Chapter 16: Flawed Designs

Ding! A ver unexpected sound popped from her pocket, her old phone. Opening it she recieved a message from Peter. 'Sarah I need you to come to the NEASA center, there's a lot of touble happening here and I need your help.' At first sight she was ready to hope out and into the car, but something was off. First off, why would Peter message her on this device, she only had the phone for old friends, and was going to get rid of it soon. Secondly, he didn't say anything about the family. She turned to see the bomb, it was only then did she realise the bomb had it's time reset, an extra 3 minutes added. There was only one thing she could do at this point.

"And sent, now that covers that. Sarah will come right up to the parking lot, and then I will set the bomb off. Either your friends or your... girlfriend? Just a friend? Whatever, either one of them won't see the light of tomorrow. Even if your friends live, lets say that there are probably some people out there who would love to see them, or a bit more... maybe for a price." Andrew smiled, not any smile seen before, an uncanny smile.

"You're insane, thinking that could can just get away with th-"

"To think you can do the same. Here, recovered footage from the shuttle when it first entered the new world, take a look at it when all this drama ends. Any-who, I've noticed you haven't even asked me the simplest of questions, why isn't the gravity of the two planets interacting? I counted for that. As long as the bridge remains stable it will stay that way, if it ever went unstable... we wouldn't have a nice day now would we?" "So you're risking both worlds just for the sake of humanity? There's trillions of species on both worlds, some much more different than what we've seen here."

"And I suppose talking dinosaurs is one of them? You can't fool me that easily, you clearly modified them to speak. Dinosaurs don't just magically talk out of thin air. They're just a bunch of dumb animals just like the animals on this world. Now... it looks like Sarah has just parked, if you'll excuse me." A part of logic had gone out from Peter, as he tried running toward Andrew in an effort to stop him, instead he was close to hitting the bars face on, the impact pushing him back slightly. Due to high winds the walls around were starting to break, revealing the outside. The coarse sound of a button was heard, but no explosion.

Instead a faint glow from the other direction. An explosion from the direction of where the family were. At first, the expected expressions of Andrew's victory and Peter's defeat could be seen. However, the beam coming from a tower in the same direction had faded. The explosion was at the base of the tower, not where the family were! Meanwhile, Sarah had ducked under a small desk, as the shock wave blasted through all the windows, loud enough to actually make one of the other bodies stir. A sigh of relief came from Sarah, as she was happy that they were in fact just unconscious, not dead.

Peter watched in awe, while Andrew looked in horror, as the tower fell, this however meant only one thing - the bridge between the worlds had now become unstable. The ground beneath everyone in San Jose started to shake, as the gravity of both worlds now influenced each other. Hurriedly, Andrew went over to the main controls and adjusted the two adjacent towers, so that their beams were closer, and re-stabilized the bridge. There was only one problem, more energy was needed for this, and said towers were put under more stress, they were beginning to break from inside. Andrew moved a secondary lever, presumably in case of emergency, so that more energy than required came into the system.

As Arlo and the family were adjusting with their surroundings, Sarah had gotten work on fixing Alma. As it turned out, there wasn't much needed to do before Alma could fix itself. Repeatedly Alma said "Testing" Adjusting its voice as to match with what it was previously, when it got to the right one, it said "Sarah, we need to get to Peter now!", "I already know what situation Peter is in, at least from this fake message. Had the bright idea of sending my car to NEASA while also sending Peter's car over to the tower; the bomb inside the car. Anyways, yes we need to get over there as fast as possible." Sarah said tiredly, rushed by what was happening outside. There were bangs and rumbles in almost all directions, as the two towers next to the already broken one were on the verge of exploding.

It wasn't long before said towers started collapsing, exploding in the process. Sarah and the others had got into the shuttle just as one of the towers collapsed nearby. As more energy was needed to fill the gap of 3 towers, it was very easy for a chain reaction to start. Sarah and Alma frustratingly couldn't get the shuttle to start up, while the family looked outside to see all the action taking place. The last tower blew up, marking the end of Andrew's plan.

"Agh! If I can't fulfill my final design, then this will have to do, a small bridge is better than no bridge." Andrew angrily said, mostly to himself, as he adjusted the controls as such that the central core was the emitter of this bridge, said bridge being only the size of a house. Peter looked at the core, and could recall the article he read earlier. "There's just one problem with that Andrew!" Surprised, Andrew turned slowly... "Excuse me?" "

I read an article today, not just any article though." Peter managed to find a flaw in the cage, using his bare hands, he slowly made the crack larger, until it burst in half. Climbing out, he grabbed hold of the nearest hammer. "An article made just one week ago, 'Accidental explosion at NEASA cause still in mystery'. An explosion, I didn't make anything of it. Until now." Sarah and Alma managed to start the shuttle up, in time as well. Peter turned counter-clockwise until he was staring right at the core, the hammer held in both hands. Swinging it over his back, he aimed to over-throw it straight into the core. "Peter, I forbid you to throw that hammer, the explosion alone is enough to kill anyone near by."

