RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (65 page)

These questions had suddenly popped into his head now that he was in such a dire situation.  These were things that he had not previously pondered, but once again he found himself doubting the ethical soundness of their so-called -key to immortality-.  Maybe God was punishing him for delving into his business.  Maybe they had gone too far.  He just didn’t know, there was no clear cut answer coming to his mind, but he knew one thing for sure, he was scared to death. 

Within minutes they pulled into a garage and put the overhead door down.  They pulled him out of the back of the van and started walking him towards the door to the house when he got a violent jab in his back that knocked him down and then he got a couple of swift kicks from a nice hard work boot, he heard his ribs crack.  It hurt so bad he threw up all over the floor.  It actually hurt worse than the gunshot wound.

The man was going to kick him again but his partner shoved him up against the wall.     

“You jack ass, you’re gonna kill him before Slade gets here!”
         “Calm down I’m done!” He said, as he walked by and spit on Dodge.     

“That’s for Mike you sack of shit!  He was my friend!” 

Dodge’s ability to speak had returned.     

“Yeah well then your loser friend Mike should have ducked moron!”

The man came back at Dodge for another kick but the other one stopped him again.     

“That’s enough, you leave him to Slade, and you shut up Kerrington!  You’ve been enough trouble for tonight.”
         “Fine, just drop me off anywhere ass hole, I promise I’ll stay out of your hair!”
         “Shut UP!”  He said as he pulled Dodge to his feet and shoved him through the door into the dark house in front of them. 

Dodge felt himself being dragged to the floor followed by flashes of light, gunfire and a lot of commotion.  He was shoved
violently under a table, then more flashes and gunfire and then voices.  Both of Cyrus’s men had been gunned down by Black Ops team members already inside the house.  They apparently followed them from his house to here and entered in from a back window all before Cyrus’s men even got from the garage to inside. 

Dodge was fighting to stay
conscious, he had lost a lot of blood and was in excruciating pain due to the broken ribs.  Being tossed around again like a rag doll had just about finished him off.  They got him out to the garage and the cleaners went in.  They located all the expended brass and removed several bullets from woodwork and drywall.  They counted everything and knew exactly how many shots were fired.  They loaded Cyrus’s dead stooges into the little van and drove it out of the garage and down about eight blocks into a retention pond.  It disappeared quickly beneath the murky water.  Seconds later a black van arrived with the lights off and picked them up disappearing into the night. 

Back at Cyrus’s “so called” safe house, Dodge was out of it and could barely speak.  The team loaded him into the van and quietly drove away.  One of them jumped into the back with Dodge and applied pressure to his wound as they headed for the farm.  The cleaners stayed behind for three more minutes to finish the wipe down and leave a nice note for Cyrus.

Across town a Black Ops team member intercepted Linsey at a gas station and told her to go home quickly, he said that their house only “looked” like it had burned and that the body inside wasn’t really Dodge, just a clone planted by Cyrus.  He told her not to worry, Dodge was fine and was with the Black Ops Team.  He told her to play it up for the media and they would take care of everything else. 

When she arrived home, she was already overcome with emotion anyway so it wasn’t hard at all to have a good cry over the whole thing.  She thought to herself that maybe Dodge really did die in there and that it was him but the team didn’t want her breaking down and blowing the whole plan.  She decided to just be strong, she knew either way she would still have Dodge back again. 

When she arrived at the house, rescue workers and firemen were everywhere and the house was a mess.  Then they brought out the Gurney with Dodge on it, when she saw him she really fell apart big time.  Just the thought of him being in that body bag was just too much.  Sarah had been called and she was just arriving home.  Bobby had also been contacted at the driving school and was informed by his instructor that there had been an emergency.  He called his mother right away and of course he was distraught over the whole thing too.

He and Sarah both knew that their Father had a clone already at the farm, but still, the thought of their Father dying in a fire was horrifying news.  Bobby would have to return home early now to keep up appearances, acting as if there was no clone of his father at the farm.  Otherwise, Cyrus would be tipped off by the lack of concern for a dead Father and a grieving Mother.  What kind of a son stays at a race academy after his Father loses his life in a house fire.  He would leave for home first thing in the morning, cutting his week of training short by one day.  It didn’t bother him much because the last day was really just a day to take the written test and say goodbyes to everyone you met there.  The instructor reassured him that he could return someday when he felt able and finish the course if he still wanted to.

At the house the media was in full three ring circus mode while capturing all the gruesome details of the event and of course a more than delighted Cyrus was watching the breaking news in his office. 

“Hello, I’m Brian Wilcox reporting live on the scene for News 21 at the home of Dodge Kerrington, the world renowned electronics engineer and scientist credited with the invention of several devices that have made our modern MedicStar systems a reality. 

Some of you may recall that we did a story on Mr. Kerrington and his family a few months ago when their house was burglarized.   Authorities believed the culprits might have been after trade secrets related to Mr. Kerrington’s high level position at ESS, one of the engineering firms largely responsible for the success of the Medic-Star systems.   

Authorities have not yet released any official statement as to the cause of this fire but they did say at this point it appears Mr. Kerrington was a victim of a kitchen fire that spread rapidly and that he was apparently overcome by the smoke while attempting to battle the blaze. 

Mr. Dodge Kerrington the renowned Electronics Engineering Genius is apparently deceased at the age of forty-five.  It’s such a terrible loss for his family and friends, the scientific world, and of course, all of civilization in general.  It truly is a tragedy that a man so involved with medical technology has been lost with no hope for Restoration.  It seems that the fire and smoke were so intense that  firefighters were unable to get his body out for quite some time.  

