by Utley, Todd
John copied the virus from the microdrive that Toby was carrying and then Toby put it on the floor and smashed it. He picked up the pieces and threw them into the kitchen trash can.
“Well I guess it’s about time for me to go back, who’s going to drop me off at the house?” The hack was nearly done configuring, and so they would have to stop talking openly very soon. John called out to everyone from the kitchen and they all came in.
“All right everyone, it’s just about time for Toby to go back to his house. I have cleaned up everything here so that it can’t be seen. According to the screen here we have about three minutes before we go live. Cyrus and his minions will be able to see everything going on in this house, full audio, video, the works. We can’t talk about what’s going on to one another after about one more minute, everybody ready?”
They nodded.
“Everybody act normal, and remember, if we talk about Toby later, he’s a great kid that we all like,” said Dodge. John put his hand on Toby’s shoulder.
“See ya’ Toby, don’t worry Buddy, we’ll help you get through this.”
“Thanks everybody,” said Toby, “I hope to see you all again someday under much better circumstances.”
John was monitoring the screen, ten seconds everyone, act natural. Sarah shrugged.
“No problem, I just don’t care if they watch me, whoopee doo.” She went over to the fridge and got out a coke and started acting like nothing had happened.
“Hey Bobby did you and your new friend Toby do anything exciting last night?”
At that very moment Glitch was watching the monitor he had set up in Cyrus’s office with great anticipation. The screen flickered and the live feed came up. Cyrus spun around.
“Is it working?” He almost sounded excited.
“Yes,” answered Glitch, “It’s working and look there’s Toby, he pulled it off, he got the hack into the system. Now the very system that the Kerrington’s believe is protecting them is working as a monitoring system for us.” Cyrus chuckled in a maniacal way.
“Yes! I believe this will do. Nice work Glitch, your little troll Toby seems to have proven he’s useful after all. I must admit I doubted that this would work, but I was wrong, this is an awesome upgrade.”
“Thank you Sir.”
“Oh, and Glitch, take care of that file mix up on Kerrington. I want that DNA right away, there is no time to waste in getting Kerrington’s clones growing. Make sure it gets done, that will be all.”
Glitch felt really good as he left the office, he knew Cyrus was elated with being able to see and hear everything going on in the Kerrington Home. Maybe he could observe Dodge and discover a hiding spot for sensitive material or maybe a safe filled with all the answers he needed, there must be some security breach within those walls that he could exploit. Glitch was sure that Cyrus would not rest until he had found it.
John went home to prepare a video briefing to bring everyone up to speed. He sent it out to the Black Ops team, the farm team, Allan, and several of his trusted buddies that were helping him from inside the pentagon. He knew that giving them information would bode well for them very soon, they needed more weapons and man power to bring down Cyrus.
The Kerrington’s went on acting as natural as possible and took Toby to the house, where his “stand in parents” were waiting. They said their goodbyes and told his parents that Toby was welcome to come back anytime and stay over with Bobby and that he was a nice young man.
Back at the Farm Jason was working nonstop to get the clones ready as quickly as possible. He had finally received an assistant thanks to John. One of the Black Ops team members had a sister that recently lost her job as a lab assistant to a well-known geneticist working on cures for cancer, her name was Caitlin Humphrey. The funding for their research had finally dried up completely and they all received notice that their jobs were ending a few weeks ago. John told this guy that he would pay her handsomely but that she had better be trustworthy and able to keep secrets better than a deaf mute. His friend promised that she was solid and he sent her over to the farm for an interview.
John interviewed her via video phone and then Jason interviewed her as well, she was perfect for the job. She came from a military family, so she was comfortable with carrying a gun and she was a true patriot. She expressed that she wanted to help thwart Cyrus’s efforts just as soon as she heard about what he was plotting to do. She was a great help to Jason and now he was able to get a little more sleep.
When John received Jason’s request two weeks earlier to get the ingredients for the pink goop, he made a trip to the bank to make a deposit as usual. His cousin at the pawn shop was able to help out in a way that surprised even John. Turns out he knew some guys involved in the sports world that managed to get their hands on the recipe for the stuff and now they were selling it to various trainers. They were using it much like the athletes used steroids many years ago. This new stuff was much safer as long as you didn’t overdo it, you could bulk up and get stronger much faster than with the old methods.
John asked if he could purchase two 55 gallon drums of the stuff. There was a long pause on the other end.
“Man you feeding an army or what?” John made up something fast.
“Well actually we’re feeding it to horses that will be exported to countries that are still experiencing difficulties after the pandemic. Seems they can’t get fuel for their tractors and other equipment over there for economic reasons and many of them have reverted to animal power for plowing fields and for heavy moving. We’re experimenting with super horses that can do the job of three for the price of one.”
It sounded ridiculous but the guy bought it.
“All right, let’s see, that’s going to run you $128,232 dollars,” he said.
“No problem, I’ll transfer the funds later today.” Two weeks later a box truck showed up at the farm, the driver came in and did the paperwork and unloaded the truck, no questions asked.
