chapter 20
TEAM 1, YEAR: 1200
Time Remaining: 159 Days
As drilling got underway, the daily activities of Team One fell into a monotonous routine. The active Mole would work for six to eight hours a day, sometimes more if everything remained operationally sound. A good day for productivity meant a dull day for the team. However, most days were not problem-free. Snags and obstacles were as inevitable as night following day, and solving problems kept the team busy.
Ben and Tyler spent most of their time maintaining whatever inactive Mole occupied their workspace—the trade-off for the specialized nature of the Moles meant frequent maintenance due to their intricate construction. Ben’s expectations had been exceeded by the Moles’ performance to date. The small number of break-fixes that required the team’s attention impressed Jake as well, despite several late nights spent troubleshooting a few intermittent problems. Clint would pitch in and help Ben and Tyler. But for the most part, his time was split between Mole Control with Lexi and Jake or inside the cramped control room of the Mole itself, analyzing the machine and monitoring rock scans.
As Jake neared the drill site, he could hear the rumble of the machine and felt the ground vibrating as the Mole chewed its way through the rock below. He entered the tunnel and consciously controlled his walking speed along the decline. The cutting angle struck a balance between being safe enough for the team to traverse safely but not so slight that it added excessive drilling distance.
Jake walked to where the Mole was busy chewing away. A thin strip of microlighting affixed to the ceiling lit up every scrape and cut mark the drill’s teeth left on the rounded stone walls. Jake watched the drill slowly inch its way forward. He enjoyed the loud, heavy crushing sound of the rocks being cut away and the deep hum of the drill’s engine. A beep caught Jake’s attention; the active dump bucket reached its capacity and slid to the left, leaving its position beneath the spinning conveyor belt and away from the Mole. The floating rectangular bucket waiting in the queue moved forward and took its place under the conveyor belt. The bucket, heaping with discarded rock, slowly began the ascent to the surface.
Jake grabbed the railing at the back of the machine and hopped up the steps two at a time. He had felt the vibrations when he stood on the stone floor but now standing on the rear deck, the intense sensations pulsated through the steel shanks in his work boots and tickled his feet. He opened the door to the control room to check on Clint.
“How’s it going down here?” yelled Jake over the noise.
“Not too bad,” yelled Clint. Clint tapped one of the touch screen monitors and the display changed to show the status of various ongoing sensor readings. He scrolled through the different screens, showing Jake the positive test results. “Things are running pretty smoothly.”
“Excellent,” said Jake. He looked around the control area without entering. Tight quarters. Wouldn’t want to spend too much time in here, he thought.
Clint disengaged the drill head. The grinding sounds, as well as most of the vibrations, stopped. Silence followed as Clint turned the engine off.
Clint followed Jake down the stairs. Jake looked at the tool marks etched into the stone walls and ceiling. “See anything interesting down here?” He ran his hand across the jagged surface.
“No, not yet.” Clint rubbed a small area of the wall with the heel of his gloved hand as if to polish it and shrugged. “We’re not really down far enough to see anything of significance. This Mole is doing well. We’re making decent progress today.”
“Don’t stay down here too much, you’ll go crazy in that small space,” said Jake.
“I like it down here. I find it peaceful. I mean, it’s loud, obviously, but it’s peaceful at the same time.”
“Trust me, I understand that better than you know,” said Jake, slapping Clint on the back before heading back up the slope.
Clint jumped up the steps to the platform and Jake turned to leave. The drill’s engine fired up and the heavy scraping sounds resumed. Without warning, a mechanical grinding sound punctuated the air. Jake, not ten steps away, turned back and the noise stopped as Clint disengaged the drill and shut the engine off.
Clint stuck his head out the door of the tiny room, grinning. “I guess we jinxed it.”
Working underground was in Clint’s blood, following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and uncle; all miners. After high school, Clint got a job with the same mining firm where his father was employed and he worked side by side with his father. Clint had an intuition for the job and quickly became a supervisor and ran his own team. Several years passed and he was approached by the NRD to head the excavation of several sites in preparation for the construction of several underground facilities. The successful projects finished both on time and on budget, and Clint was retained by the NRD for future projects and consulting.
