Parker in the car, Jarod in the field. Periodic updates over comms. It was becoming the new norm, although things had shifted since Baltimore. This was the first time Parker would have Jarod in her ear since that first night at the hotel. Since then, her associations with Jarod's voice had categorically shifted, and she had grown used to his mouth at her ear, tempting her closer to the edge. Now, she had to ground herself in the moment to avoid embarking on vivid mental recreations of their latest tryst.
Just now, Jarod was hanging around a library in Fredericton, New Brunswick, working against his strengths and trying his very best to not blend in. His clothes were frayed at the edges, and he was compensating for the lack of a proper winter coat with assorted layers of winter accessories — gloves, sweaters, scarves, and the like. He had adjusted his posture and mannerisms to an unrecognizable degree and now resembled nothing so much as a chronically desperate tweaker.
The idea was to attract the attention of The Serene Few, a suspected cult camped out in a town in northern New Brunswick, Canada. The Centre had provided little about the group's philosophies or tenets, only that they strongly disapproved of the pharmacological industry. They were known to identify and recruit potential members among students at university campuses and yoga classes, as well as library patrons. The parents of a current member had commissioned the QS-9300 team to deprogram their daughter and get her out of The Serene Few, and as a bonus, the team was welcome to dismantle the rest of the group.
"So Gwen doesn't have to look over her shoulder for the rest of her life," her father had said.
Jarod was on top of the world. Here was an assignment where, no matter how you looked at it, the team was doing something good, really good. A few of the headquarters-based sims had come close, but nothing on the scale of this mission to New Brunswick.
"It's been a bad string of assignments," said Sydney. The team had gathered in preparation to cross the northern border. Sydney himself was staying behind in Delaware, while the rest were packing their bags. "With some obvious exceptions, The Centre's work is mostly positive. That it's taken this long to hand down an assignment like this to our team is… well, it's anomalous."
"Anomalous, Christ on a bike," said Parker. "Of course it's not 'anomalous'. It's intentional. They had to get Jarod used to compromising principles before they brought in more routine work." She snapped her suitcase shut. "Brigitte has always had a plan."
One border hop later, the team was in Fredericton, watching Jarod ask a librarian for access to the printers. Broots had brought a more extensive set-up to this latest job, which allowed him to hack into the library security feeds, granting a bird's-eye view of the scene. It was more engaging than listening to audio updates, but not by much. Parker's eyes had long since glazed over.
Broots tapped on the screen.
"Who's that, there?" he said. "Do you think she looks like Sandra?"
Sandra Pike was one of the two members, along with her husband Webster, who was most often spotted on recruitment duty. The woman under Broots's index finger did, in fact, look like Sandra. Same dark, curly hair, same weak chin.
On-screen, Jarod wandered vaguely in her direction, gripping his job application form fresh from the printer.
"Excuse me — hey, hi. Excuse me," said Jarod's voice over the earpiece. He'd elected to keep the lines open, so Parker and Broots could hear everything. It was a welcome olive branch, given his established habit of hiding relevant information from the rest of the team. "I'm trying to get this thing, this application. Man, it's printed all wrong. One side's upside-down and everything. Do you know why? I need this to look right. It's due tomorrow."
He was talking to one of the staff members, but loud enough that Sandra should be able to hear. Sure enough, Sandra swooped in and introduced herself, leading with some commiseration over the grief involved in applying for a job.
"And then you go to all that work, and most of the time, they don't even tell you if you didn't get the job. What a crock," she said. Parker had to strain to hear over Jarod's mic. "There's just no respect."
The fictional tweaker created by Jarod never had a goddamn chance. By the time Sandra left the library, the QS-9300 team had heard all about Sandra's history with drugs, and how she'd found new life with this fantastic group of people she met a couple of summers ago. In his back pocket, Jarod now carried a card detailing the place and time of the group's next appearance at the Fredericton Farmers' Market.
"That's not until Sunday," Broots pointed out. Parker raised an eyebrow.
"Well done, Broots. I don't know why I keep a calendar."
"I mean, are we gonna stay in town until then?"
It was a fair question. Jarod definitely would; he needed to continue to establish a presence in Fredericton as a sweet, vulnerable, absolute mess of a person for The Serene Few's benefit. Once they bought the character of "Jarod", it would open the door for the cultists to make the next step toward recruitment. According to the timeline reported by Gwen's friends and family, at least a week and a half had elapsed between when she first met Sandra at a yoga class and when she received an invitation to check out The Serene Few's flourishing community. Parker and Broots did not technically have to stay in New Brunswick in the interim. Unless The Serene Few started making house calls to prospective recruits after a single "chance" meeting, nothing of relevance would happen for a few days yet.
