Last Train to Pangea: Death by Dinosaur

by Robert Turnbull

  Mary who was avidly listening smiled “Well it sure has to be better than what we’ve had so far.”

  Kurt just smiled again as he checked the sky once more.

  “You all will see when you get there.” and off he went to check the road ahead with his driver.

  Wes shrugged “One things for sure good old Captain Kurt sure has a wide range of languages. One minutes he sounds like he’s from the south, then New England, with a little German tossed in, and then just plain old lazy American dialects, he’s all mixed up.”

  Missy slipped her arm though Wes’s and giggled softly.

  “And what’s so surprising about that in this place?” Wes just smiled and nodded as he held his new love.

  He nodded and smiled “Indeed.”

  Chapter 20.

  Soon the tall walls of Boulder appeared on the horizon and at that distance they were immense. It wasn’t until they got within a few hundred yards of them, that it became apparent just how vast they were.

  South they could see the wall stop as it arrived at the cliffs where the cliffs this side of the peninsula began. To the north the wall arched toward the west and disappeared from sight as it curved westward. All along the top were long steel or wooden spiked poles and firepots to light it at night or for defense, Wes couldn’t be sure.

  As they neared the one hundred foot high wall that appeared to be made from van sized, finely cut stone, there was a dark arched opening. Upon arrival they could see was an entry into the wall and it was a huge tunnel that buried into the back maw of the wall. As they entered their eyes became aware of a faint glow of torches and twenty-five feet in, a huge steel portcullis raised into the ceiling. Wes looked up to see a two foot hole and a tip of a sharpened one foot steel pole in the hole…obviously to stop anything that entered and tried to take down the steel barrier.

  Thirty more feet and finally they broke out into the glorious sunlight. Suddenly as their eyes became adjusted to the light once again, they were stunned by the vista that lay before them. Of course the nearly one hundred foot tall wall was just as impressive inside as out, but the city itself was incredible.

  All around were stone and wooden structures that ranged from shops to houses, some two and three stories high. Stone slabs had been laid to create streets and sidewalks, and the denizens of Boulder scurried about without a care in the world.

  Scattered widely apart were some mesas the approximant height of the wall, but too far apart to connect, but stone structures and wooden spikes could be seen atop the mesas to protect the lookouts from flappers. All around people scurried about their business with never a notice of the newcomers, they either didn’t know of the arrival, or had seen new people so many times, it was no longer new to them. A few that took notice of the wagons that slowly moved toward what appeared to be a long warehouse of sorts, a few people waved at Kurt and continued on their way.

  As the steel rimmed wheels ground to a halt in front of what appeared to be the stinker pen and loading dock, a ramp was lowered for easy disembarking and the group was led into one of the large buildings adjacent to the warehouse…another warehouse and beyond an open door, another. There was obviously commerce of some kind here and the brothers quickly took notice.

  As they passed the huge doors, they could see people busily going about the business of moving, loading and unloading the huge wagons that had been backed into the warehouse.

  “Jesus…” Red muttered “…if I didn’t know better, I’d say this was something out of the turn of the twentieth century.”

  Wes laughed “Except for the crude wind generators out there.” The people in Wes’s group looked out the doors at the side of the buildings to see not only windmills for pumping water to tanks perched high above the city on the small mesas, but large bladed wind turbines for creating electricity.

  Bryce and John both commented on they didn’t look very efficient and started on ideas of how to capitalize on that aspect of amassing a new fortune…the rest just chuckled and shook their heads. The brothers it seemed would not give up.

  Their escort, Kurt grinned and hurried them around to the front of the huge warehouse to view the entire picture, or at least what they could see from the raised deck before descending the stairs to the cut stone streets. The city and wall was immense and went on forever, or so it seemed from where they were at.

  As they got to the stone roadway and headed toward a large structure a few blocks away people nodded at Kurt or waved and he returned the greeting.

