Neo Jurassic Smashwords 11-17-2014 Read online

  Appie fell in line beside Drake. He looked lost, hurt, and shocked to be alive. Normally, if he had been any member of her clan she would have reached out and grabbed his hand, giving it a squeeze of encouragement. But, she found her arm limp at her side.

  What was wrong with her?

  CHAPTER 4

  Lavla slid off the side of Lev and felt the grass between her toes. She waddled a few steps before sitting down. The trip had barely begun. They were only into day one and she felt as though she had traveled a thousand miles. A hard thousand miles.

  Their winter ground over the mountains seemed like a mirage that got further and further away the further they traveled. For that whole day.

  She sighed, putting a hand over her belly. The baby was apparently enjoying the trip though, kicking and moving around nearly every moment they traveled. She knew the child was far safer in her belly, but she could hardly wait until the baby could do its gymnastics in the outside world.

  Lik came over to her, sitting next to her. The man seemed to finally be healing from the loss of his family. He had made it abundantly clear that he would be willing to bond with her, if for nothing else than to help raise the child, but Lavla had gently rebuffed his advances. She would take any help he would like to give her, however her heart still belonged to the father of her child, whether or not they could be together.

  “We’re being followed,” Lik stated, shockingly coherent. It was like Ruby starting to speak.

  Lavla simply nodded though. She’d had the same feeling over the past few hours. “Syns?”

  “But not the ones that ambushed us. These are close and good.”

  On and off over the years they had been tracked by military Syns. There were a great deal of perks in being in Appie’s clan, however, the down side was that they were well known to the Syns. Her parents had been killed due to their influence. And even though Appie showed no indications of following in their political footsteps, she seemed to avoid the spotlight and the Syns were clearly still worried.

  But the Syns hadn’t attacked. They were probably waiting for the clan to reunite before springing their trap. And thinking of it, where was the ostrich? She hadn’t heard the delighted shrill laughter of the toddlers for a while.

  “And what do you think we should do?” Lavla asked, turning back to the larger problem at hand.

  “Give them what they want,” Lik answered.

  That had been her thought as well. The Syns changed everything. The safer path was no longer over the Rockies but to rejoin with Appie and Mattu. Their Shawnee and powwaw would develop a plan to safeguard the clan.

  “Head east then?” Lavla suggested.

  “I will quietly spread the word,” Lik stated, rising. “Do you need anything?”

  “Perhaps another half hour rest?” Lavla asked.

  “Done.”

  As the man walked away with a renewed sense of purpose, Lavla knew she could do much worse than Lik, but still she couldn’t bear the thought of bonding with anyone other than her mate.

  * * *

  Durnag laid low in the brush as Robertum came back from his scouting.

  “They are definitely heading toward the Unclaimed Forest.”

  “So we have been spotted?”

  “Or suspected,” Robertum confirmed. “They know they are vulnerable without Appie and Mattu. Should we not attack now?”

  Durnag shook his head. They were deep in raptor lands. An attack could trigger a full scale raptor attack, one that his unit may not survive. Besides, if you have a chance to kill the body and the head, why not take it?

  “We will wait until they are together then attack in force.”

  Robertum nodded. The wild Syn had done a better job than Durnag could have expected. However, he could not be trusted with the all of it.

  “You are dismissed,” Durnag stated. “I am due for an uplink.”

  The Syn inclined his head, backing away.

  Durnag backed out of the brush and headed for the highest point that couldn’t be seen by the clan.

  The uplinks used to happen daily, then weekly, now they were lucky to make it monthly. He couldn’t miss his window. The Council had the technology to create space shuttles. They simply didn’t have the raw materials, and their kind was stretched so thinly that they couldn’t spare them to mine the goods and keep the human population in check.

  Who knew that taking over the world would be so taxing?

