Beginnings (Book 1): Future Apocalypse

by Gilbert, Barbara J.

  After dinner they started making plans for what to do the next day.

  “Umm, Paulette, I don’t think you can go out with us tomorrow,” Thomas said.

  “You’re probably right, but I can try to get things ready for you guys if you bring something back.”

  “That sounds good. What is this about tracking an animal?”

  “I won’t be able to show you tomorrow, but I can tell you about a few things to look for.”

  “Okay, like what?”

  “When you start tomorrow, try looking for deer or elk pellets, hoof prints, or broken branches that would show some type of life had been there. Usually, you can even determine the direction of travel by the way a branch is bent. Also, wherever you see smoothed-out grass, that’s a sign of where an animal may have slept. If you’re lucky and the spot is still warm, that means the animal hasn’t been gone long and could be close by.”

  “Wow, that’s some good advice. Wish we had known about that a long time ago. It would’ve made our lives so much easier, right Bo?!”

  “Yeah man, that would have saved us hundreds of hours of hunting,” Bo said.

  “By the way, where did you learn how to hunt like that?” Thomas inquired.

  “My dad taught me all about it when I was younger.”

  “You have a resourceful dad. But if you came from space or the colony, how did he teach you?”

  “I guess it was more of him handing down the knowledge to me.” I need to be careful what I tell them and how to answer their questions without giving myself away, she thought.

  “I see,” Thomas replied.

  Trying to avoid any further questions, she steered them back to the conversation about tracking deer or elk.

  “Keep in mind you still may be out looking for quite some time, especially since you’ll be so new at using these techniques and there aren’t many animals around to begin with. Hopefully, though, with what I told you, it will be easier than just wandering through the woods hoping to run into something.”

  Thomas nodded his head in agreement. “Well, we should probably get some rest so we can get an early start tomorrow,” Thomas quipped.

  “That’s probably a good idea. If you guys make a kill, will you be going back to your village or coming back here first to get me?”

  Thomas thought about it for a moment before replying. “I think we can come back here, rest up, and then head out the following day, depending on when, or if, we get anything. That way you’ll have an extra day to heal before the long trip.”

  “Sounds good then. I’ll work on making a walking stick so I can keep weight off my ankle. That should help a little.”

  With that, they headed to their respective beds. Paulette crawled into her lean-to and prepared to get in her sleeping bag and head off to sleep. She couldn’t believe how careless she had been earlier. She just hoped that the sprain wasn’t too bad and she’d be able to walk well enough when the time came for her to leave. She got in, zipped the sleeping bag up and rolled over and promptly fell asleep.

  Bo and Thomas were ready for sleep, too, but rolled over to face each other so they could talk for a few minutes.

  “What do you think of her, Thomas?” Bo asked.

  “I think she is very strange. How does she know all these things we don’t? And what about all those things she has that we’ve never seen before?”

  “Do you believe her story about crashing here from space?”

  “No, not really, but what other explanation is there?”

  “I don’t know. I just know it’s strange.”

  “I agree with you there.”

  “I’ve got to admit she is nice and doesn’t seem to have any ill will toward us, but I’m still suspicious and have been from the time we met her.”

  “That may be so, Bo, but I’ll keep a close eye on her. I don’t need something going wrong at our village because I brought a stranger into our midst.”

  “You’re so protective, Thomas.”

  “I’ve got to be. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be as strong as we are. You know there are savages out there who would cut our throats and rob us in a heartbeat, and I just have to be sure she isn’t one. Today proved she, at least, is not one of the savages.”

  “You’re right, Thomas; we should be careful. Maybe once she feels more comfortable with us and our group, she’d be more willing to tell us where she is really from. Heck, maybe she is from the City of Technology and is just feigning not knowing what happened here on earth.”

  “Maybe. Who knows? For now, we keep our guard up, okay?”

  Chapter 26

  Present, Day 5 Continued

  Once lunch was over, Susan and Greg headed to the project room. After pressing the required code and entering the room, they headed to the computer, sat down, and inserted the USB drive. Susan pulled up the menu and clicked on the icon for the USB drive, entered her new password, and then opened the file explorer menu. There were so many files on the drive, they’d have to sort through all of them and hopefully find the ones they needed to fix the problem and get Paulette back home. Susan reviewed file after file but did not fine one that looked like a backup file; however, during the search, she found other files she thought might be useful, so she had Greg write them down. It was an enormous task, as there were more than a thousand files on the drive, so they had to work together as a team. After she had gone through all the files, Greg had written several hundred file names, all of which would then have to be opened and reviewed.

  Greg groaned. “This will take forever, and we are not even sure we picked the right files to look at, or if we can read them.”

  “That’s true, but we’ve got to start somewhere.”

  “Yeah, but it seems like we are buck-shooting this and taking what it hits. I mean, we are guessing at this point.”

