Chapter 21

            Miss Parker still wasn’t answering her cell.

            Sydney tossed his own phone onto the desk and told himself to remain calm.  Not an easy task with all the damn rumors currently flying around this place.

            After spending half the day in the lab trying to determine why his current twin experiment was producing some unexpected results, Sydney had finally needed to take a break.  Not in the mood for vending machine fare, he’d made a rare trip to the cafeteria.

            He’d found the dining hall more crowded than usual for this time of the day.  He’d noticed, though, as he’d carried his coffee and oat bran muffin to a table, that most of the Centre employees in the vicinity were not eating.  They were gathered in small groups around the room, talking in low voices, but with an intensity that created an uncomfortable undercurrent all around him.  Used to the gossip that naturally ran rampant in a fortress of secrets, Sydney had not paid much attention to the murmurings.

            Until he’d heard Jarod’s name.  A woman had passed behind him, excitedly whispering to her companion that Jarod had been spotted “right here in Blue Cove!”  “Thought he was smarter than that,” had been the reply from the young man with her.

            Agreeing with the woman’s friend, Sydney had dismissed that bit of news.  But then more snatches of co-worker conversations had reached his ears, and a disturbing pattern had emerged.  The general consensus seemed to be that Jarod was indeed in town and Lyle and a whole army of Sweepers had been dispatched to hunt him down and bring him back.

            Then he’d become aware of some furtive glances his way from people who were no doubt wondering why he, who was so closely connected to the Pretender project, was sitting here eating a muffin while half the Centre was out trying to apprehend Jarod.  He’d found himself wondering the same thing.  Last he’d heard, Miss Parker was headed out of town to check out a lead on Jarod, one that didn’t look too promising, she’d told him, so it didn’t require the presence of the whole team.  Sydney had been fine with that; it gave him time to iron out the wrinkles in his current twin study.  But if there was reason to believe that Jarod was in Blue Cove, he should have been informed.

              Suddenly anxious to learn exactly why he’d been kept out of the loop, Sydney had drained the last of his coffee and stood up to leave.  As he did so, various ringtones had sounded throughout the cafeteria.  A hush had descended over the room as several people answered their cells or checked their text messages.  Then he’d heard a few gasps and exclamations of disbelief, which only increased his level of dread.  He’d hurriedly headed for the exit, eager to find Broots and get some answers.  As he’d stepped into the corridor, a young woman he vaguely recognized as one the secretaries from the Tower almost ran into him since she was distracted by the phone in her hand.  Startled, she’d looked up and blurted out, “Oh, Dr. Green!  Is it true?  Is Jarod really dead?”

            Her words had felt like an ice pick to his gut.  Reeling, he’d snapped, “Of course not!” and rushed away.

            Broots had received the same dire news of Jarod’s demise but had been unable to confirm or deny the dreadful rumor.  Other than confessing that he’d known Miss Parker had belatedly joined the search of the warehouse district after her flight to Las Vegas was cancelled, he couldn’t supply any helpful information.  He had not been able to reach her by phone to get a firsthand account of what had happened.  Both men had agreed to keep trying to get in touch with Miss Parker and to inform each other of anything concrete they learned.  Then Sydney had returned to his office.

            Where he now sat in this current wretched state of limbo.  He refused to believe Jarod was dead, and that wasn’t only an emotional reaction.  There were several reasons on which to base that optimistic opinion.  One, Jarod was far too clever to let himself get killed during a routine skirmish with Sweepers.  Two, the Centre was desperate to get Jarod back… alive.  Three, Jarod had plenty of experience of surviving close calls.  And four, Broots’ friend from the infirmary had said only that he heard the medical staff preparing for the arrival of a V.I.P. (a very important patient); it could be Lyle or Brigitte.

Or Miss Parker.

This train of thought was not helping.  He reached for his phone again and heard:

“Sydney.”

And he knew.  One look at the woman in his doorway confirmed it.  The adult Miss Parker stood before him, but it was the girl he saw, the girl as she’d appeared right after her mother had died, the girl with the unspeakable pain screaming soundlessly from her big blue eyes.

“Mon Dieu,” Sydney breathed.  “It’s true.”

Miss Parker spoke haltingly, as if every word was an effort.  “I’m sorry, Sydney, I wanted…to get here…to tell you in person as soon as I could, but…I had to stay with the…with Jarod until they…until they pronounced him…”  She stopped on an intake of breath, her eyes growing impossibly large at the memory.

He sat in stunned silence, barely able to draw breath past the knot of anguish that had formed in his chest.  After a long moment, he finally managed one word:  “How?”

