“This will be the first of four…”
“Four?” I asked. “Like four of these days?”
“Yes, four,” Beck said.
“All in the morning?”
“Mera.” Beck said my name.
“Yes, Mera,” Levi repeated. “Can you just stop and let the man talk?”
I held up my hand in surrender.
“Today we are gonna cover some basics. Knowing the Sleeper and surviving the Sleeper. Yes, Mera?”
I lowered my hand. “This is a serious question. Is this training the soldiers went through?”
“Today’s training, no,” Beck replied. “This is pretty basic stuff today and the next class. You’ll be learning some of the things my men learned in the last two classes.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He tilted his head. “Continuing, Danny will be…”
“What’s going on?” Sonny, sounding chipper called out.
I turned to see him walking our way.
Beck replied. “Sleeper training.”
Sonny nodded once. “How to be or how not to be one?”
“Um…no.” Beck shook his head. “More of a survival and kill them.”
“Oh, cool.”
“Did you want to help?” Beck asked.
“Actually, I can’t. I’m busy.” Sonny then walked up to Beck, speaking so softly, I couldn’t hear a word he said.
Beck nodded, almost with a smile and then Sonny headed off. Not before waving and wishing us luck.
“Back to what I was saying,” Beck said. “Danny will explain…yes, Renee?”
“I just wanted everyone to know, I made muffins special for those in this class, so make sure you get one with your lunch.”
“Thank you, Renee,” Beck said. “Anyhow…Danny.”
Danny stepped forward. “While the Sleepers look like us, they differ in some ways. Thought I would tell you some things in case you didn’t know. They don’t feel pain, if they do, they don’t show it. So if you can’t deliver a single deadly blow, you need to find a way to physically stop them. The knees always work. The nice thing about Sleepers is they’re pretty lazy. They’re deadlier in packs. Yes, they can be aggressive, chase you, lunge for you, but for the most part, they won’t. You’ll know the vicious ones. Probably before you can do anything about it.”
“Danny,” Beck said softly.
“Sorry. Anyhow, they do run, not much and they don’t climb. That’s why fences do work.” He stepped back.
“Thank you, Danny.” Beck stepped forward. “Right now, we’d like to assess where you are with self-defense. Kind of gauge what your skill level is.” He walked over to a tarp. I hadn’t noticed it and he lifted it. “These are various items that you can easily grab, depending on where you are. All of them can be used against a Sleeper.”
I could see a few. A bat, mop, broom and something told me that Renee was going to grab that frying pan.
“I want all of you to pick your weapon of choice and one by one, we will have an attack,” Beck said. “There is no right or wrong in how you do. Should be fun.”
Bonnie raised her hand. “Are we having invisible Sleepers? I mean, how will you gauge.”
“Good question,” Beck replied, then motioned his hand behind him. “My soldiers will be the Sleepers. They know how the Sleepers act and move. They are in gear so they can take a little bit of a hit, but please do not kill my soldiers. Now, I’ll turn this over to Miles for the first round.”
For some reason, Beck stepped forward, walking directly toward me as Miles called on Bonny
He stopped, stood before me, looking over my head for a second, then he leaned forward speaking softly near my ear. “Still think I’m a dick?”
“Pretty much so, yes.”
I heard him chuckle out a hmm, then he kissed me on the cheek.
“People are going to think you’re showing favorites.”
“Absolutely. Why wouldn’t I?”
“This is true. So are you going to enjoy watching us have fun?”
“Actually I’m going to step away for a minute. I’ll be back. Watch what the others do. Learn from them. Don’t let Danny pick on you.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to find Sonny.”
“Okay. Get him to come down. I’m interested in his take on this.”
Beck simply nodded and walked off.
As he did, I heard the round of applause and I looked up. Two soldiers were on the ground and Bonnie raised the mop.
“Good job,” Miles said.
The two soldiers stood and shook Bonnie’s hand.
“Let’s see, who is next?” Mile said.
I knew it. The second I saw my son lean forward and speak to Miles.
“Mera.” Miles waved me forward.
With a ‘swell’, I stepped forward. So much for watching what the others had done. Only one person had gone before me and I missed her. I wouldn’t have been able to repeat what she did, Bonnie was super tough. I was not, and not skilled at all.
But that was why I was there. Like the morning training or not, it was training I needed.
The Sleepers were going to be around longer than I was, and it was about time I learned, or at least tried, to learn how to handle myself with them.
TWENTY-TWO
SONNY
It was the only time in my life I probably had the thought, “thank God for a Sleeper”. I carried the iPad or tablet looking thing like a book in my hand, and after leaving Beck at the training session, I found Randy in the kitchen.
“Let’s go to the reflection room,” I said to Randy.
He placed a stack of clean lunch trays on the counter. “For?”
I lifted up the future computer in its case.
“You got them?”
“Yep.”