"Can't think of a reason I would," said Parker.
She opted to stay in town.
"It occurred to me the other day," she said, unceremoniously shucking her bra. "You were a virgin until '97."
Jarod blushed. Whether the blush was from being confronted by his sexual history or from the sudden lovely view was anyone's guess. Perhaps it was both.
"… True," he said.
"And I'm guessing you didn't have time for too many girls while the Centre was hunting you."
For once, they weren't staying at a hotel. Brigitte had made room in the budget to spring for an apartment for the duration of their stay. Parker had "offered" to "help him unpack". The thrill of sneaking around hadn't yet worn off.
(In their defence, they had done some actual, non-euphemistic unpacking before shedding any clothing. Jarod had been unpacking some of his favourite missed childhood memorabilia, while Parker unpacked his growing collection of novels onto waiting shelves, when they were both distracted. There was still a loaded super soaker on the nightstand.)
"Is this bullying? Am I being bullied?" said Jarod with mock hurt.
Parker laughed. "No. The opposite, more like. I mean…" She juggled her words around. "Ha. This is going to inflate your ego past what I can tolerate, but I'm going to say it anyway. I wondered how you got as good as you are, but — stop with the preening peacock look, it's so unattractive — I figured it out. You Pretended. You Pretended you were competent in bed, and so you were. Have I got that right?"
Jarod was the cat who ate the canary. He grinned impenitently as she crawled towards him across the blankets. "I'm a Pretender. That's how I learn everything, this is no exception."
"So, what, you read a lot of books? They must have been some damn good books."
"That, and I spent some time as an escort."
He chose that moment to slide his hand between her legs, and Parker almost choked on her tongue. "What? You were a prostitute? How'd I miss that one?"
Jarod shrugged. "You didn't catch all my projects. As with anything, I had to do my homework. Lay on the pillow, I have something in mind."
What he had in mind involved his hand and, ultimately, a slightly askew bedpost for Jarod and a mildly bruised shoulder for Parker. At his pleased expression after the fact, she grabbed Chekhov's super soaker and squirted Jarod in the face.
Soon after, Parker was on the front porch of his building with an empty counteragent syringe and a pesky, wistful ache in her chest.
The fallout from that first visit to Jarod's new place had its upsides and downsides. One notable upside was a new discovery for Miss Parker: while giving head was not likely ever to top her list of favourite things to do in bed, she found a delicious joy in watching from between Jarod's pale thighs as she, and she alone, reduced him to a quivering mess.
One notable downside was that her visit did not go unnoticed.
"We have a complication," said Broots, when he returned from Delaware. "You, Miss Parker, you were seen leaving Jarod's apartment after giving him his last shot."
The three of them were sitting in Broots's van, a gift from Brigitte for a job well done in the last fiscal year. He had it all kitted out with hopelessly convoluted tech, all that nerd nonsense that went right over Parker's head.
"Seen? Seen by whom?"
Broots brought up the profiles of Webster and Sandra Pike on his computer screen.
"We underestimated these two. It's almost hard to believe — they only met you once, Jarod! But I guess they wanted to do their due diligence. We heard over our phone taps that you, Miss Parker, have raised some red flags. You are… and please keep in mind, I'm just quoting here… 'some fed bitch, probably'. They don't buy that Jarod would have reason to associate with you unless one or both of you are Mounties."
"Mounties?" Parker was incredulous. "Like with the red coats and stupid hats?"
Jarod piped up. "I was a Mountie once."
"Of course you were."
"The red surge and horse and all that, that's only really for ceremonial occasions, official funerals and things like that. They're roughly equivalent to the FBI in the states."
"Right," said Broots. "We're right back where we were with the longshoremen — we have to figure out some way to convince them Jarod's not a plant. I was thinking maybe you could say she's your NA sponsor?"
Jarod shook his head. "It's a good idea, but if The Serene Few operate like the prototypical cult, they're going to want me to sever ties with a sponsor. Then, if Miss Parker's spotted again, it's suspicious. Why do I need a sponsor if I have them?"
Parker leaned back against the wall of tech to give herself room to stretch her leg.
"Fair point. What about an ex-girlfriend? Similar, but if I'm spotted, you could blame it on the ex being clingy."