"You're right." Peter said, before looking outside to see the lights of the shuttle come closer. "Too bad I know someone who can also operate a space shuttle." With all his might, he threw the hammer over his head, and straight for the core. It felt like slow motion, seeing it race toward its fate, with nothing to stop it. However, just as it hit, the room Peter was in changed. It was much smaller, and was in motion. There were nearby seats in front, and a door behind. He could only just stand up fully, as the ceiling was so low. He knew exactly that they somehow got inside the shuttle, which had now turned away from the NEASA center.

A loud rumble sounded, as the explosion of the machine was heard. Looking out of the window he could see the enormous explosion that was unfolding before his eyes. When the explosion dissipated, he turned back round to see Andrew, who looked shaken by how close they had come to certain death. "Be thankful Sarah here learned how to get us out of there. Actually no, be thankful she decided to get you out of there too." Peter had raised his voice. Still shaken, Andrew got up, a bit of a wobble as he regained his balance. "You think you can turn me in? You have no evidence."

"But we can still charge you, violating the 'Use of exotic matter' act that was put in place at 2025. You also risked the biodiversity of two entire planets, not acres, not states, not countries, planets. And one last thing you also violated; The 1973 Endangered species act. You threatened to kill off an entire species." Andrew scoffed, "If that many dinosaurs can live in the area shown by the bridge earlier, then I'm sure there are fare more of their kind, definitely not an endangered species."

"Ah but you see, the act does not consider multiple planets, that would come under the Planetary protection act. Since these dinosaurs are the only ones to live here, then there are only four members of their kind 'left' on Earth. The Apatosaur has lived before on Earth, so for any other scientist it would seem like a rare number has been brought back to life, and thus would still be classified as highly endangered. So when you admitted to wanting to kill them, you admitted to kill an entire species, on Earth of course." Peter said proudly, as he did, the family over heard and walked over.

Peter turned around to see them, "Speaking of which, you and them need to have a chat."

"Aw not this bull-

"Shut it, I'll have none of that on this shuttle. One last thing before you go in there, reminder that I stopped the asteroid that would of killed them, and allowed them to continue for about 60 million years. If they haven't evolved in shape or size that much, what else do you think they have obtained. Think about that when they speak." Peter shoved Andrew into the cargo bay, before shutting the door.

"Peter, you're evil." Alma said, however this time it wasn't serious. "I know I am, at least he can re-think about things while he's there. I'll get him out in about... two minutes?"

Sarah laughed, almost excited "Still can't believe that we found them in the first place. How about we go some-where else with this thing, or better yet, some-when else with this machine."

"That would be nice." Peter said, and that was the end of it.

"There you have it. That's what happened. I hope you have what you needed." Peter said coldly. He got up, and prepared to go.

"Now hold on there Peter just one moment, I have a few... questions for you to answer, that I've been gathering from what the audience here have wondered. You can stand or sit if you want." Peter was about to get his coat, stopping just as the interviewer spoke. He slowly, awkwardly sat back down. "Yes?"

"First off, is that... everything you know?"

"I mean, there was a week that I skipped of me and them doing stuff, but since that wasn't needed in this, I skipped it."

"Okay, anything else that happened. What happened after?"

"Well you should know already, we got Andrew locked up, and I took Sarah back to her house. That's it okay?" By now Peter was starting to loose his temper.

"Oh, one more question."

"What is it?"

"Why is it that no one here has seen you in over a month? And furthermore, what happened to the shuttle?" The interviewer and Peter had now stared at this point, with Peter looking as if he could explode at any moment. But he did not, instead he calmed down. "It's gone. The shuttle, is gone. I can never see them again. Not Arlo, not Ida, not Buck, not Libby... Not even Alma. I had done a terrible thing, and it was all my fault." He pulled his face such that he was looking down.

It took a while before anyone in the room spoke. "Would you like to tell us?"

With a long sigh, that felt like 10 seconds. Peter raised his head back up. Almost no emotion came from his voice, but there was some emotion of nervousness in his voice. "Okay..."

A/N: I am so sorry for leaving it this long, I can't say where I've been, nor what's going to happen next. The next chapter might not even be out tomorrow because it might be the final chapter, MIGHT, no promises there. I hope you enjoyed this chapter - and more importantly the story so far. Let me know what you think so far, and as always I'll see you, in the next chapter. Bye for now!

Next Chapter: Amending Mistakes

Notable Facts: Hey, at least there wasn't a 9.0 earthquake in the Pacific North-West when the eclipse happened. I seem to mention eclipses a lot in my stories wow.