JAA Ch. 05: R E R U N

Copyright © 2019 - This is an original work by Zeb Carter and is protected under copyright by U.S. copyright law. It is only submitted at Literotica.Com and any submission to any other site has not been authorized by the Copyright Holder/Author.

Note: This is the second in the John Abernathy series. There is no sex in this story. This story is a little longer then the last couple, it is 20,000 words long, but is still only 5 Lit. pages long. I will be posting other John Abernathy stories in the future in the order they should be read.

Order of the John Abernathy Adventures...

1. Aftermath

2. Time and Again

3. The Kings Undoing

4. The Lives of John Abernathy

5. Rerun

6. Winds of Change

Chapter 1

Have you ever wanted to go back in time, with all the knowledge and experience you have now? You know you have, so don't lie to me. Go back and do things just a little differently, with what you know about the future. I have and the opportunity to do just that became a possibility for me. I don't know why they picked me I was no one special. Maybe it was...no, it couldn't have been that.

I was sixty-five years old when a company where I was applying for a job made the offer. It was in the third interview, a man I hadn't met before was sitting across the table from me, telling me about what the company does and what they could do for me. The door opened and a strikingly beautiful woman entered. She nodded to Stan, the person I was talking to, and sat down at the table. Stan nodded to her.

"Mr. Abernathy, John, may I call you John, I am Lisa Hardesty. I am the head of a new, hush-hush project here at Quantum Industries and after reading your resume I thought you would be a perfect fit for my project."

"Really?" I asked.

"Stan, if you would excuse us," Lisa said.

Stan nodded gathering his papers, stood and left the room. Lisa rose, stepping to the door she pressed a series of buttons on the panel next to the door. The door buzzed and I heard the deadbolt lock slide home.

"There, now we can talk freely, but first I need you to sign this non-disclosure agreement," she said sliding a half inch thick bound booklet toward me.

"Uh, what's this all about Miss Hardesty?"

"You can call me Lisa, John. Have you ever wanted to go back in time with all that you know now?"

I opened the booklet to the last page, took the pen from Lisa and signed. The rest is history. No, I really mean that, it is history. Once I had signed the non-disclosure form, Lisa explained what I would be doing. If I agreed to do this, my body would be cared for while I was back in time, so if I happened to return I would have a body to which to return.

We went through everything that would happen. I would be given time to say good-bye to my family and get my affairs in order. My wife had died just the past year, so there was nothing for me in that regard. I have been estranged from the rest of my family for quite some time and any friends I had wouldn't really miss me. My only regret would be my grandchildren but by going back in time, all that may change. As I was not planning to do anything the same when I got back if I got back to the time they planned to send me.

Lisa explained to me that they had already successfully sent someone back for ten years. Ten minutes after leaving, he walked into the company headquarters asking to see Lisa. He was being examined somewhere back in the bowels of the building. Lisa explained to me that they had not yet perfected the technique to return from the past, that's why they were looking for older people. They wanted to send us as far back as they felt possible. They were going to send me back forty years or so. The machine was not that exact. There was a window of plus or minus five to ten years.

I was happy to go back and relive my life. It hadn't been a bad life, but there are some changes, I would like to try if I could. Just try, you understand.

Chapter 2

A week later, I was lying on a soft gel mattress in a chamber on a sub-level of the building. The apparatus for the time jump filled the room. Every dish-like structure pointed at me in the middle. There must have been a couple of hundred.

"John, are you ready?" Lisa asked through the intercom.

I gave her the thumbs up sign, as I was not sure how my voice would be. To say the least I was a little scared. Lisa nodded at me from the control booth high up on the wall of the room. Did I say the room was huge? Four stories tall and a perfect cube, forty feet on a side with me on a pedestal smack dab in the middle.

A series of lights started to flash. Around and around the lights went all the while a high-pitched hum whined into the inaudible. There was a brilliant flash and it was pitch black for a moment. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the change in lighting. I was behind the wheel of a car in the middle of the night. The car was accelerating quickly down a dark stretch of highway with guardrails on both sides. Another car was alongside me; reflexively I jerked the wheel to the right. The car I was driving crashed through the guardrail and flipped into the air, landing on the roof in the water of the slough.

