Amanda was one of the junior biologists on the team and had been unaware of her wealthy ex-husband's part in the project. She'd nearly died when her scuba gear developed a series of faults that plunged her to a potentially lethal 300 feet underwater, and then cut off her oxygen supply with a minute explosion in her breathing gear. Her quick thinking, ditching the weights, and doing a rapid "free ascent", had saved her life, but left her with a good case of the bends, or decompression sickness as it is now called.
Pneumonia had developed as a complication, trapping her in a hospital bed where her husband tried once again to rid himself of the wife who'd divorced him and gained custody of their two girls. Jarod had orchestrated an elaborate "sting", trapping Mr. Baker in the hospital's decompression chamber and tearing out a confession of his schemes with the threat of his own imminent demise to lethal atmospheric density. Jarod had arranged for the chamber technician to deliver Baker to the police, along with the videotape of his confession, and had the recovering Amanda set up in a small house in Olympia with her daughters, two nurses and a nanny. Of course, Jarod had paid all the expenses and left the small family enough to provide for them until Amanda was fully recovered, then he had retired to his rustic cabin to retrieve his few precious possessions and head out to the site of his next Pretend.
It was a complete shock to find the Parkers, Miss and Lyle, waiting for him. In a dramatic change of tactics they'd tracked down his hideout, instead of trying to intercept him in mid-Pretend, and waited for his return. He'd barely escaped out the back door with his priceless DSA's and metal case. Even so a lucky, or maybe it was unlucky, wildly fired shot had managed to strike the exact spot necessary to cause an explosion in the gas tank of Lyle and Parker's Towncar. Jarod was closest to the car and literally lifted off of his feet and thrown into the woods surrounding his cabin. He didn't dare check on Miss Parker, not with Lyle so close, so he'd merely picked himself up from the bushes that had broken his fall, barely noticing his dislocated shoulder in his haste to relocate the metallic briefcase, and ran into the lush rain forest of the Pacific Northwest.
He felt the seeping warmth of blood saturating his right arm, and knew a projectile of some sort had cut him, though he felt no pain yet. The hot liquid streamed down his right arm and onto the case, and knew that he was leaving an easily followed trail behind him.
Even as the realization of his injuries penetrated his anxious mind, he burst out of the trees and onto a narrow, two lane paved road that was wet from the drizzle that had been falling since the sun had gone down. Beginning to weave from exhaustion and blood loss, Jarod fell headlong onto the pavement, pulled himself up again, and began stumbling down the center of the road, thinking only of escape and oblivious to the danger of cars.
The loud blare of a horn and unmistakable hiss of tires sliding on slick blacktop startled him, impelling him to leap to the soggy bank rising on the side of the road.
"You idiot!" The angry female tones of the shaken driver drew his attention to the powder blue Sprint that had managed to stop several yards ahead of him on the road. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I'm sorry." Jarod managed shakily, pulling away from the bank and starting down the road again, towards the woman emerging from her car. "I've got to get away, they'll be here in a minute."
"They who?" The woman asked, moving closer cautiously. "Oh my God!" She exclaimed an instant later when her flashlight beam illuminated his face, scratched and bruised from his precipitous journey into the woods surrounding his cabin hideaway.
"What happened to you?"
"Got to get away." Jarod repeated anxiously, his brown eyes blank with shock. "Please, help?" He stumbled again and fell to his knees, losing his grip on the case
"C'mon." The woman approached him quickly, grabbing him supportively around the waist as he struggled back to his feet, and grabbing the case even as he reached out for it. "I can at least get you to a hospital."
She shoved him into the passenger seat, putting the case on the floor under his feet and buckling his seatbelt before slamming the door shut and hurrying to slide behind the wheel of the car. In moments she had the car in gear and headed back down the road cut into the foothills of the Cascades. Lyle, scratched, dirty and perspiring, emerged from the trees just in time to see the taillights of the woman's car disappearing around a bend in the road.
"Damn!" He cursed, his brown eyes seeming black as he glared impotently down the road.
"Too late again?" Miss Parker taunted, emerging from the trees only slightly less mussed. "Well, we might as well start walking then, thanks to you the Towncar is toast."
She looked down at her attractive, but inappropriate high heeled sandals and sighed in resignation. "Well, they were ruined in that little nature walk anyway." She muttered to herself, kicking them off and stalking furiously down the road in her bare feet.
"When I get my hands on Jarod..!" Lyle muttered ominously, prompting a derisive laugh from his sister.
