Chapter 2: Night of turmoil

October 1^st, 3112 (about six years later)

Mongolian highlands, Earth

The evening breeze was cool tonight. I pulled my large fur-lined hooded cape up and around my shoulders a little more snugly and shifted myself on the rock I was using as a stool to be closer to the fire. My camp was in the shallow gully area between two low ridges.

This put it in the path of the displacing cooler air descending from the higher elevations caused by the setting sun. Hopefully, after the sun had fully set, the chilly flow would subside as the temperatures of the differing elevations balanced themselves.

Spreading out in front of my meager camp were miles and miles of incredible vista. The rolling short grass-covered terrain dropped gradually away over the course of many miles. In the middle of the wide valley lay a meandering river. I could see the occasional copse stretched along its serpentine banks. Those tree and brush stands would have made nice campsites if not for the higher risk of predators.

Being more open, the higher elevation swale I was currently camping in was safer. I would have to live with the near silence of the hills as opposed to the tranquil sounds of flowing water. But, that minor sacrifice would mean that I should be safer from unexpected visitors during the night. Also, I would not have to worry about the flooding risks of a streamside camp if a sudden rainstorm sprang up.

I returned my gaze to the task at hand which was a large piece of meat on a stainless-steel forked skewer cooking over the fire. The occasional sizzle of the fat dripping onto the hot embers and the accompanying wonderful aroma had me salivating. Just a few more minutes, I thought to myself as I took a long sip from my ever-present flask. The warmth of the alcohol bit into my throat as it made its way down to my belly.

I noted with a frown that the flask was nearly empty. Tomorrow would likely be another cloudless fall day which meant I simply had to stand in the open and wave the empty flask over my head for a minute or two. An hour or so later I could expect to see a small package come gliding down from the heavens under a small, guided parachute. Carefully packaged in the airmail delivery would be another few weeks’ worth of what had become the essential liquid of my simple existence.

I was not sure if the small care packages were dropped by one of the dozens of perfectly silent high-altitude automated cargo aircraft which were visible crisscrossing the skies each day. Or, if they were launched and deorbited from one of the low orbit manufactories which polluted the night skies with their steady moving lights.

All I knew (or cared about) was that they usually arrived in a timely manner. If I had to go without my daily ration of alcohol, I’m not sure I’d be able to carry on. My booze drops were about the only thing I depended on from the watchers above. I was stubborn enough to scavenge and hunt for my meals, although I did not turn away the nourishment bars which oftentimes accompanied the airmail liquor.

As I mused, I picked at my dirty long fingernails. In the flickering light of the fire, I noticed my left ring finger’s nail was almost completely healed. I’d lost it a few months ago in a rockslide when I’d slipped. When I landed, a large sliding rock had pinned my hand, smashing my finger in the process. I had been lucky that I had only lost the nail.

I noticed that my dirty nails were not the only parts of me that were filthy. Tomorrow, I’d have to detour from my slow southward migration to travel closer to the river and take a bath. I hated the idea of the detour. With today being October 1^st, winter was coming fast in these parts and I needed to reach a warmer climate before the snows came. Also, there were those predators I’d already mentioned which liked to follow the river. I’d have to be quick and on my toes.

Off in the distance, lower down the valley and almost halfway to the river, I caught the flickering glow of another campfire. My regular stalker of the past two months was still lingering nearby. He or she had never gotten close enough for me to speak to, even with a yell, so I was unsure exactly why I was being followed.

Whoever was following me was not doing so out of some sense of duty to provide me protection. I had my own ever-present trio of quadruped security units, and they were easily spotted as they patrolled. The mobile sentries maintained a perimeter about a quarter-mile in diameter.

Once, years ago, the quadrupeds had patrolled much closer. But, one night in a drunken rage I had forbid them to come closer than a thousand feet to my camp. They had maintained that minimum distance ever since and typically stayed even further, probably to keep from pissing me off and banishing them completely. I was not quite that stupid, though, as to forgo their protection completely.

I inspected the meat on the skewer and judging it ready, carefully slid it onto my one battered composite eating plate. My belt knife served to both slice off bite-sized chunks and to deliver them to my mouth. As is always the case with the hungry, the meal tasted delicious. Due to the lack of any, I had long gotten over the need to add spices or sauces to my basic meals.

Dessert would be a still-fresh apple. I’d passed a tree a few days ago and loaded up my pack with all its remaining edible late-hanging fruit. I had a few days of meat left in the cooler bag in my backpack so a hunting trip would be needed in the near future. Luckily, the flechette rifle had the range to make hunting a low-risk activity.

