The Big Ten: The First Ten Books of the Beginnings Series

by Jacqueline Druga

  “Uh, what was that, Forrest?”

  “Woo you mund ef uh tuck El-loon on a det?”

  “One more time.”

  “Tuck a on a det. A det. A det.” Forrest was a bit frustrated.

  “Um ... uh yeah, sure.” Henry nodded.

  “Tank you, An-ray.” Forrest blew out of his mouth and moved to the door. “An-ray, ef I mut? Ma-bay, de pro-blem woos dat you dud net lis-soon e-niff.” He opened the door giving his final advice before he left. “De woo-mun, day ned ta bay heard.”

  Henry scratched his head after the smiling Forrest left. He was certain that whatever Forrest was saying was important. It probably was some worldly advice from a father figure, but Henry just didn’t have the time to take to make out his messages. So, shrugging, Henry hurried and gathered his stuff he needed for his meeting.

  <><><><>

  Joe rubbed that spot above his eyebrows so harshly that if Dean could see, he would know about the huge red spot the action was causing as Joe masochistically placed it upon himself. “It’s not that funny, Dean,” Joe told him.

  “Sorry.” Dean caught his breath. He stood side by side with Joe in the clinic lab. “Those are my choices? What about I finish these tests in this lab then I run to the mobile as planned?”

  “What about not,” Joe stated. “Dean.” Wanting to rub the irritation away some more, Joe stopped. “Andrea has a flu bug or something. She can’t wander two feet from the commode. Now, you wanted to be treated no differently than if you hadn’t lost your sight, and I’m not. If you could see, you wouldn’t be laughing.”

  “Yeah, Joe, but I can’t see. So explain to me why you can’t just have Jason work the clinic and you run Containment when Ellen’s done there.”

  “I can’t run Containment, Dean. After my meeting I have to run out to Metal. They’re shorthanded for the melting. I’ll be there until night.”

  “What about Dan?” Dean asked.

  “Dan is working Perimeter Nine for Huey who broke his ankle.”

  “Robbie.”

  Joe grunted. “Robbie is in Mechanics today, all day. He got a late start and he has to fill in for Dan tonight on Perimeter Seven because Dan is filling in for Huey today.”

  “Why not just leave Ellen in Containment all day then? And I’ll go up to the mobile lab and work with Johnny up there.”

  “Dean! Johnny is up there now running experimental batches. Didn’t we decide he’d do that in the morning, and you and Ellen would do the Agent Seventeen testing afternoon and evenings so no one else knows? How do you propose we keep up the Agent Seventeen facade if you go up there and work with Johnny on it? Though I trust my grandson explicitly, he is his father’s son and I can’t trust what will escape his mouth when a female questions him, trust me. He tells me that Denise is constantly asking him if they are close to curing it. It’s getting on his nerves just like you’re getting on mine now! Now your ass either works this clinic or you’re Ellen’s relief at Containment. Which will it be?”

  “Forrest. Why can’t Forrest ...”

  “Dean!”

  “All right, all right.” Dean held up his hands. “Containment. I’ll work Containment for the next couple days.”

  Joe let out a long audible breath. “Good.” He turned his views from Dean and to the door. “Thank ... Hey! Hey you!”

  Dean jumped from Joe’s yell. “What, what did I do?”

  “Hold up Missy! Stop!”

  “Joe?” Dean asked with such a hesitation. “Why are you calling me Missy?”

  “Not you. Sorry, Dean.” Joe walked away from the counter and he held out his finger to the door, curling it in a call to Ellen. “Now, come here.”

  Ellen whined, “Aw, Joe, I’m busy, I have to get back over to Containment.”

  “Not so fast.”

  Dean snickered at Ellen’s stomp as she entered the lab. “Hi, El.”

  “Hi, Dean.” She walked in. “Can I kiss you yet?”

  “Nope. Cowboy law. I don’t want to get killed.”

  “Aw,” she whined again. “It’s a Slagel thing, this cowboy law. It’s not real.”

  Joe cleared his throat. “I beg to differ. Clint would beg to differ ... the Duke would beg to differ with ...”

  “Oh, Joe, the Duke is dead and we should assume so is Clint. I have to get back to Containment. The animals are left unattended.” She turned to leave. “Bye, Dean.”

