Chapter 3: The First Steps
It was a normal day at Prehistoric Earth. The Anomalocaris, including the fully healed Squishy, were swimming through the reefs and the Cameroceras were hiding in the dark gloom of their abyss, waiting for their food to arrive. However, Leon did not have time to think about this. Instead, Leon's life was flashing before his eyes.
"This is it", he thought to himself, "This is the end. Well, I'm actually surprised that my only regret is that I didn't get to stay long enough to rescue extinct cats." He breathed out, grabbed a bucket in his hand and ran into the door; better to get this over with quickly than drag it out. As he opened the door, he became very light headed and every instinct in his body was telling him to leave. However, he, against every single one of his impulses, opened the door. With lightning speed, he dumped the bucket of fish guts into the water's edge and, just as quickly, ran back slamming the door behind him. He panted and wheezed for a few minutes, as he got his breath back; hopefully he wouldn't have to go in there for a while. His thoughts were interrupted by a slow clapping. He turned to see Collete Dubois standing, perfectly relaxed, against one of the aquarium walls with a smirk on her face. She gave him a look as if he was from Mars, before sarcastically saying, "Well, that was impressive. We have 45 Megalograptus and you've probably just fed about only a couple of them at maximum." Leon stared at her for several minutes, completely flabbergasted, before bursting suddenly into laughter and fainting.
(Intro theme)
Drew and Nikolai were currently looking over the Cameroceras tank, watching Jack Denham stand on the feeding platform. He was pulling a rope that held a box containing a large amount of chum up and down, so that the tank's inhabitants could grab it. Nikolai turned to Drew, "Komandir, could you please remind me again why Leon was given scorpion feeding duty?"
Drew gave an awkward grimace, "He was the only one available at the moment. Alice is busy with the Anomalocaris, whilst Adrian's with the research division; they're studying the trilobites. And Jack seemed strangely eager to take orthocone feeding duty for some reason…", Drew replied.
Jack shrugged, and said "What can I say? Leon needs to cool down in my opinion. To be honest, it really must sting for him, doing this without an escape clause." He smiled proudly at his puns before he was brought back to reality by a sudden sharp tug on the rope; a Cameroceras had grabbed the chum box. As in the entire box. His eyes widened, "Oh. Shit.". As he struggled to pull the box back up, Drew and Nikolai continued their conversation, "Anyway, komandir, I'm here to enquire about something; you sent a memo to the keeping and security divisions saying we should get more scorpion tanks ready for the forthcoming mission?" Drew gave Nikolai an enthusiastic nod and said, "Yeah. That's because, today, me and Jack are going to 418 million years ago, to where South Wales is today, to rescue Cephalaspis."
Jack gave Drew a confused look, "That's a type of fish, right? Doesn't seem to me like the sort of creature we'd get scorpion tanks ready for. Has it got an identity crisis or something?". He was now trying to walk away from the feeding platform with the rope over his back, focusing half on Drew and second on his desperate attempt to avoid getting pulled into the orthocone tank.
Drew, seemingly ignorant of his comrade's plight, nodded and said, "Yes, it's a fish, but the Silurian was when sea scorpions were at the top of their game; there were loads of species all over the world. Some of them were amongst the largest arthropods of all time."
"That explains why Leon was screaming after the last mission!" Jack said, breathlessly. His situation had not improved; he was now being pulled with the rope and was trying to futilely stand his ground, in order to avoid being inadvertently added to the orthocone's menu.
Ignoring his current situation, Nikolai took Drew to one side, "Excuse me for asking, komandir, but tell me what exactly you plan on doing with Leon if he ever needs to feed the scorpions again? After what happened in the Ordovician, he's completely terrified of them, Collete said he fainted after feeding one and…" Drew was about to respond, when they both turned to see Jack, now digging his heels into the ground in his futile attempt to avoid being pulled forward with the chum box and into the orthocone tank. Nikolai facepalmed, "For crying out loud, Denham, let go of the chertov rope." Jack turned round to register Nikolai, with a puzzled expression. This loss of concentration caused him to let go of the rope, pulling him forward, to a few inches away from the ending of the feeding platform, and sending the chum box careening into the tank, where a large orthocone grabbed it.
After Drew and Nikolai looked at the dazed Jack and went back to their conversation, Drew paused to think for a bit. "Anyway, we'll just have to make sure that the scorpion feeding is handled first." Nikolai nodded in agreement. Jack, on the other hand, was uncharacteristically quiet and nodded, not because he was listening to the conversation, but because he was completely dazed.
Shortly after, Drew and a now recovered Jack left the aquarium and headed to the portal site. An employee entered the time period and location and the portal flared to life at the push of a button. Drew put the portal remote in his pocket and, after making sure the remote was secured , he turned to Jack, who gave him a wink and a thumbs-up. Drew nodded at him and they entered through the portal
After the blinding light from the portal dimmed down, the first thing that hit them was an almost immediate feeling of light-headedness and a sudden, throbbing headache. It wasn't the skull-splitters of the Ordovician, but it was close. Drew and Jack quickly reached for their air mixtures and took a breath. After a short period, the light-headedness began to subside and the headaches gradually ebbed away. After that brief frantic period, they looked up at the Silurian world. And what a world it was.
It was shocking as to how truly little things had changed in thirty million years; the land still looked more like an alien planet than anything on Earth. It was just as featureless as it had been in the Ordovician; it was a barren wasteland of roasting rock, with no apparent signs of life. It was uncannily quiet; as if a nuclear bomb had gone off and wiped out all life on Earth.
