In a white-painted, spotlessly clean control room, a middle-aged man dressed in a zippered one-piece navy uniform sat in an upholstered one-piece ergonomically-correct chair. In the display on the wall he sat facing were a dozen wide-screen monitors. They monitored another dozen points outside and to the east perimeter of the compound Ben and Bonnie Ruff 'lived' in and worked at. A panel before him could control the angle each screen displayed, in a 360° circle, at the touch of a key.
Seated behind and to either side of the man were two younger men and a woman, dressed in like fashion. They observed points to the west, north and south. Their duty was to monitor not only the outside of the facility for security purposes, but to keep tabs on various 'employees' and the vehicles issued to them. The monitors only covered a very small range of the hectares and hectares of ground surrounding the facility that made the place so private. To monitor these areas, each vehicle was equipped with a transponder, and each occupant a mini-transponder sewn into the collar of their government-issue work clothes. The minis reported to the vehicle. Whenever an individual got out of allowable range of their vehicle, a signal went back to the control center. If it stayed out of range for more than thirty seconds, an alert team was notified, and security crews in speedy black hovercraft were sent out to investigate. They were always false alarms. A repairman had wandered out of range, momentarily enthralled by some wildlife, or some such trivial thing. Whenever a vehicle itself had stopped transmitting, it was due to equipment failure. The crew of worker- robot supervisors, or a botanist or some other science investigator, had been found to be doing their assignments.
So, when Ben Ruff's vehicle stopped transmitting momentarily, the man monitoring the East board looked up briefly, then shifted the weight of his smallish body in his chair as his large, red eyes went back to the newspaper he'd been reading. The transponder resumed its report, and he glanced up again.
"Stupid cheap equipment," the man thought, reaching for his mug of hot tea with his fingerless hand. "Why don't they get us stuff that works?" He gave his oversized head a barely perceptible shake of disgust.
Ruff had not known what to expect, really. In the early hours after his sons had been sent into orbit, he had completely lost track of their atomic signatures, and had feared all was lost. Then, he'd reacquired them. But half of him, the human half, doubted if this would work. The scientist in him was far more optimistic. Which is not to say that scientists aren't human, though they sometimes seem that way.
What he was hoping to accomplish, aside from the obvious, of course, was a successful test of his homemade version of the disassembler/reassembler technology, commonly known as 'toters', which had been in commercial use for twenty years and government use for close to fifty. Saying, "Tote that order to New India ASAP," was much easier than saying the mouthful of what the technology actually did, which was to turn an object into molecular form and reform it where you wanted it. The collection of disassembled molecules was concentrated into a beam, then sent using satellite relays to its destination, then reassembled. Used only on inanimate objects, they routinely sent merchandise, equipment, anything you needed sent from one place to another, from one place to another. But experiments on animals proved only that you would find a dead animal at the other end. What Terranites would be horrified to learn was that their government had chosen this technology to dispose of condemned children and deposit their molecules into space.
What the Primate and the Senate would be horrified to learn was that Ben Ruff had found out about the ultra-secret tests that showed a particular rocky substance – called actonium after the early space explorer Acton who had identified it as being unlike any other mineral yet known, and believed it to be as old as the planet - had the unbelievable quality of being able to turn those degenerated animals into living, breathing duplicates.
No one knew why; the theory was that the molecules of living things didn't act the same way as inanimate ones, that they scattered too much to retain life upon reformation. It was thought that the space compound, perhaps one of the very cornerstones of life itself, arising out of the primordial stew, could somehow give life back to these molecular corpses.
Getting hold of this substance from space was easy. Terranites had been exploring space for thousands of years. They had traveled to galaxies galore, ever-searching for other life and finding none, which only further supported the inbred arrogance that had been a natural outgrowth of their quest for perfection. The stuff was everywhere. There seemed to be a trail of it, ranging from the size of large boulders down to a fine dust, reaching from Terrana to points unknown. There was tons of it on the planet already. Small rocks were a favorite of the perfect little Terranite children for the soft, comforting glow they emitted in the dark of the nighttime bedroom.
By itself, though, the substance was powerless. In the particular case of transporting animal life, the catalyst was the powerful beam of light that carried the molecules. Needless to say, the government didn't want this information getting out. Being able to transfer animals to anywhere on the planet would have been extremely useful, such as when a zoo needed to replace an exhibit that had died. It would have been a tremendous boon to the pet industry if shoppers could order a puppy from their personal information console and be holding it in their hands minutes later. But that would mean the existence would be known of the substance that made it work. One thought would lead to the next, and soon, everyone who had lost their kids would be trying to get them back with their consumer-model toters. Sooner or later, one of the scientists or engineers in the disgruntled underground movement might get one to actually work. Suppressing this advancement in technology was a must.
