She stood behind him waiting to be sensed. Nothing. Bev reached down and tapped him on his back. “Henry.”
Henry peered over his shoulder. “Yeah.” Then he returned to work.
“Why do they have Beginnings Day in October? It’s cold.”
“Because . . .” Henry made his adjustment. “People will go in sooner. That’s a Joe theory . . .” Henry grunted as he worked. “If we have it in the summer, people will stay out until three in the morning. Hell it starts at noon.”
“It makes no sense.”
“What do you want, Bev?” Henry kept his back to her.
“I’m being nice. Today’s the day. You have a huge responsibility coming your way. You’re an emotional hero, so-to-speak,” she shrugged. “Anyhow, I’m off to the clinic. Like I said, today is the day that the truth comes out.”
Henry’s hands had stopped moving somewhere in her little ‘edge-on’ speech. He kept staring, his mind racing, until he sensed and felt she was gone. When he looked back over his shoulder, she was. He didn’t want to question anymore. He wasn’t supposed to know. Knowing that, Henry decided to play the ‘ill-informed’ part.
Taking the long way around, Bev made it to the clinic. She had a skip to her step, a sneaky skip, along with a twinge of nervousness. That nervousness was doubled when she saw Dean and Johnny walking down the corridor to the main doors. Bev stopped cold as they kept walking. She took a breath, smiled, and proceeded, this time blocking Dean’s way.
“Hi, Dean.”
“Bev.” Dean tried to get by her but she still blocked his way. “Excuse me.”
“Oh sure.” She stepped aside. “Oh, wait, Dean.”
Dean stopped and looked back.
“Wish me luck. Today’s the day, you know?” She gave a thumbs up with a smile. “I’ll see you later.” She turned backed and happily strode down the hall.
Johnny looked down at Dean who still stared in oddity towards the hallway where Bev once was. “Dr. Dean? What was that about?”
Dean shook his head and shrugged. “Who knows?” He looked at his watch. “I’m heading down. If anyone looks for me . . .”
“Meaning Bev?”
“Ha-ha-ha. Funny. I’m in the lab.” Still slowly shaking his head, Dean headed from the clinic.
Johnny with arrogance and cockiness . . . smiled.
Quantico Marine Headquarters
Dr. Walker finished untwisting George’s intravenous tubing and lifted George’s head upright. The silence in the room projected by Steward told him it was something of importance and Dr. Walker really didn’t want to be around for anything ‘delicately’ discussed. George was making progress, getting better day by day. Physically he was improving. His left hand was still crippled and Dr. Walker feared that it may never be normal. With the exception of his head, which uncontrollably fell forward or to the side every so often, George’s face was looking less grotesque the more the nerve feeling came back. But verbally and mentally, George was the old George. He yelled and snapped again, even more so because he grew increasingly frustrated with his slow physical rehabilitation.
After Dr. Walker left, Steward wasted no time in dropping a stack of papers before George on the tray before his high back wheel chair. “The scouts just came back. We got hit somewhere around Indiana.”
George’s good hand flipped through the papers “Did we take any out?”
“About twenty.”
“Twenty? And they still wiped us out. Jesus Christ, how many were there?”
Steward shrugged. “There had to be more than us. We lost a hundred and twenty-five men, not to mention the equipment that was destroyed.”
“They just attacked?” George’s hand tapped on the stack.
“Appears so.”
“It makes no sense. What did they take?”
“Our scouts spotted our weapons, but no food.”
“There couldn’t have been that much food,” George stated, “not to justify this. I know Savages from my Beginnings days. They strike areas that have what they need, areas they can rape and move on. They don’t strike moving brigades. Now granted, more recently they’ve had unprovoked attacks usually what, bands of eight? But entire armies of them?” George shook his head. “Where are they coming from? Do we know?”
“No, sir.”
“First order of business. They have to be in that area. They . . .” George’s head plopped forward. “Steward, could you . . .”
“Certainly.” Steward reached forward and lifted George’s head.
“Thank you. What’s our latest head count for our troops?”
“They are almost all in, sir,” Steward answered. “We have about three movements still due in. Here at Quantico, we’re nearly at capacity. In fact, we followed orders and moved the excess down south to our factories and plantations.”
“I know I called them all in but send out a scouting party of our best trained ten men with heavy artillery. Head straight out to that area and pull a circumference search around. That many Savages will have to be in that area. Their orders are to take them out.”
“Ye, sir.” Steward grabbed the stack of papers. “Shall we increase security around the bases, plantation, factories and such?”
“No.” George shook his head. He shouldn’t have. It fell drastically to the side.
Steward straightened it.
George acted like the head falling thing was nothing. “Savages are basically Midwest bred. They tend to stick in that part of the country. Our main bases are too far east or south. I highly doubt they’ll hit us. I think this could be an isolated incident.”
“Then we’ll eliminate them as ordered. I’ll return later, sir.” Steward moved to the door.
“Oh, Steward. Make sure if you hear anything from my daughter, you let me know. Today’s the day.”
Steward paused in the door frame then turned around. “May I . . .” He held up a finger. “. . . take a slight chance here on getting my head torn off, but what does this plan have to do with anything?” He braced himself.
