RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (45 page)

The next morning Todd woke Toby up early.
         “Hey man, get up and get ready, Glitch called, we gotta go to the compound.  He wants to talk to you about what you got from Kerrington’s office, by the way, what did you get?” 

“Oh, it wasn’t much really, just some old files, I don’t think it will do Cyrus much good but maybe it will get me some points.”
         “Good,” said Todd, “I kind of like ole Dodge.  I don’t really want to see him get hurt or nothing like that ya know?”
         “Yeah I know what you mean, they seem like a real nice family, I hope Cyrus doesn’t kill all of them over some trade secret that he wants.”
         “Yeah I know,” Todd said, as he left the room. 

Toby could see that Todd was starting to care about these people. He was beginning to feel better about approaching him, but it was still a little too soon.  They ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast to save time and headed out to the van.  Just the two of them were going this
time, Cheyenne would be staying behind at the house. 

When they got in the van, Toby didn’t put the bag on right away, he waited until they got out on the road a little ways, and then slipped it on.  Todd never said a word about it.  As they were driving Toby decided to get up his nerve and say something to Todd. 

“Hey man, have you ever heard about the wrapping your head in tin foil thing.”
         “Huh?” Todd said, “what for?”
         “You know to block out radio signals.”
         “Oh yeah, I did hear about some guys doing that because they thought aliens or the government was trying to read their minds or something, that’s pretty damn funny, if you ask me.” 

“Well I heard that it might actually work if Cyrus was planning to kill a person, you know, they could wrap foil around their head and then the thing in your head wouldn’t go off.”
         “What? Man, no, that sounds like it wouldn’t work.”
         “Yeah that’s what I thought too,” said Toby.
         “Who told you that nonsense?”
         “Oh just me and some guys talking at the compound one day down by the ovens, I really shouldn’t say.”
         “Oh, yeah, I understand man, just day dreaming about a way out, we all do that.” 

Toby thought for a moment.     

“I don’t think that would work because you would have to cut your head off and then wrap it in foil and then, well, that wouldn’t be so productive.”  Todd busted out laughing.    

“Man, you’re a
funny  dude, you know that?  You really make me laugh sometimes.
         “Well, I’m just trying to keep my sanity in a bad situation.”  
         “Yeah man, we’re pretty screwed, really no way out of this short of old Cyrus dropping dead.  That might not even work, I heard he’s got a dead man switch on the bomb in the head program.”
         “What?”
         “Yeah you know, he has a heart monitor on him, if his heart stops the program pops everyone in the list.  See that way, if any of us got the bright idea to snuff him out then we all die with him.  Toby was surprised.     

“Really?”
         “Well, it’s just a rumor but it sounds too smart to be some made up thing.”
         “Yeah, I agree that is pretty clever.” 

“You know I was thinking, the foil thing won’t work but what if you got your whole body inside a metal box of some kind that had no openings at all, just solid metal?”          “Yeah,” Todd agreed, that might work.  Hey, Dodge is a really smart guy, ask him.  Don’t blow your
cover, just find another way to ask.  Tell him it’s for a science fair project or something.”
         “Hey that’s a good idea.  I’ll ask him next time I’m at their house.” 

They arrived at the compound and pulled inside.  Toby took the bag off his head and got out, and they both went up to Glitch’s office.  They were called in after only a short wait. 

“Toby, good to see you, have you obtained something for us?” Asked Glitch.  Toby pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Glitch.
         “The file is on the mem card.” 
         “Yes, very nice.  Did Mr. Kerrington or any of his family members say anything that might be of interest to us?”
         “No Sir.”
         “All right Toby, that will be all, you’re free to do whatever you like around the compound for the next two days and then you’ll be going back with Todd to the house.  I’ll have Todd return your phone later today.  Did you provide Bobby with your new phone number?” 

“Yes Sir I did.”
         “Good.  Did he suggest that they might be having you over again sometime soon?”
         “Well, No Sir, they didn’t, I think it might seem more normal now for me to have him over to my place, at least once, you know, just kind of normal for it to happen that way Sir.” 

Toby thought he might have stepped over the line there but to his surprise Glitch seemed to be thinking about what he said.
         “Okay, very good Toby, if that is what is necessary, then so be it, however the ultimate goal is to get you back in their house as soon as possible.  If that requires taking turns then we’ll play along.  Todd, be sure you and Cheyenne are ready to play the role of parents in the home, make sure the house is fully furnished.  The Kerrington’s are great assets and as you know, in our line of work, asset management is very important.  You may stay here tonight if you like, but then return to the house sometime tomorrow, it’s best that you return sooner to get the house ready for your guest.”

Todd and Toby left the office and went down to the kitchen area to get some early lunch, the cereal they had for breakfast didn’t stick with them too long.  They made some sandwiches and sat down to eat with several other guys that were there on their break.  Toby was about half way through when he saw Alice come in.  Todd was telling two of his buddies about the GTO so Toby decided to join Alice who was sitting alone. 

“Hey Alice is this seat taken?”
         “Oh, no, go ahead, have a seat.”
         “Thanks, I’m Toby by the way, I’m not really a kid, well I guess I am, I don’t know it’s confusing.”  Alice laughed.     

“That’s right you’re the guy Cheyenne told me about.  So you’re like 70 going on 16
right?”  Toby felt his face turning red, he felt like a teenager talking to a pretty girl that was older than him.  His brain was 68 but it was soaking in the hormones of his teenage body.
“What a mess!” 

“Yeah people shouldn’t mess around so much with Mother Nature huh?”  Toby said, in an effort to get back in the conversation.
         “Yes I agree, more than ever now that I find myself here in this weird place.”
         “Yeah, it’s weird all right,” said Toby.
         “Hey I wanted to ask you about something.  Cheyenne talked to me about the whole living in an oven thing.”  Alice put her hand over her eyes, and laughed.
         “Oh my god, I can’t believe she told you that, now I feel like the kid here.”  Toby leaned in a little closer and lowered his voice.

