by Alex Scarrow
› [Evaluation: time contamination is increasing]
Every movement these people made, every footstep, every swipe of a blunt blade, was adding to a growing count of potential contamination. Yet Liam O’Connor’s instruction to her was a mission priority, an override. As the mission operative, his orders were as final and non-negotiable as any hard-coded line of programming in her head.
He’d been very specific: that she was to organize the completion of the bridge and the building of a camp. And, for good measure, some kind of small enclosure, a palisade that they could all hide inside just in case any nasty found its way on to their island.
And so she had. Just like their last mission, back when her AI software had been assigned the ident. ‘Bob’, she was once again obediently following orders. There was something vaguely comforting about being in a brand-new functioning body, being on a mission once again with Liam O’Connor. They had functioned together very efficiently last time — successfully correcting a significant time contamination against exceedingly unfavourable odds.
But there’d been something… untidy… about the AI’s learning curve. As Bob, it had discovered that the strict mission parameters could be overwritten with new ones, that under extreme circumstances the collection of software routines was actually capable of making a ‘decision’.
That in itself had been a disturbing realization. As Bob, the AI had learned that its core programming could be subtly influenced, swayed, by something else: the tiny nodule of organic intelligence the computer chip was connected to. The undeveloped foetal brain of this genetically engineered frame. As Bob, the AI had experienced a fleeting taste of something that these humans must all take for granted. Emotion. The AI had discovered something very, very odd… that it actually ‘liked’ Liam O’Connor.
Since that first clone body had been irreparably damaged in the snowy woods down the hill from Adolf Hitler’s winter Berghof retreat and the AI uploaded into the field office’s mainframe — an entirely non-organic, disembodied existence — the AI had had much time to reflect on all that it had learned from those six months in the past.
Conclusions
AI is now capable of referring to the newly developed AI routines as… ‘ I ’, ‘ Me ’, ‘ Myself ’.
‘ I ’ am now capable of limited decision-making.
Within an organic hardware housing, ‘ I ’ am capable of limited emotional stimulation.
And most important of all…
‘ I ’ ‘ like ’ Liam O’Connor.
Becks continued to watch the humans at work and realized that part of her onboard code was insistently whispering a warning to her that a decision needed to be made, and made very soon. The humans were beginning to cause dangerously unacceptable levels of contamination in this jungle clearing with all that they were doing. With every footstep, with every log being cut down, there was an increased possibility that some fossilized forensic clue would survive sixty-five million years to be found in the future, and quite clearly reveal that humans had visited this time.
Unacceptable.
Liam O’Connor’s instructions to her were at odds with the basic protocols of journeying into the past, that contamination must be kept to an absolute minimum. Even now, by simply being here, these people could be causing a far greater time wave than the assassination of Edward Chan in 2015 might have caused.
Recommendation
Terminate all humans, including mission operative Liam O’Connor.
Destroy all traces of human artefacts and habitation in this location.
Self-terminate.
The recommendation was faultlessly logical and strategically sound. But that small nodule of primitive organic matter reminded her software that Liam was a friend.
And friends don’t kill friends.
Becks blinked away the thought. It was an unwelcome distraction.
Decision Options
Proceed immediately with mission recommendation.
Wait for operative Liam O’Connor and discuss.
A decision. Never easy. Becks’s internal silicon wafer processor began to rapidly warm up as gigabytes of data rattled through software filters. Her lifeless grey eyes blinked in rapid succession as she desperately struggled to produce an answer and her fingers absentmindedly tightened round the handle of the machete. She barely registered the blonde-haired female human called Laura approaching her.
‘Hey!’ the girl called out. ‘You going to give us a hand or just stand there and watch us do the work? Huh? Becks? ’
Becks’s eyes slowly swivelled and locked on the girl, but she said nothing. Her mind was very, very busy.
CHAPTER 28
65 million years BC, jungle
Liam saw it first: amid the relentless green and ochre of the jungle, it was an unmissable splash of bright crimson. He raised his hand, turned round and put a finger to his lips, shushing Lam and Jonah at the back who’d been chattering for the last five minutes about comicbooks.
They hushed immediately.
Whitmore stepped quietly forward and joined him. ‘What is it?’
Liam pointed through a thin veil of leaves. ‘Blood… lots of it, by the look of things.’
Whitmore swallowed and looked goggle-eyed again. ‘Oh boy,’ he whispered. ‘Oh boy. Oh boy.’
Franklyn joined them. Unlike Whitmore, his eyes lit up with joy. ‘Excellent!’ he gasped. ‘Looks like something made a kill.’
Whitmore swallowed. ‘That’s exactly what I’m worried about.’ He looked at Liam. ‘I suggest we quietly back up and — ’ But before Whitmore could finish Franklyn pushed his way forward through low sweeping fern fronds and into a small clearing.
‘Oh, this is so awesome! Come on!’ he called to them. ‘We must have frightened the predator off!’
Liam looked at the teacher and shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose if we’ve scared some dinosaur away, the last thing we ought to start doing now is look frightened ourselves. We’d better brass it out, right?’
