Jurassic Earth Trilogy Box Set

by Logan T Stark

  Aaditya studied the photograph once more, this time more closely. The color seemed off and the markings very faint, but he just about could make out the faint outline of the serial code pressed into the hybrid tungsten metal sphere. 37B.IC2.78D. The serial code described the launch site, the program, followed by the year of manufacture and the probe model. This was definitely a picture of the probe his team sent into the sun. As far as he was aware, no replicas this detailed had been created.

  There was, however, something about the grainy photograph that puzzled Aaditya. There were two thick translucent bands slicing vertically across the probe. It was as though this was an X-Ray image of the probe from within some kind of cage.

  “It’s definitely Icarus Two, or an exact replica,” Aaditya said as Mr Yamamoto pulled the plastic doorway to the tent aside. “I’m not sure about these markings though,” he added, pointing to the translucent bands.

  “Please, you first,” Mr Yamamoto said, holding out a hand invitingly.

  Aaditya ducked into the tent. Cool air met his nostrils and he could hear the faint hiss of oxygen. Mr Yamamoto led him through an airlock and into a second chamber. It looked like a mad scientist’s laboratory. An array of expensive looking machines lined the outer walls, most of which Aaditya had never seen. There were also cabinets brimming with brown bottles, each labelled differently. Technicians in lab coats and masks swarmed around tables on which active experiments were being conducted.

  “Perhaps I should be wearing a lab suit?” Aaditya said, backing into Mr Yamamoto.

  “The tests are harmless,” Mr Yamamoto reassured. “The suits are only to prevent contamination of the samples. We’re beyond that now.”

  Tim dodged technicians as he rushed from the opposite side of the makeshift lab towards Aaditya and Mr Yamamoto, a mixture of shock and amazement in his features.

  “One-hundred and forty-eight,” Tim said, laughing and shaking his head. “It’s only a bloody hundred and forty-eight!” He laughed like a man surveying a winning lottery ticket, but not believing the result. “It’s a hundred percent accurate. It can’t be a hoax. It would be impossible to fake, impossible. I don’t… I…”

  “Yes,” Mr Yamamoto said, grasping Tim’s shoulder and squeezing. “I know. I demanded the results checked a hundred times before believing myself. I’m still struggling.”

  “Would someone finally tell me what’s going on?” Aaditya said, becoming impatient. “What’s a hundred and forty-eight? What would be impossible to fake and what does it have to do with me? This elusive behaviour is becoming tiresome.”

  “Of course,” Mr Yamamoto said, “Please, follow me.”

  He led Aaditya through the lab and through a third doorway, onto a gantry platform that overlooked a large alcove hewn into the layered slate of the cliff wall. Aaditya leaned over the gantry and peered down, into a pit dug into the cliff. Two tripod mounted spotlights shone bright beams onto the floor of the pit, in which Aaditya could make out what appeared to be fossilized bones poking through the surface. He thought he could identify a tail and a portion of a leg, or was it a fin?

  “This is one of the most intact plesiosaur specimens ever discovered,” Mr Yamamoto said.

  “Like the Loch Ness monster,” Tim added. “Like the one Mary Anning found. It’s priceless.”

  “Exactly,” Mr Yamamoto continued. “You can probably make out its orientation. There’s its tail, which joins with a large body. Some bones are missing, but you can imagine it.” He traced shapes in the air with a finger. “The plesiosaur propelled itself with flippers. You can see one there and another there. There’s a string of vertebrae. Its neck was extremely long. We’ve yet to uncover any of its head. It could be curled round and buried deeper in the rock. The whole specimen is roughly five meters long and I have it on good authority that it died circa one-hundred and forty-eight million years ago, towards the end of the Jurassic period. Like I said, we’ve checked the numbers again and again. They’re definitely accurate.”

  “No doubt, it’s remarkable,” Aaditya said, nodding. “Congratulations. Thanks for, uh… thanks for sharing this with me. I… um… I…”

  “Are you beginning to understand?” Mr Yamamoto said, grinning at Aaditya as though he was supposed to grasp some additional revelation.

  “I’m sorry, you’ve completely lost me,” Aaditya said, feeling slightly ashamed he was missing something obvious.

