The dino watched our every move, and I could tell it would charge at any moment. We slowly stepped backward all the same, and I angled my sharp gun at the beast’s head as carefully as I could.
Then I bumped into the girls behind me.
“Keep going,” I muttered in a low voice.
“We can’t go back,” Kat hissed.
I took my eyes off the dino at the door for less than a second to look over my shoulder, and sweat instantly poured down my neck as I realized the problem.
All around Leo and Adhara’s ships, there was a whole herd of the bluish, horned dinos, and they had completely blocked us from fleeing.
Every one of the beasts stared at us as we stood trapped against the wooden wall, and I could tell from the look in their eyes.
They knew they had us cornered.
Chapter 5
There wasn’t any time to think or plan. I shot at the dinosaur at the entrance and hit it just above the right eye socket as it started to charge.
The dino stumbled, and I quickly pulled the trigger to lodge another bullet into its brain. The hide on its skull was clearly thick as fuck, but the sharp bullets had no problem tearing through it. Blood poured out of the bullet holes, and the dino’s huge head flopped around as the creature crashed to the ground with a heavy thud.
I spun around to join in the fight against the rest of the herd. Half of the dinos seemed determined to stay put and block our way to the crafts, and the others made various attempts to charge at full speed toward us.
“Hae-won!” I yelled. “We’ll cover you, can you get inside that opening?”
The Korean beauty started to back away from the fight as she shot at the dinos with her sharp gun, and she looked over her shoulder at the gap in the wall as the construction sheet flapped in the wind.
“I can do it!” she shouted. “I can jump through, but it might be noisy.”
“I think that’s already a problem,” I replied as the sound of dino bodies hitting the floor echoed out over the concrete.
The herd seemed invested in blocking our way into the crafts, and they threw their heads back as they roared and stomped their thick feet.
The girls had already taken down one of the beasts, and it looked like there were about seven of them left.
We needed to get inside before others came to check out what the noise was, and Hae-won slowly began to break off from the group.
Then there was a mechanical whirring noise above me, and I glanced up to see the security camera move. It seemed to have adjusted to watch us, and I waved up at the lens.
“Hey!” I yelled as I took aim at another one of the horned dinos. “Hey, let us inside.”
“Who are you talking to?” Becka shrieked as one of the dinos broke into a charge right toward her.
I shot three bullets into the side of the horned bastard’s face for good measure, and its eyeballs both erupted with blood.
“The security camera is moving!” I told the girls. “Someone’s watching!”
As Hae-won started to sneak off to the unfinished construction work, one of the dinos clocked her. The beast charged at a horrifying speed toward her, and I shot at it as Kat did the same.
The creature had raced so far forward that Hae-won had to leap sideways as it fell, and the massive dino crashed face-first into the wooden wall as debris fell down onto its lifeless body.
As more of the herd started to leave the ships and charge at us, I heard the doorway swing open with a creak.
“Go!” I yelled without turning to see who had opened it for us. “Now!”
Hae-won was closest to the door and raced inside as the rest of the girls followed. Leo took one final shot into a dino’s skull before he ran off, and I made sure to kill the closest one to me before I turned to run as well.
The entranceway was dark, and I couldn’t see anything inside as we sprinted toward the building. Sweat dripped down the back of my neck as I glanced over my shoulder, and I saw three remaining dinos hurtle toward us. I stayed a step behind the others to make sure they made it inside, and the second I dove into the doorway, it was slammed shut.
The floor was cold, and my hip banged painfully against it as I landed. Then I scrambled to my feet as the thundering footsteps outside skidded to a halt, and the dinosaurs let out their chilling roars.
We were inside a massive, circular room with marble floors and wooden beams which covered the ceiling. There were wooden pillars around the room, and a desk stood on one end of the large room that had clearly once been a reception for the visitor center.
It looked like there was a curved ramp leading up to the next floor, and there were a few muddied brochures that had been scattered all over the floor.
I swung my gun around to a figure beside us and saw it was a man who was probably in his thirties. He had a thin, tanned face and dark stubble. His brown eyes were wide behind round glasses, and he wore dark jeans with a black shirt.
“Who are you?” I asked, and the guy flung his hands up into a surrender pose. He didn’t speak, and his eyes were fixed on Adhara and Leo.
“I-I work here,” he eventually stammered, and there was a hint of French in his English accent.
“You’re a scientist?” I asked.
“I’m an engineer,” he said slowly. “It’s just me and one physicist left. We have nothing to give you.”
“We’re not robbing you,” Becka snorted.
With a quick glance up and down, it was pretty easy to see the guy wasn’t a threat, and I lowered my gun as the rest of the group slowly did the same.
“I expected them to head-butt the door,” I sighed as I looked over at the entranceway. “They easily could have.”
“The kosmoceratops are smart,” the engineer said. His voice sounded almost robotic as he spoke, and I could tell the guy was exhausted as his hands shook. “They know everyone comes out of here eventually. And everyone who does ends up crushed or chewed up.”
“I’m Jason,” I said. “This is Kat, Hae-won, Becka, Adhara, and Leo.”