By the look of Whitmore’s still goggling eyes, he’d have been much happier with the backing quietly away plan. Liam left him thinking it over as he stepped forward through the fern leaves and into the clearing.
Franklyn was squatting over the eviscerated ribcage of some large beast, wrinkling his nose at the fetid smell of shredded organs, pulled out and splayed across the jungle floor.
Liam felt something stir and roll queasily in his empty stomach. ‘Jay-zus, that’s disgusting.’
‘A recent kill by the look of it,’ said Franklyn, prodding the large carcass with his fingers. Shreds of tattered muscle tissue swayed from the ends of the ribs as the body rocked slightly. Lam, Jonah and Whitmore emerged behind Liam.
‘Oh, man, that’s totally gross!’ said Jonah, holding his nose at the pungent smell of death.
‘I really think we shouldn’t hang about here,’ said Whitmore. ‘Whatever did this might still be close by.’
Franklyn nodded and smiled. ‘Exactly! Maybe we’ll actually get a chance to see something!’
Liam looked around the dense foliage, wary that some large creature with very sharp claws and teeth might just be watching them now. ‘You know, I think Mr Whitmore’s got the right idea. Maybe we should probably back off.’
‘Look at these marks on the hide,’ said Franklyn, ignoring them. ‘The lacerations, lots of them, small ones, not large like a rex might do.’ He studied the ground. ‘See?’
Liam looked at where he was pointing and saw several three-pronged indentations across the ground. And then he spotted something long and curved like a fishhook on the ground. He stooped down and picked it up.
‘What’s that?’ asked Franklyn.
Liam shrugged. ‘Looks like some sort of claw.’
Franklyn couldn’t help himself. He snatched it out of Liam’s open palm.
‘Oh my God! That’s… that’s a claw, all right! Look, the serrated inner edge.’ He turned it over in his hand. ‘But it’s a weird shape, isn’t it
, Mr Whitmore?’
Whitmore seemed more interested in leaving, but he quickly leaned over and inspected it more closely. ‘It’s certainly not the crescent shape you’d associate with a raptor or some other species of therapod.’
Franklyn grinned with excitement. ‘Maybe this is an unknown species?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Lam. ‘I mean, don’t they say something about we’ve only ever discovered the fossils of one per cent of the species that have ever lived on planet Earth?’
‘I really think we should leave,’ said Whitmore.
Liam nodded. He held out his hand. ‘May I have it back?’
Franklyn seemed reluctant to let it go. But after pulling a face he passed it to Liam. ‘Cool find,’ he uttered.
Liam smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll come across another.’
‘Yeah, probably… whatever that belonged to is small. Probably pack hunters.’
‘Pack hunters?’ Jonah straightened up. ‘You know, I think Mr Whitmore’s right. Maybe we should go.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Whitmore, smiling quickly, uncomfortably. Looking around the clearing. ‘Well, Franklyn, a fascinating find. We can all talk about it on the way back.’
‘Pack hunters?’ said Lam. ‘Like raptors? You said there weren’t raptors!’
‘These aren’t. Look at the footprints… there’d be indentations from their sickle toe. No, these are some other species, maybe not even therapods. Something entirely different.’ He stood up. ‘This is so cool!’
‘Yes, well…’ Liam looked at the others. ‘So now we know for sure we’re sharing this place with dinosaurs.’ He looked at the buffalo-sized carcass. ‘And now that we know there’s some bigger types we could hunt for food I think Mr Whitmore’s right — we ought to head back to the camp.’
Four heads bobbed enthusiastically.
Franklyn sighed. ‘OK.’
‘Right, then.’ Liam gestured down the path they’d beaten. ‘After you, gents.’ They filed quickly past him, Whitmore glancing awkwardly back over his shoulder as he stepped by. ‘Actually, I really wish we hadn’t spotted that,’ he said quietly, pulling a face.
Liam knew what he meant. The poor beast, whatever it had once been, looked like it hadn’t just been killed for meat. The organs splayed out on to the jungle floor, the intestines dangling from loops of vine… it was as if the creatures that had brought it down had frolicked and played with the grisly remains — a gory celebration of the kill. The idea of an animal species capable of celebrating seemed somewhat disconcerting. It hinted at ritual. It hinted at intelligence.
Maybe they’re just messy eaters?
In the gathering stillness, he thought he heard the softest click — like the tiniest twig snapping beneath impatient, shifting weight. He glanced back once more at the blood-splashed clearing and wondered if predators’ eyes were cautiously eyeing him in turn from the cover of the dense green foliage.
Yellow, unblinking eyes studied the curious creatures as they departed. Just a dozen yards away — no more than three or four strides from where the beast crouched — there were five of these pale creatures the like of which he had never seen before. They made odd noises, not a million miles away from the cranial bark he made when calling for the attention of the rest of the pack. And these odd creatures moved in a not dissimilar way: upright, on long, developed rear legs, but far more slowly, sluggishly.
The creature shifted position slightly, bobbing down lower to get a better look between the broad leaves of the fern he was hiding behind. These pale upright things, these new creatures… he wondered if this was the entirety of their pack, or whether there were more of them elsewhere.
