Blink of an Eye: Beginnings Series Book 8

by Jacqueline Druga

  “Robert, why name it that at all?”

  “Because this little thing, see this attachment on the end.” Robbie pointed to the small red square on the edge. “It’s like radar. It picks up our SUTs and it picks them up not only in distance, but in direction, and in numbers. It beeps. For each SUT, a red dot appears. Soldiers who aren’t SUTs, their dots are black.”

  “Black and red dots?” Joe spoke with sarcasm and lack of belief. “And it beeps. Robbie, you were duped. There is no way this will ...” A beep shut Joe up.

  Robbie looked down at the tracker. “See, one red dot.”

  “See, it’s wrong. I don’t think a SUT is walking in Beginnings.”

  “Fifty feet. Bet me it’s Henry.”

  “Why do you say that?” Joe asked, watching it indicate a closer range.

  “I told Henry to come up here and bring the microchips. Here he comes.” Robbie faced the door. “And ... Henry.” The door opened. “Frank?”

  At the point where the thing beeped loudly and out of control, Joe had enough. “Shut this thing off. It’s Frank and he’s no SUT.”

  “But, Dad.” Robbie grabbed the tracker. “I’m telling you this works.”

  “I’m telling you it doesn’t.”

  Frank stepped forward. “Can I interrupt?” Before he could take a chance on waiting for them to tell him he will anyhow, Frank reached his hand out and laid down a white cloth. “Here’s those microchips. Henry said to be careful with them.”

  Joe’s wide eyes immediately went to the cloth then to the game. “Robbie, get me this Survivor.”

  Robbie smiled and walked over to the far door, opening it. “Danny. I need you first.” He stepped back.

  The door opened a little wider and his black hair peeked through first, then his head with a wide smile. Danny slid in then closed the door behind him. He ran his fingers through his now short and neat hair, then extended his hand out, confused on who to greet first. “Danny Hoi.” Danny walked to Joe only because he sat behind a desk.

  “Joe Slagel.”

  “Really?” Danny asked. “You’re Robbie’s father? I see the resemblance.” He faced Frank. “Danny.”

  “Frank ... Slagel.”

  Danny laughed once loud. “Another one? Oh man that is wild.” Though already neatly dressed in a tee shirt and clean jeans, Danny tucked his shirt in more. “Thanks for letting us come in. We were a little worried that you wouldn’t let us in.”

  “Dan.” Joe held up the tracker. “Did you make this?”

  “Oh yeah.” Danny began to look around Joe’s office. “Is this your office, Mr. Slagel?”

  “Joe. And yes it is.”

  “Wow.” Danny smiled. “Clean.”

  “Thank you.” Joe continued, “Danny, how did you make this?”

  “Simple.” Danny walked up to the filing cabinet next to where Frank stood. He smiled at Frank then ran his hand over it. “Really clean. Amazing.”

  Joe looked at Robbie, then Frank, then Danny. “Danny? Explain simple.”

  “It’s like baking cookies. It’s just a matter of this and a matter of that.” He opened a file drawer. “Wow, files.” He pointed in with such childlike excitement. “Are they real?”

  Frank shut the drawer. “No we call them Copperfield files. They’re a fuckin illusion.”

  Danny laughed at Frank. “That’s funny.” He walked from the filing cabinet, pointing to the door behind Joe. “Is that another room?”

  “Yes,” Joe answered. “Now getting back to ...” He watched Danny open the examining room door.

  “Oh my God,” Danny exclaimed. “It’s like a doctor’s office. Oh my God.”

  “Danny, would you mind sitting down?” Joe requested.

  “Would you mind if I didn’t. I’m finding this place really interesting and I haven’t even seen it all.”

  “Danny, please.” Joe held out his hand to the chair. “You can look around when we’re done.”

  “OK.” Danny shrugged and walked to the chair, and sat down.

  “Danny.” Joe held up the tracker. “Do you realize what you brought in here?”

  “Yeah.” The smile dropped from Danny’s face. “Is it not allowed? I can take it apart ...” As his hand reached for it, he pulled it back when Robbie and Joe both shouted ‘No!’ “Or I won’t ...”

