Project Orpheus: A Tale of Blood and Feathers

Chapter 27: The Fistfight

Derek had made sure to give Michael a tranquilizer gun, against his many, many protestations. He hardly knew how to use a gun, but Derek wasn't taking no for an answer and, frankly, his argument that it was better to have it then not in this situation was...convincing.

Convincing enough that he didn't feel like arguing with it anyway. He kept reaching to tap it in his pocket, but his main object to quell his adrenaline was the laptop in his hands. The laptop that would save the Reserve.

"So, you think this'll work?" Derek asked.

Michael snapped to attention. Derek was driving the car, while he rode shotgun. Michael was also in charge of the walkie talkie, at least while Derek was behind the wheel. Michael scratched his chin and thought.

"Well, Noh's actually not that great a programmer. She'll admit that herself. She can program robots really well, but apparently that's 'hardware programming' and it's apparently different from writing a game." Something occurred to him. "But, if this is just rewiring the output of one generator to another, then I guess that counts as hardware programming. So it's within her abilities. It sounds...simple enough, anyway."

"That doesn't sound very confident." Derek noted.

"She's also got a bunch of her more competent friends on speed dial, who could have helped her. Maybe even written the whole code for her. I'm at least positive Noh wouldn't have given us the program if she wasn't certain it would work."

The radio suddenly crackled to life. "Also, most of the code was already written anyway. It was already written, it just...didn't turn on because the terminal it was on broke. All I really had to get written was the program that made the laptop do all the work."

"Holy shit. Are you eavesdropping on us?" Derek asked.

"Michael's been holding down the talk button on the walkie without realizing it."

Michael jumped to see that he was, in fact, sitting on the button. "Oh, oh shit. Sorry."

"Relax, Michael. I know you're stressed, but stay focused. Once you get the laptop plugged in you can hoof it back here and you'll be safe."

"I thought you said I was just as likely to see dinosaurs if I went with Derek!" Michael spat.

"You are. Just in one place they'll be behind a gigantic wall of motorized protective metal."

Michael scowled.

"Sometimes, Doc, I wonder why I let you hire me."

Noh made sure her chuckle was heard over the radio. "Alright, I wanted to warn you guys that there's two Dienonychus in your area. Be careful, and if you see them, dart 'em if it isn't too inconvenient."

"Roger." Derek said.

"Yeah, roger." Michael repeated.

The radio went dead, and Michael looked at the laptop again.

"Okay, so what do you think we shou-"

Before he could finish, one of the dinosaurs leaped out from the bushes. What it was thinking and where it was going was unknown, but what happened to it was inevitable. The creature bumped into the hood of the jeep, bouncing around on it, its head snapping in stupid directions as Derek slowed down the vehicle.

Michael was too busy focused on the teeth inside the head lunging at him to notice much else. The car came to a stop.

"Oh god, oh good god, oh my god, Orenda's gonna kill us!" Michael panicked.

"She's not the only thing, eyes up!" Derek said.

Derek opened the door, and reached for his tranquilizer rifle when the other Deinonychus, Rowling, burst from the jungle thicket and leaked directly over his head and landed on top of Derek, nipping at his throat.

Derek, for his part, reacted like lightning, spinning around to grab the dinosaur and push his arms under its belly while rolling with the force. This, unfortunately, made him fall out of the car and onto the hard ground, but his roll had put him on top of the dinosaur. Rowling, a bit winded from the whole experience, tried to use her toe claw to slash open his belly, but Derek rolled to the side and onto his feet, taking a fighting stance.

The one on the front of the car, that he recognized as Shakespeare, let out a pitiful growl as it tried to get up to his feet, but Michael snapped to attention and shot it with the tranq pistol. It's pitiful noise went completely silent as it drunkenly stumbled around in an attempt to get closer to him before falling down.

Derek waved his fists about, and the raptor once again tried to charge him and bite him, but he punched it with enough force to knock it from the air. The dinosaur caught herself, tapping her claw on the ground as it began to circle him.

Derek just kept his fists up, and his eyes straight on the dinosaur. The dinosaur twisted around on its feet, snapping its tail at him, which caused Derek to leap back a bit. The dinosaur took advantage of this, using the momentum from its spin to launch itself into a charge. Derek let out a mighty roar as he punched the dinosaur in the jaw, sending its dangerous and pointy teeth the other way and leaving a rather nasty bruise on its cheeks.

"Any day now, Michael!" He called out.

Michael blinked himself back to reality. He had been so stunned by what was going on that he hadn't realized he was the only one with a tranquilizer.

"Sorry, sorry!"

He looked into the belt at his side, where there were more darts. This thing was incredibly inefficient to load. He grabbed one of them, but the sweat from his fingers made him slip and drop it.

"Shit, shitshitshitshit," he repeated, as he scrambled around to find the dart.

He could hear the fight between Rowling and Derek, but he wasn't sure what was going on or who was winning. Just that he could barely control his hands. He couldn't see it anywhere, despite all his tapping and searching.

"Just use another dart!"

Then he looked under the chair.

Bingo.

He reached out and grabbed it, scratching his fingers on the tip of the needle. Thankfully only an impact would cause the substance to discharge, so all he had to worry about was the sting of the cut and of the sweat getting into the cut. He slid the arrow into the back of the gun, and pulled on the slide, a red indicator on the side of the white device indicating it had properly loaded.

"Yes, got it!"

At this point Derek had Rowling in a stranglehold of some kind, but she was thrashing and kicking to get out. She had scratched him a bit in the process. He couldn't help but be a bit concerned he was going to hit Derek with the bolt, especially with how they kept twisting and writhing. He took a few steps closer, gun trained on the big ball of mayhem that was the two of them.

"DO IT!" Derek shouted.

Michael winced, involuntary squeezing the trigger. His eyes went wide in horror for a moment, until he saw that it had ended up right in Rowling's heart. She breathed out and slowly, slowly settled down, until she was asleep.

"Holy shit," he said. "You did it."

"No," Derek replied, "you helped. C'mon, let's tell the DNU that we got two for them."