Blink of an Eye: Beginnings Series Book 8

by Jacqueline Druga

  “Yeah.” Standing behind the SUT, Robbie held down the reaching arms.

  “Uh, Henry?” Frank called his attention. “Can I ask you a question? I’m looking at you running that program off a laptop. Laptops are mobile so why is this thing in my basement?”

  “Easy. We weren’t sure we could load the program properly. We were testing it here in case there was a problem then we could program the SUT from the main computer. But we’ll find out. We’ll take the laptop to the clinic when we program Dean’s chip.” Henry hesitated before he pressed the enter button. “We decided on Domestication Program: File 123.” Henry shrugged. “Who knows what that is as long as he uses a toilet? Fingers crossed and ...” He pressed the button.

  Frank watched the SUT. “I’m not hearing anything.” All eyes looked at him. “What?” He crossed his arms and watched the SUT twitch his head.

  “Thirty seconds,” Henry commented. “Twenty.”

  Frank slowly pulled out his revolver just in case the SUT went mad and then he’d shoot it.

  “Ten,” Henry announced.

  Danny tapped from heel to toe, nervously watching Robbie hold the twitching SUT.

  A slight beeping occurred and Henry turned to the faces in the basement. “Done.” He then looked at the SUT.

  The SUT opened his eyes looking around, his head lifted, and tilted back to Robbie. He cleared his throat and surprisingly in an intelligent style, laced with a British accent, he spoke, “My good man. Is there reason for you holding me down?”

  Robbie’s hands sprang back.

  Slowly and with shock, Frank spoke, “What the fuck?”

  The SUT brushed off his arms. “Thank you very much.” He looked down to his wrist then to Frank. “Sir, I seemed to have misplaced my watch. Could you inform me of the time?”

  Frank checked out his watch. “Uh yeah, almost noon.”

  “Then there will be only the slightest delay in the afternoon meal. A delay in which I hope you understand,” he spoke to Frank.

  “Sure I understand.” Frank shrugged, clueless to the disbelieving faces in the room.

  “Will your preference be a hot meal, sir , or a chilled one.”

  Frank bobbed his head in thought. “It’s summer, chill it. But can you hold that thought.” He motioned his head to Robbie and walked to Danny and Henry. “What is going on?” he whispered.

  Danny shook his head. “As near as we can figure, Domestication means just that ... he’s domesticated. It looks like he is programmed to be a servant of some sorts. He probably saw you first, Frank, when he opened his eyes and that’s why he asked you for the lunch order.”

  Henry tossed his hands up. “I’m sorry, Frank. We’ll wipe out that chip and program him as a soldier since that ...”

  “No.” Frank stopped him. “No.”

  Robbie, Henry, and Danny were shocked by this. “No?” They all said.

  “No.” Frank shook his head. “Let’s have some fun with him first. Hell, he said he was going to make us lunch.”

  Henry’s mouth opened in shock. “He smells Frank. I don’t want him to make my lunch.”

  “Oh.” Frank looked at the SUT. “Let’s just have some fun with this for an hour or so. My beds all need made anyhow.”

  Henry looked at Frank in debate. “Two hours, Frank, then I’ll reprogram him correctly, but you have to do something about his smell.”

  “OK.” Excited and clapping his hands once, Frank turned to the SUT. “You, I need to ...”

  “Sir,” the SUT interrupted, “I firmly apologize for my rude interruption but before I facilitate my duties to you, could you possibly point me in the direction of the washing area. Seems I had a bit of a mishap and would like to rectify it and cleanse?”

  “Uh ... sure.” Frank nodded. “Robbie, can you show him?”

  “Yeah, Frank.” Robbie placed his hand under the SUT’s arm. “This way.”

  “Thank you.” The SUT stood and walked with Robbie. The second he took the first step up stairs was the second Robbie stopped him.

  “I’ll lead the way.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “I’m not walking behind you.”

  Frank gave a firm pat to Henry’s back. “Good job. And ... we get lunch.”

  “He’s disgusting, Frank,” Henry complained. “I still won’t eat his lunch.”

  “Suit yourself.” Frank looked at Danny. “You game?”

