by Dan Thomas
Reaching out, he placed his hand over the nearest egg and froze. The Coelophysis were on the move, but not toward him. They were heading toward the main trail out of the nest site.
He let out a long sigh before he picked up the egg, which almost fit in the palm of his hand, and placed it in his bag, all of which he had to do by touch with the invisibility.
Max cracked a grin as he took a second and a third. Before he knew it, he had nearly emptied the nest, with nine eggs in the bag. Whatever grabbed their attention had done him a favor.
“Max!” Chopsticks yelled. “I can see your hand!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“What?!” Max yanked his hand back as if that would help. It wasn’t as if he was wearing an invisibility cloak that had slipped off. If his hand was exposed, then his whole body was exposed.
That meant one very worrying thing. The dinos could see him.
“Run!” Chopsticks yelled. “Run! Run now!”
Max grabbed one last egg, hoisting it over his shoulder and dropping it into his open bag. He just couldn’t help himself. Perhaps he was more like Chopsticks than he cared to admit.
He glanced up and scanned the mounds of dirt spread throughout the trees, the little dinos weaving in between them, going about their day.
A movement and excited chatter came from his left.
Max leaped over the empty nest and ran for the trees, ducking under low branches. He had to make a break for it. “Chopsticks, they’ve definitely seen me.”
“I can’t tell,” Chopsticks replied. “Just keep running.”
Max felt the now-familiar sensation as Hotfoot carried him to a higher speed as he aimed for the trail. He was used to being able to outpace some of the slower raptors on foot, bounding through the jungle with ease, but for now, all he could manage was a brisk jog as he turned onto the game trails, having an easier time moving without the undergrowth snagging at him.
He didn’t try to manage his pace, now running as fast as he could, feeling his breathing rate increasing as he burned through his stamina, just hoping he wasn’t going to drop until he was in the clear.
If he stopped, he was dead. Hell, he was probably dead anyway. Had it been worth it? The dino eggs weighing his pack down told him maybe. The eggs should be safe in the bag, they had a surprisingly long shelf life when they were in some kind of inventory. If he could only make it back to Pez without dying, he and Chopsticks could be surrogate parents to a bunch of terrifying small dinos.
Max glanced over his shoulder but turned his head back too quickly to look for any movement.
“Anything?” Max asked Chopsticks.
“Oh, yeah.” Chopsticks’ tone was enough to tell Max he was in trouble. He could put his dino parenting skills on hold for now.
“How many?” Max asked between breaths, keeping his pace steady as he tramped over the dirt.
Chopsticks didn’t say anything for a second. “You’re totally screwed.”
“Dammit, Chopsticks.” Max scanned the immediate area around him.
The Coelophysis would outpace him in no time if he just kept running through the jungle, being so small and nimble the undergrowth didn’t pose a problem for them. He needed to find a way to use their size to his advantage.
Max could hear chirping behind him, like a flock of birds but so much more aggressive. Searching for a way out, he saw that the ground fell away to his side, sloping harshly down.
Not creative, but it would have to do. Max lunged to his side, dropping onto his backside as he stepped off the trail and onto the steep ground. He lost traction immediately and began sliding down over the loose soil and leaf mold, his momentum kept in check by the vines and bushes that grabbed at him as he bounced over the uneven ground. Max finally slid to a stop a few yards down where the ground began to even out.
Max sat on the ground huffing while he gave his stamina a moment to recover. Angry shrieking behind him quickly pushed him back into action, and with a groan, he got back to his feet, ignoring the bruises all down his side.
Max leaped onto a fallen log, careful not to slide off the mossy wood. He held his hands out for balance as he quickly shuffled his way along to where the ground once again took a sharp turn downward.
From his new vantage point, Max could see that he was at the top of a large swath of jungle that lay barren. Mud and other debris had slid down from an overhanging bluff somewhere to his right and had barreled through this area of jungle. Uprooted trunks lay across each other in a jumble of broken branches and mangled roots littering the hillside.
