Chapter 4

With Kevin leading the group, the Lab Rats crept into the outer cave. While the girls examined the bones more closely, he put the obsidian tools in the storehouse. No sense in making it easy for the owner to object to the intrusion.

Patty and Marly decided none of the bones were humanoid, but couldn’t determine much more except one was a very huge femur, something had large teeth and another was blessed with long, sharp talons. Many small bones gave no clues as to origin.

“If these come from the same monster, we’re looking at a nightmare chimera from hell.” Kevin said. “This can’t be good.”

“Most are dusty, but the femur thing is relatively fresh. The one beast theory is not likely, however even if these come from different creatures, any of them would be formidable.” René insisted. “The talons could be from a bear, and the teeth from a lizard.”

“Might as well go collect some more food. Keep the weapons handy, ladies. We might need them.”

The area around the cave entrance was undisturbed. Closer to their arrival point, the story was different. Footprints, large and small, in the sand crisscrossed the path. “I wonder why none of them follow our prints to the cave. Any ideas?” Andrea asked no one in general.

“They seem to be following each other. Several of the big ones cover the small ones.” Marly noted. “Either they don’t smell us, don’t see us as food or don’t want to be bothered.”

“Our toolmaker may have made an impression on the local fauna.” René suggested, “But whoever he or she is, they did not make it home. Perhaps they became something’s prey?”

“Check out the tracks. Big paws, small paws, and lots of claws. That looks like a huge lizard, that one is a bear, those are hoofs.” Kevin observed, pointing to each example. “That could be an elephant.”

“It’s getting dark, guys, and I’m feeling a little exposed here and it isn’t about the previously frozen tits. The enhancement made me more tolerant of the cool temperature so it doesn’t seem cold, but animals can see us even if we can’t see them.” René again was the first to make reference to their nakedness. “Patty, can you help us find something edible?”

“Easy. We’re immune to toxins, remember? There’re greens enough to make a good salad. Some of the plants look like carrots and potatoes. I have vitamins in the closet so we can survive for a while. Let’s gather and let Kevin stand guard.”

“Stay together, girls. Keep your eyes and ears open.” He went on alert.

René wove more baskets and the girls filled them up with an assortment of ‘lettuce’ and vegetables. All five got back to the inner cave without incident even though newer tracks were discovered.

Inside, the girls began to make a ‘kitchen’ area in Patty’s office, stocking it with hotplates, a small microwave, an autoclave, Bunsen burners and borosilicate labware.

Marly shooed Kevin away. “You, my handsome caveman, be a guy and play with the stuff in the evaluator. We women folk have the kitchen under control.”

“What’s with the ‘women folk’ comment?”

“Nothing that concerns you yet. Now go learn how the stuff works. Make yourself useful.”

“Can I borrow Patty long enough to set perimeter surveillance? She must have lots of video cameras around here. I had two in my lab, with recorders and monitors.”

Patty showed up shortly and the two collected a wireless camera, power pack, tripod and night vision kit. Kevin set the assembly just inside the cave door while Patty tuned the image on one of her screens. René covered Kev with a particle beam rifle from the inner door.

The girls agreed that having a look at the night lurkers was a good thing. “If something steals the tripod, we can track the thief back to the lair.” Andrea said with a frown, “Once we see it, we might decide to leave it alone.”

Once everything was set and working properly, the girls resumed preparation for dinner while Kevin explored the replicator. It turned out to be quite simple in operation. The replication chamber measured approximately five feet long, three feet deep and three feet tall once the outer shell was unfolded and locked into place. Legs extended from the bottom, putting the base of the enclosure waist high.

A quite large hopper, having its own supporting legs, attached to an input port at the back. An adapter wired into the nearest standard electric outlet supplied power.

The replicator could exactly duplicate anything placed in the enclosure if the raw materials were in the hopper. Things in the hopper were reduced to their simplest elemental parts as soon as the lid was closed. Wood became carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and a collection of trace elements, supplying the basics to make almost any food or fiber.

