Life in the Loop: Life #47 – Toby Nance and everyone else
Disclaimer: see the first chapter.
13-1
The anomaly loomed large, its' shards sparkling in a fractured style in the gloom of the abandoned copper mine.
"Right," Evan Cross turned his attention to Dylan, Mac and Toby. "Toby, you're staying with me. Mac and Dylan – you go around to investigate. Something might have come through already-"
'Something' growled, coming from the doorway entrance (or exit), which was leading to the outside. The group of four turned as one, and were faced with a big dinosaur, bigger than any dinosaur that they have confronted already, except for the Triceratops, clearly a carnivore, spotted like a leopard, long and sinuous, tall and with an extra-long muzzle that boasted an impressive array of teeth, especially in the upper jaw, and a nasal horn. It was eyeing the humans in a hostile way, and the way it was flexing its body, suggested that it was about to lunge.
"Right," Evan said carefully, "Toby – stay behind; the others - get ready to fire-!"
"Evan!" Toby tried to shouted, but instead it came as a squeak, as she noticed a movement from within the time anomaly. "Something-!"
Toby did not finish, as Mac grabbed her and pulled her after him away from the time anomaly, (Evan and Dylan were following suit). This course of action was very timely, as a second dinosaur of the same species as the first burst from beyond the time anomaly, doing its best to grab one of the humans in its jaws and to kill them. …Fortunately, the humans were already running up the staircases, floors and tunnels in the mine's sides, leaving the dinosaurs by themselves. The duo snapped and snarled at each other… but not for long, as they either noticed or smelled the humans on the upper levels of the mine, and switched their attention, doing their best to jump up to the humans' position above.
"Any ideas?" Evan panted, as the dinosaurs took turn attack the humans and keeping an eye out on their surroundings as well.
"Were they the same-?" Mac shot back.
"No, that one was half again as big, no spots, much bulkier, especially the head, and looked more like a T-Rex than like those two," Evan replied, sounding completely serious. "Dylan, any ideas?"
"Do I look like a dinosaur expert to you?" the woman in question shot back. "That's probably more of a Leeds' thing."
"We're not involving the military in this any more than they already are!" Evan snapped.
Toby sighed. She was not particularly happy with colonel Hall and his people, (including Lt. Leeds), for muscling onto the Cross Photonics' time anomaly turf, nor with Angelika Finch, for siding with the military over Cross Photonics, but she had to admit that Evan probably wasn't making things any better or any simpler with that territorial alpha male attitude of his. "So how do we drive them back?" she asked instead. "We're up here and they are down there."
"Point," Evan muttered. "Maybe we can stun them from up here, and then drag them back in? Mac?"
"Probably our best take," the other man unhappily agreed, "but chances for success are slim even in the best case scenario, so we need to make every shot count. Toby, stay back and try not to interfere. Guys, we need to coordinate our shots – any suggestions on tactics?"
"Well," Dylan began but did not finish, as with a thundering roar a third dinosaur burst out of the time anomaly and bowled into the first two. Half as big as either of them, it was bulkier than the first two, much darker in coloration without any spots, and with a crest above its' eyes rather than a horn on its' snout.
"Is that the Albertosaurus?" Toby asked despite her best intention: by now, she has learned, albeit in bit and pieces, as to what has happened to Evan's wife, and she could not help herself but to ask.
"No, the proportions are all wrong, and the coloring is different too," Evan snapped back: by now Brooke's death has changed from a tragedy into something much less tragic, period, and Evan didn't like, both for obvious reasons and not so obvious. "I think that this dinosaur might be an Allosaurus instead; this makes the first two dinosaurs ceratosaurs. People, we're dealing with a middle to late Jurassic time anomaly."
"That's nice," Mac's tone of voice was anything but, when the dinosaurs below resolved their situation: the Allosaurus grabbed the tail of one of the smaller dinosaurs with its jaws, pulling it effortlessly off its' feet, but the second ceratosaur made a flanking maneuver and bit down – hard – on one of the Allosaurus' forelegs.
The roar of the Allosaurus was thunderous and stunning, causing the four humans to drop their tranquilizer rifles and other equipment as they fell to their knees from the noise. On the other hand, the bigger dinosaur released the ceratosaur's tail, as the bite from its partner had apparently rendered the bitten foreleg useless.
As the Allosaurus began to retreat, the other two dinosaurs charged, slamming into the biggest carnivore – and all three of them tumbled back through the time anomaly, just as it snapped shut.
"Well, this was lucky," Dylan muttered to Evan – the four of them, (and Toby wasn't really a combatant), could handle two dinosaurs at once on a good day, but three? Probably not. "Now we call Ange and Leeds?"
"We don't-" Evan began, but didn't finish, as Toby picked up her latest invention regarding the time anomalies and frowned, looking at the data flow on screen.
"Problems?" Mac asked kindly, as, frankly, not even he felt that it was time for another one of Evan's rants.
"I don't know," Toby admitted, muttering, as she continued to examine the data. "It works, but the numbers were all over the place; I can predict for how long a time anomaly will remain open, but not very reliably…"
"Not to worry, I'm sure that you will get better with practice – nothing like the good old-fashioned elbow grease, eh?" Mac grinned at the brown-haired woman, but Toby apparently did not quite appreciate his humor, as she glared back.
"And on this note, we're calling it a day," Dylan said, cutting between the two of them. "Evan, it's a dead end, pardon the pun. We are not solving any problems or making any breakthroughs. Let us stop for the day and call Angelika. Or Leeds."
"Fine," Evan reluctantly complied. "But if it goes wrong…"
Dylan just rolled her eyes.
End of life 47