Chapter 2: The Next Generation

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

It was 8pm on a dull Monday night, one of those moonless nights where even the crickets had gone to sleep. The sleepy little town of Wylam, high and deep in the hills of Tennessee, had rolled up it’s sidewalks for the night, and turned off most of the lights. Even the local traffic light was only slowly blinking yellow now. Everything was so quite your own footsteps echoed off the building’s walls as you walked. It was hot and humid, but not enough to really be uncomfortable, just sticky. The man leaving the local rundown corner restaurant/bar had been the only customer there tonight, As he was approaching his car he heard what could only be someone getting slapped. That distinct sound an open palm makes when it strikes firm naked flesh. He stopped to listen and soon determined the activity was all coming from the other end of the large paved parking lot, somewhere behind a large parked fancy semi tractor trailer rig. A man and woman he determined, from the sound of the voices he could hear, were arguing it seemed.

Normally our man would have left it at that. It wasn’t any of his business, and he’d had more than a few at the local bar tonight and was feeling it, but tonight for some inexplicable reason known only to fickle Lakshmi, the Hindu Goddess of Beauty, Fate, and Good Fortune maybe, he decided to investigate it. Walking around the parked truck rig he got close enough that he was just in time to watched as the woman slapped the man hard again across the face. Still it was none of his business, but at that very moment the man, a particularly large man that she had just slapped, chose that moment to backhanded her smartly across the face. He then followed it up, while she was still reeling, with a hard closed fisted punch to her stomach. That punch doubled her over and knocked her out he guessed from the way her body crumpled and was caught by the man. That punch decided our man, and made it his business at that moment in time.

As our Good Samaritan approached the couple and their car, a brand spanking new beautiful 2020 black luxury Mercedes-Benz AMG GT 4-door Coupe, well over a hundred and fifty grand according to the latest 2020 issue of Car & Driver magazine he had just read. He announced himself loudly as he got closer.

“Is there a problem here?” He called out loudly as he came up on the man and car with both hands held out and away from his body. He stopped about 5 feet away from the bent over man. A safe, just out of reach distance, he hoped from prior experiences in the Corps with this sort of thing before. The man who was obviously stuffing the woman’s limp unconscious body into the back seat of the car hadn’t heard his approach till now he guessed.

Becoming aware of him now the other man, whose back was turned to our Good Samaritan, whirled around and stood upright when he finally took notice. Fully upright now the other man clearly towered over our Good Samaritan by a good 4 inches at least, not that our Good Samaritan himself was by any means small. Jazz Belcher, our Good Samaritan, was six foot one and a hundred eighty pounds, and far from little, but compared to the other man before him he was small.

“I repeat, is there a problem here?” Jazz said again loudly, but in what he considered a reasonable tone of voice, heck he was even smiling wasn’t he, well he told himself that anyway.

“The wife is a little under the weather and I’m helping her into the car, if it’s any of your damn business mister. We’ll be leaving now.” The stranger angrily answered then turned back to stuffing the woman ignominiously into the back seat of the car and ignoring Jazz.

“I’ve got nothing against you personally mister, in fact I’ve had a few domestic disputes myself in my time, but I don’t know you from Adam’s house cat, and I’d like to hear the little lady’s version of what just happened here before you take off and disappear down the road if you don’t mind.” Jazz pressed, but the big guy just kept working and ignored Jazz. By this time the other man had her in the car and closed the door. As he walked around the back of the car to the driver’s front door on the other side of the car Jazz followed at a safe distance. Passing the back of the car Jazz noticed the car’s license plate was covered with mud or something making it impossible to read. Since it was the only thing with any mud on it, it set off alarms in Jazz’s already suspicious brain.

“Look mister I’m not going to let you leave here until I speak to her.” Jazz said, as the stranger got into the car with Jazz standing at it’s side now about five foot back from the rear door on the driver’s side of the car. At that point Jazz removed his cell phone from his coat pocket and punched in 911. While he was still waiting for a response from the local Emergency 911 Operator the car started and the driver quickly reversed and actually tried to sideswipe Jazz with the front fender forcing Jazz to dodge out of the way and drop the phone he was holding. Still squatting on one knee Jazz drew his S&W Chief Special 38 snub nosed revolver from the belly band holster that was holding it in small of his back. He then put a 110 gram jacketed hollow point slug through the right front tire that was about ten yards away. Pretty good shooting he congratulated himself as the right side of the car dipped a little as the tire rapidly deflated and the car stopped dead.

