"¿Qué estás haciendo, amigo?" my mutant friend called from behind the trees.

I didn't see him anywhere. "Estamos investigando un ruido."

"¡No investigaria este ruido, si fueras tú!"

I sighed. "Yeah, not the best idea in the world, I admit. Great hiding job, by the way. I don't know where you are!"

Heffalump fell silent, but I could still hear him munching leaves.

"Gee, how long since you've last eaten?"

I didn't get an answer to that.

I found the baby T-Rex chained to a post in a clearing, next to an immense...dinosaur blind?

The place smelled like Scotch, pee and cigarettes. Poachers had been there, judging by the boot prints, scuffle marks on the dirt, and the supplies left behind in a wooden tower, half concealed with leaves and tree branches. However it was, they'd left in haste, probably on account of the huge fire and explosions.

The infant wailed for its mother. I took one look at its swollen leg and could guess why.

I smiled, stroking the baby's head. "There, there, little one! What happened?"

"Bad humans!" the baby whimpered in T-Rex. "They grab me and hit me with metal stick! Leg hurt!"

"You poor little girl! What did you ever do to deserve that?"

"I dunno, bump him in the face with my skull?...And make his nose bleed? I was only trying to escape!" The infant winced in pain. "I want Mommy and Daddy!" And then, in a piercing shriek, "Mommy! Help!"

My eyes widened in alarm. "D-did you just s-say Mommy and Daddy? As in, two massive T-Rexes?"

The baby giggled. "Dumb Veliciraptor!"

"No, incredibly scared Velociraptor!"

She giggled some more. "Velociraptor make pee pee!"

Yes, I had just irrigated the forest floor. "My apologies. I'm terrified beyond all rational thought."

Heffalump popped out from the foliage. "Amigo, me iria rápidamente. No quieres conocer a la familia T-Rex. Conozco a la madre y tenemos desacuerdo. ¡Ella trata comerme!"

"Yeah, I don't really want to meet them either." I pointed to my collar. "Estoy un poco entrapado aquí. Además, no somos los que la golpearon con un palo"

"A la familia T-Rex no le importará. Son muy irrazonables."

I gulped. "Really? I thought for sure not being the ones Hitting her with a metal stick' would get us off the hook!"

"¿Como?" I shook my head, pointed to my collar, and shrugged.

He waved his trunk at my silly costume. "¿Que es lo que llevas puesto? Pareces Incredible Hulk en una boda."

"Oh. ¿Esto? Es un traje de mago." I reached into a coat pocket, bringing out three metal rings, stuck together. I made an attempt, but couldn't get them unstuck.

"Buena suerte, mago." Noticing Sarah approaching, Heffalump dove behind a tree. "Que los á angeles de los dinosaurios y los Velociraptures te cuiden, mi amigo." He disappeared into the jungle.

Sarah knelt next to the small T-Rex, giving a friendly wave. "Hello, cutie!" She offered her hand to smell, but Rex Junior got confused and tried to eat it.

"No, no, honey, don't bite. I need that hand to do work!" She petted the baby on the head, examining its injuries.

She sucked in her breath when she noticed the swollen leg, and how the baby cried when she touched the injured area.

Not as bloody an injury as you might think. I mean, we're talking about a wimpy human hitting a dinosaur. Plus, it's possible to get hit by a car and not have the bones break the skin. Still, the purple coloration and the swelling looked terrible.

Sarah made tsk noises. "Awww...poor baby!" She glanced at me. "Any idea what happened?"

"Ummm...sounds like some guys hit Junior with a ball bat or something."

"Bastards," she whispered. She narrowed her eyes at the ten foot wooden tower. "What were they doing out here?"

"Umm...I guess...The dumbest idea in human history?"

Sarah frowned at the chain and stake holding the infant in place. "We have to take her back to the trailer to get her leg reset. You see any tools around here?"

"Just a sec." Under my breath, I muttered, "This kinda sounds like the second dumbest idea in human history."

I climbed up into the dinosaur blind. The supply crates didn't offer much of anything useful to our situation, just food, ammunition, water purification tablets, that kind of thing. I located a tool box, but it mostly contained stuff like screwdrivers, a hammer, and other construction hardware. That being said, I did find a hacksaw.

