by Mark Leney
Chapter Twenty Three
Russell Joseph held the door open as Rav was carried in on his stretcher by Sean and Michael.
“Take him through to the ground floor room; first left down the corridor. I’ve already opened it. Just lay him on the bed in there. There are no lifts here and I don’t think you want to try carrying him up those stairs!” he called after them as they promptly followed his instructions.
Sean and Michael lowered Rav onto the single bed in the small room. The bed was the centre piece of the room with a small single drawer bedside cabinet at either side. The sheets were a deep, luscious peach colour with white fluffy pillows. A lamp with a peachy coloured shade sat on the left side and a beautiful, tasteful pastel painted nude portrait adorned the wall above the bed. Rav was not too concerned with décor, he was just happy to have a soft, luxurious bed to rest up on.
Aisha stood at the side of his bed even though there was a lavender armchair for her to sit on.
“Thanks, guys. I’ll look after him from here.” She smiled as Sean and Michael filed out of the room.
Russell poked his head around the door with his ever present grin. “Spanish omelette with chips for dinner. I’ll bring you some soon, my dear.” And then he was gone, closing the door behind him.
Once Russell had fed and watered all of his guests he sat with them all, save Aisha and Rav and young Peter who had retired for an early night, in his drawing room. One side of this room was dominated by a wide flat-screen television and entertainment system. Facing this there were two luxurious two seater sofas and two armchairs.
Sean and Katrina sat in one sofa, while Michael and Penny sat in the other; Roger sat in one of the armchairs and the second one was occupied by their host.
“So tell me,” Russell began, “What has been happening today? There were news reports this morning about dinosaurs appearing all over London, as if from nowhere. Then the reports said that they were all over the country. And then there were no more reports. Dinosaurs, eh? I find that hard to believe. Though from the look of you fellows something must be happening out there and I have been hearing things. Things a little out of the ordinary.”
“There are dinosaurs.” Sean told him.
“We’ve seen more dinosaurs today than I think I’ve ever wanted to see.” Roger added.
And together they told Russell their collective story.
“It seems you are all lucky to be here today.” Russell declared once all had been told. “Of course you are all more than welcome to stay here tonight.”
“Thank you.” Sean nodded gratefully.
“But what will you do in the morning? Where will you go?” Russell asked him.
“That I think is something that can wait to be decided then. Right now all I want to do is sleep for about a week!” chuckled Roger rising from his chair.
With that they all bid goodnight to Russell and retired to their rooms.
All of the rooms on the first and second floors were left unlocked. The survivors had their pick of which ever room they wanted. Russell didn’t see the point in following the usual hotelier procedures under the circumstances.
Sean watched as Penny led Michael by the hand into one of the double rooms, a sexy smile across her face. Michael looked back over his shoulder and winked at Sean before the door closed behind him.
Now Sean was all alone on the landing with Katrina. He turned to look at her. Katrina just stood there looking at him with an amused look on her face.
“Well, goodnight, Katrina. I guess I’ll see you in the morning.” Sean said simply.
Katrina said nothing. She just took a step towards him and grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him to her and kissing him with an animalistic passion that had him waving is hands around as if not quite sure where to put them. He eventually decided that they should go around Katrina’s waist as he returned the kiss.
After an age of passionate lip-locked embrace that neither seemed to want to end, they eventually parted with some reluctance. Before Sean could say anything Katrina began to tug him towards one of the bedrooms.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sean asked her.
“Oh fuck, yes!” this exclamation came from behind the closed door of Michael and Penny’s room.
Both Sean and Katrina collapsed with laughter at the sound of Penny’s unrestrained enthusiasm.
“Does that answer your question, mon Coeur?” Katrina giggled, “Come on Sean, we might get eaten by dinosaurs tomorrow. Voulez vous couches avec moi, ce soir?”
“Oui, oui, oui!” Sean replied as he allowed himself to be pulled into the room and the door was slammed shut behind him.
Interlude
48 hours earlier…
“I still fail to see how this Time-Window can be of any military use to us.” General Alistair Courtney said to his aide Captain Nicholas Franklin as they rode the lift down into the depths of the secret underground facility. The General was there to inspect the work that had been undertaken in secret in this facility for nearly six years now. Apparently some kind of breakthrough had been made and the General felt that this was worthy of his attention even if he did not fully understand the military benefits of the work being done here.
His subordinate, Captain Franklin was the officer in charge at the facility and had been a lot closer to the work in those six years. As such he understood it more and was considerably more enthusiastic about the progress that had been made and the implications of what had been achieved. He said as much to his superior officer as the lift finally came to a halt. The doors slid open and they both stepped out into a long metallic corridor. They walked along this until they came to the double doors that marked the entrance to the main laboratory. Captain Franklin used his key-card on the security locking system, at the same time he looked into a microscopic camera lens fixed at eye-level beside the door. A thin red laser beam seared into his eyeball before an electronic voice intoned: “Retinal scan accepted.”
There was a hiss and a clunk of magnetic and gyroscopic components releasing and the doors swung open inwards.
