by Utley, Todd
He turned off the monitor and sat there silently in the dark, the only light was from the moon streaming in the window at the end of the gable. He reached down and removed his gun holster from his right side and tossed it up on the desk, he was tired of carrying it.
He quietly nursed his scotch and water for a few more minutes. He missed Amanda, he wanted to see her so badly but he didn’t want to put her in harm’s way, their reunion would have to wait. He closed his eyes and remembered the last time they were together. He remembered the thin wispy sun dress she had on. It was yellow and had narrow white lace on the sleeves, neck and hemline. He mused at how easily it dropped off of her lean athletic body and how little she had on under it. She smelled so good when she came close. He remembered how her mouth tasted as she began kissing him. Just then he heard a dog barking in the distance and he snapped out of it. “Damn, oh well, no point in getting all worked up for nothing.” Soon this would all be over with and they would be reunited, he couldn’t wait.
It was late and he was about to make his way over to the other side of the estate to turn in. He knew that Dodge must be about to turn in as well. Soon morning would bring another amazing discovery of everything they had experienced at the farm. He wondered what new martial arts skills and weapons training he would suddenly know when he awoke.
Back at the compound the work day for most was long done, but for Toby and Alice, it was just beginning. They had carefully planned their sabotage operation to be carried out in the lab that night. Toby would be the lookout and Alice would take care of everything in the lab.
They filled a bag with several smartly assembled devices made from parts they scavenged from the pieces of junk in the old maintenance room. It had turned out to be a nice little hide out that no one seemed to know about. As they ventured into it earlier they walked through several cob webs that had formed since Toby was there last. It was obvious that no one else had been in there since.
Alice was about to freak out by the time Toby finally got to the light switch. He only had a tiny flashlight to make their way down the long corridor and down the stairs to the little maintenance room but the battery died before Toby found the pull string for the light.
It was just an old LED work light that must have been fifty years old but it still worked in spite of the annoying flicker. It was as if one tiny part inside should have died but just refused to do so. He remembered the name on the lamp. “Solas Ray.” Once their eyes adjusted it gave off adequate light to do their work.
They used old parts out of the equipment that was lying around on the benches and a few key items that Alice had swiped from the lab supply closet. They constructed a nice high voltage coil capable of throwing sparks about eighteen inches in all directions. It should be more than adequate to damage the chips and render them useless to Cyrus. They also found an i-phone 38X to use for a video interface to fool the security cam. Seeing the old i-phone made him think about all the old cell phone towers that had been taken down in the last 30 years, now that they had the satellite-based skyphone network, the line of sight stuff was old junk. He remembered his uncle made a killing from his salvage business when he landed the contract to take down hundreds of those old towers back in the thirties.
The old i-phone was archaic compared to the new skyphones but it was still adequate enough for what they were planning to do with it, the built in camera had good enough resolution to create the illusion of an empty lab on the security monitors upstairs.
Meanwhile they would be carrying out their attack on the chips in the cooler and in the brains of the Dodge clones. If all went well, Cyrus would be loading up Dodge clones that were completely incapable of speech or even cognitive thought; they would be utterly useless. They had everything they needed to do the job. They packed it all up into a backpack that Alice had and a duffle that Toby used as an overnight bag between the house and the compound. People were used to seeing them with these items so no one would suspect anything.
Toby took her hand.
“Now listen,” he said, “my flashlight is dead. I’m going to turn off this light and we’ll stand here for a while and relax, your eyes will adjust to the darkness. After a few minutes I’ll lead us out. Trust me, it works, I learned this as a boy scout some seventy years ago. When you’re going from a very dark place toward light you can find your way with almost no light at all, trust me.” He reached up and turned out the light. They waited what seemed like ten minutes but it was only five.
“Okay, come on,” he said. Holding her hand, he very slowly lead her toward the stairs and up four or five steps to the door at the top that opened up into the long corridor. As they emerged from the door Alice began to see he was right she could see a very faint light up ahead where the dim light from the foundry floor was streaming into the corridor.
“See” Toby said, it’s because we were down there in total darkness for so long that our night vision kicked in.
“Wow, Toby knew interesting things that she had never heard of.” Alice was a very well educated scientist in her field but Toby seemed to know these very practical things that came in handy in a pinch.
They made it back to their favorite oven which was now vacant. They went inside and sat down on the make shift bench and began talking quietly. They were killing time so that they could strike at the right moment when nearly everyone would be asleep. Only a few guards would be milling about and a few security watchers manning the monitors upstairs.
They talked about what they might do if they ever escaped this nightmare they were living in. How much more they would appreciate life and the freedoms so many were taking for granted out in the free world.
On the other side of town in a beautiful estate house John Calhoun had turned in for the night, he was sound asleep, sunken down deeply into a cushy pillow top mattress. Just a few miles away Dodge Kerrington was sound asleep nestled in close to Linsey in their big bed. Out at the farm everyone had turned in and was now sound asleep. It was a different story though at the compound. Two rouge team members were up late, they had waited for a long time but now they were about to strike. Alice made her way up the corridor along the south wall of the compound to the labs with her backpack thrown over one shoulder just as she had done so many times before. She entered lab no. 2 and stayed just out of the sight of the camera near the doorway.
