RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (57 page)

“‘Good Morning, do you want coffee?” He asked rather quietly.
         “Yes, thank you.”  He started pouring her a cup. 

“Look, Todd . . .”
         “No don’t,” he interrupted, “don’t say anything yet, I have something I want to say first, please sit down.”  They both sat down then he reached over and took her hand.
         “Just let me say what I want and don’t say anything till I’m done, okay?”  Cheyenne nodded in agreement.
         “What happened last night was wonderful . . . , but I know you’re married to Vince and you still love him and probably always will, and ya know, I should have been more of a gentlemen and just put you in your bed and covered you up and got out of there, but, you . . . , you were just so beautiful in that moment, it just took my breath away and it’s been so long since I uh . . . , but I’m not making excuses, I know what I did wasn’t cool and anyway I just want you to know that I totally respect you and it won’t happen again, I promise.”

She looked at him and smiled while fighting back the tears in her eyes.
         “I started it you know, and I’m just as responsible if not more.  It takes two to tango and I was way too willing.  Look, it just happened, let’s not beat ourselves up over it.  Let’s just forget about it and not talk about it anymore.  Just so you know, there are two kinds of gentlemen, there are those that put you to bed and cover you up and leave you all alone in spite of your needs, and there are those that take you to bed and selflessly tend to your every desire, before getting up to fix you a wonderful breakfast the next morning, all the while, vowing to never tell anyone, not a soul.” 

He nodded in agreement then she squeezed his hand and they quietly ate their breakfast.  As they sat in silence, now more than ever Cheyenne wondered about Todd’s past, where was he from? What brought him to this place and these circumstances? He knew so much about her but she knew almost nothing about him.  He was so quiet about his past that no one really knew him.  She saw something in him last night and again this morning, something good, something different.  She wondered if in time she might get to know him more.     
“Maybe it would be nice if it happened again.”

At the compound Glitch was awakened by the intercom.

“Glitch, come to my office,” Cyrus’s voice had an urgency to it.  Glitch had to peel his saggy face off the desk.  He had fallen asleep while watching the camera feeds at the Kerrington’s.  He got nothing at all from them, and they were the most typical boring family on the planet.  Glitch was convinced that Dodge was just an average engineer and family man with nothing really to offer their organization.  Why Cyrus was so hell bent on getting him there without killing him off in the free world, was really beyond him.

Toby was just hanging out there and as far as Glitch could tell, he wasn’t accomplishing much of anything by staying overnight there again to have fun with Bobby.  What Glitch didn’t know was that Toby had obtained more information from Dodge’s
PC.  He didn’t know because he had slept right through it while drooling on his desk.  Glitch went down to the kitchen to get a cup of hot coffee before returning to the upper floor and entering Cyrus’s office.
         “You rang Sir?” Glitch was the only person who dared to ignore Cyrus long enough to get a cup of coffee.  Cyrus would kill most people for such a lack of respect but Glitch didn’t seem to care or have any genuine fear of him.  For some reason, Cyrus seemed to respect that.

Glitch made his way over to one of the chairs to the side of Cyrus’s desk as Cyrus spun around in his chair and turned on a large monitor on the adjacent wall.
         “Did you see what our boy Toby did last night?”          “No Sir, I monitored him for about five or six hours after which I turned in.”
         “Ah yes, I did notice the pattern from your keyboard still in your face there, sleep well?”
         “Uh, yeah, I did fall asleep at my desk while watching and because I just woke up a moment ago I have not had an opportunity to review the recording to see what I might have missed.”
         “Well if you’re finally awake, take a look at this.”

Cyrus was always annoyed with people for requiring
sleep, he never slept because his distorted DNA rendered him incapable of sleep, so because he didn’t understand the need for it, he chalked it up as laziness.

Cyrus switched his
PC feed to the large monitor.    

“Looks like around 2:00 a.m., while the family was sleeping, AND YOU, our man Toby was hard at work in Dodge’s study.
  It appears that he managed to get most of the files from those Microdrives which our clever engineer had hidden in his desk.  Our men missed these items years ago when they broke in and took Kerrington’s PC.  Now we should have some interesting files that will help us identify the vulnerabilities of the LifeTech system.  We must crack the higher security levels of the system to get complete control of our friends in Washington.  As soon as Toby returns, I want you to get these files from him and begin going through them.” 

“Absolutely Sir, that’s great news, I’ll get on it immediately.”  As he got up to leave the office Cyrus added.     

“Glitch, don’t let me down on this we’re on a strict schedule here and we’re running out of time with Dodge and  John Calhoun too, we must obtain what they know very soon, understood?”
         “Yes Sir, I’ll get you what you need.”

  Glitch moved quickly down the hall, he was awake now for
sure, nothing excited him more than hacking into someone’s personal files and finding some dirt, or some tidy little tech secret that was not meant for his eyes.  It was like stealing a tasty little snack from a hungry child, and it really warmed his little blackened heart.

Chapter 26
   
 
At the Kerrington’s they were all up, had already finished breakfast, and were in full motion.  Linsey and Sarah had plans to go to the mall to begin some early Christmas shopping and put a few things in lay away.  Not so much because they needed to make payments on it, they had plenty of money to pay for it, but more because Bobby and Dodge were experts at finding their gifts prior to wrapping or guessing their gifts before they opened them, so it was better to keep them elsewhere for as long as possible. 

It was a challenge for all of them to hide their gifts and successfully make it until Christmas Eve before the receiver could either find it, or correctly
guess what it was that you had gotten for them.  This would be the first year that they had enough money to get everyone what they really wanted, it was like an irresistible cornucopia of shopping, a girl’s dream come true. 

