There had to be an easy way to do this. He tried to copy and paste the document from his inventory to a Word document, but the watch wouldn’t allow him to do that either.
Resigned, Donovan sat at the computer desk. He turned on the dictation feature and read the whole thing out loud. The computer typed up his words.
Now he had to figure out how to manipulate the audio to sound like someone other than himself and General McGregor.
He had no idea how to do it.
He called Jonathan who showed up to Donovan’s room ten minutes later.
“Can you do it?”
“Yeah, it’s easy.” Jonathan grabbed the watch from the desk and started pushing buttons.
“Thank God. I need some sleep.”
“Oh, sorry about that,” Jonathan said. “I guess I came kind of early.”
“It’s all right, I needed it.”
Jonathan used the computer to record the General’s voice from the watch as it played the brief. Once the voice pattern was on the computer, he manipulated its essence so that it sounded like a completely different person. Then he applied the audio to the typed document.
“Now all we have to do is send it back to your watch’s inventory.” Jonathan stroked the keys. “There it is. Done. Just be sure to play the right one.”
Donovan’s watch beeped. He had a new email.
“Thanks man,” Donovan said. “You’re a genius.”
“You’ll think differently once you meet Colonel McGregor.”
“I already have met him.”
Jonathan laughed. “But he’s a General in your time, isn’t he? You’ve never really seen him at work with computers have you?”
Donovan scanned his memories. “No, not really.”
“Then you may be surprised.”
When Jonathan left, Donovan plopped onto the bed. He figured that a good nap was in order. He refused to stay awake thinking about the likelihood of his grandfather’s treachery or the vicious murders of his day-long comrades. The best thing he could do was get some rest and be at his best when they resumed work.
Donovan fell asleep only to be woken by Tracee a few minutes later.
“Does no one believe in sleep in this place?” Donovan asked upon opening the door.
Tracee walked into the room without answering. She leaned against the edge of the desk.
“Sure,” Donovan said. “Come right in.”
“What did you tell Jonathan?”
“What?”
“To make you guys best buds,” Tracee said sarcastically. “What did you say to him?”
“Why, are you jealous?”
Tracee stared at him.
“I didn’t say anything to him. I mean, we had a conversation this morning.” Donovan recounted what they had discussed.
He laughed. “Why is this so important to you? Why does it matter if we’re friends?”
“I just—I thought—the kid is gullible. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t filling his head with lies.”
Donovan was stung. “So you don’t trust me?”
“I’m not saying that,” Tracee said.
“But it’s true.”
“I just didn’t think your intentions were as pure as you tried to make them out to be. It was clear that you cared for your grandfather. I thought you might be in on it.”
“Like I told Jonathan, I had no idea that this side to my grandfather existed.”
Tracee nodded. “Good.” She swiped a blue streak of hair out of her face then pushed off the desk, propelling herself to the door. “That’s really good, because I like you. Wouldn’t want to care too much about an enemy.”
With that she left, leaving Donovan tingling.
Guiltily, he thought of Nona. He missed her so much and here he was getting giddy over some woman he had just met.
Tracee and I are only friends, Donovan said it to himself, but he felt like his wife was there, in his head, accusing him. Just friends.
He closed his eyes and rushed into unconsciousness, escaping the glare of Nona’s beautiful brown eyes.
When the next knock came, Donovan was fully rested. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. He was needed in General Umar’s office.
The room was becoming all too familiar to Donovan. Soon, he thought, he would have the whole place memorized in detail. He would be able to draw a perfect picture of it for someone who had never seen it.
General Umar was sitting at his desk, as usual, and another man sat with his back to Donovan.
General Umar looked up when Donovan walked in. “Ah, here he is. Brigadier General Knight, this is Colonel McGregor.”
The man who would become the next leader of the U.S. Army and Space Force rose from his chair to shake Donovan’s hand.
It was the strangest sensation. The man looked exactly like General McGregor except with all-black hair and less wrinkles. And there was—was that a smile?
Apparently the General wasn’t always so poker faced. What had happened to make him that way in the future?
“Good to meet you, sir.”
Donovan almost laughed. General McGregor had just called him “sir.” He wasn’t the General yet, but still, it counted. It definitely counted.
“Good to meet you as well. I trust that General Umar has brought you up to speed.”
“No, actually, he’s been very vague.”
“Ah, well, let me clarify a few points. I have the brief for you right here.”
They sat down and Donovan let the brief play.
After the Colonel had gotten over the initial shock, he composed himself rather admirably.
“I need you,” General Umar said, “to be in charge of all communications involving this mission. Make sure they’re secure. I will have the team in constant contact with the base. After yesterday’s fiasco, I can’t risk them being dark for that long. They need to be able to call for backup at a moment’s notice.”
“Yes, sir,” Colonel McGregor said.
“I’ve already sent for the others. They should be here shortly.”
A few minutes later, Tracee, Jonathan, and a man who looked a lot like General Umar entered the room.
