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Part Three

Without so much as a hello, Jarod barked into the his phone, “Parker’s not in Portland, Dad. Has she been in contact with Sydney or Broots?” He was standing in the living room of the house Tommy had bought only weeks prior to his death, the house he had bought to renovate for Parker and himself. It was a beautiful stone and shuttered affair, and Jarod had been perplexed to enter the house and find it filled with sheet-covered furniture and undisturbed dust. The Centre, he knew, was unaware of the house – at least as far as the Mainframe indicated. Jarod had told Thomas Gates enough about the chamber of horrors to indicate to the man that if he were going to get the love of his life away from Blue Cove, it would have to be done discreetly.

Miss Parker’s dry chuckle could be heard over the line. It had been only mere moments after Major Charles’ exit that the phone rang. Hearing the sound from the floor below, Sydney and Broots had begun trooping up the stairs. She watched the entrance of the room, prepared to silence them with a motion of her hand as soon as they came through the doorway. “Jarod,” she greeted him.

Jarod dropped to a covered chair, dust fluffing from the sheet and cushions beneath him. The particulates drifted through the air, catching rays of light as they filtered through the living room windows. “Miss Parker? Where is my dad?”

“Your dad is fine, Jarod,” she sighed, “So are the others.” The brunette lifted a hand to her lips, indicating for the three new arrivals to be quiet. Sydney sat in the armchair the Major had recently vacated, while Broots and Debbie took up residence on the other sofa. Debbie curled her feet beneath her, looking curiously between her father and her heroine.

“You’re with them.”

“Yes, Jarod,” Parker spoke carefully. “Your father stepped out for a few moments but will be back in a while. If you’d prefer to speak to Sydney or Ethan…” Pulling the phone from her ear, she looked to Sydney, “Say something, Sydney. Can’t have him thinking I’m holding you all hostage.”

“Jarod,” Sydney called, the phone several inches from his face. He was not inclined to take the receiver as he could hear the man’s voice clearly over the line despite the distance. “Your father is at the grocery store, Jim and Ethan are outside.”

Taking the phone back, Parker spoke again, “Satisfied?”

Growling, Jarod answered, “For now. What the hell is going on? Why the wild goose chase to Portland?”

“Pay back?” Parker suggested, a grin breaking her words. “Not much fun, is it?”

“This is not the time for games. What are you doing with my father? So help me, Parker…”

“Relax, genius. I’m not going to harm a hair on any of their pretty little heads. Fact of the matter is, I needed a little help from people not quite so involved in the machinations of the Centre. Seems they’ve been running some experiments that I happened to stumble upon courtesy of our good friend Angelo. I’m betting you received some information of the same sort.” Parker’s eyes focused on Sydney until the last sentence. Ethan and Jim broke into the room, laughing and chasing each other. “Hello boys,” she called. “Your brother is on the phone.”

“Jarod!” Ethan yelped, and he and Jim leapt as a unit toward the couch. The brunette lifted her feet as Jim narrowly missed landing on them. Jerking the receiver from Parker’s hand, Ethan spoke into the phone, “How are you, brother?”

“Just fine, Ethan,” Jarod spoke, his tone quizzical as his eyebrows furrowed. He picked nervously at the sheet beside his left leg. “Everyone is fine?”

“Yes, except my shoes are a little worse for the wear,” Ethan chuckled, “Oh, hey, no pinching!” he spoke to Parker. “Let me give her the phone back before she breaks my arm.”

“Oh please,” Miss Parker rolled her eyes and jerked the receiver back from her younger brother. “Jarod, the information? What did Angelo send you?”

“I received a file,” Jarod spoke carefully, “but I think it would be better if we discussed this in person.”

“No can do, boy wonder. It’s by phone or not at all,” Parker argued, watching Ethan lean into the opposite sofa arm.

Jim leaned slightly against her as he spoke lowly to his brother. “Why does she call him boy wonder?”

Sydney snorted and Broots’ eyes widened in a manner reminiscent of an owl at Ethan’s reply, “Pet name.”

“I’d like to talk to my father,” Jarod stated.

“He’s not here, Jarod. If you don’t trust me, call back in a few hours. He had some errands to run,” she shrugged, rolling her eyes and forcibly tempering her frustration. The man had ways of making her angry that few others had been able to discover. Sometimes, she knew, it took as little as his know-it-all tone of voice or his refusal to believe anyone may possibly be more aware than he of the Centre’s dealings.