They seemed harmless. They appeared to have no visible teeth, no slashing claws, nothing that signalled any danger about them at all. Nothing that identified them as potential rival predators.
Except… except — the creature could see this — these pale things were clever. They appeared to work co-operatively, sharing tasks. Just like his pack did. He watched in absolute stillness, his olive skin a perfect disguise among the varied greens of the jungle. He watched with intense eyes that faced forward, capable of binocular vision; capable of judging distance, range.
A predator’s advantage.
These strange newcomers, these new creatures, also had eyes that faced forward. Another reason to be so very wary of them. Perhaps they too were predators of some kind, unlike the docile plant-eaters, whose eyes on either side of their heads were designed to detect potential danger from two directions.
Yes… these things had predators’ eyes. And yet they appeared utterly defenceless, harmless and pitifully slow and clumsy in the way they moved around the clearing.
He cocked his head curiously. The long fishhook-shaped razor-sharp claws on its left front paw clacked together carelessly.
The last of the new creatures suddenly turned and looked back in his direction. It must have heard something, the snick of his claws. Incredibly the creature’s eyes looked directly at him — right at him — and yet seemed to see absolutely nothing. Its eyes panned slowly from left to right then finally it turned and headed off after the others.
The creature looked down at his claws: four of them, long and lethal, curled from the digits of one arm, three… and a broken stump
… from the other — damage caused many seasons ago fighting off a young male who had foolishly decided to challenge his leadership. The challenger had died, of course, and in a rage he had torn the body to ragged pieces in front of the rest of the pack as a lesson.
The claws usually grew back. The young female who’d lost her claw today during the kill, she would have a new one before a new moon. But his stump had never regrown a claw. A constant reminder that his days as leader were numbered by how long he remained effective.
Slowly and very lightly, Broken Claw stepped backwards, away from the fern leaves and further from the well-lit small clearing into jungle darkness. His powerful rear legs strong and agile — capable of incredible speed, but also able to move in almost complete silence.
A simple thought passed through his mind — a thought not made up of words, but ideas.
The new creatures must be watched.
Instinctively he sensed there was something terribly dangerous about them. Until he knew exactly what it was, until he knew how weak or dangerous they could be, the new creatures should be carefully observed, studied, until he was sure he had the measure of them and then… then, when these things were least prepared, when they were certain these pale creatures had no concealed powers, they would be attacked and feasted upon. And the pack could celebrate their dominance once more as the quiet killers of this world, decorating the jungle with their organs, painting their blood on their hides.
His sharp teeth snapped together softly, and he resolved that patience, for the moment, was the correct course of action.
CHAPTER 29
65 million years BC, jungle
Liam heaved a sigh of relief as he caught a glimpse of the raging river and the long slender trunk that bridged one rocky bank to the other. It appeared Becks had finished her work on the bridge. It could now be raised, courtesy of a crudely rigged counterweight of a bundle of logs. They were tied together and connected to a stout rope of a dozen twisted vines, which ran up and over the thick branch of a canopy tree that stretched a sturdy limb out above the river. The other end of the rope was tied round the end of their ‘drawbridge’, a thirty-foot trunk as straight as a javelin and a slender foot in diameter. It was thick enough to take their weight, one at a time, but not so heavy the supporting branch above would snap as it was raised.
One by one, they stepped on to the log, and cautiously inched their way over the tumbling froth a few feet below. Liam was the last one over and, as he anxiously awaited his turn, he scanned the wall of jungle behind him, wary that, being the last one on this side of the river, he might prove a tempting morsel for some hungry beast.
But his turn came, and a few mom
ents later he was on the far side with the others. ‘OK, let’s raise the drawbridge.’
Between them they pulled on the counterweight of logs, and with the creak of stressed vine rope and the branch above taking the burden, the bridge rose up until it was approximately at an angle of forty-five degrees.
‘Good enough.’ Liam looked up at the sky. The sun was beginning to head for the horizon and long dark shadows stretched across the river. Through the trees and tufts of bamboo thickets on their side of the river, from the direction of the clearing, they could hear the echoing hack of blades on wood: the others working on their camp, their home… a temporary home, Liam found himself hoping. The sound of activity was reassuring.
‘I hope somebody’s got the kettle on for us,’ said Liam.
A minute later they were just stepping out into the broad clearing, keen to see what the others had managed to construct in their absence, when they heard a scream echo across the open space.
‘Uh?’ uttered Lam.
On the far side Liam could see movement. Someone running. It was the girl Laura, running, staggering, stumbling to her knees, then back up on her feet. Behind her, pursuing with a swift purposeful stride, a figure all in black with flaming red hair: Becks.
‘Whoa… catfight,’ uttered Jonah, grinning like an idiot.
‘Hey!’ Liam called out. ‘What’s going on?’
Laura glanced his way and changed direction towards him. Becks was swiftly closing the gap. He noticed her holding one of their bamboo spears in one hand, the tip bright red with a splash of blood.
What the…?
He ran forward. ‘Becks! What’s going on?’
Closer now, he could see a long gash down Laura’s left arm, blood splattered across her bright pink sweatshirt.