The First Barbecue Was Sixty-Six Million Years Early
The First Barbecue Was Sixty-Six Million Years Early
“Do not touch anything outside the blue housing.”
Marty Pritchard had both arms inside the blue housing.
“That instruction would’ve been more useful about forty seconds ago.”
Dr. Nora Bell stood behind him with the rigid posture of someone watching a toddler repair a nuclear submarine. “Your arms are inside the cooling unit. The cooling unit is inside the blue housing.”
“Exactly.”
“The copper assembly beside your left elbow is not.”
Marty glanced at the copper assembly.
His elbow was touching it.
“Barely.”
“Remove your elbow.”
“I’m removing it.”
“You are moving it farther onto the assembly.”
“That’s because I have to pull my hand out first.”
“Stop moving.”
“Can’t stop halfway. Bad for the shoulder.”
Nora shut her eyes.
The laboratory contained enough machinery to make Marty feel both professionally interested and personally offended. The work order had described the problem as a failed auxiliary refrigeration system. Refrigeration systems were straightforward. Compressor, condenser, evaporator, refrigerant, controls. Machines had rules. Even expensive machines obeyed them once a person stopped being intimidated by shiny panels.
The apparatus surrounding this particular refrigerator had apparently been designed by people who considered labels a moral weakness.
Thick cables entered a circular metal frame bolted to the floor. Glass cylinders pulsed with a pale violet light. Racks of electronics produced soft clicking noises Marty distrusted. Three separate emergency-stop buttons occupied one console, which seemed excessive unless the machine had developed hobbies.
At the center of everything stood Nora Bell, physicist, engineer, project director, and current obstacle to efficient appliance repair.
Marty removed his arms from the housing.
“There. Happy?”
“No.”
“That’s not a technical answer.”
“My technical answer is that you have touched four components I specifically told you not to touch.”
“None of them broke.”
“The afternoon is young.”
Marty checked his watch.
Four twenty-two.
He had planned to be home by five-thirty, light the charcoal by six, and have chicken thighs on by six-forty. He had purchased charcoal, lighter cubes, a new bottle of sauce, and a twelve-pack of sparkling water because his sister had recently developed opinions about sugar.
The barbecue tongs had been an impulse purchase. Cheap stainless steel, rubber grip, locking ring at the end. His old pair had developed a permanent sideways lean after somebody attempted to use them for gardening.
The new pair currently stuck out of his tool bag.
Nora pointed at the refrigeration unit. “Can you fix it?”
“Already know what’s wrong.”
Her expression became worse.
“What?”
“You’ve been here eleven minutes.”
“Sometimes eleven minutes is plenty.”
“You spent two of those minutes explaining that my temporal-phase regulator reminded you of a dishwasher.”
“The circulation setup does.”
“It absolutely does not.”
“Pump moves fluid through a closed system to manage temperature. That’s basically the same principle.”
Nora looked toward the ceiling.
Marty took this for concession.
“The evaporator fan motor is binding,” he continued. “Bearing’s probably shot. Control board keeps trying to compensate, current goes up, protection circuit shuts it down.”
“The diagnostics reported an intermittent thermal-load imbalance.”
“Fancy way of saying it’s getting too hot.”
“The thermal problem affects equipment capable of generating a localized temporal displacement field.”
“Fancy refrigerator.”
“It is not a refrigerator.”
“It is currently a broken refrigerator.”
Nora pinched the bridge of her nose.
Marty enjoyed moments like this. Experts spent years learning the vocabulary necessary to make simple problems sound expensive. He repaired appliances in houses where people had paid eighty thousand dollars for kitchens containing ovens that refused to heat because somebody had accidentally activated Sabbath mode.
A machine could have a billion-dollar research budget and still suffer from a bad fan bearing.
“Replacement motor’s in the van,” he said. “Twenty minutes.”
“Fine. Do that. Touch nothing else.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
“Your plans have not impressed me so far.”
Marty carried the old motor toward his tool bag.
Behind him something clicked.
He stopped.
Nora stopped.
A second click followed.
“What was that?”
Nora turned toward the central console.
The pale violet light inside the glass cylinders had brightened.
Her face changed instantly.
“Marty.”
“Yes?”
“Did you move the copper bus bar?”
“No.”
“Did you lean on it?”
“Define lean.”
“Marty.”
“My elbow made brief professional contact.”
Nora lunged for the console.
The circular frame produced a low vibration.
Marty felt it through the soles of his work boots.
Three indicator lights became twelve.
“Nora?”
“Do not touch anything.”
“I feel this instruction keeps arriving after the useful part.”
“Back away from the frame.”
Marty grabbed his tool bag.
The tongs slipped out.
He caught them and shoved them into his back pocket.
The vibration deepened.
A membrane of white light appeared inside the circular frame.
Marty stared.
“That’s new.”
“It’s a temporal aperture.”
“Does it normally do that?”
“No.”
“Can you turn it off?”
“I’m trying.”
A sharp crack came from the blue housing.
Marty flinched.
The refrigeration fan, temporarily reconnected for testing, jerked once and locked.
The main console screamed.
Nora slapped the emergency stop.
Nothing happened.
She hit the second.
Nothing.
Marty pointed. “Third one?”
“I KNOW.”
She struck it.
The white membrane bowed outward.
Loose papers flew across the room.
Marty’s tool bag dragged toward the frame.
He caught the handle.
“Nora!”
“LET GO OF THE BAG.”
“My tools are in it.”
“LET GO.”
A wrench flew past him and vanished into the light.
“That was a good wrench!”
