The waters of the Great Fish Pond – Several days later
He'd left just in time. If they'd been delayed much longer the Magistrate would have returned and stepped on the general's aspirations. The rain had delayed their trip nearly three days, but today, the hot summer sun was blazing away.
The Ape crew, navigating the boat, were all first-rate at their trade. They had to be since their lives depended on it. They'd established a means of using the wind to pilot them through the waters. Large, sown together, skins caught the gusts, propelling the ship forward at an unsettling speed; a method more efficient than rowing, Grazot concluded. A small flap in the back guided the vessel back and forth through the choppy water. The ride, if you wanted to call it that, was making all of the apes sick as they held on for dear life. The spray from The Pond made them want to heave each time it slapped their furry hides.
The three sea-apes had been bribed handsomely. Each had insisted on being paid upfront. What good was the promise gold if you were dead? It was a decision wiser than they realized since today would be their last day on the planet. They were all young, family apes and if they were going to die at least their wives and children would mourn in comfort.
Grazot was feeling queasy and not hiding it very well. It was going to be a long ride. He thanked the great ape that the weather was calm, even if the water wasn't. Grazot was accompanied by Captain Gondar and five ape soldiers: A corporal and four foot-apes. The soldiers were all young. They were somewhat experienced but without baggage. They had been promised 30 days leave and a free visit to the brothel west of Arum…if they returned successfully.
Young minds were easy to manipulate. They took orders at face value and usually didn't come with, a lot of history. No children or wives to preoccupy their thoughts; Just an adolescent loyalty to the greater good. They were expendable and if they survived they'd be better soldiers for it. It was a win-win in Grazot's mind. …In addition to that, they were more likely to go along with his plan. The older and more experienced veterans would not obey so blindly.
Within 30 minutes half of the apes had thrown up their breakfast in one form or another. One even joked about the others throwing him overboard. The apes navigating still seemed very much at ease with the instability of the sea. They all had ropes around their waists incase they fell overboard. The thought of getting wet was bad enough but the alternative was much worse.
"Fell in once during a storm; Let me tell you, if you don't have religion, that experience will burn it into your soul." One of the Chimps said a foot-ape.
"H…how much l-lo-onger?" the young gorilla asked as more of his meal left his stomach and spilled into the lake.
"Hard to tell; Maybe an hour or so." The sea-ape answered as he pulled down hard on sail to catch the next gust of air.
General Grazot had a good idea where the humans were hiding. …Well, he hoped so anyway. All of the intelligence reports stated that the fugitives had been spotted south of a large land mass on the western part of the sea. It was miles away from shore. The next land mass was days from there, but who could tell. These humans were as resourceful as the great ape himself. They could be anywhere.
Grazot was convinced that if the sea didn't kill him, the trip through it would. He would have had himself and the squad sedated but the thought of being in a boat unconscious brought on too much anxiety. He wished that the young foot ape would shut his mouth but did not share it with the group. His military bearing and discipline wouldn't allow it. He didn't know what was worse; the rancid smell of half digested food or the constant rocking of the boat.
Things were what they were and for now he'd simply have to wait it out. He tried to shut his eyes but it didn't seem to help his unsettled stomach at all.
The Island
Tom March picked up the odd looking …pad. It was weathered, but still seemed to be functional. Amie claimed it was a diary his grandfather had kept. It was years beyond anything he'd ever laid eyes on. It had to contain some kind of hyper-battery to still be working after all this time. It was at least 200 years old, he figured. It's so thin, he thought.
He tapped the pad as a picture of an office folder, labeled; Log Entries come into view. He touched the folder icon and several paper document icons filled the screen. He randomly touched one…
06524-Error: File Corrupted, displayed in red letters surrounded by gray box.
"Figures" he said cynically. "Amie told me it was old."
He tapped several of the icons. Quite a number of them displayed the same error message. …until one page finally opened;
Le 17 décembre, 2417 - Ce qui est quitté de l'Alliance Nord-américaine se désintègre. Le mouvement du nord n'a pas résolu une grande partie de n'importe quoi non plus. La Loi martiale échoue. Le territoire est surtout humain, mais il y a plus de réfugiés que les soldats. C'est le froid de loup mais pendant la lumière du jour nous sommes en mesure de …
French? Oh for crying out loud... damn it, Marchmumbled. Where did Amie say the translation was? He fumbled for a minute longer then located the TRANSLATE panel. He moved his finger over the button as a drop down box appeared and allowed him to select; French-English Translator
Dec 17, 2417 - What's left of the North American Alliance is falling apart. Moving north has not solved much of anything either. Martial Law is failing. The territory is mostly human but there are more refugees than soldiers. It's bitter cold but during daylight we are able to…
He mistakenly tapped it again as he involuntarily rubbed his thumb on the smooth pad…
Mar 23, 2418 – Rafael is dead. That leaves 7 adults in the group. Apes have infested the territory and are hunting humans without mercy. Their weapons are primitive but they out number us 50 to 1. We have been traveling west in hopes to make it to Gracefield. Rosemarie claims there is fairy there that can airlift us to Ontario. It will cost us most of our food but if we stay here we'll surely die. My children are terrified and hungry but Rose is very good with them. Hopefully the Alliance will be more organized in Ontario.