“He was shot and fell out a window.  Willie and I both tried CPR, but…”  Her voice was a monotone, her gaze still focused on the recent past.

For the first time he noticed the smears of blood on her white silk blouse. 

Hugging her bare arms, she frowned and asked vaguely, “Is the air conditioning on high in here?  I couldn’t bear the heat in that horrible alley, but now I’m a little too cold…”

Sydney recognized the symptoms of emotional shock when he saw them, and he knew he couldn’t let himself slip into the same state of distress.  Not yet, not now, when Miss Parker needed him to be strong for her.

Somehow he managed to stand on legs that felt like jelly.  He retrieved his suit coat from the back of his desk chair and carried it over to her.  “Miss Parker, come sit down,” he said gently.

The fact that she seemed to barely notice him guiding her to the couch made him realize just how much in a daze she was.  “There was blood on my blazer, so I took it off,” she murmured as he draped his coat around her shoulders.  “I had to wash my hands, too.”  She stared down at them.

Sydney noticed her fingers were reddish and puckered, as if from prolonged scrubbing.  He sat beside her on the sofa.  “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked quietly.

She didn’t answer, just continued to look at her hands, a lost expression on her face.

He could feel her pain, and the last thing he wanted to do was make it worse by asking her to relive the traumatic events of the last few hours.  But he needed answers!  He needed to know how this could have happened, how Jarod, despite all the logical reasons why it couldn’t be so – how Jarod could actually be dead.

“Broots told me you went to the warehouse district,” he prompted.

Her chin came up, and she blinked, as if bringing the memory into sharper focus.  “It was the last building on the block,” she said.  “I found Jarod and Lyle upstairs.”

“Lyle shot Jarod?” Sydney asked sharply.

Miss Parker nodded, but there was no anger in her voice, no emotion at all, as she said, “And then Jarod fell out of the window.  He landed in a dumpster.  I thought he’d get up and run away, but he just… he just lay there.  By the time I got to the alley, Willie was trying to revive him.”

Sydney felt his hands clench into fists.  “Why would Lyle shoot him?”

She frowned slightly.  “He said Jarod had a gun pointed at me, but… I don’t remember…”  She suddenly turned to face him.  “Jarod would never hurt me, Sydney,” she added urgently.

The little girl was back, huddled inside his jacket, looking to him for reassurance.  “No, of course not,” he agreed softly.

That seemed to calm her – for a second, before a fresh onslaught of grief flashed across her features.

Trying to keep her focused on facts, Sydney quickly asked, “What was the cause of death?  The gunshot?  Or a head injury from the fall?”

“I…I don’t know,” she said slowly.  “I didn’t wait around the infirmary to find out.  I needed to get to you.  Oh, Sydney.”  For the first time, he saw the glint of unshed tears in her eyes.  “I’m so sorry…” 

She reached out, as if to lay her hand on his arm, but he abruptly stood up.  He couldn’t be touched, not now, not if he wanted to keep his composure, such as it was.  He still had too many questions.

“We need answers,” he said.  “Let’s go find some, shall we?”

Sydney threw open the doors to Mr. Parker’s office and marched inside, followed closely by Miss Parker.

“Why weren’t we allowed to see Jarod’s body?” he demanded.

“They told us down in the infirmary that we had to talk to you,” added Miss Parker.  “What the hell is going on, Daddy?”

Sydney was glad to see that their frustrating experience at the infirmary had managed to produce one positive result: Miss Parker was acting like herself again.  The color had returned to her cheeks and the steel to her voice.  Although at times abrasive, this Miss Parker was preferable to the shell that had shown up in his office earlier.  Unfortunately, he knew this flare of anger would burn out soon enough, and the cold heaviness of grief would descend upon her once more.

Mr. Parker winced slightly, as if his daughter’s tone was aggravating an already-intense headache.  “Now, calm down, Angel,” he said.

“Calm down?”  She stalked right up to his desk and slammed her hands down on its gleaming mahogany surface.  “Jarod is dead!”

“I am well aware of that fact!”  Her father shot back.  “Perhaps you are not aware of the scope of this disaster!”  Then he seemed to take a closer look at her, observing the blood-stained cuffs of her blazer that she’d retrieved from the ladies’ room near the infirmary.  He went on in a softer voice: “I understand you did everything you could at the scene to revive Jarod.”

Miss Parker straightened and shook her head, as if to brush aside the memory of those frantic moments.  “Why can’t Sydney see Jarod’s body?” she asked.  “He has every right-”

“Well, of course he does,” Mr. Parker said brusquely, turning his attention to Sydney.  “Unfortunately, that won’t be possible.  The body’s no longer here.”