"IF, you get your hands on Jarod!" She corrected him acidly, throwing the comment over her shoulder. "So far he's managed to outthink you every time. We're still three steps behind him."
"No, we almost had him this time." Lyle contradicted her, his rage rising as he registered the damage done to his expensive silk suit. "I *will* get him, dear sister, I swear."
"Right." She laughed dismissively. "In the meantime why don't you use your dizzying intellect to find us a ride?"
As the unhappy siblings sniped at each other and hiked for the nearest phone, Jarod roused himself enough to reassure himself of the presence of his all important briefcase, and contradict his rescuer's plans to drop him off at the nearest emergency room.
"No." He told her with remarkable firmness considering the fact that his face was pale and his lips nearly bloodless. "I can't go to an emergency room---they'll be checking the hospitals. Just take me to a motel. A small, out of the way, motel."
The woman pulled her eyes off the road long enough to give him an assessing look, her royal blue eyes seeming to penetrate through his attempt to seem perfectly okay.
"Not a chance, buddy." She responded with more believable firmness, glancing at the blood that had saturated the side of her T-shirt as she helped him to the car. "You need medical attention."
"Look, I'm a doctor." He told her, muttering, "sometimes", under his breath. "I can doctor myself."
"You're about to pass out." The woman pointed out sensibly.
"If you take me to an emergency room I'll just turn around and walk back out." He threatened desperately.
"All right!" She snapped irritably. "I'll take you to my place. You'd better not be running from the law, though. I'll turn you in myself!"
"No, they aren't the law. Just really, really ruthless." Jarod mumbled, his head sagging back wearily as he gave in to his injuries.
"Up, up!" The woman's voice, low for a female, roused him from the numb half-sleep he'd slipped into. "Lean on me." She ordered, grabbing him once again firmly around the waist and supporting his sagging weight on one sturdy hip.
"C'mon, buddy, give me a little help here!" She panted, struggling with the man who topped her own 5'6" by at least six inches. Jarod struggled against the blinding pain of his dislocated shoulder, and mustered the energy to stumble into the tidy little A-frame cabin. The woman bullied him into the front room and to an overstuffed sofa in front of a cheerful fire and let him sag down, muttering dire imprecations as his blood stained the pretty floral upholstery.
"You're bleeding like a stuck pig!" She informed him, unnecessarily, as she disappeared into a room off of the front room. She reappeared moments later with towels and washcloths, a big bowl of water and a large pair of scissors.
"Wake up, Dr. Welby." She ordered him, rousing him from a gray fog of pain and exhaustion. "I can't do this without help, so you need to tell me what to do.
"She began cutting his shirt off as she spoke.
"Hey! What're you doing?" Jarod demanded, jolted into full awareness.
"Making sure your shirt isn't hiding some other injury. I'll get your pants after we deal with the bleeding." She responded crisply. "Unless, of course, you want me to try and pull your T-shirt off over a dislocated shoulder?"
"How do you know it's dislocated?"
"The way you're holding that arm. If it were broken you'd be cradling it, not trapping it against your body like that. Besides, there's no bruising that I can see and no indentation to indicate a break."
"You seem to know what you're doing, so what do you need me for?" Jarod asked, his white lips pulled in a small smile.
"My first aid extends to immobilize and use pressure to stop the bleeding. If you won't go to a doctor you're going to need me to do a lot more than that." She firmly pressed a washcloth against the gash on his right biceps and used another washrag, dampened from the water in the bowl, to wash away the worst of the blood on his arm and side.
"Okay." She announced moments later, looking directly at Jarod for the first time since she'd picked him up on the road. "As far as I can tell this laceration on your right arm and the dislocated left shoulder are the biggest problems. What do you think, Doc?"
"I think you're right." Jarod agreed, smiling at her patent skepticism in his doctoring credentials. "If you'll use something to hold the washcloth on my arm I'll talk you through relocating my shoulder. Then we can figure out how to stitch the cut."
"Yes, I suppose I do have to relocate the shoulder, don't I?" She asked rhetorically, her face paling at the thought.
"Better you than me. I'm not sure I can remain conscious long enough to do it myself. I've lost more blood than is good for me. Besides, relocating my shoulder by myself once was enough." Jarod affirmed steadily.
"Oh God! What have I gotten myself into this time?" The woman asked herself shakily. She pressed a trembling hand firmly over her eyes before drawing in a deep breath and lowering the hand.
"Okay." She said more firmly. "What do I do?" Her blue eyes were almost a dark gray with distress.