  Aggravated at Greg’s whining, Susan blurted, “Yes, we are; and unless you’ve got a better idea or approach, I think you should just be quiet.”

  “Fine, but it’s still frustrating.”

  “Indeed, it is. I’ll load these files onto two separate USB drives. Then you can look through one drive of files and I’ll look through another one. I figure if we load only what we need on separate USB drives, we don’t have to sift through all the files to find the ones we want; and we can change a file without damaging the original.”

  “What a great idea!”

  “I thought you would agree. Can you go to my office and grab two USB drives? Make sure they are different colors so we don’t get them confused.”

  Greg stepped out of the project room and headed over to Susan’s office to look for the drives. He fumbled through her desk until he found a green and blue USB drive. “That should do,” he mumbled. After placing the USB drives in his pocket, he shut the desk drawer and headed back to the project room.

  “Here are those USB drives you wanted.”

  “Thanks. I’ll load the first half of the files we selected to your drive, which will be the green one, for you; then I’ll load the rest onto the blue one for me. Each of the drives will have the same password but different from the original. Once I’m finished, we can start digging through the files.”

  “Sounds great, though it could take us a while.”

  “No doubt. First, we’ll have to view each file to see if it’s even relevant. If we think it is, then we’ll have to scan through it looking for anything that might possibly correct the error in the original file. If we find something that looks promising, we’ll have to upload it and test it. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll have to upload the original again so we don’t cause more problems.”

  “Right, that was a mouth full.”

  Susan began the painful job of transferring the files. “Okay, Greg, this one is ready for you to start looking though the files.” She handed him the drive and gave him the password. “You can sit at the computer right here next to me, in case you’ve got any questions,” Susan said.

  “Sure, sounds good to me.”<
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  He plopped down next to her, plugged in the USB drive and brought up the menu. When the menu popped up, it asked for the password. He entered it and went to the file explorer menu, where he selected his first file. The file turned out to be all gibberish, so he closed it and tried the next file. It looked better; at least he could read the code. He quickly scanned the file and found nothing useful. That process kept going for hours.

  Susan had finish downloading her selected files and had begun the audacious job of scanning each file for its importance. One thing she knew for certain was that scanning computer code was exhausting and mind-numbing. There were times the codes seemed to bleed together, making it very difficult to understand; and the lines of math were sometimes incomprehensible. She could tell this would be a long, drawn-out task.

  After working several hours, Susan decided to call it a day. Neither of them could see straight any longer, and they were due for a break. “Greg, we should quit for the day. My mind can’t take another line of code or math.”

  “I agree. I think I lost it an hour ago and may have to re-look at some files tomorrow.”

  “Did you find anything helpful yet?”

  “No. I thought I had a few times, but after looking at it more carefully, it didn’t look like what we were looking for. How about you?”

  “Same here. I didn’t find much, or I thought something might work but then looked again and realized it wouldn’t.”

  “Well, dang it. How long do you think this will take?”

  “It takes as long as it takes. Remember, we wouldn’t be doing this if you hadn’t done something as stupid, and immature as changing Paulette’s return code.”

  “Hey, keep in mind it also might not have been something I did.”

  “True, but unlikely, since all the tests she had run worked.”

  “Fine. You’re probably right.”

  “Well, let’s head out for the day. Need to check in with my lab, and then I’m heading home. What about you?”

  “I’ll probably head back to the hotel. Need to call my apartment complex and see if they have the elevator fixed so I can go back home. If I didn’t have a few more days to recover, I’d risk walking up the ten flights of stairs.”

  “Best you keep resting and wait to go back home till you’re ready or they fix the elevator, whichever comes first.”

  “True. See you tomorrow then.”

  “All right. Take care, Greg.”

  Chapter 27

  Future, Day 6

  Bo was the first one to wake up. Noticing everyone else was still asleep, he thought about going back to sleep but changed his mind and woke Thomas up. He wanted to discuss something with him before Paulette woke up. “Hey, Thomas, wake up.”

  Moaning and groaning, Thomas finally replied, “Why do I need to wake up right now? The sun isn’t up yet.”

  “Cause I got something I need to discuss with you.”

  “Fine, give me a minute.”

  “Sure, I’ll be over getting the fire started.”

  Thomas rolled over and sat up on his makeshift bedding and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t imagine what Bo wanted so early in the morning but knew it had to be important. He tossed on his shirt and jacket, strapped his boots on, got up, and headed to the campfire. “What’s so dang important you got to wake me so early?”

  “I got to thinking when I fell asleep that we should go now and leave her here.”

  “What are you saying? We told her we’d come back for her and take her to our place.”

  “I don’t know, but I think she’ll be more trouble than she’s worth.”

  “Good thing you’re not in charge of our group, else a lot of other people would have ended up with the same fate.”

