RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (17 page)

An hour later they were both completely exhausted and had collapsed on the bed in a mess of sheets and blankets.  After catching his breath for a minute, Dodge went downstairs in his boxers to the kitchen where he opened the refrigerator door and let out a “phew!” 

He stood there in the cool air for a moment.  His heart was still pounding as he opened a black cherry Gatorade and drank half of it down without stopping, he needed to hydrate.  A bead of sweat ran down the small of his back and it gave him a shiver. 

He and Linsey were no spring chickens but they were in great shape for their age.  Occasionally she still tried to challenge him in bed but he would never let her out do him, he always got the last hoorah.  He took pride in still having enough stamina to pull it off. 

He finished off the Gatorade as he walked slowly back up the stairs.  Linsey was already out cold and there was a dove chocolate wrapper lying on the night stand.  She always craved chocolate after sex.  He snuggled up to her and within just a few minutes he was out too. 

Dodge woke to Linsey’s voice calling to him from the bottom of the stairs.     

“Dodge breakfast, come down.”  As he got up out of bed, he smiled at the thought of their wild antics the night before.  They
still had it, those wild romps that some couples give up after a few years of marriage.  Some of his friends were in bad marriages.  They were lucky to get it once a year on some special occasion like their anniversary, what a drag.  As soon as his feet hit the floor, he smelled something delicious that he hadn’t had in a long time.  It had to be French toast! 

As he started to the bathroom he felt several muscles tighten up in his back and abdomen then a terrible pain shot through his right thigh that caused him to wince.  He realized he wasn’t as young as he used to be.  Those late night mattress acrobatics were catching up with him!  Oh, well, what the hell, it was a good time and it was well worth a few stiff muscles.  He grinned as he limped into the bathroom for a very hot shower.

He got down to the kitchen to find both the kids at the table with Linsey well into a fantastic breakfast feast.  She must have been up for at least an hour preparing it.  She was always a fire cracker the morning after a night of wild sex. 

“Wow Mom!  “What’s the occasion?” said Sarah. 

“If only she knew.”
         “Yeah, really Mom.  Thanks,” added Bobby.  “This is awesome.”

Linsey sat down and smiled.     

“I just felt like doing something special for all of us today. It’s Friday and we’re going to have a nice weekend together because none of us have any obligations tomorrow morning.  It’ll be the first Saturday that we can all sleep in and relax that we’ve  had in a long time.  I thought I would get up and fix a nice breakfast today because you won’t see me doing it tomorrow morning.  I’m sleeping in!”  Everyone laughed when they realized her master plan to take the next day off after an awesome breakfast.  She was bribing them in advance to not bother her tomorrow morning. 

Dodge raised up his coffee cup.
         “Let’s all toast Mom.”  They all clanked their cups and glasses together in a ceremonious gesture.
         “To Mom,” they all said in unison.

Linsey laughed.  “You guys are all silly.”

“And you’re so hot!”
 

Dodge got a little misty eyed thinking about their night.  He caught her gaze for a second and couldn’t resist a wink.  She rubbed his foot under the table just to tease him back.        

“Now everyone, don’t forget, and this is very important. Grandpa’s Restoration is Tuesday at 10:00 a.m., so make sure you don’t plan anything else.  It’s the big day and we all have to be there!  And don’t forget you can sleep in tomorrow morning, but not this Sunday, we’re all getting up and going to church with Grandpa.”  The kids both let out a long “awe” of disappointment, but Dodge quickly corrected both of them.      

“Hey you two, we don’t go that often, and it’s important to Grandpa.  Besides, it’s good for you and you might just learn something about yourself, or God, or something useful.” 

Dodge had completely lost track of the time, the big day had snuck up on him.  He was so caught up in trying to solve this mystery, he didn’t realize that days and weeks had gone by.  Now it was nearly time. 

