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Traffic was backed up a quarter of a mile on the two-lane street that split the town. The previous night's storm had wreaked havoc on the stop lights; a large ladder truck, its flashing bulbs chaotic and yellow, blocked an entire lane. The banners and ribbons, however, had already been replaced—as a matter of course. Small town priorities. Two of the Zelkova trees that lined each side of the street had been replaced as well after sustaining wind damage. Around the trunk of each tree was tied a yellow ribbon; each recently installed solar lamp that dotted the street was adorned with banners of red, white, and blue.

A large poster proclaiming the date and time of the fireworks display—a crowd pleasing event that had been canceled pending the safe return of Celeste and Grace—undulated gently outside the old barber shop in this largely conservative town where change came slowly, but came inevitably, despite its resistant citizens.

The road forked sharply a mile south. Straight ahead the town's obligatory Walmart, the fast food chains and the convenience stores where one could fuel up a car,  purchase a fountain drink and meal consisting of the deep fried fare Jarod typically favored. It could have been any other American town. There were no distinguishing landmarks, nothing to set it apart.

Until now.

Jarod forewent yet another artery-clogging burger, flipped on the the left blinker. He took the turn too fast, too hard, slung the vehicle deftly around a small park in a wide arc and drove straight into the suburbs. He glanced quickly into the rearview, ensured that he hadn't roused Parker.

Bringing her along was a mistake. He'd reiterated his misgivings to department heads, to directors and deputy direcctors, who in turn issued assurances that they believed were cogent and would effectively silence him. The feds were insistent.

Rachel was insistent.

And Rachel could be very convincing. She talked of his expertise and the ease with which he picked up new skills, his knack for languages and dialects and subtle inflections, his ability to meld into his surroundings, melt into the shadows.

Fodder for his ego.

When Parker pulled him to the side and confided her concerns to him, he was dismissive and smug. "Jarod, something is wrong. These people aren't covering all of the bases here. I know I'm not genius, but they have people for this, and—I don't know. The Director seems familiar. I don't trust him. And I don't trust Rachel. They've provided us with little intel and only vague—"

"Yes," he interrupted. "Something is wrong. You are selfish and cold. You don't give a damn about anyone but yourself. You never have. And you're right: you're not a genius."

She reproached and rebutted and launched an assault on his intelligence.

Rachel was there to make him feel like a super god, beyond reproach, and soothe his injured pride and remind him that two very frightened little girls were depending on him. "They need you, Jarod."

Perhaps, agreed Parker, who overheard their conversations, and the bed groaning beneath their combined weight when they made love. But they don't need me.

Parker hadn't spoke to him since. She refused to even look in his general direction. She took her meals alone. She spoke to Kyle often—until, that is, Jarod persuaded Rachel to sever communications between the pair, deactivate Parker's mobile. She was the outcast. Again. Just as she'd been inside the Centre.

Just as she'd been her entire life.

Jarod, clearly, hadn't anticipated the long hours on the road, the desultory nights in hotels, the maddening silence. Parker was accustomed to isolation; she wasn't afraid of silence, of being alone with her own thoughts. She could be alone. Jarod could not. He needed constant reassurance, he needed someone to feed his ego, walk it, stroke it, take it outside to play.

Nia had picked up where Sydney had left off and there had been a string of women since. Zoe, Rachel. Some real estate mogul named Cynthia.

Parker listened in disgust to Jarod's pouting: "I don't know what I'm going to do without you next week, Rachel."

And Rachel had answered Jarod's post-coital musings with, "The bitch is a fungus, lover, and funguses are raised in shit and thrive in the cold and the dark. Call me when you get lonely; I'll keep you warm."

But Rachel wasn't picking up the telephone. He'd left ten messages in half as many hours.

He was desperate, tetchy. He needed to talk.

He'd settle for an irrational argument. Eager to satisfy that desire, his eyes jerked to the rear-view mirror.

"Time to wake up," he shouted and then twisted around and punctuated his demands with a swift, but rather effective kick to the rear passenger seat.

Parker lifted her head, and then sat and stretched. She didn't so much as groan. She lodged no complaints, swallowed her sharp rispostes.

Damn her.

