August’s prompt was “Happy Birthday.” It was our group-manager's birthday, so... My entry was well over the 800-word count limit, therefore I submitted merely as a printout to read at leisure. This is an excerpt from a novel I'm working on, “CYDROID.” It will eventually be Book 2 in my Tash Trilogy.

Forward

Clarification:
It is now June 11 of 2293, and after approximately 340 years of research and development, the Cydroid project reaches fruition. The end product is a new Jonathan Quinard Tash VII, retired senator from the great state of New Mexico, Namericorp (the political conglomeration of North and Central Americas). While finishing the main product (at his mansion in Manhattan, New York), the 156-year-old senator is stripped of his entire neural system, to be housed within a thoroughly autonomous computer, built as an exact replica of his former body.

Twist 1:
The book being worked on is somewhat Frankensteinian, but not as one might expect. Jon recovers from surgery with a bit of a problem. No, he is not a madman. He is an amnesiac and needs to learn who and what he is. An AI aid is linked with his new body, so gaining the necessary information requires simply asking the right questions.

Twist 2:
Jon learns he is now being tracked for the assassination of retired Senator Tash, son of the late President Jonathan Q. Tash VI. Naturally, he falls for the first pretty girl he meets, Jessica Hamdon, a security police officer working at the LaGuardia Intercorporate Air Authority. With the police closing in, he takes Patrol Officer Hamdon hostage, the only defense he could come up with in a second’s notice, and flees the state.

Twist 3:
Now hunting for Jon Tash is Law Enforcement Officer Larry Andersen, Jessica Hamdon’s rent-mate (no, not her “significant other,” just a rent-mate).

Twist 4:
The tables are unexpectedly turned when Jessie, amiably released by a recovering Jon Tash, is kidnapped again, now by Larry Andersen, who has designs of capturing the senator’s fleeing assassin, Jon, using his infatuation with Jessica as his bait.

The next page:
We now join Jon searching for his newfound love at Trinity Site. Jon has learned that Larry has taken Jessie to his old hideout (much more on this in the actual manuscript). Larry is under the impression he is now being pursued by the police for the latest kidnapping of Patrol Officer Hamdon. The place where Larry has taken her holds the somewhat ominous name of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), home for nearly 1,000 nuclear tests. Trinity Site, New Mexico, has been forever linked to the Nevada Test Site as the national historic testing landmark (ground zero) where the first nuclear bomb was detonated, thundering the dawn of humanity’s atomic age.

D. R. Spires

Happy Rebirth Day . . .
3013 words | By Me

DATE TIME GROUP/LOCUS DATALINE
UNIVERSAL DTG:
. 11 19:21 Z JUN 2293
MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT DTG:
. 11 12:21 T JUN 2293
LOCUS:
. NAMERICORP
. NEW MEXICO 87102-855MMGCF+94
.. TRINITY SITE
.. TRINITY SITE QUADRANGLE
... NEW MEXICO-SOCORRO COUNTY
.. DISPOSAL ANNEX B
.. LAT +33.6726 X LON 286.4748
. WHITE SANDS PRIVATE ROUTE 13



Stepping back out into the daylight, Jon strode purposely toward his car. Rounding the corner of the lone, empty building, he slowed his pace, seeing another person approaching his Mercedes. It was a tall, thin man, moving as though curious of another’s unexpected presence. At the sight of his employer, Dr. Joyer Troose paused in mid-step. It took a moment for Jon’s own recognition to register.

“Joy?” he called out.

“Doctor Tash? Jon. Heaven’s name, what’re you doing way out here?”

“Well, I might ask you the same thing. You’re now with the Travers Anomalies Institute, aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course, I am. VP of Oversight.”

The two met with firm, honest handshakes.

“It has been a long time, my friend,” Jon stated.

“Well, a few weeks,” Troose agreed.

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

“I was just following up on an old pet project.”

“Obscura Cogitationes Shelley?”

“Oh, you know that one, eh?”