  “No, no, we’re just not explaining ourselves very well,” Tim said. “You noticed the bands on the image of the Icarus Two we gave you? Well, that image was taken a week ago.”

  “Of a replica?” Aaditya said, examining the photograph once more.

  Both Tim and Mr Yamamoto shook their heads.

  “This was taken a week ago?” Aaditya said.

  Both Tim and Mr Yamamoto nodded.

  “That’s impossible. Icarus Two was swallowed by the sun years ago. … Oh no … no way,” Aaditya said, shaking his head and backing away. “You can’t actually believe you’ve found my probe buried in this cliff. You’re not seriously saying that are you? Please don’t be saying something as stupid as that.”

  “It’s far more stupid than that,” Mr Yamamoto said, his expression deadly serious. “That image is an X-ray. The bands across the image are the ribs of this plesiosaur. Your probe is inside that animal’s ribcage. One-hundred and forty-eight million years ago, that dinosaur ate your probe.”

  Aaditya paused for a moment, stunned, then leaned forwards and howled with laughter.

  “Okay, guys, I see. Very funny. Where are the cameras? You won’t get me like this. Very impressive. You spent all that money to get me here and make me believe, but I won’t be fooled. Man you guys are elaborate,” he said, turning on the spot and scanning the room for cameras. “Did Kranz put you up to this? No chance, Gene,” he called. “I’m too long in the tooth to be suckered this easily.”

  “This is not a hoax, Dr Bashar,” Mr Yamamoto pleaded, casting an exasperated glance at Tim.

  “Uh-hu, Mr Yamonutball… and pink fairy Martians live in my basement. I live off a diet of koala poop. Take me to your leader,” Aaditya continued, walking with his arms outstretched as though in a zombie trance. “So good. I gotta give you that. So damn good.”

  “Dr Bashar!” Mr Yamamoto demanded. “This is not a trick…”

  “It’s okay,” Aaditya replied, stroking Mr Yamamoto’s hair, tears streaming down his cheeks. He was almost hyperventilating he was laughing so hard. “Boop… boop,” he continued, prodding Mr Yamamoto’s nose. “I’m not even angry. This… this is… Wow! Fantastic. I’m actually honored.”

  “I didn’t wanna have to do this,” Tim said, lifting a pickaxe resting against the side of the tent and walking down the stairwell leading off the gantry.

  He grunted and jumped into the pit. He hoisted the pickaxe and sank it into the middle of the plesiosaur skeleton. Aaditya heard his laughter peter into silence. Again and again, Tim buried the pickaxe, prising away chunks of rock and fossilized bone. Aaditya looked at Mr Yamamoto, who was holding a hand to his mouth, the color draining from his face.

  Tim cleared the area he was hacking at by kicking the amassing rubble to the side. As the chipped rubble and bone fragments increased in volume, it began to dawn on Aaditya that perhaps this wasn’t a hidden camera stunt. It would be impossible to bury a fossil in rock with such realism, no matter how much money you had. He didn’t know much about archaeology, but he had enough sense to know intact dinosaur fossils were incredibly rare and great care was always used to extract them.

  Tim grunted as he prised a large slab of rock with the pickaxe. He bent down, curled his fingers round the slab and heaved it up. It toppled over and slammed to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust. Tim stood up, dust swirling around his legs, and gave Aaditya a look that seemed to say ‘you see.’

  Aaditya gasped. It felt as though the floor had dropped from beneath him and he was in freefall. He clasped the railings for support. The s
ight was impossible. He blinked furiously, but the image remained unwavering. There, half buried, was the surface of an object he knew as well as his own face.

  “We already drilled and took samples,” Mr Yamamoto said. “It’s been dated and verified. The probe is only minutely older than the plesiosaur skeleton. Practically the same age.”

  Aaditya’s mouth opened and closed. His brain was struggling to connect the reality he understood to the new reality the unearthed probe suggested. The two could never connect. Nothing made sense.

  “That’s impossible,” he whimpered. “This is a mistake. Why do you insist on continuing to insult me? A joke can be taken too far. Too damn far! This is way beyond that.”

