"Futurehunt," a sci-fi story

I wrote this short story 17 years ago, when much of the technology it describes was only a dream. Some of it is now reality, even everyday stuff. It was published in 1993 in the Traverse city Record-Eagle's Weekend Edition, then sort of fell to the bottom of my file cabinet, where it has been gathering dust ever since. Now, almost 2 decades in the future, it seems to have more meaning than it did when I wrote it.
Len McDougall, August 25, 2009

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Len McDougall
First Serial Rights
About 2640 Words
January, 21, 1992
LMwriter@jamadots.com



Futurehunt


November 15, opening day of the 2057 whitetail hunting season: The air smelled acrid as Jeff
Summers stepped from his hydrogen-burning pickup truck to survey a multi-hued predawn glow
on the eastern horizon. Hot and cloudy, with temperatures in the mid-eighties and a
seventy-percent chance of rain, that's what the forecaster had predicted. Stifling, but more
comfortable than the 100-degree days of summer.

As Jeff hiked the trail to his assigned hunting station, he could see irrigated fields of Michigan's
Saginaw Valley stretching away below. He was just 43, but he could remember when this was
rich farmland that needed neither irrigation or the tinted mylar sunshields that protected crops on
sunny days. Environmentalists of the late 1900s had been so right about the effects of
chlorofluorocarbons on earth's atmosphere. But even they hadn't foreseen the tremendous amount
of moisture that would be lost forever through the planet's torn atmosphere over the next
half-century. Now most of America's farmlands were irrigated with water drawn from already
depleted Great Lakes, or from desalinated reservoirs condensed from dwindling oceans.
Everywhere there was a constant hum of huge fusion-powered ozone generators that were
supposed to replenish an ozone layer that was nearly gone. The parcel on Lake Superior that
Jeff's grandfather had left him had expanded from three acres to more than six, but the shoreline
was getting to be a long way from the house.

Thick gray clouds that blocked the sun three out of five days throughout the year were the result
of burning massive amounts of fossil fuels for more than a century. Again, the environmental
"whackos" had been correct about the greenhouse effect and acid rain. In urban areas the sulfuric
acid in clouds had become so concentrated that people caught in the rain without protective
clothing were often hospitalized with chemical burns. Rain warnings had become standard in the
National Weather Service's severe-weather broadcasts, advising residents to remain indoors until
infrequent rains, even snow, had ceased falling.

North America's lakes and streams were polluted enough with heavy metals and petrotoxins that
gasoline and diesel powered watercraft had been outlawed on U.S. waterways in 2021. The
following year saw a total ban on fossil fuels in the United States and Canada. Like cars and
trucks, all powerboats now burned hydrogen, while giant freighters used superconductor motors
driven by solar arrays that covered their decks. Operation of any fossil fuel engine was a high
misdemeanor, but petro-fuels were virtually nonexistant anyway.

With the enactment of anti-pollution laws that were for the first time enforced by private
watchdog groups who wouldn't be bought off, many American factories had relocated to countries
where laws weren't so stringent. They left a legacy of unemployment and mutated marine life.
Trout and salmon were among the species that could no longer reproduce naturally, and those now
came from hatcheries where fry were genetically altered to survive in polluted waters.

The corporations that had created those conditions soon found there was nowhere left to run; the
entire planet was in mortal danger, and in 2025 the United Nations agreed almost unanimously to
enact and enforce environmental protection laws globally. A few nations - mostly OPEC members
- had tried to exempt themselves from the planetary moratorium on burning oil, but these had been
brought into line with economic sanctions, and even military force. Homo sapiens had joined the
roster of endangered species, and there was no time left for diplomacy.

Those were complex and tangled problems that Jeff didn't care about today. He had two weeks
of vacation from the electrolysis refinery where he worked separating water into hydrogen and
oxygen, and he meant to enjoy his time off by bagging at least three whitetails. Besides, fixing the
planet was best left to politicians, wasn't it?

