Jack pulled Mavis along until they reached the tree line and the group of frightened people tried to make their escape. Mavis pulled at his arm but he didn’t stop until they were behind a tree and out of danger should the dinosaur decide to charge them. The jungle was thick and the people who had fled had not made it far before being stopped by the thick vegetation.
Mavis was shaking with fear and excitement as she looked at a real-life dinosaur. She started to mumble random dinosaur facts from games, movies, and books as she studied the creature from afar.
“That's a subspecies of triceratops. I don’t know what the actual species is but you can tell from the beak and its general build that it's a herbivore. In all the movies and games triceratops are friendly. Like big cows. Obviously, if you piss it off you will get the horns, but it shouldn’t attack anyone if we just leave it be. Look, it's just munching on the ferns.” The more Mavis spoke, the more her excitement pushed out her fear.
Jack watched it until he was confident it was not interested in them then turned his attention to the rest of his new tribe. Marcus, Gordon, and the man in the hiking clothes were calming people down, while Haden and Skye listened to Mavis. The Triceratops was definitely wary of the jungle. But it seemed content to stop for a snack once the humans had moved away from it. Haden got their attention.
“Help us find some good sticks. Mattock, the guy with the big backpack suggested we make some simple spears for everyone with our knives. Best case we use them as walking sticks while we navigate the jungle, worst case everyone has something to defend themselves. You guys grab whatever sticks you can, and I’ll start whittling.”
He patted the large knife on his belt, and Jack nodded as he and Skye started searching the forest floor for fallen branches. Mavis nodded but turned her attention back to the Triceratops. She watched it with childlike amazement for a few minutes, then her face went pale. She gestured to the others to be quiet, then slowly made her way over to Marcus. Jack and Haden shared a look, then took the few sticks they had managed to find and followed her. They arrived mid-conversation between Marcus and a woman in her twenties with red hair and a business suit. The woman seemed to be giving a head count, but Mavis didn’t wait and interrupted her.
“We need to all start moving. Quietly. Something big is coming.”
Marcus looked at her, his expression hard to read. The woman next to him looked like she was about to explode at Mavis for interrupting her but whatever she was about to say died on her lips when she saw the terror in the younger woman's eyes.
“What is it?” Marcus asked as he picked up on the tension.
“The ground is shaking. Something massive is making its way towards us.”
Mavis pointed back the direction of the roar, and everyone went silent. Not even the insects dared to make any noise. Then they all felt it, a small tremor in the earth and a low rumbling growl rippled from the jungle. Jack’s mind went back to the scenes from Jurassic Park of the T-rex approaching, and his mouth went dry with terror. Looking around he realized that he was not the only one, and the entire group was getting ready to wet themselves and flee.
“Ok. Let's go. Everyone be quiet, step lightly, and move quickly. Walk two by two. Mattock, you and I will clear the path and try to navigate us downhill. I want Haden, Jack, and Gordon at the back of the group. Help anyone who starts falling behind and keep your eyes and ears open for threats coming behind us.” Marcus’s orders came quickly and concisely. Someone in the group started to speak up to complain, but when another tremor could be felt through the ground, no one dared make a noise.
Jack forgot his frustration at being ordered around and focused on keeping his friends safe. Mavis stayed near the front with Skye and some of the other women while Gordon and Haden joined Jack at the back of the group. Gordon had removed his single shoe and was holding what appeared to be a small belt knife. Jack held up the largest branch he had found, and the two smiled at each other and the ridiculous situation they were in. No one spoke as the tribe slowly funneled away from the clearing.
Jack walked at the back of the group, constantly keeping his eyes scanning the vegetation and his ears open. He jumped at a handful of false threats. Spooking some small birds, large insects that were minding their own business in the jungle. Every shadow and rustling fern felt like a threat, and Jack had to remind himself to take deep breaths to remain calm. The tribe moved slowly, having to carefully pick their path through the trees and around the heavier bushes. The jungle would seem to open up at some spots where much of the vegetation had been eaten back, or even had trees knocked down. It made walking easier, but it soon became clear that they were trying to avoid game trails. Probably in hopes of avoiding the carnivores that would also be attracted to them.