The man nodded as I pointed out each person, and his eyes snapped back to the aliens.
“What’s going on?” he asked, and his voice cracked. “A-Are you alien lifeforms? Are you from another planet?”
“Yes.” Leo shrugged. “Is this problem?”
The poor engineer looked like he had never been asked a more difficult question in his life, and he opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“Adhara and Leo are from another planet,” I explained. “I know you probably have a million questions, but maybe we can walk and talk? We’re kind of on a time crunch here.”
“Oh, sure,” the man said with a harried chuckle and a forced shrug. “Dinosaurs came back from the dead. Why not have aliens walking around planet Earth?”
“Thank you for welcome.” Adhara nodded. “I walk here for a while now.”
The engineer shook his head in disbelief, but then he gestured for us to follow him, and we headed toward the curved ramp.
“I don’t trust the lifts,” he said as we passed an elevator. “There isn’t exactly anyone we can call if it breaks down.”
“That’s reasonable.” I nodded. “So, this place is like a tourist center?”
“Basically,” the man said. “There’s different exhibitions each year, and fun stuff for kids to do. They have loads of conferences and corporate events, too. Well. They used to. It’s strange to talk about normal life in the past tense.”
There were a few boards on the wall which advertised upcoming events and exhibits, and as we got halfway up the ramp, the engineer pushed open a side-door which was labeled “Staff Only.” He led us through a room that was full of neatly stacked boxes of brochures and files, and there was a decaying plant on top of one of the cabinets.
“I’m Mateo, by the way,” the engineer said. “I’ve worked here for about five years. Well, I don’t exactly work here anymore. We just got trapped over here.”
“Have you been h
ere since the start?” Hae-won asked.
“Well,” Mateo said. “Originally I was over at building 33, just over the roundabout.”
“We saw that as we landed,” I replied. “It looked like it had been hit by dinos pretty badly.”
“Unfortunately,” the engineer said with a nod. “That’s why we came over to the dome, none of the creatures seemed very interested in getting inside. I have a theory that they don’t recognise it as a building.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, but what I didn’t add was that it probably wouldn’t take too long for them to figure it out.
“Anyway,” Mateo sighed. “It was quiet around here at first. A few of the dinosaurs passed by, but none of them stayed for long. Then they seemed to have some kind of upgrade. It was like overnight, they just worked out that the base was full of people, and they came in herds.”
“Did they get into building 33?” Kat asked, and Mateo nodded again.
“Some of the smaller ones managed,” the engineer replied. “Enough of them to drive us out. I managed to get in here with a couple of others, I couldn’t believe we made the short run.”
“I know what you mean,” I muttered. “I’ve never seen so many in one place before. There must be hundreds out there.”
“At least,” Mateo said. “There were about fifty people in here at the start of it all. Some left before things got really bad out there, but I’ve heard the sound of so many people being caught.”
The engineer shivered, and I didn’t ask any more questions about his previous co-workers.
We went through another doorway, and there was an unpleasant stench of rotten food. There was a small kitchenette with a vending machine, and the front glass had been removed along with all the food. I glanced at the sink in the corner and noticed a coffee cup had grown its own little town of blue mold. The behind the scenes of the tourist center was definitely not as impressive as the lobby.
“Do you have many supplies left?” Becka asked, and Mateo shook his head.
“We’re running low,” he said. “At least with just two of us, we go through our supplies much slower, but I would estimate we have a few weeks’ worth of food left.”
“We have supplies on the ship,” I said and then remembered with a lurch in my stomach that Leo’s ship still had the forcefield off.
I looked over at Adhara, and the nervous twitch of her fingers by her side told me she was thinking the same thing. Still, we needed a quick escape route once we left this place, and leaving the one ship without its forcefield was our only option. Besides, even if something did happen to the craft, we would still have Adhara’s. There was more than enough room for Leo to ride with us, and it wasn’t like we needed two ships for the mission.
I decided a slightly bashed-up craft was the least of our worries, and I had no doubt that the aliens would have some ridiculously efficient repair kit if the worst did happen.
Mateo pushed open yet another door in the maze of staff rooms, and there was a short, metal staircase.
There was a lamp set up at the top of the steps, and it looked like it was battery powered.
“Is your electricity out?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Mateo said. “But we’re trying not to have too much light escape from the windows. I hoped the dinosaurs might all leave, since there’s only two of us left.”
“They’re determined,” Kat said grimly as we reached the top of the steps.
The engineer led us through a set of double doors and then into a short corridor. We walked down a few doors and stopped outside a white door with a silver handle, and Mateo pulled out a small key and unlocked it.
I didn’t want to break it to him that his little lock would not keep out anything that wanted to get inside. It seemed like the guy had enough shit luck already, and as I followed Mateo inside, we found ourselves in a large room which seemed to be half-science lab and half-makeshift bedroom.
The floor was a black linoleum, and there were several desks on the left side, along with piles of boxes, beakers, computers, and a small sink. The right side of the room had a small sofa, a sleeping bag on the ground with a few pillows, and messy piles of clothes and books.
