When they arrived back at camp everyone was thrilled to meet Thrasher. He was praised as a good boy and given many pets and scratches. For the night the big friendly parasaur became the camp’s therapy dino, and he was thrilled about it. He wasn't thrilled about the fire, but once he was shown that it was safe he settled down and relaxed. Laying down and letting people climb over him and rest against his massive body. He was surprisingly warm to the touch, and soon over a dozen people were using him as a backrest.
As soon as they were back the hunting team was sent to check the creak for fish, but they didn’t find anything of substance, and the one fish they did see escaped easily. The goodhearted laughter from Clara softened the failure, but their stomachs were still empty.
The gatherers had collected a large pile of berries, and people were eyeing them hungrily by the time Marcus used his artifact to check the toxicity of the food. A now familiar green energy washed over the pile, highlighting most of the berries with a faint green glow, but a handful of glowing red berries were listed as toxic. They quickly sorted out the berries and found that there were three species of toxic berries. A white one with golden stems that looked somewhat like a seedless strawberry. The second one looked almost exactly like a blackberry but had an oily film on it that stained whatever it touched. The final toxic berry was an unripe version of one of the non-toxic berries. They would have to be extra careful about eating from those.
After trying a few of the berries and taking another sip of water, Marcus handed off the artifact to Mavis and fell into one of the lean-tos constructed from large fern leaves and sticks. He was asleep as soon as he hit the floor.
Jack joined Gordon and Mavis by the fire. The two men shared a look and smiled. Mavis had taken less than a day stuck on a prehistoric planet to find a working screen. She didn’t notice their chuckles, completely immersed in studying the encyclopedia of dinosaurs.
Ms Margret walked over to join them as the sun went down fully and offered each of them a handful of berries.
“Mavis. Would you be a dear and look these up in that fancy screen thing you have there?” She asked, sweetly, breaking Mavis out of her trance. She blinked and took the berries, nodding and flicking through the screens. When she reached the simple white berry that was toxic when unripe, her eyes went wide.
“These ones have caffeine in them.” She grinned and popped one into her mouth. Biting down it was clear to Jack that she regretted her decision to be the taste tester. The berry was bitter and the seed in its center was both large and hard. She grimaced but ate all of the flesh from the berry before spitting out the seed. She might hate the taste, but she was starving and tired, and hunger is the finest of spices.
Jack picked through his handful of berries and found that most of them were fairly bland, all of them had large seeds that he would spit out. The yellow berries were the sweetest, but also the smallest. He agreed that the white berries with the caffeine in them were nasty, but one handful of berries was not going to give him enough calories to survive in a jungle like this. He knew they would need meat the next day, which meant he would need to hunt.
He found a spot beside Mavis and lay down on the leaves that had been gathered. It was uncomfortable, but whoever had set the spot up had been through in removing small rocks so he was able to relax by laying on his back. He gazed up at the night sky, and despite most of it being blocked by the thick jungle around them, the small strip of visible sky was alight with trillions of new stars.
It looked for familiar constellations out of habit. But he was under an alien sky. These were not his stars. For the first time in the day, he didn't push his feelings down. His old life was gone. His parents were gone.
Tears formed in his eyes, and fell silently. He was not the only one grieving in the camp, but no one had the energy to cry and shout. Jack let the tears flow. Remembering the times his father had taken him out of school for no reason other than it was a beautiful day and they would go hiking together. He remembered his Mother's disastrous attempts to recreate a recipe from a cooking show she was watching and burned the food so badly that the family had gotten pizza instead and stayed up late watching the season finale of the same show. He etched his parents' smiling faces into his memory and vowed never to forget them.
He would live on. Their memory would not die. And he would one day tell his own children of their kindness and light hearts. He would not squander himself like he had been doing after he finished college. There was no more sitting around drinking beer or slacking off with Mavis on the couch. He would work hard, he would work smart, and he would thrive.
Jack was close to falling asleep when Gordon came to sit beside him and Mavis. He was still shirtless, now red with sunburn and covered in dirt from their long day. He looked Mavis over. She was clearly worried. Her expression was bleak.
