by Utley, Todd
The boxes were stainless steel construction with a red anodized coating. The triggers inside were regular steel with very light spring loads to counteract the magnetic pull of the “keys” as it was. The exterior of the boxes were covered all over with laser etched words and numbers in a random pattern that made them very curious to look at.
The magnets had to be placed upon the exact number or word for the box to be opened. Each of the magnets had to be of the right magnetic strength. Too much magnetism would move the tumblers too far while too little would not move the tumblers far enough. Either error would result in the box not opening and this made the locking mechanism very complicated to defeat.
The trusted receiver of his deposits possessed the coded magnets and the cipher to determine where to place them to get the boxes open. Couriers were simply not paid enough to be trusted. Everyone knows the best way to keep a delivery boy honest is a good lock on the package.
John always put the metal box into the deposit pouch with five thousand dollars cash, it was always the same amount of money regardless of the value of the contents. This insured that the delivery boy was never tempted to smash the box open.
If you show up one day with ten times the normal payment in the pouch do you think the delivery would ever get there? of course not! He assumes the value is out of this world because you paid him so much more than usual and he makes off with the contents and the extra cash.
So . . . ,
Rule no. 1 Always put a lock on the package.
Rule no. 2 Always pay the same amount.
Rule no. 3 Always say the exact same thing.
Rule no. 4 Act the same regardless of the contents.
John’s courier always went to the same pawn shop with the package, that was the rule. What he didn’t know, was that the pawn shop owner was a direct employee of John’s, not to mention his cousin, and that the whole shop and operation were John’s own personal smuggling operation for anything and everything that he wanted to get in or out of the country, even people.
John and his cousin had an agreement, John paid him big bucks and his cousin did whatever he was told to do, no questions asked, zip the lip, top secret, and especially above all, don’t tell anyone about what we’re really doing, especially family!
They never dealt in anything harmful like drugs or weapons, it was mostly Cigars, Snuff, Caviar, Wines, a few exotic cars that wouldn’t pass emission laws in the U.S. etc. Surprisingly they found out that they could actually make excellent profits by selling things to overseas buyers that these crazy people would bring in to pawn off.
The shop was supposed to be a front but had turned somewhat legitimate because people would bring in things like an old moped, one of those antique motorized bicycle like things. Foreigners collected these things and the American built ones like the Indian brand brought huge dollars in the foreign markets, unbelievable.
John had already forwarded shipping instructions to his cousin about this deposit and his bank connection knew to always take it to the same place and drop it off.
He went in to see his man at the bank. He slid the package over to him.
“Deposit this as usual. Thanks,” he said, with no other communication. This teller was always glad to see him. He made several times his regular salary just by delivering a few packages each month for John. He never asked what was in the packages and never attempted to open the box, or at least didn’t succeed at it anyway.
Later that day John got a text message from his cousin
“Deposit received, forwarded to receiver next day a.m.” This meant the contents had been shipped overnight early a.m. delivery to the farm. He sent a message to Jason.
“Package ETA, tomorrow early a.m.” A few minutes later he received a reply.
“Copy that, JB.”
He had already discussed their time tables and their goals with Jason Bluffton when he hired him to do the genetics work there at the Farm. He knew the kind of man Jason was and had no doubt he would have the chambers ready and all the base tissue seeded and ready for the DNA.
It would only be a few days and their new clones would be the size of a normal human fetus in the later part of the first trimester. Once past that first step extreme accelerated growth would be induced, the clone would grow to the equivalent of a ten-year-old child in just one month. The growth would have to be slowed down a bit for the pubescent stage and then accelerate again after that.
It was now common place to grow a full adult clone in just two or three months. The government programs did it much more slowly using older technology but to their credit it was very reliable and stable. Rapid growing required constant monitoring to ensure everything was going just right.
Only the wealthy that needed or wanted a replacement much sooner could afford this luxury and would usually have it done privately and paid big bucks for the services. There were only a few companies doing it and each laboratory was very heavily licensed and regulated by the USCRA (United States Cloning Regulations Agency).
What they were doing was highly illegal but it had to be done, there was no other way to stop the hackers, especially if the government was involved, and as of right now they didn’t know.
They planned to start Dodge’s clone first because they needed him to be there at the farm with his electronics and engineering prowess to accomplish more of the tasks required. A week or so later Jason would be starting John’s clone.
They were about to attempt something that had never been done before, they were going to clone a person while his surrogate was still alive and allow them both to go on living. They knew that the government had probably already attempted this and maybe even succeeded but there was no doubt it was beyond top secret and they had no public knowledge of it. John had conducted numerous searches in the most private and top secret records servers but found nothing. It was probably on paper only for added security.
