X-POP3-Rcpt: parasaur@bigbyte Return-Path: herpetophile-errors@lists.best.com From: Dinosorceror Subject: SB036: You Might Learn Something Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 17:48:49 -0800 BestServHost: lists.best.com Sender: herpetophile-errors@lists.best.com Errors-To: herpetophile-errors@lists.best.com Reply-To: herpetophile@lists.best.com To: herpetophile@lists.best.com SB036: You Might Learn Something (Dedicated to Matt in Idaho) Dino sat up a bit on the table, noticably shaken by the whole Prisoneresque experience Selsun had thrust upon him. "So...what exactly has happened while I was asleep?" he asked. "Well," Stormfront replied, "Benjamin and Livingstone got a little space-sick a few days ago, but nothing the pharmaceuticals couldn't handle. We haven't seen WolfWings for a while...but we think he's just enjoying the ample robotics facilities. Orelious is working on some secret project that sie says will aid our cause, and of course Red is still growing like a weed. Jerhevon's finally patched the sub-atomic particle leak that was allowing Ceralien to track our movements." "And what about X?" Dino grunted aloud as he stood. "Well...we really don't know what happened to her. She took off in the escape unit, and that was the last we heard from her. The Magister just took off in his FARTIS, and we're not really sure if they're in cohouts or not," Stormfront answered. "I'll tell you this much," Dino grumbled. "She's got seven segments of the Device, and who knows what powers they have. But...but ours! Right! Selsun told me that we should have ten more segments." Stormfront shifted hir stance and gazed with a puzzled look. "Since when?" "You mean...we don't have thirteen pieces?" Stormfront shrugged. Dino's eyeridges furrowed. "I wonder what Selsun was talking about then..." A moment later, Darwin, the cetacean computer persona of the TURDIS, appeared on the display screen. "Hey, wonder boy's awake! I'll let everyone know," he chirped, and disappeared shortly thereafter. --------------------------------------------------------------------- "...and so I know X knows that we have the supposed thirteen segments to the Device, even though none of you seem to know where the other ten are," Dino said as he scribbled on a chalkboard at the front of the meeting room he had assembled everyone in. The board read: Us X/Patriarch Ceralien Remaining ---- ------------- ---------- ----------- "13" 7 1 5 Dino continued. "And I do know one thing...assuming we find out where these missing ten Device segments are around here...we are going to be target numero uno for both the Patriarch and Ceralien. So I think that should be priority one from now on...finding these ten segments on the ship. Then...well, I say we take a vote as to what we're going to do next. I mean...right now, with all the segments we're packing, we can just stay evasive for the rest of our lives, and find some secluded planet to retire on. 'Cause we know no one will ever be able to assemble the fabled Device since we have half the components. Or...we could go after the remaining five rogue pieces, or even go after those that Ceralien and X have." The assembled sort of grumbled amongst themselves until Jerhevon stood. "Dino, I really don't see that first suggestion as an option at all. We would be fugitives for the rest of our lives...constantly hunted by both factions that wish to assemble the Device. Is that how we really want to live?" Dino puckered his muzzle a bit. "Well...that's certainly a good argument against it. So you're saying we should go on the offensive? Are you saying *we* should try to assemble the Device ourselves?" Benjamin stood, stroking Livingstone at his side. "I think you're all forgetting an option that we have previously crossed paths with." Everyone turned to look at Ben. "We could destroy the segments we have, and just go the hell home." Again, the assembled group grumbled and mumbled a bit, until this time Dino broke the silence. "No." Their attention turned to him. "No. I really don't think that's right. Look at...look at the FIELD segment we acquired," he said, motioning to a force-field display case containing the FIELD and DARK segments. "Yes, I know you've seen it before. But there was a whole culture who was willing to sacrifice themselves that we might take the segment and use the Device in some manner beneficial to life everywhere. Those anoles were willing to be trodden into nonexistence by those pneumonia dragons...for what? Are we just going to throw it all away?" This time, the group was completely silent...and this time, Orelious stood. *When you put it like that, Dino,* sie growled softly, *there isn't rrreally any choice...is there?