Chapter 10

A month later, we were up to more than a hundred healing pods and still manufacturing the parts necessary to make hundreds more. What we had already finished was more than enough for our everyday use, but we still needed doctors and medical facilities for other things.

We planned to keep five of the pods empty for emergency or urgent cases. The rest were still being used to “heal” everyone in Sanctuary. We had started with our oldest citizens. The only “oldies” we had were family members, so there weren’t a huge number of them. At an average of four days apiece in the pods, we’d managed to work our way through our older citizens to where we were now treating people in their forties.

The “oldies” had been treated just enough so that all critical medical issues were repaired, and the pods had them feeling like spry forty-year-olds. Even after they were healed, it took them a while to overcome sometimes years of habits, eliminating limps, walking upright instead of stooped over, not shuffling their feet when they walked, and compensating for arthritic joints.

Once we’d run everyone through a pod to deal with critical issues, we planned to go back and do a more thorough job on each person. Hopefully by then, we’d have over a thousand pods. Despite a howl of protest from most of the people in Sanctuary, I managed to make sure I was the last person my age through the healing pods.

Well, maybe not the last because we continued to have people joining us. Still, we had a lot of healing pods and only a trickle of new arrivals. While it still wasn’t widely known, knowledge about the existence of our portals was spreading on Earth, one reason we had now abandoned Refuge, not wanting to deal with the constant crush of people hoping to join us. What was funny was that most of our buildings there, aside from the houses that had been there when I bought the property, and the clinic we built and still funded, had all been transferred to Sanctuary.

Hence my call to General Weisch and my visit with him. “General, I’d like to offer the use of our healing pods to the VA hospitals in Orlando and Tampa. They will be able to heal everything physically wrong with wounded vets. I’ll need a room we can secure and the cooperation of the administration at both hospitals,” I started my offer.

“How much will it cost?” he asked.

“Monetarily, nothing. What I will require is an agreement signed by the President. The agreement will allow any active-duty troops with career-ending injuries to remain on active duty once they are fully healed if that is their choice. It will take them time to get back into shape, but they will be physically capable of achieving that.

“The second part of the agreement will be to allow any active-duty troops with career-ending injuries that wish to leave the service to be immediately released once we declare that they are physically healed. We will make no attempt to affect their decision, one way or the other.

“Here are two copies of the agreement if you wish to present them to the President,” I said as I handed him a folder.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

“We have empty healing pods available, and all of our people have been through them. We’re also considering making an offer to the Shriners to help with some of the children they see. Specifically, we can heal severe burns, cancer, spinal cord injuries, and physical deformities, things they have no hope of healing.”

“Why the sudden altruism?” he asked.

“Nothing sudden about it,” I replied. “We only finished the first healing pod a year ago and have only just finished building enough to heal our own people. Now we have more than necessary for our continuing use and I want to help people. I consider wounded vets and children to be two groups most deserving of our help.”

“Okay, I’ll pass your offer on,” he said as he stood and shook my hand.

“By the way, I’ve heard good things from the Nobles Group about you letting four of their groups use the portals. They feel that they’re well on their way to eliminating the worst of the gangs in Southern California. And I understand that you’ve worked your way up the Eastern Seaboard all the way to Vermont and New Hampshire, and only have eight states left to clear east of the Mississippi.”

“True, but we have the advantage of having more portals available and more experience using them,” I explained.

Two days later, signed agreement in hand, I met the General and Doctors Malloy and Burkett, the head administrators of the Orlando and Tampa VA Hospitals. We were in the office in Orlando. Sheila had checked camera coverage outside the complex and set me down in a spot that wasn’t covered. Ten minutes later, I knocked on the door.

“General Weisch says that you have an unbelievable offer for us,” Dr. Malloy said to start the discussion.

“Do you have the medical records I asked you to obtain?” I asked her.

“I do, but I can’t allow you to see them,” she replied.

“I have no use for them and wouldn’t understand a word in them if I did see them,” I said.

“General, care to explain what’s about to happen?” I asked.

After he rolled his eyes, he began. “Mr. Ross has access to technology that will boggle your mind. In fact, it sounds like science fiction. The first item, and I’ve personally experienced it, is what he calls a portal. He can create an opening anywhere on Earth. Before you protest,” he said, holding up a hand to stave off what had appeared to be protests from the two doctors, “I’d ask both of you to knock on the wall behind you.”

