RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (43 page)

“He’ll have to reload the same file over and over again into each clone until he has used them all up.  Hopefully by then, it will be too late and we’ll take him down.  If he figures out that
we’re aware of him, chances are he’ll act just like a cornered rat, very dangerous.” 

“We’re getting close to the house now so I gotta go, but please send me the file to put on my computer.  I’ll copy it to a microdrive and let the watchers see me put it in my hiding place.  When Toby checks in they’ll tell him how to get it and when he does they’ll think they have us.  When he takes it back to them, they’ll get nothing but older versions of our software and design files that will be useless to them.  Of course they won’t know about the Trojan horse that came with it!” 

“All right sounds good,” said John, “I’ll send it to you just as soon as I can get it tweaked for the application, how long will Toby be there?”
         “Until about 4:00 p.m. tomorrow.”
         “Damn, not much time, looks light an all nighter.  No worries though, I’ll make sure this thing gives old Cyrus exactly what he needs, a new perspective.” 

They hung up and Dodge filled Toby and Bobby in as quickly as he could, they were almost to the house, and once there, they
couldn’t speak of it anymore, they would just have to wing it if they hit any snags.  Hopefully, all would go as planned. 

Dodge updated Linsey, every chance he got, sometimes in the bathroom, sometimes
In the car while driving.  Linsey updated Sarah while in the car or at the pool, anytime they had a high level of privacy.  So far so good, the hackers seemed to be oblivious to the fact that they were being out played at their own game, a game that was getting increasingly dangerous to play. 

Dodge was taking a lot more time off work lately.  Everyone including his boss, his acquaintances, and even Cyrus, believed it was due to his new found wealth.  None of them were wise to the fact that Dodge was fighting for his survival and for that of his family as well.  Cyrus Slade had become an expert at killing people off for his own diabolical purposes while making it look like a legitimate accident that no one, not even CSI’s would dispute.  They would have to be very sharp to beat him at this game. 

It was Friday night, and despite their plight, Dodge decided that they should try to relax and act like it.  When Linsey and Sarah saw them walking in with Toby they were relieved to see that he was still alive.  Just a few days ago, they had learned that he was basically a walking time bomb that Cyrus could terminate at any time.  What a cruel situation to be in, when immortality was now the norm. 

They all decided to go out for pizza and a movie.  It was like really sticking it to Cyrus whenever they went out.  Cyrus had to mobilize a lot of people to keep up with them.  When they got to the mall, the pizza place was really packed, so they left and went to another pizza place four miles away that was known for live comic acts suitable for the family.  They had a great time and Dodge could tell by watching Toby that he was having the best time he had in ages. 

“It must have been hell having to work for Cyrus Slade” he thought.  They took their time eating and listening to the comics, and they enjoyed some much needed laughter that took their minds off their situation for a little while. 

After leaving the pizza place, they went back to the mall to see a movie.  There was a new Star Wars movie showing and they decided on that one.  It was hard to believe that they were still making those movies.  It was now the longest running movie series in history.  The box sets now had something like thirty movies in them spanning more than 75 years.  It was great, they just kept adding more to the story.

They were all to full from eating pizza to get movie food so they just got their tickets and went on in.  The movie was fantastic, and the visual effects and sound were outstanding, just as expected.  

The movie ended and it certainly served as a healthy distraction from the reality of being watched back at home.  They got home, piled out of the minivan, and went inside.  Tomorrow was Saturday and everyone was talking about sleeping in and having a big breakfast followed by lying around until afternoon.  One by one they all filed off to their rooms.  Sarah went to her room and fell asleep reading a
digibook.  Dodge and Linsey went to their room and watched the news and one of their favorite shows, “Friday Nights.”  They fell asleep somewhere in the middle of it.  It was a different story in Bobby’s room. They weren’t tired, so he and Toby stayed up watching old movies.

  Normally Bobby would have objected to watching the old stuff, but since he knew Toby was actually an old man, he understood now why he would prefer watching the older shows.  It was a really old movie starring a gritty actor named “Clint Eastwood.”  He was a tough New York City cop and he was quite
good with a gun.  Bobby hadn’t watched any of his movies before, but thought that he kind of liked this Clint guy, he was pretty cool as Dirty Harry, a real tough no nonsense cop that didn’t talk much.  He loved it when Harry pulled out that big 357 magnum hand gun and said, “Go ahead punk, make my day!”

It was different now with Toby since Bobby knew he wasn’t really a kid, it was like having a sleep over with your uncle.  Toby was doing a great job though of acting like a kid.  Bobby supposed he had to do his best to convince the hackers that he was doing his job.  Somewhere in the middle of the second movie, they both drifted off. 

Dodge woke up in the middle of the night.  He wanted to check his phone but he couldn’t because it would raise suspicion with Cyrus’s crew.  He had shut off the ringer on his phone and all the lights too, and turned it face down on the bedside table.  He didn’t want any visible signs on his phone if John should call in the middle of the night.  It was difficult but he would have to wait until morning to check it.

  Much to his surprise, he slept very soundly the rest of that night, and didn’t wake up again until 10:20 a.m.
, he must have been really tired, and badly needed the sleep.  As soon as he woke up, he grabbed his phone and went downstairs to the kitchen.  He wanted to look at it but didn’t want to seem to anxious.  Linsey and Sarah were up fixing some breakfast and the coffee was nearly done.  Dodge said good morning and sat down for a minute.  He poured a cup of coffee before grabbing the digipaper and plopping down to read it at the kitchen table.  He started reading the headlines and picked up his phone to check his messages. 