Bobby sat up straight in his chair like he was about to make an announcement.
         “Hey everyone, Grandpa will be the first in our family to have a planned Restoration, this should be very cool.  Everyone agreed with Bobby and they remembered how bad Bobby said that pink stuff tasted and how it made him feel sick.  They went on talking about everything that Grandpa would be able to do again when restored and cancer free.  It would be wonderful to see him active again like he used to be.

They all enjoyed the special morning but now it was time to get going.  Linsey had gotten Dodge’s mind off the mess for an evening and a morning at least but now it was time to face the reality of the dilemma once again.  As he headed out to the garage, he saw the GTO sitting there in the glow of the LED security lamp above.  It was casting a blue-ish white light over the car cover that somehow seemed to say.    

“I’m under here, I’m waiting patiently, just dying to get out of here and blow the carbon out of my cylinder heads with a fresh tank of high octane, drive me!”  He headed toward his Volvo, wait, no!  He wasn’t driving the boring electric snooze wagon to work today; he was sick of being conservative!  Life suddenly seemed way too short in spite of immortality waiting in the wings.

The battery powered electric cars had come a long way since the volt and the leaf.  They had ample power and all the amenities of the gasoline powered cars.  They also had a much better range since the invention of the nuclium cell; the closest
thing to cold fusion so far.  If you wanted to haul your family around town for some errands the electrics were fine.  On the other hand if you wanted to go fast and feel the rumble of 500 horses under the hood then you needed a good old-fashioned fossil fuel guzzling muscle car like a 1969 Pontiac GTO!                           

As he pulled the cover off of the GTO, he had a moment of clarity.  It was as if the decision to do something he enjoyed cleared his mind momentarily. 
“Maybe Linsey had blown HIS carbon out!”
  He found some humor in that thought.  Just then he realized that neither Ron Simpson nor Ron’s childhood doctor had been restored.  Or at least there was no mention of it in the documentation, why was that? 

Now days when there was a story of a deadly accident, there was almost always the story of their Restoration in the news the next day.  This was something he and John needed to check into right away.  Maybe they were both still alive.  If that was the case then it would indicate that both accidents were just that accidents, but it they were truly dead then it would have to be final with no Restoration possible. 

He fired up the GTO and headed to ESS. 
“If there is a hit out on me then I might as well go out in style and they’ll have to catch me first.”
  Boy it felt good! 

He felt a little bit like a secret agent living on the edge, constantly looking over his shoulder for a would be assassin, it gave him a bit of an adrenaline rush.  He sobered up for a second.
         “
What was I thinking this isn’t cool, someone might actually be trying to kill me!”
  He kept checking the rear view mirror on the way to work to see if he was being followed. 

He had never really had that feeling before and it was very strange.  He reminisced about his youth when he and his father would watch classic James Bond movies together; agent 007 was always being chased while driving a fast sports car.  It was always a BMW or some exotic car like a Jaguar but never a classic American Muscle Car.  He chuckled at the thought of an English Secret Agent speeding away in a Corvette or a tricked out Shelby GT with rocket launchers and guns behind the headlights. 

He was about half way to the office when his skyphone interrupted his music, it was John.
         “Morning John, any news?”      

             
“Well, yes, but first I want to know if you saw the news last night?”
         “Well if you mean the story from Arizona about the wealthy man that claimed he was robbed by a mind controlling entity? Then, yes, I did, do you think it’s connected?” 

“I don’t know, but it sure gave me a start!  It certainly would be a motive for adding a receiver section to our transmitter.  If criminals could use this to control anyone they want then it would certainly be a way to get very rich and powerful very fast!”  Dodge realized that he and John had both been thinking the same things. 

“Well let’s look into it tonight when we both get home, I have to put in a full eight today at work in order to keep up but I can work on it this evening and tomorrow morning, Linsey and the kids are planning to sleep in so I can get up early and head over to your place to do more research.” 
         “All right,” John agreed, “let’s do it.  I’ll see you in the morning.”

