Why?
They communicated. It was weird.
The body in the tomb was the kicker, the thing Dean couldn’t figure out. He could only temporarily conclude that the clone had something to do with the body. Either created him or something. That was all he could conclude at the moment, his cluttered mind was racing too fast, and too much, for any one true defining theory to come to the surface.
Hopefully, another evening session of talk and theorizing with Robbie would bring them closer to answers. And once they had concrete plausible answers then they would move on to another problem, confirming their answers.
And there was only two ways to do that. The clone or with Joe. Neither was likely to talk.
<><><><>
Robbie slept two hours of the flight and George didn’t bother to wake him. There was no need to other than to have someone to talk to.
The nudge and ‘hey’, we’re here, made Robbie sit up.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“That’s OK, get the gear.”
Reaching down for the bag, Robbie stopped when he saw through the windshield. “Oh my God.”
“I know,” George said somewhat defeated. “A part of me is sad, but this is an awesome sight.”
“Yeah, awesome in the truest sense of the word.”
Robbie pulled the film gear out of the bag and began to record. They were flying over San Francisco. It was once known as the Bay City and from their point of view it lived up to that name.
Only the tip of Alcatraz could be seen, the Golden Gate Bridge was a twisted, mangled wreck, dipping into the ocean.
The skyscrapers of San Francisco were like buoys in the water. Only the homes on the highest hills survived, and even then, the hills were like islands just peeking out.
George informed Robbie that they had been flying over water for a long time, and that the coastline actually started in Nevada.
They took their footage, commenting seriously as they did so.
There was no need to fly south to see Los Angeles, chances were that it like San Francisco were cities no more.
The Fredrickson really had hit.
One thing after another. One cataclysmic event followed by even more devastation.
The plague, the meteor, and then the war.
When would it stop?
George and Robbie did their job and prepared to fly home.
<><><><>
“So I hear you never went home last night,” Ellen said upon her entrance into the cryo lab.
“Where did you hear that?” Roy asked.
“Richie.’
“Oh, he is so nice to me. He watches out for me.”
Ellen snickered. “Were you working all night?”
“Yes, I was. I was working on something. I completed it and it is a surprise for you.”
“Really?’
“Really. You will love it.”
“What is it?”
“It is something that will make medical work and investigations in Beginnings so much better.”
“How long have you been working on it? Sounds complex.”
“It is. Building it took time, and then putting the program in order. The graphics were tough.”
“Graphics?” Ellen asked.
“Yes, I had to enhance it. It may get some pixilation once and a while until we fix it.”
“So you built and designed it.”
“Oh, yes.” Roy pulled a stool out for Ellen. “Please sit.”
“Is that it?” She pointed to the covered object.
“It is. I have been waiting and waiting on you. I am so excited. I hope you will be too.”
“Oh, I am.” Ellen clapped her hands together. “Let’s see.”
Roy lifted the cloth. A flat screen computer monitor was attached to what looked like an old CPU tower.
“You invented a computer.”
Roy laughed. No. It’s not a computer. It is enhanced. It does one thing and one thing only. It is a DRIP.”
“It’s a drip? What’s that?”
“DNA Recognition and Identification Program.”
“But, Dean, we have a program that breaks down the DNA and recognizes it.”
“Yes, we do. But this goes further. This not only breaks it down it … wait. I’ll show you.”
“Ok.”
He lifted a glass slide and a finger puncture gun. “Give me your finger.”
“Why are you taking blood?”
“I only need one drop.”
Ellen held out her finger and Roy pricked it. He squeezed one drop of blood on the slide. “Thank you.” He lifted a squirt bottle and sprayed the droplet.
“What is that?”
“A sealant. It seals the blood, dried it, and makes it hard so the program can dig in.”
“You aren’t going to extract the DNA.”
“No, need to.”
Ellen’s eyes widened.
Roy took the slide and approached the DRIP machine. On the side, he pressed a button and a small tray emerged. He laid the slide on there and closed it.
“Now,” he said. “First the least impressive of its abilities.” He clicked the keyboard.
A design swirled.
Roy tapped his fingers to his lips. “It’s breaking it down. Ah... here.”
As soon as he said that, a long list scrolled up.
Ellen slid from her stool and approached the monitor. “Measles, mumps, chicken pox, our virus …”
“Those are your immunity factors.”
“Holy shit.”
“Your susceptibility to disease.”
Ellen’s eyes widened even further.
Roy continued, “Recent changes. None.”
He hand shot to her mouth.
“As you can see, your name popped up.” Roy pointed. “That is because you are in the Beginnings DNA database.” He looked at Ellen. “Are you with me?”
She nodded.
“Now, the fun part. The identification process.”
“But it identified me.”
“Yes, but look.” The screen switched. It asked four questions. Age. Hair color. Hair length, and build. “Roy filled in the blanks.” Upon hitting the ‘enter’ button, a head papered with grids, it spun around and within second, filled it with skin color, hair, and eyes. A computerized generated image of Ellen.