George huffed. “Dr. Hayes is a very vital link to not only their biological and medical future, but their security as well.”
“So why this plan? I thought you wanted him for us.”
“I do. But . . . like I have always said, if you can’t get them to join you, you might as well destroy them.”
“This will destroy him?” Steward asked.
“Enough to make up for what he did to me? Yes.”
“I understand. Payback is a real bitch.”
“You got it, especially when it comes from me.” George chuckled. It didn’t sound normal. Steward smiled in return and George nodded a goodbye. The second the door closed, George’s head fell forward, causing his chin to meet his chest. “Damn it.”
Beginnings, Montana
Pacing about his cryo-lab always helped Dean think. He paced and talked out loud as he reviewed his notes. “I had to miss something,” Dean said, hearing the clink of a chain with every movement he made. “But where?” He waved his hand to the top of his hair in a flinging manner. “Bub, please, not now.” Dean moved back over to the counter and set his notes down. The buzz of the door made him look up.
Bub, the lobotomized Savage with his shaved head and healing scar, squealed and moved his shackled hands about in excitement when Frank walked in.
“Hey Dean. Bub.” Frank nodded to Bub’s little corner of the lab, the place Dean and Ellen brought him and hooked his chains when they felt Bub needed to get out of the deer room.
“What’s up, Frank?” Dean asked. “Don’t feed him.”
“It’s just a cracker.” Frank was reaching into his pocket.
“No. I’m testing him before I leave for Beginnings Day. I’ll feed him afterward.”
“Dean, you suck.” Frank inched his way over to Bub and handed him a cracker.
Dean looked back when he heard Bub’s squeal. He saw Frank patting him on the head. “If my tests get messed up . . .”
Dean grunted as he reviewed his notes. “What’s the reason for the visit, Frank?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Oh good.” Dean was sarcastic.
Frank pulled up a stool and knocked on the counter. “I need your attention.”
Dean set down his notes. “Will you leave if I give it?”
“Yes.”
“You got it.”
“All right. This mental disability? How much longer?” Frank questioned.
“I told you probably tomorrow. I don’t know. You can’t be too sure of these things, Frank.”
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“Do you have anything you can give me to make me normal?”
Dean laughed. “Frank, listen to you.”
“Seriously, Dean. I have a very important strategic meeting and I can’t take a chance on this temporary mental disability getting in the way. You don’t have an experimental smart pill hanging around down here?”
“No, I don’t have an . . . an . . .” Dean smiled. “Actually Frank, it’s funny you should ask. I have an experimental intelligence pill.”
“Will that be the same thing?”
Dean hesitated. “Um, it may. I only have one and . . . it’s experimental. It’ll only last twenty-four hours and it may delay this temporary mental disability from leaving.”
“I’ll chance it. Let me have it.”
Dean stared at the hand held out to him and hid his sneaky grin. “I’ll be right back.” Dean stood up and headed to the back. The man in him couldn’t resist the payback, but the scientist in him was even more curious. For as close-minded as Frank was about some things, he was way too open-minded about others. Vulnerability and placebos would make an interesting case study. Mind over matter had always been a scientific debate and for future reference and generations to come, Frank himself could be a study all on his own. Part one would be Frank believing he had a temporary mental disability, which actually did have some medical merit with the slight swelling of the brain Frank was still experiencing from his head injuries. Frank had bought it so easily and fell into it, even becoming worse if that was possible. Part two would be the small green pill made of tea leaves that Dean had developed for the three hypochondriacs of Beginnings. For Frank purposes, Dean would call the pill, the ‘S.I.P’. He laid it in Frank hand. “The S.I.P. Super Intelligence Pill.”
“Whoa.” Frank looked at it.
“Take it.”
“How long will it take if it works?”
“Immediately.” Dean nodded, knowing what he was doing could be considered medically and psychologically unethical, but this was Frank.
“O.K.” Frank placed the pill in his mouth, grabbed Dean’s mug of coffee and washed it down. “Nothing.”
“Wait.”
“Nothing.”
“Frank, you have to give it time.”
“Dean, I’m . . . whoa . . .” Frank lost his balance a little.
Dean held back a snicker. “What?”
“I feel clearer.”
“Really?” Dean pulled a notepad in front of him and marked the time. “How much clearer?”
“Very clear.” Frank snapped his fingers. “My mind is racing. Shit, I feel smarter.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, ask me anything. I bet I’ll know it`. I know . . .” Frank nodded. “Ask me math. I sucked at math, but right now I feel like a virtual math vat.”
“All right.” Dean thought about it and wondered since Frank became dumber when Dean told him he was mentally disabled, would the opposite hold true since Frank believed he took a smart pill? “Let’s start with something easy . . .”
“No, start with something difficult. Let’s really test it. Lay it on me.” Frank bobbed his head from side to side.
“All right. Confidence is half the battle.” Dean began to write as he talked to Frank. “Listen carefully. Three-thousand-four hundred, times two, minus seven-hundred and fifty, divided by six.”
Without hesitation Frank answered. “Two thousand three hundred and seventy-four.”
