A trip to the past
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Impossible Pictures. ™
The male gigantopithecus was dying. It – or rather he – had been defending his family for days from the attacks of the starving predators, but it couldn't defend them from two very different enemies: starvation and volcanic ash.
It began (unknown to the gigantopithecus) several weeks ago to the south-west, when the Toba supervolcano had finally erupted, releasing clouds of ash and dust into air, starting the latest Ice Age and catching the local megafauna completely flat-footed. The clouds of debris blocked the sun cutting-off the sunlight, causing mass cooling and extinction of the plant-life that formerly fed the ancient apes.
But worse than starvation was the ash as it got into the animals' lungs and condensed there into a concrete-like substance instead. The gigantopithecines, as well as other animals, were suffocating alive and there was no escape from this death.
With the last vestiges of its once-great strength the gigantopithecus tried to follow its family, but apparently it had reached and surpassed its limits long ago – and therefore it promptly collapsed, falling into a cloud of chromatically white light that had appeared out of nowhere...
* * *
Ever since mastering (at least partially so) the knowledge of how the time anomalies work, Helen Cutter found herself with a lot of free time on her hands, pun included. And ever since the disaster with Leek, she found that she didn't enjoy it at all.
Now, admittedly, this situation has been ripening for a while: ever since Helen learned how to survive in prehistoric times and was able to track down the entire evolution of humanity, from its' rise slightly over three million years in the past to its downfall in roughly another five million years in the future, she began to understand that what she had stumbled-upon was a rather double-edged gift and that something had to be done about it – but sadly, Helen failed to accomplish that goal and was now currently staying roughly thirty thousand years in the past trying to think of what to do next – or just give in into her ever-growing insanity and give up.
And then, suddenly, an unexpected time anomaly opened a short distance away from her current camp and out of it fell – literally so – several massive apes, apes of a kind that were supposed to have become long extinct by now.
Gigantopithecines.
"Hmm, interesting," Helen said with less passion than what she actually felt. "I haven't seen you in a while – hah?"
The gigantopithecines were twitching and jerking and it was not because of the unexpected cold (not that they were adapted to it), but from an internal cough that sounded very, very wrong. "Hmm, interesting," Helen repeated, but this time with an audible strain in her voice. "What should I do about it?"
In reality Helen knew that there were only two options – let the ancient apes die or do something about it – and due to her travels in the far (well, not too far) future Helen had just the thing.
She reached into her rucksack and withdrew a syringe and several ampoules of wine-coloured liquid – and she poured one of them into the syringe, before beginning to apply it to the gigantopithecines (two females, three youngsters and a big male that was lying in the end of the group). And she applied the regeneratory liquid, the gigantopithecines began to twitch even harder, and then they began to vomit. However, it wasn't any regular vomit (as gross as that may sound) – instead it was some sort of a grey material that resembled no organic material, but rather definitely inorganic concrete.
"Hmm, interesting" Helen said for the third time, although this time she was concentrating more on the vomit than on the apes. "From what time did you come from? Obviously not from when I met you, no... Still, speaking of time, an Ice Age winter is definitely not for you, so what to do with you, then?"
And since Helen was Helen, and because she was at her best whenever she was confronting with a challenge (although lately she had to admit that her best was not as good as she thought it was) she very quickly thought of exactly what to do with them.
* * *
The phone ringing woke Nick Cutter hard and fast. "What is it now, it's not yet six in the morning, the sun is not yet up!"
"Nick," the older man could practically hear the wince in Connor's voice, "just turn on the TV, please!"
Something in Connor's voice convinced Nick that that would be the right idea and feeling rather reluctant and unhappy he turned it on.
"Hello, this is Mick Harper from the ITV news," the reporter's smooth voice cut through the silence of Nick's living room. "Speaking to you from the Motorway 25 with unexpected news. As some of you may be aware, several weeks ago a creature significantly bigger than any elephant found in local zoos or circuses has been seen rampaging through this very spot before it disappeared under rather suspicious circumstances. Now, however, the beast hasn't re-appeared – but instead the drivers and passer-bys can behold this family of just as large apes feasting on leaves and fresh shoots in the nearby copse. The motorway's authorities have already contacted the local zoos not just to confirm that these beasts have not escaped from their enclosure, but also to capture and study them under controlled conditions-"
Nick turned the TV off and raced – still almost half-dressed to his front porch where a van bearing an ARC logo was already waiting for him.
* * *
Once the apes were safely browsing in the small copse some distance away from the Motorway (fortunately it was currently in little use due to the early hours), Helen returned back to the Pleistocene and began to re-examine the time anomaly that had brought the animals to her in the first place.
Essentially, in the terms of what Helen had learned about these things, this time anomaly was a new one, uncharted, in other words by either her or – most likely – the ARC (if they started to map them at all, that is), which, in turn meant...
"Hmm, interesting," Helen felt as if she was in some verbal rut but ignored the feeling. "Let's see where it all leads, shall we?"
