Bootstrap Colony

by Hechtl, Chris

  The hills boiled as the animals came out, scenting the blood just as the suns final gasp ended the ambient light. Gary plowed on, dodging rocks and animals that get in the high beams. Mitch called in, warning the others.

  “Just what we didn’t need. You need help?” Jack responded.

  “Not yet, but you better head in our direction just in case. These things are mean and nasty, like sharks with legs,” Mitch replied.

  Jack paused for a moment. “Roger that,” he said. He started muttering: “Just what we need, lawyers. More competition.” One of the creatures jumped from a rock and landed on the hood. Screeching its claws dug into the metal hood as it turned around and tore at the elk carcass. Gary tried to shake it off but failed, the thing bit into the elk and started to tear chunks off. One forehand clutched at the roof rack to keep it steady, while the right arm scraped at the windshield before latching on as well. Terri was hysterical, scrunched down in her seat. Suddenly she reared up, fumbling with her belt for her knife. She screamed to cut the elk off, but Mitch grabbed her. “Don’t be stupid. Keep your arms inside.” He pointed as the creature tore at the meat. Other snapped at a dangling leg near her window, the shark like teeth made Terri scream and pee her pants in fear.

  Gary hollered to get the thing off, he couldn’t see, and narrowly dodged a tree. The low branches scraped the animal off, making it tumble in the dirt behind them. They exited the valley into the plains, sighing in relief. Mitch looked back, noted the pack following at a good clip and let them know that they weren’t out of the woods just yet.

  He pulled a knife and with Terry's help they severed the lines holding the elk to the roof. Gary jigged the car back and forth and the carcass came off, tumbling with a thump off the rear to roll in the muck behind them. Pulling out the night vision goggles, Mitch noted that some of the pack stopped at the carcass, but all too many of them continued the pursuit.

  He had Gary slow down, and then called in. Jack acknowledged, and called the village to prepare to bunker up. Gary hollered as one of the creatures’s jumped into their path but Mitch told him to hit it. Setting his jaw and arms he prepared to do so. It jumped out of the way only getting lightly clipped. It did break the right headlight though. Mitch pulled up a string of fire crackers, lit the fuse and then tossed them out behind them. The sharp pop pop pops made a few of the animals jumped around them, but didn’t scare them off. He radioed Jack the news.

  Jack said “Keep coming...We have you in sight now.” The soft pop made Mitch turn around to just catch a hammerhead go tumbling in their wake. Another fell and then another, then one gave a series of yips and turned. Jack muttered an oath over the radio. Mitch looked up their path, seeing the pack heading directly for him now.

  “Damn their smart,” Jack said over the radio, sounding unnerved. Mitch pulled the Barrett from its sleeve and had Gary slow down. Jack’s team scrambled back into the hummer just as the creatures with blinding speed arrived. Jack pulled out with a rooster tail of dirt, slashing the hummer back and forth, making the animals jump out of the way.

  Mitch got a bead and shot, grimacing because it missed. A few more miss before he got his eye in and dropped one animal with a shot right in the skull. A second shot at another animal hit a rock just as it passed over; he thought he missed but then the animal fell. “Ricochet,” he muttered.

  “At least it hit it!” Terri called up.

  “Just who is saving who here?” Jack called over the radio. Mitch snorted, took a bead and hit another in the shoulder, making it tumbled and then writhe in the dirt with yowls of pain.

  Two of the others turned, and then the last stopped and turned back. They nudged the wounded and dead, and then in a flash turn on the wounded animal, ripping it apart as it screams turn to gurgles. Mitch winced. “What what?” Terri asked.

  He waved her off. “You don’t want to know,” he growled.

  Shaken she stared straight ahead with a quiet, “You’re probably right.”

  Gary snorted. “Yah think?”

  Followed by Jack they arrived at the village which was lit like it was Christmas time. They barreled in past the gate, and then Axel grunting and swore behind him as he and others pushed it closed. Jenny called from atop the palisade, there were glowing eyes and shadowy shapes all around. The low pitched yap, yips and hisses drove out the sounds of the local insects. No one slept well that night.

