Fire and Water

by Simon Guerrier

  “I was joking,” Connor said. “I just thought, you know, it might help put them off. There’s nothing else we can use.”

  “He’s right,” Becker agreed. “Give them everything you’ve got!”

  So Abby and Connor took turns flinging the aerosols at the pursuing creatures. Full or empty, it didn’t matter. The Deinosuchus couple were steadily gaining on them. Cans thumped and bumped on their long snouts or nearby. Abby was a pretty good shot.

  They were fast running out of cans, and options. Connor glanced at the front of the boat. They were almost onto the flooded river and the sudden quashing of their speed. Maybe if they all dived into the water and went in different directions, one of them might survive...

  He glanced back at Abby. She had that determined look on her face he had come to love. Even now, she just got on with the job at hand. No time for panic or fear. He was just about to reach out to her when something caught his eye.

  Upriver of them, some distance behind the crocodilians, a group of speedboats emerged from a side street. They chased down towards the river at top speed, in pursuit of the pursuers. The boats were laden with men in the same black uniform as Becker.

  “They’re here!” Connor shouted. He waved frantically at the soldiers’ boats.

  “Good thinking,” Becker said, mostly to himself. “There’s no strong position down here, and they’d have had to fire over the tops of our heads.”

  The Deinosuchus male noticed something haring down behind him. He turned his head to see the enemy just as the soldiers fired. Volleys of tranquilliser darts rained down on the creature’s face. He shook his long, fat-nosed head, swiping many of them right out of the air. His thick skin resisted all but the best-angled shots, but some of them struck home. The male let out a croak of frustration, three tranquilliser needles poking from his skin.

  He sank back into the water and began to lose speed as another volley followed.

  But the female hadn’t been hit at all, and she was fast gaining on her prey. Connor and Abby were completely out of aerosols, and they could only watch helplessly as she got closer.

  They both jolted as the speedboat hit what felt like gravel underneath them. The engine chugged and coughed, and rather than pushing quickly forward they just drifted to one side. They were on the flat of the flooded river now, idling along. Connor gasped at the sudden stink all around them, from all the rubbish their own current had borne here before them. A couple of traffic cones bobbed in the thick water, which seemed to have taken on the consistency of custard.

  The female Deinosuchus actually slowed, and seemed unsure of venturing into the disgusting stream. She sculled at the edge, drawing in breath through her enormous nostrils. Her mate floated unconscious past her, but she didn’t seem to notice him.

  The soldiers let off another volley of tranquilliser darts, aiming right at her face. She seemed to gaze craftily at Connor and blinked a double set of eyelids. Then she ducked down into the water — and disappeared. Tranquilliser needles plopped uselessly onto the surface where her head had been.

  Connor instinctively leant out over the side of the speedboat to try to spot her under the surface. Abby grabbed his arm and pulled him back. They sat in silence, watching the current undulating all around them, searching for any sign of where she’d gone.

  The soldiers’ boats chugged slowly forward to the place where the female had been. They cut their engines and drifted in silence as well. Becker nodded to his men, but didn’t say a word. All eyes were on the water, trying to cover all the angles.

  Connor found he was having trouble breathing. His heart pounded in his chest.

  The body of the slumbering male Deinosuchus bumped against their speedboat, and spun slowly off in another direction. The creature huffed contentedly in his sleep, oblivious to the excitement and tension.

  Long minutes passed. The rain continued to patter down on them, making Connor conscious of the cold.

  He sighed. The female could have swum off anywhere by now, gone looking for easier pickings. They might as well regroup their forces and go looking for her again later. Hey, he might even have time for a change of clothes or a mug of tea.

  He turned to Becker, ready to suggest this. But the look in Becker’s eyes made him reconsider. He looked away, down, and saw something glint behind the soldier’s booted feet. It took him a moment to realise what it was. Then to realise that he was grinning.

