Aggy and the Dinos

Chapter 6

Aggy's apartment was exactly as one would expect, had one not spent the evening on the verge of being the really bad sort of late. It smelled primarily of Nag Champa insense, but there were also undertones of lentil- based cooking, washing powder, and ladies perfume. The walls were colourful hues of red and orange, offset by the many handwoven throws that adorned the furniture. It was warm, welcoming, and to Dean's terrified eyes quite the safest looking place he had experienced in some 48 hours. On one of the many sofas there was a small black dog, which bristled as he walked inside.

"Cup of tea?" said Aggy, as if they had just returned from the weekly shop.

"Yes why not?" Dean conceded, in some insane hope that if he went on like nothing had happened, then nothing would've; no colleagues with all their blood on the wrong side of their skin, no alien-yet-familiar eyes looking out of the darkness, no guttural voice speaking almost English. 'Gang wheh?', the Dinosapien had said. Gang wheh. Where are you going? The thing had asked him where he was going. He didn't think it had wanted to know out of general interest. It was a taunt – the creatures were baiting them, down in the dark.

He wandered through towards the kitchen, trying to make himself focus on the bright, happy colours on the walls. There was a picture of Buddha, looking fat and smug and all knowing. He became aware of a low rumbling noise, like a lawnmower starting up, which rose and escalated until it had reached the volume of an unambitious earthquake. Dean looked around at the small dog, who was vibrating with hatred. Small amber eyes locked onto Dean, as the theme tune to the San Andreas fault continued to emit from his tiny muzzle.

"Ignore Geezer," Aggy called from the kitchen. "He'll be alright as long as you don't try and touch me."

"Agreed," said Dean, opting for standing with his back against the opposite wall in order to keep a weather eye on the dog.

Aggy appeared with tea; sitting on the sofa she pulled the creature into her lap.

"They'll shut it down I suppose," she said over the top of her cup, eyes looking into the very recent past. "I guess in that way we succeeded, but it seems to hollow now. All those people."

"It shouldn't be possible."

"Why?"

"Because of how genetics work. Dinosaurs belong to an entirely different clade –"

"What?"

"Sorry, evolutionary group; they're reptile family and they lived in a time when everything about Earth was different – the composition of the air, vegetation. The DNA of man and dinosaurs should be entirely incompatible."

"It seems not."

"Then, there are the limitations and flaws of the cloning process," continued Dean, who was now back on home turf amid the comfort zone of facts, miles away from an articulate semi-prehistoric monster. "The fact that two

"Out of 100 clones are born alive," Aggy echoed.

"And then out of the 2% that draw breath we see abnormalities such as Turner's syndrome, and instances of hugely enlarged blood vessels; other occasions where vital organs such as the liver are misshapen and consist of

"Unpsecified cells."

"Precisely, meaning that the clone's organs don't know - "

"What to do. Barbaric isn't it."

"Yes. So how do you think he made it work?"

"I don't know. Maybe he didn't know."

"Want to have a look and find out?"

"How?"

Aggy hooked a foot through the strap on her bag and pulled it towards her.

"I'm sure his computer would have been far more valuable, but I pulled this out of the lab."

It was a simple paper file, grey, with the words Dinosapien Folly written in an inelegant hand in the top left corner.

"Dinosapien Folly," murmured Dean. "So he didn't think it would work."

"Where did he even get Dinosaur DNA."

"His wife is a Paleontologist, she was working out in Hell's Creek." He flicked through a couple of sheets of equations. "Yep – there it is. Troodon. Arguably the most dangerous Dinosaur that ever lived. Probably sourced from Hell's Creek. I wonder how Mrs Evergreen logged that find – I doubt she mentioned soft tissue if she was planning on giving the sample to her husband."

"It would have to be soft tissue? You can't get the DNA from bone?"

"Bone, yes. Fossils no. There isn't actually that much bone involved with fossils, if any. Most of the time scientists are left with an imprint, which they have to fill in to get the cast."

"I've never heard of this beastie."

"No, they aren't as famous because they were left out of Jurassic Park. But Troodon is cool, it's thought that they were incredibly fast, with amazing vision, and they made good parents. Loads of Troodon findings are in nest situations. The name means 'Wounding Tooth'", he said, waggling his eyebrows at her.

"Why aren't you a Paleontologist?"

"It's an amazing field, but it's still the past." He became serious again. "My job is the future. Helping people. Or trying to. That's what most scientists want. Even ones like Dr Evergreen."

It was either very late or very early by the time Dean sloped off to the spare room. Aggy sat in the window seat with the grey folder in her lap. Cup of tea #396 was gradually ceasing to steam in her still hands; she'd made it out of ritual rather than want. She was staring past real life into an unpleasant reality. On the paper in front of her was a name, the name of the owner of the human DNA in Evergreen's freak mix. The name was Peter Wells. Aggy, and everyone else who read a newspaper, knew that name.

For a short period, not much happened. There were some strange noises in a tunnel, and the sewer men who went to investigate did not come back. Neither did the search team who went to look for them. So a lot of people, police, a specialist search unit, a few dogs, and a thermal imaging machine went into the tunnel. None came back, not even the machine. A thermal image was taken of the area from above, and it showed a great hot mass, which could not be immediately identified.

So an army platoon was sent down there, into the dark, and they found that the mass was in fact faeces, and egg shells.

Grenadier Ben Shaw was having a bad day. Up to his knees in shit, and staring at the worst mess he'd ever seen. The broken thermal imaging machine, which appeared to have been mightily chewed on, got twisted around his ankle.

The tunnel smelled atrocious. The pile of Dino crap was worrying, seeing as the Ministry of Defence had gone to a lot of effort to ensure that the British public believed the Dinosapien to have been wiped out. Dino poo smells really nasty – like any predator faeces, but with a sharp undertone that sticks up your nose, and comes along with you for a long time.

His Lieutenant, who as well as being brave also had a firm grip of what constitutes a fuck up, gave the order to pursue. Grenadier Shaw and Co. proceeded confidently, because in all likelihood the creatures were eating their way through Richmond by now, and so by default the tunnel was perfectly safe. This turned out to only be partially true.

Rather than illuminating, the men's torches seemed to create deeper patches of darkness, their beams falling short in the path of sixty agonised imaginations. The platoon leader pulled them up, and made the sign for silence. From somewhere, down in a deep tunnel somewhere, someone was calling for help. The lieutenant's hand rotated; ten men, go that way. The small company headed off in the direction of the sound, the rest of the platoon continued. Further down the tunnel the lieutenant halted again – the distress call had been coming from this direction, confused by the acoustics, he had sent ten men in the wrong direction. Again he gestured; ten men, go that way. He would radio the other group later – the agreement was no unnecessary communication. The remaining soldiers proceeded. Now down to thirty, they heard the third cry for help. As the lieutenant halted his men for the third time, he realised his error. He looked up, and saw, staring down at him, the face of terror.

"Halp," said the Dino. The tunnel filled with gunfire.