The Big Ten: The First Ten Books of the Beginnings Series

by Jacqueline Druga

  <><><><>

  Henry fluttered his lips to repel the oil that dripped across his mouth as he lay under the truck near the field house. “She’s leaking oil really ...” another flutter of his lips, “... badly. Did you know that, Cole?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well I’m not the truck guy. Frank and Robbie are. I can probably fix it but you should ask one of them.”

  “I would,” Cole said, “but Frank is doing rounds or something and Robbie is testing that tracking system.”

  “Use the other truck.” Henry cased his eyes back, looking around. He felt it on his lips again and blew out.

  “This truck is bigger. I have a ton of shit to take to Distribution.”

  “Well I have ...” Henry wondered why the oil felt so heavy on his lips then it moved. Slowly he lowered his eyes. They nearly crossed over the bridge of his nose only to be greeted by two beady, tiny eyes connected to a grey furry body. Henry shrieked.

  “Henry, what ...” Cole heard the scream coupled with the bang. “Are you all right?” As he bent down to check out Henry, he jumped from the way of the scurrying mouse. “Shit.” Reaching under the truck, Cole pulled out the cart Henry laid on. “Henry?” He shook him. Henry was out cold.

  <><><><>

  Frank plastered him with kisses. Holding little Brian so tightly, he just didn’t want to let him go but Brian seemed concerned with getting out of Frank’s arms and running off elsewhere in the nursery. Frank lifted Brian’s little cast arm and pointed at it to where he had written ‘Dad’. “Look Bri, Daddy. Where’s Daddy’s name? Show me.”

  Brian pointed where Frank did.

  “Good boy. Dad.” Frank rubbed the boy’s shaved head. It already was starting to grow back. “I love you.” In baby talk, Brian responded and Frank grinned while setting him down. In the awkward baby-tilt walk, Brian darted off. Having visited his last child, Frank moved on.

  He found Dean in Andrea’s office. Dean was so unsuspecting to the fact that Frank lingered in the doorway watching him rummage through Andrea’s desk. Frank kept thinking how much easier it would be for Dean to find what he was looking for if, instead of leaning over the desk looking, he just walked around and opened the drawer. “Dean.”

  Dean’s hand moved about the drawer, slowing down at Frank’s call to him. It wasn’t the usual loud and annoying one. “Here to gloat about being with Ellen?”

  “No.”

  “Then why ...” Dean sat up from his lean over the desk and looked at Frank. “My God, Frank, you look like shit.”

  Frank stepped into the office, his head was low and he looked at Dean’s through the tops of his eyes. “I need ... I need your help, Dean. Can you help me?”

  Dean said nothing. He slid from the desk, walked past Frank, and shut the office door.

  <><><><>

  It seemed to Frank like a well-deserved prison sentence as he stepped into a Holding room and set down his small bag. He let out a breath, looking around the room.

  Dean walked in behind him, placing a box on the dresser. “This will hold you until tomorrow. I’ll check tomorrow to see what you need.”

  Frank looked in the box. “Supplies.” He pulled out another box. “What’s this?” He opened it. “Fuck, Dean, are there enough cigarettes in here?”

  “Honestly? Probably not. You’ll smoke a lot in here.” He walked to Frank. “I need your gun.”

  “What?”

  “Give me your gun, Frank. I need it.” Dean held out his hand.

  Frank removed it from the harness and laid it into Dean’s palm. He watched Dean look around the room. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking to see if there’s any other way you could hurt yourself.”

  “Hurt myself?”

  “You’re not heading on a picnic here, Frank. Things are gonna get bad. Look at you now. You’re pale and you’re sweating because you haven’t had a drink in nearly two days. You’re headed right now into the roughest time.” Dean motioned his hand to the bed. “Have a seat.”

  Slowly Frank walked over to the bed. “Dean, I know I’m gonna be up here for a few days. I don’t want anyone to know why.”

