The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (7 page)

“The wild
vultus
populations prove
that you don't have
complete
control of your little
symphony,” Mavis Talik said, her voice saccharine. Younger than the
rest, almost as young as Baucis, she was the least garishly
dressed. She had none of Lucas’ bulk, Ntelo or Aurelius's paints,
nor the hard hands and strong knuckles of Tennay. Her veins didn’t
protrude as much as Baucis’s, though her skin just as pale (only
Tennay’s skin held any melanin in it). As the council's
Psychologist, Baucis detested her. How that position survived was
beyond him, yet the public liked her well enough. She had an
unshakable optimism even when criticizing him.

Baucis scowled at her. He had explained and
apologized for the
vultus
population too many times to
count.

“I began working with the
vultus
nearly fifty years ago, before I was a Councilor and have been
learning from my mistake since. I was young, and engineered them
from wild vultures to eliminate the diseases that were plaguing the
herd at the time. They performed their task adequately for years
and still do. Even my predecessor told me they were 'a genius
stroke of ribonucleic acid.' How could I have foreseen mutations
that ruined my inserted Alpha-pack gene?”

No one else predicted such misfortune. Why
am I alone expected to be prescient with the Evanimals?

“A predilection to an Alpha societal
structure was not the only modification you made to their genes.”
Aurelius said. The Media Baron knew his history. The Council were
like a flock of
vultus
themselves, if one sensed weakness,
the rest pecked and pecked.

“No. I never make just one modification, if
geneticists worked at that speed we'd be scarcely faster than
Natural evolution,” he tried not to sound insolent, “There was no
way to get the birds to dispose of the sheer number of bodies, and
be implanted with VRCs given their diminutive size, so I made them
larger. I did not anticipate that
that
gene would mutate and
give rise to the
individual
who killed my bird and stole
Alpha status for himself. But I do not think we should dwell on
past mistakes. We have since implanted birds of the larger variety
and have regained control of the flock.

“And what if history repeats itself?” Baucis
didn't see who asked the question. It wasn't Talik's singsong voice
so it must have been one of the truly insignificant Councilors, the
chief of air quality, Borath, or the head of external
communications, Lyzet, were likely bets. Both were fools with
positions as pointless as Luca's that insisted on badgering Baucis
with questions they wouldn't understand the answers to.

“I have discontinued direct tampering with an
Evanimal's genetics, given our inferior tools in the Spire, I will
concede it is too... erratic. However Urea's
panthera
is not
from a lab, but the Earth itself! All we must do is find her a
suitable mate, select the best of their litter and repeat. Urea has
proven the species is quite accommodating of the VRCs. Time and
attention to detail will allow less skilled pilots to handle the
felines. With no more than husbandry, I have given the
biselk
their second set of antlers, made them more
susceptible to the Field, our commands, and in the process,
bettered our lives.”

That wasn't exactly true, but no one needed
to know that.

“I intend to fix our problems permanently by
restoring the natural order to the earth with my predators.”

The unintended consequences his experiments
caused were infinitely fascinating to Baucis, but he would not
debate them here in the Council's chamber under the gaudy
chandelier. It was a conversation for scientists in a laboratory,
not a bunch of power hungry figureheads in an ancient poker
room.

“You're not worried another individual will
arise from your system that will challenge the order of things?”
Talik’s voice dripped honey.

“And what do I do against an empty threat of
chaos? Admit defeat and surrender prematurely? I'm not concerned
for my Hunters, if that's your insinuation. Fear and power are the
only factors that have ever interfered with either the VRCs or
perfect implementation of my plans. With more sophisticated
techniques and increased power I have solved both of those
problems. Nothing will challenge my Hunters, and they do nothing
without me knowing,” Baucis said, annoyed with their irritating
questions and still angry at the masked opponent who bested his
vultus
earlier. He loathed the idea of sweet Mavis Talik
finding out about the ape. She'd be delighted in the sheer abandon
of the creature.