Mar 24, 2418 – The roads are scattered with refugees. People are traveling in groups to stay safe from bandits and apes. Our genetic experiments have destroyed everything we've built…
He tapped it again, this time intentionally…
May 6, 2418 – Rumors from travelers' state, there was a nuclear attack aimed at eastern parts of United States and Canadian. The eastern seaboard is reported radiated with massive amounts of fallout. Washington is said to be riddled with disease affecting both man and simian. If the ceasefire with the Euro-Islamic Union failed it won't matter where we're airlifted to…
Euro-Islamic Union? …March muttered as his eyes wandered a bit…Where was I?
... it won't matter where we're airlifted to. We hope to reach Gracefield by the end of the week. I haven't eaten in two days in hopes that there will be enough food to buy us passage.
Out of curiosity he tapped the last entry, hoping it was not corrupted.
Sep 15, 2422 – This will be my last entry as I close one chapter of my life to start another. We've been here for over two and half years now with hardly sign or word from the outside world. That is, if there's anything left of it. Only two families survived our journey and I am happy to say that my second grandchild will be born shortly. May, he or she grow up in peace and safety.
Jeanette is sick and probably won't last much longer. Corber has been at her side but we just don't have the medical provisions to keep her going. When she passes that will be the 4th addition to the graveyard since our arrival.
The HOLO-NEWS Link is filled with colored static these days. The last report is over 8 months old. The E.I.U continues to wage its holy jihad on each side and soon will collapse in on itself. Contact with Ottawa has never been established. I can only assume it's in ruin, like Washington.
Supply drops from the UK en route to DC were vaporized over the ocean. Rioting and fighting been the British citizens and their ape soldiers are increasing, just as they did here and in the US and Mexico. London is in chaos. Paris was hit with a second nuclear barrage in its attempt to neutralize the growing ape threat. Every generation of ape seems more advanced and aggressive than the previous. It was a mistake playing with Micro DNA manipulation and GENO Tech enhancements to create our "perfect soldiers". Instead of saving humanity we only helped to speed up its demise.
There is a lot to do with winter approaching. We've been gathering food and water for when the snow hits. There are deer and wild boar here and we've revived the garden. We are without a skilled physician and on our own.
My family and I will live our lives out on this island in stillness & quiet, as best as we can. The nuclear arrays contain enough power for centuries of use. Corber and I have automated the feed to the old Franklin mansion. The weather station and emergency control equipment have been modified to pull Satellite Intel. I hope that humanity survives long enough find a way to rebuild itself just as we have.
"Nuclear Array…" March muttered as he read the last few lines.
A crash of thunder startled March as he noticed the rain outside getting worse. He laid the pad aside and sat down looking around the quaint shack. Shack was an understatement. The place was enormous. In its prime, it must have belonged to someone with money; and a lot of it at that. Age was showing on some parts but it was still fairly solid after all of this time.
Out the window just beyond some shrubs he could see the grave markers. Amie's family was buried there, including the small grave of his only child. She'd fallen sick as a baby and had died before she was even a year old. March instantly thought back to when his children were young and shook his head. He'd gone to war when they were all very little. It was one of the hardest things he'd had to do. When he returned home the youngest wasn't a baby or even a toddler anymore. She grew so fast he thought to himself.
"Would you like some tea, Tom March?" Madera said as she entered the room. The sound of her voice made him jump as he snapped back into the present.
"It's just Tom, Madera." March stated. "Where I come from there were a lot of people named 'Tom'. People used a surname so they… …You know what, forget it." He said noticing that Madera had no idea what he was getting at.
"Some tea would be great. Thank you." He said taking in the aroma. "Where's Jonny and Amie?"
"Amie is showing Jon Hayes the other structures." Madera said politely as she poured him some tea.
"In this storm? I can understand Jonny going out in it, but Amie…?" March said shaking his head and sipping the hot beverage.
"Mmmm…Wow! This is great! What is it?" March asked as the sensation in his taste buds made him forget about the two men traipsing about in the rain.