Whitetail deer had proved remarkably adaptable to severe changes in their environment. Except
in the far north, they no longer roamed wild in forests, but were confined to state-owned
wilderness zones that averaged two square miles each and were surrounded by farmland. Since
there was little natural foliage to feed them, deer were allowed to feed off crops, and farming
corporations were reimbursed for losses by the World Agricultural Bureau. Plenty of food,
filtered water, and a long succession of warm winters had caused the deer population to explode,
and it became necessary for the Department of Natural Resources to increase bag limits. The limit
currently stood at six animals per hunter per season, and there was talk of extending the season
from one month to two.

A luminous tag with the number 47 told Jeff that he'd arrived at his assigned hunting station. An
LED panel turned on when he opened the door into the concrete blind he'd leased for the season,
illuminating a spartan interior of molded benches and painted floor. The interior was smothering,
so he flipped on the air conditioner. Instantly, a rush of cool breezed into the interior. Freon and
other ozone-killers had been banned by a planetary mandate, so all cooling units were charged
with gases that had been judged safe. Still, Jeff recalled that Dow Corning's Freon gas had
once been applauded as an ideal refrigerant.

He flipped the catches on his rifle case and raised the cover to reveal his prized deer rifle, a
Remington EMF-31 topped by a Leupold 40-power digital-optical sighting system. He ran his
hand lovingly over the gun's smooth polycarbonate surfaces. A hunting season existed for
traditionalists who wanted to hunt with antiquated cartridge guns, but Jeff preferred the increased
range and accuracy of a modern rifle.

The EMF-31 employed electromagnetic force derived from a power cell in its buttstock to drive
a 190-grain .310-caliber steelcored bullet through its superconductor barrel at 11,790 feet per
second. A working EMF "rail" gun had been successfully tested by the U.S. Navy in the 1980s,
but it wasn't until superconductors had been perfected that a practical shoulder arm became
feasible.

Because it used a magnetic field to generate propulsion, the EMF rifle wasn't limited by speed
barriers inherent to firearms that relied on burning chemicals and expanding gases to drive their
projectiles. Established ballistics records fell immediately, as did demand for cartridge rifles. Now
every gun maker on earth was producing EMF guns, and solid propellant firearms were relegated
to the status of relics. Cheap "basement" EMF handguns had already heralded the next generation
of violent crime, and Jeff thought it was ironic that the only success at getting firearms out of the hands
of criminals had been the creation of a better gun.

The increase in shooting ranges put manufacturers of telescopic sights into an uproar. The best
optics failed to accommodate rifles with effective ranges greater than 2,000 meters, and increasing
optical magnification resulted in the distortion and mirage inherent to high powered telescopes.
Scope makers found the answer in computer technology. The new scopes were optical only at
their forends; what the shooter actually saw was a digital display that appeared holographically
above a receiver-mounted camera unit.

Jeff had selected this particular scope unit because it also incorporated a laser rangefinder and an
automatic trajectory compensator that shifted its projected crosshairs to match the bullet's point of
impact at a given range. Parallax was eliminated because the crosshairs were visible only when
viewed straight-on, while on-demand holographic readouts at the sight picture's bottom gave the
shooter data about range, windage, and power cell levels. A red S or F in the lower left corner
provided visual confirmation about the rifle's safety lever, while a a small red dot indicated whether
its chamber was loaded or not. Magnification and light-gathering abilities were regulated by game
laws, but Jeff's 40x Leupold had proved adequate for taking whitetails out to 1,200 yards.

The overcast sky was beginning to brighten a bit, and Jeff could just make out rows of
sugarbeets between the irrigation ditches below. He slid the gun's power switch to ON, checked its
condition once again, then slapped a loaded magazine into the well. He pressed the loader button
to chamber one of the stubby bullets, but didn't energize the superconductor barrel until he'd
mounted the Remington to the padded swiveling vise found in all state-leased blinds.

Binoculars had benefitted from the same technologies as riflescopes, except that their
performance levels were not restricted by hunting laws. Jeff's pocket-size Tasco could provide
from 10 to 100 times magnification, and it employed normally invisible wavelengths in the
ultraviolet and infra-red spectrums to produce a viewable sight picture. Nothing at 10x. He dialed
the bino to 30x and scanned his assigned hunting area again.

