Wasn’t he supposed to wake up in the tube? Hooked to a thousand lines? Drake remembered them warning him not to pull them out until it was time.
What was going on?
“My parents,” Drake croaked out.
The dark man and girls look to one another.
“What year is it?” the man asked.
Drake blinked a few times. “I think… I was frozen in 2016.”
Another look passed between his attendants as the metal ostrich bobbed its head up and now making him question his sanity.
“What?” he asked.
The girl squeezed his hand. “It’s 2531.”
Drake felt the darkness trying to take him over again.
* * *
Appie clung to the boy’s hand as he swooned over backwards. Mattu was there to catch him before he hit his head. Perhaps they should have broken that news to him a little more gently. She shooed Ruby away who, even though the boy was naked, was still trying to search him for grain.
Soon the boy was blinking his eyes again as Mattu helped him sit up.
“Twenty-five thirty-one?”
Appie simply nodded. What else could she say to soften that blow?
“I don’t understand,” he mumbled. “Why wasn’t I woken sooner?”
She looked to their powwaw, if the year freaked him out, the rest of the news wasn’t going to go down any better.
“Rest,” Mattu said. “All will be revealed.”
The boy gulped holding out his hand to Mattu. “I’m Drake.”
“Do you want something? Water? Food?” Mattu asked.
“Something to wear?” Drake asked, his cheeks blushing.
Mattu grabbed one of the grey robes from a hook and handed it to the boy.
After he donned it, the boy chuckled. “Actually I was just offering to shake your hand.”
Mattu looked at the boy’s extended hand as if he asked to be bitten by a snake. But in the end, Mattu offered his hand as well. The boy took it in his and pumped their hands up and down.
“I am Mattu,” the powwaw stated then nodded to each of them. “That is Appie, our Shawnee, and Chimmus, one of our trackers.”
“Thank you,” Drake said, reaching his hand out to each of them in turn. “Thank you all.”
Then a smile to rival the first spring day’s sun crossed his lips.
Appie found herself nearly giggling. Only the palpable pain on his face stopped her. He might be smiling but it did not go down to his soul.
Chimmus shook his hand first. “And if you call me Chimmey, I will seriously mess up your face.”
The boy chuckled as if that had been a joke or exaggeration on Chimmus’ part. Appie wished to tell him it was not. Just ask several of the boys at the gathering and find out exactly how accurate she was being.
“Good to know,” Drake stated then held out his hand to her.
“Appie. That’s an unusual name.”
She nodded, “It is short for Appalachia,” she explained. “My parents were kind of geography nerds.”
The boy’s lips spread as he shook her hand. “As were mine.”
Then the smile faded as well as he glanced around. “No one else was viable?”
Mattu shook his head. Appie pushed Ruby back again. The grey gown had reignited her curiosity.
“I knew a girl,” the boy said. “We were in training and cryoed at about the same time….”
Drake’s expression became clouded as his eyes scanned the bank of tubes. He found the one he was looking for and walked over to it. For a moment a feeling welled inside of Appie. It was unpleasant and made her squirm where she stood.
“I would not,” Mattu urged, trying to guide the boy away, but Drake shook off the powwaw’s hand and rubbed the glass. The girl inside no longer looked like a girl. She had been thawed and frozen too many times. Drake turned away abruptly, retching but not bringing anything up.
“So everyone I know, everything I know is gone?” Drake choked out.
Appie guided him over to a chair.
“I don’t understand…” Drake moaned. “They said a robotic would be watching over the bunker…that we could be down here for a thousand years and always have a watcher.”
Appie looked over Drake’s head to Mattu. The boy had to learn some harsh realities sooner or later. It might as well be sooner.
She cleared her throat as Mattu put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Well… you see…” Even Mattu was having a hard time spitting it out. “The synthetics had an uprising which seemed like it was quelled, but then they plotted to have us nuke ourselves, which pretty much worked.”
