Consigning Fate (33 page)

Joe stared for a few seconds, long and hard. “You. What … how …”

“Again.” Roy nodded. “Joe, I thought … I thought it would work.”

“I did, too.”

“But truth be known, Joe. You made some bad decisions. You didn’t think they’d be bad, but they were.”

“I made human decisions,” Joe said. “Human.”

“And you and I both know you’d do it again if you had the chance to do it over.”

“I based it on what I saw...”

“You based it on what you saw, yes. That is what made you make the decision.

“At the time, I felt it was right. Anyone would have done the same.”

He shook his head. “Not anyone. Not everyone. Would they have?”

Joe looked at him.

“Do you think Frank would have made that same decision?”

Joe chuckled in sadness. “Frank isn’t the same as me. He’s the only one who wouldn’t have made that decision.”

“He is.”

Joe closed his eyes briefly. “Why are you here, again? At this point …”

“At this point what?” Roy asked.

“Nothing can be done. “

“It’s not over, Joe. Not completely.”

“It’s never over. But at this point.”

“I think you know what needs to be done. None of this had to happen.”

“You’re right. But don’t you mean I know what needed to be done?”

“Need. Present tense. We can still make a change. You … you can make a change.”

“What are you saying?” Joe asked.

“It’s time, Joe, to make a decision.” Roy paused. “The ultimate decision.”

On that, Joe peered up with a heavy sigh.

“We have to go back.”

“Warning me again, may not …”

“Not warning you.” Roy interrupted. “Not warning you. Making you make not just the ultimate decision, but the ultimate sacrifice.”

Joe knew. He closed his eyes.

“You have to die.”

The ‘Hey, watch out!’ caught Roy’s attention in enough time for him to move his head to the side before being hit with a ball. He snickered as the boy ran by him, grabbed the ball, and stopped.

“Hey, Dad.” The child smiled, and ran the other way.

Roy tilted his head. He looked like another clone? Had Dean produced a clone in Beginnings?

Dad?

He lifted his hand in a wave to the child, took the last bite of his sandwich and stood. He had to get back to work. But before he did he looked at the concrete pedestal being erected for the statue of Joe Slagel. A statue to grace his Joe Park in his honor.

Still lingering in the feel of his flashback, Roy walked to the concrete base. He rested his hand on it and looked to the empty space where the statue would stand.

The laughter of children was his background music and Roy smiled. “We made the right decision, Joe Slagel. We made the right decision.”

The phone in the communications room still had a swirly chord, the old fashioned type, connected to the base of the phone. Jimmy wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear, kicking back in the chair, while playing with the chord.

“Oh, yeah?” he asked slyly and soft. “It’s Sunday, Muffin, should you be speaking to me like that?” He laughed. “I can’t. You can go ahead. I can’t. No, no naughty girl.” He giggled, and then looked at his watch. “Well, my relief isn’t due for a half an hour. Not that type of relief. Hold on.” He reached down for his belt. “Undoing my belt now. Now my button. My zipper.” He paused to give an ornery moan, lifted his rear from the chair, and loosened his pants.

The door opened and Frank walked in.

Jimmy froze.

“I don’t even want to know,” Frank said.

“Gotta go.” Jimmy said embarrassed, and hurriedly pulled up his pants. “I wasn’t having phone sex Frank.”

“I didn’t say you were.” Frank pulled a cigarette from his pocket.

“That was uh … Lars.”

“Lars.”

“Lars.” Jimmy fastened his pants. “Seems there’s some sort of rash that is hitting guys in the genital area. Well, only the guys who peed at the farm house.”

“Really.”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.” Frank shook his head.

“So, what are you doing here?”

“Aside from being the president and pretty much allowed to stop in any time I want. I heard you have brownies.”

Jimmy slid the plate his way.

“Thanks.” Frank took one. “Plus, I thought this would be a really cool chance for us brothers to get together before dinner with Andrea and talk about how this is going. She hates us talking shop over food.”

“I know. So when do the other brothers get here.”

“They should have been here.”

No sooner did Frank say that, the door opened and Hal walked in.

Jimmy cocked back a little by Hal’s presence. “You look frazzled.”

“I am.” Hal took a breath, “Let me just catch myself here.”

Frank asked. “Would that be the same thing as touching yourself here?”

“What?” Hal asked aghast.

“Yeah, it’s like the newest rage in communications.”

“Good God, Frank, where do you get this stuff from?” Hal asked.

Frank pointed to Jimmy. “Walked in just in time to stop him from having phone sex.”

Hal’s mouth dropped open.

