It wasn’t going well and the Domesticated LEP era came to an end on July 28th.
Out of the 2000 expected births, by July we had 1500. 900 of them had reached a certain level of maturity.
The two month mark.
That was when the domestication process went awry.
Frank was out in the West and since I was closest, I was summoned to Fort Bragg. Something had occurred in four of our warehouses.
Upon my arrival, I found out that the caretakers hadn’t been inside in days.
“You’ll see why,” the one captain told me.
See, at this point I believed we were well on the way to making them into copies of Marcus. When I entered a warehouse I realized how wrong I was.
Imagine if you will a huge storage facility.
Long, tall and wide.
The interior was hollowed out, but there were beds, eating areas and a play room.
Now imagine my horror when I stepped inside.
They made me put on what we called an attack suit.
The suit was made of a thick material I had designed that shielded body temperature and scents so the LEP’s, should they turn, couldn’t sense the wearer. If they did attack, it was hard to break thought that thick layer.
Any bite they delivered would deal them an electric shock.
No caretaker had the need to wear an attack suit, so this struck me as odd.
I went in.
It was then I learned another difference between our new LEP’s and Marcus.
Marcus was asexual. He had no distinctive sex organs internally or externally. No sexual organs meant no reproducing.
The new LEPs developed internal sexual and reproductive organs, like a lot of animals, at three months.
Rapid.
I stepped inside to see proof of this with my own eyes.
An entire wall, long and high. From ceiling to floor, every square inch, was a nest containing hundreds upon hundreds of developing LEP’s.
They bred like alien beings, or at least the nesting looking liked something out of a horror flick.
They charged at me in attack mode immediately. I was able to flee with minor wear and tear to my suit, along with my life.
We had problems, yet again, and another solution had to be found.
A DNA break down of the new LEPS showed that they were not one hundred percent human. That their DNA was hybrid with cheetahs.
Great.
The LEP were fast becoming a growing threat.
We couldn’t shoot them. We tried, but they were too fast.
Gassing them was out.
We even tried to poison them. But they were smart.
Very smart.
On September 1st, after the births of the new embryos in the nests, the LEP’s dug their way out right under our noses.
They dug out and set forth upon our soil.
Hence, the dawning of a new enemy.
LEP WARS
20.
Year one
They were about the size of a pudgy ten year old by the time they reached the age of one. We clocked them at a speed of sixty miles per hour.
There were so many of them, we had to plan.
Science had created a new breed of man. A new species. Then science tucked that secret away. We, in our ignorance, unleashed madness.
Like Frankenstein’s monster.
The only thing we had in our favor is they still hadn’t reached a full level of intelligence. They probably wouldn’t. They would only get smarter with survival as time went on.
And they did. The older they got the faster they learned our fighting tactics and maneuvers.
But in the first year or two, we had opportunities.
We tried to take them.
Armor penetrating bullets worked. Instead of gunpowder Henry’s red dye was used. For some reason the LEP had an internal allergic reaction to this dye. When the bullet penetrated and the dye went into their blood stream, they died.
But we still had to be able to stop them.
They moved too damn fast.
Though there were thousands of them, they never attacked in more than a pack of eight.
I suppose they never really felt threatened.
Hal and Frank worked on building a new army. One specifically designed to fight the LEP.
We had our scientists working on weapons.
Our soldiers received different levels of LEP certification. The lower level you were the more you were placed in low risk areas. If you reached a level five, you could face off against a pack and win.
The only way to train for that level was to face off against the LEP.
Frank of course was a level five, so was Hal. All of Frank’s sons were, too.
Johnny was in his mid thirties. Frank was getting older and he knew it. And though Nick and Joey were still teenagers, they became level fives faster than any adult man I knew.
Billy … he was a level five. But Billy is another chapter.
We had to secure the farmlands. Which we did. But, even with our best efforts, the LEP hit our food supply there.
Johnny, though medically trained, was on inner city LEP security. Frank didn’t want him out in the field. Not when Johnny had Jack.
For the first year or so it was a constant battle, but we persevered and prevailed. Then the LEP grew. They grew in size, speed, and they multiplied faster than man.
It got ahead of us for a while and we had to rethink again. Only we no longer found our self on the offensive. We were on the defensive.
A new war had begun. One we inadvertently started.
But soon Frank had initiated LEP patrols hitting their camps and nest areas. And though there were daily outbreaks and attacks by the LEPs, they were on the outskirts of our cities and food sources, thankfully away from populated areas. If we could keep it that way, eventually, we would get rid of them all. It was ironic that we needed to cause the extinction of the beings that we created to stop our own extinction.
21.
