THE CENTRE
The Centre is a private corporation located in Blue Cove, Delaware . Its function is to accept contracts from various sources and provide them with information. This information is obtained from "residents" of the Centre, children and adults with a variety of unusual talents, kept in an isolated environment to make them more productive.
According to Sydney i the Centre initially did beneficial work which resulted in the creation of four democratic countries, the Korean peace accords and other altruistic ends. Later, it became more self-serving and destructive. Each field office is linked to the Centre mainframe, and downloads secure information once a week.
Those in charge of the Centre are collectively called "The Tower," which probably refers to their physical working environment. The hierarchy consists of a Council (of which Miss Parker's father is the Chairman) and a Director. There is also an African group called the Triumverate which has ultimate charge of the Centre.
PRETENDERS
Pretenders are "geniuses with the ability to become anyone that they want to be." For Jarod, this talent has two related but distinct aspects:, he is able to convincingly reproduce or "simulate" any experience, and correctly analyze the results, as well as feel the emotions involved. Also with a little preparation, Jarod is able to take on any profession. As Sydney said, he doesn't impersonate--he actually becomes whatever he has chosen to be.
Pretenders can either be born, or created through a special schedule of drugs and programming, if they carry the correct genetic predisposition.
According to Mitchell and Van Sickle, the character of Jarod is based heavily on Ferdinand Demara, a real-life pretender who died in 1982. Mitchell says, "What's fascinating is that there are real people like this. It wasn't like we made up a superhero. Demara was, in fact, a surgeon--he read a book and became a surgeon and even taught surgery. He became a prison warden, a Trappist monk and a college professor.
JAROD
A four-year-old Jarod was abducted from his room by Sweepers at night and isolated within the Centre for more than 30 years. His escape cost the Centre one of their prime guinea pigs and income producers, along with all the DSA records of his work. Sydney almost immediately took over control of Jarod.
At some point, Jarod discovered the real applications of his simulations, many of which were military contracts. It appears that hundreds, of people died because of what he "thought up". Jarod felt betrayed, especially by Sydney, both for lying to him and for keeping him locked up all these years. He is now determined to help people, to become an avenging angel for the weak and abused, as a way of compensating for the damage that was done in his name.
Jarod's entire life at the Centre was recorded. He is in possession of all but three weeks in October of 1995, which finally Broots found in Mr. Raines' private files.
Jarod finally escaped from the Centre after a Centre operative, Damon, get him to develop a deadly virus, then betrayed him, murdering the janitor, Jarod's friend in the process.
Left without an identity of his own, he chooses a new last name each time he changes jobs or location. Usually, this name has some connection to his current profession.
Jarod believed for many years that his parents had been killed in a plane crash ontheir way to see him, as Mr. Raines and Sydney told him . Jarod had recurring dreams about his mother, but he couldn't remember her face until Sydney sent him a picture.
His mother's name was Margaret, his father's name was Charles, and his father was a Major in the Air Force. Jarod's brother Kyle was wearing a Distinguished Flying Cross that apparently belonged to their father when he was brought to the Centre.
Jarod found where his parents had been hiding for years -- at a farm owned by Catherine Parker's old friend, Harriet Tashman. He learnt that he has a younger sister, Emily. He was almost reunited with his mother and sister, but a Centre prevented that.
Jarod did manage to track down Major Charles in the third-season finale 'Donoterase'; However, Major Charles had lost contact with Margaret and Emily soon after Jarod and Kyle were taken; he returned after a rescue attempt at the Centre to find them gone. He also had to leave Jarod again to save Jarod's clone from the Centre. He returned a year later, to help Jarod rescue his sister, Emily from Centre assassins.
MISS PARKER
Miss Parker is the daughter of Mr. Parker, a high-ranked member of Centre management. She was working in the organization's Corporate area, although in the past she has run Centre Securityand was at one point a Cleane. Her job at the moment is to find Jarod, and return him to the Centre. - She has a deal with her father that once Jarod is returned, she will be able to leave the Centre for good, on her own terms.
Miss Parker has also reluctantly worked with Jarod to find out the truth about their parents.
Miss Parker once decided to leave the Centre to move to Oregon with Thomas Gates, a fixit man, and start a new life. Instead, Thomas was murdered. Brigitte confessed to the crime before she died, but said she was following orders.
