Thick Black Theory: A Symbiont Wars Book (Symbiont Wars Universe) Read online

  In the last three years, Kaitlin had never needed to show the ID since she always fished away from where a game warden would be looking. Right now, she didn’t think it made too much difference if the police were the ones to take her to Dallas.

  She moved away from Bernard and spun the heavy slip sinker on her hand line overhead before slinging her bait far out into the lake. Then, she ran her line over a forked stick and—at the tip—clamped the brass, fishing bell that had served her well in the last three years of wandering. Satisfied, she slipped the cheap plastic reel over her wrist and sat. She was hoping for a catfish.

  Bernard sat next to her on the pier with a grunt. “I wish I was under sixteen again. You know, I had a rig like that when I was your age. Don’t think I was near as good with it as you though. You slung that thing a mile.”

  “I was just showing off,” Kaitlin said, grinning. “I should have just dropped it close to the pier. That’s where the fish are likely to be anyhow, and I’ll probably get hung on a snag pulling it in if a fish doesn’t get hooked on it.”

  Bernard pursed his lips in thought. “When I first saw you at our door, I thought you were eighteen because you didn’t overdo your makeup like most fifteen-year-olds. Then when you started to talk, I pushed the guess up to nineteen or twenty. I’m not going to ask about what I expect is the case, namely that you left home some time ago without permission for damn good reasons. You seem to be thriving without a so-called adult to call the shots. But, Kaitlin, if you ever need a helping hand or shelter, you should know that Bernice and I would be happy to help you any way we can.”

  “Thank you, Bernard. And I would do the same for you. One thing I’ve learned since I left is no one can have too many real friends.” She smiled. “And, I haven’t been trying to hide because I’m on my way back to Dallas to petition for emancipation anyway.”

  Her pocket chirped with Brian’s ringtone from her phone case inside her cargo shorts. Kaitlin pulled it partway out, only to stuff it back when her fishing alarm bell went off. She removed the bell from the stick, giving the line some slack.

  When the fifty-pound fishing line started to ease out, slow and steady, she jerked hard and began pulling in the slack, winding it around the hand spool. With a snap, the line went taut and pulled back, sliding through her gloved hands as whatever she’d hooked tore off in a frenzy. Kaitlin squeezed hard on the reel and managed to slow it down before it hit the end of the 150-foot line. The fish came to the surface and rolled. It was a huge catfish. Kaitlin breathed a sigh of relief; she’d been afraid it might be an alligator.

  The fish turned and cut to the side, giving up on making for deep water for now. Kaitlin worked it close to the pier three times, only to have the fish spook when it saw them and run back out to deep water. Each time she coaxed it back it came easier.

  “Ready with the net,” Bernard said behind her.

  Kaitlin’s shoulder and left arm were aching tired, but she grimly fought the fish back to the pier. This time Bernard slipped the net over its head before the fish could react. It thrashed the water with wide, sweeping arcs, but its head and long spines had tangled in the net. Kaitlin grabbed the handle, her hands alongside Bernard’s, as the struggle continued.

  “It weighs a ton,” Bernard said, gasping with effort.

  “They’re always two times heavier in the water,” Kaitlin said between grunts. “Probably only a half-ton.”

  Together they hauled the monster down the side of the pier, keeping its head above the weeds as they pulled it out of the shallows and onto the bank. The fish thrashed a few more moments before surrendering to lie gasping on the shore.

  A voice drawled from behind Kaitlin in the accents of northern Louisiana. “Nice flathead you got there. I make it to be about sixty-five, seventy pounds. Plenty of good steaks on there.

  Kaitlin stiffened, but didn’t turn.

  God, I hate it when someone manages to do that.

  She glanced back to see boots, forest green pants and a sidearm below a khaki shirt.

  Game warden.

  “Good morning,” she said, rubbing her aching shoulder from the struggle with the monster from the black lagoon.