Slow going, sawing through through a thick dinosaur restraining chain with such a weak implement.

"Psst! Hey!"

I glanced up at the treetops and found a Pterodactyl staring down at me. "Hi! How's it going?"

"Super!...Not really. Hey, I was wondering if you could get me some of those tasty fried insects I saw in that place."

I shook my head. "Sorry, fresh out."

"Please? Really, any ginormous insect will do, provided it's roasted, and possibly seasoned with lime, paprika and coarse Kosher salt."

I rolled my eyes. "Kinda busy right now. If I go wandering off anywhere, the humans will jolt me with this collar, or shoot me with sleepytime darts."

"Why don't you take the collar off?"

"If it were that easy, I would have had it off a long time ago. Humans are tricky."

"Why don't you kill them?"

"Hey! Some of my best friends are human!"

"You need better friends." The Pterodactyl flew away.

Crack. At last Sarah had the chain severed, Rex Junior freed from the fastening post. With cooing baby talk, and a shocking display of upper body strength, Sarah hefted the crying infant into her arms. "Oof! You're heavy!"

The mini T-Rex wailed.

"Shh. Mama's gonna make you all better."

She carried Rex Junior that way for a quarter mile or so before putting her on my back.

"You're right, she is heavy."

Rex Junior enjoyed the ride, well, when her leg didn't get jostled and hurt her. Me...not so much. she kept gnawing on me. "Stop it," I'd growl, but she'd just make nonsense sounds and gnaw on me again.

To avoid capture, we steered clear of the flaming poacher encampment, distancing ourselves from the area as the men played amateur fire department.

Their bucket brigade unwisely threw water on burning gasoline, smarter ones employing shovelfuls of dirt to control the spread. We distanced ourselves further.

The rest of our team had vamoosed already. Well, except for Nick, who hung back and helped carry Rex Junior when I got a little fatigued.

We returned to the green trailer.

Our team also had a sort of dinosaur blind, but ours happened to operate on a scissor lift system to allow for easy mobility. At present, Kelly sat up in the crow's nest, watching us with a pair of binoculars, Eddie standing at the foot of the thing, like a dog owner, watching Buttface going to the bathroom. They stared at us in puzzlement when we approached.

We knocked on the trailer door.

When Ian opened it, he took one look at the T-Rex baby and slammed the door in our face like George Jefferson. So maybe Junior snapped at him beforehand.

Sarah knocked again.

The door only opened a crack. "No! Absolutely not! Friendly raptors are one thing, but this is a T-Rex!"

"It has a broken leg!" Nick cried.

"And if we treat that thing, I guarantee I'll be the one in the wheelchair! Do it a favor and put it out of its misery!"

"No! Let us in before the poachers, or the baby's parents hear us!"

"We'll call it Ian!" Sarah suggested.

Ian only groaned.

"Look, the sooner we get its leg fixed, the sooner we can release it back into the wild."

"I'm not sure I like that idea much either." Still, the man let us in.

Everyone present and accounted for. My wife lay dozing peacefully on the floor, her collar displaying a spent tranquilizer dart...she looks so sexy when she sleeps.

Cynthia knelt on the floor, cleaning up dinosaur droppings...not sure who they belonged to, maybe Buttface?

Cassie...it looked like Cynthia baited her in with food. She now spooned ice cream into her mouth, and since Webby lay in her lap, struggled to give my daughter only vanilla and not any chocolate. The Game Boy on the table indicated that hadn't been the only bait.

"Any day now," Ian prompted.

Sarah quickly rushed Rex Junior to a table, clearing items away to make room. "I need numbing agents and tranquilizer, stat."

Ian dug syringes out of a cabinet. "Did I mention how this is a terrible idea?"

Sarah only shook her head, ordering Nick to hold the baby down while she injected it with sedatives. Rex Junior continued to wail.

Ian cast an anxious glance out the window. "Do what you have to and get it out of here, ASAP."

Sarah just sighed as she ran an ultrasound wand over the baby's leg.

