I hope you enjoy it!

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Miss Parker walked down the long corridors of the Centre and couldn't believe what she had just learned. She had known her father was dead, but now they actually found his body. Some fisherman had him in their net. Fitting somehow. But that was not the whole reason why she was so agitated. A lawyer had just contacted her and told her, that she was from now on Baby Parkers legal guardian. With Brigitte dying in childbirth and her father gone, she was the only one left. Well besides Lyle, but who would give a little child to such a man? She thought the Centre would find some way around it, that it would try to keep him away from her, but they failed and now he would be living with her! Could she care for a baby? Miss Parker, the alcoholic, the workaholic, the unhappiest person on earth?

But that was not the only thing she worried about. She was not a workaholic by choice, she was one, because if she didn't catch Jarod before Lyle did, she would be killed. Not the best condition to change ones entire life. She went down to her car; she wasn't up to any more work for now and it was already late. For a while she just drove around to free her head, but without even noticing it, she ended up in front of Sydney's house. What the hell, now she was here, she could at least say 'hello'.

She knocked and shortly after, she heard movement on the other side of the door and it opened.

"Miss Parker! Why are you here? What can I do for you?"

"Oh Syd, I don't know what I am doing here, I just ended up here, while I was taking a little drive."

"Come in and sit down, do you want something to drink?"

"No thanks."

"I am sorry for your loss."

"Don't be, I'm not."

"Oka…"

"I'm the baby's legal guardian now."

"You are what?"

"Don't be too surprised, I am his sibling, it makes sense. I just wonder if they had a look at me first."

"I thought the Centre would…"

"I did too, but obviously the Centre wasn't fast enough this time covering their tracks, so social services placed him in my care, starting in two weeks to give me time to adjust."

"What about everything that is going on here? With Jarod and Lyle and Raines?"

"I really don't know, I really don't know."

Sydney looked a little bit overwhelmed and sad.

"Sydney, I know this is hard for you, chasing Jarod, even though you would like to see him free for ever and seeing the Baby, who has the same destiny in his future and you can't do anything about it, but I promise you, I will try everything to not let that happen, you know that right? I would love to just be free and go away with him, but I won't be any good to him dead. At the same time though, I also want Jarod free. I thought about it a lot since the island and I am certain now, that I cannot continue to hunt him, but I must… it's either one way or the other. It hurts so much. I can't make such a decision!"

"You could always run away."

"Run away? With a child and with sweepers on my heels? Jarod could do such a thing, but not me."

"Parker, you are special too. With a little practice you could do things Jarod can do, too. Raines and Lyle would never have to know. You tell them that you are trying to find new ways to predict Jarod's next step."

"But we both know, that pretenders have to be trained from an early age on to develop their full potential. I am too old."

"No you are not."

"What?" Miss Parker looked genuinely surprised.

"I wrote those reports. I lied in them so they wouldn't try to slave you too, as soon as your mother was dead."

"So it could work? You could teach me to be a pretender?"

"Yes I could. It's hard work though, we would have to do it at night and preferably not in the Centre."

"At my house?"

"When it's not bugged."

"I have Broots check the whole house twice a month with a detector, he never catches anything."

"That's it then. Are you sure you are up to that?"

"I am sure. We 'chase' Jarod at day and plan my escape at night. What's with you? Don't you want to get away?"

"I'll stay and look out for everything here. Angelo, Broots and me will be your moles." he smirked.

"Angelo is Jarod's mole."

"What?"

"Last week I caught him sending Jarod an e-mail with our plans and some information. Don't worry, I didn't do anything."

"Well it must have been somebody, he is somehow the logical answer."

"Yes he is. We can't tell Broots about this though. We would put him and Debbie in huge danger. I wouldn't want to risk them."

"Me neither."

Suddenly Miss Parker did something, she had never done before. It was so unlike her, that Sydney squealed in surprise: she hugged him.

"Thank you Syd! Thank you, I wouldn't know what I would do without you right now."

"It's alright Miss Parker."

She released him slowly.

"We didn't always have the best relationships, there were times were we didn't trust each other with our secrets, you withheld things from me and the other way around, but that has to stop. I put my live in your hands Syd, I trust you with all I have, so please trust me too."

"Promise." Now it was Sydney's turn to pull her in a hug.

"Thanks." and he pulled away again. Now both of them had tears in their eyes.

"Look at us, crying and hugging."

"Don't tell Broots or he wants me to hug him too!"

"Oh yes, he seems rather fascinated by you."

"Shut up."

"The good old Miss Parker."

"I hate the name Parker."

"Your name?"

"Yes. My fathers name. Perhaps I should change it to my mothers maiden name… I don't even know it, she never told me."

"It's Little, but Miss Little really doesn't suite you, I'm sorry."

She grinned and chuckled a little bit.

"You're right."

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AN.: I know her maiden name wasn't Little, but I hate changing the characters names in my story, I get confused too often.

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Miss Parker drove home and now sat in her living room looking around. This place really wasn't a place for a child, nothing to play with, sharp edges and things to fall down from. As soon as her brother was here and she was through with the training she would be over all hills. But she'd miss this house, the memories of her mother linger in this house as if she was here watching over her. Parker could see her mother in her mind wrinkling her nose over her for trying to bring back Jarod for all these years. She must be so disappointed, she died while trying to free them and her own daughter does the opposite.

But now she couldn't sit around, she had to plan and organize a lot of things for her escape. She needed false ID for her brother and herself to leave the country and she needed cash, a spare weapon and a lot of baby stuff of course. What did a baby need? Diapers? Clothes? And what kind of toiletries? A car seat. Yes.