  Connor reached forward. Becker and Abby both turned to see what he was doing but remained silent. He extracted his prize, then revealed it with a dramatic flourish.

  “Oh,” Abby said, clamping her hands hard over her mouth.

  Becker leaned around to face the soldiers’ boats, waving his hand and making a couple of quick but deliberate signals that they clearly understood.

  Then he turned to Connor and nodded. Connor nodded back, fighting off the urge to grin again, or pull a face. He didn’t acknowledge Abby, knowing he’d only laugh. Instead he raised his arm, popped the cap of the last remaining aerosol with his thumb and pressed down on the tab.

  Nothing happened.

  Connor wavered. He tried again, and nothing happened.

  His arm felt suddenly very heavy. He lowered it, scrutinising the outside of the aerosol as if he might spot the answer. All eyes burrowed into him, and he could feel their prickling heat.

  Then he shook the aerosol hard, raised it high above his head again and didn’t even look as he pressed down on the tab.

  The aerosol hissed.

  He dared to look now. Pale, sweet-smelling mist fell lightly on his face. His nose itched at the acrid smell and he had to blink his eyes. All around him the water undulated softly. The rain battered down, but all else was silent. He directed the aerosol across the water, towards one boat of soldiers, and pressed the tab again. Cool spray sighed across the water.

  With a roar the female Deinosuchus shot out of the water and hurled herself at him. Connor fell back, landing on top of Abby and Becker, resulting in a writhing mass of limbs. The massive crocodilian glided through the air, its claws out and its long tail dragging. The huge jaws opened wide and Connor looked up into her dark throat. She exhaled a terrible stench of decayed meat mixed with aerosol deodorant.

  He thought he was going to vomit.

  He threw the aerosol and it chinked off her front teeth, rebounded on to her tongue, and was swallowed in an instant. But she didn’t pause, and Connor braced himself for the impact. At least it would be quick...

  Then the Deinosuchus closed her huge jaws and dropped heavily into the water. Her long face and neck was beaded with maybe twenty or thirty glinting tranquilliser needles. Connor blinked, amazed.

  And took the full brunt of the tidal wave.

  Abby found Connor huddled on the back step of one of the army trucks, underneath two blankets. She squeezed into the space beside him, handed him a mug of soup and sipped at her own. The soldiers had a special recipe — tomato soup from tins beefed up with peppers, chillies, and garlic to get you on your toes. It ravaged the back of her throat and made her eyes water, but it also fought off the cold.

  “Becker says we have to pay for the deodorants,” she said. “He claims he’s trying to get hold of the shop’s manager now. I told him it’s nearly midnight, but he says it’s only right.”

  She laughed, but Connor didn’t say anything. They sipped their soup and watched the soldiers using thick ropes and plenty of tarpaulin to lug two unconscious Deinosuchus towards a huge container lorry. After they had captured the creatures, Connor’s anomaly detector had picked up the last vestiges of an anomaly close by where they had first seen the giant crocodiles, but it had closed before they had had a chance to lock it. There had been some serious argument and phone calls about what to do next, before someone decided they’d have to store the creatures at the facility just outside of London. Oliver Leek had set the place up for his secret army of monsters. It had been empty since then, but it would be ideal.

 
The ARC would look after — and study — the Deinosuchus couple. If the team could understand the anomalies, even learn how to control them, then one day they could be sent home.

  Some people thought they should just be sent through any anomaly that was roughly in the right period, but Cutter had always insisted that even the right period might be millions of years out for the individual creatures, which could cause all manner of disruption to the already mangled timelines.

  Sombre at the thought of their departed friend, Abby watched the scientists fussing around the giant bodies, plucking tranquilliser needles from their weathered faces, ensuring they were comfortable but would remain sleeping for the journey. She felt wet and cold and weary, but still wanted to join in.

  A thought struck her as she watched the giant female.

  “What if she’s pregnant?”

  Connor’s morose face contorted into a grin.

  “She should cut down on eating deodorants, if she is.”

