by Han Yang
I glanced at her with a tilt to my head. “Yeah, but I’m not a horny teenager trying to figure out how my penis works. I can really tangle my feet together by sleeping with the wrong woman. I’d rather avoid that with everything that is on the line.”
“My point is, don’t forget two key things. Why is life worth living?”
“Because I enjoy it,” I countered.
“And I need children running through these halls, and that means…”
“Oh,” I grumbled.
“Oh, indeed. No pressure.”
I scoffed, and she hit me with her cane playfully. “Understood. For the species and all that. Am I granted authorization to visit the dissections?” I asked.
“You mean the narock variations?” Darcy asked in mild surprise. “Yeah, I can grant that, sort of. Go to the board and select that you wish to generate a report on the specimens. That will unlock the right doors for you.”
“If I’m going to survive against these creatures, it’s best I get to know them intimately.”
She nodded, and the bench swiveled. We both left the seat before the timer hit zero, and we were coated in a skunk type stench for overstaying our purchased time.
The door sealed shut behind me and I asked, “When am I going back into the Trials?”
“Unknown.”
“And if you knew, you wouldn’t tell me,” I guessed, and she nodded. “Thanks for everything, Darcy. I’ll get right on these reports.”
“I expect big things, young Theo, big things.”
Starship Hope
6 days inside Earth’s atmosphere.
Taiyo entered my personal space. The lovely woman slid in front of my body, gliding her back against my chest.
“Need me to move?” I asked.
“Huh, what?” Taiyo asked, seemingly not even noticing the intimate contact.
And she had every right to have her focus elsewhere. We stood over a dissected jungle narock. This specimen was termed the jama’narock. She wanted to get closer, and I happened to be in her way. She did notice at last but merely grinned.
I stepped back a foot, and she frowned.
“I must admit, this is the best date I’ve ever had,” Taiyo said. “Really makes a woman feel alive. What are your findings?”
Taiyo raced to join me in the lab when she reached her allotted time outside of the Trials. My open invitation to a freshly dissected specimen proved enticing.
I glanced down at my notes while she studied the creature. “It's one of the Asian originals. The tiger, panther, squirrel, and chameleon hybrid. It was never meant to go in water, burrow, or be immune to small arms fire. This variation was created for speed, climbing, and has a dash of camouflage in its genetic structure.
“Vietnam, maybe Cambodia. The exact origins don’t matter as much. What does matter is this guy used to be three times this size. These things contained an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Their sheer size meant they could run into a home, topple the walls, and dig out the bodies or survivors.
“Real nasty… really nasty. This species was the only one who tried to jump over city walls too. They never really managed to do much if they did get over. They’re too damn big to hide inside a city. Now, they are almost extinct and nailing down their exact numbers will prove impossible.
“Most of this variation died during the great food drought. Billions of humans were reduced to a few million, and the food ran out while the young exploded in numbers. Fast forward thirty years, and once again the great predator is on the ropes. Fast forward four hundred years, and a small niche has managed to cling on.
“Darcy said she killed this specimen fairly easily with precision strikes from drones. She will need decades if not centuries to find them all in the dense jungles. Her assessment states that no matter what, some will still persist. They’re not used to trapping, so that is my recommendation.”
Taiyo glanced up at me, brows tucked down in confusion. “You want to bait an apex predator?”
“Yup. Rule number one is to survive. We kill a single deer hybrid, pile the carcass in an opening - minus all the best parts used for food or fertilizer. Then we shoot whatever predators come in. All of them. Even the bears or foxes or whatever.
“We need a whole lot of food to sustain a growing population, and the best way to be the apex is to remove all the others. Plus, the extinction of the predators will mean more prey for us,” I said.
“I hate it,” Taiyo said. “It is not the way of nature. That fox could help kill a mouse infestation.”
“Yeah, but I want a mouse infestation. We use our own shit to print protein paste. I’d rather eat a mouse,” I said with a nonchalant shrug. “The days of being confined to a spaceship are over. We get to turn the Earth into our personal tool for sustainment again. Doing so means we can increase the quality of our intake and be more productive.”
“These are the exact things that started global warming - consumption over consciousness. It's abhorrent. Is that all you see this as? A numbers game?” Taiyo asked in astonishment.
“I’d love to sit on a hut’s porch with a rocking chair, watching my grandchildren chase the family pet. To get from here to there, it’s not going to be pretty,” I said.
“The ends never justify the means,” she said and stormed off.
Instead of chasing her, I let her go. When the door sealed shut, I submitted my reports and mulled over my conclusions.
I recommended the ruins of Anchorage Alaska as the best outpost so far. I needed more data, but it was the clear winner for a few reasons. After the great removal of humanity, and heating of the Earth with its jungle type climate, Alaska had experienced a few changes.
The first was that no one stayed there. It never became a priority for humanity to save. Because of that, the entire state saw a mass exodus for walled cities to the south. The abandonment of the buildings and lack of people to kill inside of them meant most were left untouched besides from nature.
