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Save Point: Glyptodontic Procedure

Somewhere In South America, 1980

The common glyptodont was the earliest armour-plated mammal and is the ancestor of the modern armadillo, having survived up until less than ten thousand years ago in South America. It is covered in broad hexagonal bone nodules or 'scutes' which are light and hollow, and which systematically grow together over its entire body, even the tail.

Unfortunately for the glyptodont, Cleo has just eaten the last one in existence, by making it into a meat soup, boiled over a fire using its own shell and leather hide. (Naturally she has cleaned it first, removed everything that looks inedible, poured in a little water and added a pinch of salt). The high Andean Mountains near Patagonia are a harsh place, and it is eat or get eaten by your own hunger. The glyptodont never stood a chance. At least it tasted moderately delicious, she thinks, giving it due reverence as the terminal example of its species, blundering around with too much bone armour on and not enough common sense. Much like myself, she concludes.

She sniffs herself, flanks and side, and under the smell of stewed gyptodont there's a distinct hint of wet cat crotch. She really needs to take it back to civilization, get a shower and a little action, before she goes completely native.

Her stewing pit is under a small overhang, to keep out of the rain, and the smoke from a tiny fire made with whatever she could readily scavenge rises slowly up and out around the rock. The fire has to be very low and ashy to avoid burning through the bowl of leathery bone the glyptodont has become, but it's a style of cooking in which she's become experienced over the millenia, cooking in curled wooden bark, old hide, and what-else-have-you under all sorts of conditions.

Behind her and to the left is her major prize, the Jump Bike making a convenient back-rest to lean against once she's tilted the adjustable aerodynamic knee-guards to create a comfortable progression of angles. It's only performing at about ten percent of maximum output, admittedly, but after all this time and the hasty stunts she put it through to escape, that's really quite remarkable. A normal bike would probably be defeated by this sort of terrain, but she's confident that she can ride her new toy across the mountains at least far enough to hit a road that isn't simply made of mud, at which point reaching the regional capital should be pretty much a straight shot.

She scoops out some more glyptodont soup, savoring the warmth and the aroma more than the taste, which is distinctly adequate. Around ten percent is more than enough for normal performance on level ground, although she won't have any depths of power in reserve for hills and curves. Once she gets it home and can assemble a suitable improvised toolkit, she's certain she can get it back to mostly running order. Some of the materials in the engine core have long but finite half-lives, and scrounging up replacement shells is going to be a bitch, but it's nothing most physics labs couldn't obtain with a sufficient budget and a degree of creativity. Depleted munitions and bulk purchases of smoke detectors will probably be on the shopping list.

She takes the bony-looking soccer-ball off the heat and places it off to the side to cool, covering it with her cleaning cloth to keep any passing animals from scenting it and coming to try and steal it for themselves before it can become tomorrows breakfast. Then she adjusts her body temperature to allow her to sleep comfortably and curls up in the remains of the fire, exchanging nutrition now for warmth later. Since she can control heat flow through her body better than any natural creature, it is easy enough to absorb the small warmth of the ashes and distribute it, making up the small losses attendant upon keeping herself from cooling during the night.

She pats the Jump Bike like it was her pet before falling asleep. "You and me are gonna have great fun together."