"Take my left wrist, get a good grip, and pull my arm steadily away from my body until you feel the joint pop back into place." Jarod told her, bracing himself for the pain. "It's going to hurt me like blazes, so ignore it if I yell or pass out, just keep pulling out until it's back into place. Otherwise you're just going to hurt me for nothing, got it?"
"You'd better be worth this, buddy." The threatened half seriously, wiping her perspiring hands down her jeans before grabbing the indicated wrist.
"Brace your foot against my ribs." He advised before she started to pull. "You'll need the leverage. Ahhhhhh!" He ended with a shout of pain as she placed her left foot against his side and pulled in one smooth motion. If he hadn't hurt so bad at the time he might have appreciated the fact that she didn't yank, but pulled out in a fluid, firm way until the joint popped and she dropped the arm quickly.
"Are you okay? Did I do it right?" She demanded anxiously, looking a little nauseated.
"Yeah, yeah you got it." Jarod gasped, surfacing from a sea of pain and fighting down his own nausea. "Now we've got to get this arm stitched."
"No way." She announced firmly, shaking her head and making pushing motions with her hands for emphasis as she backed away from Jarod. "No way am I going to stitch your arm."
"You have to." He countered reasonably. "Look, I've already bled through this washcloth, if you don't---"
"Uh uh!" She shook her head again. "You need stitches, you go to a doctor!"
"I can't. They'll be looking for me at the local hospitals. They'll know from the blood trail I left that I'm hurt bad enough to need medical care."
"Look, I'm just a normal person!" The woman protested desperately. "I don't know how to do stitches and I don't keep the supplies on hand either. There's no needle, no thread, and no Lydocaine to numb your arm. I am *not* doing it."
"What about a fishing hook and some fine nylon fishing line?"
"A fishing hook?!" Her voice rose dramatically, ending with a squeak of dismay. "You want me to push a fishing hook through your arm?"
"You need a curved needle to get the line deep enough into the flesh to hold the edges of the cut together. It has to be done." He added, putting as much persuasion and pleading into his voice as he could.
"Damnation." She muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose until her finger and thumb were white with pressure. "Damn, damn, damn, damn." She added for good measure. Jarod waited patiently, knowing when not to push.
"Okay." She sighed again, lowering her hand. "No fishing hooks---you can't tell me they won't do more damage than good. Give me a few minutes to see what I can do."
Jarod waited, holding a fresh rag against the still bleeding cut as firmly as his tender shoulder allowed. The woman reappeared with an armful of supplies. She had a sewing box, a marble rolling pin, a small hammer, and a spool of clear nylon thread for sewing sleeping bags and coats with. Jarod watched in fascination as she used needle-nosed pliers to hold a straight sewing needle against marble handle of the rolling pin and the hammer to bend the needle into a half circle that was nearly identical to a hospital suturing needle.
"Will this work?"
"Yes." Jarod agreed, his eyes shining with admiration. "That's very ingenious."
"I watched a lot of MacGyver growing up." She responded dismissively.
"MacGyver?" Jarod repeated blankly.
"You never saw MacGyver?" She returned with amazement. "Where'd you grow up? A basement somewhere?"
"Something like that." Jarod agreed dryly.
She raised one eyebrow questioningly but only said, "Now, how do I start?"
She listened carefully as he explained where to place the stitches and how far apart they should be. She practiced tying a few knots and sterilized the needle and thread with rubbing alcohol. Finally, she cut several lengths of the nylon thread, giving herself a few extra lengths, just in case.
"Okay." She said at last, almost managing to suppress the tremor in her voice completely. "I guess I'm ready."
"Go ahead." Jarod encouraged her, his warm brown eyes steady and encouraging. "Trust me, I'll survive."
"If I wanted to be a doctor," she muttered fiercely, selecting the spot for the first stitch and placing the needle gently against it.
"I'd have finished medical school!" With a firm push and a flick of her wrist she drove the needle through his arm and up through the other side of the gash that she held closed with her left hand.
Using Jarod's instructions she tied the knot and moved onto the next spot. She focused intently on her task, filtering out Jarod small hisses of pain and the involuntary flinching her ministrations caused. Fifteen minutes later she smeared an antibiotic ointment on his arm, covered it with a rectangular gauze pad and wrapped the stretchy white gauze bandaging around the arm a few times before fastening it down with medical tape.
"Okay?" She asked him, surfacing from her self induced trance.
"Yeah." Jarod told her breathlessly, still caught up in pain. "It's perfect."
