Aggy and the Dinos

Chapter 3

Earlier that day, before he was verbally assaulted by an intern for walking around his own building, Evergreen had watched another attempt at his experiment failing. Usually when an experiment had failed (his tutor at university had told him that there were no failures, only opportunities for learning, although Evergreen disagreed) he would experience an awful tight, nauseous sensation, and would feel out of sorts for some while. This time he felt calm. He felt that it was ok, for this one to have failed, because he had planned it to. The power was off, the brief window of opportunity for causing a great deal of trouble had closed. He went through the rest of his day at ease, feeling desperately glad that the whole affair had come to a close. He didn't even mind when Jacobsen had bollocked him for merely entering a room. Now it was the evening, and he was waiting for his wife.

The dining room was small, probably marketed as 'intimate', and filled with the sound of expensive people eating expensive food off of expensive plates. Do not confuse this with bad press for upmarket restaurants, for it is a very fine sound indeed, in moderation, though for Julian Evergreen it was as though he was hearing the ambience of champagne on crystal for the very first time. He sat back in his chair, champagne flute tilted to catch the light of the candles, which were strategically placed in order to make everyone in the room appear more attractive. He was a free man. The atmosphere was ruined slightly by his wife's arrival. She gave him a penetrating look as her glass was filled by the ghost of a waiter.

"Well?" She said.

"My dear," he drawled, putting his hand on the back of her chair and chinking their glasses. "To our future."

She put a hand to her chest theatrically.

"Are you telling me that it's finally working, Jonathan?"

"Quite the opposite, my dear. I have proved it impossible to produce a Dinosapien hybrid, much less to clone them. We are free from the great folly of our age, free to pursue other scientific goals together. Put the matter from your mind, and let us imagine new possibilities." He leaned in to kiss her cheek, but her hand pushed him away.

"What do you mean, free? Why isn't it working?" She hissed. Jonathan put his glass down forcefully, regretting that they had never bothered with children. If she had a few little brats to run after and worry about, she would not be so fixated on creating a bastard monster clone.

"The real question is - why do you want it to?" He replied loudly.

"Will you keep your voice down? I want it to work because it would be the greatest scientific achievement in history."

"Would it?" He asked, thinking that penicillin and light bulbs probably topped a Dinosapien. "Such destructive power should never be created. That is not an achievement."

"Destructive?"

"Yes, destructive." He banged his hand on the table, upsetting the sound wave pattern in the room, and so drawing reproving looks from the neighbouring table.

"Dinosaurs were not fluffy. Human being are even less cute. It's a bad mix, darling, an evil mix."

"There's no proof that Dinosaurs were evil." It was a childish and useless point to make, even though he hadn't disclosed that the human DNA he had used had come from Wells.

"There's plenty of proof that people are – and 50% is bad odds."

"I can't believe you're giving up." She snapped, making a show of looking at the menu.

"I'm giving up because I failed. More than a few times. The DNA is used up, I cannot try again, and do you know what? I like myself more now. Incidentally, I hear that the duck here is particularly excellent." Mrs Evergreen stared at the table, watching her dreams drift away into nothingness.