  “Can you tell me about this?” Joe asked.

  “Oh sure. It tracks the Terminator up to a hundred feet away. It detects in distance, you know, direction.” Danny acted nonchalant.

  “How did you come up with this?”

  “It was easy. OK. I’m lying, at first it wasn’t. At first it worked then it didn’t. I made the first type years ago when we ... the people I lived with ... when we were dealing with the, I call them Warriors because they remind me of something from Mad Max. They run around in loincloths and such, screaming.”

  Joe knew who he talked of. “We call them Savages.”

  “Yeah, sounds like them.” Danny bit his nails, leaned forward, and then back. “I made a tracker to detect when there were a large group approaching. It worked because when we lived in that town, man those things would hit us once a week, I swear. It was a game to them. We actually ended up moving twice.”

  “Where are you from?” Joe inquired, watching Danny fuss about. “Are you always so hyper?”

  “Always. Always.” Danny shifted. “Nervous energy. I’m from California, Sacramento.”

  “Is that where this town is that you were at?”

  “At first. I lived in the mountains at my house there for a while. I went there at the onset of the plague with my parents and brother and his family. I thought if we were far enough from it, we would be safe. We weren’t. I guess I lived alone for ...” Danny closed one eye and thought. “A year and a half and then I moved on. I traveled a couple months when I reached the town where I met Bentley, the guy I’m with. He and about six men were farming this town. I stayed. The Savages hit. We moved on. We found another town with about ten more men and two women. But the women you couldn’t touch, look at, or speak to, or you’d get shot.” He turned his head back to Frank who snickered. “Anyhow, that place is where I made the first tracker. It worked, each one I made worked for years. No matter where we moved. But it failed about a year ago. We were in our town in Nevada and we got hit by these soldiers. Six of us escaped with our lives. They took the two women and killed the other men. Bentley was OK with me. The other men blamed me for my tracker failing. I couldn’t figure it out. It seemed everywhere we went, we ran into these things and had to run. We couldn’t get ahead of them because we couldn’t see them coming.”

  “But you see them coming now,” Joe said. “This does work, right? Robbie said it works.”

  “Oh yeah it works. Now.” Danny blew from his mouth. “How stupid I was. I, of all people, should have figured it out sooner. It dawned on me. What would cause my electronic instrument to fail? Why wouldn’t it pick them up? Interference right? What interference could there be unless these soldiers had either something on them or in them. So when we killed one we checked out its clothes. Nothing. We did an autopsy at first. Nothing. It was human, blood, guts, and such.” Danny tossed his hands up. “Then I realized what it was about them that made me think that perhaps they were robots. Their eyes, they had no soul. Being the big Planet of the Apes fan that I am, I checked the head of the next one we found. There was a laser scar right at the temple.” Danny pointed to his own temple. “We busted its head open and, you’re not gonna believe this, we found a microchip. These soldiers had a microchip in their brain.”

  Joe nodded. “We know about the chip.”

  “Oh good. I thought you weren’t going to believe me.” Danny grabbed his chest. “So I took some time, a day or so, and figured the chip was what had to be causing the interference. So I took the chip and used that in conjunction with my tracker, sort of implanting it within the electronics and using it as a magnet. Now instead of just picking up humans, I pick up the chip an
d how many there are of them. Works quite nicely too. Depending on how many there are, we have enough time to run or fight them. But they are so heavily armed at times, we just kept running.”

  Frank snapped his finger loudly. “Wait a second!” He stepped away from the filing cabinet. “You mean to tell me this game thing tracks the SUTs before you can see them. Picks them up?”

  Joe rolled his eyes slightly at his son’s Einstein-quick way of picking things up. “Yeah, Frank, what the hell have we been talking about for ten minutes?”

  “That is so fuckin great!” Frank said with excitement, snatching the object from Joe’s hand. “This is great. Danny, can you make more?”

  “Oh sure. I need another microchip to make another one though. The game units we can get at any toy store. The circuit board, the rest, I can piece together with just about anything you have lying around.”

