Jarod
sat in the dark, only the shine from the monitor casting light on his haggard
features. He had rented the hotel
room for only one night – 16 hours to get into the Centre mainframe and change
the data. It really wasn’t too
much, a figure here, a reference there.
Little things, like the extra zero that made one hundred dollars into one
thousand, or the changing of one letter to create a different word. So tiny that no one would realize. Cumulatively, however, the results were
much more impressive. It was
amazing what a little bit of disinformation could do.
For
a fraction of an instant, he regretted having to include this particular piece
into his scheme, but the feeling soon passed. The Centre had never considered the fate
of the pawns in their deadly chess game and he found little reason to do
anything different.
Angelo
waited until dark, then crept into the ventilation ductways again. He knew that it drove them mad when he
disappeared, but he had always come back, so they had eventually relaxed their
vigilance. A hunger strike had also
made it clear to them that if he were denied his forays into the bowels of the
building, he would cease to do their bidding.
Other
than Miss Parker and Broots, no one knew that he could get outside. And besides, he always came
back.
Now
he silently slipped into the medical lab for the pediatrics wing. There was little security here – if a
child were to escape from its room, the last place they would go was the room
that guaranteed a prod, poke or probe.
The door wasn’t even locked.
His
eyes did not need to adjust from the dim half-light of the vents to the darkness
of the room; he easily crept over to the diagnostic equipment, opened a drawer
and looked through the tubes inside.
Finding the one he was looking for, he took the vial out and replaced it
with the one from his pocket. Only
one other item to monitor and to switch later, and everything would be in
place.
Jarod
would be pleased.
The
woman sat at her desk, gently pulling the lightweight phone headset from her
straight, dark hair. She had
learned early that the phone had a tendency to muss any elaborate kind of
hairstyle, so she soon had taken to wearing it down. Her employer seemed to enjoy the long
veil of blue-black that cascaded down her back.
Her
employer. Now that was an
interesting one. There were days
when she had trouble remembering exactly whom she was working for, there were so
many convolutions in her current situation.
Her
mind cast back, (was it only three weeks ago?) to the free clinic. She had gone there for some vitamins,
some drugs, anything that would help her to beat the fatigue that had settled
over her like a miasma. He had been
there too, a dark stranger waiting in the seat next to her at the pharmacy. As she had sat back down, pushing the
large bottle into her all-too-small handbag, he had given her an understanding
look.
“Fashion,”
she had stated, offering up the purse as example. “Who says it has to make
sense?”
“Pills,”
he had responded. “Who says they
have to be so damn big?”
A
strange way to begin a relationship, but he was a strange man. He hadn’t seemed to notice her clothing,
her speech, anything about her, other than that she looked hungry. She had been hungry, but hadn’t
realized it until he had offered breakfast. Funny that he had known it when she
hadn’t.
At that time,
if someone was buying, she was willing to go along, even if there was a price to
pay later. Money wasn’t just tight
back then, it barely existed at all.
Maybe he had noticed her short, skimpy skirt, her equally brief top,
“working clothes,” both of them stretched over a body that looked best, thank
heaven, a little thin. It was why
he had invited her, or so she thought at the time. She had been only partially
right.
She
chuckled quietly to herself and pulled out the keyboard for the computer just as
the door opened to the inner office.
A dark head peered out.
“Joy? Could you come in here
for a minute? I would like your
opinion on something.”
Her
head lowered in the manner of a geisha that she had seen in some corny 1960’s
movie, she looked up at him innocently through her long lashes. “Of course, Mr. Lyle. I’ll be right
there.”
The
technician smiled as the little boy was brought into the medical lab. It was always a joy to see him, his
cherubic face lit up at the sight of any new person. Sad, really, how he seemed so starved
for interpersonal contact. A child
that age should be surrounded by family and friends; instead, his world was cold
and sterile, rarely broken by the occasional visit from his “big sister,” Miss
Parker, and even more rarely by his father, the Chairman.
She
let him play for a few moments with some of the less dangerous instruments on
the tray near the examining table, letting him turn the light on and off in the
otoscope, even allowing him to look in her ears and throat and blow up the blood
pressure cuff. He was wonderful at
mimicry, even better considering how young he was. A sweet boy.
Of
course, the moment of truth finally came, and she asked the other nurse, the one
who was more nanny than anything else, to hold him down. She hated taking blood samples from
children, they really never understood, and it was just plain scary for them to
see their blood filling up the vacuum tube. The adults, those of whom didn’t faint,
she thought with a smirk, understood the necessity.
At
least when this was done, all she had to do was feed the contents of the glass
tube into the machine and be done with it.
She shouldn’t have to poke the little boy again for another three months
or so.