  “They won’t. As far as everyone will be concerned, you are quarantined for suspicion of tuberculosis. We’ll tell them it was just the flu and that will explain why you’ll look pale and have a little weight loss.” Dean found the chair and scooted it to the bed then sat on it. “OK, Frank.” He leaned forward. “You are here to dry up. This is your detox. This will be the worst few days of your life. I can guarantee it. I want you to drink as much water as possible while you’re here. I’ll continue to check on you as if you were any of my other patients. I’ll bring you food, but to be honest, you probably won’t eat. You may ... what’s today? Monday?” Dean took a second to think. “You may eat something on Wednesday. I don’t know. By what I figure, tonight things are gonna hit their worst. You will ...” Dean began to spew forth his words as if he were reading from a list. “You will get the shakes, worse then you have right now, much worse. You will sweat. You will vomit. The pain you will feel in your stomach will be unbearable, but that should subside by tomorrow or tomorrow night. The vomiting and the shakes will continue for about two days. You may hear voices. You may hallucinate. Your skin will feel like it’s crawling, sometimes on fire. You’ll feel like you’re reaching your breaking point. This is normal and it’s is all part of cleaning out your system. It’s an addiction that your body has learned to live with and you just have to show it, during these next few days, how to live without the alcohol again. When you get out of here, you cannot ever drink again. You’ll have the urge which will never leave you, but all it will take is one drink and you’re right back to square one. Got that?”

  “Yes.” Frank nodded his head, listening to Dean.

  “I can help a little with the urges. If you need it, I can give you something that we can wean you off in a week or so. I can also give you an Antabuse, which will cause extreme nausea if you do drink alcohol. Those are last resorts and, preferably, you should do this without any help from drugs. My advice for the next rough spots is keep busy. Smoking will help. Talking to someone will also help. Come to me if you like. I’ll talk to you. I’ll help you.”

  “When do you think I’ll get out of here?”

  “Considering you haven’t had a drink since Brian’s accident, I’m going with Wednesday night or Thursday. It depends on your progress. I want you to not be physically ill anymore when I let you out.”

  “Well then, I guess ...” Frank reached to his belt and pulled off his keys. “I guess I’d better start this thing then.” He handed the keys to Dean. “Lock me in.”

  Dean held the humongous set of keys in his hand as he stood up. “There are plenty of blankets but you’re gonna go from hot to cold very easily.”

  “OK.” Frank followed him to the door. There was a lot of nervousness in his voice.

  “Frank?” Dean turned around before he left. “What you’re gonna go through is not going to be easy. It’ll be very, very hard. But when you walk out this door, you’ll be dry. You’ll be clean and sober and I have every faith in you that you will stay that way.”

  “Thank you for that.” He extended his hand to Dean. “Thank you for everything.”

  “You’re welcome.” Dean shook his hand and stepped back. “Good luck to you.”

  Frank let out a sigh when Dean left the room. He stayed by the door and listened to it lock. He turned around and faced the room before him and with that, he prepared to face the inner struggle he was about to embark upon.

  <><><><>

  “Good you’re here,” Joe spoke to Henry as he shut his door and walked to behind his desk. “You know why I asked you here. Where the hell did they come from? Why now? You’re the goddamn theory man. Can you ...” Joe halted in his lowering to the chair. “Henry, your head is bleeding.”

  “Yes, I know, Joe.” He brought a cloth to his forehead.

  “Don’t you think y
ou ought to do something about that?” Joe sat down.

  “No I don’t.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “I got hit with another extreme case of bad luck. It knocked me out Joe. I was out for a whole five minutes.”

  “Maybe you ought to ...”

  “No.” Henry held up his cloth. “No. Let’s talk about the mice situation.”

  “OK, I have reports that we have them in town but not many. We’ve also spotted them in the fields. Me alone, I’ve killed four of them. Anyway, can we get Mechanics to start building some traps until I speak to Dean about creating something?”

