Primordia 3: The Lost World—Re-Evolution

by Greig Beck

  “There’s another one,” Drake said from behind him.

  Sure enough, staying still as a statue, another snake hung in the trees. Its weight even caused the titanic boughs to bend downward. If they could spot two, how many more were there? Ben wondered.

  It was too late for Chess, but he’d be damned if they’d lose anyone else. Fight or die, it was all they had. He racked his gun.

  “Take ‘em down.”

  Gunfire erupted from rifles, shotguns, and even Helen’s handgun. Then came the thunderous booms as Drake and Ben had now racked in the explosive Raufoss rounds. Helen had her teeth gritted, held her handgun in a two-handed grip, and fired continually up into the trees.

  The explosive rounds blew out bucket-sized chunks of scales and flesh, and the snakes went wild. The one that had just devoured Chess vomited, and the man’s body was ejected to the ground before them.

  “Aw, fuck me.” Shawna’s face twisted in horror as she glanced at it.

  Chess’ body was now about eight feet long, and nothing but a red and brown twisted mess of crushed flesh and pulverized bone. If the boots weren’t intact, it might have been hard to even recognize it as once being a human being.

  Drake fired, racked, and fired again, and the crack shot scored only once on the now thrashing monster. Leaves rained down on them like a ticker-tape parade.

  “Yeah!” Shawna yelled. “Come git some!” She also pumped and fired over and over.

  “Stop.”

  The voice was unfamiliar.

  “Please, just, stop.” The bedraggled skeleton ran into the center of their camp and pushed Drake’s gun up and away from its target.

  “Andy?” Helen’s mouth dropped open. “Andy?”

  Helen immediately dropped her gun hand, and Ben and Drake ceased firing, but Francis and Shawna kept punching out rounds at anything that moved in the upper canopy.

  “Just please stop, now.” He held his hands together as if he was begging.

  “Andy.” Helen smiled through her pain. “We came…”

  She went to cross to him, but Ben held out an arm. “Why?” Ben scowled and kept his gun pointed at the thrashing monsters. “Why not kill them?”

  “Why the fuck? They killed Chess.” Shawna blasted again.

  “Stop!” Helen shouted. “Hear him out.”

  “Hold fire!” Ben yelled. “For now.”

  Francis ceased firing, and then Shawna did, but took the time to reload.

  “Andy’s going to tell us why. Right, Andy?” Ben said and stared hard at the giant snakes one last time.

  One of them hung in the trees with huge holes in its body, and both of them leaked fluid that rained to the ground. The other Titanoboa withdrew, but wasn’t in a much better state.

  Andy watched it withdraw back into the massive trees, and then exhaled and shook his head. Ben dragged his gaze away to face Andy.

  “Welcome back, son.”

  “Ben.” Andy turned. “Drake.” He then faced his sister and smiled weakly. “Helen, I knew you’d come. I missed you so much.” He went to her.

  She hobbled to meet him and hugged his skin-and-bones frame. He returned the hug and she grimaced.

  “Oof.” She held him at arm’s length. “You look like hell.”

  “No worse than he did.” Andy nodded at Ben.

  “Bullshit.” Drake grinned.

  “This toothless old bag of bones is Andy Martin?” Shawna blew air through pressed lips. “You can keep that diet.”

  “You don’t seem that surprised to see me,” Andy said.

  “We knew you’d be alive. We’ve felt it,” Drake said. “You must have got lucky.”

  “Pfft.” Andy waved it away. “Ben survived by using his Special Forces survival skills and a lot of luck. But I survived because I know dinosaurs and their environment. No luck involved for me, just scientific deductive reasoning.”

  “Modest as always.” Helen smiled. She then looked into his straggly bearded face. “So why not kill the snakes?”

  Andy turned to look at the single bleeding corpse of the snake hanging limp now in the tree. “That was a full-grown male. The other one was a female of breeding age; it’ll probably die of its wounds as well.” He sighed. “I think it’s already too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Ben asked.

