I proudly present "The Black Lizard"
*
The earth itself shuddered, a recoil in horror, as the largest beast Christopher's eyes had ever beheld stepped over him.
His every urge, every instinct, was to move, to run.
A second foot strode past the first and thundered into the ground. It was a chorus of heavy thuds - an entire herd of the creatures was walking past him.
If he ran, he would surely die. The sudden movement would startle the herd and they'd crush him like a bug. It'd be even worse if he managed to get out of the herd.
All he could do was stay in place and hope the Argentinosaur herd stepped around the small boulder that was his shelter, instead of on it.
The shelter hid the herd behind him. If one was going to step on him, he wouldn't see it coming. All he could do was watch the giants leaving through the open front flap.
They weren't aware he was there, or if they were he meant nothing to them. They were nearly ten thousand times his size - why should they give a shit about him?
His hand was shaking, and he wished it was just from the ground tremors.
The herd passed over ten agonizing minutes. The adults and young called to each other constantly, and the area stank of manure.
The minutes ticked past, and he felt the sweat run down his face. He may have been Scent Neutral, but the mosquitos seemed to find him just fine. He couldn't move to swat them away.
Now was the dangerous time, the time he hated the most. Large footsteps struck the ground, but they were different from the ones of the mind-bogglingly-large Argentis. The sound was softer, more careful. The predators that eternally followed the herd, like the mosquitos that seemed to follow him.
Abelisaurs, at least two. Probably three.
Five minutes had passed since the herd had moved on, the HUD on his glasses displayed. Christopher didn't have time to dawdle, he was tracking this herd.
The predators couldn't smell him; they would only be able to see him. As long as he moved slowly enough, they wouldn't even be able to do that.
He hated ghillie suits. He looked like a shaggy wildman in the suit of dangling green and brown fibers that helped to break up his shape and make him look like a bush. It was also dreadfully hot.
Squirming on his belly, one inch at a time, he began to leave the shelter of his pathetic, rock-colored tent.
He saw one Abelisaur immediately. It was rooting its snout in the dung left behind by the sauropods, seeking clues of their health.
It was the ones he couldn't see that worried him. It was unlikely, but possible they were looking at his back, noticing the patch of grass that was inching across the ground.
Mud squelched against him, and he was thankful for the plastic wrapping on his rifle. The weapon had to be under him. It was too angular, too metallic, to hide well from the dinosaurs.
They knew what a gun was. People had been hunting them ten years now, and the dinosaurs had learned what a gun was, and to run away.
He privately wondered how smart they were. He saw some of them doing things that made no sense; the kind of illogical actions only a sentient being would display. Curiosity, playfulness. Occasionally even altruism. It didn't seem to fit at all with the conception of them as mindless lizards.
No one really cared enough to study it, though. They were a money-maker, a meal ticket - sometimes literally. He wasn't partial to a steak made from an Argentinosaur, but many back home were.
Home. Christopher grimaced.
The predators began to clear out, following the herd once more. Judging them far enough away, he slowly got up and began to follow on foot. There was a ridge nearby.
And when he got there, it would play out like it had hundreds of times before; he'd aim for the head of one of the great beasts, and kill it with one shot.
He had only four rounds, but it was more than he needed. He'd fired three already, and with each one he'd scored a clean kill. Anything less than a brain shot on one of the massive beasts would only drive it into a frenzy.
It took repurposed anti-tank weaponry to kill these things. Even the relatively smaller predators, you couldn't kill them with less than a .50 cal.
His rifle was 14.5mm caliber. A third bigger, and over twice the power. It was still barely enough.
Working with purely experience and muscle memory, he got in position, and aimed. The dinos moved their heads a lot, but he knew times they kept them still enough. He waited, and aimed.
The rifle-canon recoiled massively over his shoulder; it had to, or it'd dislocate his arm.
The giant animal never knew what hit it, and the sound of the alarmed herd was drowned out by the sound of the earth trembling in terror again as ninety tons of animal crashed to the ground.
*
“Your hunt was successful,” The Handler said. He was merely stating the facts as preamble.
Christopher did not say anything. There was obvioulsy no need when his handler knew all the facts.
