Other Characters
and important places

on "The Pretender"

Somewhere along the line, however, The Centre was taken over by evil-doers who kidnapped especially bright children, isolated them, and then "exploited their genius for their research". Hints have been popping up all over that The Centre is actually the hot-spot for a sort of eugenics pool. In the "Bloodlines" episode, we were told that The Centre worked with a fertility clinic called NuGenesis to test and screen child candidates who displayed a genetic predisposition to becoming Pretenders. Unlike the other children in the project (called PRODIGY), Jarod was found to be a natural born Pretender. He was then used as a prototype, and exploited as a living guide for the experiments carried out on the other children in the project.

Working off of private funding, and government and military grants, The Centre has manipulated the results of tested "simulations" to create havoc around the world. It is estimated that literally thousands of people have died because of Centre-related projects. This isn't counting the people whom members of The Centre have killed themselves, outright.

Within The Centre are twenty-seven sub-levels. Each sub-level dedicated to different facets of Centre operations. Sub-Level 5 houses the Tech Room where Broots is often seen working. Sub-Level 14 houses the Centre's chemical labs and infirmary. Sub-Level 27, of course, was the secret sub-level where Mr. Raines (and Mr. Lyle, too, apparantly) conducted most of their most inhumane experiments.

(Above) This is Broots working at his station in the Centre's Tech Room, SL-5

Another image of Miss Parker and a female Cleaner in the Techroom, from the premiere episode of The Pretender.

Somewhere in the bowels of The Centre is the T-Board room, where employees of The Centre are sometimes subjected to mentally and emotionally draining interrogations by members of The Centre's elite.

The place is riddled with huge ventillation shafts. Oddly, with all of the security options available to The Centre, there are no video surveillance cameras or lasar-activated "trip wires" or alarms in the shafts. So, Angelo often uses the shafts to move around The Centre undetected, and Jarod (and his brother, Kyle) used them to get into and out of The Centre at will.

Hybrid Biotract 42 is on Centre grounds, but viewers haven't been told what, exactly, is bred and kept there. It was used as a meeting place by Miss Parker, Broots and Sydney in the Dragon House episode of the first season.

Mr. Raines being tended to in The Centre's infirmary, Sub-Level 14.

The Triumvirate: The Centre seems to be run by warring factions. [Mr. Parker and Mr. Raines were definitely from a different faction than Mr.Lyle, for example.] And sometimes it's hard to tell who's actually in charge. There is a "Director", a female, who works out of The Tower... but there is also a board of Centre members who refer to themselves as "The Tower"... and a three-person group called The Triumvirate, who we haven't seen at all yet, but who seem to oversee The Tower and the Director. There are also Directors of the various satellite offices... With all these "chiefs", the "indians" have trouble knowing from whom they're supposed to be taking orders.

We've heard a lot of hints about the Triumvirate, this group of Centre over-loads, but haven't actually seen any of them yet. We assume there's three of them, and that they're all male (as in the "triumvirates" of ancient Rome), but we're not certain. They DO dictate the goings on at The Centre, however. Even Mr. Raines and Mr. Lyle were/are answerable to The Triumvirate.

The Director: "Madam Director" was only shown in one episode of The Pretender thusfar, "The Paper Clock", but she was also mentioned by Sydney in "Unhappy Landings" in the first season. In "The Paper Clock" episode, the Director agreed to a "deal" between Sydney and Jarod: Sydney would forward Jarod a single image of his mother, and Jarod in return would give back to Sydney some of the DSAs he had taken from The Centre when he escaped. Both Jarod and Sydney fully believed that the deal had been sanctioned by all of the big-wigs at The Centre, and only realized at the very last minute that they were being double-crossed. Jarod received the FAXed image of Margaret from Sydney, but when Jarod tried to return the DSAs to Sydney the exchange was thwarted by the arrival of Miss Parker and a team of Sweepers bent on capturing Jarod as soon as he showed himself. Jarod held onto the DSAs and evaded capture.

In the "Unhappy Landings" episode, Sydney disclosed to his psychiatrist that he was unable to "trust anyone of authority at The Centre", including the Director.

NuGenesis is a fertility clinic in Atlanta, Georgia, that prides itself on being on the cutting edge of reproductive science. In the 50's and 60's, however, it was also an adoption agency headed by the Haring brothers, Nicholas and Boris. "Weird things" started happening at NuGenesis when it teamed up with The Centre on the PRODIGY experiments. Dr. Boris Haring was the one over-seeing NuGenesis's part of the project until he died.

After his death, the child kidnappings and experiments ceased for a while, then started up again several years later.. when Boris's daughter, Dr. DeWitt, resumed the connection with The Centre and started working with Mr. Raines on re-establishing PRODIGY. Dr. Nicholas Haring is still living, and oversees NuGenesis's artificial insemination wing.

