by Utley, Todd
The next morning Todd came to meet Toby at his room, they were heading out to the house again, they made some small talk as they walked down to the vehicle bay from the second floor dorm halls. They got in the van and Todd handed Toby the bag.
“You know the drill.”
Toby put the bag over his head and sighed. The door went up and they drove out, heading to the house that they pretended to live in.
This time they would be staying there for a full three days, minimum. Toby was anxious to get there. He planned to work on Cheyenne more during this stay. He was hoping to convince her and Todd to work with him to get their freedom back. He wasn’t sure yet if Todd could be trusted, but he had a good feeling about Cheyenne, she seemed all right.
When he realized that they had arrived at the house, he took the bag off his head. Todd looked back and him.
“What are you doing man? put that back on!” Toby glared at him.
“Hey genius! Don’t you realize that when Bobby and his family pick me up and drop me off, I don’t have a bag on my head! God you moron, I know where the house is, it’s the compound that you’re protecting.”
Todd hadn’t really thought about it, and felt pretty stupid now, he didn’t know what to say.
“Just do what I say!” He said.
“Fine DAD! I’m sorry, you gonna ground me now, give me a break man, I’m old enough to be your grandfather!”
As they walked in the back door Todd was muttering about getting stuck with the grumpy old man’s clone with a smart mouth. Cheyenne stopped what she was doing in the kitchen and focused intently on what Todd was saying in an effort to catch up.
“Hey guys, what’s going on?” Todd sat down and began reading the digipaper without a word.
“Oh, we were just discussing how I needed to work on my attitude a little, anyway, what-cha doin in there?”
“Well, I thought since we’re all going to be stuck here as a make shift family, maybe I would actually cook us a meal that we could sit here and eat together.”
Todd looked over the top of the digipaper.
“What are you, freakin Mary Poppins?”
“I think he meant more like June Cleaver,” added Toby.
Cheyenne still looked confused.
“It’s from an old TV show where you would be the old fashioned house wife, home all day cooking and cleaning and planting flowers,” said Toby.
“Oh, okay, I get it,” said Cheyenne, “Yes, I guess that’s who I am, or at least sometimes I wish. It’s been so long since I felt like a person ya know, just always eating whatever we can get at the compound, not having a home, this might be nice.”
“Sure why not, I’ll help you,” said Toby, as he pushed up his sleeves and went into the kitchen.
Todd didn’t really care for the plan at first but then the aroma of something that smelled really good cooking began filling the house. He poked his head into the kitchen.
“Man that smells really good!”
“Come on Todd I have a job for you,” said Cheyenne, as she handed him some plates with silverware on top.
Todd just stood there for a moment seemingly paralyzed by the thought of setting the table, then he shrugged his shoulders and got to the task. Apparently the smell of a home cooked meal had hazed his otherwise asinine attitude.
Toby made up a gallon jug of iced tea and was pouring each of them a glass when Cheyenne announced it was ready and placed a large plate of fried pork chops in the center of the table. Todd was already sitting down and had tucked a paper towel into the neck of his shirt, had both hands on the table in front of him with a knife in one fist and a fork in the other both standing straight up in his hands.
Toby stood there and looked at him.
“Well that’s just about what I expected you to look like at a dinner table.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Todd.
Toby and Cheyenne laughed. The man had zero manners but really didn’t know it, completely oblivious. Todd tried to defend himself as Toby and Cheyenne were sitting down.
“Hey come on you guys I set the table didn’t I?”
“Yes you did Todd, Thank you,” Cheyenne said as she patted him on the arm while sitting down.
The mashed potatoes were instant and the gravy was from a pouch, but the pork chops were great. It really was pretty good, and it was the closest thing to a home cooked meal any of them had in a long time. Their bellies were all full and none of them wanted to get up, so they just sat at the table talking for a while.
They were about to get up when Todd pulled a skyphone out of his pocket and slid it over in front of Toby.
“This is for you. Glitch gave it to me in the hall before I came to get you earlier. He said it was for company business only, after all, what 16-year-old boy doesn’t have a phone these days. If it rings, you had better answer it, Glitch is short on patience.”
Toby didn’t know what to say.
“Okay, thanks.”
He got up and started clearing off the dishes and Cheyenne got up to help him. Of course Todd just sort of wandered off without offering to help, which was what Cheyenne and Toby expected. It was good that they had that meal together though, it was like the icebreaker that Toby needed to get in tighter with Todd.
Within Cyrus’s ranks most people kept to themselves, they were afraid if they talked too much they might be talking to a snitch that would rat them out to Cyrus. It didn’t take much for Cyrus to call you in on the plastic and push that button.
Now that they were out at the house on remote assignment, they relaxed a little, and it almost seemed like being a normal person. Toby went to his room and wrapped the phone tightly in a shirt and then a pair of pants and stuffed them in his overnight bag, he couldn’t take any chances that it might also be a listening device. He knew that he and Dodge would need to talk on the ride back to the Kerrington’s house.
Back at the Kerrington house everyone was trying to not think about being observed, they were just acting normal. John sent a message to Dodge with a picture of Dodge’s clone attached. When Dodge and Linsey went for a walk later that night he showed her the picture. Linsey was quite the jokester.
