chapter 21
TEAM 1, YEAR: 1200
Time Remaining: 158 Days
Ben and Clint, the sole volunteers for the hunting brigade, slipped quietly out of the camp before sun-up. Though the weather grew steadily warmer with each passing day, their breath was visible in the chilly morning air. Despite their bulky jackets, both felt the wet cold penetrating their clothing as they tramped through the underbrush. Ben inhaled deeply and took in the fragrant smell of new growth. Every few minutes Ben checked his manual compass. The needle wobbled on the spindle as they walked. Ben chuckled to himself as he thought about the billions of dollars’ worth of equipment back in 2097 that would have made their job here so much easier. The GPS units and aerial imaging systems were useless with no satellites to provide data.
Watching the compass needle swing from one side of north to the other, Ben walked into the back of Clint, who had stopped. He reopened the compass case that snapped shut on his finger and looked up to see Clint pointing ahead of them. Ben saw the flick of white—a white-tail deer stood motionless in the distance. The deer, sensing danger, darted deeper into the bushes, her white tail bouncing from side to side as she bounded out of sight.
“Dammit,” said Clint. He slid his plasmaqueous gun back into its holster on his hip.
“It’s just as well,” said Ben, patting Clint on the shoulder. “We don’t want everyone thinking it’s too easy.”
The quiet forest was a welcomed change from the work shed and drilling. The men pushed their way through a hilly tapestry of forest. Thick, tall trees occasionally thinned out to reveal small meadows or rocky patches, then changed back to bush so dense the men had to struggle to pass through.
The forest thinned again and in the distance they saw a hill rise up through the trees, its base a steep rock face. They skirted the granite wall and spotted a rocky ledge large enough for both men to sit and scout for activity below. Ben scaled the rocky cliff with the ease and agility of a monkey climbing a tree. Gripping rock protrusions and crevices, he hoisted himself easily onto the ledge.
Jake climbed the steps to Mole Control slowly, his eyes fixed on his dangerously overfilled mug of coffee. Unsurprised, he found Lexi already at one of the control desks, reviewing the results of the active Mole’s daily pre-launch system check.
“All these numbers look good,” she reported. “I think some of the fluids are going to need to be changed soon, though. We should probably pull Mole2 out tonight and run Mole1 tomorrow.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” Jake sat down at the second control desk opposite Lexi and winced as the hot coffee sloshed out of the mug and onto his fingers. He set the cup down and dried his hand on his pant leg as he studied the results on the three flat-panel monitors at his desk. The two opposing workstations were divided by a bank of three flat-screen monitors on each desk. “There are probably a lot of teeth that need to be replaced, too. That Mole’s been a rock star.”
Jake found Lexi easy to work with, and he enjoyed partnering with her in Mole Control. Incredibly smart with a strong work ethic, she beat Jake to their post every day. She never hesitated to pitch in and was eager to learn. She and Jake had become well acquainted during the mind-numbing hours spent in Mole Control when drilling progressed problem-free. Despite having learned a lot about each other, Jake always managed to skate over any questions about his wife and family and had not divulged that they had been killed in an accident.
Lexi watched as Jake unmuted the monitor showing the underground camera feed of the Mole. The scraping sounds of the massive drill head droned away on the screen’s tinny speakers. Lexi had grown accustomed to Jake’s constant need for white noise, assuming he suffered from tinnitus. After a while, she found she enjoyed the monotonous sounds. She cycled through the screens of Mole’s meters and gauges. One of the indicators on the screen had changed from green to yellow. She tapped the screen.
“That coolant’s getting warm.” She clasped her hands behind her head and leaned back in her chair. “I think our Mole is asking for some love.”
“Sounds reasonable,” said Jake. “It’ll make it the rest of today no problem. We’ll get her fixed up tomorrow when Ben’s back.”
Silence filled the room as it often did—not an awkward silence, merely an absence of conversation and activity. Jake leaned back in his chair and looked out the large window. The grey-brown colouring that dominated the forest at their arrival was fading into the vibrant green of new spring growth. The sun shone brightly and the lake glistened in the distance. Movement by the living quarters caught his eye as Darren stepped out of Lexi and Maya’s trailer, carrying a stack of fresh sheets. He walked around the front of the girls’ trailer and into the next trailer. The chattering sound of a seized wheel on Lexi’s office chair brought Jake’s attention back. She stood, pen and paper in hand, and walked into the boardroom. She stared intently at the drilling plans taped to the wall. The cutaway illustration of the ground showed the tunnel that they were drilling and some artist’s rendering of what they imagined the Elevanium deposit would look like. She wrote several numbers on the notepad and returned to her seat.