  “We’re not joking and we have far too much respect to insult you,” Tim said, kneeling and brushing the dust from the surface of the embedded probe, which gleamed under the spotlights. “The data can’t lie. Sampling shows this probe, your probe, is one-hundred and forty-eight million years old. We don’t know how, why or what, but this plesiosaur’s last meal back in the late Jurassic period was the Icarus Two. I promise, this is not a trick. We’re just as lost as you on this.”

  “I don’t understand,” Aaditya said, feeling his knees weaken. “I don… I… how?”

  “That’s precisely what we need you to tell us,” Mr Yamamoto said, his stern stare boring into Aaditya’s eyes. “I will give you everything you need for as long as you need. Don’t worry about funding limits. From this point on, there are none.”

  “I’m dreaming, I know it,” Aaditya said meekly. “This can’t be real.”

  “This is real,” Mr Yamamoto assured, gently gripping Aaditya’s arm to steady the man. “I need to know how your probe came to be eaten by a beast that swam the oceans of Earth almost a hundred and fifty million years before Man existed. Anything you need, we will build it. If it hasn’t been built, we will design it. Aaditya, I need you to be our guide. With your help we may be able to exploit a gateway to Jurassic Earth, the land before time…”

  End of the World

  A aditya chuckled, remembering the day he’d first met Mr Yamamoto and Tim, the day his mind had been ripped wide open and he’d been forced to reassess the laws of the universe as he understood them. The journey from non-believer to hopeful optimist hadn’t been easy, and the subsequent fourteen years had done little to make Mr Yamamoto’s discovery seem any less outrageous. But today, if Aaditya’s theory explaining how the Icarus probe had travelled back through time proved to be correct, he knew he’d have no choice but to believe. Today, he stood on the precipice of abject failure or becoming inducted into the scientific Halls of Fame, alongside his heroes from history. It was both exhilarating and terrifying.

  “Relax, a theory is only a theory until the day it becomes a fact,” he muttered to himself, tapping his foot nervously as a waiter placed a plate of tomagoyaki with steamed rice and a bowl of miso soup onto the table. “Arigatō,” Aaditya said, bowing slightly. The waiter bowed in return.

  Aaditya took up his spoon, plunged it into the soup and blew on the broth as he gazed through the windows of the dining hall at the Cosmo Resort on Tanegashima island. Beyond the well-manicured golf course and the gently swaying palm trees, foaming waves rose and fell on the dark ocean. He angled his view to try and glimpse the rocket launch towers at the Tanegashima Space Center further down the coast, but they were obscured by moisture rolling off an increasingly agitated ocean. Perhaps a storm was brewing.

  Aaditya’s stomach lurched when he swallowed the first mouthful of soup. Much to his disappointment, his body seemed to have decided to reject all sustenance. Over the years, the traditional Japanese breakfast had become one of his favorite things about his trips to Japan. The breakfast contained all the nutritional groups required to fuel his body through a hard day’s work. He much preferred it to the greasy Western equivalents. Unfortunately, today, his body had neglected to read the memo.

  “Not a great start, but not an omen either,” Aaditya said, resting his spoon on the table. “Keep calm. Don’t panic. An unruly belly or a little storm can’t affect the day. In space,” he said, looking skywards, “the weather is ideal and everything is going perfectly to plan.”

  Aaditya span round as a crashing sound followed by a yelp and a thud emanated from behind. He turned to see Tim helping a Japanese man, dressed in green tartan trousers and yellow Pringle sweater, from the floor. The man slapped Tim’s arms away and began to rant, gesturing at the coffee splashed across his Pringle sweater. The double door to the dining room swung on its hinges behind the pair. Tim grabbed a napkin from the nearest table and dabbed at the man’s chest, but the man chopped his hand away, then barged past Tim and stormed out of the room, sending the doors swinging once more.

  “Sorry,” Tim called, before turning and dashing towards Aaditya. “Cat’s out of the bag, mate,” he rattled. “Quick, get up, everyone knows. It’s like every reporter in the world’s descended on the island and they’re all looking for you. It’s all over the news, chap. There’s been a leak.”

  “Huh?” Aaditya said, as the double doors to the dining hall burst open for the third time in moments.

  A frantic woman appeared in the doorway. When her eyes settled on Aaditya, she pointed feverishly.

  “There he is. That’s him,” she called. “Are you recording?”