He decided to settle for pleasant discourse.

"We're almost there. I'm going to stop for fuel. I'll get us coffee and pastries," he said with false cheerfulness, and glanced into the rear-view at her, at her closed mouth.

Ultimately, he settled for tense silence.

The tension was all his.

He returned from paying for the food and fuel, set the cups of gas station brew on the roof of the black sedan and opened the door. And frowned at the empty rear seat. Empty.

She was gone.

Furious, he pivoted. And then somehow grew even more enraged to glimpse her crossing the near-emtpy intersection, returning from some rather pretentious establishment that had the audacity to call itself 'Brew la-la', with a small cup in her right hand and the morning breeze blowing her hair around.

"I said I would get us coffee and pastries," he shouted at her, causing heads to jerk around. He indicated the white paper bag in his left hand and shook it fiercely and he and Parker and everyone nearby could, indeed, see the bag, exhibit A, streaked translucent with fat. "I want you to know," he snarled at her when she slipped onto the backseat, removing his mirrored sunglasses, "that it's too late to renege. If you're thinking about running now, you had better rethink."

His words implied that there had been an agreement, that she had negotiated with him, with the Feds, when, in fact, she had not.

"I sent a letter to the Director," she said tartly, and swallowed her words with a sip of the latte.

"Your letter was intercepted," he said, smiling at her in the rear-view, and then becoming frustrated when she didn't meet his gaze in the mirror. She was being economical with her words, with glances. She didn't waste a single syllable on him.

"By Rachel? That's a Federal offense."

"So is abduction and false imprisonment. You didn't seem to mind committing crimes to please Daddy. Did you, Miss Parker? You obeyed his every command without so much as blinking. You shot at me, chased me—"

It became quite clear that he intended to recite his entire life's dissertation. Parker interrupted Jarod just as he was passionately building up to the part where she had fucked everything up in Carthis by "terrorizing" his mother, and he didn't even stop to thank her for the flash drive that she'd pressed into his palm when he'd grasped her hands and pleaded with her. She wanted to tell him that she would have been killed if the Centre discovered the numerous times she'd helped him. Numerous. Instead, she returned the focus to the woman who'd intercepted her letter,

"I'm not a Federal Agent."

"You are now."

And Parker was certain they were making a terrific blunder. She suspected a cover-up, a covering of arses. After all, the government, the military had been in bed with the Centre for decades, from the beginning. Raines had shared his cloning techniques with high ranking officials, Jarod had completed thousands of simulations for the military. That Jarod would trust the Centre's highest bidder, the United States Government, was both frightening and hilarious.

The narrative was tidy, the language friendly. The Government wanted her to believe they were doing her a favor, that with this single assignment the slate would be wiped clean, that no charges would be pressed, that she and her friends would walk free.

But suits are suits.

She recognized the futility in communicating with Jarod. He was still rather naive, more so than he should have been. Any talk of misgivings prompted a scathing rebuttal; Jarod could be cruel, arrogant; he was all too eager to silence her when she spoke of her distrust. "You are the absolute last person who should be talking to me about trust, Miss Parker." 

She'd had very little to say to him since, and had no desire to speak to him again. Parker never corrected him when he spoke of her plans to escape. She had no intention of running. Someone had to watch his back, the invisible target there that only Parker could see, and ensure that Rachel and her pals didn't thrust a knife through it.

Parker wasn't naive. She knew the game, the politics, the depths to which the most culpable would sink when careers and freedoms are threatened. She knew. She'd watched her own father applaud Raines' most nefarious successes. And for what?

Presently, she turned her face to the window and observed as the landscape transitioned.

The lower middle class neighborhood was well maintained, the lawns in varying stages of death, all mostly yellow, some strangely naked beneath the July sun. Maple trees were festooned with patriotic banners and ribbons. Typically mesquite, pecan and oak would be smothered beneath the more potent scent of lighter fluid. This year, however, there were no barbecues. Summer had ended early and with a scream of terror that signaled the death of a small town's innocence.

Despite his impatience, Jarod heeded the warnings, slowed the sedan to a languid 15 miles per hour as advised by the numerous signs alerting drivers to children at play. It was entirely unnecessary, however, courtesy of a strict, city-wide curfew imposed on all citizens; children, therefore, were at play in the safety of their homes.