He turned to look back up the hill. The bushes rustled violently, flecked with flashes of green as the Coelophysis scrambled downhill, with ease, toward him.
“Don’t stop running now!” Chopsticks sounded like he was on the edge of his seat.
Max turned his face to the heavens and took a deep breath. “Murf is not cut out for this.”
Max slid off his tree trunk and made a run for the mudslide. He tripped a couple of times as he tore through the ferns but managed to stay on his feet. As he hit the slick dirt, he let his feet be taken out from under him, picking up speed quickly as he once again slid downhill. Clumps of mud flew up around him as he tilted his body to change his direction, avoiding shattered trunks and pieces of vegetation that had survived the mudslide.
As the ground began to level out, and the fallen trees fast approached, Max twisted onto his side and stuck his arms out, digging into the wet mud to slow himself down.
Max let his momentum carry him to his feet and took a running leap onto the nearest fallen tree. His foot landed awkwardly, and he nearly fell right off the other side, but grabbed onto the bark, saving himself. He hauled himself to his feet, looked at the pack of knee-high hunters coming at him, before nimbly running down the open ground. With no time to hesitate, he bounded over rocks and ledges as the dinos descended toward him, calling to each other in chirps as they came.
He looked over to the mass of tangled timber. Maybe he’d get lucky. Maybe he could hide in the debris until the dinos got bored and moved on. It was his best shot.
“Don’t stop moving! Parkour the shit out of this!” Chopsticks egged him on.
“Okay, okay, okay.” On unsure feet, Max moved as quickly as he trusted himself to, along the slender trunk, leaves from a snapped branch slapping him in the face. He stopped as he got to the end, eyeing up the distance between him and the next fallen tree.
Max bent his knees and swung his arms forward a couple of times, trying to force himself to take the leap, knowing that if he fell back down into the mud, he’d stand little chance of getting away.
“Max, jump!” Chopsticks’ voice kept rising in pitch and volume.
Max swallowed and threw himself forward. It was as if he hung in the air over the wet silt. Then the tree was under his foot. Max leaned backward, windmilling his arms to keep balance.
That wasn’t so bad.
The bark of this tree was much rougher, and Max had an easier time jogging along its length toward the end. An animal chattered at him from higher in the branches of trees he couldn’t climb. He glanced up to see brightly colored feathers, but it seemed to stay put.
With his attention diverted for just a second, Max’s foot slipped. He went down hard onto his hands. Below him, he could see a few pairs of cruel little eyes looking up at him.
“Ah!” Max recoiled, swinging his foot up as one of the Coelophysis leaped up in the air at him, its teeth snapping shut, having missed its prey.
“Get your shit together, man! You need to go,” Chopsticks’ voice came in loud at Max’s ear.
“Keep your voice down,” Max hissed.
“Why? They can’t hear me.” Chopsticks tempered his voice but not enough.
“But Sam can!” Max got to his feet and carried on along the log, watching the dinos who kept pace below him.
“Oh.” Chopsticks paused, then whispered, “We don’t want her to know about Project X, right?”
“What?” Max said breathlessly. “Whoa!” A Coelophysis jumped at the tree just in front of him, scrambling to claw its way on top. Max swung his foot down and booted the creature, sending it flying.
“Whose idea was it to mess with these little bastards, anyway?” As Max came to the end of the trunk, he began climbing up the web of roots that had been upended, spitting out dirt as he dislodged the loose soil into his face. He was just thankful he’d unlocked the Terraining Trait that allowed him to climb.
He peered over the top and could see that there was a branch growing up from a tree lying on the ground, which hung a few feet above his head. He braced his feet on thick roots and forced himself upward, reaching his hands out and grasping onto the branch.
“This is the best play. We’ll zerg rush the Ravagers with an army of these, they won’t know what hit them.” Chopsticks clapped his hands with glee as Max hauled himself up even higher off of the ground, swinging his leg over the branch and pulling himself into a sitting position, panting.