The smell coming from the other side of the time anomaly wasn't encouraging though: it smelt like rot. Like rot and deterioration and death. Yet since Helen was no stranger to any of these smells she shrugged, grabbed her manifestation device, set it on a recording mode, and stepped through all the same.
* * *
"All right, hit me," Nick said curtly to Connor as the latter was already scrounging through the ARC's database. "What are we dealing with here?"
"A species of giant ape – gigantopithecus most likely, but I can't exactly narrow it down to the species: there were several of them, you know?"
"Right. I think I saw them eating leaves on the TV?"
"They most likely were – they were vegetarians, not meat-eaters, no danger of that in this case."
"Connor, our mammoth is a plant-eater, yet it is more than capable of killing people especially-"
"Especially what?"
Abruptly, the vehicles stopped, preventing Nick from answering – instead the man observed (with some mixed feelings) how the still somewhat dishevelled Jenny Lewis (that is to stay, she did not look as immaculately perfect as she usually did), who still looked great (at least in the eyes of Nick Cutter if he would ever admit it) made her way towards the copse and the reporting crew looking about as angry as Nick felt.
"This," Nick muttered quietly, "just might be good."
* * *
"Hello, I am Mike Harper from ITV news. Joining me is-"
"Harper!" Jenny snarled, feeling the irritation of being woken from a particularly nice dream and being cold-fed the reality of dealing with giant apes and pesky reporters at just after six in the morning metamorphose into some sort of rage instead. "You again! First you harass us with some cock-and-bull story about a mammoth, then you bother me for no particular reason, and now you're back with your old tricks-"
"Nice try, Ms. Lewis, but your tactics won't work on me now," the reporter said smugly. "As a matter of fact, I'm here with Mr. David-"
"It's Dyfed," spoke a tall, lanky character that Jenny assumed early as a part of Harper's crew, "and I would rather that you'd take your noise and leave me and my people alone. The apes are already looking askance and I cannot guarantee that if they decide to charge, you'd survive."
"You heard the man," Jenny grinned as Harper's face paled somewhat. "Leave." Then she turned to the speaker. "And Mr. David-"
"Not here, please... and for the record, who are you?"
* * *
The jungle met Helen with the silence of the grave: all around her the ashen grey skeletons of tropical tree trunks stood bereft of leaves and fruits and flowers, as well as the smaller epiphytic plants. The ground too was of an unnatural ashen grey colour and it stank. It stank with a stench similar to that of the inorganic vomit from the gigantopithecines.
Carefully, Helen bent lower and took a stronger sniff. "It smells... acidic?" she instinctively asked herself. "That's not good... and how?"
As she began to straighten up, another smell hit nostrils – that of smoke. It was beginning to rise from the soles of her boot that was partially positioned in a small puddle of water... of water?
"Acid rain," Helen said with a shudder as several pieces of the puzzle snapped into a whole. "But in the past? How? The ash-"
A very suspicious sound that sounded remarkably like crying interrupted Helen's thought processes. Slowly, she pulled out her knife and began to walk away from the path with the puddles. Behind her, the time anomaly pulsed as it expended and shrunk.
* * *
"So, Mr. Dyfed-"
"Just call me Kenneth. One of my people tried to pull a joke on the newshound back there. Anyways, you still haven't answered my question."
"I am- We are with her majesty's government, and we're here to deal with this situation-"
"So are we – or do you think that the London zoo is a private enterprise. We- what the Hell? Maitland?"
"You!" Abby had quietly walked up to Jenny and her interlocutor and stared at the man from her own short height. "I should've guessed that the zoo would send you!"
"Yes it did," Kenneth shrugged, looking downwards on the much shorter blonde. "What are you doing here? Aren't you profiling on the reptiles?"
"She's with us," Jenny said quickly, "haven't you heard?"
"Meh," Kenneth seemed unimpressed. "Anyways can you also not get under our feet as well? Me and my people – we work with apes, you know, we-"
"All right, we will," Abby said in a clear huff. "Ms. Lewis, come on, let's see what our Mr. Practitioner will do!"
"Hah!"
* * *
The crying proved to be not real crying; that is it was not emitted by humans but by a pair of half-grown lion cubs, both in very poor shape. The constant outpour of highly acidic rain and a poor (practically non-existent) diet did quite a number on their bodies and by now the two smallish beasts were more dead than alive.
For her part, Helen just silently stared at the pair even as the two stared back with eyes there were once bright but now were dim from hunger, disease and pain. The cubs would die in a matter of weeks and-
"I am no bloody hero!" Helen yelled into the utterly overcast sky. "I am not someone all-powerful either! I am just- I just-" she fell silently and stared once more at the cubs. "Let's just go, kitties, as I once told myself, if I am human then I'll act human, and if someone doesn't like it, they can go and hang themselves. Time to put my money into where my mouth is, for a change."