Shaken by her discovery of Project Gemini, Miss Parker attempted to rescue Jarod's clone, which she didn't have time to do before Jarod and Major Charles did themselves.
Miss Parker believed that her mother, Catherine, committed suicide in an elevator when she was young. Twenty-six years later, Jarod was able to "hear" what happened in one of his DSA recordings, dated 4/13/70 -- he concluded she was shot four times while in the elevator, right after a session with Sydney.
However, Catherine did not die in that elevator, but in fact faked her own death with the help of Mr. Raines She was pregnant with Ethan, and wanted to save at least one of her children from the Centre. She gave birth to Ethan, after telling Jarod who he was (Raines later suppressed those memories). Minutes after the baby was born, Raines cold-bloodedly executed Catherine, and had her body cremated.
Jarod continues to investigate the murder (for his own reasons) and also discovered Catherine's 'getaway' where she stored a folder of baby pictures and records labeled 'Rescued' (Mirage). He also found Catherine's safe deposit box, which contained the record of her beating, the list of children she had intended to rescue, and her diary, among others things.
Mr. Lyle is Miss Parker's twin brother. Mr. Raines took him when he was born, telling Mrs. Parker that the boy was stillborn. Miss Parker was unaware that a twin had ever existed until she saw a security recording of her own birth. Jarod's research and genetic testing revealed the identity of the twin.
Whether or not Mr. Parker knew the twin was alive is uncertain. He appeared to be in shock when Miss Parker told him.
SYDNEY
Sydney is a psychiatrist in the Centre's Psychogenic Research Department. He seems to be responsible for training a number of children with various talents, just as he did with Jarod. According to Jarod, part of Sydney 's job is to "make rounds down Corridor 15," which may refer to the residential wing, or perhaps laboratories such as the Simulation Room.
Sydney seems to have remained with the Centre in order to protect Miss Parker and Jarod; it didn't help that he was being blackmailed by the Centre, who lied and told him an intern of his whom he was quite fond of had died in a car accident, with Sydney at the wheel. Mr. Parker orchestrated the cover-up and the blackmail, but swears he only did it under Triumverate orders. The intern was actually alive.
Sydney and his twin brother were raised outside Lyons , France . His family (including their parents, Jean and Greta) was taken to the Dachau concentration camp during World War II although they were Catholic, in order to allow a Nazi doctor to experiment on the twins. Only Jacob and Sydney survived; the rest of their family died in the gas chambers. After their camp was freed by the Allies, they returned home, only to find that home destroyed. The twins attended Yale together in the States.
Jacob, Sydney 's twin brother, worked for the Centre too before he and Sydney were in a car accident which left Jacob in a coma for several decades.
Before he died, he answered Sydney 's questions about Jarod's past with a single word: 'GENE'.
Michelle Lucca Stamatis used to work at The Centre, where she became romantically involved with Sydney , "the love of my life". She left Sydney when the Centre threatened to kill him if she didn't, without telling him that she was pregnant with his son, Nicholas. She remarried and Nicholas was raised not knowing about Sydney .
Sydney reentered Michelle's life when a tip from Jarod revealed Nicholas' existance; he first met Nicholas when his father was dying.
BROOTS
Broots is a computer and electronics technician/researcher assigned to help Miss Parker find Jarod. He's very good at his job, and always looks very scared of Miss Parker and Mr. Raines. He is also, like Sydney , fully aware of the soul-stealing tendencies of The Centre, but is too afraid to leave. Broots has a 10- or 11-year-old daughter, Debbie, of whom he won custody, and an on-line girlfriend, Delilah. He has been actively helping Miss Parker and Sydney search out the mysteries of The Centre.
Mr RAINES
No one is exactly sure what his place in the Centre heirarchy is, including Sydney and Miss Parker. He appears to wield a lot of power, particularly in internal security, since everyone is afraid of him -- or was, until his dealings with Kyle and SL-27 were exposed, giving Mr. Parker a lever against him.
He was once also a doctor (Dr. Billy / William Raines)-- in fact, he delivered Miss Parker and her twin
He has no apparent scruples; at least once, he deliberately sent Sydney out of the way in order to experiment on Jarod; he used both Sydney and Jarod in a drug testing, addicting both to an experimental mind-expanding narcotic; he kidnapped Miss Parker's twin brother at birth, reporting the baby dead; and attempted to kidnap a little boy to begin the Pretender Project again. It was because of his experiments that Timmy was killed and Angelo created. He executed Catherine Parker after Ethan's birth, raising the boy as a paranoid and helpless kid.