Ellen stumbled back.
“Notice the blinking of hair. I put in blonde, but the DNA is stating your natural color is brown.”
“What happens if you don’t put any of that in there?” she asked.
“This.” Roy hit a few keys and then the image changed to a bald Ellen.
Ellen snickered.
Roy explained. “The program does an image of the age the DNA is. But let’s say we find old DNA, that’s why the age is there.”
“I have to sit back down.”
“Are you OK?”
“This … this is amazing. Does it only work on those in the database?”
“No. I went to Containment. The new guy is not in our system.” Roy ejected Ellen’s slide and inserted a new one. “But say we found his blood, skin, semen, spit, anything that contains DNA … watch.”
Ellen watched the computer give an image of the man. “He doesn’t look worn like Matt.”
Roy shook his head. “DNA doesn’t show scars or dirt, only what you should look like.”
“So basically, the identification portion of this is like a computerized cloning.”
Roy smiled. “Exactly.”
“Holy shit.”
“So you’ve said. What do you think? Impressed?”
“Very. And you did this all last night.”
“I put it together, yes.”
Ellen nodded. Again, she slid from the stool and walked to Roy. She leaned to him.
“What are you doing?”
“Give me your ear.”
He leaned to her.
Ellen brought her lips to Roy’s ear and whispered.
“I know.”
Roy jumped back and rubbed his ear. “That tickled. What do you know?”
“I know that Dean left Beginnings to isolate himself for research. He was down in the dumps and fed up. I’m the only one who knows he is gone. I know you aren’t Dean. Talk to me.”
Roy hesitated. He lifted his hand. “They shake. I am, how do you say... busted?”
“Busted.”
With his entire body he heaved out a breath of relief. “Oh, thank God I can let someone know. Am I that obvious?”
“To me because of this. This is very advanced. You did it in one night.”
“I did not invent the program in one night. I built it. It took me three years to make this program.” Roy hung his head. “So are you going to turn me in?”
“No. Not at all,” Ellen said.
He heaved another breath of relief.
“What do I do? Do I still be Dean?”
“You have to be. I don’t know when Dean is coming back and I don’t want him in trouble. Plus, this community needs Dean. You. Who are you?”
Roy held out his hand. “My name is Roy. I am from the future. I am the clone you and Dean created in this very lab.”
“So you were defrosted and grown?” Ellen asked.
“Yes. And I do not want people to know about me. About me being a clone.”
“I don’t either. Why are you here?”
“I came back to right a wrong. To make a change to make the future better.”
“Did you succeed?”
Roy shrugged. “I got stuck here before I could go back to the future and find out. I am certain though, I did.”
“What did you do?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Ellen nodded. “I understand.”
“Ellen, now that you know. Can you help me?”
“How? You mean get back to the future?”
Roy shook his head. “No. Not yet. I lived my entire existence in one room. Everything here is so new, so unique, I know nothing. I want to live life and enjoy it.”
Ellen smiled. “Roy, how can you not. You have the greatest opportunity around. You get to experience everything for the first time. There’s nothing more exciting than that. That is life. First time experiences.”
“There’s so much I want to experience.”
“Then I’ll help you.” Ellen grabbed his hand. “But first, tell me about yourself and about your life and we can start a plan from there.”
Roy was happy. He was very happy. He was filled with a sense of relief. Not only did he now have another friend, another person that knew who he was, but also it was someone he could talk to anytime and in the open.
Roy spilled his tale to Ellen.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Roy laughed, sipped his coffee, and laid his hand on Ellen’s knee. “And then the Fonz said to Richie … Hey.” He laughed again with a shake of his head.
“You really love Happy Days.”
“Oh, I do. Have you seen it?”
“Many times.”
“They were my family.”
“That’s sad.” Ellen propped her head into the plan of her hand. “What makes it even sadder is I know Danny Hoi. I cannot believe that he let you live such a lonely existence.”
“My existence wasn’t lonely. It was just void of love and compassion and touch. Danny had his reasons. He believed that the brain ability and intelligence capacity of Dean was unlimited, like many, but life got in the way. If he could impede life from getting in the way, the possibilities were endless.”
“And they were.”
“I built the tele-viewer at eleven.”
“But you never got a hug.”
“That is something I wished for.”
“But you hug me now and that is truly helping.”
“You’re a very nice man, Roy.”
Roy smiled.
The cryo door buzzed. Both of them turned to look.
Robbie walked in. “Hey guys.”
“Robbie.” Ellen smiled. “You’re back. How was the coast?”
“Gone. A big beach.”
Ellen sank. “So it really happened.”
“The Frederickson hit with repercussions,” Robbie said.
Roy murmured. “The first of many.”
“What?” Robbie asked.
