by Utley, Todd
Dodge interrupted, “Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, we all know you’re naturally beautiful and all you have to do is just throw something on and turn every man’s head in the house!”
“Okay mister, just keep talking and see what you get!”
“All right then it’s a date, I’ll see you tonight.”
After they hung up Dodge felt a great sense of relief that in just two more days he could stop hiding things from his wife. She really was his best friend and he hated keeping anything from her. Thinking about it now he realized how much it bothered him over the years that he had to keep the bonus from her and even the project that he worked on over the past ten years.
If only his family knew how instrumental he had been in developing the very technology that just saved Bobby’s life and was about to give his father another whole lifetime to live and potentially immortality. He was proud of his accomplishments but he had to keep it quite. The long term rewards would be well worth it when he finally got millions in bonus pay. In just two more days he would be sharing it with his wife out of necessity and now they would both have to keep the secret until his retirement. Only then could he safely tell his family and friends that it was his team that had been a big part of Restoration becoming a reality.
The work day seemed to fly by. Dodge had two meetings with his design teams that took a good part of the day and then another meeting with his boss Tim and several other upper management people to discuss the results of the two prior meetings along with the other department heads who had also had similar meetings with their teams earlier in the day. Pretty much a meeting about meetings, funny but that’s how corporate America does things.
He was relieved the day went smoothly and he was able to leave on time. On the way home after work he couldn’t stop checking his rear view. It was a new habit that he was developing. His senses seemed to be heightened and only getting sharper by the day. It was as if he had been sleep walking through his life for years and now something had awakened him.
He kept passing it off but then he did notice something. It was a vehicle that he had seen on many occasions in the last months but he never really thought much about it. It was a little blue sports car with dark tinted windows. He had seen it on the way to work several times a week and many days on the way home too.
“It was just another hard-working American that shared almost his exact routine to and from work.” He noticed other vehicles in the general area that were like that too. It seemed to be sort of a commuting pattern as he saw it. “This person was just as punctual as he was.”
Now something different happened and had been happening for the last two weeks but it was only now that he realized it. His schedule had changed dramatically in the last few weeks. He had deviated allot from his otherwise perfect punctuality of many years. He always did the exact same things at nearly the exact same time. It had even become sort of a nonchalant personal game to look at his watch and note how on time he was with his routine.
He took pride in being the guy you could set your watch by. He was certainly not that guy the last few weeks. But in the past he felt an unofficial camaraderie with the stranger that drove the little blue car with dark windows because they too were very punctual.
Now he saw it much differently because he realized he hadn’t seen any less of that little blue car, in fact if anything he saw it more than before, sometimes in front of him six or eight cars, sometimes at a stop light sitting at the adjacent crossroad. What were the odds that the driver of this blue car, who was so incredibly punctual just as he was, also had a life altering experience that changed his schedule randomly to the exact same pattern as Dodge’s?
The answer was clear, it was absolutely impossible! Either Dodge was losing his mind and becoming hyper paranoid, or the driver of the little blue car was shadowing him. Not really following him because that was not necessary. After all he saw that car pretty much everywhere along the routes that he frequented during his daily commutes and this meant that the driver already knew everywhere Dodge went on a regular basis.
There was no real need to actually follow him point to point all he had to do was just check here and there upon Dodge’s whereabouts and that was it. He decided it was very important to act completely oblivious to the blue car and do everything as normal so the watcher would not suspect he had been discovered.
Suddenly he had a very chilling revelation. This tail undoubtedly knew that he had been going to see John Calhoun and that was not good! If anyone was watching them, they might already know what they had been digging into.
What if John’s system was not as tight as he thought? What if their lives were all in danger right now? He was supposed to go home but he thought he had better get a message to John somehow without using his phone.
The club was on the way and he had an idea. He made the next turn as normal but the little blue car was hanging way back and continued on straight as Dodge headed to the club. As he saw the blue car go on past the turn at the intersection in his rear view mirror he couldn’t help but get angry. “You little blue devil, I’m on to you!”
He realized the tail had no need to follow him any further, that tail knew exactly where he was going and that’s all the information he needed. When he got to the club he headed down to the 19th hole and went to the bar. He motioned for Jimbo, the bartender, to come over.
“Hey Dodge, what can I get-cha?”
“I’d like to use the bar phone if that’s all right, my skyphone is on the blink and I need to call a friend.”
“You bet!” Jimbo grabbed the phone and set it up on the bar.
“Thanks Jimbo.”
His mind was reeling with the ideas of just how far the people behind tailing him had already gone. Was his skyphone compromised? Was John’s skyphone compromised? He knew it was more likely to be his phone over John’s but he still didn’t want to take any chances. The bar phone had text message capability. It was old but still functional. It was likely John’s email was quite secure. He sent a message from the bar phone to John.