"Good." She told him, looking blankly over his shoulder. She got up, ignoring the mess of supplies around her, and vanished into a door just a few steps off of the front door. Moments later Jarod heard the unmistakable sounds of a person violently expelling the contents of their stomach. He thought about getting up and trying to help her, but lacked the energy and just leaned his head against the back of the sofa instead. Several minutes later a toilet flushed and she re-entered the front room, pale and trembling, but in control of herself.
"I'm sorry." He said contritely, knowing that her illness was a result of the stress of relocating his arm and stitching the laceration.
"Forget it." She ordered him with a steely gaze backing up her words. "I certainly intend to." She added fervently. She gathered up the mess left by her first aid attempt and left the room without meeting his gaze again. When she returned she had a cheerful green and red checked flannel shirt draped over her arm and several squares of white cotton fabric.
"Let me help you into this shirt, then I'm going to bind your arm so you don't move that shoulder until it has more of a chance to heal." She told him, steadfastly ignoring the minute tremors still shuddering through her.
"Shouldn't you take a break first?" Jarod asked, concerned by her continuing shakiness.
"No. When I relax I'm going to cry---for a very long time. I can't afford to give into that yet. You still need to get something hot and liquid into you and then I need to put you to bed. Then I can break down." She answered mechanically, holding out the flannel shirt in silent command.
"Okay." He surrendered, but continued to watch her with concern. Something about her pulled at his memory. He almost felt like he'd met her, or at least seen her, before, but he couldn't figure out where.
She focused as intently on immobilizing his right arm and preparing him a simple meal of soup and toasted cheese sandwiches as she had on stitching his arm and actually seemed to relax slightly by the time she'd seated him at the kitchen table to eat. She'd declined his request to join him in the meal, placing a protective hand over her uneasy stomach as she did. Instead, she attacked the bloodstains on the sofa with a vigor, managing to remove most of the unsightly marks before he finished his meal and made his way from the kitchen back to the front room. She was sitting on the hearth, looking blankly at the inky darkness visible through the floor to ceiling windows in the front of the house, with tears glittering in her eyes.
"Hey." Jarod said quietly, sitting down beside her. "Are you okay?"
"No." She whispered softly, a tear spilling over to wend its way down her cheek. "I can't handle stuff like that."
He knew, instinctively, she meant the minor surgery she'd performed.
"You did great." He assured her, dismay rising in him as more tears followed the first.
"I keep feeling the needle going through your arm." She shuddered violently, her eyes closing in a futile attempt to block out that vivid memory.
"Please, don't!" Jarod begged, wrapping his less damaged right arm around her comfortingly. "I wanted you to----I needed you to do that for me. Don't feel bad because of it."
"I can't help it!" She sobbed, giving in to the gentle pressure of his arm to rest her head on his shoulder. "I can feel it all, and I know how it felt for you! It's horrible!"
"Shh, shh." Jarod soothed her, his hand rubbing her back gently and his chin resting lightly on her head. "It's okay, it's all over now. I'm sorry I asked you. I'll never do it again. It's okay now." He continued to hold her while she wept, murmuring reassuring phrases and noises, not even paying attention to what he was saying, just trying to soothe her distress. Finally she pulled back, sniffing as she pulled a tissue from the box on the mantle.
"I'm sorry." She muttered with her eyes downcast. "I should be showing you the bedroom, not crying all over you."
"Hey," Jarod stood easily, his amazing stamina already at work overcoming the trauma's of the day. He lifted her chin, blue eyes met brown, and he gave his most winning smile. "You've gone above and beyond for me. I'm Jarod, by the way. Jarod----Brown." He added after a moment of lightning fast thought.
"Brown, eh?" An upraised eyebrow in the finest "Spock" style made her disbelief obvious. "Well I'm Theresa, Theresa----Smith." She added mockingly. Jarod colored slightly.
"Look, I'm not trying to deceive you, it's just that----" his voice trailed off uncertainly.
"Who are you running from?" She demanded, even though she'd long ago decided it couldn't be the law. She had a strong suspicion that the people he was running from had a lot to do with his deception. His face was simply too open and gentle for him to be a criminal.
"It's a long story and, honestly, you'd be better off not knowing."
"I think after all I've done for you tonight you owe me an explanation."
Jarod hesitated then sat back down on the hearth, his brown eyes dark and troubled as he weighed his decision carefully. Theresa watched him narrowly for a moment longer, and then sat back down beside him, both of them avoiding the still bloodstained sofa.
