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Preview of A Paleolithic Fable
By S Shane Thomas
Chapter 1 Bobby
He had lived through some strange events before, but becoming conscious after only his head had completely formed, deeply disturbed Bobby. It gave him the opportunity to watch science’s best attempt at time travel in action. Bright white energy zig zagged down under his chin, the width of his broad shoulders. As it worked lower, a tingling sensation formed and fleshed out on his newly assembled limbs. No wonder he had been chosen for this duplication, any of the colonists who were fully human would bleed to death while their body was being laser printed.
Before the tingling reached his legs, the fact he pondered after accepting the mission settled into a cold, unavoidable, stark reality. His wife Wooril and their children would continue living their lives without him. In fact, they had never even met him. The man they knew, and would continue to know, was his original. His life continued seventy thousand years in the future, on Nibiru, a human colony light years away from Earth. Their lives would continue, if his mission succeeded anyhow.
Bobby experimentally wiggled his toes. The beam of light had completed his new body, a perfect replica of the first, right down to the scars and patches of metallic skin that marked where he and Nabu had fused, saving both their lives and becoming something both organic and mechanical.
“Let’s get dressed, gear up, and get this over with,” Nabu said, inaudibly, from deep within their shared mind.
“At least we’ve still got one another,” Bobby said aloud. Might as well test the vocal cords, he mused.
“I know she’s your mate, and they are your kids, but I miss them too. They are the only life I’ve known since you gave my kind free will.”
“I guess we lost something that we never truly had. Our original body will take care of them.” Even as Bobby made the statement, he felt its hollow effect. Before the duplication, his original rationalized that there would be the pain of loss, but deep down, knew that it wouldn’t be him feeling these emotions. Now there was no escape from the pain. Except in his task. If he were successful, at least he could be assured that they would all exist in the future.
Bobby rose when the tingling faded. His sensations were not entirely normal, but he figured his nervous system simply needed time to adjust. He donned the blue cargo pants and pale gray tee shirt with CSF printed in bold black letters across the chest. He strapped on his combat boots, and slid his slate into a large cargo pocket on the leg of his pants. Finally he donned a silver pack, a shugarra, the only weapon he would need. He spoke the command and his shugarra sprang into life, masking his face in silver. His normally friendly features took on a fierce expression. Arms became the first two joints of massive wings, he unfurled them fifteen feet in both directions.
Bobby leapt into the sky, propelled first by the shugarra’s additional muscle above the canopy, then he beat silver wings and flew to an outcropping of rock on an overgrown cliff face. He looked out over the jungle below him for signs of sentient life. Nothing seemed man made. He wondered to himself if the hominins in this era, the Middle Paleolithic even considered themselves human. According to his crash course in the Stone Age, people in this era were incapable of metaphorical language. Their only words, and therefore thoughts would be for physical items or beings, and easily described actions. One part of their mind would act based on instinct alone, carrying them through routine activities like hunting, eating, and making tools. The other part of their mind would subconsciously evaluate unique situations and give commands in the form of auditory hallucinations.
“It would be like if I became bossy and you became docile and obedient,” Nabu observed.
“Why would I be the instinct?”
“I was with Ninma when the Nefilim first came to Earth and gave men consciousness. I existed for thousands of years, while you are thirty.”
“I have been conscious for most of my life, the Tablet of Destiny controlled your people until recently.”
“We digress.”
Bobby looked at his slate. If one of the Anki used magic, the device could pin point their location. If they arrived within the last hour, their teleportation would leave enough residual energy to detect. There was nothing. Bobby shook his head in dismay, searching the entire planet could take a lifetime, maybe more.
The crash of thunder brought Bobby to his feet. Birds rose from the canopy in hundreds, unsettled by the event. The lightning had already come and gone, but Bobby still saw the place in the jungle where it scorched. It looked as if the air had been scarred by its passage. The slate blipped. Enkara and Namtar just arrived. Bobby uttered the command, and his body shimmered into near invisibility. He beat his wings just enough to get airborne, then he soared on the wind to the canopy above his quarry. Monkeys and birds loudly protested the thunder and lightning that, only moments before, had disrupted their jungle. It provided a great cover for him to slip into the branches.
Bobby softly spoke another command and his shugarra wings retracted into a hulking mass of synthetic muscle. With this extra bulk he was strong enough to wrestle a grizzly bear. Still camouflaged near invisibility, the silver clad man crept down through the branches with all the stealth his bulky form would allow. Whatever noise he did make was drowned out by protesting shrieks and chirps from the locals. With only thirty feet between him and solid ground, Bobby spotted the pair of Anki. He listened in on the pair while creeping onto the lowest branches in the canopy.