In just moments the confrontation had become a Mexican standoff of sorts, with the driver and car paused about ten yards away from him. The driver seemed to be considering running over him or driving away still. When the driver decided to keep going in reverse Jazz took out the left front tire too. Two tires were gone, but the driver kept going on the flats. I guess you get what you pay for Jazz thought to himself as the touted new 4Matic+ all wheel drive he’d just read about kept the car moving backward in a more or less straight line in spite of the two flat tires. The car didn’t stop until it got about 300 yards away from Jazz. Then the car stopped and the driver got out and ran away. Jazz was more than a little confused about what had just happened.

Searching around Jazz found his phone on the pavement in three pieces, it was clearly dead now. In all this time nobody else had even come out of the rundown restaurant/bar or other buildings to investigate the gunshots. Approaching the stopped car that was still running with it’s lights on Jazz reached in and turned off the ignition and lights and removed the key. Then he opened the driver’s side rear door and dragged the still unconscious woman by her shoulders all the way across the seat to get a better look at her.

At a guess Jazz would peg the woman’s age at somewhere around her mid to late 20s or early 30s. A cute rather than beautiful face with long dirty blond or light auburn hair tied back into a pony tail stared up at him with closed eyes. Dressed in some kind of women’s power suit equivalent of a man’s dark black business suit with tight bellbottom slacks he judged off hand. The suit coat was fully open and a fully buttoned up frilly lacy white shirt with a full fluffy lacy collar all the way up to her chin was on display. Checking for a pulse in her neck he discover she had a 4”x 4” flesh colored transdermal patch on the side of her neck over the carotid artery now.

“Well that can’t be good.” Jazz mumbled to himself as he carefully peeled it off her neck, and then sticking it on the back of the head rest.

“Now what do I do with you sweetheart? Decisions, decisions, decisions, do I hunt a phone ... stay here with you ... or Hell just take you home with me. Somebody didn’t want you waking up any time soon for some reason honey.” Jazz mumbled to himself as he stood there staring down at the unconscious woman. While he was busy deciding what to do about her, the car’s own phone began to ring loudly and flash on and off drawing his attention.

“Do you have friends Goldilocks? Is this even your car Goldee?” Jazz voiced out loud, as he slid into the driver’s seat and picked up the phone from the center console.

“Who the Hell are you? Where is Jill? What have you done to Jill?” A shrill concerned female voice began demanding all at once from the handset he was now holding.

“Slow down Mam, you have me at a disadvantage Mam. I assume you have a camera in here somewhere and can see me ... well us anyway. I presume that you know this lady. I intervened in what I thought was a domestic situation and discovered that it was something else entirely. The kidnapper ... a big guy ... I assume he was a kidnapper ... tried to hit me with the car and then he ran away when I disabled the car. This woman ... I assume she’s your Jill ... had a transdermal patch on her neck, which I removed by the way. I don’t honestly know what else he gave her, but I doubt she will wake up any time soon...” The woman on the other end broke in at that point.

“I’m sorry, mister whoever you are, when you lifted the phone’s handset you reactivated all the cars built-in security systems which I have to assume Jill for some reason intentionally disabled. That is not SOP, and she shouldn’t have done it, but you just reactivated it. We now know through the GPS and uplink, exactly where you are. Also through the different cameras we have a full spectrum analysis of both yours, and hers, vital signs. Your right Jill will be in Lala Land for quite awhile, but she’s feeling no pain at the moment, and everything else is looking good. A full team of our people is on it’s way to your location right now, it’ll be there in ... approximately 20 minutes...” The woman doing the talking was interrupted by another excited female voice in the background at this point.

“Lexi according to the overwatch satellite there is another unknown force vectoring in on their location that’s going to get there before our force can get there.” The new female voice added.

“Mister, whoever you are, I need you to get in the car and lock everything up. Oh, your already behind the wheel so I’ll walk you through the pilot’s check list...” Lexi started before Jazz broke in.

“Lexi, I’m Jazz.” Jazz started.

