Living in the loop: Life #27 – beetles, Pallavi, Josh & Sam
Disclaimer: see previous chapters.
3-1
It began as it always began: a small aircraft, designed to transport goods rather than people, going through a chromatically white ball of light...
"Whoa!" yelled Pallavi
"Watch it!" Josh yelled back as he tried in vain to regain control of the plane, until he accidentally (or not) pressed the ejector button. To their surprise (or not) the button worked, ejecting the two pilots from the plane, allowing them to parachute downwards, even as their plane crashed and burned.
"You know, I always thought that the tower of Pisa looked kind of strange, leaning like this – I just didn't know that it was going to look this way because of us," Josh commented to Pallavi.
"It's not," another plane – a much smaller and lighter ultralight – landed next to them. "Seriously, you two, do you make it a habit, flying around in planes and crashing them through the time anomalies, eh?"
"Maybe," the senior pilot had some sense to look abashed. "Will you, doc, be taking us out of here or do you want us to try our luck this time?"
The ultralight's pilot pulled out a notepad and looked at it. "Meh, this time I'm taking you out – hence the ultralight. Get in, already, before the angry mob gathers."
The duo complied.
3-2
Off the coast of northern Australia, a lonely male saltwater crocodile set off for pastures new, to seek out a new territory for himself, unaware of a solitary great white shark that was cruising the same waters looking for a meal; and she found one – save that this meal bit back.
The investigating nudge from the shark seemed to set off a reaction of some sort in the crocodile's brain as he whirled around and tried to bite the shark on the tail, but could not get a good bite.
Somewhat slowly, but still faster than the human eye could see, the shark and the crocodile whirled around in the water, almost if they were dancing in a circle a very old dance – and perhaps they were.
Eventually the crocodile appeared to have acquired the upper hand as he clumped his jaws onto the shark's snout and would not release it.
"So, Mac, you got the upper hand this time," Ange spoke in a language common to all aquatic creatures that had at least an average intelligence. "Now what?"
The Englishman turned crocodile in this loop did not answer.
3-3
"...And remember, Mac – you and Sam are on the watch here," Evan continued to speak to Mac, even as the Englishman's new (or current?) girlfriend appeared to be ignoring them but warily eyeing the time anomaly instead. Good. If she is wary then she had a good – or a better – chance of survival. "Dylan, let's go!"
The two heroes raced through the time anomaly after the vanished plane...
...and fell into a seemingly bottomless sea on the other side.
"Well," Dylan sputtered to the boss of Cross Photonics, "looks like we'll need some assistance retrieving the plane, eh?"
Evan floundered around to reply properly to his... friend (right? That's all that Dylan was to him – just a friend), when a liopleurodon, one of the biggest predators in the late Jurassic seas struck from beneath, swallowing the two of them in approximately two bites.
3-4
It was Paris. It was raining. And there was a sphinx on Josh's chest. It looked as if it was made out of condensed milk and hot vapours, it was no bigger than an average Doberman, but by Jove it was heavy!
The pilot struggled, trying to use his military training to throw off the misshapen leonine monstrosity, but he had at least on cracked rib, and the sphinx did have an upper hand here.
Something slashed through the air – a longsword, a really large and heavy one. As the sphinx fell apart and dissolved into vapor at the same time, Pallavi helped her partner get up.
"Let's go," she said quickly. "Dr. Ambroise isn't going to be bailing us out this time, remember?"
Despite his injuries Josh got onto his feet and the two raced through the streets.
3-5
"I'm just saying," Mac was telling Sam – lately the security woman has grown more distant from him for some reason and Mac did not like this. "If we're not in a relationship, then what are we in?"
"Not now, Randall," Samantha said curtly. "There's a giant beetle thing on the loose-"
"Are you dodging the question-?" Mac fell silent as he and Sam did come onto the beetle queen and it was huge.
It was also seemingly molesting some poor soul, stabbing him with its stinger; trying to pin him down and either fertilize or kill him.
"That's just wrong," Samantha sounded as if she was gagging. Mac was not feeling much better, so he raised his tranquilizer gun and fired at the prehistoric insect. The tranquilizer dart struck the giant beetle beneath its main line of armor and sunk deep.
The beetle shuddered few times and then it collapsed.
Carefully, Samantha approached the giant beetle and the man it had molested just few moments ago. "Mac?" she finally called out to her partner – only to find him already next to her. "Gah!"
"Sorry," Mac apologized. "Did I get the insect?"
"Yes," Samantha nodded as she looked down at it with more attention. "In fact, I think that it is dead."
Mac blanched.
3-6
"..And the winner of this year's Miss Pork Chops' Denver contest is Miss Toby Nance! Miss, you have anything to tell the audience?"