Clint’s professional opinion and skill carried weight far beyond the rocks he moved, but in recent years, it seemed as though the rocks were in his head. The funny, personable man grew bitter and angry over a period of time so long that the change went largely unnoticed. Now consistently irritable and emotionally erratic, Clint had been labelled, “difficult to work with.” His superiors received complaints about his poor attitude but were hesitant to fire him because of his unmatched skill and intuition. After several complaints about aggressive behaviour, explosive confrontations and an incident where he pushed an indirect lead into a wall, Clint was prescribed mandatory reprogramming at an NRD orientation class.
Jake leaned on the door frame and watched as Clint scrolled through the diagnostic screens. He tapped the screen several times and stopped on a screen with several red circles.
“It looks like we broke a row of teeth,” said Clint.
Jake heard a smooth female voice come over his earpiece. “Everything okay down there?”
“Yeah, Lex, we’re good. Just some broken teeth,” said Clint casually. “Ben, you there?”
“Yep. Teeth, eh?” said Ben, “I’ll come down with a couple rows.”
“No rush. I’ve got a spare row,” said Clint. “I’ll slide it in. But yeah, I’ll take them anyway. We’ll need them sooner or later.”
Like many of Maya’s days, the morning passed slowly. Going into this op, like her past operations, she knew there would be some downtime but she felt awkward about how little work there was for her to do. With such a small camp, it required little management. On larger ops, too little time and too many problems were the norm—with supplies being delivered and inventory checks, new people coming and going requiring check-ins, check-outs, briefings and debriefings. Out here, no one was coming or going from the camp except Team Two, but it would be some time before they arrived. With no supplies being delivered, frequent inventorying was unnecessary.
Regardless of whether the year was 2097 or 1200, food still needed to be planned and cooked, dishes needed to be cleaned so Maya spent her free time helping Darren to even out the workload. Laundry and dishes were not what she signed up for, but she felt good staying busy and appreciated the company.
Maya stood at the end of the counter cutting up raw vegetables for lunch, far away from the onions Darren was slicing beside the sink. She hung on the soft-spoken chef’s every word as he explained how he was recruited by the NRD, right out of the kitchen of one of Tricity’s hottest restaurants.
“I can see why you’d be offered a job on the spot. With meals like this, you’ll have the enemy defecting just so they can join us for dinner.”
Darren chuckled, appreciating the compliment. He carried the cutting board to the stove. He was just about to slide the onions into a sizzling frying pan when he froze, straining to listen for a noise he thought he had heard. After a moment’s silence, he shrugged. He heard it again, this time much louder. He and Maya caught each other’s gaze and listened. Another crash, this time unmistakable, came from somewhere in the camp.
They raced to the nearest window and peered
out. Maya gasped and Darren swore under his breath. Someone or something inside the food pantry was destroying it from the inside out. Several of the linking wall panels were knocked out and lay on the grass. Cans and dry goods lay scattered on the ground and the pantry floor like a tornado had blown through. A bag of sugar lay on the floor hanging partially over the edge. Its contents spilled into a neat pile on the grass below like the sand of an hourglass. The freezer had been tipped on its side, and its door lay open on the floor. Torn and shredded packages of meat lay strewn across the pantry floor.
Maya and Darren sprinted across the camp to investigate, but they stopped dead in their tracks just steps from the pantry door when they heard a deep snort come from inside the small structure.
Maya swore under her breath, not daring to move. Another muffled snort and shuffling sounds echoed from inside the pantry. She grabbed Darren’s wrist and backed away slowly. They heard the crash of a shelf falling over, accompanied by the sounds of metal tins rolling across the floor. A can of creamed corn rolled off the pantry floor and onto the grass through the gaping hole in the wall. A fluffy black bear cub tumbled off the pantry floor and onto the lawn. Unaware of his onlookers, the baby bear sprawled out comfortably on his belly and licked at apple sauce leaking from several crushed cans.
Darren, a city boy through and through, laughed. “Oh, it’s just a cub.” He looked over his shoulder, but Maya was gone. He laughed at the absurdity of the scene; surprised at how a little animal could make such a mess. He approached the cub to get a closer look. Just then, another cub appeared from behind some boxes, dragging a large salmon fillet. The little bear inadvertently stepped on the torn wrapper and it pulled away from the meat as he walked. Unable to decide which little troublemaker to shoo into the bushes first, he was startled by a loud metallic clanking sound behind him. Maya charged from the main tent with two pots in her hands and banged them together over her head. The two bear cubs looked up at her startled. As she neared, the cubs abandoned their tasty treats and darted toward the bushes. Maya chased the furry siblings to the edge of the clearing and continued banging the pots until all the bears were deep in the forest.
