Consigning Fate (43 page)

It was on the second leg that George told them of his plans. Plans he hadn’t even shared with his own people.

“Retired!” Tigger said with some enthusiasm, popping his head between the front two seats like a kid in the back of the car. “No way. Really?”

“I’m curious,” Lars interjected. “How does one retire from a leadership position in a post-apocalyptic world?”

George chuckled.

“I know you’ve said about me taking over here, and you working on the Air Force, but I didn’t think retirement” Lars said.

“Yep.” George nodded. “I have to. Besides being tired of it, I love Beginnings. I realized that while I was there. I want to kick back and work a job like I use to. The Air Force is going to take up a lot of my time and I need to concentrate on that. I have planes to get, fix, and pilots to train. Fast, too.”

“How soon will you be heading back?” Lars asked.

“Soon. I have to pack some things. Head back. Try to win Margaret back.”

“Who will be in charge?” Lars questioned.

“Actually, Stew Lang ran things and can continue to do so, reporting to Frank. I’ll help out. I have to. Frank isn’t gonna know exactly how things go. But I’ll be there in the event of transition. Bertha will be in charge of my military.”

Quickly, both George and Lars looked back when Tigger sighed.

“What?” George asked.

“I love her.” Tigger grinned. “Hurry, George get us there. I can’t wait to take her in my arms.”

Lars peered over his shoulder. “Seeing the obvious physical differences, don’t you mean, she takes you in her arms?”

Tigger shrugged. “Same difference.”

Inhaling through his nostrils, Lars peered at George through the tops of his sunglasses. “I think we need another stop. I’m not so sure I want to see this reunion.”

<><><><>

“Have you ever seen the movie, Back to the Future?” Ellen asked Danny Hoi.

Danny chuckled “You came running over to my house at ten at night to ask me that question.”

“No, seriously, we do have to talk.” Ellen said, sitting on his sofa. “But I was just wondering. Did you?”

“Of course. Who hasn’t?”

“In the first one. Do you remember what almost happened to Marty because he interfered too much with his parents in the past?”

“He almost wasn’t born.”

Ellen nodded. “Exactly.”

“OK. And …”

“And I gave great thought to how and what I’m going to tell you. I am limited; see, because there are things that I can’t tell you.”

“Says who?”

“Says those who know who say no one else should know.”

“Why can’t I know?” Danny asked. “I’m pretty important to this community.”

“And to the future. So you should know.”

“Then tell me.”

Ellen held out her pinky.

“What’s this?”

“Pinky swear Danny.”

“Pinky swear that what is told to me goes no further than you and I?”

“Yes.”

Danny latched his finger to hers. “Pinky swear.”

“Ok.” Ellen leaned back. “Something has gotten swept under the rug, and it’s more on purpose to not generate questions.”

Danny nodded.

“In Containment. Remember when Fort first showed up? Do you remember the reason he insisted on why he was there?”

“Absolutely. He said he came from the future and was chasing a clone.”

“But he didn’t know who, or what the clone looked like.”

Danny smiled. “Is it Dean?”

“Why would you say that?”

“Is it?”

“Why would you say that?”

“Why won’t you answer?”

“Danny.”

Danny sighed out. “Fine. A few things leave me to believe the clone is Dean. One, the serial mutilation evidence. Dean’s not a mutilator. Another is tracking. Why would Frank have me track Dean? And finally, Joe’s death. Frank had me pull up where Dean was when Joe died. The only reason whatsoever to suspect Dean was even at the scene of the murder would be if he had motive—which he didn’t. Or someone saw Dean at the scene. So I figured someone saw him, Frank checked. It wasn’t Dean. It was the clone. Simple.”

“But the clone didn’t have anything to do with Joe’s death. We just don’t know why he was there.”

Danny nodded. “And there’s more.”

“More what?”

“More reasons why I think the clone is Dean.”

“Go on,” Ellen said.

“Frank had me track Dean. Right?” Danny asked. “But, now, I turn on tracking, Dean’s not even coming up. Yet, Dean is right in the clinic. Now either he had brain surgery and had the chip removed, or it’s not Dean. Plus, that Dean that’s been hanging out at the lab, is way too smart. Does way to much stuff and he didn’t know me.”

“He knows you all right, just not this you.” Ellen sighed out.

“What did you mean?”

“I’ll get back to that. When did you know?”

“Right away. First day. I suspected the clone was Dean because they had pulled the tracking. I mean, everyone knew Fort was chasing a clone. He made no secret of it. But I think many forgot. I didn’t. I fire up the Dean tracker every day. I wake up one day, fire up the tracker. Dean’s gone. I go to tell Frank. But as I do so, I see Frank walking with Dean. I look at the tracker. Nothing.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I figured you guys drew him out. I would have done the same thing.”

“I didn’t draw him out. I just figured it out.”

“By how he works.”

Ellen nodded. “He invents too much, too fast, and too advanced. Plus, the way he talks.”

“And dresses.”

“That’s because all he ever watched were old sitcoms. Especially Happy Days.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Please do.” Ellen said.

Danny tilted his head.

“He is so smart because he spent his life in an isolated room with nothing to do but learn. No human contact. Nothing. Just invent and solve.”

“How horrible. Who would do such a thing?” Danny asked.

“You.”

Silence.

Danny blinked his eyes several times. A look of confusion on his face. “I don’t get it. Me?”

“A great war will take place.”

“I know this.”