What they were about to attempt was groundbreaking for the private sector and it was very exciting. All of the surrogate’s life would be uploaded into the clone and the clone awakened. The big question was this, what about the soul or the PS2 as scientist liked to call it? If a person is not brought back after a total death incident within one hour, it just doesn’t work.
Scientists had speculated that it was due to the soul leaving the body completely because it had a consciousness of some sort. They now believed that it had an awareness of the presence of life, or the circumstance of death, when death was final, it had to leave. But what would happen if they cloned a person while the original was still living? Would the universe or some higher power, maybe even God, assign a soul to this new life? Or was this energy that we believed manifested as the soul somehow attached to the life force of the physical body? Could it be shared with two bodies? After all, if the two bodies are from the exact same DNA, like identical twins or even triplets, that start out in the womb as one cell and then split to become two or more children, all would be said to have their own souls. These questions remained unanswered by science to date, but they hoped to find out more as they proceeded with their experiment.
There would be a lot of questions answered by this cutting edge research and experimentation. At the very least, even if the two Dodge’s and the two John’s couldn’t exist at the same time, they would at least have back up clones ready should they be killed at any time by the hackers.
The only way they could find out for sure was to try it. Jason Bluffton was absolutely riddled with anticipation that he would have the opportunity to do this for the first time ever. If it worked, it would be truly groundbreaking and even though he couldn’t receive credit until later, it would be worth the wait.
Jason knew that when they got to the bottom of this whole thing they could come out into the open. When that happened, he would be recognized in the science world as a ground breaking pioneer of genetics and the leading expert on PS2. He was glad they offered to pay him handsomely for his services but he would have done it for a
lot less just to be involved.
The next morning Dodge went to work as usual with anticipation of hearing news later that afternoon regarding the package that John was sending to the farm. Things were beginning to click, their operation was moving ahead quickly and he was anxious to hear if the clone pods were active and if the DNA was received in useable condition.
Dodge knew Jason was solid, he was the kind of guy you would want on your side if you were under fire with your back against the wall. John checked him out, and found him to have a good reputation with prior employers. He also had the drive, the gift, that special something that only a small percentage of the people in the world seem to have.
The team was coming together nicely and soon they would have the farm running efficiently with everyone working toward a common goal. John was continuing to look at the lives of several other people that he was considering for the team. He was studying the resumes of their lives. Not the kind they had posted on the Head Hunter sites for career advancement, but rather, the actual paths of their lives, their accomplishments, their associates, their families, their living resumes.
He was good at digging deep into a person’s past and finding the most hidden skeletons and dirty laundry, but he looked at the positive things too.
A mere twenty miles away Jason Bluffton was signing for a package at the Farm. It was not a large package but it was certainly a valuable one. Before the delivery truck could even make it back out to the road, Jason was already opening the package.
He was watching the driver pulling away in the distance but his focus was on the little box right in front of him with the red “Urgent” label and the black “Fragile” label. He opened it carefully and removed the foam padding and the protective bags.
The temperature and humidity indicators were intact and still green in color which meant that the shipment was handled correctly and without potential damage. The DNA samples appeared to be in perfect condition. It was time to go to work. The clones would soon be growing.
Dodge had a plan in place to get his privacy back and begin turning the tables on the hackers. But as his Mother used to say.
“If you want to make an omelet, ya gotta crack some eggs.”
He knew this masterpiece of a plan was going to take some effort. He had very carefully placed the little dome that he and John made directly over one of the bugs. It was a clear plastic dome with a hole in the center to allow sound to enter but with a liner that would not allow the bug to transmit normally. The device contained a microchip that John programmed to do some simple repeater functions. It received the audio signal from the bug but stripped off the status messages from the carrier signal.
The status messages included things like the battery level function, GPS coordinates, and temperature. First John developed a program that would begin to listen to the bug and pick up on how it transmitted the data. Dodge only had to leave the dome over the bug for about one hour in learning mode. With this step complete, he downloaded the data from the device to his skyphone and sent it to John. He removed the dome according to John’s instructions and placed it in his bed side stand drawer for future use.
About two hours later John called back and told Dodge to go in the bedroom and place his phone near the bug for five minutes with the ringer turned off and then retrieve it. In about fifteen minutes John called.
“It’s complete, the tail should come soon to retrieve the bug.” Dodge was curious, so he slipped into the bathroom, closed the door, and asked John what he did.
“Well, it only took a few minutes to pick up on enough of the data stream to decipher the encryption and crack it. Once I had the communications protocol, it was easy to hack the bug’s software and change a few things. I reprogrammed the battery monitor voltage levels to make the bug send out status reports that show the battery dropping from 90% down to 30% over the next two days. Their tech will send their man back in sometime when no one is home to replace the bug. I also added the stealth tracking function into the bug just like we planned. It will be easy to triangulate on the signal through the skyphone network. Even if their man turns the bug completely off, it will still transmit unless he removes the battery. That is not likely because they are extremely small and very difficult to change outside of a lab environment. It’s very likely that he’ll simply swap it for a fully charged bug, in and out, fast and easy.”
