Chapter 159: Dinosaurs can't talk... right?

When Dreyfus saw Malcolm returning from the expedition break into his office without even knocking and shouting 'we need to talk' he knew something serious had happened. However, nothing could prepare him for what he learned of. Dreyfus was one who thought he had seen everything in his life. He had seen rich people begging for alms just for the sake of feeling poor and poor pretending to be rich to swindle companies and earn enough to escape and support themselves. He had seen the worst suffering and the worst dilemmas. I had seen oil gushing from the most unthinkable places and plants growing even in the most desert areas. But never, never would he have thought he would see one of his better men than him so upset and hear him talk about something so absurd. After Malcolm told him about talking dinosaurs he struggled to believe him; had it not been for the fact that he knew his friend well he would have already called the medical service to give him an electroencephalogram. Unfortunately, the more the story went on, the more it was enriched with too many details to be the result of just a hallucination. In addition, all the other members of the expedition told the same things. There were two cases: either they had invented everything to cheat him, or it was all true. And since Malcolm would never fool him, Dreyfus had no choice but to believe him. "Dear God..." he whispered at the end of the story. "And how many were there?" "Many. At least a hundred" Malcolm replied. "Maybe even more" "Ok, didn't you hear when it spoke? Those dinosaurs SPEAK!" Carver seemed completely beside himself: he was sweating like a fountain. "This is not possible!" Dreyfus snapped in exasperation, and then calmed down. "Or at least it shouldn't be possible... such a thing is beyond our knowledge" The old mayor thought deeply, then spoke. "If Carver shot one of them..." "I didn't know there were so many! I just wanted to scare it..." "It does not matter! If you shot them then they have every reason to seek a conflict with us. Fortunately, from what you have told me, they don't handle objects and appear to be a tribal level population, so we should be able to repel them without losing a single man". Once the upheaval was over, Dreyfus's mind was set in motion: now he was calculating the situation as if the enemy were any human population. Suddenly Ellie intervened: "I don't think they will seek revenge. They don't look like savages. He wouldn't have let us go otherwise" "Who is this 'he'?" asked Dreyfus. "Their leader. I was trying to tell you" Malcolm explained. "He was an imposing dinosaur that I had never seen. It looked like a spinosaurus. He had a sun drawn in the center of his forehead. He was...". He thought for a moment, then found the right adjective: "...amazing" "Seriously? Is that what you think?" Carver snapped. "What if he instead let us go to follow us, find out where we are and then kill us all?" "He doesn't need such subterfuge" said a man from the group that Dreyfus remembered was called Abe. "Any dinosaur that walks within a hundred kilometers of the colony can notice our presence. And even if he has warlike intentions he won't be so stupid as to attack us knowing he is at a disadvantage" "Knowing he is at a disadvantage? What do you want he knows about that? They're animals!" Carver growled in a thin voice. "Animals that have been empathic enough to let us go despite we attacked and injured one of them. They are much more than just dinosaurs" Abe retorted. "Okay, enough!" Dreyfus roared now at his limit. "Continuing to discuss it we will not go anywhere. As I said we are safe. Our weapons and walls protect us. Regardless of the intentions of this 'he' we are not in any danger, so it makes no sense to be alarmed". After restoring his calm he continued: "For the moment we will keep the secret. Not a word with anyone else. We will investigate further and evaluate what to do" "You're crazy" Carver said. "We should inform the army!" "No, I'm not crazy. I don't want others to think that we are crazy, or even worse that the government is convinced that we are spreading false rumors to stop the works. You should know what happens to the opponents in our country" retorted Dreyfus irritated by the man's behavior. "Dreyfus is right. We'll do this" confirmed Malcolm, who obviously was smarter than Carver. "How much time do we have before the bulldozers arrive?" "The works will start in three months. We will use that time to try to find out what is going on. And if we don't succeed... patience. When the bulldozers arrive, the army will also come to kill every dangerous animal in our path and completely clean up the future colony. In the state of civilization in which they are the dinosaurs cannot win... unless they have some tricks that we don't know, but that's not my problem" explained Dreyfus. "You now take your measurements to the appropriate offices and then go to your homes and take a nap. And remember, mouth water with everyone" Malcolm and his team nodded. The group walked out of Dreyfus' office leaving him alone with his troubled thoughts of him. Once out, the team split up. Each went his way. Of course none of them would have said anything... all but one. Abe was searching an hidden spot to make a call, when suddenly Malcolm appeared behind him. "I have questions for you" he said. "What do you mean?" "Come on, you think I'm stupid? You aren't a supervisor. You aready knew about the talking dinosaurs, right?" Abe bit