* * *
Despite Abby's scorn, Kenneth and his co-workers clearly at least some idea of what to do: they got a truck, rotated it around the motorway so that it eventually faced the appropriate direction and opened the back door.
And then they turned-on the speakers and began to play... animal noises.
"What are you doing?" In theory, Nick Cutter and Co. should've kept their distance away from the competition. In practice, however, the curiosity of ARC's crew proved stronger, and so Nick decided to sidle over and ask the above-mentioned question.
"All monkeys are social creatures, and great apes – including ourselves – are even more so," Kenneth apparently didn't see any reason to be uncooperative either. "We could've tried luring them in ourselves, but from their suspicious looks it would not be a good – or even a working – idea, so we're trying calls of other apes instead."
"So why gibbons?" Abby, apparently, wasn't completely displeased by running into her former co-worker either. "We have gorillas and chimps, you could've-"
"These animals don't look like gorillas or chimps as even you can see it, Lizard Girl."
"Hey!"
"But they look somewhat like orang-utans, so I decided to start from Asia instead. We're using gibbons first, but since gibbons show no reaction, we'll be using the orang-utans instead. Switch it, lads!"
And the "lads" switched the animal sounds. The switch in the gigantopithecines' behaviour was immediate: the big male immediately stopped browsing and instead bellowed a threatening cry, clearly implying that he did not appreciate that the new territory of his clan suddenly acquired new neighbours slash cousins. Moreover, he did not stop on a sound performance, but instead promptly charged at quite a high speed!
"Somebody, switch it off!" shouted Kenneth, but it was too late: the giant ape barrelled into truck and began to pummel it with all of his strength. Sadly, Connor decided to show initiative at that moment and shot a tranquilizer dart at the rampaging animal, but due to the angle of his tranquilizer dart as well as his own insufficient experience, he missed.
The gigantopithecus hooted in anger and tearing off the roof of the truck's driving cabin, he flung it at Connor barely missing the young man. Moreover, the male ape decided that he liked this new game and continued to rip apart the vehicle, flinging the pieces all over the motorway.
"Connor," Abby could only hiss at her friend, suggesting mental pain and payback in the days to come. "Once we get out of this-"
And then the big ape literally punched through the truck's trailer – and smelled several barrelfuls of ripe fruit (as well as nuts) that the zoo crew had brought over with them for a very similar purpose. Immediately the male stopped his aggression, while the rest of his family stopped acting exclusively as a cheerleading group and all of them got inside to feed. They did so for over half an hour, and then they collapsed, asleep.
"And that is how you use tranquilizers, people!" Kenneth said calmly. "And now, about the cars-"
* * *
The first thing that Helen did after she got back to her base in the modern times was boil some water, put some fish pemmican into it and feed the resulted soup to the orphaned cubs. The latter were somewhat reluctant at first, but after the first few licks they quickly decided that they liked this new sort of meal and ate it all.
And then they promptly fell asleep from the tranquilizers that had been added to the impromptu fish meal.
Helen, meanwhile, wasn't idle either: she quickly got out her supply of bandages and the like and began to wrap up the cubs – she didn't have any training, but she did plenty of self-experience...
And then she looked at the clock on the well, and then she looked the window of the laptop that lay on a table to the side of her, then she looked at the peacefully sleeping – and firmly bandaged – lion cubs and made a decision.
* * *
"Boy, that was fun!" Connor finally found courage to turn to Abby with words of some sort. "And those former colleagues of yours, Abby, were quite decent, even if Kenneth did come off as a bit of jerk at first-"
"Connor, you're still an idiot," Abby sighed. "Kenneth and his people did the bulk of the capture at the very least; I know that if I was in Kenneth's position I would fight over at least some of the prehistoric apes for the zoo. And I know Kenneth – he never really liked backing down from the fight, even if he was not ambitious career-wise. I don't know why he agreed to surrender them so easily-"
"Abby, don't worry, if your friend will try something funny the ARC will be more than a match for him-"
"Connor, he's not my friend, we barely even saw each other: I dealt with snakes and lizards, he – with apes and monkeys. We barely even crossed each other's paths!" Abby turned red. "Anyways, speaking of apes, what will we be doing about ours?"
"Let's put them next to the mammoth," Nick Cutter didn't sound too sure of it himself. "And then – well, I am not sure – maybe we'll be able to send them back... what's Sarah Page doing?"
"Waiting for us?" Connor suggested helpfully.
"She never did that before, idiot!" Abby snarled.
As the younger couple began to squabble, Jenny and Nick got out of their car and approached Sarah instead.
"Sarah, what's wrong?" Jenny asked, suspecting that no one is going to like this answer.
"Jenny, Nick – about an hour ago Helen Cutter came to the ARC and offered James a temporary truce of sorts."
"...And look, it's only ten in the morning," Jenny said after a pause. "I guess that by the same time in the evening we're all going to die in apocalypse!"
To be continued...