RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (11 page)

“So where have you been mister?” she said, sounding a little suspicious. 

“Well, I went to the club after work looking for Tim because I was almost sure he would be there golfing, but he wasn’t.  I figured you would be out late with Sarah getting the stuff she needed so I grabbed a soup and salad at the 19
th
hole.”
         “Bobby told me that you Okayed him having dinner with Matt’s family and staying over for the night so I fended for myself.  Hey you would never guess who I ran into at the club, John Calhoun.” 

Linsey was surprised.

“Really? John Calhoun, how is he doing? I haven’t heard you mention him in years.” 

Dodge figured it was time to break the ice on having John in the picture because he was bound to call him on his skyphone.  It would be as if they had run into each other, exchanged numbers and got reacquainted.

  “Well, he’s doing very well, they bought a huge new home in Grande Estates, they have a pool, a big garage, a gated place, you know, even got a butler.” 

“Wow, can he get you a job where he works!” 

“Oh, well that came up, believe me, but you know John, it was just a good ribbing about me working for him.” 

“Yes I remember how he was always kidding around with you and how much fun you two had together.  You should invite them over sometime.” 

“Yeah maybe I will, in fact I got his number and gave him mine, we should do that.  Well I’m almost home so I’ll see you in a minute.”

“Okay, bye.” 

Phew!  Another brush with unexplainable things that he somehow got out of, he was getting a little too good at this.

After he got off the phone with Linsey, he realized that he had not seen John’s wife Karen at the house and that John had not mentioned her.  He couldn’t help but wonder if John and Karen were still together and he felt a little embarrassed just then
for not asking about her and how they were doing.  He was so wrapped up in solving the mystery of the invisible code that he had not been a very considerate friend. He decided he would make a point to ask John how he and Karen were doing the next time he saw him.

Dodge slipped into bed with Linsey after a bowl of ice cream and a little conversation.  He couldn’t help but notice how good she smelled.  She backed into him really close and drifted off to sleep almost immediately.  Dodge was lying there wide awake but didn’t want to get up and leave her, what a great woman she was, always there for him, thick or thin, she was the most reliable constant in his life. 

Dodge was lying there watching her sleep, he decided then that they needed to get away for a while, just the two of them.  They needed some down time and some fun, after all, what is life if all you do is work?  He had to get this one thing done first and when it was over and taken care of they would get away.

It seemed like just minutes later but it was actually 6:30 a.m. when Dodge’s phone rang downstairs.  He sat up and realized he had slept so soundly that he hadn’t moved at all.  He was still tucked in really tight with Linsey who hadn’t moved either.

“What is it?”

Linsey mumbled, still half asleep.  Apparently she didn’t hear Dodge’s phone which was downstairs on the charger.

“Oh, uh, I must have been dreaming and wow I’m really hot, I didn’t move all night I guess, I’m gonna go ahead and get up it’s about time to anyway.” 

“Okay dear” Linsey mumbled, as she rolled over and went right back to sleep. 

Dodge grabbed some cloths and went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.  The bathroom was also connected to the guest room on the other side so he went out that door and down to the kitchen to grab his phone.  He looked at the missed call, it was from John and he had left a message.  He went back up to the bathroom while listening.

“Hey Dodge, I know it’s early but I would really like to have breakfast with you, meet me at the spoon.” 

That was it, no other information, it must have turned out to be nothing and John just wanted to give him the good news.  His mind began to race while he showered, “
maybe it’s really bad and John didn’t want to tell him over the phone, oh crap!
”  

Dodge finished showering and dressed quickly then peeked in on Linsey.  Her alarm was about to go off and so he went down stairs and left before she or the kids got up.  He just had to get out of there and get to the diner without the delay of the normal morning conversations and routine. 

When Dodge arrived at the diner, John was just getting there too.  He had a concerned look and neither of them said anything as they walked in and found a table near the back.  The place was a lot busier now and apparently drew a pretty good breakfast crowd. 

The waitress saw them sitting down and motioned with a coffee pot from behind the counter to John who was facing that way.  He held up two fingers and she grabbed some cups and headed their way. 

“Here ya go, I’ll be back in a flash to take your order guys.” 

Dodge looked at John who still hadn’t said a word.

“Okay, give me good news.  Just tell me it was a stupid little phishing program or something harmless like that.” 

“I wish I could my friend, but the news is bad, and it’s a good thing you’re sitting down.  When I got up and went out to my lab this morning and looked at the code I couldn’t hardly believe it.  If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I would’ve called me a liar.”

“What is it?  Tell me,” insisted Dodge. 

“Look I’m not 100% sure, but I am 99% sure, that with a little more work, I think I can disable this thing, so don’t get to excited okay?”

Dodge was glaring at him.

“Come on John, just tell me!  I’ve been waiting for almost three days here and I’m about to lose . . .” 

“Okay, okay, just stay calm.  It’s a back door into the transmitter section of the Lifecorder uplink software.  Okay?  There, I said it.”

“What? Why? What good is that to anyone?” 

“Okay, that’s three questions all at once and I’m just one guy, I need more time.” 

“Sorry.  Why would anyone want such a thing?  I mean it’s useless, the Lifecorder can only communicate with the chip in the
person’s brain that it’s DNA coded to.  Even if you could communicate with it, the data is useless, everyone knows that.” 

“I know I reviewed all those test results several times when I was working for you on the project. As I recall the test data proved without a doubt that each person had a unique brain signature and so the data was completely unreadable by anyone or anything other than their brain or that of their exact genetic clone.” 