Grabbing
a rubber syringe ball to distract him, she held his tiny arm and searched for a
vein. He screamed, not
unexpectedly, and she and the other nurse tried to console him with words while
their hands still held him firm.
Not for the first time she wondered why the brains in the medical
innovations lab at the Centre hadn’t come up with a way to take blood that was
as easy as it was to analyze it.
She
pulled a cartoon character bandage from her pocket, brought from home for this
very occasion, and saw the toddler’s eyes light up behind the tears as she put
it over the crook of his arm. Kids
were resilient, if nothing else, she mused. Still, she wondered if any child could
turn out normal with the Centre as a daycare.
The
control vial was placed in the CBC analyzer to calibrate it, followed by the
blood sample from the youngest Parker.
The results would be spit out in a few minutes, to be read by the doctor
when he came by later in the day.
Doctors, she thought to herself, never there to do the hard work, just
there to take the glory.
Jarod
sat back under the tree canopy, looking up through the leaves that nearly
blotted out the sun but at the same time allowed it to sparkle through and
dapple the forest floor that was now his home.
Without
a power source, he had been forced to move from his ever-familiar laptop into
the realm of paper and pencil, and he now sat with a long list in front of
him. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust
his memory, but there was a certain amount of pleasure to be taken from crossing
off another accomplished task, another chink in the armor of the Centre. With a tiny flourish, he drew a black
line though an item halfway down the page.
Things were proceeding well, very well.
The
corner of his mouth twisted up in grim pleasure as he thought about that black
line, that one little name. An eye
for an eye, he had heard. So they
would see.
Miss
Parker strode into her father’s office, only to find her brother had beaten her
there. He stood near the window,
rubbing his one good thumb over the leather glove that hid where the other would
have been. Her father was nowhere
to be seen.
“Lyle.” The name was all she would afford him in
greeting.
“I
see Father has called you in as well.
Do you have any idea what this little impromptu meeting is all
about?”
“No,
I don’t.” She sat in one of the
chairs and rubbed her forehead, mentally giving her father three minutes before
she walked out.
There
was no need to wait that long. The
Chairman walked in and smiled at the sight of his two children. “Ah, good. You’re both here.” He bent down and kissed his daughter on
a barely receptive cheek. “Angel,
I’ve hardly seen you at all lately.
Here we are, working in the same building, you’re not even out chasing
Jarod and I never see you. Funny
how that happens.”
“I
hope to God that this is more than just a little reunion, Daddy. Frankly, the family tree has
blight.” She cast a meaningful
glance at the other man standing near the window.
“Now,
Angel, I know that there are times that the two of you don’t agree on things,
that happens, but right now, I need you two to work together. For the family, for
me.”
“Another
lead on Jarod?” Lyle
asked.
“No,
no, nothing substantial on that front.”
The Chairman walked around to sit behind his desk, there pulling out a
file. “No, this is more
important.”
“We’ve
spent the last four years trying to run the labrat down, Daddy, through any
means possible.” Another meaningful
look was cast Lyle’s way. “What
could be more important than catching him?
Are you ill?”
“No,
sweetheart, I’m fit as a fiddle.”
The older man sighed. “I’m
afraid that it’s your little brother.
At his most recent check-up, we got some bad news. It seems that there is something very
wrong with the littlest Parker.”
“What
do you mean?” Lyle asked. “He was tested for the pretender gene,
and he has it.”
Mr.
Parker paused a moment to glare at his son, anger growing in his voice. “I know damn well that he has the gene,
but it won’t do us a heck of a lot of good if he doesn’t live to see his second
birthday.”
“Daddy,
what’s wrong? Is he sick?” Miss Parker rose from her seat, the
information that the baby had tested positive as a pretender, news to her,
momentarily forgotten.
“He
has some blood disease or something, aplastic anemia, I think they called
it.” He threw down the folder and
tapped the blue cover. “It’s all in
there, if you can read it. Bunch of
doctors, calling it fancy names but still telling me that there’s no sure way to
cure him. They think that they’ve
found it in the early stages, the child doesn’t even show any signs, but it
comes down to a transplant, they say, and they need a donor. And, even though I’m the child’s
father, I am not a good enough match. We’re going to have to test you both, to
find out if you can help him.”
“Of
course, Daddy. Anything that I can
do.” Miss Parker sat once again,
concern sapping her strength. “The
poor thing.”
Lyle
stumbled into agreement. “Sure,
yes, whatever we can do for him.
He’s a very important part of the pl-“ A look from his father stopped him in
mid-word. “A very important part of
the family. I’ll go right down to
the infirmary and have a blood sample drawn.”
Waiting
until her brother left, Miss Parker walked behind her father and put a
supportive hand on his shoulder.
“How are you taking this, Daddy?