"When I was very young I was stolen from my family by a corporation that---" his well rehearsed narrative was cut off by Theresa's gasp of amazement.
"The Centre?" She demanded, her blue eyes sparkling with barely restrained excitement. "Was it the Centre?" She demanded again, leaning forward expectantly.
"How do you know about the Centre?" Jarod demanded, feeling surprised and confused, two emotions he was generally unfamiliar with.
"My brother----my twin was stolen from our family when he was just four. My mom----she never got over his disappearance. Dad went half-crazy looking for him. A few months afterwards he took me and mom and we started to move around. I didn't understand why until a man in a black suit tried to grab me when I came out of the restroom at a city pool. Dad----" she paused, swallowing hard at an unpleasant image.
"He shot the man----I think he killed him. It was the only time I'd ever seen him so angry. He muttered something about 'Centre scum' and I never forgot it. I looked, though, into every 'Center' I could find of any kind. I even hacked into the government's database to make sure it wasn't one of their covert operations. I finally decided I heard him wrong, or imagined it." Theresa's eyes were unfocused and her face filled with anguish as she relived past events.
"Anyway, after that he took me and Mom to Canada and basically parked us on a reservation with some friends of his. Then he left to look for my brother. I haven't seen my father since I was nine and my brother since I was four. I couldn't even start looking for my brother until five years ago. Mom was sick with multiple sclerosis, and she died of complications just a few years ago. I couldn't leave her alone because she wouldn't take care of herself after dad and Tee were gone. The trail is stone cold, please, do you know about the Centre? Where it is? Where my brother might be?"
"You don't want to go to the Centre, believe me." Jarod answered soberly. "Your brother may very well be dead anyway."
"No." Theresa said positively. "He's not, I still feel him sometimes. Not as much as when we were little, but enough to know he's still alive. Please, tell me about this place."
"The Centre is hell on earth, if ever there was such a place. They conduct experiments that take inhumanity to a new level. If your brother was taken there he's dead or altered beyond all recognition."
"Yes, Timmy was changed, I felt it. The scary man----he used to be the bogeyman of my nightmares----his eyes still haunt me, icy blue and pitiless; he changed my brother." Theresa whispered her eyes filling with new tears. "I still have the most horrible nightmares."
"Timmy? Timmy was your brother?" Jarod demanded, his brown eyes wide with shock yet again.
"You know him!" Theresa cried, hope blazing from her face. "Where is he? Tell me Jarod! I've got to know! I will know where he is!"
"Theresa, Timmy doesn't exist anymore." Jarod answered sadly. "Raines---he's the "scary man", he did terrible things to your brother. Now he's called "Angelo" and he's not," Jarod paused, trying to come up with a gentle way to tell Theresa that her brother was basically brain damaged.
"I know." Theresa offered softly, looking blindly at the floor. "He can barely verbalize, he lives in tiny, cramped tunnels, and he thinks more with instinct than rational thought."
"How do you know all of this?"
"He's my twin, I've always known what he was feeling. When he was taken I cried for weeks, I felt his pain as well as my own. The scary man----Raines, invaded my dreams for years, until the day my brother changed. Then the nightmares stopped, but it was too late. My father was gone by then and Mom just didn't seem to care about anything anymore. But even then, even after all that, Tee and I visited each other every night in our dreams. Where is he?" She whispered the last, staring demandingly into Jarod's trouble eyes.
Jarod looked at her face carefully, his earlier half-formed impression of familiarity solidified now that he knew what he was looking for. Her dark blond hair, falling in loose curls around her shoulders, snub nose and high cheekbones were identical to her brother's. Her deep blue eyes were a shade darker than Angelo's, but set at the same, slightly up-tilted angle, and her mouth was just as wide and generous, albeit more feminine.
"I can't tell you, Theresa." He sighed finally. "Angelo wouldn't want me to either."
"I don't care what you think Timmy wants." Theresa told him furiously. "If you don't tell me I'll find out some other way. I'll find those people you're running from and follow *them* to the Centre. Damn it, Jarod! This is my brother we're talking about! What would you do if you had the chance to see your brother after you thought you'd lost him forever?"
Jarod looked down guiltily. She was right, he'd do anything and risk anything to see his own, long lost family, but he still wasn't willing to tell her the location of the Centre. He knew that if he were in her shoes he'd rush right in, waltzing in through the front door, in his eagerness to see his family. If she did that she'd be doomed; the Centre would have her then and there would be no way out.
