Chapter 2: Fletcher
The sun bore down on Matty like an interrogators lamp in the midst of the Cold War. The land around him, however, bore no other resemblance to the America he had grown up in. Beyond him, on either side of the river, stretched mile upon mile of grassland. Grassland that looked more at home in the veldts of Africa than the dry canyons of North America. A rustling behind him drew a reflex spin from the young geologist. There were no angry cavemen hovering, spears ready to strike. There were no dinosaurs towering over him, waiting to tear his fragile body to shreds. There wasn't even his old Harvard professor, ready to tear his even more fragile thesis to shreds. There was just more grassland.
Silent.
Still.
Grassland.
An explosion of movement knocked Matty off his feet. Someting like a pig charged past his knees, bringing him down. An elegant shape flew over him with the lithe leap of a cat. Matty rolled to his side. The yellowish blur collided with the pig-thing. They tumbled together in a kaleidoscope of sandy colours. The blur resolved itself into a shape. Blood stained its muzzle. It was a cat. A long, lean cat. Something like a cheetah. But they had never been found in America, right?
Matty realised he was holding his breath and let air escape slowly, steadily, never taking his eyes off the cat as it sat on its prey, watching life drain from the pig-thing's eyes as it kept its killer grip firm. The creature was dead, and to the victor the spoils. Whatever it had killed, the cat would eat well tonight.
A movement behind him made Matty freeze. Were there others waiting for their turn to feed. He kept his eyes fixed on the cat as it flew suddenly sidewards and started to bleed. Footsteps erupted from every direction. The cat had been killed for Matty's protection. Hands dragged him upwards, unseeing, unthinking and carried him off to a rapidly shrinking light.
Silence tugged at Matty's ears as the light surrounded him, then noise pushed in rudely as darkness descended. When his vision reclaimed it's grasp on realisty, Matty found himself lying flat on his back inside a high-ceilinged, windowless room. A vault might be more accurate, if there had been anything here worth banking.
A hand thrust itself into his field of vision and Matty grabbed it, pulling himself into a sitting, then standing, position. He looked around him at the ring of army fatigues encircling him. His eyes came back to rest on the guy whose hand and arm was still supporting his own. The ensignia on his shoulder marked him out as a captain.
"Scotch or Bourbon?" asked the captain.
"Scotch," said Matty.
"What'll you have with it?"
"Answers."
"Wise man."
Matty remembered almost nothing of the journey to the office. It could have been upstairs, downstairs, along a corridor or just in the next room. What he did remember was the size of the measure of Scotch he had been handed and the look on the face of the guy who had handed it to him. He took a large swig and coughed as the alcohol stung his throat.
The captain was young, maybe around Matty's own age, just past 30. The badge on his arm showed a black sword on a red, arrowhead-shaped background. It wasn't one Matty recognised, but then he had never been much of a fan of the military. Green, cat-like eyes bore down on him from across the desk. The captain was shorter than Matty, but stockier. He was fairly sure he had a chance in an arm-wrestling match, but military training would give this guy the edge in any fight between them. Whatever he had gotten himself into, he was here for the duration.
"You want answers, you'll have to ask some questions," said the captain.
Matty nodded, slowly, taking another sip of the whisky.
"Who are you?"
"Captain Fletcher Malloy."
"Who do you work for?"
"US Government."
Obvious answer. Matty rolled his eyes, sipped, and tried again.
"What regiment?"
"Delta force."
"What is your mission?"
"Classified."
Well, Matty hadn't really expected to get anywhere with that. He sipped again to give himself some thinking time.
"What just happened?"
"My men and I saved your butt."
"From what?"
"Being eaten."
"By what?"
"Something that's classified."
"Where was I?"
"Same place you started out."
"How did I get here?"
"We brought you."
"How?"
"That's classified."
Matty stopped and thought for a moment, staring at the fixed, poker face across the desk.
"Okay," he said, "one minute I'm part-way down the grand canyon, losing my grip with a fall below me that's not just enough to kill me but enough to send little bits of me flying off in so many different directions that my own mother would have difficulty recognising the remains, the next I'm lying in grasses watching a scene out of a national geographic film while a group of special forces dudes drag me through some blinding light to a military bunker somewhere, yet you're telling me that I never left the grand canyon until I came here, but you can't tell me how I came here?"
The captain pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully.
"Sounds about right," he sniffed.
"And you're expecting me to what?" Matty threw his hands out to the side. "Just walk away and get on with my life?"
"Nah, of course not," Captain Fletcher Malloy leant forward, resting his chin on his steepled fingers. "I'm expecting you to pass out first."
Matty looked at the glass in his hand. More than half of the whisky had already been consumed. A dreadful dizziness spun around him as he became aware of the drug's effect. The last thing he remembered before blacking out were those sly green eyes