So she contacted an old friend from College she could trust and had nothing to do with the Centre, to arrange the ID's and a save flight to Spain and then Switzerland, form where she'd go to Germany and stay there for a while. The old College Friends name was Elisa and she lived in Hamburg, where Miss and Baby Parker could stay for a while until it wasn't save anymore or Parker found somewhere even safer to go.

It was already late and so Parker decided to go to bed and start fresh in the morning, because she knew she wouldn't get much sleep for the next few weeks.

She was very afraid Lyle would do something to Sydney to get information about her as soon as she left, but she just wouldn't tell him where she went.

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To be continued...

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How was it?

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When she arrived at work in the morning she saw Lyle waiting in front of her office.
“You‘re late sis, what did ya’ do?”
“Cut the crap Lyle, what do you want?”
“Can a brother not visit his sister without a reason?”
“Not you.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah, but make it fast, I‘ve got a meeting.”
Lyle followed her in her office and sad down opposite her. If he wasn’t her brother and a mass murderer she would have to say, that Lyle was a good looking guy, but with everything she knew about him, he was just another little rat in this place full of Reptiles.
“Sis, I want to ask you about the child. Are you sure you are up to raising him?”
“Well I will certainly not leave him at the Centre where he will be subjected to tests and even worth, you and Raines.”
“But Parker come on, you and a mother? You hate kids.”
“But I don‘t hate my baby brother, so if you‘ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
“Okay, but think about it, you are not your mother, you can‘t show love, that‘s something we inherited Parker.”
“We are nothing alike apart from the fact that we came from the same womb. Now. Get. Out. Of. Here.”
He stood up and leaned against the doorframe.
“I never thought about that, our two naked bodies nestled together in a very tight space, but it sure does interest me, I might have to go into that a little bit further!”
And he left. Miss Parker gagged; she had never been more disgusted by anybody in her life, besides Raines perhaps. Lyle has had a strange thing for her since they met.
She definitely had to look out for him and his strange mind. For the baby’s safety - and her own.
Then suddenly she had an idea. She would contact Jarod. He has been ‘on the run’ for so long now and has to have some very good tricks. She probably had to wait until he contacted her though, because he was still pissed off by her after what she said to him in the car. She had to make it good again and she knew that now.
There was a knock on her office door.
“What?”
Broots came in and stood in front of her.
“Sydney received a phone call from Jarod this morning; he seems to be out of the country.”
“Where?”
“I only know, that he called from a phone outside the United States.”
“Uh, Wonder boy jumps borders now. Is Syd around?”
“I‘m right here.”
“Broots, could you wait outside please?”
“Sure, O have to get some work done anyway.”
As soon as he left, Miss Parker wrote something down on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