“Secrets? Joy, what’s been going on?”

“Oh, nothing intentional. My project just happens to be a fundamental offshoot of—Shelley,” Dr. Troose hesitantly advised. “By the way, Jon, we did hear of your grandfather’s passing. Very tragic. I trust you received the package from Doris and me.”

Jon smiled, nodding to his old research physicist. “Ol’ Number Seven? Yes indeed. Thank you for your kind thoughts. Last I heard, his killer was somewhere in Pittsburgh.”

“Well, they’ve widened that scope out to as far west as Ohio,” the long-time acquaintance commented. “As I recall, the senator was a rather insightful fellow.”

“Thank you. So, Joy, what takes you so far from White Sands, and why do we finally meet in so desolate a place as this, in an empty desert parking lot?”

“Oh, it was a slow day, and I was perusing the network. I noticed a flurry of activity online regarding one Lawrence Andersen—an old acquaintance of mine.”

“Really. That flurry would have been me.”

“Ah-ha. And that would be the offshoot of Obscura Cogitationes Shelley I had mentioned—which is Doctor Larry Andersen.”

“And not dead.”

“Oh, no, sir, not dead at all. Well, to all outside eyes, he’s been dead for more than a decade, but no.”

“Outside eyes?”

“Yes. You see, at the time, it was all highly confidential, need-to-know, and all that. You see, our young Anderson was not so much a pet project of mine as he was for the late Doctor Travers.”

Jon nodded his understanding, casting an eye toward the heating sun directly overhead. “Let’s get in my car where we can sit and chat.” He winked the passenger door open for his old friend.”

“Obscura Cogitationes Shelley,” Joy murmured as he and Tash settled into the plush seats. “Thirteen years ago, Doctor Travers had a young associate, Doctor Larry Andersen—I thought he might have been a nephew or sumthin’, but not so. Well, not really positive about that…. It’s safe to say they were close. Now, jointly, the two of them had introduced a rather radical idea to The House of Representatives, something regarding the revival of a corpse.”

“Raising—the dead?”

“To put it as simply as possible, yes. The spark had been entirely Larry’s, but the text of his proposal piqued Isaac’s imagination to his very core.” Troose just had to chuckle at the memory. “He was so excited. The old boy even became an absolute pleasure to work with. They were using lab specimens, and it was working—to a degree, reviving certain animals. Those that had not succumbed due to catastrophic injury could often be taken care of during the initial 50 hours following expiration, umm—death. Beyond that, there seemed to be no hope at all. But they had isolated that 50-hour window. Can you imagine what that would mean for all the emergency rooms throughout the solar system?”

“That would be one hell of a patent.”

“Oh, indeed, sir.”

“So, it was successful,” Jon concluded.

“In the laboratory, yes. We got as far as lower primates in our research.”

“And you were a part of this research?”

“Yes, sir, I was. It was all on an intermittent basis, with me coming in on occasion and acting as a sounding board, a device from which both Isaac and Larry could bounce their ideas. Admittedly, some corporate resources had been utilized—honestly, misappropriated, I should clarify—but only because they existed nowhere else in the known universe, and this research was so vital, utterly ground-breaking.”

“Mm-hm.”

“It was all off-the-clock work, mostly at Isaac’s home.” He looked out the windshield at the building before them. “Later, we started coming out here.”

“I see.” Not really caring all that much about corporate transgressions, Jon was staring off into space, slowly nodding his head. “What of Doctor Andersen?”

“Mm, yes, that was—rather fortuitous, I suppose. The board of trustees had turned down funding for the extension of OCS—that’s Obscura Cogitationes Shelley—stating the research to be far too controversial.”

“I supposed as much.”

“Yes, well—you know Isaac. The man refused to give it up, deciding to fund the research on his own.”

“Expensive.”

Troose smiled at the comment. “Well, Doctor Isaac Travers was not a man without means by any stretch of the imagination. Remember, he had been a leading executive for the Tash holdings conglomerate for nearly a century and a half.”