  “No, Joe, Mechanics is swamped, especially with the tracking system going up. We do have twelve extra hands being trained in the Security area. Maybe we can have Robbie or Frank tell them it’s a drill and have them make them.”

  “Good idea. If they can’t, perhaps you can reprogram them.”

  “I could do that.”

  “Easy enough. Please wipe the blood. It’s dripping.”

  “Sorry, Joe.” Henry brought the cloth to his head.

  “Give me your theory on this, Henry. Why all of a sudden are they here?”

  “Me, Joe, it’s all my fault. I have this bad luck thing happening and the fates know I hate mice. I hate them, Joe and ...”

  “Henry, seriously, with no whining and wipe that blood.”

  “Sorry, Joe.” Henry wiped. “I spoke to Jason about this. He says that the mice are probably following the scent of us and our fields. The population of them has finally grown enough to move in small herds or whatever you call mice packs. He says they’ve diminished their food supply out there and are just coming in here.”

  “Well I don’t want them and wipe that damn blood, Henry.”

  “Sorry, Joe.”

  “It makes no sense. Why now?” He tossed his hands up. “I mean, I haven’t seen a mouse since we got here. No wait, since that one single lone mouse you found and chased last year. You know the one you and Frank played with. I kind of forgot about that with all the time travel and ...”

  “Aw!” Henry whined loudly and stood up with a stomp. “Aw geez. Aw geez ... Ow!” Henry cringed loudly when he smacked himself in the forehead. “I can’t believe how dumb I am. Aw!”

  “Care to share, Henry?” Joe asked watching Henry pace. Henry ... the blood.”

  “Sorry.” Henry paced some more. “The time stuff. That’s it. I should have known that’s where the one mouse came from.”

  “What are you talking about, Henry? Where did it come from?”

  “Here and now.”

  “What?”

  “We have the mouse problem, Joe.” Henry walked back to his chair. “That’s where it came from.”

  “Henry, you’re sounding like my son. Maybe that bump on the head made you stupid.”

  “That would be par for course but that’s not it. In the time frame, I remember, I found that mouse the day after Jason got the note from himself from the future. With the seven second delay, that mouse probably came through with the rabbit.”

  “That’s all well and fine, Henry, but in this time frame, Jason never sent himself a note from the future.”

  “But it’s the same premise, Joe. How often was Jason fiddling with that damn time machine? That mouse could have come through in a possible experiment his future self was running. I’m surprised we haven’t seen more, especially if in the future, which is now, we have the mouse problem.”

  “Well then we have another aspect of the future I plan on changing. We’re getting rid of the goddamn mice. And do something about that head of yours. Christ! It’s bleeding, Henry. Go to the clinic.”

  “No, Joe. It’ll stop.”

  “Henry, you need a stitch.”

  “It’ll stop.” Henry covered the wound with his cloth.

  “Why in God’s name won’t you go get that stitched?”

  “Because my luck is bad and it would be my luck to go there, have them do an x-ray, and find a brain tumor in my head. Then I’d die because I knew about it, when otherwise had I not gone to the clinic to get stitched, I wouldn’t have found out about it and I wouldn’t have died.”

  “Christ.” Just as Joe was about to plop his own head down on the desk, he heard the light tap at the door. “Come in, Dean.”

  Dean smiled when he entered. “How did you know it was me?”

  Wanting to tell Dean his tell-tale knock gave him away, Joe decided not to. “I asked you here and while I got you, will you look at Henry’s head.”

  Dean moved to Henry. “What about ...”

  “No.” Henry jumped up. “Stay away.” He backed away from Dean. “I don’t want to die.” He hurried to the door. “I’ll be fine. Bye, Joe. Bye, Dean.” Making a cross with his fingers, he held them up to Dean and ran from Joe’s office.

  Dean pointed back to where Henry was with his thumb, actually considered questioning it, then shrugged and remembered it was Henry. “What’s going on, Joe? Why’d you need to see me?” Dean sat down.