  Plus the Syns refused to use anything but sustainable energy. Otherwise, how were they better than the humans they had replaced? The problem? Renewable energy was not easy to create or use. So their manufacturing power had been cut to a tenth of what the humans had used.

  So here he was out in the wild, using an old human satellite to communicate with his superiors.

  Durnag felt the surge of the connection, which was probably the closest thing to a religious experience he would ever feel. Then the click. Full connection. He could feel the steel and glass of the council headquarters. The feeling of pure robotics. Not a leaf or plant to be seen. No humans for hundreds of miles. If there was a Heaven for synthetics, it was there.

  Unfortunately, the connection was sketchy at best. The infrastructure had slowly been declining for centuries but it felt like there was a new tipping point where the human technology would fail before the synthetics could rebuild their own.

  So much for the bright new future of synthetics.

  He could not let any of that discourage him. He had one simple task. Eliminate the humans. Of course that turned out to be harder than expected, but it only fueled Durnag’s sense of purpose. No matter the harsh realities, he still strove for a higher good. A world without humans.

  “Autobot 997Alpha21?” a scratchy voice came over the communication line.

  Funny to hear his synthetic name. Was he, too, going native in his preference for Durnag?

  “Yes, challenge response code 449822PL91,” Durnag replied.

  Another click as he was switched over to a secure channel.

  “Update,” a brusque voice asked in his head.

  “I am tracking the Tucker clan and should have them eliminated within the week.”

  “That is all,” the voice responded before another loud click of disconnection.

  Durnag stood there, in shock. He’d waited an entire month for his communiqué and it was over. He understood now how bitter the human’s Lucifer was when thrown out of Heaven. How could that be his entire check in? He had questions. He had wanted word of the council. Instead he got “that is all?”

  Something akin to fury coursed through his energy channels. He was doing the council’s work and that is all they felt he deserved?

  Perhaps it was time for another regime change.

  Durnag quashed the thought. His intelligence chip had been given too much latitude to have him think of ever challenging the council.

  He truly had spent too much time out in the wilds.

  Shoving aside his rage, Durnag funneled that energy into his task at hand.

  Soon Appie and her clan would be no more. With his mission fulfilled, he could return to the council and see for himself how the great city was doing.

  * * *

  Appie’s feet were sore but they probably had another few miles to go before they set up camp. She could have ridden Ruby, but that wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the trackers so she had trudged along with the rest of them. Besides, Ruby was having far too much fun, trotting here and there chasing butterflies.

  Drake had held up better than she had thought, although his chin was nearly down to his chest and his feet dragged as he walked. The long stretch of prairie where there should have been a town seemed to weigh heavily upon him.

  “Nothing’s the same,” he moaned as he shook his head. He’d told them of the university town that used to be here. Long ago. A long, long, long time ago. Appie had never even heard of the ruins. The place had been razed down to the ground.

  She knew what it fel
t like to abruptly lose your parents. Even though it had been over five hundred years, to Drake he’d lost his parents and everything else in the blink of an eye.

  At the least she’d had Mattu and Lik and Lavla to fall back to. Even Ruby, Tonka and Lev. Drake had nothing. And to find out your generation kind of destroyed humankind was probably a pretty big downer, as well.

  Mattu raised his hand, stopping the trackers. “We will stop, eat and rest.”

  Appie had never been happier to hear a break called before. While Pipo dug through the packs that had not been destroyed to make lunch, Appie sat down next to where Drake plopped himself down.

  “How are you doing?” she knew the words sounded lame to even her ears.

  “Oh, you know - a fish out of water.”

  That made no sense as she cocked her head. Not all idioms survived the passage of time.

  Drake continued, “It means that I feel out of place and don’t even feel like I can breathe.”

  Appie could only imagine. At least her world was her world. Even without her parents, she belonged. Drake did not and he knew it.

  Drake sighed next to her. “I feel bereft, confused, panicked, sad, yet exhilarated that I am alive. I didn’t think a human body could hold all those feelings at once.”

