Ready for Rehab

“Dominick was so worried about how we were going to catch hell from the HOA. I was just amazed by that. I was like “Dom, we’re supervillains!” and he had the audacity to be confused by that!”

Samantha Keaton, aka Lady Hurricane, after turning states evidence on her Partner Dominick Wallace, The Knife Master, apparently due to cohabitation issues.

Lisa smiled as they came back, "Thank you. Sorry for freaking out." She was still pale but doing better than before.

"Violent, lethal dinosaur attacks are a bit much for anyone, trust me." Ryan assured her. "Sorry we're kind of pulling an internet meme on you, here."

"A meme?" The blond woman raised an eyebrow.

"You know, 'first time?' The guys on the gallows."

“Cheerful.” She laughed. "Okay I guess so. How is Juicy? And are we ready to move on?"

"I think she went to sleep, to be honest. And yeah, we can move. The mess is cleaned up as we're going to be able to get it, so we might as well go to the next room. Hopefully nothing there will want to pick a fight."

"I'm going to take point now." Emilia said. "And before you argue, I saw both you and Carl hesitate to pull the trigger, and we all know why. I've got a sword; I can swing first and ask questions later. You two can't."

"The glass is probably bulletproof.” Lisa said. As she got up lugging the purse full of soda. “But I can understand the caution."

"And the point does stand. I'll take the back. Hopefully we can get out without needing to use any of the weapons again." Ryan said.

“Your tone doesn’t inspire confidence.” she complained.

“I’m not great at optimism.”

Lisa shivered as they stepped back into the lab, a flock of mini-Ostriches were devouring a pile of ground meat fighting to get the best spots to feed. "So where to from here?”

Carl leaned closer to the glass, filming the animals. "That didn't take long to get noticed."

“It's an enclosed wilderness, wild animals don't waste time when it comes to food." Emilia said.

"True."

They crossed the lab, not wanting to poke around anymore than they already had and opened the next door. Again, a transparent tube separated two domes, and the next door allowed them into another lab space, though this one involved a strange mechanism with an egg moving slowly towards a tube that arched up. Ryan, following the tube with his gaze, raised an eyebrow as he realized it exited not only the lab dome, but up to the top of the main dome, outer dome. "That's odd. Too bad the tunnel thing is only a foot wide. We're not getting out that way."

"Those are the same eggs as in the fridge in the other room. What are they? And where are they going?" Carl said looking around.

"Oh! Look out there. One of the mini-ostriches was sitting on a nest full of eggs. It stood to run off a fox, and at that moment a small mechanical arm reached out, pushing one of the eggs into a chute that had opened quietly nearby. A few moments later it was deposited onto the odd conveyor near them.

"Is he breeding mini-ostriches? I thought he was a lizard guy!” Lisa watched the egg curiously. “Why would he even want to?”

"No idea, to any of that. More to the point, why is he shipping them out of the dome, and why is the system automated so he didn’t even have to be here?" Ryan asked, frowning and looking closer at the equipment and flipping open a notebook near one of the workstations. "These look like copies of the maps from before. The drug maps, I mean."

"This seems a bit extreme to make drug mules, and it's going the wrong way.” Lisa said “Breeding ostrich things in the US doesn’t help smuggle cocaine or whatever. Or were ostriches a fad pet in the seventies that I somehow never heard about?

Carl set a hand on the tube, then looked up, spotting sporadic heating elements glowing. "It’s warm. I think it's incubating them."

"So, what, he's growing them? That's just strange." he paged through, to an early section of the journal.

Emilia just shook her head. “Is there some place in Michigan with a population of giant birds that no one seems to know about? You’d think someone would notice. Or have hit them with their car a few times over the years.”

“These are breeding notes. He apparently made them smaller and, seriously? You must be kidding me. I now have some serious questions about the Greater Rhea population in Columbia now."

“Rhea? is that what they are, not weird ostriches? Carl asked coming over to look at the book. “Wait, there was a book on them in his office, wasn’t there. I forgot about that.”

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"Yeah, though these are dwarf, greater rhea… ain’t that a mouthful… intentionally designed on his part. What's more, if these notes are true, he made the animals both resistant to the narcotic effects and drawn to the taste of cocaine and its progenitor plants. The fucking birds are drug dogs that want to eat the crank."

Everyone looked out at the bird then back at Ryan. "Oh. My God. That explains why Escobar hated him! Mister Lizard was smuggling birds into Columbia to eat all the cocaine! Senior Pollo indeed!" Lisa began laughing.

Emilia grinned. “You know, I think we knew about this, at least part of it. Some places in south America, and recently Texas, started using some big birds from down south because for some reason the birds are extra sensitive to certain drugs! Remember, Ryan, your dad was bitching about it that one time! the Drug bird kept his shipment from coming through!”

"Oh shit, yeah. He was complaining about some 'stunted ostrich' attacking one of his drug mules. When I burst out laughing, even he admitted it sounded funny as hell. He put a ten thousand dollar hit out on the bird. I think he offered to double it if they managed to get the body so he could roast it for dinner. For the record, to my knowledge the bird was never actually harmed."