She slid a small stool out from underneath the desk as she put her backpack on the narrow table just inside the door. She pulled out the i-phone and plugged a small patch cable into the auxiliary port. She climbed up on the stool just under the camera and affixed the i-phone and a tiny holographic projector to the wall using some sticky putty. She turned it on and ran the auto alignment app on the phone. It took a scan of the room and auto aligned it for playback. She gritted her teeth as she hit the run icon in hope that it would work.
A perfect holographic image of the room popped up on the wall to the left of the camera. “Yes, this is going to work.” She climbed back up and got ready to make the switch. She turned off the camera power and very quickly turned the camera towards the holographic image of the room on the wall and then turned it back on. It was only down for about one or two seconds, hopefully the security office wouldn’t notice it. Now she could work anywhere in the lab without being seen.
She climbed down and went about the business of working on the lab cooler that contained the remaining chips in stock. Down the corridor Toby waited in the dark. He was the lookout, if anyone came along, he would run ahead of them to warn her. The Labs were on a dead end hallway so there was only one way in and one way out, or at least it seemed that way. Most people didn’t know that there was one other way out. There was another corridor and more rooms on the other side of the wall accessible by a separate hallway. These were computer labs. The only connection between the two labs was the women’s restroom which was shared by both the computer labs and the medical labs. Most people didn’t know that little fact and for some reason the men’s restrooms did
n’t pass through like the women’s. Most of the security guards were men so they might not know about it. This was their preplanned escape route should they encounter security during the assault on the lab. They could slip through the women’s restrooms and emerge on the computer lab’s side. Those labs were large and connected to one another with pass through doors and multiple exits, it was a good plan.
Toby stood silently listening intently for footsteps. If he heard anyone coming, he was to go to the lab immediately to warn Alice and they would exit through the ladies room to the computer labs and slip away to the dorms. So far all was quite.
Up in the monitor room one of the security guards noticed the lighting looked a little different on the camera in lab no. 2.
“Hey Bill,” he said, “take a look at this cam feed, does is look weird to you?” Seeming annoyed, Bill turned and looked at the monitor.
“Yeah I think Gary turns the brightness down on them sometimes.” He reached up and turned the brightness control all the way up.
“There,” he said, “all fixed dumb ass.” He laughed.
“Yeah right shit head, it still looks crappy, I think that camera is about to go out, wanna bet it goes out in the next couple days?”
“Yeah, you’re on, what we bettin for?”
“Let’s make it interesting, if it goes out in the next two days you owe me a cold six pack, if it doesn’t I’m buying.”
“You’re on man, it’s a bet, cause I say there’s nothing wrong with that cam dude, it’s just Gary’s been dinkin around with it that’s all.”
Downstairs Alice was hard at work right in front of that camera but no one was the wiser. The holographic image and the light colored wall as a backdrop were working perfectly. She located the access hole on the side of the lab cooler and inserted a high voltage probe that they had fashioned from some heavy gauge steel wire and some silicone tubing as an insulator. She positioned it just above the tray of chips by looking through the glass in front and then making adjustments until she got it just right. Once aligned she pulled a roll of duct tape from her back pack and taped the probe securely in place on the outside, hooked up the high voltage circuit and battery, and turned it on.
Instantly wild arcs of electricity began jumping around inside the cooler and flashes of light began dancing across the walls of the room. She looked up at the camera and realized these changes in lighting might be affecting the image upstairs. Up in the control room the monitor was brightening and dimming but lucky for her no one was watching it. Instead they were all playing cards. It was against the rules but because they kept the door to the room locked they never got caught.
They played cards in there every night. If someone knocked and presented the password to enter they simply covered up their table with a piece of cardboard cut to fit it and then leaned on it and set there drinks on it when they opened the door. Alice realized she needed to act fast so she grabbed a large elements chart off the wall and leaned it up against the front of the cooler to block the flashes of light.
Down the corridor Toby heard faint footsteps approaching. He could feel his heart rate begin to increase. He tried to control it but it was racing now. The footsteps seemed to be getting closer so he started down towards the lab and then stopped, listening intently. They had stopped and he heard a cough. Whoever it was they were no longer moving, just standing there, apparently around the corner at the end of the hall. Just then he heard.
“24 radio check”. It was a guard that had paused there for a moment.
“24 check, lab corridors secure, moving to south side.”
“Copy 24, out.”
Toby stood still as a statue as he listened to the guards footsteps begin again and slowly go off into the distance until no longer audible. He let out an abrupt exhale of relief and wiped away the sweat that had begun to run down the side of his face. He moved back to his original position and felt his heart begin to slow down.
In the lab Alice was working quickly but carefully, in an effort to leave no trace of her presence behind. She had allowed the arcing to continue inside the cooler for about three minutes. She observed hundreds of arcs striking the chips and even jumping from chip to chip throughout the trays. She was confident that this would be sufficient. She turned off the voltage and removed the probe. She quickly put it all back in her pack and zipped it up. She replaced the chart back up on the wall and moved to the back of the lab where the clones were stored in suspension.
