Neo Jurassic Smashwords 11-17-2014 Read online

  Then the tall man stopped and dropped to his knees beside her. “Forgive me, Lavla, I did not know.”

  She could not answer him as she felt herself shredded as the baby’s head came out. The widow was working frantically down there, tugging at the infant’s arm.

  “We’ve got a shoulder stuck.”

  Panting, Lavla couldn’t even comprehend what that meant. Only that the pain arched through her body like liquid lightening.

  “May I?” Mattu asked even though he did not need to. She could only nod.

  The powwaw knelt beside the widow. “I must push his arm back in.”

  “No,” she moaned, but Mattu wisely ignored her. If pushing a baby out was painful, pushing one back in was doubly so. She screamed her lungs out, hoping each young woman heard her and knew what to expect.

  “Wait. Don’t push.”

  But her body wanted nothing more than to push. She tried to hold back, but her belly undulated with contractions.

  * * *

  Durnag could hear the woman from all the way across the meadows. Humans. You would think they would learn from their long and painful labor that perhaps nature did not mean for them to breed such as they did. No other animal struggled so with giving birth. A cow would be embarrassed to act so.

  “Do we go now?” Robertum asked from beside him.

  “No, there is no sign of Appalachia. We go when we spot her.”

  Their newest soldier seemed quite eager to engage in the fight. Perhaps too much so. He’d seen other synthetics drown in their own battle lust. He hoped this did not happen to Robertum. His wild days had taught him much that Durnag’s programming had not.

  Robertum had kept them right alongside the clan with minimal effort.

  Durnag looked back over his troops. So few after having been so many. And none were whole. Each scarred in his own way. Would it be enough to take out the clan? They would find out soon enough.

  They either destroyed the clan or were destroyed themselves. It would be worth it to see the girl that could wipe out his kind dead on the ground.

  But for now he must sit and wait for the opportune time to strike.

  * * *

  Appie finally had the door freed from its hinges. Still, nothing came from the other side. Spinos weren’t exactly known for their duplicity. Something had happened. She wasn’t sure yet what it might be, but she had to find out.

  Carefully, trying to avoid making any sound, she lifted the heavy metal door and moved it out of the way enough to peek through. The Spino was still there, only it was on the ground, dead. There weren’t a whole lot of dinosaurs that could kill an adult Spino and the small bite wounds told her who the culprit was

  Troodons.

  She went to close the door back when one jumped down from above, landing right in front of the door, hissing at her. Not worried about the noise, Appie tried to slam the door shut but a claw lashed out, grabbing the edge of the door, holding it open. Appie threw herself back, adding her weight to her effort, crushing the dinosaur’s fingers between the metal. The beast screamed, retracting its hand. Although, that did not stop the danger.

  Troodons were no raptors, but one of them had figured out how to grab the handle from the other side and heave. Appie dug her feet into the ground, holding the door closed as much as she could, but it was off its hinges and tilted precariously. She would never get it back with the Troodons thwarting her from the other side.

  Appie thought about crying for help, but the bunker was too deep. No one would hear her, and even if they did, what help could they be?

  No, she was going to have to solve this problem herself. But she was not alone. Ruby helped by pecking at the Troodon’s digits, causing the beast to let go.

  Sucking in a breath, she prepared for what she needed to do. Throwing her shoulder up, she swung the shotgun into position.

  Bracing herself, she let go of the door. Just like a child unprepared for the trick, the Troodon fell backwards. Appie brought the shotgun around, and as the Troodon righted itself and prepared to charge, she fired.

  The blast roared in her ears, nearly louder than anything she’d ever heard before. The shot blew a hole in the Troodon’s chest. She could see its still beating heart.

  Then it fell backwards, dead.

  The other Troodons, about six of them, backed away as well. She cocked the shotgun again, but did not fire. She knew how quickly ammunition could run out. Instead she aimed at the largest of the Troodons.