The group was silent as they first started to move, fear of the unseen t-rex hunting them clear in their minds. But once ten to fifteen minutes had passed and no one had noticed any more tremors people started making noise. It was quiet at first, a few murmurs here and there, someone cursing under their breath as they moved thick ferns out of the path, the snapping of sticks and the faint grunts of exertion as close to seventy people who were not used to strenuous exercise moved through the woods. When the sound of insects and animal calls returned to the jungle Jack finally released some of the tension he was holding and started some small talk with Gordon as they walked.
“Fucken dinosaurs. Can’t believe it.” Jack said and Gordon nodded. Neither of them taking their eyes off the surroundings.
“Yeah, it's pretty crazy. And have you noticed any of the footprints?” Gordon gestured at the ground, where the tracks indicated that some sort of heavy creature had lumbered through the undergrowth.
“Wow. Any idea what made that?” Jack stopped for a second to examine the tracks more closely. He didn’t find much, but when he followed the trail to one of the trees he noticed claw marks that scratched nearly three feet long against the bark. The two men stared at it for a few seconds as Haden walked up behind them to see what they were looking at.
“Maybe some type of giant sloth? Something that large shouldn’t be able to climb a tree this thin, but if it was reaching up to eat from those branches it would be about the right size.” Gordon said as he ran his fingers against the tree and then gestured for them to continue following the group.
Jack’s eyes lingered on the tree for a moment, then he followed.
“If that's what the sloths here are capable of, I don’t want to think about what the predators can do.”
They caught up with the tribe quickly, as Marcus had called for them to stop. The tribe grouped up so everyone could hear him.
“Good work everyone. We made it out of our first encounter with a predator. I'm sure you all noticed that even when we weren’t talking we weren’t exactly quiet. That's ok. A group this size isn’t going to be quiet when moving through the woods. Fortunately, we are more likely to scare animals away from us with our unfamiliar noises than attract them. We need to take a short break here and prepare ourselves as best we can. I would like everyone to gather sticks so we can use the knives we have to try and make some simple spears. Having anything between you and a hungry predator will help. If everyone around you has a sharp stick aimed at the predator, it will have to think twice before it tries to take a bite out of us. That being said, no one should go anywhere alone. Not to pee, not to shit, not to gather sticks. There is no reason you should be alone at any time. If you are alone, anything could snatch you in a moment of inattention and we would have no idea what happened. For all of our sakes, grab a partner or two. The more the better. Take each other's safety seriously, and we can all survive this. Now break into groups of five and try to find a stick that you can use. It should be at least as long as you are tall, fit in your hand, and be slightly heavier than is comfortable for you to carry. Don’t worry too much, as you can use them as walking sticks. It is better to have a heavier spear that won’t break as easily than one that is lighter but will snap when you need it.”
A few people had turned a few shades greener and at least two people had stepped up to Marcus to start complaining about the buddy system rule. As he worked to quiet the idiots and direct the people the man named Mattock approached Jack and his friends.
The man was the oldest person in the group by a few years, but he was clearly fit and used to the woods. His well-trimmed mustache and short brown hair made Jack think of some of the pictures he had seen of old western cowboys, but the serious look in the man’s eye and the way he held himself pushed any thoughts of bringing that up away.
“Did you three notice anything during our little walk?” He asked as his eyes continued to roam the jungle behind them.
Gordon shook his head in the negative.
“Some large tracks and claw marks on a tree, but nothing fresh. We think it was some sort of large ground sloth or something else trying to reach the higher branches of these shorter trees.”
Jack felt silly that he had not actually paid much attention to the different types of prehistoric trees around him, having just now noticed that there were several types of different heights and thickness. It was surprising as he was used to the woods near his home being mostly aspen trees with a few scattered pine trees. Seeing at least five different types of trees spaced seemingly at random around just the small clearing they were in suddenly felt strange.
“Hmmm. We will keep an eye out for it. It's good that whatever was drawn to the clearing didn’t follow us. We are not ready to defend ourselves. Most of the people here are going to suffer a lot before we all toughen up and are able to reliably hunt for food here.” He shook his head. When his eyes landed on Jack he extended his hand.
“Names Mattock Finch. But you can just call me Matt. I'm old friends with Marcus, and I trust him to keep his head in a scrap. We used to be hunting buddies before he got married.”
Jack took his hand and was surprised at his strength. His hands were rough and firm, and his eyes were sharp.
“Jack Wilson. I was an avid hiker and camper, but I’ve not done much hunting. I suspect we will all be learning how to soon.”
