Nick and Jenny's tour of the Jurassic
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Impossible Pictures™.
As Lester's bellow of outrage hit especially high notes and began to bounce off the ARC's walls and ceiling, Jenny Lewis muffled her own annoyance: did this fine holiday evening have to be ruined by Helen Cutter again?
Unlike Nick or the others, Jenny didn't feel any particular outrage towards the other woman because of some high principles – sure, her actions did cause Stephen to die (something that Jenny couldn't forgive in a hurry, for Stephen did save her at least once, from a future shark), but yet Jenny's primary feeling towards Helen was annoyance. Jenny was simply annoyed that Nick's ex just didn't have the good sense to give-up Nick-
Well, maybe actually she did, but Stephen clearly had some feelings towards Nick of his own (though not those feelings, hopefully), a fact that caused a lot of problems for all three of them... as well as others.
Not that Jenny, of course, would admit that fact to Nick – for all of his practicality and Scottish thrift, Nick was quite ideological, and after all the trouble that Jenny went through to get to this point, she had no intention of letting Nick believe that she didn't share his ideology. Maybe it was a mistake, but Jenny had had her fill of single life and was planning on getting married (to Nick) before the start of the next decade.
"Uh, Jenny, do you know her?" Connor, meanwhile, was asking her sotto voce. "'Cause I don't think that it's a good idea to ask Lester – or anyone else – at this point."
"I think her name is Christine Johnson, but Lorraine probably knows more about her among the ARC staff, outside of Lester. I think her references to our new boss were considerably less than flattering."
As Jenny was saying this to Connor, they and their co-workers kept an eye on the arguing pair, thus when the aforementioned Christine stopped arguing with Lester, they were partially prepared and quickly snapped to attention when their new boss whirled towards them, an official smile of a political predator already on her face.
"Hello, professor – Cutter, is it?" she said in a rather smug version of casual politeness. "From the files on the Center I developed the idea that you were in charge of the field operations in this place."
"Precisely, and we've just received notification from Mr. Lester that we might undertake a big one very soon – tonight, practically," Nick nodded, cautiously. This woman reminded him a fair bit of several wives of his colleagues – too much personal power, very little restraint and fewer ideas about the proper usage of that power. "So, if you don't mind, I and my team ought to leave now to figure out how to deal with it."
"Of course, of course," the smile didn't waver one bit and neither did the very emotionless gaze behind it. "Still, now that I'm in charge of the ARC I expect to be notified of the new developments in your mission."
"Certainly," Nick nodded, and began to carefully follow the others after Captain Becker, looking almost apologetically in Lester's direction. Clearly, the civil worker's initial less than a grand adventure was transforming now into something that was even worse.
"So, meet the new boss – the same as the old boss, only worse," Connor shivered in the crisp air not so much from the physical cold as from the mental apprehension. "Honestly, where does our government dig out these women? She reminded me a bit of my old English teacher – only more so, and not in such a good way."
"I hear you," Abby nodded, grudgingly, not overly happy about this new development herself. "Have you seen how she was staring at Nick? The last thing we need is to have the gender card here played out - in a grand game of self-denial, too."
"Abby? What are you talking about?" Nick carefully turned to the young blonde. "This Johnson woman-"
"People, can we not talk about it, please?" Jenny spoke up sharper than how she intended to sound. "Captain, can you tell us anything about the time anomaly or its site?"
"Mr. Lester has already told you everything, and I don't have too much to add," the Special Forces' man shrugged apologetically. "Mrs. Cutter was... talkative enough to share that that time was late Jurassic, 150 million years ago, and the place was North America – the US in our day. That's pretty much it, though there was a mention of an allosaurus and its nest, if I remember the name correctly."
"Yes, yes you do," Nick nodded, his thoughts now clearly occupied more with dinosaurs and other animals (and possibly plants) of the late Jurassic. "And we will certainly try to sneak a peek at that place, with all due precautions, of course. But speaking of nests – what about the other nest, you know the one that Helen helped you to secure?"
"Honestly, we re-released the dinosaurs, to our embarrassment," Becker sighed. "We didn't want to abandon the eggs in the nest to fate – Mr. Lester was sure that you'd give us ten shades of Hell otherwise – and we were also sure that the eggs won't last long in this weather either, so, we re-released the smallish dinosaurs, and left a pair of guards at 'our' end to keep an eye on them. Not that I think that it's likely, the smell of metal, oil, rubber and whatnot should be sufficient to discourage any prehistoric animals to venture into our world."
"Don't be too sure about this," Nick shook his head. "Dinosaurs – especially carnivorous dinosaurs – were more like birds than mammals; namely, they relied on sight and hearing much more than on their smell."
"What about the cold weather that we're currently having? The breezes going down the tunnel can be quite chilly, you know?"
"That could work," Connor spoke up before Nick did, "but still, I'm sure that we'll be able to handle anything, no matter what!"