  “I have a scale in the truck you can use to check. It won’t be a lake record, I’m afraid, but still a real nice one.... When y’all have caught your breath, I’ll need to see your fishing licenses.

  Kaitlin put the net handle down and stood on it to pin the fish in place as it sporadically thrashed. She straightened and pulled her wallet out to get her school ID then handed it to the game warden.

  The warden checked the birthday and held the photo up to compare it to her face. The semper fidelis tattoo on his wrist flashed as he turned it. “This ID’s a bit old..., Kaitlin,” he said.

  “I lost my newest one,” Kaitlin said, letting a note of apology enter her voice. “There’s no expiration date on that one though. It always works for the wardens in Texas.” She made a note of the ex-marine’s name on his badge.

  Curtis Twombly

  “Okay, but I’ll need to run your name through my database in a minute. Procedures you know.” Twombly turned to Bernard who was trying to get his phone to work. “May I see your permit sir?”

  Bernard frowned at his phone. “I downloaded a day pass first thing this morning, but I can’t get my phone to turn on. It’s just gone dead. I wrote the number down though and you can compare it to my driver’s license on the website, I guess.” He scratched his head as he handed over his license and a piece of paper.

  Twombly took them and pulled his handheld unit from his belt. He pushed some buttons on it, looking bemused. “Just a moment while I write these down,” he said. “I can’t get my handheld to come up.” He wrote down Bernard’s name, address and license number and the number on the paper as well as Kaitlin’s school ID number. “I’ll get the scale before I go back to the office to have tech support look at my computer,” he said.

  Kaitlin’s tension dropped away, and she looked out over the lake, watching the now mid-morning sun sparkle on the water.

  Crisis averted. Looks like I can stay on vacation a little longer before I go to court on my own.

  It had to be better to file an emancipation petition on your own rather than have it seen as a reaction to juvenile incarceration.

  The warden went back to his truck and came back with the scales. When he’d hooked it to the fish’s gills, he lifted it, with help from Bernard and Kaitlin, until the fish stopped thrashing. “Sixty-nine pounds,” Twombly proclaimed. “Well done, Kaitlin. You landed that monster like a pro twice your size, and on a handline too. I’ll have a story to tell back at the office, that’s certain.”

  Kaitlin smiled. “Thank you, Officer Twombly, and thank you for helping us weigh it too.”

  “We live to serve,” he said with a smile, turning to walk back to his truck.

  “To Serve Man - A Government Bureaucrat’s Cookbook,” Kaitlin said in a soft voice when Twombly was out of hearing range.

  “Seemed a nice fellow to me,” said Bernard. “You’re terribly cynical for your age, you know, Kaitlin.”

  “Sorry, Bernard. It wasn’t directed at him personally, but I’ve had cause when it comes to law enforcement.”

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “Not this time though. Today I got lucky.”

  Kaitlin remembered the text from Brian and reached in her pocket for her phone case. She pulled it out of its protective wallet and checked the screen. There were no signal bars registering, but the message from Brian was still there.

  Take cover, Kaitlin. It looks like we’re about to see the SHTF. Probably an EMP. We’ll try to find you...

  Kaitlin’s good mood vanished. Brian’s triple period ending always meant he was going to send a follow up message, and nothing else had come through. She looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps. Twombly was coming back across the road.

  “I can’t get the truck to start,” he said. “You wouldn’t have a phone I
could use would you?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not getting any service on mine,” Kaitlin said.

  “Well, looks like I’ll have to hike back to the camp store,” Twombly said, his mouth twisted in disgust. “Murphy is having a field day today.”

  Kaitlin nodded as the game warden turned and walked back up the road.

  I’m afraid you are right about that, Officer Twombly. Oh, God, please let Brian be wrong this time.

  The problem was—when it came to sussing out the socio-political climate—Brian was a super astute analyst. He volunteered, heading up data projects with the SimSociety 2.0 foundation. He wasn’t likely to shout ‘the sky is falling’ unless a statistically overwhelming number of buildings were losing their upper levels.

