TWO

 

 

Dawn watched as Bonnie shook her head, took out her cell phone, and walked away as she hit a number.

She headed across the big cavern with a purposeful stride. Bonnie clearly had some idea. All of them felt like they owed Stout for taking such good and respectful care of the jukebox experiment. But Dawn had no idea at all what Bonnie was thinking. More than likely, she was calling her husband, Duster to tell him.

“So how is Stout taking this?” Dawn asked Richard.

“Typical Stout,” Richard said. “Calm and collected on the outside, ripped apart on the inside. The two of them only had five years together.”

“Damn,” Dawn said. “That’s not a lot of time.”

“Too damn short,” Richard said, picking at his sandwich and then deciding to work on the soup first.

At that moment, Bonnie turned and started back toward them. She had walked over toward the fireplace and clearly was now done with her call. That hadn’t taken long at all.

Bonnie walked right up to Richard. “Get Stout and Jenny in here now. This afternoon. And don’t take no for an answer.”

Richard started to open his mouth, a puzzled look on his face.

“No questions,” Bonnie said. “Just go get them and get back here.”

In all the years of being around Bonnie, Dawn had never heard her speak like that.

And since she and Duster were the two people who controlled the Institute and everything about it, Richard just nodded.

He pushed his plate forward and stood.

“I’ll save it for you,” Dawn said.

“Thanks,” he said.

Then when Richard got out of hearing going toward the elevator that led up to the Institute main mansion above them, Bonnie turned to Dawn. “Where is Madison?”

Dawn looked at her funny. Why did she need Dawn’s husband? What in the world was going on?

“He’s up north working on some research,” Dawn said.

Bonnie nodded. “Duster will call him and get him on board, then. But call him first and tell him about Jenny and to expect a call from Duster in a little bit.”

Bonnie sat down at the counter and went back to work on her food.

Dawn called Madison, told him what had happened and told him she had no idea what was happening.

“He’ll be waiting for Duster’s call,” Dawn said to Bonnie when she was finished

Bonnie nodded.

“So you want to tell me what you are thinking?” Dawn asked as she wrapped up Richard’s sandwich and put it in the fridge.

“We’re going to break some major Institute policies,” Bonnie said. “And I need all four of us on board, as well as Jesse.

Jesse was the Institute director. There were fourteen original founders of the Institute, the first fourteen that Bonnie and Duster had taken back into the past. So basically on most things, the fourteen ran everything, had board meetings, and so on.

And they had all set up the Institute policies at the start. Those policies supposedly were lasting for hundreds of years into the future so far.

But since she and Madison had been the first two that Bonnie and Duster had taken back, and Jesse was the director, if the five of them decided something, it was decided.

Dawn was about to ask Bonnie exactly what the policies she planned on breaking were, then it occurred to her what Bonnie was thinking.

“We’re going to take Stout and Jenny into the future, to cure her, aren’t we?”

Bonnie nodded. “In 2220, cancer is pretty much something that is easy to fix.”

Of all the people in this timeline, only Bonnie and Duster had gone that far forward. Dawn and Madison had only gone a hundred years into the future, riding with two from the Institute at 2120 who had come back to get them.

Sometimes Dawn forgot that her life actually was anchored a hundred years in the future. And if something happened to her or Madison here, today, they would have only spent a little over two minutes in the future. But they spent so many thousands of years in the past from here, she never remembered the fact that only two minutes for her were really passing.

Basically, everyone who used the Institute was immortal for all intents and purposes.

“You on board with the idea?” Bonnie asked.

Dawn looked at her friend, someone she had known now for thousands of years.

“One hundred percent on board,” Dawn said. “Not sure how you are going to pull it off, but I’m on board.”

Bonnie nodded. “That’s three of us then,” she said. “Duster likes the idea.”

Dawn nodded. If Duster and Bonnie were both on board, then this was going to happen.

She just hoped the repercussions wouldn’t tear things apart.