Walking over to the dining room phone, I pulled a slip of paper from my tee shirt pocket, lifted the receiver and dialed. “Hey Mike. You busy? Good. Meet us at the reflection room. I got it. Sweet.” I hung up and faced Randy. “Ready.”
“I sure am. Did you tell Beck?’
“He’ll be by. He’s running a Sleeper training thing.”
“I know, it’s a pretty good idea. You should be out there helping.”
“This…this is way more important,” I said of the case. “If we can figure out how, when and where, none of the training will ever be needed.”
The reflection room wasn’t far from the dining hall—in the next building by the chapel. We named it such because we figured it would be a place no one would really be curious about, and also because that was what Randy’s time called a room where they went and talked about the Doctrines.
Our time called it Bible Study, they called it Doctrine Reflection.
So it fit.
Michael was already there and had things fired up and ready to go. I handed the tablet style computer to Randy first.
“How’s it look? Familiar? Not familiar?”
“Similar. I don’t know.” He swiped his hand above it.
“Let me take a look,” Michael said. He moved his hand about on the board.
“Man, Mike you’re good at that.”
“I don’t know about that. I just learned Randy’s. Sonny, please tell me you didn’t steal this from Peter.”
“He didn’t,” Randy said.
“How d’you know?” Michael asked.
“Peter would have had to turn off his personal identification system for us to open it.”
“He did,” I said. “And Randy is right. I didn’t steal it.”
“So he gave it to you willingly?” Michael asked.
“Not exactly,” I replied. “He did not want to give it up. You can say he never welches on a bet.”
<
br /> “I don’t get it,” said Michael.
“He was pretty confident, but he bet me while we were fishing. He said if my biggest catch of the day was bigger than his, he’d give up the computer.”
“You suck at fishing,” Randy said.
“Yep. I know. But who would have thought a Sleeper would have been in the bay? Ha.” I laughed. “I caught him. Snagged right on my hook. Peter didn’t say it had to be a fish.”
“That’s really funny,” Randy said.
“Sixteen years,” Michael called out.
“What is?” I asked.
“Peter’s reader is sixteen years older than Randy two point oh, which was one year older than Randy One.”
“Interesting,” I said. “Do they still have Proboard?”
“Yeah, actually. Give me a second I’ll put it up.”
While he did that, I moved to the display table where the other two Doctrine tablets rested.
“Sonny,” Michael said with some enthusiasm, “this Doctrine is a hundred and three pages longer.”
“Are you kidding me?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Oh, sweet. I have to wonder what I wrote.”
“Had to be a lot after all this takes place,” Randy said.
I fired up the other two tablets and pressed the application we called Proboard. When I did, a holographic image of a page projected against the wall from Randy One’s tablet. It was all one color, gold, with gold wording. The title, “The Doctrines” was on it. From the Randy Two, the image was blue, the same page, the same type of image right next to the first one.
Michael got the newest tablet to project and it did so in green.
Across the wall in front of me were all three Doctrines.
We would review them as a team to start, but each of us would delve deeper into them when we reviewed individually.
I had just reached for the switch to lower the lights in the room for a clearer view when there was a knock on the door.
Beck didn’t wait for a “come in”, he didn’t need to.
“How’s it going?” he asked. “Wow.” He stopped and looked at the wall. “What is this?”
“The Doctrines,” I explained. “Gold is the one Randy One brought back, Blue is Randy Two and green is from Pete. Odd thing is not one came from the same year. Peter’s is sixteen years ahead of Randy Two.”
“How did this all come about?” he asked, pointing to the holographs.
Randy then pointed to me. “Sonny’s idea. He took a learning tool that I didn’t give a second thought to and made it easy to compare Doctrines.”
“He figured it out shortly after we got here,” Michael said. “We’ve been tearing One and Two apart word for word. We’re pretty excited about having the third.”
“Won’t the third version make things more complicated?” Beck asked.
“Everyone loved a good puzzle,” I told him. “Check this out. Technology was not stilted for long, that’s a good thing.” I leaned over tablet one. “Watch the gold image,” I instructed and moved it directly over Randy Two. “They are a perfect match. Word for word, even punctuation. Page count difference is twelve. And they stay pretty identical…” I clicked through the pages. “Until we arrived at Haven. Watch.”
A click of the page and the perfectly overlapping words shifted.
“When Randy Two arrived?” Beck asked.
“Exactly. You can see the difference, the blue are the added and different segments.”
“Sonny, that’s pretty brilliant.”
“Thanks, Beck. I expect the Peter Doctrines will be the same as Randy Two pretty much until the event no one talked about. But get this…his are a hundred pages longer.”
Beck whistled. “That’s a lot to go through.”
“Yes, but fortunately, Mike and Randy know the Doctrines well. I do, too. So the three of us can really dig through, interpret, sometimes we mesh, sometimes we don’t.”
“So everything beyond here is what you’re focusing on?” Beck asked.