The man was clearly waiting for a response, but the hunter never obliged him.
Finally, clearly a little thrown off, the Handler continued. “All parameters were within acceptable levels. You even brought back your empty water bottles.”
He gave the slightest of nods as acknowledgement. It wasn't that he was intending to be rude; he just wasn't one to say much. So he simply stared at his Handler with an intensity that befitted a master hunter.
And it unnerved people.
“We only have one question,” the handler asked, invoking the entirety of the Company in an attempt to channel their power. “You never filed your mid-day status report on the thirty-first. Why was that?”
“Large theropods were around. Moving wasn't an option.” He didn't care to file his reports, anyway, and his Handler knew that.
The man made a click of his tongue. “Well, next time you fail to report in, I'm going to have to make a note in your file. I'd hate to have to do it, you're one of our best.”
Christopher nodded slightly.
“Dismissed,” his handler said, rattled. “Go . . . get a drink and relax. You've earned it.”
Without a word, Christopher stood and walked out.
No one did that; snubbed their handlers. It wasn't illegal, but it might as well have been. The Company owned everything - literally; everything in this time period.
When they had first come back, the government had claimed the entire world. They were the first here, after all. Their claim to any land would pre-date everyone else's. And then they had sold it - for a pittance. Some claimed a few hundred thousand, others a few million. The details weren't important.
It just mattered that the Company owned the earth from nearly its inception.
And company rules were treated in courts exactly like laws, and company security could do whatever it wished. If they said you were guilty, you were considered guilty.
Stepping out of the perfectly-cooled central building to the open air was a shock he hated, the heavy air rolling over him oppressively. It only felt uncomfortable to him after he'd had the comparison of the cool inside.
The bar was open-air, mostly for tourists, but there was also a cadre of veteran hunters, just back from their hunts.
Samba spied him, and waved him over with a big grin.
“Man of the hour!” he called.
Christopher forced a smile and sat down on a stool. “What did I do?”
“You bagged the biggest,” Samba said. It wasn't his name; just what everyone called him. Get men packed with testosterone together, and the nicknames would all be stereotypes. True in the army, true with the hunters . . .
“Oh. Did I?”
“Yes. She's actaully a record-breaker. Biggest kill this year!”
“That's good,” he said mildly. He couldn't muster enough energy to care.
Ten years ago, even five, it wouldn't have been a big kill. But the big ones had all been killed. Half the time herds were led by adoslescents anymore. Everyone wanted the big kills.
Some folks had suggested a breeding program in special parks for hunting. The Company had sited the cost of such a plan, and turned it down.
Besides.
Dinosaurs couldn't be tamed.
He couldn't imagine it lasting another ten years. What happened when they had killed off most of the mature dinosaurs? They were probably a century old. Uprooting operations and moving forward a century was feasible but highly expensive.
No one even talked about it, or even acknowledged that it was a problem.
Sometimes he felt like the only man who saw reality; the impossibility of their current operations, and everyone else ignored it. But they knew. And just like him, they didn't want to rock the boat, or didn't know what to do about it. So they just kept marching forward with blinders.
“I'll win next round,” another man said, winking at him with infuriating smugness.
“Then I'll buy the drinks. But this time they're on you,” Christopher said, feeling something akin to interest.
Some folks might see the reality, but then you had people like Sir Richard. He wasn't knighted, but he had the snobbery and good breeding that made people think of it.
“You already got the award for most kills,” Samba said with a laugh. “Overachiever. You're making lazy men like me look bad.”
“I can't help it if I'm ferocious,” Sir Richard replied immediately. He'd already had a few drinks, and was a lightweight to begin with. “I've just got raptor blood in me. Makes me want to kill.”
Samba grinned. “I always knew you were a bastard!”
A fight broke out between them. Sir Richard always was touchy about his family.
Christopher grabbed his drink and jumped back as the two men knocked over stools and threw awkward punches.
Sensing men rushing up to break up the fight, Christoper held up his arm to block them. “Let them go. They're just working it out.”
The men who had come to help hesitated. They were just workers; they didn't really want to get on the bad side of a big, bad hunter, who could theoretically get them fired if he complained.
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