“What's wrong?” Gordon asked. Pulling her attention away from the artifact’s encyclopedia to look at him. Her arm dropped into her lap and the screen faded.
“So much.” She whispered and looked into the fire. A moment later she leaned against his shoulder.
“Worried about your family?” Gordon asked. They had all done the math. The cutoff age was forty years old. Mavis was twenty-two, and her parents had her when they were both eighteen. Depending on how the alien AI determined the cutoff date, her parents may be alive. And her younger brother certainly was, being only fifteen. Jack opened his eyes and listened to his friends talk. He would be there if they needed him.
Mavis shrugged.
“I can't do anything about it one way or another. So I don't want to get worked up about it until Kyrxess comes back for more questions. I'm too tired to get worked up about it one way or the other.”
“Kyrxess?” Gordon asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah. The Kenku bird alien lady. That's her name. She introduced herself in the recording before all this happened.” Mavis smiled faintly. Gordon shrugged the shoulder Mavis wasn't resting on.
“I was sleeping when that started. I must have missed it. I thought I was dreaming.” He leaned into her a bit.
“I wish we were.” She said softly. Her eyes locked on the crackling flames before them.
“So do I.” Gordon put his arm around Mavis, pulling her into a side hug and causing her to gag and push away from him. She waved a hand in front of her nose dramatically.
“You stink! Ugh.” She gagged again, and Gordon chuckled.
“You're a bit ripe yourself.” He retorted and put his arm down. Mavis squinted at him a bit but returned to resting her head on his shoulder. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Gordon could tell that she wanted to say something but was still processing it.
“The aliens are lying to us.” She eventually said.
From the look on Gordon’s face, he hadn’t expected this to be the topic of conversation. But he nodded.
“I agree. It doesn’t add up. I’m no master of alien body language, but from her tone and words, my instincts tell me she is trying to help. Though she is clearly holding information back from us.”
Mavis nodded and raised her wrist with the artifact.
“It was like she wasn’t able to tell us about the pitfalls of taming and the tribe log until we asked. She clearly had it ready to give to us, but she didn’t. She also seemed relieved when we realized what would have happened if we hadn't figured it out. But there is more. This artifact doesn’t make sense.”
Gordon raised an eyebrow and took Mavis’s hand, moving it into better light by the fire to examine the bracelet more closely.
“It would be trivially easy for them to give us a charge rating for when it is ready to use. In fact, it probably took more work to redesign the technology and remove that feature. Secondly, the ability to test for toxins in the food should use way less power than mapping the area or using whatever brain control magic it takes to tame dinosaurs, but it seems to be recharging at the same rate as the mapping feature. I'm keeping track of how long it takes to recharge, but that's the sense I'm getting from feeling the temperature of the charms. But it was the encyclopedia charm that made me positive that something was wrong.”
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She rotated her wrist and activated the charm. The green window appeared with a long list of dinosaur names and a search bar.
“Just like the tribe log, they could have given this to use at any point. But they waited until we asked about it. Almost like we met some requirements to unlock it. Finally, there is no cooldown to use this one or the tribe log. I can flick it on and off whenever I need it, and it has shown no signs of using energy of any kind. The charms don’t get cold or hot. So either the map and toxin scan are thousands of times more complex than we understand and take far more power, or the recharge periods are deliberate design choices.” She closed the screen and slumped against Gordon’s shoulder again. He had listened calmly, waiting for her to finish so he could chew the information over.
“To what end? It's also clear they are watching us at least some of the time. I suspected they may have physical access to the people in stasis. Or far more access to the preserve AI than they claimed they did. They have our blood types, exact height, and weight. How do they know our literacy rates? How do they even know English? I get they have some crazy translation technology, but if Earth was destroyed they wouldn't be able to get that information unless they were able to unfreeze some people and talk to them.”
Mavis took a stick and poked at the fire. Causing the cinders to dance in the smoke.