Matt nodded and returned his gaze to the trees.
“It was nice to meet you properly. Let's help gather up some spears. There are four people with knives and we each need to start carving out spears sooner rather than later.” His eyes moved to Haden. “Why don’t you start working on Jack’s stick here, and I'll go help that group.” He gestured to five people who had gathered a pile of sticks that were only a few feet long. “Those would make great firewood but horrible spears. You need something to keep the dinosaurs away from you, not a toothpick for them once they are done with you.” The rest of the conversation was lost to Jack as Haden took his stick.
Haden drew his knife and started to work the end of the would-be spear with his blade. Gordon started searching for a stick of his own. Jack’s was closer to a club than a spear, but it was thick and long enough at the base for Haden to sharpen it with a few minutes of work. It wasn’t pretty, but soon Jack was holding a long spear with one sharp end and one gnarled blunt end. It looked more like an ugly branch than a spear when he held it, but he had no doubt that smashing it into anything would be unpleasant, if not fatal. Jack wished for the tenth time that he had his knife on him, but it was back on a dead Earth with all his other belongings.
Eventually, Marcus convinced the snobbish man in the fine clothing of the importance of the buddy system and the tribe of seventy-three people collected in the center of the clearing with their sticks. Haden, Mattock, and a business major that had been friends with Mavis named Soren, each had a knife and were carving the crude spears as they listened to Marcus and the woman with red hair talk.
“Alright, everyone. Take this time to rest. I don’t know how far we have to walk today, but our goal is to find fresh water before we camp down for the night. Each one of us needs to drink three bottles of water per day, probably more than that if we are in a hot environment and doing strenuous exercise.” He gestured to the jungle and the large group of people who were all starting to sweat.
“If we don’t find water, we won’t last too long. Fortunately, the one thing the jungle isn't lacking in is water, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find a stream. Especially if this thing works as a map like the aliens said. So while we rest I want five people to stay on watch. Jade here will come around and get your name and ask if you have any useful survival skills that we can plan around. Please be honest with her. We will all have to pitch in, and knowing everyone's skills will help make sure that everyone can contribute.”
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No one complained as the group found some fallen trees and sat down. Everyone had a thin layer of sweat on them, and were starting to feel hungry and thirsty. Some of the students who had been carrying backpacks had plastic water bottles with them, and as the red-haired woman in the business suit named Jade came around to each person she offered them a few sips of water.
Jack returned to the center of the group to meet up with Mavis. She gave him a weak smile, and it was clear she was getting tired but she wasn’t one to complain about such things while others were suffering much more. Those without shoes and the one man in a towel was doing the worst. The entire tribe was struggling, having become more than used to the sedentary lifestyle of the modern age.
“How are your feet?” Jack asked as he sat beside her. She leaned over to lay her head on his shoulder but did not answer. She had on thick fuzzy socks that were now filthy. He knew that her feet would be killing her by the end of the day, but he was proud that she wasn’t complaining.
“Aliens and dinosaurs.” She said with a mirthless chuckle, her eyes distant and unfocused.
Jack could only nod. He hadn’t taken the time to truly process the craziness of what had just happened to them. He was worried that if he did, he would start to spiral and this was not the time or place for that.
“That Alien looked like a Kenku.” Mavis continued to fill the silence.
“A what?” Jack asked, turning to look at Mavis with a raised eyebrow as she started to laugh.
“A Kenku. Raven people from dungeons and dragons. Crazy right? Whoever would have guessed.”
She chuckled some more, and Jack joined her. The situation was ridiculous. Bird people, aliens, and a planet full of dinosaurs. They both smiled for a few minutes but before they could continue their descent into madness Marcus came to sit beside them along with Gordon, Mattock, Skye, a young man who Jack didn’t know but who introduced himself as Miles, and finally Jade. Jack and Mavis went to stand but Marcus gestured for them to stay seated.
Marcus addressed their small group. “I’ll get around meeting everyone in the tribe one-on-one as time goes on, but for now I've gathered the people here who are coping the best who aren't on watch. We need to figure out how to use this device, and make a plan for how far we can move today.” He held up his wrist with the alien bracelet.
The group nodded in unison and Mavis spoke up first.
“Can I see the bracelet?” She asked and Marcus took a step forward and offered his arm. The bracelet was too small to be removed, and it didn't seem to stretch at all. Mavis took Marcus’s hand and started to run her fingers across the strange green glass and the patterns in the charms.
