2156

by C M Dancha

  "Yeah, that's the general idea. But you know your uncle. He's a loose cannon who might do anything. Only time will tell."

  "So, what is our goal by making up these lies? What's the bottom line, Rollie?"

  "We get the time needed to develop the cloning project correctly. We follow scientific standards and minimize potential failures. I figure the least amount of time we'll get is four months but I'm hoping for six months."

  "One question, Rollie. What if he gets so upset, he puts someone else in charge of the project?"

  Rollie thought for a moment before answering. "That's a good question, Claude. I guess that could happen, but I still think we can squeeze out the time we need even if he appoints a new supervisor. Let's face it, the new guy won't have a clue about how cloning is done. It will take him weeks, if not months, to figure it out. Of course, we'll be the ones teaching him what he needs to know so we can delay and sidetrack his training quite a bit."

  Rollie and Claude looked at each other and for the first time in years found a sliver of respect for one another.

  "Any questions Claude?"

  "I don't think so. My first assignment is taking care of the mouse. I assume you want its body kept?"

  "Yeah, we have to make this look legitimate so keep the body in cold storage."

  Claude sat reviewing the entire plan in his head. He was cautious and didn't want to leave until he felt comfortable with the sabotage he was getting ready to join. "Okay, Rollie, I'll wait to hear from you on what you want me to do and when."

  Rollie was relieved reaching an agreement with Claude. But he knew this would be the easiest part of his plan. He ended their meeting with a short pep talk meant to strengthen Claude's commitment to the plan. "Claude, you have to hang in there no matter what your uncle says or does. When he throws a temper-tantrum let it roll off your back. And if he tries to bribe you with promotions, gifts, and world credits, just ignore him. Try to remember that perfecting a cloning procedure will be a hundred times more rewarding than anything he can offer you now."

  Rollie and Claude shook hands and went their separate ways. Each of them still had reservations about each other and the plan but there was no turning back. To be on the safe side, Rollie recorded the entire meeting with Claude. It might come in handy if Claude got cold feet and wanted to renege on his commitment to their plan.

  Over the next two hours, Rollie put together a comprehensive T & A for the cloning project. It showed immediate human experimentation which was exactly what Klaus expected and demanded. It would be on his desk by 8 a.m. the following morning. But by the end of the week, after he and Claude hit Klaus with one disaster after another, the T & A would go up in smoke and be worthless.

  For the rest of the day and much of the night, Rollie replayed every word and nuance of his meeting with Claude. He meticulously looked for potential loopholes and problems. He also thought of a couple more disasters which could be combined with the death of the mouse and malfunction of the CR47, to delay the project.

  At 3 a.m. in the morning, Rollie woke from a deep sleep thinking of something he forgot to tell Claude. He made a note to himself to see Claude first thing in the morning. Once the reminder was on paper, he was able to get back to sleep.

  For the next couple of hours, he dreamed about his Grandma LeeLee. He didn't know why his thoughts focused on her but there was some type of strong link occurring between the two of them.

  When he awoke a couple of hours later, he could recall the dream so vividly that he thought it actually happened. Grandma LeeLee was standing on what appeared to be a theatrical stage and repeated the same thing over and over.

  "Sunny Boy, I've sent help to you. It will be there soon. Sunny Boy, I've sent help to you..."

  He sat on the edge of the bed and thought about what the dream might mean. Sunny Boy, he understood. It was Grandma LeeLee's nickname for him. But what was the help she sent?

  Chapter Seven

  The First Step of Revenge

  Date Hattori, a fifty-year-old farmer, lived outside the city of Osaka in the country once known as Japan. He loved tilling the soil on his tiny farm but was fed up. As he bent over to pull another weed, he decided to carry through on his plan of treachery against the central government. The central government he had unlimited hate for.

  This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. He had debated his illegal plan for years. His wife contracting cancer and dying a brutal death from the disease was all he needed to push forward with the plan. There was no longer a reason to worry about the possible consequences. He couldn't care less if he got caught and lost his monthly allotment of world credits. He had saved extra credits, one by one, for years and could now survive as a rogue in the underground society of criminals and misfits.

  The government's refusal to give his wife the medical care and drugs she needed was immoral and scandalous. There was a cure for her type of cancer, but she was classified as a nonessential citizen. This meant that the drugs and attention she needed could only be allocated to those citizens who were deemed more valuable assets of the state. Date had no idea who these more valuable people were and didn't care to find out. All he knew was that she was the most valuable person in his life. A faceless bureaucrat, somewhere within the World Council organization, condemned her to a miserable, agonizing death. A death far beyond what any human should experience.

  The final straw was when they sent him a communique informing him that his wife qualified for a free syringe filled with a death potion. All she had to do was inject the liquid death.

  The syringe arrived two days later along with a nondescript sympathy letter. It described how the World Council was sorry to hear about his wife's terminal illness. They wanted to do everything possible to make her death a memorable event for friends and relatives. The bastards were heartless, and he couldn't wait to strike back.