She handed it to him and soon as he had read it, she took it back and burned it in her trash. He gave a small nod.
“What did he say when he called today?”
“He just wanted to talk, but he didn‘t give any kind of hint, I honestly think he is tired of the games.”
“You mean he will disappear completely?”
“Maybe.”
“Dammit!” she said it loud enough that anybody who might be listening in on them would hear, that she was angry, but at the same time she gave Sydney a little smile and he grinned back.
She couldn’t tell Lyle about this, god knows what they’ll do with her when there is no Jarod to catch anymore. They’d probably send her on a little ‘vacation’.
There was not much going on the whole day, so she decided to get prepared for the night. What would Sydney teach her? Would she do SIMs? Would he send little electroshocks through her to activate the pretender gene? She knew Jarod had to go through those things and much worse, they even once stopped his heart and brought him back to live like a guinea pig. But she had to do this for Baby Parker; his safety is her only goal. And “Baby Parker” should quickly get a real name.
In the afternoon Raines made a visit to her and basically said the same things as Lyle, just a little scarier and without the incest remarks. As she heard him crawl away she had to smile, soon she wouldn’t have to see them every day, soon she and her brother would be free of this place and they could go wherever they wanted to go. Hamburg was their first stop, but she always wanted to go back to the places she been too while being away for college. That was a long list, but she had all the time she wanted.
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To be continued…
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Exactly to the minute at 10pm, there was a knock on the door. Parker knew it was Sydney; no one else from the Centre had the decency to knock anymore, so she could easily separate.
“Syd, come in.”
“Hello Miss Parker. How are you?”
“How am I supposed to feel? I‘m happy and scared and scared and excited.”
“I can only imagine.”
“So how do we start?”
“We‘ll start with an exercise so I can evaluate you a bit.”
“Good, okay, do you want anything to drink? Coffee? And please sit down.”
“Coffee would be wonderful thank you; we have a long night ahead of us!”
“Syd, how long do you think this will take?”
“I honestly can‘t say, I‘ve never done this in such a short time and outside the Centre without my computers. Well, obviously you won‘t come to the stage Jarod is on, I had a few decades with him, but I think in a few weeks you should be able to easily pretend in any job and stay hidden from the Centre as long as you want to.”
“A few weeks are okay, but I don‘t want to spent too much time with this and then before I can run away, they steel Baby Parker from me. We have to hurry.”
“You‘re right, we do. Two lives are at stake. Yours and your brothers.”
“Yes.”
Sydney started with a few IQ tests and really easy SIMs and Miss Parker had no problem whatsoever with them. After many hours of very concentrated work, Miss Parker offered some snacks so they wouldn’t starve to death being this motivated.
“You‘re on a rather high stage already, where you ever trained by anyone when you were younger?”
“Not that I can think of, but there is actually one thing I could never really place. When I was about thirteen, I had a blackout over the time span of a few weeks. In the beginning I didn‘t even realize it, but then I saw on my calendar, that my mother’s birthday was already over, even though I haven’t been to her grave, I would never forget her birthday, you know?”
“So you think somebody made you forget?”
“I guess so. Perhaps they used that time to see if I am anything worth, but they decided against it, because I wasn‘t enough or my father stopped them or… I don‘t know.”
“That‘s possible, I know that the Centre is in the possession of a drug such as that, but I didn‘t know, that they already had it back then, that explains a lot.”
“When I was trained for a few weeks back then, but they made me forget, shouldn‘t it be like I‘ve never even been trained?”
“No, they can never make you forget completely, it‘s still back there in your mind somewhere, that‘s why you had so good test results just now.”
“Could I regain the knowledge of what happened in those weeks? Perhaps with hypnosis?”
“Yes, we could try, but tomorrow night, we have to get up in a few hours to get to work and you need your sleep and your strengths to stand up against Raines and that pig Lyle.”
“SO true! Lyle is a little pervert; they try to convince me to just leave the Baby with the Centre! Who do they think I am?”
“What did Lyle do?”
“He made inappropriate sexual comments.”
“I‘m sorry that you have to go through that Parker, I wish I could take that away from you.”
“Thanks Syd. Did Jarod call again? I really need to talk to him. I need him if I want to do this right.”
“No he didn‘t, but I will definitely tell him what you wrote as soon as he does. What is your plan by the way?”
“I don‘t want to tell you the place, because I am afraid for you, but a few things you can know. I will leave this country; I have everything set up for me and the baby with the help of a few old friends. Fake papers are on their way. Now I only need a good cover story for the Centre, so I can get a little head start. A vacation is too suspicious. What do you think?”
“You could say the Baby is ill and you have to get him special treatment somewhere else.”
“The Centre would want to treat him themselves.”
“You go to visit someone?”
“Who? I have no friends!”
“Okay, what if Broots went away on holidays and you go visit him, so it wouldn‘t be a vacation. You‘d have a few days ahead of them.”
“That might work, but Broots can‘t know. And they will think he knows and threaten him with Debbie or something.”
“Ben?”
“Ben? What‘s with him? The Centre can‘t know about him.”
“Then all there is left is Jarod.”
“He‘ll have to talk to me first. If he said he wants to vanish, he will. Nothing will stop him. And you know he can.”
“We‘ll figure something out, I promise you.”
“I hope so. When I simply follow a lead somewhere because of Jarod, I wouldn‘t have a reason to take the Baby with me.”
“And what if you visit me on vacation?”
“It‘s the same with you as with Broots, they‘ll threaten you.”
“They can‘t threaten me with anything anymore, when you and Jarod are out of the Centre.”
“But they‘ll kill you.”
“Still.”
“Oh, you are stupid to believe I would let you sacrifice yourself for us, nothing like that will happen. Nobody will get hurt.”
“Please think about it.”
“No, you can‘t make me do anything. And I won‘t think about it.”
They argued a while longer and when they realized, that they really had to get some sleep and they weren’t getting anywhere with their argument, Sydney went home.
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Jarod sat on a bench in front of Loch Ness in Scotland and thought about monsters. He had a lot of time to think lately, because he didn’t do pretends anymore and didn’t bother to find a real job or anything. It was as if all his power and strength had left him. He was demotivated and didn’t see a way out of it. So he enjoyed the view and thought about monsters. Did he believe in the Supernatural? Yes, he thought, because in some way he himself was supernatural. Was the Loch Ness monster as lonely as he was, if it even existed? Probably.
When he last talked to Sydney he told him that he’d go away and wouldn’t come back. The last glimpse of hope he had was gone and would never come back. There was nothing left to fight for. Nothing left to fight for. But there was, said a voice in the back of his head. All the people you can help and safe with your abilities. They need you. Shall somebody else care. Shall somebody else help them. He needed time for himself; he had to think of himself for a while.
He didn’t really have a plan, he wanted to stay in Europe, but other than that he didn’t know. Perhaps a trip to Asia or Africa at some point, but other than that…
And then like the thousands of other times that day, that week, he thought of her. She did this to him, that much he knew. He hadn’t realized until then, that she was the reason for him to keep on doing what he did. She was also the reason he stopped, because with her taking away the last piece of hope to be together forever, she also took away his will for everything else. Oh god, he hated it when he analyzed himself like that. Why couldn’t he just have a midlife crisis like any other normal person, too? No, his mind tricked him. Dammit, it was hard being smart. He had to smile at his thoughts. How stupid he had been, hanging on to someone who didn’t know what she wanted herself. How could he have been so stupid?
“I‘m sorry sir, we are closing in a few minutes and you have been here since this morning, are you alright?”
“Yes I am fine, thank you. Are you open tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Good, I‘ll come back in the morning.”
He stood and left, leaving a confused woman behind.
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One week later

“Miss Parker, are you alright? Miss Parker?”
She bolted from her deep sleep and saw a worried looking Broots starring at her.
“Broots… No, I mean yes, I am fine, thanks.”
“It‘s the third time this week this happened, are you sure you are fine?”
“YES Broots. I‘m just tired.”
He nodded and left, knowing it wasn’t smart to argue with her.
She knew he was right of course. She didn’t get any sleep at night and her desk always seemed to look so compliable. She still didn’t have a plan or an excuse for her leaving with the Baby and time was running out. The only thing that put her mind at ease a bit was her progress in the training. She and Sydney worked every night and she learned fast, she had always been good at learning and memorizing things. Her mother had taught her that much.
They had thought about a thousand things, from an aunt far away to some fake conference she had to go to with a baby, but nothing was satisfying enough so far, that the Centre really wouldn’t suspect anything.

