by Utley, Todd
“What was it like?” one of them asked as they were passing. Linsey spoke up. “It was the most incredible thing we’ve ever seen, you’re going to love it!”
“It’s so cool,” added Bobby, “Grandpa got younger in like five minutes!”
The other family was glad to see them coming out so happy about the results and seemed a little relieved as they went on in. In a few minutes the Kerrington’s were comfortably seated in a large room that was just like a home family room. It was softly lit and equipped with a well-stocked kitchenette, a large TV, and game console. There was also a spacious balcony with chairs and a table on the other end for large groups.
They had only been there for about ten minutes when the door swung open and a smiling nurse came in pushing Allan in a wheelchair announcing as she came through the door.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new and much younger, Alan Kerrington!”
Alan began greeting everyone by name and seemed exactly himself, just so much younger, it was unbelievable.
“Well Dad how do you feel?” asked Dodge.
“I feel great!” The nurse interrupted politely . . . ,
“Mr. Kerrington, would you like to stand up and move around a little bit?”
“Yes, I would like that.” She clicked the wheel locks on the chair.
“Okay you’re ready to go.”
Slowly and carefully Alan stood up. He began to take baby steps and then sat back down in the wheelchair and released the wheel locks. He moved around the room for a few minutes and began to look comfortable. He rolled over to a large mirror that was on the wall as a decoration more than for checking your hair. He just sat there looking at himself and then he ran his fingers through his thick hair, he couldn’t believe it. He turned around and looked at his family.
“Thank you for talking me into doing this.”
He looked back into the mirror and was checking out his new younger look. The nurse was smiling as she left the room. “Well you all enjoy and just buzz me with this button right here by the door if you need anything.” The whole family thanked her as she was leaving.
“No need to thank me, I love this job!”
They continued to visit with Grandpa for another two hours. The nurse returned and called Dodge out to an office adjacent to the visiting room and then Alan’s regular doctor came in.
“Well is everything appearing to be normal?” he asked.
“Yes, my Father is acting just like himself only much happier because he’s no longer sick.”
“Okay great, we’ll move him down to his recovery room where he’ll be staying for the next few days to ensure that he can eat normally and keep down that first meal or two. We’ll get him acclimated to his new body and get those muscles working better. After he gets his strength built up he can go home, maybe as soon as Friday.”
“That’s great.”
“After we remove him from the visiting suite we’ll bring in some questionnaire forms for each of you to fill out. This is standard procedure to make sure he acted normally toward each person and understood his current reality, okay?”
“All right, thanks Doc.”
Dodge returned to the visiting room and they all said good night to his Father. The nurse came back in with the chair and wheeled him down to his recovery room. They filled out the forms which were basic questions like . . . ,
“Did your friend or loved one seem alert and aware of your presence? Did they comment on any current events? If so, what were they? Did your friend or loved one say anything that concerned you in any way? If so what was it?
They finished up the survey forms, thanked the staff, and headed for home.
When they finally got home, it was nearly dinner time and they were all famished. They had completely missed lunch and didn’t really think about it because they were so excited and wrapped up in Alan’s Restoration.
They did have a snack from the kitchenette in the visiting room but that had long worn off and they were all tired and hungry. They decided to have some cold cut sandwiches and chips because it was quick and easy. Just as they were finishing up, Dodge’s phone rang; it was John.
“Hey John what’s going on?”
“Well I just thought I would call and make sure Alan was all right, how did it go?”
“Oh man, you have no idea how cool this is. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced. You know we’ve been involved in this technology but I really didn’t realize just how smoothly it works. They wheeled in his new body uploaded the file, woke him up and he’s just fine.”
“Wow, I wish I could have been there to see it.”
“Yeah, if you get a chance to go see one you should. He even got up and took a few steps already.”
John was surprised by the simplicity with which Dodge described it. For some reason he imagined that it would be more complicated and tedious than that.
“I’ve got an older cousin that was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She’s planning on getting restored soon. Maybe I’ll go watch her procedure. Well anyway, congrats on getting your Dad back, that’s great man, I hope he lives forever, he’s a good egg.”
“Thanks, I only wish Mom could have lived long enough for this technology to be available.”
“Yeah me too man, I lost both my parents within a year of each other just a few years before the technology was available, at least you have your Dad.”
“That’s true, we’re very lucky, thanks for calling pal, it was very thoughtful.”
“You bet, I’ll see you guys tomorrow night.”
Chapter 12 The next morning they all got up and had breakfast together before heading up to the Lifecenter to see Alan. When they arrived to room 876, Alan was sitting up in bed attempting to eat the pink goop. They all knew it wasn’t very good because Bobby already described it to them and there was no way it could taste good.
Alan being the jokester that he sometimes was proclaimed to the nurse . . . ,
“Man this stuff is delicious!”
He said this just as the whole family came in while pretending not to see them.