Dean looked at his answer of one-thousand eight, point infinite threes. He looked at Frank. “Amazing.”
Frank snapped his fingers. “It just came to me. Thanks Dean. I needed this for the meeting.”
“You could be worse tomorrow, Frank.”
“I’ll deal with it then.” Frank nodded. “But . . .” He looked at his watch. “I have to go.”
“Oh Frank.”
“Yeah.” Frank stopped in his reach for the door.
“Square root of one million, four hundred-fifty-three thousand.”
“Seventy-six.”
“Unbelievable.”
Frank knocked on his head and opened the door. “You created it.”
Dean smiled as Frank confidently left and when he was alone, he laughed. He stood back up, grabbed his notes to get back into his thinking pacing, and saw Bub staring at him.
“What?” Dean said to him. “I know. I know. It’s mean. But . . .” He held his finger up to Bub. “It’s Frank. He deserves it. One day I’ll sit down and tell you about all the shit he’s done to me and then you’ll say I’m being much too easy.” After taking a moment to chuckle at the thought of the ‘now’ temporarily intelligent Frank, Dean paced off to the other end of the lab.
^^^^
Both of Andrea’s hands lay on the door of the examining room as she closed it. She leaned her forehead on the surface for a moment to gather her thoughts then, with a deep breath, she turned around. Bev sat on the table and Andrea walked to the chart on the tray. “What exactly, little girl, are you up to with this?”
“Nothing.” Bev shook her head.
“Then why say it.”
“It’s true.”
“I can prove you wrong.”
Bev shook her head. “I doubt that.”
Andrea’s head nodded as she bit her bottom lip. “Listen to me and listen to me clearly. This . . .” She held up the folder. “This information does not get out. Do you hear me?”
“I don’t want it to.”
With a motherly ‘hmm’, Andrea dropped the folder. “This is in my corner. I will deny what you tell me if you open that mouth of yours. We don’t need trouble if that’s your intention. The only people I want to know are the parties involved. You understand?”
“Yes,” Bev answered.
“Good.” Andrea walked to her and laid her hands on the table on both side of Bev’s legs. She leaned her face close to Bev’s and looked at her sternly. “Cause hear me out little lady. I want silence, absolute silence about this on your part. If word of this gets out before the parties involved want it to, I will come to you. If I come to you, God help you. I may not be able to get you out of Beginnings, but I sure as Sweet Jesus can have you held in New Bowman at the House of Lesbians until this things is resolved. And it will be. Got that?”
Bev swallowed.
“Good.” Andrea grabbed the chart and walked to the door. “No word about this. I will deal with it and I, not you, will deem who finds out.” With hostility and anger, Andrea stormed from the room, confident her warning was heeded.
^^^^
After glancing at his watch once more, Joe returned to looking at Hal who was seated across from him in the office. Robbie and Jason waited there as well. “Danny’s transportation, or as he calls it, Dan-Tram, has about three buses. On the norm, one will run every two hours first thing in the morning to bring the workers here. I’ll have them run until about eight.” Joe shrugged. “If anyone from New Bowman works late they can stay in Beginnings or we can get them back. We’re not talking all that many people.”
“Plus,” Hal added, “you’re giving us two trucks.”
“Exactly.”
“How do you spare the gas?” Hal asked.
“Engines and fuel injecti
ons systems were adapted to our own alcohol slash gas.”
“Dad,” Robbie spoke. “Where’s Frank? I want to get started.”
“I don’t know.”
Frank made his entrance with a response to Joe’s words. “That used to be me and now it’s not. Hey Jason, Robbie . . . Hal.” Frank gave a swat to the back of Hal’s head then took the chair next to him.
Joe, annoyed, peered at Frank. “I’m really, really afraid to ask . . . what used to be you?”
“Huh?”
“You walked in here and said it used to be you.”
“Oh, yeah, I know. I don’t know.”
“Huh?” Joe scratched his head.
“You said ‘I don’t know’. I used to not know but now I know. Ask me a math fact.”
“Frank.” Joe’s hand slammed down. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ask me a math fact, any math fact.” He looked around the faces in the room. “I’m smart. I took a sip.”
“A sip of what?”
“A sip. Super Intelligent Pill. Dean gave it to me.”
Joe’s head fell with a bang to the desk, Robbie snickered, and Hal was appalled.
Jason on the other hand, crossed his legs and looked intrigued. “Was it a little green pill?”
Frank snapped his fingers. “Yeah, that’s the one. The smart pill.”
There was a slight flutter that escaped Robbie as he really tried not to laugh.
“Frank,” Joe said with edge. “Dean did not give you a smart pill. There is no such thing. No pill can make anyone smarter.”
“Ya huh.” Frank nodded. “Ask me anything, anything. Dad . . . I’m a whiz.”
Robbie lost it. “Excuse me.” He stood up.
“Dad, ask me anything. I know.”
“Frank I . . .”
“I’m game,” Jason interceded. “I’ll ask you something.”
“Go on.” Frank nodded. “The answers just come to me like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“You don’t say. All right.” Jason rubbed his chin in thought. “How many letters are there in . . . the Pi alphabet?”
The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20 Page 59