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To be continued...

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She had to lower her expectations. She couldn’t escape with a two day head-start. She had to do it the dirty way. She would just vanish with the baby and if anybody noticed she had to use her gun. Nothing else would work and they would suspect something anyway, because she wanted to take the baby. The baby, the baby, the baby… she needed a name soon, it was weird to only call him the baby or the child or whatever. She liked Elias, but she’d think about that further at another time. She needed to sleep now, because this was the only time she was able to - between three and seven in the morning.
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She woke up and it was as if she hadn’t slept at all. Her head hurt and the fucking sun that came through the window didn’t help either. Fuck the sun. Oh great, her mood was already the lowest it could be and the day had just started.
She arrived at the Centre and went straight into her office, were Broots was already waiting for her.
“Good Morning Miss… ehm… yeah, good morning.”
She didn’t even graze that with a response.
“Anything new Broots?”
“No nothing, sorry.”
“Than what the hell are you doing here?”
“I was just…” he looked at her and knew what to do; he was out of the office in the blink of an eye.
She would never survive if she was as week as Broots. She had gotten ‘weaker’ in the last few weeks, or better to say ‘softer’ as Sydney put it, but she would never stand before a person and act like THAT.
She had asked Sydney again, if Jarod had called, but Jarod didn’t make a sound, he kept hidden. He was hurt like a little boy. He WAS a little boy. Only a very smart boy. She had hoped he could help her… he was still a rat, but he knew what she had to do and she was sure if he knew she was about to save a little boy from the Centre, he would help her wherever he could. Wouldn’t he?
She picked up her phone to call her contact in Germany, but stopped short, when she remembered were she was. Very smart missy. She’d call later from home from her secure line. She would leave in a week, as soon as Sydney told her she was ready. The training made good progress and Sydney was proud of her and himself that everything went so well.
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Six days later…
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She had called her friend, she had all the flight registrations, she had all the supplies she needed for Elias (yes she had chosen that name) and she was at the top of her game in pretending. Sydney had told her she wasn’t at Jarod’s level, but that was to be expected, he had a few more years to practice after all.
She’d pick up Elias from Child Care Services that afternoon and sign all the important papers. But she wouldn’t come back to work after picking him up. She would change cars and drive straight onto the highway. She hadn’t received any more strange vibes than usual from the Centre people, so she guessed they weren’t planning anything, but she had to be careful, you never knew with those bastards. With her father gone, she had to watch her back at all times. Yes, he lied to her and was responsible for a lot of pain, but he would never had allowed anyone to kill her. That protection was gone now. They would try to take Elias away from her as soon as he wasn’t with the Services anymore.
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That night…

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Sydney was on time as always.
“Hey Parker, ready for your last lesson?”
“As ready as I‘ll ever be.”
But when he pulled something from his bag it was no disc or player or weapon. It was a bottle of Champagne.
“And afterwards we have a drink. We never got to do that before.”
“Deal. What are we doing now?”
“It‘s not really part of the normal pretender training anymore, but I thought it would be smart to teach you to fake security cards, passports and such things. It will come handy at some point.”
“Fine, but let’s get over with it quickly, I have a big day tomorrow, I need more sleep tonight than usually. Got that?”
“Got it.” he answered.
He went to sit down on the couch, but that was full with stuff for Elias.
“You can sit over here, I hadn‘t had the time to clean. Kids really need a lot of stuff. I‘ll write everything down and let Elias pay me back when he earns his own money.” she said, but Sydney and she knew she wasn’t serious.
“Elias is a beautiful name.”
“I thought so too.”
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To be continued…
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After only two hours of going through different ways to fake passports and credit cards, they sat down, opened the bottle of alcohol and celebrated the successful transition of Miss Parker into a Pretender.
“You did well Parker.” Sydney said and flashed his famous Sydney-grin.
“I couldn’t have done this without you and you know it. And besides, I have not even escaped yet, everything we worked for could go down the drain in no time.”
“It won’t if you keep on being careful. Never feel too safe anywhere, the Centre has scary ways to get to information. Very important is, that you keep the friends safe that are helping you.”
“I have taken care of that. I have installed a secure line here that nobody knows about and I have never spoken their names aloud or given any indicator as to where they might live.”
“That’s very good Parker.”
“It really pisses me off, that I can’t get a hold of Jarod. He would have been a huge help to me, but I guess my evilness towards him finally registered and he really doesn’t want to have anything to do with us anymore.”
“If he knew what you are trying to do, he would help, I am sure of that. And that he doesn’t know about it already is also a indicator that we covered our tracks well. I am sure Jarod is still checking up on us.” Sydney said, trying to reassure Miss Parker.
“I hope you are right.”
They sat in silence for a while, until Miss Parker started to talk again.
“I wish I still had Thomas. Though he didn’t understand why I hated my family that much, he was always there for me. He was on my side. It felt so good Sydney. I really loved him. I thought he was going to be the one I would marry. Before he died he kept making hints as if he might propose soon. I think he was only waiting for the right opportunity.”
Sydney saw, that Miss Parker was close to her breaking point, so he decided to change the subject.
“So have you seen Elias today?” he asked and as he had thought, her mood got better in a matter of seconds.
“Yes and he was so cute! I only had half an hour with him, but he almost seemed happy to see me. That was great, but weird at the same time. Nobody ever depended on me you know?”
“Yeah I know… I think I’ve got to go. We both need our sleep and you especially with such an important day coming up.”
“You are right as always. Please remember: When they ask where I am, tell them you THINK I am following a lead on Jarod; they won’t check up on Elias immediately then.”
“I got it, don’t worry, it will take at least a day before they suspect anything.”
“Let’s hope you are right!”
After a goodbye with Sydney and some last minute tries to reach Jarod, Miss Parker lay down in bed and had a hard time falling asleep. Her ulcer has been acting up again recently and that was the one thing that couldn’t go wrong. If she was ill, it would be pretty easy for the Centre to find them and take Elias away and her back to the Centre.
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In the morning she showed up at the Centre briefly so people wouldn’t get suspicious too fast. She talked to a few people, said goodbye to Broots without him noticing anything and grabbed the rest of the stuff she needed out of her office.
She called a taxi to the main entrance. She would leave her car there, so if people were looking for her they would search the Centre itself first. She drove over to the Daycare, signed all the necessary papers and went home with Elias to get all their stuff. A few hours later she locked her front door, walked with Elias on her arm down the driveway, got into the car and drove away without looking back. It was hard enough leaving her house behind which still held so many memories from her mother, but it was even harder with the possibility she might be never coming back.
For the hour drive to the airport she had given Elias something to occupy himself with, but 20 minutes into the drive he had fallen asleep – luckily, she couldn’t afford to lose too much time with stopping anywhere.
The flight to Spain was long and uncomfortable. Elias kept crying and the mean glances from fellow flight guests were the looks she normally gave people when she was forced to fly commercial flights and not the center jet.
“Elias Honey, calm down. What do you need mh?” she whispered.
Nothing changed of course, but Parker was not about to give up. She gently lifted him out of the bassinet the flight attendant had attached to the front of her seat and laid him onto her shoulder. He had gotten big, but not too big to be carried. He snuggled into her shoulder and stopped crying.
“That’s right Baby, everything is okay, no need to cry.”
When they arrived in Spain they stayed a night in a hotel at the airport and the next morning she discarded their once used fake identities and replaced them with new ones. With another airline they flew to Switzerland, this was a way shorter and better flight than the other one. In Zurich she rented a car and discarded it in Munich, where she bought a new car for them to travel to their destination Hamburg. She tried to only stay on the street for at about 8 hours a day, because all the traveling was not good for the baby and she wanted to make it as comfortable as possible for him. She sent an encrypted message to Sydney that they were fine before they had crossed the German border. She paid a teenager to call Sydney’s home line and pose as a travel agent. That had been their agreed code for ‘We are fine’. He couldn’t sent anything back to let her know what was going on in the center, because she was sure every single phone line in Blue Cove was being listened in on since she disappeared.
Her friend had rented them an apartment under another fake name and when Parker pulled up into the driveway of the building she finally felt a little bit save again.
.
To be continued…
.
.

