RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (25 page)

“Copy that Base, standing down, observe and return.  734 out.”

He moved his finger away from the trigger and applied the safety.  He began to disassemble the weapon carefully returning each piece to the foam lined black case for transport.  He thought for sure today he would get kill #27 to add to his record, but it was not to be.

The set ended and they switched back again for one more slow dance.  The evening went well and ended with great conversation and some fantastic gourmet coffee prepared by some culinary genius in the kitchen.  It was most likely the female Spanish Chef that cooked the rest of the meal.  It was getting late and so they said their good nights as Dodge and Linsey made their way out to the car that was waiting by the front entrance.  They were completely oblivious to the killer over a mile away that spent the night on top of a tall building observing them.  His finger having been taunt on a the trigger, that if pulled, would have ended John Calhoun’s life.

While Dodge and Linsey drove home they had a great talk about Amanda and John and what a dream life those two were living.  What a cool thing that a man could start with nothing as John did and
make it so big.  He was just an average young man that worked hard and worked his way up into the huge success he was today.  He was truly living the American Dream.  They both realized that they too had made it, now they were going to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Immortality was here and prosperity had become a reality for them, what a wonderful time to live.  They arrived home at 9:45 p.m. and felt more relaxed then they had in a long while.  They made their way in and found the kids quietly watching TV in the family room.  Thank God the kitchen was all cleaned up, and not burned down as they had humorously feared.  They didn’t really want to visit with the kids tonight they had other activities in mind.  They stuck their heads in just for a second.
         “Hi Kids.  We’re going up to bed, see you in the morning.”

“Okay,” they both replied without looking away from the TV.

“Don’t stay up all night.”

“We won’t,” said Sarah.

The kids knew what this type of quick informative conversation meant when their parents came in late after a night out.  As Dodge and Linsey made their way up the stairs they heard Bobby snicker and say something in a low voice to Sarah.

Sarah shushed him, and added, “
shut up dweeb, what do you know?” 

They couldn’t help but snicker themselves at the kids as they made the top of the stairs.  Dodge was feeling debonair so he whisked Linsey right off her feet and carried her into their room.  He kicked the door shut with his heel and tossed her onto the bed before beginning to undress.  He didn’t want to think about anything else tonight, the long talk could wait.  Right now they both had one thing on their minds and that was all that mattered.

Linsey was a regular fire cracker again tonight and Dodge could barely keep up with her.  When they finally came up for air it had been over an hour and they were both exhausted, what a night.  Dodge remembered a romantic slump about two years ago, but lately the magic was back, must have been something in the air or the water. 
“Whatever it was, if you could bottle it, you could sell it!”
 

In the very early hours of the morning, Dodge awoke to his wrist watch alarm vibrating.  He put it back on just before he went to sleep as part of his master plan to break the news to Linsey.  John slipped him a box of cigars at the party and even announced, “Dodge my old friend, these cigars
are for you.  I had these imported from Cuba, smoke them carefully and don’t get caught, it might cost you a night in jail.” 

After their romp Linsey went to the bathroom to freshen up and change into some comfortable shorts and tee shirt to sleep in.  While she was changing Dodge opened the Cigar box and found a note that said, “Cigars are good but there’s more.”  Under the first layer of cigars he found a
digicard with complete instructions and a small bag of electronic goodies.  He viewed the sequence.  #1 use the enclosed device to detect bugs #2 the four small disc are scramblers, locate the bugs then peel and stick a scrambler as close as possible to the device.  #3 do this in complete silence, any noises you make will be heard.  #4 have your talk with your gal, remove each of the scramblers #5 act as normal as possible and have normal conversations in the room there after, any change in behavior or total silence will be a tell that the bugs have been discovered.  Call me tomorrow.

He waited until Linsey was sound asleep.  He knew she would be horrified once she found out that strangers were listening in on the most intimate parts of their lives but this was
the most convincing of all acts that would make the watchers believe that they were still undetected. 

Using the electronic sniffer he found in the box, he moved around the room very quietly and carefully.  Within seconds he found two listening devices placed in very close proximity of one another.  He figured this was for redundancy just in case one failed the second would serve as a backup. 

He quietly peeled and stuck a disc near each of the bugs.  The tiny blinking led on the disc, switched from red to green, after about two seconds of being placed.  Obviously this indicated that the bug’s transmission was locked in on and blocked.  Dodge understood that the place was clean and he could talk freely with Linsey.

Linsey Kerrington awoke the next morning to Dodge sitting on her side of the bed with a tray containing coffee cups and all the necessary extras for coffee the way she liked it.  She sat up a little.     

“Wow? A big check, a night out, dancing, a wild romp, and now coffee in bed, you must be trying for an encore huh?” 

An encore of last night had crossed his mind as he watched her sleeping, but now the time had come for the talk, one that would certainly put a damper on their previous euphoric mood.

“Well, sweetheart,” he said with a smile, “I made you your favorite coffee, the kind with the extra chocolate and I toasted you an English muffin.  I even hung out the do not disturb sign on the door this morning, but not for our usual reasons, instead I have something very important that I would like to talk to you about.” 

“Okay, I’m listening,” said Linsey, as she took
I long sip of her coffee.  No matter what intro Dodge could have concocted, there was really no way to smooth this situation out in a more palatable way, so he started from the beginning. 

He told her about the project he was secretly working on for years.  He told her about the huge bonus he would be receiving upon retirement, which now seemed less important because they were already rich.  All of this upset her somewhat because he kept it from her for so long, but she understood that he had no choice if he wanted to keep his job. 