The bag yanked harder.
Marty dug his heels into the floor.
Nora shouted something about field collapse.
He heard the word “collapse” and revised several priorities.
The tool bag ripped from his grip.
Marty pitched forward.
He windmilled both arms.
One boot crossed the plane of white light.
Cold seized his leg.
Then the frame pulled.
Nora grabbed his wrist.
For half a second Marty saw her face six inches from his own.
“You touched the bus bar!”
“It looked loose!”
“It was calibrated!”
“I can fix it!”
“You cannot fix spacetime!”
Marty felt himself sliding.
“That sounds defeatist.”
Nora’s grip slipped.
“PRITCHARD!”
The laboratory vanished.
Silence lasted less than a second.
Then something shrieked in the trees.
Marty hit mud.
He remained facedown for a while.
Mud had entered his left ear.
This felt relevant.
His shoulder hurt. His knees hurt. Something sharp pressed into his ribs. His right boot had partially come off, and his mouth contained grit that tasted ancient in a way he did not appreciate.
A distant bellow rolled through the forest.
Marty lifted his head.
“No.”
Humidity pressed against him.
Enormous ferns crowded the clearing. Thick conifers rose beyond them. Plants with waxy leaves occupied every available patch of ground. Insects moved through shafts of sunlight, several large enough to concern him on administrative grounds.
The tool bag lay ten feet away.
Beside it rested a scorched metal cylinder attached to a broken section of casing.
Marty pushed himself upright.
“No.”
A winged insect passed his face.
He ducked.
“Nope.”
Something hooted from the canopy.
“This is a nature preserve.”
He wiped mud from his cheek.
“Some weird private nature preserve.”
A fern frond brushed his shoulder.
“Possibly Florida.”
He stood.
His right boot stayed behind.
“Damn it.”
Marty returned for the boot, discovering that the mud had accepted ownership. He pulled.
Nothing.
He pulled harder.
The mud produced a deep sucking noise.
The boot emerged suddenly.
Marty fell backward.
“Great. Excellent. Wilderness.”
He jammed the boot on and looked around.
The clearing contained no visible laboratory, road, fence, power line, sign, aircraft trail, cell tower, picnic table, trash, or other proof that civilization had ever existed.
His phone displayed no service.
The clock read 4:23 p.m.
The date had become a row of symbols.
“That’s a software problem.”
He tried calling Nora anyway.
Nothing.
He tried emergency services.
Nothing.
He held the phone higher.
A mosquito landed on his forearm.
Marty slapped it and examined the smear with profound dislike.
“Florida,” he insisted.
The tracks near the edge of the clearing damaged that theory.
Three-toed impressions crossed a muddy patch.
Each measured almost three feet long.
Marty crouched beside one.
“Bird.”
The track was deeper than his entire hand.
“Large bird.”
He studied it.
“Escaped zoo bird.”
The forest snapped twenty yards away.
Marty rose.
A bulky animal moved between tree trunks.
For several seconds he could not identify what he saw because his brain refused to process the available evidence.
A head emerged.
Long jaw.
Bony ridges.
Heavy tail.
Two powerful legs.
The animal stepped into the clearing, glanced toward him, and continued walking with complete indifference.
Marty stopped breathing.
It crossed the open ground.
Sunlight revealed scaly skin mottled by dirt.
Its tail swung behind it.
The creature disappeared into the ferns.
Marty stayed still.
His phone slipped from his fingers.
“That,” he whispered, “was a dinosaur.”
A bird called overhead.
“No.”
He picked up the phone.
“That was some kind of… large lizard.”
A second dinosaur followed the first.
This one paused.
Its head turned.
Marty and the dinosaur regarded one another.
Marty’s thoughts progressed through several stages.
The earliest stage involved scientific wonder.
He was looking at an animal no living human being had ever seen.
Every museum skeleton, every documentary reconstruction, every textbook drawing had suddenly become inadequate. The thing had weight. Breath. Flecks of mud on its legs. A scar along one flank. It scratched its neck against a tree trunk with the unconcerned laziness of livestock.
The following stage involved terror.
The dinosaur took one step toward him.
Marty backed up.
“Easy.”
Another step.
“I’m not food.”
The animal snorted.
“I repair refrigerators.”
It lowered its head.
Marty moved behind a tree.
“That has no nutritional value.”
The dinosaur lost interest and wandered away.
Marty remained behind the tree.
The final stage involved irritation.
“Nora was right.”
He hated this more than the dinosaur.
A faint chirping noise came from the ground.
Marty turned.
A small feathered creature stood near his tool bag.
It came to his knee, perhaps a little higher. Its narrow head tilted. Feathering covered much of its body and tail. Sharp little teeth became visible when it opened its mouth.
Marty pointed.
“You stay there.”
The creature took one step toward the bag.
“Absolutely not.”
Another step.
“That contains screwdrivers.”
It pecked the side pocket.
Marty advanced.
“Get away.”
The creature hopped backward.
“Shoo.”
It watched him.
“Go be extinct somewhere else.”
The little dinosaur gave a sharp chirp and vanished into the ferns.
Marty picked up the scorched metal cylinder.
Part of the laboratory device had traveled with him.
He recognized one connector. He did not recognize most of the rest.
A strip of bent casing carried a printed warning:
TEMPORAL FIELD ANCHOR — PORTABLE SERVICE MODULE
“Portable. Good.”
He turned it over.
One side had been smashed nearly flat.
“Less good.”
The sun had dropped lower.
Shadows thickened under the trees.
Another bellow sounded in the distance.