I mean, he is your son, you must be worried sick.”
The
Chairman patted her hand and smiled up at her. “It’s a blow, there’s no doubt about
it. You were always such a healthy
child, I really didn’t expect him to be any different. This is…unexpected. But, with a little luck, either you or
your brother will be a perfect match, and we will have the tot on the road to
recovery in no time. He’ll be fine,
I’m sure. After all, he’s a
Parker.”
“And
a Pretender,” Miss Parker added.
“What? Oh, that. Well, yes, he is. Same gene that you and your brother
have, that’s to be expected, right?
All in the family, as they say.”
Mr. Parker smiled again, then became serious. “But right now, he’s on his way to being
a very sick little boy, and I’d like to avoid that if possible. You’ll get to the infirmary and be
tested right away, won’t you?”
“Of
course, Daddy. I’ll go as soon as
Lyle is back. Don’t worry.”
Heading
out of the office, she glanced back to see her father bent over another file,
already engrossed in its contents.
He didn’t seem that worried, she thought. Not as worried as she would expect a
father to be, not as worried as he seemed to be about setting her mind at ease
regarding the baby’s pretender gene.
Different fathers react differently, she told herself, and then tried to
believe it.
Joy
Li Liu walked into the restaurant and up to the bar. She could feel the eyes of most of the
men watching her, either surreptitiously, as they evaded the watchful look of
their female partners, or openly, wolfishly. Underneath her aloof exterior, she
smiled – she still had it. Of course, she knew that. She had to, it was her
job.
The
man she was looking for sat at the bar, a tumbler of brown liquid before
him. Odd, she had never known him
to drink before, but then again, perhaps he was merely trying to fit into the
surroundings. Before he turned she
gathered in her impression of him again: cold and calculating, but at the same
time near exhaustion. There was a
sense that he was walking along the edge of something, but still she found him
trustworthy. He had to be – she
would have done this for no one else.
She wasn’t completely altruistic, she was doing it for herself of course,
for them, but only for this man would she have gone this
far.
He
looked up, his dark eyes looking her over in an analytical way, so different
from the rest of the patrons in the dimly lit room. “You look well, how are you
feeling?”
Her
head slightly bounced from side to side in a “so-so” gesture. “Not badly. That last stuff you gave me seems to
work.”
He
gave her a smirk. “The owners will
never miss it. How are things going
with the job?”
“Well,
quite well. They haven’t given me
the keys to the safe yet, but things are starting to get interesting. I think I will have everything that you
wanted accomplished within a week.”
“This isn’t a game, you know.” The cockiness of her attitude annoyed
him. He grasped at her wrist, his
eyes intent. “They will kill you if
they find out.”
Freeing
her arm, she reached across him, picked up his glass and drank deeply from
it. The whisky burned in her
throat, threatened to bring tears to her eyes. No reason for those, she told
herself. Fatalism burned in her
just as much as the alcohol. “We
all die someday. I’ve been waiting to do something like this for years. I’m just glad the chance has finally
come up. Don’t worry about me, I
can take care of myself. I’ve been
doing it for long enough.”
There
was a silence between them, two souls trying to out-tough each other. Finally, the man flinched. “If you check your account, there should
be an additional deposit.”
“You
didn’t need to do that, you know.
You’ve already done so much.”
“A
little extra cash has never hurt anyone.”
“No,
it never did,” she replied, her voice now soft. “Thank you.”
The
dark man rose from the stool, picking up the glass and finishing off the
contents. “At least some good will
come of this, no matter what. Just
remember, watch your back.”
“I
know what I’m doing. I’m…” a
momentary look of regret flashed across her features, replaced almost instantly
with the previous self-assured smile, “…a professional.”
Another
Monday, another day without the oxygen-toting watchdog of the Triumvirate
patrolling the corridors of Blue Cove.
It just didn’t look right, Mr. Parker thought to himself. What was that old adage? Oh yes, keep your friends close and your
enemies closer.
He
thought again about the day that Dr. Raines had announced the conversion of
“Timmy” into the empath “Angelo.”
His skin bristled every time that he heard the name – only he and
Catherine had understood why Raines had picked that name. It had hung in the air for years now, an
unspoken threat to his Angel, a warning that what he had done to Timmy could
just as easily happen again.
With
a polarity of regret and fear, he issued the order that afternoon to every
Sweeper, every Cleaner and every other employee of the Centre - William Raines
was missing, and the Chairman wanted him found.
Miss
Parker read over the file that she had brought home with her. The cameras at the Centre, she knew,
were placed well enough and the lenses powerful enough that they could read
almost anything over her shoulder.
Here, at home, in shorts and a tee shirt and with a friendly bottle
nearby, she knew that she would have the privacy she needed to read. A daily sweep for microphones and
transmittal devices helped out, too.
