Chapter 3: Sea-Saw

The Street Between ‘The Centre’ and the Parker’s House.

Miss Parker ran as fast as she could to get home before her father got back. If she could convince her
Dad that she hadn’t been in the lab she would not get into trouble, even though Jarod would, and
probably already is. Sydney’s endless bla bla bla, is nasty but bearable.
Suddenly, she heard a car coming near. As there is usually never much traffic on a Saturday between the
Centre and Blue Cove, most likely, this could only be one person. Miss Parker jumped quickly into the
field of corn that was next to the street and cowered underneath the plants. It was close but the driver
of the Mercedes e-class didn’t notice her. When Miss Parker came out from her hiding place she could
catch a glimpse of the license plate.
MR-P 1
“Merde!” Miss Parker swore and stamped her foot.

She decided to take the shortcut through the field. The corn plants, which were as tall as a man and the
soft soil made the running harder than thought. At the end of the field Miss Parker could already see her
house meanwhile her father had to drive until Market Place before turning into the street that lead to
their home.

They arrived the same time.

Miss Parker cowered in the hedge and listened when Mr. Parker turned off the engine. The evenings
semi-darkness had already crept in. She heard him open the door to the house and go inside. Miss
Parker sneaked to the backdoor. When her father turned on the lights in the kitchen, Miss Parker
jumped out of the beam and pushed herself as close as possible against the wall of the house.

Mr. Parker went through the house and turned on the lights everywhere.
“Angel?” He called into the kitchen. Then he went upstairs.

Miss Parker watched the window of her room. When the lights were turned on in it she entered the
kitchen through the backdoor and ran into the downstairs bathroom. Quickly Miss Parker got rid of her
wet clothes. She heard the steps of her father leaving the house again. A short glance in the mirror
showed her that her hair was still wet. Only wrapped in a white towel she opened the door.

“Daddy” she said. Her father turned at the doorstep.
“Angel, there you are. Why didn’t you wait for me?”
Miss Parker showed her most innocent face: “It was so boring, so I went home.”
Her father believed her and went into the kitchen but Miss Parker got in his way.
“Daddy, can’t we go to Giovanni’s?”
“No Angel, I am too tired for that.” He moved closer to the cabinet where they usually kept their cups.
“Oh Daddy pleeeaaase” she begged and took away his hand he already laid on the handle. “There’s
nothing in the fridge anyway” She nodded to the fridge. Mr. Parker considered for a moment.

“Okay. I just wanted to have coffee. But Giovanni’s coffee is indeed the best.” He said and put his jacket
back on.

In the Centre, 11 pm
Jarod stopped the now working pump of the dishwasher and opened the cover for the umpteenth time.
There was still foam. Jarod again took a sponge , thoroughly removing the flakes of foam from the inside
of the dishwasher. He already had cleaned up the whole lab with Sydney’s help.
“No” he heard Sydney’s soft voice from the small corridor. “No, Michelle, you know how it is. This is the
Centre.”
There was silence. Obviously Michelle on the other end of the phone line said something.
“I assure you we will meet tomorrow, in the afternoon - or better yet, late in the evening.”
Jarod closed the cover. Finally the dishwasher was clean. Sydney continued talking on the phone peering
to Jarod. “Mh.” He said. “Mh” He turned his back on Jarod. Jarod knew they were talking about him.
Listening on the phone Sydney turned back to Jarod and saw that he stopped working. Sydney pointed
with his finger to the pot with the burnt potatoes. When Jarod started scrubbing the bottom of the pot
he could not understand about what Sydney was talking on the phone. Sydney hung up.
Before he had been interrupted by that call Sydney had packed personal items from the lab staff into a
box and wrote a note for them. He hoped that would improve Jarods focus on his tasks. He even
emptied a half-full cup of coffee, one the staff members had left in the sink and put into the dishwasher.
Jarod placed the clean pot into the cupboard. Sydney grabbed one last item and let it disappear into his
box. It was the photograph that Jarod was looking at, before Miss Parker had appeared. Sydney watched
the clean lab.

