EPISODE ONE
"One forty-four is twelve times twelve," Kurt chanted, "one thirty-two is twelve times eleven; one twenty is twelve times...."
His knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel. He had taught himself to recite the times tables backwards when he was in grade six. Although society seemed to have little demand for this skill, he had discovered that it helped him focus in tense situations.
"...seventy-two is TWELVE TIMES SIX; SIXTY IS TWELVE TIMES FIVE; FORTY-TWO -- NO, FORTY-EIGHT -- "
His voice froze in his throat as the ground beneath him quivered. Another aftershock! Just his luck to be trapped on the switchback when the end came. The mountain could split open at any moment, swallowing the highway and everything on it.
"Forty-eight is twelve times four; thirty-six is twelve times three..."
He scanned the pavement in front of him, oblivious to the world-renowned beauty of the Clayoquot Plateau Park. No cracks. Not yet.
He stomped on the accelerator. The engine of his forest green Trekker roared impressively, but its rate of progress remained unchanged on the steep upward grade. As soon as he found a cheaper place to live, he was going to trade this useless toy in on something gutsy enough to tackle mountain roads!
A recreational vehicle appeared from behind the rocks ahead like a rectangular iceberg, listing to one side as it coasted around the tight curve, two wheels over the white line.
Kurt jerked his steering wheel to the right. Too late, he remembered that B.C. Highway Number 4 did not have the wide paved safety lanes of Saskatchewan: the gravelled shoulder was only eighteen inches wide. The right front wheel of his Trekker bounced off the pavement and into the low cement safety wall.
Kurt forgot all about earthquakes and times tables while he fought to wrench the car back onto the highway without ramming the oncoming RV. Miraculously, he managed to get all four wheels back on the pavement without scraping anything. He sucked in a long, deep breath of relief and looked into the rearview mirror to check on the progress of the departing RV.
"Damn this piece of junk, anyway!"
The back hatch of the Trekker had popped open. His tent and camp stove were strewn on the shoulder of the road, and his cooler had rolled half-way down into the steep ditch.
He braked, cursing the manufacturer of the door lock and himself for not getting it fixed last year. He eased the Trekker as far right as he could without sliding into the ditch and backed up carefully towards his lost possessions, praying that no traffic would appear behind him. Popping the hatch was a perfect conclusion to the vacation from hell.
Leaving the geologically stable province of Saskatchewan to seek his fortune on Vancouver Island had been the biggest mistake of his life. If he got off this switchback alive, he was going home. Being sucked into a tornado or choked by a dust cloud was negligible compared to the horror of being swallowed by the earth.
Being a management trainee with Homeworld Entertainment, Inc., in a provincial capital had sounded glamorous from two provinces away. As it turned out, he was no more than a glorified sales clerk on commission, and his lifestyle was considerably more straitened than he had been led to expect. Saskatoon was one of the cheapest places in Canada to live; Victoria was a hang-out for international tourists and retirees with healthy stock portfolios. He told everyone at home how lucky he was to be somewhere with green grass in December instead of blizzards, but that was only because he was embarrassed to admit that he had made a colossal error.
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Cyberkatz 1999
Science Fiction1999: Internet was new technology; virtual reality was in its infancy; phones were not as smart as they are today. While people worried about the transition to the next millennium, the world was quietly being taken over by ... cybernetic cats? K...