In college Miss Parker had studied business, communication and a little bit ballet on the side, but she never told her father about the dancing. It was just her escape from everything that got on her nerves, so about everything. She had given it up when she returned to the Center and picked up shooting and martial arts instead.

.
Now she thought about what she should be first. She could be anyone, at least that’s what Sydney had told her. She still had to study to be someone, but Jarod has to do that before every pretend as well. She decided a low profile job would be good for the start. Maybe a cook? She could be a chef.
She opened up the newspaper and went to the section with the job offers, while bouncing little Elias up and down in his bouncing chair. Her hair was up in a towel drying off. She had dyed it blond to be less easy to spot in a large crowd, she had always wanted to try it out, better late than never.
Something in the newspaper caught her eye and she was immediately intrigued. Maybe that would be even more her thing.
‘Dance teacher wanted’. Wasn’t that even better? She wondered if she still had it in her. She would just have to go and find out.
.
The next day, Miss Parker settled Elias in a private daycare. She had met a very nice older couple who offered their help after they heard that Miss Parker was a single parent. Parker still couldn’t really wrap her mind around that phrase, but it worked for her. They were looking after their own two grandchildren anyway and didn’t mind having one more in the house. When she was sure Elias was safe and happy with them, she drove straight to the dance studio which was looking for help.

.
She entered the entrance hall and found it empty. She never had a job interview before, how should she behave? What were the rules? She decided to knock on the door across the hall that was marked ‘Gym’. It was worth a try.
A hurried ‘Come in!’ was shouted through the door and when she opened the door, her ears were filled with beautiful classical music and a few 10-year old girls were practicing eagerly some moves. Parker was about to turn around and leave; why had she been so stupid to think she could do this? But she hadn’t even taken one step, when the voice that had called her in came up to her. The man was in his mid-30ies and seemed to be in top shape.
“Hello my name is Daniel, what can I do for you?”
“I saw your add in the newspaper that said you were looking for a new instructor and I’d like to apply.” Parker answered and pushed her newly blond hair behind one ear.
“I’m sorry, but that spot is already filled.”
“What by whom? It was just in the paper yesterday!”
“It was filled by me.” He said and grinned triumphal.
Miss Parker rolled her eyes. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh I am.”
She turned around without saying anything, but was called back by him before she had a chance to disappear completely.
“What do you want?”
“But we need someone to fill in when one of us seven teachers is ill. It’s only on demand, but if you are interested I could arrange a meeting with the head of this establishment Miss Patty.”
She pretended to think about it, but had already decided. “Sounds good.”
He reached into his gym bag that lay on a bench to the side and dismissed the girls, before he pulled out his cell and dialed a number.
He had a short talk to someone and turned towards her again.
“Do you have your gym stuff with you?”
“Where can I change?”
“Over there.”
“Great.” She tried with all her might to be pleasant, she had to get used to hide her emotions better and not bitch to everyone… that was going to be hard.
.