Jake watched Lexi’s activity with amused interest. “Recalculating the numbers again?”
Lexi smiled guiltily like she had been caught doing something illicit. “Yeah. Might as well. I’ve got the time and you can never be too sure, right?”
Lexi worked through the math. When she was done, she sighed loudly. She balled up the paper and tossed it into the garbage can. Jake chuckled as he watched her fidget; tapping her foot on the base of the chair and readjusting her ponytail. She flipped through the diagnostic screens. The coolant gauge still showed yellow.
After a few minutes, Lexi burst out in exasperated boredom. “Oh, sweet mother of the universe!” She swivelled her chair away from the desk, rubbed her eyes and stood to stretch.
“I wouldn’t complain,” said Jake. “Something catastrophic will happen.”
Lexi sat back down and pulled herself and the chair back up to the desk. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” She sipped her tea and set the mug down beside a stack of old books and outdated crossword puzzles on the desk, their appeal long since lost.
“So what do you think your family would have said if they knew you were a part of the most high-stakes, ambitious and dangerous NRD op in the history of the NRD?” asked Jake. As they sat in the quiet trailer bored out of their minds, the word “dangerous” seemed ironic, almost comical.
Lexi looked thoughtful for a moment. “I think they would have been pretty pleased. Well, they’d naturally be worried that something might go wrong, but I think they would be proud.” The three teams, while on-mission for six months according to their personal reality, were only away from the year 2097 for little more than twenty-four hours. Jake knew that Lexi had explained her twenty-four-hour disappearing act to her family by telling them she was going out of town with some girlfriends. The classified nature of the op meant the team could not tell their families any details. Sometimes it was easier to say nothing until it was over. “My fiancé though…” The smile on her face disappeared like it had been slapped off. She looked awkwardly from Jake to her hands. “Well, let’s just say he would have had kittens if he knew the details.”
“Right, right. The accountant.” Jake had gathered from the few times Lexi had mentioned her fiancé, that the amount of personal risk he could tolerate matched his expectation of how much personal risk an accountant could handle. He noticed that Lexi rarely mentioned her fiancé, but when she did, he always got the sense that she felt like she had said too much.
Lexi turned the conversation around. “Surely your wife would have been worried if she knew the details?” She flipped through the screens on the monitor and as expected, nothing had changed. She pulled a crossword puzzle book from the top of the pile of outdated magazines and flipped through the pages. Judging by the tattered and yellowing pages of the book, she guessed it may be as old as the trailer in
which they sat. She looked at the date on the spine. September 2062. It never ceased to amaze Lexi how some aspects of the NRD were so advanced with cutting-edge technology, but at the same time, some aspects were older than dirt, for example, Mole Control.
Jake knew that eventually his wife’s death would come up. He avoided the topic with anyone except close friends and family and even then he remained tight-lipped. It was no secret, he just preferred not to see people’s expressions of horror and pity when they learned he had lost not just his spouse, but his two infant children as well. Having become friends, Jake felt he would be misleading Lexi not to tell her. “Actually, my wife is dead,” he said quietly. “And my two kids.” He looked at her, waiting for the dreaded facial expression, but it never came. Instead, she flipped the crossword puzzle book open to a page bookmarked by a pencil. She was silent for a moment then looked at him, her expression blank, neither sympathetic or pitiful.
“I’m sorry, that’s really horrible.” She looked at the book again. “Now give me an eight-letter word for ‘predicament.’”
After sitting in silence on the mossy ledge for over three hours and seeing only birds and the occasional squirrel, both men needed to stand and stretch.
“I guess this spot isn’t as hot as we’d thought,” said Clint, at full conversational volume. Talking quietly had yielded no results and he saw no point in continuing. “I say we head closer to camp. Maybe we’ll find that deer again.”
Ben stood and stretched too. “Sounds good. Plus, they’re always in bunches, right? So there’s bound to be more.”
Clint climbed carefully down the rock face and jumped the last few steps. “Herds, you mean. They’re always in herds.” He brushed the moss and debris from the backside of his clothing.
“We’ll have to remember this place. It was pretty neat,” said Ben hopping to the ground. Like Clint, he brushed off the mossy debris and knelt to re-tie his shoes.