  “We could never work out why they went extinct. After all, other large snakes survived, their prey survived, and they could even tolerate cooler climates.” Andy gave Helen a crooked smile. “We did it, we small group of arrogant humans. We killed them off. Us, right here…and maybe 10 years ago as well.”

  Andy looked up at the mutilated corpse in the tree again that now seemed deflated. “This plateau was where they lived and survived, and for all we know, those two were the last breeding pair.”

  Drake grunted. “I’m not sorry to see those things canceled out of history.”

  “Yeah, who gives a fuck?” Shawna snorted. “Nature boy just wants to let them eat us.” She pointed at the disgusting mass of pulp that used to be Chess. “Tell that to my buddy there.”

  Andy shook his head. “It’s too late anyway. What’s done is done.”

  “We’re not too sure about that. We’ve just got to make sure that no more things are changed.” Ben nodded toward the female merc first. “That’s Shawna, over there, and the big guy is Francis. The rest you know.”

  Francis nodded and Shawna just stared.

  “You came back to see me.” Andy grinned. “And I came to see you. I really missed you, sis. I’ve got so much to tell you, and if you let me, so much more to show you.”

  “Yeah, we came to see you. But here’s the thing, Andy.” Ben cradled his gun. “Every time we came back, we changed something. You said that we killed off the snakes, but we think there’s a lot more than that. Somehow you being here, and something you’ve done, are doing, or will do, are making catastrophic changes to the future.”

  “What? I don’t believe that.” Andy shook his head, but his forehead creased, as he seemed to think on it.

  “True, son,” Drake said evenly. “We need to bring you home. Stop the re-evolution effects. Stop what’s happening.”

  Andy frowned. “What’s happening? What are you talking about?”

  “Things are changing, Andy,” Helen said. “Creatures that shouldn’t be in our timeline are appearing. And others are vanishing.”

  “It’s bad, real bad,” Drake said.

  Andy shook his head. “I only came to see Helen. But that’s all. Anyway, time is set in stone; it’s all too late. Don’t you see? What has happened has already happened… 100 million years ago.”

  “Not from now it’s not,” Ben said. “You need to come home.”

  “This is my home now.” Andy raised his voice and pointed at the ground.

  “Gluck.”

  “And his home too.” Andy opened his bag, and then grinned into it. “He thinks I’m his dad.” He lifted free the tiny pterosaur, and let it perch on his shoulder. “It’s our home.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Shawna shook her head. “He’s even got a dino-parrot.”

  “No, Andy, nothing is yet set in stone,” Ben said. “We don’t know if you live for another week, a year, 10 years, or how many. But you do something or some things that alter our future world. It’s going insane back there. We’ve all seen it.”

  “Me?” Andy narrowed his eyes, and then pointed to the dead snake in the tree. “Are you blind? Look at that; it’s already way too late.”

  “Please, Andy, you have to come.” Helen’s voice was small. “You have to.”

  Andy rubbed both hands up through long straggly hair. “Then maybe I was wrong. Time is changeable.” His eyes shimmered with tears, but his vision seemed turned inward. “Maybe time is like a road with a million invisible intersections, and our travels along it are influenced by events, choice, and luck.” He took a few steps toward the snake and stared at the carcass as he spoke. “Some of the roads run parallel and o
thers diverge greatly. If we were to go back and choose another, then our lives, and perhaps millions of others, would be vastly different.” He turned back. “I don’t care; what’s done is done. I’m not going with you.”

  Ben sighed and looked up at the break in the canopy over their heads. The eyebrow streak was moving away to the west now, and the rain had started to fall again. A wind was whipping up all around them. Time was running out, and they needed to be gone in a few hours.

  “I disagree.” He looked back to Andy, and let his eyes flick to Drake. Ben had no doubt his friend knew exactly what was at stake. “But that all doesn’t matter anymore.” Ben shook his head slowly. “I came back here, left my wife and kid, dragged these poor souls with me, put these lives at risk, even damned lost lives, just to be here and bring you home.” His gaze was level. “Or to stop you.”

  Shawna raised her gun. “Fuck him. Take him back or take him down.”

  “Don’t you dare.” Helen looked about to run at her, but instead her eyes went wide.