“I received a file,” he spoke after a few moments, and Parker could hear the chair squeak as he pushed himself from it. He paced the floor as he continued. “It gave very vague details of a plan at Donaterase that was being revived due to a recent influx of government funds.” Sighing, he ran his hand over his face, rubbing his cheeks and chin roughly. “I believe they are trying to create a new Pretender, a better version of myself. Not a clone but a being that is more compliant, more skilled. Someone they can train from the ground up, Parker, like a computer to do their bidding.”

Standing, she paced to the window. “Sounds like you got the same information I did. Before we went to Maine, I had Broots do a little searching. There’s nothing on the Mainframe, no paper copies that we could find, either.”

“Parker, be careful. The file indicates that they have sought genetic samples from several of the children who grew up in the Centre. I believe they may try to access your genetic material,” his words were tense. “They already have mine, my father’s. Probably others’ as well.”

She was internally amazed that he had not considered the fact that they already had hers as well. “I destroyed a cryobank before I left, all of the genetic material from the Pretender project was stored there.” Shrugging, Parker tapped her fingers against the phone. She itched for a scotch, for a cigarette, something. Jarod inspired a need for solace somewhere deep inside of her, a place that could not be sated by pacing and tapping and staring.

His voice was filled with surprise. “There has been nothing on the Mainframe.”

“Not everything is,” Miss Parker’s voice was dry, her thoughts racing. He did not have the same file. They had different sets of information, hers more complete than his. “Jarod, this file you received from Angelo, does it discuss any specific experiments? Do you know what they’re planning?”

Without hesitation, Jarod replied grimly, “Not yet, but I’m going to find out. And when I do…”

Illusion. The word shot through her, piercing her mind as swiftly and painfully as any bullet. Illusion. Illusion, illusion!

“Jarod,” she yelped into the phone. “Jarod, get out of there!” Fingers reached her forehead.

“What?” his voice was confused. “Parker…?

“The file you have, I don’t think it came from Angelo. You have to get out of there, I think it might be a trap. Leave the information and go.” Her voice was quiet but stern, the tone snapping Sydney to attention as he focused on the movements of her body across the room.

Illusion!

“Is this some way of getting the…?” he began.

“Jarod, I really don’t care about whatever information you think you have or don’t think you have. Find a safe place, call back. Leave everything on you… I think there is a tracker in the file. The voices…”

“Illusion!” This time, the word was spoken from nearby, Ethan jerking to his feet. “Jarod is part of the illusion.” Reaching her within seconds, he slammed the phone into the cradle.

“Part of the illusion? Ethan, it’s Jarod, he’s not…”

“They’re looking for Jarod, they think he’ll lead them to us,” Sydney spoke from his chair in the corner, hunching forward with a frown on his face. “They would never have anticipated his family siding with you and leaving him in the dark. That’s what the voices told you, at the house? When you and Major Charles went outside that first day? Not to tell Jarod, to keep him on the outside.”

Miss Parker did not move, Ethan’s eyes locking with hers. Slowly, he nodded. “They haven’t found him yet, but they will.”

“We have to help him!” Jim interjected, standing to his feet. “We can’t just…”

“They won’t take him back to the Centre,” Ethan stated with finality, “They just want to watch him until he leads them to us, to me and my sister. That’s all they want.”

“What? Why?” Broots interrupted, wide eyes landing on Jim. “Wh… what about?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Broots. They want their project, why they want both of us…” Ethan answered, words trailing off. His sister’s eyes drifted over Jim, then back to her brother, questions written clearly in her shifting gaze. Speaking slowly and with a quiet voice, he continued, “They won’t find us here, not yet. We’re safe for now.” His eyes remained locked to his sisters, her face a shade paler than it had been only moments before.

“Mirage is another word for illusion,” Miss Parker spoke, interrupting the short silence that descended over the room. Breaking her brothers gaze, she swept a hand through the air. “Something else is going on here. Something we’re a part of, something bigger than this. That’s what Mama’s trying to tell us, Ethan. There’s something else.”

--

With brow furrowed in confusion and suspicion creasing the lines around his mouth, Jarod slipped from the backdoor of the house. Upon reaching the edge of the property, he left the papers he’d brought in the neighbor’s trashcan, folding them carefully over his prepaid cell phone and rental car keys. Falling into a jog, Jarod eased his way through the backyards of the neighborhood, wondering what Centre debauchery they had stumbled into this time, and how it was that Miss Parker seemed to know more about it than he did.

“You hurt my family, Parker…” he muttered under his breath, “the Centre is the last thing you should be worried about.”










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