Living in the Loop: Life #37 – more Samantha
Disclaimer: see previous chapters
4-1
Angelika Finch was sitting on a bench in the zoo, having a quiet smoke (it was not a habit, but after several loops as a shark she could use some dry heat, she felt), when no one else but Samantha sat down next to her with a huff.
"Where were you? You promised that you will help!" she told the older woman in an accusing tone.
"Sorry," Ange replied, sounding genuinely apologetic, "but for the last few loops I was stuck off the coast of northern Australia."
"So? You couldn't get here?"
"No, not really," Angelika shuddered despite herself, as she remembered the sensation of water flowing through her gills. "In that state I would be more of a problem than help, believe me." She paused and looks askance at Sam. "This isn't your second loop either, is it?"
"More like the fourth," Samantha confessed. "The previous two times I travelled through the time anomalies: the first time I ended in Ancient Egypt-"
"Which time, do you know?" Angelika asked with a genuine interest.
"No. I did not like it there. I hightailed from there as quickly as I could – right to Australia, sometime during the last Ice Age, where I was stuck," Samantha shivered. "And the second time I ended up in southern Africa during the early twentieth century. I don't really feel like talking about it either..."
"Ice cream?" Ange offered the other woman a chocolate-covered vanilla bar.
"Thanks!" Samantha gratefully bit into it. "Anyways, what Mac is up to? I saw him take Toby somewhere..."
"Mmm," Angelika took another puff. "I believe that this is when the two of them - plus Dylan and Evan – go to investigate their first terror bird attack."
"Is it more exciting than the beetles?"
"It's... more dynamic, certainly."
"Can we go and take a look?"
"...Eh, why not. Let's just the explosives first, shall we?"
4-2
It had happened repeatedly – a motorcyclist would go down a forested road, a bird would come and attack him. Simple.
This time, however, the rules were different – the driver had a mini-Uzi with him and several loops worth of knowledge when the attack will come...
Now...
The driver whirled around, grabbing his weapon in a practiced move, only to suffer an epic fail: this was a different bird; it attacked from the sky, not the ground...
4-3
The bird was hard to miss. The bird was gigantic. Look a humongous vulture it circled around the forest, obviously keeping an eye on the roads that passed through it.
"Whoa! This bird certainly is terrible!" Sam muttered, as she and Ange watched it circle around from behind their cover.
"Yes, but from what I remember Toby telling me about it from the previous time loops, it was supposed to be flightless," Ange frowned. "How's your firearms expertise?"
"Very little," Sam confessed. "You?"
"Explosives and close-quarter combat specialist, thank you very much," Ange said calmly. "Firearms – not so much. Here, to hit one, we need either a sniper or lots of luck."
The bird swooped.
4-4
"This is wrong, this is wrong, this is so wrong," Connor Temple was trotting from one end of the enclosure to another.
"You're telling me," Abby replied, crossly. "We're horses!"
"Yes, exactly, and she knows it, knows it," Connor continued to complain. "Helen is mocking us, mocking us!"
"Simmer down," Abby said in a more sensible tone. "I'm sure this is just a coincidence..." she trailed away. A gigantic, and clearly chronologically displaced Maori, appeared next to their archnemesis, carrying an equally tall spear.
"Can I eat them?" the question was clearly directed at the horses in the padlock.
"Not by yourself," Helen commented, rather incredulously.
"Good point." The Maori whistled...
4-5
"Evan, we really should've waited for Mac," Dylan was whispering to Evan.
"Relax, this train depot is deserted-"
"Yes, and that's why I don't like it," Dylan was insistent. "There should be somebody – I'm sure I smelled smoke, there probably was somebody, as in 'the recent past' rather than 'time anomaly related'-"
"Dylan, you're babbling... oof!"
"Run, you idiots!" Mac yelled, as he and Toby untangled themselves from the other two and hid inside a train wagon.
"Get inside!" Toby shouted shrilly.
"What, why-" Dylan looked around as she helped Evan get up.
Teratornis, the world's biggest bird that ever flown, swooped down upon them.
Mac and Toby just winced.
4-6
Going the long way around had led Ange and Samantha to a fenced-in field. It was all overgrown with cannabis (according to Mac and Toby's stories from the previous loops) and currently hosted a time anomaly (that must have been it) from which some noticeably chilly winds blew.
"If this goes on, then the entire harvest of Dave and Skeeter-Dog – or whatever their names are – will wither at the root," Ange said placidly as she and Sam looked around the yard. "I wonder if Dylan and Evan got eaten already."
"Excuse me?"
"Whenever Mac or I are aware, they usually get eaten," Ange explained. "Mac isn't aware of this loop – otherwise you would be with him, I bet-"
"Probably not. There are only so many times a girl can die without being saved," Samantha said crossly, and that was when the marijuana stalks were pushed aside and out came a lion.