“Okay, Jarod, well done. Tomorrow you are going to repeat your experiments and write the protocols,
alright?”
“Yes, Sydney”

Sydney escorted Jarod to his room and closed the door behind him.

At night, Parkers house
Miss Parker opened the door of her room and tiptoed past the room where her father was asleep. Every
sound seemed to be louder at night than at day. She rifled through the coat pockets of Mr. Parker. In his
wallet she found what she was looking for. It was a white plastic card with a magnetic strip on it. She put
it in to her pocket and left the house.

At night, Jarod’s room
The little metal plate that usually covered the door electronics hanged crooked on the wall only secured
by one screw. Behind it was a nest of thin colored cables. With pincers he cut through one of the cables
and removed a piece of insulation. He repeated that with another cable and held their endings together.
He heard that familiar buzz that implied that the door had opened.

He pulled the door open and held his breath. The corridor was empty. Jarod ran a lot of corridors and
stairs into the lab. He deactivated the camera by cutting of the power supply cable. He took the dishes
from the hiding place and placed it piece by piece into the dishwasher. While the machine ran, Jarod
took papers, clothes and bubble wrap from storage.
When the dishwasher was ready he neatly packed the items between the cups and plates. Jarod was
very satisfied with himself. Even when he took the wheel barrow down that one stair in front of the lab,
he could hear the rubber tire on the floor but no clattering dishes.
Jarod went to the door where he was not allowed to go and opened it carefully.
There was a sweeper roaming the corridor who was reporting his status into a walkie-talkie.
“Patrol to base, Over”
“This is base, go ahead”
“Everything’s quiet on SL-17. I’m heading to the science labs, over?”
“Roger, copy that.”
Jarod quickly closed the door and went to the sim-lab. He wouldn’t have a chance to leave the Centre
through the main house, especially with a wheelbarrow so he left it at the stairs, took scissors from
Sydney’s office, and opened the ventilation shaft, climbing in.

The Center Outside
Miss Parker arrived at the center and went to the parking lot. With the access card she stole from her
father she opened the doors. She walked to the lifts and pressed SL-17. When Miss Parker arrived, it was
dark. The only light were the green escape route lights. She passed a sign on which was written “science
labs”.
She entered the lab that she escaped from earlier that day noticing it was clean. Nothing was left from
the chaos she had left in the afternoon. Miss Parker was looking for the wheel barrow in the bio-lab. But
it was gone. Miss Parker hoped that Jarod didn’t tell Sydney about her idea to use the dishwasher. But
why had her father not say something about it? And where were her mother’s dishes?
When she couldn’t find them in the sim-lab, she decided to ask Jarod himself. But his quarters were in
the top security tract. Even Mr. Parker’s access card had not enough authority to open the door to his
space. Sydney said that because Jarod is so valuable, some bad guys might decide to abduct him. That’s
why no one in the center carried around an all access card. She knew that in her father’s safe in their
living room was another card. It had the appropriate authority level. So she went back home.

The Centre, outside, emergency exit
Of course he knew it, but still he was a little disappointed, when he saw that it was dark when he
opened the heavy fire door and entered the outside world. He felt a gentle breeze on his face. It smelt
of salt, grass and soil. Jarod remembered those scents from his early childhood, but because of the long
isolation, he felt them very intense now. He looked up at the stars and listened to the wind hissing
through the grass on the dike. But then he remembered why he came here and started to run.
All Jarod knew was that Miss Parker lived near the Centre. He ran over the dike to the only street that
led away from the Centre. When he reached that little town he went from house to house to find out
where Miss Parker lived.
“The Donovan’s live here.” He read on a big stone in front of a house that had a smiley face painted on
it. Jarod walked to the next house. This time there was no reference of who lived there. Not even on the
fence or the mail box. Carefully Jarod tried the gate, but it was locked. So he decided to climb over the
wooden fence. When he had taken steps towards the house, someone turned on the lights. A loud
barking dog ran after Jarod who ran back to the fence. Just before the dog was able to bite him, it was
stopped by an invisible wall. The Dog barked and growled, jumping up and down. Jarod turned around
and saw that the dog was on a chain that kept him from Jarod by only a few inches.
“Hey! Get off of my property!” A man shouted from the window and attached a word Jarod had never
heard before. When the man fired a shot into the air with his rifle, Jarod jumped over the fence and
crawled underneath a nearby bush. It was suddenly quiet, Jarod could hear the door of the house
close. He immediately got up and ran back up the street to the Centre, in sheer panic and horror.