Marty looked at the forest, the device, and his muddy hands.
He had no shelter.
No food.
No clean water.
No signal.
No flashlight beyond his phone.
No weapon.
No idea which dinosaurs lived sixty-six million years ago beyond several confidently remembered facts that suddenly seemed suspicious.
He did have barbecue tongs.
Marty pulled them from his pocket.
They had survived intact.
“Civilization.”
The forest answered with a howl.
His thoughts returned to a basic human need.
Fire.
Marty looked at the trees.
Then at the sticks covering the ground.
“How hard can that be?”
It was extremely hard.
Movies had lied, although not in the direction Marty expected.
He had always assumed people rubbing sticks together for fire had been victims of bad editing. Some poor actor scraped wood for three seconds, smoke appeared, and civilization resumed.
Marty had now been scraping wood for twenty-eight minutes.
Civilization remained canceled.
His palms burned.
His shoulders ached.
He had selected two dry-looking sticks, carved a notch into one with a screwdriver, gathered dead leaves, and constructed what he considered a very respectable tinder bundle.
Nothing happened.
“Friction,” he told the sticks. “You understand friction.”
The sticks refused.
“You are wood. This is your entire historical contribution.”
A faint scraping sound came from nearby.
The feathered dinosaur had returned.
It sat six yards away.
Watching.
Marty pointed at it.
“No commentary.”
The dinosaur tilted its head.
He placed one stick across a flat piece of wood and rubbed harder.
“Heat comes from friction. Friction comes from movement. Same thing happens in a dryer bearing.”
His arms pumped.
“That’s basically the same principle.”
Nothing.
Marty stopped.
The dinosaur chirped.
“You do it.”
He selected different sticks.
These were damp.
He discovered this after five minutes.
The third pair produced smoke.
Marty gasped.
“YES.”
He leaned closer.
A thin curl rose from the notch.
“Come on.”
More smoke.
“Come on, you beautiful little—”
The stick slipped.
His knuckles slammed into the ground.
“SON OF A—”
The tinder bundle scattered.
The smoke stopped.
Marty stared.
“No.”
He gathered everything again.
“No, no, no. We had an agreement.”
The feathered dinosaur had moved closer.
Marty noticed.
“I swear to God, if you steal my tinder, I will invent extinction personally.”
It scratched at the dirt.
The fourth attempt produced a splinter.
The splinter entered the base of Marty’s thumb with impressive accuracy.
He dropped the stick.
“Fantastic.”
He extracted it with his new barbecue tongs.
The dinosaur chirped.
“These are precision instruments.”
The fifth attempt produced another thread of smoke.
Marty did not celebrate.
He had learned.
He continued rubbing.
His forearms trembled.
Sweat ran down his nose.
The humidity turned his shirt into a wet rag.
Smoke thickened.
A tiny black speck formed in the wood dust.
Marty stopped.
The speck glowed.
His entire body became still.
“Oh.”
He leaned toward it.
The ember dimmed.
“No. No, no. Don’t you dare.”
He transferred the glowing dust into shredded bark.
His hands trembled.
“Easy.”
He folded the tinder loosely.
“Air. Needs air.”
He blew.
The ember brightened.
Marty nearly shouted but strangled the sound.
“Good. Very good. You’re doing terrific.”
The dinosaur crept nearer.
Marty held one hand out.
“Back off. This is a neonatal flame.”
He blew again.
Smoke poured into his face.
He coughed.
His eyes watered.
The ember dimmed.
“Damn it.”
Another breath.
Bright orange appeared inside the bark.
Then vanished.
Marty bent closer.
“Please.”
A flame the size of his thumbnail emerged.
Marty stared at it.
The flame grew.
He inserted dried grass.
Then tiny twigs.
Then larger ones.
For several unbearable seconds every piece seemed determined to smother the whole project.
The flame caught.
A stick crackled.
Another ignited.
Marty sat back.
Fire burned in the shallow pit.
He laughed.
“I MADE FIRE.”
The forest went quiet.
Marty’s smile disappeared.
A distant animal bellowed.
Another answered.
The little dinosaur fled.
“Right.”
Marty lowered his voice.
“I made fire.”
He added another stick.
“Normal volume.”
Night arrived with disturbing efficiency.
Marty built a crude lean-to between two trees using branches and giant leaves. He kept the fire small. Every few minutes he checked it with the concentration of a surgeon.
The flame had become his entire pension.
He could not start over.
He had no intention of rubbing anything against anything ever again.
Hunger emerged around nine o’clock.
His lunch had consisted of a convenience-store sandwich at noon.
His planned barbecue existed sixty-six million years in the future.
Marty sat beside the fire and stared at the darkness.
“Fire solves heat.”
His stomach growled.
“It does not solve inventory.”
Something rustled nearby.
Marty grabbed the tongs.
Two reflective eyes appeared beyond the firelight.
The feathered dinosaur stepped forward.
Marty pointed the tongs.
“You.”
It chirped.
“Don’t start.”
The creature sat.
Marty sat.
They watched each other.
“This is not a restaurant.”
The dinosaur blinked.
“Nothing is being served.”
His stomach growled again.
Clive’s head tilted.
Marty frowned.
“I’m calling you Clive.”
Clive scratched behind one leg.
“You look like a Clive.”
Clive bit at a feather.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me.”
Marty added another precious stick to the fire.
Somewhere far beyond the clearing, something enormous roared.
The sound rolled across the ground.
Clive disappeared.
Marty gripped the tongs tighter.
“Fire,” he whispered. “Fire is good.”
