A New Pretender

5

She was out, barely able to discern what was happening to her as parts of her body were examined. She could feel the pressure of someone's fingers moving across her skin. She couldn't move, though no restraints seemed to be holding her down.

It was a Centre related dream that felt all too real. Her cell at the very end of a long hall of the lowest known sub level. The fading light that gave everything a green hue. The electric shocks coursing through her body as parts of her memory were erased. Then there was a doctor who prepared a syringe. Thanks to her stolen DSAs, she recognized the liquid. As the needle punctured her skin...

Dana sat bolt upright on the couch where she slept. Sweat drenched her upper body. She didn't need to play a DSA to know what happened. She'd played that particular one so often that it gave her the nightmare she'd just relived.

Without thinking, she removed the disc from the player and snapped it in half. She was probably going to regret it later but right then, she didn't care. It was more terrifying than her trip to Carthis where the dead who lived there don't leave but roam the island as if they never died.

In some ways, Dana was retracing Jarod's steps in the order of her choosing. Her choices were random, but she always tried to make sure she had months' worth of wild goose chases lined up before she went where Jarod was twenty years before.

It always amazed her how the people in those towns and cities still praised him after all these years. But what drew her curiosity even more was when a search and rescue volunteer named Nia, whom she had been staying with for about a week, had told her she looked a lot like him.

"How so?"

"You have the same face, the same eyes. The color is different. His were brown, not blue like yours. I saw the same pain in him years ago," Nia explained. "He had a case, just like the one you carry. He'd sit right here," she pointed to a cushion on the couch, "and watch these discs. Like the one you broke."

"Discs that held his past," Dana finished. "The disc of me that you were watching is the only one I ever broke. I watched it so many times that it caused my nightmare."

"I never asked about Jarod's past. He only opened up to me because I told him my own. His experience with this Centre was unspeakable."

Dana knew that if Jarod could trust this woman, then she probably could too.

"Then mine must be deplorable. I'm not trying to belittle his experience. I just know mine was worse. They'll do to him what they did to me if they ever get their hands on him again," she said as she selected a DSA marked with a star and a J. She inserted the disc and played it for Nia. "I found this last week and marked it in case I ever found him."

She watched it in silence as Lyle appeared on the screen during one of Dana's procedures.

"Have Dana microchipped. The next time she tries to escape, let her. Follow the signal. If we're lucky, she'll lead us to Jarod within a few months," he said, explaining his theory. "When we get both of them back, Dana will be returned to her cell. And Jarod will be moved to the island where he'll undergo Dana's wrist procedures."

Dana's screams of pain and cries for help go ignored. She's still awake when a doctor cuts into her skin. Tears of pain and anger roll from her eyes as her struggle is ceased when several guards strap her down with restraints.

"The Centre filled in, and removed, bones from my wrists and replaced them with remote controlled and electrified magnets. Invisible handcuffs and internal taser." She lifted her shirt just enough to reveal a scar like one would get from an appendectomy. "I can't do anything about my wrists, but I removed the microchip the moment I was able to get away."

Dana let her shirt fall back in place before she stood to look out the window. The house was hidden by trees, but the view was still breath taking. She soaked up every moment of such views, never knowing if she'd see anything like it again. That thought took away her enjoyment, replacing it with depression.

"I'm not sure how much help I'll be. I haven't heard from Jarod in years. He was afraid the same people who are after you would use me to get him back."

"He wasn't wrong. One group wouldn't hurt you, not on purpose anyway. But the other group, the one looking for me, would have no problem... Which means I should be going soon."

A thought occurred to Dana as she sat on the cushion that Nia said Jarod spent a lot of time. She looked at the wall wondering how she could expect nothing to have been done to this place in twenty-plus years.

But there was something. A piece of paper was hidden between the wall and a bookshelf. It was hidden so well only another Pretender would have found it. And she'd pretended to be Jarod often enough she could think like him, before and after his escape.

Dana got up and went to the bookshelf. She removed a pair of tweezers from a nail grooming kit that was on the end table.

"What is that?"

"I thought he might have left something behind. It's what he does. He leaves things behind that foretell his next mission. But it's a letter to you. It also tells you how to reach him if anyone from the Centre comes back." Then she thought of a message to pass on. "Tell him that someone from the Centre came looking for him. He'll be curious to know who since they've left you alone all these years based on your lack of contact. You can give him a description. Centre employees like the element of surprise these days so offering that olive branch will give me some credibility."

"Where will he find you?"

"At the diner in town. I'll be watching the Three Stooges," Dana replied without explaining how she knew that's what Jarod was watching when they met. "I'll stay as long as I can, but I get the feeling that won't be more than a day. The Centre has been closing in faster each time. And that's without their microchips."

Dana wrote a number on the other side of Jarod's letter. It was a way to contact her for the same reason as Jarod.