There!

Fingers pressed the newsprint against the thin coating of rubber cement so that it would adhere to the page of the red notebook and finish the story, then carefully creased the newsprint so that an article that was larger than the notebook page could fit. Then the hands left the newly-glued article to dry while it closed the bottle of rubber cement carefully against the next time it would be needed and slipped it into the duffel bag in the pocket that held several other red notebooks. There were still quite a few remaining empty and waiting for stories of real life drama and tragedy to fill them, although the number grew steadily smaller.

Jarod glanced back at the newsprint and smiled again. Seeing the picture of Evan Jergens struggling to keep his face from being exposed in the media had made the effort to nail him for his crimes worth it. The man, generally known as a wealthy philanthropist in this part of the country, had found all kinds of ways to very quietly and secretly prey on the flood of runaway children who always managed to find their way to the city, deserved exposure for what he really was. Suddenly all that money that had funded shelters and soup kitchens was exposed as the bait it really had been – and Jarod’s payback scheme had left Jergens with very little option but to plead guilty to the charges against him.

With a sigh, Jarod rose and walked over to the window of the warehouse loft that he’d rented for the past two weeks. He’d never bothered to clean the glass, so the view of the factory district street below was smudged and obscured in places. Now that his latest Pretend was finished, he wouldn’t bother to clean the glass either – no, this would be the last night he spent in the city for a while. He’d been here too long – this was the third Pretend he’d carried out in New York in the last three months – and it was time to think about relocating.

The Pretender sighed and turned away from the street scene to survey the place he’d called “home” lately. It had few amenities – a cot from the local army surplus store had been his bed, and there was a table and chair that had been hastily crafted from spare lumber being thrown away at a construction site. No pictures hung from the walls, no curtains hung at the windows.

Not that he could clearly remember what it was like to have a “real” home – his memories of his early years with his parents were few and very vague, and the environment he’d been raised in had been not a whole lot better than the loft. He kept telling himself that “home” was a state of mind, and that anyplace where he felt comfortable laying his head at night would qualify. But it was in the quiet moments like this one, when there was no need for him to be madly setting up his next Pretend or SIMming the responses of the people involved, that the fallacy of his insistence would be painfully clear.

There WAS an alternative, of course – one he couldn’t quite talk himself into taking yet. His parents, once they’d been reunited, had settled in a small farming community in Wisconsin. They, along with Ethan and Brian, the boy who’d been cloned from Jarod, were now farming several hundred acres – raising corn on some of the land and keeping dairy cattle on the rest of it. Major Charles Russell had made it plain that both he and his wife desired and hoped that their oldest son would one day feel safe enough to stop his gallivanting across the country and come home. Every time he spoke to one of them on the phone, they reminded him that his place, his “home,” was with them.

He’d been to the farm several times for a quick visit, and then found reason to leave again after only a few days. It had taken a teary confrontation with his mother for him to finally spend the time to analyze why he couldn’t stay in one place – and he’d been disgusted with himself once he’d traced the cause of his wanderlust. He’d put himself beneath the Centre’s radar at last, never leaving clues to his next Pretend for Miss Parker or Sydney to follow or allowing his face or name to be exposed in the media at all, and yet he was still looking over his shoulder.

Staying in one place for more than a week made him very nervous – especially when he didn’t have the camouflage of an alias and a Pretend employment to hide behind. On the farm, he was just Jarod Russell – a name that the Centre would surely recognize and come after with all due haste. He couldn’t bring the Centre down on his family again, not after all the years that the threat the Centre posed had forced his father and mother to live separate lives. Emily might be safe in Philadelphia – the notoriety of Lyle’s attack on her playing out on the front page something that the Centre didn’t want repeated – but the farm was just a little too open, too exposed to vulnerable.

Ethan and Brian were prospering there, however, in a more stable and unchanging environment – and Jarod took a great deal of satisfaction from that. Both of them were young enough that a steady diet of love and caring from nurturing parents could undo at least some of the harm that had scarred him far too deeply now. Ethan had begun working at a local farming supply company, and Brian was quietly working his way through the first years of community college – never quite letting on to his instructors that he could be teaching the courses he was taking.