While that was happening, Jack shook hands with Jade and Miles as they introduced themselves. Mattock started the real discussion.
“We need to find water first and foremost. Most of the people here won’t make it much further without it. Then we need food. We have found a few berry bushes but we have no idea if they are safe to eat. If we get that thing working and use the map the Alien mentioned, we can gather samples of as many plants as we can find and figure out what is safe to eat. I think the Alien said their device could do that as well. If we can’t get it working, we should head downhill as far as we can. As soon as we find water we stop and build fires. Fire will be our best bet to keep the animals away from our camp. I have a box of matches in my bag, but we should start trying to conserve them as much as possible. We light one fire and then carry the flame to the others. When we march we will have two or three people carry torches or cradled embers with them so we can start fires at the next stop.”
Miles spoke up when Mattock was done talking. His voice was higher pitched than Jack had expected from the well-built man with sunburned skin. Jack lowered his estimation of the man's age.
“How many water bottles do we have? I’ve seen maybe five and with close to seventy people, we won’t make it far. Even if we find water and make a fire, can those bottles survive being boiled over the fire? Or will they melt?”
Jade answered his question.
“I counted seven water bottles when I did my rounds, but one of them was already empty, and the other is full of vodka. I don’t know what it can be used for in a survival situation, but the young man who had it handed it over when he told me about it. So we will have to decide if it's worth dumping to add more water storage.”
Jack found his moment to speak up.
“Mavis has an empty beer can that we could probably use to boil water. It will be slow going though. If we find a fast-moving stream we may have no choice but to risk drinking the water.”
He looked between the others, hoping one of them would have a better idea. But no one spoke up until Maivs changed the subject.
“Ok, Chief.” She spoke to Marcus, then paused.
“Should I call you Chief? Or Marcus? Mr. Wright?”
Marcus looked slightly embarrassed and waved her question away.
“Um, just Marcus is fine. I don’t really want to be in charge of a tribe or anything. I am just good at organizing people. I was planning on making a sort of council for big decisions anyway, or putting Mattock here in charge once we have everyone moving.”
Mattock shook his head fervently.
“Absolutely not. I'm not a people person and you have the patience to actually put up with others. If that Linux guy had started bitching to me about the buddy system in this jungle of dinosaurs I would have broken his nose.” Mattock huffed and crossed his arms. Clearly getting worked up just at the thought of dealing with stupid people all day.
Marcus chuckled.
“I was tempted. But that wouldn’t help anyone in the long run.” He turned back to Mavis.
“Do you have any idea how to use this thing, Ms Martin?”
She shook her head hesitantly.
“Please just call me Mavis. We can all just use first names. I have a few ideas, but it's all guesswork based off of stories and video games. My first guess would be to grab one of the charms and think about what you want to happen. I am pretty sure this one shaped like a book is the mapping power.”
Marcus nodded and rotated his wrist to face upwards, then grabbed the charm with his other hand and moved it onto his outfaced palm. The connecting chain was too short, and he couldn’t get the charm fully in his right hand. He squinted his eyebrows and tried to focus on the bracelet, but nothing happened.
“Try saying map?” Mavis suggested.
“Map.” Nothing happened.
“Try saying, activate map.” Mavis continued.
“Activate Map.” As soon as the words were out of Marcus’s lips the charm glowed green and a faint ripple of light washed out of his hand. Marcus felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up, and shivered as the projection of a topographical map appeared above his palm, glowing a faint green.
The entire group stared at it with awe. The super-advanced alien technology may as well be magic. Mavis may have seen location data and hologram technology centuries ahead of what they had on Earth, but Jack saw magic.
“Well that felt weird,” Marcus said, moving his hand. As soon as he did the map moved as well, and he soon figured out that he needed to keep his hand in place to look at the map. When he moved his fingers below the map he could zoom in and out, pan around, and focus on certain areas. The first thing the group noticed was that the map came with compass markings around its edges, as well as numbers they presumed to be latitude and longitude marks. They quickly oriented themselves and found that they were heading South down the slope of a large mountain. There were no easily noticeable mile markers, but from the scale of the map and the tiny trees it created, they got a rough estimate of the surrounding ten miles.
“Amazing,” Mavis whispered as she studied the magic hologram.