* Dino took a deep breath, and sighed. "Okay, then. All those in favor of keeping our segments and trying to acquire the rest of them, raise...something." Dino's eyes scanned the room, and saw that everyone had a paw of some kind raised high in the air, except for Red, who had something naughty raised high in the air. The Dinosorceror squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a moment, then snickered a bit. "Okay. It's settled then. Let's all split up and see if we can't find out what that goofy Selsun did with the ten Device segments we're supposed to have. Keep your intercoms open." --------------------------------------------------------------------- "They *are* a band of brainless imbociles, aren't they?" the Patriarch sighed with disgust as the viewing globe clouded over once again into the multi-color swirl of inactivity. "They really don't have the slightest idea what they're toying with. They're treating the Device as if they were on a treasure hunt." "I do think it will work out to our advantage, my master," Sa spoke softly as she bowed. "And how is that?" "Surprisingly, it will differ little from our original plan. We will simply send our agent again to tip the scales in favor of the Dinosorceror and his crew. When they have the nineteen segments we need to complete the Device, we will simply take them from him, as he is certainly not resilient enough to defy us," Sa hissed. "*If* we do not acquire the five rogue segments ourselves, you are assuming...which I think is assuming too much. You underestimate our own agents, Sa. I believe if we acquire the five free segments, and aid the Dinosorceror and his pathetic band to steal the one that Ceralien now controls, that will be sufficient to achieve our goals," the Patriarch rumbled regally. Sa bowed deeply. "You are, of course, the most wise Patriarch...your will is my only goal. It shall be done." --------------------------------------------------------------------- Jerhevon had paired up with Dino to search some of the upper levels. Dino was carrying a portable reference guide. "I still don't see how staring at an electronic encyclopedia is going to help us find the missing ten segments," Jerhevon scolded as they walked. "Well, I have a feeling that there's something numerically important about ten, Jerhevon. I mean, it's the basis of my numerical system," Dino answered. "Whatever for?" "Well...because we each have ten fingers and ten toes." Jerhevon stopped, and gave him a puzzled look. Dino looked up at him from the encyclopedia, and rolled his eyes. "Well, I *used* to, okay? Anyway, I'm sure it's important. Selsun is one of those wise-ass pseudo-omnipotent thingies. She probably gets off at the fact that we have to solve these little puzzles." Jerhevon shrugged and continue to guide the engrossed parasaur down the halls of the TURDIS. "Ten Commandments...Decameron...tenrec...wait...oh, wait a second!" Dino shouted. "What, what?" Jerhevon asked. "Ten! The Greek numerical symbol for ten! It's...X!" Dino quickly got on the communicator to everyone. "Attention, everyone! I think I might have a clue! We should concentrate the search on everywhere X has been on this ship!" As Dino clicked the communicator off, Jerhevon nabbed him by the shoulder. "But...maybe that means that X has the ten segments, Dino..." Dino shook his head. "No. Selsun specifically said that they had been placed on the TURDIS, I'm sure of it." A few moments later, all sorts of faces and voices appeared on Dino's communicator. Most of them said something to the effect of, "Dino, do you know how many places X has been? That doesn't really help much, you blithering idiot!" The Dinosorceror sighed for a minute, then contacted Darwin on a control panel on the wall. "Darwin? Can you tell us anywhere on the TURDIS that X *never* was?" Darwin chirped irritatedly. "Oh, sure...that's an easy one. There's one place *no one* has ever been on this ship, and that's the science lab! I guess you all think you're so knowledgeable about everything that--" Dino clicked Darwin off, as he really was in no mood to be lectured by a virtual dolphin. He turned on his communicator again. "Okay, everyone...to the science lab!" A few moments later, all sorts of faces and voices appeared on Dino's communicator. All of them said, "Where the hell is the science lab?" --------------------------------------------------------------------- "So...*this* is the science lab?" Red murfled as the group entered a dingy, cobweb-strewn 'room,' consisting of a few microscopes on tables, a few cabinets, and one 40-watt bulb dangling from a ceiling wire. "And Darwin was upset that we didn't use the place," Dino huffed. "The ten segments have to be in here somewhere, though...we shouldn't have too difficult a time." The group had emptied every drawer in the cabinet, completely disassembled the microscopes, and even taken down the 40-watt bulb from the ceiling. Jerhevon held a flashlight as they examined the booty on the table. "So, fearless leader...how do we tell which of these doohickeys is a segment of the Device?" Stormfront asked. "There are more than ten things here...which ten are them?" asked Red. "Well, we don't have any kind of device-detector...we'll just have to...figure it out. Let's see what we've got here," Dino pondered as he examined the antiquated scientific equipment. "A magnifying glass...a thermometer..." Orelious noted. "The bits of the microscopes...a pH testing kit..." Stormfront added. "A hardness testing kit...a Bunsen burner..." WolfWings added. "A barometer...some kind of--" Red began to say, but Benjamin interrupted him. "Wait...did you say a hardness testing kit, WolfWings?" WolfWings nodded, then said, "Yes," as he handed the box to Benjamin. "Well, that solves that then," Ben said with confidence. Dino jutted his head out to see the box. "But...that's just one box, Benjamin. Where are the other segments?" Benjamin smiled, his dark glasses pulling close to his face. "Take a look." Benjamin opened the dusty box, revealing ten different rock samples inside, each one individually labeled: TALC, GYPSUM, CALCITE, FLUORITE, APATITE, ORTHOCLASE, QUARTZ, TOPAZ, CORUNDUM, and DIAMOND. Jerhevon smacked the side of his head with his tail, which hurt quite a bit. "D'oh! Of course! The hardness scale! From one to ten! You can test the hardness of a material by seeing if it scratches/can be scratched by these ten materials!" "And these ten samples *must* be the segments of the Device," Dino said. "Good work, Benjamin! Let's get these back to the protective force-field display with the other two." ~Don't you mean the other *three*, Dino?