“Okay so assuming that’s all still true, why the back door?” 

“Best I can figure, someone back at the time was thinking we were wrong or at least maybe had not discovered a way yet.  I guess they were planning ahead.”
         “Man, you know how diabolical that is?”
         “Yeah I know, literally millions upon millions of those implants are out there in the brains of every human being on earth including you and I and it’s supposed to be a one way transmitter only.”

  “Wait, whoa, are you telling me that this back door could allow the thing to be a receiver as well as a transmitter?”
         “I’m not really sure yet but . . .” Just then the waitress returned.     
“Okay whatcha havin guys?” 

They hadn’t even looked at the menu because they were so engrossed in their conversation.  John looked at Dodge and back at her.

“Um, well what’s good?”
         “The country omelet is very popular, it comes with . . .”
         “Yes,” John interrupted, “Just bring us two of those, thanks.” 

“You bet guys, have it right out.” 

As she walked away Dodge looked at John.

“How did life suddenly get so complicated?  We’re so screwed!” 

They both took a drink of coffee and thought for a moment.  

“Hold on a second,” said John, “I just realized something.  The damn thing would never work anyway because the implant is designed to transmit only, it can’t receive unless it’s brand new and in a new clone.  You need the complex equipment that only the Life Centers have.  They have to use the needle probe to go in and direct load the data.  It wouldn’t matter on the software side
what you did, if the implant doesn’t have the hardware to receive a wireless signal it’s not gonna work, right?”

John took another drink of coffee and swished it around before swallowing it.

“Yeah that’s right.  Unless?” 

“Oh great.
  Unless what?” 

“When your team was designing the implant I remember one particular meeting during which the real estate on the chip was discussed.  You made the comment that there was more than enough room on the die to add additional circuitry if needed for creating a rolling code section.”

“Yeah, so?” 

“The thing is we never did that because the test data came back showing that stealing the data or attempting to add data was pointless due to it being un-useable by anyone but the actual persons brain that it belonged to.  Security was no longer an issue and that extra space was never used.”

  “Yeah, I do remember that.  When I get into work today I’ll look back at the chip die again and go through the layouts to see if anything was added in that space.  I really don’t think so because I approved the final design myself and I think I would have noticed a big change like that.” 

Their food arrived.  They ate quietly while they thought for a few minutes. 

“John, I have to fix this thing, it happened on my watch, but I can’t do it without you.” 

“Don’t worry we’ll get to the bottom of this and you know I’ve got your back, we’ve been friends for a long time.  Even though we haven’t been able to hangout I still consider you my best friend.  We both knew when I left ESS and went to RockTight Systems that we would have to keep our distance due to the sensitive nature of our jobs, but you know what, screw that!  I won’t let you down on this and no one else needs to know we’re talking.”  Just then Dodge remembered.
         “Hey I’m sorry I didn’t ask before and I know this isn’t the best time but, how’s Karen?  How’s everything?  You guys doing okay?”

“It’s bad to let lawyers and big corporations ruin a perfectly good friendship.”
  John looked out the window for a minute to tone down his feelings.

“Three questions again, I’m not a machine!”  John said jokingly.  He paused for a moment before answering.

“Well, Karen left me, she ran off with some pro baseball player, can you believe that shit!”

“Damn John, I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“Well don’t be, we were both unhappy for a long time and I’m pretty sure she was cheating on me for quite a while.  At least we didn’t have children so I guess we’re only hurting each other.  You know what, I’ll tell you more some other time, we have bigger fish to fry right now and besides I met someone over a year ago.  She’s awesome and we’re doing great, when you meet her you’ll know I did a lot better.  So any ideas on where to begin with this programming issue?” 

Dodge was surprised at how well John was dealing with his personal problems and was relieved to see it.  He was right, they could talk about it later,
right now they had a mystery to solve. 

“I have plenty of unused vacation time and I don’t have a wife at home to ask lots of prying questions.  Why don’t you go to work the rest of the week and I’ll call in sick so I can continue to work on this thing.  I’ll let you know what I find out.  I won’t call you unless I discover something important, that way Linsey won’t ask too many questions.”

  “Oh, don’t worry too much about that. I created a pretty good cover story about how we ran into each other and how you and I are going to do some catching up.   She even said we could have you guys . . .” Dodge stopped short because Karen was no longer in the picture. 

“
It’s okay man, just tell her we split, I don’t care.  You can still have us over, it’ll just be a new us, or at least a new better half of us.” 

They both laughed.

“Okay, we’ll definitely get together for some dinner after all this is over with.  I’m going to finish up this unbelievably good omelet that what’s her name with the simple life recommended and then go on in to work.  I’ll poke around a little bit to see if I can find any old notes and refresh my memory on everyone that worked on the project.”
         “Be careful my friend.  Whoever is behind this may be very protective of what they’re up to.”
         “Don’t worry I’ll be careful.” 

They continued to talk as they finished their breakfast.  They discussed whether or not the thing would even work and why it had been ten years since and nothing had happened.  They contemplated that the hacker may have been fired or transferred before he could complete the job and they were really hoping for that to be the case.

Chapter
7
      Dodge arrived at work behind his usual schedule but it didn’t really matter, he was senior management now and enjoyed flex time benefits.  He saw Tim in the hall talking to one of the other department heads shaking his head back and forth while looking into a manila folder with a red tab.  Red tabs were financial. 
“Oops!  Someone must have overspent for the quarter!”