"Sure," said Jarod. "Ex-girlfriend. Or, even better, current girlfriend."
Parker was unimpressed. "How's that even better?"
"It leaves the door open for you to come with me if and when I'm allowed into their community."
Broots's eyebrows shot up.
"Uh, I'm not sure that that's—"
"You want me to do my job and your job too?" said Parker. She paused as an implication sparked in her brain. "Though it would give me an excuse to be around."
Jarod nodded, face carefully neutral. "It would."
She stared at his profile. They were being reckless, she knew, but it was one thing to know it and another thing entirely to know how to stop it. Still, she couldn't deny the appeal. If she had to go without, for what could be weeks or even months, she might start climbing the walls.
Broots nodded slowly. "To keep you updated on counteragent shots, makes sense. Going into QSM in the middle of an isolated commune would be a disaster. We can't really count on a rigid shot schedule, either, right? Since, well. The interval between shots is…"
He didn't complete the sentence.
"Getting shorter," Jarod finished. His face went blank.
They weren't talking about it. Everyone was thinking it, but nobody was saying a word. It was a matter of simple extrapolation: the time between each shot was getting shorter and shorter, and the logical endpoint of a shortening time frame was… no time whatsoever. What would happen when a shot of counteragent only kept Jarod clear-eyed for a day, for an hour, for a few minutes, or not at all? Sex had been a wonderful, addictive distraction from that looming reality, but it was a band-aid for a septic wound.
It was also another reason it could only ever be a fun distraction. As if Parker needed more reasons.
She should say something. She couldn't say anything. She took the coward's way out and stayed mum. Broots was the one to break the silence.
"I may work for the Centre, but I…" He trailed off uncertainly. His words were directed at Jarod, but he was watching Parker. Whatever he saw seemed to grant him some confidence. "I'd rather see you get away than be beaten by this, this thing, this awful gland. Isn't there anything you can do? Or, or if there's anything I could do, name it." He paused. "Within reason. But I don't want to see you go into quicksilver madness any more than the next guy, so. Name it."
Jarod smiled.
"I appreciate that, Broots. I spend a lot of my off hours on research, but there aren't a lot of options."
"You can't just… take it out? Or get someone else to?"
Parker felt Jarod's eyes on her. Sometimes she forgot how little she'd been confiding in Broots over the past few months.
"No," said Jarod. "It would — we've looked into that, and it would be too risky. Lately, I've been looking into gene therapy, but it's needle-in-a-haystack work. Without knowing which gene or genes to target, the brute force approach would take years."
"Risky? Risky how?"
Jarod told him. Broots's jaw hung loose in shock.
"Kill you?" He looked around at Miss Parker, noted her lack of surprise. "You knew this already, didn't you?"
"Months back," said Parker, curt and short. She took the coward's way out again and changed the subject. "Until we have a real solution, all we can do is do our jobs. Speaking of which — Jarod, I'll come with you to the farmers' market on Sunday."
Jarod blinked, and his face came to life once more. (Broots was not so easily distracted, but he stayed mute, staring down at his knuckles on the keyboard.)
"It might go over better if you wore something…" Jarod cast about for the diplomatic phrasing.
"… Less fed bitch," she finished. "Agreed. I only brought Mountie couture with me, though, so I'll head back tomorrow to raid the closet."
"They sell clothes here, too," said Broots. "You could buy something in Fredericton."
"Yes, obviously they sell clothes here. There aren't throngs of naked Canadians walking around. I have a couple errands I need to run in Blue Cove, anyway."
Broots made a noise of abject distress. "But… Sunday morning?"
"I'll be back in time. Don't you worry your pretty little head."
Parker's first errand was a trip to room two on the Renewal Wing, Angelo's home.
Angelo was as she'd left him, more or less. No better, no worse, though the latter wasn't saying much. In fact, he was worse in one way. As Parker drew nearer to his bed, the edges of a white bandage peeked out from atop the waistband of his sweatpants, covering his hip and lower back.
"Bedsores," she said under her breath, tracing the bandage edge with one finger. Angelo made a weak grab for her finger and missed.
Cox must not be giving Angelo any time off the sedatives at all. A slight tweak, even, might allow him to get up and move, but they'd granted him no such thing. He was just lying there in the same place, day after day, with all but no company, chronically out of his mind with rage but without the energy to act on it.
Oh, Angelo. Why are they keeping you alive?