The Prodigy
Billy Hayes was born in 2011 and was just about ten when he lost both of his parents. He was raised by Frank, and eventually called Frank ‘Dad’. But even with the brawn and mentality of being raised a Slagel, Billy was gifted with the intelligence of his father.
At eight he thought he was too smart for school, and in a way he was right.
He was schooled by his father, and then by Frank.
Something happened with Billy. Around the time he was fifteen, he lost his intellectual edge. He wanted to be like Frank, Johnny, and any other Slagel.
He found a certain demented pleasure in protecting.
Frank was fine with that, I wasn’t.
I was a pretty integral part of all the kids’ lives. After all we all were from Beginnings.
I knew the scientists we had were aging.
I went to Frank.
Billy needed to be schooled while we still had some great minds to learn from.
At the age of twenty, at the height of the no-birth time, Frank sent Billy to Boston to work and learn.
Don’t get me wrong, Billy was highly intelligent. And his intelligence never once went to waste. He worked as a soldier and he invented weapons.
But the world would need scientists, and Billy had to move into that.
He was angry. He wanted to be a soldier. And when the LEP wars began, Billy learned to fight them … just because.
He wanted to be part of the team that fought them always.
But he was needed elsewhere.
Despite the fact that we were battling the LEP problem, we still had the infertility issue to deal with.
Once Billy achieved an education level that his teachers felt he could only surpass by hands on, Billy dedicated his work to that issue alone.
Why couldn’t the women survive the birth?
What was happening?
And damned if he didn’t figure it out.
Originally the scientists believed the virus developed in
the late third trimester of pregnancy, carried through the placenta-fetal host immune- and then it was carried into the bloodstream of the mother upon detachment.
This was true.
In a sense.
Billy discovered the virus was actually male gender carried, locked into the DNA of the embryo, and released at the same time frame.
He isolated the DNA strand.
It was a synthetic virus.
The enemy had hit us with a biological weapon. That was the only explanation.
Then he was stuck.
That’s where I came in.
You’re probably wondering, me? An engineer? How could I solve this?
I had the answer all along and never knew. I suspected, but never knew.
Just after the onset of the Great War, Dean came to me with a sealed box. He gave me a date.
“Danny, whatever you do, do not open this box until February 2041. On that date you’ll give it to my son.”
“Dean, what’s so important that it has to wait?”
“It’s timed Danny. We changed the course of history once. Let’s not condemn ourselves to change it again.”
I knew what he meant.
Two years before The Great War, Ellen and Dean claimed adamantly that Billy Hayes stepped through the time machine and brought them to the future. Dean never really detailed what or why that was, but he and Ellen did say that while there they found out they were to die shortly in an explosion at a warehouse.
The future Frank and Billy warned them of their deaths.
There was never any proof to substantiate this future claim. But an explosion did occur at a warehouse and because Dean and Ellen were aware, they were able to escape.
Dean always believed that he was supposed to die in that explosion.
See, a part of me agreed with him after the start of the war.
Joe was sick at the time. Had Dean died, Dean would have never cured Joe. Joe would have died before the Great War. Joe’s decisions, though agreed to by everyone, were not the proper decisions in handling the war.
In hindsight everything is different. In hindsight had we listened to Frank we wouldn’t have had the massive ground battles. We wouldn’t have been hit with a bad water supply. We wouldn’t have been hit with the bio-weapon that compromised our reproduction ability.
In hindsight, had Joe died before the war, Frank would have made the decisions.
Things would have been much different had Dean and Ellen died in that explosion.
But to repeat?
Ah …I didn’t know the exact reason they brought Dean and Ellen to the future, but I was about to.
It came on a day when I was visiting Billy. Part of my job was to keep track of all projects the scientists worked on so as to keep track of the resources they used.
I was in Billy’s lab when he released a mighty Frank style ‘Fuck’ of frustration.
“Billy …”
“No, Dan, this is driving me nuts. I can’t figure out the next step. I get only so far, then what? How?”
“Have you consulted?”
“Absolutely,” Billy said. “We’re all stuck. We know the cause, but what to do next is the question.”
“I know it's driving you nuts. But it’ll click. It will. You have the switch to flip in your brain, just like your father.”
“My father.” Billy looked at me. “If he were here he could solve this. He could solve this like …” Billy snapped.
I chuckled. He still was not catching on.
“Danny,” Billy rushed to me with a change in tone. “I have an idea.”
“Okay.”
“I know my Dad… Frank, I mean, I know my Dad banned it. But I’ve been working on the Godrichson time machine.”
“What? When? I didn’t see anything in your notes.”
“Yeah, you did. You just didn’t know what I meant. I call it the Aragon Window Project. Anyhow …”
I stumbled back. The Aragon Window. That was what Dean and Ellen called the future. The Aragon Window future.
