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Episode 05: |
"Tom the Raptors and Me"
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Episode 1: Episode 2: Episode 3: Episode 4: Episode 5: Episode 6:
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chapter two | chapter three | chapter four Chapter One The Year 4666 AD “Veronica, is that you?” Challenger’s eyes tried to focus in the darkness. He could have sworn he heard Veronica yelling. The lights had gone out right after he heard her. He also heard screaming which he assumed came from the man, Icarus, the computer called him, who was trying to remove his brain. He sensed movement in the darkness. “Is anyone there? If someone’s there, please, release me.” He was relieved when he felt his restraints being released. “Thank you.” He said as he got off the examination table and stood next to it. The room’s emergency lights suddenly came on. Challenger almost jumped out of his skin when he saw who had freed him. “You can’t be alive. I saw you killed.” “Calm yourself Professor. I am not who you think I am.” “I should hope not. I am quite certain Lady Yorkton was killed by natives. Are you an illusion or a figment of my imagination?” “I am more complicated than that. I took the form of Lady Yorkton because that was how I was programmed. My creator called it a “private joke”. It seems your wife read about her in one of your friend’s journals and you were homeless for a month. Apparently Professor, you are in the same predicament.” Challenger made a mental note to remove that entry from Malone’s journal. “I am a computer generated image made by a computer virus. I have been lying dormant and undetected inside the software of the Super Computer for decades. I have been waiting for you to arrive, Professor. I became active when the super computer scanned you. My creator made me after she was told what would happen. Her great, great, grandmother left my creator instructions in one of her journals.” “What is a computer virus?” Challenger listened intently as she gave him a detailed explanation of what a computer virus was. “How were you able to release me if you aren’t human?” “Once I shut down the super computer, I was able to control some of its more trivial task such as opening and closing locks to doors and your restraints.” Challenger was impressed by how far technology had gone. He suddenly felt as if he was being watched. He turned to see who it was and saw four pairs of raptor eyes staring back at him. He quickly looked back at Lady Yorkton. “What about them?” Challenger pointed to the raptors. “Are they computer generated as well?” “No. They are real.” Challenger took a step back, almost tripping over his own feet. “Do not worry Professor, they are completely harmless. They will be your protectors and your guides. They will help you to find the last recorded Protector of the Plateau.” “Veronica?” “No. My creator’s great, great, grandmother, Finn Roxton.”
“Are you referring to the Finn I brought back to my time? She never told me her last name. I always assumed she had none. I wonder why she never mentioned her last name was Roxton.” “I do not know Professor. In your time, is it not customary for a wife to take the name of her husband? There is nothing in my memory bank that proves otherwise.” “Finn married Roxton?” Challenger asked in shock. “Yes, a Thomas Roxton in 2036.” “If you would excuse me, I need a moment to take this all in.” Challenger tried to think of scientific explanations for what was happening but each time he came to the same conclusion. He had gone insane. “The only way I am ever going to know what is going on is if you tell me.” He turned and looked at the image of Lady Yorkton. “Tell me everything.” The Year 2033 AD Four hours later, as he walked along the path he was instructed to take by Lady Yorkton, he began processing everything she had told him. She had showed him moving images about the future from what she called a “video archive”. They showed how science was abused by people who were corrupted by greed, ambition and the thirst for power. She showed him how people used power to control and kill each other until science turned on them. She showed him what she called an “electronic version” of Finn’s journal. His first feeling at reading it was pride. Her writing had improved dramatically. He could not help but be proud that she had continued her education and that he had somehow had a hand in it. Her last entry was addressed to him where she told him what he had to do to get back home. She explained that she would be the last Protector of the Plateau before it was destroyed. Luckily, she and her family survived. She told him how unprepared she was when the responsibility fell to her because there was no one to tell her what to do. Reading her words, he sensed the guilt she felt because she had failed. She wrote how her husband, Tom, was once a member of a group who tried to stop the “bomb”. He too was left instructions by his great grandparents whom she referred to as “the two love birds”. Challenger smiled to himself because he knew exactly whom she referred to and he was happy they had finally stopped denying their feelings for one another. Finn also wrote that it was he who introduced her to her husband and that he was destined to go to her time to find him. She told him that she left the journal to her children who will pass it on to their children and so on until it got to him. She wrote about the amazing raptors he brought back with him, who were extremely intelligent and who became an invaluable part of her community. She made it clear that they could be trusted and they would protect him with their lives. She also told him when and where he would be able to find her but he would need help from