Blood Trail

by David Rhodes

  Steve waited for a few seconds to let Ben cool down then replied, “First, he was probably toasted after that. He saw three people horribly killed. How long would it be before we could use him again? And, we didn’t need him telling anyone else what happened. The next team is ready, they’ve been out a few times already and they make these guys look like what they were, amateurs.

  “Next, every Walker we’ve had has died. Every one. He just got lucky today, in fact all of them had been lucky. Can you believe it had been six months and not even a scratch? Today was just a long time coming, and don’t fool yourself, it was coming soon enough.” He paused and looked at the lights flashing on a holographic screen then continued, “Besides, Skate’s been dead now for over thirty million years, so who cares.”

  Ben shook his head and started, “I just think – ”

  Steve cut in, “That’s right, you think. You think you’re supposed to be nice. You’re “Paycheck”, you think you should be one of them. You think things could be different. They can’t. We take people that life has passed by and give them some type of life for a few days or even months. We feed them and give them some place to stay. Then we tell them about the adventure they’re going to have and all the money they are going to make. Everyone’s dream. They take a few Walks and die like they were supposed to, not homeless in some alley.”

  Ben snorted and said, “I guarantee you none of them have thought about how great it was they were being ripped apart by some ‘saur instead of dying from an alcohol binge. They all died screaming.”

  Now Steve was getting mad, “You knew what we were going to do right from the start. You have helped plan every step. No Walker comes back. That’s what I said, and you didn’t disagree. Then we both agreed we would be spending less money if they didn’t come back and more importantly, we wouldn’t have to wonder about anyone talking. Now you do still agree with all of that, don’t you?”

  Something about how Steve spoke the last sentence caught Ben’s attention. He could almost see the Unit disappearing as it left him behind in some deadly prehistoric land. Quickly he replied, “No, no, I understand what we have to do. I just don’t think we should be the ones to do the killing. Leave it to the animals.”

  “Brother Ben, we do let the animals kill them. We bring them and then we have them take the Walk. We just don’t stick around and watch it happen every time. But, if you are wanting to split hairs, I’ll go along with you, I won’t leave anyone behind again. Okay?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Ben agreed.

  “Besides,” Steve continued, “the new team is ready like I said. The Team, not Walkers. They are well organized and professional. They do things right and soon they will have the equipment they need. Think about that and your Walkers, you didn’t even have them going out with the newest protection. How were you rationalizing that? They were dead when they stepped outside today and it doesn’t matter how they died. Are we good now?”

  “Yeah, we’re good.”

  “Data,” Steve said and immediately there was a list of numbers floating in the air in front of them. “Look at that,” Steve continued. “The shells stood up to the first Rex and even for a few seconds when two were clamping down. Couldn’t take the shearing force though as they twisted and pulled all at the same time in different directions.”

  Ben leaned forward and nodded, “Look at the numbers spike. Otto didn’t think of that, did he?”

  “Why would he?” Steve asked. “What was the information that we had on the T-Rex? Solitary hunters. Loners. Territorial and would fight to keep other Rexes out. We suddenly had three of them appear and not only were they not fighting each other, they actually joined together to get their prey just like a pack of lions or wolves. They were cooperating and seemed to be social, if we can apply human values to them based on the short period of time that we observed them.”

  “And that’s not the information we had,” Ben agreed. “Otto will need all this new data and it will take him some time to get new specs out and into a finished working product. How is he doing with our last information?”

  “Good, he loves the challenge. Better airflow and communication in the shells. He’s about to send out work orders so I’ll have him wait until he figures this out too. Let’s get it all out at once, not piecemeal.”

  Ben nodded and said, “Tell him to work on the assumption that the shear force will be higher, a lot higher. Those Rexes looked small, we need to plan for fully grown animals chewing on the same shell.”

  Steve replied, “I agree and that brings up the second animal, the one that came out of the water. Look at this bite force chart.”

  “It’s unbelievable,” Ben said. “Over 20,000 pounds before the readings stopped. That’s almost twice as much as a Rex bite. Now I understand why it snapped through that shell like it wasn’t there. Do you know what it was?”

  “Not yet,” Steve told him. “But now we know not to just scan the land anymore. Next time we need to look everywhere, what’s in the sea doesn’t stay in the sea.”

  “But it wasn’t a fish.”

  “No, and I’m not sure what it was. Looked like a croc.”

  Ben nodded and said, “We need help. I’ve said it all along. We’re just making things up as we go along. If we had someone with the right information from the beginning, we’d already be signing those military contracts. We needed help with the shells, so we got Otto. What we need now is someone who knows dinosaurs.”

  “You’re right and I know just who to get. Did you read the book I gave you?”

  “What?”

  “Written in Stone, did you read it?”

  “Sure. It took me a while with all of the work we have to do,” Ben said. “What does that have to do with anything? Why was it important that I read the book?”

  “Because it’s a true story.”

  Ben stared at Steve for a moment then asked, “What exactly do you mean?”

