The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20

by Jacqueline Druga

  ^^^^

  Ellen had to do a double take when they stepped into the special lab. “This looks like the cryo.”

  “That was our goal,” Billy explained. “We wanted you to feel comfortable when you work.”

  “Is this your lab, Bill?” Dean asked.

  Billy snickered. “Um, no. Hardly. Mine’s better. I also have a staff.”

  “If your lab is better, why are we working here?” Dean questioned.

  “Because there is stuff there they don’t want you to see.” Billy lifted a stack of folders. “Here are your notes from the artificial wombs and acceleration process.”

  Dean immediately snatched the bottom folder and opened it to the end. “Shit. We stopped two weeks from the time they took us.”

  Ellen peered over Dean’s shoulder. “Look what you wrote, Dean. Work stopped by order of Joe.”

  “This is so weird. Usually we wouldn’t stop. Bet me we didn’t.”

  “You’re right,” Ellen said then looked at Billy. “Did you check around for hidden notes?”

  “it wouldn’t have mattered,” Dean spoke before Billy could. “Like other things we aren’t allowed to work on, it would have been coded. Billy wouldn’t have had a clue.”

  “Dean.” Ellen had a thought. “Do you suppose, now think about this. Do you think at the point we stopped that we actually knew we had gone to the future, knew we stopped it, and didn’t code it, because we knew if we coded it no one would find it.”

  “Good thought. Bill, did you check?” Dean asked.

  Answering a question his mother already asked, Billy nodded. “Yes.”

  Dean glanced at Ellen. “Then when we stopped working on it per Joe, we obviously hadn’t gone to the future, because had we, we wouldn’t have stopped or at the very least wouldn’t have coded it.”

  ‘That’s what I was saying.”

  “So we coded it,” Dean said then looked at Billy and Lancing who looked lost. “Our little means of communicating. Don’t mind us.” Dean grabbed the folder. “We were where?”

  “We ran into a delay so we paused everything. We just started to create the new womb, hoping to get a better attachment,” Ellen told him. “And test the batch of acceleration you copied from the Society embryos. We were gonna inject it into the rabbits and the baby we made.”

  “We’re going to have to construct the wombs and the acceleration all over again.”

  “And embryos. So we need animals.”

  Dean glanced at Billy. “Are all the materials I have listed here available?”

  “We got them ready,” Billy answered.

  “We are going to need to fertilize,” Dean explained.

  “I’m one step ahead of you.” Billy walked over to a long silver freezer. “When we got approval to do this, I started in vitro. I have about sixty various embryos frozen.”

  Dean nodded. “Good. Fresh would be better. We may have problems getting the frozen to attach, but it will be worth a shot. Let’s start. El, we have the recipe. Let’s start constructing.”

  “Eight?” Ellen asked.

  “Eight,” Dean replied.

  “Wait,” Billy joined in. “Are you going by what you have here?” He pointed to the file. “This is the last batch you were preparing to construct.”

  “Yes,” Dean said.

  “Well, I followed these recipes exactly on both the womb seventeen and the acceleration. They didn’t work.” Billy walked a bit and lifted a thick folder. “Here. Here are my notes on what went wrong.”

  “I don’t need that.” Dean pushed the folder aside. “El, start getting everything . . .”

  “Hello,” Billy interrupted. “It’s a waste of time. I tried this.”

  “I understand.” Dean stayed calm. “You tried this.” He pointed to the outline in the notes.

  “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Isn’t that the next step you were taking?”

  “Oh, without a doubt.” Dean gave a motion of his head to Ellen.

  “Billy?” Ellen questioned. “Where are the supplies?”

  “In the back.” Billy pointed then, in Dean fashion, he ran his hand through his hair. “So you’re doubting that I did it correctly.”

  “No, I’m saying you followed it correctly, but you did it wrong.”

  Billy huffed out his feeling of being insulted. “So you’re saying I screwed up.”

  “No, I’m not.” Dean shook his head. “The reason it didn’t work is because first, you followed this, and second, you did it. You’re not me.”