After I had eaten my supper, I sat back on my rock and just enjoyed the quiet cool evening. A bit ago, I had heard a nearby electrical discharge followed by a snarl. This meant that my automatic guardians were on the job keeping the lions, tigers, and bears away. I had no idea if there were any lions up here in these high steppes, but I did know there could be tigers and bears.

The tigers were very rare. I’d only seen them three times in the last five years. The neo-tigers were not descended from some now-extinct Siberian ancestor. Instead, they were from a new strain developed using the genetics of the rare survivors in India. Those had been tailored and adapted for survival in the colder climates and had been slowly spreading northward for over a century.

The neo-bears were a different story. After heading south during ‘the reset’ following their food, the old apex predator polar bears had mingled and bred with brown bears. As the world recovered, the bears had spread out, growing even larger in the process. This left today’s common bear species a true living nightmare. It could be argued that they were the absolute top of the food chain in this era. Mainly because as far as apex predators went, they could easily out-power most tigers and lions.

They were also very smart, and my mobile automated guards seldom had to kill the bears as they learned to fear the deterrent weapons early on. Once they had been zapped with the first painful nerve disruption warning shot, they generally avoided being taught a second, more lethal lesson.

Still, I came across the freshly killed carcasses of the stubborn predator occasionally. If they were hungry and desperate enough, they would still try to stalk and hunt me. Thankfully, my sentries would prevent that. It happened enough that I had learned which parts of the bears were safe to eat, taking what I could from the carcass so as to not let the remains become a complete waste.

I took another sip of my flask and noticed that my long gray beard was stained with a bit of grease from supper. I found my one remaining comb and begin to pick at the stringy mess. I got a few of the tangles out and noted that the grease helped tame the wild hair. I noticed the beard extended down to nearly the middle of my chest. Tomorrow when I bathed, I’d have to trim off a few inches.

I felt and probed at the tangled mass on my head and decided my hair needed a bit of a trim also. As I thought of doing that job tomorrow by feel and by knife, I felt a rare instance of regret at my self-imposed solitary lifestyle. Too bad there were not any barber stands out here on the Mongolian steppes.

My folding shovel made short work of the remains of my fire as I prepared to go to bed. The setting moon gave out enough light that I did not need to resort to my worn-looking pair of enhancement goggles. I stood off to the side of the camp to relieve myself and looked at the heavens. It was a clear night and the many artificial moving stars competed with the fixed natural ones.

Off towards the southeast, I saw that Orion was proudly filling the heavens. I noted the bright stars of its boundary corners of the constellation. Those were the stars Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, and Rigel. Next, I paid homage to the three belt stars. The trio in a row were some of the earliest stars I had learned the names of.

I smiled as I recalled the old public television channel’s short nightly astronomy series. Star Gazer was its name and its host had been a guy named Jack Horkheimer. I had been a kid who loved all things space-related and his weird TV manner drew me in. For some reason, his show discussing the Orion constellation had caught my attention. From that episode, I had learned the names of the three belt stars: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. Funny the strange things we remember.

Below those three belt stars was the fuzzy glow of Orion’s ‘sword’, more property known as the Orion Nebula. I remembered my fourth daughter’s giggle when I had once referred to the sword as ‘Orion’s dingus’. I shifted my gaze towards the east and noted the other two stars of the winter triangle just rising from the eastern horizon.

Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, formed the lower-right corner of the triangle and the far-left corner star was Procyon. I lingered on this last star while a scowl formed on my face. Right now, somewhere near Procyon but closer, and hurtling towards the Earth at seven and a half percent of the speed of light was our enemy. They would be here in a hundred years or so. I hoped the preparations for their arrival were going well. But that was someone else’s problem ... I was out.

Back in my small one-man tent, I stripped out of my outer clothing, noting while I did that my long underwear and undershirt were holding up well. I had to hand it to modern materials. Nothing from my distant past would have held up to the dirt and grime of my current lifestyle as these new fabrics did. I laid on my bedroll and felt that it was already warm.

The ground cloth that I slept on was heated and helped keep me warm. A few months after I had begun my nomadic lifestyle, the self-heating ground cloth had been air-dropped to me. It worked so well that I dared not complain. Yes, I am a hypocrite. Some things are too handy to do without. Not sleeping on cold ground was one of those things.

Before I touched and extinguished the glowing light emitter that formed the spine of the small tent, I dug into my pack for my smartwatch. I did not wear the watch daily anymore but I did at least check it every few days. As expected, it was filled with a new batch of messages.

The normal daily messages from Naomi were quickly erased unread. I then scrolled through the dozens of human-sent messages. These were the typical messages asking me questions, well-wishers, or the simply curious. I deleted these mostly unread also. One of the most recent messages caught my eye and I opened it on a whim. It was short and to the point.

Happy birthday Gramps! Love, Serenity LB.