Ellen nodded. “In the future, the future that the clone comes from, things are bleak. Hence his reasons to come back.”

“Wait. Time out.” Danny formed a ‘T’ with his hands. “He told you this?”

“I told him I knew who he was, and he told me many things. One of which was why he came back. He wasn’t specific, just that he had to come back to make things better in the future.”

“So things were bad.”

“According to him, they are really bad. The War killed so much. He says he has evidence and will show it after he knows for a fact that things have changed.”

“But if things change, will the evidence be there?”

“I asked him that. He said yes. Because it is synthetic and recorded. Just like when Henry wrote the journals, he carried through the time machines. They didn’t change.”

Danny nodded. “Go on.”

“Well, the world went bad. And you Danny, as we’d all expect, did your part to bring it all back. You were a huge part of the rebuilding. But the problem was bigger than you. Much bigger. You knew what the world needed. You knew the world needed a great mind. Thirty years from now, in a desperate attempt to save humanity from extinction, because of a problem with conception, you invent a viable artificial womb. An amazing womb. Eggs are harvested, mankind develops …”

“Farming,” Danny said. “Just like Fort explained. That was me?”

“Yes. It was you.”

Danny chuckled. “How do I have the knowledge, medically, to build the artificial womb?”

Ellen smiled. “It’s a vicious circle. Just like you invented the invisi suits.”

“Oh, my God. I’ll really never get to invent them, I’ll just …”

“Present them as an invention, right. Of course Danny, you have to learn the technology behind the suits and the womb.”

“I’m gonna take it the clone is inventing the womb?”

“He has. It’s in the lab.”

“So I learn them, learn how they work …”

“And are the named inventor.”

“So at sixty-six years old,” Danny said, “I invent the womb to save the world.”

“Yep.”

“Wow.”

“There’s more. Five years later you present to the counsel your theory that the world needs a great mind. You devise a plan. Take this great mind, feed it information while he develops, educated him in the womb, and do nothing but educate him while he grows. Limit outside stimuli so that all he can do is think, cure, and create.”

Danny winced. “It sounds so cold.”

“It was the only way. Imagine Dean untouched by any outside problems. Imagine how far his mind would have gone. You did. In the future. Forty years from right now, you have the clone of Dean processed and developed. You bring the forth the clone embryo that has been frozen, it is implanted in a womb …”

“So I don’t clone Dean, I just know where the embryo is hidden?” Danny asked.

Ellen nodded.

“Dean never destroyed his embryo.”

“Nope.”

“So you telling me now is what puts it in my mind.”

“Danny, from what Roy, the clone has told me, he doesn’t resent or regret his life. He has done great things. Great things. He is an amazing mind. He absolutely respected and adored you. You communicated with him, but never in person. You didn't want to influence him. But he does attribute you with putting it in his mind and rebuilding the time machine.”

“Wow” Danny repeated his earlier sentiments.

“So, I’m telling you. We will change things for the better. We will make the Great War a great victory. But there are some things that probably won’t change.”

“Like?”

“Like infertility. It was in the Aragon Window future, Roy’s future, it will be there. The artificial womb is important. And so is the Clone. You have to promise me, right now, despite how great things get, even if the world is rosy, you will, forty years from now, bring forth Roy’s embryo and do the exact same thing that was done.”

“Why?”

“Because, Danny, I’m fearful if you don’t, if you don’t make that promise, when Roy fixes things, he will disappear like in the movie Back to the Future.”

“We don’t know that.”

“We can’t take that chance,” Ellen said.

“Ok.” Danny nodded. “You have my word. But you’ll have to teach me the artificial womb and where the embryo is.”

“I was kind of thinking that I would introduce you to Roy as Roy and not as Dean.”

“I would like that.”

“He would too,” Ellen said. “But this portion of it all. Has to be a secret. OK.”

“You got it. I bet there’s so much I can learn from him.”

“We all can. And since you’re around the longest, you’re the one to learn.”

“Holy shit.” Danny ran his fingers through his hair. “I live a long life.”

“Danny, you live passed a hundred.”

Danny’s eyes widened. “I live to be a hundred.”

“Passed. Roy invented a transfusion, a cell regenerator that kept you energetic. You were never sick. You simply went to sleep one night. He was at a loss because you were so healthy and fit.”

“Did I … did I still have my hair?”

Ellen laughed. “I don’t know.”

“One more question,” Danny said. “Why Happy Days?”

<><><><>

Elliott Ryder looked at his watch and shook his head. “Ellen had been gone just over an hour and he was getting concerned. Just as he was about to go and find her, the door opened.

“Sorry,” Ellen announced as she walked in.

“What have you done?” Elliott asked.

“What?”

“You’ve been gone an hour. You spilled your guts, didn’t you?”

“Oh my God, Elliott. You sound like Hal.”

“I apologize.”

“And no, I did not.” Ellen hung her coat on the tree.

“What did you tell him?”

“I confided in him for technical reasons. I told him I wanted him to have the cloning sequence, and the genetic mapping and materials for the nine original clones that Dean destroyed.”

“Did he ask why?’

“Of course,” Ellen took a seat at the table “I told him that with the Great War approaching, someone aside from us needed to have it.”

Elliott exhaled. “And that’s it?”

“Yes.”

“And that took an hour.”

“No. We discussed, Jenny, Trish, hair, Henry … that sort of thing.”

“OK, I was just worried.”

“No, need.” Ellen waved out her hand. “So what did you do?”