This
file was the accumulation of two months of research, by herself, Broots and
Angelo. It detailed every abuse,
every “wet” operation, every twisted experiment and misguided power play that
the Triumvirate had commissioned over the last thirty years. Page after page after page, the details
sickened her and she reached reflexively for the half filled glass next to the
bottle. It was all just too much to
comprehend when one was sober.
She
had known from early on in her career that the Centre was not a Boy Scout
troop. There were things that were
done, some of them skirting the law, some of them stepping right on top of it,
but for the most part they had been done for a higher purpose, or more lately,
by some rogue authority. So she had
been led to believe. Later, as she
had moved up from one department to another, the powers-that-be had deemed her
resilient and loyal enough to let her be included in some of the actions that
were beyond the strictly moral. They had fallen into a grey zone where the
dollar became the mitigating factor when it came to terms of “right” and
“wrong,” but she had obediently refused to make any judgment calls herself. She realized now that she had not known
the extent to which the Centre was willing to stoop to help out its less than
public clients.
Her
mother had been right all along.
Once on that slippery slope, the Triumvirate, and her father, had been
unable to pull back from the darkness, until most of their actions sprang from
an immoral morass at the heart of the organization. They had blamed things on others: Lyle, Raines, even Mutumbo, but the
truth was that the Triumvirate knew about it all and condoned it. Jarod had been right, too, and had spent
the last four years trying to tell her, trying to make her see when she refused
to open her eyes.
And
what about her father?
Despite
the warm late summer air, she pulled an afghan around her, trying to ward off
the chill that came from inside as she read on. Genetic mutation, biological weaponry,
nuclear travesties, toppled governments, influenced politicians, extortion and
murder, all on an increasingly grand scale. Her mind reeled at the numbers, the
names, the implications. Catherine, Jarod, Kyle, Ethan, Thomas, Hannah, Caitlin,
how many countless others? All used
or killed, or both. Her world spun
around her, like the tornado scene in the Wizard of Oz, with her father and
brother and Raines whirling around with murdered world leaders and abused
children and horribly deformed babies and…
She
stumbled out the door into the warm night air, fell onto the soft dirt near the
steps and vomited.
For
five days, the Chairman’s daughter refused to come to work, and although the
Centre was an incredibly security conscious institution, where rumors were
“simply not tolerated,” it was also staffed with human beings who could tell
that something was very wrong in the House of Parker. For nearly the same amount of time, the
Chairman entombed himself within his office, refusing to see anyone but the few
doctors whom he demanded give him audience and any soul with news of the missing
Dr. Raines. Calls were ignored,
meetings rescheduled and many an important person put off indefinitely. Things were very, very
strange.
Sydney
and Broots were not alone in sensing the tension that permeated the air of the
building, but having lived through the Chairman’s absence earlier and the
ensuing chaos, they searched out their usual solace in Miss Parker. But she, like her father, was
incommunicado.
“I
don’t like it, Syd,” Broots began with a quiver in his voice that was more
pronounced than usual. “I’ve tried
to call Miss Parker at least a dozen times, and all I get is hung up on. It’s like she answers the phone and
doesn’t even bother to say anything.
So then why is she answering?”
“I
have a feeling that Miss Parker is in a period of introspection, Broots. Something that all of us have been
forced into since Jarod made his threats against the
Centre.”
“Yeah,
but that doesn’t explain why she’s answering? I mean, why doesn’t she just take the
phone off the hook if she doesn’t want to be disturbed. It doesn’t make
sense.”
“Perhaps,”
Sydney said with a sad smile, “you are not the one she is waiting to talk
to.”
Things
were only slightly different than normal in Mr. Lyle’s office. There were times when his door was most
definitely locked, and his receptionist away from her desk. At times like this, the couriers saw fit
to leave whatever they had to deliver and avoid knocking. Lyle had the reputation of one who did
not wish to be disturbed when he was at work.
The
phone trilled lightly at the psychologist’s elbow, and he put the report he had
been notating on the side of his desk to answer it. “This is Sydney.”
“Syd. I need you to check on something for
me.”
“Miss
Parker! Broots and I have been
worried about you, are you all right?”
There
was a pause on the other end, followed by a heart-tugging sigh, the kind that
follows a bout of tears. “I will
be, Syd, I – I have to take care of some things. Listen, I need to know if they found a
donor for my little brother, if he needs me. God knows, he’s about the only thing at
that place worth saving right now.”
“Donor? I’m not sure what you’re talking
about. Is the child
ill?”
She
sighed again. “No, of course, that
makes sense. Daddy wouldn’t tell
any one else that something was wrong with a Parker, especially that baby. I’m sorry to bother you, Syd, I’ll have
to ask my father myself.”