I grinned. "Sarah, you think you might be able to check Zelda with that thing later? I'd like to know if we—"

"Albert," Cynthia groaned. "It doesn't happen that fast. The most you'll get to see is like a fertilized marble, trust me."

"A shooter marble, or a regular one?"

"A regular one, Albert. You ever heard of the phrase gestation period?'"

"...Oh."

Sarah pointed to an image on the sonogram machine. "There's the fracture. Right above the epiphysis."

"That little black line?"

"Yeah. Looks like just a hairline fracture. If we can keep it immobile, the leg should heal. We want her to be able to pivot when standing on her feet, and be able to run and walk. Right now a predator could pick her off before she has a chance to grow."

"Sounds like the world might be a better place if we just leave it alone," Ian muttered to himself. To Sarah: "Can you reset the leg?"

"I need something temporary that'll break apart and fall off when the animal grows."

The baby screeched. Hearing noises outside, Ian cast anxious glances at the windows. "Think fast, Sarah."

Sarah basically pulled a MacGuyver, improvising a cast for the baby with aluminum foil and resin. The baby thrashed, resisting the medical aid she attempted.

Cassie, with Webby in her arms, got up from her table to watch the woman work. Ian came close to shoving her into the floor in his haste to get Sarah her supplies.

Cynthia quickly grabbed the girl by the shoulder. "C'mon. We're getting in the way. Let's go outside for a few minutes."

She cast me a look that said I should do the same, but I opted for an equally polite alternative: Backing into an unused corner, and pretending to be furniture...while I looked for bolt cutters, pruning shears, tin snips, scissors, anything with which to remove my collar.

"This is worse than when my mother's pet beagle fell off the porch. It kept rebreaking its leg." Nick glanced back at Ian. "More sedative!"

"No!" Sarah protested. "We'll kill it!...What we need is another adhesive, something pliable..."

Noting how Nick kept making chewing motions, she held out her hand. "Gum. Now."

Nick spit it into her hand, and she worked it into the makeshift cast.

No luck finding suitable cutting instruments, but I did find a CB radio. I grabbed the mike, pushing the button. "Pack Rat, this is Rubber Duck, come in Pack Rat..."

"Pack Rat here," Kelly joked on the other end. "I say cheese,' you say log'. Cheese..."

"Hey!" Ian scolded. "Leave that alone! It's not a toy!"

I put the microphone away. "Dang. And I was just about to get into a discussion about literature."

"You can do that outside."

I blew a raspberry.

It seems the sedative hadn't been strong enough. Rex Junior still wailed.

This time, something answered back. "Honey! Where are you!" And this is coming out as a loud growling roar, mind you. It's so loud that birds scatter from the trees.

I'm the only one noticing this stuff, by the way. The others are busy playing surgeon.

I did however, hear Cynthia rapping on the window...Especially when the trees began swaying with hurricane force...and ripples appeared in Cassie's melted ice cream.

"Sarah, come in!" Eddie's voice called on the CB beside me. "Sarah, Malcolm, can you hear me?"

"Guys," I called. "Your friend's on the radio!"

Sarah was too busy messing with the gum. "A little busy right now!" The baby screeched. "Hold her down, Nick!"

"Anyone there?" The radio again.

Ian tried to answer, but Sarah just ordered him to get a syringe of Amoxicillin. "Albert, could you get that, please?"

I picked up the mike. "Hello?"

"Great. I got the talking dinosaur," Eddie groaned. "Listen, tell them to get whatever it is they have in that trailer out of there now!"

Cynthia yelled and pounded on the door.

"Ummm...they're kinda busy treating an injured dinosaur."

"That...wouldn't be an injured T-Rex, would it? Because we got two adults coming your way!"

I gulped. "Guys...we're about to get a visit from the patient's family!"

Ian swore, snatching the mike away from me. "Let me talk to Kelly. Is she—"

"Baby! Where are you!" came a deafening roar outside the windows.

Crash! Beyond the window, the truck portion of the mobile science lab rolled on its side.

Cynthia yelped. Cassie screamed. I couldn't see what happened to them.

