"It is your very mix of contradictions which make you indispensable. You are exactly what we need now, for you bring your much-needed failings to the future of our race."
Perhaps some of what he is saying makes sense. But I still don't get it. "So you need a human who fits your requirements. But why leave the choice of mate to me?" I ask.
The rational part of me, the part that never believed my father's theories, really wants to try to find a thread of logic here.
"Ah! But it's important that you exercise your free will to decide. Without that, everything is moot."
When I do nothing but stare, he asks, "Do you understand?"
Kind of.
It makes sense in a strange kind of way.
If I suspend my rational mind, that is.
Yes, that's it. You are learning fast. You must trust your instinct enough to follow it sometimes.
I jump at that and swear aloud. "Don't. Do. That," I snarl. "Get out of my head or I swear I'll just leave here and leave your entire race ... races"—I look to the thing, including him in my outburst—"to perish."
Alex nods. "Perhaps it's simpler if I just tell you what you're thinking?" He half smirks, and a curl of anger unfurls inside.
"And what am I thinking?" I ask in a soft voice.
"You're thinking how much you want me. That I am your ideal mate."
He's right. He's handsome, mostly charming, everything I'd always wanted. I bite my lip, not saying anything.
"And you're thinking how ugly he is. Borderline lizard, actually. And that you find him repulsive." His voice smug, he nods to where the thing is watching us, still motionless, his eyes not moving from my face.
"You don't want to live with a half-Ascendant, an almost dinosaur in evolution terms, now do you?"
I look at the thing, stare into his eyes. But he's not pleading now. Just standing still. No coercion from him. Nothing but calm. He's giving me time to decide. To make up my mind. The anger inside me fades, leaving me blank. Empty. Yet, at peace.
I feel like I know myself for the first time. Really know who I am. Is this what it means to trust my instincts?
I take another step back and my foot stumbles on a loose stone, which goes rolling, the sound echoing around the hollow chamber.
And the thing leaps across me, making for Alex.
Someone screams, I think it's me, and Alex fires. A stream of light hits the thing in the chest, slamming it in a wide arc above the ground towards the ceiling. Higher and away till he crashes in the darkness.
Terror rips through me and I fling myself at Alex, taking him by surprise.
He crashes to the floor and my legs are hooked around his waist, my arms holding his, pinning them back over his head. I bring my head down and smash his nose as hard as I can.
Pain jars through me and I groan but don’t let go.
Below me his muscles bunch, stretch, push back. Just hold on, hold him back. But I know I am losing. And he’s pushing me off, and I am the one down and he’s holding the gun to my head.
Then Alex is thrown to the side and the gun clatters to the ground next to me. The thing is standing over us, a dark, reddish fluid running down its shoulder.
I watch, unable to move.
The figure on the ground stirs, and Alex stumbles to his feet. They stand facing each other for a few seconds.
Alex nods as if in agreement to an unsaid conversation. He turns to me and goes, "Choose, Zoya."
What is good and what is evil? What is beauty? Who is ugly? Can we even differentiate between the two?
But I know what I must do.
Must follow my gut, do what feels right.
Now I know why Dad followed his dreams. He already knew what I am only now realizing. That when you are one with yourself, there really is no decision to make. There is only one way forward. Everything is so clear that I almost smile.
I pick up the gun and fire at Alex.
A Word from Laxmi Hariharan
The epiphany when it hit me wasn't a surprise. Every single story I have written since 2012, including “Ugly”, the story in Jurassic Chronicles, is set in the Many Lives Universe.
In a world full of shifters, vampires and immortals, the Many Lives series begins in present-day Bombay right before a catastrophic natural disaster destroys much of the city, inviting the reader to embark upon a perilous and epic journey as Ruby Iyer and Vikram Roy uncover the secrets of the city—and the demons of their past.
The Many Lives series is an epic paranormal action-romance series that traces the origin and love stories of one woman's illegitimate descendants; all united by the power of her infamous sword.
Read all Laxmi's books on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/author/laxmihariharan
Laxmi Hariharan is a New York Times bestselling author. Based in London, she's married to a filmmaker and fellow author. Join her list to get her starter library of books free here: http://smarturl.it/Laxmi
Cryptoscience
by Emily Mah
“TWENTY THOUSAND, that was the deal, mister.”
Joe Little had put on weight since I’d seen him last and was now wearing wire-rimmed glasses. Perhaps he thought it made him look smart. He stood, defensively, in front of the freezer chest.
We were in a barn off a dirt road that branched off a back road that didn’t join up with the state road for a good fifteen miles. In my line of work, I came to a lot of places like this, and the results were typically just as fruitless.
“Forget it,” I said. “I know you two.” I glanced around but saw no sign of James Little, Joe’s brother. He was near, though; these two always worked as a team. Usually they were snake oil salesmen, selling health remedies with benefits “not evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration,” but every now and then they wandered into cryptozoology, trying to sell everything from Sasquatch scalps to jackalope hides.