  Several times he considered killing her so she could escape this world and move on to a pain-free afterlife. Each time he worked up the courage to end her life something happened to stop him. Twice she passed out, silencing the agonizing screams. A third time she begged to stay with him for a little while longer. On his final attempt, she passed away seconds before he plunged the syringe into her arm. She was now with her ancestors and Date looked forward to when he could join her.

  Date kept the death potion syringe. He knew sometime in the future it would come in handy as a tool of revenge.

  Revenge wasn't his only reason for committing the criminal act of treason against the World Council. For years, he had studied and thought about his rich family ancestry as samurai warriors. According to his great-grandfather, Date was a direct decedent of the famous samurai, Hattori "the Demon" Honzo who lived during the 16th century. Honzo was one of the most well-known and respected samurai of his time. He fought and led his forces to victory in many battles during his short life of fifty-five years. He served and protected the upper echelon daimyos, also known as great lords. And near the end of his life was master swordsman and protector general to the shogun for all Japan.

  Six hundred years later, the samurai code of honor and discipline still ran with fire through Date's blood. He couldn't stop thinking about resurrecting his intended position as a samurai to a great lord. It was part of his DNA and he needed to carry through on what he was put on this earth to do. Farming was an honorable profession but serving a great lord, politically and militarily, was more important. It was what he must do to be a complete man and honor his ancestors.

  Date spent hours each night studying the samurai code of Bushido. He learned how to use all the weapons. He was most concerned with the dueling sword which true samurai believed possessed their honor within the tempered steel blade. After years of study, he was qualified to become a samurai. He could now serve a great lord by protecting his land and possessions and fighting his enemies. The problem was that he didn't have any idea who this great lord would be. The power elite of society was now protected by armed guards versed in mod
ern warfare, weapons and military tactics. The elite of world government in the 22nd century needed a sword-wielding samurai as much as they needed to contract a contagious disease.

  Date was confident his lord would reveal himself eventually and welcome his protection, advice, and loyalty. But if he had to spend a few years as a ronin samurai until his lord became known then that was also acceptable. Samurai history was filled with many glorious stories about unattached and unemployed samurai. They roamed the Japanese countryside protecting the less fortunate in exchange for food and a place to sleep.

  When his wife was alive, he would lie awake each night thinking his way through how to pull off this criminal feat. A lot of time was devoted to avoiding detection and apprehension by the authorities. The late-night mental exercises were so intense and detailed there was little doubt in Date's mind that his plans were close to foolproof.

  The part of his plans which he enjoyed analyzing the most was how to handle the extra income generated from selling his illegal product. He knew that there were two things which tripped up criminals. Most landed in the hands of the authorities because they couldn't keep their mouths shut. Date was amazed by criminals who felt they must tell someone about the crimes they committed.

  The second stumbling block for criminals was living beyond their means. Several times a year Date got a good laugh from reading or hearing about criminals who beat the system and then tried to live far beyond their means. They spent outrageous amounts of world credits on luxury items. How stupid were these people? What could they be thinking? Did they think the authorities were blind and ignored people who spent far more than their allotted world credits? Every citizen was expected to live no better or worse than their neighbor. Spending excessive amounts of world credits was an immediate tip-off to some type of criminal activity. These people were also fair game for government snitches. These rats looked for and reported "excessive spenders" to the government. The central government's reward program provided for a 10% reward paid to snitches from the recovered world credits.

  Date wasn't going to make the same mistakes. He planned to use his criminally-gotten income on his passion of collecting samurai warfare equipment. He would also support dissident groups intent on overthrowing the World Council. Enemies of the World Council were now Date's comrades-in-arms no matter how radical their tactics and ideology might be.

  Built beneath Date's house was 15-square meter room used to keep harvested food fresh. It stayed in this naturally cooled room until it went to the government's agent for redistribution throughout society. Concealed and camouflaged in one corner of this room was a small opening which led into a tunnel. This tunnel twisted and turned for 50 meters under the nearby rocky berms on Date's property. At the end of the tunnel, Date used a blaster laser to create a 20-square meter room out of the solid rock. The room was equipped with a high-security entrance. There was a supply of natural spring water and light provided by well-hidden, miniature energy cells on the hill's crest. In this vault, Date would store and admire his collection of samurai weapons and suits of armor. Also, the black-and-white pictures he inherited from his grandfather would be honorably displayed. Each of them showed a different 19th-century samurai forefather in full battle gear. The pictures highlighted the military relics and weapons.

  True samurai artifacts were still available on the black market but very expensive. An authentic samurai sword made by one of the famous swordsmiths of ancient Japan could cost as much as a family's yearly allotment of world credits.

  Date already had a couple of samurai swords, but he knew they were cheap reproductions of the real swords of ancient Japan. They were nice to look at but wouldn't last two minutes in an actual duel. A real samurai sword would chop the fake in half.

