"Now George, I know you're excited, but your parents are very busy, so you must be a very quiet and good little boy..."
George rolled his eyes and pulled his hand away.
"Come on Freddy! Let's go see mommy and daddy." He jumped up and pulled the door open.
A whoosh of cool air puffed out the open door and blew his soft hair backward. Together he and Freddy and the old woman stepped into a white room. Machinery sat up against the walls and buzzed alarmingly. Wires were duct taped to the floor and spread out across the tiles like some sort of thick spiderweb. Along one wall a row of tubes with bubbling liquid housed strange half formed shapes that almost looked alive. A woman with dark eyes and curly brown hair tinged gray at the temples stood beside a tall man with a square jaw. He looked up as George burst into the room and narrowed them disapprovingly.
"Mommy! Daddy!" George raced up and grabbed his Mother's lab coat, but she pushed him away.
George took a moment now to see that his Mother was leaning over the table and that a man lay on the table breathing heavily. His father was holding the man down and his mother held a large syringe in her hand.
"What is he doing here?" His father looked from the table to the old woman who stood back by the door.
"You agreed that he could come and see you today..."
"I don't remember that."
George walked up to his dad and pulled on his pants.
"Daddy...what are you doing? Can't we go and play outside? You and Mommy and me and Freddy?"
"I don't have time for this." He pointed at the old woman. "We're paying you to keep him out of our hair and you'd better do your job."
The old woman sighed and clenched her fists. If she was a little younger she would slug the man, but as it was she was just a frail old nanny who needed her job to pay the medical bills and keep a roof over her head. She took George by the shoulders.
"Have a heart. Surely you can spare a few minutes to talk to the boy...he's been looking forward to this for so long and he sees you so rarely."
George's father looked down at him and almost smiled.
"Hello George, I'm sorry but your mother and I are just much too busy at the moment. I promise that someday our work will be done, and when it is we'll spend all day with you every day." He looked up at the old woman. "There. I talked to him, now take him and don't come back."
The tears fell from George's eyes silently, and dripped on the floor like rain in a summer thunderstorm. The old woman led George from the room. The last thing she saw as she looked over her shoulder was George's mother sticking a needle into the man on the table.
*
Alternate George sat with his face in one hand and a flask of cheap rum in the other. Bottles of alcohol littered the room around him. His parents had always been working, working, working until they'd been killed of course. That had been shortly after the war started. Alternate George remembered the day well. His nanny had told him it was okay to cry, but nothing had come out. He'd just sat staring into space and then slowly he had smiled. They'd ignored him all his life always working on one project or another. They'd never had time for him so why should he take the time to cry for them?
The door to his office burst open with Monica at the lead holding a gun in front of her. She snarled her lips in disgust at the mess.
"Aren't you a pretty little soldier woman...come to spend some time with the incomparable George Miller?" He slurred his words and snorted. "More likely sent here by Hammond to drag me into some dark little cell and throw away the key."
George stepped out from behind Monica and gasped. Alternate George's computer lay in shattered shards all along the floor.
"You!" Alternate George snarled, tried to stand, and instead slumped down on the desk. "What do you want? Haven't you done enough?"
"No. Not until you agree to check that code and make it right."
Alternate George smiled and spun in his office chair laughing.
"Make things right?" His laugh turned to a sputtering cough. "Miller computing always gets the job done right! We're the best, or haven't you heard? What are you anyway? What are you to come in here and question my work--my livelihood? What are you?"
"Think of me as your conscience. I'm giving you a chance to do the right thing."
"Ha!" He shook his head and threw the bottle in his hand against the wall. "Do you spend all your time hitting your head against a wall? I don't care about setting things right. And I don't need a conscience...what good has that ever done anyone? I would have checked that code without you, because I get the job done Georgey! I get it done and I get it done right and nothing else matters to me, but the job. The job is all that matters and my job is finished. So..." He smiled. "...if you don't mind...I just broke my last bottle of booze and I think I'm going to go find some more."
"Would have...what do you mean would have..."
"Hammond doesn't want to do things right. He has to go save the world as soon as possible, and he needs to kill a bunch of people to do it!"
"Hammond...Hammond already has the code..."
"You truly are the stupidest possible version of me aren't you?"
*
George and Monica burst into Hammond's room to find him standing with his back to them facing the black wall behind him.
"Ah. Mr. Miller. You're late, but then our poor inebriated friend held you up a bit longer than he had to. And Commander Woods with you...I'm shocked that you would betray your country."
She started forward, but a clear wall fell from the ceiling and cut them off from Hammond. It landed with a boom just as Hammond turned to face them. Shadows covered his face and buried his eyes in a fog of darkness.
"Why did you come back here George? You could have been free...why would you choose to make a return visit? I wasn't precisely hospitable when last we met."
"I came back...because...because I had to try and get through to you. That code...that code is wrong."
"You truly do believe what you're saying, don't you?"
"Yes..." Soldiers entered the room and took George by either arm. "Please, General, I knew when I came back that this would be it. Just...just...please promise me you won't use that code without fixing it."
"You..."General Hammond pulled out a disk and stared at it. "...such a small thing, to cause so much trouble. You have my word Mr. Miller. I shall not betray my oath." He nodded and the soldiers pulled him from the room.
"Why?" He walked up to the clear wall. Monica could see his breath condensing on the surface. "What could make you betray your oath to this country? I've always been able to count on you Monica. Always."
"I was tired."
"You were tired? You were tired! For this you commit treason? For this you break the oath that you swore when you entered the military?"
Monica closed her eyes.
"I found something more important than that oath."
"There is nothing more important than that oath! It overrides everything. Oh yes it does." Spittle flecked across the surface of the glass. "I shall see that you die a horrible and agonizing death. I shall see you suffer. When I have finished with you, you will beg for forgiveness, but I shall not show you mercy. You have earned none. You have shown me betrayal and for that I shall show you that in this world none are punished worse than oath breakers."
An electric prod zapped Monica in the side and she collapsed to the floor writhing. Soldiers shackled her legs and arms. Two flanked her on either side and two followed behind and in back. They led her from the room. The last thing she heard before the door closed was General Hammond breathing deeply. She could feel his eyes on the back of her head even long after she'd left the room.