"My mother used to make. She taught me the blend. It's not so much the leaves as it is the spices." Madera said with a smile.
The walkie-talkie cracked in interrupting their little tea party "Major, this is Hayes, over?"
It was funny how military protocol always seemed to kick in when the situation called for it. There was no U.S. Air Force here. Hell there was no U.S. for that matter. Not one he'd recognize anyway. But the two men still, unwittingly, shifted into soldier-mold when the state of affairs was right for it.
"Roger. What's your status?" March replied.
"It's incredible, Sir. There are remnants of old development here. Amie showed me where two other homes are, or were, anyway. They're overgrown, weathered, and have fallen in on themselves; nothing salvageable. It looks like there was some kind of quasi-military post here at one time. …A ranger or police station of some sort. We're in it now...or what's left of it. The rain came down pretty hard just before we arrived. We're gonna wait it out, over." Hayes said as he let up on the mic.
"Sounds good. How's Amie holding up, over?" March asked.
"As well as can be expected. He knows his way around this place like he created himself..."
Hayes paused as he stepped on a large, creepy looking, spider crawling across the dirty cement floor, and then went on. "…Major, there's something else I saw; possibly a small bomb shelter. I couldn't get inside though. It's built into the ground. There's a metal door with a computerized lock. I messed with a few of the buttons but no luck. I'm not even sure a bazooka would blow it open. I'd like to see what's in it though…over".
"I agree." March answered. "Come on back as soon as the weather breaks. Maybe I can find something here that will give us a layout of the island or even the combination to that lock. Over"
"Roger; Hayes out." Hayes said. He returned the device to its compartment and shivered as the cold ran beat down on their meager shelter.
When the two men finally returned it was late in the evening. They all ate the latest, catch of the day, as both parties filled the others in on more and more of their worlds. According to Madera there were no humans on the mainland. At least there weren't when she lived there. She had only seen one, in the capital city zoo as a youth. And she hadn't been particularly awed one way or another by it. From the time she'd been child, humans had been demonized as vicious creatures that ravaged everything they touched. For the nation to survive all humans had to die…or become pacified, as the ministry of science put it. She made it abundantly clear that if they returned the mainland they'd be killed immediately.
She explained that living with Amie had made her question those views. She'd been told humans couldn't even speak and were savage to the core. Amie had proven to be just the opposite. He and his wife, Marie saved her life, nursed her to health, cared for her, and even loved her like the child they'd lost. Some of what she had been told must have contained some truth though. There were children's stories of magic humans who flew through the sky and seas in mystical crafts of great wonder. This home for example made light without oil and heated itself without fire. On hot summer days it cooled itself magically. No ape dwelling was capable of anything close to it.
"It's not magic Madera, it's science. It's a matter of finding the paramount solution. One plus one plus one plus one equals four. Just as three plus one does or two plus two…or even ten minus six. If your solution is 'four', you don't just need a combination; you need an expedient method of arriving at it. With larger numbers and numbers with decimals we can use; Scientific Notation. That's simply a method for expressing, and working with, very large or very small numbers. It is a short hand method for writing numbers, and an easy method for calculations. Numbers in scientific notation are made up of three parts: the coefficient, the base and the exponent. …" Hayes interjected, spinning off topic with each sentence.
He stopped and looked at the blank faces staring at him. Even Tom's… He realized he was drifting off subject and into an area they couldn't relate to.
Short-hand? Coefficient he heard them mumbling.
"Ok look, where we come from we have …uh equipment … just like this house does. Lights, hot and cold water, heating, air-conditioning. It's all performed by machines. They initiate a limited set of predetermined commands, like your brain telling you to make a fire when you're cold. One way is to wrap yourself in blanket while another is to light a match…um... I mean strike the flint. …We've just learned to use the elements of, uh, nature, to do some of these things for us. Instead of creating fire, we heat the air…That's all." Hayes concluded.
Madera had no indication of what Hayes meant but smiled politely and just said; "Oh, I see."
"My son the professor" March said as he slapped Hayes on the shoulder. "Let's just eat and skip the science seminar, shall we?"
The following morning…
March had shown Hayes the diary entries. The two men had searched the large dwelling for signs of anything that might be useful. So far they'd found nothing but some weathered novels, old Canadian currency, moth eaten clothes, and couple of odd looking devices like the diary. One of which, no longer, had power. They also found several gold, silver, and platinum coins in a wall safe; some of which appeared to be American. There were old maps and a few long outdated legal documents, as well.
