The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20

by Jacqueline Druga

  Do-do-do-do-do.

  “That is really funny.”

  “Isn’t it? Danny made it after the Frank comment yesterday.” Robbie shrugged. “It’s fun and all but it doesn’t keep my mind on the ‘up’ it needs to be on.”

  “I’m sure you’ll eventually have a blast with the noise, but what’s wrong?” Ellen asked as she pulled up a chair.

  “I don’t get out until tomorrow.”

  “Robbie.” Ellen shook her head. “Your recovery is remarkable. Tomorrow is quick.”

  “It’s not quick enough to give me the chance to be at the strategy meeting. El, there are Society soldiers, Savages, and new Society camps. I want to be there. Can’t you authorize me to be there?”

  “Robbie, I can’t. I really can’t.”

  “Can Dean?”

  Ellen laughed. “Oh, yes, Andrea will take that very seriously.”

  Pouty, Robbie looked down. “I guess I’ll make do with what Danny has planned.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A speaker phone line.”

  “That will work,” Ellen said brightly.

  “But I won’t be three. You know there’s nothing like being in the middle of a meeting where my Dad, Hal, and Frank are all there.”

  “You mean, there’s nothing like instigating at that type of meeting.”

  “Well, yeah.” Robbie had a partial grin.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure out a way,” Ellen handed Robbie the folder. “I know this isn’t an out from the hospital. I know this isn’t the meeting but finally the get well cards are done.”

  “No way?” Robbie grinned and opened the folder. “Oh wow, these are great.”

  “They worked really hard on them too, Robbie. They miss you and want you back. It’s Richie’s brainstorm of a card idea.”

  “Very personal.” Robbie turned to the next one. He laughed. “Chester’s funny. He writes everything twice.”

  “It wouldn’t be Chester if he didn’t.”

  “This took a lot of organization.”

  “Richie did it.”

  Robbie flipped to the next get well message. “I’m touched. I can tell they worked hard.”

  “They wanted to make them special.”

  “Is that why they didn’t have them done yesterday?”

  “No. They wanted to make sure you got them all. We had to wait on one card,” Ellen said. “Remember the reluctant resident.”

  “Yeah.”

  “His is the last card.”

  No sooner did Robbie go to the last sheet, he started to laugh. “Dean.”

  “Oh he fought tooth and nail.”

  “Was Frank holding Dean’s hand when he wrote the message?”

  Quirky, Ellen looked at him. “Yes, how did you know?”

  Robbie snickered. “He spelled Bionic with a ‘Y’.” He chuckled again. “This is great. Look at him.”

  “It was the best shot we could do. Herb got tired of Dean not posing, so Herb grabbed him from behind and Chester put his face to the copy machine.

  Robbie lifted up the photo copy of a desperate, smashed face Dean pressed hard to the glass. “I’m hanging this.”

  “I would.”

  “It’s great.”

  “I am.” Frank walked into the room. “Hey, Robbie.”

  “Frank, check out what Danny did for me.” Robbie lifted his arm.

  Do-do-do-do-do.

  “Oh yeah.” Frank clenched his fist. “I fuckin knew it was broken before. Will it make that noise all the time or is it when you using more bionic powers?” Frank asked seriously.

  “I don’t know yet how it works.”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Frank winked. “So El, have you calmed down?”

  Robbie looked from Ellen to Frank. “El’s mad?”

  “She was last night. We couldn’t do what we wanted to do, or rather talk to who we needed to talk to until she calmed down. So, are you calm, because I really need to fuckin talk to him. I need answers.”

  Ellen reached for the get well card made by Dean and lifted it. She exhaled. “Yep. Let’s go.” Standing up, she kissed Robbie on the cheek and walked to Frank.

  “See ya’ later Robbie.” Frank waved.

  Robbie waved in return.

  Do-do-do-do-do.

  With a squeak of his boot Frank peeked back in the room. “That’s cool.”

  Robbie nodded then sat back in his bed. “So they have to speak to Dean, huh?” He spoke to himself. “El, can’t be mad.” He snickered and lifted the card. He thought about the look only he saw, the look Ellen made when she viewed the photo copy of Dean. Robbie knew by that expression alone, that Ellen saying she was ‘calm’ was somehow not necessarily true.