Toby swallowed the urge to say something like "Oh, nom-nom," and just smiled, shaking her head, all of her chins bobbing in rhythm, one after the other...
Life for Toby in this loop was good.
3-7
"...And remember, Mac – you and Sam are on the watch here," Evan continued to speak to Mac, even as the Englishman's new (or current?) girlfriend appeared to be ignoring them but warily eyeing the time anomaly instead. Good. If she is wary then she had a good – or a better – chance of survival. "Dylan, let's go!"
The two heroes raced through the time anomaly after the vanished plane...
...and fell into a seemingly bottomless sea on the other side.
"Well," Dylan sputtered to the boss of Cross Photonics, "looks like we'll need some assistance retrieving the plane, eh?"
Evan floundered around to reply properly to his... friend (right? That is all that Dylan was to him – just a friend), when several macroplattas, not quite plesiosaur or pliosaur surged up from the depth and tore them into pieces. No heroic rescue this time.
3-8
"You want me to fly the plane?" Pallavi asked in an incredulous voice. "Well, ok. Follow me into the cockpit and we will see what happens."
"Great," Evan said cheerfully; Dylan was more cautious: the lady pilot had been acting rather oddly ever since she and Evan have come to this time and place (whenever it was) – well, more so than expected from someone stuck on a downed plane surrounded by a swarm of ravenous prehistoric beetles.
Yes, admittedly, it was hard to gauge the reactions of someone stuck on a downed plane surrounded by a swarm of ravenous beetles, but Miss Pallavi appeared to be in control of her emotions at least some of the time – and at other times she behaved either like a broken puppet or like a bad actress: did she have multiple personalities on top of everything else?!
Regardless of her misgivings, however, Dylan followed Evan and Pallavi into the cockpit. As soon as she entered (after Evan) Pallavi promptly sat down into the seat and pressed a lever. Immediately, her seat (and Pallavi herself) was ejected from the cockpit – right into the time anomaly that was taking her back into the modern times...
Behind (or rather below) her, the beetles were pouring in into the cockpit and over Evan and Dylan...
3-9
"So, Lieutenant Leeds," Angelika's voice was somewhat friendly, but her facial expression was anything but, "how exactly you are going to remove a cargo plane from the time anomaly?"
"With some help from Project Magnet's science department!" Ken Leeds replied brightly. "Isn't that right, people?"
'The people', none of them exactly of a military disposition, glared – clearly, none of them were particular friends of the good lieutenant...not that that surprised Angelika at all: in all of the loops she had been, lieutenant Leeds had never been a popular guy... or he was. He just was not himself, that is all.
"And how are they going to help us do that?" Ange decided to press onto less philosophical and more pragmatic matters. "This is a cargo plane after all – a small one, but still an airplane."
"With a giant magnet, of course!" Leeds replied brightly. "An electromagnet, to be more precise!"
As the lieutenant spoke those words, a bulldozer-sized machine drove up to the runaway where the time anomaly was located. A massive disk was attached to the machine at one end.
Angelika suppressed a gulp. She had seen Project Magnet – and the British ARC, and other time anomaly related establishments – use magnets and electromagnets upon time anomalies before. The results were never pretty...
"And we're on!" the senior scientist in Leeds' party yelled to the machine's operator. "Try the first primary setting!"
"Yes sir!"
A bolt of energy – several bolts – shot from the disk to the time anomaly, which expended with a burst of energy of its own. Instead of an airport, Angelika, Leeds and the others found themselves in some sort of a primeval desert, complete with a broken airplane and scores of carnivorous beetles charging at them, their mouthparts clicking with hunger...
"Revert!" the senior scientist shouted. "Now!"
"Yes sir!" the operator yelled back... and did something that triggered an actual explosion this time.
As the world fell apart into pieces of Recent and prehistoric time periods, Angelika could only groan: say what you would about Leeds, but with him around no loop was ever boring. Ever.
3-10
"So, you've been here before?" Samantha asked the Cross Photonics CFO.
"You mean the time, not the place?" Angelika shrugged, and seeing how Samantha nodded in agreement, went on. "Yes. Quite a few times now. So has Mac Randall. So has Natalie – she's friends with Toby Nance, I think that you know her?"
"Yes."
"So have several other people, but none of them from Cross Photonics."
"Ah," Samantha nodded thoughtfully. "One more question – do Mac and I ever have a life together?"
"Never," Angelika replied. "In fact, you are going to die in less than a month, if you've forgotten. That said, you've been here before – you'll probably be here in the future – and I'm willing to help you, this time around."
"Awesome," Samantha beamed. "That dino-whatsit is going down, you know?"
Angelika just smiled, slightly.
End