  The next morning Jack checked the perimeter and then met up with Mitch. A boy running around bumped into him; he righted him and tousled his hair. He pulled the lad over to Mitch. “Mitch this is Paco Mencia, his ma is our local potter, his dad is our carpenter.” Mitch nodded to Paco and handed him an energy bar. “Sam’s crew was kind of leery about going out, and it took an hour and a double guard to convince them it was safe,” Jack reported. Mitch grimaced, and then turned to finish his energy bar.

  Paco chattered about his mom, Jack waved Mitch to follow. They went to a hut with a woman working a potting wheel. A beehive kiln was nearby, along with a little girl who was playing with a makeshift doll made out of scraps and pieces of grass. All around were stacks of bricks, plates, and other ceramics, drying in the sun.

  “Senora Mencia this is Senor Mitch Chambers,” Jack said introducing Mitch and then chattered in Spanish a bit. Mitch took the sight in and then turned to her.

  “Can you make tile?”

  “Tile? Si.” Her face blossomed in amusement. “SI! Si senor I make tile in México.”

  He nodded. “Can you make roofing tiles?” Mitch asked. Her brows nit, as did Jack and the others. He tried to demonstrate with his hands, then gave up and had Paco get a log. He held it up and Mitch nodded. Scampering back Paco handed it to him. Mitch described what he was talking about a half cylinder shape curving his hands over the log. Then he tried to demonstrate with his hands how they would overlap.

  Her browse knit in thought for a moment longer before they suddenly cleared and she barked a laugh. “SI! Si!” she nodded eagerly.

  Jack shook his head in bemusement. “Why didn’t I think of that? We could roof the buildings with it! Yeah. It is a great use of resources, and will last a very long time.” Jack chattered and then told Paco to get Julio. Julio came out wiping his hands. “Senor Julio Mencia this is Senor Chambers, he has an idea.” They went through the pantomime again until Senora Mencia, with twinkling eyes erupted with a spat of Spanish, explaining the need for a wood mold. Julio nodded.

  Axel and Helen came up behind Jack and nodded to Mitch. Jack turned and nodded to Axel while giving his wife a hug and peck. Jack and Helen commented about how this could all be some sort of government conspiracy. Axel chimed in as well. He had received a package the morning of the thirty first; low and behold it had been a bunch of duffels with survival gear.

  “I am glad that helped,” Mitch commented.

  Axel, “Yeah it did, saved my tush till I hooked up with Jack here.”

  Jack however gave Mitch a look. “What did you mean?”

  Helen caught the look, and then did a double take as what he had said set in and she put the pieces together. “YOU sent them??”

  Mitch toed the ground like a school kid caught doing something naughty and then shrugged. “Yeah.” Realization dawned with the group. He ducked his head, blushing a bit.

  “See I set up a system to identify people who said they were abducted that matched my own visit. Then I set up the packs to be delivered to everyone they could find. I wanted everyone to have a survival pack and at least a fighting chance,” he sighed. “Unfortunately we only found four hundred thirty three people.”

  Jack patted his shoulder. “Yeah, but those people will have a better chance of survival,” he observed. Axel and Helen nodded.

  “Jack, what say we go see if we can find one of those carcasses and get a better look?”

  Jack gave him a long look, and a slow nod. “Might be a good idea at that. I want to know what we are up against. It might be a good idea to reinforce the perimeter, maybe a
dd some features now that we have better tools.”

  Mitch nodded. “We still have a day, so let me get my crew on that then we can do quick road trip.”

  In the field they were surprised that the carcasses were gone. Not picked over...literally gone. Not a splinter of bone left. They hit upon the idea of hunting one of the close caves. Mitch shot a wompi deer for bait. The crew rigged a lasso with the winch cable.

  They tossed the deer near the opening. Chattering and low noises could be heard, and then a paw hesitantly came out to try to drag the carcass in. Using his goggles Mitch shot the animal in the head. It dropped. The chittering increased as they heard scrambling. Quickly they tossed the noose out; it took three tried to get it to loop around the paw. The winch dragged it out, but suddenly the line bucked like it had a fish on the hook. Checking the scope Mitch noted other creatures tearing at the fallen one. He tossed in a flash bang, it went off and they scattered to the back of the cave. They extracted the slightly chewed corpse and bundled it in a tarp to take it back to base.

