Wolf 3.0

The Descent-A Wolf Story

It descends out of the sky, camouflaged in an artificial cloud.

Talleyrand, Cassandra, Joe, Rory are all huddled inside the transport, waiting to descend to the secret city on the surface of the Earth below.

For now, the transport is in wait mode in The Garage. The huge hovercraft is an ETV-Earth Transport Vehicle ("The Arc") – old, battered, biblical title, a mass troop transport vehicle for either wolf and/or human use, transferred from Earth use to its current deployment as a massive ferry– flex rigging, en-masse hard sections, the name in huge letters on the side. In its Earth deployment it was used for the original evacuation of the entire Hand of Time's project technology group ( Joe's team, support staff, and the artificial environment project materiel – the 368 original Wolf 2.0 experimental subjects. .

They are at Gate 1, the multi-section ports to outer space and to the core, used only by The Arc.Hub Stations – multifunctional, for landings by the Arc, the crippled local-to-Earth plague project ( both for the original disastrous experiment and for the massive rescue effort from its effect, as is well known. )

Famine, plague, and landscape climate change have caused massive wars on earth and consequently a large part of the destruction. In many of them, the Hand of Time has worked for both sides and acted as something of a secret government. Its other experiments have resulted in short-lived mutant creatures roaming the landscape. Also second selves and potential ones called "drafts".

There is a massive area on Earth for production animal distribution of altered wolves, kept in a large pen next to the communications facility. Brain scanning is part of this technology. Each hub facility has a separate live relay to the shaman home planet. In between story item flashback: How the Second Black Plague experiment went wrong and how quickly it happened. Comparison to the Nazi medical experiments but with animals. Pain is tolerated and disregarded.

This is where Yearling is and she is lost. What she sees are buildings, vast poisonous toxic areas, people marked up. She is working to get back to her tribe on the satellite.. There are no humans for vast distances. It has been subcontracted to the 3.0 wolves who are like bomb dogs. There are ungoverned- ungovernable humans living out here. They are being bred for immunity too-in families

The call comes for expedition to Earth, gathering the wolf pack for initial orientation. What do the wolves do? Some in the bridge are activating the download, others are doing training-work efforts. The alarm is going off on something routine . A new batch of wolf-dogs are gathered in the auditorium. Cassandra is telepathing visions and simulations onto screen and the messages go out as far as how to organize the search: th live visits and interviews and assignments to teams. Other shuttles of new wolf batches just graduated from Moon 2. Yearling is swept in even though she is new

Now comes the descent to Earth and the landing. The arc is descending into a city but it is no city its original inhabitants have died or fled. There are scenes of chaos and violence – body bags, the wolf team rescues There are no transmissions, they have been blacked out.. There are wars between the various areas.

Somewhere out there Yearling bolts out after an independent rescue and gets lost in a wasteland/ungoverned area. The searchers go into the area where where they got the last signal from yearling after she got lost. She is in the other ungoverned areas when they find her, among a whole pack of abandoned wolves whose in-brain steerage-systems have gone. There are some abandoned "second selves". Talleyrand spins one off and becomes it. The rescuers send out a desperate call for help and rescue which is not answered so the rescue team have to abandon the settlement. Yearling does not want to do the abandonment but the rest of her pack slams her unconscious, puts her in a container and slings her into the just-a-touchdown transport shuttle. The entire experience is wiped to minimum retention mode in their minds by the AI bot running the transport. Another botched rescue. This will be the last one. This marks the last days of the R&D remote development compound for the generation after, the Wolf 4.0 Restart Initiative.

Yearling and her rescue pack are just in time to meet the rest of the dispersed new wolf cohort. They get herded into the huge transport firing up into the atmosphere and back to Moon 2. They remember something of the rest of the trip before, but the last day is a blank screen. End of training expedition. 

The narrative language that surfaces in this part starting with the next chapter and through the end of the story, and at times takes over the entire discourse, is the language of an AI entity called Gaia .