  Now and then a few would stop and watch the newcomers as they walked by. Kurt smiled as they continued on as the new comers would acknowledge the ‘welcome strangers’.

  “We tend to keep clothes a bit fancier here in the town itself, even the guards have uniforms.” He nodded toward a few of the shops, and then the women dressed in dinosaur hides of various kinds. He smiled “When properly tanned it makes a strong supple leather. We also have cotton and when we aren’t at war with the folks from Blackwood, we can get oil to make petroleum products like nylon and if one is daring enough there are some really big…” he chuckled “…and I mean really big, spiders that we raid their habitats for silk. Makes beautiful clothes, but even stronger ropes than nylon.”

  “Bet it isn’t as strong as brachiosaurus gut rope.” Cassy muttered “If you slice it right and cure it properly, the old man said it was as strong as woven steel cable, but as flexible as this nylon stuff.”

  “I did not know that.” Kurt smiled at Cassy.

  “Yup! The old man learned me, uh, I mean learnt…” she gave Wes a helpless look.

  Wes smiled and opened his mouth, but Missy laid her hand on Cassy’s shoulder and smiled knowingly “Taught…Cassy, the word you’re looking for is taught.”

  Cassy sighed “I’m sorry I know the old man taught me better language skills, but I rarely get to use everything and the men that…well they didn’t talk much other than about hunting and selling things.”

  Missy laughed “Oh dear, I know that feeling very well.”

  They neared the structure that Kurt had told them was the city hall, among other things, Kurt stopped and waved his hand around.

  “Welcome to Boulder my friends.” It was truly a scene to behold, especially after what they had been through since arriving. He pointed to a small group of people standing to one side of the city hall and a man standing on the side stairs. Kurt snorted “New comer speech by one of our fine military leaders, now repeated to everyone that comes here by that Sergeant. I think he loves to hear himself talk far too much…but everything he says is true, probably should listen and then I’ll take you all up to see the professor.”

  The man dressed in some sort of military uniform paced the wide stone stairs, stopped and looked at the small group of people.

  “I know you all were brought here from the vast southern prairies and deserts, how long ago I don’t care.

  I know most of you all have been here just two or three months.

  I know many of those that came through the portal didn’t make it here…and for that I’m sorry.”

  He paused and began to pace slowly as he spoke.

  “So let me just get this unpleasant part over with…

  One! Assuming you aren’t eaten by dinosaurs, or are killed, or maimed horribly by accident, your life expectancy is about two hundred years or so. It varies so don’t take that as gospel. You will read more about it in the pamphlet you were given.

  Two! You won’t get sick, other than a cold. You will not have any genetic problems, you will not get cancers, degenerative problems and the like.

  Three! If you had cancer, any human malady, or any of the above, you probably noticed by now, you no longer have said malady.” He stopped walking and looked at the small survivor group and raised his voice so the small group Kurt was with, could hear better.

  “These first three things are because we are caught in a time flux according to the professor. We are here, but shouldn’t be…” he gri
nned “…later you can read your damned pamphlet. So don’t die and you’ll lead a long life. Just how prosperous you are in that life will depend upon you, AND HOW AMBITIOUS YOU ARE!” He made sure everyone heard the last part.

  “Four! You will be required to work, if you have skills, then you will be able to use them, if not, you will work in the fields or the mines. Some may be useful in the military, or city guard. If you choose to ‘NOT’ work…you will be given a horse, food and water for two weeks and allowed to leave. Most do not survive more than two weeks on their own so there is no reason to give you more than two weeks rations…” he looked sadly at the group “That’s a fact, not a threat.

  Five! If you have a pacemaker or some other electrical implant, you’ll be dead when the batteries run out. We have some electricity, but no electronics other than some crude radios. So make your peace now. If needed, you will be given work with little strain or stress…” he looked the group over “…but be ready to show the medical people your scars.”

  The man looked at the group sadly.