  “I’ll eat his lunch,” Danny stated.

  “See, Henry.” Frank pointed. “Robbie!” he called up the steps. “Make sure he washes his hands.”

  “Got it, Frank,” Robbie called back down.

  “You’re not having lunch with us, Henry?” Frank asked.

  “No. I’ll stay here.”

  “OK.” Frank began to walk away. “Let’s go, Danny.” They moved to the steps. Frank stopped on the third one. “Oh, Henry, since you’re staying down here, you might wanna do something about that chair the SUT was sitting in.”

  “Frank I ...” Henry wanted to argue but Frank just laughed and ran up the steps with Danny. Afraid to, but compelled to, Henry slowly turned his head to the chair. When he did, immediate salivation and thickening filled his mouth, his stomach tossed, and Henry ran to the sink and threw up.

  <><><><>

  Danny’s hand reached out and grabbed hold of Ellen’s as she passed him the folded sheet of paper. “You’re trembling.”

  “I know,” she spoke in a whisper as she sat close to him on the waiting room couch. “It’s been nine hours. Nothing.”

  “Patience.” Danny raised his eyebrows. “Patience. We’re supposed to be taking your mind off of things, remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.” Danny unfolded the piece of paper.

  “What does it say?”

  “Twenty hours of child care time plus five meals,” Danny read.

  Ellen nodded. “What do you think?”

  “Personally? I think the laundry for a month is better.”

  “But I don’t do laundry. The man I live with does it.”

  “Oh.” Danny grabbed the next one. “This one sucks. Ten work hours.”

  “Where are we at right now with the Blake bids?” Ellen asked.

  “It’s still between Jenny and Josephine. You’d better make up your mind. You promised a winner on Friday.”

  “I know, I know.” Ellen dropped her head. “That cake a week for a year is gonna be hard to pass up.”

  “True,” Danny added, “but will she be around for a year?”

  As Ellen’s head lifted to comment, Frank walked up. “Frank.”

  “Nothing yet huh?” Frank reached down and snatched one of the folded papers.

  “Hey.” Ellen tried to get it back.

  “Aw, El.” Frank shook his head. “I can’t believe you are actually taking bids on the guy.”

  “No, Frank,” Danny corrected, “you should be saying you can’t actually believe women are making bids on Blake.”

  “Making bids on Blake,” his voice interrupted, tossed them all through a loop as Joe stepped into their conversation. “Do not tell me the rumors I have been hearing are true. Ellen, for Christ sake, are you raffling off a human being?”

  “No, Joe,” Ellen said and pointed to Danny. “He is.”

  “Yeah right.” Joe’s voice took on a scold. “You cannot be raffling off a person like they are a new car.”

  “But, Joe, the women love him.”

  “Let them love him.”

  “But I own him,” Ellen said.

  “Ellen! You cannot own a human being.”

  “Ya huh, Joe.” Ellen folded her arms defensively. “Ask Robbie. He got him for me. He was my gift.”

  As Joe rolled the palm of his hand down his face and turned from Ellen, he saw Andrea walk in the room.

  Andrea waited for the scuffling of feet pummeling to her to cease. “OK.” She held up her hand. “He’s up. He’s ...” She grinned brightly. “He’s alert. Has a headache but otherwise Dean i
s fine.” Andrea accepted the immediate embrace from Ellen and the applause that filled the room. “However.” Silence drew around her. “He is anxiously awaiting his programming. Henry?”

  Henry nervously held the laptop. “I’m ready, Andrea.”

  “Good let’s ...” Before she could finish her sentence, Ellen had bolted passed her. “... go.”

  <><><><>

  Ellen held tightly to Dean’s hand as she sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  “Me too.” He let out his breath, squeezing her hand tighter. “I am really nervous about this.”

  “Don’t be. How are you feeling?”

  “I have a headache. Otherwise I’m fine.”

  “You have a little less hair.” She pointed to the bald spot. “You can cover that up.” She fiddled with his bangs.

  From their quiet moment, Dean raised his head to the abundance of footsteps he heard coming into the room. “Who’s all here?”

  Ellen looked around. “Everyone is here. I’ll let you see for yourself, how’s that?”

