The road less travelled...

Howdy, Pretender fans! Remember me? Well, I have at last got off my substantial rear end and written more of a fic I first posted in October IN 2005!! *le sigh*

At that time I put the beginning of a cross-over story of The Pretender and Survivor, set in Fiji. Well it now turns out that the next series of Survivor will be on - Fiji. (Who'd a thunk it?)

I would like to announce that I came up with this idea years ago!! Humph! Just in case you doubt me, my original post can be found here. To avoid the possibility that any of my ideas for how the show might be played out are the same as the 'real thing', I suppose I will now be posting the story as it gets written. And thus, without much further ado...


Survival of the Fittest


Prologue – Jarod’s New Pretend


Broots slipped into his house, tiptoeing through the hall as if afraid that someone in the otherwise empty building would hear him. Debbie was having a sleepover, but Broots, as he removed his shoes to walk in his Snoopy socks, felt that you couldn’t be too careful. It wasn’t as if he should really have been here, but Miss Parker and Mr. Lyle had gone off chasing another lead for Jarod, and Sydney was occupied with another of his projects. Broots had been left pretty much to his own devises, so he had taken his chance and left the Centre early.

In the living room, Broots settled into his recliner and switched on the television. He had a perfectly good reason for being home at this hour – of course he did! He had timed this to perfection. It was almost eight o’clock. The closing credits of The Insider were finishing up, which gave him just enough time to get a cold drink – beer, if he had any say in it – and watch the vital first few minutes of the first show of the season.

Unfortunately, Broots found that his fridge was almost empty and he gave an exclamation of annoyance before remembering that his housekeeper had called the day before to tell him that she was unwell and wouldn’t be in that week. Of course, he had completely forgotten to go the store, and now the empty fridge was the result! Grabbing a glass and a half-empty bottle of Coke (the only thing left in the fridge, except for something green and almost beyond recognition in a Tupperware container and a very hard lump of cheese) he went into the garage to collect a new bottle of Coke from the box where he kept them and put it into the fridge before going back to the living room.

There, he found that the first episode of Survivor: Fiji had already begun. A search for the remote control, which had somehow slipped off the arm of the chair and ended up on the floor beneath it, took another few minutes and necessitated Broots switching on the light. However, he found it in the end. He was just about to sit down in his chair again when he happened to glance at the television and froze, his mouth falling open with surprise.

“It can’t be…” he breathed, dropping into the chair as the man on the television began to speak, confirming Broots’ initial thought. “Jarod!” he exclaimed.

Turning the remote control around so that it faced the right way, he pressed the rewind button, thanking God for TiVo as he did so, and began taping the show. This was even better than the time he had happened to see Jarod on the TV when he – Broots – was taking a shower. Suddenly, coming home early from work seemed like the best thing he had ever done.


Chapter One – Jarod Plays The Game


“And where the hell were you last night?”

Miss Parker’s irritable tones carried the length of Broots’ office, but for once he took no notice. His small video player was already waiting on his desk, along with a picture Broots had blown up from Survivor’s opening credits, Jarod’s name clearly printed below his picture. Miss Parker had just opened her mouth for another salvo when she noticed this and it stopped her in her tracks.

“What is that?” she demanded after a moment of stunned silence.

“It’s Jarod, Miss Parker,” Broots replied smartly. “On Survivor.”

The gaze she turned on him was almost bewildered. “What the hell…?”

Broots sat down in his chair and even dared to lean back a little, feeling himself to be master of the situation. That comfortable sensation lasted all of ten seconds, until he realized that Miss Parker had turned her most steely gaze on him and he leapt to his feet as if he had been stung.

“I… I was watching it – well, after you and Mr. Lyle left, I figured I didn’t have much to do, so I went home – and… and saw that.”

“Hey, Parker,” Lyle’s voice boomed from the doorway. “I know what Jarod’s up to.”

“So do we,” retorted Miss Parker as she spun around to face the newcomer. Then, in as nonchalant a voice as she could manage, she picked up the photo and held it out to him. “He’s a contestant on Survivor.”

Evidently, this news was designed to shock. Lyle stopped short and stared, much as his sister had done.

“What the hell…?” he demanded.

