by Utley, Todd
“Sounds like a good Idea John. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of everything here.”
“Okay, guys, I’ll let you get back at it and I’ll talk to you tomorrow
morning.”
“Okay, bye.” They ended the call and went to work, there was a great deal to do.
Back at the compound Alice was outside Glitch’s office as ordered gathering her composure. Glitches’ assistant arrived and escorted her in.
“Ah, yes Miss Covings, we have some questions for you.”
“We?” Alice looked around; there was no one else there.
“Well, that is Cyrus and I have some questions that we would like for you to answer.”
“Okay” Alice said, feeling a little worried that someone had seen her and Toby out past curfew.
“It seems that someone accessed some high level files from one of the lab computers, do you know anything about that?”
“No, Sir, I don’t” but she knew it was very likely her and that is was the night that Cyrus tortured the custodian he believed to be Dodge Kerrington.
“Well, Miss Covings, who do you think it might have been if you had to guess?” Her mind was racing to come up with a quick answer.
“Well, I think I may know what happened. Do you remember the day that you were down in lab no. 2 working with me on some lifefiles?”
“Yes I remember.”
“You logged in on the computer in the back there, remember?” Glitch thought for a minute.
“Yes, well, I do now.”
“Well Sir Cyrus called me down there much later, in the middle of the night. When I got there, I noticed the computer was on and a log in screen was still up, the user name and password were filled in but you hadn’t logged in.
I knew this was a security breach and as you know Sir the only way to get out of that screen is to hit enter and log in and then log out, there is no cancel. I was autoclaving a tray of instruments that night for Cyrus because he was working on Dodge Kerrington down there. Anyway I had hit the submit in order to close out the screen and protect the system when the autoclave began beeping that it was done. Cyrus heard it and got angry that it was taking me so long. So I left the station without logging out to take Cyrus the tray. When I returned, it had finished logging in and returned to the last page you had viewed, I guess because you have your settings that way. I saw that it was Kerrington’s file and I logged out immediately Sir.
I intended to tell you about it but Cyrus kept me down there until almost lunch the next day and I was going on only a few hours sleep. I’m sorry Sir, it won’t happen again, I was only trying to protect the system.
Cyrus thought about it for a moment, he did remember making his settings that way on the lab computer and her story sounded plausible, Kerrington’s file was the only one accessed and it was not top secret material anyway. Glitch pondered on her explanation.
“All-right Miss Covings, your answer will suffice, but in the future you must inform me immediately of such an occurrence. Should this happen again, we’ll not be so tolerant. I’ll review my settings on the lab computers to improve our security, maybe add a timeout that closes the page if it’s left in that state. That will be all Miss Covings.”
“Thank you Sir.”
As Alice left Glitch’s office she broke out in a massive sweat, any longer in there and she would have probably passed out. She had no idea that Glitch was watching log in records so carefully. Apparently her story was a possible scenario even though she made it up the best she could. She had nothing and had to think fast. Glitch had been down in the lab earlier that day and was logged in on the PC station. Apparently he thought her suggested chain of events were plausible. She got lucky this time, next time she would have to be more prepared.
She went back to her room to freshen up relieved that she had avoided a potentially deadly situation. If Glitch had been even somewhat convinced that she had logged in using his credentials she would have found herself standing on a sheet of plastic in Slade’s office for sure. She wished she could go hide in that metal oven with Toby right now and never come out again, safe and sound in a metal box that Cyrus’s death signal couldn’t penetrate.
Toby woke up late, quite tired from a night that brought forth a twist in life that he never would have imagined. He felt better than he had in a long time. “Damned good” was the only words he could think of. He hadn’t had that much sex in years. He felt a little guilty about it like he had tainted the memory of his wife. He loved her so much and he had been faithful to her their entire marriage of 52 years. Sure he had looked at other women and he had even wondered what several of them might have been like but he never strayed.
She was a special lady, she was raised right and she was loyal to her man in every way. He hoped that if she could somehow see him that she would forgive him for last night. He also felt a little guilty for thinking about her a couple of times while he was with Alice, it just didn’t seem right but it was unavoidable, after all he had been with his beloved Emily for 52 years, she was all he knew.
He thought about telling Alice to forget it, it was just too weird, but then he remembered how he felt last night while they were together, it was unbelievable, it was talking without words, no it was more like dancing, or maybe both, like they melted together, really good stuff. He thought about it some more while he shaved. He decided to see where it went, he had his entire life in front of him all over again now, immortality could get awfully lonely if you lived in the past, besides nothing in his new life would ever diminish what he had with his sweet Emily.
He showered and dressed then headed down to the kitchen area to see if Alice might be down there. He looked around for a while but didn’t find her, he worried that maybe she had regrets from the night before and might avoid him now. No matter, if that was the case then so be it, either way it was one of the best nights of his life and he would never forget it.