  She cleared her throat to push away the choking feeling. “Bernard, I think you should walk back to the camp store and get ice. If the power is out there, you should get as many propane tanks as you can buy and go back to the Westy to stay with Bernice. I’m going to clean our friend here and follow as fast as I can.”

  “Did you see something on your phone, Kaitlin?”

  She nodded and turned her phone so he could see the message.

  “But your phone is still working,” he protested.

  “My phone wallet is a Faraday bag. I’m reading no service bars and when we got to the pier I had four.”

  Bernard frowned. Kaitlin watched to see if he would take her seriously. He’d told her he was an engineer, both electrical and physical. The obvious should be clear to him. She looked at her watch, and her stomach relaxed a little. “But why would my watch still be working? It uses battery power.”

  Bernard shook his head. “A watch has very short power connections. It could easily be unaffected. I pray to God it’s something else, but your watch is no reassurance.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “Come as quick as you can.” He turned and hurried after the game warden.

  Kaitlin turned back to the fish, pulling Blondie from her pocket. She rested her hand on its head just in front of the dorsal spine. “Thank you for finding us in our time of need... before we even knew it,” she said. Bernard had left her a full box of gallon-size freezer bags. She could use those to carry the fillets back to camp in the net.

  Reversing her grip on Blondie’s handle to turn the point for an overhand stab, Kaitlin pithed the big flathead, twisting the blade to end its struggles. Then, she ran a stringer through its gills and mouth, dragged it to a nearby picnic site and hoisted it onto the end of the table. Bernard had left her the skinning pliers. But—considering the size of the fish—she decided to leave the skin on the meat to roast it in coals instead of using the propane stovetop. She bent to her task, praying despite everything she expected that Brian was off with his prediction this time and the electricity would be on when she got back to camp.

  Chapter 6 — Taking point

  With a splash, the skeletonized carcass of the giant catfish hit the surface of the lake and settled, spiraling into the murky water. Already, bream and small perch swarmed toward it, ready to pick it clean.

  Kaitlin rinsed her hands and arms of blood and carefully washed Blondie with a wet rag. The custom, tactical folder was too precious for her to risk cleaning it directly in the lake. When every speck and smear of catfish was gone, Kaitlin tested the edge. Even though it still shaved hair from her arm, she dressed it lightly with a few strokes from the honing rod that formed the core of her pocket-sized fighting stick.

  Time to go see if the end of the world has come, Kaitlin. Stop putting it off.

  She pocketed her tools and hoisted the fishing net full of fillets and catfish steaks to her shoulder and set off down the path to camp. Her feet, as always, tracked in the straight line that kept her footing predictable in the undergrowth and on narrow trails. Kaitlin had discovered soon after leaving home that she preferred using the survival skills needed in the wilderness to the ones needed in urban areas. She could manage both, but the most dangerous animals lived in the cities and food was usually just as hard to find if you didn’t have—or didn’t want to spend—money. Her traveling partners often teased her about her aversion to panhandling, but, to her mind, it just seemed a recipe for trouble.

  Camp was closer than the park store, so she headed there first. Beatrice was up now, working at the stove. Kaitlin could smell griddlecakes cooking. Her stomach rumbled. It smelled delicious.

  Beatrice turned to smile at Kaitlin. “Bernard built up the fire before he went back to the store. He said you’d probably want to smoke your catch in the coals.”

  She waved her spatula at a large pan on the picnic table. “He put some newspaper in water to soak for wrapping the fish, and I made a butter and onion spread to season the cut side of the meat. I see you left the skin on. That should keep the other side nice and moist. That’s one reason I enjoy cooking. It’s like a science experiment you can eat.”

  Kaitlin smiled and nodded then noticed that Bernard had filled every possible container with water before he’d left for the store. Her stomach suddenly felt as though it had rocks in it. He would have tried to confirm their fears before he’d done that. “Did Bernard say why he was going back to the store?”