The
line clicked dead and Sydney was left with only electronic
silence.
The
Chairman sat at his desk as he had been sitting for the last two hours. The papers from the medical lab in his
hand were no longer seen, his gaze long ago cast inward. The facts were there once again, but
hard to believe as they were, there was no disputing them.
His
mind wandered back to another day, one that he had worked so hard to put out of
his memory. Another file, another
set of facts. He had pleaded and
cajoled and finally threatened the physician, but to his chagrin, he had
actually found one that was willing to stand up for his findings in the face of
physical harm. Damn doctor had a
spine, Mr. Parker thought to himself at the time, what the hell was he doing
working at the Centre?
His
eyes drifted over his desk until they alighted on the picture of he and
Catherine. She had been such a
beautiful woman, such a spark of life, even in the face of adversity. He had to admit, in the beginning,
that’s what it had been. The
Triumvirate had arranged their marriage, although he would never actually admit
it to anyone. It hadn’t exactly
been the wedding that she had spent her childhood dreaming
about.
Oh,
the tale seemed so twisted now, when back then it had seemed the logical thing
to do. He had been the
up-and-coming new executive at the Centre, the man who could do anything and
shine. She had been a volunteer
counselor at the NuGenesis clinic, although only for a short time. As employees, they had both had blood
tests, supposedly to determine any risk of infection on her part, and for
identification on his. He now knew
that the tests were for a number of reasons, one of which was to determine who
had the mysterious new trait that the Ph.D.’s weren’t really sure did anything,
but intrigued them nonetheless.
Genetics
had still been in its infancy, although the Centre, as always, silently led the
pack in discovery. When two
individuals had been found with the mystical genetic trait, and lo and behold,
one of them a bright young man right under the noses of the Triumvirate, it was
too good an opportunity to pass up.
Catherine’s
family was rich, connected and enjoyed their lifestyle. The scandal that surfaced would have
ruined them, but suddenly the scandal was deemed irrelevant by the newspapers
and the Attorney General. It was
not nearly as sensational as the marriage of their daughter, so recently in the
convent, to a young executive.
In her old family, and her new one, Catherine had known her
duty.
Still,
reflected the elder Parker, even if they had started off on the wrong foot, they
had eventually found each other and grown to respect, yes, he thought, even love
one another. She had been a delight
at the Centre functions, the star around which all the other people
gravitated. Her warm smile and her
ever-present caring had made almost everyone forget the way she had been brought
into the fold.
“Catherine,
Catherine, where did we go wrong?”
It
had become such a habit over the last week that Miss Parker almost hung up the
phone as soon as she heard the voice on the other end, until she realized
almost, but not quite, too late who it was.
“Jarod!”
“Are
you waiting for someone else to call?”
“No,
you son of a bitch. I’ve been
waiting for you to call, to gloat over what you’ve done.”
There
was a pause, and she realized that his voice did not contain the usual tones of
mockery that he reserved for his conversations with her. Instead, he sounded distant, as if this
were a perfunctory call, something that he merely had to do, before
something else could be accomplished.
It angered her further.
“What
is it that I have supposedly done?” he asked.
“Damn
it, Jarod, I know very well that you’ve been feeding Angelo all this
information, knowing that he would feed it right to me. You’ve manipulated me into seeing things
your way, just as you’ve been doing since you escaped.”
“And
just what have I made you see?”
“What
a bastard my father truly is.”
There
was a derisive snort from the other end of the line. “Then you have a way to go, to see
things as I do, Miss Parker.”
There was a
strange emphasis on her name as he spoke it, and it sent shivers down her
spine. “What the hell do you want,
Jarod? I concede defeat! You were right all along, and I was
blind and ignorant. What else can I
say?”
“You’re just
beginning to see. Remember what Mr.
Parker told you long ago – a family is a tyranny, ruled over by its weakest
member. Keep that in mind.”
Through her
frustration, she heard the click as the line went dead. Without thought, she threw the phone
against the wall, effectively separating it into myriad pieces, and sank down
onto the floor.
Joy
felt strange walking back into the smoky bar. It was the same place where they had met
before but this time was different.
He had given her the number to use if she had need to, but encouraged her
to use it only in an emergency.
This wasn’t exactly an emergency, yet, but if things kept up the way that
they were going, it could turn into a very bad situation very
quickly.
She
didn’t even bother to look at the other patrons. It was a curse and a blessing of her
former profession – she could turn her personal radar on and off at will, and
when she was “off” almost nothing short of a bear hug would capture her
attention. She was a little wary of
anyone who might be following her, but that was different from the sense that
for years had told her just who was looking, who was interested, and, of course,
who was willing to pay.