As hundreds of years passed, the lack of forest development around Anchorage meant the narock variations needed to hunt in the open. They did, tracking the caribou, elk, seals, and such, but a balance won out.
A clearly defined predator to prey ratio meant both found a way to survive over the hundreds of years. The specimen in front of me did not inhabit that area, but the same concept could work. Kill enough of the predators, there’s an abundance of prey suddenly.
When humans move in, the more options for those beasts who survive the purge, the better the odds for the colonists. Of course, my submission added that in a dozen years, the narocks would adapt to new tactics, and as they regained their numbers, we would become prime candidates for food.
I didn’t even exit the autopsy room when my linker received a ping.
“Go for Theo,” I said.
“Predator genocide?” an unknown voice asked.
“Yeah, even local types.”
“Anchorage has a 2% survival rate in the next hundred years,” the voice said.
“That’s great,” I countered.
“Are you being serious?”
I scoffed. “Yeah, the survival rate in Alaska is great, and you know it is.”
“Extrapolate.”
“Excuse me, who is this?” I asked.
“The council. Your recording will be briefed to all hundred members. I’m the current ranking awake member, Councilwoman Teresa.”
I held in my groan. Politics, oh joy.
“We don’t need a hundred years. We need twenty. You know this, and I know this. Earth is not our planet. It is best to treat it like a rental while we exploit it,” I said with a disgruntled sigh. “The sad truth is that we need to alter our perception and tell folks a long-term colony on the ground will only cause more narocks to eat us.”
“Others would say we’re destined to rule the planet again,” a new voice countered. This male sounded like an old guard type. “Why would we run from these savage yet primitive beasts when we clearly have the m
eans of defeating them?”
“I’m a nobody, and my insight is simply done from a guy who wants to survive. I don't have ulterior motives other than to not die a horrible death. We have an advanced AI, crammed ships with able-bodied workers, and the knowhow to build spaceships.
“You may want to go on a crusade to eradicate the monsters, but I think that is against our survival’s best interest. The concept of setting up a long-term base, colonies, expansion, or whatever, is not as smart as building new ships where no narocks live,” I said.
“Why the twenty-year model instead of the hundred?” a softer, less jaded male voice asked.
“I really hate you guys hiding your faces,” I said to the linker, but the screen never changed. “I need a year to make a baby and a year for the baby to be born. Eighteen years until it can hold a gun or spear or whatever. Twenty years later, humanity has another tool to defeat the foe, or a body to feed it, depending on how you look at it. I have no idea how long it takes to build a spaceship, but if I had to pester Darcy, I bet she’d know.”
“With the partially completed relics, fifteen to twenty-five years, I could build one not able to launch quicker, but the sites where the old behemoths rest are heavily infested,” Darcy said.
Teresa asked, “What if we used robots at the sites, and then moved the citizens to the ship once it could house residents?”
“This conversation is becoming sensitive in nature. You have been paid, Citizen Theodore Karo. Enjoy your earnings,” Darcy said, and the connection closed.
I glanced up to see a shy Taiyo inside the room. Crap, I hadn’t even heard her enter. Her lovey-dovey ways were going to hate what I had to say.
“Oh, hey,” I said with a terse smile.
“I came to apologize, but I changed my mind. I can never see myself having children just so they can become soldiers. If that was the case, we never learned a damn thing,” Taiyo said, storming out yet again.
I rubbed my temples in frustration. Women. Jenny would get it. The species was all but doomed unless it cowered in ships until it found its footing again. I just had to hope the council would make smart choices.
In the meantime, I would find new places to study and hope to get back into the Trials. Otherwise, it was all a moot point.
Snagglewood Day 10
Laro
I finished my reports and had a tingling sensation that I'd be returning to Snagglewood soon. It was just a hunch, and realistically, I should have died by now.
Years ago, I had done extensive simulator training on the thirty plus themes. Nothing fancy, get in, explore a bit, and learn the fundamentals until I could perfect them. That is how I learned to shoot like a champion - among other things.
With time to kill, it seemed prudent to revisit the tutorial. I figured every three days I could devote some time to mastering the theme. I entered my cryopod, set the time dilation to maximum, and went to work on increasing my Western mastery.
When I entered, I arrived at a basic camp. A single horse stood stiffly, almost robotic in nature. A range had targets at varying distances. To the left was campfire starting, knot tying, fishing, how to plow land, and on and on the tutorials went.
Knowing there was infinite work for hired guns due to an invasion, I immediately began static shooting.
The range forced me to reload, but the ammo never stopped appearing. It was a little slice of heaven for the first few hours. I focused heavily on revolvers, finding I preferred a longer barrel.
Each hour that went by, my aim improved slightly. I was a crack shot to begin with from the years of training.
Eventually, I grew bored of the stationary firing.
I started to move while I shot, and just like all the other times I tried this, my aim drastically deteriorated. I shifted back to the basics: shift my position, find stability, aim, casually exhale, and caress the trigger back.
This theme repeated itself over and over until I needed a break.
I visited a knot tying station after re-learning how to secure rope properly. Then it was onto saddles. The horse became animated, and I probably spent half a day following a guide sign behind the mare.