"Man... This guy managed to screw with your dad and drug cartels even after he was dead! Killer dino or not, I’m calling it. He’s a grey cape. And seriously Respect!” Carl said, between bouts of laughter, wiping the tears of humor out of his eyes.

"Gotta admit, his legacy is more annoying to the crooks than the honest folk, ignoring the dragon, but that thing sleeps for months at a time and mostly just pops up to eat some cows or pigs at a stockyard before going back to sleep. I think the last time it showed up someplace actually dangerous was over a decade ago."

"Well, it is only a class one Kaiju. A decently prepared police force can hurt it enough to drive it off."

“What does class one mean, anyway?” Lisa asked. She’d never been clear.

Carl spoke up. “It’s kind of like the grades of hurricanes. Class one is a really bad storm, but isn’t likely to wreck everything in their path, where class five is going to do stunning amounts of damage. I think the Kaiju scale goes up to seven, but the biggest are extradimensional beings that have only shown up once or twice that we’re sure of.”

Emily nodded. “From my memory, a class one destroys about a block before even a well equipped police force could chase it off. Class fives generally require a team of high power enhanced or a major military deployment to drive off and even then, are likely to destroy a city and its suburbs.”

"Didn't the Dragon also have a rep for attacking boats in the 80s?" Lisa said. "Usually, small fast boats without a lot of people on them. I remember mom complaining when I was little about not being able to go out on the water on her boyfriend’s speedboat because of a ban on small boats.

"Likely true. But a hungry croc is a mean ass croc I suppose."

"So according to the map, do we have another room, or are we going to start turning towards the car now?"

Ryan opened the map. “It looks like from here we go through another one of those airlock, foyer, porch things, this one with a long meandering tube going through the rainforest as one of the exits. That leads to the car room, based on this.”

"Right. sounds like we're on our way!"

They opened and found another box like patio that allowed them to go down into the habitat or turn towards the left to the long tube on the map. When they opened the tube, however, things weren't the way they'd been. This time they were hit in the face by oppressive heat and nearly physically solid humidity both, the air easily ten or twenty degrees higher, and the air much more wet than they had previously experienced. "The hell is going on?"

"The other tubes where not like this." Emilia said. "I don't like this. We can’t see all of the tunnel.” She looked at Ryan. "Do you think he for some reason skimped on this tunnel? Or do you think it's been damaged?"

"With our luck?" He slipped forward and about a dozen feet in, curving around some trees outside, where they found a spot where a tree had apparently collapsed, crushing the tunnel, shattering the plastic for over a dozen feet, leaving it destroyed. "Yeah. it's busted."

"So, do we continue through the tube?” Lisa asked, “Or do we have to go through the forest."

"We can't go through the tube. We can either try for the sub, hope that tube is clear, and that we can figure out how to work it if it’s there, or we can go through the forest. I don't know anything about subs, and even if there's diving gear, I don't know that it'll be usable."

"After nearly fifty years I wouldn't trust any of the seals anyway." Emilia said.

"I thought the tunnel went to the garage? will we be able to get in if we go through the forest? Does the map show anything?" Lisa said.

"Honestly, I don't know. But at this point, I'm not sure we have a choice. We can try to find the other end of the break and climb back in, once we're on the ground, assuming there's not a series of them."

"Honestly, this isn't surprising. It's been more surprising how much is working." Carl admitted. “I mean, the hot humidity of the jungle, long durations of no one being here to do maintenance? It’s almost a miracle.”

Lisa took a deep breath, "well there isn't any better choice, so I guess we are hiking."

"Yeah." Ryan crouched, then carefully lowered himself to dangle from his arms, dropping the last couple of feet to the ground. It was thick soil, with plenty of plants and he heard something run away from where he landed. He scanned the area then said "Okay, Em, Carl, help Lisa down."

She squeaked a bit, getting out of the tube. The outside dome smelled of earth and heat. “He must have a geothermal tap somewhere I can’t think of any other way to keep the jungle this hot. Especially in winter.”

"That's the best guess I have too. And it’s likely where the power has been coming from for most of this place the whole time." He shone his flashlight around, the plant life thick enough to block the lights from above. "This isn't going to be an easy hike."

"Should we prepare for it more? Maybe get some water or something. We have those water bags in our pack for a reason." Emilia suggested.

"We could also check the sub area, see if there's any options there before, you know, we go trooping through a jungle filled with possibly dangerous animals?"

Carl nodded. “More water is going to be a good thing it’s heavy, but I think we are going to want something other than soda to drink out there. And we could try to catch one of those birds to eat. We could have Rhea sandwiches for dinner.”

"Well, can't say I've cooked that before." Lisa said, but it’s probably like cooking a goose or a turkey.

"Yeah, but you all could have spoken up before you climbed down here." He shook his head. "Help Lisa back up Carl." He said, making a stirrup with his hand. "Foot in here, I'll lift you up."

She giggled as she got back on the tube then helped Emilia who helped the boys. “Well backtracking will be fun for your video.”

"Yeah, and it adds that ‘normal human stupidity’ element that weirdly pleases people." Ryan rolled his eyes. "So back this way. We can cut through the bird room; it looks like that's what leads to the office."