The young man was clearly excited about the new development in the ARC's career, and Nick, for one, could hardly blame him. However, when Becker's men appeared to greet them, the initial good mood began to sour with suspicion.
"Sir," the rightmost of Becker's man saluted him sharply. "The professor and – company, we presume?" he added, almost immediately.
"That's right," Becker nodded, equally sharp. "Now, what is going on here? Your position was much further down the abandoned subway tunnel, no?"
"Yes, sir, but there was something in the air – nothing that we could see, no, but there it was, all the same, you know?" the Special Forces' man was clearly discomfited by his admission, yet he, and the other members of his team, did not back down either. "We thought it would be prudent to move some distance away from the sight of the disturbance and keep a look-out out here."
"Right," Becker clearly didn't believe his men. "We'll talk about this later. Right now, I got to show professor Cutter and his people the time anomaly's site-" he entered the abandoned subway proper, and froze.
"What?" Nick asked with a mixture of curiosity, impatience and concern in his voice, and then he joined Becker, and saw...
...a massive hole in the tunnel wall, roughly the circumference of a similar subway tunnel, but the stone around it aged, partially crumbling into dust, partially covered with mosses and lichens. Before the hole was a small pile of dust, dirt, rust and soil, from which several horsetail plants grew. They were pale and sickly, but they were there.
"This wasn't here when we left. The plants and everything else began at least 4 meters from the start of this tunnel," Becker said slowly, "not straight away."
"Interesting," Connor carefully edged forwards and began to examine the entrance to the tunnel and the immediate vicinity to it. "The rails close to this hole seem to be much more aged and rusted than away from it." He turned towards Nick and the others. "You think that Helen may've had a point when she suggested that the Jurassic was taking over our world?"
"I am not sure," Nick admitted reluctantly, clearly unwilling to discuss Helen in any positive way, but also unable to invent any counter explanations to this apparent development. "The time anomalies we've been dealing with before – they're quite different from this. Maybe it's what time anomalies can evolve into, unless they're closed first."
"Mmm, perhaps, but shall we phone Lester and talk to him about the concrete?" Abby asked, feeling slightly nervous, for once.
"Firstly, you forgot that we've got a new boss," Nick said, unhappily, "and secondly, let's at least sneak a look there – real live dinosaurs' nests! That is something that must not be ignored! It is an opportunity that we must take advantage of! People – follow me!"
Without hesitation, Nick walked over to the hole, stepped through it, and continued to walk. Very quickly he vanished in that opening.
The others exchanged looks. "Well, what're we waiting for?" Connor spoke, mostly in Abby's direction. "Everybody, follow Nick!"
Becker looked askance at Jenny, who stared back impassively. "Captain, professor Cutter is the leader of the ARC's field team – I expect you to follow his orders... after establishing a back-up team as well. See you on the other side!"
Resolutely, Jenny turned around and entered the supposed (and mutated) time anomaly. Becker and his people soon followed suit.
Unnoticed by everybody, cracks and primitive plants continued to spread through the subway tunnel's walls, and the circular spot on the floor continued to grow in diameter.
The insides of the tunnel struck Jenny with darkness and warmth – after the rather chilly London, this was almost stifling and almost – unnatural?
"Guys," Jenny's voice shook despite her best efforts. "Where are you?"
"Hush! We're down here," Abby whispered in reply, "so bend down, please, as well!"
Feeling even more worried and confused, Jenny complied, nonetheless, bent down. "What is it?" she whispered quietly.
"Look!" Abby continued to whisper. "Over there!"
Jenny looked, and stared at several small, bipedal dinosaurs that were staring back at them... before running a small distance away from them and re-starting to feed on various smallish plants that grew here in a quite substantial quantity.
"Who are those guys?" Jenny could hear Connor whisper to Nick. "I thought that they appeared later, in the Cretaceous – the Jurassic was the time of the true titans!"
"You forget about such species as othnelia and dryosaurus," Jenny heard Nick whisper in reply. "Small, bipedal ornithischian dinosaurs already existed in the Jurassic, and we can see them right now!"
Suddenly, there was a loud, crashing sound from further down from the whatever place Nick and others found themselves in. "You want to take a look?" Jenny asked, aware that Nick most likely did.
"Yes," Nick eagerly confirmed her fears. "Connor, Abby, are you with us?"
The younger couple nodded, eagerly.
"Becker, are you and your men prepared? Good, then carefully, follow my lead-"
And Nick led the way out of the semi-tunnelar, semi-cavernous space.
Outside of that space, Jenny was blinded for pretty much the second time in less than twenty-four hours – this time from the bright sunlight. Moreover, the climate out here was even hotter and wetter than inside of the whatever they had been lurking – and then there were the dinosaurs.
There were three of them, and even Jenny, whose lessons in palaeontology were really very, very small, could identify those creatures as stegosaurs – maybe even the stegosauruses, and these dinosaurs were very, very busy.