his lips, then he answered sincerily: "I had just suspicious, but yes, I knew something" "So I was right. Ok, who sent you? What is this, some crazy experiment? What the hell had you done in that forest?" "I don't know, and I'm honest. We have some ideas about, but we still cannot confirm any of them" "Who are this 'we'? Who are you, a secret agent?" "I cannot reveal you" "And what if I threat you to turn yourself over to the authorities?" "You can, but you will be very stupid. I have connections in the high ranks, even if you had me arrested I'd be out of jail within an hour. I am a professional, even if you told Dreyfus everything and he used all means of psychological and physical torture on me, he wouldn't be able to make me reveal confidential information before the end of that hour. You would get nothing except my dislike. In this situation is much more convenient to stay in good terms with the only one that knows something, don't you believe?" Malcolm narrowed his eyes, but then lowered them. "Okay, I won't report you... at least until the situation becomes dangerous. But I want to know the truth, all the truth. If there is some crazy experiment behind it, I want to be able to decide whether to take my family away from here" "I'll come to your house tonight. I'll tell you everything, but for now, keep a low profile and don't tell anyone about it" Abe said. "And be careful" "You can bet about it. I'm going, I'll wait you for dinner. This is the address" Malcolm said, putting a note in his hands. "Go and do your spy or secret agent things, and then come to us. Ellie makes meatloaf tonight" and after said this he walked away and disappeared into the street. Finally alone, Abe hid in an alley and pulled out his cell phone. "Come on, Jackson, pick it up!" Abe gasped as he cursed the phone while it rang. The instant he entered the house he called his friend. It was only after a dozen blasphemies that he deigned to answer: "Abe, what's going on?" "Finally! Listen to me, you'll never believe what happened. Your father was right! He has always been right! The cognitive abilities of dinosaurs are awakening! And you will never imagine what level they have already reached..." ********* Meanwhile Malcolm, Ellie and Alexander had returned to their home. Ellie and Alexander were curious to know where Malcolm had gone in the ten minutes he was gone, but since he didn't say a word they didn't ask him. Neither of them really wanted to talk about what had happened, so while the two adults had retired to their rooms, the boy had gone to his room and sat on the bed. He had finally taken off his backpack and opened it to get some leftover food, and that was how he discovered he had brought an extra passenger with him. The instant the zipper opened, a small rhamphorhynchus jumped out of the pack and started flying around the room. Alexander was initially frightened, hesitant of what had happened during the day, but the pterosaur instead of speaking and behaving like a person had acted exactly like a very common animal. In the end it perched on a beam in the ceiling and started pecking at the wood for bugs. Alexander was relieved. That was just a normal rhamphorhynchus. Inspecting the backpack he realized that it must have snuck there because it was attracted by the food: several sandwiches had been eaten. "Hey, come down!" he yelled at the animal showing it some crumbs. The pterosaurus didn't seem willing to descend. It took Alexander half an hour before the animal dared to approach him. The rhamphorhynchus ate the first crumbs by jerking its neck, expecting an attack, then seeing that there was no danger it calmed down and pecked the food greedily from the boy's hands. Alexander smiled. After all that had happened that day, it was nice to see an animal behave like an animal. But when it had finished eating the crumbs, the rhamphorhynchus went to the window and began to peck at the glass. When it realized there was a barrier it started bumping into it repeatedly in an attempt to open it. "I guess you want to go home..." Alexander murmured opening the window. He was a little disappointed to see the little pterosaurus fly away, but after all it wasn't a pet and it was right that it returned to the forest. In reality, however, unbeknownst to him, he had been deceived. Because the rhamphorhynchus was none other than Rambo, who had only played the part of the stupid pterosaur to convince the boy to let him go. Through the backpack he had been able to listen to everything the humans had said to each other, but unfortunately the zipper had jammed and he had found himself with no escape: he had therefore been forced to cheat Alexander in order to leave the house. He could have tried to use [Ambush], but that ability didn't make him incorporeal: since Alexander was directly in front of him at the moment of opening the backpack, it would have been almost impossible not to touch him. The boy would have sensed his presence. Also, Rambo didn't know how to open the window and wasn't even sure he had the strength to do it. Therefore, it was easier to deceive the boy. When he reached the forest he found a large pteranodon waiting for him. "The pack leader sent me to wait for you" he said. "What did you discover?" "Not good things. For now the humans have no intention of doing anything, but in three months will arrive machines to destroy our forest and soldiers to kill all the dinosaurs!" Rambo explained. "We have to warn the pack leader, and immediately! He will know what to do!"