This time it was a dinosaur, and they’d promised a live one, but now Joe was claiming it had died and was in the freezer. Easier to fake up that way. They always used the same shtick that Joe was giving me now, the It’s-in-this-container-pay-before-you-look routine. Only he hadn’t explicitly said I had to pay to look.
A trifling deviation from their usual con. Perhaps they’d found a particularly good fossil and dumped it in a freezer for dramatic effect. I wasn’t sticking around to find out. I held up my hands to show I was unarmed and didn’t mean to cause trouble, because Joe was either the world’s best actor or really too thick to recognize me on what had to be our dozenth run-in. He never seemed to recognize me.
I backed away a few steps before turning around. The barn was empty save for some pigeons cooing in the rafters, barely audible above the sound of the gas-powered generator that kept the freezer going. The floor was dirt and sawdust and it was getting late enough that the light was soon going to fail. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time,” I hollered over my shoulder.
“You aren’t even going to look?” Joe asked, eyes widening as if he were actually surprised. “I’m telling you, this thing is real. A dinosaur, died only yesterday.”
I rolled my eyes. “See you around, Joe.”
“I told you we’d find something someday. Today’s the day!”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“You’re never gonna see it if you don’t look,” he whined, like a child told he couldn’t have ice cream for dinner.
The barn door was still open, my truck parked in plain view. Nobody challenged me as I got behind the wheel and started the engine.
I didn’t expect anyone to. Joe and James Little were hoaxers. They weren’t violent. They did their time in jail for fraud, not extortion or assault.
Now I had a long drive back to Cleveland with nothing to show for the day’s efforts. Man, was I tired of this routine. My truck chugged to life as if it was tired of it too. That felt like betrayal, and I all but shoved it into gear.
When I reached the first intersection, I saw a little blue compact ca
r in my rearview mirror. Two turns later, I began to wonder if it was following me, and when I made a series of illogical turns, it was beyond question. A blonde woman, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, stared right at my truck as she drove.
It took a few miles before I found a place to stop. A little roadside gas station with a diner attached, straight out of a 1950s television show. There were a few rusty trucks parked in front of it and I pulled mine right up next to them.
The little blue car slowed, turned, but didn’t pull into a spot. The woman chewed her lip, clearly torn about what to do.
I got out and walked right towards her, keeping my hands visible and my walk casual. She looked startled at first, then rolled down her window.
“I’m gonna have some coffee,” I said. “My treat if you want to join me.” I didn’t bother to look back at her as I went into the diner. I’d been up since five a.m. and needed the coffee.
She walked in just as the waitress was taking my order.
“She’s with me,” I said, jerking my head in her direction. “What do you want? Coffee? Or are you hungry?”
“Just coffee,” she said, perching herself on the stool next to mine. Despite her diminutive frame and very evident youth, she wasn’t as timid as I expected her to be. The waitress plonked two coffee cups down in front of us and filled them with steaming liquid straight from the carafe with one hand while pushing the cream and sugar down the bar to us with the other.
Seconds later, she had her back to us and we had some relative privacy.
“Can I help you?” I asked the blonde woman. It was hard not to think of her as a girl now that I saw her up close.
“What were you doing at that farm?”
“Getting swindled,” I said. “Guy there claimed he had a dinosaur to sell me.”
“So you’re Daryl McPhie, the cryptozoologist,” she said.
“I am.” I raised an eyebrow. “You part of the community?”
“My brother is.”
“Ah.”
“He’s on that farm.”
“He one of the Littles?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I was wondering if you could help me.”
“Probably not.”
If my answer offended her, she shook it off without a sign. “My brother was doing his doctorate in physics at Cornell when he started to have some problems. My guess is that he developed schizophrenia or some kind of schizotypal disorder. He started talking about seeing dinosaurs.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“He dropped out of his program and holed up at our family farm. He’s got a shed out there that’s like the set of A Beautiful Mind.”
“You can get him declared incompetent. Two doctors’ signatures and a court order and you can put him in treatment.”
“I know that…” She frowned down into her coffee.
“You just don’t want to do that. I get it, but you need to get him away from the Littles. They’re bad news. They pop up every few years claiming they’ve got dragon eggs or a mummified Sasquatch baby to sell. Sometimes they get away with it and sometimes they get hauled into court. But what they do doesn’t ever amount to enough to get them put away for any real time. You should get a restraining order.”
“How did you end up doing what you do?” she asked.
It wasn’t a question I wanted to answer anymore. The only reason I was still in the cryptozoology business was because sometimes when you get a certain distance down a road, it’s best to keep driving. The way back is too far to make in one lifetime.
“You’re not like a lot of the others,” she said.
“Who else have you met?” I asked.
“I’ve been on the internet.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. At least she joined in.
“The thing about my brother…” she said. “I’m not sure he’s a hundred percent crazy.”
“Few people are.”
“Things have been happening at the ranch. Birds have been dying in droves. I called the extension office about it and they ended up turning a bunch of the corpses over to the CDC.”
