For the want of a minus
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.
Note: This is a sequence to my previous fics "Responsa" & "The ARC TV Special" They ought to be read first to properly understand what is going on here.
-1-
"Ho lads, set forth the sails, a fair wind is blowing!" Connor Temple sand happily, and for a good reason: he got his permission to activate a time anomaly. Admittedly, until recently this would not have made any sense, for the ARC's old goals were mostly based on closing the time anomalies, rather than activating new ones (or exploring them, either), but lately, things have changed; in fact, they changed so much, Connor tended to tell Abby every once in a while, that sometimes he had trouble remembering the old and recognizing it in the new.
When, however, Lorraine agreed to give him a certain amount of financial freedom to go forth and explore the time anomaly to the middle to late Cretaceous, which had appeared at least once in his home, Connor had no problems in recognizing it as a great opportunity and treated it accordingly.
"This is a great opportunity!" he said smugly to Abby and the other members of his team that had gathered in the kitchen corridor of their flat. "To explore the Cretaceous in person, live! Can you imagine?"
The other members of Connor's filed team exchanged somewhat less enthusiastic looks – just like Connor, they had encountered various creatures from the past, and found them rather hard to deal with, even when they were out of their usual environment; and to confront a dinosaur in its own environment... was not necessarily as exciting as Connor made it sound.
On the other hand, however, Connor had had encountered many of them as well, including some the raptors of the late Cretaceous time period, and hadn't lost any of his enthusiasm for them (the dinosaurs, that is); therefore, they (his co-workers and friends) certainly could go along with him for the ride, and not because it was their jobs.
"So, is everybody ready?" Connor said excitedly. "Then here goes!" and he activated the time anomaly manifestation device.
-2-
The manifested time anomaly flashed chromatically white in the rather narrow space of Abby and Connor's kitchen corridor. Nothing plant, animal or mineral seemed to be coming through it either, and that was encouraging – Abby, for one, didn't forget the giant meat-eating dinosaurs...or the even bigger and more carnivorous sea monster that she and Connor had also encountered on their first trip there, and would rather not run to either of them so soon.
"So," Connor said eagerly, admittedly also after waiting for several moments to see if anything bit and nasty was coming forth to check them out and see if they were edible, "people, let's go!"
"Wait a second," Helen Cutter said suddenly from the corner in which she was staying all this time. "I smell a sea."
Connor, who was about to go through the time anomaly took a double-take. "Say what?"
"I smell the sea," Helen repeated simply. "Was there a sea on the other side back then? I didn't really notice."
"Yes, there was," Connor said impatiently, "now if you don't mind," he stepped through. There was a sound of a small splash. Then – "Becker, can I have you here with me now, please?"
Becker exchanged looks with Abby and Helen. "Be right back," he said simply and followed Connor.
-3-
The body of water – which was probably a sea of some sorts, Becker decided, was quite shallow. It was also big, way big, stretching at least to the horizon, and maybe even beyond it, with no signs of proper dry land anywhere. "I am guessing that this isn't where you ended up the last time you went through the local time anomaly?" Becker said dryly.
"No," Connor dropped, "there was a sea shore, sure, complete with the sea, but there was plenty of dry land too. This, this, I don't know what this is-"
"Well, if it wasn't for the absence of dry land, I would say that you've arrived in the right place, loosely speaking," Becker said thoughtful. "Of course, the absence of the giant flying reptiles that apparently lived in this time is a very big clue too, I would say."
"What did you say?" Connor slowly asked.
"I said that there is nothing in the sky," Becker pointed upwards. Instinctively, Connor looked up. Sure enough, the sky was empty of birds, or pterosaurs, or even (fortunately, though) of the giant man-eating insects from the future. Nothing up there, but some clouds.
"Well! That's new!" Connor said weakly. "Judging from, uh, the fact that the air is breathable, I would say-" he stopped as Becker abruptly grabbed him by the collar and jumped backwards through their time anomaly.
-4-
"You're back already?" Abby and Helen exchanged glances. "We, uh, barely had time to check the calculations of Connor's and-"
"You don't like getting into water, do you?" Becker said curtly.
"No," Abby replied, just as curtly. "I once was captured by the giant sea-monkeys from the future, and Helen-"
"-came several times to close to the teeth of various prehistoric sea reptiles and whales," Helen added. "What's your story?"
"I think that there was a goof," Becker said, while Connor shot him a grateful look. "We ended in a place where flying reptiles didn't exist, but at least one giant jellyfish does."
"So?"
"I've seen people hospitalized from jellyfish stings," Becker replied. "With unknown outcome too, I should add. I am not taking any risks without proper supplies of proper antivenin if we're to go back there."
"No need to, I think that we've figured out what went wrong," Abby said silently. "Connor made a typo – a plus instead of a minus in the beginning of the programming sequence. This means-"
"-this means that I opened a time anomaly roughly 70 million years into the future instead of the past," Connor gulped and looked backwards at the time anomaly. "What do we do now?"
"How about explaining to me why are you not following the schedule – you do have a schedule?" Lester asked, as he entered the flat.
To be continued...