The branch sagged a little, but it didn’t seem as though it was going to break. He sat forcing air into his burning lungs, trying not to look down.
“If I don’t get out of here, we won’t be training anything.” Max scanned the immediate area around him. More of the Coelophysis had caught up, and were building themselves into a frenzy below him, their trill chirps rising in pitch as they jumped up into the air, trying to get up onto the fallen trees. Max was beginning to see the appeal for Chopsticks now.
“I’m a sitting duck here.” Max unslung his backpack, rested it on the branch as he rummaged through it before pulling out the pistol. At least he was a sitting duck that could shoot lasers, he thought as he put his backpack back on.
He pressed the button on the side and grunted in relief as the battery and ready-to-fire lights came on.
“Please don’t blow up in my face.” Max sighed.
“Yeah, that would certainly be a wrench in the plans,” Chopsticks said.
With the pistol in one hand, Max began to shimmy his way along the branch, leaning back as it sloped downward toward the trunk. As he got toward the crown of the tree, he stuck his legs out and stepped onto the wider trunk.
He ran down the length of it, stepping onto another, slimmer trunk that lay across the tree, before jumping over a small gap onto a third trunk.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of movement and leveled the pistol. Max took aim and pulled the trigger. There was a zinging sound as a short burst of purple light shot out of the end of the gun.
It flew past the Coelophysis that was flailing in the air as it fell short of the tree he was on, and hit the wet ground, sending a stream of steam into the air as the boiling patch of ground sizzled briefly. The pack of dinos let out a series of surprised screeches at the sound.
“Damn, that’s cool,” Chopsticks said.
Max grinned as he pushed his way through a cluster of leaves. “That is pretty sick.”
Chopsticks giggled. “Shame it doesn’t come with an aim assist—three o’clock!”
He aimed the pistol to his right as a Coelophysis launched off a rock, aiming for the tree Max was on. As it sailed through the air toward him, he pulled the trigger. The laser gun flashed, and the beam caught the creature head-on and virtually incinerated it.
“Oh, damn!”
He glanced down at the pistol. The battery light was already showing half-empty.
“I’m never going to complain about my phone going dead too quickly again, these things just don’t last,” Chopsticks said.
“If only the Concealer had lasted for a few minutes more.” Max leaned back then threw his weight forward, aiming for the nearest tree trunk that looked as if it would hold his weight. As the sole of his leather-clad foot came into contact with it, the trunk bent, curving down toward the ground. There was a sharp crack and the wood splintered but Max was already moving forward, stepping up to a larger tree lying next to the broken one.
“You need a more permanent solution,” Chopsticks told him.
“I’m open to suggestions!” Max said in between breaths.
Max turned and ran along the downed tree trunk as it sloped upward toward a much wider tree that had survived the landslide. He ducked under a bunch of wilting leaves, temporarily blinded as he went into a crawl across the log on his hands and feet. Emerging on the other side brought him face to face with a tangled web of vines that reminded him of a cargo net. Bringing both his feet together, he bent his knees and sprang into the air.
He threw both hands over the top of his head, grasped the vines with his free hand, and hooked his elbow through with his other arm. The vines slumped as he brought his feet up, searching for a foothold.
Glancing back down, he saw that some of the Coelophysis had managed to get onto the fallen trees and were sprinting across the logs toward him.
“Crap.” Max hauled himself upward, stepping onto a higher foothold.
“They’re gaining on you, Max! I know there’s a Tarzan in you, climb those vines!”
Max let out a breathless laugh as he put hand over hand, scaling the vine net that moved and bounced under his weight.
“You’re going to do it, man, those little piranhas aren’t going to be dining on smurf today,” Chopsticks said.
Max yanked his feet up farther out of their reach and tightened his fingers around the vines as his heart hammered in his chest from exertion and stress. A couple of the small dinos had made it onto the log below him and were bouncing up and down like excited puppies, somehow managing to not push one another off as they crowded around the bottom of the vines.