Nervously, Jimmy responded. “I told you Frank Lars said a rash is going around and I was checking.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Frank nodded. “I believe that one.”

“Good Lord, Jimmy,” Hal said. “Have a little more respect for yourself than to masturbate in a public place.”

“In my defense,” Jimmy raised his hand. “It’s not public.”

“It’s a work place.” Hal snapped. “You just don’t masturbate in a work place.”

“Hal?” Frank called him. “Why can’t you just say jerk off.”

“Why can’t I have a little class when I speak?” Hal said.

Frank fluttered his lips. “I don’t know about you, but doesn’t matter how you say it, it still comes off crude. Masturbate, jerk off, jack off, whack …”

“Frank,’ Hal tried to interrupt.

“Off.” Frank continued. “You have your monkey references. Spank the monkey, whack the monkey…”

“Frank…”

“How about being original ...” Frank nodded. “Slapping the ham, flogging the dolphin, jerkin the …

Jimmy laughed.

Hal shook his head. “You encourage. Frank!”

“Gherkin, punching the clown, choking the chicken…”

“Frank! Knock …”

“Jerk before work or in this case at work.”

“Enough!”

“And the ever popular …roughing up the suspect.” Frank cleared his throat.

Hal’s mouth formed the ‘R’. “Ever popular? Roughing …”

“Up the suspect, yeah.” Frank nodded.

“Roughing up the suspect?” Hal asked.

“Yeah.”

“How is that popular, Frank?”

“Uh … Hal …jerking off has always been popular with guys.”

“That’s not what I mean, you asshole.” Hal shook his head.

Another opening of the door, and Robbie walked in.

“A-ha!” Hal pointed.

“What?” Robbie asked.

“Robbie?” Frank asked. “What does roughing up the suspect mean?”

“Jerking off,” Robbie replied.

“See.” Frank pointed at Hal. “Popular.”

“Why do you ask?” Robbie questioned.

“Because Hal never heard of the term and I was telling him the term when I walked in and Jimmy was having phone sex.”

“No!” Jimmy shouted. “I was examining my penis for a rash.”

Robbie laughed. He stopped laughing when Hal stepped to him. “What?”

“Why were you running from me?” Hal asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Robbie said.

“Bullshit. You do. You ran from me.”

“I believe I wasn’t running anywhere, I was driving,” Robbie said.

“Running. Driving. Same difference in this situation.”

“Actually …” Robbie said. “It’s only the same difference when you’re talking about Frank.”

Hal rolled his eyes.

“Were you guys playing a game?” Frank asked.

“No, we were not playing a game,” Hal replied. “I was trying to catch our brother.”

“So you were playing a game.”

“No! Christ!” Hal blasted. “I wasn’t playing a game! Robbie!” Hal faced him. “I told you something very important, and you ran.”

“Drove.”

“Whatever.”

Frank interjected. “I hate that.”

“Who cares?” Hal snapped. “Robbie why did you drive away from me.”

“I had somewhere to go.”

“There,” Frank said. “Settled.”

“It’s not settled. I was trying to catch him. He wouldn’t stop.”

“Maybe he didn’t know,” Frank said.

“He knew. I flashed my lights. Beeped my horn. Called him …” Hal said. “And I lost him.”

This surprised Frank. “Robbie, why wouldn’t you stop?”

“I was in a hurry.”

“Oh.” Frank nodded.

“Oh?” Hal asked sarcastically. “He says ‘Oh’ and you accept it. I don’t Robbie why were you running from me?”

“Why were you chasing me?”

“Why were you running?”

“Why were you chasing.”

“Enough!” Hal yelled. “We will talk later about this. Right now …” he inhaled “We have a brother’s get together.”

Jimmy spoke up. “I’m glad you guys are here. I’ve made a lot of progress on this. Watch the board.”

They did.

At first it lit up, differently than the other one.

Frank blinked. “That’s new.”

Jimmy nodded. “It shows the entire globe spread out. Now I’m gonna ask the system to scan the skies for anything coming this way.” Jimmy clicked away. “I can also set it to scan every minute, two minutes …. There.” He sat back. The system ‘blinged’ and massive amounts of lights appeared to the east, west and south of the United States.

Hal’s ‘Holy shit’ was matched in volume with Frank’s...

“Fuck!” Frank backed up. “Robbie get on the horn we have …”

“Hold it.” Jimmy yelled. “This isn’t real. This is what it would look like if it were. I can assess what’s coming in the computer, can approximate what type of aircraft and how many. Right now, it’s saying five hundred.” Jimmy explained. “I can scan for sea, land, air … set a perimeter. It’s only gonna pick up a bigger movement. But we can tweak it to pick up as little as one man.”