"You said someone tried to abduct you after Timmy, do you know why?" He finally changed the subject. Theresa stared at him, bitter disappointment written on her face.
"I think they always wanted the two of us." She finally admitted in a somber whisper. "When they got Timmy I was home with the chickenpox. He'd already had them a month earlier and he was grocery shopping with Mom. They got Timmy in the parking lot when Mom went to put the cart back."
"So you're a Pretender too?"
"What's a Pretender?" Theresa questioned. "What, do you act out parts or something? Why would they want children for that?"
"Did your parents go to a fertility clinic to have children?" Jarod asked, confusing Theresa who wondered why he was changing the subject. She didn't know Jarod very well yet, but she was fairly certain he wasn't the sort to change the subject just because he didn't want to talk about something. No, he'd just refuse to tell her anything if he didn't want to tell her, so somehow this question had to do with the answer to her question.
"Yes. Mom had already had two tubal pregnancies, so there wasn't any way she could have children without help."
"Well, while they were helping your folks, they tampered with your genes." Jarod informed her bitterly. "Some of us ended up with a special kind of intelligence, one that lets us be anyone at any time, if we study and focus hard enough."
"I learn quickly, if that's what you're saying. They wanted me to be a doctor when I was younger, but I couldn't handle it. Even knowing that the patient was unconscious I still felt the pain of the procedures as if they were happening to me."
"I think I'd like to try an experiment with you in the morning, if you'll let me." Jarod told her, his expression thoughtful. "It sounds to me as if you at least have Pretender potential. No," he cut off her immediate question with an upraised hand.
"It's late and we're both too tired to go into it more fully tonight." He clarified at her annoyed frown.
"I'll explain it better in the morning, okay?"
Theresa didn't lose her frown, but she did nod a grudging assent.
"Now, didn't you say something about a bed earlier?" Jarod asked, his engaging, little-boy grin appealing to her feminine nature to forgive and nurture. Theresa refused to be so easily won over and she led Jarod upstairs while maintaining a disapproving silence.
Jarod let out a weary sigh as Theresa closed the door to the spare bedroom behind her. The simple, pine framed double bed called to his tired body, but he had one last thing to do before he went to sleep. Quietly, knowing Theresa would undoubtedly be irritated if she saw him heading downstairs again, he crept through the silent and dark house to the front door. His metal case was still in Theresa's little car and he wasn't about to go to sleep without knowing it was safely in the room with him.
"Sydney, how many children, how many lives did they destroy in the Pretender Project?" Jarod's face was lined with fatigue. Pain and nightmares had combined to give him a lousy night of rest and he'd awakened with the conviction that he had to do something to help Theresa.
He believed her threat to find the Centre on her own, and he believed she could do it, given a little time and just one clue. Now that she knew that the Centre existed, and wasn't just a garbled memory, he was confident that she had the native intelligence to ferret out the Centre himself. Rather than having her stumble into the Centre blindly he was trying to find a way to help her see Angelo safely.
"Jarod, you know I don't know much about the other children. Could you, perhaps, be a little more specific?"
"I met someone yesterday. She knew about the Centre because they took her brother----her twin brother." Jarod announced heavily, knowing that Sydney would be affected by the twin relationship.
"And who is she? Who is her brother?"
"He doesn't exist anymore, Sydney, but he used to be a little boy named Timmy."
"Angelo has a sister?"
"A twin sister, and she's got that special link twins sometimes have. She knows most of what happened to him, she'd know Raines on sight, I'm convinced of it, and I suspect her connection to him is the only reason Angelo is functional on any level at all."
"So why call me with this, Jarod? What do you think I can do?"
"She wants to be with her brother."
"That would be a bad idea; especially with Lyle in charge; especially after your escape from his trap for you yesterday."
"She won't be dissuaded, Syd. If I don't help her she'll find her way to the Centre somehow."
"And you want me to...?"
"Bring Angelo to a neutral meeting place. She can see her brother, see how impossible a relationship with him would be, and get on with her life." Jarod suggested, his calm tone belying the worried frown between his eyes.
"I don't think----" Sydney's budding objection was cut short when he heard the clear voice of a woman speaking to Jarod.
"It won't work, Doc." Her voice was rigid as steel. "I don't care how damaged he is---my brother is the last family member I have. I won't leave him alone again. You might as well tell me where this place is and save us both some time."
"Let me speak to her." Sydney offered in Jarod's ear. Wordlessly, Jarod held out the phone to Theresa, who took it gingerly.
"Yes?" She questioned warily.