  “Have you heard about the mice?”

  “What mice?” Dean asked.

  “It seems we have a bit of a sudden mouse problem.”

  “A lot?”

  “We’re not blanketed or over run by no means, but their little asses are scurrying about. We’re seeing them here and there today and in the fields, mostly in the fields.”

  Dean nodded. “They must have run out their food supply beyond our walls and now they’re coming in.”

  “That’s what I’ve been told which brings me to why you’re here. Remember that poison you created when we first got here? We had a few rats and you wiped them out?”

  “Oh sure I remember. We actually thought it got rid of the species.”

  “That’s the batch. Can you recreate it?”

  “No.” Dean shook his head.

  “No?”

  “Not that I can’t. I won’t. When we used that stuff we had only seventeen people in this community. We didn’t have the amount of children, nor did we have the fields. There is just way too much of a chance of that poison getting into the wrong hands. Their little feet will carry it everywhere. Not to mention it will be laced in their saliva, vomit, blood, and feces.”

  Joe cringed. “Thanks for sharing, Dean. So we’re at a loss?”

  “No, I can create something that will make their stomachs explode.”

  “Excellent.” Joe smiled. “Can you get on that?”

  “I can, but not for about a week. I’m gonna be swamped here the next few days or so.”

  “A week?” Joe questioned loudly. “Well, I guess they won’t reproduce that quickly now will they?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is there any chance we can dump more work on Ellen if I remove her from Containment and put her more with you?”

  “No.” Dean shook his head. “That’s something I need to talk to you about, that and the delay on working on your mouse killer.”

  Joe saw the sudden look of serious on Dean’s face and he sat back and waded through Dean’s silence. Then finally he listened to Dean explain.

  <><><><>

  Danny grabbed onto his stomach as he slid in a chair at his dining room table. A television style monitor sat there. A huge receiver, a quarter of the size of his dining room table, sat next to it. Danny’s house was now test headquarters for the tracking system. “Ready, Robbie,” Danny spoke into the radio, then flicked the switch. The lights flickered in his house and Danny quickly made a notation that the entire tracking system would need a huge power source. Within seconds the system started to beep loudly. His eyes moved to the monitor. “I have ... twelve no, fifteen, nine SUTs and six others. I’m guessing people because the signal is so strong. What’s the verdict?”

  “Danny, my man.” Robbie came back. “You are absolutely right.” He imitated applause. “Good job. All right, shut down and we’ll do this again.”

  Danny smiled at the success of his test. He reached for the switch to powe
r down. “A couple more times, Robbie, and we should be good for today.”

  “It sounds good, because I cannot wait to get back to training my twelve new men.”

  “Easy to do?”

  “No easier than my men. I just have the torture factor with them. I can do whatever I want to them and they just don’t know.”

  Danny laughed at Robbie, shaking his head, and then grabbing his stomach. He powered down the system, watched the lights flicker, and waited for Robbie’s go ahead.

  <><><><>

  Henry finally had to do it. He finally had to break down and go to the clinic to get stitches. He tried to work the day out, but he increasingly became annoyed when the blood just wouldn’t stop trickling in his eyes. It probably didn’t bothered Henry as much as everyone yelling at him did. So he went, figuring since it bled so badly he probably needed a hundred stitches, but he didn’t. He only needed three, quick, easy, and painless. Henry wished seeing the look on Dean’s face as he walked back into the examining room was just as painless, but it wasn’t. Dean looked straight down. “Dean? What is it?”

  “I have ...” Dean shook his head slow. “I have your x-ray, Henry.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It seems ...” Dean hung the x-ray on the light and turned it on. “It seems you have a brain tumor and it’s worse now that you hit your head.”

  “Oh my God. Oh my God. I knew it. I knew it. I ...” He saw Dean laugh. “What’s so funny?”

  “I’m kidding you. Joe asked me to do that.”