Tom and the raptors. Lady Yorkton then explained that one of the functions of the virus was to tamper with the Raptor DNA samples created by the super computer. While the super computer was removing from the Raptor’s DNA the need for meat, it was unknowing implanting the need to protect the explorers of the Challenger Expedition and their descendants. She also told him that the super computer had a teleporting device that he could use to get to Finn’s time. She explained that another one of the virus’s function was to shut down the master computer temporarily and disable all the security systems. That's what happened when the power had gone out. With the power out, the raptors were able to escape their holding pens. With their enhanced senses, they were able to pick up his sent and find him. She also told him that the only way to save the Plateau was to stop the time ripples. Once he was told everything, Challenger felt a strong surge of guilt for he knew that his science was responsible for the “bomb” and possible the time ripples. He silently blamed himself for what Finn suffered and was determined to take the chance given to him to make things right. Challenger looked around him. He was so caught up in his thoughts he had not realized that the raptors were no longer with him. “Aren’t you supposed to be protecting me?" He yelled aloud, hoping they were near enough to hear him. "You may not have been told this but I was the leader of the expedition. Isn't it your duty to protect me? You really can't do that if you're not around.” Challenger was not aware that there were men following him. They thought he was insane because he appeared to be talking to himself. It wasn’t until they stood in front of him with their weapons pointing at his head that he realized he was not alone. Suddenly from nowhere the raptors sprang out of their hiding places and pounced on the men. “What the hell are these things?” one of the men yelled as he struggled to release himself from the raptors grasp. Challenger still in shock, watched unmoving. One of the raptors started sniffing one of the men. “Tom, I think that one thinks you're dinner.” Another one of the men told his friend after witnessing the raptors action. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” Tom replied. Upon hearing Tom’s name, Challenger snapped out of his stupor. “Tom? Would your name be Thomas Roxton?” “What’s it to you?” The young man replied. “My name is Professor George Challenger and I have been looking for you.”
Tom patrolled the parameter of the camp. He needed time to himself to think about everything that happened. The day had started out well enough with he and his friends scouting for food and supplies. Now here he was seriously considering helping a man he had read stories about since he was a boy. He had been sent away to school after his parents were killed. They had spent their whole lives trying to convince others about what would happen. It was a family curse that had been passed down from his great grandfather the world renowned hunter Lord John Roxton. Lord Roxton and his wife passed on what they knew about the future to their children who passed it on to their children. It became a curse because it seemed anyone with the last name Roxton was destined to die in some mysterious accident. Tom remembered the day he lost everything. His family had decided to go to town to do some routine shopping. He would have gone with them if he hadn’t caught a cold. Though Tom insisted that he was well enough to go, his mother made him stay home to rest. The last memory he had of his parents and his older sister was waving goodbye to them from his bedroom window. He remembered his mother blowing him a kiss right before she got into the car. What happened next would later replay itself in his nightmares. He remembered how loud the explosion was and that it had blown out a few of the windows on the first floor of their house. He couldn’t remember how long he stood at the window watching the flames engulf the car his family was in. The local authorities didn’t spend much time or manpower investigating his family’s death. He later learned that most of them were secretly working for the man his parents were trying to stop. Two days after his family's funeral, he was told by their solicitor to pack only the things important to him and that he was going away. He wanted to take something of his parents to remember them by. He remembered finding it hard to decide what to take because there were so many things in his house that held memories of his parents. He was in the library sitting at his father’s desk when he saw it. The book looked old and worn with the inscription “Marguerite” on it. At first he thought it was his sister’s journal but then realized it was much too old. He opened it and saw the date of one of the entries, August, 1920. It was then he realized the book belonged to his great grandmother. He continued looking around his father’s desk and found four more journals. He knew without reading them what they contained. They were a record of what happened during the years she had lived on the Plateau. He also knew one of them would hold information about the man responsible for his parent’s death. He quickly ran to his room and stored them inside his trunk. He also grabbed the picture of his family that he kept by his bedside to take with him. These items become his most prized possessions. Tom spent many nights in boarding school reading about his great grand mother’s life on the Plateau. He knew her joys, her fears and her love for his great grand father. She also wrote about the other people she lived with which included the man now sitting around the fire talking to his friends. She wrote about all his crazy experiments