~ Orelious hissed. ~That Lens around your neck would be safer in the display case.~ As the others filtered out of the dark and dusty room, Dino simply raised an eyeridge to Orelious and said, "You *really* think I'm gonna give up my favorite toy?" as he chuckled his way out of the lab. --------------------------------------------------------------------- "So, now...we've got 13 segments..." remarked Dino. "Oh, for the love of all things merciful, will you stop SAYING that, Dino?" Stormfront growled. "It's been four weeks since we found the last ten segments. And we've been sitting on our keesters doing nothing to get the rest of them!" "Yeah, Dino! We've been floating around in space for far too long. Let's get going!" Red insisted. Dino was taken back. "Well...well, geez! Okay, if you've all got a death wish, then...Darwin! Do you still have a registry of the device segments? The ones we haven't acquired yet?" Darwin appeared on the screen of the rec room. "Yeppers! The nearest one is labeled MORPH; it's about twenty parsecs away. We could be there in minutes." Dino snarled, "Fine. Take us there, right now!" He sighed. "Geez, I thought you guys would enjoy a bit of a rest after all we've been through." "A rest is one thing," Ben stated. "Vegetating is another." Dino eased up a bit. "Yeah, yeah...okay. Well...um...battlestations, everyone, or whatever." Livingstone got up from his prone, napping posture and resettled himself amidst the silence, which remained the entire journey to the destination. "Well, we're here, everyone," Darwin chirped. "This is it." Darwin displayed the view outside the TURDIS. "Oh, my God...it's...it's..." Dino stuttered. "It's Earth, brainiac," Darwin said uninterested. "But...but how?" Dino stuttered again. "What's so surprising, Dino?" Red chrred. "We could've gone to Earth anytime." "But...I thought we were stuck in that the Circuits of Time(tm) crap? What happened?" "Oh, we got out of that when that Magister guy came on the scene," Orelious explained. "How 'come no one told me?" "Well...simple. You never asked," Stormfront humphed. "So...this MORPH segment is back on Earth, eh?" Dino said, taking a deep breath. "Actually, all of the remaining five segments are on Earth, Dino," Darwin clicked and chirped. "This just happened to be the closest one. I'm very anal, as--" "As we all know," Orelious, Jerhevon, Red, Stormfront, Benjamin, WolfWings, and Dino said in unison. --------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hate the graveyard shift." *SLOP* He slopped the mop around on the convenience store's floor, wiping off the day's muddy footprints. Being the only one on duty from 11:00pm to 8:00am was bad enough, but when there weren't even any customers it was extremely boring. *SLOP* The only person to stop by was a cop, and he only wanted to use the bathroom. Hell, he was still in there. Hope he's got an air freshener. *SLOP* He was staring out the front windows across the street at the tourist info booth when a port-a-potty suddenly materialized next to the garbage dumpster behind it. *SPLASH* He had knocked over the bucket, but hardly noticed. He was too busy looking at the port-o-let. In the fluorescent light of a street lamp overhead, he saw some creatures emerging. No...no, they almost looked like... Dinosaurs. "Oh, my God." --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Anybody have any idea just where we are?" Dino asked as he stepped from the TURDIS. "Hey, what about this?" Wolfie said, gesturing a metallic claw toward the tourist center. Jerhevon walked over and grabbed a bunch of brochures from off the rack. "According to these, we're in Sandpoint, Idaho." "Sandpoint, Idaho. Hmm...lemme check with my little database thingy here," Dino said, tapping some keys in the dim streetlight. "Ahh, okay. Let's see...remarkable features...oh, joy. The claims to fame of this little town are that the one cop from the O. J. Simpson trial moved here afterwards, and that the Ruby Ridge FBI massacre thing happened not far away." Everyone just gave Dino a blank look. "Oh, I guess you'd have to live on...uh...Earth to, uh...know...that..." he trailed off sheepishly. