Cruickshanks turned slowly and stared at him.
“Just what do you think you’re doing in this place?” he said slowly. “You imagine you’re going to find a cure for cancer or something? Not in here. Not if you can’t strap it to the front of a bomb and kill someone with it.” An unpleasant satisfaction had crept into his voice.
“The army are using us to further their aims, Hicks. I’ve got no problem using the army to further mine.”
He flopped down on his bed, stuck an MP3 player on his head and gave Jimmy a sarcastic grin.
“And they say you’re the smart one.”
-PART 2-
13.00 hours – 17.00 hours
Researchers inspecting the genetic code of rats, mice and humans were surprised to find they shared many identical chunks of apparently "junk" DNA…
But what the DNA does, and how, is a puzzle.
Genetic Pollution: The spread of altered genes from genetically engineered organisms to other, non-engineered organisms.
13.00
Two prospectors dropped Sherman off at the clearing in the forest and gave him one last warning about the bear.
“Grizzly come this far down the mountain in dead of winter can only mean one thing,” the younger digger said. “Gotta be starving.”
His older companion stared at the tree tops.
“Sure, t’ain’t no ordinary bear,” he said with a weary sigh that ruffled his moustache. “Tis too big and tis too smart. “Tis King of the bears, I’m thinking.”
“I don’t care if it’s Queen of the damned Fairies.” The younger prospector peered nervously into the thickening gloam as he unloaded Sherman’s provisions. “It’s getting dark and something’s sure spookin these horses.”
He climbed up to the comparative safety of his buckboard.
“You should come back with us, mister. You wouldn’t be the first stranger that critter has killed this winter.”
Sherman handed over the last of his money.
“Thanks but I’m actually looking for the bear,” he said.
“Well aint that a happy coincidink?” the youth sniffed. “I’d lay odds at Faro the damned bear gonna be looking for you too.”
13.30
Because it was the festive season there were no classes, so the children were working on their personal projects in the lab. All except Jimmy Hicks and Leslie, who were pretending to study but secretly setting up their escape. They sat side by side, heads close together, bent over the computer, whispering and laughing.
Simon was puzzling over the Machine, as always. He knelt reverently beside it staring at formulas in his notebook. Barn and Dave were battling it out on a PlayStation and judging by the steady stream of Glaswegian curses, Barn was winning. Cruickshank got off the bed and strolled over to Jimmy Hicks.
“Sorry about earlier, Hicksy.” he said, though he didn’t sound particularly sincere.
“Yeah,” Jimmy replied tersely. “Me too.”
“What you working on?”
“It’s a virtual simulation designed to test the ingenuity of any soldier placed in it, mainly by putting them in an unusual combat situation. Whoever uses this programme will only have access to antique weapons and I’m going to make their adversary a starving grizzly bear.”
“Nice.”
On the computer screen was a forest of pines, pristine snow stretching away between the trees. “Low temperature, thick forest, makeshift weapons,” Jimmy said proudly. “It’s as much a survival exercise as anything.”
Cruickshank was staring at the screen.
“Those woods look familiar. Where did you get the original images?” But before Hicks could answer the boy had already guessed.
“This is the area around Pinewood, isn’t it? With the buildings and the perimeter fence missing.”
Jimmy shrugged. “Can’t escape from a place like this unless you know the terrain back to front.”
“What’s that?” Cruickshank pointed to a crumbling ring of stones, with a sheet of corrugated iron over the top, half covered in snow.
“An old well◦– it’s in the wood not far from the back gate. I think there was a croft or a small farmhouse there before the army took the place over.” Jimmy zoomed in on the pile of stones. “It’s about twenty feet deep but they sealed the bottom with concrete.”
“In case enemy frogmen managed to swim here all the way from the North Sea?” Cruickshank asked scornfully.
“The army don’t like to take chances, I suppose.”
“Then they should never have let you in here.”
The boy gave a short laugh and went back to his bunk.
14.30
Whether it was royal or not, the King of the Bears seemed to have outsmarted Sherman.
The man had erected a rough lean-to of pine branches in the centre of a large clearing, hammered down the snow inside, then put his provisions on top of an oilcloth. He had carefully built a fire and edged as close to it as he could. He didn’t know what the temperatures dropped to here, but he was sure it was well below freezing.
He sat motionless for the next hour, watching flickering heat kink the air above the fire, an ancient Sharps rifle in one hand and a cup of bitter black coffee in the other. His eyes were never still, scanning the edge of the forest, looking for the deadly creature.
Even so, when the bear came, it arrived from nowhere.
Sherman had never seen a grizzly, except in pictures, and he didn’t know how fast they could move. But any predator would have to cross the 40 yard gap of the clearing without cover, no matter which direction it arrived from. That ought to give him time for a good shot.
And one shot was all he would get. He had a rusty Colt .45 tucked in his belt but he doubted a handgun, no matter how large, could bring down a charging grizzly. He’d purchased a couple of glass bottles, a small keg of blasting powder and some fuse wire in the hope of making some kind of primitive hand grenade, but he couldn’t figure out how to fashion a trigger.
That left the Sharps rifle, the purchase which had taken most of his money. It was a powerful and accurate gun for its time but could only be fired once. Then it had to be reloaded using a powder cartridge and a ball rammed into the muzzle with a rod. If he missed his target he doubted he’d have time to do all that before the creature reached him.
Sherman shook his head and sighed, crystalline fog puffing between his already cracked lips.
“Give me one simple Pierson automatic laser sighted pistol,” he muttered. “Bear would be in the happy hunting ground in ten seconds.”
He reached across and stoked the fire. When he looked back towards the trees a huge shape was half way across the gap and loping towards him, a powdered trail drifting behind like the wake of a destroyer.
Fighting rising panic, Sherman hefted the rifle to his shoulder, took careful aim at the great plunging head and fired. The dark mass crumpled into the snow with a grunt and slewed to a halt, its undignified collapse obscured by an explosion of sparkling white. One thin knobbed leg stuck straight into the air then slowly sank, glittering, back to earth.
Sherman already had his gloves off and the paper cartridge between his teeth when it registered what he was actually looking at. He may not have seen a bear in the flesh, but he knew they sure as hell didn’t have long knobbly legs. The creature lying in the snow gave a distressed lowing noise. Sherman was fairly certain that a Grizzly, even injured, wouldn’t sound as pathetic as that.