Living in the Loop: Life #6 – an intimate time
Disclaimer: see previous chapters.
6-1
"Lah-dah-dah, lah-dah-dah-dee," Toby Nance sang joyously, if not quite in tune, as she made sandwiches.
"What are you so happy about?" Angelika Finch, Toby's superior at Cross Photonics, asked nonchalantly.
"Hello! Natalie has invited me to a picnic! We hadn't had one in months!" Toby emphatically replied. "It's so fun!"
"And you asked me to drive you there why?" Ange said, sounding much less enthusiastic than Toby.
"Because my driving skills are not that good?" Toby said with a disarming smile. "Come on, Ange, you promised? Please?"
"I will, I will," Ange sighed. "Just when exactly?"
"Soon, in ten more minutes or so, please? Just let me finish getting ready?"
Ange sighed and glanced at the watch. Toby usually did not need cosmetics to make herself look good, but like so many other people she decided to go for them all the same. Consequently, she was 'sprucing up' for 20 minutes already, and it looked like she was going for the full half an hour, if not more.
"Done!" Toby said suddenly, startling the older woman. "Now come on, let's go – we're already running late!"
Ange just glared but said nothing, so the two women left without incident.
6-2
"Toby? Psst! Toby! Curses, she's gone," Sam the security guard muttered as she got into Toby's impromptu office. "I thought that she would be sprucing herself for another 20 minutes or so."
"Sprucing who? Who's gone?" Mac asked, as he entered the same space and stared – unlike her usual, Sam was currently wearing some sort of a red-and-white polka dot dress, and a rather revealing one, by Cross Photonics' standards.
"Toby..." Sam muttered absent-mindedly. "Mac! You are not supposed to be here! You are not supposed to see this! You're supposed to see this this evening!"
"Sorry," Mac muttered half-apologetically. "It's just that Toby called saying that she was leaving earlier – she was a model, so she knew – knows – how to make herself look good fast, I suppose..." he paused and added. "I like your dress too, by the way."
"Thanks," Sam said, sounding oddly shy. "So, uh, Toby's gone?"
"Yes, and it is probably up to me to keep an eye – or an ear – on the time anomaly alarm," Mac agreed.
"Mhm. Until it sounds, want to make out behind the sofa?"
Mac mentally calculated the loudness of Toby's alarm, divided it by the distance between Toby's workstation and the sofa and came to an appropriate conclusion. "Yes, let's."
6-3
"Natalie, hi!" Toby squealed excitedly, as the two young women heartily embraced themselves. "Long time no see - mmph!"
"Right back at you!" Natalie finally replied, as she broke their kiss due to lack of air. "So, what has happened lately?"
"Not much. Evan and the others have been out last night, dealing with some sort of a dinosaur swarm," Toby confessed. "Anyways-"
"Anyways," Angelika spoke up, "I hate to interrupt, but I do need to know – will I be driving Toby back or-"
"Oh, I'll do that," Natalie said quickly, "you don't need to bother, honest!"
"In that case – good luck," Angelika said as the younger women nodded in reply and left towards the designed picnic area. Smiling slightly (Toby and Natalie made a good couple), Angelika turned around and frowned.
"Lieutenant Leeds," she asked the blonde man, who appeared to be as honestly surprised as she was. "What are you doing here?"
"Um, well, uh – what are you doing here... Miss Finch?" the blonde man finally managed to ask.
"I gave a friend of mine a lift – she's here on a date," Angelika explained patiently. "And you?"
(From various past loops Angelika did know that there was a time anomaly – one that was leading to late Jurassic – and that would come under military control always. But still, it did not hurt to ask and to watch Lt. Leeds sweat.)
"Um, well, nothing," the lieutenant muttered, before he changed his mind. "Ok, look. According to our own information there is a time anomaly nearby-"
"What about the one in the Canadian Tire store? Is it under control?"
"Yes, actually," her interlocutor thoughtfully replied. "That said, I'm talking about that time anomaly site rather than the time anomaly proper – so far it shows no signs of re-opening, unlike this one, which remains to be rather stably open-"
"With electromagnets?" Angelika innocently asked, remembering the time when she was a witness to Project Magnet's retrieval mission. It ended in failure, though not downright disaster.