His stomach growled.
“Food would also be good.”
Morning revealed how badly Marty had slept.
His hair pointed in several directions. His shirt smelled of smoke. One pant leg had dried stiff with mud. His neck had acquired three insect bites despite every preventative measure available to a man whose preventative measures consisted of swearing.
The fire still burned.
This made the morning a success.
Marty fed it small branches and checked the temporal module.
Damage ran through the outer housing. One connector had bent. A cable had pulled partly free. Several indicator lights remained dark.
He knew enough electronics to understand that electricity was probably involved.
Unfortunately, he had no electricity.
“This is basically an appliance control board.”
Clive appeared behind a log.
Marty looked at him.
“That’s basically the same principle.”
Clive pecked at the dirt.
“Exactly.”
Marty spent the morning improving camp.
He found a broad flat stone and dragged it beside the fire. It became a workbench.
A smaller stone became a seat.
Two forked branches became supports for a future cooking rack, despite the absence of anything to cook.
He gathered water from a rain-filled footprint and stopped himself before drinking it.
The footprint was six feet across.
Marty stood inside the edge and looked down.
“That could fit my entire patio set.”
He reconsidered his position.
Standing inside the footprint of whatever had made it seemed professionally unnecessary.
A rotten odor drifted from downstream.
Marty followed it cautiously.
He discovered the source near the riverbank.
Something small had died.
He did not inspect the circumstances. He had no desire to become the first person in history to conduct a prehistoric autopsy using barbecue tongs.
Several scavengers had already visited.
A modest strip of exposed meat remained separated from the rest by disturbed vegetation, apparently dragged away and abandoned.
Marty stared at it.
His stomach tightened.
“No.”
He turned away.
Three steps later he stopped.
“No.”
He looked back.
The piece was fresh enough to create an argument.
Marty’s hunger won the argument.
He picked it up with the tongs, held it at maximum arm’s length, and returned to camp.
Clive followed.
“You are not part of this.”
Clive followed faster.
Marty washed the meat with the cleanest water he had managed to collect after boiling it in a hollowed stone arrangement that had taken far too much ingenuity.
He trimmed nothing. He examined nothing closely. He preferred ignorance.
The meat went onto a sharpened stick.
Marty held it over the fire.
Fat hissed against hot wood.
Smoke rose.
The surface tightened and browned.
A smell emerged.
Marty’s expression changed.
“That smells…”
He rotated the skewer.
Clive appeared beside his stone.
“No.”
Clive edged forward.
“I mean it.”
The meat continued browning.
Marty found a handful of broad aromatic leaves he had earlier crushed and sniffed. He had no idea whether they were safe, which reduced their seasoning potential considerably.
Salt would have improved matters.
Pepper would have improved matters.
Garlic powder would have improved matters.
His barbecue rub waited in his van somewhere beyond the full length of human civilization.
Marty cooked the meat carefully.
Whatever else could be said about him, he respected heat management.
The fire had developed a bed of coals. He moved the skewer away from direct flame. Turned it. Let the surface brown. Shifted it back. Watched the fat.
Clive crept closer.
Marty snapped the tongs twice.
The metallic click stopped Clive.
Marty stared at the tongs.
Clive stared at the tongs.
Marty clicked them again.
“Authority.”
Clive remained unconvinced.
The meat looked done.
Marty removed it from the fire and placed it on his flat stone.
Then he waited.
Clive moved.
Marty blocked him with one boot.
“Absolutely not.”
Clive moved around the boot.
Marty shifted.
“You don’t mess with meat while it’s resting.”
Clive chirped.
“That is not negotiable.”
Five minutes passed.
Marty cut a small piece using the blade from his multitool.
He lifted it.
The smell was familiar.
That made no sense.
He inspected the bite.
“No way.”
Hunger overruled caution again.
Marty put it in his mouth.
He chewed.
His forehead creased.
He chewed again.
“No.”
He swallowed.
Clive waited.
Marty cut another piece.
He tasted it.
His eyes narrowed.
“No.”
Another bite.
“Come on.”
He pulled a second portion from the skewer and held it closer to the coals, browning the outside harder.
Smoke rolled over it.
He tasted that version.
Marty sat down.
Clive crept forward.
“It tastes like chicken.”
Clive lunged.
Marty jerked the plate stone away.
“No.”
Clive snapped at a loose scrap and bolted.
“HEY.”
The little dinosaur vanished with the meat.
Marty stood.
“That was mine.”
Clive swallowed it ten feet away.
“You unbelievable bastard.”
Clive returned.
“No. Kitchen closed.”
Marty sat again.
He stared at the remaining meat.
He tasted another piece.
Chicken.
Not exactly chicken. The texture was firmer. The flavor carried something darker from the smoke. The fat behaved differently.
But fundamentally?
Chicken.
Marty became offended.
“Sixty-six million years.”
He chewed.
“Scientists dig bones out of mountains. Museums build entire wings. Children memorize names with seventeen syllables.”
Another bite.
“Chicken.”
Clive crept closer.
Marty covered the food with one hand.
“No.”
The prehistoric forest stretched around him in dazzling green. Ancient insects buzzed. A herd of animals moved somewhere beyond the trees, heavy footfalls shaking leaves.
Marty sat beside humanity’s impossibly early campfire, guarding chicken-flavored dinosaur meat from a dinosaur named Clive.
He pointed the tongs at Clive.
“You have no barbecue etiquette.”
Clive stole another piece.
By the fourth day, Marty’s campsite had acquired zoning.
The lean-to occupied the western side.