I knew exactly where I was in the brief moment before things went dark and I died.

I woke, startled out of my mind. I sat up looking around. I was still in the time chamber, but the mattress I was on was lowered and several people stood around me with their mouths open.

"John, what happened?"

"I died," I said quietly. "Lisa, I died."

"What?"

"Wrong time, wrong place, I woke driving a car at night way out in the forest preserves. I was racing another car, something I did a lot in my misspent youth. I was so startled that I crashed and drowned. It must have reversed any changes to the timeline. Hoist me back up and do it again, the same time period. I'll be prepared for what's coming now if you hit the same place and time."

"No, no, get up from there we must study this more. We can't just..."

"Lisa, I want to do this."

"I know, I know, give us a week. Please?" Lisa asked her eyes big with sadness. "Just a week I promise."

I nodded flipping my legs over the edge of the mattress, hopping down to the floor. Several nurses rushed to my side, as I stumbled, helping me to the locker room.

Chapter 3

I was again laying on the gel mattress, the lights flashing and the whining hum disappearing into the un-hearable. Everything went black. As my eyes opened and adjusted to the light, I found myself in bed, with a girl, I had dated a short time after high school. We were both naked and having sex. I felt my orgasm fast approaching as I continued what my younger self was doing. Then things exploded, as I had never experienced before. Everything was so much more intense than I remembered.

It was over all too soon and she was snuggling up next to me softly mewing to herself. I held her close. At the time I was going out with her, I really thought I loved her, but things changed and we just drifted apart. I fell asleep with her in my arms.

I woke to Dee kissing my face. I groaned as she shook me.

"Get up, you have to get me home."

"Why? Why can't you stay the night?"

"You know why. Now get dressed," she told me as she climbed out of bed to retrieve her clothes.

We dressed and she was just as beautiful as I remember her. My young body had a stiffy as I pulled up my jeans and tried to zip them up. The style was skintight and I had a tent in the front of my pants.

"Damn that looks so sexy, but it will be down by the time we go outside?"

"Yes, it's starting to go down as we speak."

As we stepped out the back door I was surprised that is was still light out. I helped her into the car, smiling at the beauty I was with and the beautiful car I was helping her in to. It was 1970 and the car I drove then was a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner. It was stunning and fast, just like Dee. By the time I dropped Dee off, it was dark. I hurried back home there were plans to be made.

I continued to see Dee for a while, but my plans now did not include her. So, when she broke up with me I didn't pine. I went to work. Investing in stocks that I knew would bring me a handsome return in a few years. I also took some of the little money I had and squirreled it away in some high yield bonds. In a year, I was rich by anyone's standards. I just didn't let on that I was. I kept working at the factory and investing in the market.

Chapter 4

It was 1972, the year I was to meet my wife. Too bad, I had other plans. It wasn't that I hadn't or didn't love my wife, but I had lived that life once, it was time to try something different. Nineteen-seventy-two was also the year I was supposed to go in the Air Force, which I did. I spent four years learning the art of combat, which I enjoyed immensely. All through my contract, I never had to worry about living on my military salary. I was throwing parties every other weekend. I lived off base and many of my fellow airmen hung out at my place. I spent three years in a resort and military town on the front range of the Rocky Mountains. The fourth year I spent in Korea. Nice place to visit but I would not want to live there. I stayed on base most of the time. This is where I was almost sent back to the end, but I survived.

The year in Korea, I spent volunteering for duty that would give the greatest exposure to heavy weapons. I trained to operate and become proficient on several of them. The M2 .50 caliber machine gun was my favorite, next to the 75mm recoilless rifle and the 81mm mortar. I had a great time. Where else could you use, shoot and gain knowledge of such powerful weapons and not be on the front lines?

After Korea, I went back to school on the taxpayer dollar. Four years of college graduating with honors, I poured my heart and soul into my major, biology. I then enrolled in a postgraduate pre-med course. I was getting ready to go to medical school. Why do you ask? This is where I would meet my new wife. We would be in medical school together and I would ensure that we married before we graduated.

