Transient Echoes (8 page)

In the meantime, I believe congratulations are in order. You and your team are the first people to tame a living animal in over two centuries. It’s quite the accomplishment.

You should be very proud.

End Audio File

Ortego Reconstruction Outpost

April 21, 2350

Travis and Bartholomew arrived
shortly before the flippies finished their excavation of the tunnel, much to Mei’s annoyance.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

The two engineers entered the tent fully dressed in radiation suits and hurried to the monitor. “Did we miss anything?” asked Travis.

“I asked you a question,” said Mei.

Bartholomew bit the side of his lip. “Sorry, but we had to grab a few things before we left.”

“What things?”

“They’re outside,” said Travis, hunched over Zoe’s shoulder and staring at the monitor. “Looks like my boys are making good time. Not bad, kiddo.”

Zoe pursed her lips. “I take it you want to be smacked.”

He grinned. “Aha! You can’t do any smacking while we’re in these suits. Too dangerous.”

She shrugged. “You gotta sleep sometime.”

Mei looked at Bart. “What does he mean
they’re outside
?”

“Don’t get mad, but they kind of insisted,” said Bart.

“We sure did!” roared John as he opened the flap of the tent and stepped inside. Sophie followed closely behind. “Took me a while to get this stupid suit on, but here we are.”

Mei glared at Bartholomew. “Why would you bring him? Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? Lieutenant Finn isn’t trained to wear a radiation suit. What if he didn’t seal it correctly?” She shuffled to John’s side and examined him. “How do you feel? Any dizziness or fatigue? Nausea?”

“Easy, spaz,” said John. “Sophie checked me before we left.”

Mei almost forgot about her assistant. “So what’s your excuse? You know policy states we can’t all be here at the same time.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” said Sophie. “I was curious.”

“It’s not a big deal, is it?” asked Bart.

Travis poked his head up from the display. “I can take her back, but since she’s already here…”

Mei sighed. “Fine, stay. Watch the show.”

John clapped his gloves together. “Awesome! Glad you’re on board.”

It took another twelve minutes for the flippies to finish their work, but the “all clear” icon finally flashed to tell them it was over. Zoe pulled Jefferson and Stanley out of the hall before sending Mortimer ahead to scout.

The monitor to Mortimer’s feed showed an open room. “There’s some debris,” said Zoe. “A few computer consoles. It’s a small room, but I see a door. Hang on.”

Mortimer latched onto the handle with his tentacle and turned it, pulling the door open and leaving it cracked behind him. A second later, the flippy came to a stop, and Zoe turned to look at Mei. “Can’t go any farther. We could lose the signal.”

“Alright. Stay put for now, but try to look around. Can you see anything?”

“It’s a little fuzzy,” she said, messing with the controls.

Travis gave her a nudge. “You can focus the camera here.”

“Thanks,” she said under her breath. The camera focused immediately, and Zoe looked it over. There were several large black boxes ahead of the flippy, taller than the little robot, lining the walls of a surprisingly large room. It was a server farm.

“Jackpot,” muttered Travis.

“Did the blueprints show this?” asked Bart.

“They don’t go into detail,” said Mei. “The projects were all classified, so the best I have is a basic layout design.”

“Better than nothing,” said John.

“What’s the plan now?” asked Travis. “We can’t take Mortimer any farther.”

John clasped his gloves together. “We going in?”

Mei scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I called for Travis because I want him to install a repeater for the drones. We need to stretch the signal.”

John looked disappointed.

“Not a problem,” said Travis. “I’ve got one made already. We only need to get it set up.”

“Let’s see it,” said Mei.

Travis nodded and went to a nearby crate. He popped the lid and searched, pulling parts out, discarding most of them. After a short while, he uncovered a tiny box and presented it to Mei. “I’ve got a dozen more of these at home in my tent if we need them.”

Mei nodded. “Alright. How long do you need to get this working?”

“Not long. We can place it right where Mortimer is now.”

“I’ll bring Stanley up,” said Zoe. “He can handle it.”

“Do it,” said Mei.