“When all of this is over with, I just want to spend a little time alone with you and you,” she said. Dodge got it and snickered.
“Hey that works both ways, you have a clone now too ya know.”
“Oh, that’s right. Great!” She said.
The next morning Bobby called Toby, he figured he should act natural and that would be the best cover you could get. “Hey Toby, what are you doing today?”
“Oh, just watching some TV.”
“You wanna come over and hang out today, maybe even spend the night?” Sure, that would be great, let me ask my Mom.”
“Mom,” he yelled, even though Cheyenne was sitting right across from him. “Can I go over to Bobby’s?” Cheyenne answered.
“Yes dear, that’s fine.”
“Bobby wants to know if I can stay all night too.”
“Yes, that would be all right.”
“Okay, my Mom said yes.”
“Okay, want my Dad and me to come pick you up, say, in about an hour?”
“That would be great, I’ll be ready.”
Toby ended the call.
“I’m in,” he said. “They’re coming by to get me in an hour.”
“Good job,” Todd said, without looking up from his digipaper. It was less sarcastic than usual. “Apparently Todd was starting to warm up to him a bit. Maybe he could get both of them to cooperate with him soon. It was still too soon to tell them what he was really up to though. He would have to work on them more when he returned.”
Across town Dodge was thinking about what he could say to Toby when they picked him up. He had to be careful about what was said and where. He had to say everything that needed to be said during the car ride and he had to be careful about tails with directional mics that might be able to pick up on a conversation even on
the move.
The vehicles were cleaned of all bugs during the security system upgrade but he would have to scan again himself to be sure. He went to the security console and checked out the view of the garage. The Volvo and the Minivan could be seen into quite well where they sat, but the GTO had dark window tint, and a huge glare on the windshield from the garage lights. He could easily get into the Goat, scan it and no one at Cyrus’s compound would be the wiser.
He went upstairs and got the scanner out of his bed side table drawer and doubled a hot rod magazine up over it as he lifted it out. It just looked like he was getting a magazine out of his drawer. He went to the bathroom for a few minutes because there were no cameras in there, after all it was a security system that they had installed not the hackers, so there were plenty of dead spots for privacy.
He stayed in the bathroom for about fifteen minutes reading the magazine on the toilet. He didn’t need to use the restroom but he figured as long as I’m in here using it as cover I might as well read my magazine. He slipped the scanner in his pocket and then left the magazine in the bathroom. He went down to the kitchen and grabbed a water out of the fridge. He found himself getting better at his awareness of being watched all the time without it making him nervous.
It was about time to go so he went out to the garage and wiped down the windows of the GTO with some cleaner and dried them real good. He wiped the dust off the rest of the car with a soft towel and then popped the hood and checked the oil, and brake fluid. He got in the car and pulled out the scanner and went over it just as fast as he could, it only took about thirty seconds, not enough time to even raise a thought.
The GTO was clean so he and Bobby could talk to Toby on the way back with no worries about being overheard. He went back inside to find Bobby. They left in the GTO and headed for Toby’s house. “Fake house.” On the way Bobby begged his Dad to punch it at a light. Dodge looked in his rear view and there was a Taxi right behind him. He laughed inside a bit. “Wouldn’t it be great if the Taxi behind him was one of Cyrus’s tails.”
He looked at Bobby.
“Yeah, why not, put your seat belt on, we’re gonna have some fun.” The light changed and Dodge tromped it. The old goat launched off the line so hard that it nearly lifted the front wheels off the ground. They were close to their ramp onto the bypass around the city and it was a straight shot on so he didn’t let up. He was going through the gears and watching the tach. He could see Bobby out of his peripheral vision grinning from ear to ear.
When he got onto I-465 he let off the throttle and glanced at the Speedo, they were clocking at 120 mph at just over a quarter mile from the stop light, not bad for a street legal car on 100 octane. He let off the gas and hit the brakes hard to slow it down.
“Woo-hoo, that was Awesome! This thing will flat out get it!” Yelled Bobby.
“Yeah, Pretty good huh?”
They both calmed down and looked at each other.
“DON’T TELL MOM!” They said in unison, then they both started laughing.
“When are you gonna teach me how to drive like that?”
“Well let’s see, you’re going to that racing school here in about two weeks, you’re gonna learn a lot more there than I could ever teach you, all I know is how to run the gears in a straight line.”
“I know Dad, but I want you to teach me how to drive this one.”
Dodge was touched by his son’s desire to have a “Rite of Passage” moment with him. He promised Bobby that they would go to the old drag strip on the south side for Bobby to give it a try when he got back from the racing academy.
Chapter 20 They arrived at Toby’s a little early due to Dodge’s heavy foot on the trip over. Dodge goosed the throttle a couple of times as they pulled up the drive and hit the horn just enough to make one chirp. Toby looked out the window.
“Kerrington’s here and he drove his toy.”
Todd looked up over his digipaper.
“Was that his car I just heard?”
“Yip,” said Toby.