Roy shook his head. “Nothing.”
Pulling up a stool, Robbie sat down. “Are you guys busy?”
“Not really,” Ellen said. “Just talking. Why?”
“Feel like talking to me?” Robbie asked. “I want to pick your brains.”
“Shoot.” Ellen nodded. “What?”
“I need you to tell me some things about the Aragon History window you went through.”
Roy’s eyes brightened. Although he wasn’t there, he loved hearing about it.
“May I?” Ellen asked. “Unless you want to tell it, Dean.”
“Be my guest,” said Roy. “You tell it very good and I love hearing it.”
Ellen began, “First, the Aragon Window, as you know was the time machine.”
“How did it get the name?” Robbie asked.
“Some sort of infatuation Billy had with Lewis Aragon. Who knows?” She shrugged. “He thought it would be a cool name.”
“Why did Billy name it?”
“He invented it,” Ellen said. “He got a hold of Jason’s notes and reinvented the machine.”
Roy clapped once. “He is so bright. Billy is just like me. And here I thought with multiple replication states, there is quality degeneration. But such is not the case. Is he an original?”
Robbie had no clue what Roy was talking about. “Billy is an original.”
“Ah,” Roy nodded. “So you made two.”
“Twins,” Robbie said.
“There’s another?” Roy asked.
Ellen widened her eyes to Roy for him to be silent.
“Oh. Sorry.” He covered his mouth. “Continue.”
Ellen told the rest of the story to Robbie and all the details she knew about the Aragon Window. She even produced notes her and Dean snuck back with her.
All while Roy sat fascinated.
<><><><>
The Aragon Window. Robbie had all his information and was entertained by the fact that Roy was so into the story. Just like a child at bedtime or a child watching Mr. Rogers.
Ellen and Dean were taken twenty years into the future. They were brought there on purpose because Dean’s intelligence was needed to help solve a problem.
A virus hit women making them infertile. They could carry a child but not conceive. Population was dwindling and man faced extinction.
They needed Dean and Billy, a scientist himself, knew his father had been working with cloning. Problem was, in the future, Dean and Ellen were dead. They had to isolate them from everyone.
Billy was full grown and kept referring to ‘his father’, which told Dean and Ellen that they had died in his youth. Because he adopted Frank as ‘dad’.
To both of their surprises, Frank was President of the United States.
There was a great war. Bowman was renamed Freedom City.
Ellen assumed the war was with the Society, but knowing what she knew now, that wasn’t true.
In that future the United States won.
Hal was in Washington DC. Vice President.
The Killer Baby population was out of control and dangerous and that was the battle they fought.
Frank died when they were there. Sixty-two of a heart attack, not much older than Joe.
So much was different.
Beginnings wasn’t Beginnings anymore it was a museum of what used to be. A place people went to. A tourist attraction.
It was a bright future.
With the exception of the lives lost.
Billy and Frank both erred in providing a list to Dean and Ellen of all the names of those killed in an explosion.
An explosion that took place during a suspect meeting.
Dean
and Ellen were to die in that explosion.
Who would have thought their deaths would cause so much of a ripple.
They lived, therefore things Dean wouldn’t had done were completed.
Joe lived. So Robbie determined that Joe would have died sometime between that explosion and before the war. That had to be the link. Frank was the leader in that war. Joe wasn’t around.
Why would the clone and Joe himself want him dead before the war? Did he not handle it correctly? Was it all to make Frank leader.
What was it that Frank would do that Joe wouldn’t.
They were similar leaders with the exception that Frank thought in a military leader mode.
After leaving Ellen and the clone, Robbie took his notes and sat with them.
The Aragon Window history was wiped out and made bleak when Dean and Ellen lived. It was also the only thing Robbie had to go on.
A bleak future with a war when Joe was leader.
A bright future with Frank.
Was it all done to secure that future?
It had to be.
But why kill himself, fake his death. Why wouldn’t his father just step from the picture? He obviously knew something. He obviously knew he had to be out of the way. So why not step down?
Why cause his family, friends, and community so much pain?
Those were question Robbie wanted and needed answered. Answers he knew he would eventually get... from his father. That was if his father ever planned to emerge again.
If left to Robbie, he would emerge... and soon.
<><><><>
“Any word from the scouts yet?” George asked, taking a seat at the table in Frank’s office.
“None. Not yet. I’m hoping soon.”
“What do you think?”
Frank raised his hands. “I don’t know. Armed men on bikes, chasing a UWA soldier don’t appear out of nowhere. Savages... yes. That no. It’s suspicious.”
“I agree.”
“OK. So … you wanted to talk?” Frank asked. “I know you’re preparing to go back to Quantico.”
“I am. But I wanted to touch base on a few things.”
Frank nodded.
“Tigger will be going with me. I also plan to ask Lars to join us on the east. Run my medical and research division.”
“You think he will?”
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