The Hunt

by Everette Morgan

  Tomorrow’s Past:

  The Hunt

  By Everette Morgan

  Copyright 2013

  All rights reserved

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious and figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Proofread and edited by Janice Morgan

  Cover photo by Madison Morgan

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Marcus raised his binoculars and looked toward the horizon and the quickly fading sunlight. He had been sitting there for over an hour now. The rock ledge on which he was perched was an outcropping located at the northeastern most point of the mountain. From his vantage point, he could survey the valley between the mountains and see for over twenty-five miles north and at least fifty miles east on a clear day, which it was today. The valley that laid out several thousand feet below had basically reverted back to its natural state. You could still see the interstate that ran through it but vegetation was gradually taking it back. His current location was in one of the small mountains at the end of the Appalachian Mountain Range where his great, great grandparents had originally lived. Overlooking the Tennessee Valley River Gorge, he slowly scanned the valley from horizon to horizon. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular just whatever might be of concern to him. Incredulously, he watched as a pair of brachiosaurs made their way through the dense forest a couple of miles from the base of the mountain. As he sat there watching, the first thought that came to his mind…what were they thinking?

  Marcus understood trying to preserve life and trying to save species that were on the brink of extinction but why would you go back and resurrect the dinosaurs? These weren’t little playthings that you could buy at the pet store. Some of them were the most dangerous predators that ever walked the earth. After the technology became available, scientists resurrected several recently extinct animals. Although they resisted at first, the United States was one of the few to resist the urge to resurrect the dinosaurs. Rumors of other countries doing this were rampant. Finally, Canada set up a national preserve of thousands of acres and used the newly developed Solar Force Canopies to house these ferocious animals to see how they would survive in our environment. Although the canopies could be easily climate controlled, the engineers also genetically altered the DNA of the animals to make them more resistant to colder climates. Did they survive? They didn’t just survive, they thrived and their populations exploded to the point of full capacity of the preserve. Scientists flocked to study them. People traveled from great distances to catch a glimpse of them. Then the virus hit. Billions of people dead within a two week span. Scientists of the day had mocked and said that it was impossible for a pandemic to sweep the globe in that short amount of time. They were wrong. It happened so quickly that an answer to how it spread was never discovered. The planet was back to its lowest population since the time of Noah, and in all the chaos, instead of terminating the dinosaurs’ lives, the Canadian government set them free….and in the past 5 years they had thrived in all of North America. As Marcus watched the pair slowly meander through the forest below, he thought about how the surviving population now not only had to worry about basic survival, they had to worry about not being lunch for some hungry tyrannosaurus.

  Marcus usually came out to this point at least once a week to double check for possible problems or concerns that might arise. Today everything seemed in order other than the fact that seeing dinosaurs was becoming a common occurrence. He stood up, folded his binoculars; put them in a pouch attached to his belt, turned, and walked over to his solar powered ATV. His dad always called it an all terrain vehicle but Marcus always called it an ATV or four-wheeler. He guessed it didn’t matter what you called it. It got the job done. Solar power and batteries had made great leaps in advancements since 2020 when the Rednik solar power inductor was invented by Solar Force Corporation. It had revolutionized almost every industry. The fossil fuels of the earlier generations were on the verge of total depletion and industries were struggling for an alternative. Solar Force became almost an overnight mega corporation and was the richest company in the world. All Marcus could do was give silent thanks as he jumped on his ATV, took off, and sped through the trail he had blazed pushing the engine to its limits. The ATV had some kick to it and didn’t struggle at all the way the older type gas powered machines normally did. What was even better was that the engine was almost silent and had no exhaust. He flew down the trail for about five miles and then turned off into some underbrush, which to the naked eye looked like a dead end. It wasn’t a dead end. Marcus had camouflaged the trail for the next 100 yards or so. As he cleared the edge of the trees he could slightly feel the resistance as he drove through the edge of the Force Canopy into a large clearing. To his left was a large two story cabin and on his right was a large barn, small shed, and a greenhouse. Further on to the right, you could see the shimmering moonlight coming off the surface of a beautiful lake. Everything was just as he left it, not that he was expecting anything to have changed considering the Solar Force Canopy was still doing its job. The canopy was an extremely marvelous invention. It could be programmed to block everything down to the smallest insect and could withstand and repel everything up to a nuclear blast. Marcus had programmed all his vehicles into it and set it to only allow him or any of the various non-dangerous game animals through it. He drove the ATV over to one of the out buildings and parked it beside an identical ATV on the left and a large four wheel drive military type SUV vehicle on the right. He liked to call it the MAV. Majorly Armed Vehicle. Rising out of the top of the MAV was a 20mm Korak cannon mounted on a robotic arm. Upon closer inspection you could see the vehicle was loaded with various other armaments. Marcus stepped off the ATV and strode across the courtyard, up the steps, and stopped at the front door.

  “Dragon, one, nine, six, six,” he spoke as if talking to himself.