  “Ah, come on, I’m not that bad of a guy.”

  “No, but darn close. We’ll do our hunting and come back as promised.”

  “How about a compromise? If we don’t get anything today, we keep hunting, so we don’t have to start over again each day. If we get something and are closer to our place, we go there first, and then come back to get her. Heck, we might bring a stretcher with a few others to help her if she needs it. She can’t walk that far, not on that ankle of hers.”

  “Fine. I’ll tell her when she wakes up what the plan is. For now, why don’t you get something going for breakfast?”

  Bo left the campfire, went to his pack, and scrounged around until he got everything he needed for breakfast. A few minutes later, he had things cooking.

  Paulette stirred in her sleeping bag. Something smelled good, and the aroma woke her out of a deep sleep. She rolled over and sat up and noticed that Bo and Thomas were already up and making breakfast. She chided herself for being so lazy, quickly got her coat and one boot on, and crawled out of her lean-to. She hobbled over to the stump near the fire and sat down with her bad ankle stretched out in front of her. “Hey what smells so good?”

  Bo piped up. “Eggs and some leftover, hydrated deer meat.”

  “Sounds great. So, I take it you guys will head out soon.”

  “Yep!”

  “So, anything you want me to do while I wait for you two to get back?”

  “Nope.”

  Thomas had finally had enough. “Paulette, things have changed. We got to talking and have decided that with your ankle the way it is, it would be best for us to keep hunting until we get something, take it back to our village, then come back for you. We figure we could bring a few extra people back here to help haul you and your gear. If need be, we can put you on a stretcher.”

  “Wow that’s quite the change. So how long do you think that will take?”

  “Don’t know, but it could be upwards of a week.”

  “A week is a long time for me to go without water, and possibly food. I can’t get the water myself and I’m almost out.”

  “We’ll go get water for you and leave you one of our containers to help hold you over. We also can spare a little extra food. That should hold you over.”

  “Are you certain you’ll come back? I mean, there is no way to communicate with each other. What if something happens to you guys and well … you know?”

  “Nothing will happen. I promise we’ll be back.”

  “Okay, fine. I don’t really have much choice now, do I?”

  “One other thing, we should help you shore up your shelter. The wind can be bad when a storm blows through.”

  “That would be wonderful. Thanks.”

  “Breakfast is ready, guys,” Bo said. He then dished out portions for each person. Everyone ate in silence. Once breakfast was over, Bo and Thomas got their things together and quickly headed out to gather water.

  Paulette noticed they were going the wrong way and yelled, “Hey, the water is the other direction.”

  Thomas looked back and replied, “No, it’s not. There’s a source closer to your campsite in this direction. It’s about a thousand yards down.”

  “Well, dang! That would have been helpful to know a few days back.”

  Thomas and Bo continued their quest for water. Eventually, they arrived at the small stream and put the containers down. They used a special hose made of a reed to funnel water into the containers. Once they completed the fill-up, they hefted them and headed back to the camp. They strode into camp and set the water containers down close to Paulette’s shelter.

  “Hey, we’re back,” Thomas said.

  “Oh, that was quick. What do you think we should do about my shelter?”

  “We need to gather more tree limbs, branches, and some moss. Then we’ll dig a trench where you have them and place the current and new ones about a foot down and cover them back up. That will help stabilize them. Then we’ll use rope to bundle them at the top and tie them down to the trees. We’ll use smaller branches to cover the larger holes, then moss to fill in any smaller holes. It should hold well enough during the winds and rains,” Thomas replied.

  “Why that’s amazing. What can I do to help?”

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p; “We’ll remove the current branches. Can you sit and dig close to a foot down along the edges?”

  “I can sure give it a go.”

  “Great. We’ll gather the other branches and materials we’ll need.”

  Bo and Thomas quickly removed her branches and went to gather more. Paulette sat down with her little shovel and began the laborious task of digging a trench all the way around her shelter area. It took longer than they thought to get all the materials; and even with Bo and Thomas helping to dig the hole, it was still near lunchtime before they were ready to put things back together. “Phew that was a lot of work,” Paulette said.

  “Yes it was,” Thomas exclaimed. “Let’s eat lunch and then finish this project so we can get hunting before it gets dark.”

  They took a short break to eat jerky and drink water. Once they finished, they quickly got to work on the shelter. They placed the branches they had collected into the trench and leaned them against her tarp. Once they got everything laid in the trench, Paulette piled and packed the dirt back on top. The guys finished up by tying the branches to the trees and then began placing the moss in the remaining holes of the structure. With her help, they finished the whole thing about two hours after lunch. Bo and Thomas did most of the work and were exhausted from the effort.

  “We got your shelter set up and plenty of water and food set aside for you. You should be good till we get back. Take the time to let your ankle heal. We’ll see you in about a week,” Thomas said.