Zoe called the little robot to the surface. Travis gave him the repeater and took the controls. Stanley descended into the basement and as directed, made his way through the tunnel in Mortimer’s location.

“Be careful placing it,” said Mei. “I don’t feel like waiting for another repeater to get here.”

“No problem,” said Travis. He had Stanley set the repeater on the floor. It was already on, so nothing else had to be done. “Now we can take multiple flippies through there, and it shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Take whichever flippies you want, but leave one at the door where Mortimer is. We need at least one on this side in case something goes wrong.”

“What could go wrong?” asked John.

“She’s being safe in case Travis screwed up the repeater,” said Sophie.

“Gee, thanks,” said Travis.

“The plan for today is to observe,” said Mei. “Send the flippies everywhere and record what you find. Don’t touch anything. If it looks safe, I’ll send a team to retrieve whatever we can, like the data in those servers.”

“Got it,” said Zoe.

“Alright,” said Mei. “Let’s get to work.”

******

Unknown

April 21, 2350

Terry ran through the subterranean hallways as if racing for his life. The sounds overhead were unlike anything he’d ever heard. The bangs and cracks were like thunder but heavier and more frequent, shaking his chest and echoing in his ears. He had to know what they were.

It took over an hour to reach the mouth of the cave, and by then, the noise had dissipated. He climbed the stairs quickly, sweat pouring off him. He wiped his eyes, ignoring the sting and burn of the sweat as it slid along his pores.

He flinched as he emerged into the light. Once his eyes adjusted, the chaos before him took shape. There on the ground, a massive creature lay covered in blood, surrounded by several others of varying sizes. None of them seemed to be moving. As Terry approached the first corpse, he saw it was the very same species he’d encountered several days ago in the forest, the mother protecting her nest. He never expected to run into one of them all the way out here.

There were at least a dozen of them. An entire herd wiped out.

In the distance, he heard shallow breaths and wheezing. It was coming from a smaller animal near the tree line. Its chest rose and fell steadily, as though it were asleep. But its eyes were wide open, twitching like a fish on dry land. The creature didn’t seem to notice him, or if it did, it didn’t care. Terry kept his distance. What could have done this? Terry stared into the eyes of the dying thing, trying to understand. Several streams of blood gushed out of its thick hide. The holes didn’t look like teeth marks, but it was difficult to tell with so much blood. None of the flesh had been torn or ripped out. It was clean, as if the animal had been stabbed…or shot.

There was a loud pop in the distance, and the beast flinched. Terry snapped around, facing the woods. It had come from the direction of his glade.

He ran, wild and furious.

He passed the pond on his way, spotting several tracks in the mud around the water. They were average-sized, about the same as his own. If he didn’t know better, he’d think they were human.

When he made it to the glade, he didn’t enter. Instead, he climbed one of the trees to get a better view. For several minutes, he saw nothing—no signs of movement, no invading monster hordes. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated, opening his senses to the world around him, and he listened.

The jungle behind him erupted into a living orchestra of insects, animal calls, and a hundred thousand rustling leaves. He filtered them out immediately, focusing on the field before him. There was the grass, sweeping in the wind, the chirping of several birds on the other side of the glade, and a plethora of bugs along the ground and in the air, their wings humming and buzzing. One at a time, he let them go, searching for whatever felt out of place.

Finally he found it. A chuckling voice, cackling in a stutter of what must be—

“Fe fe fe! Naav fisi. Gast, naav fisi! Rii shar?”

Language! These noises, they sounded like words. Real and beautiful words.

“Rajiali er nekelp fisi.” A different voice this time. Deeper and calmer.

“Riotf shi fayri!”

“Uir, res!” Several voices at once, nearly in unison.

I have to get a better look
, thought Terry. He got down from the tree and hurried to get closer. He kept close to the trees, never leaving the shade of their branches. He advanced to the rear of the dome, watching for any signs of movement. The voices quickly became clearer. He barely had to concentrate.

“Haylq raji faaq elreqi.”

