by Greig Beck
Olivia had thought watching her friends and colleagues fall into a sudden hole in the ground, then having the survivors become trapped on that island of land as the ground continued to shake, shudder, then fall away further, was the worst thing she’d ever experienced. But suddenly becoming prey for creatures that had been dead for millions upon millions of years pretty much knocked the previous trauma off the top of the list of worst things in her life.
Yet, even with the horror flying toward her, Olivia’s training as a teacher created a little voice in the back of her head that said, “They have not been dead for millions and millions of years. You are the one that won’t be born for millions and millions of years. This is their time, not yours.” She was the visitor from another time, not them.
She cursed her internal debate over semantics. It was a flaw she’d been fighting longer than she’d been training to run. Her many coaches had always told her that she could be the best in the world if she’d only learn to stop competing with herself. Olivia felt she finally had the motivation needed to end the internal dialogue once and for all.
Being hunted by flying carnivorous monsters tended to put things into perspective.
The hiking boots Olivia wore dug into the flesh above her ankles, rubbing the skin raw even through the unbelievably expensive socks she’d splurged on before the retreat. Like the socks, the boots were meant for hiking, not for sprinting over an open field in an attempt to escape certain death at the claws and teeth of pterosaurs.
The monsters called out in the pursuit of Olivia and she forced herself not to scream in response. Not that she was sure she could scream. It felt like her breath and voice were stuck in her throat as she pushed her body to limits it hadn’t seen since she was a teenager.
On Olivia ran. Her legs burned, her lungs burned, her soul burned as she heard the flapping of massive wings get closer and closer.
***
His knees were shattered. There was no other way to describe the damage to his legs. Shattered.
As Trevon Cash sat wedged onto a ledge barely wide enough to hold his six foot five, two hundred and fifty-pound frame, and waited for a response to his calls over comms, he couldn’t help but stare at the swollen masses beneath his uniform where his knees should have been. It was like balloons had been inserted inside his pants, stuffed between his thighs and his shins. If it weren’t for the excruciating pain, he would have thought the damage had happened to someone else.
“Cash? You still there, buddy?” a voice called over the comm in his left ear. “Talk to me, Cash. Tell me you’re still there.”
“Still here, Raff,” Cash responded. “Now, this is where you tell me people are on the way.”
“Dispatched as soon as you called in,” Raphael “Raff” Bellows replied. “ETA is ten minutes. You got lucky shit went south so close to FOB.”
“Yeah. Lucky,” Cash said as he stared out at the walls of the chasm that he was trapped in.
“Any updates on the situation?” Raff asked.
“Wingers,” Cash stated.
“Pterosaurs?”
“Yeah.”
“Species?”
“Hungry.”
“Fuck…”
“Yeah.” Cash sighed. “They picked off everyone above. I haven’t heard a scream in several minutes.”
“Anyone survive with you down in the hole?” Raff asked.
“Hold,” Cash said and muted the comm. “Hey! Sound off, people!”
A couple of seconds passed before a few voices replied weakly from various locations below and above him. There were a lucky few that had found themselves trapped on similar ledges to the one Cash rested upon.
“I count a dozen survivors,” Cash replied into the comm. “Injury status unknown. When are shredhawks coming to blast the wingers out of the sky?”
“Uh, Brain is working on that. For now, just the team.”
“Who’d you send?”
“Margoles’ team,” Raff replied. “She was geared and ready. She’s bringing three crawlers and a speed roller. Fifteen operators plus four medics. Hope that’s enough because that’s all we got right now. Everyone else was prepping for the turn.”
“How much time do we have?” Cash asked. Raff didn’t respond. “Raff? You still there?”
“Six hours, Cash,” Raff said reluctantly.
“What? Not possible!” Cash snapped. “We should have at least forty-eight hours before the turn!”
“Yeah, we know,” Raff replied. “Whatever caused the earthquake has affected the timeline. Lakshmi is working on why with Brain, but that doesn’t change the situation. Brain calculates six hours.”
“And Brain is never wrong,” Cash muttered. “Shit…”
“Ten minutes, Cash,” Raff said with fake cheer in his voice. “Focus on that. Ten minutes until rescue. Only takes forty minutes to return to Flipside FOB.”
“And another two hours to get out of the bubble and back Topside,” Cash said. “Doesn’t leave much time for triage for the wounded.”
“Triage is an on-the-go op now,” Raff said. “The medics are well aware of the timeline. Everyone is.”
Cash rested his head against the cold granite of the chasm wall. Granite. Whatever forces had caused the quake and shattered the land around the tour group had been so powerful that it split granite in a matter of seconds. Cash had witnessed a lot of strange occurrences since retiring from Special Forces duty with the U.S. military and joining Topside Industries security, but he’d never seen the Earth tear itself apart like he’d witnessed only a few hours earlier.
Beyond the immediate prayers for rescue, and the safety of the few tourists alive that were technically still under his protection, Cash prayed that Lakshmi figured out what the hell went wrong before something worse occurred. Being Head of Security for Flipside Command meant witnessing a lot of strange occurrences, but he’d never watched as the land below his feet fell out from under him with barely any warning.