.

To be continued...

.
.

.

She changed into some comfortable cloths which fit her like a second skin and some ballet shoes she had bought. She intentionally bought used ones, so they would give in more than brand new ones.
She walked up some stairs into another, a little bit smaller dance studio, where an older lady, probably Miss Patty, was sitting by one of the large windows.
“Oh you are here, honey. Get in here and show yourself to me.” She said after spotting Parker at the entrance. Miss Parker was taken aback by the friendly voice that greeted her, she had expected someone entirely different.
She made her way over to the woman, stopped a couple of feet away from her and let her bag sink to her feet.
“Now turn around, Schatz.”
Parker knitted her eyebrows but complied and turned 360° before facing Miss Patty once again.
“Very well, do you have your resume with you?”
Parker nodded and fished a sheet of paper out of her bag and handed it over. Miss Patty was silent for a moment, reading through the made up list of schools she attended and the various top notch employers Parker supposedly has had.
“Impressive Mrs…” the older woman asked the younger.
“Antonia Parker, but people just call me Miss Parker.” Miss Parker answered in perfect German.
“I will call you Toni then.” Miss Patty stated.
“But I really must…” Parker started, but was interrupted.
“Toni honey, your German is really good. Show me some of your repertoire.”
Parker wanted to roll her eyes, but reminded herself, that she wanted this job and that it wouldn’t be wise to piss her potential new boss off.
Now came the part that would show if all the hard work with Sydney had paid off and even more important, if she could still dance.
She positioned herself in the middle of the studio and waited for the music to begin. It was a slow piece from Tchaikovsky. Great, as if dancing ballet again after over a decade wasn’t hard enough, Miss Patty wanted to see a swan lake piece.
She closed her eyes for a second to remember all the important steps and how it all starts, but after just second she remembered and took her first steps.
She danced with closed eyes the whole time, forgetting where she was or who.
About ten minutes later, it could also have only been two, the music was stopped and Miss Parker ended her last move and looked up at Miss Patty with surprise. The woman looked intently at Parker and took her time to say something.
“You are sure you want this job? You could do more than this you know. You would teach little girls and some eager teenagers some moves, you will not earn a fortune and you would only be a fill-in anyway.”
“I’m sure, are you saying I got the job?” Parker said and smiled with joy, she never imagined she could be so happy about the approval of an old lady who was neither rich nor influenced at all.
“I am saying that, yes. Daniel sweetheart, would you show Toni around?”
Taken aback about the sudden decision and end to their conversation, Parker pulled a towel out of her bag and hung it around her neck.
“Thank you Miss Patty, I am very happy with this and I hope I’ll be needed often. Not that I want your instructors to be ill a lot, but I want to be here a lot.” She turned to Daniel and followed him out the door.
“Now we are colleagues.” Daniel stated. “Can I still ask you out for a drink tonight?”
“Sorry I can’t. I have someone waiting.”
“Oh I’m sorry, so you are married?” he asked a bit disappointed, which was very cute in Parkers eyes.
First she hesitated a little bit, but decided that the near truth was the best way to go, Elias would always be part of her pretends after all. “No, my one year old son is waiting for me at daycare.”
“I have a little girl in that age; you are very in shape for having such a young child, my ex-wife still hasn’t lost all her baby weight.”
“Oh I like to keep in shape. Though I haven’t danced in a couple of years.” Not a lie.
“I don’t believe you; you dance as if you were training regularly.”
“Thank you.”
“Why are you taking the job? It’s not well paid. I’m sorry if I’m getting to personal, I’m nosy by nature.”
“Don’t worry about it. This will only be a side job, I’ll find a second one.”
.
Jarod stretched his naked feet out in the sun. How nice it was not to worry about sweepers and the Centre for a while. The Italian sun really did wonders for him. The last couple of month he had been off the radar. He still did pretends, but they were all low key and not within the United States.
But as the time went by, he started to worry about Sydney. And even Miss Parker a little, though he was still pissed off with her about the way she acted after the Isle. He decided to call Sydney and make sure he wouldn’t worry. He pulled his new mobile phone out and dialed the well-known number.
“Hello, this is Sydney.”
“Hey Syd!” Jarod said, excited to hear his old mentors voice.
“Jarod, my god! Where have you been, we have all been worried sick!”
“We all?”
“Yes Jarod, Miss Parker and Broots were concerned as well. A lot has happened here Jarod. You’ll be happy to hear some stuff, but probably angry at yourself for not calling earlier as well.”
That caught Jarod’s undivided attention immediately.
“Is Parker okay?”
“Yes she is ok for all I know, is this a secure line?”
“It is, tell me what is going on and don’t leave anything out!”
“Miss Parker has left the Centre and she wanted your help to leave, but you were nowhere to be found.”
“Why? What happened, what changed her mind?” Jarod asked, very confused and Sydney volunteered to give him every piece of information he had.
.
One week later she still hadn’t found a main job. The money wasn’t the problem, but she needed something to do, she was a doer and she had to keep busy in order to stay sane.
She was sitting with Elias on her lab in her big reading chair, when the phone rang.
“Hello this is Tom from Miss Patty’s Dance Studio, I came down with a cough and I need your help.”
“Finally!” Parker exclaimed. “I’m sorry. I hope you’ll feel better soon.”
“Yeah sure.” He said and she could hear him snicker through the phone, followed by a nasty cough.
“I mean it, you sound like hell. Bye Tom. And lie down, drink some tea.”
“Yes ma’am. Thank you.”
Miss Parker smiled and ended the call.
She dropped Elias off and was fast en route to the Tanzstudio in no time.
.