Drake’s eyes scanned her face. “No really, what happened?”
Appie shrugged. “That is pretty much it in a nutshell.”
Drake then looked to Mattu, who wore the same expression as Appie.
“Seriously, the robots forged our doom?” Drake asked. Appie nodded then he chuckled. “Really, did anyone read any Isaac Asimov or watch Terminator?”
“I know, right?” Appie replied. “That’s what I keep saying!”
She looked to Mattu who frowned at the both of them. He had never read Asimov nor ever watched a film.
“What was your generation thinking?” Appie asked.
“Wait, not my generation,” Drake stated. “Our robots were like clunkers.”
“But add fifteen years to your age and it was your generation that created AI and nuked the planet,” Chimmus stated.
Ruby nuzzled Appie’s hand. She couldn’t deny the ostrich any longer. She dug deeply into her pockets and gave the ostrich a few kernels.
“Ugh, quite the legacy my contemporaries left,” Drake moaned, hanging his head.
“And don’t forget the dinosaurs,” Grey said as he entered the room, leaning heavily on Salvve and Pipo.
Appie frowned at the old man. She had hoped to clue Drake in on the dinosaurs a little later. Like once the color had come back to his cheeks.
“Dinosaurs? Is this like some kind of punking?” Drake asked, even though no one in the room seemed to know what he was talking about. “Candid Camera?”
“The reptilian scourge is real, I assure you,” Mattu stated.
Appie jumped in to clear up the confusion on Drake’s face. “Around the same time as the robotics, an oil company decided it might be interesting to clone dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the scientist they hired was a little crazy and thought the world should go back to the dinosaurs and spread their eggs all over the world.”
“So, why exactly did you wake me up?” Drake said. The question sounded harsh but the boy’s lips were slightly turned up in the corner.
“It’s not as bad as all that,” Appie tried to reassure him, patting Ruby. The ostrich was proof of that.
“Yes, it is,” Mattu stated bluntly. Appie shot him a glare, but he seemed unfazed by it.
Unfortunately, to punctuate his point, the Spino went back to trying to break open the bunker door. The loud, persistent pounding filled the room. Appie guessed that the Spino had finished his snacks and decided to find some fresh food.
“He can’t get in,” Mattu said.
Although it wasn’t all that reassuring with the loud banging going on.
“My stuff?” the boy asked.
Appie glanced around but the cryo-room seemed medicinal and sterile.
Drake moved past her, smelling of antiseptic. He went to a wall and knocked on it, listening every few inches. “There should be a bank of lockers here.”
* * *
Drake listened to the reverberations. The wall sounded hollow. This is where the lockers should be. Some kind of security shield must have been lowered. The strange silver ostrich “helped him” by pecking at the wall as well. Her actions were almost comical. The girl named Appie smiled and patted the robot.
“If we can find a lever or something,” Drake suggested.
A man, who Drake thought someone had called Salvve, walked up, swung his hammer and smashed the thin wall, shatter
ing it to pieces.
“Or we could do it like that…”
He searched the wall of lockers and found his. He pushed his palm against the glowing screen then typed in his code. 2010 like the movie, one of his favorites.
The locker opened and revealed everything he had packed for this “glorious” awakening. He still shivered in his humiliating short robe.
There was his large pack, Batman of course. He tried to shove his hand into the locker, but was repelled by a force field. Oh yeah, his things were inside of a stasis field. He went back to the keypad and turned it off, then plunged his hand in, grabbing his pack, ripping open the zipper and pulling out clothes. Jeans and a “Jedi, I am” tee-shirt. The others turned around. Apparently the “please give me some privacy” look was not era-sensitive.
He slipped on the clothes, making sure that no one saw his TMNT underwear. He was already embarrassed enough.
