RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (40 page)

They pass it off at the life centers as a bad clone and then offer the family another clone free of charge.  They keep it under wraps until they get it straightened out and then they offer to do the upload again once they have located the correct body and lifefile.  It’s a very good system but every system has a flaw, and in this case, we found it.” 

“Get it straightened out immediately Glitch, I want the DNA and the lifefile of Dodge Kerrington as soon as possible.”
         “Yes Sir, I’ll have it for you by this evening.”
         “Good Glitch, very good, and get rid of these other clones of our useless custodian from Washington.”

“Consider it done Sir” Glitch pushed away from the computer, he was done there, his own
PC in his office was a much better machine and he had serious work to do.  As he turned and looked at the mess in the chair and the other clone bodies lined up nearby he realized exactly what Slade had been planning to do. 

Slade intended to torture Dodge Kerrington’s Clones one at a time.  Each of the clones was increasingly younger, there were five of them in all and the smallest one appeared to be about three years old.  Of course the body didn’t really matter much when you loaded an adult lifefile into it, the resulting clone acted and talked just like an adult.  Any age body could feel pain and the mind could know fear, and that was all that mattered to Cyrus, no doubt his plan was to try different tactics with each attempt until he found the one thing that would make Dodge Kerrington spill the beans. 

The clones were useless to him because they were of this custodian from Washington and only his file could be loaded into them.  Now Glitch would have to locate the correct files and get the correct DNA profile so that Cyrus could start the process all over again.  This would take several weeks to accomplish and it was a major setback for Cyrus.  Glitch knew that this would make Cyrus even more hostile and difficult to deal with in the mean time. 

He decided to be more careful in his dealings with Slade now, he had seen him like this before; when let down, he would start killing people until he got what he wanted.  

Cyrus had no concerns about killing clones because no one could prove it anyway, he wouldn’t have a problem with killing people all day long either if he could figure a way to cover it up.  Now that Dodge Kerrington and John Calhoun were in the news so much, it made them nearly untouchable in Cyrus’s mind.  They were too popular now.  They had too much press.  He couldn’t just grab them, that would raise too much suspicion and create a media circus, instead he would clone them and torture their clones until he got what he wanted. 

It was brilliant and he could never be charged with murder for killing clones that nobody could prove ever existed.   As Glitch made his way back up to his office, he saw one of the custodians.     

“Hey, you there, what’s your name?”
         “Bill Sir.”
         “Well Bill, there is a small mess down in lab no. 2.  You go round up two more of your buddies and get down there.  I want it all cleaned up within the hour.  There is one in the chair and four more lined up, burn them all.  I want it spotless down there, and I’ll be checking back later to see that it’s done,” said Glitch.  He was shaking his finger at the man while giving him the orders.
         “Yes Sir, we’ll take care of it.”  The man took off in a rush to fetch two of his fellow workers.” 

Back in his office Glitch checked the time, it was nearly 3:00 p.m. Toby should be checking in soon with an update and he was anxious to hear good news.  They needed that feed from the Kerrington
house, he needed something progressive to report to Cyrus before he went crazy and started killing again. 

At 3:00 p.m. sharp Glitch’s phone rang, he looked at the screen, it was Toby reporting in.
         “Yes” he answered.
         “The hacks’ installed, we’re in.”  The call was quick and concise with no pleasantries, just like Glitch liked it.  He headed to Slade’s office to give him the good news and to get his next instructions for Toby.  Glitch no doubt would be praised for his idea to send Toby in as a teenage spy, and he felt victorious.

Chapter 1
9
      Back at the Kerrington’s Toby installed the hack on the security console while John observed.
         “Nice work Toby, I see you know what you’re doing, not too many people in this world can do what you just did.  Did you write this code?”
         “Oh no,” replied Toby, “I’m pretty good at making things’ work but I’m no software engineer.   I overheard my handlers talking, apparently this was written by a guy they call Glitch.” 

The moment John heard that name he knew for sure that Cyrus Slade was behind this whole thing.  During several of his late night hacking sessions he came across this individual.  Everywhere his name turned up in crime, so did Cyrus Slade.  It seems they enjoyed working together. 

“Hey another thing I overheard that I didn’t really think was that important until now” said Toby.
         “Yeah, I’m listening, go on.”
         “I heard some people in the van one day, during one of my ‘head in a sack rides’, that Glitch was the only person working for CS that didn’t have this bomb thing in his head.  Seems the boss considered him as an equal or a comrade or something.”

“Okay, good to know, that information may come in handy down the road.”
         “So this guy that I’ve been working for, this CS, you think he’s this Cyrus Slade fellow?”
         “Yes, now that you mentioned Glitch, I am almost certain that it’s him because the two of them always work together.”

  John copied the virus from the microdrive that Toby was carrying and then Toby put it on the floor and smashed it.  He picked up the pieces and threw them into the kitchen trash can.
         “Well I guess it’s about time for me to go back, who’s going to drop me off at the house?”  The hack was nearly done configuring, and so they would have to stop talking openly very soon.  John called out to everyone from the kitchen and  they all came in. 

“All right
everyone, it’s just about time for Toby to go back to his house.  I have cleaned up everything here so that it can’t be seen.  According to the screen here we have about three minutes before we go live.  Cyrus and his minions will be able to see everything going on in this house, full audio, video, the works.  We can’t talk about what’s going on to one another after about one more minute, everybody ready?” 

They nodded.

“Everybody act normal, and remember, if we talk about Toby later, he’s a great kid that we all like,” said Dodge.  John put his hand on Toby’s shoulder.    

“See ya’ Toby, don’t worry Buddy, we’ll help you get through this.”
         “Thanks everybody,” said Toby, “I hope to see you all again someday under much better circumstances.”