The General invited everyone to sit, paying no particular interest to his son—Captain Umar had to be his son as they looked far too much alike. In fact, if not for their resemblance and the matching last names, Donovan would not have known they had even met each other before.
General Umar acted as if Captain Umar were just another soldier. Donovan supposed that was a good thing—fairness and all that.
“Captain Umar will tell us the results of his research.”
Captain Umar cleared his throat. “Um, yes. Well, the results aren’t looking good as far as any useful information. The man that attacked you wasn’t a clone—it was a, well, sort of descendant, if you will.”
Seeing their confused gazes, Captain Umar explained further.
“It has about 99 percent of his DNA. The other 1% is altered to make it look slightly different than Tobias. That was why the thing looked so much like you, BG Knight.”
“So it’s not some long lost brother of mine?”
“No,” General Umar said. “Now, as for the test tube samples, they were exactly what we thought they’d be—the virus. Weak versions of them—but still rather dangerous. I have them secured in a vault.
“We couldn’t figure out why the man was so violent. There were no markers in his genes. I think Tobias put it there specifically to guard that clone you saw. The fact that it disappeared convinces me even more. Tobias didn’t want anyone to find it.”
“So what do we do now?” Jonathan asked. “It seems that we’re at a dead end.”
Everyone looked at General Umar. He raised his hands, palms up. He shrugged. “I brought you all to this case because you have special qualities—certain abilities that give you more advantage than any other soldier in this building.
“I don’t have the all the answers. It’s up to you to figure it o
ut. This is an elite mission—which means you’ll have to put those elite skills to use. Put your heads together. The world is at stake.”
General Umar got up and walked to the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to. Someone has to keep this base running in working order. I’ll leave Tobias to you. Report to me each morning and each evening.”
He closed the door on them, leaving their brains to hum in panic, fear, and confusion. The world was on their shoulders. Donovan had no idea if they were smart enough to save it.
Chapter 9
For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.
—Margaret Heffernan
May 6, 2176
Fort Belvoir, VA
Donovan Knight
Donavon sat in stunned silence with the others. Then all of sudden everyone was talking at once.
“We should just wait till he gets back from China,” Tracee was saying. “Then we can bring him in for questioning.”
“We need to use technology to our advantage,” General McGregor said.
“I agree,” Johnathan said. “We can use technology to spy on him. He’ll never know that we’re on to him. We can take our time and get as much information as we need.”
“No, he’s too smart for that, he’ll figure it out,” Captain Umar said impatiently. “We have to use a biological attack, like he is doing to us. I’ve been doing research on memory retrieval. There’s a possibility that we could put him in an artificial comma and search his mind.”
“Yes, but how far along is that research?” Jonathan shot back. “It’s still in its infancy. We don’t know for sure that it’ll work. It could take years.”
“But we have time,” Captain Umar said. “This virus doesn’t become a threat for another eighty-two years.”
At the mention of time, Donovan spoke up.
“Quiet! Everyone, just be quiet!”
The room grew silent and everyone looked at him.
“I don’t have time. I need to get back to my own time and I can’t do that until this mission has succeeded or failed beyond any hope. I need to get back to my wife—if anything is even the same when this is all over.”
Everyone had sober expressions.
“Now, what we need to do is not argue which of our ideas is best but find a way to put our talents together. We can’t use old and tried methods. Tobias will be expecting that. We need something new—innovative. Something he doesn’t even know exists. We need to become scientific inventors, like he is. That’s the only way we’ll be able to compete with him.”
Tracee sat down with a humph. Jonathan joined her and stared at his hands, clearly thinking hard.
They sat or paced in silence for about thirty minutes before Captain Umar threw his hands up. “I’ve got nothing. This is impossible.”
“It’s not, we just have to think harder.”
The clock ticked away the time. Someone would propose an idea and it would get squashed right away. Then another person would propose something else that seemed promising and they would toss is around for a while before deciding that it too was complete garbage.
“I’ve got it!” Jonathan jumped from his seat.
They all moaned. He had done this about a dozen times already.
“No, seriously guys, I’ve got it! What if we could create something that would trace the clone?”
“What are you taking about, you idiotic child?” Tracee asked, exasperated.
“The clone!” Jonathan said. His eyes bulged as if he’d go crazy if no one understood what he was talking about. “The one that Knight found in the lab. What if we could invent something that would track it? Figure out where it disappeared to. It could lead us to something.”
They all shook their heads.
“What if Tobias didn’t send the clone somewhere else?” Captain Umar asked. “What if he had a self-destruct setting on that glass case? Maybe the clone is gone—disintegrated.”
“No,” Donovan said. “Tobias would never destroy something like that. He’s too vain when it comes to his work. It’s very likely that it was teleported to another location.”
Colonel McGregor nodded. “So in all likelihood he sent it somewhere else, but where? Maybe he has another secret lab somewhere. If we can figure out where that clone went. But how?”