Two of the aforementioned giant reptiles (each one was roughly 8 or 9 meters) in length were... standing on their hind legs, pressing their shoulders and torsos against each other, trying to topple each other over. Their tails, terminated with 2 pairs of razor-sharp spikes, longer than human arms, were thrashing in the dirt, creating those loud crashes that the ARC field team has heard over.
The third stegosaur was smaller, somewhat drabber in coloration, and was waiting some distance away from the fighting pair with an almost bashful expression on its muzzle.
"A mating fight! Remarkable!" Nick exclaimed, perhaps a bit louder than Jenny would've liked – if those titans would decide that they posed a threat and charged, then probably even Becker and his men would not be able to stop them, not without some casualties anyways.
Becker, meanwhile, had other things on his mind. "Professor?" he asked quietly, after walking over to Nick. "Why are those birds flocking behind that hillock?"
"Those aren't birds – they are pterosaurs, rhamphorhynchid pterosaurs, if you want to get technical, though probably not rhamphorhynchus itself, for that specie lived closer to the sea coasts," Nick spoke, still in his full professor mode. "Then again, so did its cousins – the other Jurassic pterosaurs."
"So, does it mean that over there is the sea coast?" Becker wasn't backing down. "'Cause the feel of this land does not come off particularly coastal."
"Oh, very well, we might as well go there and take a look," Nick reluctantly admitted.
As a matter of fact, the hillock with the pterosaurs was some distance away from the competing stegosaurs, through a copse of truly titanic trees.
"Are these sequoias?" Jenny felt like she had to ask.
"Cycads, most likely, or perhaps even tree ferns – not true trees at all," Connor, whom she had been addressing, responded eagerly. "Did you notice their immense height? The odds are that they had reached that height to outmanoeuvre the main herbivores of these times – the sauropod dinosaurs, like camarasaurus, and diplodocus, and-"
The growl did not sound particularly thunderous, but it was continuous and more than a little bit ominous. Slowly, Jenny, and Connor and others turned around – and faced a meat-eating dinosaur.
The carnivore was 12 meters long, and stood on its hind limbs, which reached 3 or 4 meters high. The forelimbs were shorter, but armed with claws that appeared to be made for disembowelling prey such as people, and its eyes, located beneath protruding crests that were much more brightly coloured than the rest of the body, shone with all the friendliness of a crocodile, albeit increased in proportion with the rest of the body.
"Allosaurus," Becker said flatly. "And Mrs. Cutter had warned about its nest being nearby."
"Oh, shut up," Nick spat out. "Try to tranquilize it first – maybe we'll be able to get away before it charges-"
The allosaurus charged. Becker and the other soldiers raised their rifles to shoot, but the allosaurus was already... beyond them, charging around the hillock's bend, its' tail whipping up a storm.
"...Well, that was a lucky break," Becker spoke after several long moments of silence, when it became obvious that the carnivore was not returning to them for a re-match. "Let's just sneak one more peek at the fighting herbivores and leave before another carnivore tries to take a bite at us, shall we?"
"Becker, where's your sense of adventure? I promise we take one last look as to what lies behind this copse and hill, and then we'll leave," Nick said brightly. "Everybody, though, be on the alert!"
As a matter of fact, this was good advice, for if the party had walked around the hillock in their former, carefree style, they would've been in for a nasty surprise. The allosaurus from the araucaria copse was indeed there, and it was busy confronting a pair of smaller carnivores, each one possessing a horny ridge on the upper part of their snouts, over a corpse of another large stegosaur.
"Ceratosaurs," Nick exhaled. "More primitive carnivores – they went extinct about this time."
However, these two particular ceratosaurs were clearly unaware of that state of affair. Instead, they confronted the allosaurus (which was twice as long as either of them), their jaws snapping and their long teeth flashing in the sunlight.
"Take a look at the ceratosaurs' teeth," Nick advised his team-mates, "see how disproportionally long they are? This key feature was kept later on in the descendants of the ceratosaurs – the abelisaurs of South America and Africa in the Cretaceous. Here, though, in North America, the ceratosaur dinosaurs went extinct-"
At that moment, the allosaurus roared again – and this time its cry was echoed by several similar responses. Immediately, the ceratosaurs stopped their face-off and fled, followed by the bigger carnivore.
"So, the carnivorous dinosaurs of these times hunt in pairs or packs," Connor gulped, as the land began to tremble beneath several pairs of powerful legs and bird-like feet. "No offense, but how are we not going to be caught in their way?"
"Through there, I suppose?" Abby pointed to the side of the hillock, where... a time anomaly was glowing with a chromatically white colour in the sunlight.
"A rare opportunity, people!" Nick shouted, excitedly. "Follow me!"
Since the shapes of allosaurs could now be easily distinguished in the further end of the copse, now was not a time for argue. Acting quickly, the ARC field crew and Becker's forces fled up side of the hillock, into the time anomaly, and then-
To be continued...