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Rated PG
Disclaimer: I do not own Miss Parker, Jarod, Lyle, Mr Parker, Brigitte, Raines or Catherine Parker. They are owned by MTM and NBC. I'm just playing around. No infringement intended.

Please don't take me too serious here. When I started this, I wanted it to be a pretty dark story. I don't know how I ended up with this rather silly piece. :)
Hope you enjoy.

Thanks to Tatjana for beta-reading this for me. :-))))


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The Best of The Centre
by Mareen




He was The Cutter.

When he was a young man, 45 years ago now, all he`d wanted to be was a very well known Cutter of Hollywood movies.

How he`d ended up in *that* place, he couldn`t say.

One day he`d searched for a job because his wife was tired of waiting for his big breakthrough in Hollywood, California, ...and found one at the Centre, Delaware.

There were a lot of people like him there.

Stranded, like he was.

Not knowing how they really got there.

Not knowing how they could leave...well, leaving without lying in a body bag that is.

Leaving the Centre, alive, was damn near to being impossible.

Not that he really wanted to leave.

He liked that place.

He liked his job.

It was interesting, thrilling.

Yes, it was even better than Hollywood could have ever been.
Hey, Hollywood was...well, Hollywood.

The Centre...that was Reality.

"Reality" with a *capital* R.


Sometimes he liked to call himself "The man without a name".

But his real name was Ernest Shinkel, though no-one in the Centre seemed to know that anymore. If someone in the Centre had ever, that person was probably long dead. Ernest had become one of the Centre`s shadows. One of the people without a name or known occupation. But that made the place even secure for him in a way. After all these years there, he knew one thing for certain:

Once the people in the Centre got two names, they were as good as dead.

He`d seen them all die, the people with two names. Catherine Parker for example. He still didn`t know what she`d seen in that guy, her husband, Mr Parker. She had been such a nice lady.

But, you know: Two names. Dead meat.

Well, there was this really freaking guy, Dr. WILLIAM RAINES. Two names, and still... but, well,... you can hardly say, that Dr. Raines fits the profile of a living being, can you?

So, after all Ernest knew, having officially no name, was in a way quite healthy.

But when he came home at night he was Ernest Shinkel again, married to his high-school girlfriend Martha, who he still loved after all these years. They never had any children, but that didn't matter, because Ernest was The Cutter.

The Centre`s children had become their children, in a way.

He drove to the Centre every morning at seven o`clock.

The door`s guards knew him.

They had been told to never ask any questions to that specific man and now believed for a certain time, that Ernest must be some kind of Big Boss.

Maybe even someone from the Tower itself!

What they didn't know was, that Ernest` office was down in SL26. In the Centre`s basement, if you want to think of it that way.
Every morning, when he had entered his office with his special code he`d come up with himself

("I am Ernest". He was very proud of that!),

he sat down in his chair in front of all his machines, opened his bag and started to eat the first late breakfast Martha had made for him, while having a look throught the first few tapes of the last day.

There were always a lot.

He was responsible for the whole "Pretender Files", that included all surveillance tapes from SL-27, SL-5, the Tech-Rooms, the offices of Mr Lyle, Miss Parker, Mr Parker, Sydney, the room of that poor boy Angelo and Jarod`s

(Though there wasn`t much going on lately, except of the short visits of Miss Parker now and then. She used to go around and touch his things, let her fingers drop over it. One day she`d even took one of the shirts he`d left and smelled on it, with a strange look on her face, as if she wished to be very far away.).

Oh, and he was responsible for the offices of Dr. Raines and that strange Lady, Brigitte, too.

All the things he knew about her and Raines and Lyle and Mr Parker frightened him sometimes, though he should be used to them by now, and he even wished, he could actually *go* to Miss Parker or Sydney or even Mr Broots to tell them all these things.

But he´d signed a contract, when he had started this job and one of the things his Mom had taught him, was that a real man always kept his promises. And that day when he was a young man, he`d promised to never tell anyone about the things he knew.

So, when he had his first late breakfast every morning, he started to cut the tapes he had from the different places.

He cut the things that were "restricted", what meant they were on his "Black List" he got the day when he started his job. He never got a new list during the 45 years he was working for the Centre now, so he supposed that list was still up-to-date. On the other hand, sometimes he got the feeling, that no-one in the Centre even knew that he existed.

But who did they think cut the tapes into the way they were when they watched them at last?

No machine could do that.

He was an artist!

He`d nearly made it into Hollywood!

So he`d always tried to bring some more drama into the scenes by using shots from different camera perspectives for the final tapes.

And he got wonderful tapes by that.

He only wished, that just once, someone who watched the DSA`s would acklowledge that!

Hell, he put so much work in that!


He cut the things from the tapes, no-one was supposed to see or hear.

That even included the tapes from SL-27 from the last few years. He liked the scenes where Mr Broots, Sydney and Miss Parker

(he surely did know her first name, but he never said it loud. He knew what happend to the people with two names. And even if he was the only one who would hear it, if he`d say it loud, *someone* had still said it... Bad Omen. He didn't want her to die. So he didn't say it. Never.)

walked around in SL-27 and found all the files.

But he cut them.

"No scenes from SL-27 allowed". He had that on his Black List.

Well, okay, he copied the scenes before he cut and burned the original version, just like he copied the good scenes from the tapes that went into the Centre`s DSA library later.

But that was just for Martha and himself.


Once a week he would come home with a new movie.