“Time for introductions latter Jazz, right now we have to prepare for whoever this is. Key in the ignition, start it up...” she directed.

“We won’t be going very far on two flat front tires Lexi.” Jazz laughed out loud.

“That probably explains why Jill’s attacker ran off. He went for reinforcements rather that just killing you outright on the spot Jazz.” Lexi laughed again.

“Well I did have a gun and three more rounds.” Jazz informed her.

“What size Jazz?” she asked appearing interested.

“S&W 38 Special.” Jazz informed her.

“If this is who we think it is, that would not even slow one of them down. Hope you never meet one in the proverbial dark alley Jazz.” Lexi told Jazz.

“If he was that bad why did he run away?” Jazz asked puzzled.

“Call it a smart tactical retreat on his part Jazz. His imperative was to get away, report in, and get reinforcements there as fast as possible after you disabled the vehicle. That was good thinking on your part Jazz, and probably why your still alive. Now you need to replace the handset in the cradle and push the button that’s blinking now. That’s going to turn your windshield into a high resolution touch screen graphics display. Anybody standing outside will only see a mirrored windshield now. Heck for that matter all the windows are polarized now.” Lexi paused long enough for Jazz to do it and get used to it before going on.

“Right now you are in the default setting mode. The blinking green dot in the center is you, well your car anyway. The blue dot on the outer edge is our rescue force, and the red dot near you is the hostile unknown force approaching you. On the lower right hand bottom in front of you is a blinking orange VADS symbol, that stands for “voice activated defense system”. Push it now.” Lexi directed, and Jazz reached out and touched it.

“Danu is now on line.” a sexy disembodied female voice responded.

“Danu won’t respond to you at the moment, but she will respond to my voice, so now I’m going to grant you user access Jazz. Danu, I Lexi, grant Jazz provisional user access status.”

“User Lexi’s authority recognized, access granted to User Jazz, Lexi.” came back from the unseen, but sexy female voice.

“In a couple of minutes this hostile force is going to jam my signal and you will be on your own Jazz. Danu is a very smart AI of sorts, she’s quite capable of making tactical decisions and deploying the cars weapons to her, and your, best advantage, but she requires an actual human being with user access to OK her decisions where it involves endangering or taking human life, or in this case possible human life too, ha, ha. In this case you are regarded as the gun’s safety Jazz.” Lexi laughed.

“So I’m a glorified gun safety now? What weapons are we talking about?” Jazz asked, but Lexi ignored his question.

“When this party starts Danu will go into combat mode and lock everything down and me out. On the friend or foe side, yes Danu will recognize us as friends, but she’ll only stand down from defending you and the car when you give her the order.” Lexi continued.

“What weapons do I have Lexi? ... Lexi?” Jazz asked the empty air, and waited and waited for an answer.

“User Lexi has been interdicted by hostile actions. This unit is now in lock-down mode. Local User Jazz now in supervisory mode. Hostile force is within 900 clicks. Analysis of enemy’s weapons show that they have nothing capable of breaching my Class 4 force field.” Danu stated in what Jazz imagined was a slightly superior smug female voice.

“Force field?” Jazz asked in shock, not aware of anybody with actual working force fields. Sure everybody knew of the concept, who hasn’t watched Star Trek, but real working force fields?

“Yes, a Class 4 force field.” Danu affirmed in her now firm sexy smug tone, and then continued with an update of their status. “Analysis shows that our advanced fuel cell battery contains a more than sufficient amount of energy presently to maintain the field at maximum for the amount of time it will take our reinforcements to arrive User Jazz. Though I have not detected an actual threat yet, I advise that we raise the force field User Jazz.” Danu advised.

“Yes, Danu by all means raise the force field ... have you raised it yet? I didn’t feel anything.” Jazz questioned.

“Yes, User the force field is deployed, it is spiracle in nature. It extends outward from approximately five feet from the vehicle to a distance of ninety feet, it actually extends into the Earth beneath us, but is defuse to allow us somewhat free movement. It has been found that the field density effected, and was itself affected, by the material surrounding it. It didn’t matter so much in the vacuum of outer space with very little real matter around, but in something in direct contact with the solid Earth itself that field density matters. When the field was deployed it was like the car was moving through deep mud. So now we make it less dense, but out further to stop the same things from reaching us.” Danu lectured Jazz.

