The Mammoth Project

By Craig Strete and Terry Izumi

OPTIONED TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM VMI WORLDWIDE!

Young Nina and Keita have to save a herd of... Mammoths?! and a tribe of Native Americans and a... Cyber Mammoth?! A military project has gone wrong, and to avoid prison those responsible are trying to erase all signs of their existence, including killing the mammoths, the tribe, everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReAnimus Press
• Release date: Aug 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463882580

Craig Strete

Craig Kee Strete is a Native American science fiction writer, noted for his use of American Indian themes.Beginning in the early 1970s, while working in the Film and Television industry, Strete began writing emotional Native American themed, and science fiction short stories and novellas. He is a three-time Nebula Award finalist, for Time Deer, A Sunday Visit with Great-grandfather, and The Bleeding Man.In 1974 Strete published a magazine dedicated to Native American science fiction, Red Planet Earth. His play Paint Your Face On A Drowning In The River was the 1984 Dramatists Guild/CBS New Plays Program first place winner.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

He was standing behind a massive electrified fence. If it had been built to keep something out or something in, whatever it had been designed for was on an epic scale.

The man focused his binoculars on an abandoned, heavy-duty ore truck, a completely rusted out hulk with no windows and flat tires. It was the sole reminder that once a mining company had been to this remote part of the Canadian wilderness. Suddenly the wrecked vehicle moved violently. The man’s face paled. Something out of sight behind the massive body of the truck was shoving the truck up in the air. Clearly echoing across the valley came a fierce wild animal bellow. It seemed to be coming somewhere from behind the ore truck.

Do you see them? A tense voice came from behind him.

I have to move. The man moved to the left along the fence, keeping the binoculars in place as he walked. His legs made a weird metallic clank as he walked and his steps were awkward and clumsy.

The ore truck was tilting up and down almost rhythmically.

As the man moved around the vehicle, suddenly an enormous female woolly mammoth came into focus through the lens. The mammoth was scratching her back vigorously against the iron bed of the truck.

The animal suddenly snorted, gave one mighty heave of its back and the entire ore truck was flung upside down and landed with a thunderous crash. The big female mammoth shook her head triumphantly. Then she calmly marched around a heavy pile of mine slag and moved back to a small herd of mammoths grazing in the valley below.

The man with the binoculars was Ivan Petrovski, a Russian engineer and cyber-robotics expert. He had heavy leg braces on both legs. One arm was shorter than the other and hung at an odd angle. By the way he held the binoculars, one could see he still had use of the arm but it was awkward and obviously not very strong.

Ivan Petrovski shook his head and turned to look behind and above him.

Forbes! It is as I tell you. This fence she will never hold. The old she mammoth just tossed a five ton ore truck like it was pancake! said Petrovski. She is unstoppable.

See for yourself if you doubt me. Petrovski turned and tossed the binoculars at someone high above him. The binoculars sailed over the head of a massive mammoth head. It was deftly caught by a man crouched inside the Cyber Mammoth. The hatch was open, the top of the Cyber Mammoth’s head tilted back to expose the heavy metal under the fake mammoth hide.

Dr. Stanton Forbes rose from the cockpit of the mechanical Cyber Mammoth. His eyes focused through the binoculars for an instant only and then he put it down. He seemed tense and out of sorts.

It has to work! I am running out of ideas! he said grimly. It is my last trick.

Petrovski laughed. Too bad you did not run out of ideas before now. We would not be in this mess.

Time! snapped Stanton Forbes. All I needed was time! Cloning these mammoths, should be the greatest success story in the history of biology! With such a great discovery, all would have been forgiven!

Governments when you steal from them do not forgive, not in Russia, not here, said Petrovski. Is same all over.

America is not like Russia, said Forbes. Nothing like it at all. Here success counts for everything. It makes everything alright. You would know that if you could see it with your own eyes.

Petrovski did not seem convinced. Stanton Forbes was a brilliant scientist but only some of the time. His work in advanced weapon research was without equal. His commitment to voodoo science however, to cloning mammoths from DNA had perhaps doomed them both.

