Aggy and the Dinos

Chapter 19

There was no midsummer heat to protect them on the way home. The Dino's intellect was growing; they showed a keenly human ability to learn, and were using more strategic means of trapping prey. The lab was close, when a call echoed down the road, clearly ahead of them. The sheep were checked, they group turned around, and so found themselves looking at five Dinos. The leader looked at them sideways, and made a little mewling noise in its throat; it couldn't say it any clearer – oh dear. The sheep were quickly abandoned to their fate, poor sweets, and three people and a dog hurtled through the mean primordial streets. They were not bothered by any more Dinos.

The battered flowers lay on the table, reduced to a mere sprig, although the scent still rose heavily, thickening the air.

"Well, that was a load of ball ache for fuck all." Said John. He poured red wine, purloined from the rich shelves of a co-op, into large test-tubes.

"I feel awful for the sheep." Said Aggy.

"We weren't going to do any different to them, were we?"

"No, but still."

"I thought they were a good idea." Said Dean. "Maybe we should have two or three decoy sheep at all times, just to facilitate running away." This meant he had said something that made everyone laugh, which didn't happen a lot for Dean.

"Well, the rapeseed is a positive at least," said Brian. "I'll get on with this and try and...do something. I think livestock is going to be a fail." There was a chorus of depressed agreement to this. The window was open, letting lilting guitar music from the mystery player – their unknown companion – filter into the room. The room felt briefly normal, until the music stopped very abruptly. Geezer jumped up at the wall, his head tilted towards the window, as if there was something important to be seen there.

"Hey you guys!" Shouted a man. "You guys in the lab! You need to see this." On the balcony was a whippet thin man, holding his guitar. His was one of the balconies that overlooked I.Q. unltd. He gestured down at the street with his spliff. Some people really do just live outside the world, thought Aggy. They looked down. There was a Dino in the street – a fairly young one by the look of it – and it was clearly in trouble. There was something a little bit wrong about it, a weak look to the legs, body slightly too long, a very large head. It was walking in awkward circles, moving its head as if it was struggling to breathe. Then it fell down dead.

"Does that Dino look a bit weird to anyone?" Said Aggy.

"Well it's dead," said Glen.

"Well done. No I mean in itself."

"LOS?" Said Brian?

"What?"

"Large Offspring Syndrome. We used to see it a lot in cloned animals – if they survived longer than two days then the clones would often by abnormally large, or their internal organs would grow out of proportion. Alongside that you get unspecialised cells – livers that don't know they're a liver etc. Normally you'd expect to see it straight away though – Jordie do you think LOS could occur after a clone strain is established?"

"I dunno. We've never had an established clone strain before. Could be a telomeric difference?"

"Anglais, people." Said Aggy.

"A telomere is the name for the DNA sequence at the end of a chromosome. Telomeres shrink when DNA is replicated, but some clones show lengthened telomeres. As cells divide, their chromosomes get shorter, and so do your telomeres as you get older. I think that what we could be seeing is part of a natural cycle of reducing lifespans amongst the Dinos. I mean Peter Whatshisface was in his late forties right? And the Dinosaur might have been old – well the DNA definitely was chronologically – so it could be that as the Dinos reproduce, they're gradually shortening their own lifespan."