Clint pulled his standard, NRD issue, plasmaqueous gun out of his holster and pressed the menu button on the top to confirm its setting. A list of options appeared in the air, projected above the rear sight of the gun. He touched the holographic menu and changed the setting from six—a low-power kill—to seven, a higher power kill but not disintegrate. The gun responded by projecting a slightly larger red dot on the ground in front of Clint where the gun pointed. When he lifted the gun up and aimed it at a tree in the distance, the red dot was distinctly visible. He pulled the trigger and the gun emitted a tiny slip of white light which hit the tree. The blackened bark smoked where the laser had struck it.
Ben stood and the two men started back toward the camp. Ben watched as the red light from Clint’s gun darted over the grass, roots and rocks as they walked. After ten minutes, Clint stopped suddenly. For the second time that day, Ben walked into Clint’s back. He looked over Clint’s shoulder and saw a startled buck in their path. Unlike the skittish deer occasionally spotted beyond the perimeter of the camp, this deer stood stock still and held its ground. His only movement was the flaring of his nostrils as he breathed and his ears rotating twitchily as he searched out every sound around him. The black eyes of the animal glared at the intruders, daring them to proceed. With a loud snort, the deer stomped his front hoof and pounded out a message its trespassers heard loud and clear.
Ben froze, suddenly acutely aware of how little he knew about hunting. Fear radiated in waves from his chest and tingled as it spread to his shaking extremities. Despite having no previous interactions with deer—other than what he saw on TV—he could read the buck’s body language well enough to know he did not want to be eight quick deer-leaps away from an animal with dagger-like cloven hooves and the stubby nubbins of new antlers. He watched the red dot from Clint’s gun bounce erratically from the deer’s body to the trees around him and back again. The deer stomped again and Ben pulled his own gun, praying he would not need to use it.
Ben whispered hoarsely to Clint, who appeared frozen. “Uh, are we doing this?” In that moment, Ben wholly regretted his decision to be a part of the hunting brigade.
“Shut up,” hissed Clint with a strong emphasis on both words. “Just give me a minute. I haven’t done this in years.”
The deer made the first move and lunged toward them. Red streaks appeared over the uneven, moulting fur of the charging animal as it barrelled toward the two men. Ben lost the remaining threads of bravery he possessed and ducked behind the nearest tree and turned to watch. Mortified, he saw Clint frozen in the deer’s path.
Lexi felt her heart drop into her stomach when Jake told her he had lost his entire family. She pretended to work on the crossword puzzle as she processed the information. Having just experienced a life-altering tragedy herself, she knew how each look of pity and condolence could rip open a healing wound. She understood now why he always seemed so withdrawn and mysterious. He was neither withdrawn nor mysterious. Just hurt.
“Quagmire.”
“Sorry?” asked Lexi.
“An eight-letter word for ‘predicament.’”
Lexi laughed and looked at the page and nodded, impressed. The “Q” from quagmire worked with the six letter word for “five babies.” She wrote it in.
“How about an eight-letter phrase for ‘gratitude?’”
Lexi looked confused.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not looking at me like I had a second head when I told you about my family. I think you’re the first person to treat me normally. It’s just…refreshing.”
Lexi had gathered from their short time together that Jake was a private individual, and after experiencing such an unthinkable loss, his life would have been an open book for everyone to see. Lexi was no stranger to the raw, exposed feelings one experienced after everyone you care about witnesses the worst moment of your life.
Lexi continued to work on the crossword puzzle but became frustrated; the book—whose lifespan had nearly lapped that of Lexi’s a second time—featured clues aged beyond context. She flipped to a different page and started at the top.
Jake flipped through the monitors. No change. He rolled up the sleeves on his red and white plaid shirt. “It was my fault. They died in a car accident.” Lexi looked up from her puzzle. Jake leaned back again in the chair and looked out the window. “It was the day that robot broke into the Riverfront shopping mall. It was all over the news.”
“Yeah, I remember that. That was unbelievable.”
“It was the first daylight break-and-enter into a building that wasn’t abandoned. Anyway, Brit and I had no idea any of this was going on. At the time, we were driving home from visiting my parents. We were trying to figure out what was going on because six aerial cop cars flew overhead on the AR-301 with their lights flashing and sirens screaming. Then three road cruisers passed us like we weren’t even there.” Jake stared at the lake in the distance as he racked his memory for details. He found some of them were becoming harder to remember. “My memory’s kind of splotchy but I seem to remember a fifth cop car coming toward us then something darted out on the freeway. I never did see what it was, but the cop swerved to miss it and he clipped the concrete railing at the top of the Kingsway overpass.”
Lexi knew that the BrakeTime technology that sensed objects around the vehicle and prevented collisions was standard equipment on all cars after 2082, but it was ineffective at excessively high speeds.