You're probably wondering why her and where did I know her from? Well, she was, is, had been my doctor for six wonderful years. During those years, even though I loved my wife dearly, I fell in love with my doctor. She was absolutely adorable. I arranged to be in every group, lecture, class she was. I found she was going out with another man, they weren't an item yet, but if I didn't intervene, they would be soon. Within several weeks I was also going out with her, nothing involved, but she did let me kiss her goodnight when I dropped her off at the dorm.

Before long, the other guy was out of the picture. Her best friend had put in a good word for me, why I don't know. The two of them were almost inseparable. By the time we started our residency, we were married and I was as happy as I had been in my past life. She was a pleasure to be with and once our residency was complete, she went to work for the University medical center, while I started a medical research firm. The government funneled tons of money into the research we did, tons.

So, I let her tend to the sick and needy, while I made money, finding things nobody really wanted to be found. That's right, you heard correctly. Cures that no one wanted to be found. What was I to do? When told of the find, the government confiscated all our research but, continued to pay us not to work on that solution. They also paid us tons of money to work on the next cure they didn't want to be found.

Chapter 5

I was really pissed, but I couldn't do much. My sweet wife noticed my moods, to say the least. I couldn't burden her with what was going on at work. At dinner, we would eat and talk about our day. For the past three months, I had been listening to her day without saying anything about mine. I listened to her tell me about her patients who were stricken with the disease I had a cure for and couldn't do anything for them. Or could I? Yes, the government had taken all the research material. However, like any good business, I had backup copies of everything, I even had the serum that we developed. One of the things that slipped through the cracks of the government bureaucracy was the final product of our research. My company actually had the cure.

After listening to Shelly for the second time, I told her I would love to have a look at her patient. She thanked me and said she was coming in tomorrow at three. That night I snuggled up to her just like every night. God, I loved this woman.

The next day I went to work and went directly to our serum storage unit. Taking a syringe, I put it and the serum in a carrying case and left. No paperwork, no records, this stuff wasn't even in the unit so how could I sign it out. I drove to Shelly's office and arrived by lunchtime. I took her to a restaurant close by. When we returned, she had several patients waiting for her. I sat in her office, which she shared with her best friend. They were both in and out while I sat there browsing the medical journals on Shelly's desk. It looked like she had been looking for help with her patient. She had every issue, which had an article written by me open on her desk.

I frowned as I looked at what I had written. What a bunch of bullshit I had put to paper. I sat there embarrassed to death when Shelly came and got me. I followed her to an exam room. She was all ready for me. X-rays, cat-scans, MRI's, blood work all there for me to peruse. I looked at the scans, they told the story immediately, a tumor, an inoperable tumor in her brain.

Turning to the patient, I pulled the case from my pocket, as Shelly introduced me. I smiled as I took the syringe and plunged it into the bottle of serum.

"Now Missus Stanic," I told the cute blond middle-aged woman seated on the exam table in front of me, "this will shrink the tumor so that your body can deal with it as it deals with all biologics which don't belong inside you."

"Really Doctor?" she asked with doubt in her voice. "And how much is this miracle cure going to cost me?"

"Emily, would I have you here if I didn't believe in what Doctor Abernathy was doing?"

"Missus Stanic, there will be no charge for this or you visit here."

"Oh. Why?"

"Well, because, this doesn't exist, I was never here and Shelly had no part in this at all. Now, do you want to live?"

She held her arm out for me to inject her. I found a vain and pushed the needle in, slowly pushing the plunger against the serum. I watched as the serum flowed into her arm. Shelly handed me a cotton ball as I pulled the needle out of her arm. Shelly finished up with Emily as I took the syringe apart and washed it in the sink. I couldn't leave a trace on it before I disposed of it in the hazardous waste container.

"Now Emily, remember you were never here, you never saw me or Doctor Wilfen. Also, in a couple of hours you will feel a flush wash over your body, don't worry it is only a sign the serum is working. If you don't feel the flush, don't worry about that either, only fifty percent of patients feel the serum working."