The temporal module sat on the flat stone he called the repair bench.
The fire pit occupied the center.
A second arrangement of stones formed what Marty called the prep counter.
His cooking rack consisted of green branches woven between forked supports, stabilized with vines, pebbles, and two hose clamps from his tool bag.
The hose clamps were intended for appliance repair.
Their current application insulted several industries at once.
Marty stood back and admired the structure.
“That’s basically the same principle.”
The rack sagged.
“Needs reinforcement.”
He added a branch.
The rack collapsed.
Clive chirped from a log.
“Shut up.”
Clive had become a permanent nuisance.
The dinosaur appeared whenever food existed, might exist, or had recently existed. Marty had attempted to frighten him away. Clive returned.
Marty had attempted barriers. Clive went around them.
Marty had suspended scraps from a branch. Clive discovered climbing.
He had hidden food under a flat stone.
Clive waited until Marty moved the stone.
The relationship had developed rules.
Marty created the rules.
Clive violated them.
“Rule one,” Marty said while rebuilding the rack, “customers stay out of the kitchen.”
Clive hopped onto the prep counter.
Marty stared.
“Immediate violation.”
He moved Clive with a branch.
The dinosaur bit the branch.
“Assaulting management.”
Clive retained the branch.
“Fine.”
Marty picked up another.
Near noon he heard vegetation tearing.
The noise came from behind his shelter.
Marty froze.
A vast head rose above the ferns.
He dropped the branch.
An enormous herbivore entered the clearing.
Marty had no reliable idea what species it was.
He knew it was larger than his house.
Its body carried heavy muscle. Its head swept through vegetation. Every step compressed the ground.
Marty backed toward the fire.
“Good dinosaur.”
The animal ignored him.
“Excellent dinosaur.”
It approached the lean-to.
“No.”
The herbivore tore a mouthful of leaves from the roof.
“Hey.”
Another bite removed half the shelter.
“Come on.”
Marty held up both hands.
“That took three hours.”
The dinosaur chewed.
“You have six million trees.”
It stepped forward.
One broad foot came down on the cooking rack.
Wood snapped.
Marty watched.
The dinosaur moved on.
His rack remained flattened in the mud.
“Debbie.”
The herbivore kept walking.
“I’m calling you Big Debbie.”
Big Debbie ate another section of shelter.
“That is private property.”
She continued chewing.
“I realize boundaries were less formal during this period, but basic courtesy exists independent of geological era.”
Clive appeared near the broken rack.
Marty pointed at Debbie.
“See this? This is why we have service standards.”
Clive stole a dried scrap from beside the fire.
Marty closed his eyes.
“Of course.”
Big Debbie wandered out of camp.
Her tail struck one of Marty’s stacked stones.
The prep counter partially collapsed.
Marty watched her disappear.
“Debbie!”
A distant grunt answered.
“You owe me a rack!”
He spent the afternoon rebuilding.
He also worked on the temporal module for fourteen minutes.
A damaged contact near one side resembled a common terminal block. Marty straightened it. Another component seemed to require alignment.
He opened the casing.
Inside waited an intricate arrangement of crystals, coils, ceramic insulators, and electronics whose purpose he could not even pretend to understand.
Marty pretended anyway.
“Power distribution.”
He traced a wire.
“Signal control.”
He touched a crystal.
It emitted a painful buzz.
Marty removed his finger.
“Don’t touch crystal.”
He considered writing that down.
His attention shifted to a curl of smoke from the fire.
One of the local woods smelled surprisingly pleasant.
Marty sniffed.
“Interesting.”
Repair work ended.
He tested three varieties of fallen branch for smoke quality.
The darker wood produced a strong resinous smell that made his eyes water.
Rejected.
The pale wood smelled sweet.
Promising.
A third produced almost no smoke.
Waste of time.
Clive watched the experiment.
“I’m developing a regional smoke profile.”
Clive scratched himself.
“You have no standards.”
Marty arranged small stones around the camp entrance.
He spelled:
MARTY’S CRETACEOUS SMOKEHOUSE
The final letters drifted downhill because he ran out of flat ground.
He admired it anyway.
“Classy.”
Clive stepped through the word SMOKEHOUSE.
“Customer entrance is over there.”
A roar came from far beyond the clearing.
Not a bellow.
Not a chirp.
Not one of the strange calls Marty had learned to tolerate.
This sound carried weight.
Birds erupted from distant trees.
Clive became still.
Marty’s smile vanished.
Another roar followed.
Closer.
Marty looked at his fire.
Then the smoke.
Then the fragments of food drying near the coals.
“Possibly,” he said, “we should reconsider the advertising budget.”
The smaller dinosaurs arrived the following day.
Three appeared at dawn.
Five more arrived before noon.
None were large enough to threaten Marty individually.
Collectively, they became a union.
They circled camp, chirped, darted forward, retreated, tested every barrier, and showed a disturbing understanding of distraction.
Clive participated without acknowledging the others.
Marty constructed a food-storage basket and suspended it from a branch.
A small dinosaur climbed the trunk.
He moved the basket farther out.
Another jumped from a rock.
He added thorny branches.
Clive entered from above.
“How?”
Clive emerged carrying food.
“HOW?”
By afternoon Marty had built Food Security System Four.
Food Security System One had been the basket.
System Two had been the elevated basket.
System Three had included thorns.
System Four consisted of a suspended bundle attached to a vine that passed over a branch and terminated beside Marty’s sleeping area. Any animal pulling on the food would supposedly yank the vine against a collection of metal washers hanging from his tongs, producing an alarm.