Ruff had read about it in an obscure, supposedly top-secret memo, but had not yet passed the information along to those in the movement. He didn't totally trust them yet. There were some whose beliefs were totally out there, ideas that challenged millennia-old foundations of his civilization that he himself believed in. Additionally, he had a stubborn streak that had been passed on to at least one of the boys. He thought himself as brilliant a scientist and innovator as anyone, and his ego wasn't quite ready to hand over his baby to another.
In Ben's case, right now, the catalyst, he hoped, would be the tiny, but concentrated and powerful, invisible beam emanating from the substance-covered wand that was directed toward the reacquired atomic signatures of the boys. Where they had disappeared to for that period of a few hours, he had no clue. Solar flares may have interfered with his readings, or something else, but no matter. He'd found them again.
If this was going to work at all, would the boys suddenly materialize all at once, like they had vaporized all at once in front of his eyes? Bonnie had not wanted him to witness it, and she hadn't, but the scientist in him was convinced that he must. He'd stood stone-faced, angry but determined, as the boys vanished and the beam shot skyward. At least, mercifully, they had been sedated.
Would they appear all at once? Would the process take awhile, to recover and reassemble the scattered atoms? Could all of them be found, even? That was their worst fear, that they would be seeing only body parts, or worse, a frightening amalgamation of the three boys partiallly-found atoms, reassembled into something unspeakable. It had happened in some truly horrifying instances with the early animal experiments.
One thing he was sure of, though, was that their clothing would not survive. Those molecules would have scattered themselves beyond any hope of reclaiming. Bonnie had smuggled out a set of clothes for each boy in an act of optimism. The only thing available, of course, the uniform of black pants and black-striped shirts in their eye-colors of blue, red and green, along with three pair of the high-topped athletic shoes most boys were given.
What had happened was that, a millisecond before Ruff cried out, "I've got them, honey!" he had seen what looked like a boy's pink hand materializing in the chamber. Bonnie had reacted with nervous joy, taking her hand off the stick momentarily, and the craft had jerked, and the rematerialization ended just as suddenly. Shocked, and before Ruff knew quite what had happened, Bonnie got the craft back on the course she'd been following. Within seconds, the rest of a small, sleeping blonde-haired boy appeared in the chamber, completely dressed and curled into a ball, a happy smile on his face. The event was finished shortly after Ben had issued his, "I think I've got them!" He was too stunned and excited to even begin to ponder the mystery of why and how the boy's garb had not only survived, but looked as though it had never been removed, in spite of being a bit soiled, along with the boy's face.
His mate seemed not to notice, either. "Oh, Ben, it's working!" cried a joyous Bonnie, trying to keep one eye on her command of the hovercraft while taking in the sight of her sweet little Boomer. Named Avery upon his birth along with his brothers Adam and Arnold – his parents deciding not to give them 'B' names like theirs - Boomer had acquired his nickname from the friends he and his brothers played with where they'd lived secretly until being discovered by the government investigator. He'd gotten the name for his peculiar ability to summon animals of all kinds by mimicking their calls in a loud, booming voice – not deep, like an adult's, but resonating. His brothers had gotten nicknames, too, and they'd stuck to the point that their given names were but a memory. Adam, the first born by mere minutes ahead of Arnold, was a tough, stubborn kid, but a very intelligent one – an intelligence that seemed ahead of his brothers, to a degree. His was a will as unmovable as a brick wall – when he wanted something out of his siblings, he usually got it…eventually - and with hair the orange-y-red color of the blocks of fire-hardened clay, the nickname 'Brick' was born. Arnold was even tougher and scrappier, tending to pick on the gentler Boomer and make Brick work for his victories, and had a cowlick that even butch wax couldn't tame. Thus, the name 'Butch' was a natural for him. They'd ended up with 'B' names anyway.
Now, after the brief loss of control that had got them out of range and taken the control center employee away from his paper, Ruff focused on a second signature. He told Bonnie to stop and hold that position. Slowly, a sleeping Butch joined his brother in the chamber. Butch wasn't smiling, though. A look of disgust was firmly planted there. Ben turned to smile briefly at his mate, whose eyes were beginning to leak behind her expression of mesmerized joy.
Ben shifted his cramped body in the small back seat. At 1.5 meters, he was a good deal taller than the average Terran male who stood 1.3. Bonnie herself was that height; the average for Terran females was just 110 centimeters. The container had been built to hold the three boys, who were big for their age. They were probably going to be taller than Ben, perhaps reaching a rare 2 meters in height. IF they got the chance.