Dodge was already thinking up a good reason for the family to leave for a few hours one night. When the tail took the bug back with him for repair, they would reveal one of their locations, hopefully their headquarters. They would repeat the same game on the bug in the kitchen. When the tail entered the house to replace that one, the Black Ops would set off the security system just like they planned.
John already found a security system company in the area that advertised a complete sweep of your home for any and all threats. This was included even in their most basic package. He insisted that Dodge’s work was high profile enough to blame the bugs on competitors trying to get their hands on ESS secrets by invading his home. This would give him good reason for a new state of the art security system like John’s and ESS would have to foot the bill.
Chapter 16 The Black Ops team had been surveiling the Kerrington house now for almost 48 hours with no sign of the tail. The trap was set and the bait was excellent. They had to wait until he returned to swap out the dead bug. It was boring work that required incredible patience but always worth the wait when it worked out.
The next evening when Dodge got home from work, he and Linsey rounded up the kids and went out for pizza and a movie. Dodge and Linsey discussed taking the whole family out for a dinner and a movie in their bedroom where the listeners were sure to hear.
They were all having a great time, when just as expected, the tail returned to the house to take care of his failing equipment. About half way through the movie, Dodge received a message on his skyphone; Incoming message from: B.O., Device replaced, tracking blue devil, all clear, will advise.
The trap worked and it was safe to return home any time. Dodge nudged Linsey and showed her the message on his phone, she smiled and nodded, she hated the idea of strangers being in their home but she was glad the trap worked, the sooner they ended this thing the better.
Back at home that night after talking for a while and saying good night, Dodge and Linsey turned out the lights and pretended they were going to sleep. Dodge left the light on and the door partially open to give him just enough light to work. He very quietly got the dome device out of his bedside table drawer and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Linsey followed along very quietly, she was excited to be involved in some of the stealth activity.
They went into the kitchen to work on the bug in the light above the table. It was pitch black because they had intentionally closed all the blinds earlier to avoid being seen now. The only light in the room was coming from the fridge, it was just a small LED lamp in the water and ice dispenser that provided enough glow to make out shapes in the room. Dodge was wishing that they had left another light on in the family room.
He very carefully cracked the refrigerator door for a little more light, setting a bottle of ketchup in the opening, to keep it from closing. He began moving a chair but he caught it on a table leg and made a very loud noise. They looked at each other realizing that their cover was blown. Dodge immediately flipped on the overhead lights and made plenty of noise getting out a bowl and some ice cream and began dipping it. He was grinning at Linsey who was still standing there frozen as if under the premise of still trying to be quiet, but then she got it. She walked back up the stairs about half way, then turned, walking back down making the normal amount of noise.
“Ah hah,” she said. “Caught ya havin a midnight snack, huh?” Dodge gave her a thumbs up
“Oh well, just having some ice cream, I couldn’t sleep.”
“Mind if I join you?” She said.
“No not at all. Misery loves company ya know,” said Dodge while he grinn
ed and motioned for her to take over his task.
She took over the process of dipping the ice cream while Dodge moved back to the table and climbed up on a chair. He carefully placed the clear dome over the bug and then tapped out a quick message to John, “dome on”. Seconds later John replied.
“Stand by.”
They both sat down at the table and ate their ice cream and talked about the kids and whatever else they could think of. After about five minutes John messaged back.
“Got it, thanks.”
Dodge climbed back up on the chair and retrieved the dome device. They rinsed their ice cream bowls, put them in the sink, and headed up to bed where they said their goodnights again.
They had to find something to go do with the kids again to make sure the house was empty after dark. Providing yet another perfect opportunity for the tail to come back to swap out the dead bug in the kitchen. This would allow the Black Ops team the opportunity to trip the security system while he was exiting.
The Black Ops team would trip it manually at the expense of the man in the blue car. The night after next was Thursday night, the usual night that Sarah and Linsey would go for there swimming and diving lessons at the club. Dodge encouraged Bobby to hang out with a friend for a few hours by telling him that he needed to work late that night. Bobby didn’t make plans with anyone so Dodge said the work thing got cancelled and they turned it into a Father Son hang out evening instead.
They went to a climbing wall grand opening at the local sporting goods store. The new store, Top in Sports, had it all, a huge mega-store with everything under one roof. Now they just added the new climbing wall with safety gear and professional instructors. You could try it out for free with a coupon from the digipaper. Linsey loaded the coupon onto Dodge’s driver’s license and Bobby’s student I.D. over a week ago when Bobby started asking to go. All they had to do was scan their ID’s when they got there, and they could climb the wall for free.