  “We could have one born in captivity,” Abby pressed. “That would be a first.”

  “So would finishing a day at work without being covered in gubbins.”

  Abby leaned over to him and took a deliberate sniff.

  “You smell.”

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “A nice smell?”

  “Hmm,” she sniffed him again. “It’s okay. Sort of a mix of a rubbish tip and a huge great crocodilian.”

  “That’s better than most days, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.” She reached round for the edge of his blankets, wrapping them round her own shoulder so they were snuggled up together. “Connor —”

  “Oh, hell,” he said, and reached for the pocket of his damp, stripy trousers. His mobile buzzed in his hand as he withdrew it. He glanced at Abby, rolling his eyes apologetically. She bit her lip in frustration, but resisted the urge to grab the phone and fling it off into the dark.

  “Danny?” Connor said cheerily into the phone. “Yeah, we’re fine. Nothing we can’t handle. How are you two getting on?”

  TEN

  The SUV bumped and bucked over the scrubby ground — the car’s suspension had clearly seen better days. Danny narrowed his eyes, trying to spot the tracks that Sophie claimed she was following.

  The full beams cut a bright path through the looming darkness, but all he could make out were rocks and bits of tree as they clattered past.

  “Definitely a theropod,” he said into his phone. “Stiffened tail, three-fingered hands with a large first claw, three-toed feet...”

  “Smaller than a Tyrannosaur,” Lester put in from the seat behind him.

  Danny glanced at Sophie, but she seemed too busy with the driving to pay attention to their strange conversation. Or she had already accepted that her two passengers did this all the time. He suspected there would be lots of questions later.

  “Um,” Connor said on the other end of the line.

  He sounds pretty miserable, Danny thought. Maybe he’s still sulking because he hadn’t got to come on this trip.

  “We’ve just had a run-round with a whole lot of Velociraptors,” Connor told him. “They’re easy to identify because they —”

  “It wasn’t a raptor,” Danny interrupted. “I’ve seen them in pictures. This thing was twice as big, maybe seven metres long. You got your laptop with you?”

  “I don’t need my laptop,” Connor told him, “I’ve had to learn this stuff. It sounds like an avian theropod, could be a Megalosaurid such as Eustreptospondylus, though they were quite rare.”

  “A what? Connor, I still have trouble pronouncing amonaly.”

  “Anomaly.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of my point.”

  “All right, it’s yoo-strep -toe-spon-dilus. Sort of as it’s spelt. Means ‘well-curved vertebra’. Got named in the 1960s. But, get this: the only fossil we’ve got of it was found in the nineteenth century by the bloke who came up with the word ‘dinosaur’.”

  Danny sighed. “And this is going to help me find it how?”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. Well, if it is Eustreptospondylus then it’s mid-Jurassic. Callovian stage, I think. I’ve got a poster at the ARC with the stages all in different colours.”

  “Connor...” Danny muttered. He leant forward, peering out into the dark, unable to distinguish any specific features under the vast canopy of stars.

  “One theory is that they swam between the little islands of what’s now Oxford city centre. That’s where Richard Owen discovered its remains. So if that’s what attacked you, I’d look for a river or lake. It’s sort of what it will think is home.”

  “Good,” Danny said. “That’s the sort of information I can use. Hope the girls are looking after you.” And before Connor could protest, he clicked off the phone. “Best guess is that it’s a yoo-strep-toe-something-or-other,” he told Sophie and Lester, “and it likes living by the water.”

  Sophie nodded. “The lake is up ahead of us. There’s a good observation platform there where you can usually see the other animals who like water. I’d almost pity this monster if the locals are about.”

  “More lions?” Danny asked.

  “Worse. Something that kills more people every year than any other animal in Africa.”

  “Some kind of snake?”

  Sophie smiled thinly, still focused on her driving.

  “We set the same riddle for the tourists, and none of them ever puzzle it out.”

