RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy))

by Utley, Todd

  There was one man that Todd felt pretty strongly about talking to. He was the young man that Todd had been with at Juvy. He was recruited by Glitch the same night with Todd just outside the maintenance room and Glitch had driven them to the compound together. His name was Lance Haden, they were roommates at Juvy where he shared his story with Todd. His parents had been killed by looters that broke into their home after the pandemic had caused rioting and mass hysteria in their town.

  His father had stuffed him up into the attic of their home one night in an effort to save him when looters began breaking in. They barricaded themselves in the back bedroom of the house as a last ditch effort but the looters were beating down the door of the room and his father knew they would likely be killed by these criminals that had been on a rampage across the country. His father had gone through more than six hundred rounds of ammo and killed more than seventy-five looters that were trying to come into their home.

  It was seemingly the impenetrable house and had become a personal challenge for criminals to defeat him in his standoff. He had used hand grenades, modified shotguns, and several other crude homemade booby traps to kill those that did manage to get inside the house. He had to make one final stand in that bedroom and he had it planned out quite well. He knew that once inside they would most likely kill him in front of his wife. They had been yelling threats at the house for days promising to kill him and take turns raping his wife. He believed they would make good on their threats if he allowed them to get in so he had no intentions of being taken alive. He had constructed shape charges from several short pieces of large pipe that he would set off once they came through the door.

  He told Lance to crawl through the attic and get to the other end of the house where he could escape out the attic window before the blast. Lance escaped out of the window as instructed and jumped off the roof into the snow behind the garage. A few seconds later he heard and felt the blast. It took out that entire end of the house launching debris at least three hundred feet into the air. Lance guessed that there were at least fifty looters in the house at the time of the blast and only about five or six ran out and several of them were badly injured or on fire. He hid in the large evergreens along the drive way until daybreak.

  When he came out and surveyed the area in the morning, there were no looters to be found. The few that survived had moved on. He went back to what was left of the house thinking he should bury his parent’s bodies but the fire after the blast had consumed what little was left of them and he couldn’t positively identify anyone in that mess. The house was about half burned so he set the rest of the house on fire again and watched it burn to the ground.

  He was sixteen years old at the time and all he had was a Honda dirt bike and some clothes and canned goods scavenged from the rubble of the house before he burned it down. He packed a few things that he found in the barn into a duffle along with a small tent and a few hand tools. He left on the dirt bike and began camping and working wherever he could find odd jobs. He worked every chance he got and he had saved up a good bit of money with plans to buy an old van to live in.

  One night when he came back from working a part time job for a farmer in the area he discovered a man robbing his camp, the man grabbed his radio and fled and he gave chase tackling him to the ground. A fight ensued and the man pulled a knife and tried to stab him but Lance overpowered the man and stabbed him with the knife. The man was badly wounded but Lance left him to fend for himself, he hated this man with the hatred he had for the looters that murdered his parents.

  The man managed to survive the attack due to a nice passerby taking him to the ER and after recovering from his injuries he testified against Lance in a police report. In a few days the police showed up and arrested Lance for attempted murder, unbelievable how messed up our legal system had become.

  Lance got sentenced to Juvy and wound up being Todd’s bunk mate for several months. They felt some comradery due to their circumstances landing both of them in this horrible place together in much the same way. They were both naive enough to fall for Glitch’s offer to become soldiers against organized society based on their own thoughts that organized society was unfair and had dealt them both a bad hand.

  He and Todd had talked recently about how they were just being used by Cyrus like so many others and they would likely be discarded when Cyrus was done with them. Lance agreed that freedom was looking increasingly unlikely. Todd felt strongly about talking to Lance and they agreed that it would be a fair risk to approach him since Todd knew him so well. The others were marginal and would have to be approached very carefully to feel them out before actually telling them anything. They spent the rest of the afternoon planning their strategy and plotting escape routes for different scenarios for the duration of Operation Black Ice.

  At the Kerrington House in Indy Dodge was doing something he hadn’t done in years. He was preparing Linsey a surprise dinner. He had not cooked in years but he did have one dish that he could prepare pretty well and it was coming back to him now that he was in the process of doing it. It was Linsey’s favorite dish, Beef Wellington, and if it was done right it would just melt in your mouth.

  They had tried the same dish at a few gourmet restaurants over the years on special occasions like anniversaries and birthdays, but Linsey always said that his was better. He didn’t really believe her but he knew his was fairly good, probably not really better, but she liked it when he made it just for her. She didn’t know that he was doing this but when she came in he planned to tell her that it was a special time because Operation Black Ice was about to hit the compound and soon they would be free again to live their lives in peace.

  He was setting up a table in the basement where they could have complete privacy from the cameras and microphones. He wanted to have a real conversation with his wife in their house without having to think about each and every thing they said. They were both very tired of the charade.