Looking rather perturbed, both doctors did it. “It’s a wall,” Doctor Malloy commented sarcastically.

She screamed a second later when a portal opened where the wall had been. Four men were standing in the portal, although they were unarmed. In fact, all they were wearing were gym shorts, a T-shirt, and shoes.

“Doctors, these are the four gentlemen that you have the medical records for,” I told them. “Please verify their identities and then check the medical condition listed in their records.”

Giving me a look that said she was about done playing games, she grabbed the top file and checked it, locating the veteran it belonged to. After reading it for a minute, she took a pen off her desk and tossed it at his left side, doing a double take when he easily caught it with his left hand.

“Press against my hand,” she ordered, putting her right hand in front of his left. He did, extending the arm enough to make her take a step back.

She checked the back of his left arm and looked at me. “He’s obviously an impostor because there’s no scar on the back of his left arm,” she said triumphantly, motioning at the photograph in his medical record.

“Or he had access to advanced medical technology,” I replied, making her frown.

“Are you criticizing the medical care we provide?” she asked heatedly.

“No, I’m merely suggesting that he had access to medical technology better than anything available on Earth,” I replied.

“More sci-fi?” she asked caustically.

“Exactly. Would you like to see it?” I asked.

“If it will end this farce sooner, sure,” she replied.

When I motioned towards the portal, the general and the troop stepped through. Dr. Burkett calmly followed the General, although he was cautious when he stepped into the portal, stepping across the opening like he had to clear a short threshold. With a roll of her eyes, Dr. Malloy followed, and I followed her.

“Pick someplace on Earth that you will recognize,” I told her.

She gave me an address in San Francisco. A second later, we were outside an older two-story house. “You couldn’t have known what address I’d pick, so how did you do this?” she asked.

“Like the General explained, we can open the portal anyplace on Earth. The portal is controlled by an Artificial Intelligence.

“Fine, take us to the basement of this house,” she challenged. Her eyes widened in surprise when she stepped out of the portal into the basement a second later.

“How are you doing this?” she asked, suddenly more curious than antagonistic.

“Alien technology,” I replied, causing her to spin and stare at me.

“Choose a vet that you can’t heal physically and let me convince them to give us a try,” I suggested.

“I’ll do it,” Dr. Burkett offered. “While I still find it hard to believe, I’ve already heard scuttlebutt about the portals. If you have those, I don’t know why you couldn’t have the healing pods.”

A week later, Dr. Burkett and a stunned Dr. Malloy reviewed the back of Sgt. Ford’s left thigh, as well as the scans they’d just done.

“One hundred percent healed,” Dr. Burkett commented.

“As skeptical as I remain, I see the evidence proving that your technology works,” Dr. Malloy sighed.

That began a trickle of wounded troops to be healed coming through a portal we opened in the two VA hospitals, a trickle that quickly increased until we were up to two hundred patients at a time. Another two hundred pods were used to treat disabled veterans, about a quarter of whom asked to stay with us once they were healed.

Dealing with the Shriners was a little easier. The director knew both Drs. Burkett and Malloy, who went with me.

“What’s this miracle cure going to cost?” the director asked suspiciously. Drs. Burkett and Malloy both smirked, having already been through their own suspicious stage.

“No money, but I’ll need the use of a room large enough that it can hold two gurneys end-to-end,” I replied.

“He’s serious,” Dr. Malloy interjected. “So far, he’s treated more than three hundred wounded vets each from here and Orlando. He’s even repaired the spinal cord of six of them, although it could take a year or so for them to regain full use of their muscles.”

“He’s even healed vets with extensive third-degree burns. The healed skin is the same color as the rest of their skin and there’s no scarring,” Dr. Burkett added.

“Today’s not April Fools Day,” she commented after trying to stare down each of the three of us.

“I’m willing to stake my reputation on it,” Dr. Malloy said, making the administrator’s head jerk back to look at her.

One week later, we began accepting a parade of children. The room had been remodeled to be like the ones at the two VA hospitals. Upon entering the room, you were in an anteroom with a heavy metal door like an elevator door on the opposite wall.