Friday night came and went in the typical manner, Bobby had his friend Matt over to watch a movie with the family and Sarah went to her cousin Brenda’s house for a sleep over.  Dodge ordered a pizza and everyone enjoyed the movie.  It was an action-packed flick complete with high speed chases double crosses and secret meetings that ended with a spectacular shootout and plenty of pyrotechnics.  He couldn’t help but think of how his own life could easily turn into a similar scenario but with a not so nice ending; then he just dismissed it as a silly thought and hoped it was just that. 

Saturday morning came much too quickly, he would have loved to sleep late, tucked in close to Linsey dreaming the morning away but today he couldn’t, he had to get up and get over to John’s to get more answers.  He wanted to drive the GTO but realized the loud exhaust note might wake Linsey up and make her inquisitive to his early morning activities. 

So today it was back to the boring Volvo, his trusty daily commuter car.  When he got to John’s, he found him around back by the Garage polishing a bright red 1985 Ferrari 308.  As he pulled up, he called out of the window of the Volvo.     

“Hey Pal, you ever gonna drive that thing, or you just gonna drool on it?”  John, looked up just in time to crack a smile and shoot back.     

“That’s why they call it a spit shine man!”

As Dodge got out and walked over John explained that sometimes he could think and clear his head while polishing a car.  It just seemed to work for him. 

They made their way up to John’s lab over the garage to get to work.  John sent
Jeeves a message asking him to bring them some coffee and pastries.  Neither of them was in the mood for a big breakfast.  They just wanted to get to work on solving this mystery.  The sooner it was solved, the sooner they could get back to their lives. 

When Dodge saw John’s work area, he knew immediately that he was really tearing up the research.  It was a real mess.

“Hey John, um, you been sleeping Bro?”

“Yeah, I get a little.”

“How have you had time to do so much research on this and go to work too?  Look at this mess!” 

John shook his head.     

“Well, it’s simple man, and let me tell you how it went.  My Boss called me mid last week.  Jumped all over my ass for not coming in enough.  I informed him that I was using vacation time that I had coming to me and that he couldn’t do anything about it.  So he starts in with me about performance and we got in a huge argument over other things that really had nothing to do with my taking time off. I told him that I know for a fact that I made the company what it is today and if it weren’t for me pretentious ass wouldn’t even have a job.”

“Oh boy, what’d he say?”

“He fired me!” 

“Oh shit man, what are you gonna do?”
         “Well you know I wasn’t going to take that lying down.  I called the owners of the company and made them an offer they really couldn’t refuse.  I bought the company.  There are some legal issues to iron out and some more papers to sign but it’s mine.”

“No way!”

“Yes way!  And I insisted on them firing the CEO immediately and to be sure to let him know that it was at the bequest of the new owner, Mr. John Calhoun!”

Dodge honestly thought that John was kidding.    

“Are you yanking my chain buddy?”

John paused from refilling his coffee cup and looked up at Dodge.     

“Yeah, I really did it, I own RockTight Systems.” 

“Did John really have that kind of money?”
He knew John was loaded but didn’t think he had enough to do something like that.   

John sensed his curiosity.     

“No worry’s buddy, I have enough left and I don’t even want that company, I just wanted to fire my boss!” 

They both busted out laughing.
         “Oh my god you’re killing me! That is the richest thing I’ve ever heard!”

Dodge was laughing so hard tears ran down his face and he had to brace himself on the bar. 

“It’s okay I’ll just sell it back to the original owner for 80% of what I paid, it was worth it to get rid of old fish lips!” 

Dodge burst into another round of hysterical laughter.  John had always made fun of his boss and did impressions of him whenever they would go out for a drink.

He was always saying he had lips that looked like a fish and it was hard to take him seriously when he was talking to you unless you didn’t watch his mouth moving.  Dodge did meet the man once and it wasn’t that bad but John was always very good at finding that one funny quirk about a person and exploiting it in a humorous way. 

Dodge rocked back on his heels and regained his composure.

“Well, we’ve laughed until we’ve cried, now I guess we gotta do some work.” 

John grinned.     

“Oh no, I think we should watch fish lips getting fired on video!”
         “What? Are you serious? How’d you get it on video?”
         “Well when you’ve just paid millions of dollars for a company you can demand access to high quality video surveillance system.  Hell I even have audio.”