"You should listen to Jarod." Sydney's measured, soothing voice filled her ear. "The Centre is extremely dangerous, especially for any of the red-file children."
"I don't know anything about "Red-File" children. I just know that the Centre has my brother and I want him."
"I work with Angelo, and I've worked to repair some of the damage done to him, Miss. I assure you he is well treated---"
"Maybe now he is, but he's still my family. I don't know who you are, Mr. Sydney, or why I should trust you. Know this, though, I'm coming. Now that I know the Centre is real, and not a figment of my imagination, I'm going to find it. Talk to your friend Jarod, I've got some packing to do." Theresa shoved the cell-phone into Jarod's hand and stalked out of the room, her back rigid with suppressed fury.
"You tried, Sydney." Jarod's voice was slightly amused.
"She is strong willed, isn't she?" Sydney responded dryly.
"I think she's a natural pretender too, Syd. I'm going to test her. Do you have any advice for me?"
"I don't suppose you'd listen to the advice to not try?"
"I think it's better if I know how much of a risk she might be running to visit the Centre."
"Her risk will be enormous whether she's a Pretender or not." Sydney worried.
"In this case, however, ignorance is not bliss." Jarod countered. "What should I know?"
"Don't let her get lost in the pretend. Remember the "disengage" cue." Sydney suggested, the worry in his voice increasing. "And start with something relatively neutral as far as emotional involvement goes. We lost a few Pretenders before you because they couldn't disengage from the Pretend. You do realize you aren't trained to guide her, don't you?"
"I know, but I think she can handle it. If she can, and I can give her a little training, then maybe she can hold her own if she insists on taking on the Centre." Jarod told his mentor. "Take good care of Angelo."
He broke the connection and went to find her. She was two doors down, in what appeared to be the master bedroom, packing a small, black suitcase. Her belongings were as sparse as his, except for a framed picture of a happy family. The mother and father smiled into the camera and two young, tow-headed children grinned cheerfully from in between them. They looked so perfect that Jarod felt a pang of envy and empathy.
"You agreed to do an experiment with me this morning, remember?" He suggested in a carefully neutral voice.
"No I didn't." She contradicted him calmly. "I didn't answer you one way or the other. Tell me more about what you have in mind and I'll let you know."
"You remember me talking about "Pretenders" yesterday?" Jarod began, feeling his way into the conversation with care. Theresa nodded her head, putting down the shirt she was rolling into a tube and giving Jarod her full attention.
"Well, they're more than just geniuses. Pretenders can become almost anyone, do almost anything. I was an Apollo astronaut when I was only thirteen. I've been JFK and Martin Luther King. Since I----left the Centre, I've been more professions than I can list."
"Just what makes you think I'm like you? Yeah, I'm smart, even if I never went to a regular school, but I've never been anyone but me. I'm just an ordinary person who learns fast."
"No, I don't think so. You said last night that you couldn't go into medicine because you felt the patient's pain, even if the patient couldn't. That's a Pretender ability."
"I feel their pain because I can place myself in their position." Theresa murmured, feeling out Jarod's suggestion. "So if I learn how to control that---empathy, then I can go into a more traditional profession. Is that what you're saying?"
"I doubt it." Jarod answered honestly. "You're still on the run, aren't you?" He gestured at her small suitcase and meager possessions.
"Yeah. I'm not sure if I really have to be, but I often feel like someone is behind me, and gaining on me."
"Someone probably is." Jarod answered, thinking of the mysterious, Mr. White, Lyle's pet assassin.
"Why?"
"They want to exploit your abilities. If they can't, then they want you dead. It isn't in their best interests to have potential Pretenders running around where the competition might get a hold of them and make use of them."
"You're running from Centre trackers." Theresa guessed.
"Yes. They've got enormous resources. I don't dare stay in any one place too long or they'll find me. They recaptured me once." Jarod's eyes darkened to black at the memories of those nightmarish three weeks.
"So," He pulled himself back to the present with a supreme effort of will. "Do you want to try it?"
"Okay." She agreed slowly. "I suppose it's worth a try. But what if I can't pull away from the mindset of the other person?"
Jarod blinked, astonished at her immediate grasp of the danger inherent in Pretending.
"I give you a code word that you will respond to---mine is "disengage". I should work with you for some time before we try this, develop a working relationship and trust and ideally hypnotize you a few times."
"No. I don't know you well enough to allow you to hypnotize me." Theresa nixed that suggestion instantly. "And you have today, no more, before I go after my brother."
