Fiction Friday - Dormant Gods
I haven’t done fiction on the Substack in a while, but I was thinking a lot about AI this week and had an idea I wanted to explore.
Let me know what you think and if you want to see me develop this more!
When the arrow finally left his bow, Trig had been holed up in the blind for nearly 7 hours.
He’d been staking out the feeding ground for days. It was nestled in a copse of black oaks, just south of some of the old ruins. The acorns that dropped in the fall made a plentiful and tantalizing snack for the local wildlife, and he’d seen any number of deer stop to feast on their way back to their beds.
But nothing like this one.
The white tail buck he’d sighted must have had ten points on its gnarled antlers. It was positively majestic. But most importantly of all, it was large. There was enough meat on this one to feed a dozen people for days. If it was butchered carefully, he guessed he could get nearly 70 pounds off the carcass.
He exhaled, centered his shot, and released.
His arrow was true. The broadhead struck the big animal just behind the shoulder crease, sinking deep into the vital organs beneath. The buck was already dead, it just didn’t know it yet. Powerful muscles contracted in a desperate rush of adrenaline, and the deer leapt forward at a full gallop. Trig’s body was stiff from lying still for so long in the chilly air, but he wasn’t in any hurry. With a rustle of leaves he was on his feet, stretching his back and windmilling his arms before pulling each knee, one after the other, to his chest as he balanced on the opposite foot. He spotted the blood trail, and began to follow it at a measured pace, giving his prey the chance to succumb to its wounds before it got any ideas about goring him.
The thicket of trees was dense, the foliage of the canopy pressed closely enough together to keep most of the sunlight out. The trees were stout, bigger around than his arms could encircle, and the kind of sturdiness that oaks exuded. Trig guessed they were at least 200 years old, as he ran his hand down the rough bark of a particularly hefty trunk and stepped over its raised roots. He moved silently, in the way generations of hunters from his tribe learned to do, deftly avoiding twigs and branches, the soft footfalls of his moccasin-clad feet too muted to give away his presence. But animals had good ears — far better than humans did — and the underbrush was thick enough that he couldn’t see more than a few paces ahead. He had another arrow knocked and ready, just in case he got any surprises.
As he moved deeper into the woods, he heard the beast thrashing and wheezing, its lungs too filled with blood to breathe. It wouldn’t be long now. Lung shots were a painful but mercifully quick way to die. Trig followed the sound until he sighted the downed animal. The buck spasmed and kicked as he approached, in a last desperate attempt to fight off whatever unseen force was causing it this inexplicable pain. Its frantic movements became more and more subtle, as dangerous flailing softened to mere twitches. Trig pulled the knife from his belt holster and approached the dying animal in a slow crouch. He didn’t know how much fire the buck had left in him, and he didn’t want to get the business end of either his antlers or his hooves.
The deer was mostly still now, a bloody froth foaming from its mouth. Its visible eye was wide, panicked, as it saw its killer draw closer, but the buck had no more fight left in him. Trig reached down slowly at first, and then, with one quick moment, severed the animal’s carotid artery with the razor sharp blade of the knife. A fountain of crimson spurted, then dribbled down the brown fur and into the rich soil. The animal stopped fighting and lowered its head for the last time.
Trig was about to say the sacred words of his people, to thank the animal for giving its life to sustain their own, when he heard a sickening crack. Then the ground bowed deeply, bounced, and there was another crack.
And then the forest floor gave out beneath him.
Before he could process what was happening, Trig was falling through a noise like distant thunder, as centuries of leaves and sticks and soil and rocks engulfed him in a torrent of debris. A large stone hit the side of his head, the jolt running down his spine painfully, and he felt his consciousness retract to a fine point before broadening again. He became vaguely aware that he no longer had hold of his knife. He was enveloped in darkness, choking on dust and loose soil, and he could see absolutely nothing. His descent stopped when he hit something hard and flat, the impact sending another shock through his bones and twisting his knee painfully. Just then the full weight of the buck landed on top of him, and the air went out of him in a grunt. As he collapsed, he felt a searing pain when the antlers raked a gash across his back. His chest spasmed as he gasped for air, trying not to choke on the thick haze of still-falling debris. He coughed and gagged, the dirt grating in his throat, until he retched, which brought surprising relief as it cleared his throat of the detritus that had been choking him.