  ^^^^^

  A small kink of pain shot from the top of Johnny’s neck to the base of his skull. He just figured, with all the sleep he got, he slept wrong or had one of those sleep headaches. Either way, he needed to shake it. He had a listed amount of manual work to complete before he was allowed to work with Lars in the lab the next day. He felt sluggish and almost as if he had been drinking all night, which was far from the case.

  Johnny was grounded.

  He half expected him and Tigger to sneak out, cause some sort of trouble, and fully believed that was the case when they went out the window. But they didn’t climb down to the street, they went to the roof.

  It was a view of pretty much nothing but blackness and a crisp sky lit with dots of stars. Gazing for constellations was not Johnny’s prerogative, and Tigger laughed at that. They weren’t there to star gaze, they were there to listen and watch for the killer babies.

  What Tigger’s obsession with them was, Johnny didn’t know. He kept telling Johnny he wanted to go out to the field and see for himself how many there were, see what they were like, and get close.

  “What? Are you fuckin nuts?” Johnny balked at him the night before. “They’ll eat you up.”

  “No way.”

  “Yeah, way,” Johnny insisted. They move at fifty miles an hour and hit the jugular vein first. They allow you to bleed profusely so when they eat you, it’s not too messy.”

  Again, Tigger’s comment was ‘no way.’

  What? Did he think Johnny made up the story? He saw the killer toddler first hand, but Tigger had the same problem as everyone else when they got a glimpse of the deformed, genetically-enhanced child. They saw it as a child. Forget the fact it had several rows of razor sharp teeth. Forget the fact that it moved with a vengeance, smelled flesh as a dinner bell, and demonstrated no soul or feeling.

  Forget the fact it was carnivorous and one man was an evening snack.

  Forget all that. They were–at first view–children. How could they possibly be instinctively harmful?

  Wrong.

  The biggest and deadliest error most people made seemed to be projected in Tigger’s attitude as well.

  Johnny made a mindset point to talk to Tigger about them and try again to remove the deep infatuation with conquering them.

  Perhaps over breakfast. Johnny was hungry.

  Stumbling some as he walked down the hall, he knocked on Tigger’s bedroom door. “Tig. Tigger, get up.” Johnny waited. “Tigger, you awake?”

  Nothing.

  After another knock, Johnny opened up the door. No Tigger. Shrugging and thinking Tigger was up and about already, Johnny headed to the kitchen. No sooner did he step into the living room in route, the front door opened.

  “Hey, Mike,” Johnny greeted.

  “John.” Mike seemed frantic. “Is Tigger here?”

  “The kitchen.”

  “Oh, good.” Mike headed that way, “Tigger,” he called out but within a few seconds he came back. “I thought you said he was here.”

  “Isn’t he?” Johnny asked then looked at his watch. “I figured he would be.”

  “No, he snuck out early. I knew that. I went to find him because he hadn’t showed up at the garage. John, I can’t find him.”

 
; “You checked most of his trick places?”

  “I checked them all,” Mike spoke rapidly. “I don’t know where he went. It’s way past the point he wouldn’t answer my call. John, I have a bad feeling. Help me find him.”

  “You bet.” Hurriedly, without hesitation, Johnny searched out his shoes. Like Mike, he didn’t know where Tigger. Again, like Mike, Johnny had a bad feeling. It was an instant bad feeling that cascaded him because unlike Mike, Johnny had a scary idea of where Tigger went.

  ^^^^^

  “Tag. You’re it.” The hand pelted Dean in the back as Dean tried to make it down the hall of Containment to the sleeping quarters.

  “Look.” Dean spun around to Herb. “How many items do I have to tell you? I do not. Do not want to play ‘it’ tag.”

  “It’s fun.

  “I don’t care.”

  “But you have to play.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do,” Herb insisted. “Richie says you have to participate in activities.”

  “A-ha!” Dean lifted a finger. “Activities ‘It’ tag is not an activity, at least not a scheduled one, so I don’t have to play.”