  “Sounds great.”

  Henry placed his laptop on the nightstand next to the bed and booted it up. “Ready, Dean?”

  “Yes, Henry. Amaze me with your program.”

  “I believe it will work. Especially the ear piece we’ll run it through. We had success this afternoon reprogramming the one SUT. Frank got all his beds made.”

  Dean drew up an odd look on his face. “What does he mean by that?”

  Ellen tapped his hand. “Frank had a butler for an hour when Henry ran the wrong program through. They did get a lunch out of it. Dean, are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine. I just feel tired.” He turned his head to Henry’s sigh. “What?”

  “You shouldn’t be tired, Dean.” Henry pulled the earpiece wire. “You slept a really long time.” He placed the earpiece in Dean’s ear. “In fact, you probably won’t sleep tonight.”

  “It won’t be because I’m not tired.” Dean adjusted the piece better in his ear. “It’ll be because I want to see everything all over again ... I just heard a beep, Henry.”

  “That was the program loading. In a second I will download it.” He placed his hands over Dean’s. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks. El?” Dean called her, “tell me if I’m facing you. I want to see you first.”

  Ellen turned his head slightly. “You’re facing me.”

  Henry’s finger reached for the button. “Ready to ...”

  “Wait,” Frank called out. “If he’s gonna see.” Frank stepped to the bed. “He needs his glasses.” He placed them in Dean’s hand. “There.”

  Dean heard the grumbling. He figured that Frank’s interruption of the suspense bothered everyone. “Thanks, Frank. Go on, Henry.”

  As confident as Henry was in his program, he was still filled with nerves. His stomach jumped and fluttered as he watched the screen read ‘downloading’. The fact that he lost all contents of his stomach earlier didn’t help.

  Dean smiled as he listened. “It sounds really weird, a series of beeping.” His face cringed. “My headache is getting worse. Oh God.” He grabbed his head and grunted.

  “Stop the program,” Ellen told Henry. “Stop it now, please, Henry, stop it now.”

  “No!” Dean called out. “Let it ... light.” He gasped. “I’m seeing grey instead of black.” He smiled widely and grabbed Ellen’s hand. “Oh shit, shadows. I see shadows.” His words were rapid.

  “Fifteen seconds, Dean,” Henry told him.

  “Longest seconds of my life,” Dean spoke emotionally and breathy. The anticipation built. His heart pounded. “The shadows are becoming more defined. I have to be ready.” He lifted his glass and placed them on. “No.” His head dropped. “It’s black again. No!” His head dropped as far as it could get when Henry yelled ‘finished’.

  Ellen reached to his lowered head. “I’m sorry, Dean. But ... try this.” She removed his glasses.

  When she did, Dean saw the hand that took them off. His heart jumped and trembling took over his whole body. Shivering in his breathing, he raised his head and he saw Ellen in clear and complete focus. “I ... I see you,” he gasped out.

  Ellen moved in to embrace him, but Dean stopped her. “Dean.”

  “No wait, wait.” He laid his hand on her face. “I see you. Let me look at you.” He moved closer to her then, not being able to help himself, shifted his eyes down to the bed and grinned. “You wore the skirt.”

  “I told you I would.” She laid her hand on his.

  “Oh, El.” Dean plopped backwards onto the pillow. “This is unbelievable. Henry.” He looked at Henry. “Thank you. Thank you for this.”

  “Thank Danny too.” Henry pointed across the room.

  Dean looked over. “Oh my God! You look like Henry.”

  Though the moment was a joyous one, Henry couldn’t help but let out an audible sound of annoyance. “See, Dean, I should have found a way to enhance the program to eliminate any racial ignorance you have. I’m Japanese, he’s Chinese.”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “Henry ...”

  “Don’t.” Henry held up his hand. “Don’t say ‘whatever’. Please.”

  Dean bit his bottom lip and looked back at Ellen. “I don’t understand. Don’t my glasses work with this chip? Everything was ...” He looked down to his glasses. Perfectly cut out pieces of black cloth were secured to the lenses. “Frank.” Accepting the shooting of Frank’s middle finger with pleasure, Dean returned to Ellen. “I can’t help looking at you. I swear, right now ...” Suddenly something changed in Dean’s vision. “Right now I can ...” A shriek as loud as Frank’s body was big, came from Dean and he jolted back.