“Yes, revered and respected at every turn. And that Blue Haven of his.”

“Oh, the yacht at the marina in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. Yes, he was quite pleased with that boat, his personal ‘get away from it all’ vacation spot. Held onto it for maybe 50 years.” Troose raised his eyes to his employer. “Do you remember the explosion?”

“Explosion—in ’82?”

“Yes, ’82. We had to raze Building Three because of it. Blew out the back wall and cracked the foundation.”

“Yes, of course. Andersen was in that?”

“In it? It’s believed he may have caused it.” He quickly dismissed this accusation with the wave of a hand. “Erred judgments…. Nothing he could remember at all today.”

“My investigation seems to be taking a turn, Joy. Refresh me on that, would you? What all did the damage entail?”

“Well, the south side of Building Three and about half the quad out back.”

“People?”

“Sir? Oh, you really don’t remember?”

“Traumatic events tend to cloud old memories.”

“Yes, sir, they often do.” He allowed a bit of a smile. “An acute form of obscura cogitationes, I suppose?”

Jon chuckled. “Yes, I would have to agree.”

“As I recall, we lost 16 employees that day—including your nephew, Charles.”

“I see. What—exactly—caused the explosion?”

“We had been setting up an in-house virtual collider. Doctor Andersen was down in The Tombs at the control hub advancing the triggers, stepping them through one-by-one, all by hand. We’ve rerun the program a few hundred times since, trying to align the events. It appears the streams touched, creating a nodal point at event twelve, but young Andersen stepped through the error before it could be reported to the system frame for correction. The result was a mini-nuke—about a 250-pound yield.”

“Whoof.” Jon was again nodding his head. “That would indeed take down a wall,” he agreed. “And—Larry’s body?”

“Doctor Andersen?” He looked Jon in the eye. “Reported as never being found.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I recall even old Isaac getting into the hunt. You know he really did love that man—such a phenomenal mind. I don’t think any of us looked very hard, though. After all, he had been standing at ground zero.”

“Presumed, or perhaps a few meters from. If so, you probably coulda picked him up with a box of tissues.” Deciding it was time for a change of topic Jon, brightened his appearance. “So is the Nucleic Assembly Group still functioning?”

“Oh, yes. Doctor Travers had taken it over after the explosion.”

“Really.”

“Really.”

“Huh.” JQT VII’s habitual use of the Martian vernacular was missed by the good doctor. “And?”

“Well, the Nucleic Assembly Group was primed…. Oh.” He gave Jon a wink of recognition. “Your grandfather was that way, changing uncomfortable topics without hesitation. However, to get back, it turned out that reports of young Andersen’s death were a bit premature. He was actually a few walls from blast-center, buried alive by debris. Hours later, the lad died of asphyxiation, his body collected for disposal—but, well….”

“But what? It’s recorded with JarWix that Larry was never found. I had to go through the Foster Well Net to get me to Trinity.”

“Oh. Did some digging, did you? Your grandfather was that way as well. Dead was what the outside reports stated, and Isaac saw no reason to correct them,” he clarified. “Of course, Doctor Andersen’s body was recalled from disposal and secreted away to a hidden laboratory….” He nodded toward the windshield. “That edifice before us. A week later, The House voted to deny further funding.”

“Ominous.”

“Thinking back on it all, yes, I suppose it was. The project was regarded as being too controversial for corporate sponsorship.”

“And keeping board members interested in such a ground-breaking achievement, one which would require a few decades of dedication to reach fruition, is far from easy. They shut it down—but it did continue?”

“Yes, sir. As one of Isaac’s few confidants, I became an integral cog in the project. He simply refused to give it up because to do so would cause another death. You see, it was only after funding was cut that I became aware that Doctor Andersen was still with us—very much alive—hidden away here, at Trinity, but in a somewhat comatose state. Not fully revived from death.”

“Mm-hm. But he did revive Larry.”