  Linsey was at her water dancing class, Sarah had plans to be gone all evening and Bobby was at the driving academy. It would just be the two of them tonight for dinner. He heard Linsey come in upstairs so he lit the candles and went up to greet her.

  What he saw when he got up to the kitchen was not at all what he expected, there stood two men with hand guns and they were already raising their guns towards him, there was no escape. He dove left in an effort to gain cover behind the island in the kitchen. Everything was in slow motion now, he flew through the air as he reached back and pulled the pistol out of the holster in the small of his back and before he hit the ground he had fired two rounds into the chest of the man that had just shot him.

  He felt the intense burning sensation in his right side just above his waist. Diving left was the only thing that kept him from being hit directly in the stomach. As soon as he hit the floor a gas canister spewing something came rattling between the cabinets and spun to a stop by his head blasting the stuff right in his face. He jumped up but it was too late he had been gassed with a powerful sedative.

  His clone’s combat training at the farm had paid off. He knew that a month ago he wouldn’t have reacted so swiftly and without really having to think about it. He fell on the floor and while there just before losing consciousness he saw something that he could hardly believe. The remaining man unzipped a body bag that was lying there near him and peeled it back. He could see himself lying there on the floor in a body bag.

  They had brought a clone of him and they were planting it in his own home, they were faking his death just like Ron Simpson and so many others. This could only mean one thing, they were going to take him to Cyrus, he would be tortured for information while the world thought he was dead. He had to escape this but how? He couldn’t move; he was paralyzed by the gas.

  He tried with all his strength to move but his body just would not cooperate. How had Cyrus done this? How did he pull this off without the Black Ops team knowing it? Where were his watchers that should be keeping an eye on the house? He feare
d that Cyrus’s men must have killed them all and now the house and his entire family were completely unprotected.

  Back at the compound Cyrus Slade let out a hearty gut laugh. He was watching the whole thing intently on the monitors in his office. It was his plan B and no one knew of it except himself and the two men he had sent to carry it out. Not even Glitch knew that Cyrus had been secretly keeping a clone of Dodge in the hidden room behind his office. Cyrus had fooled everyone again, he was full of surprises this man, he didn’t get to where he was in this world by being predictable.

  Even though Dodge couldn’t move he could see and hear everything that was going on. He could feel the wetness of the blood oozing from his side, it was flowing but he didn’t believe it was serious enough that he would bleed to death. The bullet had only grazed him in the side just above his waste but it burned like hell.

  The man that had shot him was lying on the floor and looked to be dead with two bullet holes in his chest. Dodge knew he was at an advantage during the shooting, no doubt they were instructed to bring him in alive, while Dodge had the luxury of shooting to kill. He had taken one of them out anyway and he was still convinced that Cyrus didn’t know about his clone at the farm. It really didn’t matter if he died right there in that kitchen. He was already living a double life and he had all of his memories and personality and everything else already in his clone at the farm.

  The remaining man was removing Dodge’s watch and wedding band and putting it on the lifeless clone. No doubt this was to fool authorities and his family into believing he had died right there in the kitchen. He watched completely helpless as the man got out a bottle of something liquid and went to the oven.

  “Oh jeeze, the beef wellington, what a waste!”

  The man opened the oven and looked inside.

  “Damn, you sure know how to live, whatever this is it sure smells good. Oh well it’s gonna be a burnt dinner now. Too bad you burned yourself up in a kitchen fire, you dumb shit.” He said. He got out a skillet, put it up on the stove and filled it with cooking oil. He squirted some of the stuff he had brought with him, no doubt accelerant, all over the stove and the open oven door.

  He came over and grabbed Dodge under the arms and drug him over by the door leading out to the garage. Don’t worry you’re gonna live, that bullet just grazed you. Mike wasn’t so lucky, you’re a good shot, but he still got out easy compared to what Slade’s gonna do to you!

  He went back and lit the contents of the skillet with a lighter and the fire began to spread quickly. The room was filling with smoke and the fire was growing fast all around the stove and hood. The man came back and drug him into the garage where there was another man waiting by the man door as a lookout. They had a small van inside the garage now and they tossed him in the back very quickly and sped out of the garage. “Where are they taking me?”

  The kitchen fire was beginning to spread and the smoke had rendered the cameras completely useless now. Just then a small canister rolled in from the garage area but Cyrus didn’t see it for the smoke that had already obscured his view. The canister put out even more smoke that filled the entire kitchen area and first floor of the house, then four more canisters came in through several different windows. The security system lost power and Cyrus’s monitor went to static.

  Cyrus was feeling victorious now, he shut off the monitor and sat there at his desk thinking. Soon his operatives from a secret location would be calling him to the safe house where Dodge would be bound in a chair ready for his interrogation. No more dealing with the useless clones down in the lab, now he had the real Dodge Kerrington, the one and only man that held the answers he sought, the knowledge would soon be his.