“This I gotta see,” said Dodge with boyish enthusiasm.

John spun around and got on his best PC equipped with HD video. 
         “Play video,” he said.  “Title, The Axe.” 

Dodge chuckled at John’s choice of words.

The recording of fish lips getting fired by the owner began to play.  It was hysterical and they could barely stay in their chairs. 

John’s now fired boss was one of those Ivy League
         -better than thou- pricks that got his job because his father ate lunch and played tennis with a former senator on the board at RockTight. 

Now he would have to go back to daddy and cry for another cushy job, and no doubt he would get one.  John had obviously spent a little too much time editing it and even added some sad music to the final scene showing fish lips walking down the long corridor to the front door with a cardboard box full of his personal effects. 

“Nice touch,” Dodge said, as it was playing.  John had even arranged for the maintenance man to be applying the new decal of “Mr. John Calhoun CEO” on the double glass doors to his former office suite.  He was right on cue just as fish lips walked by with box of all his crap.  He stopped right in front of the doors and stared at it in disbelief and then looked right into the security cam as if he knew John was watching.  What a masterpiece.
         “Hey, remind me to never piss you off pal, you really are a diabolical man,” said Dodge.  They were still talking about how he did it as they returned to the other PC stations.

“All right, since I no longer have a job, I’ve been pretty busy looking at the other employees on the list.  I’ve been checking to see if they’ve been up to anything that would relate to the project.  So far I haven’t found anything.” 

Dodge was dwelling on the fact that Ron Simpson historically received dual inoculations and that was really making him wonder about the reason behind it.  He had an idea.     

“Hey let’s look at the medical records for Ron’s parents.  That’s how we found out what we have so far, let’s use that angle again.  Maybe there are both a Ron and a Ron Jr. and there might be some data record mix up there.”
         “Good thinking buddy let’s check it out.” 

Within twenty minutes they had the full medical records of Ron’s parents.  There wasn’t much to look at, they both seemed very healthy and Ron’s father was named James so there was no mix up there. 

They were about to dismiss it as useless when John spotted something interesting in James Simpsons files.   He wasn’t just James Simpson, he was Dr. James Simpson.  He didn’t notice it at first because it was not written in but instead was denoted by checking a little box with the choices being Mrs. Mr. Dr. etc. and so it was not as noticeable as it would be if it were written out preceding his name. 

They looked a little deeper to see what else might be in the file that they overlooked.  At the very end of the file there was a very illegible document that was once some kind of carbon copy type sheet.  This item had been scanned on a very poor device and was nearly useless so they passed over it the first time through.  John ran the image through a program that makes multiple guesses at potential OCR choices until readable words are available.  Once rendered into legible words, the medical records listed his occupation as Pediatric Geneticist and his wife Mary was a Doctor as well.  She was listed as a Neurological Specialist.

John immediately raised the question. 

“If they were both involved in the medical fields I wonder why Ron went into electronics?” 

Dodge agreed that this was a curious question as children of doctors usually do wind up in some kind of medical field but not always.  They pondered that Ron might have been labeled an underachiever in such an intellectual household so they decided to look at his academic records again with this in mind. 

His grades were excellent all through high school and even through college.  He did some grad school work that looked like he was leaning toward the medical field but he obviously wound up in the engineering field later.  John had an idea.    

“Let’s check up on Ron’s parents and see what fields they’re in now providing they aren’t retired.” 

Dodge agreed and they went to work on the parent’s complete history right away.  It didn’t take more than twenty minutes for both of them to see the same grizzly conclusion unfolding on the screens before them.  The headlines were clear.
         “World Renown Geneticist and Wife missing at Sea”  Then the following headlines . . . ,
         “Dr. James Simpson’s Yacht Found Capsized Off Florida Coast”
         “Doctor and Wife Presumed Dead”  The stories went on to detail the cause of the accident. 