"That's classified information, ma'am," Leeds shyly replied. "Anyways, um, what are you doing here?"
"I already told you," Angelika rolled her eyes. "I drove a friend here, and now that I'm done with that, I am free to go...unless you want me to stay?" It was a perfectly innocent question... if I didn't know that last night Lt. Leeds promptly and directly offered Angelika to be 'his' and didn't receive any sort of reply at all. In any case...
"Um," Leeds turned red. "Well..." He looked around and saw an ice cream truck. "Want to have an ice cream?"
Angelika smiled. The good lieutenant was a good man, and he was sort of good-looking. "Yes, let's."
"Hooray! I mean..."
Angelika just smiled.
6-4
The grizzly bear was walking among its usual routes, seeking any potential food supplies with its keen sense of smell. It had been in this area before, catching small mammals and ground-nesting birds, or scavenging the remains of picnics (sometimes scaring the actual picnickers away in the process). Overall, this was a good feeding ground, and the bear had no intention of giving it up.
Suddenly, just as it was turning around there was a crack and large tree came crashing down, just at where the bear was currently standing. Without really thinking about it, the bear jumped aside – and fell through a time anomaly, vanishing without a trace.
The woman, who had actually caused the tree to fall, just smiled.
6-5
Allosaurus, a 10-meter-long dinosaur, was in a bad mood. For several decades now it had been the undisputed master of this area, the top hunter in the vanishing world of the late Jurassic. Lately, though, it was being challenged by a pair of smaller carnivores, ceratosaurs, which had been driven into this upland forest by the unpredictable weather, and it was annoying.
(The competition, that is, not the weather. The weather was a completely separate problem.)
For a while the allosaurus played a cat-and-mouse game with its rivals, doing its best to track them down and kill them or drive them out – but until right now it just had no luck in catching the smaller hunters.
Now, though, luck was apparently on its side as it finally noticed one of the ceratosaurs – the smaller female – as it lurked behind a boulder in ambush. Instead, the ceratosaurus itself ended up ambushed, as the allosaurus leapt at it from the side and behind.
Sadly, while the dinosaurs didn't hold 'luck' as a concept in their worldview, it did exist all the same: it was pure luck that caused the ceratosaurus to notice the leaping death from behind, and instinctively, the smaller dinosaur made its own lunge – just in time for the allosaurus to inflict a large, but shallow bite on one of its thighs, before the ceratosaurus fled – and the chase was on.
6-6
It begins as it always began in a thousand of loops: a pair of people boating in a pair of Zodiac™ inflatable rafts over the waters of the Pacific Ocean doing their business.
A time anomaly would open deep within the selfsame waters. A prehistoric (or futuristic, but that is beside the point) carnivore would emerge from it, its eyes aiming up and about.
It would notice the inflatable rafts and swim upwards... but this time the time anomaly spat out a very modern brown bear (the grizzly subspecies) that literally came flying from the time anomaly like a bullet from a gun.
Furthermore, fortunately for the bear, the time anomaly sent it upwards, where it breached the surface – just close enough to the Zodiac raft to fall onto it, as the time anomaly's momentum had exhausted itself.
For several moments the bear just stared at two people (who stared back at him), and then it snarled.
Shrieking, the humans jumped overboard and began to swim towards the shore.
Snarling, the bear followed.
6-7
Shrieking from fear and pain, the ceratosaurus female fled from the snarling allosaurus – right into a clearing, where the second ceratosaurus was waiting.
For several moments the allosaurus thought over this new development, giving its original quarry just enough time to hide behind its mate and then it lunged.
And the male ceratosaurus lunged back, causing the allosaurus to miss while biting onto one of its forelegs instead, albeit unsuccessfully. Still, it caused the allosaurus to jump back, before lunging once more and knocking the ceratosaurus male off its feet.
Sadly, this gave the female an opening to jump upon the bigger carnivore and inflict a shallow, but heavily bleeding bite to the neck. The allosaurus roared, flinging its second opponent away...and the first ceratosaurus bit it in the right knee, causing a large and serious wound, causing the allosaurus to collapse - hard.
Confident that they have won the ceratosaur pair left the clearing...
6-8
"Dylan?"
