by Utley, Todd
Cyrus turned to a life of crime and was moving up the ranks fast when he rescued Glitch from a brush with death.
He and Glitch devised ways to rob people without ever leaving their lab. Soon the cash mounted as they stole huge sums of money from the wealthy. Often, the victims didn’t even know they had been robbed. In some cases the victims were simply too embarrassed of being taken by a scam, to alert authorities of it, so it remained unreported.
Cyrus quickly became the dominant of the two, as he continually murdered his underlings to instill fear in those left living and still under his control. Glitch took the back seat as the computer expert, a master of hacking and program development, his expertise was near to that of John’s.
John was beginning to understand what was driving this mad man and why he was by far the most likely suspect behind the deaths and this whole crazy situation. It simply had to be him, there could be no other explanation. They had to get inside the systems of that compound and destroy the computers. They had to stop Cyrus and Glitch from obtaining the information that only he and Dodge possessed, If the hackers gained total access they could easily control every human being on earth that had a LifeTech chip in their head, there would be no stopping them.
John put together a video presentation of everything he discovered in his research. It was rather lengthy at about one hour of total run time, but it was as short as he could make it and cover everything needed to bring the team up to speed on what was going on. He sent a copy of it out to everyone on their secured channel to their skyphones with instructions for everyone to view it at 7:00 p.m.
One by one, he received “okay” messages back from each of their team members, Black Ops, and Linsey and Dodge. Their total member count was now up to 41 people, quite the little army.
There were a lot of things to do. The Black Ops team had spent two weeks now working on angles of attack on the compound. They obtained satellite views of the building and a complete set of digital blue prints of the foundry. They had no idea what change’s Cyrus had made on the inside but they figured it must be extensive and their attack would be challenging unless they could get some intel on the inside.
John had been busy obtaining weapons and communication equipment that the Black Ops team included on their wish list. The Captain of the team reused John’s word “unobtainium” when describing some of the items but John located the equipment anyway. The Captain was impressed that John could acquire weapons that he could never get with any amount of paperwork or favors when he was an active government Black Ops commander. Information was certainly king in this high tech age.
Dodge and Linsey were gradually filling Bobby and Sarah in on what was going on. They strategically left out the part about Cyrus being a cold-blooded killer and crazed madman, they didn’t want to scare them to death, just make them aware of a potential danger.
They told them to watch for any unusual behavior from people that might be around the house, like security system people working at a house next door or an exterminator that might be working in the neighbor’s yard. They told them if they saw anything like that to let them know right away. They also told them to be especially wary of getting into cars with people that they didn’t know well after school. Someone saying that their parents had called and there was an emergency and they needed to come with them right away. They made them understand that this was most likely a trap and to not go with anyone other than family. They were quite concerned that Cyrus would make a move soon and they feared he might abduct a family member to use as a bargaining chip.
At Alan’s house, things were a bit different. He went old school, obtaining some old military equipment from several friends. All the doors and windows were now wired with charges, he warned Dodge and Linsey and the kids not to enter his house under any circumstances without him by their side. His friends all knew something was going on, but they just thought he had become paranoid due to Dodge’s high profile position at ESS. It had been all over the news, and they just figured, he was protecting his property the best way he knew how. He didn’t know enough about electronics to do that high tech stuff but he was an expert with old style military booby traps. Old sawed off shot guns, very thin filament wires, a few hand grenades and two modified cattle prods all carefully concealed throughout the house in strategic locations.
If anybody came in uninvited and managed to get out alive, they would no doubt be missing a few pieces. They would be easily tracked later by John through the hospital data bases as they would be seeking Restoration after leaving Alan’s little fun house, not to mention leaving behind some rather large DNA samples.
Alan felt his plan to be very solid, he spent his days cleaning guns making his own ammo and getting generally prepared. He was working out and eating healthily in preparation for a war, it was the only way he knew. He realized that wars nowadays were fought more with technology than brawn but he had to go through his own process just in case, he had to be ready in case it did get physical. He wanted to have the upper hand if it came down to one on one combat.
Dodge asked his Dad to keep his visits to their house down to once a week or less. He didn’t want the watchers to believe Alan was involved in any way. This way they would not see him as a threat or an asset of any kind and would hopefully leave him alone.
Across town at the compound Cyrus Slade stood before his main console in his office. In his hand he held yet another of his no frill’s status reports. It read . . . ,
Kerrington Residence;
Condition: Normal
Behavior: Very guarded, heightened awareness of surroundings
Activity: Normal family activities, dinner out, sports participation. shopping
Surveillance: Outdoor line of sight only, Audio: none, Video: none (state of the art security preventing penetration in both autos and home)
Note: being very cautious, keeping tight tabs on children
Cyrus crumpled the paper in his fist and leaned back letting out a maniacal laugh. He felt the greatest satisfaction welling up inside his seemingly soulless interior. Cyrus had a secret, a dark secret, one that he kept to himself completely, not even Glitch knew of this evil plan that was nearly ready to be hatched. He threw the wad of paper down, that’s it! He growled, as he mashed the report into the floor with a twisting, grinding motion, under the heel of his steel toed boot.