  As soon as he finished speaking there was an audible click and you could hear metal doors moving and the front door swung inward. A two story log cabin on the outside, military style reinforcements on the inside…

  “Welcome home Marcus”, a soft female voice spoke from within as he entered.

  “Well, hello to you too, Jocelyn” he said cheerfully. Jocelyn was the computer that controlled everything in his little compound. She controlled everything from the upkeep and maintenance of the canopy down to making coffee for him every morning. He stored his weaponry that he had with him and came back to the main living room. “Anything happen that I should be aware of Jocelyn?” he asked inquisitively. He walked over and launched onto the large U-shaped couch.

  “Weather patterns are changing and there should be a significant temperature change by the beginning of next week. Slight radio traffic was observed. These signals were located in the northwestern area of the United States.”

  Marcus had been monitoring some radio traffic for the last few months. These were usually bands of marauders or small colonies that were beginning to form. For the sake of the marauders, Marcus had yet to make any contact with anyone. Hopefully these fledgling colonies were being set up with some kind of defense. “How is the perimeter, Jocelyn?” he asked.

  “Perimeter is secure. Barrier entries today, 1942 various insects, 300 fish, 8 deer, 30 rabbits, 63 various birds, 22 squirrels, 18 wild turkeys, and 20 various rodent type creatures,” Jocelyn quoted statistically.

  “Are you sure you didn’t miss anything there sweetheart?” Marcus said laughingly.

  “
I’m sorry Marcus, but I don’t understand the question.”

  “Nevermind. Anything notable that was blocked?”

  “Two copperhead snakes, a black widow spider, and a Smilodon fatalis.”

  “What?!! Repeat please…” he exclaimed.

  “Two copperhead snakes, a black widow spider, and a Smilodon fatalis.”

  Frustrated Marcus asked, “Definition of Smilodon fatalis please.”

  Jocelyn began, “Smilodon fatalis, Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Mammalia, Order: Carnivora, Family: Felidae, Subfamily: Machairodontinae, Genus: Smilodon. Commonly called a saber tooth cat or incorrectly called a saber tooth tiger. It is characterized by its feline appearance and two large canine teeth protruding from its upper jaw. Generally these animals reach a weight of a thousand pounds. There seems to be some slight genetic mutations to the one that ventured to the canopy’s exterior. Based up on calculations of weight and volume, this cat in particular seems to weigh in excess of 1750 lbs.”

  Amazed, Marcus uttered, “Enough, I get the picture.”

  Idiot scientists, he thought to himself. He had been lucky so far. Up until today he had not had any of the dangerous prehistoric animals on the mountain. He had known it would happen eventually but would have preferred it be ten years from now or never as far as that was concerned. He had seen them migrate several times through the valley but they generally never came up the mountain. He got the coordinates from Jocelyn of where the tiger tried to come through. The Force Canopy that he had “acquired” stretched outward in a giant circle that was two miles across, a small area compared to some of the larger military canopies but very large for a person living alone. He had a nice size farm and still had a lot of forest where he was able to hunt and fish. And speaking of hunting, it looked like he was hunting tomorrow outside of the canopy.

  “Perimeter cameras.”

  In an instant, the seventy-two inch flat screen display blinked on and displayed twenty smaller screens that displayed their viewpoints.

  “Cameras twenty-one through forty.”

  The screen refreshed and showed twenty new viewpoints. In about ten minutes he had cycled through the one hundred perimeter cameras and had also cycled through the fifty he had placed at strategic locations on the mountain and in the nearby valley; no sign of the cat appeared.

  “Is there any camera footage of the cat?” Marcus asked.

  “Camera 37 and 38 have one minute and forty-two seconds of footage. Would you like me to play that footage sequence now?” Jocelyn asked.

  “Yes,” he stated. The screen flickered and showed a forest scene of dense foliage with the number “37” in the top right corner. “Increase volume by twenty-five percent” Marcus added. The forest sounds increased and he could hear the soft padded movement of something coming closer. The normal forest ambience was quieter than normal so Marcus knew the predator was approaching. In the small clearing to the left of center of the camera’s center point, the large cat moved out of the underbrush into the clearing. Although Marcus had seen them before in some of his travels, it still amazed him at the overall size of the big cat. The cat was as tall as most horses and had the look of a normal mountain lion with a bobbed tail. It had 2 giant teeth protruding from its upper jaw extending down below its lower jaw by at least twelve to fifteen inches. It was a magnificent animal. Once, while listening to some radio chatter he had heard about a saber-tooth taking down a large moose without even breaking a sweat. That was in lower Montana. As he continued watching, the tiger came right up to the edge of the invisible perimeter and stopped. He looked up and down and side to side. It was as if he could sense the invisible barrier. When a person was looking from the outside of the Force Canopy, the perimeter was camouflaged to blend in with the environment. From the inside you couldn’t even tell that there was something there. For all practical purposes it was totally invisible. You could program the canopy to whatever camouflage you wanted; trees, bushes, water, or even make it look like a building. Marcus basically camouflaged the outside to look like trees and bushes. The inside, he basically left alone. With a sudden movement, the cat turned its head to the right and shot off in that direction. He was almost a blur as he moved from camera 37 to camera 38. He was only on-camera for a blink of an eye on camera 38 and then he was gone. As the screen went black, Marcus sat and debated how he was going to track and bring down the beast. He had always enjoyed hunting but it wasn’t quite as fun hunting something that might end up hunting you. After reviewing his maps onscreen, he began formulating a plan and finally thought about something that might work and finally settled back on the couch.