  At the village Doc came out and took a quick look with the crowd of lookie loos... “You’ll have to run it by a biologist or Mags, but this is the damnedest thing I have ever seen. Look,” She used a stick to pull the mouth open. “It has sharks teeth, the whole bit, triangular, rotating for replacement... but look here.” She pointed the stick, the end now dripping drool to the front feet. “It has four legs, but the feet are tridactyl toes. The front feet have an opposable thumb that scissors into a pair of claw toes. I bet it acts like a raptor, grabbing the victim to pull it to its mouth,” she observed. She pantomimed the action with her hands and teeth. Jack and Mitch nodded.

  She pointed to the underside neck flank near the root of the hammerhead. “Those look like gill slits. I bet this thing is amphibious. See this,” She tapped the melon. “I would bet this is ultrasonic.” Mitch nodded.

  “Rubbery skin more like a dolphin then a shark,” Jack commented.

  Diego Fuentes pulled fins on the tail. “Check this!”

  Doc nodded “Yeah probably fins, for thermal control or swimming.” She poked around a bit. “… Not much skeleton, I wonder if it has a cartilage skeletal structure?” she mused. She pointed to the shark fin. “Classic dorsal fin. Damn, scary sob. From the claspers I would say this was a boy.” She looked up as Cassie came over to check it out.

  ”Yeah, it looks like one of those things from that sci-fi movie, the one with the bald guy with the weird eyes?” Cassie said. Doc nodded.

  “More like aliens,” Jack replied. They looked up and over to him. “The skin is black, melon head... sharp teeth...” The group shivered.

  Doc, Cassie, Diego, and Dora Fuentes went off to the side, muttering about this or that feature. The Fuentes tried to keep up with Doc and Cassie, Their English was still rough. Frequently Diego had to pause to translate something his wife had said in Spanish into English.

  Some of the villagers came to see, shudder, and then move off muttering darkly. A few made weak jokes, trying to get over the shock of the creature. Mitch had them bag it back up in the tarp for transport back to base. “So, can we kill them?” Someone finally asked.

  Mitch shook his head. “Do you really want to go into those caves after them?” The group vehemently shook their heads. “No? Neither do I.” He grimaced and shrugged.

  “That’s it?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah. I would suggest keeping your crew on a strict curfew, no one outside a half hour before sundown, and a half hour past sunup. Best I can suggest,” Mitch said.

  Jack looked dubious for a moment, and then sighed. “Yeah, sounds about right.” He grimaced, looking around before his face cleared. He turned back to Mitch. “Wait, why didn’t we see them last year?” Jack asked suddenly.

  “They may have been in another area, like across the river," Mitch pointed out.

  Jack nodded. “So you are thinking they are nomadic?”

  Mitch cocked his head. “From what Doc said about that carcass, maybe,” he replied. “They might also have hunted in other parts of the area, further south along the coast line, or East and not gotten this far inland.” Mitch commented, looking out to the sparking river a kilometer or two away.

  “Then again, since they attack at night and are a little photo phobic, they might have been around the entire time.”

  Jack shuddered. “We lost a few people at night the first couple of weeks. I always thought it was raptors,” he grimaced.

  Mitch nodded in sympathy, patting the man on the arm. “We will never know for sure,” Mitch muttered.

  Jack looked up for a minute then asked, “What about explosives? Seal the caves?”

  Mitch shook his head no. “There were a couple dozen caves there, and we would have to get pretty close to toss a satchel charge in... with no guarantee that it would close the cave. Rigging the cave would work better, but I do not have that much explosives, and that is dangerous as all get out. Hell, just getting them here would be a bitch.”

  Paul paled a bit. “Yeah, bouncing around in a truck filled with explosives isn’t what I would call fun.”

  “Then we have the other question, are there other cave entrances?” Mitch asked thoughtfully. Jack wearily sighed and nodded in surrender. He thanked them and moved off to help the perimeter team.

  Chapter 14

  Jack came up to the knot of women around Mitch later and commented, “So, iron, copper, salt, plants, animals... Not bad for a beginning.”

  Angie looked up. “Plastic, carbon fiber, carbon, oil, and spider silk as well.” she replied proudly.