“Dodge Kerrington, you think you’re so clever! You think you’re above everyone with your fancy security system! Your perfect life! Your perfect family! We’ll see how smart you are when I’m cutting off your fingers one by one! We’ll see what kind of man you are then! I’ll crush you!” In his moment of anger he punched the monitor putting his fist all the way through it. He struggled for a moment to remove his hand before marching off to the lab, he had plenty of work to do.
Several hours passed, it was now the wee hours of the morning. Down in the labs Cyrus pressed the intercom button for the quarters of his best geneticist, Alice Covings. He found her several years earlier, after a two-month search, working at a laboratory in California on gene splicing experiments. He viewed her resume and decided it was she that possessed the exact skills he required.
She had a husband and children but it was of no consequence to Cyrus he simply didn’t care. He ordered Glitch to hack into Alice’s Lifecorder one evening while she and her husband were away from their home. Glitch made a copy of her life file before corrupting the data. That very night while Glitch was tampering with her Lifecorder two hooded men were beating her husband Mark violently in an alley just outside a movie theater. They staged a mugging gone wrong scenario. They murdered her and left her husband badly beaten. He managed to crawl back out of the alley and was found by a Passerby. The EMTs got her lifeless body to the hospital only to find that her life file that was stored at a local backup service was corrupted and useless.
The police raced to their home and kicked in their front door at the bequest of the injured husband who was still in the ER. He tol
d them to get her Lifecorder from the bedside table. The police in confusion simply brought both hers and her husband’s to be sure. They attempted to load the file up into a clone at about 65 minutes from the time of her death but it didn’t work.
The doctors assumed the “after sixty minutes rule” as the cause for the clones insane behavior but it was actually the result of Glitch’s handy work. The clone had to be euthanized immediately as a result. Losing her had ruined this man’s life and broken his heart. Their children, Sally and Phillip, were growing up without their Mother, and now their Father had no zest for life. Little did he know that his wife was still alive and had become a captive and servant to Slade. Cyrus had implanted the small explosive device in her brain just as he had done to all of his subservient, with the exception of Glitch.
Alice answered the intercom call.
“Yes this is Alice?”
“Slade here, I need you to come to the lab immediately.”
Alice thought for a moment, did she dare mention that it was 3:30 in the morning? She decided that it wouldn’t be wise.
“Yes Sir, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Very good.”
Cyrus’s voice crackled eerily back through the old speaker. Why he insisted on using this old crappy intercom system was beyond anyone’s best guess, but no one had the guts to ask him.
Alice arrived at lab no. 2 twenty minutes later as promised. In the middle of the lab, leaning over a table, stood Cyrus. His twisted figure to this day made her quiver with fear, she just never got used to his snarled face and angry demeanor. There was just something about this man that made everyone uneasy, you just never got used to his presence.
She saw a new scalpel lying on the table on the way in and fantasized for a second about jumping him from behind cutting him from ear to ear and watching him bleed to death on the floor, No, she couldn’t do it, it just was not in her to kill another person like that.
She hated him with every fiber of her being, she knew that he had stolen her life and ruined her family by faking her death and destroying her husband and children with his evil self centered agenda. She would have to wait; she would get him some other way. She approached the table.
“Sir?”
“I’ll require your assistance with this clone Alice. We’ll be loading him up in a few minutes and you’re the best I have. Please check over the set up for me, I want to make sure everything is correct.”
Alice spent a few minutes checking over everything and reported to Cyrus that everything was correct and the clone was ready for transference of a lifefile. She couldn’t help but notice that this male clone was very young, only grown to the age of about thirteen or fourteen.
“If you don’t mind me asking Sir, why are you loading up such a young one? He’s still just a boy.”
Slade turned to her abruptly and grabbed her arm in anger.
“I do mind you asking!” He growled before letting go.
“But it’s a good question.”
“What a freak!”
“I’m loading this clone young because I’m not interested in his physical strength, you see, I want what’s in his head!” She realized right then that this clone would be awakened only to be abused into giving up knowledge and then probably killed when Cyrus got what he wanted. She looked at the file tag and memorized the number.
“That will be all for now. Go prepare a tray of surgical instruments for me and bring them in to me as soon as your done.”
“Yes Sir,” she replied.
She felt herself getting a little ill, she couldn’t believe that even Slade would do such a horrific thing, he must not have a heart at all! She went to the adjacent lab and prepared an instrument tray with all the standard surgical instruments. She shuddered at the thought of what Cyrus might do to the little boy, what could he be after? She wanted to know.
She went to the computer in the back of the lab and pulled up the LifeTech database. She had watched Glitch log into it many times in the past and managed to memorize the pass code. She logged in and went to the file look up screen and punched in the number from the ID tag on the clone. She saw the name and recognized it; she heard it before but where?