“Faaq? Fe! Shiu jyrc wi osaylq fisi.”

He watched the side of the dome, hoping to catch a glimpse of the speakers, but still he couldn’t see them. Were they inside or simply standing together in the front, out of sight? He debated briefly with rushing toward the building for a better view, but immediately rejected the notion. Those animals had died, he was certain, from some kind of weapon. He’d better play it safe.

Careful big brother
, said Janice.

A shadow stepped out from the other side of the building, startling him. A dark figure with charred black skin, white hair, and purple eyes. These remarkable features were attached to a bipedal body with a nose, a mouth, a chest, two legs, and two arms—the makings of a human being. But they couldn’t be human, Terry knew. That was impossible.

Wasn’t it?

The man’s ears were long and pointed, stretching well above his head. He had a remarkably normal face, except for the nose, which was flat and long.

Terry backed away. He needed to find a better vantage point. Somewhere he could see these people clearly…maybe track them afterwards, too. He took several steps to his right, losing sight of the stranger in the process. As Terry came around to the other side of the dome, however, he caught a glimpse of someone else’s backside.

This one was shorter, thicker and had a blend of red and blond hair instead of white. He wore a piece of gray cloth around his waist, and above it on his naked back, a brown holster holding a long piece of metal tube with a wooden grip. It looked like a gun.

Terry tried to rationalize how primitive looking humans could have access to weapons like this but remembered the advanced technology in the underground city. Surely, whoever built such a place was capable of making something as trivial as a gun. If so, perhaps the men standing before him now were their descendants. Maybe they didn’t need to build their own weapons because their ancestors had done it for them.

It seemed the wounds in the animals had indeed been bullet holes.
I should be careful.

We need to leave,
said Janice.

A twig cracked behind him. He flinched and heard some heavy breathing. He turned, expecting to see one of the tribesmen, thinking he’d been found. Instead, sitting atop a fallen stump, he found a beavermite staring at him with an open mouth.

A sigh of relief overtook him. He edged his way toward a nearby tree and grabbed the branch. Beavermites were harmless, so long as he didn’t eat them. What to do now, though? He could either climb or run. Stay or go.

A soft moan came from under the branch he was holding. He peered down to see another, even smaller beavermite poke its head out of a hole. It held a piece of fruit in its tiny paws. The larger one on the ground behind him made a similar noise, though it was more like a chirp. Terry raised his brow.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea
, he thought.

A third beavermite appeared, joining the others, tilting its head to look at him. Then another. Suddenly, there were half a dozen of them, chirping and moaning, all of their eyes fixated on him. He let go of the branch and crept away from them. The big one let out a noise like a scream.
Crap.

The voice of one of the men shouted. “B’foc bor shoc?”

“Shi Hassirc!”

The beavermites continued to scream. Terry felt a rush in his chest. He looked at the dome, only to see several men emerging from the other side. He counted four of them altogether, but who knew how many others there might be? There could be more inside. Maybe upstairs. What was he going to do?

Run
, whispered Janice.

I can’t,
he thought. This might be his only chance to talk to these people. He’d spent three years in the wilderness alone. What if he never saw another person for the rest of his life?

The man with the white hair took the weapon and readied it in his arms.

Run
, repeated Janice.

Terry took a step back but paused. The man with the white hair scanned the edge of the forest with his violet eyes, finding Terry in the trees at last. The man stared at him, opening his mouth to smile. With a crooked finger, he pointed, calling to the rest.

Run!
Screamed Janice for the third and final time.

And finally he obeyed.

******

Ortego Reconstruction Outpost

April 22, 2350

It was the late evening. Despite the excitement of today’s discovery in the Ortego ruins, Mei had told most of her staff, excluding Travis, to head home. Reluctantly, they agreed. From now on, everything else was on hold. They’d work in shifts with the flippies until such a time as Mei saw fit. Bartholomew was the exception, because the board would still want their coils.

“Anything yet?” Mei asked Travis.

“Not really. I’m still extracting data from those servers with Morty and Stan. I’m using Jeff to map the rest of the floor.”