Chapter 1: In the Beginning

“Meanwhile, back at the ranch,” the real Doc Skeet likes that phrase and frequently uses it. Sounds melodramatic like an old TV western from the 1950s. “The Ranch” as it is called in top secret dossiers, actually was a working ranch a few decades back. One of those huge ranches that became a small town at its apogee. Then it became a ghost town. It is the same. Camouflaged to appear as such. A ghost town clandestine base, far away, remotely hidden among the Wyoming Red Desert mesas and canyons.

Doc is glumly sitting at her “Ranch” bunker console, monitoring her cyborg clone, and has little to do. She sets her coffee on the desk in rejection, nudges it further away. Bio-telemetric data transmission is minimal across time. Nothing more than a moving blip on a green screen is being transmitted via the nanobots. The transmission is unidirectional. She cannot transmit to, command, instruct, inform, or abort the cyborg. A piloted drone cyborg is not even being considered for development. Doc observes only, the unit is alive and now moving again. She senses the unit is experiencing some minor stress, but no physical impairment.

Being ordered to destroy her friend’s clone upsets her and her digestion. She chews another antacid. Regrets drinking so much coffee. It sours them both. She senses the clone. Literally gives both of them acid reflux heartburn. How that emotional contact, connection, happens across time is one of the greatest mysteries they have encountered. Doc supposes everybody wonders about it. She hasn’t a clue why it happens or how.

Time-travel technology is in it’s infancy and insanely expensive, crude, just barely functional. Cyborg clones of reliable capable people of proven mettle is their only current option for time travel. This is only the second mission, actually it’s not! It is the second option of Mission One.

Her only, and long time friend is destined to become a virtual implacable enemy, dangerous to her because she is dangerous to him. His cyborg has malfunctioned. Her cyborg sent to destroy it!

Her enemy and friend Olé, sitting nearby, is the original for the mission one cyborg clone. Olé is as helpless and incapacitated as she is, but not as disturbed. Sitting two desks over from her, he appears to be calmly reading a comic book while his clone is stalked by hers. She hates being ignorant. Not knowing or misunderstanding is debilitating. Calculations of the highest order degrade into guesses. Predictions? Reliability evaporates without hard data. Doc hates spontaneity. You cannot plan it. Her clone is forced by circumstance to be spontaneously inventive and resourceful in order to assassinate a clever friend and she can’t even observe closely. Nothing beyond “clone continues to exist.” She frequently wants to scream in frustration! She would never cry “WHY ME?” Not Doc! Victim-hood? Never! Accounting calls the assassination R&D. Doc says it’s H&H. Heartache and Heartburn. Hell and Hysteria! Her initials for it, H&H. Damned unpleasant situation hunting a friend! She hates it!

She paces and wanders aimlessly to pass behind Olé. She guessed correctly. The old fraud has a tech manual hidden inside the comic book. Oh, Olé! Why do you hide your light under a bushel? Why the country bumpkin facade?

Then their screens went dark when the cyborgs collided! “What? Something get unplugged? What happened? Report somebody! Somebody investigate if it’s a malfunction! What the hell just happened? Hey! Check for smoke, overheated smell! Anything out of the ordinary!”

“Hell! I don’t want to do this!” She feels the first thought. She suffers disillusionment only a fleeting moment. Programming oversight automatically triggers a dampening filter to quash her disaffection. She is left with a residual unhappy hue to her aura.

Flying by the seat of her pants is NOT an operational mode cyborg clone Doc Skeet (aka CC Doc Skeet) respects. Nor prefers. Necessary sometimes, if you are handicapped due to information shortage, and that currently is the case. The old clichéd slogan, Nobody plans to fail, they fail to plan, doesn’t allow for seat-of-the-pants maneuvers. Please explain planning spontaneous? Can’t can you? Neither she nor the original Doc Skeet she is cloned from, are adept at spontaneity, have zero talent for it. They are both hard core anti-spontaneous. Expert planners and leaders.

Hydration is important for health and performance, especially for a cyborg. Organic tissue is predominately water. CC Doc Skeet is about seventy percent of final mass, and thirsty, seeking a drink. From her vantage point on this hill, she observes a stream and even better, a willow tree.

Doc is traveling on foot toward the willow and water. The target, always the main priority, is scheduled for later this afternoon after she grows to her full dimensions.

The original Doc was and is a highly trained foot soldier, special ops and Army medic. Since her clone has the memories and personality, as well as the copied body, the cyborg Doc is no stranger to walking. In this time period, she expects there is no alternative. Though very special, CC Doc Skeet is not entirely unique. Her target is also a nanobot construct cyborg clone time traveler. Organics can’t time travel. Simply impossible. Instead, they are grown, site built, custom built to designed specs in the desired period. By extra-dimensional nanobots, to whom time is malleable.

Thirty minutes’ vigorous walking brings her to the stream and eighty percent mass. Doc sips water from her rice bowl shaped hand, created by the nanobots according to specs, for a mess kit. Outside appearing as her hand and cupped fingers, but interior, is a ceramic bowl. Transformation in either direction, is nearly instantaneous. As a multi-cultural woman, she is adept at using chopsticks. No transformations are needed for those. They can be quickly carved from twigs or long splinters.

Basic ingrained training for a grunt, first thing, she washed and dried her feet arriving at the stream. She isn’t feeling hungry, especially after chewing bitter willow bark. The natural aspirin soothed her muscle aches and pains, but further upset, her already uneasy stomach. Exchanging pains for different pain. Odd therapy. The nanobots adjust acidity and the discomfort wanes. The unhappy hue diminishes but does not dissipate.