  His eyes squinted then he tossed his head toward the forest and the pack melted from sight. Appie had no illusions of how far they would go. They still had a dead Spino to pick over. Appie used her time wisely, getting the door back up and onto its hinges. The metal complained as she forced it back into its frame.

  Eventually the Troodons would break back in, but hopefully by then they would be well clear of here.

  * * *

  The baby was finally in the right position.

  “You may push now,” Mattu stated as if Lavla were completing a task as simple as peeling a potato.

  With a scream, she bore down, determined to get this precious load out from her belly.

  “Good, good!” Mattu encouraged, possibly the kindest she’d ever heard him.

  She gave another push, screaming and squeezing Lik’s hand. Then another scream echoed hers...her baby’s.

  “It’s a boy,” Mattu announced.

  Lavla fell back into Lik’s arms, feeling thoroughly spent, like her life had gone out with the child.

  “She’s bleeding too much,” Mattu announced as Lavla’s hearing seemed to falter, warbling in and out.

  “Lik, hurry! Go into the bunker and tell Pipo we need gauze packs.”

  The man who had helped her through the birth, released her hand, stroking her hair once before running off.

  Lavla took one long look at her newborn babe in Mattu’s arms just before darkness overcame her.

  * * *

  Appie ran into the bunker just as Lik did.

  “What is your emergency?” Appie asked, making sure to securely close the door behind her. Apparently Troodons at the door were the least of their worries.

  “Lavla gave birth but is bleeding.”

  Pipo jumped up, running to the large medicine cabinet. “Mattu will need these,” she said handing over a pack of gauze squares, “and this,” she said as she handed over a syringe and vial. “Tell him to give her one unit in the thigh. It should help close the uterus’ blood vessels.”

  Lik took both items and headed back up the tunnel. Appie followed. “I will be back soon. Do not open that other door no matter what.”

  Pipo nodded. “We will pack in earnest.”

  That sounded like a great idea. She gave Drake a nod before she left. Pipo was giving the boy an injection as well. Appie didn’t bother to ask. If Pipo was giving it, it was necessary. In that little amount of time, Lik was already far ahead of her up the tunnel.

  She rushed to catch up to the older man. It was like his body had been invigorated with a thousand coca plants. She was barely at his heels when he burst out the door and sprinted across the meadow toward the clan.

  Appie waved the others on. “Get inside, hurry. We shall care for her.”

  Usually at the birth of a clansman, all were in attendance and did not leave until the mother and child were safe. However there were Syns nearby. Tradition would have to wait.

  “Go,” she told them, shooing them in. The animals were on the other side of the clan, agitated by all the commotion. Ruby was right behind her, whether she liked it or not.

  She rushed to Mattu’s side as Lik handed over the supplies. “Hand me the syringe.”

  Lik did as asked and Mattu used the gauze to help stop the bleeding. Appie pulled up one unit and then sank the needle into Lavla’s thigh, pumping the medication into her.

  “It has slowed,” Mattu announced, wiping his hands of the woman’s blood. “Not stopped, but slowed enough.”

&nb
sp; “The medicine should take care of the rest,” Appie said. “When will it be safe to move her?” she asked surveying the meadows, looking for the unseen threat.

  “Not for a few minutes. We cannot dislodge any clots.”

  * * *

  “Appie has been sighted,” Robertum gasped as he ran up. Funny that the robot would use the girl’s human contraction.

  “Then let us move.”

  The plan was in place, so there was very little to discuss. The others had fanned out around the clan, ready to tighten the noose when it was time.

  Upon an electronic signal, the soldiers burst from the brush and rushed upon the clan.

  Durnag held back as the clan put up a fight. Even though most of the trackers were gone, even the old women could throw a spear hard enough to throw a synthetic back.

  Robertum was adept at avoiding the weapons and was heading straight for the downed woman, the area around her splashed in bright red blood.

  Durnag read the battlefield and chose to follow Robertum. Appalachia and Mattu, the two most dangerous of the bunch, tightened around the woman, keeping their weapons at the ready, but not wasting them too soon.

