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Story Notes:
Okay here we go, I don't know too much about The Pretender so if I made mistakes please forgive heh heh.
Anyway this is a new chapter that picks up right after Sleepyhead Plus 2.
I wanted to explain a bit about how Jarod got sickie in the first place, and instead of doing another prequel I tried to continue on with a bit of a flashback type chapter.
Feel free to add more to the story, and let's make this an epic lol.
Anyway this is a new chapter that picks up right after Sleepyhead Plus 2.
I wanted to explain a bit about how Jarod got sickie in the first place, and instead of doing another prequel I tried to continue on with a bit of a flashback type chapter.
Feel free to add more to the story, and let's make this an epic lol.
Thankfully Lyle finally left and Jarod was glad for at least that one small favor. Favors, no matter how small were few and far between in this hell hole called the Centre. Curled up on his bunk he had nothing to do except contemplate the reasons why he was once again back in a cell.
He thought back to his last pretend even though his head throbbed violently as he accessed his memory. It had begun with a simple newspaper article, it had begun in a very mundane fashion, and there was nothing that indicated that this might be the pretend that might finish him off for good.
He should have known…Nothing is ever easy.
People die all the time, sometimes there is no rhyme of reason, it just happens. The newspaper recounted the death of a scientist at a pharmaceutical company; the paper had said it was a suicide. Along with the article had been a grainy photograph of a team of researchers, all of them smiling wanly at the camera, all except for the man who had apparently done himself in. The picture intrigued Jarod for reasons even he couldn’t quite explain. It was at that moment that he decided to conduct his own investigation.
Using his laptop he looked up everything he could about the deceased man, that was where it got interesting. Dr. Janson was the leading researcher for the company’s influenza vaccines.
The next day, wearing a white lab coat, Jarod joined the team at AJO Pharmaceuticals.
A bout of coughs roused Jarod briefly from his memories, moaning slightly he rubbed his throat trying to soothe his inflamed lymph nodes.
It had been easy, getting it there, even easier convincing them he was more than qualified to replace Janson. Like always Jarod knew exactly the right things to say and when to say them. It was a few days later when he hit his first snag.
A lot of his predecessor’s research had been deleted from the companies computers, even the hardcopies were missing. It was only after talking at length to the good doctor’s female assistant; Amanda, did Jarod make any headway. The girl did not want to give anything up at first; Jarod could tell the young woman was afraid, afraid of what he didn’t know, but he would soon find out. She had kept all of Jansen’s notes at her house, hidden underneath the floor boards.
The pounding in head was intensifying now and the cough was getting worse.
Jarod remembered reading all of the handwritten notes scrawled out so tiny that it was hard to read at first.
Jarod spent many days and nights in the lab going over everything, he didn’t sleep and barley ate because he knew that the closer he got to the truth, the closer he got to taking his own bullet in the head.
But it was clear in the end, the company was not just manufacturing flu vaccines….they were creating new viruses!
Drugs were profitable that was the bottom line.
Jarod sat up on his bed, holding his stomach and counting backwards from 100 until the queasiness subsided.
The girl had gotten sick two days later, Jarod himself had picked her up off of the floor in the lab. He was about to take her out of there, to a hospital…when…
A stabbing jolt of pain ran through his head making him fall back onto the bed in sheer agony. He held onto his head which felt like it was about to burst at anytime.
“That engineered virus” Jarod mumbled, clutching his stomach fighting back the urge to empty its entire contents onto the floor. His voice was barley a raspy whisper now “They purposely infected Amanda somehow with that virus and she unknowingly had passed it on over my way…but how?”
Jarod was always careful; he even sacrificed sleep to make sure nothing would happen to him. He made sure that he was careful with his meals, his drinks, everything.
Someone at AJO Pharmaceuticals had killed once (maybe twice, depending on Amanda’s fate) to keep their secret and he had no doubts that they wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
It was all coming together now. He wrapped his mind around that thought and felt it almost congealing inside his brain.
“I touched her…”Jarod thought to himself “I picked her up…three days later…”
If he was correct and he usually was, then that virus must spread by touch he deduced.
As the revelation hit, so did the nausea.
The floor was no longer clean.
“And Ms. Parker touched me…"
Just as his thoughts took on this rather interesting turn, Jarod, weak from exhaustion and the infection mercifully passed out.
He thought back to his last pretend even though his head throbbed violently as he accessed his memory. It had begun with a simple newspaper article, it had begun in a very mundane fashion, and there was nothing that indicated that this might be the pretend that might finish him off for good.
He should have known…Nothing is ever easy.
People die all the time, sometimes there is no rhyme of reason, it just happens. The newspaper recounted the death of a scientist at a pharmaceutical company; the paper had said it was a suicide. Along with the article had been a grainy photograph of a team of researchers, all of them smiling wanly at the camera, all except for the man who had apparently done himself in. The picture intrigued Jarod for reasons even he couldn’t quite explain. It was at that moment that he decided to conduct his own investigation.
Using his laptop he looked up everything he could about the deceased man, that was where it got interesting. Dr. Janson was the leading researcher for the company’s influenza vaccines.
The next day, wearing a white lab coat, Jarod joined the team at AJO Pharmaceuticals.
A bout of coughs roused Jarod briefly from his memories, moaning slightly he rubbed his throat trying to soothe his inflamed lymph nodes.
It had been easy, getting it there, even easier convincing them he was more than qualified to replace Janson. Like always Jarod knew exactly the right things to say and when to say them. It was a few days later when he hit his first snag.
A lot of his predecessor’s research had been deleted from the companies computers, even the hardcopies were missing. It was only after talking at length to the good doctor’s female assistant; Amanda, did Jarod make any headway. The girl did not want to give anything up at first; Jarod could tell the young woman was afraid, afraid of what he didn’t know, but he would soon find out. She had kept all of Jansen’s notes at her house, hidden underneath the floor boards.
The pounding in head was intensifying now and the cough was getting worse.
Jarod remembered reading all of the handwritten notes scrawled out so tiny that it was hard to read at first.
Jarod spent many days and nights in the lab going over everything, he didn’t sleep and barley ate because he knew that the closer he got to the truth, the closer he got to taking his own bullet in the head.
But it was clear in the end, the company was not just manufacturing flu vaccines….they were creating new viruses!
Drugs were profitable that was the bottom line.
Jarod sat up on his bed, holding his stomach and counting backwards from 100 until the queasiness subsided.
The girl had gotten sick two days later, Jarod himself had picked her up off of the floor in the lab. He was about to take her out of there, to a hospital…when…
A stabbing jolt of pain ran through his head making him fall back onto the bed in sheer agony. He held onto his head which felt like it was about to burst at anytime.
“That engineered virus” Jarod mumbled, clutching his stomach fighting back the urge to empty its entire contents onto the floor. His voice was barley a raspy whisper now “They purposely infected Amanda somehow with that virus and she unknowingly had passed it on over my way…but how?”
Jarod was always careful; he even sacrificed sleep to make sure nothing would happen to him. He made sure that he was careful with his meals, his drinks, everything.
Someone at AJO Pharmaceuticals had killed once (maybe twice, depending on Amanda’s fate) to keep their secret and he had no doubts that they wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
It was all coming together now. He wrapped his mind around that thought and felt it almost congealing inside his brain.
“I touched her…”Jarod thought to himself “I picked her up…three days later…”
If he was correct and he usually was, then that virus must spread by touch he deduced.
As the revelation hit, so did the nausea.
The floor was no longer clean.
“And Ms. Parker touched me…"
Just as his thoughts took on this rather interesting turn, Jarod, weak from exhaustion and the infection mercifully passed out.