It was a horrible thought and a valid one. Angelo was costing the Centre — pennies, but it added up. Laid up like this, he could no longer use his savant talents to act as part-time medium, part-time verification check for an object's chain of custody. That was his primary money-making function. Why keep him alive when he couldn't even do that? The Centre she knew would have dropped him off at the side of the road with a pat on the back and ducked behind the nearest bush when consequences boomeranged back their way. What use was he serving?
Easy. As ever, Angelo was the guinea pig for everything the Centre wanted to try out on Jarod. They were keeping him around to figure out how quicksilver madness and counteragent work, long-term. He was still alive because Cox needed to study him. Had his body always ignored counteragent, she wondered, or had he slowly built up some sort of resistance, as they were seeing with Jarod? If the latter were the case, then the study of Angelo had never been more important.
Except they clearly hadn't got anywhere. If there were a solution to the problem of degrading counteragent effectiveness, Angelo wouldn't be here, lounging in a state of perpetual, impotent rage. Parker had been secretly hoping that the current failure to address the counteragent problem was a bluff, another game to keep Jarod in line, but that couldn't be true. If it were, Angelo wouldn't be like this — they would almost certainly have tested the solution on their guinea pig first. And if this hypothetical solution were any good, Angelo would be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, not loafing around in a padded room collecting bed sores.
No help was coming.
She hadn't told Jarod anything about Angelo. At first, she had pretended to herself that it was constantly slipping her mind to loop him in on the situation. This excuse fell away gradually until the choice became deliberate. Every time she thought about telling him, she conjured to mind the hopelessness that would overtake his face if he were confronted with his own doom, if he saw the finish line of his current spiral towards madness. That hypothetical hopelessness kept her mute.
Parker knelt by Angelo's side, taking his hand in hers. He tried to pull away, to claw at her arm, but she wouldn't let go.
"I wish I knew how to help you," she whispered.
Angelo just looked at her with wild, bloodshot eyes, not hearing a word she said. Parker pressed his hand to her cheek and sobbed.
The second errand — or more accurately, the third, after she dropped by her house for more suitable clothing — was a quick trip to the bank. The Wilmington Financial Reserve Fellowship was a dusty old place, both figuratively and in actuality. On stepping through the front doors, she coughed. She'd been here before, though not for years; she remembered tagging along with her father when he stopped by to access his account.
A dour old man with a ruddy complexion and a bramble-thick moustache greeted her.
"H'may I help you?" he said, affecting a distinguished air with the judicious use of an extra H at the beginning of his question.
"H'yes, you h'may," returned Parker. She held out the key Jarod had gifted her for her birthday. "I need to access a vault."
She was taking a gamble that the thing unlocked a vault and not, say, a simple safe deposit box. Perhaps she was operating on sheer wishful thinking.
The bank attendant took the key, glided behind his desk, and consulted the bank records on an old, boxy Deskpro. After a moment, the man looked up.
"We will need identification," he said imperiously. "The vault in question only allows access to select individuals."
So it was a vault. Parker had never heard of such a measure before, but it made a kind of sense. Supposing she was on the list, the downside of access would be the paper trail documenting her visit to the vault. Depending on the vault's owner, she could catch hell for snooping around.
"Is one of those individuals someone named Jarod?" she asked.
The attendant frowned. "I do not respond to attempts to fish for information, miss."
Parker opened her purse with a roll of the eyes.
"Here," she said, handing over her driver's license.
"Marcelle V. Parker," he read off. Parker winced. "Yes, you are on the list. If you'll follow me…"
He led her down a hall and up to the relevant vault door, then handed back the key.
"Please sign out when you leave," he said, and left without further explanation. She was tempted to ask for the name of the owner, but knew it would raise suspicions.
Once unlocked, the door swung open easily under the barest pressure. If Parker had been expecting riches within, she would have been disappointed… but she hadn't been, so she wasn't. For the most part, it was filled with boxes. The few items stored without packaging included a grandfather clock, a rack of dresses and coats, and a framed painting of Catherine Parker and her friend, Ben Miller.
The vault was Catherine's.
"How do I look? Much like a Mountie?"
Parker tried to stamp her feet for warmth, which turned out to be difficult with only one dependable foot to stamp. She was standing outside Jarod's building, her hands thrust into the pockets of her fleece jacket. It was a blisteringly cold Sunday morning in January in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and Parker was having difficulty thinking of anything that could be worse.
February in Fredericton, maybe. February in an off-the-grid cult community in northern New Brunswick, that might take the cake.
"Nothing at all like a Mountie. Very cult-appropriate," Jarod reassured her.