  Durnag pulled out his stun web and prepared it as he eyed Appie. Another synthetic went down as Mattu skewered the soldier through the belly with his spear. Of course to a synthetic that would not be a mortal injury, but Mattu was well versed in a synthetic’s weakness and shoved the spear all the way through the synthetic’s body, then severed the spinal cord, which just like a human’s, conducted the electrical impulses from the brain to the rest of the body. The soldier fell still to the ground, not moving.

  This maneuver, however, took Mattu’s attention away from Appie who fired her shotgun point blank at another synthetic, punching a hole in the center of his body mass. This soldier fell to the ground as well.

  Durnag could calculate the weight of the rifle though and knew that she had used her last shot. The look on her face told him the same.

  He raised his arm to fling the net then his arm was no longer there. It had been cut clean off. Durnag turned to find Robertum raising a titanium spike at him. He drove the spike deep into Durnag’s neck, right at the relay junction. It was not a mortal wound, however it did cut the signals going from his brain to his muscles. He fell to the ground, inert.

  * * *

  Appie watched in shock as the Syn, who almost captured her, lay still on the ground. The Syn that had attacked one of his own rushed over to Lavla and scooped her up in his arms.

  Mattu raised his spear, but the Syn just bowed his head. “Let me save her.”

  A roar of a Spino, probably the mate to the one in the clearing, filled the air. The large female, her sagittal crest not as prominent as her mate’s, charged over the ridge, snapping a Syn in half.

  “Go,” Appie urged, shoving the synthetic toward the tunnel. Mattu followed suit, although he did not seem happy about it.

  Tonka trumpeted, but Appie screamed, “No!” The metallic elephant turned his head to her. “Hide. All of you hide.”

  The only one that didn’t obey was Ruby, of course, who despite the attack by the Syns and a Spino, was nudging her pocket, trying to find a treat.

  Appie shoved the metal ostrich as well, herding the last of the clan into the tunnel.

  “How can we trust him?” Mattu asked as he passed Appie.

  “How can we not?” Mattu knew as well as she did that had the synthetic not interfered, that she, Lavla, and most likely Mattu as well, would be dead by now. Not including the entire rest of the clan.

  A Syn attacked from the side, but Appie used the butt of the rifle and knocked his head around, forcing him back.

  The last of them were in the tunnel as the Spino turned its attention to the humans, a bit of metal falling from its mouth.

  “Hurry!” she screamed as the crush of people rushed into the tunnel giving her enough room to dive as the Spino lunged. She hit the dirt just before the door, narrowly missing getting gouged by one of the Spino’s teeth. Mattu grabbed her by the arm and dragged her in, slamming the door shut behind her.

  Like her mate, the Spino tried to head butt the door, but it held. At least for now.

  * * *

  Lavla had the most wonderful dream. Her baby was born. Healthy and rosy cheeked. Her mate was with her, holding her, telling her how beautiful the child was. How proud he was of her. She could hear his murmuring as if he were right next to her.

  Mattu was insisting that he be the one to perform the naming ceremony as Appie begged for the honor.

  To have such a life.

  Then the yelling took over. She could hear voices. Voices she knew well. Voices intimate to her.

  Lavla cracked an eye open to find Lik with a rifle, pointed at her. No, not pointed at her, but at the synthetic behind her.

  “Don’t!” Lavla croaked, getting up into a sitting position.

  Everyone was there, glaring at the synthetic holding her. The widow had the baby who was as rosy cheeked as he was in her dream. She did not know what happened, but she couldn’t let Lik complete his task.

  “No, he’s the father,” Lavla cried. “Robertum’s the father.”

  Everyone looked confused, but at the least the gun in Lik’s hand was tilted down rather than aimed at Robertum’s head.

  “I don’t…” Appie stuttered. “I don’t understand.”

  “I am a UV-2x9-45 model,” Robertum said. “I was created as a human V.2. I was given synthetic DNA and the means to procreate.”

  “I’ve never heard of this,” Mattu stated, glaring at the both of them.