"I don't know about you Jonny, but I don't plan to live my life out on this island. And I certainly don't plan on being the 5 o'clock attraction at the public zoo. I think we need to see if there are any human settlements left. If we can find a ship maybe we can get back up there and get home. The diary spoke of a Holo-news-Link…" March said pronouncing it hollow. "Maybe human civilization survived out there somewhere."
"I saw no signs of a power generator, nuclear or otherwise, when I was poking around the island. …Of course who knows what one would even look like?" Hayes added.
"I want to see this bomb shelter, Jonny. It's the best place I can think of to start." March told him as he headed down to the main living area.
"I'm telling you Tom, without that code we'll never get in. Even a tank couldn't blast a hole in that door." Hayes said convincingly. "Amie had no clue what it was. All he knew was that his parents never went near it. He doesn't know the code…"
Hayes stopped dead in midsentence and looked down at the pad. He then looked up at Tom, and held up the pad in one hand. Wagging it back and forth slowly, he continued; "…but he did say his grandfather used to go in it when he was a boy. Maybe the code is written in here somewhere."
"Fire it up and let's take a look." March said.
After a few minutes of examination March realized that the diary handled multiple functions; Music, games, photography …as well as filing these electronic memos.
March was pushing buttons when Hayes suddenly interjected; "Wait, what's that!"
Hayes had noticed that a small window at the top was displaying a Search-All option.
"Ok that's a start. But how do we enter search criteria? There's no keypad" March said. He tapped the Search-All icon by reflex and almost dropped the device when it asked: "Specify Search Criteria…"
"Ak-sess koodzzz… (*access codes)" Hayes blurted out slowly and mechanically.
"Searching…" the pad answered as it played an odd sounding tune.
Over the next twenty minutes they tried combination after combination narrowing their search. Several documents were corrupted while others showed either, no or useless, results. Until one log entry appeared to shed some light. The entry itself didn't exactly say what the code was but it did talk of a; back-up reference card for the survival equipment.
"That's it!" March said as he clenched his fist. "Let's hope Amie knows what it is and where it is."
Amie was still fast asleep and Madera was, well who knew where Madera was. She was not one to sit still. If she wasn't cooking, she was cleaning or tending to Amie. If she wasn't doing that she was up in the trees doing who knows what.
"Tom we can't wake the old man. He needs the sleep. I just about killed him on our little tour yesterday. The obstinate old codger insisted on accompanying me. Let's find Madera and ask her first." Hayes said.
Madera was out in the garden just beyond the small graveyard. She knew nothing of what the two men spoke of. They had no choice but to wait for Amie to rise from his slumber.
For the next hour and a half Hayes helped Madera tend the garden while March searched the large cottage for the reference card. His luck appeared to be running true as he found nothing but more of the same junk; a broken doll, some cracked buttons, more books, and an interesting looking revolver that was completely rusted and worn. It fell apart as March fidgeted with the parts. Wow, this thing looks like it's from the old-west or something. March said to himself.
When Amie finally awoke it was almost 10 am. The answer he gave the astronauts made them step back… "Pépé worked hard. He lost most of the family getting them here. He wore a chain around his neck with a card that he'd reference when using the equipment. Said it was easier than hauling around various paraphernalia and having to remember pass-codes. He died when I was young. He was always so kind to me. Mi Pere buried him with it…"
"Buried him …with it." March said as he glanced at Hayes. "Um Amie, I don't mean to sound disrespectful or even crazy, but I think we need that card. That would require…"
"I know what it requires, Tom…" He said pronouncing the name Tow-may with his French accent. "I'm old …not senile, ya know. I said that Pere buried him with it. My father was not a well man. He wasn't strong like Pépé was. As he aged his mind would forget things, even who I was and he'd have fits of delusional rage. He lost a son and daughter and was never quite himself afterwards. Once Pépé was gone we buried him as is and tried to get on with life."
"Here Amie…" Madera said as she brought the old man his morning tea and breakfast.
Amie smiled, thanked her, and then went on. "It's no secret that I will soon be dead …but Madera..."
He paused as he took her paw in his hand and tapped the top with the palm of his opposite hand. "Dig up the grave. Pépé is long gone, what is left is just a shell. His soul is with his Creator. But you will do it on this condition gentleman; you are to look after Madera when I'm gone. She's as dear to me as if she were my own."
Madera smiled and squeezed his hand gently as she said. "Let's not put you in the ground yet, 'old-man', ok? Besides, you're too stubborn to pass on anytime soon. Eat your food before it spoils."
"Johnny grab your entrenching tool and let's go." March ordered
Hayes and March grabbed their gear and headed towards the graveyard.