by Utley, Todd
“Oh, sure, thanks. Come on in, you can watch the game with us.” They closed the door and immediately went to work. John’s decoy birthday box contained a portable magnetic resonance imaging machine better known as an MRI. This device could also be used as a lie detector.
MRI machines were still used in the medical world but they were greatly improved and even small enough to be very portable. They no longer required the very intense magnetic fields that they once had, instead, the makers improved the sensors so dramatically that the magnetic field could now be reduced to much more reasonable levels. You didn’t have to ride inside the claustrophobia inducing tube anymore. On top of that, John purchased the lie detector app, so now he had two devices in one, and it was just what the doctor ordered for this situation.
John primarily used it to look inside microchips to determine what was inside of them, where the input output lines were and where the power pins were, it was sort of a way of snooping around inside your competitor’s hardware and it could help you hack the software as well by providing clues.
Now they all had another thing they wanted to see the inside of, and that was, this kids head. He walked into the kitchen with the device.
“Hello Toby, I’m John Calhoun.”
“Yes I know who you are, good to meet you, I just wish it was under different circumstances.”
“We all do,” John said.”
“They showed me pictures of you and Dodge and your families. Sorry about all this Mr. Calhoun, but they didn’t give me much choice.”
“Yes I know, Dodge told me your story, unfortunately we don’t trust anyone, so we’re going to conduct a few tests here to see if you’re telling the truth, fair enough?”
“Sure, I’m game for anything. At this point I’m just trying to stay alive.” John began setting up a tripod on one side of Toby’s head and put a thing on it that looked similar to a microphone but with a large square thing on the end of it. Then he moved to Toby’s other side and set up an easel like thing and placed a large flat object on it that looked like a frosted mirror with wires attached to it. He connected a thin expensive looking notebook computer to the contraption, turned it on, then connected a box that looked like a guitar amp to the other part and connected the two together with several computer cables. He looked up at Toby and asked
“You got anything metal on you?” Toby shook his head “no”.
“They took everything off me already when they searched me. The thing in my head might be metal, but that’s it.”
“All right, well, we’re about to find out more about that right now. Okay, now don’t move a muscle, hold perfectly still and hold your breath. He cycled the program and motioned for Dodge to come look at the screen.
“You can breathe now Toby,” said John.
The whole family crowded in behind to look at the images. It was a whole page of thumbnail size pictures of the inside of Toby’s head.
One by one, John enlarged them to inspect them more closely. After viewing about twenty-five of them they spotted something. Very near to one of the major blood vessels was a tiny object. John quickly entered the coordinates of the object.
“Toby,” I need for you to sit still again and hold your breath for five seconds, don’t even blink your eyes. Starting . . . now.”
John cycled the program.
“Okay, we’re done you can relax now.” Toby took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh of relief.
“Can you see it?” He asked.
“Yes, we did find something.”
They began inspecting the new close up images of the object. Sure enough Toby was telling the truth. The object they found was a tiny explosive device. It didn’t pack much punch, but it was powerful enough to burst the blood vessel that it was near. Just enough to kill a man, guaranteed.
This was the device that their boss installed in all of his people as a standard measure. Anyone that failed to follow orders would be terminated. Some had tried to flee thinking if they went far enough away that they would be out of range. That didn’t help them because he was using the skyphone network to detonate the devices, there was no running from it.
Some tried to have them removed before he could detonate it but none succeeded. The Kerrington family was beginning to believe Toby’s story and they even felt bad for him in this situation. Toby told them that his handlers at the house seemed to be very unhappy people that would probably love to escape but they simply couldn’t, they were trapped doing this mad man’s dirty work.
Some refused in the past and said, “kill me then,” and that is exactly what they got. The boss, whoever he was, was a very twisted individual.
“All right Toby, you passed that test, you’re obviously telling the truth about having a foreign object in your head, and it appears to be what you say it is. Now just keep being honest and everything will be just fine.”
John worked for a few minutes loading the app for the lie detector test. He started by asking him basic questions that they already knew the answers to so that they could establish some baseline readings. Questions like, who is the president of the United States today? What is today’s date?
“I want you to answer this next question with an emphatic YES,” said John. “Have you ever been eaten by a dinosaur?” Toby answered with a convincing “YES.”
The machine indicated that he was lying of course. They had succeeded in establishing a good baseline. They spent almost an hour asking him questions and he continued being truthful. John changed his focus to Toby’s willingness to help them going forward.
“If given the chance, would you turn your back on your handlers and join our cause of protecting the trade secrets of ESS?”
Toby perked up a bit.
“Well yes of course I would! In a hot second! Can you stop this thing from going off in my head? I’ll do anything you want if you can just get this thing out of my head.”
The tester indicated he was telling the truth. John, Dodge, and Linsey stepped into the TV room for a quick meeting. It was unanimous, they would either get that thing out of Toby’s head or find a way to disable it. They all stepped back into the kitchen to make Toby an offer.