In front of the Parker House
When Miss Parker arrived, she saw that the light in the kitchen window was turned on. From far away
she could hear the Carlson’s dog barking. The kitchen light turned out again. She went around the
corner to the backdoor that lead directly into the kitchen. She prayed that her father drank his midnight
milk straight from the milk carton as he usual does and had not suddenly decided to use a cup. Maybe
her mother was the only Parker ever that used a glass or a cup for drinking milk. Suddenly she heard a
gunshot. The light in the kitchen was turned on again. Miss Parker pushed herself close to the house
wall. Her Father had opened the window and looked curiously into the direction of the Carlsons house.
When the dog stopped barking he shrugged his shoulders and closed the window. When Miss Parker
heard her father ascend the stairs, she quietly went into the house, took her father high priority access
card, put the other back in his wallet and headed for the Centre again.

On the street to the Centre
Jarod could already see the Centre and had slowed down his pace, when he saw two lights. “This must
be a car” he thought. At the same time he developed disastrous ideas of who the driver could be.
Maybe it was the man whose property he trespassed. Would he have his dog with him? Maybe the
Centre was already looking for him? He looked left and right for a hiding place. The car came
dangerously close just a second before could be seen in the lights, he jumped into the corn field and ran
as fast as he could. The corn plants grazed his face so he lifted his arms to protect his eyes. Corn plant by
corn plant buckled underneath his fast steps. Even if he had ran already very deep into the field, he
didn’t feel safe. He looked around to see if someone was following him when he bumped into
something hard, that threw him down the ground.
“Outch!” the obstacle said. Jarod rubbed his head looking to see who had talked. Opposite to him, her
legs sprawled out, sat Miss Parker touching her hurting head.
“Jarod?!” she said shocked. She never saw her friend outside the Centre before. “What are you doing
here?”
“I was looking for you, Miss Parker. “ He helped Miss Parker on her feet.
I wanted to give you your tableware back, but I couldn’t use the elevator and the wheel-barrow is too
heavy for the stairway…”
“Are you insane?! We are in real trouble now!” Miss Parker asked herself why Jarod was so eager to
help her with her stupid idea that she already regretted. They started to walk back to the Centre.
“Where are the dishes? I Couldn’t find them in the lab.” Miss Parker finally asked.
“They are in the emergency stairwell in the South-East wing. That is the only way outside I know.” He
explained apologetic.

