CHAPTER SIX
JAN 16, 2002
As soon as they purged the Centre, the Dominants set up their headquarters in a large house a block away from Miss Parker's and Lambourni's. It had been on the market for some time, and they paid the real estate, cash, as was their custom. Among the supplies was some medical equipment.
It was perfectly suitable for their needs, having four stories, an entrance through the garage plus two other entrances, the main one, and the back one. Being built in the eighteen hundreds, there had been a large kitchen at the back with three small bedrooms intended for the kitchen staff. The Dominants had removed one of the walls, insulted it, installed soundproofing, and made this larger room into a medical infirmary, bringing in as much equipment as necessary plus upgrades to ensure that they could use as much amperage or voltage as they desired.
Since the pillar was already in the Centre, there was no need to move it near the school in Connecticut. The Dominants never had their Council places near their schools. It was too dangerous.
However, that was not their concern. Lewison and another man, an older Dominant with gray eyes and an aristocratic bearing were looking at some photographs. "These are from Lambourni. He placed videos all over the Centre, unknown even to Lady Angela and got these," said the Mentor.
"It's good you brought this to the Council's attention. You say that these were done to him after he went through the Official Joining?"
"Yes sir. We came at the end, when they were going to destroy his genitals. They did not succeed." Lewison bowed to the older man. He knew this Roderick, the same age as his own father, one of the council, and he was privileged to be speaking to this man.
Roderick had been a boy when they first decided to kill the humans who were their ancestors. He had risen in the ranks, and now sat at the table with the others in the Council. Roderick looked about forty but was older. "Where is he now?"
"The Medicals are examining his wounds to see if they can lessen the damage. The humans used a cat of nine tails."
"Wait here."
Roderick went to the former servant's bedroom room where two men and two women in white coats were looking at Jarod's back. One of them had a tube with a bright light that he ran over portions of the Pretender's back while another removed a small sliver of metal from under his shoulders. He showed it to Roderick.
"Imbedded into the bone."
Roderick snarled. That a Favorite should be whipped should never be. That Dr. Raines or Mr. Lyle had inflicted or had someone inflict them was an insult. Oh, Jarod had been whipped before, but he was not a Favorite yet, and those scars had faded. Favorites were beaten with fists, hit over the head with clubs, kicked, but never whipped with cat of nine tails. Besides, Dominants used the pain inducer. It was more effective, more painful, and less lethal. They also used other methods to make Favorites know their main purposes were not tidying the yard, chauffeuring the owner from place to place, or ordering other Dominant bondservants lower than themselves."
"So how long will it take to be healed?" asked Jarod.
"How long before you and Lady Angela, that is Miss Parker, leave for California?" asked Roderick.
"We planned it for the tenth to avoid the Holiday travel, but it has been delayed, the necessary investigation licenses are rather slow in coming."
"Next month is too soon. I read your information about that absconder who refuses to pay the financial contribution for his offspring. It was necessary that we should be informed and perhaps arrange for a suitable punishment for this creature. Did not the article mention at least four other hunters pursuing him, much in the same way that Miss Parker pursued you?"
"That is the reason I figured I could get him. Such subterfuge requires someone acquainted with his intelligences."
"You are correct, but perhaps he will expect such a one with that knowledge."
"I understand," said the Pretender," but what I learned from this man came from secondary sources. I will have to study up on his habits so that I may take him unawares. It will take but a few minutes. How long will the healing ensue?"
"Your healing will take some time. What about your duties?"
"Other than?"
"Other than that. I will inform the Lady that she can do without your body for the next few evenings. We can arrange for someone to do the remaining repairs so that the Sapien informer does not fall down the last loose basement steps again. As for the healing process, you must remain erect although you can walk about and lie on your stomach. We would have to strap you in bed to prevent you turning around and I doubt you'd like that."
"Of course not," said Jarod, "but for the sake of removing the scars, I can endure anything. Have you Raised my new son?"
"The one called Jeremiah has been Raised. Our mentors are removing the indoctrination done to him by the Centre using intensive methods so the children can go with you to California."
"And what of the ones held in the Inner Sanctum. Surely we deserve to have them."
"You forgot, your owner is Lady Angela," he said using their title for Miss Parker. The children will be kept with separate families to ensure they are not killed by those companions in the Inner Sanctum who were like you. When they are of age, their lives will not be threatened and Lady Angela can see them and if she wishes, will let you see them as well. You know the rules."