"Yup," the ex-ranger nodded. "It's me. What's up, Evan?"
"Well, where is everybody?"
"Toby is out on a date, and Ange is either chaperoning her or decided to use Toby as an excuse to go out. Mac and Sam are similarly occupied with each other. This leaves just me – and you. Or not," Dylan added hurriedly when it became obvious that Evan did not take her flippancy all that well. "Sorry?"
"That's okay," Evan shook his head. "Never mind. I just... it's just..." he paused. "Ange. I am reasonably sure that she plans to leave Cross Photonics-"
"Ah," Dylan nodded, visibly dimming.
"Not like that!" Evan said quickly. "I am just... it's just... look. Ange and I are friends, but she is also a CFO of Cross Photonics, replacing her quickly with someone secure enough to be trusted with the time anomaly secret won't be easy, and running CP won't be easy either-"
"I understand," Dylan began to reply, when the phone rang. "Hello? Angelika, hi. We were just talking about you- What? Seriously? Ok..." Dylan put down the receiver and looked at Evan. "Um. Angelika just called and said that you and our dinosaur-hunting team were required – "as independent experts or something". You game?"
"Yes," Evan quickly said – dinosaurs were simple, after all, unlike women. "Contact Mac and tell him to join us at – you've got the location?"
"Yes," Dylan nodded as she turned and faced the sofa. "I've written the coordinates down and put them next to the keyboard."
"Thanks, Dylan," Mac suddenly peaked from behind the sofa. "We'll be behind you in a minute – hello, Evan."
"...Hello, Dylan. Is Sam with you?"
"Yes, I am," Sam also peaked from behind the sofa. "Hi!"
"...Hello to you too. What are you two – no. Why are you two behind the sofa?"
"Because Toby may be a wonderful woman, but her housecleaning skills suck and the sofa is quite covered with remains of junk food of all sorts."
"Ah, of course," Evan nodded in apparent understanding. "Silly me. Still, you've got your orders, right?"
Everybody nodded.
6-9
"Your pets, Helen, are upsetting everything! Just like you they don't seem to realize when it is time to die!"
Helen calmly looked at her interlocutrix. "Simmer down, Melinoe! After all, this is not your show to begin with. What says Gigi?"
"...Don't call me that. And yes, Melinoe, I am interested in seeing what will happen next. Let's not interfere – yet."
"...Where's a sharknado when you need one?"
6-10
Evan and the others just stared at the lying prone dinosaur, clearly a carnivore. "Is that the dinosaur that ate Brooke?" Angelika said quietly.
"No," Evan replied equally quietly. "This is the wrong dinosaur altogether, not to mention its body proportions – they are much too gracile."
"Really? The bugger is 10 meters long on the average!" Mac pointed out from Angelika's right.
Evan looked askance at his right-hand man. Mac and Sam might have still looked somewhat dishevelled, but at least they were back to their regular selves – hopefully. "I know," he said instead, "but the neck is too long and thin, the head is too small, the body isn't as robust, the front legs are too well developed – this isn't the dinosaur that killed Brooke. Sorry." He paused and added: "How did you find it?"
"Natalie and I were in the woods – I had too much soda and needed to pee – when I came across it," Toby explained. "It tried to snarl at me, but as even I could see it is in a bad way – one of the knees is torn open and I think that it is bleeding from the neck. We ran to Ange and Lieutenant Leeds and told them about this. Ange called us – well, you. Leeds called his army friends – you know, probably the same ones that cleaned up that Canadian Tire mess recently and there we are."
Evan stared. Toby's bright grin dimmed. "Something wrong?" she tentatively asked.
"Why Leeds was here in the first place?"
"Following the army's own leads on a local time anomaly – and judging by our reptile friend here, they're correct," Angelika answered instead.
"And what are they planning to do with 'our reptile friend'?" Dylan suddenly spoke up, rather sharply.
"Honestly? I have no idea," for the first time today Angelika looked uncomfortable. "Look, they're already sending a helicopter here-"
"We hear them," Mac said tersely.
"So, why not ask them?"
"Fair enough," Dylan replied. "I will."
A tense silence descended over the clearing as the allosaurus continued to laboriously breathe.
TBC