  “The author, Danny Jameston, is a police officer for Buckland College. It’s a small school out west but it has a very reputable paleontology department headed by Dr. Ron Fontana. He has a daughter, Lauren, who is also a paleontologist of some renown herself.”

  “Okay, what am I missing?”

  “Now you know who three of the characters in that book are; Danny is Don, Ron is Roy and Lauren is Laura.”

  “So, you’re saying they traveled in time?”

  “Most definitely. Them, and everyone else in the book actually made those three Walks, I mean jumps, Charles Dawson called them jumps.”

  “Charles Dawson is…?”

  “Charles Dawson is Carlton in the book. He developed their time machine. From what I have learned he has taken a lot of jumps to a lot of different times. He recorded all of them, has an extensive library of almost every major event since 1950 and a few before then.”

  Ben nodded and said, “So it’s a history book. No wonder I liked it.”

  Steve thought for a second and replied, “Yes, exactly. History. Or science-fact. In whatever way you want to think of it, it’s a true story.”

  “So, all of those people survived dinosaur attacks and even the asteroid? Hard to believe.”

  “But us time traveling isn’t?”

  “Okay, you have me there” Ben agreed.

  “Listen, the scientists knew the animals, knew what to watch for. Jameston and one of the bad guys shot T-Rexes and all of them fought different ‘saurs when they jumped. They seemed to know what they were doing at least most of the time. And, they came back.”

  “Not all of them?”

  “Right, not all of them. Some of them didn’t make it back. But we only want to speak to the smart ones. The winners.”

  Ben leaned back in his chair and asked, “How do you know all this?”

  “Do you remember a scientist, Dr. Gary Taggit, used to stop by the house?”

  “Maybe, if I saw him.”

  “I met him at some function or other and he took a liking to me, or at least to my
money. He was a paleontologist and was always needing financing for various expeditions as he called them. Digging up bones, trying to find something new and interesting. Can’t say it was a complete waste of money, he did give me several interesting fossils.

  “Then one day he just stopped coming around. I heard he was onto something important and I did a little checking, I wanted to make sure he wasn’t holding out on me, that I was getting all I should for my investments. I found out he had hooked up with some local small-time operators and was working on a big dig out west. Seemed to me he was conning someone, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t next. So, I just kept watch for him to see what he came back with. Like I said, some of it might have been owed to me.

  “But he never came back. He just fell off the face of the Earth. Now I was really curious. What was so big that he didn’t need my help anymore? He wasn’t hiding from me, no one had seen him for months. There wasn’t anyone at his home so of course I let myself in, several times. And what I found in his notes and on his computer was startling and unbelievable. He had found proof of time travel, fossilized words in rock that was written millions of years ago, and he was going back in time with some time traveler.”

  “Carlton, I mean Charles Dawson?” Ben said.

  “Yes.”

  Ben paused for a moment then said, “Taggit, Gattig, wait…I got it now. So, the book is an actual account of their time travel and all the things that really happened. What happened to all of their records and samples?”

  “Gone,” Steve replied. “Taggit tried to leave them behind but he failed. Got killed for it actually. But, I told you, with Taggit out of the way I found out a lot of things from his work. From there I turned to Dawson and that’s where the real treasure came from. He didn’t even have anyone watching his house or any type of alarm system. His idea of security was so poor I just walked right in and looked at anything I needed to. The same thing Lauren Fontana did in the book. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “What if you had gotten caught? You should have just had someone hack him.”

  “Couldn’t happen. I didn’t just show up at his house without a plan. I had information, I knew when he wasn’t going to be there and for how long. After all, I already knew from the book that there was no security. I got the information without needing to bring someone else into our plan. Then, I turned the information into reality for us and set about upgrading everything with Otto.”

  “Aren’t you afraid that Otto will get some plans of his own?”

  “As you know I put things I need out to different companies, so no one can ever connect the dots. Otto only knows small parts of what I am doing. We are the only ones who know exactly what is going on and that it will make us rich.”

  “It will,” Ben smiled. “It will. But back to the book?”

  “You said we need someone who knows dinosaurs. I agree with you. But I think we need someone who knows the animals and time travel.”

  “Dawson?”

  “No, he’s just a scientist and though a remarkable one, he doesn’t have the expertise we need. We need a paleontologist, we want Dr. Ron Fontana.”

  Ben leaned forward and asked, “How are we going to get him?”

  “I think if I just talk to him, one on one, I can get him interested in what we are doing. You know he was the first one to want to go out after Taggit kidnapped them. He’s excitable and a little unpredictable. He wants to know things, things you can only get from being in the field.”

  “What about his daughter?”

  Steve replied, “We don’t need her anywhere around when we talk to Ron Fontana. She seems to be too pragmatic, too much of a ‘there’s only one way of doing things’ type of person. And, she didn’t seem to be too thrilled with time travel. She is hooked up with Dawson now though.”

  “Did Dawson stop travel?” Ben asked.

  “No, but he has slowed down considerably. Doesn’t do much.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You know I have my source that keeps me informed of things.”

  “Now he’s someone you need to watch out for. He’s only interested in what you will do for him.”