I was puzzled for two reasons. It wasn’t my birthday ... or was it? Also, who was Serenity LB? I looked at the date and time function on the smartwatch. Tuesday, October 1, 3112. No, my birthday was not until October 2, which was tomorrow. The message had been sent early. I could forgive this Serenity person for sending it a day early as I also forgot the date of my birthday often myself.

I thought back to previous birthdays which had happened in happier times. I wondered how old I would be tomorrow. Close to eleven hundred and fifty years since I was born and probably over two hundred-thirty years spent active and awake. I’d have to do the math to be sure ... maybe when I had something to write with.

I looked into the details of the message sent from this Serenity LB. I noted that the message’s geographic origin point was Samoa. That explained it. Serenity was currently in the western Pacific, near the International Date Line. My current location in or near Mongolia (I was not sure) would put me six or seven hours behind her. At her location, it was already October 2nd.

I also seemed to recall that my grandson Ben had had a daughter named Serenity. It was hard to remember all my offspring. This was not because there were so many, it’s because they could come at any point in the life cycle of their parent, regardless of his or her age. I remembered that my fifth child Larissa had had Benjamin to celebrate her fiftieth birthday. Hell, I had even had my sixth child in my hundreds with Charity Hope being born when I was one hundred and thirty years old.

I pulled out my ever-present amulet from under my grimy undershirt and twisted it active. I continued to cycle the images until I got to the ‘sort’ function. Once it was set to grandchildren, I spun the list until Benjamin L Abrams was on the display. I hit the ‘more’ detent and Ben’s family line appeared.

There she was! This confirmed that Serenity LB was indeed Ben’s first daughter with the “L” being from my own daughter Larissa and the “B” referring to my grandson Ben. The thought of one of my descendants keeping up with great-granddads birthday filled me with both joy and melancholy. I was so moved that I did something I had not done in nearly a decade. I sent a reply back. Thank You, G.Grampa John.

I came awake in the darkness sometime before dawn. I thought I had heard a distant shout or scream! The night was still and perfectly quiet and the moon had set. The sound of a faint scream came again. I sat up and listened intently trying to find which direction the sound had originated.

There it was a third time! It seemed to be coming from the direction of my stalker’s camp. I quickly got dressed and grabbed my flechette rifle and my enhancement goggles.

Seven minutes later, I had already jogged almost a mile down the gently descending terrain. I was panting and breathing hard as I pushed my sixty-year-old (plus) shell to its limit. I ran with a noticeable limp as my lame leg still caused me problems. As I ran I tried to avoid any potholes or snags which were highlighted in the bright enhanced view provided by the goggles.

My three ever-present quadruped sentry units were running with me. One was keeping ahead of me while the other two covered my flanks. They had moved closer than usual but were still maintaining at least two hundred yards separation.

Ahead, my destination was indicated by an illuminated icon in the enhanced goggle display. I had not caused the marker to appear and suspected that my digital warden had set the pointer to show my stalker’s campsite on its own authority. I’d have to decide if that pissed me off later but not now as it was helping direct me where to run.

I stumbled up and over an intervening rise a few hundred yards away from the campsite and source of the screams. Two bright thermal shapes appeared in the goggle images. As I had expected they were neo-bears. They were smaller than most I’d seen, possibly older yearling cubs. I pulled up and took aim with my flechette rifle. The range indicator near the aiming reticle was flashing amber. Too far for an accurate take-down shot against the monsters. I re-slung my weapon over my shoulder and began to move closer.

Suddenly, the dark landscape lit up as a large shooting star streaked in from the southeast. I quickly pulled to a stop to see what was going on. The fast-moving smear of light was slowing rapidly as it neared the immediate area. Then, it flared even brighter, projecting a long blue-white jet of flame ahead of it as it decelerated even more rapidly under powerful braking rockets.

What I first thought was a falling star proved to be a fast response emergency reentry capsule. My goggles switched to normal vision as the entire valley was now lit up like daylight under the bright jets. I noted the two neo-bears rearing up on their hind legs and also watching the heavenly show.

There was a loud explosion as the sonic boom the object had created caught up with it and rolled over our location. The boom was followed by the thunderous basso crackling and roar of the long deceleration rocket burn. The sounds echoed and reverberated off the nearby ravine walls and rolled over the wide empty valley. Wow! What a show.

The rocket cut off suddenly and the light level in the valley dimmed rapidly. My goggles automatically reverted to enhancement mode. I quickly found the still-glowing airborne object and watched as it maneuvered slightly before plunging directly towards the stalker’s camp.

At the last instant, its still-hot teardrop shell split apart and released a dozen smaller objects about a hundred feet over the two bears. Fiery thruster jets on each half of the descent shell sent them soaring off to the east where they crashed into the hillside a half-mile away.