“What?”  Sydney couldn’t hide his confusion.  The Centre would never have moved Jarod to a hospital morgue, and they would certainly have taken the time to do an autopsy before relinquishing his remains to a funeral home.  “Where is he?”

“Jarod’s body has been transported to our cryonics facility in New Jersey.”

Cryonics facility?  “My God,” Sydney murmured.  Through his own shock, he dimly heard Miss Parker asking, “Cryonics?  Is that what I think it is?  You’re going to freeze Jarod?”

“We have no choice,” her father said.  “Jarod’s death is a tremendous loss to the Centre.  We must use all the means at our disposal to fix this.”

As Miss Parker sat down heavily in one of the black leather chairs facing her father’s desk, Sydney ventured, “I wasn’t aware the Centre had a cryonics facility.”

“It was an acquisition we made a few years ago.  Due to the ongoing ethical debate about this particular area of science, we don’t publicize the Centre’s involvement in it.”

Sydney thought tiredly that the same could be said about most of the Centre’s projects.

Mr. Parker went on: “Lazarus Ltd. was having some financial difficulties and was in danger of having to close its doors – thus putting its preserved patients at risk – so the Centre stepped in with a reasonable offer and took ownership.  It’s a great opportunity to explore this exciting new field of medical research.  We’ve managed to keep the place up and running and have even added a few wealthy clients who have paid a handsome sum to assure that they will be preserved in perpetuity.”

“Or until you develop the technology to revive them,” Sydney pointed out.

“Yes, of course.  That is the sole purpose of the facility.”

Fleecing rich people with a fear of death – and likely no families to inherit - of their life’s savings would probably be a more apt mission statement of Lazarus Ltd. (a name he suspected did not sit well with those with religious objections to cryonics), Sydney thought, but he kept his opinion to himself.  The doctor in him wanted all cutting-edge areas of medical technology to be given a chance, and now he had a vested interest in hoping that the Centre could actually make cryonics work.

“Do you really think you can bring Jarod back?”  Miss Parker asked.

Her tone was neutral, and Sydney surmised that she was keeping a tight rein on her emotions.  He was doing the same.  Neither of them had barely had time to process the fact that Jarod was dead, and now to be told of this insane possibility of him coming back to life…

Madness!  Such seesawing between hope and despair was greatly damaging to the psyche.  Stay detached, he told himself.

Mr. Parker sighed.  “It’s a long shot, I know,” he said wearily, “but we have to make the effort, show that we haven’t given up on Jarod.  That might make a difference in how the Triumverate reacts.”  With a trembling hand, he lifted the glass of Scotch at his elbow and took a fortifying sip.

Ah, the ominous elephant in the room.  Next to the stark reality of Jarod’s demise, what the Triumverate would do next was not a topic that Sydney cared to contemplate.  But he knew that Mr. Parker was very worried about what kind of punishment the Centre’s African overseers would mete out for this unmitigated disaster.

“The good news is that the cryonics facility has a new director, a bright young fellow who took over operations just a few months ago,” Mr. Parker said, brightening somewhat.  “He’s highly qualified and very enthusiastic about the whole process.  And now that he has such a high priority patient like Jarod, he’ll be pushed harder than ever to produce results.”

“Do you know anything about how the process works?” Sydney inquired.  He knew precious little himself.

“All I know is that time is of the essence at the start of the procedure,” Mr. Parker replied, “which is why Jarod’s body had to be moved into storage as soon as possible.”

Sydney cringed inwardly at the use of the word “storage.”  He made it sound like Jarod was just a thing to be shelved in some warehouse!  He noticed how Miss Parker’s lips tightened at her father’s words, as well.

As if finally sensing the distress of the other two occupants of the room, Mr. Parker added with a touch of compassion, “I’m sorry that you didn’t get a chance to see him, Sydney.  I know how much Jarod meant to you.”

Unable to speak past the sudden lump in his throat, Sydney merely nodded in response. 

Miss Parker abruptly stood and crossed to the liquor cabinet.  She poured herself a drink and downed half of it in one swallow.

“The next few days will be very difficult around here,” Mr. Parker said, staring down into his own glass. “There’s no predicting what the fallout may be.”  He looked up at his daughter and cleared his throat.   “I’ll need a written report from you, Angel, as soon as possible.  The Triumverate wants to know exactly what happened today.  Your brother is already working on his account while the details are still fresh in his mind.”

“Oh, really?”  Miss Parker crossed back to her chair and sat down again.  “Has he shared any of those details with you?”

Her tone was casual, but Sydney saw how her knuckles were white from tightly grasping her glass as she waited for her father’s reply.

“Of course, he came to see me a short while ago.  He was understandably upset about what happened.”