Jason tried a small amount of it and was just fine 24 hours later. He and his new assistant Caitlin began feeding the clones intravenously with a mixture of the pink goop and several other nutritional supplements. First they had to get it into a state where the blood stream could accept it.
They used swine stomachs that they rigged in another suspension pod to get the mixture into a colloidal state so that it would transfer into the blood through the stomach linings. Once it crossed the blood barrier they could separate it out through a special filter and then inject it directly into the blood stream of the clones.
This new development in the method of absorption enhanced the effect way beyond ingesting the pink goop, now they had a super drug that yielded extreme results in the clone bodies. Coupled with electric impulses to the muscles on a regular basis to build strength and mass, it was a perfect formula for success. The clones were developing muscle mass like you would expect to see in a veteran body builder that had been on the old style steroids for months, not like the government issued clones that always looked very thin and sickly for the first week or so after being loaded.
Jason sent some pictures to John’s phone to show off his accomplishment. John was amazed and couldn’t wait to show Dodge. Dodge’s clone would be ready for loading in just two more days, while John’s was just about two days behind Dodge’s so it wouldn’t be long now. Jason and Caitlin would not be loading up the rest of the family as they were only reserved in case the family members were killed. They Needed Dodge and John’s clones now to help them with taking down Cyrus and his crew. The upload console was nearly finished and should be ready just in time for Loading Dodge’s clone in two days. Dodge had been walking Jason through circuit board repairs via video conferencing and it was working quite well.
Back at Toby’s house, he and his substitute parents were about to head out to the van for their trip to the compound. Toby noticed that neither of them seemed to be very happy this evening. Just as they were about to put the bag over his head Toby got
up the nerve to speak to the woman.
“Am I the only one that doesn’t want to be here?” The woman stopped what she was doing and looked at Toby.
“Do you think any of us really want to be here? We’re all here because the boss man and his buddy put the things in our head and we all know what happens if we don’t do as we’re told.” Toby saw an opportunity to continue the conversation.
“Has anyone ever got away, you know, I mean in one piece?”
“Well if they did we sure never have heard about it.” Toby smiled a little and shook his head in disbelief.
“So what’s your story young man?” She asked.
“Well I’m actually a 68 year old man. I never thought that I would end up in a boy’s body again that’s for sure. It’s weird to be young again when you know what it’s like to be older.”
“Wow, I’ll bet that is strange; so what are the Kerrington’s like?” She asked.
“Well they’re really nice, I guess Cyrus just wants at them for the knowledge that Dodge has about ESS.” He noticed her demeanor changed suddenly.
“Where did you hear the name Cyrus?” Toby had accidently said his name.
“Well, you guys were talking one night, you know, the night we stayed here because I was going to play basketball in the morning, so that I could meet Bobby, don’t you remember?”
“Oh yeah” she nodded.
“Well you and
“DAD”, were talking in the other room there and the walls are pretty thin in this place.” Toby did the air quotes thing with his fingers when he said Dad. It seemed likely to her that they probably did slip and say Cyrus’s name at some point. She thought it was funny that Toby was joking about the
“Dad” thing.
“So you gonna call me Mom?” she asked, and she did the air quote thing with her fingers too. Toby laughed.
“Sure if you want a 68 year old man calling you Mom, then, yeah, I will.”
Toby looked around at the man who was in the kitchen now gathering up a few things to take with them.
“You know I don’t even know your names.”
“Well” she said, I guess I could tell you my first name, no harm in that” she reached out her hand to Toby and they shook hands.
“I’m Cheyenne and that’s Todd in there.”
Todd looked up.
“Hey Mom you’re not supposed to be giving out our names, jeeze.”
“Oh just relax Todd, there’s no harm in telling our first names. Besides we know everything about Toby here and he doesn’t know anything about us. It’s not like we have seniority on him, we’re all just gonna die anyways!” Todd slammed a bottle down on the counter and shot Cheyenne dirty look.
“Just get ready to go! Man, I gotta do everything around here, it’s startin to seem like a real marriage!”
Toby and Cheyenne looked at each other and grinned.
“So Cheyenne what would you say if I told you that there might be a way out of this job without losing our heads?” She smacked the table. “Shut up! are you serious? Tell me, I gotta know.” Toby had to think fast.
“Well back in my days at MIT we did this experiment with radio frequency shielding. You see if you put a radio antenna into an all metal enclosure and then you ground the enclosure to earth ground the radio waves can’t get out and none can get in either. You see these things in our heads, they work on radio signals right?”
“Well yeah, I guess” said Cheyenne.
“So if we were to get inside of something completely metal, like a van, only it couldn’t have any windows, or even a metal building with no windows then Cyrus couldn’t kill us so long as we stayed in a place like that.”
“So wait, what you’re saying is, we would have to stay in there for the rest of our lives?”
“Well I don’t know,” Toby shrugged his shoulders, “Maybe, just for a while, until Cyrus gets killed or caught or something. Maybe we could find someone that knows how to take these things out. They put them in there so maybe they’re not all that hard to get out.”
“Well let’s talk about it more when Todd’s not around.”
Todd was just coming back in from the garage.