“Yes, sir. The body had been recovered, badly battered, broken, internal injuries. Becoming an associate for Isaac, I had to meticulously go over his notes from the beginning, almost line-by-line. He had used synthetic nucleic acids in an attempt to—to try to regrow him.”

“What?”

“Well, he was simply going to use Andersen’s body as a model to construct a synthetic human being.”

“An android?”

“No, no. A fully functioning human being. Not an android, not a clone. A new—human.”

“And you say he did this?”

“Well, no, of course not. The emulsion used—the synthetic nucleic acids infused with a solution of the test subject’s own stem cells—did, however, manage to revive the internal organs of the test subject, Doctor Larry Andersen, and then started an overall healing process.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Looking to his long-time employee, Jon folded his arms across his chest. “Any genetic modifications?”

“Certainly. As long as Andersen was, so to speak, Isaac’s personal property, why not improve on the model?”

“So o—a new human.”

“Well, more or less.”

“Not a different species or—”

“Oh, no, sir, no. As far as I could ascertain, he was completely human, quite definitely homo sapiens—but….”

“Go on.”

“Some of it was very frightening. I was a part of the regeneration team. Things were going so slowly, some of it devastatingly slow, killing off tissues we had been working to recover. I—bumped the process up a bit.”

“How so?”

“Well, it all took a left turn, I suppose, at the introduction of nanotech to the reassembly process. A serious left turn.” He regarded his much younger employer. “Picture, if you can, tiny micro-AI-’bots tagging along each and every strand of DNA in the human body. Trillions of them moving about, analyzing this, testing that, restructuring, learning, and then relearning—repairing a patient’s genetic matrix 24 7, regenerating lost and damaged tissue, reenergizing whole systems—and all so fast, quickly reinforcing anticipated damage zones. Anticipated damage zones, sir,” he verbally reinforced. “Preparing to fix the man seconds before he could even be harmed. Jon. It is my considered opinion that Larry’s potential lifespan may well be—forever...”

“Mmm.” He nodded his head. “Forever’s a long time,” he murmured.

“Well, he was basically dead on the table, so—”

“—So you did your best for him. And successfully?”

“Well—once he was revived, he was completely new. That was a bit of a drawback.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, he had no mind at all, sir. Some minor engrams had been successfully imprinted to him, and within a few weeks we had him in school, at the Heightened Learning and Discovery Facility at White Sands.”

“Fast learner?”

“Amazingly fast. Within three days, Larry had learned to read and was tearing through the school’s libraries.”

He looked at Troose. “Where is he today?”

“His exact location is—unknown. With the death of Isaac, I’m afraid everything just fell apart. Isaac, basically Larry’s father, was dead, and Larry just—disappeared from the institute. A week or so later, I managed to trace him to East 20th Street in Manhattan. You see, he was an innocent, still using his true name. There he had enrolled himself at the New York City Police Academy.” He shook his head in wonder. “Of all things.” He smiled at Jon. “A bit of covert operations here, sir. I cleaned out his background and assisted in getting him clearance for the job. I thought it was the least I could do for him.”

“And nothing further?”

“No, sir. He was by then 37-years of age, with schooling at least equal to a secondary graduate. No, he was completely on his own, left to strive for his own success in life. I considered him more than capable. I had supposed an academic career, but as a police officer, I expect he should become quite exemplary.”

“Mm-hm. Well, he’s not there anymore.”

“No?”

“No. Larry’s on the run and scared—and he has a hostage.”

“Oh, no. What happened?”

“Basically? He bumped into another Tash experiment.” He looked at Troose’s eyes, finding in them genuine concern. “One day, I may find the time to tell you all about that one, Joy. I really hope I do.”

“Mm. Have you any idea where he could be?”

“Well, he was here.”

“I was thinking there might have been an off-chance, hence my being here. And that’s really why I came. I had lost track of him, and then there were your online searches in the area. I just thought….”

“Yes, I know,” Jon replied, nodding his understanding. “Well, I have to be going, Joy. His last known location was Nevada, and that’s where I’m headin’.”

