No Time For Dinosaurs

by John Benjamin Sciarra

  Kyle looked at the screens to either side. They, too, had similar music scales. “Are these scales harmonics to the scales on that computer?”

  “Very good! That’s exactly right. You are quick for such a young man.”

  “I think it has to do with the time capsule. I listened to the harmonics. I came from the past, you know.”

  “Yes, I’m well aware of that.”

  “I guess you would be. You probably know my sister, too? Of course you do. This is a mirror world of some sort, isn’t it? It’s a distortion of the future. Did it happen when I brought Priti back?” The little dinosaur curled up at Kyle’s feet completely exhausted.

  “Whoa. Slow down. This is going to take some explaining. You’ve been through a lot in a short amount of time.” The professor laughed again.

  “That’s kind of irritating…sir. You keep laughing. What’s the joke?”

  “I’m sorry. I get like that. Must be my old age. When I mentioned time, I remembered that you probably don’t understand the concept. For you, only a few days have passed. For the rest of us, like Sonja and Teresa, time has passed rather slowly. We have lived entire lives in this strange world because of what you have done.”

  “You mean, bringing Priti back, don’t you?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Come with me and I’ll try and show you what time is all about.”

  Kyle and the professor went back down the stairs and, instead of going out the front where Kyle had come in; they turned down a long corridor and went out the back door into a beautiful garden. It was dark outside which surprised Kyle. He didn’t think a full day had passed already. It should have been noon.

  “You see that star there? The bright one?”

  “Yeah. That’s Deneb. It’s in the tail of the swan. Cygnus, I think. “

  “That’s right. I knew you would know that. How far away is it?”

  “Beats me. I never paid that much attention. I mean, I know the names of the stars and all the constellations. But I really don’t like math all that much.”

  “Some 1400 light years away. You will eventually know that and more. I promise you that. Now, do you see that little point of light just in the upper right hand corner there…at about one o’clock?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what star that is, though. I mean there’s what, millions of them?”

  “Actually, you are looking at about a billion stars right there. That’s not a star at all, but…”

  “A galaxy!”

  “Yes, your…father would have been impressed. That’s the Large Megellanic Cloud some 179,000 light years away. ”

  Somehow, that statement hurt Kyle deep inside. He felt overwhelmingly sad. The professor sensed it and apologized. “I’m sorry. I forget that all of this is very difficult for you, but that’s what I’m trying to explain. You’ll feel a lot better about this when you understand what is going on here. You see, that galaxy that you’re looking at is sixty five million years in the past. You are looking right into the time period you came from.”

  Kyle was confused more than ever before. His head was spinning and he felt as if he were going to pass out. Then he heard a loud screeching sound.

  “We need to get back inside. Right now!”

  ***

  The drifter fought with the reins and pressed the button of the distortion device repeatedly. It didn’t do any good. The creature was completely out of control and tried to reach back and eat his rider.

  “Drifter oh-nine-five report…ing…Can’t…get control…of this beast!”

  “What is your position, oh-nine-fiver?”

  “Research…dist…Ahhh! Get back, get back! Going down! Help! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  There was static and then silence. The controller stared at the speaker dumbfounded. It was the second call that night—all in the District of Research. Puzzled, he picked up the orange com-link and pressed the button. “Sir, we have a serious problem in the District of Research. Two Terrors down. It doesn’t look good, sir.”

  The Commissioner wiped the sweat from his brow. “We have our hands full here, too. All of the Terrors are out of control and throwing their riders...and then eating them. This isn’t good. The boy is definitely here. If we don’t find him, that’s it. It’s over. For all of us.”

  The Commissioner paced back and forth. He was exceedingly old yet he didn’t look it. The harmonics had done something to his genetic structure many years earlier. It changed the structure of his subatomic makeup. The strings inside every one of his particles resonated and echoed with a new sense of strength because of the harmonics. But it had also warped his mind. Another call came in and interrupted his thoughts.