  “Whoa.” Frank looked at it. “Like the thing the Ghostbusters used.”

  “Exactly.” Danny nodded.

  “You said you have a range of a hundred feet?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the chance of you building one on a larger scale?” Frank asked

  “You mean like furthering the range?” Danny tried to clarify. “I don’t know. It works like radar and the radar part of it failed. I have it good with one chip. Furthering the range ...”

  “No,” Frank interrupted him. “Radar, yes, but large scale radar, connecting a bunch of these things together to make an entire tracking system.”

  Danny went silent and shifted his eyes around. “I guess. Sure, I’d have to design it and I’d need a lot more chips. Perhaps with an entire system like you’re talking about, we can actually pick up signals father out.” Danny shrugged. “I’d have to work on it.”

  Frank’s face lit up. “I have been trying to establish a first warning system and I was at a loss. This could save lives here, and manpower if we see them coming. Fuck, we’ll air-drop on them.”

  Joe liked Frank’s idea and the fact that Danny was nearly certain he could do it. The certain part was what made Joe curious. “Danny, tell us, how do you know so much about this? How were you able to create this so easily?”

  “It’s what I do, or did,” Danny said. “Actually putting things together is a hobby of mine. You know, take things apart, put them back together. Fixing things, I like to fix things. I think I do well at it. But electronics, now that was pretty much my specialty. OK, I’m lying, designing, building, and creating electrical systems is what I did. You know, for buildings. I actually went to school to be an architect. I was always buildings things as a kid, but it was boring, so I went back to school to get my degree in electrical engineering. But I’ll tell you Mr. Slagel. Making that ...” He pointed to his tracker. “I didn’t learn in any college. I learned more in trade school when I went for electronics than I did at UCLA.”

  Joe’s mouth dropped. “You went to trade school too.”

  “Oh sure.” Danny lifted his shoulders “You can’t design something to make it work if you yourself can’t build it and make it work. You can’t do that unless you understand how it works. Understand?” He saw the slant expression of Joe’s face. “Oh no. You don’t believe me. I don’t blame you. I know people probably come knocking on your door, giving you a bunch of shit so they can get in. But you can test me. I’ll take a test.” Danny raised his eyebrow. “Give me something to fix. I’ll do it. Anything.” He leaned into the desk. “Just let us stay. We’re tired of running. We’re tired of living out there. We want to live with people again.”

  “Danny ...” Joe gently held the tracker.

  “Mr. Slagel, Bentley, he’s a barber. Look, he cut my hair. Robbie says you don’t have a barber. We’re useful.”

  “Danny.” Joe smiled and shook his head at the rambling young man. Here, sitting before Joe, was someone that wanted in so badly and little did he know he walked in with his own key and handed it to Joe. “Danny, you and your friend are welcome to stay with us. There are channels, which I’ll explain later, but you can stay.”

  Danny clenched his fist with a silent ‘yes’.

  Robbie expected the reaction Danny would give. He saw his brother’s expression. If Frank didn’t like Danny before, Danny certainly jumped over typical Survivor status with his tracker. And Joe, Robbie saw that his father recognized an asset to Beginnings more than anything. “Dad? What do you think?”

  “I think.” Gently holding the tracker, Joe sat back, not without trouble, but he sat back. “I think we’re gonna have some really amusing times ahead of us.”

  This made Robbie curious. “Really? Amusing? Why do you say that?”

  Joe grinned devilishly at the tracker. “Because of Henry.” Joe looked at Frank and he knew Frank knew exactly where he was going. “Henry is going to be so jealous. I love it.”

