Bootstrap Colony (7 page)

They began to caw and posture, a
fifth shot took another down right in the front of the chest near the breast
bone. Five to go. Another shot, this time the animal moved it only caught the
shoulder. It still went down however, the fast acting poison kicking in, not
even giving it time to kick before it died. He had five more shots before he
would have to switch ammo. The robot stomped up in front of the truck,
posturing itself, arms moving out from the body, legs apart, and torso hunched
down. He adjusted his aim around the robot, lined up for another shot but the
animals were charging.

Even though they had just been on
a chase and kill they still moved fast he realized. He swore as one shot
missed, digging into the dirt near its foot where he thought the animal was
going to be. It had swerved at the last second, spoiling his aim. The next
caught one as it moved around a rock. The juvenile jumped onto the rock and
paused, he clipped it dropping it to writhe and freeze in the grass in death.

The robot’s pop pop was a bit of
surprise. Its “Final perimeter defense initiated,” rumble was something that
made him break out of his rage and realize the animals were pretty damn close.
He ducked back into the car, pulling the hatch shut. There were three animals
left, one charging the front got killed by the robot, but another flanked left
of the robot and then charged, biting down onto the arm. The last one danced;
suddenly aware it and its pack mate were all that were left. It cawed,
fluttering in distress. The robot mechanically reached with its free arm for
the throat of the raptor biting and clawing it.

Mitch winced, hearing the crunch
of plastic and metal, then the spark of wiring. “Going to have to fix that,” he
sighed. The robot got it’s attacker by the throat and squeezed hard. The head
popped off, the body fluttering and thrashing as the neck gushed blood. Mitch
winced once more. The other raptor had had enough, it turned to flee but the
robot turned, angled its good arm and shot, catching the animal in the rear and
then back. It stepped over to the raptor, feebly thrashing in the grass and
stomped on its head. “One way to put it out of its misery,” Mitch said with
rich approval.

Knowing it would be bad, but that
he had to know, he drove closer and up to the body of the man. He fought the
nausea as he looked. The man was torn apart, shredded. Nausea tore through
Mitch; he managed to climb out of the truck in time to barf in the nearby
grass. Caws from the wood line let him know he hadn’t gotten the entire pack.
He was not going to let them eat the body however. He pulled out a tarp,
working quickly he gently pushed the body onto it, and then bundled it onto the
top of the truck. The robot docked after he got back into the car. He felt his
nausea cramp his stomach as he returned to the base.

It was no longer a good day, this
really sucked he thought. Not only did he fail, but he knew he should have been
out rescuing others. Part of him knew that he should, people mattered not
machines, but he also knew that going out into the bush blind was dangerous.

He used the trencher to dig a
hole near the edge of the inner perimeter. Carefully he lowered the tarp into
the hole. A robot bulldozed the Earth over the body. “Damn that truly sucked,”
he said, head low. He commanded the machine to return to work and then turned
back to his own work.

When he realized that he was
filthy, covered in drying blood and dirt he took the time to wash up. The
animals in his mobile home were subdued. He dried off, and then petted each of
them, gently holding the pregnant female cat Hera to his chest as she purred
her heart out. The computer beeped some endless time later. “Reminder cheese.
Feeding time,” the AI said. He sighed and got up. A mew from the cats and woof
let him know they were hungry too. He fed them, and then got back to the job of
living.

Several days later he was stuck
in the mobile home. It wasn’t so bad; he had a cat in his lap while he sat in
the window with his laptop. He watched the robots sludge through the rain on
chores. When one of the androids slipped and fell in the mud, scattering its
load all over the wet ground he winced. He clicked the Bluetooth on. The robot
thrashed in the mud, acting like a stuck turtle. “Andy.” He looked through the
binoculars. “Andy eight roll onto your back,” Mitch ordered patiently. It would
be comical if he wasn't aware of how much damage the robot could do to itself.
The robot stilled for a moment as it processed the order and then complied.
“All right, now sit up.” The robot teetered, but managed to sit up. An attempt
to get its feet under it made it slip and fall once more.

