nanowrimo 2k9

In southern Los Angeles, there is a block of cheese that has never been touched, it lives in the northeastern area, right against the line between northern and southern los angeles. It is a confusing area to find, and instead of people they have reprihensible mutated rats, the size of a medium dog, who’s only purpose is to procreate to make larger mutated rats. They fed on everything: scraps of food, bricks, discarded cans, other giant mutant rats. You could say it was their calling. Now, these weren’t super intelligent rats, in fact even finding a town of super intelligent people is pretty much never going to happen. The rats had not exactly evolved, but had certainly honed their instincts and adapted well to their larger size.

Naturally, they had a larger brain. This wasn’t any kind of byproduct of heathen evolution, simply the result of mutations and adapting to the spaces they could fit into. Once they had found their particular corner, a collapse of a tunnel made to lay enforcements around the foundations of the crossroads of the ever present highways. The tunnels had been drilled by robot, and were slightly larger than a pack of pringles can. As the road settled, the tunnel did not collapse under the magnificently architected foundation supports. Instead it puffed the pressure out of the looser parts of the soil, and created small crevices in the road side.

Rats manage to live in any area where people are. They are small mammals with sharp teeth and long tails. While they are well feared among puny humans, instead of being mocked for their size, like their diminutive cousins the mice, they are nowhere near as large and ferocious as the nutria, let alone the Capybara. Rats, instead carried a centuries old fear of carrying the plague, and were a relatively small vermin that simply lived off the excess of humanity. The more people around, the denser their own numbers were, weather the people were aware of it or not.

There was nothing particularly special about this area of commerce, housing and highway. There is nothing remarkable about these rats, everything that happened with them was just a fluke of average species in an average environment (compared to what was surrounding it). Just a lot of random things near each other. Just like the real world.

So heres what happened: the road was actually a large highway that connected to freeways. It was heading into the desert, and the ground was soft. Much of the surrounding area was desert, and the engineers had managed to measure stretches of road that were soft and prone to potholes, so they had constructed a machine that they could insert into a soft spot in the road. The well armored little robot would then seek around central points in each lane and reinforce the areas that were weak. This provided a benefit of not having to continue maintenance on potholes, so road construction crews could focus on what really mattered: laying giant pieces of asphault anywhere someone could get a zone for it.

When I  earlier that there was nothing exceptional about that site, it was true, but there was something different about it. This particular piece of highway sat at the tail end of the desert, so it was full of many soft spots which were unnecessary for an area that was in the city (actually filling potholes is more effective for such a well travelled road. So says my ass.) The other thing is that it was at the end of the desert road, so all of the deployed digging bots hit that and turned back towards the desert. Giving their roving nature, that left the areas shaved down to their minimal level, and the reinforcements completely solid. The road had been reinforced so that not even a fleet of tanks could collapse it, but was roomy and full of air. Given that it was on a well-travelled shortcut, the fleixble road pushed small tufts of air through the soft dirt around it. This took the form of anthills, long since blown away, and dead root paths of roadside shrubs.

With all the rats scurrying around the human development, one was bound to be sitting on one of the exhaust holes and be of the nature to try to investigate (with its claws) whatever had just tossed him a foot up in the air. Gnawing and clawing aside pebbles, the rat kept suspiciously clear of his prey: a large root system that had been blown sod first by a hummer full of fat people. The scar still puffed gently with each passing car, but not enough to push him away.

The rat dug, clawed, burrowed, and some other thesaurus word. the edge of the hole gave way, the pressure of each passing motorist dimmed to a faint sigh. He learned to cling to the edges, and kept frantically digging at the hole. Occastionally, a racoon or cat would get hit by a car and he would steal away to the road and drag the carcass back to the dig spot. After that, he would alternate digging and chewing from his prize.  In short time, the hole was surrounded with small piles of bones and a rancid stench. The stench brough birds and parasites, who built another layer around the hole, driving people awasy. But the rat kept digging, faster than the bones and parasites could stack up. Every time he fed there was a flurry of dust coming out of the entry, which built up and began to cover all of the decomposition. The small hill hit a peak when it shouldered between a hillside and a nearby building. It happened so quickly, that it was almost unnoticed. There were many more pressing sounds, like the nearby highway, and all those damned kids playing baseball in the vacant lot.

Still the hole managed to breath, and blew out the warm from the unending pressure of the road above. The rat, once underground, built a small nest, more than a foot below the surface and nestled close to the most narrow part of the road. Having dug away from the pressure of the blast, he had managed to carve a smart little cavern that was warmed by the passing breeze.  He still dragged his meals near the opening, and the excavations were still continuously covered by the sand spouting from the entrance. And so he alternated: digging toward the freeway and separating his nest — while keeping it cool.