“Okay,” he said tucking his shirt in. The rest of the bag was filled with a variety of his favorite electronics. Then he spotted his Jack Skeleton pack. He snatched it from the recesses of the locker. He buried his face in the fabric. This carried the stuffed bunny he’d had since he was a baby and the lock of hair his mother had cut when he first got sick so they could match a wig, if necessary. And a letter from Suzie Melch from second grade when she pledged eternal love to him, as long as he would get her cotton candy every day.
He had failed in his quest and she had moved onto another boy who might be able to keep her sweet tooth happy.
Then he saw a picture taped to his locker, a picture of his mother and father. He didn’t want to cry in front of these strangers, but the tears flowed. He pushed his forehead against his mother’s cheek. How he wished he could feel her lips against his skin. The picture had been taken before he was sick so his parents looked young and happy, not looking with the haunted eyes of later.
And a picture of his old dog. He laughed as the lenticular picture changed and showed the Golden, so aptly named Goldie, jumping up and catching a ball in mid-air. So much to miss.
“We need to get going,” Appie said behind him. Her voice was soft and gentle, though.
Pull it together, Drake. He would have time to grieve and adjust later, hopefully.
Then a rattling started overhead.
“Get down!” Appie yelled, pulling Drake to the floor as the air vent burst open and a dozen dinosaur bats flew into the room. They screeched as they wheeled around the room, looking for their next victim.
Salvve was the first up with his long spear, skewering one and bashing the body into another. A third turned on his injured brethren and latched his huge fangs onto his neck.
What the hell? Bat dinosaurs? Who came up with that one? And cannibals, as well? This future certainly wasn’t the one he had envisioned. There were supposed to be jet cars and automated showers. Not bat dinosaurs.
This was not happening. Just like that X-Files episode, this so wasn’t happening. He couldn’t have woken up over five hundred years later. This had to be a dream. He was dreaming while he was in cryo.
Nice theory, only his body ached and he could feel every nerve along his skin. And his toe just got stepped on by a robotic ostrich. Drake was awake, unfortunately.
He kept down as the others fought off the dinosaur bats. Although it seemed they were repelling them rather than killing them off. And the high-pitched scream in his head made it nearly impossible to think.
But think, he needed to, because they were not going to survive this surreal situation for long as more and more dino bats, or dats as he dubbed them, poured through the vent.
And even though his rescuers were fierce, it was only a matter of time before they were overrun. One of the dats latched onto the dark man’s arm. The man then smashed the dat against a counter, crushing its skull. The dead body dropped to the ground.
He pulled back into his mind, much as he did when the cancer pain got super bad. He’d learned waking meditation from an old sensei. It had saved him back then. Could it save him now? The clamor of the battle waned as he turned off his external sense and burrowed deep into his mind for a way out.
“There is a back way out,” Drake stated, pulling the girl who impossibly seemed to be the leader of this group over to him.
She turned to him, a question on her face.
Drake pointed behind them. There was an emergency exit and Drake thought if anything should qualify as an emergency, a dat attack should.
The girl tugged on the dark man’s tunic, throwing her head in the direction Drake had indicated. The man nodded, sending along the message to the others. The girl pushed on Drake’s back to get him moving.
He guessed that meant to get his butt in gear. Yet he found he was having a hard time getting his feet moving. Was it a residual effect of the cryo or was he just freaked out of his freaking mind? Probably some of both.
It was like his body refused to believe that he had woken up five hundred years in the future, to a world dominated by robots and dinosaurs. It was crazy, but, no crazier than a room full of dats flying around his head. He could try to deny his new reality or he could actually survive it.
Drake didn’t need another prompting by the girl to get going this time. Staying low, practically crawling, he made his way across the room and then dove in between the cryo-tubes. Dats were crashing into them, shattering the glass, dousing them all in the thick white fog. Bodies thunked to the floor, the sound sickening and horrific. Drake tried not to look any of them in their distorted faces as he choked on the toxic fumes
He kept his gaze forward toward the red glowing sign that said “For Emergencies.”