With Miss Parker’s card it was easy to get the wheel-barrow out of the Centre without someone
noticing. Jarod had the wheel-barrow when they were on their way back to Miss Parker’s house. The
soft dawn had made the stars invisible. A golden belt formed on the horizon between the sea and a few
dark clouds. Unnoticed, Jarod became slower and slower. Although he knew the sea and the sun from
books and his early childhood, he was amazed by their beauty and grandeur. The light he saw shining in
the sky gave him a peaceful and yearning feeling.
“Jarod, please hurry. It’s dawning already.” She complained. Jarod forced himself to look away from the
wonders of nature. He focused on their way until they reached Miss Parkers house.
“You live here, Miss Parker?” Jarod asked.
“Shh, yes I do!” She whispered and laid her finger on his lips. She slowly opened the kitchen door to
avoid noises that could wake up her father.
“It’s much smaller than the Centre.” Jarod whispered and looked at the beautiful house in awe.
“Of course, genius! There are only three of us. Now be quiet. My father is sleeping upstairs. She pointed
with her finger up to the window above them. Then she started to unpack the plates and carried them
into the kitchen. Jarod still kept his hand on the handles of the wheel-barrow and looked to the window.
The thought of Mr. Parker sleeping there gave him the creeps.
“Gonna help me or not?” Jarod quickly stopped his gazing up and helped Miss Parker. There were a lot
of interesting things in the house that Jarod had never seen before. Although he was very curious about
them he tried to focus and followed Miss Parkers short commands like: “Put this in here!” or “Give me
that plate!”
Finally Miss Parker laid back fork by fork, knive by knive and spoon by spoon into the drawer. Jarod put
the last plate into the cupboard and walked outside again.

In meantime the sun had risen and Jarod realized that the soft ground he stood on was green. Green
grass. Like on the picture with the boy and the dog he had seen in the lab. He fell on his knees and
touched the grass. It was wet and cold. He caressed it gently and watched every single blade of grass.
The feelings in his hand had loosened a distant memory:
He saw a woman with long, reddish-blonde hair. She was tall and slim. In a garden she hung white
sheets on a clothes line. Jarod passed her running and let his paper plane fly through the air until it
landed in the green grass. He picked it up and in doing so his fingers felt the grass. He pulled some of it
out and smelled it. ”Jarod..” the beautiful woman said. “Momma, it smells sooo good.” A younger Jarod
passed the grass to his smiling mother for her to smell it too.
”Jarod!” Miss Parker said low but resolute.

Jarod woke up from his daydream and felt immediately ashamed about kneeling there in the grass and
holding a bunch of it in his hand.

Miss Parker gaped at him feeling pity.

In this moment she realized, that her playmate Jarod was an innocent prisoner. A child, growing up in a
prison. And his jailors were not that kind of people to play with, as soon as they would notice that he
escaped from his cell. That’s why she reacted:
“Jarod, quick, we have to get back!”
Jarod picked himself up when they both heard the sound of wood scratching on wood. Mr. Parker
pushed the window open but. Appalled the children looked up. He didn’t peek out. Hectically Miss
Parker rummaged in her pockets and gave Jarod the white plastic card.
“Take this, Jarod. This opens the doors to your room. Run!”
As he ran, the worry that they would discover his absence became bigger and bigger.

With that card Miss Parker gave him he could ride the elevator directly into the sublevel and no one
could stop him. Not that it was necessary, because at this time on a Sunday, even at the Centre, almost
no one was there.

No one but Sydney.

He was already on his way to Jarod’s room to pick him up. Sydney reached the elevator and pressed the
button several times and was surprised to find the elevator already in use. All he could do was to wait
until it was enabled again.

Jarod reached his room, the door still open as he had left it. He screwed the cover back in place, hid the
tool behind his bed and laid down. Sweaty, out of breath and his head full of new impressions and
thoughts it was difficult to pretend to be asleep. He had just turned his face to the wall and covered
himself, when the door opener buzzed and Sydney entered.
“Jarod, wake up.” He said friendly. Normally the guards snarled a “get up” to him and left. But Sydney
came closer to the bed.
“Jarod are you awake?” He asked and shook Jarod’s shoulder gently. Jarod rolled on his back and
opened his eyes. Sydney saw the sweat on Jarod’s face and his heavy breathing, even when he tried to
hide it. Sydney became worried.
He immediately knew what had happened: “Did you have nightmares again?”
Jarod nodded. With a soothing voice Sydney spoke: “Come on. After showering and breakfast, I will pick
you up for chemistry lab.” Sydney reached out his hand and helped him out of the bed. He wondered
why Jarod had slept in his uniform, but said nothing.
When Sydney had left the room Jarod sagged back into bed, covered his face with his hands and blew
out the breath he had been holding.