“Oh hi everyone, I was just telling the nurse how great this pink stuff is!”
Everyone had a good laugh at the awful face Alan made while he finished it quickly enough not to taste it and then took a big drink of tea to wash it down.
“Whoa yuck! Even the tea tastes bad after eating that.”
“So when do you get outta here?” Linsey asked as she leaned in and gave Alan a kiss on the cheek.
“Hey Son, you better watch out, I’m so much younger and handsome now, does she have a sister?
“Ha ha Dad, that’s hilarious, you know she doesn’t.”
“Oh well too bad I’ll have to find a date somewhere else I guess. I should be going home in about two days my dear. That is if everything goes well.”
Dodge was really glad to see his Dad joking and feeling so great.
“So Dad, what’s it like now that you don’t have to cough and fight to breathe?”
“Oh, goodness it’s great. I feel like I could run a marathon, at least on the inside, but my legs are still a little wobbly.”
“So do you feel okay in every other way?”
“Sure ask me anything, I’m sharp as a tack.”
“Dodge thought for a moment.
“All right, I’ll try to ask a real stumper here. Um, let’s see, what was your sergeant’s name in your second deployment to Iraq?”
“Oh that’s easy Son. Sergeant Jerry -long gun- Massman. Ya know they called him long gun because . . . ,
“He stopped short because he realized it would be inappropriate to mention, but Linsey and Sarah snickered anyway.
Bobby said “What? I don’t get it . . . ,
“Let’s just say his wife was always smiling,” said Allan.
“Oh now I get it. Man that’s bad Grandpa,” said Bobby. Everyone started laughing and then Alan’s face turned a little red.
“Hey your father
started it, he just had to ask a tough question and I had to prove that I’m still all here.”
“Okay Dad, you proved your point, we believe you. So do you think you can take all of us on in a game of hoops soon?”
“Oh man!” Bobby exclaimed, “I can’t wait for that.”
Alan agreed that he would try to do just that in exactly two weeks after going home. That would be his goal.
They went on talking for another hour and a half and then they left Grandpa to his rest. They all agreed tacos sounded good, they hadn’t gone out to a fast food joint for a while so they stopped on the way home and stuffed themselves with tacos. As they turned onto their street, about a mile from their home, Dodge saw the little blue car with the dark windows going in the opposite direction. It was leaving their neighborhood as they were going in.
They were all laughing and talking and Dodge realized he should not react so he just kept smiling and talking to Linsey as if he didn’t even notice it. He had never seen it that close to home before. Now he thought that it probably had been there before and he either didn’t notice it or hadn’t run into it.
He worried that maybe the tail was busy doing something at their house while they were away, but in broad day light? He felt that it was not likely the tail would enter their home and Dodge was sure that he set the security system when they left.
When they pulled into the garage and got out, Dodge approached the door quickly to make sure he got there first. He wanted to see the status lamps on the security pad. He disabled the system for the family to enter as if everything was normal.
Once everyone had gone their separate ways he returned to the console. The pad showed “secure” but there was an unfamiliar icon that required review on the main panel. When he pressed it a small information box popped up with some text that read, “Unknown Error Zone 6”. He went back through the menus and located Zone 6=Garage, Man Door.
Apparently blue car guy wasn’t as good at his job as he should have been. Just as he was still viewing the menu the screen blinked and the error disappeared completely. “Okay maybe he was that good, they just got home sooner than he expected.” He went back through the history log and the error was gone. It was as if something timed out and erased it. He decided to go have a look at the entry door to the garage off the driveway to see if there were any signs of it being tampered with.
When he opened the door, everything looked pretty normal, and he didn’t see any scratches or pry marks. But he was fairly confident someone had been in the garage or at least attempted an entry. He inspected the entry sensor very carefully and still didn’t see anything unusual.
He retrieved a small step stool from under the workbench and a magnifying glass that he kept in his tool box. He got up on the stool and took a very close look at the sensor with the magnifier. All four of the tiny Phillips screws that held the cover on the sensor, were slightly scarred as if someone used a power driver on them and the bit slipped slightly in the screw head.
He thought about that for a minute. “This could be done in the factory during manufacture if the power driver’s torque setting was too high during assembly.” He decided to go look at several of the other door sensors to see if they had a similar condition.
He took out his skyphone and launched a magnifier app. He went to where the next sensor was installed. He opened the door and looked around to make sure no one was watching. He didn’t want Linsey or the kids asking questions.
He went around the house and snapped magnified pics of four more identical door sensors. He went back out to the garage and reviewed the pics. The was no damage to the screw heads on any of the other sensors. He also made a note of the serial numbers and when he returned to the garage he looked at the serial on the one with scarred screws and it was in numerical order with the others.
There was no doubt, the sensor had been tampered with for sure. He decided to dig a little deeper. He carefully removed the cover from the sensor and discovered that the insulation on the tiny ribbon cable inside had been scraped away with a sharp object. He really needed to go no further.