It read. . . , “Hey JC, it’s your buddy from the club, saw you at the spoon. Call the bar phone if you get this message before six. My sky’s on the blink.”
He figured John might put two and two together and realize there was some trouble, but if not he would still call the bar phone.
He took a seat at the bar for a few minutes to see if John would call back. He really couldn’t wait to long because he was expected at home for dinner within about an hour. His Dad was at his house as well so he should really be there. He ordered an iced tea and sat there watching a little golf on the big screen while he waited.
Within five minutes the phone rang but Jimbo was way down at the other end. Dodge pointed to the ringing phone and Jimbo gave him the “go ahead” nod. He picked up.
“19th hole.”
“This is JC, somebody there call for me?”
“Yeah, John its Dodge, listen buddy, we may have a problem and I didn’t want to call you on my phone.”
“What’s going on man, you seem a little rattled?”
“I am and for good reason. I just realized I’m being tailed and that I have been for a while.” John was skeptical.
“What are you talking about? I really doubt that.”
“No, No, listen John you have to trust me on this and I don’t have time to explain it to you right now, but I am 100 percent sure, and when I do have time to explain it, you will agree that I must be right. It’s a mathematical thing okay?”
“Okay buddy, I know when you’re sure your right that you always are, so I believe you. Do you think you’re in immediate danger?”
“No, I don’t, they’re just keeping tabs on me and they have been for a long time. I realize now they must know that we’ve been spending some time together.”
“Do you think we should call off the dinner at my house?”
“No, in fact I think we should keep it just like it is but I would like to have it o
utside, in fact, pick the most accessible place you have so that we could be easily seen from some vantage point.”
“Why in the world would we want to do that? They might snipe our asses!”
“Because, I think, we should allow them to see us hanging out, having a great time while eating and dancing out there too. We should spend all of our time outside while smiling and acting like we don’t have a care in the world, then Linsey and I should leave right after.”
“Oh, I get it, you want them to think all this time we’ve been spending together is strictly social and has nothing to do with the hack.”
“Exactly, I want them to watch us and I want them to see us having a great time out in the open. They may be watching us through the scope of a sniper rifle but I don’t think they’ll use it. If they see us not caring and smiling and partying they’ll be convinced that we have no clue we’re in danger. If they believe that then they won’t see us as a threat because they’ll think we don’t know anything about it.”
“It’s a long shot, but as of now I don’t think we’ve been breached. They must know you and I are hanging out but they don’t know why. If we convince them it’s just a social thing then they may cancel their plans to blow us all to bits. I mean why kill people if it’s not necessary right?”
“Dodge, my friend, you’re a genius.”
“Okay, so dinner is on but it’s an outdoor party, see you there man, and wear your dancing shoes. Hey what about telling the gals?”
“Well I think we should both do it in the privacy of our own homes after the party and we have to make sure that they understand that they must act normal and not to be looking over their shoulders everywhere they go. I still plan to tell Linsey, but I’ll do it that night after we return home from the dinner party, maybe you could do the same.”
“Okay, sounds like a good plan, see you Wednesday at seven.”
“We’ll be there. Hey John, before you hang up, we gotta make sure our skyphones are secure. Is there anything you can do?”
“I already did it while we were talking. I installed security layers on our phones that even I would have a hard time cracking! We can talk on them freely no worries. I also checked the logs, there was no pairing or eavesdropping that I could find.”
“By the way just as a precaution, we shouldn’t talk about this stuff while driving or really anywhere but at my house until we have a chance to do a security sweep for bugs.”
“Agreed, we’ll be there, see ya then.”
Jimbo was moving down to Dodge’s area just about the time he hung up the phone.
“Hey pal is everything okay? Why the long face?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s just a friend of mine, he’s going through a divorce, you know how ugly those can get, right?”
“Oh yeah I’ve been through two myself but seeing as how I’m a bartender I have actually been through about a hundred.” They both laughed. Poor Jimbo, his job demanded that he listen to every poor broken hearted sap’s depressing divorce story.
Dodge realized he burned up just enough time to look like he stopped in for a couple after work beers.
“Hey thanks for letting me use the phone Jim. I gotta get home before the wife misses me.”
“You bet buddy. And I’m glad to hear a guy say his wife might miss him, that’s rare these days!”
Chapter 11 On the way home he acted as normal as possible, in fact he checked the mirror less than before because now he knew that he was being monitored and didn’t really wonder anymore. On top of that he was a creature of habit, and blue car guy already knew his routine. As long as he didn’t deviate from his normal things, there shouldn’t be a problem.
Once they had the outdoor party, it should put the watcher’s minds at ease that John and Dodge’s interest in seeing each other again was strictly social. They were good friends and now that John no longer worked for RockTight there was no conflict of interest, or at least that was the plan anyway.
Two blocks from home his skyphone rang, he answered it on the hands free car connection, it was Linsey.
“Hey Babe I’m almost there.”
