The Third Ten

by Jacqueline Druga

“Is there something important you needed?” Joe asked.

  “No, I just saw you alone, shaking your head and was wondering…”

  “My son is an idiot.”

  “Which one?”

  “Which one do you think? And do you care to tell me why you couldn’t just tell him over the radio that Chaka was loose in town.”

  Dean shrugged. “I guess I thought it would be funnier to have him guess.”

  “Next time, spare us the humor,” Joe continued walking.

  “Joe, seriously, maybe you need to just take it easy today. You just lost your son.”

  Joe stopped cold, spun around hard. “You don’t think I know that! I know it. And I don’t need you to keep reminding me every chance you get.” Again, he turned around and kept walking.

  Dean stood stunned for a moment, before whistling. He pulled out his phone and dialed. “Hey, Hal.’

  “Dean, this is a surprise, you never call me,” Hal said, then hit the mute and faced Elliott. “It’s Dean, something must be wrong.”

  Elliott nodded.

  Hal unmuted the phone. “What can I do for you?”

  “When did you speak to your father last?”

  “We were in a meeting before the Chaka hysterics.”

  “How was he?”

  “He was being like my father. Well, maybe slightly more unreasonable. Why?”

  “He just really blasted me in the tunnel. He needs to just stop, sit down, and get rest.”

  “We both know that. But getting him to listen is tough. Where did this blasting occur?”

  “In the cryo tunnel.”

  “Excuse me, where?”

  “The cryo tunnel, I went to my lab to grab something and Joe was coming in.”

  “He was going back down there?”

  “Ha. Yes.” Dean said slightly annoyed. “Why are you questioning that?”

  “Because we had just left there. I’ll um … I’ll go find him in a minute. Right now, I am with Frank, double checking that he doesn’t send this town into a panic again.”

  “Okay, just make sure he doesn’t blame me,” Dean said.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He always does.”

  “Dean.” Hal laughed. “I highly doubt he’ll pin this on you. I’ll let you know what happens with my father.”

  “Please do.”

  Hal ended the call.

  “Captain?” Elliott inquired. “Everything alright.”

  “I don’t know. Dean said my father laid into him on his way back down the cryo tunnel.”

  “Maybe he just needs to double check the system. “

  “Maybe.” Hal tapped his phone on his hand and placed it in his pocket. “I’m going to go down and see. Maybe convince him to take a break and get some rest. “

  Elliott raised an eyebrow. “I would give that advice to all of you Slagels.”

  “Hmm. Yes. I intend to take that advice. Right after I speak to my father. See you in a bit.” He started to walk away.

  “Hey, wait. Captain. What about monitoring Frank.”

  Hal grinned arrogantly. “I’ll leave that to you.” He turned and walked away.

  Elliott shook his head. “Swell.”

  “Where’s my brother?” Frank walked up and asked Elliott.

  ‘I assume you mean the Captain.”

  “Yeah, he was just here, he said he didn’t want to miss my speech.”

  “Unfortunately, the captain had something he had to do.”

  “Oh, okay, not a big deal. Jimmy’s here. I’m gonna …” Frank pointed back to a podium. “Do this now.”

  “Do you know what you’re going to say?”

  Frank patted his chest. “I have notes to follow.”

  “Good. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” Frank walked to the podium.

  “You ready, Frank?” Danny asked.

  “I’m ready.” Frank pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.

  “And we’re live in five …” Danny held out his fingers. “Four, three, two ... one. Go.”

  Frank cleared his throat. “Hello, thank you for watching. Today in town we had something happen. You thought it was bad. It was not. You were scared. I understand. I am here to assure you that I have taken care of the situation. I assure you, that there was at no time a threat. In fact, he is a friend. His name is Chaka. Let’s take a moment to say that. Chaka. Like Chalk with an ah. I know …” Frank held up his hand. “Looking at will be tough, at first. Yes he is scary. But he is very nice. I am fortunate that I have a special secret language connection. You’re probably wondering where he came from. One word,” he paused. “Dean.”

  <><><><>

  “I knew it.” Dean slammed down his phone. “Ellen turn that off.”

  “Turn what off?” she asked.

  “Frank’s speech.”

  “Oh, I’m not watching it. He always says the same thing,” Ellen replied, then deepened her voice. “Situation us under control. I will handle it.” She shrugged. “And then everyone buys it. Same thing.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So why are you pissed?”

  “Because he did it again. Every single time, he finds a way to blame me for every situation,” Dean said.

  “He didn’t blame you for the bear.”

  “One time.”

  “In Frank’s defense, a lot of the stuff was you. Like the clones.”

  Dean grumbled. “Chaka is not on me.”

  “It can’t be that bad, Dean. I mean, usually when he blames you, there’s a mob coming after you.”

  “True.”

  “No mob, so people aren’t upset and I’m done for the day. I need to take a break, get the kids and just spend time with them.”

  “How are you?” Dean asked. “I mean all of you have been throwing yourself into work to avoid the Robbie loss.”

  “No.” Ellen shook her head. “There’s no avoiding it. If I am not working or doing something all I do is think about him and want to cry. So I’m staying busy.”