  “Don’t you want to?”

  “No.” Dean tried to escape.

  “But it’s fun.”

  “Let me let you in on a little secret.” Dean turned to Herb again. “I hate ‘it’ tag. I have always hated ‘it’ tag and probably will always hate ‘it’ tag so I won’t play it. Ever.”

  “What about freeze tag?”

  Dean grunted. “I’ll tell you what. Once I am out of here and back in my lab, I’ll come back and we’ll play a game of freeze tag that you’ll never forget. Okay?”

  “Okay, that’s sounds good.”

  “Good.” Dean turned again. As he did, he saw Frank coming down the hall with Ellen.

  “Dean.” Frank moved to him. “I have to talk to you.”

  “No therapy now, Frank. My head is sore.” Dean walked by him and to the quarters.

  “Dean.” Frank followed him inside. “This is important.”

  “So is a peaceful room where I can lay down.” Dean sat on his bunk.

  Ellen emerged forward. “Dean, I was in the cryo-lab. Today was the first day I checked the special freezer since I got back.”

  Slowly Dean looked up.

  Frank nodded. “He knows.”

  “Of course he knows, Frank.” Ellen snapped. “He’s the only one who could have done it.”

  “Done what?” Dean asked.

  “Don’t play dumb and don’t give me that my micro-chip is screwy.” Ellen marched to him. “You started to undo the stasis process on Brian. He wakes up in eleven days now, Dean. How can that be? When I left, the last I knew, we hadn’t started the stasis process, nor were we going to do it.”

  Dean exhaled as he stood up. “Look, my intentions were good. My intentions were to have Brian awake when you guys got home.”

  “That’s all well and fine,” Ellen argued, “but don’t you remember the reason we decided not to bring Brian out of stasis? Errors were made. The process didn’t work. Brian and Caroline died in the future, Dean.”

  “I know. I know. Calm down.” Dean held up his hand.

  “I can’t calm down!” Ellen blasted. “What in the world made you do this?”

  “Frank.” Dean pointed and answered without hesitation. “He said something.”

  “Oh, no. No fuckin way.” Frank waved his hand about. “I didn’t ask you to do it.”

  “No,” Dean said. “You didn’t. You didn’t even mention it but you had been through so much. Things were so stacking up and I wanted something good to happen. I wanted a good thing to transpire in your life.”

  Ellen intervened, “Best intention or not, a good thing isn’t bringing his son back to die.”

  “I know.”

  “So you just on a whim, you decided to start bringing him out?” Ellen asked.

  “It wasn’t on a whim,” Dean stated. “It took a lot of thought and work. I will admit the decision to do so was on a whim. Frank was getting ready to go to California to get you and that was what prompted me.”

  Ellen thought out loud. ‘The process takes thirty-two days. That was about ten days ago.”

  “Yes, it was.” Dean nodded.

  “So you did,” Ellen stated.

  “I did.”

  Ellen grunted. “Dean, mistakes were made.”

  Dean interrupted hard. “Don’t you think I know that! Huh! Do you honestly think I would bring Brian out of stasis without making sure it would work?”

  “How do you know this act, this very act, wasn’t the reason it failed in the future?”

  “Because I went there. I know what the errors were. I read the material. I talked to Bill and worked with him. We figured it out, then went all the way back and fixed the errors we made on that one night we brought Brian into stasis, which was tough, because I was the only one I could talk to. I agreed to fix it, jot ahead, plan it perfect, and start the undoing process just at the right day, so when you got home, he would wake up.”

  “Thirty-two days ago,” Ellen said.

  “Only things were fouled up and I ended up at twenty days.”

  Ellen grunted in frustration. “You know there is no turning back now. You know this. I swear, Dean. I swear to God, if this fucks up, if Brian and Caroline die, you are done. You are so fuckin done for being unethical.”

  “Oh, please,” Dean scoffed. “Look who’s calling the kettle black. You’re the queen of unethical I’m not stupid, El. I know what I did wrong. I fixed it. I’m certain.” There was silence, an odd silence in the after argument moment. Dean swayed his head to Frank. “You’re being quiet. I hope that means you trust me.”