  “What is it now?” he said irritated.

  “We are getting reports from the Zone, sir. The T-Rex are out of control in some of the breeding colonies. They are not responding to disruptor beams either. We’re losing people.” There was a pause as the operator waited for a response. “Sir? What should I tell them?”

  “Tell them I’m on my way.”

  “Do you want a Terror readied?”

  “No. Get me my cruiser.”

  ***

  Kyle and the professor reached the door as one of the pterosaurs slammed into the ground and threw the drifter from his seat. He slumped over on the ground and the pterosaur bucked and jumped trying to loosen the saddle from his back. It screeched and snapped at the air like it was completely out of control. The massive wings beat the ground as the Terror turned and noticed the drifter get up and try to run. Too late, it chased him down and snapped him up. Kyle closed his eyes as the monster tore the man to pieces and ate him. He thought back to how close he had come from a similar fate days earlier.

  The pterosaur looked in the direction of Kyle and the professor. It screeched and pumped its wings as it lunged forward. Kyle and the professor dove through the door as the animal slammed into it and buckled the frame. Manically, it kept slamming its head against the door frame until blood began to spurt from its nose.

  “It won’t stop until it either kills itself or us!” yelled Kyle. “One tried to get me yesterday…or whenever it was. I don’t think they can feel pain.”

  “Let’s get upstairs,” said the professor. “Quick! I don’t think it can get up there. It’s too big.”

  Kyle followed the professor up the stairs. They heard a loud bang from below and then screeching. The pterosaur forced itself through the door and squeezed through the hallway. Halfway up the stairs, the animal’s head came under the railing and snapped at Kyle’s leg. Kyle lost his footing and fell to the bottom. The pterosaur turned as Kyle tried to get up but his leg caught in the bottom rung. The pterosaur lunged.

  ***

  Teresa and Sonja pressed themselves against the building as tightly as they could to hide from the pterosaur flying overhead. They heard screeching and loud heavy flapping of the wings and looked at one another questioningly.

  “What on earth…” said Sonja.

  “Look out and see what’s going on. It doesn’t sound right.”

  “You look out. I do not think I want to know.”

  Just then, something hit the ground in front of them with a loud thud. It startled the women and they jumped back against the wall. When the turned and looked down, there, curled up into a ball was a drifter and he was still alive. He looked up at the girls and reached out to them. “Help…me,” he said pathetically.

  Teresa looked at Sonja. “We cannot let him die? Can we?”

  Sonja seemed unsure. Something didn’t make sense; it didn’t seem right that he would just fall out of the sky like that. Teresa stepped out of the doorway and reached out for the drifter before Sonja could stop her. From high above, the pterosaur dove.

  Sonja screamed, “Teresa! Watch out!”

  The Pterosaur, his mouth open, scooped the drifter in his mouth and, at the same time, sent Teresa sprawling across the sidewalk. Sonja raced to her friend’s aid and dragged her back into the doorway.

>   “Are you okay? What on earth is going on? Have you ever seen anything like that?”

  Teresa rubbed her forehead. There was a small scratch and blood appeared. Sonja ripped a small swath of material from her sari and dabbed the area.

  “It’s the paradox, isn’t it?” asked Teresa.

  “So soon?”

  “Your husband said it might happen quickly. That’s why he wants Kyle to go back immediately. But we don’t even know where he is.”

  Before the girls could regain themselves, the pterosaur swooped by again. It turned in their direction and landed uncontrollably in the street. Its mouth was dripping with blood. The girls screamed as the animal raced across the street toward them.

  ***

  Crack! The sound was loud as the professor brought the heavy metal bar down onto the pterosaur’s head. It collapsed to the ground and moaned. The professor grabbed Kyle and helped him up.

  “My foot. It’s caught.”

  “Turn around so I can free your foot.”