Only when the outer door closed and automatically locked would the inner door open. The patient and one of the two dozen pre-screened, and designated hospital staff entered the second room, along with one of the child’s parents if they wanted to accompany the child. If they did, they couldn’t leave until the child did.

As with the vets, one doctor and one nurse from each of the hospitals stayed in Gleffen to watch over their patients. The doctors and nurses were rotated every eight hours.

A month later, I met the board of St. Jude’s Medical Center in Memphis Tennessee. The fact that the board from the Shriners was with me and had already contacted them made my presentation unnecessary.

While I was busy expanding contacts from hospitals, our “government” in Sanctuary was hiring teachers. They’d been surprised at my insistence that we be careful hiring teachers. The teachers had to be warned that the history lessons we wanted taught would not be sanitized and whitewashed. Teachers were not allowed to speculate or teach their personal beliefs, only the facts that were in the curriculum.

English would be the only language used at school except for the mandatory foreign language courses, which only taught Rekka, the language spoken in the area surrounding us.

The debate over our school system had been contentious. In the end, we agreed on a single elementary school system for everyone. Anyone who caused problems would simply be kicked out and expected to work, regardless of their tender age. After a minimum of one full semester of work, they could petition to re-enroll. A second offense would see them kicked out permanently and expected to work. Failure to work would see them and their family returned to Earth.

Secondary school was split into three. One school was for vocational training. The second was for those students who wanted to complete their twelve years of education, some of whom might attend college. The third was for the “brainiacs.” Their four years of high school would see them facing a more rigorous curriculum and some of the classes could even count towards a college degree.

The same rules applied for anyone who caused problems or disruptions, and an offense in elementary school remained a part of their record, although they were ignored unless an offense in high school was violent and unwarranted. Defending oneself was not considered as causing a problem, and the total surveillance coverage on all school grounds let us know if there was a problem and who caused it.

Hiring college professors was even more difficult as they were used to espousing their beliefs and opinions, which would not be allowed. Because of that, several of the most renowned professors in their fields weren’t even considered.

In addition, while the college professors were allowed to do their own research, there was no “publish or perish” focus. Their job was to teach.

Once the gangs in the northeast had been dealt with, our troops on earth continued pushing further west in their effort to eliminate the violent gangs. Our help was requested all the way to the Rockies, and then even further west. Eventually, we cleared every state in the CONUS except the West coast, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. And we continued to monitor everything but Texas, eliminating new groups trying to replace the ones we eliminated. With as many gang members as we cleared out, there should be a population explosion among sharks due to the overabundant food source.

Even after we finished clearing the violent criminals, we kept getting calls from law enforcement officials. Turns out they thought we were part of the Nobles group, which meant that the disposition of any criminals we captured was up to us. More sharks were fed.

The President wanted to give us an award. I turned him down, figuring he was planning to use the ceremony to show the country how his administration had dealt with the gang problem.

Meanwhile, our computer complex tripled in size, and then tripled again. All of this was built underground to leave the fertile grassland above it available for agriculture sometime in the future. Some of the new sections contained the facilities to manufacture both smaller and larger nanobots. The smaller nanobots were being used in the healing machines and were no longer secret “on Earth” due to us using them on the patients we treated. That meant a few were still visible in blood samples taken from returned patients when their doctors went about verifying that they were, indeed, healed. While they were detectable, they became inactive within thirty days of being injected and were eliminated by the body, so that any still active on Earth quickly became inactive.

That para and quadriplegics now had limited function in their previously non-functioning limbs until they retrained neural pathways, or that amputees had regrown the missing appendages, didn’t mean a thing until their own doctors checked them out.

Some doctors, as well as government researchers, were extremely disappointed that any nanobots they recovered were already inactive and began breaking down so they couldn’t be studied.

Aside from allowing us to heal more people, having so many nanobots also allowed more AIs to be built. One of the first things Sheila used them for was creating the “shield” I’d mentioned to the President when I was threatening him. The only problem with that was, having abandoned Refuge, we no longer had a base on Earth we needed to protect.

We were also having problems finding new sources for purchasing building materials. The last three had taken our deposit of electronic currency and told us to fuck off. Instead, Sheila took back our deposit, along with a twenty-five percent “nuisance” fee. Then we confiscated all of the building materials they had left.