  “Me. You. Shouldn’t make a difference.” Billy drew into an arguing mode. “Your level seven artificial womb experiment failed. Why can’t you admit that? Why do you act like you know everything? I followed your work. I read your notes. I did everything written down. ”

  “And that . . .” Dean held up a finger. “Is why it didn’t work. I do know everything when it comes to my work. What is written here . . .” Dean tapped hard to his notes. “Is never a full interpretation of what’s up here.” He brought his finger to his temple and his voice raised some in anger. “There are things missing. I know what they are. I know what I left out. If you followed my specifications written, then you followed it all wrong. If my experiments are going to be labeled a failure then I will label them a failure. Not you! They are only my experiments when my hands and mind create them! Not anyone else. Not even my son.” Dean stepped back. “Excuse me. I have to help El.”

  Letting out a breath with his hand resting on the back of his head, Billy slowly swayed his head to the right. He caught a lost looking Lancing. “Don’t worry. Hopefully, we won’t argue like this all the time.” He looked to the back where Dean and Ellen were and whispered, “Hopefully.”

  ^^^^

  T was the changing of the time guard and Lancing couldn’t have been happier.

  “How was lunch?” Luke asked in the doorway of the lab.

  “Tasted good. Everything else is sitting badly.” Lancing gave a motion of his head into the lab.

  “That bad?”

  “Put it this way. Remember the days of basic training, carrying seventy-five pound packs, and trudging in hot humid weather for thirty some miles?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d gladly exchange for those days again.” He gave a slap to Luke’s back. “See you at the dinner switch.”

  Looking baffled, Luke walked into the lab.

  “He’s exaggerating,” Ellen spoke passing Luke. “Lancing’s just a pissy man. Dean, I’m moving forward to the next step.”

  At that instant, Dean was peering over Billy’s shoulder. “Good,” he told him and walked to El. “How have you reached the next step already?”

  “Dean, please. Are we doing other things? No,” Ellen answered. “No blood work. No clinic work. No chasing Billy around Beginnings because he’s wandered off from school.”

  “No outside interference,” Dean added.

  Billy stretched his arms and stepped away from his work space. “Boy, you guys were like the only ones back in the old days, weren’t you?”

  “We worked like dogs,” Ellen said. “We never seemed to have a day off. Do you get those here?”

  “Days off?” Billy pulled up a stool. “Oh, sure. We work hard but there’s a lot more people now. Or at least a lot more communicating with one another.”

  “I’d love to see more of this time,” Ellen commented as she worked. “It seems a great place to live.”

  “Would you?” Billy asked.

  “Would I what?” Ellen questioned. “Live here?”

  “Yes. Would you stay if you had the opportunity?”

  “Oh, Billy,” Ellen wisped out. “I have to go back. I don’t want to miss too much of your lives.”

  “It was hypothetical,” Billy said. “But here’s another one. If you got stuck here and something happened that you couldn’t go back right away, would you consider being with my father.”

  Ellen snickered. “I am with your father.”

  �
�Not him.” Billy pointed to Dean.

  “Him?” Dean questioned. “I’m your father.”

  “I’m talking about Frank,” Billy explained. “Would you, Mom? Be like a couple with him?”

  “Oh my God!” Dean exclaimed. “You aren’t sending us back.”

  “Yeah, we are. This is out of curiosity.” Billy again looked at Ellen. “Would you do that for him?”

  “No,” Ellen said. “I’d do it for both of us.”

  “That’s good to hear. But . . .” Billy stood up. “Rest assured, there is nothing wrong with the Aragon Window.”

  Billy’s conversation was out of the blue and to Dean, it was an odd one to pull out of thin air. Billy suddenly talking about the Aragon Window not working and Ellen maybe staying, sent Dean immediately into thought and in his mind, he diligently wrote those mental notes.

  ^^^^

  ‘So tell us how you and President Slagel met,’ Gen. Yokasumi asked of Ellen.