Cash had assumed that dealing with prehistoric animals of gargantuan proportions would be his biggest challenge. That assumption had always factored in the stability of the earth beneath his feet. He silently cursed himself, and all the others, that knew better than to operate under assumptions.
“Cash? You still there, buddy?” Raff called. “Cash?”
“Here. Just thinking,” Cash replied.
“Well, knock it off, you’ll strain something you need,” Raff said with a weak laugh.
There was a scream then Cash jumped as a woman tumbled past him. In the split second she was visible, Cash saw the terror in her eyes. That image would be burned into his memory forever.
“Fuck!” Cash shouted.
“Cash? You alright?” Raff asked.
“Lost another one,” Cash said.
“Shit,” Raff said. “Rescue is on the way, buddy. Hang tight.”
***
Suspended upside down by her left leg, Olivia screamed as the pterosaur lifted her higher into the air. The world below grew smaller and smaller with every wing flap. The pain grew worse as the pterosaur’s talons destroyed the muscles and tendons in the lower part of her leg. Wing flap, more distance from the ground, more flesh torn.
Screaming was all Olivia could do.
Except fall. She could do that. And she suddenly was.
Her body twisted as it plummeted toward the open ground below.
But the ground wasn’t as empty as it had been only minutes before. With every twist she caught a glimpse of vehicles arriving. Then vehicles passing. Except for one which slid to a stop in the grass and began to produce a high-pitched whine from a disc bolted to its roof.
Olivia’s screaming turned to weeping as she realized the disc was going to produce an energy net. Then the weeping became a shout of triumph and joy as that energy net materialized seconds before she was about to impact with the ground.
Her body tingled with electricity as voices yelled at her to roll to the edge. Olivia tried to comply, bu
t the pain in her leg was excruciating and every slight movement produced pure agony.
Then gloved hands were on her and she was being pulled across the net to the edge where she fell into a foam stretcher that was ready and waiting. Security guards swarmed around her as medics checked her, stabilized her leg, then gave the thumbs up for her to be moved. In only a matter of a couple minutes, Olivia went from being a potential pterosaur meal flying through the air to a rescued survivor being loaded into a medical roller.
“It can be repaired,” a medic said as Olivia struggled to sit up and see the damage to her leg. “The company will cover all costs. Don’t worry.”
Olivia’s hand shot out and grabbed the medic by the arm.
“I don’t care about my fucking leg!” she snapped. “My wife was back there! Is she okay? Did any of the others make it back before the quake?”
The medic shook his head. “I have no idea, ma’am. I only just arrived at the FOB. I’m part of the relief crew.”
Olivia wanted to ask more questions, to get as much information as possible, to be ready for the bad news if it came. But the medic pressed an injector to her bicep and pulled the trigger, sending Olivia into dreamland before any of her questions could pass her lips.
***
“Get off!” Cash yelled as two medics tried to argue with him. “I stay until they’re all out of there!”
The medics glanced at each other then shrugged and rushed away to attend to a tourist being rescued from the chasm, leaving Cash suspended in a foam stretcher about fifty yards from the chasm’s edge.
All around him security personnel were firing stun thumpers up at the circling pterosaurs. Winged bodies were lit up by the shockrounds, electricity swarming across their reptilian bodies as they fell to earth.
“Talk to me, Raff,” Cash said into his comm.
“Cash? You should be in sleepy land, buddy,” Raff responded.
“Refused treatment until everyone is up safe and sound,” Cash said.
“Of course you did,” Raff replied. “Sorry, but you’re witnessing everything in real time. I’m not seeing anything you aren’t.”
“I can’t see everyone, Raff. You have full comms. Medics are reporting in. How many tourists have made it?” Cash asked.
“Four, so far,” Raff said. “No, five. They saved a woman that was being flown off by one of the wingers.”
“Five…” Cash leaned his head back into the foam. “Jesus Christ…”
“Hey, this isn’t your fault, buddy,” Raff said.
“Doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Didn’t say it would, but still, not your fault.”
“What’s the countdown?”
“Four and change.”
“Lakshmi talking to Brain?”
“She’s been helmeted since the quake.”
“Anything?”
“Neither Lakshmi nor Brain know what happened or why it screwed up the timeline. She’s talking to me from inside the system and is pretty pissed off.”
“She’ll figure it out,” Cash said.
There was shouting from all around and Cash struggled to get a view of the scene. The stretcher’s foam clung to him and made it hard to move, but he shoved against it until he was sitting upright. The pain that radiated from his knees made it hard to focus, but he bit down on the inside of his cheek and grunted as he studied the chaos.
“Shit. Buddy, I got to go,” Raff said. “You have a pack of teeth coming straight for you. And with the shredhawks offline, I have to coordinate—”
“Go,” Cash said as he saw the far-off line of carnivores sprinting at the rescue party. They were about half a click away to the east, but Cash knew that distance wouldn’t hold for long.
“We’re out of here!” a medic shouted as he ran up to Cash’s stretcher and shoved it back toward a roller.
“The tourists!” Cash snapped.
“Sir, you see what’s coming at us!” the medic yelled, still pushing the stretcher.
