by B. C. CHASE
He looked in the direction he thought he had heard it through the mostly coniferous trees on the other side of the trackway. “This way,” he said, quickly running toward the call.
“I thought you said they could be protective of their personal space!” Chao shouted, following after.
An underbrush of giant ferns obstructed the view, but as they traveled toward the sounds, Zhang protesting all the way, Doctor Ming-Zhen thought he could see skylight ahead, and movement. He slowed his pace as he approached the entrance to a glade above the swamp. He stopped and stared in awe. His knees buckled and some visceral instinct drove him to crouch behind a rocky embankment.
There were hundreds of them. He slowly shook his head. Hundreds.
Jia Ling joined his position and froze.
They had massive bodies, long, tall necks, and enormous tails. Doctor Ming-Zhen recognized them as Mamenchisaurids. The necks were incredibly long, perhaps the length of two buses, with relatively diminutive heads. Long, colored wattles with sharp quills adorned the undersides of their necks. As the dinosaurs called to one another in ear-splitting calls that reverberated over the landscape, the wattles popped out and undulated on each side of their neck, with the quills sticking straight out, especially toward the bases of the necks, where the spines were as long as two men. Doctor Ming-Zhen thought that if he were a predator, he didn’t think it likely he would attempt an attack on such a well-protected neck. Their tails, about half the length of the necks, were armed with spikes at the tips. Their backs had a pattern of armored scutes. With every massive step, their muscles rippled over their bodies.
He couldn’t stop staring. He almost wished he could stop breathing. The odor of manure was thick and overpowering.
The largest of elephants could have strolled under their legs with room to spare. He was truly intimidated. He felt like a little child who had come into the presence of real-life superheroes. And he didn’t want to be spotted by these superheroes. He was terrified of them in a childish way. Despite their size, with the total length of a jetliner, they were agile and quick.
“Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum?” Jia Ling asked breathlessly.
“Or something like it, never discovered as a fossil,” he replied, still staring. “Hochuanensis had spikes at the end of its tail, but not sinocanadorum.”
Steam was coming off the ground in places, and Doctor Ming-Zhen didn’t have to speculate long to figure out why. Some of the dinosaurs were crouching on their hind legs, bringing their hindquarters extremely low to the ground, and depositing cantaloupe-sized white objects into hollows they had dug. They were laying eggs, and they were doing so on ground that was geothermally heated. This meant they could lay their eggs in vast quantities and abandon them until they hatched. One of the sinocanadorums had finished laying and was kicking mud back onto its nest.
“I want to see them,” Jia Ling said. “I have to see them.”
“You’re seeing them right now,” he said, giggling with the enthusiasm of a child.
“No, the eggs.”
When he looked at Jia Ling, he was surprised to see how pale she was. She stood from where she crouched as if to start toward the nesting ground but then stopped, holding one knee and panting.
“You won’t get close enough to touch one,” Doctor Ming-Zhen said. “They will protect those eggs, even from something as tiny as you.”
She turned around, grinning sheepishly, “You’re right.” But he didn’t notice what she said, because he was staring in alarm. Blood was seeping into her shirt in several spots on her chest and shoulder.
The medic pulled Doctor Ming-Zhen aside and said, “Her blood pressure is much too low. But I can’t give her an NSAID, it’s too dangerous—because of her blood.”
“What’s wrong with her blood?”
“It is failing to coagulate. That’s why she’s bleeding from the puncture wounds on her chest. I can keep applying a localized coagulant, but that will only help for a while. If it gets worse, she could…” he trailed off.
“Could what?”
“Her lungs could bleed. She could drown in her own blood. It’s actually a miracle she hasn’t already had a crisis.”
Zhang, who Doctor Ming-Zhen had not known was eavesdropping, stepped up and whispered, “Do you want the bullet now?”
Doctor Ming-Zhen clenched his teeth. He imagined himself grappling Zhang’s neck, bashing his head on a rock over and over again. It was all he could do to stop himself from turning the vision into reality.
“He’s right,” Jia Ling said, distracting him. “You should do it. The longer I’m alive, the longer these things are going to follow us,” she motioned up to the flock of sinornithosaurs which were perched in the trees, still following her every move with bloodthirsty interest. “I’m putting you all in danger.”
“Don’t say that,” Doctor Ming-Zhen commanded. “We would have been in danger anyway. Unless we kill one of them, they have no reason to fear us.”
“Or, if we feed them,” Zhang said, focusing his gaze on Jia Ling, “they have no reason to be hungry. Now let’s leave this area before those giant animals notice how close we are to their precious eggs.”
They took an arc around the nesting ground, staying within the cover of the forest, but were stopped when several of the sauropods crossed their path on their way out of the nesting ground. Doctor Ming-Zhen struggled with disbelief as he watched legs the size of trunks passing between the trees, causing them to shiver with each step as if they were mere twigs. Underbrush and saplings were crushed as grass, and the giant feet left imprints like round trenches.
Jia Ling touched him on the arm from where she had joined him, crouching behind a log. She was smiling feebly, her face deathly white. There was a screech from up in the trees. The sinornithosaurs were keeping their vigil like vultures from another world, undeterred by the passing giants.
