Chapter 3

The next morning at breakfast, John, remembering his thoughts about the local wildlife said, "Sarah, you know we aren't on our world any more, right?"

"Yes, John, why?"

"Last night I was thinking. Both of us should at least wear a handgun, in case some wild animal attacks us. We should also have a rifle handy, just in case."

"John, is that really necessary? I mean, yes I know there are wild animals, but in most of our country they don't go near men."

"Sarah, listen. First we aren't near any evidence of man, so the animals might not have gotten afraid of humans yet. Second you know some animals never learn to be afraid of men. Wildlife management teams were always moving animals to a wilderness location that had wandered too close to a city. Please wear a gun."

"All right, John, if it will make you happy."

Sarah thought he was being overly cautious but seemed to have their welfare in mind, so she agreed to wear her 9mm Luger while John wore his Colt .45 automatic.

That settled, John went out to try and get the vehicles running so they could get out of there without walking. John went over to the Suburban and disconnected the trailer. He got in and tried to start it up. The motor caught right away, purring almost silently.

Driving around the field seemed to work fine, but the field was not smooth. Even taking it slowly John felt shaken and abused. He tried different speeds and used the four-wheel drive, but unless he kept it less than five miles per hour it was torture. This was not going to work, especially with the trailers.

While that was going on Sarah was putting things away in the camper. She soon started looking in some of the cupboards not used often. In the one under the seat in the dinette she found a couple of laptops and what looked like a printer and some kind of fancy antenna. She got one out set it on the counter and turned it on. Strangely when the user list page came up there were two names: Sarah, and John.

She chose her name and clicked to continue. There were several icons on her desktop but one real obvious one in slightly larger font and size said readme first. Since this may be a good idea, she clicked this.

The screen cleared, then in the center of the screen it said, 'Hello Sarah' followed on the next line with, 'Would you please get John?' This surprised Sarah. She went to flag him down and tell him about the computers.

John came in, not really believing what Sarah had told him. He stopped when he saw the laptops because they looked nothing like the small cheap one he'd used for looking stuff up in the field. The screens were significantly larger. The full size keyboard was detachable and it used a touch pad mouse on a little slide out.

John went over and tried to use Sarah's computer but nothing happened. Having no alternative he sat in front of the other computer and logged in as John. Sarah pointed out the readme first icon and John activated it after finding nothing else worked. His screen came up, saying, 'Welcome, John' followed by 'You need to take the antenna to the roof of the camper and plug it in.' 'Click NEXT when completed, ' it concluded, with 'NEXT' in a blinking bar.

John and Sarah made lunch, and ate it in silence.

"Ah, HELL, I might as well do it. What have we got to lose? Sarah, please watch what happens in here while I do that."

He got up on the roof of the camper using the built in ladder. When he started looking around he found a depression above the kitchen window that matched the base of the antenna. He placed the antenna in the depression, and it clicked in place. A few seconds later, the antenna started moving, and tracing the horizon. It went in several different vertical arcs. It finally settled down, pointing in some apparently random direction in the sky.

The computer screens had done nothing. After returning John clicked the blinking 'NEXT'. Immediately some kind of program initialized. It started with many lines of text flowing down his screen. The only phrase that John caught that looked abnormal was 'TRACKING SYSTEM INITIALIZED.'