Marty tested it.
He tugged the bundle.
The washers rattled.
“See?”
Clive watched.
“Engineering.”
Marty tied a roasted scrap inside.
Then he walked away.
Nothing happened.
He waited.
Still nothing.
Marty smiled.
“Respect.”
A chirp came from behind him.
Clive stood beside the fire with the roasted scrap.
Marty looked at the suspended bundle.
Still closed.
He looked at Clive.
Then at the meat.
“You robbed it before I finished setting it up.”
Clive ran.
“That does not count.”
Marty chased him around the prep counter.
Clive ducked beneath the rack.
Marty attempted the same route.
The rack caught him across the shoulders and collapsed.
He landed in ferns.
Clive escaped.
“This restaurant reserves the right to refuse service!”
Several smaller dinosaurs gathered beyond the stones.
Marty stood and brushed leaves from his shirt.
“No walk-ins.”
One chirped.
“We are fully booked.”
Another advanced.
“I will use the tongs.”
They advanced anyway.
Marty snapped the tongs repeatedly.
The dinosaurs stopped.
Marty smiled.
“Hostile takeover defeated.”
The forest became quiet.
Every small dinosaur vanished.
Marty’s smile disappeared.
Clive vanished too.
“Why did everybody—”
A heavy footfall struck the ground.
Marty turned.
The large predator stood at the edge of the clearing.
It was not close.
That fact supplied limited comfort.
The animal’s head remained partly hidden by foliage. Its jaws opened. Breath moved through its nostrils. Powerful hind legs supported a body Marty decided not to measure mentally because the results would damage morale.
It lifted its head.
Sniffed.
Marty looked at the cooking rack.
Smoke rose from a fresh piece of scavenged meat.
“Oh, come on.”
The predator stepped forward.
Marty stepped backward.
“Whatever you are, this is private catering.”
Another step.
Marty’s mind searched for dinosaur facts.
Predators reacted to movement.
Or maybe that was bears.
Standing your ground worked with mountain lions.
Or maybe goats.
Making yourself look large worked on something.
He raised his arms.
The predator continued forward.
“Animal behavior is animal behavior.”
It opened its mouth.
Marty lowered his arms.
“That’s basically the same principle.”
The predator roared.
“No, it isn’t.”
He grabbed the meat from the rack with the tongs and threw it toward the far side of the clearing.
The predator’s head tracked the movement.
It followed.
Marty ran in the opposite direction.
He hid behind a massive tree and listened.
Bones did not crunch. Nothing graphic happened. Something tore through vegetation.
Several minutes later the predator departed.
Marty returned cautiously.
His campsite remained intact.
One piece of roasted meat remained on the prep counter.
He stared at it.
Clive emerged from beneath a log.
Marty pointed.
“No.”
Clive leaped onto the stone, grabbed the meat, and fled.
Marty did not chase him.
He sat beside the fire.
“Mr. Bitey.”
Clive disappeared into the ferns.
“That’s his name.”
A small scavenger appeared.
Marty threw a pebble near it.
“We are closed.”
He considered his situation.
Barbecue smoke attracted animals.
Food smells attracted animals.
His campsite had become a prehistoric buffet sign visible through scent.
The solution was obvious.
Stop elaborate cooking.
Eat only what was necessary.
Keep smoke low.
Focus entirely on repairing the machine.
Marty nodded.
“Correct.”
He looked at the collapsed cooking rack.
Two support branches had failed because the spacing was poor.
He stood.
“Five minutes.”
By sunset, he had built a better rack with two cooking levels.
The temporal module made a noise during breakfast.
Marty dropped his skewer.
A small indicator flashed blue.
He lunged across the campsite.
The indicator flashed again.
Then a speaker crackled.
“M—ty?”
Marty stared.
“Nora?”
Static.
“Marty?”
He grabbed the module.
“Nora!”
The speaker squealed.
“Do not shout.”
Marty nearly laughed.
“You’re alive.”
“So are you.”
“I am aware.”
“Do you know where I am?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“You are approximately sixty-six million years in the past.”
Marty looked at Clive.
Clive stole a charred scrap.
“Confirmed.”
Silence.
“What does that mean?”
“I have independent verification.”
“You cannot possibly have independent verification.”
“A dinosaur just stole my breakfast.”
The line went quiet.
“Nora?”
“I heard you.”
“There are a lot of them.”
“Do not interact with them.”
Marty looked around his campsite.
The stone sign remained visible.
One letter had fallen over.
“Define interact.”
“Marty.”
“I am keeping contact minimal.”
A small dinosaur climbed onto the prep counter.
Marty pushed it away with a stick.
“Extremely minimal.”
Nora’s voice sharpened. “Listen carefully. The portable field anchor survived transit. That is the only reason this connection is possible.”
“Knew it was important.”
“You called it a metal thermos.”
“At the time.”
“The anchor stores the destination parameters from the original displacement event. If you repair it, I may be able to reopen the field from this side.”
Marty sat upright.
“Home?”
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than he expected.
Home meant a shower.
A bed.
A toilet.
A refrigerator.
Food that came in packaging.
Insects with socially acceptable dimensions.
His sister complaining that the chicken was too smoky.
“Tell me what to do.”
Nora gave him a sequence of instructions involving the lower housing panel.
Marty opened it.
“Locate the phase-control junction.”
“Which one is that?”
“The ceramic module with three silver terminals.”
“Looks like a dryer relay.”
“It does not matter what it looks like.”
“That’s basically the same principle.”
“No.”
He removed a bent cover.