A general purpose robot trundled
by with a load. “GP six halt,” Mitch ordered. The robot stopped, then spun to
orient on his position. Its tracks dug into the mud, spraying it around and
onto the hapless Andy. “Set your load down and aide Andy eight out of the mud,”
Mitch ordered. The robot complied. Once on its feet Andy eight began listing
damage. “Report to cave for hibernation until repairs can be done,” Mitch
sighed, then watched it limp off to the cave. “All droid units now restricted
to caves during wet weather,” he ordered. A beep acknowledged the order.

The GP robot picked its load up
and went about its business. He really should go to the cave and make repairs
to the robots. That was the third Andy down. He still had the ED to patch as
well.

The urge to keep busy was strong,
but he also felt the urge to just relax. He had been going all out for the past
sixteen months. Four months of intense work with the businesses and engineering
the Andy robots, then prepping for this trip had seen many eighteen or twenty
hour days, and of course not a single day off. He knew he needed the break, but
wasn’t sure if he could afford the time. He petted the cat, sighed as he looked
up at the sky and closed his eyes, vowing only a couple more hours for the
break.

Fortunately the day before he had
finished the chicken coups and enclosures, the broiler birds were all in
semi-outdoor enclosures instead of in the tight confines of the transport
cages. The turkeys had been a bit of a pain, the first attempt at enclosing
them had led to one of them almost getting out in a flurry of feathers. Even
though they were breast heavy they still had wings, and some apparently liked
to fly, or at least attempt it from time to time. His hasty fix had saved the
day, but he knew it might not be good enough for some of the other animals.

The geese enclosure had been
retrofitted to extend the door all the way up, and fencing had been wired over
the open area. They were probably living up the rain; he knew they liked it
better than the other fowl. Hogs too for that matter. The dogs would be a mess
though. He sighed, petting Hera. She was gravid, and in her condition she
constantly begged for attention and petting whenever he entered the mobile
home. It was going to get interesting when she and the other cats began to drop
litters, hell the large animals would be interesting too. They were going to
need their own birthing areas soon.

It had been nearly a week since
the raptor attack, it still bothered him from time to time, but the pain of
grief had faded into a dull ache. It felt weird, mourning someone he had never
known, and would never know. “At least someone would,” he sighed, and then
returned to the laptop. His first cheese attempt had been a messy affair; he
had ended up feeding the curds to the hogs. The second attempt had yielded a
better batch, and was aging now. He had enough milk to do one batch a week now.
The butter had turned out okay; he had forgotten the salt though so it was only
good for cooking.

That was another thing, he needed
to get out and explore. He needed a lot of raw material, salt, iron, copper,
carbon, and just about everything else. But right now his main priorities were
gravel, sand, limestone, and clay for the roads and concrete.

There was a sandbank further downstream,
most likely formed when the crushing water dug into the rocks, pulverizing them
and washing them downstream. Clay he had seen in the gully six point five
kilometers away. Gravel was something else, he didn’t want the feldspar rocks
the combine and tractors were turning up regularly, and he needed a hard rock
like granite.

Limestone was the kicker; the
black rock was useful in many applications. Cooked into a white paste it became
purified calcium carbonate, perfect for many building applications like mortar,
cement, quicklime, and concrete. There was limestone a plenty in the caves, he
just wasn’t sure about digging it. He wasn’t a structural engineer, tunneling
into something like the network of caverns was not something he was too happy
about trying. The threat of a cave in was not something he wanted.

When the afternoon sun broke out
he sighed in relief. “Finally!” He gave Ginger and Hera’s ears a rub, then
whistled Max to heel as he stepped outside. The dog needed no second
invitation, bounding out of the mobile home and off to do his business on a
nearby tire. “That reminded me, I probably need to dump the sewage tank,” Mitch
sighed, then set on his ball cap and headed off to the caves.