The
dark man walked in a few minutes after she did. She was fairly sure that he had watched
her enter, watched for any other set of eyes that might be following her and her
movements and reporting them back to her current employer. It was always better to err on the side
of caution when one worked for the Centre.
Joy
smiled softly in his direction and he walked over to the corner booth where she
sat, still in her elegant oriental dress from earlier in the
day.
“You’re
learning. This table has a view of
the whole room and the entrance,” he congratulated her.
“You
forget, Jarod, that I have some experience with men who did not want to be
seen. At least with
me."
For
the first time, he smiled back.
“You’re right, forgive me.”
“There
is nothing to forgive. Please,” she
invited. “Sit down. I’ve ordered
drinks.”
Joy
looked him over as he slid into the booth next to her. His shirt and pants were clean, he was
shaven, but his hair was obviously in need of a trim and there was a shadow
under his eyes. “You know, you look
worse than I feel right now.”
The
remark elicited another smile before being replaced with a look of concern. “You aren’t doing
well?”
‘I’ve
been better. That’s one of the
reasons that I wanted to talk to you today. I was wondering if there was anything
else that you might be able to get me, to help me through the next couple
weeks.”
“I
think so, but it will take a day or two.
You’re starting to feel the effects?”
“Yes,
I think so. Here,” she pulled out a
piece of paper from her slim pocketbook and handed it to him as the waitress
brought their drinks and set them on the table. “These are what I’ve been noticing
lately. Anything you can do,
well…”
“Will
help to complete the job.” Jarod finished for her. “I understand.”
“That’s
the other thing. I’ve accomplished
step two. I thought you’d like to
know.”
Jarod’s
eyes fell to the shot glass in front of him. He twirled it once or twice and sipped
it experimentally. Whisky. Good, he was beginning to feel that he
would need a little liquid courage.
Joy’s
hand rested lightly on his arm. She
was worried about him. This was the
first time that she had seen him without the all-encompassing rage that had been
driving him since they had met. The
fire in his eyes had dimmed, and it concerned her. “Are you regretting what we’ve
done?”
Another
drink from the glass was his only response.
“Don’t
be, Jarod. Remember, he is the
bastard who killed your wife and children.” Her voice rose in anger. “That’s what he is to you. To me, he is another one of the
men who forced me and my kind into the life I had to live, who held us down in
poverty and then offered the only way out – on our backs. He’s just like those who want to do the
same thing to my little sister.
He’s scum, Jarod, and he deserves everything that he
gets.”
“I know, Joy,
I know. I’m still worried about
you.”
“I’ve
told you before, don’t be. This
isn’t a job,” she smiled cruelly.
“It’s a pleasure.”
Jarod
watched the Asian woman as she walked out of the bar, her slim but sensual
figure accented by her silk dress and high heels. She worried him, not only her closely
held fatalism, but the fact that she was starting to show the strain of her
situation. And that in itself was
troublesome, not for her, but for him.
When he had created this scenario, simmed out the details, constructed
his intricate plot, he had not really cared who got hurt, as long as there was
at least a Parker or two on the list.
Now, that carefully cultivated detachment, the anger that had been his
warmth on the cold nights and his constant companion through the long days was
fading, and it frightened him.
At
first it had started with Joy Li Liu, the amazing woman whom he had stumbled
into at the clinic. He still found
it hard to get over how much she had been through in her short 28 years, from
her exodus from China to her “employment” in the US, and her desperate attempts
to bring her younger sister out of her native land and to America and the chance
for a normal life. It almost made
his life at the Centre seem, well, bearable. But they had both been used; he for his
mind, and she for her body. He had
originally been searching for a pawn, some little nobody who might be able to be
used and discarded, but as he and Joy had spent more time together in their
joint blow against those who would use them, he had found it hard to remain
detached. Now she was one of the
major cracks in his armor of hatred, a tiny crevice where caring had snuck
in. There was no way that he could
be another one to use her, pay her, and discard her.
The
boy, the toddler unknowingly growing up with the most sinister Big Brother
imaginable, was his other concern.
The child was an innocent, but unfortunately, also an integral part of
his scheme. When he had first performed his simulation, using the gifts that the
Centre had helped develop back upon them, he had thirsted only for revenge,
complete and unadulterated. They
had stolen his freedom; he would take theirs. They had taken his family; he would ruin
theirs. They had taken his son –
the thought brought him up cold.
For some time, he had been willing to sacrifice the tiny child, to stab
at the very heart of the Centre, its Chairman, and its fledgling new Pretender
Project. He had even rationalized
that the boy was better off dead than caged, warped and then ultimately used for
their purposes. When the thirst for revenge was all consuming, the fate of one
small Parker seemed irrelevant, but now…
Now,
when the time had actually come to carry out the plan, he had found that he had
no heart for such drastic measures.