“You OK?” Billy asked.
“The Aragon Window.”
“Yep. So anyhow. It works. It really works. Danny, let’s go back. Let’s get my dad and mom and bring them …”
“Stop.” I held up my hand. “What’s today’s date?”
“February 16th.”
“2041.”
Billy snickered. “Um, yeah. I’m thinking of going back to …”
“You don’t’ remember do you?”
“Remember what?”
I mumbled aloud to myself. “It must have been the reason. This must have been for it.”
“Danny what are you talking about?
“You really don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember what?”
“When you were little … your parents claimed they went to the future. That you came and got them … that …there was a reason. This had to be the reason.”
Billy shook his head and then suddenly stopped. “Oh my God, I do remember now.”
“Billy, if you went and got them, would you tell them about their deaths in Oklahoma?”
Billy didn’t answer.
“Be honest.”
“Yeah, I would. Because if my dad lived, a lot of problems would have never happened …”
“That’s why he did what he did.”
Billy looked at me curiously.
“I’ll be right back.”
I never lost track of that box and I went to retrieve it.
It went with me everywhere.
I returned with it, old and dirty, handing it to Billy.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Your father said to give this to you. On this date. This year. See, he believed that when he went to the future and returned, things occurred that changed the course of history and he stated he didn’t want to repeat them. Meaning he didn’t want you to go get him again.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I think, Billy. I think it’s your answers.”
22.
The Long Term Answers
We were correct in our thinking. The box prepared by Dean was the answer to the dilemma at hand.
Inside was a letter to Billy telling him to use his knowledge to further the findings, and whatever he did … do not come back for him.
Dean knew. If Billy was handed that box, then he was dead.
Some things were meant to happen, even if they were mistakes
Dean’s research showed Billy the solution. But it was long term, although it did hold some immediate results.
When Dean came to the future he was brought there to solve the problem. But he covered his tracks in case he wasn’t around when the problem arose again.
There were two problems to face. One was the mutated DNA viral strand carried by the males.
The second was the infertility of the women brought on by surviving the pregnancy.
I found it amusing, where in Dean’s notes he called the second problem … easy. An easy solution.
Although he did tell Billy he needed to develop a viable artificial womb as back up, Dean had invented – in his time—the hormone inducers needed to solve the infertility problem. The women stopped menstruating, so therefore they couldn’t reproduce.
Dean’s therapy and injection recipe called for six weekly shots. It worked. The only problem was, the women began puberty again. Their breasts grew larger – not that it was a problem—but they exhibited the same body changes all over again.
There were many women in their mid to late thirties who opted to not go the route of puberty again.
But many did. This opened up the door to successful pregnancies.
Back to the first problem.
Dean outlined the technique for removing the mutated strand from the sperm, and to use the sperm to fertilize an egg outside the uterus. The egg was then implanted.
We did so successfully.
Removing the mutated strand was a complicated task
and very time consuming, so the conception rate dropped, but we started having pregnant women again.
The first five women were implanted in March. They were confident, because it was Dean's research and history showed Dean to be another Einstein.
The only problem with this method was that Jack and the babies born after him, except those Society embryos, were all carriers of the virus. They would never be able to conceive a child naturally without scientific intervention again. But the children conceived in-vitro and post 2041 would carry on the gene without the virus.
Things were looking positive.
On a cold night in Boston, November 2, we sat nervous and frightened in the waiting room of a birthing center.
The first of the Deanbryos births were about to take place. That’s what Billy named them Deanbryos.
Billy was confident in his father’s research and solution, he just lacked the confidence in himself to implement it properly.
Frank was calm, although I could see that jaw twitching he did.
Sixty-four years old and I swear it was the first time I saw Frank showing his age. His hair looked grayer. His face was more lined.
He looked at his watch.
“Any minute now,” I said. “She’s in delivery.”
Billy looked at me. “This will work, Danny, right?”
I nodded. “I believe so. I hope so. I’m getting too old to wait another seven years for a solution.”
Frank chuckled. “You? Bill, this is gonna be fine. You did great.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Billy replied. “But Dean … I mean Dad deserves the credit.”
“Let’s just say the Hayes genes deserve the credit.” Frank said.
Billy smiled. “If you guys don’t mind, if this is successful, I’d really like to have the credit for this going to Dean… I mean Dad. He deserves that historical recognition.
We both agreed.
And it wasn’t long after that the doctor arrived in the waiting room. We all stood.
“Amazing,” The doctor said. “I thought after the deaths of all those women, we’d never see the day when it would stop. We just have. Mother and child are fine.”
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