“Actually I have an idea that came from that.  See I got my hands on a
PC for a few hours and I did some research.  If you get inside an all metal box of some kind and it’s all sealed up with no windows or doors, then no radio signals can get in or out.  Your head won’t go boom, pretty cool, huh?” 

“Well, it’s an interesting thought I guess,” said Alice.
         “Hey, I’m just saying, that if the situation did arise, and we thought some numb nuts might push a little button to ruin our day, the best place to be is inside one of those ovens.  I think when I finish this sandwich and chips, I’ll be going down to take a closer look at them to see which one I plan on jumpin in when that moment comes, you in?”
         “Sure, I’d love to join you.  I don’t have anywhere else I gotta be today, so it’s a date.”

Chapter 2
1
      Back at the farm it was time.  Dodge’s clone was ready to load and had been for over two days but Jason was still waiting on the order to load him up.  John had been working on and off for the last several weeks.  He was trying to get the LifeCorders ready to do something no one had ever tried before. 

They had verified that each person’s implant chip had the ability to receive as well as transmit.  Cyrus and his team had obviously been successful in loading something into an existing person for a short period of time.  They weren’t sure exactly what it was but it was controlling the victim for sure.  This was done in order to clean out their bank accounts.  What had John so
baffled, was the fact that no one had ever been able to load up a clone with anything other than that person’s own thoughts and memories, so how in the world could Cyrus and his team be controlling these people. 

John believed that he had finally figured it out.  Cyrus was hijacking their target individual’s lifefile and DNA.  Once they had these items, they could clone him and then load him up with as little or as much of his lifefile as they wanted.  They could cut off the last couple years of a person’s life for example by only uploading a calculated percentage of the total file and dump the rest. 

Once they had him loaded up they would simply trick the clone into believing that they were government agents or some kind of cyber vigilantes.  They would convince the clone that some bad people, or even his own family, had hijacked his life and that he, the clone, was in fact the original person.  They would tell the clone that these criminals had taken over his family and his money, basically his whole life. 

They would convince him that he should get them back by taking back his money, leaving them high and dry by transferring all of his funds to an off shore account where he could go and live out his life without these losers.  His original would be in the nut house or in prison for whatever they could pin on him, but the clone, still believing wholeheartedly that he was in fact the original, would be living it up in some foreign country like a king. 

John figured this was the only way, it had to be a lifefile created on a tangent life line that was being layered into the victim to control them by merging their thoughts and feelings while they slept.  The victim would awaken one morning with a new awareness that seemed to come from out of the blue but was completely understood and in harmony with what they wanted or at least what they thought they wanted. 

There would be no tangible reason to resist the new feeling and the plan at hand.  That would be like arguing with yourself on a point that you already agree with.  The diabolical genius behind this crazy scam had to be Cyrus Slade. 

John supposed that this could be done without losing the soul.  It would be similar to twins splitting at a cellular level in the womb.  Once the genetically matched mind was awakened it was like another child had been born of the same zygote.  Instead of the soul splitting into two in the womb it was just happening later in the life cycle and the soul would apparently honor the division.  It seemed as if God had set the laws of the universe in motion and then removed his hand.  For some reason it was happening, and he didn’t seem to intervene. 

This research was helping him to understand how Cyrus was controlling his victims, or at least
is was his best guess based on the facts.  John decided that he would order Jason to load his clone first.  John didn’t have children and he didn’t have a wife.  If it didn’t work and he lost his mind then it would not impact so many people.  He couldn’t ask Dodge to take that risk, what if the clone didn’t work right for some reason, it would be a disaster for his family.  John called Jason and placed the order for that night. 

The concept was simple, each day the two John’s, the original and the clone, would live two parallel lives with a completely separate set of events.  At night when they slept the LifeCorders would receive their lifefiles.  Those two files
transferred into a central server Jason had running at the farm.  After the lifefiles were saved they became merged by an interlace program that John developed.  The newly merged file would be uploaded back into both the sleeping John’s before they awoke.  If everything went as planned the real John would wake up and have a complete memory of everything he experienced plus he would also have the complete experience of the clone for that same day.  Vice Versa when the clone awakened he would awaken as the complete John Calhoun, with all of his memories, skills, attributes, and he would understand where he was and his task at hand.  They would be completely aware of each other and would have all the same opinions, knowledge, and goals.  Each morning they would awaken having the others total experience of the prior day as memories in addition to their own.  Two separate bodies with one like mind. 

Just before he lay down he called Dodge and let him know.  Dodge was grateful for John trying it first but he was also very concerned for his friend, what if it didn’t work, he loved him like a brother and didn’t want to lose him.  Dodge reassured him that clones had gone wrong before and when they did, they simply grew another clone and reloaded their file, they might lose a day or two of the memories, but that would be the worst case scenario. 

Still, Dodge worried, he wasn’t one to pray much, but he did that night.  It was 11 pm, John went to bed in preparation for a very new and strange possibility in the morning.

Back at the compound, it was the perfect time for Toby to go find Alice for their investigative trip to the ovens, they had tried to go earlier, but there were too many people hanging out in the ovens.  They didn’t want to be looking around and taking pictures of things with that many witnesses around.  He approached corridor “C” of the dorm floor and looked down towards the guard station as he walked on past.  The guard was on duty but was looking restless at his post.  He took a little stroll down corridor “B” and then circled back to “C” a few minutes later and looked again.  The guard was gone.  He walked up the hall as quickly as he could and knocked on Alice’s door.  She opened it very quickly.