Anything you could scan could be replicated. The item automatically went into the memory. The LED screen had a series of menus detailing hundreds of preprogrammed items. Shoes, cheeseburgers, hats, Glock 25s, claw hammers, dishes, if you had the basic elements, the machine had the template. Cheeseburgers and Glocks? Whoever set this replicator up was clearly a contemporary or someone familiar with the early Twenty-First Century.

That thought was comforting and disquieting at the same time.

Another function allowed the operator to make an item if it could be described visually and mathematically enough for the mechanism to get started. Failures could be recycled until the designer got it right. The screen displayed a warning if a dangerous combination was entered on the keyboard.

Kevin heard the girls discussing which Petri dishes could be used for dinnerware and decided to make a set of plates, bowls and glasses. He wandered through the rooms until he located cases of test tubes and beakers. Perfect. He carried one case each, recording the numbers before he dumped them, packaging and all, into the hopper. Clear Pyrex® plates would look nice. Maybe he could synthesize a dining room set? Early American, Danish Modern or Ikea Simple? The choice would depend on available elements. With all the wood, Mission would be quickest to fabricate.

Kevin noted in his exploration of the warehouse box after box of clothes. Lab coats, surgical scrubs, rubber shoes in all sizes. Surely Patty and the others were aware of this. Yet none of them ‘remembered’. Was the nakedness willfully deliberate? Was the forced exposure exciting on some level? It was to him as his erection attested. Something had to be done and soon or he would explode.

For distraction, he concentrated on replicating the dinner service. Choosing a simple blue transparent template, Kevin quickly produced six sets, plus serving bowls. Now for the silverware, he needed some metals.

“Patty, do you have any spare shelving or machine shop supplies in the house?” He called out. “I want to see what I can make.”

“Sure. Look in the last room on the left, near the bulk acids. While you’re there bring some thermal gloves. The cooking vessels are hot.” She failed to mention the clothing stored next to the gloves. He noticed her failure.

He collected the gloves and several pounds of steel and aluminum stock. The girls got the gloves; the hopper got the metals. He traded the gloves for the kitchen scraps and expired food in the little refrigerator, intending to make his own dish for the impromptu meal.

Again, the machine quickly produced what he entered. Forks, knives and spoons were soon stacked by the glassware. Next come the cheeseburgers!

The replicator beeped. ‘Calcium needed to proceed’ appeared on the screen. “Make another selection or supply input’.

“René. Get a rifle and cover me. I want the bones in the outer cave.”

She got the weapon and waited at the open door when he slipped out for the calcium source. Kevin had a laser pistol. No one asked why he wanted the bones. Marly and Patty watched the monitor. Andrea stood behind René with a pistol also.

As he approached the pile, there was a loud noise at the opening. A charging alligator-ish thing was looking for an easy meal. Kevin and René shot the rather large lizard at the same time. She stunned it. Kevin cut its head off. Fortunately, the laser cauterized the meat and no blood spilled onto the floor.

“Holy Crap! Check those teeth! What the hell is a crocodile doing here?” Andrea squealed. “This is too far north and nowhere near Florida.”

“Word on the street is that they are fast, mean and travel in loose packs. They aren’t real social and get a lot bigger than this.” Patty said, “We might want to get it away from the door before its friends or worse notice the carcass. The Alpha dude is most certainly bigger than this guy.”

“This one is replicator fodder. Maybe we can make a nice sirloin roast for supper.” Kevin suggested as he laser-butchered the beast into manageable pieces. 10 feet of reptile made a lot of slices. “All we need is the raw materials. The machine can do the rest.”

He guarded the entrance with a beam rifle set on ‘make it disappear’ while the ladies schlepped the croc bits to the hopper. No one had read them in on the operation of the device, so they dared not load it up. Careless scientists seldom collect retirement benefits. Not that there was any place to apply, but living long enough to qualify appealed to the girls.

The girls went back to making dinner. Kevin set the dishes aside, loaded the croc carcass and called up the food menus. The filet mignon looked extremely tasty, medium rare with portobello mushrooms and grilled Vidalia onions on the side seemed the way to go. It was readied in minutes, steaming hot and juicy.