“How is Jill doing Danu?” Jazz asked the AI to change subjects.

“User Jill is fine, if there was an actual urgent need there is a medical kit in the car with stimulants and an air injector that could possibly be used to revive her, but I do not consider this an emergency User. There is a high probability that the stimulants and other drugs could have an adverse effect on User Jill. Better that User Jill be allowed to recover at her own rate.” Danu advised.

“I guess I agreed with that evaluation.” Jazz mumbled to himself.

“What does Danu stand for Danu?” Jazz decided to ask.

“Danu was a primary Celtic goddess, her name means “knowledge” User Jazz. From her flowed all of life and knowledge. She is also linked to the Druids, to the fairy hills of Ireland, and a tribe of ancient deities known as Tuatha de Danaan, meaning “the folk of the goddess Danu”, or the earlier name Tuath Dé, meaning “tribe of the goddess”. According to the poem of Lebor Gabála Érenn, they came to Ireland “in dark clouds” and “landed on the mountains of Conmaicne Rein in Connachta”, otherwise known as Sliabh an Iarainn.”

“The legend says, “they brought a darkness over the sun for three days and three nights”. Therefore it was conceived that they had arrived in clouds of mist from either heaven or hell. Take your pick User Jazz. Once there they taught their skills of the sciences, including architecture, the arts, and magic, that also included necromancy to the Peoples.”

“Today the Tuath Dé Danann, or the Tuath Dé, are believed by many to be a supernatural race in Irish mythology. They are thought to represent the main deities of pre-Christian Gaelic Ireland. They constitute a pantheon whose attributes appear in a number of forms throughout the Celtic world. They supposedly dwell in the Otherworld, but interact with humans and the human world. They are associated with ancient passage tombs, such as Brú na Bóinne, which were seen as portals to these Otherworlds.” Danu lectured Jazz, maybe entertained him is a better fit, as they waited for relief to arrive.

When bad guys return.

The bad guys showed up in a all too common Budget Rental 28-ft. moving truck minutes latter. The thing was 28’ long, by 8’ 1” high, by 8’ 1” wide, well able to hold the car Jazz figured. They, whoever they were, might have tried the force field, Jazz didn’t know for sure, but nothing else was done. They finally left just before Lexi’s reinforcements showed up in a Kenworth tractor trailer rig with a 40-ft DOT drop shipping container on a 3axle trailer rig shortly after the bad guys left. The reinforcements that stepped down from the rig were women of course, and the container, Jazz was sure, was modified to hold the car if necessary. In this case the four crewmen, big six foot tall Amazon women, in smart looking dark brown coveralls changed the tires and shot Jazz. Yes, Jazz soon joined Jill in the car, and the car was then loaded into the truck, and off they went to see the wizard, or do we say sorceress in this case.

The consequences of being a Good Samaritan.

“Nice to see your back in the land of the living Jazz?” The woman standing beside Jazz’s bed said, when he lurched up from the bed after realizing he was laying on it and not dead. Jazz, when he actually looked at her, placed her in her late 40s, maybe early 50s. Short dark curly hair around a light brown Latino looking face, in a suit similar to Jill’s, but smart flat soled lace up shoes instead of strap on high heels like Jill’s.

“We’ve been waiting quite awhile for you to wake up and join us. Jill wanted to be here to thank you personally, but she needed to be deprogrammed after they somehow got to her. We need to figure out how that happened before it happens to others, so she couldn’t be here...” The woman started what had to be her well oiled pitch to a waking Jazz.

“You? ... you ... you shot me with something. Not even a “Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Mam”. You just shot me with a gun...” Jazz interrupted her speech.

“Yes ... yes we did, which is SOP in these instances. Though it was highly unlikely that you were an agent for them it couldn’t be ruled out, and you were only stunned, get over it...” She continued, but Jazz broke in again.

“But I didn’t know that ... all I knew was she took out a strange gun and shot me. I could have had a heart attack ... or a ... a ... brain aneurysm, or hell I don’t know, but I could have died. I thought I was dead.” Jazz finished heatedly.