  “Not so fast,” Joe called out.

  Dean was curious. “El? What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” she answered. “Joe, I have to go.”

  “Ellen,” Joe spoke firmly. “I know, no wait, the whole goddamn town knows you and Henry broke up last night, but do you think it helped matters by getting drunk ...” He saw Ellen open her mouth and he held his hand up. “Don’t deny it. Josephine told me.”

  “Oh Josephine could barely stand last night. She was offering herself to Forrest.”

  “Still,” Joe continued. “Do you think ...”

  “Joe, my head hurts.”

  “Ellen it’s bad enough you got drunk beyond walking straight, but do you mind telling me why in God’s name I had to walk into my son’s bedroom and see you in bed with Robbie?”

  A thump, a rattle, and a bang.

  Ellen hurried to Dean’s aid. “See, Joe, you knocked a blind man off his balance. Here, Dean.” She helped him to his feet. “How did you fall?”

  “Frank!” Dean yelled.

  Ellen looked at Joe then back to Dean. She spoke to him like he was three, “Sweetheart, Frank isn’t here. Did you think he pushed you?”

  “No.” Dean felt out for the stool. “He keeps moving my things on me. I always have that stool at the end of the counter.”

  Ellen giggled. “Sorry.” She bent down and picked up the stool. “Here.” She led his hand to it. “Joe, for your information, I didn’t have sex with Robbie last night.” She looked at Dean. “I didn’t have sex with Robbie, Dean, honest. I wanted to sleep at your house and ... never mind, long story. I told you most of it. I just slept in the same bed as Robbie. He was so sound asleep, he didn’t even know I was there.”

  “Sex or no sex,” Joe said, “it’s the same thing.”

  Ellen laughed at him. “Oh I beg to differ, Joe. Really I do. Has it been that long for you?” She snickered and nudged Dean. “Anyhow, why are you preaching morals to me?”

  “This has nothing to do with morals, Ellen. This has everything to do with my goofy-ass son. He woke up in bed with you this morning and you know as well as I do, there is nothing he loves more than to get people started. I have spoken my peace.” Joe stepped back. “Since you were in such a hurry to leave, I’ll walk your ass to Containment so you can prepare a day for Dean in there.” He heard Ellen snicker. “Yeah you heard me, Dean in Containment.”

  “But, Joe, he’s blind. How will he control them?” Ellen tried not to laugh.

  “Get your new buddy to help. Let’s go.” He reached out and snatched her by her arm. “Say good-bye to Dean.”

  “Bye, Dean.” Ellen tried to kiss him but Joe pulled her back. “Hey!”

  “Cowboy law.”

  <><><><>

  Joe remembered well in the old world how, whenever he used to enter a store, a slight buzzing would occur to let the clerk know someone had entered. It was a great idea, Joe thought. He didn’t know they had one in Beginnings, but found out his office did when he opened the door and heard the moan.

  Alarm system or stupidity? Knowing that deep voice well, Joe shut the door and opened it, again another moan. “Frank?” Joe walked into his office. “What is wrong with you?”

  “You keep hitting me with that door.” Frank stood to the side of the open drawer of the file cabinet. “Here I am, putting away your stupid reports, and you hit me with the door.”

  “I wouldn’t hit you with the door if you would stand in front of the file cabinet.” Joe walked behind his desk. “Sorry I was late.”

  “That’s OK.” Frank shut the top
drawer. “Henry isn’t here yet. So, where were you?”

  “Fighting with Ellen. Arguing. Seems from what I heard, she was quite wasted last night. Then I tried to tell her she can’t live with me. Nothing against Ellen, Frank, but I don’t want her with me. Christ, she has your house and Dean’s. Lord knows I don’t want to open Robbie’s bedroom door again and see her in his bed.”

  “What!”

  “Now don’t get yourself all worked up. She was in his bed and ... and ... you’d better have a talk with that brother of yours, taking advantage of her in that state.”

  “Oh, I’ll talk to Robbie all right, after I beat his fuckin ass.” Frank pounded his fist once into the side of the filing cabinet, adding yet another Frank-dent.

  “Yeah it’s a real shame. I go walking in there. Imagine my shock.”

  “Fuck. I should have known. I know what she gets like when she gets drunk. I should have just slept with her like she asked me to.”