Dodge, Bobby, and Toby were all heading to the club.  They were going to have fun but there was certainly an ulterior motive.  They knew that out there no one could easily monitor anything being said.  They intended to exchange a good deal of information and strategy with Toby in an effort to increase their intelligence gathering within the compound. 

They had also arranged to “accidently” run into John on the third hole and then stay with him to finish out an entire eighteen holes of golf.  By the time they completed the round many questions would be answered and some good plans laid.  The watchers just saw a normal family doing normal summer time activities, they were completely unaware of the incredible plot being formed against Cyrus, a plot that if executed correctly, would actually liberate the watchers from the very jobs that they were doing. 

Linsey and Sarah were on their way to the mall.  John was already at the golf course finishing off a bucket of balls, and Dodge and the boy’s were gearing up to go to the course.  They had all the golf clubs out in the driveway and they were loading balls and tees into their bags.  Dodge got out his old clubs to lend to Toby who was now checking them over and practice swinging them just off to the side of the drive way.  He told Dodge and Bobby in a low voice that he used to golf.  They were watching
him swing the club, he had a great swing, it would be interesting to see if he could still hit a ball all these years later. 

They loaded everything in the Volvo and headed for the course.  On the way to the club Bobby was telling Toby about how excited he was that Matt and his family would be home this Friday from their vacation, just one day before Bobby was scheduled to leave for Racing School.  He couldn’t
wait, it was going to be so much fun.  They had a great Friday night bash planned and he wanted Toby to come too.   They were going to Retro-cade, then a movie, and then back to Bobby’s house, where they would be staying up half the night, playing video games and stuffing their faces with junk food. 

Bobby was anxious to see Matt but at the same time a little worried about not being able to tell him what was going on in their lives.  They had been friends since kindergarten and had grown up together.  They had a connection as strong as any brothers could ever have and he wished that he could tell him everything.  They arrived at the club and piled out.  They all got their bags out of the trunk and went up to get checked in.  Meanwhile, John was stepping onto the first tee.  It was a beautiful day and they were about to fine tune their plan, they were all anxious to get it done. 

He hit a long one right down the left side and it wound up in a bunker, he shook his head and headed to his cart.  Dodge and the boys were having a blast.  The club wasn’t too busy for a nice day and there were only two singles ahead of them between their group and John.  He waited on the second tee and let the golfer directly behind him play on through.  He hit two balls off the second tee and then took his sweet time finding one of them and allowed the second single to catch up to him.  He waved him on through and then took his time playing out the two balls.  By the time he stepped up on the third tee Dodge and company had arrived at the 2
nd
green behind him.  He made it obvious that he had noticed them by waving and then hit three balls off the third tee before driving back to talk to them. 

“Hi guys, how are you doing today?”  They were all glad to see him.
         “Why don’t we all play together? He suggested,” and they agreed as planned.  They moved around the course playing as a foursome.  It was a fairly windy day which was perfect.  Windy conditions made it all but impossible to eaves drop on people with directional mics.  It was safe for them to talk freely.

John pretended to be giving golf tips and instructions while they discussed their plan of attack on the compound.  Toby told him and Dodge about his oven plan and wanted to know how to seal the doors and anything else that might allow a signal in. 

They explained to him that metal screen could be used over holes so long as it was attached well all around its edges to the metal surfaces of the oven.  The door gaps could be filled with either screen or even better metal duct tape could be applied to bridge the gaps between the doors and the metal frames.  Not only would it be a signal blocker but it was also incredibly strong and even if Cyrus and his men did figure out the door latch the tape would still hold the door closed as if it had been welded shut. 

This surprised Toby but he knew these guys were engineers so he believed them.  John had explained that it was just like a cardboard box that was taped shut with packing tape, if you didn’t have a knife and couldn’t get at it with something then it was surprisingly strong. 

Toby brought them up to speed on everything he and Alice had been through with the sabotage of Dodge’s clones and nearly being caught by Glitch.  Toby was surprised to learn that John had sabotaged Dodge’s lifefile in the LifeTech database so that they were nearly useless anyway.  However, the second set of files that Cyrus had obtained were genuine, but they were shortened so that the last few months of his memories were missing. 

All the knowledge of the current events was missing so that Cyrus would have no clue that Dodge and John were aware of his plans.  He would however have access to some of Dodge’s knowledge of the
LifeTech systems and their vulnerabilities that he so desperately wanted.  John figured that even if Cyrus did succeed in getting a clone to talk on the second time around he would still need at least two or three weeks to piece it all together and develop the software necessary to exploit the LifeTech system in the way that he desired. 

They told Toby how Cyrus had reached as far as Washington already and had begun controlling and influencing many people in high places.  It would be important to save as many people in the compound as possible to testify against Cyrus and identify those in high places that were working with Cyrus.  The more
high level people they could take down the better.  They needed people with impressive credentials to come out and testify to the high tech degree of Cyrus’s operation and the depth of his reach. 

They needed people that could drop names and get people in high places that were working with Cyrus toppled from their lofty positions and brought to justice.  Toby also told them all about Cheyenne and Todd and how Cheyenne especially was on the verge of turning against Cyrus and that she could be an incredible asset for their cause.  It was certainly coming together nicely and their team was expanding to include an increasing number of Cyrus’s people.  If Toby, Cheyenne, and Alice could get more people on board with them, it would be much easier to take control of the compound. 

John gave Toby a handful of ball point pens that were rather random in brand and color.
         “What’s this Toby asked?”
         “They’re bugs, you just leave them lying around here and there.  They can’t be detected like Cyrus’s bugs either, we did something very stealthy with these.  These devices record for up to four hours and then when the environment has been completely silent for over an hour they’ll send the entire audio file in less than one second.  It hyper compresses the file  crunching it down to a tiny size that can be transmitted very quickly.  These bugs only transmit a few times a day and the transmission burst is so short that it cannot be detected by normal means.