No Time For Dinosaurs

by John Benjamin Sciarra

  “Oh my goodness!” exclaimed Teresa. “What…what…is it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kyle. “But have you ever seen anything like it?”

  Cautiously, they approached the strange object examining it up and down.

  “How did you turn it on?” asked Sonja as she touched the liquid. It was just...there, as if it hung in thin air. A ripple shimmered through the liquid and it moved counter-clockwise. Sonja pulled her hand back frightened.

  “Turn what on? It was like this when I came in.”

  “No, not this. All the computers. They came on all at once and the fluid began to glow brighter and started to move through the tubes.”

  “I swear I didn’t touch anything,” he said putting his hands on the gel surrounding the fluid. “Feel it. It’s…cool to the touch. Like…cold Jell-O. Maybe you should taste it, Teresa. Maybe it’s a giant lime Jell-O mold. Your favorite!”

  Teresa ignored him. She and Sonja were too busy brushing their hands across the gel. They were fascinated how it appeared to respond to their touch, shimmered and moved.

  As Kyle was exploring the gel, he noticed that the air smelled familiar—like the air after a thunderstorm. “Ozone.”

  “What?”

  “Ozone. Don’t you smell it? Like after a thunderstorm. It smells just like it.” As he continued to explore with his hands, he suddenly felt the gel part. It actually opened up to let his hand through.

  Teresa and Sonja watched in horror as Kyle disappeared into the cylindrical object.

  “Kyle!” screamed Teresa. “Kyle!”

  Kyle emerged two seconds later.

  “Now that was weird! If you think it’s strange out here, you should take a look from inside. There’s some kind of camera setup. It’s really something. Come on. Take a look.”

  Kyle disappeared back into the capsule. The girls could just barely make out a shadowy figure inside waving at them.

  Sonja pushed her hand into the fluid to test it and, before she knew what happened, she was inside with Kyle. He was busy inspecting a camera seated on a tripod in the middle of the device. The capsule itself wasn’t very large, maybe four feet in diameter. The top of the dome was about ten feet high. In the center, over the top of the tripod, the brilliant light shimmered outward and, like streams of water, converged into the gel on the side of the cylinder.

  “What is this thing?” asked Sonja.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. It looks like our dads are trying to videotape something, but I can’t figure out what it is they are supposed to be filming. There’s nothing in here.”

  Teresa popped through the opening. “I'm not staying outside by myself. It's getting noisy out there.”

  “Noisy? How noisy? What do you mean, noisy?” asked Kyle, suddenly concerned.

  “It sounded like...music, but not like a song or anything.”

  “Well, what exactly did it sound like?”

  “Like a hundred violins playing all at once. It was kind of pretty, but it kept getting louder.”

  “Maybe our fathers are just listening to an orchestra,” stated Sonja not really believing it.

  Kyle looked deep in thought for a moment. “What would sound like music and go with all this weird stuff?” Then it dawned on him what it might be. “Harmonics.”

  “What?” Asked Sonja.

  “It’s not like a harmonica. It’s like I said. Violins!” said Teresa.

  “I said harmonics, toad breath. Harmonics like in—oh. Oh, no. Uh…I think we better get out of here—now!”

  Kyle squeezed past Teresa and pushed on the fluid-like door but it didn’t part like before. Now it felt solid.

  “Uh oh.”

  A look of panic flashed across both the girls’ faces as the wall began to move. Slowly at first. Then it began to pick up speed. They could hear the music now—like the sound of a hundred violins in perfect harmony.

  ***

  “Okay, Paul, ready for launch. Is the camera set to auto?”

  “Yes, David. I set it myself. Launch sequence initiated. Harmonics set to fifty percent.”

  “Once we launch, we better get back and check on the children. If I know my son, he won’t sit still for long. Thanks for letting me know the capsule returned. It was gone, what...twenty days, right?”

  “Correct, Dr. David. You really think the image is a dinosaur?”