Jarod exhaled sharply with frustration.
"Okay, let's do this then." He suggested at last. "Do you know anything about Helen Keller?"
"She was blind and deaf." Theresa answered instantly. "But she learned to communicate and even how to talk a little."
"Would you be willing to try and be her?"
"If what you say is true, then I might not be able to hear you tell me to disengage." She suggested thoughtfully.
Jarod took her hand and tapped three times, sharply, on her wrist with the first two fingers on his right hand.
"That will be the signal, okay?"
"Okay, now what?"
"You're going to have to let me put you in a light trance state. You have to be able to ignore everything else to do a proper Pretend. Do you trust me?"
"Yes." Theresa agreed, looking deep into his chocolate brown eyes. "I don't know why, but I do."
"Okay then---" Jarod seated her in a stuffed armchair and, drawing on memories of his work with Sydney, slowly worked Theresa into a suggestible state and finally talked her into the mental state of a deaf/blind individual.
Slowly Theresa's expression changed from that of a strong-willed, confident woman to a confused, lost girl. She began to touch everything around her, bringing some objects up to smell or stroke across the more sensitive skin of her cheek. Gradually her exploration brought her to Jarod, startling her into jumping back and forcing him to grab her when she tripped against the ottoman in front of the armchair. In an instant she turned into a wild woman, clawing and twisting desperately to release herself from the unexpected restraint. She made unintelligible noises, a cross between grunts and squeals.
Jarod was unable to maintain his hold with only one good arm, and she fell over the ottoman. She didn't seem injured, she just scuttled on her hands and knees until she found a wall. She worked her way to a corner and settled in it with her back against the wall. Crouched low to the floor, her hair in wild disarray around her face and shoulders, and panting with exertion and fright, she looked more like a wild animal than a person.
Jarod felt a warm wetness seeping through his bandage, letting him know that he'd probably torn a few of his stitches in the struggle. He sat on the bed an considered the problem of how to reach Theresa with the predetermined disengage signal if he couldn't get close enough to touch her safely. For the first time in his life appreciated the problem Sydney had faced in walking him through his various Pretends for the Centre. Obviously Helen Keller hadn't been the best choice.
Finally his searching gaze fell on a cheerful brown teddy bear, dressed in bright reds and greens, as if for Christmas. The bear leaned against the pillows of the neatly made bed, obviously placed carefully by Theresa where it could be seen and appreciated. It had seen better days, the dress was stained and faded and the fur had actually worn off in places. Jarod picked it up and approached the wary girl, stopping just out of reach of her shorter arms. He gently touched the back of one hand, moving back when she flailed out wildly. He waited until she quieted and touched her again, and this time she only jumped slightly.
He carefully pulled her hand out slightly and then picked up the bear lying next to him on the floor and placed in the space left by her outstretched hand. Immediately she hugged the bear and began inspecting it by touch. In moments she had a small, happy smile on her lips and she reached out for Jarod, beginning to run her hand along his arm to his face and clutching the bear with the other. Jarod permitted her explorations, noting with fascination that she seemed extremely interested in his bound left arm and the way she examined the blood that had seeped through the bandage on his right arm and spotted his borrowed shirt.
She rubbed her fingers together, assessing the feel of the blood. It was starting to turn sticky as it began to dry. She raised her hand to her face to smell the new substance. He watched her cock her head thoughtfully, sniff the fingers again, and very delicately touch her fingertips with her tongue. When she'd finished her face looked sad. She found his arm again, running her hand along it, skipping over the bloodstain and finally coming up to his face. Then she patted his cheek gently, as if she was consoling a small child and offered him her precious teddy bear, bringing forth a smile from him.
He put his good hand over hers, resting on his cheek, and shook his head "no". Theresa frowned unhappily and he took her hand and laid it, wrist up over his knee. She waited patiently, her head cocked slightly as she tried to determine his message. Before she could decide to withdraw her hand he tapped the wrist firmly three times.
The results were dramatic. Theresa sagged back against the wall, closing her eyes tiredly, and breathed in deeply. Then she shook herself and opened her eyes, looking directly into Jarod's face, much to his relief.
"That was horrible." She told him frankly. "You had to do stuff like that as a child?"
"Perhaps Helen Keller wasn't the best choice." Jarod told her wryly.
"I think any of it would be horrible. I wasn't me anymore, I was someone else. I'd always be afraid that I wouldn't be able to find myself again when the Pretend was over. How do you stand it?"
"Sydney managed to teach me not to become totally lost in the Pretend