.

To be continued...

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.

She stepped into one of the smaller dance studios and eyed the already changed and giggling girls in the corner, all around 13 years of age and at their beginning of puberty. Some of them would, as Miss Parker very well knew, leave soon, because either they lost interest or lost the figure for a ballerina.

She wondered why Tom had been allowed to teach a group of girls' ballet. Normally parents would go crazy if they knew a man was alone with their underage daughters, but she soon realized that they weren't afraid, because they were present! As the minutes ticket closer to 4 p.m., more and more proud mothers entered the studio and took their seats along the sidelines. Great, now she would be scrutinized by a dozen mothers, as if doing her first pretend as a dance teacher wasn't enough. Miss Parker took a few steps in the middle of the dance floor and caught the girl's attention by clapping her hands twice.

"Hello everybody! Mr. Gallagher is ill today, so I will be filling in. My name is Miss Parker. Now attention." Miss Parker looked closely at the girls in front of her and tried to imagine what they wanted or needed to hear. "Now each of you will tell me her name and we can nearly begin."

"You won't remember our names anyway if we tell you, MISS Parker." One girl in the front said and the others snickered silently. Miss Parker was already annoyed by the little brat.

"Let's make a deal, if I remember all of your names on the first try, you'll drop your little act and if not, you can find a new name for you to call me today." Miss Parker said with a lot of self-confidence.

"Deal." The girl answered happily and jumped up and down a bit, already thinking of new names to give her. This deal meant all or nothing for Miss Parker.

"Now, line up and révérence!" she said and curtsied. The girls followed her word.

"Now please tell me your names one after the other." She asked and stood in front of the first girl.

"Marie!" she stepped to the next one.

"Carly!"

"Jenny!"

She repeated each name aloud and continued on like that for 17 girls. She rerun the names trough her head once and started again at the beginning, pointing at each girl while naming them.

"Marie, Carly, Jenny, Francis, Connie, Brooke, Sandra, Julia,…" she finished them all off without being wrong once or faltering. That would shut the little devils up.

"Now that we have straightened that out, you will be nice."

The mothers on the sidelines talked the whole time through and a couple of times she was close to screaming at them to be silent, but she knew that the real customers were the mothers. If they felt mistreated, they would pull their daughters out and change the studio.

After about 30 minutes of Grand jetés and Passés on the barre, Miss Patty entered silently on the sidelines, but Miss Parker noticed her immediately. She gave the girls a new exercise and went to talk to her.

"Hello Miss Patty!" she said and stopped in front of her.

"Hello Toni, I just wanted to see how you were doing, these girls can be hell to work with."

"Thank you, but I'm doing just fine. These girls are nothing compared to me when I was that age."

She glanced back at the girls and saw two of them just standing around.

"Carly, Julia, quit talking start working or you'll have to spend the rest of the hour on the sidelines, but not together."

The girls thought about it shortly and then complied without talking back.

"Well done Toni, you're doing just fine as I see, too bad you came too late for the full job." Miss Patty said, patted her on her hand and left the room again.

As the lesson was coming to an end, she dismissed the girls to change in the locker rooms and sat down to take a sip from her water. She was pretty exhausted as well, because she had participated in all the exercises.

She packed up and shortly talked to a concerned mother who asked if Tom, the regular teacher, was alright. So that was the reason the mothers all hung around here. They had the hots for Tom. She had yet to meet him, but if the men here all looked as good as Daniel, she understood them.

She grabbed her bag and exited the small dance studio and walked to the entrance, when she was stopped by a voice.

"Stop, wait!" she turned around and saw Daniel running after her. "So I guess today I will get the same answer as last time I asked you out, but maybe we can arrange a play date with the kids? That way we can still talk." Miss Parker had no intention to get involved with anybody, but Elias would surely like somebody to play with. He was on the verge of walking and got really annoyed when he fell back on his bud again and again.

"The play date is a good idea, but it can only be between the kids, I'm sorry, but I'm not at a time and place in my life, where I have any room for romance. That sounds so cliché and like a really bad lie, but it is not. If I change my mind to date, you'll be the first to know." She said and winked at him, before walking through the door into the crisp, cold air.

It was nearly always cold in Hamburg, but she liked the city a lot. The beautiful harbor, the Rathaus, the Michel Kirche, the great cultural events the city had and despite the Germans bad reputation for not being very nice, she had no complains whatsoever. She decided to run some errands, after she had picked up Elias from daycare.

.

.

Broots sat in Miss Parker's former office, sorting out her stuff, as ordered from the Centre, for any sign as to where she had gone. Of course he knew that they would find nothing of her anywhere. She had covered her tracks well. He could probably trace her steps if he wanted to, but he would never put Miss Parker in that kind of trouble, she was too important to him. He knew she had not told him were she had gone to protect him and Debbie, but at the same time he would have been happy to help her flee this place. Sydney had told him nothing as well, even though Broots knew he was in on some of the secrets.

He attempted to open one of the desk drawers, but it was locked. He opened it with force and went through the contents. Mainly he found bills and little notes she wrote, but nothing to indicate her whereabouts – luckily. On the bottom of the drawer he found a picture of Miss Parker as a young girl, looking up to her mother, Catherine Parker. He turned the picture around and it read 'Mommy and me', written in a children's handwriting. She must have had this picture since she was a little girl. He was a bit sad for her knowing that she didn't have it with her, wherever she was.

.

.

