Second Chances(112)

"What was he trying to do?" Jason asked to himself as much as to Julie. His brow was furrowed in deep thought. He knew the information was locked somewhere in his mind, but he couldn't access it.

"It was a long time before I learned this, but he really wanted to swap people out in society. He originally was hoping Rosenthal would be able to increase the speed of his cloning process. However, as much as Rosenthal tried, it was never going to be as fast as Cameron wanted."

"Wait, what do you mean swap people out?" Nathan asked.

"Okay, imagine this. You have a big world meeting or summit. During the days of that meeting you snag a world leader and replace him with a clone. You now have control of that person. He or she is an exact copy, has all the memories, yet will follow your commands."

"You are talking about some type of a Manchurian Candidate scenario," Jason said.

"Yes, but it didn't work. Rosenthal couldn't speed the cloning process to anything even remotely close to what would be needed. And you either couldn't or wouldn't duplicate the process of mapping and transferring memories on other people."

"I'm not following," Nathan said and Paige nodded in agreement.

"Cameron wanted to be able to grab a person and over the course of say a weekend, replace them with his puppet. An exact duplicate but with embedded commands that would allow him to steer the person's actions. But the cloning process, as quickly as it was, was still way too slow and no one could figure out how Jason managed to record memories. Even working with all of his notes, no one could figure out the initial mapping process. There were parts of the process that only Jason knew, that he kept to himself. Paige had been the only person he'd ever done a complete scan on. Paige's memories were the only ones they could get to transfer and take. Once Jason discovered what he had done with the second Paige clone, he refused to be a part of the project anymore."

"Cameron killed Paige?" Jason asked. He rubbed his forehead, struggling to remember.

Julie nodded. "You overheard him discussing it with one of his scientists. She was a test case. While altering her memories to forget about you, to forget being trapped in the fire, they had embedded in her some commands and he'd triggered them causing her to kill herself. He wanted to see just how far he could control a person. Could he get a person to kill themself? To kill others? Even people they loved? "

Tears again ran down the old man's face.

"It wasn't your fault. You didn't know what he was up to. Most of us didn't."

Nathan looked in the rearview mirror and saw Paige had gone pale.

"Paige? Paige, are you okay?"

She shook her head no.

Nathan slowed the car and pulled off to the side of the road.

"Will...will I? The others. They killed themselves. They killed their families. Those news articles, I saw them. Will I do the same thing? Have I been programmed? Am I...a time bomb?"

"No," Julie said quickly. "I don't think so."

"How do you know?"

"He rushed you," she said. "I don't know exactly what he had planned for you. I have been way out of the loop for a very long time, but I still hear things. I believe the final work, your final...programming as you called it, was supposed to be done out in California. I know he had plans for you and honestly shudder to think what they might have been, but I do know you were rushed."

"Rushed? A defective product, rushed to market," Paige spat out.

"Don't say that," Jason said.

"Why not? It's true, isn't it."

"No, it ..."

"Yes, Dad, it is," she snapped.

Jason flinched at her words and Paige saw the hurt in the older man's eyes. She wanted to apologize. She hadn't meant to hurt the man, but she knew she had. She was angry, scared and confused. It was too much.

"I...can we get a drink?" She dropped her head into her hands. "I need something cold. Please."

Nathan looked at Julie who nodded.

"Okay." He put the car back into drive and they rode on in silence for another ten minutes until he pulled into the parking lot of a Shell gas station.

"Be right back." Nathan hopped out of the car and returned a few minutes later with a small bag with cold bottles of water and a large cherry slush drink, which he handed to Paige. She gave him a weak smile and thanked him.

Julie got out of the car and helped Jason out. She commented that she was going to help Jason stretch his legs and together they began to slowly walk away from the car and toward the darkened side of the building. Nathan could hear them softly talking, Julie trying to soothe Jason.

Paige got out of the car and leaned on the open door, slowly sipping at her drink.