When they got in and recovered his body he had been dead for more than forty-five minutes.  His wife arrived here within just a minute or two and was able to positively identify her husband.  They rushed him to the hospital where they were able to start his heart again but found no brain activity. This all took too much time causing them to exceed the one hour cut off by about fifteen minutes.  Authorities ruled that it was simply too long for an attempt at Restoration, Brian Wilcox reporting live at the scene for news 21, back to you in the studio Alise.” 

Cyrus was delighted with himself, not too much brought him happiness like the site of his accomplishments on the local news.  He shut it off and summoned Glitch and two armed guards.  He told them to prepare a vehicle, they were going for a ride to one of the safe houses to question a person of interest. 

Glitch was surprised for two reasons, one that Cyrus was even talking to him so soon after the lab incident?
and two, why was Cyrus being nice enough to invite him on an excursion?  It worried him a bit but he went along after stopping by his office to get his gun.  He concealed it on his belt in a small holster that his jacket covered.

Five minutes later the four of them were heading to the safe house to begin the long awaited interrogation of the one and only real Dodge Kerrington.  Glitch
didn’t understand why Cyrus was doing this now and why he didn’t just do this to begin with.  There must be a reason but he hadn’t offered to share it and Glitch wasn’t about to ask.

Meanwhile back at the compound Todd and Toby were on high alert.  They had observed Glitch and Cyrus leaving together.  Todd had never seen them both away from the compound at the same time.  From their prior behavior, he assumed their security plan included the rule that one of them should always be there to keep an eye on things.  Now they were both gone and they were together, it was very unusual. 

With the both of them gone, it was the perfect time to install the cable in the server room.  The plan was simple, Todd would go down to the server room with a six pack of beer that he had snuck in for just such an occasion.  The guards never got out of the place and they definitely didn’t get much beer or anything else good to speak of. 

Todd knew that a cold six pack would be irresistible.  While he and his guard buddy would be around the corner in the men’s room sluggin down that beer, Toby would be busy in the server room without Cyrus or Glitch around to catch him. 

The last time Toby saw John was at the golf course.  He had given him a video looper hidden inside the drink bottle along with the other goodies.  It was a small section of cable with a little snake bump in it that housed a tiny digital recording device.  You simply unplug the video cable at the camera and place this small section of cable between the camera and the original connection.  As soon as it was connected it would record one second of video and begin looping it over and over again until removed.  It was simple but very effective. 

As long as there wasn’t anything moving in the field of the camera during that one second of recording then the looped video playing back after that would give the illusion of an empty room to the security guard watching the monitor, you could hold a full blown square dance party in there and that guard would never be the wiser.  When Todd showed up at the server room he felt very lucky, the guard on duty was one of his friends.  This guy was the meanest looking biggest toughest dude you would ever not want to meet, but once you got to know him you realized that Ronny was the most gentle and polite guy there was.  

Ronny loved magic, he was always doing tricks for everyone, he wasn’t very good at it which made it even more entertaining.  Todd approached him in the corridor and Ronny saw him coming.
         “Hey Todd, old buddy old pal, what’s shaken?”
         Todd pulled the six pack out.    

“I was wondering how your magic is today, maybe you could make this disappear.” 

Ronny started laughing.     

“Hell yeah I can bro!  What’s the occasion?”

“Let’s go somewhere to drink this and I’ll tell you all about it,” said Todd.

“Sure Buddy, let’s just slip into my office over here.  I’m very confident that I can work some magic
on that six pack.  In fact I’ve made twelve packs disappear all by myself so with your help a six pack will be a cake walk.” 

They disappeared into Ronny’s office, a.k.a., the men’s room.   Toby walked down the hall way with a cap on keeping his head down so the cams couldn’t get a clear shot of his face.  Once inside the door of the server room he observed a camera pointing down each of the four isles between the servers.  He went to the first one but he couldn’t reach the camera connection because it was up too high.  He looked around for something to stand on.  He found a three step folding stool behind the door.
“Perfect.”
  He grabbed it and put it right below the camera.  He climbed up and got out the short section of cable and inspected it carefully. 

He rehearsed it in his mind while doing practice hand movements at the same time.  He would quickly disconnect the cable from the camera with his right hand while holding the jumper in his left.  This would allow him to get it reconnected quickly with no fumbling around.  He concentrated on exactly all the movements he would go through and then he went for it.  It only took two seconds to disconnect and reconnect.  He hoped that no one was looking at that particular monitor when it went black for two seconds.  Just in case though, he went back out of the server room. 

He knew from walking it off himself that it took exactly two minutes and twenty eight seconds for a guard to walk from the security room to the server room even at a brisk pace.  He set his stop watch as he left the room.  He went down to the end of the hall and around the corner into the dark.  It was after regular working hours now and the offices were vacant and dark.  He pulled a small mirror from his hip pocket and used it to peek around the corner.  He figured if a guard was in the area the security office might send him instead of coming down themselves. 

He waited a full four minutes.  Plenty of time for someone to arrive if they had noticed the two seconds of dropped video feed; nobody showed.  He headed back down the hall and into the server room again, he went down the first Isle and began looking for a good place to plug in the cable.  Much to his surprise all the ports were filled.  This was a problem that they had not anticipated.  For some reason there were no left over ports on any of these servers or network switches.  He couldn’t just unplug something because that might
cause someone’s PC to stop working and then a tech or Glitch would be down there trying to fix it and find the device.

He looked at about three hundred ports, row after row, there were no unused ports.  He needed to go to the next isle but that would require moving the camera loop device to the camera pointing down the next isle and starting all over again.  He was about to abort the mission when he had an idea.  He pulled the little mirror out of his hip pocket.  There was a space between the server racks to allow some of the heat to escape through the vents on top of each row.  He took off his sweat shirt and he was able to shove his arm through to the other side and run his fingers along the ports that were facing the next isle.