The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man by Joe Darris Read Free Book Online Page B

he
created his first Evanimals through careful breeding and judicious
control of diet. Key traits were encouraged which eventually
allowed people to pilot the Evanimals as easily as they'd play a
game on a VRC. Baucis cemented his spot on the Council when he
began using his breed of howluchin monkeys to grow food on
the surface.
    Before then there was the rooftop garden, but
it was far to small to ever feed the Spire. The reality for most
was the taste of reconstituted nutritional paste from the
reclaimers. Baucis never thought it tasted that bad,
considering it was made of human and animal waste, but when he
tasted his first leaf of wild lettuce, harvested from the bosom of
the earth, he immediately saw the paste's shortcomings.
    The howluchin s were effective
gardeners, but they were also small, intelligent and uncooperative.
Some escaped in those early days. They found glitches in a computer
system designed to run games instead of bodies and exploited them.
Others were devoured by the various predators that roamed the
surface after the Scourge. Either fate was unacceptable. The
implants were too valuable. Like all things in the Spire, they had
been manufactured before the Scourge, when people still lived on
the surface and could build anything they desired. So Baucis took
the next logical step, and conscripted bodyguards for his
gardeners. The biselk were the obvious choice, big hulking
brutes engineered in a proper genetics lab. They had survived the
Scourge and were flourishing. His Garden would evolve further
today, and add a new tropic layer to the pyramid it supported.
    Ntelo sat silently in the meeting room when
Baucis entered. Her large, intense purple eyes flitted around the
chamber. She perspired ever so slightly beneath gossamer winged
insects painted on her fair skin. She held her folded nail-less
fingers against each other, like two spiders trapping a fly. She
alone knew the scope of Baucis's plans. It was imperative to have
the High Priestess support his aspirations. She influenced the
masses, and though the Council were ostensibly the decision makers,
a decided citizenry often swayed their opinion. He avoided the rest
of their eyes. Conniving old poker players could sense trepidation
down on the surface. It didn’t do him any good to give them a close
up view.
    The Council had no official legal authority,
and instead maintained their influence simply by virtue of
reputation. One didn't get recommended to be a Counselor unless
they showed considerable knowledge of their field and the people
working in it. The important ones were all present tonight. Besides
Ntelo there was Rufus Aurelius, the Media Baron, Tennay Promethus,
the engineer, Orus Luca, the Weatherman, and Mavis Talik, the
disturbingly popular psychologist. They were all well respected,
idolized even, and few citizens would support Baucis's plans
without their full support. He could have proceeded if he wished,
but his constant need of civilians' willing surrender of their
Virtual Reality Chips and labor meant he needed no detractors.
    Baucis hoped no one would bring up the
enigmatic figure that had killed his biselk and maimed his
most powerful vultus . If he could catch it, then he could
easily incorporate it into his garden. But he had already prepared
for the next stage of his Garden without knowledge of the
mysterious beast, and was ready to proceed. Baucis gambled:
    “Alpha management has been successful for our
crops and our Garden's security for a long time, but there are
undeniable problems. The biselk lacking VRCs often eat the
crops they're guarding for us, especially when their population
grows too large for the food supply we have for them. Sometimes
un-piloted biselk wander off and either die or— just as
dangerous in my opinion— release their superior genetics into the
ever growing feral population. Sometimes the herbivores die,
leaving their bodies fester with disease. Most problematically
there are the feral predators, whose