“All right you two let’s go, we have to get back to the compound now.” They went out to the garage and got in the van and Cheyenne picked up the bag, but Toby took it from her and put it on his head himself. Cheyenne laughed at him because of the way he did it. He sighed from under the bag.
“All right, I’m ready, let’s go.”
Cheyenne and Alice were pretty good friends. They weren’t supposed to fraternize, but they did anyway. They discovered the guards were terrible at their jobs on their floor. They would leave their post frequently, sleep on the job, and take longer than necessary bathroom breaks. Cyrus was so obsessed with John Calhoun and Dodge Kerrington that he was letting some of the details slip down to Glitch, and everyone knew that Glitch was only in it for the money; he didn’t care about what was going on in the dorms at night.
Cheyenne and Alice would occasionally get together for a bowl of ice cream and watch TV together on Alice’s computer. That night when they got together, Cheyenne told Alice about Toby and what he had said to her about the metal box and how it would keep you alive if you stayed in it. This got Alice thinking, there were old ovens in the compound from back when it was a foundry. One was especially large and the entire thing was made of metal. She wondered how long they could stay in there if they had food and water. Maybe they could just go live in the oven. It was a silly thought and they laughed about it but in their situation it sounded like a form of freedom.
In Slades office, one floor above the dorms, he and Glitch were having a meeting. They were watching the Kerrington family getting ready for bed. Cyrus was still in a fairly good mood as his new found invasion of privacy was fueling his creativity. He was trying to concoct his next malicious move. He paced the floor with his hands behind his back.
“Let’s see,” he said, “We have complete control of the systems in the house and we have a mole. That is this Toby fellow that can get in there from time to time as Bobby’s friend. How can we get more information about the systems that Dodge has developed at ESS? Glitch, tell Toby that the next time he gets into the house I want him to spend some time in this room.” Cyrus was pointing to one of the video squares on the large monitor in front of him. The video feed was that of Dodge’s office. Cyrus went on; every good engineer that is really bent on success brings his work home with him, even when it’s against company policy. Tell Toby to poke around in Dodge’s desk and his computer files to see if he can come up with anything that Dodge might have brought home to work on.”
The next morning Glitch called for Toby to be brought up to his office. Toby was quite nervous about having to go up there, he had never been and he didn’t know what to expect. He was escorted into Glitch’s office, the door was closed behind him and it sounded as though it was locked, he couldn’t help but to get a lump in his throat. This situation reminded him of a time when he found himself in the principal’s office in grade school; lesson learned, don’t put snakes in Mrs. Johnson’s desk! He was certainly hoping this situation ended better than the prior one.
Glitch was leafing through a document and looked up over it at Toby.
“You did a good job at the Kerrington’s, if you keep doing as you’re told you will earn promotions and eventually your freedom.” Toby wanted to laugh at him because he knew that was complete bull shit, but he didn’t, instead he acted interested by just nodding in agreement. “Good, I will,” he said.
“Now the next task at hand is to get into Mr. Kerrington’s office and obtain anything you can from the desk, files, or the computer regarding Kerrington’s work at ESS, are you up for it?”
“Yes Sir, I’m confident that I can get something. They trust me completely and after all they think I am just a harmless friend of their son’s, they’ll never suspect a thing.”
“Okay, good, go back to your ro
om now, I’ll send the man that is acting as your Father to fetch you in the morning. You will be going back to the house again with him and the woman. You will be there for three or four days this time.”
“Yes Sir.”
He left Glitch’s office and couldn’t help but to smile on the inside, he already had the perfect plan to really screw things up for Slade and this idiot Glitch, what a moron, the scrawny little dude dressed like a pimp from the eighties, weird little geek, and his whole face was tattooed in little ones and zeros, what a freak!
As he was walking back down to the dorms he continued to think about a plan. He had no doubt that John and Dodge could come up with a great trojan horse, all they had to do is copy some fairly useless data onto a microdrive in Dodges office, along with a virus capable of getting into Cyrus’s systems. Toby would go into the office and get the microdrive while Cyrus and Glitch observed. He would bring it back to them and when they plugged it in and copied it to their system they would be screwed. He couldn’t wait to get outside the compound so that he could share this idea with Dodge and John.
Glitch worked late that night on his PC in his office. It took him several hours but he straightened out the mess with the switched DNA and lifefile caused by the buggy LifeTech serial number generator and facial recognition software. What he didn’t know, was that John Calhoun was the real reason files were getting moved around, John also knew about the software problem and exploited it to fool Glitch.
Glitch downloaded Dodge’s lifefile again and double checked it against the DNA file to make sure everything matched. He took the DNA signature and loaded it back into the other side of the software to do a search. The results came back as Dodge Joseph Kerrington, of Noblesville Indiana; this time they had Dodge Kerrington’s correct files for sure.
He put in a request for the actual physical DNA sample and then hacked the database to create a replacement clone request. He changed a legitimate request form made out by a licensed technician, to request Dodge Kerrington’s file number and clone storage bin. The change would result in Dodge’s file and sample being sent to the lab instead of those items for the original person. Glitch had a man on the inside that he paid on a regular basis to do this for him. He sent his man a message that consisted of a thirty two digit file name, and nothing more, it was the only information needed.