The third signature could not be found. Something was interfering again. Ben told Bonnie to rotate the craft slowly while he held the wand steady. It was actually more precise than moving the wand in a stationary craft. When turning the full circle produced nothing, she began to move forward again.
"We'll be out of range soon," she said, with worry beginning to replace the joy.
"I know," Ben replied, keeping one eye on the two boys and his other on the digital readout. "But the false signal will buy us some extra time if it comes to that."
The beeping annoyed the man yet again. But this time, it kept beeping. The other three employees looked up. The woman, younger than the men, was the shift supervisor. Her blonde hair was cut short with bangs framing her wide face and large blue eyes. She pivoted in her chair to face the East panel. Within seconds, the other two joined her. Their eyes continued to sweep their own panels, but all eyes were on the large clock No one wanted it to reach the thirty-second mark. The automatic alarm inside the room was loud. It couldn't be manually silenced, either, it sounded a full ten seconds.
"I hate false alarms," sighed the woman as she and her crew put their hands to where their ear lobes would have been had they lived over forty thousand years ago. When the alarm stopped, the much-quieter in comparison out-of-range signal was still heard.
"OK, we better alert Security," the woman muttered, then turned to her panel to punch the button that would alert that department. Something made her hesitate. She turned again, to East, noting that a large red R was lit up on his digital display. "What've we got out there in R, anyway?"
The man started in his seat. "Uh…" His eyes went toward the envelope tucked into the small slot in the board, just below and to the left of his left leg. It was the daily update that each shift got and was supposed to read; a roster of who and what was assigned to which sectors of their areas of responsibility.
The supervisor waved her fingerless hand. "Don't sweat it, Pete, I didn't read mine either."
Hardly anyone bothered anymore. There hadn't been a real incident since six years earlier. A young tech wizard, not satisfied with his rate of advancement at the facility, had decided to smuggle out one of the great inventions his brilliant mind had played a crucial role in producing. He wasn't after the money, just the recognition. He was now confined for the duration of his graveyard shifts to a small room, where he typed non-sensitive data into a computer all night long, with no access of any kind to any form of technology…or recognition.
'Pete' pulled out his envelope and scanned the single sheet of paper. "Light night. Only three things going. Sector C has a robot crew mending a blown transformer, in J is another repair crew, and R is a husband-and-wife team of stargazers named Ruff."
"Heh," chuckled North. "Stargazers. Like we don't have enough of those."
'Pete' and South, the woman, chuckled along. But West said, "Did you say Ruff? I've heard that name somewhere else today."
He'd heard some mumbled rumor about something happening that morning at the facility, involving the name Ruff, but he hadn't heard enough of anything to make sense of it. Without being told, he accessed the full database of all facility employees. The faces came up on his screen, along with a short bio for each. He read it to his fellow crew.
"Ruff, Benjamin. Age 32. Senior Deep Space Consultant."
"Heh," chuckled North, again. It was a well-known fact that 'consultant' was a fancy way of saying you'd been demoted for some unknown career misstep. The poor slob must have really done something to upset somebody. Oh, well, at 32, he still had a good sixty years or so before retirement age to turn things around.
Ruff's 'offense' wasn't listed, nor were any of his many accomplishments that he'd have been credited with otherwise.
"Ruff, Bonita, age 29," continued West. "She's a flight instructor. Everything from hovercraft to sub-orbital shuttles." The man paused. "Whoa…it says here she used to be a mass-transport pilot."
North bolted upright in his chair. "That young, she musta been one heckuva pilot. Her man must've really scorched some big shot's shorts to cost her that job. Those two woulda had it made."
Money wasn't important on Terrana. In fact, there was no money. Anyone could have anything they wanted, so long as the having didn't interfere with your duties and responsibilities. For instance, you could have any technological plaything you desired, so long as you didn't spend all day playing with it. Otherwise, you risked becoming a 'deadhead', a lazy person. Laziness was barely a step above the shunned criminals in their black-striped shirts and dresses, and worthy of the scorn heaped upon them.
