Archive for the ‘Rudi Dornemann’ Category
Caretaker
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
The marsh was miles across, surrounded by a perimeter of biohazard signs every fifty feet. Through the plate glass, Skelton watched a V of reconnaissance drones from the research station drag their shadows over the shoulder-high grass. He washed down the last of his sandwich with the last of his beer, and retreated to the mall’s cooler inner corridors. The last resident had outfitted the two-room security office as an apartment, which made sense. All that echoing, empty space was unnerving. You needed a close, comfortable place within it.
A yellowed sheet of instructions was tacked to the inside of the office door. The real estate agent had gone on about this. Skelton figured the deal was some kind of tax or legal obligation to keep the property occupied until the genetically engineered grass and the rest of the ecological recuperation made the land worth something again.
He read the directions at intervals through the day. By dusk he knew it well enough to leave it behind while he went to the one locked store and got a restaurant-heavy pasta bowl, a bottle of lamp oil, and a twist of wire-cored wick string.
It was twilight when he got to the patio of unbroken parking lot outside the marsh-side anchor store. Colors moved over the grass like low-altitude aurora. He poured the oil, lit the wick. The flame flickered through color changes in time with its larger cousins out in the marsh. Must be something in the air. Probably nothing healthy. He headed back inside.
For a first night in an unfamiliar bed, he slept well until a roof-shaking wind woke him after midnight. He took a security-guard-leftover flashlight, and made the rounds. The mall was bigger; the echoes, louder. Beyond the jumbled mannequin orgy of the display windows, the marsh-lights flashed kaleidoscope lightning. The lamp-bowl had tumbled, spilled and sputtered dead. No way he’d go out.
But, after nightmares that six cups of coffee barely dimmed, he knew he needed to focus on the task. Sleep by day. Tend the lamp by night. Keep the colors from anyone else’s dreams. He couldn’t explain the fear that came with the colors, not to himself, not to the real estate agent when she called to check on him. If he could have put it in words, he would have tamed it, and wouldn’t have needed to spend his life keeping it in check.
Observations in the Field
Monday, June 9th, 2008
Marcus hiked out before dawn, over snow with just enough ice on top that it held his weight for nearly a second before he crunched through. He got the robotic crow into the tree well before dawn.
The flock of real crows came up from the river while the sky was still predawn pink, and alighted in the next tree over. The robot issued its preliminary croak. Marcus held his breath for the flock’s response. It never came — something spooked the birds. Wings slapping like applause, they disappeared into the forest dark.
Marcus swore and keyed “recall” on the control fob. The robot bird fluttered to his feet and went still. The cold metal stuck to his gloves as he put it back in the padded bag.
He walked out by way of Highway 212 — a longer, but easier route. He had time. Of all Halverson’s raven trials, the only ones that had worked had worked on the first encounter between wild birds and the robot mimic. Marcus hadn’t had a successful integration yet, on any encounter. He’d have to find a new flock, maybe nearer to Agriville, where there was more of a farm and forest mix… He was trotting along the on the frozen gravel shoulder when the beep of a car horn interrupted his thoughts.
A small car pulled alongside, and a frosted window purred down. The driver leaned across the empty passenger seat. He shouted, even though the engine only murmured softly, “I can drop you somewhere!”
“Sure,” said Marcus, and he climbed in.
The driver was friendly enough, and said his name was Larry. “What are you doing way out here,” he said, “and so early?”
“Research,” said Marcus. “Ornithology.” He wrestled his notebook from his back pocket to jot some notes while he still remembered details of the non-encounter.
Larry nodded sleepily; sipped a styrofoam cup of coffee. “I’m meeting some folks for breakfast in Winslip,” he said. “Denny’s.” Another sip. “Join us if you want.”
He sipped again, the exact same pursing of the lips, a forward tilt of the head to the exact same angle as the last sip. The kind of thing Marcus would never have noticed if he hadn’t spent the last eight months trying to program that kind of uncanny nearly-lifelike quality out of the crow.
“Sure,” said Marcus. “Breakfast sounds good.” He could take notes later.