“Toby, if we promise to do everything in our power to free you from your bondage to this group of criminals, would you agree to work with us?” asked Dodge. Toby immediately answered with a firm “YES”. John nodded at Dodge to indicate that he was telling the truth.
“Do you also promise to help us in our efforts to take down this band of criminals by doing whatever we ask of you?
“Yes, of course!” Toby blurted out. “I’ll do anything you want, all I want is to be free when this is all over with. I want to be back with my family. Tears began streaming down his face at the thought of being free.”
John looked at Dodge and nodded again.
“He’s telling the truth man, no doubt about it.”
“All right let’s get this man untied,” said Dodge, “I think he’s had enough for one day.”
As they were cutting the restraints off of his ankles, Toby began explaining to them that if he didn’t succeed in getting the hack installed on the Kerrington’s security console, that his handlers would likely kill him when he returned empty handed.
“Toby, have you heard any of the crew mention a man named Cyrus Slade?” Asked John.
“No, not the name specifically, but I have heard the term
“CS” a few times, I guess it could be the same guy.”
John proposed an idea. He had a signal proof room at his house, it was lined with metal fabric that was grounded to prevent radio signals from entering the room. Toby should be safe if they could get him there prior to his next check in time of 3:00 p.m. Dodge liked that idea, but proposed that instead of protecting him by hiding him, they should use Toby as a double agent. They could assist Toby with installing the virus on the security system. Sure they were giving up their privacy again, but so what. As long as they all knew they were being watched they
could play along. They would have to watch what they said and do their best at being a normal family, it wouldn’t be easy but it would be worth it to save this man. They all agreed that this would buy them a lot more time, and besides, it was the right thing to do. They asked Toby again if he would do it, and he agreed that he would.
Back at the compound Cyrus was nearly exhausted. Dodge Kerrington’s clone would not cooperate, and he insisted that he was not Dodge Kerrington at all. Instead he kept saying that he was Tim Shelton, a custodian from Seattle Washington. Cyrus now knew that the man was telling the truth all along. He was dead of course but not without plenty of pain and suffering during the process.
Alice had to leave the room after vomiting all over the place; that made Cyrus even more angry, not because it was gross, that didn’t bother him at all, but instead because she was weak, he hated weak people. No matter now anyway, the clone was as dead as you can get. Slade was perplexed at the mix up, how could this be? how did the DNA get switched? how did the Lifefile get switched?
He was so eager to drain the information that he lusted for from the mind of Dodge Kerrington that he must have overlooked something in his haste. The DNA had to match the lifefile, otherwise the upload would have been impossible. He called Glitch on the intercom.
“Sir?” Glitches voice came through the old speaker.
“Glitch, come down here to lab no. 2, I have something you may not want to see but I insist that you do.” Glitch was hesitant but he knew he had to go down there to see what Slade insisted upon.
When he got there, Cyrus was standing in front of an old barber shop chair that had been modified for restraint. There, in the old chair, were the remains of a youth, or a pile of guts, skin, and bones depending on how good your imagination was. What Slade had done to him was horrific.
Cyrus liked using lasers for the first few hours of torture. Otherwise, his subjects bled to death way too soon for his questions to be answered. The lasers cauterized the blood vessels as he removed all of their appendages one by one. He could keep a person alive for almost two days if he chose to drag it out that long. In the end though, it always the same, a bloody mess.
“Look here Glitch, there was a man here just a few hours ago, a brave man. He was in a boy’s body, but a man nonetheless.” Glitch had to swallow hard and look away to keep the contents of his stomach down.
“And why are you showing me this Sir?”
“Because Glitch, this is supposed to be our illustrious friend, Mr. Dodge Kerrington, but this man held true to his story right up until he bled to death or had a cardiac arrest, I’m not sure which.”
“He swore he was a custodian from Seattle Washington and that his name was Tim Shelton, and I think I believe him Glitch, I really do, I looked right into his eyes, well eye, just before he expired and he said one last time; I’m Tim, Tim Shelton.”
“Okay, so, what am I supposed to do about it?” Cyrus got agitated by Glitch’s lack of concern.
“Well Glitch, what we have here is exactly that a GLITCH! I have to wonder if maybe YOU! are responsible for this little mix up here so maybe YOU! had better get CRACKIN!” Glitch realized he was in some serious hot water, so he went to work at the computer console immediately, after all he was the person responsible for the file downloads.
“Don’t worry Mr. Slade, I’ll get to the bottom of this in just a few minutes, there must be some logical explanation to why you ended up with the wrong DNA and a matching lifefile to go with it.” Glitch was a master of the system and within minutes he completed a computer match up of the files.
“Well Sir, you see here is the problem, the man that you have here is nearly a dead ringer for Dodge Kerrington. The facial recognition software shows that if this boy had been allowed to fully develop into an adult clone he would look very much like Kerrington. The system has them switched for some reason, probably a file mix up that could only be resolved by the facial recognition software so it fell back on that.”
“Do you think this was intentional? Could someone be onto us?” asked Slade. Glitch thought for a moment.
