“How long could the virus have been in the systems before it was executed?”
“Since a week or two after the generators were originally brought online.”
“That's a long time...” Robert nodded. “So, that's almost a dead end.”
“It proves that whoever did it had access to that software,” Joe pointed out. “That includes you, me, most of the rest of the council, and some maintenance personnel. It couldn't be more than two hundred people at the very outside.”
“Or anyone else who managed to hack into the system,” Cleo pointed out.
“No one could do that,” Brother asserted.
“She and Rob could,” Azure speculated.
“Possibly,” he ceded. “However, since Rob helped design it, that would still qualify as an inside job.”
“Considering the fact that the clones were grown at the institute,” Robert replied, “I think we can assume – until we can prove otherwise – that it was an inside job. Could Quail have gotten access to the generators?”
“I can't see any way that he could have,” Joe replied. “He doesn't have any clearance at all outside the lab.”
“What if Quail wasn't lying?” Morgan mused aloud.
“I think we would remember giving him permission to clone us, Morgan,” Azure replied. “That kind of thing stands out in your memory.”
“Not if your memories had been wiped,” the young man pointed out, “but, that's not really my point. What if Quail was doing legitimate research, had been led to believe that the girls were willing to let him clone them and then they showed up to sign the permission forms. Would he suspect they were clones? We didn't.”
“I have to say...” Robert said before pausing for a moment, “that is a very interesting line of reasoning. Where could the clones have been originally grown if not at the institute?”
“Who knows?” Morgan replied, throwing his hands up. “We can grow clones on the ship.”
“Not quite as quickly – or as high a quality – but, your point is valid. If you could already grow the clones though, why involve the institute.”
“Several reasons,” Morgan replied. “First, you make Quail your patsy. If things go wrong, he's the one who ends up under the bus. Second, maybe you've only got access to one tank. That would allow you to grow three clones but, not hold three lovely ladies prisoner. Third, if everything worked out, the girls would be hidden in plain sight. Everybody with security clearance would be sure to know about them, but they couldn't talk about it to the outside world. Result: it's a secret that doesn't look like a secret.”
“Morgan,” Sister said, clearly stunned, “have you solved the first formula yet?”
“I'm getting close.”
“It's an interesting theory,” Robert admitted, “but, it is just a theory.”
“Aren't we at the theoretical stage?” Azure asked.
“We are, but...”
“Well, I think it's a brilliant theory,” she interrupted, offering her boyfriend a sweet smile.
“I guess what I want to know is: what led you to this train of thought, Morgan?”
“It was actually rather simple,” he explained. “Since we know that Sturm is behind all this...”
“Do we?” Joe interrupted.
“No,” Robert assured him.
“May I continue?” Morgan asked.
“Please,” Robert replied.
“Since all of us who aren't delusional know that Sturm is behind all this,” he continued, “it was a simple matter to work it all out. The first thing he did – Well, the very first thing he did was expect you to fail to stop Marcus Delmont but, that wasn't really an action. The first thing he actually did was talk to you about stopping on your own.”
“Technically,” Robert said, “the first thing he did was drag us in front of the council, but go on.”
“When that didn't work, he sabotaged our navigational charts intending to get the ship beat up and send us limping home humiliated. However, he accidentally almost got Vox killed doing this. That bothered him for two reasons. Had Vox died, it could have wrecked up time even worse and – although the man is a jackass...”
“And then some,” Robert added.
“He's not a murderer. That being the case, he made his next attempt with a scalpel rather than a hatchet. Taking advantage of Rob's ego...”
“And Morgan's stupidity.”
“Sturm managed to get the fan-club on board – complete with clone-Summers. She infected the ship with a virus that took control of it and attempted to leave us safe – but stranded – in the past. Once again, Robert beat him.”
“That goes without saying.”
“But, how did Robert beat him? Using his phenomenal crew. Without Azure, the ship might very well have blown up. Without Cleo, Robert might never have gotten rid of the virus.”
“Not to mention you, Doc, and Vox,” Cleo said with a smile.
“So, Sturm – using his almost as smart as Rob brain – comes up with a new plan. He's going to plant dissension in the ranks. In order to do that, he replaced the girls with clones hoping to break up the crew and cause all kinds of problems. Obviously, fighting with Celeste all the time, as well as... other... things... throws Vox off his A game. At the same time, clone-Cleo and clone-Azure tried to get Rob and I fighting via jealousy.”
“In what way did they try to incite jealousy?” Azure asked.
“I mean that we were jealous of the time your two clones spent together,” Morgan lied.
“Yeah,” Robert immediately agreed. “Both your clones hardly spoke to us. All they did was sit in Cleo's room talking all the time.”
“And that made you jealous?” Cleo asked.
“Very,” Morgan lied some more.
“Ah,” Azure smiled. “That's sweet.”
“So, at this point,” Morgan continued, “all we have to do is ask ourselves a few questions. Did Sturm have access to the time-generators?”