“Don’t worry,” she encouraged. “At least we saw some dinosaurs together.”
“We’re going to see a lot more together, my daughter,” Doctor Ming-Zhen asserted.
She took a deep breath, appearing as if even this required substantial effort. “I wish I would have called you. I wish I would have—”
Doctor Ming-Zhen shook his head, “No regrets. Don’t have regrets. What is important is we were reunited and nothing will separate us again. Now come on, everyone is leaving.” He tried to help her up, but her legs gave way and she fell.
Gary, Stacy, Donte, and the boy rushed over. “Is she okay?” Gary asked. “Is there anything we can do?”
“I’m so tired,” she said. “Please, please let’s rest.”
Doctor Ming-Zhen urged, “We can’t stay here. The others are leaving. It will be dangerous.” He pulled her arm, but she didn’t budge.
“Please,” she said feebly. “Let me rest.”
“Doctor,” he said to Gary. “Please get the doctor.”
Gary ran for the medic, who arrived quickly, the rest of the party following closely behind. The medic touched two fingers to her neck. “Her pulse is weak,” he said. “It’s the venom. It has slowed her heart rate.”
“What can we do?”
“I can give her a sympathomimetic, but I think we’d hemorrhage her lungs. Let’s just let her rest for a few minutes.”
Zhang said, “We don’t have time. We have to move on.” He tossed a handgun at Doctor Ming-Zhen’s feet. “Here’s the one bullet I promised you.”
Doctor Ming-Zhen shook his head, eyeing Zhang with abhorrence. He slowly stood, picked up the gun.
Gary leaned down to wrap Jia Ling’s arm around his shoulders, “You get one side I’ll get the other.” Doctor Ming-Zhen joined him on the other side and they started to walk, Jia Ling doing her best to move her legs. It was excruciatingly slow. They couldn’t keep up with the rest of the group.
The sinornithosaurs glided to lower and lower branches, closely trailing the group, until finally one of them landed on the ground in front of them. It took graceful
, birdlike strides, cocking its head in jerking movements to peer at Jia Ling. It held its winged arms in front of its body, its clawed fingers twitching eagerly. Another dinosaur joined it, landing very close to Jeffery. Stacy covered the boy with her body. The sinornithosaur shrieked and opened its wings, leaping in to attack the child. Instinctively, Doctor Ming-Zhen fired a shot at the animal. The sinornithosaur flopped to the ground and twitched a little before going still.
Jia Ling stopped moving her legs. She spoke frailly to Doctor Ming-Zhen, “Don’t let them bite you. Please.”
“They’re not going—” Doctor Ming-Zhen was interrupted by a demanding shriek from behind him. He spun around to see one of the sinornithosaurs standing there. The vibrant red-and-white ringed tail sprung up and quivered. It spread its black, feathered arms out and flashed its eyes with fury.
The second sinornithosaur was facing Gary and Donte, and others were diving down from the branches in quick succession.
The sinornithosaur facing Doctor Ming-Zhen screamed, a terrifying sound and lowered toward the ground in preparation to attack.
Paradeisia
The gondola was traveling under the rail near the center of an enormous valley edged by two green ridges. The valley was carpeted by waving grasses. The ridges joined to form a V where a magnificent mountain peak loomed. Although very high, it had no snow. A river of awe-inspiring proportions was cascading down from the base of the peak and flowing down the valley to a line of trees.
But nobody was looking at the landscape. They were all staring at the thousands upon thousands of animals that were grazing in the valley, nibbling at the trees, and splashing in the river. It was reminiscent of the African savannah, but the vegetation was greener and the animals somewhat different. There were giant elephants with hairy backs, little striped deer, staggeringly tall, lumbering beasts with long necks and rhinoceros faces, camels, creatures with that looked a little like donkeys in the face but walked on their knuckles like gorillas, and several giant sloths.
The gondolas were speeding down toward the edge of the valley where a cylindrical glass structure with beams that angled outward was perched at the top of a cliff. As they approached, the impressive size of the building and the fact that it was overgrown with foliage became evident. The gondolas followed the track through an opening near the roofline of the building.
Inside, a glass ceiling was supported by beams that spoked in and up to the center. The interior appeared to have morphed into a natural greenhouse over time, with plants crawling up and sprouting on almost every surface. A large staircase that was littered with organic debris led up to a platform where the gondolas stopped, one by one.
Through the transparent walls far on the other side of the structure could be seen a vibrant forest surrounding a long, giant lake.
Vice President Babel asked, “So what is this building and is it a good place to set up?”
“It’s the visitor’s center with resort,” said Doctor Kaufmann, “and is as fine a place as any to die.”
“Die?”
“Yes. We will all die here. You have no idea the power you are dealing with.”
The vice president snorted and jumped out of the gondola. He barked orders: “Set up a perimeter! Unload those cases! Let’s get ready! Scouting team, get out there and find our target! And everyone keep an eye out for our friends from China.” Soldiers went to work immediately, pairing up to lift heavy black cases and stack them on the platform. Others jogged down the stairs and outside the building, kneeling with weapons poised defensively. Snipers climbed up the building’s lattice structure to secure a long view of the outside.