Andy eight had a lot of stripped
gears, plus some torn wiring and a couple bent supports. He had set up a
temporary workshop in the entrance to the cave he considered the great hall.
The damaged robots were there, as well as bins of parts, a makeshift bench, and
a few machine tools. The rain started up again, he looked out to the cave
entrance then back down at Max who was sitting near the entrance. “Guess we’re
stuck here for the moment,” he said. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
Cleaning the mud and grime was going to be messy.

Swapping out damaged parts for
good ones was easy. Bending the brackets back without a good vice had been an
interesting challenge... That was until he got the idea of having the ED clamp
down on one part of the bracket as he pounded it back into shape. Andy eight
was back in shape after an hour, but would still have a slight limp. Ed’s
damage was both cosmetic from the outside, the leg scratches had not pierced
the armor. He checked the gears in the hips and arm, they looked okay. The
elbow servos were warm, he found a crimped liquid nitrogen line and was forced
to bleed the line, and then replace it.

It was almost amusing to pick
broken teeth out of the underside of the arm. Almost. Some of the wiring to the
hand motors and sensors had been torn, some time splicing had repaired them. ED
reported function restored in its deep basso metallic voice. He smiled. One of
the mini-me’s had a burned out ankle servo, an easy patch job. He knew the
androids were just not suited to the outdoors. They hadn’t been designed for
it; they had originally been designed as household servants and aides to
disabled and elderly people. He patched a few more androids before deciding it
was best if he had them concentrate on cave activities. Only one GP robot
needed repair, it had lost a track and gummed its wheels up with a couple
rocks.

The next day shined bright in
clear, at least clear through the moving clouds. It looked good, like the
weather was clearing. He set up a GP to drain the sewage tank then hurried
through the morning chores. He was eager to get to the next project. Last night
he had taken a sample of rock back to the mobile home, a bit of scanning with
the laser scanner had confirmed it was limestone. When the chores were done he
was going to set the robots to leveling the caves walls, floors, and ceilings,
then head out to get a couple loads of sand and clay.

Spending the morning with the
bobcat and dump truck had been an interesting affair. The river had swollen
after the rain, but he could still access the sandy embankment with little
trouble. He took a half a dozen loads, letting the robotic dump truck tow out
one of the empty fertilizer trailers to fill as well. He had them dumped inside
the perimeter in a series of mounds; he could tidy them up later. He took an
MRE lunch break then had a tractor carry the bobcat on one of the small
trailers to the clay he had spotted. A nearby elk drinking had made him freeze;
a careful view around the area had not spotted any predators.

He managed several loads, during
his lunch break he had hit upon the idea of using the farm tractors to tow
trailers and empty containers. They had eaten into his fuel reserve, but he had
had plenty of hydrogen now. The trips back and forth were quick, only taking a
half hour for each vehicle despite the drying ground and spots of mud puddles.
After the sixth turnaround he decided to send the medium range UAV out to see
if he could spot a gravel pit, or at least some good granite. Sure he had
limestone, but it took eons for it to convert into granite. Getting the
vehicles into the caves was out as well.

Returning to base he was amazed
by the piles of rock and soil. The pile of rock also had him confused, until he
saw a donk trundling along loaded with a rock. The robots in the caves were removing
loose rubble, bringing it to the cave mouth and then loading it onto a trailer.
He had forgotten that order, feeling a little embarrassed, and then silly about
the embarrassment.

The drone reported signs of a Rex
pack north of him and he trotted to the mobile home and his waiting laptop. At
first he was confused; they were about thirty five kilometers away and heading
north. They looked to be stalking something. It was definitely a different
pack; there were two adults and a couple juveniles, one about the size of a
raptor. He zoomed out, and up, then sucked in his breath. In a clearing three
hundred meters ahead was a pack of humans with a fresh kill. He felt a thrill,
then agony at not being able to warn them. The Rexes were spreading apart, with
the juveniles hanging back.