"I have it, don't worry."

"Emily I want to see you here in..." Shelly halted looking at me.

"Two weeks will do," I said to Shelly.

"I will make the appointment now for you so you don't have to stop on the way out. Now let's see, okay, twelve noon on the sixteenth," Shelly said as she wrote it down on one of her cards.

"I will see you then Doctor."

After Emily was gone, Shelly turned to me and hugged me. She then stood on tiptoe and kissed me.

"Thank you, dear."

"You're welcome. You don't have any questions for me?"

"Yes, lots and lots of questions, but I'm afraid to ask."

"And we should be. What I just did...could get us killed. This stuff in my pocket doesn't exist as far as the world is concerned. So please keep all this to yourself. Can you handle your patient logs and such so this hour never happened?"

"Yes dear, I can handle that."

"Good. Tell Susie to forget ever seeing me."

"I will sweetie."

She kissed me again and I left, not saying a word to anyone. I hoped that we were safe.

Chapter 6

Two weeks later Shelly brought home scans of Emily's head. The tumor was gone. She then started to hem and haw and I knew she had another patient she wanted me to look at. I knew once I started this it would never end.

"Listen to me darling, listen closely. This serum, this cure we have, is... well, we shouldn't have it, at all."

"Why not? Your company found it, why can't you use it to help people?"

"The government...well they paid for the research, they own the process and the resulting cure, I don't. It was in the contract with them."

"Well, break the contract. Get a lawyer and find a way around the contract."

"Honey, I've tried. The only thing I have is that serum in the fridge and the formula in my head to make more, but no place to do it without being discovered."

"There has to be a way, there just has too. This is the greatest discovery since fire."

"I know, I know, but there is nothing I can do. They find out and I'm out of business and so are you. They will strip us of our licenses and I'm sure our fortune. The kids will have nothing, we will have nothing."

"But we will have the serum," Shelly whispered.

"But they will kill me to keep it secret," I whispered back.

"What?" her eyes widened with surprise as she covered her mouth with her hand.

"They will kill me to keep it secret. I've seen it happen before, Shelly. Remember Doctor Hacket, he found a cure for diabetes and tried to go public with his discovery after the government confiscated his life's work. He died in a car accident the day before his press conference."

"Oh my god, you think the government did that?"

"I know they did it, they implied the same would happen to me if I crossed them."

"What will we do?"

"I want to help people. I want this cure to be available to the public at large. The government doesn't. Why?"

"How do we find out?"

"I have a theory."

"What?"

"Population control..."

"You have to be kidding?"

"No, it makes sense from their perspective. Disease uncured culls the herd so to speak."

"My god, that's...that's abominable!" Shelly shrieked.

"It is, and they need to be called on it, the people need to know."

"They do. How?"

"I haven't figured that out just yet. Until I do we have to keep a low profile, dear. So, any patients you want to give this serum to, do, but you tell them it's just vitamin shots. Also, I will be the only one administering those shots. Clear?"

"Yes dear and I know you just want to protect me, but I..."

"NO," I shouted. "You will not be a part of this. If I die, I will die knowing you are safe, so you will not participate except to introduce me, then you leave the room. Got that?"

"Yes dear, but..."

"Shelly, I couldn't live with myself if I didn't keep you safe. Please, stay out of this for now?"

"Okay dear, I will. I love you, you know that don't you?"

"Yes, I do, and I love you more than you will ever know, two lifetimes worth at least." I smiled inwardly at that and kissed her on the lips hard. We went to bed shortly thereafter and made sweet wonderful love.

Chapter 7

Over the next couple of months, I attended several of Shelly's patients and cured them. None said a word to anyone. We were lucky. Then Susie showed up at our door with a woman, her husband and an envelope full of scans. I shook my head as I led them back into the house to an office we had set up in the back. Susie explained what was wrong with the woman showing me her scans. I nodded and asked what she thought I could do? Looking at me in surprise, she thought that my expert opinion might help them with what is to come. I nodded and asked her to leave the room. I also asked the husband to leave. He hesitated a moment. His wife looked at him and said she would be all right. He left.