  “Frank.”

  “What?”

  Joe motioned his head to his office door that had just opened and Henry entered.

  “Hey.” Frank cleared his throat, placed the stack of reports he held on top of the file cabinet, and closed the drawer. “Let’s uh, start this meeting.”

  Henry watched Frank walk away from that cabinet and to a chair by his father’s desk. “She asked you to sleep with her?”

  “Did I say that?” Frank looked at his father. “I didn’t say that, did I?”

  Henry sat down. “Yeah, you did. What made you turn her down, Frank?”

  “Well, you know, she was drunk, she was on the rebound.” Frank looked at Henry. “What the hell happened to your arm? You have a huge welt.”

  Henry rolled his eyes. “Steve, your guard, flicked a cigarette off the tower and burned me.”

  “He’s an asshole,” Frank commented. “Anyhow, as I was saying before Henry rudely interrupted, Danny is working on this tracking system. He said it will take a week or two to get it up and running once he gets out of Containment and gets his supplies. Now I have a security plan. In fact, I’d like to put it into motion as soon as possible. It goes along with our new First Defense System.”

  “Which is?” Joe asked.

  “More choppers,” Frank stated. “Two more birds.” He heard Henry moan. “What?”

  “We went through this before, Frank,” Henry said. “We’d have to take a truck to wherever they are, repair them, charge the battery, and gas them. It’s too much of a risk.”

  “Dad.”

  “We did discuss this before, Frank.”

  “I know,” Frank nodded, “but things are different now. We haven’t any idea how many of those SUTs, or even people working for George, are out there now. Dad, you know as well as I do, if a hundred are at that back gate perimeter, four can be the suicide squad and hold back the beams while the others storm us. It’s a fear I have, and what will we do? We’re done. With Danny’s tracking system, we get them by air and we take them out beforehand.”

  “And you don’t think two is enough?” Joe asked.

  “Two is enough,” Frank said, “but we depend on both of them. We should have backup, like everything else here. We should be prepared for something to happen. We have four pilots. I’d like to start training four more, and I have the four picked out. Look, I have the route all planned.” Frank lifted up and pulled a wrinkled piece of paper from his back pocket. He laid it on the table. “We pack up a small tanker, four men. We send them out to Minot Air Force Base, a six hour trip tops from here and you know it. Seven if they piss around. We send them out at five a.m. they get there by noon. We spot out two birds. Come on, last time we did a spot-check of the place, no one had touched it. No one even attempted to take the padlocks off the gates we set up. It’s buried under five feet of jungle. Dirt, bugs, yeah, but we’ve done it before. We’ve picked up a second chopper. How long did it take you, Henry? Four hours. What did we do? We brought the battery from the chopper we had running and used that to help power the new one home. Then we took it out and gave it its own battery. We can do the same here. Take two batteries with us from our birds and take them back out once we land them.” Frank looked at his father. “Dad, we can have our men back home by ten p.m. that night. Hell, let’s do one better. Let’s take one of the spare tankers, a little one, and just leave it there. We can pick up another tanker a hell of a lot easier than we can pick up a bird. Our men will fly home. Home by five, dinner time.” Frank was so certain.

  “Who’s the crew?” Joe questioned.

  “Bart will drive. He won’t be missed in Security. Robbie and Johnny to fly. Robbie especially because he’s canvassing for missiles, while ... while Henry fixes the choppers.”

  “No,” Henry stated. “No, Frank. I can’t go.”

  “One day.”

  “My life is in shambles right now. No I can’t.”

  “Yes you can,” Frank argued. “Don’t be such a wuss.”

  Henry gasped, “Why don’t you go?”

  “Because I can’t fix the fuckin choppers, that’s why. I don’t claim to be the ‘Head Mechanic’ around here. I’m not the one who boasts and brags that I put together an entire helicopter engine when it lay in pieces last year. Am I? No.” Frank pointed at him. “You will go.”

  “Joe.” Henry looked to Joe.

  Joe tossed his hands up. “I wish you would go, Henry. But, Frank, you know our established rules. We can’t make a man go if he has children.”

  “Yeah.” Henry folded his arms.

  “Oh that’s bullshit. Henry wouldn’t have even of thought about that. Look at Greg. He went out for weeks and he had a child.”