  At the Kerrington’s several Black Ops team members were inside the house now doing their magic. They had thrown in the extra smoke canisters to obscure the cameras and then they cut the power and the backup security system feed as well. The fire was contained to the stove and surrounding area but they had set off smoke bombs inside the house to make it look as if the entire house was ablaze.

  The fire department was in route as expected but there were two men on engine 128 today that were not normally on a fire truck, they were members of the Black Ops team. The Chief in that precinct was a friend of the Black Ops team Captain. When JC saw on his monitor what was unfolding at the Kerrington’s he sprang into action and made several calls. The fireman were briefed on what to do while in route. They would spray a little water in through the kitchen windows, go in, put out the small stove fire and discover the body of Dodge Kerrington inside. He would be pronounced dead at the scene from smoke inhalation. It was a good plan and it would buy them some time.

  Cyrus got lucky and caught them off guard by striking during a shift change. It certainly wasn’t by design because Cyrus was still oblivious to the team. The Black Ops team members made a critical mistake, there was supposed to be an overlap during the shift change but instead there was a gap. There would certainly be a review in the morning to determine where they failed and how to prevent it in the future.

  Chapter 30 Dodge was now being transported across town in the small van. He had no idea where they were taking him but he was sure when they got there he wasn’t going to like it much. He overheard the man in the passenger seat taking a call.

  “Yes Sir Mr. Slade, our ETA is inside ten minutes. We’ll have him ready for you when you arrive, you can count on that Sir.” His hands were tied in the back but he managed to roll over and there lying next to him was the man he had shot and killed in the kitchen.

  He started thinking about death, he didn’t want to, but his mind was racing around all the scenarios and it wasn’t looking good. Surviving this situation was looking less likely by the minute.

  “If I die tonight and my clone lives on as my replacement, will I go somewhere or nowhere? If my soul is split between myself and DC, does it meld back together if I die or does it stay separate once it has split off?

  These questions had suddenly popped into his head now that he was in such a dire situation. These were things that he had not previously pondered, but once again he found himself doubting the ethical soundness of their so-called -key to immortality-. Maybe God was punishing him for delving into his business. Maybe they had gone too far. He just didn’t know, there was no clear cut answer coming to his mind, but he knew one thing for sure, he was scared to death.

  Within minutes they pulled into a garage and put the overhead door down. They pulled him out of the back of the van and started walking him towards the door to the house when he got a violent jab in his back that knocked him down and then he got a couple of swift kicks from a nice hard work boot, he heard his ribs crack. It hurt so bad he threw up all over the floor. It actually hurt worse than the gunshot wound.

  The man was going to kick him again but his partner shoved him up against the wall.

  “You jack ass, you’re gonna kill him before Slade gets here!”

  “Calm down I’m done!” He said, as he walked by and spit on Dodge.

  “That’s for Mike you sack of shit! He was my friend!”

  Dodge’s ability to speak had returned.

  “Yeah well then your loser friend Mike should have ducked moron!”

  The man came back at Dodge for another kick but the other one stopped him again.

  “That’s enough, you leave him to Slade, and you shut up Kerrington! You’ve been enough trouble for tonight.”

  “Fine, just drop me off anywhere ass hole, I promise I’ll stay out of your hair!”

  “Shut UP!” He said as he pulled Dodge to his feet and shoved him through the door into the dark house in front of them.

  Dodge felt himself being dragged to the floor followed by flashes of light, gunfire and a lot of commotion. He was shoved violently under a table, then more flashes and gunfire and then voices. Both of Cyrus’s men had been gunned down by Black Ops team members already inside the house. They apparently followed them from his house to here and entered in f
rom a back window all before Cyrus’s men even got from the garage to inside.

  Dodge was fighting to stay conscious, he had lost a lot of blood and was in excruciating pain due to the broken ribs. Being tossed around again like a rag doll had just about finished him off. They got him out to the garage and the cleaners went in. They located all the expended brass and removed several bullets from woodwork and drywall. They counted everything and knew exactly how many shots were fired. They loaded Cyrus’s dead stooges into the little van and drove it out of the garage and down about eight blocks into a retention pond. It disappeared quickly beneath the murky water. Seconds later a black van arrived with the lights off and picked them up disappearing into the night.

  Back at Cyrus’s “so called” safe house, Dodge was out of it and could barely speak. The team loaded him into the van and quietly drove away. One of them jumped into the back with Dodge and applied pressure to his wound as they headed for the farm. The cleaners stayed behind for three more minutes to finish the wipe down and leave a nice note for Cyrus.

  Across town a Black Ops team member intercepted Linsey at a gas station and told her to go home quickly, he said that their house only “looked” like it had burned and that the body inside wasn’t really Dodge, just a clone planted by Cyrus. He told her not to worry, Dodge was fine and was with the Black Ops Team. He told her to play it up for the media and they would take care of everything else.