  Kyle turned, but his foot had jammed through the railing when he fell. It was trapped. “Hurry. Get it loose. The pterosaur’s moving. I think he’s coming around.”

  “Well we can’t have that. The professor picked up the metal bar and raised it over his head. Before he could bring it down, the pterosaur jerked his head up and knocked the professor against the wall. The professor banged his head and slithered down the stairs past Kyle.

  “Oh man, this can’t be good.”

  Kyle yanked as hard as he could and slipped his foot out of his sneaker just as the pterosaur snapped down on the railing breaking off a couple of teeth. Kyle jumped back and then grabbed the professor by the arms and pulled him up the stairs as fast as he could. The pterosaur continued to bite down on the railing and screeched loudly as Kyle disappeared through the door at the top of the stairs. The pterosaur was trapped in the hallway and couldn’t move forward or backward. Its wings were pinned to the side of its body. It screeched in anger and frustration.

  ***

  The girls closed their eyes and screamed as the pterosaur opened its mouth to grab them. Thud! Something blurred past them and banged into the head of the animal crushing its skull in the process. Sonja slowly opened her eyes and shook Teresa.

  “Are we dead?” asked Teresa.

  “Worse,” answered Sonja. “It is…him.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Professor? Are you okay?”

  “Oww. My head hurts. What happened? Where’s the terror?”

  “Stuck in the hallway. I don’t think he can get up here. That was close. Thanks for saving me.”

  “Apparently, I should be thanking you. How did you get free?”

  “I slipped out of my sneaker. Now I have one sneaker on and that one is missing a shoestring. The other is downstairs next to Leviathan the Magnificent. I don’t seem to do well when it comes to footwear.”

  The professor rubbed his head. “I know what you mean. I have the same problem myself. I think we need to get you in the time capsule. And I mean now.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m guessing that having you back here with Priti has thrown the universe into a paradox. Do you know what that means?”

  The professor pulled himself up with Kyle’s help and sat on one the chairs next to the computer console. Kyle sat down on the other.

  “That the harmonics have been thrown into disharmony?”

  “Why yes. That’s right. It’s amazing that you know all of this. It took me about twenty years to figure it all out. Then again, you have the advantage of coming through the capsule. It does things to your mind. I, on the other hand, have never been in the capsule.”

  “Who are you, anyway?”

  “That’s not important right now. We must try and get you in the capsule.” Suddenly the professor looked around in a panic. “Where’s Priti?”

  Kyle had completely forgotten about her. He raced around the lab calling, “Priti? Priti? Where are you?”

  He opened the door to the stairway and yelled again, “Priti?” A screeching that hurt his ears was the only reply. Panic set in and Kyle raced back into the lab.

  “She’s not there! Did she come in with us when the pterosaur attacked us? Could it have gotten her?”

  “No. If the Terror got Priti, the paradox would be nearly instantaneous. She’s alive. We have to find her.”

  ***

  The pterosaur lay in a heap in front of the heavily armored vehicle. Pulses of energy threw dust out behind the vehicle thrusting it into the animal with such force; it crushed its skull on contact. The dark bubble that ran the length of the vehicle slowly raised with a whirring sound as it slid back and revealed the occupants although Teresa and Sonja had no doubt as to their identity: the Commissioner and two of his drifters. The drifters jumped out and grabbed the women.

  “Get in the cruiser, ladies. Long time no see,” seethed the Commissioner.

  Teresa just stared with loathing in her eyes mixed with confusion. She had conflicting feelings when it came to the Commissioner. They were thrown into the back seat between the two drifters as the bubble slid back over them and locked into place. The loud drumming of the photonic engine shuddered through the vehicle as it began to move effortlessly forward. The girls could feel the power as it thundered under them. The pulses of energy threw concentric rings of blue shimmering smoke out the back and the vehicle picked up speed.

  “Your brother? Where is he? I know he’s here.”

  “What do you want with him anyway? It’s not like you ever cared,” said Teresa defiantly.