Much like sentinels, armed with shotguns and pistols, the elders were holding vigil; they observed Jarod drive past, reported the damning out-of-state plates to Cathy, one of the 911 operators. Parker and Jarod, or rather Agents Deidra Vella and Kane Mortenson respectively, were questioned, cleared, and welcomed with open arms.

Contrarily, the dark van that crept along the avenue days earlier had gone largely unnoticed (and would have been most certainly unwelcome).

But there'd been no reports of strange vehicles in the area; no one had seen a black van, no one had seen anything out of the ordinary. It was a small community, ruled by a strict homeowner's association.

While Jarod shook hands with Celeste's father and offered platitudes and sympathetic smiles, Parker studied the diaper-clad toddler running spasmodically on unsteady legs. The child, called Tess, chewed on her pacifier and was grunting and screaming with eagerness to squeeze past the legs of the visitors.

Tess wanted to reach the storm door before the adult hands could close the heavy, wooden door that obstructed her view of the quiet avenue. And while Parker heeded the father's piteous, "please don't let her go outside," she also heeded the toddler's wishes.
Indeed, Parker had no intention of hindering a child whose face was set in such eager determination. There was something about that defiance, that fierce urgency that Parker understood and respected. She wanted out, too. And she, too, would be contented, for now, to just see the way out, to visualize it.

With her goal accomplished, Tess expelled a gleeful chorte and smashed her face right up against the glass storm door. She spat the pacifier onto the carpet, drew an excited breath and shrieked, "Ma! Ma ma ma ma ma ma!"

Parker was unimpressed.

But then a red minivan came into view on the empty avneue, as if the child had summoned it up with her chant, and pulled into the winding drive and right up to the front steps. "Ma. Ma."

Tess was thrilled to see her mother arrive home, and positively elated to see the squirrels, furry acrobats, diving from low hanging branches. It was a return to what she'd known before.

Tess was overcome with happiness and began kissing her reflection, pressing moist lips to the glass with endearing smacks.

She'd been similarly waiting for her mother days earlier and been supremely displeased by the sight of a battered black van. The driver had seen her muou of discontent, her knitted brows.

Tess had cried silent, impatient tears, licked the little girl in the glass, comforted herself. She'd wanted her mother, but her mother had been late that day, called away by Gracie's parents, called away by the tragic news. The wooden door had slammed closed prior to lunch on that ill-fated day. Tess's young friend in the glass had disappeared that day, and so had Tess' big sister.

She'd missed that little girl in the glass, wondered where she lived when the door was closed; she had feared her friend in the glass wouldn't come back.

The young mind easily grasped the incontrovertible fact, the concept of loss: people sometimes go away and they don't come back, and it doesn't matter how hard you cry for them.

But the girl in the glass wasn't gone. Tess processed this miracle with a loud squeal of incomprehensible joy and slapped the glass door twice. Her big sister was just away, because the wooden door had been closed, just as her little friend in the glass was away when the door was closed. Celeste, or Zest, as Tess affectionaly referred to her sister, would return.

Parker stepped aside, allowed the mother to enter the house. Tess wriggled in the woman's slender arms, and Parker stepped outside, knowing that the door would remain open for young Tess so long as she, a "Special Agent", remained on the premises.

Parker stood in the sun, walked the perimeter, moved languidly to the front lawn, towards the empty street. The yard had been neglected, but the neighbors would soon come over with leaf blowers and lawn mowers, or noise pollution, as Tess' mother referred, with distaste, to it. Parker wondered if they would arrive before the next rain. If not, there'd likely be flooding.

Last night's storm had clogged the rusted drains with debris. She surveyed the contents: a segment of a yellow ribbon, a hair barrette, a single cigarette butt, a Dunhill, stained red with rust, a green glow bracelet, a pacifier.

"What are you doing?"

Parker's head jerked up. She looked past Jarod, and waved at Tess, who gave the glass a final whack before being pulled away, one last hurrah before the wooden door closed.

"We have to go," Jarod said.

Parker didn't so much as nod.

She simply turned towards the car.

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