“Hopefully, they don’t come back,” she said jogging back toward the mess. “I wonder how come the perimeter alarm didn’t…”
Darren’s heartbeat, already beating fast, doubled its pace. Mama bear lumbered through the opening in the wall, her mouth clamped tightly around a package of three frozen roasts, the packaging partially torn away and dragging at her feet. Cornered between Darren, the food pantry, the house trailers and Maya, the bear had no clear route of escape.
“Maya!” yelled Darren, his voice an octave higher than normal. “Don’t move!”
The bear began to growl through the mouthful of roasts and spit peppered the brown packaging. She stood for a moment on her hind legs, pulling herself to her full and impressive height and then fell back down on all fours. The bear’s ears flattened backward and she continued to growl—the sound muffled by the meaty prize she refused to drop. Darren moved suddenly like a gunfighter in a classic country western movie. VersaTool in hand, he caught the bear—ballistic with rage—in the red beam and lifted the snarling, growling beast into the air. The bear dropped the package of roasts, however, they remained in the air next to the bear, trapped by the beam. The bear’s feet scrambled, seeking the ground and but hitting nothing.
With the bear now locked in the beam, Maya gave the flailing yet powerful limbs a wide berth and followed behind Darren as he carefully carried the suspended bear into the bushes. Darren did his best to weave the floating animal around trees but despite his care, the bear kicked madly. One of her rear legs connected with a tree, sending her spinning around within the beam only to become even further enraged. When Darren reached the edge of the camp, he gently set the bear down on the ground but waited before releasing the beam. He could feel sweat beading on his forehead despite the chilly weather. The bear was merely ten quick bear strides away from him. He looked over his shoulder at Maya. “Ready?”
Maya nodded and backed away, prepared to run for shelter in the nearest trailer should the bear decide she wanted to come and try for a win in round two. The bear, trying desperately to run deeper into the forest, struggled with all her might against the beam and stumbled forward when Darren finally released it. The bear picked up the package of meat then darted out of sight.
Maya stepped through the hole in the wall into the pantry. Her stomach turned at the sight of their food supply. “Oh man. Look!” She pointed at the meat packages on the ground. Only three brown, wax paper bundles and a white box of spices remained in the toppled freezer. “At least half our meat is missing.” She knelt down and picked up a package of pork chops laying at her feet. The paper was mostly torn away. Some of the pork chops were missing and the ones that remained were gouged by the bear’s sharp, carnivorous teeth. “And half of what’s left has been chewed.”
“It can’t be that bad,” said Darren, following Maya into the shed. He picked up a few packages that looked untouched. He turned them over, saw the torn paper and gnaw marks made by little bear cub teeth. He sighed heavily. “This is not good.”
Ben ran to the pantry and swore at the mess. “What the hell happened?”
“Bears,” said Maya.
Jake and Tyler arrived to find Maya and Darren struggling to lift the freezer. Both men stepped through the wall and helped them heft the upright freezer back to its vertical position.
Jake surveyed the room then picked up a torn package containing a half-eaten salmon filet. “How long were they in there? This salmon is pretty much thawed. How’d they get in?”
Maya and Darren shrugged. “The door, we guess. It was wide open,” said Darren shrugging.
“There’s no scratch or kick marks. It was like it was left open.” Tyler crouched down and inspected the door latch mechanism. He removed a tuft of thick black strands wedged beneath the latch plate on the door frame and held it up for the others to see. “There’s a chunk of fur in the latch plate but no damage.”
“Who would have left the door open?” asked Maya.
“More importantly, how come the perimeter alarm didn’t go off?” asked Ben, surveying the food on the grass. He picked up the can of applesauce one of the cubs had been enjoying and globs of the sauce dripped onto the ground. He tossed the can aside and wiped his hands on his work pants. “I’ll take a look around.”