"We must see the experiment through for as
long as we are able. Do you propose that I let the predators run
free and the wild descend upon us?”

The council agreed to further the experiment.
It couldn't be stopped now anyway. Baucis would continue the
Hunters program.

The flood changed them. They are but a shadow of
what they once were. There used to be more than one could count,
more than one could see. They loved the plains but were so many
that the forests retreated and the earth paid them in stone. Some
animals are ghosts of what they once were... others have been
tainted black.

Urea's head reeled from all she had learned.
Were the legends true? Had Nature finally fashioned a warrior to
thwart its mistake? Was that all mankind really was in her eyes?
She knew her brother would only scoff at the contemplation; he’d
call her superstitious, but Urea was not so sure.

The young huntress had been to many of High
Priestess Ntelo's Spirit of Nature services. As one of Baucis's
most prestigious Hunters, she was expected to be a part of the
religion. Since the first time she synchronized with a
howluchin,
Baucis had expected her to attend the religious
congregations with poise and grace. The High Priestess and
ecologist didn't require any of their other Shepherds to attend
ever service, but her and Skup faced dire punishment if they
missed. They were too important, Ntelo would say. There were
fanatics who worshiped the two's ability to work through the
Evanimals, they were expected to be present for their sake. When
guilt didn't work, Baucis used coercion to force their hand. He
said he expected a lot from his most privileged pilots. Of this,
she was certain: no one was more highly privileged than the black
haired twins.

Urea wasn't sure if Baucis truly believed in
the Spirit of Earth or Natural Order. She could never believe
wholeheartedly. She thought too much. She didn't see how Baucis,
the most brilliant person she had ever met, could have
unquestioning faith.

The religion was a paradox. It preached
non-interference with Nature and of returning to simpler times and
leaving the Earth's processes to themselves yet Naturalists were
the largest consumers of the Garden's crops. They paid handsomely
for the tender vegetables and traded hours of labor for a miniscule
cuts of meat. A single
biselk
could be sold to thousands of
people, each getting no more than a single morsel. In her more
cynical moods Urea thought it was beneficial that there was some
sort of incentive in Spire City. Without fresh food from the
Garden, people might not work at all.

The Hunt was the cornerstone of the entire
religion, but it seemed more paradoxical than anything else. Ntelo
championed it as Nature's most sacred spectacle, despite the fact
that it was viewed through a Virtual Reality Chip that was
implanted in the brain of an animal, its vision and hearing
broadcast back into hundreds more VRCS, a blasphemous mix of
Natural and technological worship. Ntelo touted it as Nature's
Sculpture and charted the rapid changes and impressive adaptations
zealously. She spoke of the siblings often, always with their
titles, prince and princess, but she had to, without them, there
were no Hunters. But when she did speak of them she shrouded their
role in mysticism and prophecy.

Urea often had trouble deciphering all the
High Priestess said. She knew humans made fundamental interaction
with the Natural world, yet any human action could be defined as
artificial, so they could never be truly natural anyway. If
anything, the forces the Naturalists worshiped alluded to a
balance, a sacred order to be sought. But it did not exclude
technology like they preached, nor beseech machines as inherently
dangerous.

The Garden operated under the same principle.
Urea loved the fresh fruits and vegetables more than anyone, but
she knew that the irrigation channels were plowed and dammed as
necessary by the
biselk
.
Howluchin
s carefully tended
the plants. The entire food operation was anything but Natural, yet
the Naturalists worshiped it as if it was. It seemed to matter to
very few that there were humans controlling the predators, the
prey, the plants, everything.

Some people, religious extremists, talked of
the paradox and prophesied its demise. Ntelo spoke of them as
devils and heretics who'd been cooped up in the clouds too long and
longed for their own deaths. Urea wondered if these were the same
fanatics that were placated by her own presence at the service
every week.