  Joe shook his head with so much sarcasm on his face. “Greg’s dead, Frank. Good example.”

  “Yeah,” Henry pointed out, “his son is an orphan now.”

  Frank grunted and stood up. “Dad, can I have this trip if I find someone who can fix the choppers?”

  Joe nodded. “Sure, Frank. Lay it out. I’ll authorize it as soon as you’re ready.”

  “Good.” Frank walked to the door. “We’ll leave Thursday.”

  “Where are you going?” Joe called out.

  “To get the person that can fix the choppers. Obviously it’s not Henry ...” Frank flung open the door.

  “Who, Frank?” Joe yelled.

  “Danny.” He slammed the door angrily and stood outside trying to calm down before heading into town. He patted his chest pocket and twitched his head in disgust. “Fuck.” Spinning around he opened his father’s office door, walked in, walked up to Joe, reached in Joe’s chest pocket, and grabbed a cigarette. “Thanks.” He placed it in his mouth and lit it as he walked back out.

  With his mouth hanging open, Joe pointed to the door. “Did he just ...”

  “No.” Henry shook his head.

  “But I just saw him.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  “No I didn’t?”

  “Oh no, Joe. That wasn’t Frank,” Henry told him. “It’s never Frank who smells like cigarette smoke or is smoking. Didn’t you know that? It’s Robbie, so just keep in mind when you get really frustrated while asking him about it, that he’s gonna tell you that wasn’t him that walked in here, stole a cigarette, and lit it. It was Robbie.”

  <><><><>

  “Come on, Dean. Relax.” Ellen held on to his arm as they walked slowly down the hall of Containment. “You’re so tense I can feel it shooting from you.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Sure you can.” Ellen brushed into him. “Bentley and Danny and the cable guy are all gonna help you with the rough six.”

  “Rough six?”

  “Yeah, they’re a little rough. They fight all the time so just ignore them. Danny said he’ll handle them for you.”

  Dean sniffed predominantly. “Why am I smelling an overabundance of Hair Hold in this place?” Dean stopped, grazed his hand up to Ellen’s head and felt. “Your hair is soft.”

  “Thanks.
” She messed up his. “So is yours. Bentley is practicing women’s hairstyles in the skills room. I gave him some old magazines. Oh, Dean, he said he’ll cut your hair.”

  “Swell.” He started walking again with her. “Are there women here now?”

  “Don’t be silly. Women aren’t safe here. Well, I am.”

  “Then who is Bentley practicing on?”

  “Who else? The men. They look really funny, Dean, with their hair in rollers. Too bad you can’t see them.”

  “El.”

  “Sorry.” She brought him into the skills room. “You should see Os-Oscar, Dean. He is wearing a flip.” Ellen giggled. “Of course he isn’t Os-Oscar anymore. Jason cured him, the dick.” Ellen smiled. “Oh, here’s Danny. He’s approaching you with an extended hand, Dean. He’s about six foot tall.” Ellen guided Dean’s arm up. “Danny, this is Dean.”

  “The first ex-husband.” Danny shook his hand. “I’m Danny Hoi. Nice to meet you. So you’re ... you’re ... you’re blind.”

  Dean raised his head. “You didn’t know?”

  “Holy shit, no,” Danny said. “Ellen failed to mention the man she bragged about being the brilliant scientist was blind. Whoa. She should have bragged more.”

  Dean was curious. “Danny, if you didn’t know I was blind, why did you think Ellen asked you to help me out in here?”

  “To be honest?” Danny chuckled. “I just thought maybe you were ... you were a pansy?”

  Dean’s mouth dropped open.

  Frank’s loud ‘he is’ bellowed at them.

  Ellen hunched. “Oh shit, it’s Frank. I’m out of here. Danny, you know what I told you? Dean, is all the stuff at the clinic?”

  “El ...” Dean tried to talk.

  “Good. Danny will help you read the schedule. See ya.” Quickly she kissed Dean on the cheek and faced the end of the hall to see Frank walking her way. Debating on whether to run, or face him, Ellen decided to run. She charged forward down the hall to make her escape but Frank blocked her. “I have to go.” She moved to her right.

  “Nope.” Frank moved again to stop her.

  “Frank.” She moved to her left.