The noise subsided, and with it, the shower of organic missiles that had been pelting him as he tried to catch his breath. He saw rays of light from the forest above shining through a thick cloud of dust, the opening he had fallen through framed as a single bright light above a subterranean space entirely shrouded in inky darkness.
He was gasping, panting for breath. Everything hurt, but the throb in his head particularly concerned him. He couldn’t afford to be waylaid by an injury. He had to find a way out.
Trig placed his palms on the pile of debris beneath him and pushed. Strong arms conditioned by hunting, sparring, and other work thrust his body back, rolling the deer carcass off him. Carefully, putting his weight on his good knee, he forced himself up and onto his feet.
And that was when he passed out.
He awoke to the feeling of water tickling his face. He blinked grime-caked eyes open, and saw that it was raining through the hole above. His head didn’t feel any better, his knee was swollen and throbbed with pain, and his back felt like the worst sunburn he’d ever had. He could feel his tunic sticking to the injury, and new pain blossomed as he shifted his position and the clotted blood on the fabric tore at the wound. His mouth was so dry he could barely swallow, so he opened it and tipped his head back, hoping to catch the water falling from above. After a while, he felt a small puddle of moisture forming beneath his tongue. He savored it, moving it slowly around his mouth before swallowing. It did not quench his thirst, but it helped his mouth not to feel as though it was filled with sand.
He could see nothing of his surroundings, but as he coughed and groaned, attempting once more to get to his feet, his voice echoed off unseen walls. Was it a cavern of some sort? Without light, there was no way to be sure. The rain clouds above the hole were dark, but the cast and color of the sky told him that the dim light was not just a result of the clouds. Nightfall was coming, and the opening was too high up for him to have any reasonable hope of climbing out. He needed to see the terrain of the cave, see if there was any way of getting up to higher ground, even if he had to dig his way out. Which also meant he was going to need something to dig with.
He tested the knee. It hurt like hell, and he could’’t put much weight on it, but he didn’t think anything was broken. Probably a sprain. Far from ideal, but he could work with it. The pain in his head and the slight dizziness he felt told him he probably had at least a mild concussion. Nothing to be done about it. He gingerly touched the side of his head, and felt a crusty mat of hair. He winced, sucking air through his teeth in a sharp breath. That rock had hit him hard.
He patted himself around the waist, looking for the leather pouch he kept fastened to his belt. He couldn’t see anything in the meager light from above, so he was forced to fumble his way through by feel, carefully, hoping to avoid the sharp edges of the extra broadhead tips he kept with him for making arrows. He was looking for his flint and striker. This set was one of Trig’s prize possessions. It consisted of a rod of matte, gray-black metal, forged by some unknown process in the before times, and was attached by a durable cord made from some unknown fabric to a flat steel tool etched with numbers and markings. The tool ended in a concave, serrated edge. When his fingers found the set, they immediately felt familiar in his hand. He had found a cache of these in an old warehouse several years back, and they had proven invaluable ever since. They worked far better than natural flint or a bow drill, especially in the rain.
He needed kindling. The debris pile from the cave in was just barely visible in the dim light, but he could see there were plenty of leaves and twigs and larger sticks there to work with, even if they were a bit damp now. He began to gather and arrange the makings of a fire, and he was pleased to discover that some larger chunks of an old fallen tree had made their way down as well. These were somewhat rotted and moist, but if he could get them lit, they would burn for longer than spindlier fodder that seemed most abundant in the pile.
He wasn’t sure if it was the injuries, the rain, or just the chilly evening air, but he was growing cold, and welcomed the idea of a roaring fire.
“You’re going to have to work for it, boy-o,” he muttered to himself with a sigh, and set about gathering materials to burn.
It had clearly been some kind of cave-in, perhaps triggered by the combined weight of his body and that of his prey. The pile was a jumble of rocks, soil, branches, and leaves, but it also had chunks of some kind of enameled metal in it that looked to have broken off from larger, thin sheets. The original paint appeared to have been white, but it was dirty now, and severely rust-eaten around the broken edges. Trig didn’t know what to make of that material being in the mix, but since it wasn’t immediately useful, he left that puzzle for another time.
Once he had gathered enough materials and arranged them properly, he removed the flint and striker from his pouch. He turned the flat piece of metal so that the serrated edge faced the rod, then, pressing them firmly (but not too firmly) together, pulled the striker tool down in a long, quick stroke, and quickly repeated the movement. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Sparks began to fly from the contact between the two metals, and before long, they lit a flame where they nestled within a tightly packed bundle of dry grass and leaves. The rest of the kindling caught, burned brighter, and spread the orange glow to the twigs with a crackle. Soon this moved to larger sticks, tented like a tee-pee above the now-engulfed nest of twigs. At last, the fire growing hungrily as it found its way to more food, it began licking tentatively at the burly, lichen-covered logs.