“I have a few hypotheses. None of them are great for us. The first one is that this is all some fucked up virtual reality prison or game. But I have no idea how to prove that it is or isn’t. I mean things are crazy and I have a magic bracelet that can tame dinosaurs but.” She gestured around. Felt the warm air blow through the thick jungle that was alive with distant chitters and calls of mysterious creatures.
“It's so real. So painfully real. And if it was a game we should have stat sheets and shoes and we shouldn’t be limited to drinking a sip of hot water out of a beer can every other hour to survive.” She shook her head, and Gordon frowned.
“I don’t think that's likely. I can’t rule it out but I don’t think it fits. I was thinking it was some sort of Alien bloodsport. Strand a bunch of people on a planet full of monsters and watch them struggle to survive. Maybe it's a battle royal, and they will make us kill each other, or maybe they are just cruel.”
They both sat there. Looking into the fire. After some time, Mavis felt the bracelet heat up slightly, and green energy rolled across her skin. All the hair on her body stood up, and both she and Gordon felt their chests tighten with fear.
Suddenly a figure was sitting beside them at the fire. The shadows seemed to curl around her dark cloak, and she was barely visible to anyone outside of the fire ring. It was clearly Kyrxess, but in the guise of a human woman. Long black hair, yellow eyes, sharp features, and a dress made of feathers. When she smiled at them her too-perfect features set off every fight or flight reaction the humans had. There was something deeply unsettling about the figure before them. Jack had never understood the uncanny valley before, but now he understood. Every bone in his body screamed that this creature was not human, and he should run or kill it. He reached for his club before remembering that it was a hologram. Still, he sat up and looked at the women.
“Greetings, Mavis Martin, Jack Wilson, and Gordon Gears. Please do not draw attention to my presence. I would like to speak with you alone for a bit. As you have guessed, I am Kyrxess. And we are monitoring each tribe through the artifacts, our satellites, and some of the systems the planetary preserve AI has active.” She gestured towards the artifact on Mavis’s wrist.
Several seconds of silence passed as the three of them overcame their instinctual fear of the creature before them. Jack felt like he should have some clever response, but nothing came to his exhausted mind. Gordon eventually spoke up.
“Um. To what end? If you are listening to us, you have obviously heard our questions.” He trailed off, a general look of confusion on his face.
Jack opened his mouth to ask something but stopped himself. Part of him worried if they spoke rashly here if the aliens would just kill him. Part of him didn’t want to know the truth.
Kyrxess bobbed her head. Her face showed a deep sorrow. Her eyes turned puffy, and her cheeks sunk in slightly. It was clear whatever hologram disguise she was using did not understand how the human body shifted emotions, and just replicated the final state of the emotion, regardless of how strongly it was felt. It made her feel even more creepy, and Jack found her less relatable now than in her true alien form.
“Nothing I have told you has been a lie. Your planet was destroyed by an asteroid around thirty-five years ago. You were saved by the automated preserve AI that was set up by the Old Empire scientists. Your children are alive Gordon, in stasis. The person you referenced as your wife is also still in stasis. But she has a brother far away from here working towards freeing her and adding her to his tribe. So you will have to complete your base faster than he does.” She sighed, and her features shifted back to a more neutral expression.
“While we haven't lied, we haven't told the full truth either. I will save you the lecture on how our government is run. But the short version is that we have a council of the different species that must all vote in full agreement for a motion to pass. This was supposed to encourage compromise and teamwork and prevent one political party or species dominate the rest of the council. In reality, it means there are a lot of backroom deals and the wheels of our bureaucracy turn slowly. There are eight species in the council, three carnivores, four herbivores, and one omnivorous species. Each species wanted to do something different about your situation. But the time we had to let our system work the standard way was limited. The planetary AI here that has your people in stasis is fully sentient but sees the world through a skewed vision. It was going to start killing you off unless we stopped preventing it from releasing you. So the compromise that was met with the species made no one happy.”
A flash of bitter anger flashed across her face. She made a snarling sound and her teeth flashed like she was going to bite them.