  “There is no way home…back to your time…you’re all stuck here for good. The sooner you get this through your head, the sooner you can begin to cope with your new surroundings.” he turned and headed up the stairs, stopped and looked over his shoulder.

  “Oh yeah…welcome to Pangea.” He vanished inside as a second man led the small group toward another door in the back of the building, while Kurt led the group toward the front.

  “Somehow, I’m getting the feeling we are different somehow.” John muttered.

  “That you are my friends.” Kurt shot over his shoulder as they climbed the tall steps to the main entrance.

  “You see, the professor wants anyone that arrived from a time period later than him to be brought immediately to him.”

  Missy clasped her fingers through Wes’s “Gee, I feel so special.”

  Kurt looked seriously at the pert blonde “You should because no one has ever arrived here that came from a time passed the professors’, he chuckled again “So somehow I think you all are special, the professor just doesn’t talk to everyone who comes here.”

  As it turned out the building wasn’t as blocky inside as it looked from the outside and inside the décor could have been mistaken for something from the twenties. All wooden furniture and woodwork, clean lines and plenty of light, yet it had an old feel to it even though it was spotless inside.

  Up a flight of stairs and down a hall, they came to a large set of double doors and inside sat a secretary, she smiled as she arose and vanished through a door behind her.

  A thin balding man in his late thirties came out and impatiently waved Wes’s group in. He motioned for them to sit in the many chairs and couches that adorned the sides of what appeared to be his office. Introductions were made and drinks offered. When everyone was seated he sat on his large wooden desk and smiled at the group…he chuckled softly.

  “Just call me Proff,” he laughed “hell everyone does…I’m not sure that I could remember my real name anymore.” the smile turned serious “Was I informed correctly that you all are from 2014?”

  Everyone looked to Wes who smiled at the professor.

  “That’s correct and by the sound of what others have said, no one else from beyond our time has arrived here?”

  “That my friend is correct…but not your time, my time.” the professor replied with a strange look which quickly saddened “It would seem my hypothesis appear to be correct.”

  “Correct? Professor…” Bryce was stopped at the wave of the Proff’s hand.

  “Proff, please.” Missy pleaded softly.

  “Ok Proff…you seem to know what is going on. So I guess the fact that we came here instead of the indoctrination area, means…” Wes grinned “…something? Look sir, I don’t mean to be rude, but we’re so in need of some sort of explanation.”

  “Again you are correct my friend. Let me start at the beginning.” Proff walked around his desk and sat in a plush triceratops hide chair that had two rather large horns that formed the sides of the backrest and continued upward toward the ceiling.

  “In a nutshell, I was a Professor of physics in the late eighties… Yes I know there are those that probably told you I came from an earlier date, but I assure you it was the late eighties.

  Four of my students were on a trip to the Mayan ruins in Mexico when I got a strange call from one of them. She said her boyfriend had found a glowing orb about the size of a soccer ball. It gave no heat other than a slight warmth, but glowed…and it was found under a large moss covered rock her boyfriend had found at night while going outside of their camp to take a leak.”

  “And this is the portal?” Bryce asked.

  “Oh heavens no!” Proff laughed, and then became solemn just as quickly “I’m afraid, it was but the start of a chain of events. You see my colleague and I had been working on a teleporter, got the idea from a space series on TV.” he chuckled “Ironic eh? Anyhow we had been unsuccessful due to the lack of a power source.”

  “That orb was a power source?” Mary asked.

  “Oh and so much so. At first Dan and I... sorry, Dan was my late friend and co-worker. We wanted to create some sort of portal to transport goods or people to remote destinations. Anyhow, after nearly a month, Dan stumbled upon the theory that perhaps the orb was controlled by frequencies…it was as it turned out.

  So after trial and errors, we discovered that this orb had immense power levels. At first we were afraid, but soon learned that by slowly increasing frequency, we could increase the power…about times three per full decibel.” he looked at the group “Uh, at 200Hz, we got about fifty thousand amps and one hundred thousand watts, at 201Hz, it was tripled, at 202 it tripled again.”