Or maybe a large jaguar with a shaggy mane – whatever else it was, it was not a modern lion, no sir!
"Ange!" Samantha gulped. "You got the Glock, do something!"
Ange looked at the Glock, then at the prehistoric lion, and began... to dance. Whatever those moves were, they were not modern either, and as the prehistoric big cat looked at them... they worked. The lion yawned, scratched itself behind an ear, and went to sleep.
"Ange, that was amazing! What was it, though?" Samantha turned to the older woman.
"Sam," Ange did not look too well – she was pale and sweating. "Can you lead me to an appropriate hideout? I really need to take a break now."
"Roger."
4-7
"This is wrong, this is wrong, this is so wrong," Connor Temple was trotting from one end of the enclosure to another.
"You're telling me," Abby replied, crossly. "We're donkeys!"
"Yes, exactly, and she knows it, knows it," Connor continued to complain. "Helen is mocking us, mocking us!"
"Simmer down," Abby said in a more sensible tone. "I'm sure this is just a coincidence..." she trailed away. A gigantic, and clearly chronologically displaced Maori, appeared next to their archnemesis, carrying an equally tall spear.
"Can I eat them?" the question was clearly directed at the horses in the padlock.
"Not by yourself," Helen commented, rather incredulously.
"Good point." The Maori whistled...
4-8
"What was that?" Samantha asked Angelika as the latter was rubbing some feeling back into her legs.
"The lion dance of Ishtar," the ex-CFO said curtly.
"And Ishtar is-"
"Ishtar, is, or was, the goddess of love and war of Mesopotamia," Angelika said curtly. "Please, let's leave it at that for now."
"Very well," Samantha relented. "So, what is the game plan?"
"We should find Mac first," Angelika confessed. "He was here before – aware, I should add. The others – weren't."
"The others are Dylan and Evan?"
"Also Toby – Mac brings her here, often, and lieutenant Leeds... but only if I'm not aware and call upon him as my part of Cross Photonics/Project Magnet cooperation attempt."
"There's a cooperation attempt?"
"Only between me and Leeds...and then only occasionally. Lately I try to stay away from the military..."
A sudden shriek cut Angelika off – the giant bird was back and it was circling around one of the train wagons. The reason for that became obvious soon afterwards, as a human appeared on the roof of the same wagon and began to do his or hers darndest to fill the giant bird full of lead.
"Should we help?" Samantha muttered.
"Yes, as soon as we figure out how," Angelika confessed. "Whatever that weapon is, it's a short-barrel: this means that at a long distance its accuracy sucks, not unlike my pistol. What we need-"
Angelika did not finish. A trunk – a snake-like appendage made from muscle – swung from behind the wagon and swept both the shooter and the giant bird with one blow. Both of them hit the ground hard and did not move, and the owner of the trunk appeared from behind the train – and it was a woolly mammoth.
"Help!" Toby Nance came running away from the same mammoth. "Please?"
And the mammoth came on, catching up to Toby faster than its bulk would suggest. Angelika began to frantically examine her arsenal – she doubted that her usual amount of Semtex (that she kept on person at all times) would stop the mammoth, and the KABAR knife? Do not make me laugh.
Samantha, meanwhile, raced over to the time anomaly, put her hands to her mouth in a vaguely loudspeaker shape and began to imitate somewhat trumpeting sounds.
The woolly mammoth stopped, listened to them and promptly charged at Samantha, its ears spread fully. As it did, Samantha stopped trumpeting and jumped to the side, causing the animal to run into the time anomaly just as it snapped shut.
"You did it, yay!" Toby jumped up and down from joy, just as the prehistoric lion emerged from the marijuana and snarled.
"Oops."
4-9
The prehistoric snake was humongous, truly titanic. The bullets fired by Dylan's soon to be ex-superior Predator Control officer had no real effect on her – they were like bird pellets to an African elephant, but they did catch the snake's attention. Slowly, it turned around, looked at its new opponent and hissed:
"Ya-ya-ya! Cthulhu fhtang!"
"I hate Wolfram & Hart," Ange just muttered as she adjusted her Micro Galil. "Well, here goes nothing!"
4-10
"So, let me get straight," Toby said some time later, as the four of them (including the lion) sat at the Cross Photonics (a diminished version of it in this loop) and ate pizza. "The two of you have done this before?"
"No, not really," Samantha shook her head. "It's more like we've been in this time before, you know? It's like groundhog day, only with more options, thanks to the time anomalies and whatnot."
"Really? What was I like?" Toby asked, honestly curious.
"Pretty much as always," Ange answered that one. "You just don't like going in the field as much."
"Maybe," Toby cleaned her teeth with a toothpick. "Maybe. But, still, can you help me? With Cross Photonics, now that the other terror bird ate Dylan and Evan and Mac is indisposed?"
"The other terror bird?" Sam and Ange looked at each other. "Bugger."
TBC