The Jeep jostles over a water-filled pothole in the middle of the road — more two ruts winding across the contour of a hill than a road, actually — and mud splashes up over the side, through the open passenger side window and onto Bammo’s face.
“Shit, man, learn to drive,” Bammo says as he wipes off his cheek.
Vangelis shoots him an unimpressed look. “If the guns can handle it, you can handle it,”
“I don’t give a shit about the lasers. This mud’s hella hard to get out of my uniform.”
“Then put up your window.”
“Eh.” Bammo eyes the open air above their heads. “My luck, the next hole’ll be even deeper and you’ll somehow splash it straight down on me. Knew I shoulda sprung for the hardtop model.”
“Just pass your recommendation along to the quartermaster. I’m sure she’ll give it careful consideration.”
“Sheesh. No chance. It'd probably add ten whole bucks to the company’s annual budget. She’d never approve it.”
The older man glances over at his passenger. “I heard she returns unopened gear, gets a refund from our suppliers, and keeps the cash.”
“For real? Wouldn’t be surprised.”
They drop back into silence. Vangelis keeps his eyes on the road for the most part, sparing half an eye to scan the shadows by the sides of the road to make sure they’re still clear. Bammo stares off, deep into the jungle, lost in thought.
“See anything?” Vangelis asks after a few minutes.
“Nah.”
“You said you still haven’t seen one?”
Bammo grunts in frustration. “Ugh. No. Been running these damn ops for six weeks and still not a one.”
“It’s better, to be honest,” says Vangelis. “Once you do, you start… wondering. Asking questions. And that’s bad.”
“Shit, man, I got a lot of questions.”
“And it’s good that you don’t ask them. Part of the job.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
Vangelis changes the subject before Bammo can start stewing; they’ve only been paired for three rides, but Vangelis has seen enough newbies to know how it goes.
“You gotten to fire off any of this new batch?” He nods to the crates full of weapons in the back of the Jeep.
Bammo’s eyes light up. “I did! Signed up for the test range like you told me to last time. Went out with a squad and had a four-hour sesh just lightin’ up the jungle.” He whistles. “That’s some firepower.”
Vangelis nods, a small grin on his face. “Guess you got your callsign for a reason.”
“You know it.” Bammo looks over at him, suddenly realizing to be curious. “What’s yours mean?”
“Oh, it’s a —“ Vangelis breaks off, hitting the breaks and turning the steering wheel hard to the right, pointing the Jeep down a side trail. “Dammit, always almost miss that turn. I hate this run.”
“Thought you loved all the drops.”
“Compared to doing actual work, sure.”
They round another corner and drive into a clearing in the dense foliage, a concrete platform coming into view. “Alright,” says Vangelis. “Here we…” He trails off.
Bammo follows his gaze to the edge of the clearing and, after a few seconds, gasps. “Oh. Oh my god.”
“Just act casual,” Vangelis advises, keeping his voice low. “Just… act… casual. That’s our customer. No need to get alarmed.”
“But it’s —”
Vangelis draws his finger quickly across his neck and Bammo shuts up.
He drives up to the platform and backs up so the Jeep’s rear is almost touching the concrete platform, whose top comes level with the bed.
“Come on. Let’s get this unloaded.”
“Yeah… yeah.” Bammo follows his senior’s lead and climbs out of the vehicle. Together they slide the four big crates out of the bed and onto the delivery platform, grunting.
When they’ve unloaded the goods, Bammo glances at Vangelis, waiting.
The veteran nods, comes over to Bammo’s side of the Jeep. He faces the edge of the clearing and slowly turns his hand, palm up, fingers splayed. He dips his head once, then gestures with his open hand back toward the platform.
At the edge of the clearing, the bipedal figure dips its own head, and moves toward them, almost… Bammo squints. It bobs as it moves, its long neck turning as its small eyes survey the environment. It’s almost chicken-like in its motion. Which makes sense, he realizes.
As it gets closer, Bammo realizes that its skin, which appeared a uniform dark green from a distance, is really intricate geometric patterns of purple and blue and light green and black. Its forearms, too, which looked small across the clearing, show themselves to be long, merely folded in against the creature’s body, claws at the ready.
He’s so busy staring at it that he doesn’t even realize Vangelis has gotten up on the platform. For an instant he’s frozen in terror — did Vangelis see that it was about to attack and jump out of its way? — until he sees the thing move around to the other side of the concrete platform and saunter halfway up the ramp, then hop the rest of the way up to the top, its tail waving in the air behind it like a counterbalance.
“You gonna make me do all the work here?” Vangelis says over his shoulder as he bends down to open the first crate. “Get up here, gimme a hand with these.”
Bammo obliges, climbing up and setting to work, thrilled and terrified and alarmed and panicking all at the same time. He manages to open one clasp on one crate before noticing that Vangelis has already finished the rest.
“These two,” Vangelis is telling their customer, holding up two fingers and gesturing to the two crates on the right, “these are the new guns.” He pantomimes holding a machine gun, then dips his head. “Eight guns. Okay? This one, that’s the ammo.” He pulls out a clip and snaps it open, revealing dozens of needle-like metal slugs. The man dips his head again, and the creature does the same.
“And this is the batteries.” Vangelis holds up one of the palm-size black cubes. “A lot of batteries. Jesus.” He holds one handle and hefts part of the crate, demonstrating the weight. “Heavy, okay? That’s a lot of batteries.”
The creature dips its head twice, then displays a… hand? Its talons are splayed, palm up.
Bammo looks back and forth between Vangelis and the creature.
“Do the head thing, man,” Vangelis hisses.
Bammo dips his head, confused and self-conscious.
The creature dips its head once more and then turns to the crates and their contents as if it’s already forgotten about the two humans.
“Want a lift home?” Bammo hears Vangelis say, and turns to see that the other man is already sitting in the driver’s seat of the Jeep. “That’s all, folks. Show’s over. We can go home.”
“Right.” Bammo climbs down, several times glancing back at the… customer. Hand on the door handle, he looks back once more. “This really some Jurassic World shi—"
“Get in the Jeep.”
“Right. Right. Sorry.” He gets in the Jeep, and Vangelis shifts into drive before the door is even shut.
Hello hello!
It’s another week! It’s the holidays! Whatever and however you celebrate, I hope you have a wonderful time. And what better way to celebrate than with gun-toting dinosaurs from another reality? If your answer was “there’s no better way than that,” then congratulations, you’ve chosen the only correct answer.
I’m juggling a bunch of exciting projects right now and will have news on them soon, so stay tuned. Um. Yeah. So… that’s about it. Comment your favorite dinosaur (in the comments section) (that’s what it’s there for) (specifically for dinosaurs) and I’ll try to feature them in a future episode.
Just watch out for Krampus.
:: Jaer