Then he told her the rest of it.  At first she didn’t believe him so he showed her some of the documents.  She read some of the details about Ron Simpson and his parents and the childhood doctor. 

She realized it was no joke and that it was actually a dangerous situation.  He showed her the bugs.  There was one just behind the headboard of their bed, and another inside a lampshade next to a small sofa that they sometimes used for reading at night.  Linsey put her hands over her mouth and tears began streaming down her face. 

“They’re going to kill us!  They are, we can’t stop them.” 

She was headed toward hysterical when Dodge grabbed her into his arms and held her tight.  He kissed her forehead.   

“No dear, I won’t let that happen, don’t say that!  Listen, John and I are all over this.  We have our own plan to take these guys down.  Don’t worry these guys don’t know who they’re messing with.” 

Linsey calmed down a bit.     

“What are you going to do?” She asked, as he wiped the tears from her face?
         “Look, John, Dad, and I, are the only ones that are in, and now you.   Soon Amanda will know too, if not already.” 

“The party last night was fun, but it was also a way to put the watcher’s minds at ease that we’re oblivious to them.  This should buy us a good amount of time.  I can tell you more details later but for now you must do exactly as I say and you gotta keep your head.  We have to be strong for us and for our children.  We can all make it out of this alive if we’re smart about it.  You and I have been talking now for two hours.  The watchers that are listening in on these bugs will believe that after last night we’re simply sleeping in, but we can’t keep radio silence much longer or they’ll get suspicious.” 

“What!” Linsey looked confused. “You mean we have to keep those damn things in our bedroom?”  Then she put her hands over her mouth again. “Oh my god, we sure gave them an ear full last night!  Didn’t we?”

He smiled.  “Yeah we sure did, and that’s exactly the kind of normalcy that is so believable.  I’m sure there was a couple of yahoos listening somewhere and laughing their butts off because they think they invaded our privacy.  It won’t be so funny when they’re looking up the barrel of a swat rifle and getting a knee jammed in their back.  I know it’s a lot to ask but we have to act as normal as possible to keep these guys at bay.” 

Linsey sat there for a moment hugging her pillow.

“Okay, what do you want me to do?”
         “That’s my girl!  Well first of all, don’t change anything about your routine, if we stick to it they won’t think suspect anything.  Second, they can only hear us they can’t see us so that’s to our advantage.  So long as we’re indoors we can use hand signals or pass notes if needed.  John already has a plan to intercept the signal from these bugs and send a failing battery message out on its com link channel.  First then we’ll disable it and replace the good battery with a dead one.  They’ll have to switch to the backup bug and then we’ll do the same thing to it about a week later.  They’ll be irritated by this but not suspicious.  They’ll need to get back in to replace the bugs and when they do we’ll be ready.” 

“John plans to hack the bug’s transmission section to add a secondary harmonic on the carrier frequency that only we can detect.  When they retrieve the bugs, they’ll take them back to their workshop.  When they do they’ll be unwittingly giving up their position.  The hacked bugs will be sending out that extra signal every few seconds.  John will have sniffer cells throughout the skyphone network that will triangulate those signals and voila, we’ll have at least one of their locations.  Soon we’ll have our watchers watching them.”

Linsey was amazed, she had no idea her husband possessed these skills.
         “Okay,” she agreed.  “I’ll do whatever it takes to get our family out of this.”
         “Just act normal, take the kids wherever you normally do, go to all the places that you normally would, don’t change anything.

And don’t worry, John and I have a plan that we believe is bullet proof.  We’re gonna find these guys and take them down.  They should’ve known better than to mess with us, after all we created this thing not them.”

“All right, now I have to bring the bugs back on line and we’re going to pretend like we just woke up, we’ll have a conversation and act normal.” 

He went to each bug and removed the little disc near it as quietly as he possibly could.  He put them back into the Cigar box and quietly lay back down on the bed.      

“Hey, good morning lover,” he said to Linsey.
         “Good morning stud,” Linsey said and then put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
         “So how about we get up and take everyone out for breakfast?”
         “Well, it’s getting a little late for breakfast, looks like we slept in.” 

Dodge nodded at her in approval,
“She should have been an actress.”
         “All right we’ll call it brunch then.”
         “Sounds like a great plan to me,” Linsey said as she stretched.  “After last night I didn’t really want to get up and cook anyway.” 

They both got up and began getting ready.  They had plenty to do today.  They were taking the whole family out for brunch and then he and Linsey would be going car shopping.  This time it was all about her.  She would get her very own sports car, just like she had before they got married.

Less than five miles away in the center of a very old foundry that appeared abandoned a man stood alone before a large computerized console.  He was an ambitious man, much like Dodge Kerrington.  He too had worked hard to get where he was and he also had dreams and goals that he intended to see through.

Even though he and Dodge had those points in common that was about it, everything else about the two of them was completely different.  He was not family man and he didn’t care for anything or anyone other than himself.  It seemed as though he was driven to destroy anything in this world that made normal people happy. 

He was a very wealthy man and he had worked hard to get it.  In fact he had worked so hard to get his wealth, that had he done it legally, he would have probably still been quite wealthy.   But not this man, every rule he had ever been presented with was broken as quickly as he could devise a way.  Every structure of working organized society was viewed by him as something that needed crushing and he was his own self-appointed man for the job. 

His name was Cyrus Slade.  He was viewing fresh reports just printed out from a large complex console that stood before him.  The old foundry was really just a shell, the perfect disguise for a very strong bunker of a lair.  He and his underlings had been working to build this fortress inside the old foundry for more than 12 years.  It was high tech on the inside but very inconspicuous on the outside.