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The first time Jarod escapes, it lasts for about three minutes. He makes a snowball.
The second time, it lasts for three years and change. He's in for a month.
The third time, Jarod stays out for five years, two months, and twenty-seven days. Fifteen of those days he spends with his father.
He's on the bus, leaving a pretend. A one-horse town whose water had been poisoned, run-off from a nearby plant. Lyle is a week behind him. A woman, a stranger, sits down next to him. She makes a show of rummaging through her purse, cell phone beeping, while she pricks him in the leg with a needle. There's nowhere to run.
The room is bare concrete with a heavy metal door, thick bars welded across a window. No lamp, but sometimes the light in the hallway will go on. Not for long, not enough to tell day from night. Bread and water appear in his sleep. The room is achingly small. To sleep he lies diagonal to the walls; he hasn't stood straight since he got here.
The Centre is tired of chasing. He is no longer a lost asset; only damage control. It not clear to Jarod why they haven't killed him.
He bites the pad of his thumb and drags it across the wall. He gives them a solid design, a better hardware divider; valuable without being dangerous. Patentable. The next day he finds a small, hard pillow. No pillow case. Two slices of apple. One wall has been replaced with dry erase—glued on, not nailed. Is it even the same room? It seems warmer.
He had hoped it was worth Sydney. He considers huffing the dry erase marker just to thumb his nose at them, but decides against it. Instead, he draws a castle on a hill. Birds. As he picks up the apple, the juice fails to sting his raw thumb. The thumb is healed. His face is smooth. How long does he sleep?
It must be in the food—but if he doesn't eat, he'll just pass out anyway.
His world has gotten louder. He can hear pipes clanging behind the walls, footsteps at the other end of corridor, ceiling fans. Shadows pass over the stretch of wall visible through his door. He tries to call out to them, but finds his throat dry.
He has tried before to communicate with them. To leave messages on the wall. Where am I, what do you want, my kingdom for a blanket, cree craw toad's foot, I once was lost but now am found. There's never any answer. Tonight he tries, I'd pretend for Sydney.
Is this a thing they don't want, or a thing they can't give him? Is Sydney even alive? Maybe they think he already knows. They were on the phone before the Centre caught up to him; it's probably how they found him. Maybe Sydney has already found his own way out, run off with Michelle and his real son, and asking will only bring the Centre down upon him. Maybe this isn't even the Centre. Maybe it's the Centre but not Blue Cove—where is Angelo?
A child watches him through the grate. She is clutching the ledge, standing on tiptoe, and Jarod can't see below her nose. He asks her name. He asks where they are. He asks if she's run away. She doesn't answer. Footsteps come near and an arm comes in view—a hand landing on her shoulder? The suit leans down and glances in. It's no one Jarod has seen before. The girl is led away. In profile, Jarod can see her pony tail. He's intensely relieved to see her hair is blonde.
Is this who he'll be for the rest of his life? A cautionary tale? Will they bring the new Pretenders past in a train, this is what happens to those who run. Or perhaps he is the child in the basement in Omelas, on whose suffering all others' joy depends.
That night he gnashes at his wrists. He hears a key in the lock as he passes out. When he wakes his arms have the raw feel of new skin, but he's still in his empty cell.
They start to leave him papers, without instruction. Do they want to know if this election was rigged? If they're making sound investments? If the disaster was preventable? Or do they just want him to know that time is passing?
He already knows that time is passing. The girl comes back sometimes. She's grown taller. She likes to jiggle the latch. She brought her little friends with her once. They are too short for Jarod to see their faces and the light in the hallway is dim. Jarod is afraid their hair is dark. They whisper among themselves behind the door. He names them in his head, crafts their futures: Faith, Timmy, Kyle.
Maybe they already know the election was rigged. Maybe they're trying to show him that they don't need him to do it. They have new children. They cause the disasters.
He gives them more. Algorithms, formulas, theories. Faster, smaller versions of things that already exist. Profiles for political candidates. They give him a room with a higher ceiling. A foam mattress. Larger portions. A light switch. Have they planned this all out? Do they have a chart telling them which ideas are worth one slice of cheese and which are worth two? What will it take for them to bring him what he really wants? Flying cars? A ten-year plan for global warming. A bomb, maybe. A virus. A religion.
He doesn't think he can work those out on scratch paper. It's probably for the best.
There's a buzzing in the world one day. A fire alarm on another level? A broken elevator? A shot in the distance. A gasp. Footsteps, running. The door opens, and Jarod sees himself crouching on the other side of it. The clone, so much older than that last time Jarod saw him. As he moves toward the door, he sees behind the clone another self, much younger. And clutching the younger clone's hand, Sydney.