“I sincerely apologize Jazz, but experience has shown that we can’t afford to warn the subject before we shot them. Some of the ... the ... well you would have to classify them as human technically I guess, are ... are, well wired for speed you would have to say Jazz. Of course on the other hand the shooter, knowing it’s strictly non-lethal mostly, has no hesitation about shooting the subject. Just shoot them and let the Goddess herself sort them out latter is the rule we follow. No harm no foul, ha, ha.” The woman laughed and went on.

“Victim you mean! And what do you mean mostly?” Jazz huffed.

“Oh you caught that? Well early on there were some myocardial infarctions, but that problem was mostly fixed long ago, ha, ha.” the woman allowed.

“Mostly! ... Mostly! ... Shouldn’t scare a person like that.” Jazz sulked sitting up in bed and noticing for the first time he only had his jockey shorts on.

“Moving on now Jazz. I’m here to recruit you. You have a unique opportunity to join the Marines and see the world, well other worlds anyway. Be all you can be even. My name is Shannon.” Shannon told Jazz offering her hand to shake.

“Thank you Shannon”, Jazz said, declining to shake her hand, “but I’ve already been there, done that. I’m 70 something even if I am rather well preserved for my age I think young lady.” Jazz chuckled at the joke he had to assume.

“Jazz, you have a rare opportunity, we can return you to your car without any knowledge of what just happened here last night. Just wipe it all away. Right now it’s short term memory. A little mild ECT, electro shock treatment, and a little Flunitrazepam, or Rohypnol, they’re a benzodiazepine with pharmacological actions similar to those of Diazepam that can cause anterograde amnesia. Sometimes they’re refereed to as Roofees, the date rape drug Jazz. And it’s all gone and your no longer a danger to us.”

“We can do that, or we can offer you the Gali Treatments. Gali was the Celtics Goddess associated with rejuvenation and the protection of the young. Her name was changed by the damn Romans to Juventas a name in fact that is derived from the Latin word iuventas meaning youth. Of course the Celtics among us, say her true name is Gali. True we can’t return you to being a pimply faced adolescent teenager, but we can turn the clock back to early middle age and keep it there Jazz. Somewhere in your mid 30s to mid 40s.” Shannon explained.

“And why would you be offering me this wonderful golden opportunity Shannon, if it’s real. In my life I’ve usually found that offers that look too good to be true usually aren’t real Shannon.” Jazz questioned her offer.

“Well I have to be honest with you Jazz. We’ve had you under drug interrogation for the last 8 hours, and we’ve dug pretty deep into your mind. We know that really you have nothing to hold onto in this life your now living. No mother or father, sisters or brothers. No relatives your even slightly fond of, and no real friends either for that matter. In other words you could disappear unnoticed. Most people can’t make that clean break Jazz. When we’ve tried in the past they couldn’t handle the clean break with their former old life and the transition to the new one. There’s always something that drags them back to the old life. In the end we usually had to wipe their memory for our own safety. Wiping long term memory is quite different than short term memory Jazz, it’s really really messy. A lot of times the person it’s done to winds up with schizophrenia, depressive disorders, and even bipolar disorder. In other words bat-shit crazy.” Shannon paused to allow Jazz to ask questions. When he didn’t Shannon continued.

“The question is do you want to try for the new life, or go back to your old life. Remember that right now you’ll just forget that any of this happen, there wont be any regrets of lost opportunities, no recriminations later, not even a vaguely remembered dream, you’ll simply forget it all, but if you wait any longer to make the decision it’s going to rollover into long term memory. Decide now Jazz.” Shannon ordered Jazz.

“I’ll try for the brave new world behind door number one Vanna, I mean Shannon.” Jazz declared at once, after all what did he have to loose at his age.

Brave New World.

“OK, open or closed?” Shannon asked hours latter.

“Open or closed what?” Jazz shot back hours latter after he was dressed once again.

“Open or closed coffin of course, we have to close the books on James Jazz Delacort, Sr ... You even get to leave your entire estate to your son James Jazz Delacort, Jr...” She laughed.

“But I don’t have a son damn it.” Jazz angrily answered back.

“Jazz there are certain third world countries out there that specialize in creating new identities, new citizenship...” Shannon was interrupted by Jazz.

“You mean false identities don’t you Shannon?” Jazz all but sneered.