“I’ll let Doctor Ottoman explain it all to you, sir. She’ll tell you what it’s all about.” The Captain assured his superior.
They entered the laboratory and the doors swung shut and the locking systems clanged back into place.
Doctor Angelica Ottoman was a tall beautiful woman with long blonde hair that came down past her shoulders. It was currently tied up in a pony-tail neatly tucked behind her so that it could not interfere with her work. Her blue eyes were framed by stylish black framed spectacles and she wore a white lab coat over sensible jeans and a navy blue blouse. When the two Army officers entered she was looking over the large piece of futuristic machinery that dominated the centre of the lab. The machine consisted of a round console that was adorned with a series of complex buttons and switches. In the centre of the console there were three rods positioned at certain points so that they formed a triangle. These rods were tipped with cylindrical protrusions that were aimed at the centre and that crackled with dormant untapped energy, waiting to be used.
Angelica looked up and smiled a greeting to the newcomers. The General noted that her smile seemed warmest towards the young captain.
“You must be General Courtney.” Angelica enthused, “Should I salute, or will a hand shake suffice?”
“A hand shake will be more than sufficient, Doctor Ottoman.” The General grinned despite himself as he shook her hand.
Once the introductions were complete they immediately got down to the business at hand.
“You know why I’m here.” General Courtney began, “I’m afraid I’m going to need a little convincing about the military applications of this experiment of yours.”
Angelica was expecting this from the high ranking army officer and immediately launched into her rehearsed explanation. Her Time Window had never been meant as a military weapon, but the funding had to come from somewhere. So long as the Army believed that this resear
ch was of use to them they continued to pay well. What she said now could make all the difference between continued financial support in her work and being told to shut down everything and discontinue research. She was confident that the work would be allowed to continue.
“The Time Window does exactly what its name suggests. It provides us with a window into time. Time flows around us all the time, but we can’t see it. It can flow backwards, forwards, even sideways. This is going on all around us every day and we are powerless to do anything to interfere with the flow of time. At least we were until now.
The Time Window allows us to manipulate the time stream so that we can travel along it, backwards or forwards and pick a moment in time. Once we have settled on a specific moment in time these cylinders, the ionic bombardment emitters, fire a concentrated burst of ions into the time stream. The right frequency of ionic bombardment will open up the flow of the stream and create a ‘window’ that will allow us to look into the moment in time that we have chosen.”
“I understand all that part, Doctor Ottoman. Just about.” The General interjected, “But how is being able to look into a period in history supposed to be of any benefit to the Army?”
“I’m getting to that part.” Angelica smiled patiently. “Imagine if we could use small portable versions of this equipment out in the field. Before a platoon of soldiers goes out on a patrol in Iraq or Afghanistan they use the time window to look into the future. If the future shows them being ambushed or wandering into a booby trap, the platoon can use this foreknowledge to avert the future events that they have seen. They can ambush the ambushers or deactivate the booby trap. Think of all the lives that could be saved.”
The General nodded seeing the possibilities.
“If every country in the world could have one of these natural disasters like tsunamis and earthquakes can be seen before they happen and precautions can be taken to minimise damage and save lives.” Angelica added, keen to illustrate the non-military benefits of her invention too. “Also, wouldn’t it be amazingly cool to look back into history and watch Shakespeare writing the last few lines of Hamlet or see Christopher Columbus first step onto the shores of America?” she finished with a twinkle in her eye.
“Alright, Doctor. You’ve convinced me. I’d like to see a demonstration of the Time Window in action.” The General told her.
“Of course I can show you right away…” Angelica began.
“Not right now. I want the Prime Minister to see this too. I’ll call him when we return to the surface and he can be here by tomorrow. You can show us how your little toy works then.” The General insisted.
“Very well. Tomorrow it is then. You’ll have to have a really good think about what period in history you want to look at.” Angelica teased good naturedly.
The General smiled. “Oh I think I already have a pretty good idea about what I want to look at.”
By the time the Prime Minister had seen fit to grace them with his presence they were well into the early hours of the day following the one he had actually been expected to arrive on.
“A Prime Minister’s work is never done.” Had been his rather smug sounding attempt at an apology for keeping them all waiting; but now finally they were all gathered in Angelica’s laboratory waiting for the demonstration of the time window to begin.
Angelica was busying herself making the final preparations before the demonstration.
She had been surprised when General Courtney had brought his nine year old grandson, Sammy into the facility, but she hadn’t asked any questions. She suspected that she already knew why the young boy had been brought along.
Now was the time to find out if her suspicion was correct.
“Have you given any thought to which period in history you’d like us to look back on?” Angelica addressed her question to the General.
The General placed his hands on his grandson’s shoulders.
“Not me, Doctor Ottoman, but my grandson has a time that he would very much like to see. I hope you don’t mind if we indulge him?”
Sammy smiled up at her hoping that she would not refuse him.
Angelica smiled warmly back at him. “Of course not, General.” She knelt before Sammy so that she could see into his eyes. “What time did you have in mind, Sammy?”