  “Either that, or a zoo with very strange animals. It was hard to tell through the gel. Something was there. That’s for sure. There’s no way to tell how far back it went. It could be anytime. Any time, but not any place. The capsule can’t move. It should be right where it is now, but it emerged somewhere in time.”

  “Essentially correct. I guess we will never know until we send a person. But we do not know...we just do not know if they will survive.”

  “Let’s go check on the kids. The capsule should be gone by now. Shut the sequence down.”

  “Sequence off. Okay, let us go.”

  Chapter Four

  Three frightened children watched as the walls began to spin faster and faster. The music rose in volume and pitch. Pulses of blue lightning rained down on top of the dome seemingly propelling the gel to greater velocity. The walls shifted forward revealing gigantic radar-like objects protruding outward. Sound waves vibrated from the cones and bombarded the domed cylinder with ear-shattering music.

  Kyle yelled above the noise, “Cover your ears and close your eyes!”

  The girls did as the older and wiser Kyle suggested. No matter how hard they squeezed their ears and closed their eyes, the sound got through. Louder and louder. Climbing and climbing, the intensity so strong until they didn’t think they could take it any longer. The walls spun faster and faster. The green gel shimmered and evaporated into what looked like water. Then it turned light blue and then all of the colors of the rainbow. The colors pulsated up and down, up and down. The spinning and music went on for what seemed like hours. Teresa screamed. Then everything stopped.

  Kyle opened his eyes. The walls were solid again and semi-transparent green. Through the translucent walls, he watched a strange light flash outside. He thought he heard the distant sound of thunder. The girls were still standing there with their eyes squeezed tight and their fingers stuck in their ears. Kyle tapped Teresa on the shoulder and she slowly took her hands away and opened her eyes. Her teeth were clacking and she was shaking from head to toe. Her eyes looked drawn and hollow. Kyle reached over and tapped Sonja’s shoulder.

  “Are…we…s…s…still alive?” asked Sonja.

  Teresa, responding to Sonja’s voice nervously asked, “Where are we?”

  “More like, when,” answered Kyle far too calmly. He scratched his head as if he were trying to understand what had happened.

  “When?” asked Teresa. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, if I had to guess. I’d say we just went back in time.”

  A noise inside the capsule caused them all to jump. The camera came on and began to pivot slowly. Teresa jumped in front of it.

  “Dad? Help! We’re here! Can you see us?” yelled Teresa into the camera frantically.

  Kyle chided, “Why do you always have to ham it up whenever there’s a camera around?”

  “Stop fooling around, Kyle. We’re stuck in here and all you can do is make fun of me.”

  “Sorry,” he said as he turned to Sonja. “It’s an addiction, you know. I’ve been to counseling, but I just can’t seem to give it up.”

  Despite the severity of their situation, Sonja couldn’t help but giggle.

  “Will you two get serious? Maybe our dads can see us...Dad, help!” Teresa had turned back toward the camera. “We’re in here with Kyle. It’s his fault. You should ground him...”

  “For what? A million years? We could be hundreds—even thousands of years in the future...or the past.”

  “Don’t say that, Kyle. Stop all this nonsense about time travel. You’re just trying to scare me. There’s no such
thing and you know it.”

  Kyle turned to Sonja. “What kind of scientist is your father?”

  “He is a quantum physics theorist. I am not at all certain what that means, though.”

  “I read some books on that. When I heard the sound of the violins and looked at all the fluid starting to move, I thought we might be in some kind of a time travel device.”

  Teresa asked, “What does the music have to do with time machines? That’s so stupid!”

  “And Dad thinks that you’re the smart one? Let me see if I can explain it in a way a genius…like yourself, for instance…might understand. Scientists think that inside every little particle in the universe there’s a little thread of magnetic electricity. These…strings—at least I think that’s what they’re called—are supposed to vibrate like music. Just like the sound of the violins. Everyone knows that.”

