any of the other boys. She was also very capable of finding trouble. It's wasn't out of the norm for Alex to return home with a scraped knee or some other bruise because she had fallen out of a tree she had been climbing or she had missed calculated the distance between to rock and had twisted her ankle.
Peter was adjusting well to his new situation. He had come to adore his Grandpa Charles. The two had become very close. Charles often took the boy flying with him. Peter never showed sign of missing his biological father. As far as the little boy was concerned, Morgan and Jarod were his parents.
The children had come to love their newfound freedom. Yet that's not to say they did not miss their friends still caged in the Centre. The triplets especially missed Mike and Maddie. The children did stay in contact with one another. They relayed emails and talked to one another over the phone once a week but it wasn't the same. Every now and then Aaron, Andros, and Alex would go through a slight depression –usually after they had just finished talking to their friends-. They would mope around the house for a day or two. During these phases they would either stay in bed or be found in the den watching hour after hour of mindless television
It was during one of these days that three black Lincoln town cars pulled into the driveway sending the whole house into a frenzy. The triplets jumped from their stop on the couch and instead of running away from the cars they ran towards them.
"Aaron, Andros, Alexandra, come back." Morgan yelled after them her heat beating a mile a minute. She was afraid for the safety of her family, worried that The Centre had finally found them.
"Mom it's alright." Will told her. "Do you honestly believe that they would be running towards those cars if they sensed danger?"
The back doors to the fist car opened before the car had a chance to stop rolling.
"Michael, Michelle! Have you two lost your minds? You're to wait for the car to stop rolling before you get out!" A man yelled. But the children paid him no mind. They ran towards their friends. And they five hugged laughing as they did.
Charles emerged from the house curious as to what all of the commotion was about. He came to stand along side Morgan and Will. The rest of the house's occupants soon followed him.
"Damn, this place is huge!" Sam whistled as he got out of the car.
"Sam." Morgan called out when she caught sight of the sweeper.
"Morgan," he replied as he walked up to her enveloping her in a hug. As they hugged the rest of the people exited the cars. A man and a woman emerged from the car that Mike and Maddie were in. From the second car came Jen, Broots and Debbie.
"Miss Parker." The girl exclaimed as she ran towards the woman. Alex watched the girl hug her mother with slight jealousy. This did not go unnoticed by her brothers.
"She's still our Mom Alex." Aaron said
"We mean the world to her no one can replace us." Andros spoke.
"I know," she whispered.
From the last vehicle came Sydney, Michael and Nicholas.
"Hello Sydney." Jarod sad walking over the Belgium and hugging him.
"Jarod you look well." Sydney said in return. "I believe that you already know Nicholas."
"It's good to see you again Nicholas." Jarod said extending his hand to the younger man.
"Same here Jarod." Nicholas said shaking his hand.
"And you must be Michelle. It's nice to finally meet you."
"It's nice to meet you as well Jarod. Sydney has spoken fondly of you." Michelle said to the pretender.
"Air, Andy, Alex, this is our Mom and Dad." Mike began proudly
"Lex and Julia Anthony." Maddie finished.
"It's nice to finally meet you Aunt Julia." Aaron said
"My, my you three are smart." Julia replied.
After the commotion died down the group entered the house.
"I believe that introductions are in order." Jarod said once every one was settled. "I'll start. I'm Jarod."
"Morgan"
"I'm Will. I belong to them." Will said pointing to his parents. "That's Aaron, Andy, Alex, and Pete. They're my younger brother's and sister."
"I'm Chris."
"Ethan"
"Emily"
"Charles."
"I'm Sydney. This is my wife Michelle and our son Nicholas." Jarod and Morgan raised their eyebrows but said nothing about the fact that Sydney had gotten married.
"I'm Broots, this is my daughter Debbie. Um you all can call me Jon in stead of Broots."
"Sam, my fiancée Jen." The children snickered.
"About time." Will whispered.
"I'm Lex. This is my wife Julia and our children, Michael and Michelle.
"Mike and Maddie." Mike corrected.
"Now that's all done we'll be on our way." Aaron said he and the other children getting up from their chairs Debbie followed suite.
"And just where are you all going?" Morgan asked him.
"Outside." Andros replied
"Where outside?" Jarod asked.
"The barn." Alex told her father.
"That's fine. And Alex sweetheart, try not to rip or jeans this time or come back covered in mud." Morgan told her daughter.
"I'll try but I can't promise you any thing." Alex replied.
"Don't worry Mom I'll look after her.
"Thank you William."
"Hey Sparky go get the football and we'll play." Chris said to Will.
"Hey Clone boy, remember what happened to your favorite shirt?" Chris nodded his head. "Do you want that to happen to the one you're wearing now?" The younger children snickered.
"William." Jarod said frowning.
"He started it." Will protested.
"William." Jarod repeated.
"Fine." Will sighed. "I'll go and get the ball." He turned towards the steps "Sometimes I swear." Will muttered, loud enough to be heard.
"And then you get in trouble." Peter dead panned.
"Well done, Tiger." Aaron told the boy.
"Come on let's go outside so that the adults can discuss the Center." Will said returning with the ball.
"Do you ever get the feeling that they know more than we do?" Sam asked.
"All the time." Morgan told him.
"So Debbie what do you know about The Centre?" Chris asked when they
had all gone outside.
"More than I want to."
"Welcome to the club." Will said tossing her the football.