“So we can conceivably find more people?” Hal asked.

“And you know they’re out there,” Jimmy said.

Frank exhaled. “This is what? What are we looking at?”

“A training software,” Jimmy said. “I was able to pull it out. It trains on different scenarios and on how to use the system. I’m learning it. That way when I really find the program, the real program, I’ll have it down pat and there’ll be no mistakes.”

Frank asked. “How long?”

Jimmy lifted his hands. “I’m not sure. Soon, though. Soon. I’ll find it, program it and we’re good to go.”

“Wow” Robbie said. “Ok, you know what I think.”

“Yes,” Frank stated. “I do.”

Robbie snickered.

Hal rolled his eyes.

Robbie continued. “I think now that we have this program, we should start training people on this. That way when this is up and running, we can have full round the clock surveillance.”

Frank agreed. He stepped closer to the board, facing it. “This has to be it. It’s fucking brilliant. It has to be the difference that is made in this war. If in the other futures we didn’t have this, we were hit by a surprise attack. This way, we can see it coming and get ready. Yeah … this has to be it. What else can there be?”

Robbie didn’t know for sure, but one thing he did believe was that the AL3S system couldn’t have been the one thing. If it was, then why the big plot to get his father out of the picture.

No. The difference in the war was Frank. He had to be. But how? What was it that Frank was going to do, that neither Hal, George nor his father would do?

It was all part of Robbie’s mystery to solve.

At least he thought …. Until Danny walked in.

“Whoa, hey.” Danny smiled. “It’s all Slagel and testosterone in here.” He smiled. “What’s going on?”

Robbie replied. “Picking on Jimmy.”

“About jerking off,” Frank said.

“Good God.” Hal shook his head.

Danny laughed.

“Actually,” Frank pointed to the screen. “Jimmy unearthed the training program.”

Danny looked at the board. “Simulation?”

“Yep.” Frank replied.

“Sweet. I just stopped by to make sure things were OK. We got a power surge alarm.”

Jimmy asked. “When?”

“Couple minutes ago. I was on my way home when they told me. It was the third one today,” Danny replied. “But I’m wondering … is this the third time you ran this?”

“Third time I fired it up,” Jimmy replied.

Robbie interjected. “So this thing is draining power?”

“Yeah upon powering, maybe. I’ll check it out tomorrow. If need be, I’ll see what I can do to get it its own power source, this is too vital to chance blowing out like the time machine.”

Frank nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Ok, well, I’ll let you guys bond and pick on Jimmy.” Danny walked to the door. “Oh, hey.” He snapped his finger and spun around. “Before I forget. Not real important, just a bit of a mystery.”

Robbie’s attention was piqued.

“By chance, did your dad give you his password to history files?”

Each brother shook his head.

Hal asked. “Does his unlock something special?”

“No, not really. Not at all actually, just gave him access to history at odd times.”

“Hey.” Frank said. “How come I don’t have one?”

“We thought you were using your dad’s,” Danny said.

“Why would you think that?” Frank asked.

“Someone has. After he died. I changed it though.” Danny shrugged. “Probably Jason. See ya …”

“Danny.” Hal called out. “Someone was using my father’s password to view history.”

“Yeah, at odd hours. But … we think it’s Jason or maybe Andrea. So, it’s not a big deal. Whoever is using it is only viewing info everyone else can see anyhow.” Danny opened the door. “Nothing to worry about.”

Robbie saw by his brothers’ reaction that they heeded what Danny said and shrugged it off. But Robbie didn’t. He couldn’t. It just seemed too valuable of information and a possible piece to the bigger puzzle.

<><><><>

With some work, he was able to draw saliva from the sandwiches. Unfortunately for Dean, he had a fifty-fifty chance of running the tests on the person other than the clone. He picked the wrong sandwich. The results came up with a match to his own.

At least he knew whatever DNA he pulled, wasn’t a match to his own.

Dean was just as curious as to who the other person was.

It was also possible that the identity could be unknown. The other person might not be in the DNA database.

While the tests ran, Dean found himself staring at the box. He really, really wanted to play with it. Learn it. It was driving him insane.

Living alone, with no outside influences, afforded Dean the opportunity to do work in a few hours that previously would have taken him days.

He had everything ready from the pictures, slides, cultures, and body examination. A report ready for Robbie. One that didn’t quite make as much sense as he hoped, and one that didn’t give him any answers. In fact, it made things more confusing.