Chapter 4: The Triumvirate


In the morning Jarod repeated the unsuccessful experiment from Saturday. The beautiful pictures and postcards that made Jarod’s
work in the chemistry lab a special joy were gone and the lab felt bare and empty. Jarod was bored by his experiment and sleep was
coming to demand its rights that were denied to it last night.
Jarod felt the card in his pants pocket. He had only one chance to protect Miss Parker and convince Sydney that she hadn’t been
with him in the lab.

Miss Parker House/ Sydney’s Office, Sunday morning
Catherine Parker held her cell phone between her head and her shoulder, as she unlocked the door and lifted her bag over the
threshold of her house.
“No, I don’t think so.” She said to the person on the line. She went to her living room but neither her daughter nor her husband was
there.
“He almost destroyed the lab and tried to break the dish washer.” Sydney, who sat in his office, explained desperately. “Catherine, I
don’t know what to do anymore to protect him.”
She went into the kitchen and took a cup from the kitchen cabinet. “Well, I don’t know why he doesn’t like dish washers but,
Sydney, he is still a kid.” She spotted her daughter and whispered into the phone. “My daughter always does such stupid things. I
have talks with her teachers all the time.” With one hand she prepared herself an instant coffee while listening to him. She then
answered. “Do you mean safety or control?” She said filling her cup with water. “Yes I know.” She sighed and put her cup into the
microwave. “Ok, bye.” She finished the call.
Her daughter sat on the kitchen stair and starred in to the garden. Her mother tiptoed from behind to her and said:
“Booh!”
“Hi, Mom.” Miss Parker said lamely.
“Oh, don’t be so excited that your mother is home again.” She sat next to her daughter on the stair. “What are you marveling at?
The green grass?” She joshed her daughter.
“Oh, Mama, I think got someone into trouble.”
“In school?” Catherine hoped and got serious again. It would be no fun if it had something to do with the Centre.
“Yes, in school.” Miss Parker lied. “Well I have this friend, and she did the homework for another friend.”
“Really? How nice of her.” Catherine commented her daughter’s semi-confession.
“And then something went wrong.”
Meanwhile at the Centre
Jarod entered the tech-room that was separated from the hall by a wall of glass. No one was here. On three servers, as big as a man,
lights were blinking and their coolers humming softly. The computers on the workplaces were connected with a tangled mass of
cables.
There was also a massive filing cabinet. It was opened and filled with boxes. Instead of files , the boxes were filled with thousands of
little silver discs which contained millions of bits of data. This was the digital simulation archive. Jarod read the labels:
Tower, Lobby, SL-5, SL-19, SL-21, Sim-Lab I-21 SL, Sim-Lab II SL-22
Jarod was amazed that they really kept all those records. He took the box with SL-21. The level he lived on.
On the labeled disc he read: “Jarod March 1989”. Ten discs at a time were separated by a register. On the next register he read:
“Jarod April 1989”. He packed the box back into the cabinet and calculated. Three days worth of data were on one disc. He was
amazed by that technology.
Then he spotted a silver case in the cabinet on which there was a note in a familiar handwriting:
“Sydney’s Archive”
Jarod opened the case and saw that it was a player for these little discs. The discs in the case had their own classification system.
Jarod read:
“Jarod – Important Simulations 1991-1994;
Jarod – Pivotal Moments of Development 1987 – 1994;
Jarod – Best solutions 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994”
He shut the case again and focused back on his task. He had to find the DSA disc from yesterday. He found a box on which was
written: SL-17 Science Laboratories. He ran through the discs to find the right date: March, April, May…but instead of the disc there
was only another note.
“Record 06-13-1994 5:00:00 – 6-14-1994 8:00:00-4:37:15 is filed under “Pretender Project” division “Jarod”. The text was a blank
where someone filled in the dates and the name of the project by handwriting.
Jarod felt very little and valueless, when he perceived himself as a project. With an empty feeling he finally found what he was
looking for in that box where he had looked first. He heard someone coming.
“Hello!?” A woman entered the tech-room. “Heeelloo!?” She asked again. “Lenny, are you there?” She crossed the room and looked
into the small kitchen, blotched with coffee stains and crumbles of muesli. She shrugged and went to the cabinet which was left
open. She closed it with a loud thud and locked it with a key.
“So much for the safety of sensitive data” she mumbled to herself. Then she hid the key in the plant pot on the cabinet and left the
tech room.
Jarod sat underneath a desk, the DSA clutched to his chest. His heart was pounding heavily. He carefully peered out from under the
table. The tech-room was empty again. Jarod dared to came out of his hiding place when someone grabbed him by the scruff of his
neck.
“Damn, where the hell are you coming from?” a man with long hair, flannel shirt and glasses swore. On his name tag Jarod could
read: “Lenny”
Parkers House