“You’re nearly home free!” Chopsticks yelled, but Max could only just hear him over the sound of his pulse thumping in his ears.
“Oh...Max!” Chopsticks hissed into Max’s ear, making him wince as his mud-caked hand slipped on the vine. He flailed around for a second as he swung himself back around and grabbed onto the creeper.
“What?” Max gasped.
“Can you hear that?”
Max paused his climb, glancing down at the dinos whose chirps had gone silent. All he could hear was his heartbeat which sounded like drums.
The vines quivered underneath him, and he tilted his body back at the unnerving sensation as the beat in his ear grew louder. He could feel every beat through his whole body.
That wasn’t his pulse.
“Maaaaax!” Chopsticks cried. “We’re in trouble, dude!”
“Ho-ly shit.” Through a gap in the vines, Max could see through the tangle and farther down the hill, which had been all but cleared for nearly a mile by the landslide.
But the damage caused by the mudslide wasn’t what had caught Max’s eye.
Moving up through the ravaged landscape was a monster of a dinosaur. Two legs the size of small trees rippled with muscle as it ambled up the hill, each step sending small shockwaves through the immediate area, trunks of fallen trees splintering under its weight. The soft breeze moved the strip of sparse brown feathers down its back.
It lifted its deep-set head up, its nostrils flaring as it took in the air.
“That’s a Rex,” Max said quietly.
“Oh, yeah,” Chopsticks breathed. “Well, a Tarbosaurus. It’s a small Rex, but still a Rex, and still a Tier-four.”
Max hung onto the vines with one hand, letting his gun arm hang by his side as he watched the Tyrannosaurid making a beeline for his position. “I’m definitely going to die here, Chopsticks.”
“You should be able to outrun it, the huge carnivores can’t pick up that much speed, especially over all this loose ground. Even with just Hotfoot and Marathoner, it shouldn’t be able to catch you.”
“Sure, but they can,” Max looked down at the group of Coelophysis, which had spread out, some staying on the log, some skulking away over the ground, all watching the large dino coming their way.
“Shit. Uh, I don’t think that it’s been hunting you. It’s probably up here loo
king for things that died in the landslide and is just investigating all the sound you’re making,” Chopsticks said.
“That still doesn’t help me if it finds me,” Max pointed out.
“Then you can’t let it find you. Somehow you’ve got to ninja your way out of this.”
Max nodded. He stuck the laser pistol through his belt, tucking it into his pants. He climbed higher up the vines, moving as fast as he could until he was all but in the crown of the tree, the thick leaves and thin branches stopping him from going much higher.
Despite its slow gait, the huge carnivore was close now, picking its way over debris. Max could hear the rush of air with every heaving breath it took.
“That thing is huge,” Chopsticks said in awe. “I know it’s cheesy, but the Rexes have got to be some of my favorite dinos. It’s a shame we don’t see more of them.”
“I don’t know,” Max grunted as he shifted his weight. “We wouldn’t stand a chance if one of those things came and stomped our base.”
Max reached up and gripped one of the branches, testing its weight. Hopefully, he could just get up high enough and wait the whole thing out. In the ideal world of his mind, he imagined the Rex scaring off the Coelophysis, and then leaving when it couldn’t find anything worthwhile, and he could just slip down and make a break for it.
“Oh, no,” Chopsticks whispered, barely audibly. “We have a problem. A big problem.”
“More so than Jaws over there?” Max said. “Man, I could really do with one of Jag’s bikes right now, or that rocket launcher Sam was talking about earlier.”
“What did I say about rockets?” Sam’s groggy voice sounded quietly over Max’s earpiece. Silence. “What the hell are you guys doing?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“We just ran into a little trouble,” Chopsticks said innocently as Max hauled himself up into the foliage, shifting into an awkward sitting position.
“A little trouble? You’ve got an extended family of carnivores underneath you, and a fucking Rex within throwing distance!” Sam inhaled sharply.
“It’s a Tarbosaur,” Chopsticks muttered. Max scoffed at his friend.