Raines was married and had a teenaged daughter named Annie whom he loved; she was murdered by a serial killer around 1978, although he tried to use Jarod to find her. Her body was not found until Jarod located it years later. As for his wife, Edna Raines, she was thought to be dead by suicide, but was in fact kept drugged in a nursing home since about the time of Catherine Parker's death. She escaped and managed to contact Miss Parker, telling her to carry on the work her mother started. She also refered to something called 'Mirage', and directed Miss Parker to her mother's empty grave.
LYLE
Mr. Lyle was a highly-placed member of The Centre, powerful enough to make Mr. Raines refer to him as 'the boogeyman'; he took over for Mr. Parker during his absence. His methods were, if possible, worse than those used by Mr. Raines; he sold the services of the Centre to the Yakusa to kidnap a Federal witness, using a plan established by one of Jarod's simulations.
Mr. Lyle lost a thumb to the Yakusa, and was thought to have been dead. He turned up again trailing Jarod, possibly hoping to use his capture as a way to regain his place in The Centre.
Later investigations revealed that Mr. Lyle's real name was Robert Bowman -- he took the name Lyle after his adopted father's first name. Mr. Lyle's adoption was arranged by The Centre, who also interfered in his adolescence, turning Lyle into a killer.
Mr. Lyle turned up alive and kidnapped Jarod, hoping to force his way back into the Centre. Jarod was rescued by Kyle, who died in Jarod's place. Lyle escaped again. Mr. Lyle was brought back to the Centre when Mr. Parker pulled serious strings, and assigned to the team sent to catch Jarod.
Lyle is also, according to Centre DNA testing, Miss Parker's twin brother, stolen by Mr. Raines at birth. While she was initially trying to accept him as a brother, she's now more-or-less convinced he is, in fact, a psychopath.
ANGELO
Angelo is not a Pretender, but a kind of savant, who acts as an emotional sponge, picking up and channeling the emotions of his targets. He was 'created' by Mr. Raines -- he came to the Centre as a boy called Timmy, but all traces of his original personality were destroyed when Dr. Raines used him in neuroshock experiements in SL-27; it was those experiments which made Angelo into such a high-level empath. Mr. Raines sent Angelo to attempt to catch Jarod. But Angelo is the Centre leak.
He retrieved and hid the files found in SL-27, helped Jarod and Kyle escape from the Centre, and communicated with both Jarod and Kyle while they were inside and outside. He has the ability to move around within and outside the Centre at will He also has an addiction to Cracker Jack (he addressed letters to Kyle in prison 'C.J.').
A treatment from Sydney gave Angelo the chance to reverse the damage done by Mr. Raines. After spending several days as a normal person, he gave up the chance at a permanent cure to help another of Mr. Raines' victims. Angelo was one of the two people who could possibly be Miss Parker's twin… blood tests showed otherwise.
KYLE
When he was kidnapped, Kyle was given over to Mr. Raines instead of to Sydney ; Mr. Raines deliberately turned him into a sociopath, stripping him of all morals and teaching him to hate Catherine Parker -- perhaps as a prelude to murder. He and Jarod were allowed to run a few simulations together as children, neither knowing the identity of the other, and even communicated secretly.
Kyle was eventually released from the Centre, and was looking for his parents. Eventually, he kidnapped Harriet Tashman and attempted to force her to reveal his parents' location. He was captured and sent to prison in 1983.
Kyle escaped from prison; Jarod identified him as his old friend from the Centre and began tracking him down. Kyle kidnapped Harriett again, Jarod rescued her, and Kyle was taken by the Sweeper team and Miss Parker. To conceal what Kyle knew about Mr. Raines's activities and SL-27, he was scheduled for a frontal lobotomy; Jarod and Angelo rescued him just in time. Jarod and Kyle escaped, but Kyle was "killed" in an explosion.
He actually escaped, and spent the next several months following Miss Parker and Broots, hoping they would lead him back to Jarod. He saved a kidnapped Jarod from Mr. Lyle and died for real jumping between Jarod and Mr. Lyle's gun. Grieving, Jarod gave permission for Kyle's heart to be transplanted into a dying boy.