  “That’s because after the Fire, the Syns felt we were too close to humans and destroyed most of us. That is why I went out into the wild in the first place. Hiding amongst the native Syns here rather than in the cities.”

  Lik still grimaced. “But you and him…”

  “I know it is hard to believe that I could fall in love with a Syn, but he saved me one day from a Majungasaurus.”

  Mattu’s frown turned into a look of respect, conditional, but still respect.

  “And I realized all Syns weren’t the same. Just as all humans weren’t. And one thing led to…” Lavla indicated to the baby that was in the widow’s hands.

  “I mean her and the child no harm. I have immobilized Durnag and with the soldiers scattered, we should be able to escape this place and head east.”

  “I will be the one to decide such things,” Mattu rumbled.

  “Of course, of course,” Robertum said, bowing his head.

  “Actually, I am the one to decide such things,” Appie said stepping forward.

  * * *

  Drake had watched as the tense scene had played out. Plus the whole Spino knocking at one door while the Troodons were working on the other didn’t help his nerves much. He didn’t even know what those dinosaurs looked like and never did.

  It seemed that one of Appie’s friends had hooked up with a robot and now everyone was pretty pissed off. Apparently, this wasn’t an everyday occurrence.

  He looked down at the baby. The infant seemed like a normal little boy until he opened his eyes. One eye was a normal blue but the other had a gray ring around the iris that spun almost faster than the eye could see.

  “Um, guys I don’t want to ratchet up the drama here…”

  Appie came over and looked down on the child. “What do you mean?”

  Then she saw it. “Mattu…”

  The older man joined them frowning. “He has Syn DNA?” Mattu asked Robertum.

  The Syn nodded.

  Since he hadn’t been battling the robots for half a millennium, Drake thought that Robertum seemed like a pretty nice guy. A little stiff but okay. The rest of the clan didn’t seem to have the same opinion.

  “How will this affect him?” Mattu asked.

  Robertum shrugged. “I’m not sure a fusion like this ever survived the womb.”

  Mattu grunted as Appie went over to Lavla.

  “T
ell me true, was this consensual?”

  Lavla nodded.

  “And you are bonded to him?”

  Again the new mother nodded.

  * * *

  Appie rose. If that was the case, there was nothing else to say or do. “He is a member of the clan then.”

  “Who? The child or the Syn?” Lik asked.

  “Both,” Appie announced. A shocked gasp went up around the room, but Appie didn’t flinch. “Pack up, Durnag is going to be down a day, half at the least so we need to get moving.”

  Most of the clan obeyed, spitting off into various tasks. Chimmus and Mattu were the only ones that didn’t move.

  “Seriously, I’m getting flack because I’m not bonded but Lavla goes and gets knocked up by a Syn and everything is fine?”

  “Chimmus, one day you will understand the difference,” Appie snapped. “For now get changed and help with the packing.”

  “Oh, I’ll help with the packing, but I am not getting changed.”

  The younger girl moved off with a flounce as only Chimmus could do.

  Mattu stepped up beside Appie. “I am afraid that I do not understand either. This is something we should have discussed in depth before we reached any verdict.”

  Appie looked to her mentor. He was used to being the final say. She could not blame him, however she was no longer a child, looking to him every moment to decide what to do next.

  “And what other conclusion could we have come to?” Appie asked. “He saved you. He saved me. He saved the entire clan. Would you exile him for his efforts?”

  “You have not known Syns as long as I have. They cannot be trusted.”

  Appie put a hand on her hip. “If the Syns goal is to wipe us out, especially the prominent clans, all Robertum need do was stand still and I would be gone, along with you and everyone else out there.”

  “He may have another angle.”

  “Which is?” Appie asked, leaning into Mattu as he so often did to her to press her point.

  “I know not, and that is what has me so worried.”

  “And exiling him?” Appie asked. “How does that help us?”

  “He could be setting up an ambush,” Mattu answered without inflection.

  “Of who that he could not have had today?” Appie suggested. “Lik? Chimmus? Durnag could have had me today. If that was not a test of his loyalty, I do not know what else could be.”