  Steve nodded, “I know, I know. But he’s in Dawson’s house several times a week and no one suspects a thing.”

  “I think we should try to get Dawson too,” Ben suggested.

  Steve scoffed, “I don’t think so. I think I can safely say I know more about time travel now than he does or will. I’m not interested in him at all.”

  “What about the author, that Danny guy. You said he killed a Rex, must be a tough guy.”

  “I’m not sure about him. Yes, Danny shot a Rex and didn’t back down from anything. But, if the book he wrote is completely truthful then he’s all about right and wrong. That wouldn’t make him a good fit for us since we, uh, cut corners here and there.”

  “Like leaving Skate behind,” Ben said. As Steve clenched his jaw, Ben added quickly, “I’m not bringing it up again, I’m just saying that’s an example of what he might not like.” Quickly he changed the subject, “What about the locals Taggit used? Can we get them?”

  Steve looked hard at Ben for a moment then said, “Going back to Danny for a second, Taggit got the drop on him in the end so I’m not sure he is as smart as we need him to be. And the locals didn’t make it back, remember? Pete and some girl and a couple of other guys. So, I want to speak with Ron Fontana alone. Make him understand we just need his expertise, hopefully get him excited and we’ll have our information. In and out and we drop him off at his front door.”

  “Will we?” Ben asked.

  “Of course,” Steve replied. “We might need him again. Deep down I think he wants to know what dinosaurs were really like. He liked the jumps, he liked it all. If we can get him alone then we may be able to use him more than once.”

  “I’ll read the book again,” Ben said as he stood up and walked to a work station. But he wasn’t sure he believed anything Steve had just said about not leaving anyone behind. Still, things were working out just like Steve had said they would. They had a lot of money. A lot. All thanks to Steve going back in time and making some lucrative investments in all the right stocks at all the right times. Of course, it took a lot of money to fund what they were doing. Otto’s experiments were very costly, but he did come up with some unbelievable inventions.

  But now they were adding an extra expense with the mercenaries. The Team. He agreed with Steve, they were good, but how much could they keep to themselves? What if they talked or did something stupid? He paused for a moment as he realized that apparently that was what Gattig, or Taggit, or whatever, did. He hoped Steve had thought about that. Then he laughed to himself, Steve always thought about everything.

  Ever since they were kids Steve had been the smart one. While Ben was out baling hay or chopping wood, Steve would be thinking. And he always came up with some plan that required little effort on his part but usually made him more money than Ben made. There wasn’t any jealousy though. Ben just accepted things, even when Steve, who was four years younger, joined him in the same high school classes. He still remembered the day Steve told a teacher he was wrong about some math problem and the teacher had sarcastically told him to prove it. Steve just walked up and did. He corrected the teacher’s equation then said, “And I’ve been thinking about…” and just started writing numbers and symbols. He wrote for a long time and then Steve was taken from the class and was put in a college, all for free.

  Ben lost contact with Steve for a while and when he graduated high school he couldn’t afford to go to college. But he was tough from years of hard work and knew how to stay focused and get things done. He started a home repair company that was successful, and he was well liked by his customers and employees.

  Then one day Steve came back. As they shook hands, Ben saw he was still the big brother in height but Steve out-weighed him now. “Too much sitting around,” Ben had told him, and Steve just smiled and said, “I have a presen
t for you.” It was a brand-new car and Ben didn’t know what to say so Steve did all the talking. He told Ben how he was rich and how he wanted Ben to run his company for him. That part was too much work and it wasn’t what Steve was interested in. “We’ll be rich together,” Steve told him.

  And he was right. From the beginning Steve knew what direction to take and Ben knew how to get the most out of the workers. All types of projects which eventually led to their business, EXENCO. They all made money. Then one day Steve had called him in for a talk. The talk. At first Ben thought that Steve had gone crazy. He was talking about time travel and how he was ready to do a test. Ben had agreed to go just so he could then convince Steve he had been working too hard and he needed a rest.

  Steve drove to a remote area on some land that Ben remembered they had purchased over his objections. What would they ever need it for? In a matter of minutes, he knew. It had been fantastic, unbelievable, something that even now he had a hard time accepting. But it was true, Steve had devised a way to travel through time.

  With this new information, they worked even harder. Ben didn’t see Steve for weeks as they each worked on their own projects. Then they would meet and compare notes and sometimes test what Steve had invented and what Ben had built. But soon Ben couldn’t keep up, couldn’t understand what was needed. He hadn’t argued when Otto was brought in to help. Otto was a genius, right next to his brother, the two smartest people Ben had ever known.

  Things began moving at a breakneck pace, as projects got bigger and better and then they needed a team of field operators. “Walkers,” Steve called them. It was the hardest part for Ben to accept. Using street people, the unemployed, to take the walks, many times to what Ben knew was their certain death. But Steve had convinced him, or maybe the money did, that it was okay. The people they chose were on their last legs anyway. They had actually given them a better life, even if it was just for a few weeks, before they met their inevitable death.