“Sheila, can you create passports that will pass as legitimate in 1980?” Vickie asked during dinner one night.

Yes, we had all the equipment necessary to create identification cards and passports. Everyone in Sanctuary had at least two forms of ID. One was a laminated card like a driver’s license. The other was a micro-chip. Those of us who made trips to Earth also had passports.

That included the medical people who liaised with hospitals that were sending us patients, our truck drivers, and the military people who hired our new recruits from among the retirees of elite forces from two dozen different countries. Any new recruits who didn’t speak English received a crash course.

“Yes, I can easily create those documents,” Sheila replied.

Yes, despite the fact that we currently had more than a dozen AIs as powerful as Sheila, she still oversaw everything.

Two days later, Amy and Vickie accompanied me back to Earth ... in July of 1979. We spent a month locating sources eager to buy our silver, for which the price was rising. Between July and December 1, we sold more than twenty tons of silver to cultivate relationships. Between December 1 and January 1, we sold more than two hundred tons to our worldwide network of buyers, just before the price of silver tanked. True, we could have sold it for much more per ounce in our original time, but the cost of building materials versus the price we received for the silver was much better in 1980. That, and the most common materials were readily available in 1980.

By using foreign passports when we sold the silver, and being careful where we sold it, we didn’t have to pay taxes because the people on the passports didn’t exist at this time.

Our profit was spent buying building materials, LOTS of building materials.

While we were still a long way from productively using the entire plateau, and we had only recently finished enclosing the entire plateau, we had decided to claim the neighboring plateau. It was slightly smaller than the one we inhabited and, if not for the river between us, would still be part of ours. However, at some point in the geologic past, the river had separated them into two.

Ours had still been the better choice. It was larger, had a copper deposit, had a better location for a port, and there’d been far fewer predators on our plateau. That was because the other plateau had more and easier access routes.

We quickly established a triple concertina wire barrier around the entire plateau and began installing chain link fence. Access points for locals were created along the north and west sides of the plateau and we created a small harbor a bit closer to the ocean and on the other side of the river from our harbor. Having spoken with the villagers in the nine closest villages, we did what they asked and helped them build nine new villages on the northern part of that plateau. We’d already eliminated all the dangerous predators, and blocked off the southern part of the plateau so the gajka could roam. Each new village had an access gate so they could hunt.

Access to our plateau had now been limited even farther. The cliff faces of the plateau had been coated with concrete, preventing erosion, and keeping anyone or anything from digging a new access route to the top. Three freight elevators had been installed, one at each of the two original routes to the top and one at our harbor. We’d even managed to show several of the local natives how to use the elevators so they weren’t terrified of them and could still access our plateau to hunt.

Now, I had decided to hire as many locals to expand our agriculture as wanted the work, which I expected to be at least a couple hundred at first. They’d finally have a way to earn what they considered advanced trade goods.

And then Amy got sick one morning. I was panicking, wondering how she could be sick since she’d been through the healing pod and had the vaccine so no virus, bacteria, or fungus should be making her sick.

Finding her laughing, almost hysterically, right after puking, only made me more upset.

“What?” I demanded.

“I think I’m pregnant,” she laughed, and then quickly spun and hurled again.

That interlude gave me time to process her statement. Twice. “Really?” I asked when she turned back to me.

“Supposedly, everything was healed, and I specifically asked about my ability to have children. Sheila assured me that I was now able to get pregnant, and we haven’t done anything to prevent it,” she said with a smirk. The smirk disappeared as she spun back to the toilet for some dry heaves.

Half an hour later, we had confirmation that Amy was, indeed, pregnant. And Vickie insisted that she be able to follow, soon.

Once the gangs had been wiped out, nearly four hundred of the troops from what we called the “Noble’s group” had asked to join us. Including their families meant that the extra houses we’d built and were still building suddenly weren’t enough, so we continued building. Thank goodness we had kept all the empty mobile homes.

Deciding that we had reached a point where we could severely curtail our interaction with Earth, we made a final review of the Western Hemisphere, everything from the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn. Our raids quickly eliminated a dozen cartel wannabes who were trying to restart an operation in the vacuum left by the elimination of the original cartels.