"Good." Parker hunkered her chin down into her collar. "I think the blood in my face is freezing. Get in the car."
She didn't exhale until Jarod cranked the heat in his station wagon. The engine needed time to warm up. Parker wrapped her arms around herself and settled in to wait.
"Did you use the key?" she said suddenly, without preamble.
Jarod started.
"No," he said, after a pause to put the question in its proper context. "They had a list of people permitted to enter Catherine's vault. I wasn't on it."
"How long have you had that key?"
"Not long. Since just after Christmas."
"Do you know what was inside?"
"No. Like I said, I wasn't allowed in. I snuck a look at the list later. There weren't any men on it, so I couldn't pretend to be any of them. I could have broken in, but I figured you wouldn't thank me for it."
"Hm."
Jarod looked over at her. He wasn't asking, but she knew he wanted to know. She couldn't tell him. At least, not all of it.
"I… hope it was helpful."
"It was. Thank you." Parker exhaled a cloud of condensation. The sight gave her a brief tinge of want, the long-faded urge for a cigarette. "One of your better gifts. It's no rabbit, but it's up there."
Jarod exhaled a laugh. "No hints? Not even a little tease? Not that you owe me any of it, but I can't pretend I'm not curious."
She groped for an answer while he started the car and pulled away from the building.
"Lots of memories, mostly good ones. Some Centre access codes, nothing that would be current. A beautiful painting of her and Ben, I took that home… not sure where I'm going to put it where Daddy won't see." What else could she tell him? She chose her words carefully. "Someone else must have accessed it after she died, some of the dates on things didn't make sense otherwise. There was… evidence."
Jarod took his eyes off the road for long enough to look at her.
"Evidence?"
"Yeah. Of things Raines was up to."
"Raines? Oh."
Truth of a kind, but not the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth,-so-help-me-God. Yes, there'd been some dirt on Raines. Little of it was news to Parker.
The focus of the data, however, had been Mr. Parker himself. Every crime he'd ever committed with Catherine's knowledge, every corrupt order he'd ever handed down. Every single time he'd knowingly housed a child long-term in the bowels of the Centre without the consent of the child or their parents. The files mentioned Jarod many times, only in vague detail. She hadn't had time to read it all, but she knew without question that it was enough to send her father away for a long time. Considering his age, it was enough to keep him in prison for the rest of his natural life.
Therein lay the problem. Jarod would want that information. He had no love for Mr. Parker, and could put the evidence to use setting the Centre alight. But despite every lie Mr. Parker had ever told his daughter, every convoluted manipulation he'd pushed on her, she didn't want him to go to prison.
What did it mean when one's thoughts and actions didn't match one's morals? When one couldn't defend one's own convictions, but held those convictions anyway? Parker had no words of defence for her father, but couldn't help wanting to shield him from the consequences of his actions, no matter what he did. What, then, could her principles amount to? Did she have any principles at all?
(Of course she did. She simply loved her father.)
"Speaking of helpful gifts, I hope the number I gave you helped."
Jarod smiled. "It did. It's… wonderful, and so strange, getting to know her."
"You're not calling her from home, though, right?"
"No, couldn't risk that," said Jarod. "We talk only when I call her, never the other way around. And she's often away from home. But luck has been on our side a couple of times."
They pulled into the parking lot of Fredericton's farmers' market. Parker was relieved to see that the market was being held inside rather than out in the cold. It was a large, high-ceiling building with exposed tin walls. When they got inside, the place was pandemonium. All of Fredericton seemed to have shown up at the ass-crack of six in the morning to buy some overpriced meat and veggies.
Perhaps inevitably, Jarod's inner repressed child came out to play.
"Look, Miss Parker! Is this — excuse me." He leaned towards the woman behind the nearest stand, who greeted him with a larger-than-life smile. "This is maple syrup, right? Why do you have it spilled over the snow?"
He insisted on staying through the maple syrup vendor's explanation of the joys of tire d'érable. He bought two pieces and gave Parker one.
"Are you looking for the Pikes at all?" she hissed. The candy was delicious, but she'd never admit it.
"No," said Jarod. "I don't need to. They're over there." He nodded at the next row over before moving one stand down to examine the latest display. "Look, little sailboats! How do they get them in the bottle, I wonder?"
Sure enough, Webster Pike stood behind an impressive assortment of winter produce and meat. He had just sold an elderly man a carton of beets. Nearby, Sandra was chatting with a young woman, possibly in her early twenties, who was gripping a bag of garlic cloves and looking like she'd rather be somewhere else.
