IV
It was early morning in the Arizona desert. The sun was peeking over the rim of the horizon, getting ready for another day of scorching the sands. A light breeze ruffled the flaps of the tents housing the archaeological equipment, and Dr. Alan Grant slowly woke from his slumbers.
He had been here in Arizona for almost five months, uncovering a new stash of skeletons that had been recently discovered. Elle had come with him, and so it was somewhat like the old days, before that……park. It gave Grant shudders every time he recalled that nightmarish place… he was sorry sometimes that he was still working on dinosaurs… he had just about had enough.
The rest of the team was still out cold, and Dr. Malcolm wasn't due to arrive until midday, so Grant got himself a drink of water and decided to get a few more hours of sleep, when a parcel by the radar-digger caught his eye.
"What the fuck…?" he wondered to himself, "This must have come last night." It was a large, clear canister, holding some kind of greenish-brown liquid. If Grant didn't know better, he'd think it was shit.
Turning it over in his hands, he found a label on it that read: "N.Y.C. Sewage Sample. Analyze ASAP. ~M. Bloomberg"
"I hate Bloomberg," he muttered. If it was sewage, then Elle would have an easier time with it than he would.
"Good morning, early bird." said Dr. Sattler, approaching him from her tent. "What's that?"
"Elle, take a look at this." He passed her the container.
"What is it, a shit sample?"
Grant chuckled. "No. It's some kind of sewage from New York. It needs analysis."
Elle smiled. "Well, judging from all the crap that my kids throw out, I can tell you ten things right off the bat that are in sewage. Let's see…"
Grant chuckled again. "That won't be necessary. Come on, let's check this shit out."
Three hours later, Dr. Sattler was bent over a microscope, gently poking a piece of a leaf around.
"This is amazing," she whispered, "This leaf alone is almost 4 million years old."
Grant walked over and looked at the video readout. "And they found it in New York last week?"
"That's what they're saying, although I don't see how."
Grant wiped his forehead. "Well, if they are telling the truth, I'd reason that it probably came up from an old underground spring or something."
"That's not very probable, Alan." Elle said, standing up.
"Do you have any other answer?"
Elle was silent.
Lt. Carl Winslow had brought the shriveled creature to the Manhattan Science Research Lab, where she was placed in a tall glass tank. Over the past week, scientists observed as the creature began to grow miraculously over very short periods of time. At this point in time, it looked like a half human, half slug. It was clearly female, however.
A door opened, and a tall, lean man named Professor Tarkin entered the room. He walked briskly over to another man and whispered in his ear, "John? They need you outside." Both men exited the room again.
"What is it?" John asked.
"John, this is James Dayton, head of National Scientific Research." Tarkin said, introducing another man to John. They shook hands. "James has just received the analysis of the sewage sample we sent to those paleontologists out in Arizona."
"And?"
"And, we found that the sewage was at least four million years old, if not more."
John shook his head. "That's impossible. Nothing in New York is that old. Except maybe the soil."
"We agree." Said James. "And that's why we're here. We want to do a thorough analysis ourselves, and see if that… thing in there is equal in age."
The three men walked down a white hallway to the dark microscope room.
"These microscopes use a lot of magnetism." James said. "We'll need to close the door."
"I'll get it." Tarkin said, and the door closed with a click.
Meanwhile, back in the observation room, the scientists continued to watch the monitors and the creature herself.
"Dude, she's growing before our eyes." one of them said. Indeed, you could clearly see that the filmy layer covering her body was slowly peeling away, leaving her naked in full human form.
"Um, should we get her some clothes?" A man named Dale asked. The others slapped him.
"What are you crazy?" they said with a laugh. "Hey Bob, go get a camera."
"Come on, you guys, be serious. She might shoot laser beams at us or something." Dale joked, pretending to shiver.
While the men laughed, the girl glared at them through the glass, the waters of hatred boiling in her eyes.
Two hours later, the door of the microscope room opened again, and John and Tarkin walked out, followed by James.
"I'm telling you there's a mistake." John protested.
"That equipment doesn't make mistakes, my friend." James countered. "What you're looking at," he raised the sewage canister, "is bona-fide five-million-year-old sewage material."
"Impossible! Nothing that old even exists anymore!"
James shrugged. "Hey, if you want to spend another $25 million to buy new microscope equipment, that's fine by me, but I'll guarantee that you'll get the same result."
Tarkin took a deep breath. "So…? Now what?"
"Now we run an analysis on the creature. If she's as old as this shit, then we're looking at a pure miracle of science."
John grumbled. "I've had enough miracles for one day."