“Terminal one is loose.”
“Do not tighten it fully. It requires calibrated separation.”
“How much?”
“Two-point-seven millimeters.”
Marty stared.
“I did not bring a micrometer.”
“You need to approximate it.”
“I have washers.”
“What?”
“Washers.”
“Fine. Use whatever you can measure consistently.”
Marty dug through his tool bag.
“See? Appliance repair.”
“Marty.”
“Same principle.”
“No.”
He stacked washers.
Clive approached.
“Not now.”
Nora stopped.
“Who are you speaking to?”
“Clive.”
“Who is Clive?”
“Small dinosaur.”
“You named one?”
“He kept coming back.”
“Do not feed it.”
“I don’t feed him. He steals.”
“Stop interacting with the fauna.”
“He initiated contact.”
“Marty.”
“What?”
“Focus.”
He focused.
For twenty straight minutes he followed Nora’s instructions.
The device responded.
Two more indicators lit.
Hope grew unpleasantly strong.
He could actually leave.
Nora explained that the anchor required an external conductive path and precise orientation relative to the original field geometry.
Marty looked at the broken equipment.
“Can’t I bypass the damaged section?”
“Possibly. I need you to identify the conductor array.”
He described it.
“That’s damaged,” Nora said.
“Can replace it.”
“With what?”
Marty looked around the Cretaceous forest.
“Working on that.”
“You cannot substitute random prehistoric materials into an experimental temporal field generator.”
“Copper is copper.”
“Do you have copper?”
“No.”
“Then why did you say that?”
“The concept remains valid.”
Nora made a noise through the speaker.
Marty continued opening panels.
A smell drifted from the fire.
He looked over.
The breakfast skewer had fallen close to the coals.
The meat had browned beautifully.
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Marty.”
“I may have discovered indirect-heat dinosaur.”
Silence.
“Marty.”
“It’s significantly better.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The meat.”
“What meat?”
“Dinosaur.”
The speaker produced static.
Nora’s voice returned. “Repeat that.”
“Dinosaur meat.”
“What happened to the dinosaur?”
“Already dead. I am not hunting dinosaurs.”
“You ate it?”
“Listen, before you judge me, available supermarket options are limited.”
“You ate a dinosaur.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was hungry.”
“That part I understand. Why are you discussing cooking technique during an emergency temporal-recovery procedure?”
“Because you’re going to ask.”
“I was never going to ask.”
“It tastes like chicken.”
The connection went silent again.
Marty checked the speaker.
“Nora?”
“I am deciding which emergency is more serious.”
“I expected something different.”
“Of course you did.”
“I’m talking about sixty-six million years of evolutionary distance. You expect a unique flavor.”
“I need you to repair the field anchor.”
“I tried three preparations.”
“Stop.”
“Direct flame gives you more char, but indirect heat—”
“Marty.”
“—brings out this slightly richer—”
“MARTY.”
Clive grabbed the skewer.
Marty lunged.
“HEY!”
Nora said, “What happened?”
“Clive.”
“What did Clive do?”
“Stole the indirect-heat sample.”
“I do not care.”
“You would if you’d tasted it.”
Static increased.
Nora raised her voice.
“The field geometry will reach a usable convergence in less than two days. That window may last minutes. You need the anchor functional before then.”
Marty’s attention snapped back.
“Two days?”
“Possibly less.”
“What do I need?”
“The conductor array can be improvised if you find a sufficiently conductive mineral or metallic deposit. You also need to reposition the anchor at least thirty meters east of its current location during activation.”
“Why?”
“Field interference from whatever passed through with you.”
Marty looked around.
“What passed through with me?”
“Unknown. We recorded secondary mass.”
His gaze settled on the tool bag.
“Could be my tools.”
“Possibly.”
“Or tongs.”
“Your what?”
“Nothing.”
The speaker crackled badly.
Nora hurried.
“Find conductive material. Repair the array. Keep the anchor dry. Do not alter the crystal assembly. Do not experiment. Do not cook anything near it.”
“Specific.”
“I know you.”
“Nora—”
The connection died.
Marty tapped the speaker.
“Nora?”
Nothing.
He sat back.
Clive returned carrying nothing.
Marty pointed at him.
“We’re leaving.”
Clive licked his teeth.
“You’re not invited.”
A roar sounded far away.
Marty looked toward it.
“Especially him.”
The scavenging trip began with mud.
Marty stepped into a shallow patch near the river and sank to mid-calf.
He pulled.
The mud kept his boot.
“Not again.”
Clive waited on a rock.
Marty reached down, retrieved the boot, and put it back on.
“Could have warned me.”
Clive hopped to another rock.
“Very useful partnership.”
The riverbank contained glittering dark seams in several exposed stones. Marty had no idea whether any would conduct electricity.
His multimeter did.
He had nearly cried when he found the battery still functional.
Marty tested samples using improvised wet contacts and scraps of wire.
Most registered poorly.
One dark, metallic-looking fragment gave a better result.
“Interesting.”
Clive pecked it.
“Don’t eat geology.”
Marty collected several pieces.
He needed additional support material for the anchor frame. Straight branches would work temporarily. Flat stone might stabilize it. Vine could lash components.
His arms filled.
Then he found a better branch.
He picked it up.
Then another stone.
Then a broad sheet of bark.
By the time he turned toward camp, he carried enough primitive hardware to open an unlicensed construction business.
A buzzing noise approached.
Marty ducked.
A large insect flew past his head.
“No.”
Another followed.
“Absolutely no.”
He hurried along the bank.