As the glow of the fire spread, Trig turned and scanned the debris pile for the buck carcass. He needed to get it dressed and hung to prevent the meat from spoiling, but first, he needed to carve off something to eat. He was so hungry he felt sick, the ordeal having sent his body through the destabilizing effects of shock, and he needed to recoup some of his strength.
At last, he located the animal, half-buried under dirt and leaves, two of its legs broken at awkward angles. His missing knife had buried itself deep in one of the buck’s back haunches during the cave-in, and Trig was struck with gratitude that the lost blade had found its way into the flesh of the dead deer rather than his own thigh.
His knife was made for gutting, not butchering, but in a pinch, any sharp blade would do. He carved a chunk out of the haunch where the knife had sunk in, a piece about the size of his fist, and carefully removed the hide. He whittled a stick to a sharp point, then pierced the animal flesh until the point of the stick began to break through, and held it over the fire. Not the most efficient way to cook, but better than going hungry. The meat sizzled and popped over the flames, and as the wetter logs began burning in earnest, a thick smoke rose above the pyre. He collected his thoughts as he turned the meat. He was going to have to make camp here tonight, and hope that the morning light would reveal more of his surroundings. If he could find enough materials to assemble a rudimentary torch, he could explore more of the cave, but the question was what to use and where to find it. If he had a pan, he could render fat from the carcass, but he had left his pack in the blind, and was stuck here empty handed. He also had no spare cloth with which to wrap a stout stick, even if he could find one, to soak in the fat and serve as a flammable fuel source.
He was going to have to keep searching after he ate.
The venison was plain, without salt or any seasoning, but he was so hungry that he didn’t care. He tore into the meat, tossing it from hand to hand as it burned his fingers, tearing off chunks with his teeth and breathing through the hot meat to cool it as it singed his tongue. If he was being honest, food had never tasted better. It was a good thing he’d managed to make the kill before the cave-in. The juice from the meat ran down his parched throat and soothed it. He still needed a better source of water, but he’d take every drop of useable liquid he could get.
“Take what blessings you can,” he said, echoing something his mother said. He wondered, suddenly, if she was back at the camp, worrying over him. She tended to do that a lot. This just happened to be the first time in quite a while she had a good reason to.
Feeling somewhat rejuvenated by the food, he limped over to the pile and found more pieces of rotted log, and hauled them over to the fire. It was always easier to get subsequent wet logs to burn once you got the first one going. The fire was now billowing smoke, but the cave had a high enough ceiling that he found he did not have to worry about choking on it. He had no idea what kind of creatures might lurk in this cave, but the more fire and smoke, the better. With any luck, it would drive off any large predators before they got any ideas.
“ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD DETECTED.” A loud voice boomed, echoing through the cavern. “FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEMS ACTIVATED.”
Trig staggered back, startled by the sudden loud noise. He tripped and fell to one knee. Unfortunately, the knee he had landed on was the bad one, and it sent an agonizing shock of pain through his body.
Red lights flared to life around the cavern, spinning in place, accompanied by an ear-piercing noise unlike anything he had ever heard. Then, with a series of loud metal clanks, more lights turned on. They filled the space, bright white and overpowering. If he had not been staring into the flames for the past half hour, they would have been blinding. Trig had seen the not-fire lights before — not the spinning red ones, but the white ones. He had only encountered them a few times, and none had been like this.
There had been the broken one shaped like a large mushroom, which sat upon a piece of wooden furniture next to an old moss-covered bed he’d seen in some ruins they’d scavenged on his first hunt. And then there had been the little stick-shaped one old Clem kept strapped to his tool belt, which actually worked as long as it had some time to sit out in the sun first. There had also been that time when Jeremiah, the old relic man, had made one of his rare visits to camp. He’d had several lights in different shapes and sizes, one of which had appeared to be a larger version of the kind Clem had. It was black and shiny, and had a big clear lens at one end. Trig had wanted to buy it very badly, but not only had he not had enough chips, the damn thing hadn’t even worked when he’d pressed the button to turn it on. Jeremiah said it would work, if Trig ever came across a thing called a “battery.” The old merchant had taken a drawing stick — really just a regular stick cleverly whittled down like a hand-held spear, with a tip blackened by being set for a spell in the fire — and had drawn the shape on a scrap of parchment. It was a cylinder, with a little bump at the top.