  Boots looked stunned. As Sarge’s radio and electronics specialist, he understood it more than the rest.

  “Good God! How far did you take it?”

  Proff laughed “Not all that far, at least at the time. You see, we soon reached a point where we had no device in my basement lab to measure anything that high. My Rife-Crane device could go tens of thousands of decibels, but we had no way to measure them and relate it to this orb’s power modulations. To make a long story short, I knew it had to have more than enough power to create a portal, or wormhole if you will.” He leaned back and looked at the ceiling as he turned back the years.

  “Let’s see, we created the portal device, but to make it work we had to give it a focal point, a frequency it could focus upon as a reference. I knew I had to do at least 5000Hz, which is the center of the mel scale which goes from zero to ten thousand. Dan created a rheostat so we could control the frequency, and we managed to put everything into a padded steel suitcase. The orb was encased in a steel case as well and attached to the suitcase with a ring of bolts and only a small pinhole to allow the current to flow to the control unit’s receiver below in the suitcase. On the outside was only the knob for the rheostat.”

  Proff looked at the group as sadness filled his face.

  “Oh the joy we felt when Dan pulled the lever to just 400Hz and a small purple pinhole appeared off to one side of the table the device was on. Dan moved it to 450 and the portal grew to the size of a softball…” he looked at them “Can you imagine, that little adjustment and the power multiplied thousands of times. My God the power must have been immense.” He chuckled as he shook his head as if still in disbelief “I mean, can you imagine if we had to use wires? Why it would have turned the finest wire into a molten puddle.

  Anyhow, Dan moved it to 475 and the damned thing nearly caught him it grew so fast…” Tears formed in the Professor’s eyes as he momentarily paused.

  “Poor Dan, he had just made a comment that perhaps we should send a camcorder through and see where this portal had focused…” Proff sighed deeply “…but his arm snagged the rheostat lever and the hole expanded again. Dan jumped and hit the table and the front legs snapped…” The professor looked furious “And it was my fault for p
utting something that heavy onto a damned flimsy table.”

  “Good Lord…” Cassy muttered unaware that she could even be heard.

  “Dan? What happened to your friend?” Red asked before anyone else.

  “Dan tried his best to catch the device but it weighted nearly one hundred and fifty pounds. It was half way into the portal which was now growing to about four feet in diameter, when the device hit it, it was as if the portal knew or could sense the size and seemed to grow large enough to allow the device in…and Dan as his hands were on the device. He screamed when his hands entered the portal that he couldn’t pull free, and suddenly it grew to encompass him…and he was gone. I’m not really sure what the hell I was doing, but when I saw the portal slowly shrinking, I reached in hoping to find Dan, but as soon as my fingers hit the portal…but it was too late.” he paused as if trying to remember, but shook his head slowly.

  “Next thing I knew I was here. Saw some dinosaurs in the distance and spent several days cowering between outcroppings of huge boulders not far from here. Hunger finally got the best of my good senses and I found the remains of a partially eaten dinosaur.” He gave them a half grin.

  “Hell, by that time I was ready to try anything, so I managed to rip off a chunk, take it back to the boulders and start a fire. I’d run out of cigarettes, but my lighter worked…” he chuckled “…too well, I started a grass fire that sent the dinosaurs running, and the people from Boulder out to find how a grass fire started on a clear day.”

  “Lucky you.” Snake chuckled.

  “More than luck my friend. For years…no, for centuries they had been sending out rescue parties to investigate strange occurrences that occurred in their area.”

  “The eighties weren’t that long ago Proff.” Wes replied.

  Proff laughed “Things just don’t land in the order they were taken… Hell, last month five Stegosaurus were dropped from the Jurassic period, this month you. Last year some poor guy on a schooner that was trying to sail around the world by himself, think he said he was from the seventies.”