Babel turned to Abael and said, “Now let’s see if they told you the truth. Let’s make a life!”
Soldiers had begun erecting a table and distributing an array of laboratory equipment on it. A round tank about ten feet in diameter made of pipes that fit together and lined with a thick sheet of plastic was erected and viscous liquid was poured into it from bladders that the soldiers retrieved from the cargo gondolas.
Someone tried to start a generator, but the machine simply popped loudly before stopping. “There’s too much oxygen!” another person suggested and ran to the other’s aid.
Soldiers brought one of the black cases down to the center of the building and opened it. A cloud of frozen vapor rolled out from inside, where there were rows of white metal tanks with small lids.
One of the tanks was drawn out and placed on the cleared floor by the table. The lid was unscrewed and a man in a lab coat withdrew a small canister. Water that vaporized instantly as it hit the floor appeared to drip off the canister. He placed it on the table and opened it, revealing about fifty glass tubes. He pulled one out and closed the canister, securing it back into the tank. Inside the glass tube were a dozen miniature plastic straws. He used a tweezer to extract one of the straws and this he placed on the table while he prepared a glass slide. Then he loaded the slide onto a tray under a microscope. As he stuck a small rubber bulb on one end of the straw and slipped it under the microscope, a screen showed a blue-tinted image a thousand times its actual size. The screen flashed as the magnification increased. “You can see the eggs, here,” the scientist said, pointing to miniscule black dots that could be seen exiting the point of the straw. The magnification flashed again until a single microscopic egg was centered and occupying most of the screen’s area. “I will now remove the nucleus,” the scientist said. He used a tiny suction probe to hold the egg while he punctured it with a syringe and vacuumed out some material from the center. He then inserted another syringe and forced new material into the cell.
Doctor Stoneham punctured the egg again, this time with a new syringe, and a tiny dot could be seen traveling down the tube and into the cell. He quickly took another syringe and sucked the egg into it before releasing it into a beaker of the same thick liquid that was in the pool.
Babel looked around with satisfaction, “So this is how we populate the new world? It’s as simple as that?”
“Yes,” Abael said, stepping up to the laboratory table. Doctor Stoneham pushed the beaker under the microscope and adjusted the focus. The image of a small bubble could be seen forming in blue light. Gradually it grew larger until it formed a perfect, globular sphere.
Abael said, “Each of the millions of eggs we brought, once fertilized with the genetic material we have chosen, will grow into embryos.”
The globular sphere continued to expand.
“Development will be compressed into a tenth the normal rate. Within two days, this cluster of cells will grow a visible head, paddle-like legs and arms, and two big black dots for eyes. It will pass through stages of development at a rapid pace, the legs kicking and the hands grasping as the body quickly grows. In a mere month, each embryo will become a perfect human. We have brought the best genes with us and will create a perfect word with only those who have been selected for their superior qualities. There will be no suffering, no sickness, or genetic maladies here.”
“But who will be their parents?” Lady Shrewsbury protested. “Who will raise them?”
“No one will raise them. We will provide them with all the knowledge they need from the day of their birth. We will use the Preseption.”
“The Preseption?”
Doctor Stoneham said, “Yes, a child who has been trained and programmed in everything required and whose mind can be transferred to their minds.”
“Where is this child?” Lady Shrewsbury demanded.
“He should be arriving soon, actually,” Babel smiled.
“You have been planning this for some time, then,” Henry commented with disgust.
“Yes, we have,” Abael said.
Adriaan said, “So out with the old world and all the people in it, and in with the new.”
“Yes,” Abael said.
“And who decided that you alone are the ones to usher in this new utopia?” Lady Shrewsbury demanded.
“Unfortunately that was dictated
by the timeline.” Babel said. “Doctor Stoneham, can you confirm that the embryo is developing at the expected rate?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Perfect. So now it begins. The only thing I need now is our target.”
A soldier suddenly approached Babel, saying, “As a matter-of-fact, found just the target, sir. Please come with me.”
They followed the soldier down a tall corridor to a rail that overlooked an open space between opposing six-floor rows of balustrades. It was evidently the hotel, with rooms overlooking an atrium, overgrown with vegetation and the latticed glass ceiling green with algae. A large rectangular pool was in the center, and inside the remarkably crystalline water were bodies lying face-up in the water.
They took a staircase down to the bottom of the atrium. The carpeted floor was swollen with moisture and thick with algae and felt spongy under Aubrey’s feet. She stared in a mix of horror and awe at the naked bodies in the pool. There were about fifty of them, all perhaps twenty years old, and they seemed to be sleeping. They were all perfect in appearance: flawless, strong, and beautiful.
Nimitz said, “I recognize some of these!”
“I recognize them, too,” Gonzales said.
“Who are they?” Henry asked.
“They’re the workers I was telling you about, the ones who disappeared.” Nimitz knelt down by the water. “And look, look at this.” He pointed to the nearest one’s wrist. “The same tattoo Andrews had.”
“The same numbers, if I’m not mistaken,” Henry said.
“Numbers?”
“Yes, Hebrew numbers.”