  “Shut up, Shawna.” Ben turned to her. “Let me deal…”

  “Huh?” Ben spun one way then the other, but she was gone. Her gun lay on the ground, but the female mercenary was nowhere to be seen.

  “Fuck, no, no, no.” Drake pointed. “Did you see…?”

  “Where’d she go?” Andy frowned.

  Helen held her hands out to her brother. She still held her gun. “Please, please, Andy, do you see now? The changes are accelerating, and moving up the species to the more complex and sophisticated organisms. It’s reached us now—human beings. We’re disappearing, changing; we must hurry.”

  Helen stepped toward him, but Andy just stepped back. “You know more than anyone else what happens when you weaken or remove the top animals in the species dynamic—something else rises to take its place.”

  “Shawna doesn’t exist anymore, Andy,” Ben said evenly, as he gently drew his handgun. “Because in this new timeline, she never existed in the first place.”

  “This is a trick.” Andy folded his arms. “And it won’t work.”

  “Who’s Shawna?” Francis tilted his head. “What’s a trick?”

  “Only we can see it; those who originally came back into the distortion zone. No one else.” Helen held her head. “It’s still happening; so we didn’t change anything.”

  “Then stay here with me.” Andy took a few steps toward her. “Don’t go back. If the world is crap back there, then stay here with me in paradise.”

  “Paradise? Are you insane?” Drake’s jaw jutted as he glared at the bedraggled young man. “We might all cease to exist; the entire human race. And you-fucking-too.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Andy’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe not.”

  “You idiot; that means Helen too. Eventually, it’ll get to all of us.” Drake glared.

  Helen sighed and looked down at the ground. “You have to come. Have to.” She looked up. “We don’t have a choice; you don’t have a choice.”

  “What?” Andy’s brows knitted together. “What does that mean?”

  “It means we didn’t come all this way to take no for an answer,” Drake said flatly. “You’re coming with us, son. One way or the other, you’re not staying.”

  “You can’t make me.” Andy began to back up.

  Ben brought his gun around. “There’s too much at stake, Andy. I don’t want to kill you, but I’ll sure as hell cripple you if you try and run.”

  Andy turned. “Helen?”

  She remained stony-faced.

  “Gluck, gluck, gluck.” The small pterosaur was becoming agitated on his shoulder.

  Andy reached up to pat it. “It’s okay, they won’t hurt me.” He then grabbed it and it let him tuck it into his bag. He brought his hands together. “Please stay, Helen.” Andy was right in front of her now.

  Ben and Drake closed in behind him, and Francis also edged in tighter.

  Andy glanced over his shoulder at the three men, and then turned back to his sister. “Please, Helen; I have so much to show you. So much left to do and see—the birth of continents, inland seas populated by wondrous creatures, and valleys that sprout dinosaur necks rising three stories into the sky. You’ll love it here; it truly is a paradise.”

  “No, it’s not, Andy,” she said softly. “And you having so much left to do is what we’re worried about.”

  Andy shot out a hand and ripped the gun from her fingers.

  “No.” Helen lunged at him, but he pushed her away. He turned and aimed at Ben’s chest.

  “Please don’t make me do this, Ben.” He continued to back up.

  Drake lifted his gun, but Ben waved it down. “I know, kid, everything seems mixed up. But we can make this right.” Ben held out his hand. “Come home. With your sister.”

  Andy glanced up. Above them, the clouds swirled and began to boil. Wind whipped the branches all around them.

  “I could make you all stay, you know. It’d be easy; just keep you from climbing down for another few hours.” He grinned, showing a few missing teeth.

  The huge form of Francis loomed in from the side, and Ben continued to walk forward, hand out. “Won’t work; I know you won’t shoot anyone.”

  Andy still had the gun up, and the barrel wobbled. He backed up another step. “Will if I have to. Just wound you.”

  He took another step back, his heel jammed against a log, and Andy fell backward.

  Ben and Drake lunged.

  The gun discharged, and Francis dived.

  The bullet took the big mercenary square in the chest, and when he hit the ground, he stayed down. Andy’s face was one of alarm and horror, and Helen screamed.