  Authentic samurai swords came in straight, curved, long and short versions. The most sought-after models were made of soft and hard steel folded over and hammered together many times during the forging process. This blending of different quality carbon steel created a blade that could hold a sharp edge yet not brittle enough to snap in battle. The blade was then polished for weeks using fine grain sand to create a mirror finish.

  It was not uncommon for a high-quality blade to take a month or more to manufacture. When done, it was etched at the handle end with the sword master's name. The daimyo or clan he worked for and year were also etched into the steel. The hilt was tightly wound in quality leather and silk. It had to be long enough so the sword could be held and wielded with two hands. The hand guard and scabbard were also works of art. They were often decorated with silver and gold and carved from exotic woods or ivory.

  The highest quality swords were tested often upon completion. It was common for the samurai who bought the sword to test it by slashing and stabbing a human corpse. In some cases, condemned convicts volunteered to be test victims for new swords. This was considered a more honorable way to die than nailed to a cross and left for days to endure an agonizing crucifixion.

  Date began his search for the finest samurai relics available on the black market. There were several reputable brokers within a day's travel who specialized in finding the best relics. This included swords, crossbows, long barrel rifles, archery equipment, and battle armor. All this equipment was used during the thousand years samurai warriors were a political and military force on the island nation of old Japan. The 10% to 20% finder's fee he would pay the broker was well worth the expense. Having them track down and verify each relic would give him the time he needed to start producing and selling his illegal cloaking device.

  Years before his wife contracted cancer, a rumor spread that the World Council had a method for monitoring each citizen's daily movements. Date suspected this was more than a rumor. It was too much of a coincidence how often government agents showed up as crimes and civil disobedience occurred.

  Date was very upset by the possibility that his whereabouts and activities were monitored by the government. It wasn't that he went anywhere important or tried to hide his travel destinations. For God's sake, how much intrigue could a farmer's life have? It was the principle that some faceless organization could know where he was 24 hours a day. As far as he was concerned, they didn't have the right to know his whereabouts at any time. The only right they earned was to know he was a solid citizen who didn't commit any crimes against his fellow man or the state. Beyond this, their over-involvement in his life was a violation of one of his basic freedoms granted by God's Natural Law.

  It finally leaked out that the health injections contained a micro-monitoring device which lodged in a kidney. Date was infuriated. He swore to find a way to either disarm or cloak this device so he could move about freely without anyone knowing when and where he went. For the next several years he studied and read everything he could about the monitoring devices which were called trackers.

  He paid close attention to stories about people who had their kidney and the monitoring device surgically removed. This seemed like an extreme step to take considering the person was classified as unaccounted for once his device was removed and stopped transmitting. The only way to survive was to live successfully in the criminal underground. Otherwise, the authorities would arrest the person and have another monitoring device injected.

  Government news releases always painted apprehended citizens as members of one anti-government group or another. Date knew this couldn't be true. Professional criminals had the contacts and knowledge to avoid apprehension once they fell off the government surveillance grid. They didn't necessarily belong to an anti-government element. It was easy to conclude that the government published these stories to scare average citizens away from having their monitoring devices removed. And if the government went to this much effort to scare the public then there were a lot of people, like himself, who wanted to be tracker free.

  Besides studying everything he could find about the tracking devices, Date volunteered as a janitor at the Osaka central government hospital. He knew this regional hospital was responsib
le for giving the health injections which contained the monitoring devices to children when they reached five years of age. Any malfunctioning trackers were also surgically removed and replaced in this hospital.

  After working a couple of months at the hospital, Date figured out where the monitoring devices were stored. He was amazed by the lack of security in this area. There were no video recorders in the room and the main entrance door was propped open much of the time. With these conditions, the eye identification, entrance system was worthless. Even though the room was designated a restricted zone, personnel from throughout the hospital and sometimes visitors came and went without challenge. The bottom line was that this room was unsecured and any security breach, such as theft, would go undetected.

  New monitoring devices lay helter-skelter throughout this room. The surgically removed devices were thrown in a trash can rather than put in a secured hazardous materials container. The lackadaisical approach to maintaining the monitoring devices told Date that a computerized inventory of these devices was either not used or ignored.

  Date helped himself to one of the discarded monitoring devices in a trash container. He wanted to test his observations about the ineffective security procedures and practices. After two weeks, not one word was said about the missing device. Within a year, he acquired over a dozen new trackers and at least as many defective units. Also, he copied and took home dozens of electronic journals and manuals describing the use, implantation, and repair of the monitoring devices. At no time did anyone question him about the missing equipment and documents.

  The hospital employees and the government bureaucrats responsible for the hospital didn't have any idea Date was a thief. At first, he was surprised by this lack of control. But it made more sense as he observed the daily operation of the hospital and its staff. He concluded that centralized government which attempted to control every phase of its citizens' lives controlled nothing. The abundance of edicts, laws, rules, and regulations enacted by the government led most citizens to complacency. The average person either ignored what the government wanted or found ways to work around their demands. And if anything went wrong, the overabundance of governance allowed plenty of wiggle room for the average bureaucrat to point the blame at someone else.