  “What!” Ellen widened her eyes. “I don’t look that bad.”

  “You’re ... you’re.” Dean screamed again. “Something went wrong! Something went wrong! All I see is ... a pupil, a big giant pupil. It’s all I see!” Dean shouted with panic.

  Frank stepped closer to the bed figuring he’d add that touch of calmness and explanation needed. “Of course that’s what you’ll see, Dean. She kind of is your student. But, Dean ...” Frank whispered, “She really isn’t that big.”

  Wide eyed, Dean turned his head and screamed again. All he saw was a black fur streak taking up his entire sight. “This isn’t right. This isn’t right at all. What happened?” Asking in a panic, somehow Dean knew Henry was well aware of the answer for that. A subtle whistling came from Henry.

  Joe watched Henry back up, hands in his pockets and staring at the ceiling. “Henry!”

  “What?” Henry looked around.

  Danny knew and Danny walked up to Henry. “You didn’t?” he whispered.

  “I did.”

  “No.” Danny shook his head. “I told you.”

  “I know.” Henry spoke his answer through his clenched jaws.

  “Henry.”

  “I had too.”

  “No you didn’t. I told you it wouldn’t work.”

  “It did work, sort of.”

  Dean heard enough of the murmuring, with the nauseated feeling in his stomach from his screwed up vision, he demanded his explanation. “What did you do Henry?”

  “Well see ... OK.” Henry cleared his throat. “When I created the program, I based the program on information taken from Infantry Soldier: CM 101. I copied the optical portion of that program over to mine. Now there are certain numbering sequences for clarity, focus, and peripheral. Well ... last night it dawned on me that you wore glasses and I thought, wow how constricting. So see I ... enhanced your focus and speed of focus so you wouldn’t have to wear glasses anymore. Danny told me to change it back because we couldn’t figure out what the numbers meant. I just figured the higher the number the better the vision. Since you’re a scientist, I thought since you had bad vision I upped the numbers really high.” Hunching at the ‘whats’ that were thrown at him, Henry moved back farther. “Sorry.”

  Dean shook hi
s head and rolled his eyes slightly. “Henry, I appreciate the thought, but you’re gonna have to wipe out this chip and reprogram it. When I look people in the eye, I want to see more than the eyeball. I can’t walk around looking at huge body parts that are otherwise small unless of course Frank needs me to boost his ego.”

  “That isn’t very nice, Dean,” Henry told him. “You don’t have to walk around looking at small things big. According to the Infantry Soldier Program it’s in the concentration. You were just concentrating too hard on seeing.”

  “I’m not now.”

  “Yeah but you’re tense. Relax,” Henry told him. “Boy, am I glad I didn’t add the target to his sight. Not only would he see big things but a little cross as well.”

  “Henry, you still have to change it.” As Dean talked, he noticed the largeness of everything started decreasing, with that came the nausea. “I have vertigo. I can’t walk around having things get large all of a sudden on me. I’ll throw up.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Henry said.

  “It’s easy for you to say. You aren’t having that happen to you.”

  “Oh sure it does, Dean, I throw up all the time. You’ll get used to it. The throwing up will cease once you learn how to control the focus. It’s all a matter of telling your eyes to focus or not. When you don’t concentrate on anything, you won’t focus in and therefore, you won’t zoom in on anything suddenly. I think I put the speed pretty high on that too. Sorry.”

  “Great.” Dean watched his sight return to normal. “I don’t know, Henry. How close can I focus in on something?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How far can I see?”

  “I don’t know that either. I do know I made the numbers really high.”

  “Dean.” Ellen grabbed his hand again. “This could be so useful. Imagine if Henry increased it so much that you obtained the ability to focus close enough to never ... need ... a microscope ... again.” She raised her eyebrows. “No smears, no waiting on it to pop up on the screen, just look at it and bam, you’ll know. You could be super scientist.”

  “And ...” Danny added. “If you don’t like it, we can always erase the program and give you the plain one.”