Therefore, greed and envy had just about disappeared along with money when it came to material things. Certainly some had more than others, but it was all relative. Once you had achieved a certain social standing, you had more free time to indulge. What was more important to Terranites was status and respect. A grocer that worked hard to serve his customers was more respected than any consultant, no matter their field of expertise. No one was actually paid for goods and services, they were merely government agents for the production and distribution of goods and services. Your social status came from what you did. Everyone began their working lives doing manual work traditionally done by robots, to learn what work was. You then graduated on to training schools based on your range of interests. Once you completed school, you were placed in jobs that fit your demonstrated knowledge and skills, and you advanced into new and better things from that. With money not being an issue, there was no such thing as too many teachers or too many of some other vocation that created ruinous competition. There was work for everyone. With your status came your assigned living quarters, provided by the government. Everyone had a good, safe place to live. The higher the social standing, the larger the dwelling and amount of land you were allowed. Most Terranites lived in cities and did good, respectable work. They were content to live in their high-rise apartments. Parks and marinas were plentiful, so the toys could be owned and enjoyed, they just had to be stored away from your living quarters. Those at a greater level sometimes found country living more desirable. There was plenty of open, unspoiled space, so many small farmette communities dotted the landscape around the big center cities and quieter suburban areas. The Ruffs had 'bought' their farmette with the status of the jobs they'd once had.
But this disparity in living didn't cause the 'haves vs. have-nots' social tension that had once existed. You had a good life on Terrana to begin with. If you wanted to work even harder, you deserved to get the extra benefits.
So, when North spoke of having it made, he was referring to the serious loss in status the Ruffs had suffered for whomever's feet Ben Ruff had stepped on. It was the thing that made the supervisor, South, very glad she'd hesitated in calling Security.
"A pilot, you said." She thought about that. She was pretty sure who was driving the hovercraft. But why would they even consider stealing a hovercraft? Their lowered status certainly wasn't low enough to prevent them from owning a personal model, though they might not be allowed to keep it where they lived. "What're their living arrangements?"
West had to punch in a series of instructions to access that information. "Ruff, Benjamin and Bonita. Location: Classified."
"Hmmm," said South. "That's odd…"
"Security clearance classified, too," West reported without being asked to check.
"Uh, oh," said 'Pete' and North at the same time. This was red flag territory. Angry, South grabbed her envelope and tore out the sheet. "Why in the twin moons isn't that on here?" she shouted.
"Somebody screwed up," offered North.
"Well, it wasn't us!" steamed South, her blue eyes flashing. "Well, our butts are covered," she said in a calmer voice, realizing it. Now, she notified Security.
A bored-sounding gruff voice came over her panel's speaker while the three men returned to their own responsibilities.
"Yeah, what is it this time?"
'Pete' responded into his speaker-transmitter, "East, Sector R."
"It's probably nothing," South said into her panel. "But you should proceed under the assumption that we have an escape attempt."
The security man's bored tone was gone. "Speak to me, girlie, I'm listening."
Protocol for events like this was to first send out a signal that would disable the engine or engines of the signed-out vehicle. The signal was sent out, then a detail of three men in navy jumpsuits, and six robots programmed in stalking and containment, clambered aboard a speedy hovercraft, painted a matte black to absorb light. It sped off toward East sector R from its hangar at the research facility. The men's suits were of a light armored material; not that they expected any sort of weaponry to be used on them. It helped protect them from bumps and bruises in the sometimes-violent twisting and turning chases, which were very rare, and from stepping in an animal's burrow-hole and falling down, which was very common. They each carried batons that, when struck against an adversary, delivered bursts of electricity that could render someone or something helpless. They were often needed to drive off destructive larger animals that were eating through wires or tearing apart storage and maintenance sheds looking for food. The robots were designed to discharge these currents through their 'hands', upon command. None of these crew members or robots had ever met with a human adversary. The men didn't want to. You could send someone to Happy Land forever with one of these things, baton or robot, if you weren't careful with it. Nobody wanted that on their conscience, even if it were necessary.
But usually, just killing the hovercraft was enough. It was a sure way to find your false alarm in a hurry. The craft would stop dead, its occupants would put out a distress call, and then you knew that you had a faulty transponder. A crew was sent out with a replacement transponder, the engine was reactivated, and all was right with the world. The shift supervisor did three things: He sent out the 'kill engine' signal. He put together and sent his search team. And then, based upon the information he'd gotten from the control center, he went higher up. Like the woman had said, it was probably nothing. But if it wasn't, his neck wouldn't be on the line. He'd never heard of either Ruff, but it didn't matter. 'Classifieds' were someone else's problem, not his.
In a parking garage at the facility, in a standard-issue hovercraft amongst the rows upon rows of them, the engine received the 'kill' signal. When it was signed out three days hence, it wouldn't start, and it would take a whole day to figure out why. Ben Ruff had simply signed out the vehicle, then taken another.