  “Not everyone,” said Sonja. She was becoming infatuated with Kyle. “I do not think many adults know what string theory is.”

  “Oh come on. You mean you actually know what my dumb brother is talking about?”

  “I heard my father talking about it to my mother once. She is a physicist, too. But she does not agree with my dad. They have arguments all the time. My mom thinks Einstein’s theory is correct and my dad keeps trying to convince her that you need both theories. I don’t understand much about it. But Kyle may be right.”

  “What? Am I the only sane one here?” asked Teresa.

  “I would argue that point,” quipped Kyle with a smirk.

  “You mean, we’ve really, really, like, gone back in time? You can’t be serious?” Teresa turned and immediately started yelling into the camera again. “Dad! Help! We’re stuck in here! Get us out!”

  “Shhhh,” whispered Kyle. “Listen.”

  In the background, they heard a loud THUD…THUD…THUD! The bottom of the capsule shook with each sound; and, it was coming closer and closer.

  “Is that…thunder?” asked Teresa.

  “That’s not thunder,” said Kyle with an uncharacteristic look of fear for the first time that day.

  ***

  Dr. Donavan and Dr. Bashan ran around the lab frantically trying to find the children. When they had gone to the lounge, there was no sign of them. They searched the halls and ran to the cars. They ran back into the building and looked all over the lab. Now they were both standing in front of the empty space where the capsule had been. A shimmering shadow remained in the space, a consequence of the time distortion left by the capsule. It was what allowed it to return and was completely random when it happened. They could send it, but they had no control to bring it back. At least not yet.

  “They could not have gone in the capsule. It is impossible!”

  Dr. Donavan, however, knew his son all too well. He had gotten in trouble getting into places he shouldn’t have been able. Despite Kyle’s grades, Dr. Donavan knew his son had great potential. He just had no idea how to channel all that energy and curiosity. He looked around the floor and found a glove.

  “Oh my goodness, they are in the capsule!”

  “What? How could that be? That is impossible.” Despite his protestations, the color was gone from Dr. Bashan’s normally tan-looking skin.

  “This glove. It’s inside out.”

  “Yes, yes,” Dr. Bashan agreed excitedly. “And what exactly does that mean?”

  “I’m guessing Kyle used it to gain access to the capsule. How on earth he got the girls to follow…” As he looked down near the distortion, he, too, looked pale. There on the floor was half a shoestring, a bright pink shoestring. “This…this shoestring…It’s Teresa’s.”

  “The other half…where is it?” asked Dr. Bashan.

  The odd thing about it was that only half of the string was visible, while the other half disappeared into the distortion field. Dr. Donovan reached down and tried to pull on it, but it wouldn’t budge. It was almost as if it wasn’t there. He stood back up and looked at Dr. Bashan. “How long was the capsule gone the last time?”

  “Twenty days. What are we going to do?”

  “Let’s not panic.”

  “Not panic? My wife is going to panic. That means I must panic. We must find a way to get them back. We are in serious trouble!”

  “How? We have no control over it. When the harmonics slow down enough, the capsule will slip back. We haven’t a clue how long that’s going to take. We don’t even know where it is?”

  “Then we must find out. Let us go back and see the tape again. Maybe it will give us more ideas about what is on the tape. Maybe it will tell us where they are—if they are…”

  Chapter Five

  Kyle squinted through the green gel to get a better look. The thumping was so close it caused the capsule to jump. Teresa continued her monologue with the camera hoping that somehow her dad might be able to see her. She couldn’t have known it at the time, but it would help.

  The thumping stopped. Whatever was out there was standing next to the capsule. All Kyle could see was an immense shadowy blob hovering over the top. All became eerily quiet. Even Teresa stopped talking and listened; her eyes were as wide as saucers. Sonja moved next to Kyle. He stepped away.

  A distinct rumble of thunder resonated through the ground and the gel shimmered. Overhead, a crackle of lightning split the dark sky and illuminated the shadow. Kyle gulped as he got a clear look at what was outside. The girls only saw the look in Kyle’s eyes and that was enough to scare them. They both screamed.