Jarod and Miss Parker weaved through the crowd to their destination. As he walked, Jarod's posture slowly transformed into the tweaker Sandra had met the other day at the library. By the time they reached the market stand of The Serene Few, his silhouette was unrecognizable.
"Hey, Sandra," Jarod said shyly. "Good to see you again. This is all yours? Really incredible stuff."
Sandra's face lit up.
"Jarod! I wasn't sure you would come." She came around the side of the stand and hugged him like they were old friends. "We — this is my husband, Webster. We were really hoping you'd turn up. I was telling him, you really seem like our kind of people. Right, babe?"
"Yeah!" said Webster. He looked like the sort of guy who you might run into on the way up a mountain in the Rockies, headed in the other direction at a full sprint. By the looks of him, he was a little younger than Sandra, and his smile was slow and genuine. "The way Sandy talked about you, I knew right away you were good people. And, uh. Who's this lovely lady?"
"This!" Jarod wrapped an arm around Parker's shoulders and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "This is my best girl. No offence, but she said you guys sounded like weirdos, so I suggested she come meet you and see for herself."
Funny how she'd been sleeping with Jarod for weeks, yet a kiss on the cheek in public felt far too intimate.
Sandra laughed. Her laugh sounded like water being poured from a pitcher into a glass. The Serene Few had really brought out the big guns.
"Oh, we are weirdos. But, you know, in a cool way. I'm Sandra Pike, and you heard me introduce Webster."
And then she looked expectantly at Jarod and Miss Parker.
"Sandra, meet—"
"Don't—"
"—Marcie. Marcie Jamison." He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. His broad smile said, Correct me on that, I dare you.
Webster and Sandra didn't notice the flame-tipped glare Parker then shot at Jarod. They were too occupied with competing James Bond impressions using "Marcie's" new name.
Parker swallowed her irritation and gestured to the Pikes' display. "You grow all this?"
"Our community does, yeah," said Webster proudly. "Well, except the meat. We didn't grow that, ha."
Parker fought the urge to roll her eyes, with difficulty. "Ha. Your community?"
"Our little family," said Sandra. "We come into town from up north. There's not much we need that we can't make or grow or breed ourselves, but there are a couple things. Electrical fixtures, space heaters, things like that."
"To get the little money we need, we set up here every Sunday," Webster chimed in. "It brings in more than enough to keep us all happy."
"Wow," said Jarod, hushed and impressed. "That sounds incredible. Doesn't that sound amazing, sweetheart? I've always wanted to do something like that. Get away from all the corporate greed, the constant ads, you know. Live off the land, get your hands dirty, really live."
"Sounds… idyllic," said Parker, who thought it sounded fantastically uncomfortable.
Sandra grew serious. "It really is. Webster and I, we knew even before we started dating seriously that we both wanted to just get away from all these people, you know? And more people all the time — look at everybody here! So many people, and are they your neighbours from when you were a kid? Not most of 'em, no."
"That's how we knew we needed to get away, just get away from the crowds," said Webster, nodding vehemently. A polite pensioner hovered across the stall from him, trying to buy some venison off him, but Webster had recruitment blinders on. "Did you know, I heard that if the population keeps expanding like it is, by the year 2015 we'll become an expanding ball of flesh, floating through space. Can you imagine? Terrifying."
"Wow, yeah, that's so crazy," said Parker, trying to sound impressed. Yep, complete loss of touch with reality. Check and check.
"I think you'd both really like it," said Sandra.
"You know, yeah," said Jarod, with an introspective air. "I think I might. Could be just the thing."
And here, ideally, would be the opportune moment for the Pikes to invite their new friends to visit, or hell, even to stay. They didn't. They flashed toothy grins and changed the subject to their selection of chard and carrots. The Centre employees bought some of each and, after hovering hopefully a little longer, wandered off hand-in-hand.
As soon as they were outside in the cold again, they dropped their hands and shoved them into their respective pockets, letting disappointment show on their faces.
"They must want to scope us out some more," muttered Parker. "Damn. It hasn't been that long, but I hoped they would give us more than that. Just blowing hot air about how great their lives are and how scary they find other people. I'm getting really tired of us sitting on our thumbs, waiting to be cultists."
Jarod said nothing, but upon taking his seat in the car, he flipped down the sun visor, opened the mirror, and peered into his eyes in the reflection.
Yes, she imagined he was getting tired of waiting, too.