“Would you like some assistance, sir, perhaps a small caravan of—”

He chuckled at the very notion. “I’m on a chase, Joy, and I don’t have time to wait any longer. You head back home. Larry’s gonna be fine. He’s in good hands.”

“Yes, sir.” He opened the car door. “He’s a good kid. A good man.”

Watching Troose walk around the front of the Mercedes, Jon strapped into his seat and set the controls to cruise-pilot, with velocity programmed for a straight-line shot at 200 km/h, off-road, altitude 10 meters, azimuth of 293.2°. He lowered the window.

“Joy.”

“Sir?”

“It’s gonna be okay. You kept Larry alive. Now it’s my turn.”

“Yes, sir. Good luck to you both.”

He closed the window. “Launch.”

The car was off the ground and darting to the northwest. He glanced at the rearview mirror catching the dwindling view of Dr. Joyer Troose walking back to his car.

Five hours and five minutes, he thought.

AFFIRMATIVE. AS WE PASS LAS VEGAS, THERE MAY BE A CHALLENGE FROM LOCAL SAFETY AND ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION AUTHORITIES.

Yeah. Maintain relative radio silence. Any commo is to be at VLF or lower for outgoing navigation and timing requests—a few quick data chops, nuthin’ more. He leaned to the glove box and withdrew the operator’s manual. Emergency brakes, fore and aft. VTOL with spiral capabilities, 12,000-meter ceiling. Car’s top-o-the-line. Hmm. This is a bulletproof Mercedes-Benz AMG G300-Class sports vehicle and…. Oh, how ’bout that? Body has a glazed Ticowarbon coating just like us. Well, more of a finish, while ours is quite a bit more than mere coating. All windows are protected against all known lead projectiles—up to and including 7.62mm titanium core. Chassis can take multiple hits from government-issue ZZ37 fragmentary and concussion grenades. Fireproof to 2000 degrees Celsius…. 100 percent IR/UV blocking…. Radiation resistant to 100 mSv per minute…. Good choice. The perfect schizo-paranoiac-hypochondriac car. He rocked the yolk a bit for satisfaction. Yeah, sucker’s maneuverable as hell. He looked out the windscreen at the terrain flying by. After Las Vegas, we’ll take ’er down five meters. He glanced back to the pages. Says here, ‘the Mercedes G Wagon is an excellent choice for government embassy and/or corporate use.’

CITING SAFETY PRECAUTIONS FOR SUCH LOW-ALTITUDE VELOCITIES... *

Go ahead.

THERE ARE NO PRECAUTIONS — ONLY HAZARDS.

Yeah, well—that’s what happens when you trust me.

200 KM/H; OFF-ROAD; ALTITUDE, FIVE METERS.

After Vegas, he mentally reminded.

IT IS UNCERTAIN WHETHER THIS VEHICLE WILL EVEN OPERATE IN SUCH A PRECARIOUS TRAJECTORY.

Mm-hm. If physically challenged, I may need to ditch. That last five minutes of flight might become a running hour on foot. He drew the Yucca Flat data up from the Way Wide Web. A lotta craters—lotta radiation. Not a very healthy place to be.

. . .

0000000135: %CYDR01-COMMENT-00058: ► A DECIDEDLY HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENT ▼
A HUMAN ABSORBED RADIATION DOSE OF 8 GRAY (Gy) OR MORE — 8 Sv OR 800 rem — WOULD LIKELY RESULT IN:

. SEVERE WEAKNESS
. SEVERE HEADACHE
. HIGH FEVER
. NOTED PURPURA
. ACUTE HEMORRHAGE
. VARIOUS INFECTIONS
. DIARRHEA
. LEUKOPENIA
. DEATH

...WITHIN THE FIRST WEEK OF EXPOSURE.

Mmm. Fun times.

. . .

0000000136: %CYDR01-RHETORIC: ► DIALECTAL-COLLOQUIALISM ◄

. . .

Yeah.

--