Sydney imagined Lyle was also terrified of being blamed for Jarod’s death and anxious to tell his version of events before Mr. Parker heard it from anyone else.

“Despite how everything turned out, you’re lucky your brother was there,” Mr. Parker went on.  “He said Jarod pulled a gun on you.  No telling what he might have done if Lyle hadn’t gotten a shot off first!”

Sydney saw the flash of anger in Miss Parker’s eyes, and he quickly stepped up behind her to place a restraining hand on her shoulder.  He could feel how tightly bunched her muscles were, like a cat preparing to pounce.

“It sounds like it was a very tense situation,” Sydney said in as calm a voice as he could manage. 

“Hm.  Of course, Lyle was only trying to wound Jarod,” Mr. Parker said.  “It was damn rotten luck that he fell out that window.”

“What was the official cause of death?” Sydney asked.

“We don’t know for sure.  They couldn’t do an autopsy.  The body had to be kept as intact as possible for the cryonics procedure.”

“It doesn’t matter if the gunshot or the fall killed him,” Miss Parker declared.  “Lyle’s still to blame!”

“Then put that in your report, if that’s what you believe.”

“It’s a fact!  I was there, I saw exactly what happened.”

Remembering how shock had made her fuzzy on the details down in his office and eyeing her glass of Scotch, Sydney hoped she’d be sober and in a clearer frame of mind when she did write her report.  As much as he’d love to have Lyle take the fall for Jarod’s death, he didn’t want to mistakenly condemn the man.  He worried that Miss Parker might have already reached the anger stage of grief and was eager to assign guilt to someone, anyone, for this terrible tragedy.

Mr. Parker scowled at his daughter.  “Just don’t let your hatred of your brother influence your memory of events.”

That was a valid point, but Sydney expected Miss Parker to protest.  Instead, she said in a low voice, “Daddy, why won’t you believe me?”

Mr. Parker just stared at her, narrowing his eyes slightly as if trying to see a hidden trap in her words.

Damn the man, Sydney thought tiredly.  Why did he always make matters worse?  He knew the Parker father-daughter relationship was strained, but he was also certain of their love for each other.  Miss Parker had risked her life on more than one occasion to save her father, and Mr. Parker had shown true concern when his daughter almost died from a bleeding ulcer and when she’d taken a bullet meant for him.  But why did there have to be a crisis for them to express their true feelings?

Except this was a crisis.  Miss Parker was the walking wounded; did the blood on her shirt have to be her own for her father to recognize that she needed his support?

Sydney gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and she looked up at him.  Her eyes were starting to go dull again.  As he’d feared, her earlier anger-fueled energy had drained away, and the horror of the day was starting to sink in.

He knew he should convince her to go home, but he just had one more piece of business to conclude with her father.

“If it’s alright with you, sir, I’ll start planning the service,” he said.

Mr. Parker squinted at him in confusion.  “Eh, what’s that?”

“The memorial service for Jarod.”

“Ah, we don’t need to bother with anything like that,” Mr. Parker said dismissively.

His callous words were like a slap in the face.  Sydney knew that Mr. Parker only considered Jarod an entry at the top of the assets column in the Centre’s ledger, but common decency demanded that some sort of ceremony be held to mark the end of an extraordinary life.

Sydney moved away from Miss Parker’s chair and took a step closer to the desk.  “I think it is very important that we have some kind of gathering,” he said with quiet intensity.

“I know all you shrinks are big on closure,” Mr. Parker said, “but I remember the ‘gathering’ we had after Catherine’s death.  It didn’t make me feel one damn bit better.  I’ve always said that after you lose someone you love, the best thing to do is get on with the business of living.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sydney noticed Miss Parker shift uncomfortably in her seat and take another big swallow of her Scotch.

“Besides, who would come to a service for Jarod?” Mr. Parker continued.  “As far as the world’s concerned, he never existed.”  Then he looked thoughtful.  “Unless this might be a good way to bring Jarod’s family out of hiding, maybe get our hands on the Gemini clone.  Finding that boy is now our top priority, you know.”

Swallowing his anger was leaving an increasingly bitter taste in his mouth, and Sydney didn’t know how much longer he could keep his feelings contained.

“Jarod’s family is too smart to walk into a trap,” Miss Parker said.  “If they didn’t come to rescue him from the Centre when he was still alive, they’re certainly not going to show up now that he’s dead.”  She drained the rest of her drink and set the glass heavily on her father’s desk.

“Good point, Angel.  Best forget about it, Sydney,” Mr. Parker ordered. 