He had no way of knowing exactly how the tail entered or if he even did but there was a security compromise of some kind for sure. He put everything back and went into the basement to call John.
The basement was the one place that the family almost never went. It was no longer a finished basement as the previous owner had torn it all out for remodeling prior to them buying the house. He and Linsey planned to fix it up until they discovered they were living in a wet area with a high water table. Estimates for making the basement truly waterproof and useable were very high. Instead of fixing it up they simply added onto the house and now only used the basement for storage and a make shift indoor shooting range to sight in Alan’s guns for competitive shooting that he was into. It was nice during the long Indiana winters.
He figured if the house was bugged the tail would have been smart enough to realize from the looks of the basement it was rarely used. His confidence in this decision was confirmed as he descended the stairs and walked through a couple of strands of a spider web that was strung across the way which landed right across his face. If the tail had gone down there that night, the web would have already been passed through. Who knew a little spider could be so helpful.
He dialed up John.
“Hey Dodge what’s up?” Hang on a second John. . . ,
Dodge noticed his old radio on the bench there where he used to work late at night on soldering projects. He flipped it on for some background noise just in case.
“Okay, I’m back.”
“What’s up Buddy?”
“On the way home we passed the blue car leaving our neighborhood. When we came in the house, I noticed a problem with the security system. I checked it out and one thing led to another. The long and short of it, looks like the garage might have been compromised.”
“Which car were you driving?”
“The Minivan, why?”
“Well that leaves your Volvo and the GTO. Unless you’ve got another vehicle?”
“Nope that’s it. You think they might have been bugging them or placing trackers on them.”
“I would guess that is exactly what they were doing but I would not recommend trying to find it. If you did and you removed it they would know that we’re on to them. We’re better off letting them think we don’t know.
Just don’t call me on the phone from your vehicles any more to discuss anything that has to do with our little mystery until I can have a look. You don’t want to exercise complete phone silence either as that would be out of character and they may suspect that they have been detected.”
“So what can I do?”
“Just act normal. Listen to the radio, sing along, talk on the phone, whatever you normally do during your commutes.”
“Okay, I get what you’re saying. Thanks for the help Bro, I was freakin out a little there.”
“You got it man, no worries, come on over tomorrow night and act happy to be wealthy. We’ll have a great time at our little party lookin like we don’t have a care in the world. If we do a good job of it’ll throw them off and buy us more time.”
“Sounds good, see you at seven.”
The next day at work went smoothly but Dodge found himself to be rather bored with the whole scene at ESS. The same things that used to seem like normal routines culminating into a day at the office with acceptable levels of accomplishment now seemed like a waste of time. He needed to be elsewhere.
He felt now more than ever that his job there was done and he needed to move on to protecting the incredible yet vulnerable system that they had created. The very system that they created to promote immortality was now being threatened by someone that had no regard for human life. Dodge and his team were working to help the human race attain immortality while the hackers seemed to be hell bent on killing to protect their own self serving criminal motives.
He was zoned out at his desk near the end of
the day when Tim rapped his knuckles on the door, bringing him out of his trance.
“Hey boss, what’s goin on? Said Dodge. “Are we having a good quarter or what?”
Dodge already knew the numbers looked good. He figured if Tim was there for any other reason, bringing up a good quarterly report might distract him.
“Oh, yeah the numbers, they look great, so I take it you read the report and you know why I’m here right?”
Tim got a big smile on his face and reached into his pocket.
“I’m here to deliver your quarterly bonus.”
Dodge had completely forgotten about the bonus. He was so wrapped up in the cloak and dagger events over the past several weeks that he completely lost track of the time. Tim was pulling what Dodge thought would be a check from his pocket but instead presented him with a crisp one dollar bill.
They both started laughing and then Tim quickly whipped the bonus check out of the breast pocket of his jacket.
“Here ya go my friend, you deserve this,” he said as he slapped it into Dodges hand and patted him on the shoulder.
“Best quarter ever and I do mean EVER! Our stock is up, the shareholders are happy, and the board is elated with our financial position. Things are good pal, we’re all gonna be rich by the time we retire.”
Dodge couldn’t help but smile, and it felt good. In spite of everything that was going on in the background, right now he was living in the moment and it felt great. He looked at Tim and then the envelope.
“Hey man, you gonna open it? I’d kinda like to see the look on your face!” Dodge ripped into the envelope like a kid on Christmas morning. He stared at it in disbelief. The check was made out for $365,000!
“Wow! Why is it so large?” Dodge said while still looking shocked.
Tim was nearly dancing he was so happy.
“Well Buddy, it seems we made it through our three-year probationary period for the Lifecorder without a single documented malfunction. This was a huge milestone for the company and our investors poured in billions in cash the day after the release of the report. The combination of the huge influx of capital and the press release about the perfect record and the end of the probationary period caused the stock to go through the roof.”