“The idiots wanted to turn this entire planet into a contest for their amusement. They want to see how your species wages war and if you can survive to live with the harsh environment. Their original proposal was harshly denied by the council. But they couldn’t move forward without an agreement.” Her anger faded away, returning to the neutral face. Mavis and Gordon said nothing, only watching intently. Jack gripped his club and bit his lip in frustration. They all wanted to curse the bastards who had suggested such a thing, but knew it wasn’t the time.
“The problem we face is twofold. We cannot evacuate you. And we can not provide you enough aid to rebuild your old society. The reason for the first is the exclusion field around the planet. Nothing that enters here can leave. But the second issue stems from the first. The planetary AI controls the environment of this world. It repopulates the species here if they start to struggle, and it keeps the environment stable. If we were to drop a concrete city from the sky, the AI would destroy it within a day. It doesn't seem to mind buildings made from the local materials. It will even assist you in some ways. There is a species of intelligent monkey that has found uses for metal-rich ore as a projectile weapon and simple tool to crack open nuts. The AI replenishes the ore they have taken out of the cliff walls over time. Honestly, we do not know how it works. The Old Empire technology is as advanced to us as our technology is to you. Which is why one of the species wanted to let you all be wiped out, rather than build a new civilization on the basis of their technology.” Her features flickered again, this time looking embarrassed. Her cheeks turned bright red, her eyes turned away in shame, and her hands came up to cover her face.
“So the amount of help we can give is limited by the AI, it is also limited by the scattered population and the size of the planet. We are a research station, built for a few hundred at most. To get the resources needed to help your people, compromises were made. We will be delivering resources that will help you greatly to survive. From medicine to better tools, to specially made saddles for your bonded dinosaurs. But to determine who gets this help, there will be a sort of competition. It is designed to cause the different tribes to engage with each other and breed conflict. But we are betting that your people will be able to come together and make the best out of the situation. Make alliances and friends with your fellow tribes and survive. The better you do as you survive here, the more resources will be allocated to your region of the planet.” Her face slipped between the neural and angry faces but ended on one that seemed slightly more natural. It was hard to place the emotion on the alien face, but it felt hopeful or optimistic.
“What sort of competition? They want us to go to war?” Jack asked when it was clear that she was done speaking for the moment. His own emotions spiraled so quickly that all he could do was push them all down to try and get to the bottom of things. No jumping to conclusions. Gordon put a hand on his shoulder, which helped him remain calm.
“Yes and no. The competition is being judged by the AI that was sent to us by the council. It watches you and constantly judges how well you are surviving and thriving. It will award points for all actions from foraging for berries to slaughtering an enemy tribe. You will not be able to see these points, but you will be given a tribe ranking once you have established a base. Diplomacy and farming will get you points as well, so do not fall into the trap of assuming you have to kill everyone you meet.”
Mavis spoke up with the next question.
“Why have you withheld the information about the other charms? Why the cooldowns?”
The look Kyrxess gave them was constipated.
“Some things I am not allowed to tell you unless specifically asked. I try my best to give you all as much information as I can. I am firmly on the side trying to help get you all out of this situation, and I give you my word that I will never lie to you directly. Only withhold information as I am forced to.” She bowed slightly and flicked her hand in a way that was probably significant in her culture. Before Mavis could ask another question, Kyrxess raised a hand to cut her off.
“I am out of time. You are being used for entertainment. But it is to get you the resources you will need to survive. Work hard, ask good questions, and do your best to thrive.”
And just as suddenly as she had arrived, she was gone.
Mavis and Gordon gave each other a weary look. They looked over to see that Marcus was still asleep. But Mattock had been listening to their conversation for some time. He had been on watch, and they all shared an uncomfortable glance.
“Well. Fuck us I guess.” Mattock said.
“Get to sleep. We can let everyone know in the morning. Or maybe we save it for once we have full bellies. Good work figuring that out. I think even having an idea of what's coming will give us an edge in what is to come.” He nodded, gestured for them to sleep, and stepped back into the night.
Mavis and Gordon both looked at Jack. They were all bone tired. Jack returned to his makeshift bed, and with his friends behind him, quickly fell asleep.