RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (29 page)

“Another witness said he saw one man taking all of the beef jerky from the gift shop and stuffing it down his pants while muttering something about it being overpriced, behavior that would not be expected of pros.  This is Brian Wilcox reporting live at the scene for news 21, back to you in the studio
Alise.” 

Dodge noted that they had several surveillance camera shots of the team and they really did look like thugs.  Their Tattoos looked real, some had dew rags on their heads, others had hats, and most of them had sunglasses, and cut off shirt sleeves, it was great,
nobody would ever suspect that they were actually a highly skilled Black Ops team. 

The story ended and it became part of the everyday news, no big deal, it would soon be forgotten.  John called a few minutes later.

“Hey Buddy, did you see the story?”

“Oh, yeah I did, it was crazy,
our boys did a great job.  Too bad some people got hurt.”
         “Yeah, I know, the team leader called me right after and apologized for that.  He said the one guard on duty that started to fight back was not supposed to be there today.  The regular guard scheduled to work was sick and this guy got called in to cover for him.  This guy is ex-marine, tough SOB, didn’t back down.  But you saw how well our boys handled him.  By the way, he didn’t miss with those two shots that he fired.  He hit two of our guy’s dead aim in the chest from forty feet while moving.  Our boys had on body armor so they got out with just a few bruised ribs but there is no doubt in my mind that he knows he hit them.  This guy is good.” 

“He might be the only one that thinks these guys were not just run of the mill thieves.  They didn’t interview him because of
his injuries so we’re lucky in that respect.  Then again he might think that they died later after they made their getaway.  Hopefully he won’t say anything and even if he does, people are’nt likely to listen to him.”

         “So, did we get everything we needed?” Asked Dodge.
         “Yes they took exactly what was on the shopping list.  You and I will come up with the rest very easily and piece it together.  I am having the heisted console shipped to the lab in Lapel, from now on let’s just call it the farm, okay?”
         “Works for me, do you have anyone stationed out there to receive items?” 

“Yes, one of the Ops team guys volunteered to stay there full time to keep an eye on things until we can get a full team in place.  He can receive any items we have sent there.  My Aunt is completely cleared out and already in her new house down south getting comfortable, she has no reason to return there.” 

“The next step is to obtain the equipment we need to grow our clones.  This equipment is extremely specialized but most of it can be obtained in ways that won’t be traceable.” 

“I intercepted some communications between one of the clone growers and the manufacturer of the equipment.  It seems they have a refurbishment program for the equipment.  It’s sent back to the factory at the first sign of malfunction or one year of service, whichever comes first, for a complete rebuild.” 

“I hi jacked their data stream and removed two serial numbers and work orders for two complete sets of the equipment.  I altered the shipping manifest and rerouted the two units to a shell company in Ohio that I created, all fake. 

“
They’ll be shipped to this empty warehouse in Ohio where one of our ops team guys will be posing as the shipping and receiving clerk.  As soon as the truck is gone he will load the equipment onto our truck and bring it to the farm.” 

“The turnaround time for these standard refurbs is about six months.  No one will know the equipment is missing for at least that amount of time and even if they did realize it they would likely never find it.  When we’re done with it
we’ll send it back as refurbished and they’ll never know the difference.” 

“Who’s going to repair it? I mean, it’s broken right?”
Asked Dodge.
         “No” John replied.     

“These two units are in good working order but they hit the one year limit so they’re going in for maintenance.  They may need a little cleaning and maybe something replaced while we’re using them but it should be very routine stuff.  That’s one reason why I got two of them. We only need
one, the other is a back up for parts if needed.”

“All right, makes sense” said Dodge.     

“So we get the thing delivered and all the pieces collected up, how are we going to get it put together?” 

John thought for a moment.     

“I’m not sure, I haven’t figured that part out yet.
         “All right you and I will think about that some more.  In the mean time maybe you can continue to iron out more details about the farm so that when I do get there I’ll have everything I need to set up the equipment.”

“I’m all over it man, don’t worry I’ll make sure everything you need is there.  I should also tell you I’ve located a fantastic geneticist through our Black Ops team
Captain.  I like finding people this way because I know I can trust each one of these guys to give only high quality referrals.” 

“This guy is out of work recently and he needs a job really bad.  He got pretty excited when I told him about the project and that it involved bringing down some cyber criminals.  He had prior experience with hackers stealing one of his best ideas and obtaining a patent before he could.”

“He would love to be part of a team credited with sending hackers off to prison.  His name is Jason Bluffton and he will be arriving in two days.  He will be setting up the tanks for the clone growth and collecting samples from you and that way, he can get started right away on growing our clones.” 

“Oh, and Dodge, if you don’t mind I think we should get Linsey and the kid’s DNA to this guy as well, you know just as an insurance measure, it would be a good idea to get some clones growing for them too, after all, these guys have killed before, and they might cause a ‘so called’ accident at the clone warehouse where all of your clones are stored.  I’m thinking we had better have backups don’t you?”

Dodge agreed, this way they would be safe no matter what the hackers pulled, one step ahead of them would be the smart place to be.
         “Okay, sounds good, we’ll talk soon.” 

As the call ended Dodge realized how deep they were into this mess.  They had passed by the point of no return miles back, now they would have to forge ahead to get out of it alive. 