Frederick and Margaret had been teenagers when he saw them. Was Jarod supposed to wait ten years or more for the other children? He wished that the Dominants were more lenient, but as for turning into regular homo sapiens, he knew that could never be. He had lived all these years as one, and found being a Dominant more satisfying.
The Dominants were not like the Nazis in they had to follow orders, but their species was not far enough in population to go into grays. They obeyed certain rules such as honoring God or the Divine, and the Ten Commandments because such ensured their survival. Anyone caught stealing paid with the full extent of the Dominant law. He had to restore in financial cost what he purloined. If you were in the Chameleon program and passed yourself off as homo sapien, you were lucky, but many 1.6rs/Pretenders worked as field workers, gas jockeys, store clerk because they did not want to bring attention to themselves, that is, until they took a course to 'upgrade' themselves. It took them less time, and since they needed less sleep, they usually said they took night courses after work. So far, the Sapiens were none the wiser.
The Council had strict rules as to when to let a captive live, who is allowed to be a Chosen, and what powers he or she had. They even decided what type of house and cost of house a free Dominant could live in, but they could make allowances under extreme circumstances. However, one of their unbreakable rules was a Favorite, the slave consort or concubine of a free Dominant or free Homo Sapien must never be whipped on the back, across the face, or anywhere.
So knowing all this, the Dominants had to find someone to pay. At first, they started to look into Dr. Cox, the only surviving crony of the Parker Elite, but after the attempted slaying of his concubine, Liza, one of their own, and when they learned Cox had turned against The Centre or rather Raines and Lyle, they turned their fury towards Lady M whom the Dominants suspected was also called Margaret.
"It appears that although Raines had installed Lady M to be his partner along with Lyle as heads of the Centre, Mr. Parker had already started your mistress to fill that role," said Roderick.
"Yes then it will make the extermination of M more the easier since Lady Angela would not object to us removing a obstacle to her succession, and with Lambourni there, he will keep her from the human influence or rather homo sapien influence," said the Mentor.
The Councilman sneered. "Lambourni is installing himself as head of the Centre."
"I have no objection," said Jarod who was now standing at a table, turning on his laptop, his shirt on the back of the chair, his slacks slightly lowered down his hips so the top of the lower scars could heal. The rest would be attended to later when the female medicals were occupied elsewhere and since the healing did not require light, could be done at night when he was asleep.
"Good," said Roderick, The Executioner, "Lewison, do you have the information on Cox?"
"Yes, and I have that of Lady M."
"Excellent, but first we have to fill those four seats. You being a Mentor are unqualified as is Lambourni,"
"Irish and that mate we choose for him, Sharon, might be acceptable plus we need two others from the Lost Ships."
Roderick marked it on his palm pilot, reminding Lewison that Irish and Sharon would not do because their parents had been enslaved by the Centre. However, on further purloining the principal's information, he concurred.
"Since they came into the rightful place among the New Species by being born outside the Centre, unmarked and their parents were killed, we felt no need of going through a manumission since the death of the adults cancelled such a method."
"Yes, but that means that none of the eight who are Lady Angela and her consort Jarod will ever be on the Council unless he is dead. I do not want that to happen," protested Lewison.
"I will need the disc. I believe Jarod has a few copies. Get one from him and have the medicals extract DNA from all the survivors and keep them until we recover the bodies of their ancestors."
The medicals had already removed the traces of the drugs from Major Charles and his family who were in a room in the front along Miss Parker with the quadruplets. Much of the time was spent in finding as much information about Jarod's parents as to their background and heritage and suggesting some places the Major and Margaret's family had resided, making Jarod's parents and sister even more confused as to where they really came from.
"As for the other problem," continued Roderick, "the former boss of Walter Attwood," said our campaign to slur her was successful. Some even suspect she is one of us."
They could not punish Raines again. He was ashes minus his head encased in an acrylic buried in a cement box that was now somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. In Dominant culture that was the worse you could do — being equivalent to a man hanging on a tree, being cursed forever. They would have done the same to Mr. Lyle, but there was not much left for him to bury after Ted and the others crushed the pillar on him.
"Oh," said Lewison, "now the former Centre is no more, none of those who we gave as Favorites to our own, have any transportation other than driving their owners around, a task left to a driver."
"Didn't Jarod have licenses in his many disguises?"
"They belonged to the Centre and all Jarod needed to do was go to a car dealer, buy a sports car, show a license, plop down the cash, and away he went." The Mentor showed his disdain for the Centre by knocking one of the Centre's priceless objects, a gift from the Chinese government, to the floor and crushing it beneath his feet.