At this moment, the vehicle was hovering. Ben had located the third signature again. Within the space of a minute, Brick had fully formed in the chamber next to his brothers. On his sleeping face was a look of confusion. It wasn't unusual for the three to have such a varied reaction to the same event. Boomer was the least-ruffled by things, at first, anyway, until he really understood. Then he could get very angry, if the circumstances justified it. Butch was annoyed by everything, at first, until he understood. Then he'd either lighten up, or want to fight, depending on the circumstances. Brick tended to question new things before reacting one way or the other. So all of their expressions made sense. Ben wondered what they had experienced in their minds through this whole thing…and he hoped he'd get to ask them. He couldn't be sure they were actually sleeping…until he pressed his face against the clear polymer and saw their chests rising and falling gently.
"Bonnie…"
"Ben?"
"Baby, I think we did it."
"Oh, Ben!"
Their embrace, though joyous, was brief. It was time to get out of there. The security detail would find Sector R empty, of course, but not because their prey had left the scene. They had never been in East Sector R. The Ruffs had actually been the whole time in West Sector W, with Ben's rigged transponder fooling everyone. Ben could only hope he'd bought them enough extra time. Hopefully, the boys would remain asleep until they reached their destination. It wasn't to be. Boomer stretched his cramping left leg and nudged Butch.
"Quit it," grumbled the sleeping boy, opening his eyes to see his startled parents in each other's arms, leaning over the front seats to hug. "Mom? Dad? Dad! Ya' did it!"
Before they could react, Butch got to his knees and pressed his hands and face into the clear panel in front of him, staring at them, and all around the vehicle. "Ya' really did it!"
He turned and kicked both sleeping brothers. "Hey, Sleeping Beauties! Wake up, we got company!"
He began looking for a way out of the box. The adults took one look at each other and knew their escape was going to have to wait a bit.
"Easy there, buddy, let me get that," Ben said laughingly. "Let's not break that thing just yet."
As he folded back the hinged lid, Brick and Boomer were rubbing their eyes, half from sleep and half in disbelief.
Brick jumped up. "Holy cow, Dad! You said you'd do it an' you did!" He vaulted himself out and jumped into his father's arms, beaming with happiness and pride. Ben felt the incredible flood of warmth that love brings; it had been so long since he'd been able to hold one of his sons.
Bonnie had gotten out of the front door and climbed in through the rear, and was reaching for an amazed Boomer as he was reaching for her. Butch climbed out of the box by himself and stood on the seat between everybody.
"Aw, man, what a crazy dream that was! It was awesome!"
"Maybe we're still dreamin, Butch," Boomer said hazily from his mother's arms.
"No, my angels. You're not dreaming," Bonnie told him softly. She placed a gentle kiss against his cheek. To her shock, and Ben's, the three boys reacted as one, all pulling away, even though Boomer was the only one getting kissed.
"Aggghh! Nooooo!"
Seeing their parents staring at them quizzically, Brick realized first what had happened. "Um, sorry, Mom."
Boomer grinned sheepishly and said, "It's OK," before nestling his face against her chest.
"We had this really weird dream where these three girls kissed us," Brick explained.
"It was gross!" Butch spat, then added proudly, "And we were fightin' em' and beatin' 'em up pretty good!" It brought a startled look to Bonnie's face.
"And we were flyin' all over the place and smashin' buildings an' blowin' up things with our eyes and doin' all sorts of cool stuff with this talking monkey who found us in a flush-all an' had this really neat house an' we were havin' all kinds o' fun!" Brick blurted, getting caught up in it.
"An' then those girls who we were fighting kissed us an we 'sploded!" Boomer said breathlessly, then added, "But it's OK, Mom, you can kiss me."
The parents exchanged a brief smile. "Well, boys," Ben said. "We sort of expected you to have nightmares. We didn't really know what to expect, so I'm glad you seemed to have a good time."
"Though beating up girls isn't my idea of fun, Brick," Bonnie added.
"Sorry, Mom."
"We'll have plenty of time to hear all about it, and we'll tell you guys our story, after we get to the safe house." Ben told them. He put the box in the rear cargo hold behind the seat, along with the wand, and told the boys to strap themselves in. He joined Bonnie in front, in the left-side passenger seat while she resumed control of the craft.
Things happened fast. While the Ruff family was enjoying their very brief joyous reunion, the discovery of the deception had taken place and now a massive search of all sectors everywhere was underway. And individuals along the chain of command were practicing good CYA and reporting up to the next level, thereby removing themselves from possible blame. Finally, and in a matter of only ten minutes, the information reached someone who understood what this truly meant. While he knew very few details, this undersecreatry to one of Terrana's Senate members knew the name Ruff was trouble if it involved an escape. He alerted his boss, who in turn alerted hers. Within ten more minutes, a fateful decision had been made, one that might cause the loss of what had just been found.