"So what are you guys?" Debbie asked throwing a perfect spiral to Aaron.
"We could ask you the same." Arron said catching the football.
"How did you know?" Debbie asked the boy.
"Not many people can throw a ball like that. And we know for a fact you don't play football." Andros said
"Not to mention we did a blood test." Alex replied.
"How'd your dad know to fake the blood test?" Mike asked her.
"He got a tip from a friend of his at the FBI, that if you work at the Centre you better not have AB negative blood. Soon as Dad found out he changed our medical records."
"So you and your Dad are just pretenders nothin' else?" Maddie asked.
"That's it." Debbie replied. "So what are you guys?" The children went on to explain their various abilities to Debbie. "So all of you except for Chris are psychic in some form or another?"
"Yup." Aaron replied.
"Hey let's go to loft in the barn. That way we can talk with out the adults over hearing us."
"But don't we want t' hear what they're sayin'?" Mike asked.
"We're recordin' it?" Peter told him. "We put bugs all 'round da den."
"Oh." Maddie said. The nine children headed towards the hayloft in the barn.
"By the way how did you two get out?" Will asked Mike and Maddie.
"Same way you guys did." Mike told him.
"Except we drugged our guards." Maddie said.
"So what's new at the Centre?" Andros asked sat the group sat down.
"The Triumvirate has come to the conclusion that Raines was indeed behind the so called murder of your Mother." Mike told them.
"He and Willie are to be dealt with. We have yet to discover if their going to be reeducated or just killed." Maddie said nonchalantly. "Raines and Willie have been a thorn in the Zulu's side for far to long."
"Now the Triumvirate has a legit reason to terminate Raines." Will said.
"What about the Chairman?" Peter asked.
"I hear from the grapevine that he's in deep trouble. You see six of his top projects seem to have escaped." Debbie chortled.
"What grapevine are you referring to?" Chris asked.
"There's a web site devoted to the Centre. Kids who's parents work at the Centre created it.
That's not exactly true." Alex said. "The web site was created by kids but those kids are Centre projects. The Black File to be more precise."
"Wait you and the others created a web site devoted to the Centre. What if on of the techies stumbled on to it and managed to trace it. More than likely they would tell the Chairman or the Big Three." Chris said.
"Don't you think we thought of that?" Aaron asked. "The site is virtually untraceable. It doesn't show up on any search engine and it changes servers everyday."
"The only way to gain access to the site is by being invited. A person is selected and a simulation is then done on them to see if they can be trusted. Usually these people are kids who like Debbie have inadvertently found out too much about the Centre." Andros said.
"Most of them do not realize how dangerous their situation is. We make contact with them after they have been simed. They are told not to reveal what they have learned to anyone. They are then given a password to gain entrance to the site." Alex continued.
"The password changes everyday for security reasons. And if you don't have the password you have to hack though twenty firewalls. " Mike said.
"Seriously you should see the site. Files kids have copied from their parents. Bio's on the higher ups. Layouts of the Centres. Chairmen's pass codes. Triumvirate schedules. Everything." Maddie told Will, Chris and Pete.
"I'm I on there?" Pete asked.
"Of course." Aaron told him.
"This site is dangerous if the Centre finds out about it. You may have hidden it well. But all the Centre has to do is review the history of where the person has been." Will said.
"We thought of that as well. We made it so your compute never registers that you've been to the site. It deletes all evidence of it's self from your computer once you leave the site." Andros explained.
"Wow!" Chris said. "I mean people said that you guy's were smart but I had to tell you I was having some doubts."
"Shut up Christopher." The five Black Files replied.
"We'd better get back to the house before they send out a search party." Will said. The nine of them climbed down the loft –Peter on Will's back- and returned to the house.
"So you're my mother's sister's daughter?" Morgan asked Julia.
"Correct." Julia replied.
"And Mr. Parker knew about you." She asked.
"Yes." Julia said.
"Bastard." Morgan spat.
"My sentiments exactly." Julia said.
"And the kids knew?" Charles asked her.
"Come now Charles by now you should have learned that the children know all that there is to know." Sydney told the other man.
"Um Dad." Will said from the doorway.
"Yes son?"
"Are you all done shielding us from the Centre?" Will asked.
"Yes we're done."
"Good Daddy 'cause I'm starvin'." Peter said from his perch in Will's arms.
"Your all way's starving Tiger." Will said.
"So what'd you all talk about." Chris asked plopping down in between Emily and Ethan.
"The usual. How you kids know more than you letting on. How to stop the Centre." Emily told him.
"You guys need some new material." Aaron said.
"Thank you for your critical analysis Aaron-Daniel."
"Your welcome Mother." Aaron replied with a grin.
"Will why don't you go and start the grill for dinner, since your brother is supposedly starving." Morgan said to her oldest son.
"You know I am not a human lighter. Just because I'm a pyrokinetic does not mean I enjoy setting things on fire."
"William," Morgan began. "I asked you to light the grill for two reasons. The first, After Chris's experience with lighting the grill he is no longer aloud near it. The second reason is that you the second oldest."
"Oh." Will said his face went scarlet. He and the other children then returned outside.
"A bit defensive, you oldest." Michelle commented.
"He's just uncomfortable about being the only pyrokinetic he knows." Jarod explained.
"What about the triplets?" Nicholas asked.
"They have yet to show any pyrokinetic ability."
"Well then," Charles said getting up." why don't we got out and see if the children have managed to set the backyard on fire."