“The humans on Nibiru have corrupted two of our kind into betraying their own race,” Enkara said. His wedge shaped head darted about on a neck the length of a man’s arm. Solid black, the Anki stood five feet high, and eight feet long from his head to tail. He had stubby arms and legs, a slender torso, and massive wings folded down either side of his spine. His smooth skin glinted in the snatches of afternoon sun that evaded the canopy.
“There are a dozen other breeds of talking monkey in this era of Earth. We will simply pick the most fierce and obedient, and help them eliminate humans before they civilize. Forget about the humans and their pair of Anki. We were imprisoned in stasis for thousands of years, who knows what even became of the society our fellow Anki created,” Namtar replied. Identical in size, she was easily distinguished from her mate with bright white skin.
“Forget about our society. If the Anki knew we were free, they would stop at nothing to return us to stasis. We will rule over these talking apes as gods,” Enkara hissed a laugh.
Anger swelled in Bobby. Before him stood the reason he would live a life apart from the woman and children he loved. Two powerful beings that had the ability to create anything they d
esired, and go anywhere, anytime they wish, and instead of finding contentment, they sought to dominate and enslave some, and to eliminate others. Bobby screamed in fury as he leaped upon the black Anki. The heel of his boot connected with Enkara’s head and he crumpled in a heap while Bobby tumbled beside him.
Bobby rolled until his feet were under him once more and locked eyes with Namtar. He spoke the command and his camouflage vanished, revealing the silver clad warrior to his enemy. Namtar hissed and lowered herself into a crouch. Behind him Enkara lifted his head, but it thumped back into the dirt. Bobby leaped toward the white Anki, his fist cocked back, prepared for a punch, and glowing with energy to discharge on her upon impact.
An instant before he connected, Namtar’s hiss turned to a frigid burst of wind. Bobby crashed against the frozen assault and the pressure flung him into the brush, a dozen feet away. His body was numb. His mind raced with adrenaline, but his muscle and that of the shugarra struggled to regain mobility. He strained to look up, afraid that Namtar’s next assault would land before he could recover.
The white Anki tended to her mate. Enkara rose unsteadily with her assistance. He shook his black diamond shaped head a moment, then visibly regained composure. He eyed Bobby, who was struggling to regain his own feet. Enkara’s mouth opened wide, revealing dart like teeth. A bolt of electricity surged from the black Anki and struck Bobby with such force he flew another dozen feet, this time smashing into a tree.
Nabu took control of the stunned body. His Nefilim mind operated independent of the nervous system. The electrical jolt negated the effect of Namtar’s frigid blast. Nabu splayed fingers, palm pointed at the Anki and a beam of energy lashed out, bashing the pair of Anki onto the jungle floor.
Enkara recovered instantly. He held a hand to the ground and using his mental ability, summoned a shield into existence, created from minerals in the soil itself. He deflected the next energy beam, standing protectively between the silver clad warrior and his mate. Enkara lashed another burst of lighting toward Bobby, but the man dodged to the left. Then he leapt into a flying side kick that connected squarely with Enkara’s shield, hammering the Anki to the ground. While Anki were close to men in size, their hollow bones and lean muscles enabled their flight, and lent the human a power advantage. Bobby pummeled the Anki with punches, some denting the shield, others connecting with a sickening thud.
“Human!” Namtar snarled.
Bobby took his eyes off Enkara and gazed at the white Anki. Enkara pushed him back in a sudden burst of strength, taking Bobby by surprise. Namtar thrust an empty palm toward Bobby and a swirl of electricity enveloped him.
“We might need help from some locals,” Nabu said, within.
Bobby winked out of existence.
Chapter 2 Acacia
She pulled her thin legs close to her chest. Despite the furs over top of her ochre dyed sun dress, the Swapper youth shivered against the cold. A fire blazed bright on the far side of the cave but she had to wait for the local Icehunters to finish gawking and prodding. Though she was somewhere between childhood and becoming a woman, the Swapper stood a head taller than the locals. Her frame was lean, especially compared to their stout shoulders and muscled limbs. A youth approached her, pulled a buckskin glove off his hand, smiled, and reached for her hair. The Swapper disliked contact with someone outside her tribe, but those who tended her now had killed the rest of her tribe.
“Good thoughts, good words, good deeds,” her ilu said. Her ilu had been the voice of her mother since she died.
The Swapper bowed her head, despite her own loathing, this was her part to play in the group’s livelihood. The Icehunter boy gently pressed his fair skinned hand into her thick black curls. Then he twined a bit between two fingers and gently pulled until the strands stretched well beyond their resting length. He then grabbed his own pale golden hair and gave it a firm tug, seemed to contemplate the difference, smiled at the Swapper girl, and moved on to the Firebringer for a closer look.