“Okay, I was just about to put dinner on the table so I wanted to make sure you were on your way.”
“Sorry, I’m running a little late, I stopped by the club and had a beer and got caught up in talking with Jimbo at the bar about golf.”
“Wow, you guys, and your golf, did you have a hard day or something?”
“Yeah actually I did, we had meetings all day and I just really wanted a nice cold draft beer, it always tastes better on draft.” “I understand, see you in a minute.”
“Okay.”
He pressed the end button on the wheel.
He couldn’t help but think that if someone did have his car bugged or even his phone tapped in some way that they would really believe he was clueless. Anyone listening would never suspect that he and John were on to them and that was how it had to be if they were all going to stay alive.
He was still plagued by the thoughts of how Ron Simpson died and then Ron’s Doctor and even Ron’s parents, why were they not restored? He figured maybe the parents couldn’t be restored because they drowned very far out at sea when their yacht capsized. It was probably many hours before it would have been discovered and with the one hour limit long surpassed Restoration would have been impossible.
But what about Ron and his childhood Doctor, why had they not been restored? They had been in accidents that were surrounded by witnesses and authorities immediately. Emergency personnel highly trained to make sure people get to the hospital within the hour. Everyone knew that the Medic-Star storage service could insure their lifefile would always be secure and available.
He and John would have to look into this next to see just how elaborate these murders were. How did the killers make the permanent death situation look believable? Maybe they blamed it on some system failure.
No one would suspect anything unless they had connected all the deaths together like he and John had, only then does it look so suspicious. As single incidents nobody would be the wiser. Their deaths had occurred in different areas of the country and enough time in between that the authorities simply would not make the connection.
Dodge arrived home and walked into the kitchen from the garage entrance to see his family gathering around the table for dinner. The fantastic aroma of fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, and homemade Cole slaw.
Linsey and the kids went all out for Grandpa’s last dinner as a dying man.
“Before we eat I want to do something that we haven’t done enough of around our family in recent years,” said Allan. Dodge already knew exactly what his Dad was going to do.
“Let’s all join hands and say grace.” They all closed their eyes and bowed their heads as Alan Kerrington asked God to bless the bounty they were about to receive, bless all the hands that prepared it, and thanked him for the new life that he was about to receive and for Bobby’s Restoration. It was a very touching moment and it nearly brought tears to all their eyes. As soon as he finished, he smiled and said, “Please pass the rolls!” The mood changed from serious to happy and light hearted in less than a second.
They all stuffed themselves soundly before Linsey surprised Alan with a blackberry pie that she had picked up at the bakery. It wasn’t homemade, but it was fresh baked and very good. They spent the rest of the evening around the table talking about old times and Grandpa was very entertaining for Bobby and Sarah with many colorful stories. He spoke of the old days when kids went to school dances, smoked cigarettes, got in too many fist fights, and drag raced fast noisy cars like their dad’s. He told them about working on his Grandpas farm and how they would have to do so many things by hand like driving the tractors and combines to plant and harvest because they didn’t have the robots like the farmers had now.
The kids got tired and Grandpa was running out of steam so they all retired to bed in preparation for the big day. At around 2:00 a.m. Dodge heard someth
ing downstairs but he couldn’t make out what it was. He normally would have slept through it but his mind was running on heightened alert due to the whole hacker mess and blue car guy. Paranoid was an understatement but he was masking it well.
As he made his way downstairs very slowly while listening he realized the sound was coming from the kitchen and it sounded like his father coughing. He entered the kitchen to find Alan sitting at the kitchen table with a roll of paper towels on the table in front of him and a couple of them in his hand. In front of him on the table lay three different kinds of inhalers.
“Dad you okay?” Alan would have liked to answer his son but he was too busy just trying to breathe. Dodge realized this and sat down at the table with his Father. Alan coughed and hacked for the next half hour unable to speak except for saying “coffee” to Dodge. Dodge made himself busy preparing a fresh pot and getting out two cups, sugar, and cream and set it all out on the table between them. After several hits from the inhalers and more hacking that bloodied several paper towels, his Father finally got enough breath to speak.
“This is what I do at night,” he forced out between gasps. Dodge reached over and patted his Father on the hand and slid the hot cup of coffee across the table to him. After a few minutes he was able to talk a bit better.
“This is what I’ve been going through now for months. I lie down at night and get an hour or two of sleep then I just can’t breathe. Not even the oxygen helps much because I have these coughing fits. If I had only known that those damn cigarettes would do this to me I would have never smoked that first one.”
“Well, Dad, you only have to make it through tonight and then it’s over, you get another chance with a brand-new body in just a few hours from now.”
“I think I’ll just stay up, if I go back to bed, I’m just gonna start coughing again and I hate it.”
“Okay, I’ll stay up with you, how about we go sit in the TV room? We’ll put on an old movie and have some fun.”
“Sounds good let’s go,” said Allan.