They may have shaped him, twisted him, molded him into the creature that
they had needed, but they had not succeeded in removing his humanity. He would do what he could to keep the
boy from harm, but there were things that simply had to be done, for everyone’s
welfare, and the child would bear the brunt of some of it.
His
mind wandered out into the vast uncharted territory of “what if?” only to come
rushing back again. If the boy were
mine, he thought, then stopped.
Actually, it was a very good exercise, for it reminded him in no
uncertain terms exactly why he was there, why he had created this Damoclean
sword that hung over the child. It
would never have needed to be done if they had not killed his son,
and his wife and daughter. The
anger returned, warming him more than the last of the whisky that he drank,
burning inside him as brightly as phosphorus. He could only hope that it would burn
much longer.
Broots
opened the door to his home and quickly turned off the security system that he
had installed soon after his brush with death and Damon. The log showed clear – no calls, no
visitors and no unauthorized entries, and his heart slowed a bit. Debbie was safe at a slumber party at a
friend’s house. She would have been mortified to know that her father had run a
security check on the friend’s parents before he had agreed to the sleepover,
but he had done it nonetheless.
He hated the fact that he had to check
out his daughter’s friends, that he was afraid to go into his own home at the
end of the day, but even that tension was better than the aura that pervaded the
Centre lately. Things were just
plain weird there, with just about every Parker acting stranger than
usual in one form or another.
Mister had barely come out of his office except to put everyone on the
case to find the missing Raines; Miss hadn’t bothered to show up at all for
another week; and Lyle, well, he was always just plain weird. Broots thought with some horror about
the latest of Lyle’s new secretaries.
Joy was, as always, a beautiful Asian woman. They had met a few times in
the hall, and she had consistently treated him like a real man, not like the
nerd that most people pigeonholed him into. She had the sweetest smile, and
every time he saw her, Broots wanted to scream at her to run away as fast as she
could from the murdering madman that she called her boss.
Not
for the first time, he thought about his work there, and why he stayed. At one time, they had threatened Debbie,
forced him into working to guarantee her safety. Since then, Jarod had promised that his
little girl, (no, he reminded himself, young lady,) would always be safe,
no matter what. Broots trusted
Jarod, more than he trusted anyone other than, well, maybe Miss Parker, but he
also remembered what had happened to Jarod’s family, to his wife and his
child. He played his cards
appropriately.
Jarod,
married. That wasn’t something that
he’d ever thought that he’d hear.
Then again, times changed.
He truly felt sorry for Jarod, for the loss that he must feel. It would be devastating if he ever lost
Debbie; sometimes she was his whole reason for being. Especially those days when Miss Parker
was so very, very distant.
He
dropped his keys on the table and picked up the mail, his mind thinking back to
the picture that Jarod had left in the black notebook. The loss of those people had, as far as
he could see, sent the strongest man he had ever known off the deep end. “I wonder what she was like,” he
muttered to himself.
“What
who was like, Mr. Broots?”
The
voice startled him so much that Broots found himself stumbling backward, mail
flying everywhere and his hand clutching at his heart. “Oh, God! Jarod! You scared the hell out of
me!”
“Do
you have a reason to be frightened?”
“Reason? Of course I have a reason.” Broots moved away from the couch where
the other man sat, searching around the living room and kitchen for some
invisible backup that simply wasn’t going to materialize. “Come on, I work for the Centre, every
day is a lesson in fear. And
lately, well lately, since you, uh, well, you know.” He shrugged his shoulders as if the
action would finish the thought.
Jarod
tipped his head slightly, considered pressing the issue and then decided against
it. However amusing it could be to
see Broots go apoplectic, there was really no reason to do it now. “You never answered my first question,
Mr. Broots. Just whom were you
speaking of?”
The
programmer felt his face flush even darker than it had before, embarrassment
finishing what adrenaline had started.
He knew there was no way that he was going to get away without answering;
he could see the intense look in his uninvited guest’s eyes. Just as surely, he had no way of telling
what Jarod’s response would be – the man was obviously still a loaded
gun.
His
voice, when it came out, was a barely audible squeak. “Your, um,
your…wife.”
The
silence that followed was as frightening as any pistol or bomb that Broots had
ever been faced with because he knew that Jarod’s formidable intellect could be
just as lethal, and the seconds were ticking away. Moving slowly, he sidled his way toward
the kitchen, hoping to find any kind of weapon with which to defend himself from
the attack that he was growing more confident every second would
happen.
“You
don’t have to worry, Broots. I’m
not going to hurt you. You don’t
need to get the gun out of the cabinet.”