She despised being inspected and prodded. The Icehunters who held her and the three others from far flung tribes hardly hunted or foraged. They got meat and other provisions by displaying the oddities to other Icehunters who never ventured past the frozen Northern expanse to see the world beyond. A great arid desert separated the Icehunters from the rest of the peopled world. Only fearless bands dared go below, and even then only to gather food or captives to trade among their people.
Swappers made the journey of course. Not that the girl agreed with the notion. Anger at the thought of her people’s death brimmed within her. She contemplated another attempt to murder her captors.
“Good thoughts, goods words, good deeds,” her ilu repeated in mother’s soothing voice. The Swapper girl breathed deeply in through her nose, then out through her mouth, a hint of frost puffed with each exhalation. She looked into the fire and shivered.
A fur cloak gently prodded her. The Swapper girl turned her gaze from the flame to the cloak, then to the long hand, webbed to its second knuckle, and tipped in dark blue claws. The skin of the Waterbreather next to her was bone white with a blue grey hue. She shook her head to decline.
“Swappers cannot make their own heat in Icehunter country.” The Waterbreather stared intently at the Swapper girl. He stood a head taller than her, more than two heads taller than the robust Icehunters. His elongated head was bald, his solid black eyes, the size of apples, gazed from under raised brows. Where a nose should be, only two thin slits flared slightly. A small mouth curled into a smile. “We only have one another for now,” he insisted, “but soon, a Skinchanger will help to free us, so that we can help him on a quest.”
Hesitantly, she reached for the cloak. Once within her grasp she bundled herself hurriedly and offered a smile to her fellow captive. He slowly reached out those too long hands for her. The Swapper girl resolved not to shy away from his touch and steeled herself. He looked different, but her ilu did not say to resist the embrace, so she allowed him to lay hands upon her. The Waterbreather briskly rubbed her shoulders, back, and thighs through the extra layer of furs.
“Thank you,” she said. Warmth flooded her for the first time in days. She imagined the faint hint of blue departing her dark ebony features.
More Icehunter locals came to look at the four oddities. The Waterbreather stood bare chested now. The air around him seemed to shimmer with the contrast between his warmth and the chill of the North.
An old female Icehunter, bearing two children, one in each arm, stood only inches from the bare chested Waterbreather. Her eyes were wide with wonder, she grinned broadly under a bulbous nose. Her children each grasped long claw tipped fingers in their chubby little hands.
“Too warm,” the Icehunter mother said. She moved back from the Waterbreather and soon the Swapper girl felt the tug of chubby little fingers in her dark curls. She turned her attention to the Ebu Gogo, who now had a cluster of Icehunter children flocked around him.
His long mane was the brown color of tree bark. It spread from atop his head, to the middle of his back, and down his narrow chest. Tufts of hair poked out from everywhere his fur clothing did not protect, save for his little face. He was only slightly taller than the Icehunter children he now amused, and stood only to the Swapper girl’s ribs. His too long feet appeared to be double bundled by the Waterbreather’s boots and his hands also looked double layered. He seemed to be acting out a struggle he had survived, to entertain the children.
His face was small, with almost no forehead or chin. An oversized mouth and a wide, flat nose dominated his features. That big mouth made fierce bird calls, followed by his own battle cry. Then the little Ebu Gogo rolled about on the cave floor bucking and thrashing against an invisible opponent. All the while he muttered to himself in the tongue that only his curious little island people from the far South could comprehend. The Icehunter children laughed and whooped their encouragement.
The Swapper girl felt the nudge of an elbow from her sid
e. It was the Firebringer. He pointed to the little Ebu Gogo’s act.
“Ebu Gogo likes being displayed as an oddity,” he said. “His ilu must not tell him, that he’s better off alone.”
“I know you can’t hear another’s ilu, but maybe Ebu Gogo don’t even hear their own,” the Swapper girl replied.
It was a mean thing to say. Those without ilu were not among the tribes. Those without ilu were simple animals, not one of the races of human.
The Firebringer cocked an eyebrow, then furrowed both brows and pursed his lips as if angry. The Swapper girl worried that she caused discord among her fellow prisoners. Then the Firebringer cracked a toothy grin. His ruddy hair framed a face that rested in a smile. His eyes, so bright yellow they seemed to glow, squinted to accompany the jovial expression. His face was the only near hairless bit. The Firebringer’s jaw, neck, shoulders, and chest all had a thin coat of hair. The Swapper girl wondered if his people were not only named for being the first tribe to master fire, but for their fiery red hair as well. He was not half as furry as the Ebu Gogo, but much hairier than the Icehunters or Swappers. He stood nearly a head taller than the young Swapper and under the furs his captives had provided, he wore buck skin pants, and a green woven reed vest.
Writer Battle_Chaos Page 5