One Way or Another By Cleo Kraft ------------------ The candy shop held a lot of memories for Brett Smith. His mind wandered to years back when he worked there as stock boy.
"Hi Julie," said Brett, greeting a long time friend.
"Brett!" Julie exclaimed coming around the counter to hug him.
"Thought I'd stop buy to see if you still worked here," he said.
She was a beautiful, brown eyed, brunette woman in her mid twenties and Brett had a massive crush on her.
"So you still won't consider going on a date with me?" he asked.
"Always the kidder, eh Brett?" she said releasing him from the hug. "Now you know I could never love you. How many times do I have to remind you of that? We're just friends and let's leave it at that, okay?"
With a shrug he said,"Had to try."
"And you always do, don't you?" she said with a wink and a laugh.
"Well, I just wanted to see you and find out what's going on," he
explained. "You know, I've got my own business now. I'm a travel agent for the space lines. I could book a flight for you and I to the Mars Base if you'd like."
"Mars?" she asked with a faraway look in her eyes. "I haven't been to Mars since I was a teenager. The teleporter booths, are they still legal on Mars?"
"Yep," Brett said. "Only planet that allows 'em. So what do you say? Will you fly with me to Mars? There is a great resort hotel that I know about. It's close to the pyramids."
She looked at him and smiled,"Now you know I can't do that. You're just trying to get me on a date again, aren't you? Well it just wouldn't be right, Brett."
"Then what if I give you a ticket anyway and you can go alone?"
"That's awfully nice of you. That's sweet but I just can't take
advantage of you that way. It wouldn't be right," she said and walked back around the counter to help a customer.
Brad waited patiently until the customer left the store, then he said,"So, Julie."
"Yeah?" she asked stacking boxes of chocolates on a back counter.
"Where did you go to, exactly, when you went to Mars?" he asked.
"Oh," she said turning. "I was in High School at the time and our swim team had a meet there at Toerokerx High School."
"You teleported there?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said. "You know they were just starting to use teleporters back then so the school only had one of them. I had to wait in a twenty minute line just to beam on over from the hotel."
"What year was that?" he asked hoping he wasn't being too nosey.
"Oh, twenty fifety-five," she said with a dreamy look. "The good old fifties. I remember it well. Of course you were were just a kid then, right?"
"Yeah, nine," he said. "And you were?"
"Eighteen," she said with a smile. "And to think I haven't aged a bit since then."
He ignored her lie. He knew she was beautiful but she was likely even more beautiful back when she was eighteen.
"So what High School were you in at the time?" Brett asked.
"Eastman, right here in town," she said reflecting upon old memories. "Funny thing was, I panicked and never actually swam that day. I guess things caught up with me or something but, you know what? I've never been the same girl since."
"Right," he said. "Well, nice talking to you again, Julie. I wish you'd come with me to Mars. We'd have a great time."
"Brett," she said with some concern in her voice. "Now you're a nice guy and everything and I'm flattered that you like me and want to date me but it just can never be. I hope you understand."
"I know," he said with a shrug. "You keep telling me that but I'm a bit stubborn. Anyway, see you later, Julie."
He waved at her and she said goodbye as he left.
-----
The following week, Brett hopped on board a luxury starliner and headed for Mars. When he arrived, he called a friend of his from his hotel room.
"Hey Troy," he said to the video screen.
"Hey Brett, what brings you back to the Red Planet?" Troy asked.
"Doing a little research," Brett answered. "Anyway, I need to ask a favor of you."
"Sure, anything, what is it old pal?"
"I want you to get me one of those red cards we talked about once before," Brett said sitting down in a lounge chair.
"You in trouble or something?"
"No, I just need more options right now," Brett said. "You still make those cards?"
"Yeah, but not much anymore. Too risky and highly illegal. How about you come on over right now and I'll get one for you?"
"Sounds like a plan," Brett said nodding and turned off the videophone.
Awhile later, Brett stood in a secret store room watching his friend manufacture a pirated bit of technology for him.
A plastic card emerged from under a machine.
Brett looked at the card with a smile as the technician shut off the machine.