Jarod moved to the little table and unplugged his laptop from the power cord and began packing it away in its black canvas carrying case – debating and then deciding against taking another “dumpster run” into the Centre mainframe to make sure that there were no sweeper teams closing in on him. He’d been careful – left no clues anywhere that anybody could interpret – and he’d be just as cautious this time around. It had been years since his last contact with anybody there. They weren’t going to find him.

A wry snort expressed his opinion of his conflicted attitude. Sydney would have a field day trying to analyze and help him sort through the emotions and reasons for his extreme wariness – but he didn’t dare call his old mentor. That would give the Centre a thread to begin following – and he was done with the “I run, they chase” game.

Wasn’t he?

He sagged to a seat on the edge of the cot. He was living the “I run, they chase” game even though they WEREN’T chasing any longer. It didn’t matter that the Centre had no clue where to look for him – he LIVED as if they were just around the corner. He’d never considered that he could be just as trapped, just as imprisoned, by the IDEA as by the real chase – but here was the evidence, staring him in the face. He was still running – and with no earthly reason to do so.

Was this going to be the shape of his future – living in blocks of time no larger than a few weeks spent as one Pretend or another? Was there never going to be a time when he’d stop running and settle down to figure out who Jarod Russell really was? Was it a question of security for his family – or conditioned paranoia – that kept him from grabbing the next bus to Wisconsin and a farm filled with love and mutual concern?

If Sydney were here, he wouldn’t let Jarod flinch from examining the deeper emotions – the ones that were the true drivers of the situation – but the fact was that he WASN’T here. And Jarod was aware enough to realize that he’d never face those inner demons alone, and that he didn’t dare take a clandestine trip to Blue Cove and camp in Sydney’s home to get the help he so desperately needed.

Sydney couldn’t be trusted – not completely – and Sydney lived too close to the Centre for comfort.

Jarod threw the duffel bag onto the floor and leaned back onto the cot, one arm thrown over his eyes. He hated his life – his lack of a real life – but didn’t know how to take the first step to claiming his freedom from the evil that dwelled in his mind. Even if the Centre was clueless, there were sweepers just around the corners in his mind – just as they’d been for his entire life.

He knew what he had to do. He had to face down his fears – to go back to the farm and discipline himself to stay put and begin to put down roots there – just to prove to himself that the demons in his mind were impotent if HE decided they were. He sat straight up on the cot. That’s what he had to do – as difficult as it was!

He rose and walked over to the little table and moved the laptop case aside to find where he’d tossed the cell phone. As he waited for the call to connect, his eyes landed on the newspaper from which he’d cut his Pretend finale – and a small article about a lost child in California.

“Hi Mom, it’s me,” he spoke into the phone at the sound of a woman’s voice.

“Jarod!” Margaret sounded thrilled. “How are you? Where are you?”

“New York still,” he replied, one half of his mind keeping up with the conversation, the other half intent on reading the article. The girl, 12, had been camping in Yosemite and walked to the store for her mother – and never returned.

“Don’t you get tired of big city life?” Margaret asked, knowing her son’s preference for big cities came from the ease with which he could lose himself in the mass of humanity.

“Sometimes.” The girl was the third young woman to disappear from Yosemite in the past year and a half – and none had been found yet. “How are Dad and the boys?”

“Dad’s out planting right now – Ethan’s at work and Brian’s in town at school. I’m volunteering my time at the hospital a couple of days a week now.” Margaret sounded pleased that he was actually asking about the daily life. “I’m hoping this call means you’re going to come home at last?”

“I’m thinking about it,” Jarod replied, folding the paper and tearing the small article from its depths carefully. “I have just one more Pretend, and then I’m going to come home, Mom.”

“Oh, Jarod…” It was hard to tell if her voice was shaky because she was happy or because she was disappointed at the delay.

“I promise, Mom. Just one more – and then I’m coming home.”

There was a long pause. “We’re all looking forward to seeing you,” she offered finally. “Do you have any idea when you’ll get here?”

“Give it about a month.” Jarod was suddenly energized. “I gotta go now, Mom. Give my love to Dad and the others.”

“I will, son. You take good care.”

“I will. Bye.” He punched the button on the cell phone and thrust the device in his pocket.

He wouldn’t even think about the fact that this was the fourth time he’d had a similar conversation with his mother – the fourth time he’d promised “just one more”.

He had a plane to catch, a Pretend to plan – and a Centre to stay one step ahead of.

Life goes on.

FIN

Author's note:

-MMB

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