  A man appeared behind her, with a logo saying ‘SKY NEWS’ plastered on the camera rested on his shoulder. The pair made a bee-line for Aaditya and Tim. A second later, the doors bounced open again and a gaggle of people, equipment and noise spilled into the room.

  “Quick, move,” Tim said, hoisting Aaditya up and pushing into his back.

  Together, they raced through the dining hall towards the fire exit, feet thundering the floor behind. Tim pushed open the exit doors and the fire alarm squealed. Outside a powerful gust of wind caught Aaditya’s side and sent him skittering sideways. He slammed into the side of a golf cart and yelped. He gazed up at a wall of monstrous black cloud towering high into the atmosphere.

  Tim grappled Aaditya’s wrist and dragged him in the direction of the car park. The trees were starting to lean and flecks of water struck Aaditya’s exposed skin like little stinging darts.

  “What do we do?” Aaditya yelled over the gusting wind.

  “Get to my car,” Tim replied as the heavens opened, soaking Aaditya to the skin almost instantly. “Once we’re at the Space Center they can’t get to us until we’re ready to release a statement.”

  “Which car?”

  “The Cherokee Jeep. The green one.”

  The ferocity of the gathering storm hadn’t deterred the pursuing reporters and Aaditya could see the light from their camera mounted spot-lights shining off the rain-swept tarmac, which whizzed beneath his feet as he ran. Within the gathering gloom, the car park ahead was illuminated by the spotlights as though Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings was using his magical staff to dispel the armies of darkness.

  “Go round the other side, passenger side,” Tim yelled as they neared the Cherokee.

  Tim fished for his keys, which caught on the lip of his pocket as he tried to grapple them. He gave them a rough jerk and they pinged forwards and skidded under the car. He flung himself to the ground and disappeared under the chassis on his chest, leaving Aaditya alone and at the mercy of the reporters, who were practically on top of him.

  “They’re here,” Aaditya yelled, shielding his eyes from the blinding spotlights. “What do I do?”

  He looked down to see Tim’s scrabbling legs poking out from under the car. His muffled reply made no sense. One of the reporters thrust a microphone towards Aaditya. All too soon, a dozen foam baubles were dancing before his eyes.

  “Mary Ellis, GNN,” a short blond woman commanded. “We have evidence that suggests at three o’clock Japan Standard Time, you and the Yamamoto Industries will be sending a probe into the sun in an attempt to exploit a hole in space-time. With the risks involved to the planet and indeed
, humanity, do you not think the nations of Earth had a right to be included in this decision?”

  “There’s no threat to humanity,” Aaditya gushed. “What are you talking about? There’s no threat...”

  “There you have it Ladies and Gentlemen. Dr. Bashar has all but confirmed our worst fears. So you aren’t denying it?” The woman continued, pushing the microphone against Aaditya’s lips. “You are trying to exploit a hole in space-time?”

  “No, I mean, what?” Aaditya said, pressing himself against the car. “I didn’t say that. I… I…”

  “Giles Horne, BBC,” another reporter said. “We’ve consulted leading scientists from across the globe, many of whom have dismissed your experiment as hokum, wacky pseudo-science with no value to the evolution of human understanding. With that said, how can you justify wasting such vast amounts of money on this project?”

  “Wha…”

  “Is it true that your, frankly worrying, experiment could open a black hole that could swallow the sun and Earth?” Another reporter rattled. “What have you got to say to the innocent women and children watching around the globe? Don’t you feel a moral obligation to provide them with answers?”

  “We’re not doing that. Even if we were, a little black hole couldn’t swallow the sun,” Aaditya defended. “They’re not cosmic vacuum cleaners. They exert the exact same gravitational influence as the object that became the black hole. Impossible as it would be, if I turned into a black hole, it wouldn’t suck you all in. The gravitational influence would be exactly the same as me standing here right now, as good as nothing. The first law of thermodynamics describes… huh?” He looked down at Tim, who was tugging at his trouser leg, the blue glow of his mobile phone illuminating his ear.

  Tim pointed to the phone and motioned for Aaditya to take the call. Aaditya knelt down and took the phone. Then, to escape the rain, wind and reporters, scooted under the car on his chest.

  “Hello,” he said, holding a hand over his free ear to block out the clamour of reporters. “Oouch!” he yelped as someone stepped on his calf.