“So you’ve got an avian disease in the area.” I shrugged.
“Birds are the descendants of dinosaurs.”
“Pretty distant descendants.” My degree was in biology. I wasn’t accepted in the circles of conventional science, but my credentials bought me an occasional meeting with a professor or government agent. Like this girl’s brother, I wasn’t completely crazy either. I held it together well enough to live independently and write coherent articles on my search for creatures most considered mythical. Nobody cited me in peer reviewed journals, but I didn’t get lampooned in them very often either.
“You don’t think birds could get sick from diseases carried by dinosaurs?”
“It’s a theoretical question I can’t say I’ve thought about much,” I said. “Probably because I don’t think there are any dinosaurs around, diseased or otherwise.”
“Then why did you come out to the farm today?”
“I always check,” I said. “That’s what I do. People tell me their claims and I go investigate. I’m who the collectors and enthusiasts hire before they pay for whatever the dealers are selling. But I don’t deal with the Littles. I’m gonna say it again: you should call the authorities and get your brother in treatment.”
She slouched, as if my words had sucked the resolve straight out of her. She didn’t just seem young and alone then. She also seemed exhausted, careworn, and at the end of her tether.
“I’ll testify against them,” I said. “I’ve done it before.”
“Who sent you out to the farm?”
“I can’t reveal my client.” This time it had been a wealthy man from Toronto who was amassing a menagerie of “magical” creatures. He didn’t always follow my advice and had bought several animals with various genetic disorders, thinking they were new species, but he kept sending me ahead whenever he got a new offer, and he paid me well. This time, at least, the fact that the specimen was in a freezer would put him off. He wanted a live fake dinosaur, not a dead one.
“Is my brother safe?”
“From physical harm? Sure. The Littles won’t hurt him that way, but he’s being used in a fraudulent plot to sell a dinosaur, which will hurt him personally and legally.” I glanced at the time on my cellphone. “I need to get back,” I said. “But if you want to reach me, here.” I handed her my card.
She looked at it, then slipped it in her pocket. It felt wrong to leave her there, but what more could I do, really? I paid for our coffees and left. As soon as I got to my truck, I called the police and reported the Littles for trespass.
* * *
I didn’t make a habit of thinking too hard about my life anymore. Maybe I was ashamed of it, or maybe I’d spent enough time in my own company to have exhausted all the thoughts I might ever have. But as I drove back to Cleveland, my mind wouldn’t blank out like I wished it would. I knew I should have gotten that girl’s details, so I could at least tell her I’d gotten the ball rolling to get rid of the Littles.
I couldn’t help but wonder whether she had parents alive—I suspected she didn’t. Why else would the situation out on the farm have been able to escalate to the level it had? Did she spend her time just staked out at the property, watching weirdos like me come and go? Did she have any plan going forward? What did she expect to accomplish by talking to me?
As the miles rolled past, my mind began to answer that last question, a piece at a time. She’d followed me because I’d seemed less weird. I didn’t have a big crazy logo on the side of my truck or a full hunter’s getup. I didn’t have a visible gun rack. If she’d Googled my name, she would have found my Wikipedia page, which listed my degrees and the fact that I’d never been to jail, along with a bunch of lukewarm quotes from the cryptozoology community saying that I wasn’t a crook.
She’d followed me because she entertained the possibility that her brother wasn’t crazy, that he wa
s actually cloning dinosaurs or whatever. She wanted to talk to someone who could make a logical argument in support of it all.
In other words, she was starting down the same path I’d taken all those years ago, the one that began with “what if” and never ended because science disproved things rather than proved them. It was the reason I could never completely shut the door on my belief in cryptozoology. I couldn’t prove such creatures didn’t exist.
Poor kid. I knew I should have done something more for her.
By the time I was in the outskirts of the city, I was kicking myself. This situation with her was small and easily contained. I couldn’t disprove dinosaurs living today, but I could disprove that her brother had one.
Yeah, I’d screwed this up. It wasn’t my fault, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel responsible.
When my phone rang with an unfamiliar number, my heart soared as I answered. “Hello?”
“Mr. McPhie? Or… Dr. McPhie?”
“This dinosaur boy’s sister?”
“Yeah. My name’s Jennie. The police just escorted the Littles off our property. I’m guessing you called them?”
“You guessed right.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. This end it for you?”
“Um… sure.”
“Okay,” I said. “Fine. Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna find out what really has been going on with your brother.”
“I don’t think I can afford your rates.”
“This one’s off the clock.” This one was to prevent my conscience from bugging me about it. I made a U-turn at the next stoplight and headed back out to that farm.
* * *
When Jennie and I got there, at about eleven that night, there was no sign of her brother. The farmhouse was small, only two bedrooms, and they were both littered with junk food wrappers and water bottles. The kitchen had a propane stove that hadn’t been used in years, and a fridge that was a literal antique.
The Jurassic Chronicles (Future Chronicles Book 15) Page 19