“Yes,” Joe nodded.
“Did Quail?”
“No.”
“Could Sturm have written that virus?”
“I believe so,” Cleo nodded.
“Could Quail?”
“No,” Sister replied. “He's an expert on clones but, to the best of my knowledge – and I know a fair amount about him – he wouldn't be capable of writing anything that complex.”
“Could Sturm have made the clones?”
“Yes,” Robert nodded.
“Could Quail?”
“Yes,” Robert replied again.
“Well then,” Morgan said, “using first-grade math, we can clearly see that Sturm did it with a final score of three to one.”
“That is crazy talk, Morgan,” Robert laughed.
“Either way,” Joe said, “I think talking to Quail would be a good place to start. Morgan has put forward some very interesting – and entertaining – theories but, the only real evidence we have implicates Quail.”
“That is a valid point,” Robert nodded. “While you're checking into that, we'll start trying to hunt down the red ship. It'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack but – if we can find it – it will almost certainly lead us to whoever it is we're looking for.”
“Sounds like a good place to start,” Joe smiled. “Now, can we eat?”
As Celeste had just come in with the food, they could.
Chapter 15: There You Are
“Yesterday was a good day,” Morgan said, sliding down into his usual seat.
“I thought so,” Robert agreed.
“We finally got to clear the air about Sturm, we had an excellent breakfast-dinner, and – most importantly – we got to spend some quality time with the girls.”
“True. Well, except for the Sturm part, obviously.”
“The evening would have been perfect had we been able to kiss them goodnight.”
“Also true,” Robert nodded slowly.
“Which leads us to the indisputable conclusion; Cleo needs t
o turn the program back on.”
“Actually – as surprising as you may find it – I completely agree.”
“I'm glad,” Morgan said, taking a deep breath, “because, I seriously have some memories to wash out of my mouth.”
“I know what you mean,” Robert chuckled.
“You think maybe we should erase all of that? I mean; it was all very weird.”
“I don't think so. It'll serve as a lesson to us in the future. It's a lesson I don't want to risk forgetting.”
“I can see that, I guess,” Morgan agreed. “Either way, when are you going to speak to her?”
“Already have.”
“What did she say?”
“Soon. She asked me to give her a day or two more,” Robert said, a wide smile spreading across his face. “Apparently, watching TV all cuddled up to me in her pajamas put a little too much strain on her system. Well that, and she's afraid of you shooting her now.”
“Had to do it,” Morgan asserted.
“Oh, we know,” Robert chuckled, “but, it's not really the getting shot she's afraid of. It's the embarrassment that follows it.”
“She's got nothing to be embarrassed about. It's just us.”
“I know, but...” Robert began before something on the wall attracted his attention. “Morgan, what is that?”
“Looks like a snail,” the young man replied, glancing over his shoulder.
“I think you're right, Morgan. I think it is a snail.”
“Certainly looks like one.”
“What do you think it's doing here?”
“Crawling,” Morgan shrugged. “Do they crawl? I have no idea, actually. What form of locomotion is that? In my mind, crawling requires legs. Sliding? Slime-ing, maybe?”
“Generally, snails are thought to crawl, but I don't mean; what is it doing here. I mean; what is it doing here?”
“Oh. Well, it probably just got out of the tank. I forgot to close the lid.”
“Mmmm,” Robert hummed. “Don't you think you should go close it, then?”
“I already did. That was, like, a week ago.”
“A week?”
“Yeah,” Morgan chuckled. “Do you know how far the galley is from the bridge in snail-miles? He must have made a beeline – or a snail-line, I guess – straight up here to make it in that short a time. Maybe he wanted to look out of the window. There isn't much to see in that tank other than more snails and fresh lettuce.”
“Mmmm,” Robert hummed again. “Let me make sure I've got this straight: there's a tank filled with live snails and fresh lettuce in the galley.”
“Basically. The lettuce doesn't stay fresh, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I have to change it every few days.”
“Obviously. Where do you get the lettuce from?”
“I grow it. I bought a kit. It came with a grow light and everything.”
“That explains that, then,” Robert nodded. “Now; why do we have a tank filled with snails and occasionally-fresh lettuce in the galley?”
“They're an ingredient we may need for date night on the ship. If we ever happen to get around to doing that again.”
“So, we're going to eat them?”
“We were... I don't know now, though... I shouldn't have named them.”
“You named them?” Robert asked.
“I did,” Morgan confirmed.
“Which one is that?”
“Bob.”
“I see. Where did you get them from?”
“I bought them on the island from a comestibles boutique. That's a grocery store.”
“I know what it is. When did you get them?”
“That day me and Azure went shopping and Sister made me into a ninja.”
“Alright. Well, two things, Morgan,” Robert said. “First, make sure you get Bob back to the galley before you wander off to do anything else.”
“Aye, aye,” Morgan saluted.
“Second, don't bring any more live animals on board without asking me first.”