“I see,” Cash admitted.
The stretcher reached the ramp to the roller and Cash’s view was cut off as he was pushed up into the vehicle. Four more stretchers joined him before the roller’s ramp was closed tight and the vehicle took off at a surprising clip for a machine as large and heavy as it was.
***
Olivia awoke to a smiling face leaning over her.
“Where am I?” Olivia asked.
“On your way home,” the medic said. “We left Flipside FOB forty minutes ago. We’ll be arriving outside the bubble in five minutes.”
“My wife,” Olivia exclaimed. “Is she alright? Did they find her?”
The medic’s smile faltered. She picked up a tablet and began to swipe at the screen.
“Herndon, right?” the medic asked.
“No, she kept her name. Quigley. Astrid Quigley.”
“Hold on.” The medic continued swiping then shook her head. “She’s not on the transport list, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been found. It’s a bit of a mess back there with the evac.”
“Evacuation?” Olivia asked. “You mean rescue?”
“No, I mean evac, Ms. Herndon,” the medic replied. “Topside Command is pulling everyone out and back to BOP. Flipside is unstable and the bubble is about to turn in less than three hours.”
“But my wife!” Olivia shouted as she tried to sit up. She found that impossible. “What the fuck? Why am I restrained?”
“So if you start panicking you don’t hurt yourself or others,” the medic responded. “Like I said, ma’am, we are dealing with some chaos and trying to get everyone to safety. As soon as we arrive at Topside BOP, I’ll undo the restraints. Until then, we can’t take the risk.”
“Mother—!” Olivia started but was quickly interrupted.
“HEY!” a voice boomed from her left. “Calm it the fuck down, lady! You are not doing anyone any favors by freaking out! Hear me?”
Olivia whipped her head to the left and glared at the owner of the voice. Then she relaxed slightly as she saw who it was.
“Cash, right?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Cash replied.
“You were in charge of the security team for our tour. You saw what happened.”
“I’m in charge of all the security teams,” Cash replied.
“Good for you. You did see what happened, yeah?”
“I felt it too,” Cash said, nodding his chin at his swollen and wrapped knees. They were the size of basketballs. “Who was your wife?”
“Is my wife.”
“Sorry. Who is your wife?”
“Astrid Quigley,” Olivia said. “Tall, red hair, a lot of freckles.”
Cash glanced about then shook his head. “She’s not on this crawler. I watched as everyone was moved from the rollers and into here. Sorry. But I think she was one of the survivors in the chasm. If I’m right, then the wingers didn’t get her.”
“If you’re right?” Olivia snapped. “What does it matter if you’re right? She isn’t on this crawler so…what? She’s still back in the chasm?”
Cash started to respond then closed his mouth and shook his head. He took a deep breath then focused his full gaze on Olivia. She flinched involuntarily at the man’s intensity.
“A second team was dispatched,” he said slowly. “We’re hoping they get there in time.”
“In time? What does that mean? Was she wounded? Is she dying alone in that fucking chasm? Tell me!”
“I don’t know,” Cash stated. “I don’t. They cut me off comms as soon as I became a patient like you. I may be in charge of security, but protocol over people is how Topside Command keeps everyone safe. All I know is we are racing against the turn. The timeline moved. Didn’t you hear the medic? We have three hours, not forty-eight like we should.”
“But… What…?” Olivia’s question was a whisper. “Astrid…?”
“Sorry,” Cash said. He sounded like he’d aged a couple of decades in only a matter of minutes
. “Believe me. You have no idea how sorry I am.”
***
Once outside the bubble and safely in Topside BOP, the civilians were unloaded and taken in one direction while Cash was unloaded and taken in a different direction. The civilians were headed for the main medical facility and he was headed for the personnel facility across the base.
His comm beeped and he sighed with relief as two medics rushed his stretcher toward a huge Quonset hut with a set of double doors being held open by more medics.
“Raff?” Cash asked over his comm.
“Sorry to cut you off like that, buddy,” Raff replied. “Shit got real. Fast.”
“Sit rep,” Cash demanded.
“Second team hasn’t called in,” Raff reported. “Can’t get them on comms and scanners are down. There’s interference like we’ve never seen before, buddy. I’m only taking the time to comm you because, well…”
“Raff? What’s going on?” Cash asked as his stretcher was handed off to the waiting medics. He was being hurried down a sterile corridor and the medics were trying to ask him questions, but he gave them a look that shut them up. “Raff? Talk to me.”
“We’re staying,” Raff said. “We’re remaining at Flipside FOB. Lakshmi refuses to uncouple from Brain until she has answers and it’s now too late to safely shut the AI down for transport without destroying his mainframe cube. I’m staying here with the transition teams.”
“Raff, it’ll be another year before you can come back…” Cash closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead. “Another year. You already did your tour Flipside.”
“Don’t I know it,” Raff replied. “But, hey, not since the first few years of the bubbles has anyone stayed more than a year Flipside. This is what we signed up for, right? Thrills and adventures that can only be dreamed of.”
The images of tourists under his protection being grabbed and killed by pterosaurs rushed into Cash’s mind.