  “I was gonna grab Chaka to talk to him about the flower. Did you want me to get you for that?”

  She shook her head again. “No, you can fill me in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m …”

  “Dean.” Frank walked into the lab, his voice sounded slightly rushed.

  “Frank, you ass.”

  “What?”

  “You did it again,” Dean said. “You blamed it on me. The Chaka thing.”

  “So you heard my speech.”

  “Not all,” Dean said. “Once you said, ‘one word, Dean’, I shut it off.”

  “So you didn’t hear my explanation.”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, then you missed it. I told them you had informed me that you believed Chaka was as gentle as a lamb and safe to have it town. That it was me who brought him in, and forgot to inform everyone that you were sending him over for a latte. It was my bad.”

  “Wow.” Dean paused. “You really said that?”

  “No. Frank laughed.

  “Asshole, what did you say.”

  “Well, I ….”

  There was a slight rumbling of voices that suddenly grew louder. Ellen walked between them to the windows of the lab to peer into the hall.

  “Shit.” She shut the door. “It’s your mob.”

  “It’s my ….”

  Suddenly a large group of people were outside the lab in the hall, pounding on the door and windows, shouting.

  “What were you thinking?” Bill shouted.

  “I have children,” yelled Gemma.

  “I almost pissed myself, Dean, thank you very much,” said Dan. “And when were you gonna tell us about the Frank clone. You can’t kill Frank and slip in a clone, it doesn’t work that way!”

  Trish pounded on the window. “And your plan won’t work … I saw the entire Planet of the Apes Series!”

  Dean turned sharply to Frank. “What the hell did you tell them?” />
  <><><><>

  Hal went to find Joe, but had to admit, he paused to watch Frank’s speech, he had to hear what his brother was going to say so he knew what he was going to say about it.

  Hal wondered if perhaps Frank should focus on fiction writing.

  He passed the cryo lab, the door was open and Roy was inside working. Just as he rounded the bed to go to the communications room, he saw Johnny walking that way.

  “Johnny,” Hal called out.

  “Oh, hey Uncle Hal.” Johnny stopped.

  “What are you doing?”

  Johnny pointed backwards. “Communications room to see Pap.”

  “Me, too.”

  “So he called you to come to a meeting as well?”

  “Actually, no. I was on my way to check on him.”

  “I can let you know how he’s doing if you would rather …”

  “No. No.” Hal shook his head. “I’m even more curious now. I’ll check on him myself and leave you two to meet about whatever.”

  “Okay…” Johnny stared at him. “Hal, I know my pap isn’t himself. You gotta understand why.”

  “I do. But that isn’t going to stop me from checking on him.”

  “I totally understand.” Johnny led the way down the hall and entered the communications room.

  “Hey, John, come on in,” Joe said.

  Hal then stepped in as well.

  “Hal, what are you doing here?”

  “I was on my way to check on you. Dean had said you weren’t yourself and …”

  “Dean and everyone else needs to mind their own goddamn business.”

  “No,” Hal said strongly. “They do not. Everyone in this community and provinces sees you as a leader and it is within their right to make sure their leader is of sound mind. So they can check on you all they want.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “How can you be fine? You just lost...”

  “Don’t!” Joe blasted. “If one more person says to me I just lost my son, then my sound mind is out the window. I know this! I … know!”

  Johnny lowered his head. “Pap, maybe…”

  “I’m sorry.” Joe lifted his hand palm outward. “I did bring you here for a reason. I know you’ve been helping George with teaching pilots. Without Robbie, this leaves you as one of our best. If I were to tell you to prep a team of four to do airstrikes, who would you pick?”

  “Four? I don’t know that we actually have four that would do it well enough. Me, John Matoose, Jesse…”

  “Wait. Wait.” Hal interjected. “Airstrikes?’

  “Yeah, Pap, I was wondering that.”

  Joe indicated to the board. Not three months ago we had twenty-four hundred foreign bodies three hundred miles north of Beginnings right across the border. We believe they crossed the straights and made their way here. They have heavy artillery and are primarily military based.”

  “The ground start for the great war,” Johnny said.

  “Exactly,” Joe said. “Now they are west, less than a hundred miles. Centered in this town.”

  “Well, pap you don’t need more than two pilots. One to drop the Dean Ami, the other to get strays.”

  “Hold it,” Hal spoke up. “Why are we discussing this without Frank? Frank said we were doing reconnaissance first, then if needed we’d go in. Ground. Not air.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Joe said. “You know that and I do as well. It’s risky to our people. I will not take a chance on one single life”

  “So we’re not pulling a surveillance?”

  “Oh, we will, but the moment we see they’re up to something. We take them out.”

  “Frank, has a plan,” Hal argued.

  “I don’t care, Hal. This is my town. These people, their lives are my responsibility. Frank’s plan is wrong and dangerous, and about right now, after everything that happened …” Joe said. “I just don’t know how much I trust Frank anymore.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “It’s going to take some time to get used to,” Frank led Chaka into the cryo lab. “But you will. Beginnings is a great place. But if you don’t like it here, we have other provinces.”

  “You do know, Frank, that when we were at my home … we were in Beginnings.”