“Not a problem,” the young man said with a smile. “Anyway, what have we got planned for the day?”
“A lot,” Robert replied. “In fact, we've got a whole lot planned for the next few days, at least. Joe contacted Doctor Quail first thing this morning and asked to speak to him three days from now about the status of the project.”
“Why three days?”
“Joe didn't want it to look like he was in a rush. If we frighten our quarry, we may have to chase it. If we don't, we may be able to get it to walk into a trap on its own.”
“Good idea. What do we do in the mean time?”
“Search for the red ship,” Robert explained. “Wherever it went, we have to do our best to find it. That will likely prove difficult. If it had made any major changes to the time-lines, we would know about it. It hasn't; which means we have to dig through all the minor time changes that have taken place since we last ran into it.”
“There can't be all that many of those,” Morgan asserted. “No one else is going around changing time but us.”
“You'd think that,” Robert smiled, “but, that's not how it works. All the paradoxical loops currently in the universe – and there are a lot of them – are constantly twisting the time-lines. Most of those are closed-loops of course – meaning that they don't affect anything outside of themselves – but not all of them are. Then, there are ripple effects that we've caused – like very slightly altering the gravitational field of that system where we left our backup time-drive.”
“How did we alter the gravitational field?”
“We added mass to the system,” the traveler explained. “Now, obviously, detecting something like that is basically impossible – unless equipment that detects that kind of thing just happens to be in the area at the right time – but the point is that we did change time in that regard.
“So, we have to scour the databases, looking at every alteration – no matter how small – that could have been caused by the red ship. Obviously, something like a picture of it showing up in an ancient scroll would be great, but that's not likely to happen. Still, we have to try.”
“So, basically, we're back to sixteen hour days where all of us only see each other in passing for the foreseeable future?”
“No. There's been enough of that lately.”
“More than enough,” Morgan agreed.
“We're going to work a few hours, take a few hours off, work a few hours, etc. We could literally be doing this for months, so we can't wear ourselves out.”
“Months?”
“Possibly,” Robert nodded. “We have enemies – probably plural – here in Never Never Land. Until we flush them out, we have to put our work on hold. Our job is difficult enough without having to worry about someone actively working against us.”
“Actually,” Morgan said thoughtfully, “that makes me wonder: if our enemies are here and they were the ones in the red ship...”
“Which they just about had to be.”
“How did they get to the ship and how did they get back here?”
“Actually, Morgan,” Robert nodded. “That's an excellent question. Coming and going wouldn't be the easiest thing in the universe to do.”
“How could it be done at all?”
“Well, if you remember, Vox and I cloaked the ship where no one here could detect it.”
“I do remember. That wasn't a month ago.”
“I was using if you remember in a rhetorical sense. Anyway, my point is that a small army with a gestalt cleverness equal to Vox and me could do the same thing. However, that's a long shot. It's much more likely that they took a delivery pod the way Cleo did when she went to take a little time off on her home-planet.”
“She never planned to come back,” Morgan pointed out.
“She just said that.”
“She lied?”
“No,” Robert replied, shaking his head. “I'm sure she meant it at the time, she just did
n't know what she was saying because she was so mad at me. Either way, the point is, people occasionally go back to their home-worlds for vacation. The pods take them back to a place and time where they can enjoy themselves without hurting the time-lines. Which gives us a real thread to pull. We can see who was dropped off recently – and where – and see if we can't trace old red that way. Morgan, man, you are seriously getting smarter every day.”
“I hang out in good company now.”
“You hang out in the best company now.”
As soon as the data was downloaded, the crew went to work. At the first three hour mark – which Morgan had been carefully watching for – Robert was as good as his word. He stopped immediately and the entire crew took a three hour rest period – during which, they bowled a few games – which Robert lost – played a few hands of poker – which Robert won – and ate an MRE lunch (so that no one had to do the cooking).
At the end of the next three hour work period, Cleo had to ask Robert to stop several times before he finally agreed to take a break. After another three hours of general relaxation, he asked everyone to work one more shift. Which they agreed to do, as he had been fairly good about breaks.
After that shift was over, it was almost – but not quite – time for bed. As a result, they decided to watch a movie. Cleo admitted that she had always felt that television was an extremely archaic form of entertainment, as one could be programmed with whatever movies or shows they wanted to have seen. However, having experienced actually watching them – while snuggling with her fiancé – she now understood their inherent entertainment value.
Day two didn't start out as well. Robert felt that he was onto something and asked the rest of the crew to go ahead without him; assuring Cleo that he would be there in ten minutes. Feeling that he had at least that much time to spare, Morgan fed Bob and the rest of his snails some fresh lettuce before heading to the bridge – where he suspected everyone else would be.
“So,” he heard Celeste saying as he drew nearer, “my clone stole an escape-pod?”
“She did,” Doc assured her.
“That didn't tip you off that she wasn't me?” Celeste asked, turning to look at her husband.
Bad Behavior (The Last Time Traveler Book 3) Page 26