Disclaimer: “The Pretender” and its characters don’t belong to me they belong to TNT and NBC and are being used without permission. Please don’t sue because I have no money.

Listening In

By: 24

“When I first got to Delaware there was an opening for a research job at a place called the Centre. It was there that I met your mother and fell in love with her. She worked right alongside me. She was there the day that I got the call to mentor a young boy that they had brought in a young boy named Jarod who was four years old. I had tested a few of the others that had been in to see if they had the chance to be a pretender, but I’ve never seen anything like the genius that Jarod has. He not only been there for a couple of hours, but I knew that he was the best that we had. She had met him before I started him on the tests that they wanted me to put him through. And molded him into a pretender. A pretender is someone who has a genius I.Q. that can become anyone they want to be. He could be a lawyer, a doctor, or anyone else he wants to be for a pretend.”

“For years he was inside the Centre and did Sims. Sims are simulations that the Centre wanted done and sold them to the highest bidder. Sometimes they would do experiments on him, but only when I was away on business.”

“Your mother had to leave the Centre because she was pregnant with you and they didn’t want me to find out because they were afraid that I would leave to. They couldn’t have that because I had to still mentor Jarod and put him through his simulations.”

“Then when Jarod got older he found that his Sims were used to hurt and kill people and so he ran away. We’ve been chasing him for five years now and only once brought him back to the Centre when Miss Parker was shot and then he escaped again.”

“How is little Miss Parker?”

“She’s bent on getting Jarod back and getting away from the Centre.”

“I remember that they used to be friends when Jarod was a little older. What happened?”

“I don’t know what happened. It’s like she wants to forget that there was never a friendship between them and Jarod keeps on trying to find the little girl that was his friend. The one that cared for him and didn’t care what he was. There have been a few times that I’ve seen her actually care for him like the one time Jarod was in trouble from one of the people he put away.”

“You see Nicholas now that he knows what his Sims were used for he stays one step ahead of us. He helps people in need using his pretender abilities. Those that couldn’t, or didn’t get help from other means. He was the one that gave me your birth certificate and told me I have a son.”

“At first they told me that his parents brought him here because he was special and then told me and him that they died coming to see him. Since then I found out that he was stolen from them and he’s also been trying to find them to put his family back together.”

“How could they do that to a child? Take him from a loving family just because they could make money?”

“That is what the Centre does, Nicholas. They supposedly shot and killed Miss Parker’s mother because she tried to take her daughter, Angelo and Jarod away from the Centre. They couldn’t have that, so they staged her death in front of Miss Parker. It was after she had given birth to Miss Parker and Jarod’s brother Ethan that Mr. Raines killed her. Jarod even did a cloning simulation not knowing that they were using it on him. They cloned him because he was the best and named him Gemini.”

“And you still work there?”

“I have to make sure that Angelo, Miss Parker and Jarod are okay.”

“Is Miss Parker the woman I saw at the helicopter?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t seen her since she was a little girl.”

“She looks just like her mother.”

Nicholas was quiet and picked up all the dishes after they finished eating. While he got what he wanted. He now knew who the woman at the helicopter was and finally knew who Jarod was. He was glad that he knew, but somehow he felt that he was glad that he didn’t know before this. He hoped that Jarod would someday find his family and hoped that he was okay.

The End.