“If you don’t mind, Miss, I’d like to see the dinosaurs? The very end of the Cretaceous period, just before they became extinct. Please?” Sammy asked her.
Angelica rose and turned to the apparatus behind her with a smile.
“Consider it done.” She said as she began keying in the necessary time and spatial co-ordinates. Once they had been set Angelica pressed one last button and stepped back from the machine.
The cylindrical antennae began to crackle with writhing serpents of energy. This energy began to coalesce into a small sphere that gradually began to get bigger. As the sphere expanded an image began to appear. Faint at first but getting clearer every second.
A sandy plain, dotted with tall pine trees and tropical looking ferns, and amongst this there roamed a herd of bipedal lizards with duck like beaks where their mouths should be and long bony crests on their heads. These lizards stood on their hind legs cropping the surrounding vegetation with their beak-like mouths. In the sky above them there blazed an orange sun in a sky redder than the darkest blood.
“Wow! Parasaurolophus!” Sammy exclaimed in awe.
“Magnificent!” the General muttered, scarcely believing his own eyes.
“Remarkable. Truly remarkable.” The Prime Minister agreed, “I think I’ve seen enough.”
Angelica nodded and flicked the switch that would cancel the image.
A spark leapt from the console and the sphere that contained the image of the dinosaurs imploded. The resulting pulse of energy that was released threw everyone in the lab off their feet. There was a blinding white flash and then everything went black.
For any astronaut looking down on the Earth at that moment there would have been a barely visible ripple of energy that flowed like a tidal wave across the entire planet.
Blink and they would miss it. The world would never be the same again.
Interlude End
Chapter Twenty Four
On the day after the dinosaurs over ran the entire planet, Sean Neal’s small pocket of survivors awoke to an uncertain future. They all met in Russell’s dining room after sleeping in until late morning. Sleep had been fitful for many of them, punctuated by nightmarish dreams of the horrors they had all experienced the previous day; occasionally it had been interrupted by the very real sounds of dinosaurs from outside their safe haven. When those noises came it was difficult to ascertain how near or far they were and more than once had the survivors questioning how safe their haven would in fact be if a carnivorous dinosaur sniffed them out and chose to attack. The night had passed without incident, but how long would it continue to be safe to stay at the Black Pepper hotel?
That was a question they were all hoping to address and answer that morning.
Everyone was present, Sean and Katrina, Michael and Penny, Roger, Peter and Aisha. Even Rav had been wheeled out in a wheelchair from the back of the ambulance. And of course their flamboyant host, Russell was present, treating them all to a fine feast of a full English breakfast. In the night Russell had also taken the time to use his master key to sneak into everyone’s rooms after they were all sleeping in order to take their clothes and wash them all. That morning when the survivors had awoken they had found their clothes clean, dry, pressed and where necessary repaired. Russell had been busy the entire night and had then taken the time to cook them all breakfast and he was showing no signs of flagging.
“If I close my eyes I can almost imagine that yesterday never happened.” Roger grinned through a mouthful of crispy bacon.
“You’re safe now my friends. There’s no need for any of you to go back out at all into that nightmare.” Russell assured them all.
“I wish it could be that easy
.” Sean smiled ruefully.
“Other than the occasional forage for food there really is no reason that you ever have to leave.” Russell argued good naturedly.
“But how long could we really stay safe here without a dinosaur finding us? A big enough dinosaur could break in here if it really wanted to get at us.” Sean pointed out.
“We only need to hold out until we are rescued. The Army will surely be sending more forces into the city.” Rav insisted.
“Will they, Rav? How do we know there is any army left to help us? We don’t know how bad things are out there.” Sean replied.
“If we try and make our own way out of London, who’s to say we’ll all make it? Who’s to say what we’ll even find outside London once we get there?” Penny reasoned.
“If we do decide to stay here the least we can do is try and fortify the place and be sure of all our escape routes in case of an emergency.” Roger suggested.
“I suggest we vote for it.” Sean decided, “Stay or go? All those in favour of staying can I get a show of hands please?”
Chapter Twenty Five
When Angelica Ottoman finally regained consciousness it felt like the herd of parasaurolophus she had seen were stampeding through her skull. As she tried to sit up her head span and her vision went blurry so she lay there momentarily, waiting for the nauseating feeling to subside. Thankfully her vision cleared and the pain in her head faded, though it did not leave her entirely. She sat up and the first thing she saw was the Time Window apparatus trailing black smoke from a massive electrical overload, but otherwise in tact. Given time she would probably be able to repair it, but that didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was the experiment had been a success. The Window had worked and they had seen real live dinosaurs. Perhaps on reflection they had taken the Window back a little too far for it’s first trip, but at least no lasting damage had been done. It was then she remembered that she hadn’t been alone in the lab during the experiment. She looked around. General Courtney, Captain Franklin, young Sammy and the Prime Minister were all coming to around her and in varying states of recovery. None of them seemed seriously hurt and Angelica breathed an inner sigh of relief.