According to investigators there was an explosion caused by a fuel leak in the engine room.  Most of the yacht was destroyed by fire and it was capsized and barely afloat when discovered thirty miles off the coast of the Florida Keys where the Simpsons had been visiting their lavish vacation home. 

Apparently, the two of them went out for a weekend cruise, and never made it back.  To most people this wouldn’t raise suspicion and the authorities didn’t suspect foul play.  Dodge and John felt quite differently and now they were concerned that those behind this thing very possibly murdered not only Ron Simpson and his childhood Doctor but now possibly Ron’s parents. 

What were they trying to protect, and how far would they go to protect it?  There were still plenty of unanswered questions, especially little Ron’s dual meds, things were not adding up so they agreed to continue following this thread.

Several hours passed with no results.  John called Miranda to bring them some lunch to the deck behind the garage so they could eat quickly and get back at it.  Dodge took a moment during their lunch break as an opportunity to call Linsey to explain that he woke early and was bored.

Not wanting to disturb her, he came over to John’s and got sucked into a big tournament of nine
ball with several of Johns friends, they wanted him to stay to finish it out.  He and John were on a roll and set to win the whole thing.  He hated to lie to her again but he didn’t know what else to do at that point. 

After he ended the call, he realized that this thing was getting way too serious, and he was going to have to bring her into it soon.  At 3:00 p.m. that afternoon the missing piece of the puzzle appeared; the one thing that would be the beginning of the end, the crucial piece of information that would change their lives forever. 

They found the record of a project that Dr. Ron Simpson and his wife Dr. Mary Simpson spear headed for several years.  The government-funded project was highly classified at the time but had been reduced to a level of security that John had no trouble circumventing. 

It was a ground-breaking research project in human cloning.  They had volunteered their infant son Ron, as the first donor of cells and tissue for the project.  Little Ron had been
cloned.  This explained the dual inoculations and the two different doctors, one in Ohio and one in Indiana. 

They simply used the same social security number for both boys and saw no need to create another identity at that time.  But what happened to the clone?  Was the Ron Simpson they worked with the clone or the original?  Was the deceased Ron Simpson in the train crash the clone or the original? 

Many questions remained unanswered but they had certainly made some headway today and now they had to consider whether to continue on their own or go to the authorities.  They were becoming even more concerned for the safety of their families.  Dodge sat there for a moment wrestling with the decision.  He turned to John . . . ,
         “I can’t do this anymore John.  I’ve been lying to Linsey and now this is getting way too serious, we need to take precautions.  I’m really beginning to believe we may be in danger.”

John realized Dodge was right.    

“You’re right my friend it is, but don’t worry about anyone tracing research we’ve done here at my house because my network here is more secure than the Pentagon and that’s no joke.  The question is, how much research did you do at home?” 

Dodge thought about it.   

“None, everything we’ve discovered of any significance has been here at your place.” 

“Good, so we don’t have to worry about anyone thinking we’re on to them.  We still don’t really know who’s behind the actual hacking and changing of the design files yet but we’ll find out soon enough.  Ron may have just been a pawn and that may be why he’s dead, or at least one of him is dead.  The other Ron may still be out there, and for all we know, he did this himself.”

“Yeah, I suppose he could have.”

“How do you want to handle this with Linsey?” 

Dodge paused and ran his hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck before answering.      

“Why don’t we all get together over here for dinner?  I’ll bring Linsey and you could have . . . ,
You know what? I just realized that I don’t even know her name, that’s terrible!”

John shook his finger at Dodge.     

“Yes shame on you for not knowing her name!  No worries,  we haven’t exactly stayed in touch until this problem came up.  Her name is Amanda, she’s very sweet and super hot and she even has her own money!”  Dodge looked away slightly while holding up his right hand.     

“Come on, bring in the high five buddy, bring it!”  Of course John did.

“Okay, so as I was saying.  We all eat together and after the meal and a couple of glasses of wine we can bring them up to speed.  We all need to watch our backs until we get this figured out and that’s why I want to tell Linsey about this.  I don’t want her to get caught off guard in some situation.”