Life on Mark II

Raven's riverside story

Chapter 7

Commander Raven

After the attack the camp was suspiciously unharmed. The structures only had a few fallen boards that hadn't been nailed in correctly, the cots were askew but  intact, and none of the communication instruments were damaged. There were, however loud voices coming through the communications array that nearly burst the speakers. The commanders immediately donned the headphones and began explaining the situation to the frantic scientists on the other end. The rest gathered their equipment and got into their groups. One hour later they were off to complete and begin tests and experiments. 

Commander Raven was leading her group back to the river to conduct the test on the fish. They had a camera that worked by being harmlessly implanted in the brain and observed its various electrical signals and recorded them. Not only that but it could also connect wirelessly to a camera and screen that allowed you to see through it's eyes. It was Raven's personal invention. 

As they approached the clear flowing water they saw an amazing sight. The fish they had come to observe were lined up in rows upon rows, stacked at least 5 high. They were completely still and building what looked like a dam with their bodies. The water was flowing over the banks. Far up river there were a pack of animals drinking from the high waters. Where the river flooded over there were the smaller ones of the species drinking. 

"Everybody," Raven called to her group "take notes on this. Measure the water height in and on the banks of the river. Charlotta Franklin, Janet Reven, and Aditya Rashad. You are the quietest of the group so go upriver and take notes on the animals. Appearance, habits, and group number. I want a full report paper done when we get back to base this evening." Raven gave the signal to begin and off the pencils flew across the note pads. Charlotta, Janet, and Aditya were sneaking through the forest line, making less noise than a mouse. 

Raven was overseeing the whole operation and making observations both on the fish's behavior and that of her group. She saw concentrated faces and still fish bodies. The fish were locked in a tessellation pattern so still that they looked dead but occasionally one of them blinked one set of eyes. After an hour and a half the three girls returned and gave a brief overview of what happened.

"The animals were very big but they didn't look hostile." Began Aditya. "From a distance they were approximately two meters in height. They had a murky green color about their fur which was in a spiral grain going clockwise on the smaller ones and counter clockwise on the larger specimens." 

Janet stepped forward to continue the updates. "I believe that they have numbed senses. For example we tested their hearing and scent senses, the one closest to us didn't perk up at the noises of rustling branches until it was a meter from it's ear."

Now it was Charlotta's turn to present her information. "It seems to me that their only good sense is eyesight because they began to retreat when they saw a spec in the distance coming towards them. By the way it is still on it's way here but it had to be at least one hundred kilometers to the north. I believe it is the same kind of creature that charged the camp this morning. It is moving at about 20 kph and isn't slowing down. It will reach us in around-"

"-Fifteen minutes." Finished Raven. Her voice was very calm but concealing a pocket of annoyance. "It would've been helpful to know this first. We could have gotten an extra five minutes to get back to camp to have this discussion."

"Another thing we noticed that when the animals started leaving their fur changed color from pond green to the green of the forest and walked into the woods. This is most likely a camouflage defense mecha-" 

"Time for this later we need to get moving in case that bear-ostrich has sped up and spotted us."

With that they got moving, all the while wondering whether or not it was their footsteps making the ground shake. After a while of running they found that to their surprise they were only half as tired as they would have been on mark one. In their minds they filed this information away to study further. 

At the fifteen minute mark they were all to aware of the mini earthquakes that consistently grew in intensity. 

Looking back, Raven saw a mind boggling sight: on the back of the horrible beast, there was a human.