  Bernice turned to Kaitlin, her smile had softened and her eyes were solemn. “He checked the power on the pole and told me what you were worried about while he was filling up all the buckets and jugs. Then he went to see if the store would take cash for propane and anything else he could buy.”

  Kaitlin felt light-headed for a second, but shook herself with savage resolve.

  Fear will have no say in my life’s decisions.

  She almost snarled the words inside her head.

  “Did he try to start the Westy?”

  “Yes, it started right up. We didn’t have anything plugged into the power outlet on the pole except the cooler, and it doesn’t matter now if the cooler’s motor is burnt out. It’s still insulated. Bernice looked at the fish net and her eyes went wide. “Goodness, Kaitlin! What did you catch? All that from one fish?”

  “Biggest fish I’ve ever landed,” Kaitlin said. “Flathead catfish. The game warden said it was sixty-nine pounds.” Kaitlin put down the net and pulled out the plastic bags of catfish, opening them to begin reconstructing the fish on top of four layers of wet newspaper. She laid out the tail section’s right side and used Bernice’s onion butter to paste the left and right sides back together.

  Kaitlin appreciated Bernice’s approach to the news about what might be the end of civilization—just get busy with what needed doing.

  As she worked, Kaitlin wondered if some event would come along to pith the world, or if it would simply keep flopping around on the bank, taking a few decades to finish collapsing into a new stone age.

  All the books she’d written were now only memory—memory inside the magnetic drives of a powerless server bank somewhere or, even more ephemerally, in the minds of the people who had read them. Then, she recalled the bound copies Brian had gotten her to sign so he could haul them around to bookshops with his own for signings. Would someone use the pages to wrap food? Maybe they’d start a fire to keep someone warm. At least they’d be useful then.

  Brian. Marlee.

  They were the only family she had, and now they were a thousand miles away. And today, a thousand miles was a lot further than it used to be.

  As she wrapped up the tail section and began laying out the front, Kaitlin couldn’t help but frown. The connection in her mind between the world and the fish that she was preparing for the fire taking on a darker meaning. What was it Jung said about a big fish in your dreams? It was supposed to mean your subconscious mind was trying to tell you something.

  Dreaming.... Oh, If only I were....

  The fire was still new. It would take some time for it to burn down to coals, but she didn’t want to leave the fish out too long before cooking it. Many of the campsites nearby were empty. Someone might have left coals she could use. A few minutes of s
cavenging garnered enough charcoal to construct a good bed for the fish to roast, and she threw them on the fire to let them get hot. A few minutes later, the fish was buried and roasting.

  The sun was well up now; it would be ready for an early lunch. “Maybe we should invite some neighbors for lunch,” she said to Bernice.

  “Good idea.”

  “I’m going to check on Bernard and see if he needs help. Maybe on the way back I’ll ask who’d like to come.”

  “Please take my personal defense keyring with you, Kaitlin,” Bernice said.

  “Thank you, but I have my own personal defense system,” Kaitlin said. “And I’d feel better knowing you had that with you.”

  “Okay, dear. Be careful.”

  “Always,” Kaitlin said, checking Blondie’s position in her pocket and slipping her knife-sharpener (cum yawara stick) into her left hand.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Kaitlin paused in front of the camp store. The ‘Open’ sign on the door was facing out, but the blinds slanted down so she couldn’t see inside. Always leery of entering any place she couldn’t see, she pulled Blondie out and held her concealed in her right fist. She had to push against the hydraulic closing arm to open the door. Coming out of the bright sunlight into the dark interior left her blind for a moment, so it took her by surprise when a meaty arm clamped around her throat and pulled her around the door. She managed to keep a hold on both her hand weapons, but when the blunt muzzle of a gun came to rest in the spot just below and behind her right ear, she overruled her instinctive reaction to deploy the blade.

  Across the dim room, Twombly, Bernard and the store manager all stood against the counter with hands raised.