  “So what is it?” Lester prompted. Danny could tell he didn’t like playing this game.

  “Wait and see.” She didn’t seem to care what Lester liked.

  They drove in silence for a while, Lester with his lips pursed, arms folded in the back, Danny scanning out of the windscreen for any sign of movement.

  “We should have brought more guns,” Lester said at last.

  “You guys are exterminators, huh?” Sophie asked. “You said you only used tranquillisers.”

  “I used to be a policeman,” Danny told her.

  “That’s how you got caught up in this?” Sophie asked. “Investigating. Asking stupid questions.”

  “Not quite,” Danny said.

  “We did try to put you off the scent,” Lester muttered.

  “Too pig-stubborn,” Danny said, and he grinned in the gloom. “Always been my problem. But the idea is not to kill these creatures — we try to get them home. They come through these sort of holes in time.”

  “Anomalies,” Sophie said.

  “Er, yeah.”

  “What do you know about them?” Lester said, sitting forward.

  She smiled, and put her foot down and the SUV growled up a short, steep slope. They’d rejoined the dust road and the journey felt much smoother.

  “Only what Danny said just now on the phone. So, holes in time. These monsters come through, and you lot chase them back, right?”

  Danny shrugged.

  “Basically, yeah. We try not to hurt them or let them hurt us. I guess you do the same thing here. Stop the animals doing too much damage to each other.”

  She snorted in response.

  “We let nature do what nature does. It can be pretty rough, but we can’t get involved. It has to play that way, like it always has done.”

  “But surely your responsibility is to the well-being of the animals, conserving the ecosystem and stuff,” Danny said.

  “We let them do what they’ve always done. Chase each other around, eat each other, leave the old and sick to die... You can’t do anything else for them. Mostly our job is stopping tourists getting in between them. We need the money they bring in, but people are one hell of a nuisance.”

  “Oh.”

  “What were you expecting? You’ve seen what your creatures are like, you think ours would be any different?”

  He was silent for a moment, absorbing the bleak idea of nature red in tooth and claw, with mankind just a small distraction that sometimes got in the way. He realised with a jolt that they were at
the heart of the savage wilderness now. The only rule was that of survival. He’d just been being naïve and sentimental. It went with his good-cop image, but hardly made him look the expert. He needed Sophie to respect him if she was going to tell him anything.

  He still sensed that she was holding something back; that she held some kind of answer — even though he didn’t yet know the question.

  “Well,” he said finally, “we can at least get our creature off your back, can’t we? Have you or your colleagues seen anything like a great big hole in the atmosphere? Looks like broken glass hanging in the air.”

  “No one’s reported anything like that.”

  “We do have equipment for tracking the things,” Lester said, “but your customs people impounded it.” It was his turn to sound accusing.

  “There are things we can do, though,” Danny said. “The anomalies have strong magnetic properties.”

  “So compasses go crazy when you’re getting close,” Sophie surmised. She tapped the dashboard. “Got a compass here and it doesn’t seem to be affected.”

  “And they also resonate at 87.6 Megahertz, so you can pick them up on the radio.”

  “But you’d need radios in different places to triangulate the signal.”

  “Yeah,” Danny admitted, “but you can do it.”

  “Or you could get someone from your organisation to insist that we need our equipment,” Lester said testily from behind them. His voice shook when the vehicle bounced.

  “That would make things simpler,” Danny said. “There’s a screen with a little map.”

  Sophie tilted her head to one side, long blonde hair falling away to expose her slender neck.

  “Seems like cheating,” she said.

  Lester snorted.

  “Far more sporting to come out in the dark with no idea what’s out here, with no one knowing where we are. In fact, I’m surprised we’re even in the car. Shouldn’t we just get out and walk?”

  The one word that defined Lester was expedient, Danny noted. His whole modus operandi was sorting things out with the least fuss and nonsense. Being torn apart by a dinosaur out in this wild darkness would just lack the grace and style to which he aspired.