Suddenly Todd was interested. He got up and looked out the window.
“Holy shit! Why didn’t you tell me Kerrington had a bad ass car? Man that is sweet! I gotta go check this thing out that must be what about a 70 or so?”
Toby was thrilled that Todd was so interested in the car, maybe this would be a way to get him to like Dodge, a.k.a. “the enemy.” If he started liking Kerrington then it might be easier to turn him against Cyrus.
Within just a few minutes Todd and Dodge were talking about gear ratios, manual trans. vs. autos, fuel quality, what all he had done to it, where he found it. They had the hood up looking around the engine compartment. They talked for almost an hour about the car. Todd thanked Dodge for being such a good sport and Dodge said he would bring him a microdrive with all the Restoration pictures and videos on it so that he could see the details of the whole process the car had been through.
Dodge, Bobby, and Toby headed back to the Kerrington’s. As soon as they got out of the driveway Toby started telling Dodge about confirming that it was Cyrus Slade they were dealing with and having met Cyrus’s computer genius “Glitch.” He went on to tell them how Glitch had instructed him to snoop around in his office to get information about ESS. He shared his idea with Dodge about planting a contaminated microdrive for him to swipe and take back to Glitch. Maybe they could take down Cyrus’s computer system that way.
Dodge and Bobby agreed that it was a brilliant idea. Dodge called John on the way and told him the idea, he also agreed that it was the perfect opportunity and said that he would start building the trojan horse program right away. He already had one but it would need some adjustments to do the job.
While he had Dodge on the phone, he told him about switching the files at LifeTech to protect Dodge and his family. He had also placed a tracker tag on the file.
“Dodge, I think you should know that someone at the compound figured it out and now they have the right file” said John.
“This means that they must have cloned you and found out that they had the wrong DNA and the wrong lifefile. It also means they now have the right one and it’s only a matter of time before they get new clones grown, load you up, and begin asking questions.”
Dodge was concerned.
“How much time do we have?”
“Well only about two or three weeks I would guess, I’m sure Cyrus has no ethics at all against torturing a man in a child’s body.”
“Yeah, you’re right, I hadn’t thought about that. I guess I assumed he would grow a full adult clone, but I guess a child can talk just as well as an adult.”
“That’s exactly right,” said John, “but there’s one thing he won’t be expecting. I deleted the last few years of your file, well at least the best I could calculate. I used a formula that includes overall lifefile size, occupation, education, life events, stress, all sorts of factors, to break down the file into segments that represent days, months, and years. Once you know the segments and their calculated likely sizes, all you have to do is delete the end of the file to trim some years off of it. He can torture your clone and get some information and he will think you’re lying about not knowing more. Knowing how diabolical guy is, I would guess he has multiple clones to load up so that he can torture you in many different ways. He won’t stop until he finds your weak points and exploits them.”
“Well that’s comforting John thanks,” said Dodge.
“Hey, I’m just doin my job bro.”
“Yeah I know, I’m just razzing you.”
“He’ll have to reload the same file over and over again into each clone until he has used them all up. Hopefully by then, it will be too late and we’ll take him down. If he figures out that we’re aware of him, chances are he’ll act just like a cornered rat, very dangerous.”
“We’re getting close to the house now so I gotta go, but please send me the file to put on my computer. I’ll copy it to a microdrive and let the watchers see me put it in m
y hiding place. When Toby checks in they’ll tell him how to get it and when he does they’ll think they have us. When he takes it back to them, they’ll get nothing but older versions of our software and design files that will be useless to them. Of course they won’t know about the Trojan horse that came with it!”
“All right sounds good,” said John, “I’ll send it to you just as soon as I can get it tweaked for the application, how long will Toby be there?”
“Until about 4:00 p.m. tomorrow.”
“Damn, not much time, looks light an all nighter. No worries though, I’ll make sure this thing gives old Cyrus exactly what he needs, a new perspective.”
They hung up and Dodge filled Toby and Bobby in as quickly as he could, they were almost to the house, and once there, they couldn’t speak of it anymore, they would just have to wing it if they hit any snags. Hopefully, all would go as planned.
Dodge updated Linsey, every chance he got, sometimes in the bathroom, sometimes In the car while driving. Linsey updated Sarah while in the car or at the pool, anytime they had a high level of privacy. So far so good, the hackers seemed to be oblivious to the fact that they were being out played at their own game, a game that was getting increasingly dangerous to play.
Dodge was taking a lot more time off work lately. Everyone including his boss, his acquaintances, and even Cyrus, believed it was due to his new found wealth. None of them were wise to the fact that Dodge was fighting for his survival and for that of his family as well. Cyrus Slade had become an expert at killing people off for his own diabolical purposes while making it look like a legitimate accident that no one, not even CSI’s would dispute. They would have to be very sharp to beat him at this game.
It was Friday night, and despite their plight, Dodge decided that they should try to relax and act like it. When Linsey and Sarah saw them walking in with Toby they were relieved to see that he was still alive. Just a few days ago, they had learned that he was basically a walking time bomb that Cyrus could terminate at any time. What a cruel situation to be in, when immortality was now the norm.