“Cover me,” he told the girl and apparently that translated to future speak as she rose, slashing her short spear, clearing the way. Drake sprinted over and pulled the handle. The sprinklers above burst on, forcing the dats nearly out of the air. The other thing the lever did was slide a panel back to reveal an exit door.
Waving his hand willy-nilly to try and keep the dats back, Drake grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. “This way!” he shouted.
Unfortunately, one of the dats was the first to answer the call, flying into the dimly lit passage way.
The girl was next, followed by the rest of the group and the rather expressive ostrich. They ran past him, ducking as several dats followed. Drake was the last through, slamming the door shut behind him. Thunk after thunk sounded as the other dats hit the door. There was still the distant bang of the other dinosaur. Drake didn’t even want to think about how big and scary that one was.
The tunnel led upward, by Drake’s calculation about five stories to the surface.
The dats swirled and dove, still trying to get a meal out of this attack.
The older man with a bandaged arm took another hit to his appendage. Drake didn’t have a weapon, but dug his fingers into the back of the dat, which strangely had a coat almost like fur, and yanked on the body.
“No!’ the man screamed. Drake’s efforts were just dragging the bat’s teeth along his arm.
Realizing that the bat’s most precious body part was the paper-thin leather of its wing, Drake switched his strategy and dug his fingers in. He might not be a trained warrior but he had played enough video games to know a monster’s vulnerability when he saw one. This wasn’t all that different from the castle level of Resident Evil. He didn’t even have to tear the wing tissue. His efforts were enough that the bat disengaged immediately from the older man and turned on Drake.
He slid his batman pack off of his shoulder and swung that sucker at the dat. He crushed it up against the wall. Another swooped in to take that one’s place.
Throwing himself backward, Drake was close enough to see the bat’s blood- tinged teeth bear down on him. Then there came a hammer and the bat was no more. Instead, it was just a smear along the wall.
A dark hand reached down and helped him up.
After that, the dats became more wary, swooping down less frequently. Instea
d they swarmed, chittering, trying to find their chance. The ostrich ran around, apparently trying to confound the dats, and it seemed to be working. Just like Drake, the dats didn’t quite seem to know what to think of the ostrich.
Finally, they reached the outer door. The girl opened it, rushing out into the sunlight.
* * *
Appie was nearly blinded by the brightness of the afternoon sun. They had not only gotten out of the facility but out of the Unclaimed Forest as well. They were on the great meadows that surrounded the dank trees.
The Jeholos screamed at the sunlight, flying back into the tunnel, which was fine by her. They could still hear the attack by the Spino but it was far away, just a tinny noise in the background.
Once everyone was out, including Ruby, Appie shut the door.
The rest of the tracking party bent over, panting, trying to catch their breath. Appie joined them. The only one who seemed unfazed was Ruby of course, who dug her beak into the thick grass, trying to find a little insect treat.
“We left without anything,” Pipo moaned.
Appie looked over at Drake. He was far better than any DVDs or even caramel. “Nothing.”
“No supplies then,” Pipo shot back.
The woman used to be so happy. Cheerful. A truly sunny disposition. But since she and Salvve couldn’t conceive, her mood had darkened and her attitude was sullen.
Mattu stepped up. “But now that we know where it is, we can rejoin the clan and come back with Tonka and weapons and claim it as ours.”
Pipo wouldn’t look at their powwaw, she just shook her head sadly. Salvve put his arm around his wife’s shoulders.
“The metal alone will make us the richest clan in the territory,” Old Man Grey stated.
Mattu nodded. “Patience, Pipo, we shall have our reward.”
The woman buried her head into her husband’s chest.
Appie pointed over the ridge. “The clan could not have gotten far.”
Mattu grunted, simply heading out in the direction to intercept the rest of the clan. Ruby strutted behind him, just as proud as she could be of herself. You’d think the ostrich was a peacock.
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