Martha always bought some beer for him and some chips for herself and they sat down together and watched the "Best of The Centre", all the good things that had happend during the week, restricted or not.

They`d always loved the parts with the young boy Jarod in them most.

All the years before he ran away, year after year, they`d followed how Jarod`s life went on, how he got older, how he became a man, his life, his pretends, the sad things, the funny things, the heartbreaking things.

When Jarod had met young Miss Parker the first time, they´d both thought it was one of the most heartbreaking scenes ever, though Ernest would have never told Martha.

He was a grown man!

He'd never cry in front of his wife, for Heaven`s sake!

But it had been so sweet, so lovely.

Two children, made for each other, but the reality is against them.

Everyone tries to seperate them.

Will their love survive?

Or will the Centre part them forever?

It was like Romeo and Juliet.

Just real.

Martha had always been a romantic.

That first meeting was on one of her "The Best of The Best of The Centre" videos. All of Jarod`s and Miss Parker`s meetings were.

Like their kiss.

The bunny-incident.

The drama, when Miss Parker´s mother was killed ("Poor Baby" Martha used to say when she watched that scene again.).

Ernest himself was more the "Action type".

Sure, he had the deadly shots on Catherine Parker on one of his "Best of the Best of The Centre" tapes, too. But he had another version.

Martha had the "Jarod is trying to get to Miss Parker and Miss Parker is screaming for her mother" scene.

Ernest had the clear (and restricted) shot of the killer´s face.

Oh, he even had a tape with both versions cut together into a wonderful moving little scene.

Sometimes he wished he could send that one to one of the big Hollywood producers to show him what he was capable of as a cutter.

But he didn't suppose that was allowed.

Ernest also liked the scenes of Jarods escape from the Centre.

The day he cut that from the tapes

("No scenes that could undermine the Centre`s integrity in its employee`s eyes". That was point five on his "Black List". And someone escaping through the so highly regarded security system definetly fell under point five. ),

he came home the same day with the cut parts and watched it with Martha who was dying to know if Jarod would make it out of the Centre savely.

But he`d refused to spoil it for her.

Sometimes Ernest was just a little devil.

Afterwards they`d agreed that this had *definetely* been one of the best episodes ever!

But now, after that special day, it had become awfully boring in the Centre.

With Jarod gone, Martha and he had lost one of their favorite characters and even started to watch the scenes with Dr. Raines in them and *that* scenes were more ugly than entertaining.

Ernest especially hated that specific scene where Dr. Raines was lying in the Centre`s hospital after Sydney shot his Oxygen tank

(That was one of the few thrilling things in the last three years, the question who shot Mr. Raines.),

and that sister came in to empty his bed pan....

No, after that, Ernest had decided it was about time, to bring a new player into the game:

Himself.

Well, he may have cut the interesting things from the tapes that went into the Centre`s DSA library, but, well, there still were the "The Best of The Centre" tapes they got at home.

He copied the interesting parts onto fitting DSA`s or whatever suited the situation they were needed for, and then stored them where Mr Broots would find them...

Hey, if there hadn`t been an Ernest Shinkel, Miss Parker still wouldn't have seen the tape of her birth! And that scenes had been one of their favorites for years!

Martha had labeled the tape with the four hours during which Cathrine Parker had been in labour with the twins "The birth of a new generation". The tape had been in their living room cupboard for more than thirty years...right beside Martha`s faked Fabergé Eggs.

A real piece of history!

Well, after all, it was something of interest for Miss Parker, too, now. He knew that, because he had seen the surveillance tape of the moment, when she and Sydney and Mr Broots watched it.

Yes, Ernest Shinkel had done the right thing.

Martha had loved Miss Parker`s reaction to the fact that it was Raines who delivered her.

And Ernest hadn't even broken his promise to never *tell* anyone about the things he knew.

Yes, after being the only one who knew probably everything about Miss Parker`s and Jarod`s past for all these years without ever interfering, now he`d become part of the show at last.

That`s what *he* called Interactive TV.


The whole thing had started to become more and more fun for both of them, himself and Martha.

In the evening, when he came home, they would discuss the things they could probably do to help their favorite characters.

Ernest would sit down, find the fitting tape, copy it at his job and then store it somewhere.

And then all they could do was waiting till someone would find their hint.

It was really thrilling.

Now, Martha had even come up with an idea for a new project. She was still a hopeless romantic, it had even become worse the older she got (and she was nearly 75 now).

"Ernest", she`d said, "before we both die and have to leave the kids", she`d one day started to call Miss Parker and Jarod "kids", while Ernest still referred to them with their real names, "we should do something for them."

"Like what?" he`d asked.

"Like bringing them together. Making them a couple. They should have been a family for a long time now. It's about time, don't you think? They should start making children, as long as the kid can still bear some. She`s not getting any younger, you know."

And sure she was right, als always.

His Martha was a very intelligent woman, much more intelligent than he was, he had to admit.

So their new project had begun to see the day, when the kids would get married.

And they would work for that. Hard.

Especially now, with this Thomas Gates around. Martha and he both had even started to hate flannel by now, thanks to that guy!

Yes, Ernest loved his job. He really did.

Being The Cutter was wonderful.

There was just one question, that bothered him for some time now. Sometimes it even frightened him.

That question...

He couldn't get over it.

And maybe he would never get an answer to it untill the day he died.

The question every good cutter in his position should ask himself, because the answer could change his life forever.

Is someone probably cutting the Cutter?


Ernest Shinkel always got goosebumps about that.









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