and his shifting planes of reality. If he had not been raised in the Roxton household, he would have found some of her stories unbelievable. These stories helped him get through school. He hated it there and kept to himself. No one believed him when he spoke of the bomb that would destroy countries and often made fun of him. On his sixteenth birthday, he packed his things and left. He worked odd jobs saving his money and after two years, earned enough for a one-way ticket to South America. He traveled for months attempting to follow the path his great grand parents had taken so many decades ago. He was determined to find this Plateau of theirs. It was during his search he found his new family. He was shocked to find there were others like him who had formed a resistance against a man they believed would bring great evil to the world. When he discovered it was the same man his family had fought hard to try and stop, he immediately joined their cause. Over the years, Tom and the resistance did what they could to stop his parent's killer but their numbers were few and they could not convince others to join them. It was not until the “bomb” that people came flocking to them for help. Tom remembered being angry with them. How dare they come to him and his friends for help? Where were they when they needed support? When the leaders of the resistance had sat down to discuss what to do with the many survivors wanting to join, he was one of the many who wanted to leave them out in the cold to rot. That night, as he prepared for bed, he spotted one of his great grand mother’s journals hidden under some books in his tent. He picked it up and began to thumb through it. He stopped at one of the entries and began to read it. It was an entry she had written about one of her many adventures and how her friends had risks their lives to save her. He stared at the last line of the entry and it was her words that helped changed his mind about allowing some of the survivors to join their group.
Tom laid awake most of that night thinking. People long ago put aside their personal feelings and did what was right. These people had indirectly been his guide his whole life. Reading about their struggles had helped him survive the hell he went through in school, the long days and nights in jobs that treated him like a slave, and the countless times he was laughed at or ridiculed. Most importantly, reading about his great grand mother’s life itself, helped him come to terms with his family’s death. She too had lost so much so young but had found a way to come to terms with it and learn to love and trust again. Now he must trust all that Challenger had told him. “What would they have done?” he asked himself aloud. He turned and saw Challenger approaching him. He shook his head and mumbled to himself. “I can’t believe I’m going to do this.” . “Well, have you come to a decision?” “Professor, whatever you need, I am here to help.” “Brilliant. Let’s get started.”
Challenger had been in Tom's camp for two weeks now and was very impressed at how they were organized and how they worked together for the benefit of the entire community. He learned there were other communities in other areas. They decided to spread out just in case something happened to one of the communities, there would be others to continue the fight. Each community had a leader and a council who made sure the people of the communities were protected and taken care of. The other members of their community also did there part. They were those who did the hunting, those who did the farming, and those who took care of the injured and even one or two who taught the children. Like the occupants of the tree house, they had made the best out of a bad situation and made a home for themselves. They had even started to accept the raptors. It was difficult to convince them at first that they were harmless but once Tom walked up to one and patted it on it’s head, their fears had somewhat calmed down. Over the next few days, Tom spent time with the raptors and even took them hunting with him. Challenger soon realized that the raptors had somehow accepted Tom as somewhat of a leader. Challenger found out from some of the people in the community that Tom was a great hunter, tracker and the youngest member of the council. He saw how everyone trusted him and valued his opinions. Challenger remembered when he first arrived and Tom brought him before the community leader and the council. At first the council was apprehensive and told him how insane they taught he was. Tom stood up and reminded them how they were treated when they tried to tell others about what was going to happen. He told them that he believed Challenger and that they had nothing to loose and a lot to gain if he succeeded. After hours of discussion, it was decided that Tom could use whatever resources they had to help Challenger but they could not afford to let any one else devote time to the project. Challenger and Tom spent the next few days after that talking and planning what they were going to do and how they were going to find Finn. Tom’s gung ho attitude and his willingness to help a complete stranger reminded him of Roxton.
"You
remind me of another young man.” He told Tom. “One who promised to
follow me hell and back. I am afraid that may be exactly where we have to
go." “Let’s hope it does, old boy, let’s hope it does.” About a week later, Challenger heard what he thought was music to his ears. “CHALLENGER,” he turned around at the sound of his name and saw Finn. Before he knew it, she had thrown her arms around him and given him a big hug.
~The End~ {Picks up in chapter four of its companion story “Down the Rabbit Hole”}
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Page Last Update: 01/15/2005