“They’re rare as hell,” Jeremiah had said, “and most of ‘em don’t work anyway.”
“Is there any way to tell?” Trig had asked. He’d never seen one, but he bet he could find one if he kept on the lookout.
“Well,” Jeremiah had answered tentatively, pulling thoughtfully on his scraggly beard, “You can usually tell they’re no good if they look like sap is bubbling out of them.”
“Sap?” Trig had asked.
“Foamy. White, sometimes green, powdery stuff. Leaks out from the inside. Batteries are containers that store spirits. Those spirits fighting to get out creates energy, and that energy is transferred when the battery touches something metal. Like those little blue sparks your wool blankets give off when you shake them out in the winter time. But not even the old magic can store spirits forever.”
“When the spirits successfully free themselves, they leave a trail behind. Some say it’s their blood. Some say it’s from their magic. Nobody really knows for sure. All we know is that if it gets wet, it’ll burn your skin, your clothes…I’ve even seen it burn through a buckskin apron. So be careful. And if you see that, it means the spirit is gone, and the battery won’t work.”
Trig was pulled from the memory as a new sound began from above. Shielding his eyes with his hands against the bright lights, he could just barely make out several circular openings on the ceiling. With a loud hiss, a strange, foamy substance had begun pouring out of them, and was falling like wet snow to the floor. The foam thickened and spread, and it had an odd smell that made Trig’s nose itch. He didn’t know what it was, but he could tell it wasn’t natural. He scrambled to the top of the debris pile, his knee screaming in pain as he climbed the uneven surface. The foam was like a waterfall now, and it rapidly began to accumulate on the floor, rising to waist-level in mere seconds, and instantly choking out his fire.
He looked around frantically, trying to understand what was happening. Under the glare of the new lights, he could see that he was not inside a cavern, but a large room. The walls were flat, and white, and perfectly straight, and they met the floor in perfect right angles. The debris pile looked small in the vast expanse of gray, perfectly smooth floor. He had never seen a space this large, and so well preserved. This must have been part of the complex of ruins within the forest above. A previously undiscovered vault under the surface of his chosen hunting grounds.
“ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD ELIMINATED,” the voice said. It was vaguely feminine, but far too loud to have come from a real person. Trig did not understand who could have made such a declaration, or how they had gotten down here in the first place.
He instinctually reached for his bow, only to realize that it was no longer slung over his shoulder where he usually kept it. Only his quiver remained secured in place. He must have lost the weapon during the cave in. Clearly, his injuries had distracted him, and he had not yet taken full stock of his situation. Silently, he chided himself for his carelessness. He was a senior hunter for his tribe. He should have been prepared.
“Who are you?” he called out. “Show yourself! What do you want with me?” He scanned the large room nervously, looking for the source of the voice.
“UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL DETECTED,” the voice blared. “INITIATING PROTOCOL ZETA-FOUR-SEVEN.”
The spinning red lights proliferated, accompanied by a loud, horrible sound Trig had never heard before. Like the wailing of some great beast. He had been to many ruins, had seen some of the technological artifacts left behind by the people of the Before Times, but this was something else entirely. He held his knife tightly in his hand and did his best to balance his weight, despite the bad knee. Carefully, he scanned the room once again, looking for the source of the voice.
Two doors set into the walls on the far side slid open, revealing machines in the shape of human beings. They had white torsos and limbs, and their heads were a black, reflective substance that could have been glass, or maybe plastic. He had encountered both materials in excursions over the years, and he had heard in stories from the elders about a race of machine beings called “robots,” that looked a little like humans, but were not actually alive at all. No blood, no organs, just parts and metal and plastic and more of that mysterious energy. He watched as they walked swiftly out of their chambers, their movements stiff but precise, hauling long tubes that trailed behind them. As they walked, they sprayed something over the foam that had now settled across at least half the room, and was slowly spreading to whatever uncovered bits of floor remained.
As the liquid hit the foam, it collapsed, the large tufts of white bubbles reducing to what looked like regular water, which ran down a gentle slope and disappeared into drain holes in the floor.
