A raptor came out of the wood line, doing a slight dance then stopping to caw at the robot. Instinctively he shouldered the rifle and flicked the safety off. The Raptor cawed again, and out of the wood line a second and then third animal joined it. He flipped the safety on, then reached into the truck and pulled out a grenade. Pulling the pin, he waited a second then tossed it at the raptors. “Wanna play?” He got into the truck hastily as they moved. One nudged the grenade, and then picked it up. He ducked his head pushed Max's head down as he tried to cover his ears with his arms just as the flash bang went off.
Max’s snarls turned to a yipe and squeal of dismay. The Raptors were snarling and coughing. He took a peek, seeing Max on the floor boards. Out over the dash and hood the raptors were gone. He snorted. The CAT lingered for a moment, and then returned to patrol. He noted the incident in the log, and then ordered a GP team to come out and repair the fence.
Back at base, he had the donks begin assembling the loads for the crane to lift to the second level. He took a look after lunch, checking the area he kept thinking of as a courtyard, and then he went up to the cave openings and looked them over once again. There was one on the third level, it was over twenty meters wide, but had a low ceiling.
The second was the opening for the waterfall. Water cascaded down the cliffs, forming three waterfalls along the way. One was high up, above the flat top of the base. It meanders a bit around some of the rocks in a channel it had been digging out for eons, and then fell into the second floor cavern. Erosion he thought. The water pooled there a bit, but it had two channels of escape, one leading out the face in the spectacular display, the other a small slit like channel that led to the open chamber he called the Great Hall. This poured through the floor into the subbasement levels.
By adding the hydro electric turbines, he could quadruple his power budget, allowing him to expand, and more importantly to power the electric fence. Based on the robotic survey, he pulled up the waterfall plans and played with them to refine them. By adding the intakes and channeling them properly, he could house all four of the turbines right in the pool room.
The problem was he would need to somehow get to the roof and redirect the waterfall flow for a couple weeks. He surveyed the ceiling, pursing his lips in thought. Rock climbing was one of his least favorite things to do, right up there with bungee jumping and parachuting. A fear of heights would do that to you the thought wryly.
Within the cave there were three ways to access the ceiling above. The first was the giant opening chamber for the waterfalls. Second was the giant opening for the Great Hall. The last was a tight chimney shaft going from an isolated cell in the second level up through the third and daylight. Each of these openings was going to have to be covered, or at least the openings leading to the chambers will have to be. For now he was stuck.
The waterfall was moving too fast to chance standing on the edge and pulling equipment in. The lips around were slick, he eyed it warily. “No, definitely had to redirect the water," he sighed.
A security alert had him running down the chambers to the ladder. “I hope this is a false alarm.” He muttered as he slides down the ladder, not even pausing to look down. His fear of heights forgotten.
Fumbling he pulled out his Bluetooth and flipped it on. “Report,” he called.
“Hostile red class predators designated raptors detected near pasture two,” the robot intoned mechanically.
“SHIT!” He hollered, running through the chambers, jumping over piping then into the waiting truck.
“KITT take me there,” he ordered, and then reached for the Bushmaster and a grenade. He pocketed two of the grenades, checked the clip then checked the safety. He flipped up the laptop then asked for a feed.
The jerky feed of a running CAT came up, then the screen splits into three panels. One had the view of the first CAT, running to the scene, while the second had an aerial view of the area from a UAV, and the third had an ED. The ED jerked as it fired, attacking the raptors from long range.
“Flash bang. One hundred meters,” Mitch immediately ordered.
“Error, enemy out of range,” the robot replied.
“Damn, fire anyway, one hundred meters,” he ordered.
“Affirmative,” the robot replied. The robot's mortar chuffed a grenade which flashed momentarily blinding the camera. The cattle were bawling in distress, running away from the predators and sudden burst of light and sound.
“Stampede,” he muttered. “Wonderfuckingful.” He checked the drone shot. The predators had scattered, two were down, and a few were pulling back. The CAT arrived; its guns began to puff, splattering one of the raptors, tearing it apart to dance in jerky movements before falling. The other animals turn and break.
He arrived just as they retreat, then warily he picked up the ED and followed. The raptors jumped through a break in the fence, and then ran up the other side of the hillside gully to disappear into the wood line. “Damn, definitely gotta fix that,” Mitch sighed. “Report on animals.” He looked out at the tree line bail fully.
“Report error, please specify particular designated species,” the AI responded. He sighed; patience was something you needed in abundance when working with machines.
“Report cattle condition.”
“Accessing,” the AI replied.
He knew that the robots were working, but with only the distributed net and skeleton Base AI it was going to take a moment to access the radio tags on each of the animals and process the data. “All animals accounted for. One moment. All are alive but in severe distress. No animals outside of designated pasture.” Well that was a blessing he mused, wondering how he had gotten so lucky.
Two GP robots arrived on the scene; he deployed the ED to cover them. “A bit late fellas,” he muttered, and then pitched in to get the fence back up.
“Animal distress reducing to baseline levels,” the AI reported a half hour later. He nodded, huffing an affirmative response as he moved the pole back up.