  “Maybe this will make you feel better. She rummaged around in her pack and took out her slide viewer. “I know it isn’t anything as sophisticated as your equipment, but…”

  The boy seemed to know what it was, putting the viewer up to the light and clicking on a slide. “Disneyland!”

  Appie sat up straighter. “You know it?”

  “Know it?” Drake said putting the viewer aside and looking at her. “We used to go every year. Then after I got sick, we went after every radiation treatment.”

  There was a heaviness to his words, but Appie couldn’t help herself. “Was it really the happiest place on Earth?”

  That got the boy to chuckle. “Yes, yes it was.”

  Then the grin fell and he frowned. “But it’s gone. Just like everything else.

  Appie gave him a sad smile. “We have the bunker, though. We will have a good winter.”

  “I’m sure that means a lot to you, but for me having a good winter meant I was going to get a car for Christmas.”

  Appie frowned, turning to look at the rest of the group. Fear shot through her. This fragmented clan had so far accepted Drake, but with words such as those…

  “Are you an Apocalyptic?” Mattu asked. Appie noticed that he picked up his sword as he made his way over. Even Ruby took notice, walking back to the group as the tension crackled.

  “An Apocalyptic?” Drake reflected back. “Not only am I not one, I’m not sure what one is?”

  Mattu was speaking of the men and women who believed that God had judged mankind unworthy and were working toward completing the job that the Syns had started.

  “Are you sure?” the powwaw demanded, bringing his sword around in front of him.

  “Yes,” Drake answered in a shaky voice. “Don’t you guys still have Christmas?”

  Appie cringed. About the only ones who spoke of the old world savior were Apocalyptics. They wanted to rejoin Christ and take them all with him. She knew what Drake was talking about though.

  Holding up her hands, Appie stepped between Mattu and Drake. “In his day, Christmas was a holiday marked more by presents than spirituality,” she explained. “He was cryoed before the Fire, Mattu. Think it through. He was in that tube when the Apocalyptic rose to power.”

  Her powwaw stopped in his tracks. She could see him thinking. In the end, he lowered his sword.

  “Do not let him discuss this again in front of anyone else.”

  “I will make sure of it, Mattu.”

  The tension in the camp broke as Pipo laid out their meager lunch. They had lost more in the Unclaimed Forest than they had gained. Not for long though.

  Appie sat down in the circle and patted the spot next to her for Drake to sit down. Ruby came over, wrapping her neck against Appie’s. She patted the metal then shooed the ostrich away before she could peck at Appie’s stale bread.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make a scene.”

  “It’s alright, you’ll learn quickly enough,” Appie replied.

  “At least I have these,” Drake said as he pulled a handful of brightly colored wrappers. “They are okay, aren’t they?

  “I’m not sure, what are they?” Appie asked.

  “Candy bars,” Drake said. “My favorites. My parents packed them for when I awoke.”

  The boy peeled back the wrapper to show a strange brown object which he put into his mouth, then ripped off a bite. He urged one of the wrappers toward her. She eyed Mattu who frowned.

  Most food they did not know was poisonous. Contaminated. Or spiked with chemicals the Syns had pumped into the food supply after the Fire.

  But these bars had been in the bunker the whole time. Could they be safe?

  Appie sniffed at the wrapper. It smelled a little of mold and another scent she wasn’t familiar with.

  “The lockers were in stasis,” Drake explained. “They taste as fresh as the day I put them in the pack.”

  Appie tore the corner off the wrapper as Drake had done and took another sniff. This time it smelled of goodness. Goodness incarnate. She brought it to her lips and licked just a little. It tasted as good as it smelled.

  Then she got the courage to take nibble off the side. The taste was beyond what she could describe. Sweet, yet rich. Soft, yet filling. Her mouth felt like it had been bathed in the nectar of the gods.