"I can take care of that," said Roderick. He motioned to a female Dominant who walked in, carrying a license-copying machine. "This is Elaine, a Mechanic. You know Lewison."
"I am honored," she said. She was dark with a white complexion, and gray eyes. Like most Dominants, she had removed her outfit from her victims. The skirt consisted of two parts, one sewn on top of the other, and the blouse once belonged to a teenaged girl who never returned home. It was standard K mart issue and none traceable. "I made a few alterations from the Centre program. By pressing this sequence of numbers, the code changes so that none of these licenses are traced to us or the former Centre. Now what was the name of Miss Parker's new firm?"
"I believe it was 'Avenging Angels Investigations Ltd.' She haS herself as owner and manager. Now as for Jarod, only his first name is on as investigator. She lived in the Centre most of her life, by the way," said Lewison.
Elaine attached the machine via a cable to the computer in the room. It looked like the regular high-end one, except that it operated by voice. Motioning the others for silence, she gave the machine the command. "Jarod di Angela, age…" After she finished, she turned to the others. "I can only make them for the Favorites, but none for the others held in bondage. If you would give any information, has the Joining been performed for any?"
The answer was positive after genetic tests had been taken on them to ensure they were not mating with their relations, something that did not bother Raines. The Dominants had even tested Miss Parker, although without her knowledge, because of her strong resemblance to her mother, and even tested Olivia who looked exactly like Catherine when she was a baby. However, they determined that Miss Parker was not a clone of her mother, had inherited her mother's strong genes and if there was a case of incest it was farther back in the past.
"We cannot remove the chip from the infants, but their future brothers and sisters can purchase their freedom. Lambourni suggests that they be employed as Food Servers in what the humans call restaurants and which we call External Dining Establishments. They allow the servers to keep monies given by the diners. They can then purchase their freedom. He also suggests it be made low enough but not too low."
"Excellent. I will commend Antonio for his wisdom and good judgment and Sydney and Broots?" asked Roderick, "I expected to see their bodies? What failure is this?"
"The mental doctor and the computer expert? No failure. Brought to our side, besides the latter has a daughter whose life was threatened by the Centre. We make allowances for these humans and they did help bring down the Centre. However, not all the staff was there, I heard the FBI came to their residences and arrested several whom we felt deserved our special attention, Roderick. I can have the medicals prepare a substance. I believe my brother is a doctor employed at Leavenworth but it will take time to find the others and when we do…." She had a cold smile.
"If Cox did rat, a human term, on his own, perhaps as a reward he was removed to a different location under a different name. That would make Gino's designation and consequently his offspring a bit unclear, seeing all are marked," said Lewison.
Roderick came up with an idea. "You tell me that they were all referred to as diParki. If Cox were under another name, Gino would be also. Since he does not have a last name or the others, he might be known by his origin. I believe his mother was Sicilian. Elaine, I want you to find the origins of those of us we saved from the Centre, those not of Miss Parker's and Jarod's issue and I want them all be named by their origins with di in front of it. I want the name of Parker as pertaining to the Parkers eliminated from those of our kind once kept in the Inner Sanctum. Only Miss Parker is worthy of that name and only until she goes to the Divine — in perhaps fifty years or more. Then the only Parkers remaining will be those not claiming their origins from that island."
Jarod was only half-listening to this conversation, being occupied in finding out more about the Deadbeat, about his vanity, his interest in yachts, love of female company, and fascination for dog and horses, which left The Pretender in a quandary. Of these interests, what would be the most compelling for such a man that he would be there when they caught up to him.
Further investigation showed that there were several racetracks in the area, but these had been looked in at by the other investigators who were also hampered that there was not much background information on the Deadbeat, who had also changed his name, and not being of a distinguished type, could easily blend in the background. Jarod suspected that the horse angle would be the first thing they would check, but he suspected that the Deadbeat was too conceited to hang out at the tracks. He wanted to be seen along with his beauties. He wanted attention, and to mingle with the upper crust and there was one thing the upper crust had in common. Most of them owned yachts and many of them were interested in sailing. It would not be in the immediate area, the season was not right and certainly, Deadbeat would not hang around near an area where his ex-wife lived even when spring approached. The racing season usually started in spring, and there was a regatta starting in the Bahamas and one in California.
The Deadbeat would be off his guard then, and his capture imminent, but which one? Would it be going to the Bahamas or going to California?