"Thanks Troy," Brett said taking the card.
"No problem," Troy said gathering up his toolbox. "Just don't go telling anyone about this skeleton key. We could both wind up in big trouble if you do."
"You sure this will work?" Brett asked examining the tiny red card.
"Every time," Troy replied tipping his hat. "Just keep a backup copy of your current I.D. handy. You never know when you'll need your old I.D. back."
"Okay, thanks," Brett said showing his friend to the teleporter booth.
"Don't mention it. Just remember I was never here and I didn't make this skeleton key for you, okay? And don't try using it while transporting. You could split off from your origin, leaving a clone copy of yourself at one end of the transport."
"Sure."
"Now you wait here a few minutes after I teleport. Then you zip yourself to some random locations until you're certain that your trail can't be traced back here. Okay?"
"Sure," Brett said tapping the red card. "Everything will be okay. Don't worry."
Troy entered the teleporter booth and vanished into the particle network.
A few minutes later, Brett teleported to the pyramid complex.
From there, he teleported to a supermarket and then off to the spaceport.
Finally he teleported back to his hotel room.
Brett dialed another friend on the videophone.
"Hello?" a man said staring back at him. "Oh, Brett, what a surprise. So you need information, right?"
"Yeah, hi Gregg," he said. "Teleporter booths - how long do they retain memory trace on peoples patterns?"
"It's indefinite," Gregg answered. "Why? What are you up to?"
"Oh nothing, I just need to know where those patterns are archived is all."
"Well, you need access to Veronica," Gregg said leaning forward towards the camera. "What are you really up to, my friend?"
"Who's Veronica?"
"The core Martian computer, now you mind telling me what this is all about? Are you trying something illegal?" Gregg asked pulling out a cigar and lighting it.
"I'm just doing some research is all," Brett explained. "I need to find someone's pattern."
"Okay, who is she?" Gregg asked getting wise.
"How do you know it's a 'She'?"
"Just a lucky guess. Look if you're thinking of taking some dames bio pattern and building a clone copy of her, think again. Besides being illegal, you could never get the clone copy to fall in love with you if this girl already isn't."
"I need a way into this computer database," Brett said. "A fake entry I.D. and password. Whatever it takes, I've got to gain access to Veronica."
"I take it you no longer work for the CIA?" Gregg asked. "Otherwise you wouldn't be asking me this."
"Yeah, they cut back some of their forces. They still don't trust me anyway, so I don't blame them for getting rid of me. Now about that password?"
"Sorry fella, you're on your own here. Even if what you tell me is the truth, how can I be sure you still aren't working for the government?" Gregg asked puffing away on his cigar.
"That's okay," Brett said. "Your information has helped me plenty. I'll find my own way into the database. Talk to you later."
Brett hung up the videophone and entered the teleport booth.
Moments later he was in the Mars Public Library.
"Can I assist you?" a young librarian asked.
"Yes," Brett replied. "I need to find some information about a High School swim meet that happened back in twenty fifety-five."
"What High School was it?" she asked sitting down at a computer terminal.
"The home team was Toerokerx and the visitors were Eastman."
The librarian typed up some search criteria into the computer and then said,"Looks like Toerokerx lost over all. The meet was more of an exhibition game than anything else as Earth and Mars High Schools have never been in active competition with one another due to logistics. I have yearbook photos and lists of the team rosters along with the date of the event."
Brett sat down beside the librarian and thanked her.
"Not at all. It's my job," she said walking away.
He found out the date of the swim meet was May fifteenth.
With a smile, he stood up and grabbed a printout containing all the information he needed.
"Now to see about getting access to Veronica," he said walking over to a teleporter booth.
Moments later he arrived back at his friends storeroom.
"Troy won't mind if I borrow his computer to do some hacking," Brett said to himself while typing away at the keyboard.
The monitor displayed a prompt for username and password.
He quickly ran a hacking program and gained access within a few minutes.
"I can't believe this system is so easy to get into," he mused searching the database. "Perhaps they don't expect anyone to look for old files or anything."
He found a file named JAR, indexed under the name Julie Anne Rollings.
"Download!" he cried hitting the return key.