  Ben rushed to the big mercenary and lifted his head. “Stay calm, I got you.” He looked down at the wound. It bubbled and popped—into the lungs, a sucking wound as they called it. Survivable, but not when you’re in the heart of the Amazon jungle, Ben thought depressingly.

  “You’ll be fine,” Ben said.

  Francis chuckled wetly. “You’re a good guy, Ben Cartwright. But a crap liar.” He grimaced and there was blood on his teeth. “I know a bad hit when I feel one.” He looked up. “And I’m a long way from home.”

  Francis’ eyes became unfocused. “A long way from home…”

  As Ben held him, he became blurry and indistinct, like he was in an old photograph, and then he simply wasn’t there. Ben was left cradling thin air.

  Ben looked to Drake, whose shoulders slumped. He slowly got to his feet and turned to Andy. The young man stared back, his mouth hanging open as he looked from Ben to Helen, and then to Drake.

  “I didn’t do that.” He shook his head. “I didn’t do that.” He turned and began to run.

  CHAPTER 48

  8 Hours Past Comet Apparition

  Comet P/2018-YG874, designate name Primordia, was pulling away from the third planet to the sun to continue on its eternal elliptical voyage around our solar system.

  The magnetic presence that had dragged at the planet’s surface, caused chaotic weather conditions, and created a distortion in time and space, was lessening in intensity by the seconds, and in just a few more hours would vanish completely.

  The clock was ticking down, and soon there would be another 10 years of calm over the mountaintops of the Venezuelan Amazon jungle.

  CHAPTER 49

  Eagle Eye Observatory, Burnet, Texas—End of Comet Apparition

  “Predictive position plotting now gives us a 99.9999% chance of collision.” Jim Henson stared into the viewing piece of the 12.5-inch Newtonian reflector. The massive steel tube was pitted with rust spots on the outside but inside the highly polished glass lenses and mirrors, plus large view aperture, still gave the man crisp images of the solar system, and the astral events as they were unfolding.

  Andy Gallagher’s hands were a blur over his keyboard. “All cameras online, and NASA, Alma, Arecibo, and just about every other observatory in a prime observational sphere are watching.” He looked up
at his friend. “This is big.”

  “Landfall impact?” Henson turned.

  “Possible, but unlikely.” Gallagher watched his screen, but his hands fidgeted like a schoolboy before an exam.

  Henson shook his head. “What happens when a baseball hits a bowling ball—when both are basically chunks of iron moving at hundreds of feet per second?”

  “Sparks—celestial sparks.” Gallagher giggled. “But seriously, two outcomes are suggested: one, we have a pinball effect. Both are deflected and follow alternate paths. Two: one or both are destroyed.”

  “And right in our solar system.” Henson grabbed his oversized cup of coke and sucked on the straw. He burped and went back to his computer. “Hang onto your hats, boys and girls, this is going to be the biggest show in town.”

  CHAPTER 50

  “The shitty thing about luck is, it eventually runs out.”

  Ben and Drake threw caution to the wind and went hard after Andy. They leapt across fungi-laden logs, skirted weird, hairy tree trunks, and dodged a herd of small, grazing herbivore dinosaurs with barrel-like bodies and squashed beaks that made them look like flat-faced parrots.

  “The guy’s a fucking gazelle,” Drake puffed as they pursued Andy deeper into the jungle.

  Rain pelted down and Ben held up a hand, slowed, and then stopped. Drake came in beside him, and while Ben looked down at the mud, he kept his back to his friend so he could keep watch on the undergrowth.

  Ben looked up and squinted into the downpour. “Still going fast; that way. Can’t let him get away now.” He took off again.

  In another second, the pair broke out into a clearing.

  “Ah, shit.” The first thing Drake saw was what looked like a bunch of kangaroos crossing the open space 100 yards further down from them. But then the pack swung toward them and immediately became excited by the pair of bipeds running across the clearing. Frills opened at their necks, tiny arms opened wide, showing rudimentary feathers hanging underneath, and then the six-foot-tall theropods opened jaws lined with needle teeth and hissed loudly enough to carry over the downpour. They charged.