“Verbose,” the woman mocked.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Parker?” queried Sydney’s voice from behind Lyle.

“Oh, get in here and see it for yourself,” she snapped, nodding at Broots, who had already hooked the small TV up to a larger image player and now turned it on.

Jeff Probst’s voice rang through the room as the four people found seats, the host explaining that the sixteen contestants would spend thirty-nine days competing against each other. Miss Parker gave a muffled exclamation as the participants were shown on a ship and, to the people looking out for him, Jarod seemed obvious. Sydney cast an interested glance at Miss Parker when he noticed that several of the more attractive younger women had gathered around Jarod, but the psychiatrist’s attention was distracted when the host of the show began telling the contestants that they would randomly pick teams by choosing their buffs out of a bag and would then row to their camps.

Jarod’s tribal color was blue and he tied the buff loosely around his neck. The contestants lowered themselves down rope mesh to their outrigger canoes and Jeff Probst threw each tribe a map and flint. The girl sitting in front of Jarod caught the one needed for their team, but the other team missed theirs and had to dive for it while the blue tribe – Cakobau – rowed to their new home.

Broots fast-forwarded through the footage showing the green tribe – Naulivou – diving for their belongings, although he snickered when he saw them somehow manage to flip their canoe, dumping the whole tribe in the water. When the writing on the screen told the viewer that they were once more back with Jarod’s tribe, he stopped the fast-forward and the audience of four watched as the tribe worked to start fire, collect water and begin building a shelter.

Miss Parker snorted when she saw that Jarod appeared to be doing nothing other than holding up one of the support beams for the shelter.

“Why is he just standing there? Why doesn’t he get in and do something?”

“But that’s the big thing with this game,” Broots protested. “If you make yourself out to be a leader, you get voted off sooner.”

“Jarod does his research for any pretend, Miss Parker,” added Sydney. “He would no doubt have seen as many previous seasons of Survivor as he can find and would have worked out what behavior would get him farthest in the game.” The psychiatrist smiled, his eyes returning to his protégé, who could now be seen tying down palm fronds. “Jarod does not enjoy failing, and I imagine he would see being voted out of the game as a failure.”

“How noble,” mocked Lyle. “And what will he do with the million dollars in prize-money? Donate it to some bleeding heart, no doubt!”

“Oh, you know about it, Lyle,” sneered Miss Parker. “Is the Triumvirate aware that you have so much free time?”

At that moment, Jarod appeared on-screen for his first ‘confessional’, as Broots later explained that the private conversations with the camera were known to fans, so the discussion in Miss Parker’s office stopped as the pursuit team watched their target. Miss Parker arched an eyebrow when she saw that he, like most of the other males on his tribe – which had five men and only three women – had already removed his shirt and wore only a pair of black shorts and the blue buff around his neck.

“I wasn’t about to put myself forward,” Jarod remarked, sitting on a log, facing the camera. “Luckily, there are several guys who appear more threatening than me.”

“Than I,” murmured Sydney automatically.

“This is going to be interesting,” Jarod went on, and the corners of his lips twitched as if he was suppressing a smile. “This is a really diverse group of people, but I think Andrea and Mike are going to get on people’s nerves pretty fast.”

The screen immediately showed the two contestants Jarod had named and other people casting irritated glances in their direction.

“Timing,” Miss Parker remarked dryly.

“Editing,” Broots corrected, sitting back in his chair as another tribe member went to the confessional and then the commercials began.

“What the hell is he doing?” the woman wanted to know, even as Lyle crossed the room to the desk and picked up the phone. “Doesn’t he realize that, after this, he won’t be able to be anonymous again? After all, this is a massively popular program on national TV…”

“International,” interposed Broots.

“I have no doubt Jarod knows what he is doing,” said Sydney in a calm voice, but inwardly he was stunned by this development. Jarod’s choice of pretend was never predictable, depending, as it did, on articles from newspapers, but this seemed almost incomprehensible. Miss Parker was right – any hope of anonymity was gone. Had Jarod really considered what this would mean to his future?

At this moment, Lyle swore heavily and slammed the phone back into the cradle before turning to glare at the others in the room. A few seconds of strained silence passed before he exploded.