Mattock and Marcus were clearly impressed as well, but for different reasons. Marcus zoomed the map out and pointed down the valley they were walking through. Approximately three miles downhill of them was a river carved into a wide canyon valley that spread out as it wound down the map. Zooming in, they found a stream less than a mile away that rushed through the jungle to meet the river.
“Here. If we head further south we should come across this stream. But it looks like it goes off a cliff once it gets to the river valley below.” Mattock pointed as he spoke.
“It's still our best bet,” Marcus said, moving the map to look at the cliffs. Tiny waterfalls were shown as the stream widened and then launched itself over the cliff.
“We can reach the stream, set up a small camp for the night, and then look for food.” Jade said and everyone nodded. They each felt a small pang of hunger as they started gathering people up and continued their march through the woods.
This time Jack and Mattock were up front, and they took turns stabbing out at the bushes and ferns as they walked. Waiting for something to jump out at them as the people marching behind them started to make more and more noise as they tired. Marcus and Mavis walked side by side, studying the map with Jade until about thirty minutes had passed and the holographic map suddenly disappeared. When they checked the charm, they found it was cold to the touch.
Fortunately, they already had their heading, and both Mattock and Jack were experienced in hiking off-trail, so they managed to keep moving in the correct direction.
At one point Mattock stabbed a bush and both men were surprised when a spider the size of a dog let out a hiss and leaped at them. In a flash, Jack’s experience as a hockey player kicked in and he whipped the bottom end of his spear at the fast-moving black blur like a hockey stick. The gnarled club of a branch he was carrying did its job and he smashed the spider against a tree as Mattock stepped back in surprise.
Jack stepped forward and with a mighty roar he swung down on the stunned insect and obliterated it. Leaving behind a disgusting pile of greenish blood and broken chitin.
After checking to make sure that there were no more of the creatures, Mattock and Jack looked back at the tribe and gestured for them to continue moving.
“It's almost certainly venomous, and I'm not hungry enough to try and eat one of those when we will likely find fish in the steam up ahead.” Mattock said, wiping some green blood off his arm and nodding to Jack.
“Thank you for the save. I don’t want to know what getting bit by one of those would be like.”
Jack nodded.
“I think you hit it with your spear, but we only startled it. We should start putting more force into our checking pokes, so that if we do hit something and start a fight, we are on the front foot when it happens.”
They continued to walk, and within the hour they could hear the running stream swirling past them. The sigh of relief that passed through the tribe lifted a weight from Jack’s heart. But as he stepped past a large fern his jaw dropped.
The jungle thinned dramatically in the hundred feet around the creak. The vegetation was kept low by the small herds of herbivores that gathered around the stream. Five large four-legged dinosaurs with plates on their backs and long serrated tails were at the water's edge. Three of them drank while two of them munched on the plants trying to grow close to the water.
About fifty feet away from the large herbivores were a group of twelve small dinosaurs no larger than a chicken. They were green and brown, with a handful of feathers around their necks and hands, but most of their bodies were scaly. Mavis was the first to recognize them as Compsegnathis, or the Compy from the second Jurassic Park movie. They were chasing around small insects and chirping at each other in a way that was almost cute.
“Are those stegosaurus?” Miles asked as the tribe filtered out of the woods to observe the creek. But Mavis shook her head.
“No. Or well, they are, but not quite. Look at their tails. Stegosauruses as we know them from movies and games were based on the species found in North America. These are likely a cousin species or an evolutionary offshoot. If the planetary AI that runs this place even lets new species evolve. It sounded like they kept the environment somewhat stable artificially. So who knows.”
Everyone looked at her. And Gordon was the first one to speak.
“So. Can we call them Stegos then?”
Everyone except Mavis nodded, but she was entranced by the creatures and ignored them.
She had taken a single step forward when Jack grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. She let out a small noise of shock but it was cut off when Jack pointed his spear across the clearing. On the far side of the creek, approximately two hundred feet away from them, was a dinosaur with a long snout like a crocodile. It stood on two legs and had a long neck and tail for balance. It easily reached twice Jack's height at the shoulder. Its claws were hooked and its arms were long enough that they could reach the ground if it decided to run on all fours. It was dark brown, the color of the mud around the base of the creek, and its slitted yellow eyes were locked onto the small tribe of humans.
Mavis gasped as she saw it. She cleared her throat and spoke quietly like any whisper would set the beast off.
“Baryonyx.”