CHAPTER 11

FBI agent Jack Riley was having a bad day. He had failed in his last assignment to arrest a notorious serial killer whom he had tracked from Maryland to California. Now this kook had just flown in from the base in California saying that some guy named Jarod had told him something about a place called the Centre.

He told his chief about it — who thought that Jack was on one of his wild goose chases as usual — so the agent decided to pay a visit to that place and found it wasn't as easy to locate as he thought.

It overlooked a bay named Blue Cove which was deceptively calm and the only way one could reach it was by airplane or by going up a highway in Delaware to an area that was cut off. From there you went along a country road (of which there were several) until you got to the highway again and traveled up to the town of Blue Cove. It was not on any map, only the one the old man gave him and it was years old.

Jack had worked undercover before he joined the agency and that came in handy. He got a tour of the Centre that was going through renovations and when no one was looking, sneaked into the sublevels, and found more than what he looked for.

They had people working and doing simulations, and men looking after them, possibly to see that no intruders stopped the project. He took the elevator to the main level, did some more spying, went into offices, took photographs, and then said, "thank you for the tour" and left.

The photographs and the videos he copied showed that the Centre had worked on something called The Pretender Project which in essence was to find someone extremely intelligent who could be so absolved in a role that he or she became that person, and then have make him perform simulations It also said that they would try to keep the Pretender Project going for generations, the generations produced by the original Pretender and that tests would be made on certain females until the desired offspring was produced.

"So a genius gets to stay rent free in the Centre, and does the sims, some of which have been sold to unscrupulous people," he told the chief when he showed him the photographs.

"That does need investigation." The chief leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes intense in a reddish brown face. "I hope it's more interesting that getting false reports about moon shiners back home."

"Troublemakers?"

"Yes Jack troublemakers. Of course, if this is a false alarm, we can always send you up there."

The chief and flipped through the folder, while tapping his fingers on the desk and then suddenly stopped when he saw the photograph of a man he recognized. It had been a brief encounter, just seeing him drive up to a police station. He then turned to his laptop, and searched through it until he came to the same man and he was associated with another agent. An enemy of hers had framed his agent and she had three kids born prematurely. The date of their conception corresponded to the time that man in the photograph was with her. Was there a connection?

He dialed Quantico and finally reached information. He gave the receptionist his name and finally got through to a friend of his. After engaging in a bit of conversation, he got to his intent. "You know Bob, my gout has been acting up lately so I've had to stop going into the field and take this desk job."

Bob laughed. "That's an excuse if there ever was one."

"Oh by the way, that FBI agent, Rachel Burke, you wouldn't know where she's stationed?" He waited for a while.

"It says here in Hartford, Connecticut. She's still with the VCTF."

"Yes," said the chief, "I have their number. By the way, what's her home address. I might drop over to see her kids." He waited until Bob gave him the information plus that Charles liked antique cars, David's favorite hero was Superman, and Naomi had a Barbie doll. "Thanks Bob." He then closed the connection and dialed the VCTF where he learned that Miss Burke had left for the day. However, she must have been out for all he got was a message at her home address.

"So?" asked Jack.

"She must be having a date. I'll get a hold of her later. Now tell me about this ah Centre."

"According to an unknown source, it contains 26 levels above and 26 levels below. SL 26 used to be a Sim lab. Rumor is it that it had a sublevel 27," said Jack.

"Interesting. You said used to be."

"Well it appeared that much of the sublevels were unoccupied, intended to keep what was down there, down. There were several offices, something that looked like a maternity ward, but the sublevel above and below each occupied level had cameras, and what looked like living quarters, saw plug ins for TVs, fridges, beds, some beer cans. From what I saw it would've been quite luxurious. Oh they had a sublevel five to twelve where they had a hospital, infirmary, tech lab, incinerator, and living quarters. I took photographs." He gave them to the chief.

"So what are the sims used for?"

"Actually chief, until recently the Centre sold the sims to various organizations. Remember the earthquake in San Francisco, how that bridge collapsed? The Centre had a sim some years back showing what would happen if the bridge was reinforced and what would happen if it was not. Then there is the case of that new vaccination. They sold the sim to a radical Middle East group that used it to wipe out a rival tribe. And remember that massacre of our own by the Medina Cartel? That was based on a Centre sim."