  “I trust what you say,” Frank responded. “If you think Brian will wake up fine, I believe you, but I don’t understand how you did it.”

  “I told you,” Dean explained. “I went ahead to find out what went wrong and what the errors were. I worked on it, then went back and fixed where I went wrong in the beginning of the stasis process.”

  “Ok.” Frank nodded. “But how?”

  “What do you mean ‘how’? Do you want a technical or medical explanation?”

  “No, Dean.” Frank shifted his eyes to Ellen then back to Dean as if what he was going to ask was a secret. “Dean, did you use the time machine?”

  Dean stared very seriously, for a long moment at Frank. “No, Frank, I didn’t.”

  “Oh. Because I thought . . .”

  “Frank!” Ellen screamed. “Yes, he did.”

  “El, he said he didn’t.”

  “He lied!”

  “Dean.” Frank returned to him. “Did you lie?”

  Dean nodded. “Yeah, Frank, I did.”

  “On which part?”

  Dean grumbled. “The time machine.”

  “So you did use it?”

  “Yes! Yes! I used . . .” Dean stopped when he saw Frank walking away. “Where are you going?”

  “Good reason or not.” Frank stopped at the door. “You broke rules. You broke rules that put my son in danger. I have a strategy meeting right now with my dad and make no bones about it, Dean. At that meeting . . . I’m telling.” Frank walked out.

  ^^^^

  “How the fuck did you know?” They were standing on the bridge that crossed Black River. Mike handed Johnny the binoculars.

  “It was a hunch from the way he was talking.” Johnny raised the binoculars to peer outward to the field, the Lodi version of the killer baby region. There was high grass and a tree set center. Encircling the tree, jumping up and down, were at least fourteen killer babies. Up in the tree, sat Tigger.

  “Should we just get closer and start shooting?”

  Johnny lowered the binoculars. “Seems you forgot the basic rule of Johnny Slagel Killer Baby Training 101.”

  “Bullets don’t penetrate.”

  “Bingo.”

  “What other means can we take them out?”


  “Burn them.” Johnny shrugged. “Gas them. In Beginnings we have a potent carbon gas that knocks them out. Otherwise, we divert them in the best possible way. It’s actually the only way.” Johnny began to walk away.

  “Hey!” Mike called out. “Where are you going?”

  “To get the diversion.”

  “And that would be?”

  Johnny paused and looked over his shoulder. “Food.”

  “No.,” Mike said sternly. “No. You hear me. No.” He waved an authoritative hand at Johnny.

  “Mike, it’s the only way.” Johnny stood by gate of the pickup truck.

  “I don’t care.” Mike shifted his eyes to Buzz who stood in the back of the truck. “Buzz, you aren’t in agreement, are you?”

  “Chief.” Buzz shrugged. “It’s your kid. It makes sense.”

  “Besides,” Johnny added, “you’re gonna end up killing him anyhow. Look, he bit two of your guys.”

  “Still,” Mike argued, “we have him for a reason, a viable medical reason.” He saw Lars approaching. “Lars, tell them.”

  “I can explain how, without killing the subject, they can be useful for medical reasoning. However,” Lars said, “Johnny knows this and you have yet to give a good reason other than medical. What about a moral reason?”

  “Well, yeah that too,” Mike stated. “But . . .”

  “But nothing,” Lars interrupted. “That is your boy. Midget mental capacity and common sense at times, or not, he is still your son in trouble and this is the only way. When Johnny asked me if I had any test subjects alive that I could spare, I said yes. If it’s between him and the rabbits, he goes. The rabbits don’t bite.”

  Grunting, Mike looked at the Savage tied up in the back of the truck.. “All right. Fine.”

  Clenching his fist and drawing it in, Johnny smiled. “Yes.” He hit his hand on the back gate of the truck. “Let’s do this.” He flew up to the driver’s door.

  Mike watched Johnny and Buzz, along with the Savage, drive off.

  “It’ll be fine. Johnny will do this.”

  “Yeah, I know. But it’s sick, Lars.”

  “True . . .” Lars said. “But does Johnny have to act so damn happy about this.”