The file transferred immediately and he logged off.
He saved the file to a smart-cube and then used the teleporter to get out of there fast.
After numerous jumps to cover his tracks, he made it back to his hotel room.
"Now I have the data, and the skeleton key," he said to himself with a smile. "If Julie won't have me, then I'll clone a copy of her for myself. One way or another, I'm going to have her."
He inserted the red card into a slot in the side of the transporter booth in the corner of the room.
Then he uploaded a copy of the data file to the machines memory.
With a here-goes-nothing shrug, Brett activated the reconstruction circuits.
The booth shimmered inside for a moment, then a young Julie Rollings was standing there in a white skirt and top, with pink sneakers. On the floor of the booth was a duffel bag most likely full of her swimsuit, towel, and other things.
She nearly dropped her tiny, black purse in shock as she looked around the hotel room.
"Hi there," Brett said walking over to greet his dream girl."I'm
Brett Smith. Please come inside and make yourself at home. This is my hotel room."
She just stood there in disbelief and nervously said,"I - I must have got the wrong address. I meant to teleport to Toerokerx High School for a swim meet. Sorry. I'll just re-teleport."
The booth shimmered once more and she was gone.
"Damn it!" Brett cursed himself for his stupidity. "I should have deactivated it after she materialized."
He quickly ran inside the booth, grabbed his red card, and sent himself after her.
He materialized inside a city park within a giant glass dome.
"What?" he said looking around for the High School.
It never occurred to him that the school might have been demolished after all these years.
Julie was sitting down on a park bench nearby crying.
Brett came down to sit beside her,"What's the matter Julie?"
Stunned, she looked at him and said,"How did you know my name? Do I know you?"
"I'm Brett Smith," he said sitting closer to her. "I know you aren't going to believe this but the year isn't twenty-fifety-five. I reconstructed your body from an old data file. You and I are boyfriend and girlfriend. So what do you say we go out for a bite to eat?"
She gasped,"This can't be. I was supposed to have a swim meet today. Tell me this can't be."
"It's true," he said.
"If I'm a reconstruction, then what happened to my other body?
I don't even know you. What's going on here? How did you do this?" she asked looking at him with a cunning, plotting look in her eyes. "You tell me, Brad Smith. Tell me how you did this."
He showed her the red card.
"Skeleton key," he said proudly. "I can use it to retransmit old data. That's how I brought your old data file into existence. You are a copy of the original. You are a clone."
She took the card from him quickly and she stood up.
"Okay," she said in an authoritive tone. "Here's the deal. I keep the card from now on so you don't go making anymore clones. Then you tell me exactly how this thing works. I want you to show me how to undo this. I don't belong here so you'd better show me how to fix things up."
He explained to her that all she needed to do was get inside the booth and he could reverse the transmission.
"But I need the card to do that," Brett explained.
"Promise you'll destroy the card then?" she asked.
"Yeah, whatever," he said leading her over to the booth.
"First we have to go back to the hotel room. Then I have to try a backwards sequence to undo this," he said.
They teleported together back to the hotel.
"How can I trust you won't try this again?" she asked.
"I'm not going to try this again," he assured her while fidgeting with the booth controls.
"Do you really need the card to send me back?" she asked looking at the red card in her hands. "Can't you do it without the card?"
"Yeah, I suppose," he said. "I'll have to do some extra programming though. Why?"
"Then I'm keeping the card and you can just send me back, loosing both me and the card in the process," she said smugly. "That'll prevent you from trying this ever again."
He didn't want to mention to her that all he needed to do was contact his friend, Troy, again to get another skeleton key.
"Okay, deal," he said.
A few moments later she stepped back into the booth and Brett sent her data back to la-la-land.
He then went to the video phone and called up Troy.
"Another card?" Troy asked knowingly.
"Yeah, same one," Brett said. "I'll pay you double for it this time."
"Meet me in one hour," Troy said and hung up.
Later that evening, Brett sat down back in his hotel room with a new key, going over a new plan in his mind.
"One way or another," he said to himself clenching the red card with determination.