There was a middle-aged woman at one of the desks, and she had wild red hair and a lab coat on. Her pale face was covered in freckles, and she leapt to her feet as we piled in.
“Hi,” I said with a wave. “I’m Jason, this is--”
“What the fuck are those?” the woman screamed as she pointed at the aliens. She stumbled backward and knocked a glass beaker to the ground. The shattering sound made her jump again, and I got the impression that things had been tense for the remaining staff members.
“Hilda,” Mateo warned. “Don’t panic. We walked up the stairwell, and they didn’t try to kill me, so--”
“Oh, well, that’s fine, then,” Hilda said sarcastically. “Get out. You have to leave.”
“You’re a scientist,” Kat scoffed. “Aren’t you excited to meet an alien? Proof that we’re not alone in the universe?”
“I learned that much from the dinosaurs,” Hilda snapped, and she stood behind an office chair as if it would protect her from the evil aliens.
Adhara didn’t look as upset as she used to when people reacted badly to her. She glanced at me and shrugged, and I was proud that her skin had grown slightly thicker.
Leo looked absolutely uninterested in the whole interaction, too, and the stoic alien man started to wander around the room and examine items.
“Where is machine?” he asked, and Hilda grabbed a shard of broken glass from the ground.
“Not one step closer,” she cried as she waved the glass maniacally. “One more step, and I’ll defend myself.”
Leo raised an eyebrow, and I had to stifle a laugh as I looked at the assortment of deadly weapons slung over his back.
“Hilda,” Mateo said as he slumped down onto the sofa. “These are the first other people we’ve seen in weeks. Put down the fucking glass.”
The red-haired woman glared at her colleague, but she slowly placed the shard of beaker down onto a desk.
“So,” Mateo said as he rubbed his eyes. “If you could go over what the hell is happening, I would really appreciate it.”
“Sure,” I said. “We don’t have much time here, so we’ll go over the bullet points.”
“Basically,” Becka began. “Adhara and Leo are from a race that used to fight this race of beings who lived on Mars billions of years ago.”
“Mars?” Mateo asked with wide eyes.
“Yeah,” I said. “Then, when a signal from the Hadron Collider was picked up by Adhara’s race, they thought it was the Mars colony starting up a weapon. Their species has ancestral memories, so they remembered the fight with the people on Mars, and since they inhabit several solar systems around here, they just assumed we were their old enemies when we fired up the Collider.”
“So, the aliens decided to fight back,” Becka said. “And they opened the portals everywhere to send dinos through.”
“But these guys got sent to scout out the Earth,” I continued. “And now they know that humans never lived on Mars, and we aren’t the ancient enemies they were at war with.”
“And we need to get that message back to her people STAT,” Kat added. “Because they’ve got a war fleet heading here, but to do that, we need to use the Hadron Collider to get on board the mothership.”
Mateo and Hilda were silent, and I heard something cry out just past the window as a large pair of wings flapped. We glanced over at the boarded-up glass, and I half-expected a pterodactyl to crash through into the room, but the stifling silence in the room remained undisturbed.
It was nearly a full minute before anyone spoke, and the engineer cleared his throat as he folded his hands in his lap like every professor I’d ever had.
“You sent the dinosaurs?” Mateo asked. “Because you thought we were someone else?”
“Yes,” Adhara said sadly, and she dropped her head.
“Not more dinosaurs,” I clarified. “But they are planning to wipe out all of humanity with their advanced weapons and take the planet for themselves. So… yeah. We’re gonna have to get that Hadron Collider pronto.”
I realized this all might have sounded harsh to the alien race, but I really needed Mateo and Hilda on board. What better way to rile someone up than the promise of a superior race flying down to massacre us all?
“You can’t go near it,” Hilda suddenly snapped. “The Hadron Collider is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. I won’t let some alien, who wants us all dead, mess with it.”
“She’s trying to save us,” I barked, and my tone was harsher than I had intended. “Do you realize these scouts could have just flown back and left us all to die? But they didn’t. Adhara listened to reason.”
“Adhara is our friend,” Becka agreed. “And, uh, Leo, of course.”
The blonde shot the male alien an apologetic glance, but he didn’t show any signs that he had picked up on being an afterthought.
I felt impatient, and I knew we needed to get the aliens down to the Hadron Collider as soon as possible. Every second was vital, and I didn’t want to waste time trying to get people to like Adhara.
“Listen,” I said. “I know this all sounds kind of insane, but we really need to get down there.”
“I would take you,” Mateo said and scruffed his greasy hair, and Hilda shot him a glare. “I can’t imagine how it would help any of this, but I’m willing to believe anything these days. The only trouble is the machine’s not on.”
“Not on?” Hae-won asked. “Why not? Can you turn it on?”
“No,” Mateo sighed, and I felt a pang of anxiety in my chest.
I looked over at the girls, and all of their faces had dropped. There was a horrible atmosphere as Mateo’s words sank in, and I shook my head.
“No,” I said with finality. “No, it has to turn on. It has to. There must be something you can do, this is to save the world.”
Dinosaur World 8 Page 8
