Prospector Frank & the Mutants
A hail of tiny stones bombarded the tin roof of Frank Matheson’s shelter as the old codger took cover from his TNT blast.
“Aha! Look-see Boris? That was a good ‘un!”
“Woof!” barked Boris in agreement. The hound bounded towards the smoking crater, while Frank came nimbly after, hopping across the debris towards the gaping hole in the side of the rocky hill. Boris’ excited tail sank between his legs and he uttered a low growl with his ears pinned back. The scent of sparkgas wafted into Frank’s nostrils a moment later.
“Corr, smells rife, eh ma’ boy. That confirms it! There’s a motherlode somewhere round ‘ere! Easy now, it’s just the after-fumes. We blew up the gas pocket. There’s a good pooch.” He patted Boris on the flat of his skull before ambling over to the rocksplitter. With a crank of the handle, the juddering machine roared to life, coughing black smoke from its upright exhaust. Frank hopped into the tattered control seat of his iron arm. With giddy excitement, he used the arm to pick up car-sized boulders and fed them into the rocksplitter, which chewed them into manageable sized chunks and spat them out onto a conveyor. The conveyor led to a giant bucket bigger than the shack that Frank lived in, where they waited for the next stage of the refining process. Frank swung merrily in the seat as the clawed mechanical crane jerked this way and that at its master’s expert bidding.
An hour later, the bucket was full to the brim. Frank hopped down from the iron arm and flicked the chunky off switch causing the rocksplitter to stutter and choke itself to silence, belching a final cloud of smoke into the sky before going back to sleep. Frank made his way over to the stonemangler, an oversized cheese grater designed to skin the dirt and mud off of rock and ore, cleverly separating each piece into trays via pre-determined sized holes, ready for Frank’s inspection.
Frank put his monacle on and hunkered beneath the mangler to inspect the first chunk of ore that found its way into the smallest inspection tray. The ore was the size of his thumb and when held up against his monacle, Frank could see the tiny veins of red streaking through the dusty rock.
“Hmm-mmm,” Frank mused satisfactorily, turning the rock between his fingers. He tossed it back into the chute and moved to the medium-sized hole, where he repeated his examination on a slightly bigger piece of ore.
“Aha!” he exclaimed, stroking the coils of his wispy white beard that fell down to his chest. His eye gleamed behind the monacle at the specimen in his hand.
A crystal shard of shiny ore reflected the morning sun, sending a prism of rainbow coloured light onto the grizzled man’s wrinkly cheek.
Kronium. The most precious mineral man had ever known. It powered their machines, and acted as their currency simultaneously. Without it, they were mindless apes. But after its discovery, man became something else.
Frank let out a childish giggle. “Hooooo-weee! Kronium, boy! And I’ll bet this is but a mere nugget!” Boris joined him in a little dance around the campsite they called home, deep in the heart of the Yukor Wilderness. “Let’s find the motherlode!”
An ear piercing animalistic screech echoed down the hills, coming from the direction of the old abandoned mine. Frank’s gaze followed the little stream that ran through the middle of his camp, up into the hills, coming from the old mine’s exit tunnel a few clicks above him, poking out of the side of the mountain like a serpent’s head. He spied movement at the tunnel’s mouth, and it wasn’t just the water from the stream pouring out, but something else too.
“Dag’nabbit, that’s just what we need. Muties a’comin boy!”
Boris barked up at the mountain and gave a menacing growl.
“To yer station, boy!” Frank barked back. He pulled the brim of his straw hat down over his scowling brow, then stretched out his arms, cracking every one of his bony knuckles with a gruesomely satisfying cacophony of crunches.
He went straight to the rear wall of his shack and opened a ramshackle cupboard door that hung on a single rusty hinge. An assortment of buttons and switches haphazardly arranged on an ancient switchboard greeted him. Frank pushed a few chunky buttons and yanked a heavy lever, re-routing power from the shack to the outer defences. An audible sad hum sounded from the cabin accompanied by a chirpy whine which came from somewhere behind him, as his electrified perimeter fence powered up.
He grabbed the lever-action shotgun from his porch and shoved a fistful of shells into the front pouch of his overalls. He loaded three shells into the gun and cranked the lever to pop one into the chamber before slinging the gun’s strap over his shoulder. Frank returned to the iron arm, and made himself comfortable in the tattered seat once again, before swinging the contraption in the direction of the hills, opening the claw to face the approaching wave of mutants.
Five humanoid creatures spilled down the hill towards Frank’s camp. They tumbled down on all-fours, their greyish-green skin soaked up the sun’s rays to make them look lizardlike. Their clawed hands scratched against the bare rock as they scrambled down, following the gurgling stream, sniffing the air with the two gaping holes that used to be nostrils now but resembled little more than slits in their deformed, grotesque faces. Once human, now this sad leftover.
Two of them reached the fence at the same time and were fried instantly. Their skin sizzled and they slumped backwards, lifeless on the ground, tendrils of smoke rising gently from their eye sockets.
The remaining three took note and veered in a different direction. One tried crawling through the fence behind the shack, it managed to get both arms and its head through but when its swollen belly touched the cable, it convulsed, jerked and spasmed until it lay dead slumped across the fence.
“Dang’it, now that’ll draw half the power.” He whistled to Boris, and pointed at the mutant caught on the fence. “Clear it, boy!”
Boris set off at a bound towards the dead creature. He sank his teeth into its hand, and the sizzle of electricity set all his fur sticking up into the air. His tail bristled with electricity, as he tugged on the arm, yanking it through the fence. Boris was used to it. The electricity didn’t bother him anymore, now that Frank had fitted him with rubberized paw-protectors.
Two muties remained, both circling the fence, headed for the mine itself, drawn to the smell of sparkgas. Frank followed them with his swivelling iron arm, the claw poised menacingly. A mutant leapt the fence as nimble as an acrobat. Frank was ready for it. He caught it in mid-air and the claw crushed it like a melon. Black blood spewed out of the side of the claw, and dripped into the stream where it was carried away out of the camp.
The second mutie leapt the fence a moment later. Frank’s shotgun sang and the mutie’s chest exploded. He cocked it again and fired a second round just to be sure.
Then there was nothing but the wind, and the gentle sound of Boris gnawing on a bone.
Frank eyed the hillside, until he was satisfied that no more muties were coming down from the old mine, then he hopped down from the iron arm.
“Just another day in Yukor, eh lad?” he remarked, tucking his thumbs behind his dungaree straps.
Boris barked in agreement, then swallowed his bone.
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