  “Movie. Random. Start”

  “The Notebook” started playing on the large screen. Marcus rolled his eyes and quickly gave Jocelyn another command.

  “Jocelyn, Stop movie and while you are at it, delete it. Start something with a little action in it.”

  “The Avengers” started playing on the screen, but as much as Marcus enjoyed that movie, in about 20 minutes into it, Marcus was sound asleep.

  Chapter 2

  Jocelyn woke him promptly at 6:00 a.m. the next morning. Marcus grumbled and slowly sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

  “Good morning sunshine” Jocelyn quipped. Marcus could swear that with all his efforts to humanize Jocelyn that it was actually beginning to work. The only problem with that was that apparently she was beginning to learn sarcasm. He chuckled to himself.

  “Thanks a lot, you over grown Xbox.”

  “My capabilities far exceed those of the first generation Xbox’s. One of my CPUs alone is able to perform more than a quadrillion more calculations in a second than….”

  Frustrated, Marcus said, “Never mind.” Apparently the humanization of Jocelyn still had a lot of work to be done. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

  As he got out of the shower he could smell the fresh brewed coffee wafting through the house. Although he had long since run out of the precious commodity, he had actually been able to grow coffee in his small greenhouse. It may not have been Juan Valdez that had personally picked his coffee beans but he was thrilled that he was able to replicate the process and produce some relatively decent coffee. He dressed in some camouflage to fully cover his 6’4” frame. He had found most of his clothing from going through several of the large sporting goods stores that populated the southeast. After he finished dressing, he looked in the mirror to examine himself a little closer. He was tall with an athletic build. He had a few days worth of stubble on his face, because he didn’t like a beard but he hated shaving about as much. His curly blond hair could probably use a comb but with no one to impress, he usually just let it go. Anyway, who needs combed hair when you have your favorite Georgia Bulldogs’ hat on? He put it on his head and smiled. Satisfied with his appearance he went to the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of coffee and went about fixing his breakfast. He fried the last of the ham from one of the pigs he had slaughtered last spring. He sure did miss ole Bud but he did make a fine sandwich in the morning. He smiled to himself. Bud had served his purpose and Marcus appreciated it very much. Marcus spoke out in his best old time southern drawl, “Looks like its awmost hawg killin’ time agin.”

  Old accents seemed to have almost died out but Marcus did love to hear the English language spoken with the old Appalachian drawl that originated in the mountains where his grandparents were raised. His grandparents had emailed Marcus the entire series file of the “The Andy Griffith show on his eighth birthday. It was very popular about a hundred years ago. He had watched the entire series the first week he had it. Still smiling, he finished up his breakfast and went to his bedroom. Large by normal standards, his bedroom had a king size bed on the far wall as you entered. Besides the entry door, the room had two doors on each side of the bed. The one on the right was the bathroom. He walked over and went through the left hand door and traveled a hallway for ten feet and came to another door.

  “Thunder, four, one, zero, six
, seven” He said quietly.

  There were a loud click and the sound of metal moving again and door swung open to a stairway leading down about twenty feet to another door. Marcus walked down the steps and went into what he called his “batcave”. The lights came on automatically when he entered the room. The room was about twenty feet square with a large bed on one wall. Almost identical to the flat screen up stairs, another one stretched out on one wall with a large couch in front of it. The right hand wall looked like something out of a military base. Weapon after weapon lined the wall. Rifles, pistols, machine guns, shotguns, grenades, knives, and of course… his favorite… the ZF7 Precision Sniper Rifle. That thing could shoot the wings off of a fly at a thousand yards. Provided of course, that the shooter knew how to handle a gun and Marcus did. It also packed enough punch to blow a hole through twelve inches of concrete. He paused momentarily as he passed it but moved on to the antique Remington 700 rifle. It was in pristine condition. He was almost positive that he wouldn’t be able to take the cat today. Today was primarily for tracking and setting up the killing field for taking the monster. Hopefully he wouldn’t run across any other problems. He strapped the large twelve inch hunting knife to his right thigh. He then took a .44 magnum classic Desert Eagle off the wall, placed it in its holster and strapped it to his waist.

  “Go ahead punk, make my day…” he said out loud and then laughed a little. Then Marcus yanked the Eagle back out of his holster and drew down on his invisible foe. Marcus thought, “Dirty Harry didn’t have anything on me” and he laughed some more. He sure did like the old movies.

  After looking over his assortment of solar powered micro cameras and sensors, he chose about 5 of the most reliable, put them in his backpack and strapped it on. Then he took the 700 and using the strap, slung it across his right shoulder, grabbed the necessary ammo and went back upstairs. As he strode through the front door, he initiated lock down.