Ntelo wasn't innocent of fear mongering
either. The High Priestess’s sermons often railed against the
injustices her species had wrought against the Nature's innocent
plants and animals.

Pollution, destruction of forests, and the
eradication of thousands of species were all sins for which mankind
had and would continue to pay.

“Man grew bold and careless. He expected the
earth to purify his actions and absolve his sins. But even this
could have been forgiven,” the Priestess would shout to an
auditorium full of the sinners’ grandchildren and great grand
children. “But man went too far. Irritated with Nature's cycles of
decay and renewal, reminders of mortality, man created something
better.

“Carbon, the building block of life itself
was perverted into tubes, textiles, buildings and machines. Nothing
could destroy them, not the ocean, not the wind, not even the sun.
Mankind was becoming buried in its own waste and then...”

The Scourge. Urea still didn't fully
understand the puzzling, invisible force that had brought an end to
the age of man in a matter of weeks. Urea knew Ntelo was at least
partially correct about the broad strokes of the past. She had
watched recordings on her VRC. Sure enough, the surface used to be
covered in buildings, automobiles that trundled along the surface
or flew through the air. There were a million different things to
do. Musical instruments, pools of water, casinos right on the
surface.

It was impossible to say for certain if
mankind, inevitability, or the vengeance of a planetary force
created the Scourge. Regardless, one day, civilization began to
melt. Urea didn't know how else to describe what she saw. There
were hundreds of digital recordings of people finding their roof
simply gone, or their automobile half submerged in a puddle that
matched its color exactly. Without its tools, humanity crumbled.
Millions died of starvation, those with enough food to survive were
wiped out by infectious diseases or cancer, (a disease Ntelo called
Nature's Proof). No one truly knew what happened to the surface
once broadcast technology was lost. Without the planetary receivers
the satellite grid was useless. Spire City became isolated,
solitary survivors of a horrific end. No one even knew if the
Scourge made it to the other continents.

Thankfully Spire City protected itself and
all inside, human occupants and computer records included. Ntelo’s
predecessor preached that the citizens of Spire City had spared
their descendents Nature's wrath by trying to live in harmony with
the planetary force. The Spire was elevated high above the surface,
and harnessed the heat and the electromagnetic force created by the
earth's spinning molten iron core. The Spire utilized this energy
to power every device inside, heat its own carbon surface hot
enough to keep out the Scourge, and eventually control the
Evanimals. Their ancestors had literally been
off
of the
earth, and survived.

But Ntelo's sermons weren’t so positive. She
was quick to point out the Spire was little more than a resort
thrust high into the sky. Like the games that people used to play
in the Spire, chance favored the few and ruined the rest. No one
had gone to the Spire to give the earth a rest or even avoid the
Scourge. Ntelo preached that Nature would come back and finish the
job. She'd say that Nature was merely biding her time, sculpting
another demon to destroy her mistake. Ntelo called the thing the
Wild Man
, and it sounded an awful lot like the ape that had
killed Baucis's
biselk
and maimed her brother's
vultus
. The Priestess was convinced some people had survived
in another form on the earth, and were waiting for the perfect
moment to bring down the sinful Spire Casino.

Baucis went along with anything that Ntelo
said, but he would writhe and squirm as much as anyone when she
preached of the end times. The religion gave him unlimited
opportunity to exercise his Evanimal program, his grand symphony.
Urea doubted he liked Ntelo speaking of things beyond his control,
but he went along with it, and expected everyone in the Evanimal
program to do the same.

It was impossible for those who knew the way
of their world to believe in the religion they were a part of.

Urea had long felt uncomfortable during
Ntelo's doom and gloom prophecies. Ntelo had explained those
stories as socializing forces veiled in superstition. She
had
to
use her power as a religious icon to help control the last
of humanity. Those dim enough to believe someone else's words above
their own knowledge probably needed to be controlled, the Priestess
would say. If they would do another's bidding without argument,
they deserved no better, Baucis would add.