  “I kind of figured that,” Frank said.

  “I found relics for you. I have many gifts that I thought you would find interesting.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For a moment when you led me here, I thought you were bringing me back to stay at the lab,” Chaka said.

  “No. We’re gonna find you housing. Besides, Dean wanted me to bring you here to ask you some questions.”

  Chaka nodded. “Frank, you have taken me around Beginnings. Yet, every time I ask about Robbie, you …”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Do that,” Chaka said. “Please, I liked your brother very much. It saddens me to know he has passed from this realm to Yonbevan. Tell me what happened.”

  Frank sighed heavily. “When you were taken, the bad LEP hit Robbie with a spear, they got him in a net, dragged him, but Hal saved him and they came back here. He got an infection. Dean and Roy think it came from the future.”

  “That makes sense. The germs we are accustomed to in the future may be deadly to you.”

  Frank nodded. “Apparently, Robbie’s heart wasn’t in all that great of shape. The infection was too much.”

  “I am deeply sorry. It is a loss beyond imagine. I remember when I lost my brother. It doesn’t ease the pain to think of them in Yonbevan.”

  “What is that?” Frank asked.

  “It’s where your inner existence goes once it leaves the body.”

  “We call it heaven.”

  “My brother was the rebel. He did not believe in Yonbevan. I did. I was hoping I would see him again in the future, have one more moment. But he was not born at that time.”

  “I thought about it, you know,” Frank said. “Getting in the time machine, going to see my brother. Having just one more moment. I can’t change anything. Even if I wanted to, Robbie would still pass. Maybe I will. I don’t know. Just to tell him I love him. I held him, he looked me in the eyes and said my name as he left this earth. I wasn’t ready for it. It’s a horrible feeling.”

  Chaka nodded. “I know that feeling. I too, held my brother in my arms as his life left him. What a gift it is for the time machine. If you can go back to get one moment, to tell him things you need to tell him, I would.”

  “Really?” Frank asked.

  “You are not changing his fate or the course of time. If you choose your moment well, it could be a healing.”

  “I’ll think about it. For now, I have to settle for seeing my brother at the funeral.”

  “Funeral?” Chaka asked. “What is that?”

  “Well, it’s like ritual we have when someone dies. We used to do it all the time before everything went to hell.”

  “Frank, what do you mean? Everything went to hell.”

  “Chaka this wasn’t our world,” Frank said. “You should have seen it. Fucking awesome. We had everything. Everything we wanted at our fingertips. Medical care that cured you. We had markets with food. I mean, any food you could imagine. If you were hungry, you didn’t need to cook. We had fast food. Technology. Danny Hoi is starting to bring it back but it is nothing compared to what it was. It was all there. Then a sickness came. Wiped out 99% of the population. If not more. Here we are. Right here, Beginnings, is just the start of the new world. The old one is gone. Gone in a snap of a finger with a cough and a fever.”

  “I did not know that.”

  “And so many people died, we couldn’t have funerals. There was so much death. So we kind of put that behind us. Robbie deserves more, you know? So we’re bringing the ritual back. Because we got into the bad habit of just burying the dead instead of honoring their life.”

  Chaka nodded knowingly. “Tell me this … funeral ritual. What does it entail?”

  “In the o
ld days, we’d get a coffin. Which is a long box. We put the person in there. There were these things called funeral homes. They’d get the body ready, make them look alive and people would come and see them one last time. Then after a day or two of this, where people come and pay respects, we close the lid, put the box in the ground and that’s it.”

  “We have a very similar ritual. We too, lost that ritual when we went to war. Before the war, we would prepare the loved one, cover them with the golden cloth and flowers and items of their life. Friends and family would come and visit, leaving an item or gift with the body. Then on the third day, we set the loved one and items aflame until they are ashes. The smoke, we believe, helps carry the being to Yonbevan. Then we take the remains and scatter them in the wind. Sometimes … though …” Chaka reached to his chest, he wore what looked like a thin leather neckless. He lifted it and exposed a small vial. “Sometimes we keep part of them with us always. This is my brother.”

  “That’s pretty cool.”

  “Sorry, I’m late,” Dean rushed in the lab and closed the door. “Thanks for being here.”

  Frank held out a translator for Dean. “Here, you’ll need this.”

  “Thanks.” Dean positioned it in his ear. “And thank you both of you for coming down here.”

  “What did you need?” Frank asked. “Tests.”

  Dean tilted his head. “Answers, I am hoping Chaka can give. See, we may have a problem. We have one man very ill and five others starting to show symptoms. All of them very similar to Robbie. But only one was absolutely near Robbie. I can’t find any properties in the infection or virus that shows it’s airborne. I believe it started with something Robbie touched. This way.” Dean led them down the hall to the back room. “Frank brought it back for some reason. I am glad he did. I think it started with it because Robbie’s hand had a rash where he touched it.”

  “What is it that you speak of?” Chaka asked.

  “It came from the future, your future.” Dean stopped before the back portion of the containment lab. “It’s on the counter in the case. Can you see it? I can go get it for you if you …”

  “No.” Chaka laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Do not touch it. Do not take it from the sealed room.”