I rushed to the door, but froze when a massive reptilian face filled up the window.

A yellow eye the size of an oil pan peered into the trailer. "Baby?"

"Mommy!" Rex Junior wailed.

"Hush, baby," the big face growled. "Mama's here."

Rex Junior calmed down...a little, but then, "Mommy, they hit me with a metal stick and poked me with needles and put a tinfoil burrito and gum over my leg and there's Velociraptors in the trailer waaah!"

The giant eye got even bigger. "What!"

And then it saw me. "You again! How dare you hit my baby with a burrito needle! I'll make you pay for this!" The face withdrew from the window. "Honey, could you help me open this big metal green thing?"

A second giant scaly face filled up the window beside me. "Puny raptor! I'm gonna mess you up!" Its roar shook the entire trailer.

"Yay! Daddy!" Rex Junior cheered from the table. "Kill these tiny things!"

I uncontrollably ruined the carpet. Wouldn't you?

[0000]

So...let's go back to the part about the...Tomb of the Dinosaucers.

We peered through the case, fogging up the glass as we puzzled over its contents. The copper colored device...not quite a TV remote. The buttons seemed to belong to a scientific calculator, probably handy if you needed to, say, program a complicated code to open a portal to a parallel universe...or program in a complicated game of Tetris. Green numbers on a black background, like the command prompt on an old Apple II computer. And it definitely appeared to be counting down 29 days.

Webby hopped up and down to get a better look, but even on Zelda's back, she couldn't see much. Oblivious to our situation, Buttface scratched on a glass coffin, probably to get at a bone inside.

I poked around the display, looking for a button or knob to open the case. "So...Do we just pull this thing off like a jewel thief or what?"

Cynthia shook her head. "That might not be a good idea. You did say jewel thief..."

"Yeah, but I'm like royalty here! You'd think—"

Heffalump grabbed the case with his trunk, setting it on the floor.

"Well gee thanks, Hefty! What if there's an alarm? Or some kind of deadly trap?"

"¿Como? En Español, por favor."

Cynthia put her hands on her hips. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you understood English more than you let on."

Heffalump snickered, but didn't say anything.

"Let's hope you didn't release some kind of biological agent!"

I shuddered. "I thought you said that kind of stuff would be past its expiration date!"

"Not if you like, bottle it up in cold storage as a weapon!"

We all looked around nervously, watching, listening for an alarm or deadly trap.

Nothing. No sound except for a faint humming sound.

...Well, almost.

Cynthia narrowed her eyes at the doorway. "Did you guys hear a rat?"

I shrugged. "I heard something, but this place makes weird noises sometimes."

Heffalump reached for the device, but Cynthia slapped his trunk away. "¡Detener! ¡Podría estar entrapada!"

Heffalump shook his head. "Albert construyó este lagar. No estamos en peligro."

Araceli ignored the warning, snatching the device from its stand.

"Shoot!" Cynthia shouted, grabbing it out of her hands. "No no no! That's how you get flattened by a giant boulder! Don't you watch movies?"

Araceli just stared at her.

I chuckled. "I don't think a boulder can fit through that door."

Cynthia kept nervously glancing around. "All right, smartass. Let's see what you say when the ceiling drops down and those giant spikes start coming out of the floor." She frowned at the device. "Crap. I think the battery just died. Guess there's no dimensional portal for us!"

I leaned over her shoulder. "I thought that thing was supposed to be solar powered."

"I thought so too. I also thought it wasn't made of plastic. Let's take it back to Hammond's place and see if it takes AA's." She stuck it in her back pocket. "It's getting late. I think we should, I don't know, lock this place up somehow and go to bed."

The dinosaur ghost made an appearance, gesturing toward a door at the rear of the chamber. The door opened by itself.

Cynthia groaned and rubbed her face. "How does Indy do this shit without coffee?"

She leaned through the doorway. Dark interior. "Albert, can you go back and get our lights? I know the batteries are crap, but..."

"On it."

The moment I stepped out of the mausoleum, I collided with a gangly Peruvian boy in a Chivas jersey and shorts. We both screamed.