  “Chocolate?” Appie asked. Her parents had told her stories of such a thing, but she thought them to be legends to get her to go to bed early with promises of the delightful taste. It was better than even the toffee Lavla made each winter solstice.

  Drake nodded and smiled.

  “Good to know our taste buds haven’t changed all that much over five hundred years.”

  He then dispensed a candy bar to each of them. In typical Mattu fashion, he placed his in his pack and stared out over the grassland as the others ate theirs.

  “I think it is healing my arm,” Old Man Grey said through a broken toothed smile. Even Pipo grinned as she ate the gift.

  Appie was glad to see that something cheered the woman up.

  Drake pulled out a small rectangular box with a grey screen. Breath caught in Appie’s throat. It could not be. She had seen them before, usually rusted and cracked.

  “It that a DVD player?” she asked in hushed reverence.

  The boy shook his head. “No it’s a compact media player.” He tried to turn it on, but the screen remained grey. “But it looks like the batteries are dead.”

  Appie reached into her pack. “I have some.”

  “Appie,” Mattu warned his tone low and disapproving. “Those are for emergencies.”

  She tipped her head back the way they had come. “There are probably hundreds of batteries in there, can I not please be indulged, Mattu?”

  * * *

  Drake watched the two’s unspoken conversation. At times they seemed like father and daughter, like now. While other times it seemed the girl was in charge and the man her second.

  Odd.

  With no words spoken, the girl, Appie, smiled and removed the batteries from her pack. “Here.”

  He popped the cover off and replaced the batteries, resealed the case, then hit the switch. The screen bloomed to life, an animated bird flying around the screen while the command screen loaded.

  Appie’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes were wide open.

  “Do you have movies?” she asked.

  Drake chuckled. “I’ve got about a hundred loaded on here,” he said as he dug in his pack. “But another thousand or so on these micro-discs.”

  If possible, the girl’s eyes dilated even further, “A thousand?”

  She looked to him for confirmation. “Yes, a thousand. What are you in the
mood for?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”

  Drake grinned. This new world was so different. “Comedy? Action? Drama?”

  “Oh,” Appie breathed out, her smile growing. “Do you have any Jim Carey?”

  “Do I have Jim Carey? Would you like Ace Ventura or the Grinch?”

  “I don’t know. Whichever you like better.”

  He dug through his discs and pulled out the right one. “Ace Ventura here you come.”

  The girl’s eyes were wide as the movie loaded and played. She seemed like a five-year-old on Christmas morning, not that he was ever going to reference that holiday again.

  The man, Mattu, stood abruptly. “Enough.”

  Despite her obvious fascination, Appie nodded for him to turn it off. She rose, her face masked with concern as the ostrich startled, charging out into the prairie her wings out, fluttering.

  “What is it, Mattu?” Appie asked.

  The dark man pointed to the far horizon. “A fire.”

  Appie frowned as well. “Why would they light a bonfire such as that?”

  “To send us a signal,” Mattu said.

  Drake stared into the distance. All he could see was puffs of smoke.

  “They are using smoke signals,” the older woman blurted out. She squinted. “They are being followed.”

  A look passed between Mattu and Appie. “Syns, Chimmus?”

  The other young girl got into the mix. “Yes.”

  Mattu picked up his pack and set off at a trot toward the forest.

  The others gathered their belongings quickly to follow. Chimmus looked at him strangely then took off.

  “Wait,” Drake said. “What’s going on?”

  Appie talked as she helped the older woman pack the food. “Syns are synthetics. Robots. If they are following and not attacking, they are probably waiting for us to show back up.”

  The others left, leaving just Appie and Drake and of course, Ruby.

  “I still don’t understand,” Drake moaned. He just wanted to curl up and cry or sleep. More than likely, cry. Mourn all that he had lost, or at the least rage at this new world he had been thrust into. And now they were on the move again, toward that bunker. You know, the one with flying dinosaurs with fangs as long as his pinkie and whatever that thing was that was banging on the front door.