She pulled the power supply portion of the high voltage apparatus back out of her backpack and attached a different probe. She went to her work area and retrieved a long hypo needle in a sterile pack from a drawer below the work table. She quickly removed it from the packaging discarding the plunger into her back pack. She inserted a probe that Toby had made earlier in the maintenance room. It had a stiff wire with a small nail connected to it that reached down into the syringe making contact with the top of the metal needle from inside the barrel.
She went to the first clone and carefully inserted the needle into the brain cavity near to the implanted chip. Once in, she connected the high voltage supply and turned it on just like before in the cooler. She hated to do it but she knew that this little clone would never wake up and never have to experience horrible pain at the hands of Cyrus.
The clone’s body was twitching slightly as the electrical current was flowing through the brain and undoubtedly the chip as well. The chip or the brain or likely both should sustain enough damage from this electrical current flowing that the clone should never wake up and never be of any use to Cyrus. She checked her watch for the ten-second mark, any longer and there might be noticeable tissue burning and damage that might be noticed during an autopsy.
She quickly moved the apparatus to the second clone and repeated the procedure. She moved along to each of them one by one. Down the hall Toby heard footsteps again, but this time they were different. They didn’t sound like a big man, but instead more like a woman walking in heels with short strides that made clicks on the cement floor. “What female guard had he seen that wore heels?”
“None” was the answer to that question. The steps were growing louder and they were coming that way for sure.
As he turned and began making his way towards the lab it dawned on him who it had to be, it was Glitch! Damn, not good, glitch was a little runt and Toby knew he could kick his ass but that would cause a full scale investigation. Why in the world the little weirdo wore those little pointy toed boots was beyond anyone’s best guess, but right now Toby was glad he wore those instead of something quiet.
Glitch was smart, he wasn’t like the Guards, most of whom were a little dense, or they just didn’t care all that much to begin with. Glitch would call for back up immediately if he suspected anyone was messing around in the labs at this hour. If he made that call there would be a dozen guards down there and even slipping out through the computer labs would be difficult.
Toby slipped off his shoes very quickly so that he could run to the lab in his sock feet and not be heard. He got there fast and found Alice just beginning to work on the fifth and last clone. He came rushing in and just about scared her to death. She clutched her chest with both hands.
“Oh my god Toby, you scared me so bad!” She whispered.
“We have to go NOW!” Toby whispered, “Glitch is heading to the labs, I heard his pointy toed shoes clicking down the corridor.”
“Oh shit! We gotta get out of here fast,” said Alice.
“I’ll get the i-phone off the wall.” Toby said in a panicked whisper.
“Quick, give me that high voltage generator!” Alice removed it from the clone and handed it to Toby while jamming the rest of her stuff into her bag.
“Just go out through the restroom and slip away. I’ll take care of the camera and I’ll be right behind you but you gotta go now. I don’t want us to get caught together.” She started to argue with him but realized he was right, they had to separate.
As Toby
headed to the front of the lab Alice grabbed her back pack and quickly went to the back where she slipped into the women’s restroom. She went out the other side and began making her way through the computer labs looking for a safe exit. Toby felt his heart racing, it was as if he couldn’t move fast enough, like in one of those dreams where you’re trying to run away from someone but you can’t get any traction with your feet. He tried to stay calm, he knew he had about twenty seconds before Glitch got to the lab and he knew you could accomplish a lot in twenty seconds if you just stayed focused. He jumped up on the stool and stuck the high voltage probe into an air vent in the side of the camera and turned it on. Sparks began flying around inside the casing. As he held the probe with one hand, and the battery in his mouth, he reached over and yanked the i-phone, projector, and all, right off the wall and put it under his arm. He removed the probe, spun the camera around away from the wall, jumped off the stool, grabbed his shoes, kicked the stool under the desk and took off towards the women’s restroom at the back of the lab. He was quite certain the high voltage took out the camera so no one could have seen him dashing to the back.
Just as he was stuffing his shoes and the equipment into his bag, he heard the door to the lab swing open. He very quietly opened the door to the women’s restroom, just far enough to slip in and let it come to very softly so as not to make a sound. Now still in socked feet, he went out through the other side of the women’s restroom into the computer labs. He knew he only had a few minutes to get out of there because the toasted camera had put out a good bit of smoke that Glitch would notice almost immediately.
He was pretty sure Glitch would insist on that camera being replaced tonight and there would be about five or six guys down there poking around in less than five minutes. He made his way almost all the way across the compound towards the dorms when he realized he still didn’t have his shoes on. He had the bag too, and really didn’t want to get caught with the stuff in it. He was fairly close to the dorms when he noticed some shadows moving along towards the end of the corridor and he figured some guards must have been told to do a walk through. On the other hand, it might only be the tech guys coming down to replace the camera, but either way he didn’t want to be seen. No doubt Glitch was suspicious about the camera and anyone out of their rooms at this hour after such an event would be questioned and searched. He made a decision, he would head for the old maintenance room.