I had barely managed my first smooth start to finish saddle attachment when I received a notice to reenter the Trials with a one-hour countdown. I immediately jumped back into the competition, knowing I could revisit this place again soon.
∞∞∞ Entering Snagglewood ∞∞∞
“He’s waking up,” a young man’s voice said. “I daresay, it worked.”
I groaned, smacking my lips in confusion. The soft din of piano music wafted up through the floorboards. I heard people having a jolly good time. When I opened my eyes, I saw myself in a shack of a bedroom. A face I didn’t know smiled at me, and people cheered downstairs.
None of my situation made sense besides that I was in a bed.
“Where am I?”
“Laro. Your horses made it,” a lad of probably fifteen said from my bedside. He scooped a cup off a nightstand, handing it to me eagerly. “Drink this. It’ll kill your headache.”
I accepted the drink with my left arm, which was impossible since last time I saw it, my forearm stuck out of the skin.
“What the hell?” I blurted.
The skin on my arm was smooth, hiding any sign of injury.
“Ah, yes, the doctor went to get the lawman, but I’ll tell you this now, you’re being hailed as the hero of Lornsto,” the lad said enthusiastically. “All the wonderful loot you preserved. Even though no one made it back, you fought to the very end. Clearly.”
I chugged the concoction, hoping it indeed would rid my mind of its aches. I tossed the young man the cup and sat up, feeling refreshed.
“Thanks for the drink…”
“Keb, call me Keb.”
“Let’s start with the lawman since my injuries are gone,” I said.
“You rode into Laro unconscious with a gun in your hand. A narock musta swatted you good because your arm and ribs were ruined. No matter what we did, we couldn’t wake you,” Keb said.
“Yeah, I… that webo’narock kicked me with its back paw. Hurt like the dickens,” I lied.
The lad nodded. “We saw the horses spooked, running hard for the walls. We hoped for other survivors but only found blood and parts of dead narocks. An investigator found the site by the river where you bravely fought off a monster. You lost two of your party, and you rightfully should have died,” Keb said.
“That's enough,” a voice said from the other side of the door. The door popped open and a white-haired man strode in confidently. “I’m Sheriff Barno. Tell me the story of how you ended up here.”
I reached a point where either I continued to lie, or I told the truth. During my days on Hope, I did some reflecting about how to explain my arrival. In the end, I decided to lie.
“Well, you see,” I started.
I told the whole story, including who I was - a foreign deckhand aboard a coastal ship who quit to head to the interior when other ships stopped reaching port. I mentioned just about everything that happened. Except, in my version, Norma was with us.
Binky spooked the Webo’narock out of the river, and both Norma and Jenny had fallen prey to the beast while I shot it in the guts a dozen times before it kicked me good. I had then retreated, barely getting onto the wagon before it rolled away.
I figured there’d be no bodies to refute my argument, and based on his reactions, I was right. The best lie is the one you tell when you’re the only survivor. Still, I didn’t want to lie, and my skin crawled from doing so.
The truth was that Norma likely wanted all her town’s items back, feeling like outsiders stole them. Which we kinda did. Explaining she died because of me, and that she had aced Jenny, didn’t seem prudent.
This way, it all went away with me playing the hero instead of trying to justify killing the last resident of Lornsto.
When I finished, Barno said, “That matches what the investigator found. We wanted to bur
y your friends but only found the bloodstained terrain. Sorry to hear about your loss. Laro sure can use a gun hand capable of putting down the beasts. The mayor or his assistants can give you work if you’re willing to stick around.”
I smiled at his proposition. “I certainly want some revenge.”
He nodded. “I suppose you want to claim the kills on the stillborns?”
“Oh, I killed some of the babies! Hell, yeah,” I said with a fist pump.
I groaned, feeling a bit sore.
“Easy now,” a middle-aged man with slicked back black hair said from the doorway. There wasn’t much space inside the small room for him to enter. “I’m Doctor Parker. We used a healing concoction made from narock eyeballs. Bisben sent the formula out to the frontier towns for the wounded.
“I was skeptical at first because my knowledge is rooted in science. Science said you were doomed, though, so I gave it a try. Apparently, the eyeball juice adds super regenerative powers. You stayed in a coma, but over a few days of letting the stuff do its work, you ended up right as rain. I deducted my fee from your earnings.”
“As did the hotel,” Sheriff Barno said. “And the bank, and well, everyone. There’s still plenty left over, but your tab was paid in full and advance in case you died.”
“What are the stillborns worth?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Hard to tell. If they can revert again, they’re priceless. Bisben is offering a few hundred crowns, but nothing is leaving Laro at the moment. The outback is littered with narocks.”
“Can I give them to those who did all the hard work of processing my gear and keeping me alive?” I asked.
“Seeing as how many of the locals had kin in Lornsto, it’d help wonders. The reality is that a lot of folks wanted to create a party to save the outpost. Only the Darr brothers decided to risk the journey. They haven't returned, and you carried all the loot back, which is within the law if they died like you said they did.” Sheriff Barno left his seat from my bedside.