“You’re right,” Sydney said, earning a surprised arch of an eyebrow from Mr. Parker, who clearly had expected more of an argument. “Having a memorial service for Jarod is a terrible idea.  You’re right that no one would come, no one except the very people who made his life a living hell.  Such a gathering would do nothing to honor his memory.  Having the likes of Lyle, Brigitte and you pretend to mourn – when all you’d really be doing is worrying about how his loss will affect the Centre and yourselves – would be like spitting on his grave.  Except he has no grave, does he, because you can’t even let him rest in peace!  You want to bring him back to life so that you can torment him some more!”

He stopped and took a ragged breath, amazed by the torrent he’d just let loose but not regretting one word of it. 

Mr. Parker slowly rose to his feet behind his desk.  “Because you are obviously upset and not thinking clearly,” he said stiffly, “I will choose to overlook this outburst of yours.  But you would be wise, Sydney,” he added ominously, his eyes bright with anger, “to remember to whom you are speaking when in this office.”

Sydney’s heart was pounding, but it was from adrenaline, not alarm.  He knew exactly who he was looking at.  Mr. Parker was a man rocked to his core.  He was a man standing at the epicenter of a seismic event that would send shock waves through the Centre for a long time to come.  He was hanging on to power by his fingertips, and his grip was slipping.  Jarod’s death would have repercussions for every member of the Pretender project. 

Mr. Parker was no fool.  He knew the ground had just shifted under his feet.  Sydney looked at the old man in the impeccable suit trying to appear an imposing figure behind his grand executive desk and felt not a bit of fear.  He had many more things he wanted to say to the Centre’s Director.  But out of consideration for Miss Parker, who was staring at the two men in stunned silence, Sydney decided not to pursue the discussion...at this time.

Instead, he turned and left without another word, yanking open the double doors with a satisfying violence on his way out.

Back in his office, Sydney went directly to the desk drawer where he kept the Cognac, but his hands were shaking too badly to pour himself a glass.  He sank into his chair and stared unseeingly at the bottle.

Now that he’d started to feel the pain, the idea of numbing it with alcohol was appealing.  But the doctor in him knew that by doing so he’d only be postponing the inevitable, and it would be best to deal with his feelings sooner rather than later.

Besides, part of him welcomed the pain, needed to feel all the excruciating agony.  He wasn’t being masochistic.  It was a fitting penance for all the misery he’d heaped on Jarod while he was alive.  Only right that he be made to suffer now from Jarod’s death.

His gaze fell on the model of the Empire State Building in the corner of his office.  That replica, the very first task that Jarod had completed for the Centre, had always been a reminder to Sydney of the limitless potential of one small boy given into his care.  The intricate structure comprised of brightly-colored Legos had served for years as a beacon of hope, demonstrating the power of the mind to produce concrete results.

This one has only been with us for thirty-six hours and he’s already demonstrating more talent than any of our others.

His words to the camera, after viewing the replica that Jarod had built in less than two hours.  At the time, he couldn’t know that there would be no others, that no one would ever match Jarod’s genius abilities.  Or the compassion he felt for others, even after receiving none in his formative years.

How many people died because of what I thought up?

That question, posed by Jarod soon after he first escaped, had haunted both men for years.  Sydney knew that the reason behind much of Jarod’s good works out there in the world was to atone for the sins he felt he’d committed while doing the Centre’s bidding.

 Sydney now asked the question: how many people were helped by Jarod’s genius?  And how many more will never benefit from the kindness of a remarkably gifted stranger?

Hi, Jarod.  I’m Sydney.  I’ll be taking care of you for a while.

And what had he done?  Exactly what the Centre had asked of him.  He’d taken that innocent young boy’s immeasurable talent and twisted it to meet his superiors’ demands.  He’d raised a child and never shown him any affection.

And now he’d never have the chance to tell Jarod how honored he’d been to serve as his father figure, how he’d always thought of him as a son.  How much he loved him.

Damn it all to Hell!  He picked up the liquor bottle and hurled it at the Empire State Building.  The bottle broke and left a trail of dark amber liquid dripping down the sides of the edifice, giving the strange impression that the building was bleeding.  Yet the model remained intact.  He should have been comforted by the fact that this structure, built by Jarod’s hands, endured, but instead it seemed to mock him.  This thing, this inanimate object that was the start of Jarod’s servitude to the Centre, still existed, while its maker was gone.

Jarod was dead.  Dead.

With an inarticulate cry, Sydney lurched to his feet.  He grabbed the swing-arm lamp from his desk and used it as a weapon to batter and smash the sculpture until the replica was finally reduced to a pile of rubble.  Then, panting from physical and emotional exertion, Sydney fell to his knees among the wreckage and wept.