You steal from defense department, you steal weapon research money, all this and now you panic because they begin to ask about the money! I not part of this!

Petrovski, if the weapons work, they won’t care about anything else. Two months to finish them, to work out the programming bugs and that’s all we needed. If we can keep the mammoths out of sight for that amount of time, I think we can get through this.

Better you should hide all evidence or destroy it. Cloned sheep you can hide, but mammoths are big as all outdoors! I say kill and bury them before they do the same to us!

Stanton Forbes shook his head. Only if we fail here. But this fence has to hold! If we can’t keep ‘em away from the base we’re doomed!

Petrovski brought up another sore point.

What if other idea also not so hot? Can’t the natives keep them in the valley?

Just barely. The mammoths are more fierce than we ever expected them to be. Forbes looked troubled.

Ivan Petrovski spoke in his heavily accented voice.

You think they’ll be like elephant but instead are hundred times more dangerous. So you make bad choice. You bring in Indian herders to cover your mistake. Is yet another mistake to add to others!

Forbes sighed wearily and acknowledged his mistake. Yes, I have to agree. Now they’re as much a danger to us as the mammoths. They know too much and they don’t know how to lie. I worry what they will do.

You think they’ll talk to the military people? asked Petrovski. Then we truly screwed, yes.

Stanton Forbes’ face went gray. His eyes looked momentarily haunted.

We can’t risk it, Petrovski, said Forbes. We can’t let that happen.

Ivan Petrovski did not seem troubled by the prospect. He smiled and said, In old Russia, we had much experience making people who know too much disappear.

There was the earth jarring sound of heavy animals approaching.

Petrovski turned and put the binoculars to his eyes. There was a look of dismay on his face. He spoke slowly, almost dismissively, You thought Cyber Mammoth could join the herd, that mammoths are big dummies so would accept it as one of their own. Then Forbes you could lead them where you wanted! It is to laugh, he said bitterly. You Americans! Too optimistic! Too foolish by half! Bah!

Forbes snapped back at him, Enough with the Russian gloom! They would’ve accepted the Cyber Mammoth, Petrovski, if we had had more time.

Petrovksi shrugged. It was no fish on his boat, as they said in Russia. It was how he looked at it but he kept his doubts to himself.

Stanton Forbes looked uncertain. He said, So we go to Plan B. The electrified fence just has to work.

Strain was evident in Forbes’ voice. He finished by saying, We have nothing else in the works. It just has to!

Ivan Petrovski peered through binoculars. By his stance he was alarmed at what he saw and asked, And what is this Plan B, Stanton Forbes?

Plan B is they see the Cyber Mammoth on this side of the fence and like always, attack it! But this time the fence stops them.

Or kills them, said the Russian who seemed to like that prospect. Is enough volts in fence to power Moscow.

Stanton Forbes ignored the comment and crawled down through the hatch of the Cyber Mammoth. He pulled it shut behind him. There was a metallic clang as the hatch locked in place.

Ivan Petrovski took one last terrified look through the binoculars. The great mammoths had not yet noticed the Cyber Mammoth but they would soon and he knew their reaction would be swift and brutal. He had no intention of being there when that happened. He began to run. As he ran he looked back at the Cyber Mammoth waiting behind the iron curtain of razor sharp electrified fence. Under his breath, he muttered, I not want to be riding around inside Plan B.

CHAPTER 2

The cockpit looked like the interior of a spaceship. Glowing computer screens and graphics arrays cast an eerie glow on Stanton Forbes’ face. In the screen, Forbes saw the mammoths grazing just beyond the fence. They are beginning to turn and move away from the fence which was something Forbes could not allow. He needed desperately to test out this last barrier. The long months of misappropriating money, of running two separate teams, one building the weapons systems they had been hired to build and then a second stealth team working on Forbes’ secret cloning project had taken a heavy toll on him. His hands trembled as they flickered over the control panels, moving levers which caused the Cyber Mammoth to move. He seemed confused by the multitude of controllers that ran the Cyber Mammoth. His hands touched levers but it was almost as if he was afraid to operate them.