He checked anyway, noting some of the cows still rolling their eyes in distress. They were pregnant, sides bulging. He hoped this incident wouldn’t cause a miscarriage. They were the meat cattle, he needed all of them.
On the way back he checked the greenhouses, finding the first plants ready to go into the ground. “Great, another thing to do,” he sighed, and then looked to the sky. “General order to tractor two, plow..” He paused to check the map. “Farm vegetable plots 1a to 2d, and tree plots...” He checked the map, zoomed in and over to the right. “Tree plots 1A and 1B.” The robotic tractor started with a mechanical grunt, then pulled itself out of its mired parking spot and went to work.
“Report, two perimeter fence breaches repaired,” he intoned for the log and then nodded. “Send assets to third breach, and then check for additional breaches.”
“Affirmative,” the AI responded as it digested that order. Mitch sighed, and then flipped the Bluetooth off.
His right calf was cramping up, he could feel the growing pain as he tried to massage it. He had run a bit quicker than he was used to there, obviously he was spending too much time with his hands, and not enough exercising. He sighed, massaging the lump as KITT pulled the truck into up to the mobile home.
During dinner he pulled up the aerial map of the area, and then zoomed into the cliff side. There was the openings, he pulled up a cartography program, then dumped the aerial data into it. It spat out a 3D map of the area. He noted the narrow gully, it might suit his needed. If he redirected the water flow with some metal plates and rocks, he could buy time to get into the pool chamber and get his turbines up.
The next morning he managed to breeze through the chores, taking the time to check over each of the cattle for injuries, before he checked the perimeter. KITT bounced him around the perimeter, he checked for breaches, but found none. Satisfied, he marked the areas that had been breached for further reinforcing. The robots reported the second set of chambers ready for the pour, surprising him. With
everything going on yesterday and his preoccupation with the cliff climb he had forgotten them.
He checked, the floors looked good, at least the ones he could see from the garage mouth. It would take a week to fully set up, so he had to go around to get to the Great Hall chamber. He looked up, not thrilled about scaling it, but knowing it was going to be necessary.
The plan was to survey the top today, and see if he could maybe hoist some gear up with the portable winch. He grumbled a bit, getting to the second floor area was easy, he had the ladder up to the mouth, but from there he would have to rock climb the face up twenty meters to the opening, and then run lines down so he could get down, or draw gear up.
It was really too bad he couldn’t get the cherry picker in here, if he could get it high enough then getting to the roof would be as simple as flipping the up switch. He sighed, and then checked the gear over once more.
Once he climbed the ladder he felt the fear recede. As long as he didn’t dwell on it, and most importantly, didn’t look down, he should be okay. There was a narrow lip out from the edge, he attached a safety pin into a crevice, then linked his harness in and scooted out, facing the rock face. “Here went nothing,” he muttered, then attached a second pin.
It took him two hours, but he managed to get up the twenty meters. Down would be one scary ride though. He looked down from the lip, and then felt an urgent need to pee and stepped back. Vertigo made him a bit dizzy. Did he really climb that? He kept thinking to himself. He turned to look out east, noted the distant field of robots, cargo containers and vehicles. “Yup,” he sighed, then pulled out the Bluetooth and unwraps the line. “ANDY two get me the first package.” The robot standing by in the chamber moved to the rope as he dropped one end down. He attached his end with rock clips in a zig zag, and then looped it around a nearby boulder.
He instructed the robot to attach the winch, and then pulled it up. He pinned this to the ground with rock pins, then lowered the winch. It had a limited battery, so he supplemented it by using the line to pull up other loads.
In an hour he had several packages up. He looked over the rocks. Just above the channel behind him there was a cell of rocks, obviously cut out with erosion. A hose was dropped into the rushing river, and then he turned the pump on. He took the drill and thumbed it on. Water gushed around the bit.
It took a while, but he managed to drill a half a dozen strategic holes into the cells. From the engineering program he had run, these should hopefully be enough to blast the rocks down into the river, redirecting it into the Great hall temporarily. Six more holes were required to open the passage to the gully leading to the hall. He wired both to go off simultaneously.
He tamped down the last hole with clay the robot had sent up just as the sun began to wane. “Damn, no kaboom today I guess,” he sighed wearily, wiping his sweaty brow. The temperature outside had been climbing over the past several months; a sure sign summer was rapidly approaching. He finished wiring the explosives with a radio detonator, checked the circuits, then lowered his gear and zipped down the line. He ordered the robots to clear the chamber of gear, and then went off to clean up.
Chapter 5
The next morning he rushed through his morning chores, checked over things, then pulled out the detonator. He picked up the earplugs and stuck them in, then smiled. “Well, here went nothing. FIRE IN THE HOLE,” he called flipping the safety up and pushing down on the detonator button. With a resounding boom he heard the charges go off. A moment, a heart stopping moment of quiet, and then he clearly heard the gushing of water pouring into the chamber. He looked up to the top of the face. Smoke and dust were still drifting off, and the waterfall was definitely slowing... and finally down to a dribble. “Perfectumondo,” he sighed contented by how well that had worked.