Catherine drunk up her coffee and wondered why there were letters on the bottom of the cup. She rinsed it out and read: “Property
of the Centre” She turned the cup around and saw the Centre-emblem on the backside of the cup. She was thinking of how that cup
came into her kitchen when the phone rang.
In Sydney’s office
Sydney paced up and down until Catherine picked up her telephone. Before she could say anything he said:
“Catherine, your husband wants Jarod to appear before the triumvirate.”
“Why? Because of a little foam in a dishwasher and some nasty stains in the lab?” she asked disbelieving. “No, it’s not about that. He
escaped from the sublevels and tried to steal a DSA from the tech-room.”
“How is that possible? The doors are safe, aren’t they?”
“He has a general keycard with the highest level of authority. “Just like the one …”
“…my husband owns.” She completed.
“Exactly! Jarod must have stolen it from him.”
Catherine looked at the cup in her hand. Then she understood.
“Sydney”, she said, “hold the line.”
Miss Parker entered the room and saw how her mother rummaged hectically through the family safe. Catherine took the phone
again.
“Did he really call the triumvirate?” She asked and Miss Parker was terrified as she heard those words. Catherine continued:
“Sydney, I am coming to the Centre.” She hung up, took her car keys and a jacket.
“Momma, I am coming with you.”
“No!”
“But Momma…” Miss Parker said regretful “It was me, not Jarod.”
“I know” Catherine answered coldly.
“Then why I can’t go with you?”
“Because you’re grounded for two weeks!”
“But Momma…”
“Three weeks!” She had that severe look on her face that said: No more discussion.
Miss Parker fell quiet.
Isolation cell SL-21
Jarod sat on the cot, which was the only furniture in that small and empty room. Grey walls and an ugly green iron door surrounded
Jarod. The door was opened with a squeak. Two men in black suits and dark faces grabbed Jarod on his arms and dragged him out.
In a dim lit hall he had to sit down on the long side of a T-shaped table. Three big shadows were opposite him. He couldn’t see their
faces.
“Every misdoing deserves a punishment.” one of the shadows said.
Another shadow asked: “Did you leave the sublevel without permission?”
“Yes, but that’s just because…” Jarod said nervously when the door behind him was opened. The Sweeper brought Miss Parker in
and escorted her in a smaller room next door.
“Did you leave the sublevel without permission?” The shadow asked again.
“Y Y..Y..Yes” Jarod stuttered.
“Every misdoing deserves a punishment.” Said the third of the three shadows. Jarod could hear Miss Parker screaming in the room
next door.
“No!” he jumped from his seat. “It was me, I did that, I did that.”
The door opened again and the sweepers brought Sydney.
“Did you steal from Mr. Parker?” One of the shadows asked. Sydney looked at Jarod with a disappointed face.
“Jarod” he said. “Jarod, wake up!”
Jarod woke up with a start and noticed that he was still in the isolation cell. Sydney stood next to the cot with a worried face.
“We have to go now,” Sydney said sadly. Jarod got up. Mr. Parker and a sweeper were already waiting for him in front of the cell.
“Hold it!” a female voice said. It was Catherine Parkers’.
The group turned around.
“Catherine, what are you doing here?” Mr. Parker called out in surprise.
“Darling, you are making a mistake. Please have a look into your wallet.”
“Catherine, what is this about? We better not keep them waiting.” He said impatient.
“Please just do it.” She insisted.
Mr. Parker surrendered and showed her his wallet. She found an Access-Card. Mr. Parker was confused.
“Boy, where did you get that card?” He pointed to the other card in Sydney’s hand.
“Jarod has nothing to do with it” Catherine intervened.
“Then who does?”
“It’s our daughter.”
Mr. Parker fell silent.
“What do you think? Should we sick the triumvirate on her too?” Catherine provoked her husband. “Have you even seen what is on
this disk?” she interrogated on and yanked the DSA from Sydney which he was holding in a sandwich bag.
Simulations lab, a few minutes later
Sydney turned off the projector and the light on. From out of the corner you could hear someone sobbing. It was Jarod. Catherine
sat immediately next to him. An embarrassed Mr. Parker, looked the other way.
“Jarod-honey, why are you crying?” She said soothing.
Sydney and Mr. Parker started discussing. Jarod cried on. Catherine asked him dovelike: “Jarod, this card. Did Miss Parker give it to
you?”
Jarod noded.
“I will never see her again, right?” he asked hesitantly. Catherine looked to her husband.
“…and in future you are responsible for that!” Mr. Parker pointed his Finger on Sydney and left the room.
“Of course you can see her again.” She laid his arm around him. “You just have to wait three weeks.”
Parker House, three weeks later
Miss Parker filled her watering can and walked into her room. She had planted a piece of lawn into a flower pot. When she had
finished watering it, she wrapped it in a paper bag. With her little package she stood at the doorstep facing the outside.
“You really think Jarod would like that kind of a present?” Her mother asked.
“Yes, I think so.” She smiled to herself.
“Alright, you can go.”
As soon as Catherine spoke those words, Miss Parker started to run towards the Centre.

The End