John was monitoring the screen, ten seconds everyone, act natural.  Sarah shrugged.
         “No problem, I just don’t care if they watch me, whoopee doo.”  She went over to the fridge and got out a coke and started acting like nothing had happened.     

“Hey Bobby did you and your new friend Toby do anything exciting last night?”

At that very moment Glitch was watching the monitor he had set up in Cyrus’s office with great anticipation.  The screen flickered and the live feed came up.  Cyrus spun around.

“Is it working?”  He almost sounded excited.    

“Yes,” answered Glitch, “It’s working and look there’s Toby, he pulled it off, he got the hack into the system.  Now the very system that the Kerrington’s believe is protecting them is working as a monitoring system for us.”  Cyrus chuckled in a maniacal way.

“Yes! I believe this will do.  Nice work Glitch, your little troll Toby seems to have proven he’s useful after all.  I must admit I doubted that this would work, but I was wrong, this is an awesome upgrade.”
         “Thank you Sir.”
         “Oh, and Glitch, take care of that file mix up on Kerrington.  I want that DNA right away, there is no time to waste in getting Kerrington’s clones growing.  Make sure it gets done, that will be all.” 

Glitch felt really good as he left the office, he knew Cyrus was elated with being able to see and hear everything going on in the Kerrington Home.  Maybe he could observe Dodge and discover a hiding spot for sensitive material or maybe a safe filled with all the answers he needed, there must be some security breach within those walls that he could exploit.  Glitch was sure that Cyrus would not rest until he had found it. 

John went home to prepare a video briefing to bring everyone up to speed.  He sent it out to the Black Ops team, the farm team, Allan, and several of his trusted buddies that were helping him from inside the pentagon.  He knew that giving them information would bode well for them very soon, they needed more weapons and man power to bring down Cyrus.

  The Kerrington’s went on acting as natural as possible and took Toby to the house, where his “stand in parents”
were waiting.  They said their goodbyes and told his parents that Toby was welcome to come back anytime and stay over with Bobby and that he was a nice young man.

Back at the Farm Jason was working nonstop to get the clones ready as quickly as possible.  He had finally received an assistant thanks to John. One of the Black Ops team members had a sister that recently lost her job as a lab assistant to a well-known geneticist working on cures for cancer, her name was Caitlin Humphrey.  The funding for their research had finally dried up completely and they all received notice that their jobs were ending a few weeks ago.  John told this guy that he would pay her handsomely but that she had better be trustworthy and able to keep secrets better than a deaf mute.  His friend promised that she was solid and he sent her over to the farm for an interview. 

John interviewed her via video phone and then Jason interviewed her as well, she was perfect for the job.  She came from a military family, so she was comfortable with carrying a gun and she was a true patriot.  She expressed that she wanted to help thwart Cyrus’s efforts just as soon as she heard about what he was plotting to do. She was a great help to Jason and now he was able to get a little more sleep.

  When John received Jason’s request two weeks earlier to get the ingredients for the pink goop, he made a trip to the bank to make a deposit as usual.  His cousin at the pawn shop was able to help out in a way that surprised even John.  Turns out he knew some guys involved in the sports world that managed to get their hands on the recipe for the stuff and now they were selling it to various trainers.  They were using it much like the athletes used steroids many years ago.  This new stuff was much safer as long as you didn’t overdo
it, you could bulk up and get stronger much faster than with the old methods.

John asked if he could purchase two 55 gallon drums of the stuff.  There was a long pause on the other end.
         “Man you feeding an army or what?”  John made up something fast.      

“Well actually we’re feeding it to horses that will be exported to countries that are still experiencing difficulties after the pandemic. Seems they can’t get fuel for their tractors and other equipment over there for economic reasons and many of them have reverted to animal power for plowing fields and for heavy
moving.  We’re experimenting with super horses that can do the job of three for the price of one.” 

It sounded ridiculous but the guy bought it.
         “All right, let’s see, that’s going to run you $128,232 dollars,” he said.
         “No problem, I’ll transfer the funds later today.”  Two weeks later a box truck showed up at the farm, the driver came in and did the paperwork and unloaded the truck, no questions asked.

Jason tried a small amount of it and was just fine 24 hours later.  He and his new assistant Caitlin began feeding the clones intravenously with a mixture of the pink goop and several other nutritional supplements.  First they had to get it into a state where the blood stream could accept it.

  They used swine stomachs that they rigged in another suspension pod to get the mixture into a colloidal state so that it would transfer into the blood through the stomach linings.  Once it crossed the blood barrier they could separate it out through a special filter and then inject it directly into the blood stream of the clones.  

This new development in the method of absorption enhanced the effect way beyond ingesting the pink goop, now they had a super drug that yielded extreme results in the clone bodies.  Coupled with electric impulses to the muscles on a regular basis to build strength and mass, it was a perfect formula for success.  The clones were developing muscle mass like you would expect to see in a veteran body builder that had been on the old style steroids for months, not like the government issued clones that always looked very thin and sickly for the first week or so after being loaded. 

Jason sent some pictures to John’s phone to show off his accomplishment.  John was amazed and couldn’t wait to show Dodge.  Dodge’s clone would be ready for loading in just two more days, while John’s was just about two days behind Dodge’s so it wouldn’t be long now.  Jason and Caitlin would not be loading up the rest of the family as they were only reserved in case the family members were killed.  They Needed Dodge and John’s clones now to help them with taking down Cyrus and his crew.  The upload console was nearly finished and should be ready just in time for Loading Dodge’s clone in two days.  Dodge had been walking Jason through circuit board repairs via video conferencing and it was working quite well.