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Holy shit! Evolved dinosaurs! This was too good to be true! All this time he thought he was alone, but here were others just like him! "Christ, I've got to change!" He dropped the mop and sprinted to the rear emergency exit of the store and dashed out, quickly running to his car to get his larger set of clothes... --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Aaaaaah, much better!" the police officer said, tucking his shirt back into his pants and hoisting up his gun belt as he walked out of the bathroom of the convenience store. "Sorry I took so long, but I had Mexican for dinner and I..." Odd, the attendant was gone. "Stupid kid," he thought. "What does he think I'm going to do...watch the place for him?" he mumbled softly as he walked out of the store. He was in the shadows walking to his squad car when he heard the conversation from across the street, near the dumpster. When he glanced over, he went slack-jawed at the sight of several creatures looking like crosses between different dinosaurs and humans, a small dragon, a large robotic dragon, a creature with...three...heads... "Holy shit!" he mumbled to himself, unsure of what to do. There wasn't a "How to deal with evolved dinosaurs" section in the police handbook. He was about gather his gumption and make his way across the street when another dinosaur sprinted from around the back of the convenience store, right past him, knocking him down, and across the street to the group that was having a discussion by a garbage dumpster. He quietly got up and reached into his car and got his radio off the seat. He turned down the volume and spoke quietly into the microphone. "Base, this is officer Moore. I, uh, need backup at the tourist center. And make it quiet! No sirens, no lights, just approach as quietly as possible. I'll explain later. You won't...fucking believe it." He set the radio down and released his dashboard-mounted shotgun and began loading it. They were all facing him, except for the three-headed one. "If I'm lucky," he thought, "I can use that one as a barrier and sneak up on them..." --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Who the hell is that?!" Jerhevon shouted, pointing toward the store. Everyone turned, and were quite startled to see a brontosaur sprinting right toward them. Stormfront unsheathed hir swords. "Hold it!" sie yelled, and the brontosaur skidded to a halt. He was about 10'5" tall, his scales a plain light grey. He was wearing jeans and a green B.U.M. T-shirt. "Jesus, I can't believe it!" he said, looking them all up and down, a very large grin on his snout. "Who are you? How did you get here?" Dino asked in amazement as Stormfront leveled hir swords at the bronto. "Um...yeah! Hi! I'm Matt Walsh, and...well, shit, I've hoping to meet up with some more like me for oh...um...7 years now! This is great!" Matt was lightly hopping from foot to foot with excitement. "*Like* you? What do you mean by that?" Dino asked in confusion. "Well, I suppose I should tell you the whole story. Seven years ago...I was 11 then...I was taking a shower and had just popped the top off of a brand new container of shampoo when all sorts of smoke billowed out, and I heard a voice from the cloud thanking me for letting him out, and that anything I wanted was mine," the brontosaur morph explained. "Selsun," Stormfront muttered to hirself. "Anyway...I wanted *this!*" Matt said, patting himself on the chest. "I also added that I wanted to be able to morph back into my old human form, so that I could escape detection. So the shampoo cloud gave me this crystal that lets me morph..." "So, you were originally human?" Dino asked, stepping forward. "Yes!" Matt said, happy that he had finally been able to tell someone his secret. "Well, I...sort of...know how you feel!" Dino said, walking up and slapping Matt on the back. "I was born human, too. Say, you're not busy or anything, are you?" Red covered his muzzle, and turned to the rest of the group to avoid laughing in front of the brontosaur. "Geez, Dino sure is smooth, isn't he?" ~Shush!~ Orelious hissed. Dino said, "See...we're sort of on a mission, looking for fragments of something called the Device that's supposed to be a source of ultimate power. We're not trying to take over the universe or anything...in fact, we're trying to keep this Device out of the hands of two entities which we consider to be pretty sinister. Um...want to join us?" Red couldn't help but laugh. "Sure!" Matt said, beaming, as Dino eyed the green crystal he held. *Wait, hold it!* Orelious' leonine side growled. *You're just going to let someone else come along? How do we know if we can trust him? How do we know if--* Sie was cut short by the sound of a shotgun being cocked behind her. Orelious spun around and to the left, and everyone could now see the police officer which had managed to sneak up behind them. He was training a large shotgun on Stormfront. "Drop your weapons! All of you! Get down on your knees and put your...hands behind your...heads!" he yelled, his voice wavering slightly. Red thought about how this was handled the last time, and he said, "Hi! I'm...uh...we're looking for the...Star Trek convention?" (See SB006) He thought about pulling out a toy gun and firing a shot off into the air, but as soon as he started to move, the cop tightened his grip on his shotgun and disengaged the safety. "I said drop your weapons! Hands up!" Two police cars raced around the corner but slowed to a stop about 25 yards away. Four more cops got out, two carrying handguns and the other two brandishing shotguns. "Oooooh, shit!" Dino hissed to himself... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- )> The Dinosorceror of Lava Dome IV /\ Today's LD4 Special: <{ }> Herpetophile and Macrophile \/ Buy a six-pack of CoeloCords(tm)<( )> http://www.mosquitonet.com/~parasaur /\ and get a trial-size roll of <{ }> parasaur@mosquitonet.com \/ RaptaTape(tm) free! <( ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- See, now it's moments like THIS why I still peek in on the Dinosorceror show every now and then, hoping for one of those rare glimpses of the surreal. - Dr. Cat