There, just stepping from the woodline of the hunting reserve, was a fat buck with a wide rack.
Large antlers had become commonplace, what with the abundant supply of fresh food whitetails
enjoyed here, so Jeff didn't get too excited. He exchanged binoculars for rifle, nestling the stock
snugly against his shoulder while centering the crosshairs over his intended target. A press of the
trigger guard's rangefinder stud caused the number 951.7 to appear under the METERS column
in the scope's sight picture. An orange segmented bar graph running across the picture's
lowermost edge indicated that the rifle powerpack, which also operated the scope, was charged to
full power.

Since anything beyond 800 meters was considered a sporting shot, Jeff slid the barrel's power
switch to the on position. He could feel a faint energy pulse through his palm as the
superconductors energized. The holographic crosshairs changed color from black to red when he
snapped the safety toggle to FIRE, and readouts showed all systems to be in compliance. The
buck stood motionless, as if expecting the inevitable, while Jeff's index finger tightened against the
trigger.

The Remington discharged with a high-pitched squeal that was immediately followed by a sharp
crack as the sound barrier gave way. Recoil would have been substantial had it not been for a trio
of gas-charged shock absorbers mounted between buttplate and stock. Thanks to them, felt recoil
was reduced to little more than a hard shove, and Jeff never lost sight of his buck in the scope. In
spite of being at a range that Jeff's grandfather would have thought extreme, the deer fell almost as
soon as he'd pulled the trigger, struck by a bullet traveling 3 times faster than the swiftest cartridge
type.

Jeff shut off his rifle and unloaded it with a vague sense of sadness. He enjoyed hunting very
much, but there was something missing. Maybe it was just the artificial environment in which he
was forced to hunt, but he felt a deep longing for the way things used to be. Without ever having
seen them, he missed the years before the last of the great forests had fallen, when wilderness was
still plentiful and you could see deer grazing wild and unconfined along almost every rural road at
dusk. He felt a sudden craving to kneel and drink from a springhead that flowed right out of the
ground, to gulp cold, sweet water that contained elemental minerals he had never tasted. He
longed for the freedom to roam a wilderness at will and to select his own hunting spot, to build his
own blind the way he'd read hunters once did when trees were more plentiful and less valued. Just
once he would have loved being hopelessly lost in a vast cedar swamp, like those his grandfather
had described, where there were miles of untracked forest and a woodsman could find complete
isolation from the civilized world.

But those days were gone. Scientists had estmated that what remained of the natural world
might begin to recover in as little as 50 years, if proper environmental and population control
measures remained in force, and if the ozone layer could be repaired before loss of atmosphere
through evaporation reached a critical level. But never again would earth's indigenous flora and
fauna be strong enough to sustain itself without overt assistance from humankind. Not so long as
the room taken up by the cities and roads of this planet's 15 billion inhabitants kept nature isolated
in shrinking pockets that were more zoo than wilderness.

Some things, like the gray wolf, brown bear, and the South American rain forests were already
gone forever, erased from the planet by its most intelligent and least necessary species. Whole
ecosystems had been extinguished by the only animal possessed of the power to destroy a planet,
and yet fully understand, even foresee, the consequences of its actions. The price of progress and
profit had been terrifying, and if an Almighty God did indeed exist, He wasn't going to be happy
with what humans had done with Eden.

Jeff sighed and looked up at the darkening sky, shoving the gloominess of his world back into a
cerebral corner behind the many concerns he could actually do something about. First was to
recover his buck, because a Level 4 rain warning had been posted for later this afternoon. That
meant a hard rain with a high sulfuric acid content. If he didn't get through the automated
checkpoint at the entrance to the game recovery area before it hit, his deer's hide would be tanned
before he could turn it in at the biological station, where tissue and body fluid samples were
analyzed.

Mounting another set of antlers to his den wall always made Jeff happy - this was his fourteenth
buck. But just once he wished he could eat a thick venison steak from an animal he had killed, like
a real hunter, instead of watching as technicians in protective clothing removed and sterilized his
antlers, then incinerated the carcass in a fusion oven.

"Oh, Grandfather," Jeff said aloud to the angry gray sky, "if only you could have seen this
coming."