Tyler and Jake stood the toppled shelves and helped Maya and Darren separate the salvageable food from the contaminated. A large pile of destroyed food grew beside the wall panels lying on the grass.
“So what’s the verdict? How much meat do we have left?” asked Jake, holding a package of untouched sausages. He tossed the still-frozen Brats back into the freezer.
“I’d say we’ve got maybe half left. Nearly a third of the entire supply is missing altogether.” He looked at the pile of discarded food. “About a quarter of what’s left is tainted and needs to be pitched. There is a lot that is thawed, or partially thawed, so I’ll need to cook all of that now, but I can pop it back in the freezer after.”
Jake sighed. The majority of their principal food staple was now gone, and they were still in their first month. “You can’t cut around the bite marks?”
Darren shrugged. “I don’t think I’d want to take the chance. I mean, one day you think you’re eating pot roast, but you find out later it was Rabies à la King.”
“Fair enough.” Jake tossed the meat back onto the discard pile of crushed boxes, torn packages and leaky cans. “So what does this mean for our overall food supply?”
“I’ll do an inventory and let you know,” said Maya.
“I think we’ll be alright,” said Darren surveying the discard pile. “I made sure that we brought far more food than I projected we’d need. Plus, we’ve still got a fair amount of dry food. It’s not as exciting, but it’ll do.”
“Don’t forget, we’ve also got HOPs,” add
ed Maya.
Tyler pretended to choke. “Forget it. I’d rather take my chances with the contaminated meat.”
Horn of Plenty pills, or HOPs, were a nifty little invention by the Research branch of the NRD back in the early eighties. They had been popular in Defence for years as one HOP pill could keep an individual fed for a week. Unfortunately, nasty side effects including nausea, irritability and paranoia could outlast the pill’s intended effectiveness, and could accumulate if pills were taken back to back. These side effects were the reason their use changed to an emergency backup food source only. If given the choice, most people preferred not to take them.
“Nah, I don’t think we’ll need to start popping HOPs. We’ll just have to conserve a bit.” Darren placed the last few packages of meat in the freezer and closed the door. He turned to face the group in the small shed. “We’ll be cutting it close, and there will probably be a lot of vegetarian dishes, but we’ll be fine.”
“Are you crazy?” asked Clint, joining the conversation. He wiped rock dust and oil off of his hands with a rag. “Look where we are! This forest is teeming with mobile meat! We’ll be fine. We just have to go hunting.”
“Hunting?” said Maya. She held a large plastic bottle of olive oil in the crook of her elbow. “Like in the bushes killing animals?”
“Where do you think meat comes from?” asked Tyler.
“Nobody hunts anymore. It’s so archaic.” Maya placed the bottle on the shelf next to the others.
“No, it isn’t,” said Clint impatiently. “My grandfather used to take me hunting when I was little. Sitting for hours and watching nature. It was so peaceful.”
Jake contemplated Clint’s suggestion. “That drill has been running well lately,” said Jake. “Hunting might not be a bad idea. Tyler or Lexi can run down if the Mole needs anything.”
Ben leaned into the pantry through the hole in the wall and held up a black metal stake with a broken glass tip. The glass was smashed and part of the internal circuitry was missing. “I figured out why the alarm didn’t go off. I found this sensor knocked over, laying on some rocks. I assume it got knocked over by debris from the wind and smashed on the rocks. I checked to see when the sensor went offline and it was over thirty-seven hours ago.”
“Did the wind knock it over?” asked Maya.
“It’s within the WeatherShield perimeter. Wind won’t affect it,” said Jake.
Ben shrugged unable to offer any other hypothesis. “I don’t know. There was no tree or any other debris around it. Not sure what to tell you.”
“Maybe the bears knocked it over when they walked into the camp?”
Ben shook his head. “But that’s the whole point of the perimeter sensor. The alarm should have gone off when the system went offline.”
The group fell silent, unable to come up with any plausible explanation.
“Maybe it’s the curse,” suggested Maya, hesitantly.
“There’s no curse,” said Clint, not bothering to mask the condescension in his voice. “There’s no such thing as a curse.”
The attention of the team was distracted from the broken sensor when they heard a whoop. Tyler stood by the door holding a case of beer under one arm, and in his free hand, he held up a bottle of vodka like a well-earned trophy. “At least they didn’t get the booze!”