Jarod, under the psuedonym Jarod Spock, worked at NuGenesis for a very short period of time while he searched for clues about his past and about Dr. DeWitt's activities.

Dr. DeWitt: She is the daughter of Dr. Boris Haring (one of the co-founders of NuGenesis) and the niece of Dr. Nicholas Haring. She is currently working in tandem with Mr. Raines to re-establish the PRODIGY project and manufacture new pretenders. She is apparently living up to the legacy of her father, Boris, who had been working with The Centre on PRODIGY before his death. Using the labs at NuGenesis to "screen" potential candidates' genetic structure, she located and aided in the abduction and brain wave manipulation of a young boy (and potential Pretender) named Davy Simpkins. She oversaw Davy's "therapy" at Angel Manor, and attempted to stop Jarod from assisting Davy with synpases-repairing drug therapy by trying to impede his escape from NuGenesis. Dr. DeWitt was unsuccessful is keeping Jarod from leaving NuGenesis, and it is not known if she has returned there herself to further her experiments. [TRIVIA: Jan DeWitt is one of the co-producers of "The Pretender".]

Oakview Lodge: Located in Stone Mountain, Georgia, this was the place where Margaret and Charles stayed during the six month (+/-) period of time in the late 1950's when they were going through fertility treatments at NuGenesis. Jarod found out about the Lodge in 1998, when the telephone number of the Lodge was given to him by the janior at NuGenesis. It's currently being run by Lewis, the caretaker, who "grew old, never up" at the Lodge, and whose parents knew Margaret and Charles.

LaGRANGE AIR STRIP: a secret, unmarked airfield in Virginia (3 hours from Washington, D.C.) owned and maintained by The Centre. In the "Flyer" episode (Season One) Jarod flew a Draccon Jet to this air strip in the middle of the night, so he could get over to Washington, D.C. and break into the files of the Special Projects Office of the U.S. Air Force.

HILLMAN MARINE: a riverfront Centre-owned warehouse facility on Connecticutt, this is the "dumping ground" for all of the Centre's mainframe computers around the country. According to Broots: "Every Friday night at 11:59 PM all the Centre mainframes from all across the country do this mass back-up into this giant system [at Hillman] through their Blue Boxes..." In the "A Stand-UP Guy" episode, Mr. Lyle tried to decrypt a stolen blue-box computer chip at Hillman Marine. He was intercepted by Miss Parker and shot, but escaped nonetheless.

Angel Manor: Located in Charlston, South Carolina, this is a Centre safehouse, and used to house those people whom Centre operative have kidnapped or are protecting. Timmy (aka Angelo) was brought to Angel Manor as a child before he was transported to The Centre. Likewise, Davy Simpkins, was brought to Angel Manor in 1998 as a precursor to his induction (against his will) into the Pretender Project by Mr. Raines and Dr. DeWitt. As far as we know, Jarod was never taken here as a child.

There's also a Pretender Site on the web called Angel Manor @ Geocities.

The Dragon House: Locate in Delphi Shores, New Jersey, this is a Centre safehouse which was often frequented by Kyle. He said he felt "safe" there, and often did detailed drawings of the place in his blue notebooks..

In 1997, after he'd relocated and kidnapped Harriet Tashman, Kyle took Tashman to The Dragon House and tried to force her to tell him where his parents were. Tashman was eventually rescued from Kyle and The Dragon House by Jarod.

FYI: Some of the outside locations used for the Dragon House were the same outside locations used in the first season episode, "Curious Jarod" for the Marquis Casino.

St. Catherine of the Hills seminary in Massachussettes. This half-monastary half-nunnary was where Catherine Jameson-Parker and Harriet Tashman studied to become nuns. Catherine didn't go through with her vows, and instead married Mr. Parker. Harriet did become a nun, but gave up her commission when she realized she didn't really have the calling for it.

The Centre, knowing about Catherine Jameson-Parker's close ties to the facility, kept a wire-tap on the phone lines at St. Catherine's for over 30 years (and it's probably still active). In 1997, when Kyle escaped from prison, Harriet returned to St. Catherine's -- either to seek refuge or to contact her associates there (or both), we're not sure -- and Kyle (dressed as a monk) found and kidnapped her from there. Jarod also arrived at the place just moments before Harriet was kidnapped, and atempted without success to stop Kyle.

It may be possible that Jarod's mom, dad, and sister Emily are cloistered away in St. Catherine's, or that othes (whom we haven't met yet) are working out of St. Catherine's for Jarod's benefit.

When Harriet was able to set upa meeting between Jarod and his family in Boston, it's assumed that she went to St. Catherine's to do it. Mr. Parker told his superiors that he had found about Jarod's Boston rendezvous via the phone tap The Centre kept on St. Catherine's.

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