Sydney slowly entered Miss Parker's house. He immediately saw that Centre Sweepers had ransacked the place to every last corner. Chairs were turned over, drawers were left wide open and a carpet was rolled up on the side of the room. He grabbed a fallen newspaper from the floor and decided to clean up a bit. He put all the chairs back in their place, straightened out the tablecloth, put the trash bags into his car to dump them later and as he went into her bedroom, he stopped in his tracks.

"Jarod! What the hell!" he exclaimed.

The Pretender lay on Miss Parker’s bed, looking at the ceiling. Sydney took a few steps forward and sat down on the bed next to him.

“Jarod, you nearly scared me to death, why didn’t you show yourself when I came into the house?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you.” He answered simply and turned his head in Sydney’s direction.

“I was cleaning up, I wasn’t performing brain surgery.” Sydney answered and smiled lightly at Jarod, who smiled back, put looked up at the ceiling again.

“I can’t believe she is gone, I had to come here to see for myself. I have to find her, but I have nothing yet, she covered her tracks very well.”

“She is, but you have to remember, that she is traveling with a baby. She needs supplies and daycare and food and whatever else a baby needs. Don’t give up hope.” Jarod sat up and looked at Sydney intensely.

“You are right Sydney. I can’t give up. I will find her and make sure she and Baby Parker are safe. Do you really remember nothing of where she wanted to go?”

“No, only that she had friends abroad who she wanted to contact. I would try to find old acquaintances of hers from when she was abroad during school and college.”

“I will - thank you Syd.”

“No problem Jarod, it’s really good to see you, I was so worried.”

Jarod felt bad about that. He had never intended for anyone to get hurt by him leaving. “I’m sorry, I needed some space and the best way to do that was to cut all strings. I’ll tell you something you might not know. Shortly before I escaped the last time, Miss Parker and I had a talk. I asked her to flee with me and turn her back on the Centre. I thought she was ready after everything that we learned on the island about her family and her father disappearing, but she turned me down.”

Sydney sighed and put his hand on Jarod’s. “She needed a wakeup call and that came when she was given sole custody of Elias – that’s what she named him. I watched her closely the whole time and she really changed. Everything she did from that point on was to get ready to give him a better life. There is one thing I didn’t tell you over the phone. She asked me to train her. She is a Red File, because she has the Inner Sense and the Pretender gene, just like you do. I trained her to be more adaptable. I taught her a lot of the things I taught you in your teens. She is very good and you might have a hard time locating her, but I have faith in you and I’m sure if anyone can find her it’s you.”

“You are right. Take care Syd, I have a Pretender to catch!” Jarod said with new energy and hope, even joking a bit.

“Oh god, please not another one of her kind!” Syd joked back, rolling his eyes.

Then, as always, Jarod simply disappeared.

-

Miss Parker grabbed a third package of sugar and poured it into her black coffee. She was sitting in a coffee shop above a clothing store, which overlooked a nice part of Hamburg. Once again she was looking through job announcements. The jobs spanned from telecommunication specialists to veterinarians and clowns. She had been on the run for only a few short weeks and she was already feeling bored. She had only taught at the studio twice more and that was really not what she had in mind.

Though she liked dancing again. It felt like being free of everything, forgetting everything around her and it brought her back to a time when the Centre had been the furthest thing from her mind.

A young girl and her mother came into the narrow coffee shop together and sat down next to her table after ordering a Latte Macchiato and a Hot Chocolate. She glanced over to the girl who excitedly told her mother about a boy she had met or seen on TV or something like that and her mother looked at her with that typical mother smile, that was a mixture of joy, pride and pure horror, that her little girl was talking about boys already. Her mother had always said that she had all the time in the world to find a nice boy and that she was too young to start looking. As it turned out, she had no time left. Her innocence was ripped away by her mother’s death in mere seconds. Even though Miss Parker knew that her mother had to protect her unborn and had no other choice to fake her own death, it still bugged her how it had all happened. She could have pretended to have taken an overdose, but no, she had to pretend to shoot herself in an elevator with everybody including herself there to see it. For a few years after that, she had remained in the Centre, being homeschooled and had no contact to other kids except for the usual suspects.

Miss Parker sighed and put aside her paper. This was getting her nowhere.

-

Broots and Sydney were being called up to the tower. Sydney had meetings there occasionally, but Broots never. He was really afraid, he was shaking visibly and no amount of good words from Sydney could calm him down.

“Broots, calm down. You know nothing, but the way you are acting they might think you do and that would be much worse.” Sydney told him again as they rode up the elevator.

“I’m trying, but my body responses automatically. It’s as if I have no control whatsoever.” Broots shot back and leaned against an elevator wall.

As they came to a halt and the door opened for them, Broots only exited reluctantly. They walked down to short corridors, until they arrived where they had been summoned.

As they entered, they saw Lyle in his new throne in front of the window and a man they had never seen before, leaned against his desk in a leisure way.

“Mr. Broots, Sydney, nice of you to join us. Let’s come to the point right away. You two worked very closely with Miss Parker for the last couple of years on catching Jarod.” He obviously waited for a reaction, so the two nodded. “That was not very successful, so I am splitting you up. Sydney will work with me in finding Jarod and Mr. Broots; you will work with our new employee, Mr. Hunt to bring back Miss Parker and the child. Mr. Hunt was briefed about the situation. Now – even though we are working in teams, we still need to work together closely. There is a good chance that the lab rat and my sister will be meeting up at some point, when they’re not already together.”

Broots looked over at Sydney horrified. Until now he at least had Sydney to turn to, now he was all alone day in and day out. “Any questions?” Lyle asked.

“No.” they said. There was no way to change anything about their situation and really they both knew that they were lucky to be alive and not strapped to some torture machine to get every last information out of them.