  ‘My God, how long you two were together?’ Another Joint Council member commented.

  ‘What was he like in the college years?’

  ‘Tell us about his early days in Beginnings when he was in Security.’

  ‘Did young Dr. Hayes exaggerate or did President Slagel really do all those things?’

  Totally aggravated at remembering the bombarding questions thrown at Ellen, Dean tossed a French fry down to his plate that set on the coffee table by the sofa in his suite. He lifted the remote control and turned off the movie he had just started to watch. Lifting his notebook, he picked up his hamburger and took a bite. He was a bit disgusted seeing how at the dinner Joint Council invited him and Ellen to, they were having lobster. Dean knew he’d be paying for the burger later that night, but it tasted so good to him that it would be worth it. However, he’d rather be paying for lobster but the lobster came with another price aside from a wayward digestive system. It came with hours of conversation that revolved around the Frank in the Beginnings Dean was still accustomed to.

  Placing down his burger, while still chewing, Dean flipped back a page in the note book to the morning notes he and Ellen wrote. He tore it out and started to do that little ‘football’ fold so it would slip with ease into the lining of her purse.

  After it was folded, Dean dated the outside. He wanted to put it in Ellen’s purse, but it was one of those times she had taken it. Ready to zone back out while finishing his dinner, Dean picked up the remote to watch the old movie he actually was going to enjoy. Finger getting ready to press, reclining comfortably on the couch, Dean looked back when he heard the door to the suite open.

  “Hey,” he said to Ellen. “You’re back early.”

  “I’m heading back down for desert and after dinner drinks.”

  “Swell,” Dean mumbled.

  “Do you want to come?”

  “No.”

  Ellen walked closer. “Room service?” She giggled then swiped his feet off the couch to make room. “You ordered room service.” She lifted the burger. “Man, you must have a thing about ordering a hamburger and French fries from room service.”

  “Funny you should say that,” Dean said. “It was the only thing I ever ordered when I stayed in hotels. Why did you know that? Did I tell you?”

  “Dean,” Ellen snickered. “That’s right, you don’t know. You really weren’t there. When we had our little afternoon affair right before the plague, you ordered hamburgers and French fries.”

  “I wish I remembered that.”

  “I told you I’ll rekindle that with you.”

  Dean only grumbled slightly.

  “You do know you’ll pay tonight for eating that.”

  “I know but it’s so good. Try it.”

  Ellen shrugged and took a small bite. “Oh my God.” She savored each chew. “This is better than the lobster.”

  “Really?’

  “No.” She smiled. “But I see you feel better. How’s the headache.”

  “Gone. Actually, it never was.”

  “I kind of figured that,” Ellen stated. “I thought with everything going on, you just wanted to hang back in the peace and quiet and try to absorb it all in.”

  “You got it.”

  “That and try to take advantage of what we don’t have at home?” Ellen motioned her hand to the room service food.

  “Yep.” Dean raised his eyebrows. “Only part of that I’m not getting.”

  Confused, Ellen looked at him.

  “Let me clarify. There’s something else I don’t have at home that I wanted to take advantage of. Time with you. Alone time. I hate to say it even though I know why we’re here, a part of me is looking at it as a first ever vacation with my wife.”

  “I’m here, Dean.”

  Dean chuckled and shook his head. “In the future, yeah. But where? Last night you huddle with Frank. Tonight, you were going on and on with the Joint Council.”

  “You could have been there tonight.”

  “For what?” The strain in Dean’s voice was evident. “To talk about Frank? Frank this. Frank that. You and Frank.”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “Damn right I am. Don’t you see it?” Dean questioned. “No, you don’t. Why would you? Everything that has nothing to do with work revolves around you. You and Frank. That is getting so much attention.”

  “It’ll stop. I’m new here. I’m a novelty.”

  “And what about me?” Dean asked. “I just arrived as well yet no one cares what I did pre-plague. And mind you, my own flesh and blood worships, and that’s putting it mildly, worships Frank. Frank? Billy hated Frank. Billy treats me like an intrusion, which leads me to ask, what the hell I ever did to him that left him so sour about me?”