“How
did…?” Broots started the question,
then stopped, realizing the stupidity of it.
“You
wondered about my wife.” Jarod’s voice was quietly introspective. “Hannah was a wonderful woman. She had
all the spirit and tenacity of Miss Parker, but not her arrogance. Strong, but compassionate. She was completely devoted to Caitlin,
her daughter; she would have done anything for her, and for our son. It was the most incredible thing in the
world that she put her love and trust in me.
“And
in return for her trust, I failed her, failed to protect her, and Caitlin, and
my son.”
“Jarod,
you can’t – I mean, its not all your fault. Mr. Lyle is the one who ordered it; he’s
the one who’s the homicidal maniac here.
Don’t blame yourself.”
The
look in the Jarod’s eyes told Broots that there was no getting through to him,
at least at this point. He looked
angry yet detached, aware of Lyle’s part in the “accident,” but feeling that it
did not outweigh his own complicity.
Self-hatred brewed almost as strongly as his fury at the
Centre.
“You said
that it was Lyle who ordered the sweepers after Hannah. Was Miss Parker involved in that plan
also?”
“Oh,
God, no.” Broots walked into the
center of the room, his fear forgotten in the defense of his friend. “Jeez, Miss Parker was sick about the
whole thing, I mean, really sick!
She looked like hell, and that’s not easy for her to do. I don’t think she’s really been able to
work since we learned about what happened, she just gets more and more distant
each day. I think she blames
herself a little bit, for not seeing the connection between you two before…” He
broke off, realizing that he was treading on soft ground. “I mean, if she had known, she might
have found some other way, you know, to try to find you without hurting them.”
Broots
found himself wringing his hands and pacing in front of the couch and his
visitor as he continued. “You know,
she’s not really a bad person, she can be really nice, when she wants to. I mean, look at how she took care of
Debbie for me, and, and…there’s lots of other things. I don’t think that she’d really be
trying to find you, if there were any other way, you know, for her to get out of
the Centre. She told me that, she
told me that was the only reason that she was doing it, you know, trying to
catch you, so she could be free.
I’ve tried to help her, you know, a little, but not too much, I mean,
nothing that would really let her find you, but still, I thought, maybe if she
was free, then she could be happy, and…” He broke off, as his face began
to flush again.
Jarod
gave the nervous man a wry look.
“Your devotion is admirable, if possibly
misplaced.”
“Oh,
no!” Broots protested. “I think that
Miss-“
Jarod
cut him off. “I understand,
Broots. More than you think. At one time, I knew her quite well
myself.” He rose and started to
walk toward the door. “But, you’ve
answered my question, and I should leave.”
“Wh-what
question?”
Once
again, Jarod gave him the sad smile that barely touched his eyes. “I’m going to need your help, Broots,
with Miss Parker. She’ll be going
through a very tough time soon, I just wanted to make sure that there would be
someone there for her.”
Joy
looked down at her employer again, her face showing a soft wonder, while inside
her heart beat so fast that she was afraid it might burst. “You want me to come to your house, Mr.
Lyle?” she asked, her Cantonese accent especially thick as she tried not to
stammer, knowing full well what a visit to Lyle’s house would eventually
entail. “Why you want that? We have good times here,
no?”
Lyle
ran his thumbless hand down her naked torso as she stood before him. She really was a beautiful bitch. “I’d just like to have a little more
privacy, Joy. Someplace where we
can really have some fun.”
“But we have fun here, yes?” Reaching over to the leather couch, she
picked up a pair of handcuffs and swung them seductively on her index
finger. “You turn cameras off, and
you like what I do, don’t you, Boss?”
“Oh,
I very much like it.” He smiled
wolfishly. “But you are a very
naughty girl, and you made me bleed again.
I can’t have that here, where I’m supposed to be working. No blood here, as much…” he paused, and
grinned up at her, “…fun as that is. At my house, there won’t be anybody to
see the blood, no interruptions, none at all.”
Joy
noticed how the thought of this rendezvous alone increased his excitement, and
she tried not to shudder. “Ok, Mr.
Lyle. We make a date. I tell you when.”
“No,
I say when, and I say this weekend.”
Joy
smiled mischievously and licked her lips, her pink tongue gliding around them
sensually. “No, no, no, Boss. I get ready for this. You want me…special? I need time. You not worry, it be worth it.” She reached for her dress and slipped it
over her shoulders. “I tell you
when, it be very special.”
There
was nothing Lyle could do but to agree.
The desire to have her, to possess her was so strong that he could
have done it right here and now, but he knew that the anticipation would make
the final event even better. He
would wait, somewhat unhappily, but he would wait. And then…
Until
then…he reached up and pulled the dress from her shoulders once more. Until then, there was still the couch,
and the handcuffs.