“HELLO!” Jonathan said. “That’s what I was just saying.”
“Right,” Donovan said. “Carry on.”
“Captain Umar. Every person on the planet has a unique pattern of brainwaves, right? Similar to a thumb print?”
“Yes.”
“And Colonel McGregor, there are machines that can sense brain waves, correct?”
“Yes.”
Donovan’s eyes widened in excitement as he realized where Jonathan was going. He sprang forward and scooped the redhead into his arms, spinning him around.
“You’re a genius!” Donovan shouted. “A redheaded, freckle-faced little genius!”
The others were still looking confused.
“I’m not understanding…,” Tracee said.
“How can you not see it?!” Donovan said. “It’s absolutely brilliant! We invent a machine that can track specific brain waves. The brain of Tobias’s clone will be exactly the same as his. It’ll be a cinch.”
“We may even be able to use the descendant we have here,” Jonathan said. “If it has Tobias’s DNA with a slight twist, it should be similar enough to help us track the other clone.”
“That’s…” A smile crept onto Tracee’s face. “…Absolutely genius!”
Donovan turned urgently to Colonel McGregor. “Can it be done?” He looked at Captain Umar. “Can it be done?”
Captain Umar nodded. “It can be done… in theory.”
Colonel McGregor’s eyes were bright. “Yes, it could be done. It shouldn’t be too hard. It’ll take some excellent programming skills, but I think I can manage.”
Donovan had never known General McGregor to brag about his talents.
Everyone was swept up in the excitement. They cheered and clapped. If they could really do this, they would save the entire human race from destruction.
They got to work immediately. Colonel McGregor and Captain Brian took of a corner of the fifty-fourth floor, building prototypes and drawing up plans for newer versions. They worked night and day, never leaving the room except to relieve themselves. Food was brought to them.
They set up partitions around their little corner. They would allow no one else inside and warned the rest of the team to stay away. They said that it would interrupt their creative flow. Donovan left the two of them to their work and distracted himself in the meantime. He went to the gym, he ran, he tried the many different food options at the base, he went for late night swims. When he was tired of his own company he would seek out Jonathan or Tracee.
They were both anxious to see the progress of the brain wave tracking machine. It made them all feel weird to be standing around doing nothing while Colonel McGregor and Captain Umar created the invention of the century.
To keep themselves from going crazy with impatience they hung out together. They discovered little nooks and crannies all over the base where they could be alone to discuss the mission. They usually talked in circles, saying the same old worn out words over and over again. They knew that it was useless, but at least it kept their minds busy.
They even started to meet up to think of new ideas. After all, there was no guarantee that the invention would work. Maybe they should have a backup plan. The meetings were fruitless as a rule, but they kept at it.
Tracee invited Donovan and Jonathan to train with her. They met in the gym in the wee hours of the morning and after a tough regimen of cardio, weight training, and stretching, they would enter the combat ring.
They would take it in turns, one person fighting another, and the winner taking on the spectator. Jonathan lost every time, no matter who his opponent was. Donovan and Tracee were eve
nly matched. Donovan was surprised the first time he fought her. She had jumped right in, landing solid kicks and punches to his chest and legs, bringing him down within seconds.
He lost that first fight out of carelessness. He had underestimated her. But from then on he fought with vigor—he would not go easy on her. Even when Donovan fought his hardest, Tracee still had the ability to beat him.
Donovan would spar with Tracee for hours, trying his best to win at least three matches in a row, but it never happened. Jonathan would often drop out of the competition early, easily wiped out by the two army specialists’ workout routine. Jonathan was fit and a good fighter—but he was no match for either of them.
One day, after Jonathan had already headed for the showers, Donovan and Tracee faced off in the sparring ring. Each waited for the other to make the first move. Donovan had become accustomed to her style now—she was very aggressive, in contrast to his calm demeanor. He knew if he waited long enough she would lose patience and strike first. It never failed.
She lunged for him. He dodged to the side, grabbing her leg as it swung toward his side. She used his firm hold against him, twisting her entire body to bring the other leg up and around toward his face. Donovan dropped the one leg to block the other. A less skilled fighter would have lost her balance and fallen to the ground, but Tracee landed in a crouching position, on her feet. She sprang back up and struck again.
Donovan’s mind went blank and he let his body take over. He simply reacted to whatever Tracee threw at him, bending and twisting and striking as the moment called for. Somehow, they’d ended up on the ground, wrestling for domination. Donovan had not wanted to be in this situation—where Donovan was strong, Tracee made up for it with flexibility. She could twist her body into knots.
Tracee maneuvered her lithe body, snaking her arms and legs around Donovan’s like a pretzel, trapping him. Donovan forced her arms apart and turned around so that his full weight was on top of her. They were so close he could smell the sweat that rolled down her chest. It wasn’t unpleasant—he felt that familiar tingling in his arms and legs.
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