He let the water and dust settle and went planting. It took a couple hours of back breaking bending, but he got the three greenhouses cleared and new seeds to replace them in the racks. The robots ran lines to each of the vegetable plots, as well as hoses out to the fields. He ordered the robotic tractor to plow the next three fields, and then did a perimeter check.
A quick bite of lunch led to a check of the interior of the cave. He whistled in awe at the sight of the waterfall in the Great Hall. It was huge, and breath taking. He glanced over to the side where he had had the ladder. “Guess I am not going up that way,” he observed as he snorted.
In the courtyard the cherry picker and crane were waiting by the massive piles of gear. He sighed, and then stepped into the basket. “Upsadaisy,” he said, thumbing the controls and looking up.
Getting out of the basket and into the chamber brought a heart stopping moment; he nearly slipped on the slimy surface. A hasty grab to the rock face saved him, but it twisted his wrist a bit, making it ache.
He checked the chamber and then looked up to the open hole above. “Wow, what a hole!” He sighed, remembering one of his favorite movies fondly. “Okay, where to start,” he murmured thoughtfully. He turned, and then nodded. “Okay GP,” He looked down at the scene below, then hastily stepped back as vertigo struck. Nope, definitely not a good idea. “GP three attach the first load to the crane. When it is complete crane lift it to my location.”
“Affirmative,” The robots replied in unison.
It took a bit of work and coordination to get the load up to the chamber opening. After trying verbal commands, he gave up and pulled out the controls to guide the load in manually.
The first load was basic gear, a crane system to attach to the face and roof with pitons to better winch up materials. Next came forms for the concrete, then tools and rebar sections. The rebar should be easy to put together, he had tried it on one of his job sites as practice. The wire tie was bent around the junction and then twisted with a motorized handle shaped tool with a hook on the end. Much simpler then welding and longer lasting as well.
With the last load up, he took a break then looked around as he ate a tasteless sandwich. He was going to need more materials soon; he was almost out of bread. A baking session might be in order tonight if he wasn’t too tired. He looked over to the portable cement mixer and then groaned. “Shit.” He looked at the dripping opening. “Whoops, forgot the water.” he sighed in frustration. He slapped at his though for a moment and then ordered the robots to hook up a line and send up one end to him.
It took all afternoon to get the crane finished and the first form up and rebar twist tied into place. The forms would redirect the waterfall into the turbines, then out back into the pool through sluice gates. Debris screens would be on top of the entrance holes, as well as up on the bluff above. They would have to be cleaned regularly or debris would pile up and clog things.
The temporary rail crane above would lift heavy parts, and then slide them along the track before lowering them into place. It would take a lot of work to muscle things in right and get parts aligned properly.
The channel leading to the waterfall in the Great Hall would be an emergency release valve. If during spring thaw the water pressure became too much for the turbines to handle the computer would open the valve chambers to allow some of the water into the channel and to the Great Hall. It could also serve to aid in the air conditioning during summer.
He started the first pour, and then realized it was getting dark. Swearing, he ordered more lights up, then continued the pour. “So much for playing baker,” he muttered, wiping sweat off with the back of his arm.
He finished just as dawn warmed the eastern horizon. He stood a meter back from the mouth of the open cavern, admiring the view. Wearily he used the basket to get down, trudged tiredly through his morning chores and then dropped into bed. “Just a couple hours,” he muttered as he felt the cats cuddling against his side.
Blearily he woke, noting it was dark out. He checked the log, noting that the robots had completed the interior pours that were possible and were down in hibernation mode. The GP robots were busy reinforcing the breach areas. A report that he was now l
ow on clay made him sigh. He ordered the robots out to the clay gully in the morning.
It was nice to stretch his abused muscles, he petted an annoyed Hera, annoyed because he had abandoned her for so long, then had returned to ignoring her as he slept like a log. In fact he had felt her once climb over him and nudge him insistently, but had dismissed it.
Knowing he was awake she insisted on a thorough petting, then feeding. Max whined to go out as he fed the cats, scratching at the door. Sleepily he let Max out, and then stepped out. Shock at the late hour woke him far more than coffee would. Damn, it was almost sundown!
He hurried through his chores, checking over the repaired breaches, and then ate. He set up the first batch of bread, leaving each batch in the fridge to rise slowly. He would bake them tomorrow.
The next day he had a quick shower, and then rushed into work. It was a pain doing the chores; he wanted to get things over with so he could do the next pour. He had four water turbines to install.
The forms filled in the pool area; water from the first set of turbines would be directed out through a second set of turbines and then into what remained of the pool. He brought up a GP robot to help, and managed to get the next three pours done by mid day.
Cleaning up, he checked the dough, punching them down, then kneading them and setting them up for the final proof. He checked the perimeter, then the clay convoy. Everything was going okay; four trips had been made, without any sign of animals or trouble. The whitish clay looked good. One of the tractors was reporting a brake problem, he switched it out with a fresh one, the logged it for later repair.
The sky south was a little dark, he could see incoming clouds. He swore, knowing it could mean trouble. He had planned to repair the potholes in the driveway, but was just too tired. He had a robot do it, and then the GP up in the cave called, asking for directions. He smiled, and then ordered it to hibernate for a couple hours while he baked.
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