More doors opened in the walls, this time more than half way up the distance to the ceiling, and a new kind of machine emerged. This kind reminded him of dragonflies, if dragonflies were the size of eagles, and they floated into the room on circular wings that did not flap, a high-pitched insectile buzz growing in his ears as they moved in his direction. More lights flared on from the dragonfly-things, and they began sweeping the room. Trig was frozen in place. He was too injured to run, he could not escape through the roof, and he had no place to hide. Keeping his movements to a minimum, as he did whenever he encountered a dangerous predator, he began frantically to search the pile for his bow.
On his third visual pass over the pile, he saw it: the tip of the bow was jutting out just a few inches from beneath the debris, and it was only a handful of paces from where he was standing. Slowly, carefully, he began to move in its direction. The dragonfly things were still on the far side of the long room, and their searchlights were roving the floor in an organized pattern. If he played this right, he might be able to extract the bow before they got to him. At least he would have a fighting chance.
He hoped.
Fighting back the urge to cry out from the pain, he crawled across the pile. One pace. Two paces. Amidst his rising panic, the pace felt excruciatingly slow. The dragonfly-things were getting closer. They were methodical, but they moved quickly. At last, he arrived at the spot where he had lost his weapon. He grabbed the piece of curved wood that was peeking out from the mess of dirt and rock, and pulled straight up. It was buried deep, the earth packed in around it, and at first it resisted his efforts. He pushed and pulled at it, wiggling it loose, willing it to arise from where it lay buried so he could defend himself.
At last, it came free, but it did so so suddenly and unexpectedly that he tumbled back, onto his back, his knee protesting painfully at the sudden movement and the wound on his back flaring back to bright, hot agony. The dragonfly things definitely noticed that movement, and they abandoned their search pattern and began quickly moving his way. He reached back and pulled an arrow from his quiver. It was broken, snapped in two, the halves held together in the middle by a few fibers that remained connected in a fan of splinters. He tossed it aside and grabbed for another, and this one appeared, at least, to be intact. He had fallen on his rear end, and it was an awkward firing position, but he was good with a bow — better than most — and he nocked the arrow and drew in one quick motion.
Release.
With a small whoosh, the arrow left his bow, the fletching sending it into a tight spin as it arced toward its target.
Trig had once hit a sparrow in flight at a hundred paces. This was an easier shot, with much less distance, despite being very nearly on his back. The arrow struck one of the circular wings — which reminded him more of ears, the longer he looked at them — and there was a spark and a horrible wrenching sound and the dragonfly thing spun violently and smashed into a far wall, dropping to the floor in a shower of broken bits.
The remaining dragonfly-thing had by now zeroed in on his position, and the insect-buzz rose in pitch to a terrifying whine as the front of the thing dipped down and it sped forward to close the distance at an astonishing rate of speed. From the door in the wall where the now-ruined dragonfly-thing had emerged, another just like it flew out. He didn’t have enough arrows for…
Something that felt like a bee sting burned in his chest. Then a new sensation, unlike any he had ever felt, coursed through his body. A pulsing energy that caused his jaw to clamp shut, his muscles to spasm, and he fell back the rest of the way, his body convulsing painfully on the pile, his injuries flaring with every jerk of his limbs. The experience lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough. Both dragonfly-things now hovered above him, their bright lights shining in his eyes. He glanced down and noticed two bright red dots on his chest, and beside them, a small metal cylinder with a sharp needle protruding from it buried in his tunic. The loud voice came again:
“PROTOCOL ZETA-FOUR-SEVEN. INTRUDER NEUTRALIZED. INITIATING DETENTION PROCEDURE.”
“Who are you? What are you doing to me?” He tried to yell, but his voice came out more like a hoarse cough.
“CEASE HOSTILITIES. FURTHER RESISTANCE WILL RESULT IN ESCALATION TO LETHAL MEASURES.”
Trig wasn’t sure what all of those words meant, even the ones he’d heard before. But he knew he didn’t like the sound of them, and he had the distinct impression that things were going to go from bad to worse if he kept fighting. But what would happen to him if he didn’t?
He noticed that the foam-cleaning machines had finished their work. They dropped their tubes, which retracted like snakes back into the wall panels from whence they had come. Now, the robots were moving in his direction, their movement having transitioned from jerky and methodical to fast and fluid. One pointed a finger at him, and as he watched, the tip of a stubby black finger opened up, the tip retracting back on a minute hinge. He heard a small, sharp sound, and felt another bee sting, this time in his neck.
Then the entire world went dark.
(To be continued…)