  “You died on him.”

  “Exactly and quite early in his life too,” Dean stated. “I had to have had. He doesn’t even know me. You must have lived years beyond me.”

  “Did you write that down? You don’t want to forget that theory.”

  Dean jolted a quick look to Ellen. “Yeah, I’m bitching here, El, stay with me.”

  “Dean, I’m sorry you feel left out. I promise you, I won’t forget you while we’re here.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Hey, how about this? How about . . . I go back down to the dining room, tell them you just have the worst migraine, steal the dessert, and we’ll share that over coffee while we watch whatever you were getting ready to watch.”

  “Wizard of Oz.”

  “Excuse me?” Ellen asked.

  “I was watching Wizard of Oz. After your initial ‘were not in Kansas anymore’, I started thinking that there are some similarities.”

  “Feeling like Dorothy?” Ellen joked.

  “No, you’re Dorothy with everyone paying attention to you. I’m Toto, the little mutt, running around yapping, annoying, and lost.”

  Laughing, Ellen leaned into Dean. “I’ll be right back.” Just as she went to kiss him she saw his notes. “What’s this?”

  “Theories.”

  Oddly, Ellen lifted the notebook. “I don’t understand this. January 19th?”

  “Think. The last future trip we made was to when?”

  “January 19th.”

  “The exact January coming up in two months. Now, I distinctively remember seeing Hal in that future. You didn’t. I did, but I didn’t have a clue who he was. I’m theorizing that what if the plague we beat isn’t the one that strikes on January 19th? Maybe fate tosses another one at us.”

  “That’s a scary thought. And what is this one?”

  “Ah.” Dean nodded. “The Forrest Caceres theory. I was just writing that down when I paused to watch Dorothy.”

  “Wanna tell me about it?”

  “Sure, but you may not want to hear it.”

  “I’m gonna read it anyhow. Try me.”

  “O.K.” Dean paused to shove another fry in his mouth. He dusted off his hands. “When we went back in time to get Forrest, how did we pull that off without effecting history too much?”
r />   “Easy. He died in an explosion. There were no remains to trace and no one was the wiser . . .” Ellen’s eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

  “I think you got it. What if . . . now this is just a theory, what if something happened to us right after we left Joe’s office?”

  “No.” Ellen shook her head. “The notes on the embryos go two weeks ahead.”

  “Two theories on that.” Dean held up his hand. “They screwed up and got us too soon or . . . look at Billy’s handwriting. It’s exactly like mine. Nothing in the two weeks following the meeting at Joe’s is all that pertinent.”

  “Billy filled in the blanks?”

  “Yes, possibly.”

  “Nah. I’ll argue with you on that. I read the notes. You put too much of yourself into them. Billy doesn’t have your knack at all. I’ve known you a lot of years and I don’t have the knack to write down what you would. They could have got us early like you said. Getting us two weeks early wouldn’t have made that big of a Ripple.”

  “Nope.” Dean shook his head.

  “Can I ask what made you think of this?”

  “Sure. Billy asking you if you ended up staying, would you be with Frank?”

  “Dean,” Ellen chuckled his name. “It was purely hypothetical.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But . . .” He lifted a finger. “I think we should brace ourselves for the very real possibility, that like Forrest, something happened to us twenty-two years ago and, like Forrest, they have no intentions of sending us back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The window between the front and back seats of the limousine was down. During the trip, Lancing drove, while Luke did more of the ear watching needed to complete his tasks as a time theorist.

  “I wanted this to be more private,” Frank said to Dean and Ellen. “Me and Bill thought a private trip to Beginnings was better.”

  “What about them?” Dean pointed.

  “Dean, come on.” Frank smiled. “They have to be here. I just hope you aren’t uneasy with lack of security.”

  Ellen giggled. “Frank, please we have you.”

  Dean leaned to Ellen, whispering. “Before you secure yourself in that, keep in mind he’s sixty-two years old.”