  <><><><>

  Annoyed would be the understatement to describe Ellen’s mood as she toted herself from town to the line of utility buildings to greet and examine the two new Survivors. All the way up there, box in her arms, courtesy of Henry and everyone else that stopped her and said, ‘Hey, are you going to Joe’s? Can you take this for me?’ Being the kindhearted person that Ellen believed she was, she shrugged and they tossed whatever it was in the box. She would have thought that they would have avoided her. If she could feel the hideous mood showing on her face, she could only imagine what the others saw. Maybe that’s why they bothered her, to irritate her. Just like Frank. He thought he was really funny, calling her on the radio and telling her that she had to come to Receiving. She had to meet the new Survivors. She was going to love the one. Ellen knew exactly what Frank was up to. In his own way, he was telling her how bad they were and he was just digging that fact into her with every chuckle he let out over that radio. She’d see who was laughing when he would want her to come help out that evening with the kids and she was stuck with the new Survivors from hell. Cole-Survivors. Ellen shuddered at that thought as she neared Joe’s office, walking so slowly—not like she was in a hurry to get there. And Cole-Survivors were the worst.

  It was like a game of chance. Different people always brought back different types of Survivors. When Miguel used to go out, he would bring in decent Survivors. But like Ellen was the Survivor-Queen, Robbie was the Survivor-King. He always brought back the best. After all, he did bring her back Blake, the Soap Opera God.

  She saw the cigarette smoke first as she rounded the bend to the utility building. When she heard that unmistakable single cough, she knew Joe was outside. She peeked first then put on a smile—fake. “Hi, Joe, why are you hanging outside?”

  “I couldn’t sit any longer, Ellen. I was tired of waiting on you.”

  “I’ve been very busy, Joe. Look, I’m holding a box for you. Everybody is giving me their work to do.” She chuckled at Joe’s grunt. “Who’s with the new Survivors?”

  “Frank and Robbie.”

  “Are they torturing them?”

  “No!” Joe snapped. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  “A skirt.”

  “A second layer of skin. Don’t you think that’s a little short? Don’t you think it’s a little tight? Don’t you think you’re a little old to be dressing like that?”

  “And don’t you think you’re being a little pissy with me.”

  “Ellen, I’m being pissy with you because you shot me in the ass.”

  “Oh get over it, Joe.”

  “What?”

  “Just kidding. I have to do blood samples.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No, Andrea was up here measuring Robbie, and she took the samples for you.”

  Ellen sang out a ‘hmm’. “What is wrong with her? I saw her when I was walking up here. You would think she would have told me so I didn’t have to trot my ass all the way here from the clinic, carrying other people’s things too.”

  “She didn’t tell you because she wanted you to meet the Sur
vivors. She said you’ll love them.”

  Ellen let out a loud sound of disgust. “God! How bad are they? They’re animals aren’t they? They have to be if everyone who has met them rubs it in. For sure I’m heading back to the mobile.” Ellen turned and started to walk. “Here’s your box.”

  “Take it inside then head to Containment.”

  “But, Joe, I don’t have to be there until two.”

  “It’s twenty minutes till, Ellen. By the time you get all the way back out to the mobile it’ll be two o’clock, then you’ll have to turn your skinny ass around and head back. That means you’ll be late.”

  “Better late than early, Joe. Take your box.”

  “You take my box.” Joe reached back and opened his office door. “Inside for me. You owe me.” He tossed his cigarette and limped in before Ellen. “She’s here,” he spoke out.

  Ellen closed the door, griping as she walked in. “Just announce me like a door prize, Joe. Bitching at me from the second you see me. Hey, Frank.” She smiled at Frank who stood by the file cabinet.

  “Hey, Babe, wanna meet one of the new Survivors?”

  Ellen crinkled her nose to Frank and turned into the office. The moment Joe stepped aside and went behind his desk, was the moment she saw Danny Hoi stand up. Upon seeing the shocking sight of a well-kept Survivor, Ellen’s hands loosened and she dropped the box. It toppled onto the floor and its contents spilled out. “Shit.” She bent down to it.

  “Here.” Danny rushed over with a smile, bending down to the floor with her. “Let me help.” He grinned widely at her. “Oh my God.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head and picked up some of the papers, his eyes shifting down to her folded legs. When he heard Frank yell ‘eyes’, he lifted his views to Ellen’s face.

  Ellen giggled. “Shut up, Frank.” She waved her hand and whispered to Danny, “Don’t mind him.”

  Frank rolled his eyes and ran his hand over his head. “Oh great, she’s flirting already.”

  “I’m Danny Hoi.” He placed a paper in the box and shook Ellen’s hand.