“No Sir, I don’t think that is the case. I have seen errors like this in the system before, the software has malfunctioned and crossed up the file identification numbers, it’s a rare occurrence, but it does happen.
Both files end in similar numbers, so again, it fell back on facial recognition and they look so much alike that it got them switched. There have been reports of this happening when people were restored, they just don’t catch it until the clone wakes up and doesn’t recognize his family.
They pass it off at the life centers as a bad clone and then offer the family another clone free of charge. They keep it under wraps until they get it straightened out and then they offer to do the upload again once they have located the correct body and lifefile. It’s a very good system but every system has a flaw, and in this case, we found it.”
“Get it straightened out immediately Glitch, I want the DNA and the lifefile of Dodge Kerrington as soon as possible.”
“Yes Sir, I’ll have it for you by this evening.”
“Good Glitch, very good, and get rid of these other clones of our useless custodian from Washington.”
“Consider it done Sir” Glitch pushed away from the computer, he was done there, his own PC in his office was a much better machine and he had serious work to do. As he turned and looked at the mess in the chair and the other clone bodies lined up nearby he realized exactly what Slade had been planning to do.
Slade intended to torture Dodge Kerrington’s Clones one at a time. Each of the clones was increasingly younger, there were five of them in all and the smallest one appeared to be about three years old. Of course the body didn’t really matter much when you loaded an adult lifefile into it, the resulting clone acted and talked just like an adult. Any age body could feel pain and the mind could know fear, and that was all that mattered to Cyrus, no doubt his plan was to try different tactics with each attempt until he found the one thing that would make Dodge Kerrington spill the beans.
The clones were useless to him because they were of this custodian from Washington and only his file could be loaded into them. Now Glitch would have to locate the correct files and get the correct DNA profile so that Cyrus could start the process all over again. This would take several weeks to accomplish and it was a major setback for Cyrus. Glitch knew that this would make Cyrus even more hostile and difficult to deal with in the mean time.
He decided to be more careful in his dealings with Slade now, he had seen him like this before; when let down, he would start killing people until he got what he wanted.
Cyrus had no concerns about killing clones because no one could prove it anyway, he wouldn’t have a problem with killing people all day long either if he could figure a way to cover it up. Now that Dodge Kerrington and John Calhoun were in the news so much, it made them nearly untouchable in Cyrus’s mind. They were too popular now. They had too much press. He couldn’t just grab them, that would raise too much suspicion and create a media circus, instead he would clone them and torture their clones until he got what he wanted.
It was brilliant and he could never be charged with murder for killing clones that nobody could prove ever existed. As Glitch made his way back up to his office, he saw one of the custodians.
“Hey, you there, what’s your name?”
“Bill Sir.”
“Well Bill, there is a small mess down in lab no. 2. You go round up two more of your buddies and get down there. I want it all cleaned up within the hour. There is one in the chair and four more lined up, burn them all. I want it spotless down there, and I’ll be checking back later to see that it’s done,” said Glitch. He was shaking his finger at the man while giving him the orders.
“Yes Sir, we’ll take care of it.” The man took off in a rush to fetch two of his fellow workers.”
Back in his office Glitch checked the time, it was nearly 3:00 p.m. Toby should be checking in soon with a
n update and he was anxious to hear good news. They needed that feed from the Kerrington house, he needed something progressive to report to Cyrus before he went crazy and started killing again.
At 3:00 p.m. sharp Glitch’s phone rang, he looked at the screen, it was Toby reporting in.
“Yes” he answered.
“The hacks’ installed, we’re in.” The call was quick and concise with no pleasantries, just like Glitch liked it. He headed to Slade’s office to give him the good news and to get his next instructions for Toby. Glitch no doubt would be praised for his idea to send Toby in as a teenage spy, and he felt victorious.
Chapter 19 Back at the Kerrington’s Toby installed the hack on the security console while John observed.
“Nice work Toby, I see you know what you’re doing, not too many people in this world can do what you just did. Did you write this code?”
“Oh no,” replied Toby, “I’m pretty good at making things’ work but I’m no software engineer. I overheard my handlers talking, apparently this was written by a guy they call Glitch.”
The moment John heard that name he knew for sure that Cyrus Slade was behind this whole thing. During several of his late night hacking sessions he came across this individual. Everywhere his name turned up in crime, so did Cyrus Slade. It seems they enjoyed working together.
“Hey another thing I overheard that I didn’t really think was that important until now” said Toby.
“Yeah, I’m listening, go on.”
“I heard some people in the van one day, during one of my ‘head in a sack rides’, that Glitch was the only person working for CS that didn’t have this bomb thing in his head. Seems the boss considered him as an equal or a comrade or something.”
“Okay, good to know, that information may come in handy down the road.”
“So this guy that I’ve been working for, this CS, you think he’s this Cyrus Slade fellow?”
“Yes, now that you mentioned Glitch, I am almost certain that it’s him because the two of them always work together.”