  The Commissioner laughed. “We all knew he’d be back—eventually. It was always just a matter of…time.”

  “You never did quite understand Kyle, did you? He’s a lot brighter than you ever gave him credit.”

  “On the contrary. It was his doing that I am in the position of authority I now wield. And I am not about to lose that. You will try to send him back. However, I have…other plans for him. You see, if I can focus a disruptor beam on him, he will cease to exist. And then nothing will change whatsoever. I will put him in flux for eternity.”

  “You can not do that!” cried Sonja.

  “I can…and I will. You see…” Before the Commissioner could finish his sentence there was a loud explosion from the research district. A plume of fire and smoke billowed upward into the clouds as night fell for the second time that day.

  ***

  “It’s light out again,” observed Kyle. “Is this some…side effect of the paradox?”

  “Very likely it is. As I tried to explain to you before we were interrupted by the drifter, time isn’t what you think it is. You really can’t go backward or forward in time. It all has to do with our view of where we are in the cosmos.”

  “What on earth did you just say?”

  “Yes. Yes, on earth. Exactly. I know, you think you went back in time. But you didn’t. The past is fixed. What happened, happened and we can’t just go back and fix it.”

  Kyle was totally confused and stood there looking at the professor with his mouth open. If he didn’t go back in time, then how could he be in the future, he wondered?

  “What you are seeing and interacting with is the echoes of time. In effect, you went back to something that happened millions of years ago and brought back the echo of the past. If you hadn’t left the shoestring in the time capsule…”

  “I would have caused the paradox then, wouldn’t I?”

  “I believe so. I have no absolute proof of this. But my experiments show that a very small amount of matter left in flux can allow an object or a person to travel back and observe the echoes of…music, if you will, that continue to resonate throughout the universe.”

  “A small amount of matter? Like…a shoestring?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Wow. We could have been killed in that capsule if Teresa hadn’t dropped her shoestring.” Kyle’s eyes widened when he realized the impact of that statement. Then,
the moment of reflection was shattered by an enormous explosion from somewhere nearby.

  ***

  The cruiser accelerated to 120 miles per hour in the direction of the research district. The smoke stopped almost as quickly as it had begun and a small flame shot out the top of the roof of the building. The Commissioner picked up the handheld cell phone and depressed a button.

  “What’s going on?”

  A frantic voice came back on. “We’ve lost control of building 20. The Allosaurs are completely insane and smashing into everything. Nothing will stop them. The disruptors aren’t working—anywhere. We’ve switched to heavy artillery and that’s not working either, sir!” The sound of explosions could be heard in the background.

  “I’m a block away from 20 and I see the fire. Get the trucks out there.”

  “But sir…”

  “Just do it! If this spreads, we’ll lose the whole district! That’s an order.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The Commissioner ordered the two drifters out of the cruiser. “Take the device out of the back. It still works. Aim it at anything that moves out of the building.”

  “Yes sir!”

  The dome to the cruiser slid back over the vehicle and locked into place. Several popping sounds and an occasional explosion shot through the night outside. Flashes of light from artillery shells bursting in the distance lit the inside of the cruiser. The women could see something moving as the flashes illuminated several large shadows passing in front of the building. They were almost as tall as the building itself.

  The Commissioner threw the vehicle into reverse and accelerated to full throttle. The women were in shock. They wondered if the paradox was in full swing and their brother was lost already. The Commissioner turned around and looked at the women. Their mouths fell open when they looked at his face. Half of it was missing.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Two monsters appeared out of the dark and bore down on the cruiser. Unknown to the occupants, the cruiser was attracting them. Like beagles on the trail of a fox, they chased the cruiser down the street in front of the buildings. Their weight and the power of the chase left cracks in the pavement as they ran. The power source of the supercharged vehicle was quickly fading. At full throttle, they could only manage 40 miles per hour—easily attainable by the Allosaurs.