“Apparently the police car barrel-rolled down the freeway. I swerved to miss it, but the police car hit us on my side at the front. We ricocheted off the cop car, broke through the guardrail and fell off the overpass. Our car landed upside down on the freeway below.” Jake flipped through the screens of the Mole monitoring systems again. “I don’t remember the impact at all, but what I do remember is total silence afterward. I could see my wife hanging limply in the passenger seat. I couldn’t turn to see the kids in the back because I was pinned in my seat by the steering wheel, but they were quiet. I kept calling their na
mes, talking to them so they would be less afraid, but all I got back was silence.”
Lexi was dumbstruck as she recalled how the story of the rogue robot had dominated the news. The people killed that day were the first human casualties of what had turned into a war with the robots. Lexi thought back to all of the times she saw Jake wearing headphones and listening to music or how whenever she walked into Mole Control he had the monitors blaring or the music in the work shed. All to avoid silence and the memories it brought back.
“None of them survived. My wife and ten-month-old baby boy died on impact, my three-year-old daughter died later that night at the hospital.”
“Were you hurt? How did you manage to survive?”
“I didn’t. Most of me died that night. How I physically survived, I’ll never know. I was virtually unscathed. I had some bruised ribs and a sprained wrist. Can you believe that? It should have been me who died.”
Lexi looked thoughtful for a moment. “I thought you said this was your fault? It doesn’t sound like you could’ve controlled any of this.”
“It was my car. I had this vintage black Dodge Charger. Not the really old ones from the 1960s, but a 2015. It was the first car I ever bought. I got it from a little old woman who inherited it when she was younger but never learned to drive. It stayed in her garage for more than half a century. It was in good shape considering, but I rebuilt it. I loved it. Brit said we should get a safer car when we had kids, you know with BrakeTime and the better safety features those old cars didn’t have. But we never did. If I’d just listened to her, they might still be here today.”
“I’m sorry Jake,” said Lexi, feeling that this was the appropriate time to express her condolences.
“I don’t mind talking about it, it’s just that initial look I get from people that I can’t handle.” This was the first time he had told anyone the entire story from beginning to end. To his surprise, he felt the tension in his chest lessen. Something about Lexi made her easy to talk to and share with. This surprised him as she was nearly two decades younger. Never in a million years did he ever think he would feel comfortable telling his life story to a twenty-two-year-old woman, but she seemed wise beyond her years.
“Ever since then, I’ve been drifting through the days. I went to work, pulled it together then fell apart later at home. I started spending as much time at work as possible, though I can’t say I really accomplished much. When Mitch approached me for this op, I put him off hoping he’d just go away, but in the end I agreed because I figured the change of scenery would be good. But as you saw, it didn’t help. It wasn’t until Clint hit you that the reality of everything sank in. People needed me. Life was moving forward and I was standing still and people were getting hurt. Since you yelled at me, I’ve been feeling much better.”
“Sorry ’bout that,” said Lexi, looking sheepish.
“Don’t apologize. I needed to hear it.” He looked out the window at the shining lake. “I think I’m about as fine now as I’m going to be for a while. Life goes on. I gotta keep moving forward. They’ll always be with me, but I gotta move forward.” Jake eyed the monitor. Two more gauges had changed to yellow as they talked.
Lexi nodded, engrossed by the story. “I get you about the change of scenery. My fiancé…well, let’s just say I needed a change of scenery as well.”
Jake could tell something weighed heavily on Lexi. Jake suspected it involved her fiancé because whenever she mentioned him, her face reddened and she seemed ashamed. Jake watched her close the puzzle book and put it back on the stack of ancient reading material. She accidentally sipped from the coffee mug Clint had left from the day before and winced as she spat it back into the mug.
Jake opened and closed the drawers of his desk and found a 2091 issue of Car and Pilot magazine at the back of the bottom drawer. He leaned back in his chair and thumbed through the tattered and curling pages. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” She straightened the monitors on the desk.
Jake sat forward and reached between the bases of the monitors, grabbed her hand and looked at her. Her eyes darted around the room to anything but Jake. “Lex, I can see something’s bugging you. If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. But if you do, I’m here.”
She stood up quickly, tripped on one of the wheels on her chair and stumbled backward. “Thank you,” she tried, but the sound of her voice was absent. She cleared her throat. “Well, I’m going to haul that Mole out of there. I helped Ben with Mole1 when he was doing some maintenance on it. I can get this one out and prepped, at least.” She backed away from the desk and walked out the door.