  “Plastic?” Jack asked, looking dubious.

  “Yeah, we have several kinds, bio-plastics made from synthetics, and cellulose, plus a polyethylene made from gene engineered bacteria,” Mitch explained.

  “Okay, I heard about that on TV a long time ago, but spider silk?”

  Sara and two other women joined them. “Spider silk. In the nineteen nineties there was a breakthrough in genetic engineering, scientists managed to engineer goats to produce spider silk proteins in their milk,” Sara explained and then shrugged.

  One of the women shuddered “I don’t like that, tampering with gods creations.”

  Mitch smiled politely. “Do you eat food?”

  “What kind of question is that?” she asked glaring.

  “What about clothes?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So all of that is gene-engineered. It just took longer,” he replied patiently.

  She looked dubious, and slightly offended. “No it isn’t.”

  “Ma’am, yes it is. Farmers have been using genetic engineering in the forms of cross pollination, selective breeding, culling, and other techniques to shape plants and animals to what they wanted,” Mitch replied patiently. Jack slowly nodded at this, as does Angie and Sara.

  “Gene engineering in a lab is a short cut and more scientific. They take the desired traits seed them into the RNA or DNA, and then mature it. It still has trial and error of course, but much faster since they mapped the genomes,” Sara pointed out. The woman shuddered.

  “Scientists can now find specific traits they want to enhance, or change,” Mitch added.

  Sara looked on, and then turned. “What about cross breeding?”

  Mitch nodded. “Yes, before genetic engineering farmers would cross breed animals to get desired traits, like donkeys with horses to get mules, or cross pollinate plants.”

  Jack nodded. “I remember seeing a Discovery channel thing where they used cuttings from buds.”

  Mitch nodded. “Yes, they can do that too. But now they can select genes from one type of animal, and inject them into the base animal or plant. Some of it sounds silly, like glow fish, and such, but this allowed scientists to learn things, things about biology and how the process worked.”

  Sara nodded. “It isn’t like we can do that now; we don’t have the facilities, training, or real need.” Some of the women look relieved. “With our small population w
e do not need to maximize crops, or create new designer dog breeds,” she said dryly. Angie snorted a giggle. The women left, muttering a bit.

  Doc came up, quietly informing them that Nicole had a light fever, but the baby was nursing fine. Sam had gone out with the crew, and graveled a road for three kilometers. They returned just before dusk, making a few worry until they spotted their vehicles on the horizon. A tense guard watch was mounted, but the hammerheads were not seen that evening much to their relief and fear. It was always the predator you didn't see that could get you many said.

  The next morning the convoy loaded up, Sam, Paul, and Angie took the convoy back to the base. They would try to only stop to do a little work on the way where necessary. Jack watched as they loaded the dump trucks with gravel. “They will be okay,” Mitch said from behind him. He turned to Mitch.

  “Sam is a good guy; he will use the gravel only sparingly. Once they get through the mountain pass they should be okay,” Mitch replied to the questioning look.

  Jack nodded; smacked dust from his hat and put it on. “Yup.” They watch them leave, and then turn to the defenses. The gate was a makeshift thing, made with stripped of metal mounted on a frame with crude wheels. The day before the crew had been busy working on the perimeter, but the gate itself had been overlooked. Mitch pulled at it a bit, and they decided to do what they could to improve it. CJ, one of Jack's teenage group helped form a rail for the wheels to ride on. Jack dug a trench for the rails and then embedded them while Mitch worked out a truss system to strengthen the door. Without acetylene fuel for Axel’s welder they were forced to use drills and bolts, getting creative with the cuts while draining the batteries.

  They called a halt at lunch. Cassie came out to check things over. She helped them muscle a beam into place, then decided to haul water and do laundry with some of the ladies. Jack snorted at this. CJ chuckled. They managed to beef up the door a bit, and blocked out a plan for Jack and his crew to continue improvements. The latch and arm bar were worked on, making it easier to move and secure the door. Axel worked out an idea to power the door with a pair of garage door openers, which he dug out of a pile of parts and began tinkering with. CJ said they would have to have power, and be able to sync the motors to a controller, Axel agreed, they went off talking about the idea.