He knew that he and Todd would have to leave soon so he went down to the ovens again to poke around a bit more. He wanted to see if there was anything important that he might have missed. It all looked about the same but he reviewed each aspect of the room just to be sure.
He started wondering how they might secure that room in an emergency. How would they keep someone from breaching the metal walls and allowing Cyrus’s death signal in. He studied the heavy metal doors for nearly five minutes. There was a latch on the outside that was quite impressive, too bad it wasn’t on the inside; it was apparently made this way to be closed from the outside because it was an oven of course and there would never be anyone inside there. The outside latch was intact but had been defeated with two long bolts that went all the way through the door with washers and nuts on the inside. The two bolts kept the outside latch from being movable. Obviously at some time during its use as a paint booth someone was concerned about getting locked inside so they did this to the door for safety purposes. No one wants to spend an entire night locked in a paint booth right?
But now he was trying to figure out how they could do just that. If John and Dodge could organize this take down at the compound that would be great, but what about all the people there that Cyrus would sacrifice immediately upon word of an attack to eliminate the possibility of them testifying against him. This was a very likely scenario.
Toby thought that if they could get enough people informed to come into this oven in the event of an attack on the compound then they could save those people. Cyrus would transmit the signal and think that he had killed them all. But they would be safe in the protective metal walls of the oven, but how would they lock it from the inside?
As he inspected the doors, he realized that the doors were held shut by rods that passed through the interiors of the two doors. They couldn’t be seen from either the inside or the outside. The massive handle on the outside was mounted on a shaft that was obviously connected to a cam inside that moved the rods. The shaft passed through the door and had a large washer and nut on the inside that
held it together. The movement of the handle was defeated by the two bolts that protruded on the outside of the door only allowing the handle to move slightly. He moved it back and forth as far as it would go while looking at the inside of the door where he could see the nut moving. He could hear the rods moving up and down slightly inside the door each time moved the handle.
He looked at the bottom door sill and the top door sill and realized that there were holes in both locations for the rods to pass into. This was a really well built set of solid metal doors that would be extremely tough to get open when closed securely. They were about eight feet tall and the rods were about an inch in diameter so busting it down would be nearly impossible.
The problem remained, that being, you couldn’t lock it from the inside. He sat down on one of the paint buckets and thought about the mechanism for a while. In his former life he had several jobs that required mechanical skills when he was young and he was a fairly good mechanic. Suddenly he realized it, the nut! It was on the inside and it also moved when you moved the handle on the outside.
If he had a wrench that fit that nut then he could easily turn the handle to the locked position from the inside, but what good would that do? The people on the outside still had the handle and they could easily open it. He went back to the outside of the door to look at the handle more closely. Just as he did he startled a guard that was walking by.
“Hey what are you up to there?” He asked.
“Oh, well, hi there,” he looked at the guard’s badge, “Ron, I was told that one of these old ovens had some paint stuff in it. One of the maintenance guys sent me down here to look for some brushes.” “Oh, okay, that’s fine, but why were you looking at that door like that?”
“Well, it’s just built so well you know, and then I started thinking, is this door gonna swing shut and trap me in there? I got all paranoid and really starting looking at it you know, cause then I was really worried that I might die in there or something.”
The security guard laughed.
“You’re funny man! You should be a stand up, that’s hilarious. Look that handle is fixed there where it can’t even move.” The guard jiggled the handle to demonstrate, “relax man, you’re not gonna get locked in there and die.” Toby smiled.
“Yeah I guess you’re right, I just think stupid stuff like that sometimes.”
“I’d say, so did you find any?”
“Any what?”
“Paint brushes, you said you were looking for them.”
“Oh, right. No I didn’t, but I’m still looking. He wanted a large wrench too, said they needed to shut off the water to the commodes up there on three. They’re painting, I guess they gotta take one of the toilettes out or something.” The guard tried to help.
“Well there are some tools back here, let’s see if there’s any wrenches. What’s he need, like a pipe wrench?” Toby thought. “Um, yeah exactly, for the valve, it’s one of those big ones and it’s rusted.”
Toby had noticed the maintenance guys working on the men’s room up on three. There was some water damage and so one guy was painting a patched area and two others were working on replacing the ruptured pipe. The guard led him behind the ovens and down a long dark hall that required the use of the guard’s flashlight. He led him into a maintenance room and turned on a LED light that continued to flicker even after being on for a while.
The dirty old room had obviously been the maintenance room at one time but was now filled mostly with junk and miscellaneous tools lying all around on the benches. The rusty old tool box was in disarray but in spite of being a mess there was a good amount of tools still in it. Toby spotted a large pipe wrench and picked it up.
“This should do,” he said.
They turned off the light and walked back out to the oven area.
“Thanks again Ron, I appreciate the help.”
“No problem man, good luck finding the brushes.”
“Thanks, I’m going to keep looking in this oven, it was a paint booth for a while and there’s lots of paint stuff in there.” “Do you need light?”