I gaped at the long haired stranger. "Hello, who are you?"

The boy's eyes bugged out. "You can talk?"

Since he didn't look threatening, I just grinned. "I can also do this..." I gave him a performance of Chu Chu Ua.

He laughed. "Man, this is loco! Desculpe, ¿Ha s visto a mi hermana? ¡Por favor dime que no te la comiste!"

I pointed to the mausoleum. "You're Araceli's brother?"

He nodded. "Se supone que debo estar observándola, pero sigue corriendo."

"She does run off a lot..."

I hurriedly retrieved the lights.

Cynthia's startled cry indicated that she and Araceli's brother had been introduced. Upon my return to the mausoleum, I found Cynthia clutching her chest as she gawked at the visitor. "Damn, you almost made me need one of those glass cases! Okay...Miguel, let's start over. I'm Cynthia Yu. Where are your parents?"

"Costa Rica. Dad's in jail. Mom's...working."

Buttface growled at the boy, backing toward the coffin she liked so much.

Cynthia shook her head. "Does your mother...know where you are?"

"Uh...sí y no."

Cynthia crossed her arms. "That's not an answer."

"She work in big factory, all day and night. Sweat shop. Some American company. She come home and sleep, go back to work. She tell me, Miguel, you take care of her." He shrugged. "We no can afford school, Araceli's too young to work."

"And...you just magically found your way onto this island."

"She find a boat. We had a big layoff at my job...I sorta lied and said we're looking for work at Ingen like Dad. We mostly fish and search islands for shit to sell. You'd be surprised what washes up on beaches. Nice shipwrecks you find here." He petted Heffalump.

Cynthia scratched her head. "This had better not be bullship, I mean, you'd better not be lying!"

Miguel pressed his face against a glass coffin lid. "What is this place? What is all this stuff? ¿Nave espacial estrellanda para algunos alienigenas antiguos?" He knocked on the glass. "Hello! ¿Tienes oro ahí?"

"Apparently there's a gold airplane somewhere, but we haven't found it yet." She pointed to the back of the chamber. "Holographic lizard woman just showed us this door."

"Let's go! We could be rich!"

Cynthia rolled her eyes. "I'm not seeing any treasures yet, Miguel."

"What about the display case?"

She showed him the Timer.

"I think Mom make those at the factory."

"I...don't think so."

Miguel turned it over in his hands. "You're right. This would never work on a DVD player." he gave it back.

It turns out we didn't need the lights. The moment we marched through a short hallway, a bunch of tube lights came on, and we found ourselves in a futuristic subway tunnel.

And before us stood a subway car...of sorts. It fairly resembled a beer can, no advertisements or windows like you'd see on a human built subway car. The holographic lizard woman opened its sliding door for us.

The moment we approached the thing, we witnessed a group of glowing figures running down the corridor, chased by Conquistadors with muskets and flintlocks.

An "Indian" (Mesoamerican) boy with a mop of long black hair, clad in a long dress-like poncho. a fat bet bird hovered behind him in the air.

A Spanish kid in a tunic and canvas pants.

...And a girl that looked identical to Araceli, but in a buckskin dress.

A well built Spaniard accompanied them, blue cape billowing behind his tunic. A rapier clanked at his waist. A fat guy and a bearded dude resembling a monkey brought up the rear.

We all ducked as the Conquistadors opened fire.

As the people disappeared down the tunnel, Cynthia shakily got to her feet. "What the hell was that?"

"No se," Araceli replied.

Miguel furrowed his brow. "That...little girl...She look like my great-great-grandmother."

"You know...I did notice a family resemblance, now that you mention it...I'm guessing these are more holograms or Force ghosts or whatever."

"You watch Star Wars too?"

Cynthia didn't want to admit to being a nerd. "Uh...My brother..."

Araceli muttered something to Miguel.

"I think this is a sign!" He showed Cynthia the sun pendant. "I found this in the door. Grandmother gave it to Araceli when she pass away."

Cynthia's eyes bulged. "Wait. Did you say you took that out of the door?"

He shrugged. "I also have bad news. We are stuck in here!"