Sure enough John had left a message:  Hey, Dodge, I waited to call you until daybreak just in case your phone was on and could be seen, just being careful, anyway, been up all night and I’ve got it done.  Take your phone somewhere private, open the message I sent
you, and you’ll see an attachment called “contacts2.”  Save this message to your mem. card, go to the settings menu and select “import contact list” then select   “browse” and go to the mem. card and select the “Contacts2” file.  When prompted “are you sure you want to replace your contact list with Contacts2?” select “yes.” 

“When the time is right, go to your office.  One of the cameras has a great view of your monitor so the watchers will see
what you’re doing and that’s just fine.  Link up your phone with your PC and then run a backup file of your phone contact list to your PC, just like you would any other time. 

When you do this, you’re actually infecting your computer but don’t worry that’s part of the plan.  Leave the office and return some time later in the day and open some of the old useless files that we discussed.  If you still have that secret hiding place then access it so that the watchers can see you do it and easily instruct Toby later on how to get to it.  Be obvious about saving the files to a particular microdrive and then place it back in the hiding place and leave the office.  That’s it buddy, I have to go,
I’m exhausted.

When Dodge hung up, he realized once again that John was simply a genius, there were no two ways about it, not only was John the best programmer he had ever seen, he was also good at this cloak and dagger stuff, amazing.  Just as he ended the call, Toby and Bobby came bounding in like boys that age always do.  They all had breakfast together then Bobby and Toby went out to shoot some hoops.  Everyone, even the boys,
were doing a great job of acting natural. 

Cyrus and his crew had no idea what carnage was about to descend upon them.  Dodge took his sweet time reading the paper, drinking more coffee, milling about the house, and checking the security system, just as any engineer would.  He took his sweet time but did finally go to the restroom when his coffee consumption caught up with him and he took care of the contact file as John had instructed while he was in there. 

John had obviously hacked his phone and purposely infected it with a file that would do Cyrus in, but it was carefully masked within the contact file.  Loading that new contact list file onto his office PC was going to infect it.  Connecting a microdrive to the infected PC would then infect the microdrive.  Then, at some point, Toby would steal that drive just as planned.  Cyrus would think he was stealing high-tech ESS files that would reveal the vulnerabilities of the LifeTech system, but instead Cyrus would be falling directly into a carefully laid trap. 

Once they successfully infected the computers within the compound they would have created their own invasion of privacy, the hunter becomes the hunted!  After finishing his coffee he decided he would go out for a few minutes and shoot some baskets with the boys.  They were glad he came and they all had a
good time making bets on who could make the shot from the furthest away.         Dodge hired a contractor to remove the old basketball goal, while Bobby was still recovering from Restoration, and had them install a brand-new one at the very back of the drive where it turned to go into the detached garage.  That placed it far enough away from the street to prevent any more accidents. 

He had fun and got rid of some stress at that same time.  He was beginning to get tired and the timing was good to get to his task.

“Well, you young men have fun, I’ve got some computer work to catch up on.”  Toby and Bobby got what he was saying and knew that Dodge was going to bait the trap. 

Dodge went up to his office and turned on his computer.  He set his phone to sync and opened his phonebook software on the
PC and set it to sync and hit start.  It only took about a minute for the little icon to turn green and it displayed “successful sync” He closed out the window on the PC and on his phone and slipped his phone back into his pocket. 

John went into a lot of detail about selecting contact files and moving them but that was because he
didn’t know what method Dodge typically used to do backups.  Dodge simply did the sync method which moved the infected contact list to his PC just as John instructed.  This was the one time he was actually hoping that the watchers were actually watching.  If they weren’t then he was just wasting his time.

  He got up and went downstairs to get a coke, he thought a little segue between backing up the phone list, and messing around with the

important files, might provide a natural gap, leaving the hackers less suspicious of foul play. 

He took his time putting a coke over ice in a big glass and then took a lengthy restroom break.  He read his car magazine again while in the restroom.  He went back to his office and locked the door behind him and retrieved the key from over the window sill.
         “
Man, I sure hate giving my hiding spot away!”
He took the key and opened his desk drawer, pulled out the fire safe and unlocked it.  There were plenty of digital lock safes available today but he liked the old keyed lock, it just seemed to have nostalgic character. 

He dug around in the box until he found a bright orange drive that he knew had some older design files on it, both for the
LifeTech, and the Medic-Star systems.  He loaded it up and opened several files and then acted as if though he was intently studying them.  He used his touch pen to draw several little red circles around areas of the schematic and a corresponding area on the circuit board layout file.  He launched a sticky note program in the editor and attached it to the red circles on the drawings and then typed a message in the box.       “Discovered security breach potential at these points, vulnerability due to poor shielding on the communications bus, must revise on next design change for Gen 3 release.” 

“There, that should keep them busy for a while.”
  Neither Cyrus or Glitch were electronics engineers, they did have a good bit of knowledge but nothing like Dodge.  He chuckled to himself. 
“Should I add a flux capacitor to the schematic.”
He remembered the old movie that John loved so much from the 1980’s about the kid that had the time travel DeLorean car and the wacky professor with the wild hair. 

He continued to look over the files for about another 45 minutes just to make it look legit.  He made a few more notes about voltage levels and upgrading components.  Things that they had actually already done for future releases, it looked very official. 

He saved the files back to the orange drive and then removed it and put it in the safe, while doing so he spotted the blue drive with the GTO files on it so he grabbed it out, and a bag of pistachios that he had stowed in there also.  He locked the fire safe and the desk then returned the key to the top of the window sill.  He went back to his PC and opened a file folder named “old favs” and clicked on one of his favorite things to watch when he was all by himself, classic cartoons from the 60’s.