“No, focusing here, as well.”
“How far into the Doctrines have you written?” Beck questioned.
“Only to our arrival here, which is totally different than Randy Two,” I said. “We didn’t survive the event that is weirdly called ‘the event no one mentions’, remember? Only a handful of us did. Now we have many, the Doctrines start to differ at that point.”
“You only documented up to our arrival?” Beck asked. “Is that usual or have you been busy? I just envisioned you always documenting.”
“I have a different notebook, not my official Doctrines notebook,” I said. “I wait to see how things unfold then I write it in the Doctrines. Once I do, it’s weird, they become almost written in stone. I think that’s why neither Randy One or Two mention Alex’s death, because I knew I’d change it.”
“Excuse me?” Beck asked with his typical calm surprise, raising that one eyebrow.
Michael showed his shock a bit more vocally. “What?” he near-ly blasted.
“Shit.”
“Alex died?” Michael questioned.
“It’s complicated. He died and it wasn’t for long. Like a couple days. That’s it. Can we move on? These are what’s important now.”
“Agreed,” said Beck. “If you are this organized, I’d really like to see your comparison charts if you do them.”
“I do.”
“I figured.”
“I will show you,” I said.
“And I’ll let you get back to working on these. I have the training,” Beck said. “But can I ask, is there something in particular you’re trying to find?”
“Yes,” I answered. “A way in. Just like I got Randy from the future, I’m trying to find a way to get Javier what he needs from the future.”
“The DNA information,” Beck said.
“Exactly. With that, we can fix the Sandman and end the Sleeper wars before they begin.”
“Sonny, not to rain on your parade,” Beck said, “but even with the DNA and the changing of the Sandman, we still have the virus that takes most of the babies.”
“Wouldn’t curing the Sandman go hand in hand with curing the virus?”
“Possibly, but…Sonny, it won’t be over then, either. There are still over a million Sleepers out there.”
“We know. One thing at a time.”
“I’ll accept that. Good luck.” Beck nodded to the three of us and then walked out.
I closed the door, turned around and let out a “Whew.”
Michael glanced up from the tablet. “You didn’t think about those million Sleepers, did you?”
“No,” I said. “But I am now.”
The three of us were good, and with the new Doctrines and our knowledge of the old, we would find a way. I was confident.
TWENTY-THREE
ALEX
The most interesting thing about Javier’s lab to me was it was sort of like a museum—a private little room with viewing windows where he penned up Sleepers he planned on dosing with a virus he hoped would wipe them all out.
Named Marissa and Calvin by Sonny, I found those two the most interesting. At times, they were like some darling domesticated Sleeper couple who made noises like they were talking, dined on their own offspring and took after dinner strolls. Other times, they were mindless non-directional beings.
Javier attribute that to Sonny.
The longer Sonny was a way from them the more they reverted. Sonny had spent an inordinate amount of time in that housing plan, which Javier theorized caused Marissa and Calvin to move up the intellect scale.
But with Sonny away, Calvin was banging into walls, moving about their room aimlessly.
Marissa was a different story.
She was suffering from an infection, a doozy as
Javier put. After carrying a dead twin half out of her body, she grew sick.
She didn’t move, just lay on the floor of the room. Her complexion was pale, and her emaciated body shivered out of control.
And staring at the pathetic couple, Marissa in particular, all I could think about was Jessie.
On some whim and a prayer, we hit Jessie with everything we had. We successfully turned her from Sleeper to human again. Only she carried the virus in her, that was okay. She was back.
But in her down state, Marissa looked less like a Sleeper and more like something you’d see in a plague victim photo in a history book.
I felt…sorry for her.
It was that point, oddly as it was, then and there, I realized they were still people. But they were sick people.
Now, I knew they were people all along, we weren’t in some Romero flick, but it had been a while since one of the struck me as something less than a monster. Because that was how I saw them.
Monsters.
Then it hit me again.
The name.
Marissa.
I got sick to my stomach.
In the “Beck is Dead” time, when Randy died that same day, so did a little girl named Marissa. A sweet, snappy mouthed little thing. It was the first of heartbreaks that day.
Her death was the one we couldn’t turn around.
Torn apart by Sleepers while Randy diligently tried to save her as well. He gave up his life that day.
I would be the first to step forward and say I hated this time travel shit, but it had given us a chance to turn so much back, stuff we shouldn’t. My own death, for example.
“Alex,” Javier called my name, snapping me out of my stare.
“Hey, Doc.”
“What are you doing?”
“She’s sick.”
“Well, she carried a rotting child in her. You’ll have that happen.”
“I guess.”
Hot Doc looked at me with his quirky smile. “You aren’t wanting me to go in there and treat that infection, are you?”
“Why is she here, Doc?”
“So they can be test subjects.”
“Have you ever see one sick?” I asked.
Sleepers | Book 8 Page 10