Dodge went to the kitchen to get a late night snack, the stress of the situation was getting to him a bit and a good snack might calm his stomach and his nerves.  The news was over and the kids already said good night and went up to bed.  Linsey was at the kitchen table using her skyphone to pay some bills.  She was telling Dodge how nice it was to pay off their credit cards and catch up all their bills and still have plenty left over with no worries. 

He was glad to see her free of that stress.  Linsey asked how the conversation went with John.  As he toasted an English muffin he handily condensed the entire contents of their conversation into just about a two minute update.  He had scanned the kitchen for bugs earlier that morning, it was clean,
so they talked freely. 

The muffin popped up and he slapped some peanut butter on it, grabbed his glass of milk and headed for the TV room, he wanted to catch the late edition news on the competing network to see if there was any additional coverage that the earlier team may have missed. 

Sure enough the breaking news story of the night was their LifeTech heist.  Pretty much the same info, the same witnesses, and the same conclusions by authorities.  Then the funny part, the newscast changed their focus to another story.

“And in an un-related story on the west coast today, another wealthy man, a very successful real estate broker, woke up this morning telling his wife that they had been robbed.  Just like several other victims in recent months, the man said that when he went to bed two nights earlier he felt fine.  When he awoke the following morning he seemed unable to control his actions.  He got up, showered, dressed, kissed his wife goodbye, and then proceeded to visit his local bank branch where he wired his entire fortune, against his will, to an offshore bank account.” 

“He proceeded to his office and worked his normal day returning home that night, seemingly fine.  He ate dinner with his wife and kids, went to bed, and woke up the next morning going mad and telling everyone this outrageous story.” 

“He was admitted to the mental ward at the bequest of his now financially ruined family.  When the authorities checked his
story, they found that he was telling the truth about the funds transfer, but also found that the funds were gone out of the receiving account.  They promptly pressed charges of insurance fraud against the man.”  Dodge turned off the TV in the middle of the story because he already knew the rest.   

This piqued Dodge’s curiosity so he decided that maybe there were many more stories similar to this one out there that were not being broadcast on the local news.  He went up to his office
PC to check for similar stories.  He opened a search window on the web and entered
“cyber crime news” as a search.  Sure enough within minutes he had located numerous stories from around the world of people giving away their entire fortunes to unknown persons at the drop of a hat and then claiming later that they had no intentions of doing so.  The older stories were much smaller amounts of money so they didn’t make the headlines as often. 

All the stories seemed to have one common thread; it always started in the morning and ended the following morning.  The time frame was always just one day.  It was never two days or a week or just part of a day, no, always one full 24-hour period from dawn to dawn.  There could only be one explanation.  It had to be happening through the Lifecorder.

It made perfect sense that when the victims lay down at night the hackers got into their LifeCorders and were able to influence them somehow, the next morning they controlled

the
victim causing them to transfer their wealth to the offshore accounts. 

That night when they laid down again the hackers would withdraw but they
couldn’t erase their tracks completely.  The next morning when the victim awoke they knew they had been railroaded but couldn’t prove it and few people would believe them. 

Some wealthy people had already stopped using their LifeCorders out of paranoia that it was this portal the criminals were using to get in.  Other wealthy people wrote it off to some clever guy robbing himself and then claiming it on his insurance. 

Some were not using their Lifecorders as a precaution, but most just laughed it off and continued to trust the system.  Dodge was now even more convinced that this must be the hacker’s motive, this is why they were killing people, those individuals that knew too much were getting snuffed out. 

But who were the culprits and why were they doing this? Was it just plain greed, or did they have some specific purpose for all that money?  He looked at the clock, it was 11:45,
he needed to go to bed soon so that he could function on a high level at work tomorrow. 

He met Linsey in the hall as they were both headed for the bedroom.  They lay in bed fully aware of the listeners but in spite of that they had a great talk, they couldn’t talk about the things that were the heaviest on their minds so instead they distracted themselves by talking about everything else until they both fell asleep.

Chapter 15
    
 
The next morning Dodge went to work as usual and tried to pretend his life was normal.  He said hello to Steph with a smile, made his way to the break room and got a fresh cup of coffee and a yogurt and then headed for his office.

He stopped for a brief chat with Tim in the hall and was reminded to attend a budgetary meeting on Friday.  Tim also reminded him to go

look at his stock because it was on the rise again.  Even though that was good news, he really didn’t care to look at it.  He had already cashed out half and was pretty much set for life.  He was much more concerned about waking up one morning to discover that his brain was hijacked by some greedy loon that would force him to go to bank and sign it all away.  That’s when it hit him that he had better move some of their money into different accounts that required two signatures in order to transfer funds, yes that was a good idea, he and Linsey would go do that one afternoon this week.  Just before lunch he got a text from John.  It was a grocery list of things he needed Dodge to poke around for at work. 

He wanted Dodge to look in his personal junkyard of parts to see if he had some items they needed to get the console back into working order.  It seems the op team gave it a bumpy ride by wrapping a chain around it and dragging it out into the parking lot before tossing it into the back of their getaway van. 

Two of the boards inside had sustained damage and needed minor repairs.  They needed to find three integrated circuit chips and four diodes to make the repairs and so he forwarded the list of parts to Dodge. 

Dodge waited until the end of the day and headed down to the lab while he knew he could still get in.  He had the pass code to get in but
didn’t want to use it.  If he could walk in while his team was still in there and then stay until after they had all gone he could simply get the needed parts and then leave.