  ***

  Dr. Donavan sat at the computer and watched as the numbers scrolled across the screen. He desperately tried to pinpoint how similar the harmonics were to the previous trip. He hoped that by doing so he’d be able to calculate when the capsule would return.

  Time, he thought. We don’t even know what it is and here we are messing around with it. Dr. Donavan wasn’t even sure if they had gone anywhere. Maybe they had simply phased out of existence and back in—kind of like Star Trek’s transporter. The camera had come back in one piece, but compared to a human, a camera was a simple device. Humans are infinitely more complex.

  The numbers stopped scrolling and a figure came up on the screen. It has to be wrong.

  ***

  Dr. Bashan tried to improve the picture on the film from the camera. He could barely make out an image, but he couldn’t determine what it was—the resolution was too grainy. But something was there and it was alive, because it appeared to be moving. He thought it might be some kind of animal, but nothing came to mind. He hit the rewind button and adjusted the resolution to add more pixels—more pinpoints of color to improve the clarity. Then he pressed PLAY again. There it is again. It has to be an animal! He rewound it again and, this time, moved it frame-by-frame until the picture froze on the image. He adjusted the contrast a little more, then a little more while holding his breath.

  Dr. Donavan peeked over Dr. Bashan’s shoulder and the film shuddered.

  “Oops. Sorry. I just wanted to see if you were making any….”

  Suddenly the picture snapped into focus. They stared at it in disbelief.

  “H…h…how long did the calculations say they will be gone this time?”

  Dr. Donavan gulped. “Fifty or sixty years.”

  They looked at each other. “That…must be wrong. It has to be or…”

  Chapter Six

  Whatever it was outside the capsule ran away when the girls screamed. They all sat down completely exhausted and leaned against the cool surface of the gel. Kyle hadn’t realized it before, but the gel was the only thing between them and whatever was outside. In the darkness of night, he couldn’t be sure where the door opening was located, or even if he wanted to know. No one talked. Then they fell asleep.

  When they awoke, they had no idea how much time had passed. Kyle chuckled despite himself. Time, he thought, echoing the words of his father without realizing it. What is it anyway?

  All was eerily quiet outside. The whirring of the camera stopped hou
rs ago; it ran out of film. Kyle moved it aside to give them more room. He paced.

  “How long have we been asleep?” asked Sonja stretching as she stood up. There was little hint of an accent like her father's although there was a hint of her heritage in her lack of using contractions like “don’t” or “can’t.” Sonja was born in the United States in New York. Now they lived in a Boston, Massachusetts suburb—Natick—a busy little city in its own right. Neither Kyle nor Teresa had ever met her before today. Her parents wouldn’t let her attend school for fear of becoming overly Americanized. Unsuccessfully. Instead, she was home-schooled.

  In contrast, Kyle and Teresa were fair-skinned Irish descendants with a little Spanish from their mother’s side. Teresa’s hair was auburn with a hint of reddish scarlet. She had a face full of freckles. Kyle had dirty blond hair that seemed to propel itself in a hundred different directions all at the same time. At fourteen, he finally broke free of his mother’s grease gun and let his hair do whatever it wanted. His hair was a little like his personality—free and wild.

  Kyle hated school. It was boring. Teachers made him do the same simple equations over and over again. He’d tell them he understood, but they wouldn’t believe him. So, he stopped trying to convince them. He much preferred to read and learn things on his own.

  ***

  Teresa was reluctant to get up. She put her hand in front of her mouth and breathed while trying to sniff at the same time.

  “What are you doing? There’s nobody here going to care what your breath smells like, dragon girl.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That…thing outside the capsule last night? I think it was a dinosaur of some kind.”

  Teresa jumped up and tried to feel her way around the gel. Kyle saw the panic in her eyes and was instantly sorry he had said that. He knew this was no time to fool around.