He decided to risk creating a controlled clone of Julie using some of his own mind data. He hoped to produce a Julie so compatible with him that she would have all the same feelings of wanting to be together. Splicing the mind data on top of hers was the key to it all.
He didn't even bother to do another upload of her bio file as it was still stored in the booth.
"Time to bring you back, Julie," he said inserting the card and stepping inside the booth to record his mind into the machine.
If he had everything programmed correctly, he would have a more willing Julie Rollings sitting here in his hotel room in less than ten minutes.
His brain scan went perfectly and minutes later he set the machine to reconstruct his custom designed Julie.
"Come to me, Julie," he said with open arms. "Love me."
The booth came to life and Julie stood there inside it once again.
"Oh my God!" she said looking down at herself and then over at Brett. "Oh this is horrible! You've switched bodies with me!"
Brett laughed and said,"Calm down, Julie. I can explain everything."
"Calm down?" she asked angrily marching out of the booth, grabbing the red card from the slot. "You switched bodies with me, you evil bitch!"
"No, I just copied my mind into Julies body and you are the result. Now you can love me, right Julie?" he asked.
She grabbed a table lamp and threw it at him.
"I'll kill you for this!" she screamed.
She picked up a chair and wacked him over the head with it.
Brett fell to the floor in a daze.
"I don't care what you say," she said fidgeting with the teleporter controls. "You switched bodies with me and I'm switching us back. I should never have reanimated you in the first place. Now you've messed up everything but I'll fix it this time for sure."
Brett tried to struggle up to his feet but she threw another lamp at him, knocking him out this time.
Brett felt himself materialize.
He looked out into a crowded girls locker room.
"Okay, Julie, get your little fanny out of the booth. We still have other girls who need to transport in," an older woman, perhaps a teacher, said.
"What's going on here?" Brett asked in Julies soft voice.
He stepped out of the booth, carrying the duffel bag with him.
Looking back quickly, he noticed the red card was not in the booth. He was trapped.
He looked down at himself and saw the eighteen year old body of Julie Anne Rollings.
"Come on cookie," a blonde girl said from nearby. "Get suited up. Don't want to be late for the swim meet."
"What is the date?" Brett asked still unable to accept the fact that he was now his dream girl.
"May Fifteenth," the blonde girl said smoothing out her white one piece swimsuit. "Come on cookie, get suited up."
"No, what's the year?" Brett asked worriedly.
"You're pretty funny, cookie," the blonde girl said. "It's twenty fifety-five of course. Are you okay?"
Brett dropped everything and ran out of the locker room and into the quad.
"What's with her?" another girl asked.
"Don't know but who needs her anyway? We'll win the match without her," the blond said walking out to the pool.
-----
Years later, back in the candy store, Julie stood there pondering the past.
The candy shop held a lot of memories for Julie Anne Rollings.
Her mind wandered to years back when she worked there as a stock girl.
"Hi Julie," said Brett, greeting a long time friend.
"Brett!" Julie exclaimed coming around the counter to hug him.
"Thought I'd stop buy to see if you still worked here," he said.
She was a beautiful, brown eyed, brunette woman in her mid twenties and Brett had a massive crush on her.
"So you still won't consider going on a date with me?" he asked.
She thought about it for a moment.
Years ago it was her standing there as the young man begging for a date. Now she was in an entirely different position and began to wonder how her reaction might affect history.
"Brett," she said taking his hands in hers. "I thought you'd never ask."
"You mean it? You really mean it?" he said stunned with joy.
"Yes," she said hugging him. "You know, Brett, it's like you read my mind. We go together."
"You said it," he said happily. "Do we ever."
She waved to the store manager and excused herself for a break.
Julie and Brett walked out of the candy shop holding hands.
They went outside and stood there watching the sun set.
Brett pulled out a little red card and tossed it over his shoulder.
"What was that?" she asked.
"Nothing important," he said. "Just insurance. Now kiss me."
They kissed and the sun went down.
"One way or another," Brett said holding her close. "I knew we would be together."
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- (c) Copyright 1997: Cleo chelonis@concentric.net. If you want to post this anywhere else, please ask the author for permission first. Thank you
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