“Damned people wouldn’t tell me Jarod’s address!” he fumed.

“Maybe they thought you were from another network,” Broots ventured, cringing back into his chair as Lyle turned his blackest stare on the technician.

“Actually, Broots is probably right,” suggested Miss Parker. “I know Survivor is one of CBS’s biggest hits, so they’re scarcely going to risk their ratings by letting other people know where to find their stars.”

Lyle snorted. “We’ll see about that,” he snarled, and stormed out of the room.

As the door swung shut behind him – the newly installed hydraulic hinges now denied Centre employees the satisfaction of slamming doors – the other three in the office turned back to the television. The two tribes had met for the first challenge and found that it was for reward – cooking implements such as pots and pans, in addition to the usual flint. Broots paused the tape and explained that the first challenge was usually for both reward and immunity, and he wondered when they would fit in the immunity challenge.

The challenge was a race in the tribes’ outrigger canoes. However, the paddles were buried all over the beach, with only flags to mark their locations, and the players were blindfolded, apart from one member, who had to call directions to the others. Hayden, a tour-guide operator, took on the task of calling for Cakobau, and Chris, a computer-programmer, did so for Naulivou. The tribes were even when collecting the first seven paddles, but Naulivou got their last while Tiffany was still trying to find the last one for Jarod’s tribe, the woman having problems with Hayden’s directions. Naulivou had got their canoe into the water and were half-way out to the buoy by the time Cakobau had their last paddle and began racing for their boat.

Hayden, who, when tree-mail containing a paddle had arrived at the camps, had told his tribemates that he regularly used the canoes with his work, worked the rudder, steering the boat straight for the buoy. Naulivou, on the other hand, were struggling. Meredith, who had taken the rudder over the complaints of several members of her tribe, couldn’t seem to get the canoe to go straight. In the end, Richard, an army sergeant, had to change places with the actress and by then Cakobau were half-way back to the beach, where Jeff waited.

“You know what’s weird,” Broots remarked at this point, glancing at the counter on the player. “It’s been almost forty minutes. They’re not going to get time to show much of the immunity challenge.”

This remark was answered by Jeff Probst, who, having announced Jarod’s tribe as the victors, waited until the celebrating had ceased, with the usual slow-motion montages, before making an announcement. “There will be no immunity challenge.” There were gasps and shocked faces from the competitors and Broots. “Instead, both tribes will attend Tribal Council this evening. Both tribes will vote somebody off. You will also get a chance to listen in to what the other tribe has to say and see who they vote off.”

“You missed this last night, Broots?” Sydney enquired, seeing that the balding man’s face wore a puzzled look and he was rubbing his head.

“Yeah, Debbie came home,” Broots told him. “I knew there would be some sort of twist, but – wow, that’s really weird.”

“What do you think it will mean for Jarod?” the psychiatrist prompted.

“I don’t know – it’s really hard to say,” replied Broots. “Mark Burnett – he created the show – comes up with all these really weird ideas – I don’t know if one of the people voted out will come back, or someone else will come in during the game, or even if there will be an episode without a Tribal Council. It’s difficult to know what it’ll mean – where they’ll take it.”

During this conversation, the screen had shown the members of the other tribe going off in small groups to discuss voting strategy, although there was apparently no clear target. When Jarod’s tribe appeared on screen, Miss Parker held up her hand for silence, but it was unnecessary. Conversation had already ceased abruptly at the sight of the absent Pretender.

Neither Miss Parker nor Broots would ever fully understand how Jarod managed it, but somehow he was a part of every discussion and, in each, the name of the woman for whom he had already, in private, to the cameras, expressed the most contempt – Tiffany – soon became the favorite to be eliminated. Of course, other names were mentioned, but only Sydney would ever fully understand how Jarod had managed to bring the others around to his way of thinking, despite appearing to have played almost no part in the conversation at all. Late that night, Sydney would watch a particular DSA of a certain SIM and his lips would twist in a bitter and rather sardonic smile at the realization that Jarod was once more playing the game to which he had first been introduced when he was only eight years old and which he had practiced regularly for decades.


More will be forthcoming, but comments would be nice. *smiles sweetly and hides bloodstained axe*