A dark video screen on the control panel suddenly lit up and a young girl’s face appeared. Forbes was startled.

It was his daughter Nina. At a rebellious thirteen, she was tall for her age, quick to learn and quick to anger. And judging by her face, which mirrored a daily resentment at being stuck in this remote Canadian outpost, she had picked this moment to pick a fight.

Nina was angry.

Dad, you promised me you’d let me drive it for you!

He felt guilty that he had taken her into his secret project. She was headstrong but there had been no way to hide it from her. She kept his secret but the payoff had been being taught to be a pilot of the Cyber Mammoth.

Nina at the age of thirteen was already a skilled Cyber Mammoth pilot. She had high levels of both physical and mental agility. She wanted desperately to be a full-fledged pilot but was far too young. She had contented herself with becoming the most proficient in running the Cyber Mammoth. It was a talent that stunned even her father.

Forbes was irritated by the interruption. He hunched over the controls and peered at them with distrust.

I’m busy! Call me later! he snapped at her.

Nina laughed as she saw him pawing the controls tentatively.

Dad! You should let me drive. You aren’t good enough for a learner’s permit yet!

Forbes sighed. He hated to admit it but what she said was almost true. Nina had been bored, resentful at being dragged halfway around the world. As a father, he had been so focused on his job that he had allowed his only child total freedom to run her own life and grow up as she saw fit, almost without any supervision. Out of boredom Nina had learned to pilot the Cyber Mammoth. In fact, her skill in piloting the mechanical beast, far exceeded that of her father and the men who helped design it.

Forbes was annoyed but needed the help. He pointed at one control lever, looking puzzled. Tell me again. What does this one do?

He started to pull back on the lever.

Nina yelled. Don’t touch that.... it..... it makes it.....

But it was too late.

The Cyber Mammoth violently shook its head from side to side and Forbes pitched out of his seat and slammed into the cockpit wall.

...impossible to stay in your seat! she said, finishing the sentence. Oooh! That’s got to hurt! I swear Dad, you need training wheels on that thing!

Nina held her hand over her face so that her father wouldn’t see that she was laughing.

Although Nina thought it was hysterical her father was not amused. He angrily regained his seat. He barked, Nina! I’m busy! Go annoy somebody else! If I need your advice, I’ll ask for it!

With that he slammed a button and the screen went blank. He concentrated on the two front video screens that corresponded to the Cyber Mammoth’s eyes. He tracked the movements of the herd of mammoths again.

They were still moving away. Something had to be done to stop them.

He jiggled two levers and the Cyber Mammoth stamped the ground with its front feet. He toggled another lever and the Cyber Mammoth emitted a digitally enhanced bellow of challenge at the mammoth herd. Forbes relaxed a bit. It had worked.

The great female mammoth bellowed. The ore truck no longer hid the Cyber Mammoth from sight. The female reared her massive head and pawed the ground in challenge. She trumpeted a warning cry and the rest of the herd rushed up behind her. In a thunderous rush the great animals charged towards the intruder. The great female mammoth, they had named Victoria, led the charge as the massive shapes charged straight for the heavy mesh of electrified wire in front of the Cyber Mammoth.

He was confident, convinced that the fence would stop them cold. As the mammoths approached the fence, the confidence faded quickly and was replaced with a look of abject fear.

The big female mammoth hit the fence with the impact of a plane crashing into the ground. There was a lightning bolt, as high voltage electricity coursed through the woolly mammoth. The collision seemed to momentarily stun the big female but the other mammoths hit the fence almost instantaneously after that and big waves of electricity sparked and fused all around the eerily lit mammoths. The fence held and for a second it looks as if Plan B had worked.

But then the fence parted, the electrics arced out in a massive short and the entire herd was thundering towards the Cyber Mammoth through the mangled ruin of the fence.

The hideous sound of metal rending and the fence parting, sent Stanton Forbes into a panic. He tried to turn the Cyber Mammoth