#13:The kids, or their animals, weren’t very well trained

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. They were training themselves. All the information was available to them via cyber-neural interface but they didn’t know the right questions. They were gradually learning. There were some interesting discoveries. They discovered some things that they should have know from the beginning.

The elf babies had been decanted and raised together as a group. However when one or another individual showed certain predispositions or tendencies their education was then custom tailored. The education of a Griffin-Gaucho a Bear-Vaquero or a Buffalo-Wrangler were all subtly different. Unfortunately the invasion has prevented all that. All their teachers were gone to war before they were decanted. They had pretty much taught themselves. They were ignorant of much knowledge they should have at this age.

Baranatha was a Buffalo-Wrangler. She, and a few others like her, had the capacity to establish rapport with multiple animals at one time. She rode the herd. All the other children were en rapport with ONE animal. Kraki with a bear, Kara with a Griffin. Baranatha was en rapport with SIX of the monster buffalo….at one time. It was a hive mind of sorts. Individually the Buffalo weren’t very smart. Herbivores don’t need to be very smart to sneak up on a leaf.

The carnivores, the bear or the Griffin were smarter than one buffalo. ALL the Buffalo and Baranatha were pretty bright though, at least as intelligent, if not more, than any other team. Since her rapport had the most brain power she dealt with the wagon. The “engineer” position was normally filled by dwarves, but there were no dwarves so the elve children made do. The huge wagon was a marvel of technology and they were learning more about it daily. One day she made a discovery.

“Guys!! HEY GUYS...I’ve FOUND something. Come look. See what I found”.

She was excited. Kara and Kraki clamored into the wagon and pretty soon THEY were excited. Baranatha had found the weapons locker. They had all been babies or un-decanted when their teachers had left and babies had no need for weapons, so they weren’t informed of it’s existence.

“OH! OH!”

“ Look at THIS!”

”Hmmmmm...I wonder what this does?

“...oh...shaaaaarp….careful it cuts”

”Long, sharp and pointy…”

For all the way that the children acted, they were careful. They were the product of an uber-tech culture. Caution around unfamiliar objects was almost imprinted into their genes. Had they not been naturally cautious their cat-like curiosity would have endangered them greatly.

They had a focus now. There were some specific questions they could ask the computer. They could run some search strings. They did.

“I feel so STUPID” said Kraki indicating a lance. “With this thing I’ll be able to kill much, much easier. MUCH easier.”

“Ooooooh….” Marveled Kara….”Loooook at theese” She held up a crossbow.

...and so it went. Upon discovering the weapons they were able to download and activate neural imprints and tutorials. They would learn to use these new tools, and quickly too. It would be as if they were just refamiliarizing themselves with old skills. Neural Imprints were like that.

Next :Episode
#14:The Gestalt Learned…
Previous Episode
#12: Kraki rolled over and sat there panting.…
First Episode
# 1 : In the beginning…

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@everittdmickey
I surf the net, find the GOOD stuff.
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I also write
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Sometimes it's hard to tell fiction from the news.