She opened a web browser window and entered the name. There it was a story of an engineer that had been in the news recently, his name was Dodge Kerrington from ESS. Cyrus was about to torture this man’s clone for information, unbelievable.
She looked at his file access record, it was viewed earlier that night, it must have been Glitch hacking the system to get a copy. Files were scanned every few hours for parity bit checks and overall integrity to make sure the files were in good condition. Glitch found a way to exploit that attribute of the system and could siphon off a copy undetected if he did it at the precise moment of the file check. No doubt Cyrus had an up to date copy and was going to have Alice load it up shortly.
She realized too much time had passed and got up quickly to retrieve the tray of instruments and hurried back to the other lab with them. Cyrus was standing by the loading console and looked up to glare at her.
“I have been waiting here now for several minutes Alice, what is the hold up?”
“Sorry Sir, I had to go to the restroom.”
“Well if that happens again we’ll just do a little modification on you, fit you with the same plumbing that I have and then you won’t ever feel the urge to go relieve yourself!”
“Sorry Sir, it won’t happen again” she choked out nervously.
Everyone that worked with Cyrus knew that he was a real mess and wore bags for his digestive system, he didn’t need bathroom breaks.
“Get over here Alice and begin loading this clone, come on, load him up!”
“Yes Sir” Alice squeaked out nervously. He handed her a modified microdrive, something that Glitch had concocted. It was much larger capacity than a normal one and could hold an entire life file which was leaps and bounds ahead of the current technology on the market, only Glitch could make them.
She started up the console and moved the needle probe close to the clone’s ear in preparation for the load. She checked the straps to make sure the clone was properly secured. She started the robotic arm and ran the insertion program. The needle went in behind the ear and made docking contact with the Input port of the chip. The screen indicated, “Ready for upload,” she selected the file from the drive and dragged it into the pre load buffer. She ran a file scan and it came up 100% safe. She held her finger over the button and paused for a second. Maybe she could still grab that scalpel and stab Cyrus right in the jugular. Cyrus looked at her and barked.
“Well damn it! Launch it. I haven’t got all night!”
She hit the button and the file began to load, a few moments later it was complete. She prepared an injection to wake up the clone and inserted the needle into the IV in its right arm. The plunger went in, his eyes opened and he began looking around.
“Where am I? This doesn’t look like the hospital? Where’s my family? What’s going on?” He looked at Cyrus. “Who are you?” He asked.
Chapter 18 Across town at the Kerrington house everyone was sleeping soundly, feeling more secure and safe. They felt much better now knowing that their new security system was watching every aspect of their home. Bobby, Matt, and Toby were having a great time the last two weeks. The added personality of Toby was dynamic and they had become like the three amigos. Bobby and Matt always had a great time together but Toby was a fresh face with new ideas of things to do and that really added to their fun.
Toby seemed to be good with the girls and that was getting Bobby and Matt in better with the ladies. Matt and his family were going to Connecticut for the weekend to be with one of Bills brothers and his wife. His Aunt was in an accident on the subway and was recently restored after her injuries had left her badly crippled and scarred.
It was quite routine, but Bill wanted the family to go to be with them. From there they would be flying to Arizona to see the Grand Can
yon and several other attractions in the area for a two-week family vacation.
With Matt gone Bobby took the opportunity to invite his new friend Toby for a sleep over. They had a great time that evening, staying up the better part of the night and finally crashing around 3:00 a.m.
An hour later something awakened Bobby, he sat up for a minute and didn’t see anything so he lay back down; then he remembered Toby was there, but when he looked Toby wasn’t in the room. He looked at the bottom of the bathroom door just off his bedroom but didn’t see the light on.
He got up quietly and crept out into the hallway and onto the balcony over the living room, no sign of Toby. Then he saw Toby coming out of the kitchen. “He must have wanted a drink or something.” He was just about to motion to him when he noticed something in Toby’s ear, it looked like a communications link. Bobby got a little spooked and slipped back into the shadows. Toby was moving more like someone being sneaky than a kid up in the middle of the night looking for a drink.
He stepped back further out of sight on the balcony. He could hear Toby starting up the stairs and he was whispering something. “He must be talking to someone.” He decided not to confront him. His father had told him if he saw anything strange to wait and come tell him about it first. He slipped back into his room and laid down, pretending to be asleep. He heard Toby come back into the room very quietly and get back into the other bed.
Bobby laid there terrified. “What was going on?” Toby was just a kid like him, what could he possibly be up to in the middle of the night creeping around their house talking to someone on a link? He could feel his heart racing in his chest. He was upset, confused, and scared.
He waited until Toby fell asleep. He listened to Toby’s breathing slowing down until he began to snore softly. He was quite sure he was out. He got up quietly and picked up Toby’s overnight bag. He went to the bathroom just off the bedroom where he began looking through it in search of clues.
Under a false bottom he found a small ear piece, which appeared to be the communications device and a handgun that looked like a 9-mil auto. He couldn’t believe it, what was Toby doing with a gun? He knew what he had to do.
