James put on another pot of coffee and checked the clock. "They should be close" he said to himself.
Walking down to the lab he took a deep breath. Most of the equipment wasn't salvageable, but he managed to remove the hard drives from both his laptop and desktop PC. Going back upstairs he pulled out another desktop PC from a back bedroom and manged to clone both hard drives, before taking them back downstairs and reinserting them into their respective casings but not before soaking them with salt and sugar water.
A knock on the door startled him. Looking out the side window, he could see Jule's Audi parked in the driveway. Carefully he opened the door to see Jules standing there with a worried look on her face.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" James asked.
Jules nodded "I found out some information" She looked inside not seeing Amy or anyone else. "Everyone still sleeping?" she asked.
James nodded, and told Jules a story about how Amy went out to get breakfast and the kids were still sleeping.
Jules seemed to believe him. "How are Eric and Mia?" She asked.
James paused. "Doing as well as could be expected. Come in, want some coffee?"
Jules walked further into the house and sat her purse on a chair before sitting down at the kitchen table. "No thanks, I've already had my caffeine for the day." She said. "I came over because what I need to tell you, wasn't safe to discuss over the phone."
James set his coffee down and sat across from her.
"I found out the encrypted code you used for the restore was somehow leaked into the QA data set. The bosses are doing a full forensic investigation because the code is top secret, some spook software in development for Skink Works. The NSA and CIA are using our engineers to come up with some sort of cloning technology. The restoration process, and I found out about this last night, isn't supposed to work as well as it did."
"What do you mean?" James asked "The restore profiles were mandated after the incident last year."
"The restoration profiles and tech, were not designed to for a full restore. The process was only supposed to be able to provide....well...only to provide a body in case of another accident."
James sat quietly. "So, what happened yesterday then?"
"They think someone has been over time committing espionage, moving little bits of the top secret code into QA so someone could copy it and smuggle it out. It just so happens that enough of the code was in QA that the process yesterday was able to complete without errors."
James paused. "Looked over the error logs downstairs and I did see more than a few event codes that I didn't recognize."
Jules nodded "Yes, the code you were working with here off line, was probably incomplete. What happened yesterday, shouldn't have happened. The process, our process as you know was to convert biological and non biological material into bio degradable waste."
"Yes, Jules, I'm aware of the project we've been working on for 5 years" James said impatiently.
"Yes, sorry I didn't sleep much last night." Jules said. "The fact that Eric and Mia maintained consciousness, that is the result of the dark code, the code that Skink Works wants back." She looked upstairs. "When Eric and Mia were restored, every strand of DNA, every molecule was rewritten with the encrypted code." She whispered. "You need to keep them safe. If they were to fall into the wrong hands...."
James let out a slow breath. "They would be destroyed"
"Reverse engineered" Jules said.
"Any idea who the spy is?" James asked
Jules shook her head. "If they do, they're not telling my source on the other side of the building." she said softly. Looking at her watch she stood up. "I should go. I'll reach out to you if I learn anything new."
James put his hand on her shoulder. "Thank you Jules" He said. "Someone is coming by later to pick up my equipment".
Jules looked up at him. "Did you copy your work?"
James shook his head. "Nothing to copy" he said dryly. He didn't like lying to Jules but he didn't know 100% who he could trust.
Jules looked upstairs again before heading to the the front door. James followed.
"You take care of yourself, I'm going to get a new drivers license" she said with a smile, then hugged him and then walked out to her car.
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James sat quietly as Sean read him some of the information he had received from the company.
"So what do we do?" James asked
"I don't think you have any other choice but to go public." Sean answered dryly. "I can't see how continuing to lay low will help. Right now, you could all vanish. If the media is involved, and I'll warn you it won't be a cakewalk either, you take away their cover. You won't be untouchable, but much much more difficult for them to make a move on the kids."
"So, what then? We go public, and it all goes away?" James asked lost in thought.
"No, but like I said they'll be public interest stories. I can call a publicist friend of mine and set up interviews, probably even get prime time." Sean replied.
"I don't know Sean" James said. "Eric and Mia have been through a lot, I'll want to have them talk with a therapist. Their lives have been taken away from them, my son....my son is a woman older than his parents. My daughter missed what's left of her childhood."
"All the more reason to be public about this. They didn't ask for this, they are in this because of lack of government oversight, negligence by the company and illegal activities by some unknown party. They...you are victims. The media loves a victim." Sean said. "Do they know you can't fix them?"
James put his hands over his face. "No, I haven't told them yet because I'm not sure that I cannot. I can't get them back the way they were, but it is possible to get them into a better situation. Get them back some years."
Sean nodded. "I understand. So it's agreed you'll go public?"
James nodded.
"I'll make the call to my friend Sheri, she'll discretely reach out to some media contacts. I'll start drafting some talking points...things to stay away from and Sheri will do the rest." Sean said "I'll have someone drive you up to the lake house, it's quiet, discrete and I'll have Sheri drive up and meet with you in a couple of days. She'll probably want to do the interview up there."
"What about the house?" James asked.
"Just lock it up, but make it look like someone is home. Cancel the paper delivery, leave your car in the driveway, set the lights on timers etc. We need to catch them off guard. They won't be expecting us to go public."
"I can have my sister come and stay" James said.
"Good" Sean replied. "Use this phone" he reached into his desk and pulled out a black cell. "Call Amy and have her collect the kid's phones and then turn hers off. When you leave tonight, leave your phone plugged in and powered on in the house. After you leave here, go about normal activities. Go to the store, get groceries, pick up some dinner act normal."
James stood and shook Sean's hand. "Thank you" he said
Sean looked at him "It will be OK, if you have any questions call me. Like I said, Sherri will be seeing you in a few days.