“Nah, I think the lights work in here,” he reached in and flipped the switch.
“Yip, they work just fine.”
“What’s your name? Asked the Guard.
“Toby.”
“Nice meeting you Toby, have a good night,” he said, as he went on his way.
“You too Ron, thanks.”
“Wow these guards are so nice they’re almost useless. Then again they’re just like the rest of us, prisoners in this place with the possibility of losing their lives.”
He tried out the wrench on the nut inside the oven door. He could turn the nut and he could see the handle move on the outside of the door and hear the rods moving. He went outside and looked at the big lever handle, it had a large nut on it that held it on. He looked around to see if anyone was in the area. The guard was long gone and not another soul was down there.
Lots of people came down there at night but at mid-day it was usually deserted. He adjusted the pipe wrench to fit the nut on the handle. It was tight and he had to really put his weight into it to break it loose. Once loose, it came off easily with just his fingers. It was a stainless steel assembly so it had no rust on it at all and it was in nice shape. The nut was off but the handle was stuck on the shaft. He had experience with things built like this and he knew that one good whack with a big hammer would probably make it fall right off.
He looked around, still nobody, so he reared back and gave the handle a good whack with the pipe wrench; sure enough, it came right off. Once removed he could see that the shaft was fitted to the handle with a woodruff key way and it was a straight shaft, not tapered, without the woodruff key the handle would just spin on the shaft and be totally useless. This was an ideal situation he thought to himself.
He went back into the paint booth looking for something to pry the little metal woodruff key from the round shaft. In the paint cabinet he found a paint can opener and used that and the wrench to strike it knocking the key out of the shaft. He replaced the handle and the nut and tightened it pretty well. He moved the handle back and forth but it didn’t move the heavy rods for the lock at all. Just as he had hoped, without the key way the handle simply spun on the shaft. You couldn’t really tell though because the handle had only very limited movement due to the two defeating bolts on either side of it that had been added.
He put the wrench on the inside nut and he could still move the rods by turning the nut on the inside of the door, problem solved! The heavy metal doors could now be locked from the inside and couldn’t be operated from the outside at all. Anyone attempting to do so would need a lot of time to figure out what was going on with the door.
He went back inside the oven and looked around more. There were a few holes here and there and the gaps around the door that were filled with an orange rubber seal of some kind that was discolored from years of intense heat. He was sure that it would need to be covered with metal somehow, still quite a challenge. He would have to consult with John and Dodge next time he saw them.
He grabbed a can of light-colored paint from the cabinet and the wrench. He turned off the lights and headed upstairs to level three. He figured he had better go ahead and give the maintenance men the stuff just to cover his story. He noticed there were two more pipe wrenches in the old maintenance room so getting another one later wouldn’t be a problem.
He went up to the third floor and offered the items to one of the workers. The guy just looked at him funny.
“What’s this for?” He asked.
“Well, I was down stairs on the main floor and there was a medium build guy, about like me, he said you guys needed this stuff and he asked me if I could bring it up since I was headed this way.”
“Oh, must have been the morning shift, just set it down there, thanks.” As Toby walked away, he felt proud of what he had accomplished that morning, the oven plan was shaping up nicely.
Chapter 22 At
the Kerrington house everyone was acting as normal as they possibly could. Dodge had been going to work for the past several days at regular time and returning home on schedule as well. He had taken a lot of time off and it had caught up with him at work. He was struggling a bit to get caught up, but was making progress. He tried to focus this morning but he knew that John had been loaded up at the farm last night and he was anxiously waiting on the call that everything was okay. John had just ended his call with Jason, Caitlin, and JC, and was now calling Dodge. When Dodge saw the caller id, he was instantly relieved. He answered.
“Hey buddy, how are you this morning?”
“Well my friend I am completely weirded out right now because I just spoke to myself!”
“Wow, weird huh?”
“Yes, I had not even thought of that until it happened.” “Do you remember anything yet? I mean, from the farm?”
“No, not really I was only awake for a few seconds for that test they always perform when they load someone up, you know the one where they ask you a few questions to make sure you’re in there.”
“Oh, yeah, I know what you mean,” said Dodge.
“So did you? I mean the other . . .” John interrupted, “confusing isn’t it?”
“We took a vote and we decided that I’m going to go by John and my clone is going by JC.”
“Ah, okay, that does help,” agreed Dodge, “It was getting a little tricky there. So does JC seem like he’s all there and healthy, no issues?”
“Yeah we had a nice conversation, I was all there for sure.”
Dodge was trying to get his head around this, he thought that it would work but now that it had happened it was really making him stop in his tracks for a minute.
“Hey ya know Dodge old buddy, in just two days you’re going to be in the same boat.”
“Yeah, you’re right, it’s that time, isn’t it?”
“Hey Buddy, what should we call your clone, DK?” They both laughed.