Jack commented, "This was around about the time animals first moved onto land, right? It makes you think; how could anything survive, or want to survive, in a place like this?" Drew turned to him and said, overawed, "Life always finds a way. Life gets past all obstacles. Life changes as the world changes. Life goes to new environments, makes new leaps; painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way. Every single time."
Jack turned to him and smiled, "Maybe it's the low oxygen, but there's something about a place like this that makes you go philosophical."
However, they soon found that appearances are often deceiving. The two looked at the area around them and they were surprised. Not to far from them was a batch of plants. The plants were tiny, only a few centimetres tall, and fairly simple looking; there were no leaves, flowers or roots, instead just a green stem, which branched in the middle culminating in two or three yellow rounded bulbs that was shaped like a piece of pollen. "What are those?" Jack asked.
"From what I remember from the notes Theodore sent me, these are Cooksonia. One of the first land plants." Jack turned to Drew, "Amazing, isn't it? From the giant redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest to the savannahs of the African plains, they all evolved from that tiny plant." He gave Drew a lopsided grin, "They're extinct and interesting; does that mean you want to rescue them, fearless leader? I mean, Theodore didn't say that we couldn't rescue botanical species." Drew turned to him and nodded, "Yes, I do. However, we'll need a place to send them. You scout up ahead for anything else while I contact the park."
Jack nodded and proceeded forward, with his dive bag slung over his shoulder, continuing until he reached the coast and saw the ocean. He then looked down and saw a group of scorpions eating a rotting carcass, of what he couldn't identify; the animal looked too decayed to make a conclusive identification. He looked at the scavengers. Aside from the size, they were almost exactly identical to modern scorpions, with eight legs, a pair of long, thin pincers and a long tail, which terminated in a stinger. However, these were much larger than any modern scorpion; they were approximately three feet long, with stingers the size of light bulbs. They were brown, with a little blue and yellow on the back.
He felt silenced by the surprising solemnity of the occasion; he was witnessing some of the first animals ever to crawl out of the water onto land. Jack moved forward to gain a better look, but in doing so, he accidentally knocked a small rock over. The rock rolled away and landed near the scorpions. The scorpions all paused, like stray dogs around a bin, and all turned to the strange, new creature; they began to advance forward, in order to chase this new competitor off their meal. Silently, Jack started backing away from them; he didn't know whether they were venomous or not, but he did not want to find out the hard way. They did not give up on their advance, continuing to move forward kept backing up until he was pressed against the back of a cliff, the scorpions still continuing their remorseless advance. Jack looked to either side and saw another wall on one side and the ocean on the other. Choosing the better option, he took a breath and braced himself.
Back at the park, Yolanda had been partnered with Mia Nelson, one of the keepers, in order to give some of the animals in the aquarium their routine checkups; Linda was busy preparing for the animals that Drew and Jack would bring back. First on their list was the Megalograptus. In order to get to them, they'd have to actually get in the tank; attempts to lure them out onto land had failed. Yolanda zipped up her wetsuit and looked down at the water with a feeling of trepidation; she'd never liked swimming and she'd never been any good at it. Mia, who was now tying her long hair into a bun, was the complete opposite; she had been swimming since she was five years old and had been the star of her swim team in high school, even winning a local championship.
Yolanda's introspection was interrupted by Mia giving her a nudge in the ribs and winking at her, "As my old swim coach said; the sooner you're in, the better", and dived in. Yolanda gulped, nodded and followed her. By the time Yolanda had entered the water, Mia was halfway to the bottom of the tank. Even weighed down by the fish she was carrying, she made Yolanda's attempt at speed-snorkelling seem less than impressive. It was as if she was an aquatic life form herself; there had been a recurring joke amongst the team that she was part mermaid. However, the joke wasn't an unjustified one; she did seem uncannily at home in the water.
Leaving those thoughts out of her head, Yolanda joined Mia at the bottom of the tank. Their first action was to lure Grumpy the Megalograptus out for a checkup. As they got to the cave in which Grumpy spent most of his time, Mia got out a dead fish, cut a piece off it and dangled it over a hook at the entrance of the cave, waiting for him to strike. A few seconds later, with a speed that belied his armoured figure, Grumpy emerged fully from the cave and grabbed the bait, hooking into it with his barbs. Grumpy stared at both of the humans outside of his tank and hissed at them, before grabbing his prize and dragging it into his grotto to eat in private. Yolanda nodded to Mia; she'd gotten all the observations she needed, and they swam up to the surface. They repeated the process with every individual Megalograptus; they could be told apart by the numbers and coloured tags on their back paddles. Once they had finished checking on the Megalograptus swarm, they got out of their wetsuits and changed into their park uniforms. Their next port of call was the Anomalocaris tank; Linda had asked them to check on how Squishy's injuries were healing. Yolanda had let Mia go on ahead when she suddenly ran into Leon. From his body language, she could tell that he was, quite clearly, nervous; his eyes were darting in every direction and he was playing with his fingers. Confused as to what he wanted, she asked "Can I help you with something?"
Leon breathed out and awkwardly looked at the Megalograptus tank, before saying, in a slightly embarrassed tone, "I noticed you're really good with the scorpions." Yolanda looked confused; the emphasis he had put on that last word was rather strange. It was as if he was too scared to even risk alluding to the creatures. She put those thoughts out of her head as he continued, "And I was just wondering if you could teach me how to deal with them?"