“No Jazz, false implies a sham, something that is untrue. These identities will hold up for any investigation. They allow you to travel or do anything you want to do, but since money, large sums of money, is usually involved in acquiring these new identifies they are watched closely. We try to avoid that close observation as much as possible Jazz.” she finished.

“Point taken Shannon.” Jazz allowed

“An estranged unknown son and his long dead mother on the other hand are an easy to create fiction. It even provides a cover story if somebody notices the similarities between you and your dead father Junior.” Shannon laughed. “All your DNA, fingerprints, hand scans, retinal scan, even your Kirlian image...” Jazz broke in.

“Kirlian image? I’ve never heard of that one.” Jazz questioned.

“Yes, Kirlian photography is a photographic technique used to capture the phenomenon of electrical coronal discharges. It’s named after Semyon Kirlian, who, in 1939, accidentally discovered that if an object on a photographic plate is connected to a high-voltage source, an image is produced on the photographic plate. Each image is unique to the person or thing photographed. The cameras in the car are quite unique Jazz. When Lexi said full spectrum scan she meant a full spectrum scan, as in a thorough full medical workup. But as I was saying, we have by now removed or altered all the forensic evidence of your past life. There should be no evidence that he was you now.” Shannon smirked and lectured Jazz.

“And when does this Gali or Juventas Treatment begin?” Jazz asked.

“Treatments Jazz. Treatments. They are two parts. First injections of specialized stem cells directly into the cerebellum, thalamus, hypothalamus, and pituitary gland. The most important functions of the hypothalamus is to link the nervous system to the endocrine system by the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus is located below the thalamus and is part of the limbic system. You could say life starts with these more primitive parts of our brain. Our scientist were finally able to decode the starfish’s ability to regenerate. To turn on and off the stem cell’s abilities and reprogram them.”

“During embryonic development, most animal’s cells take on a particular identity Jazz. They become blood cells, or lung cells, or bone cells, or whatever. This is called differentiation, and differentiated cells almost always keep their identities for life, but a special type of cell though is called a stem cell. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells, some of these cells always remain behind without a particular identity. These stem cells can be thought of as permanently immature cells that can decide later what role to take on. For example stem cells in your skin are what make you able to heal after you cut or bruised yourself. These cells are what allows you to regrow or heal your body.”

“Starfish and some other lower animals have stem cells that can do more than just make new skin, they can differentiate into whole new arms, even new bodies. We learned their secret and now we can regenerate our whole body to a younger more optimum level. We can replace the old cells with new younger cells Jazz. The secret is the second part of the treatment, the Lazarus Ray.” Shannon paused.

“Oh, I get it, John 11:1 through 44, in the New Testament of the Bible, where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Cute.” Jazz replied with a laugh.

“Our scientist assure us that the injections to the lower brain alone will stimulate the start of the production of the new and improved stem cells, but it would take many many years for the whole body to naturally replace all those older cells ... think about it, it’s not millions, or billions, or even trillions of old cells Jazz. First you would feel younger because the interior cells of the body would be replaced first, but it would be many years before you actually looked younger. But with the Ray and our own version of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, HBOT, which involves breathing almost pure oxygen in a special small chamber almost like a coffin, it’s possible to speed it up to a couple of weeks. Of course you will be in a hypnotic trance almost the whole time.” Shannon paused again.

“Oh, is that all?” Jazz laughed.

“Well there you have it Jazz. Our answer to the “Fountain of Youth”.” Shannon finished and waited for Jazz’s reaction.

“A coffin ... hyperbaric oxygen chamber ... trance ... injections ... anything else you want to share with me Shannon?” Jazz sarcastically asked with a rased eyebrow trying to imitate Mr. Spock.

“Well yes Jazz there is ... are quite a few other things. For one you will be immersed and breathing a liquid. A prefluorocarbon liquid, PFC for short. An oxygen-rich liquid developed back in World War II believe it or not as a blood substitute. A liquid that is capable of holding large amounts of oxygen and carbon dioxide, so that gas exchange can occur in the lungs. This liquid will be constantly washing around in your body and through your lungs removing dead cells and poisons. That’s the main reason why you have to be sedated and in a trance Jazz.” Shannon laughed at the look on Jazz’s face.