Clive sprinted ahead.
The dinosaur stopped suddenly.
Its body lowered.
Marty noticed.
“What?”
Clive remained still.
Marty heard a grunt.
Something moved behind the reeds.
A medium-sized herbivore stepped into view.
Marty stopped.
The animal had a heavy skull and a body built for shoving disagreements into neighboring counties.
Clive backed away.
Marty did the same.
“Good call.”
The herbivore saw him.
Its posture changed.
Marty looked at the pile in his arms.
Dropping it meant spending another hour collecting things.
The dinosaur stamped.
“Fine.”
Marty dropped everything.
The herbivore charged.
Marty ran.
He made it six steps before a vine caught his ankle.
He went down.
The dinosaur thundered past the spot where he had been standing, apparently more interested in driving him away than investigating him personally.
Marty rolled behind a fallen log.
The animal snorted.
He remained still.
After several minutes it wandered back toward the river.
Marty crawled out.
Clive appeared beside him.
“You knew.”
Clive chirped.
“You actually knew.”
Clive pecked at a beetle.
Marty nodded.
“Alarm system.”
Clive ate the beetle.
“Disgusting, but useful.”
They returned for the materials.
Marty tied everything into two bundles.
Halfway to camp, Clive froze again.
Marty froze too.
Heavy footsteps sounded beyond the trees.
Slow.
Deliberate.
A low exhalation passed through the vegetation.
Marty recognized the rhythm.
Mr. Bitey.
He crouched.
Clive vanished under a fern.
Marty considered following him and rejected the available space on anatomical grounds.
The predator passed forty yards away.
Marty saw a section of flank between trees.
It did not turn.
The smell of river mud and vegetation apparently concealed him.
Marty waited until the footsteps faded.
Then he looked at Clive.
The little dinosaur emerged.
“Employee of the month.”
Clive stole a strip of bark from his bundle.
“Probation.”
They reached camp near dusk.
Marty stopped.
The fire pit had been disturbed.
One of his support stones lay ten feet away.
The storage basket hung shredded.
A deep footprint occupied the edge of the campsite.
Mr. Bitey had visited.
Marty stared at the print.
Then at the smokehouse sign.
Several letters had been crushed.
The surviving stones read:
MARTY’S CRETACEOUS SMOKE
Marty picked up one loose stone.
“Subtle warning.”
Clive walked directly through the footprint.
Marty looked toward the darkening forest.
“We fix the machine tonight.”
Clive chirped.
“No cooking.”
His stomach growled.
Marty frowned.
“Minimal cooking.”
Minimal cooking became a rack, two smoke zones, heated stones, three skewers, and what Marty described privately as his finest work.
“This is food for survival.”
Clive watched from the prep counter.
“Not recreation.”
A strip of scavenged meat rested over low coals.
Marty rotated it.
“I need calories.”
Another portion sat near pale aromatic wood.
“That one is a control sample.”
Clive hopped closer.
“Science requires control samples.”
The temporal anchor stood assembled on the repair bench.
Marty had replaced the damaged conductor path with the mineral fragments, wire from his tool bag, and two sacrificed leads from his multimeter.
The array was ugly.
It also produced readings.
He had repaired a cracked mounting bracket using one hose clamp and a strip cut from a metal tool-case divider.
The crystal assembly remained untouched.
Mostly.
Marty had touched it once by accident.
The device now pulsed every few seconds.
He should have carried it thirty meters east immediately.
Instead he needed dinner.
“Dangerous technical work on an empty stomach causes mistakes.”
Clive reached for the control sample.
Marty blocked him with the tongs.
“You are the mistake.”
Clive moved left.
Marty moved left.
Clive moved right.
Marty moved right.
“You are banned.”
Clive darted between his boots, leaped onto the stone, seized a cooked portion, and fled.
“CLIVE.”
Smaller scavengers appeared beyond the camp.
Marty grabbed the remaining meat.
“No.”
Three more entered from the opposite side.
“Restaurant closed.”
Another chirped from the trees.
Marty looked around.
“Why are there so many of you?”
His answer rose from the fire.
Smoke.
Aromatic wood.
Roasted meat.
Marty smelled it.
“Oh.”
The smell was excellent.
This was the problem.
Vegetation cracked behind the shelter.
Big Debbie entered.
Marty stared.
“Not you too.”
Debbie moved toward the prep counter.
“No. You eat plants.”
She ignored him.
One massive foot nudged the eastern support of the cooking rack.
The rack tilted.
Marty caught it.
“Debbie.”
The herbivore tore branches from the damaged lean-to.
“Those are structural.”
Smaller dinosaurs scattered around her feet.
Clive appeared on a rock with his stolen portion.
Marty pointed.
“You caused morale problems.”
Clive swallowed.
Another roar hit the clearing.
Every small dinosaur froze.
Marty closed his eyes.
“No.”
Mr. Bitey entered the far side of camp.
Chaos developed in identifiable directions.
Small scavengers fled north.
Big Debbie turned south.
Clive went vertical, climbing onto the lean-to frame.
Mr. Bitey advanced from the west.
The temporal anchor sat east.
Marty stood in the middle holding barbecue tongs and a skewer.
“This dinner rush is completely out of hand.”
The anchor beeped.
A blue light appeared.
Marty stared.
“No.”
The device beeped again.
The speaker crackled.
“Marty?”
“Nora!”
“Field convergence is beginning.”
“Of course it is.”
“What is that noise?”
Big Debbie bellowed.
Mr. Bitey answered.
Nora paused.
“Marty.”
“Yes.”
“What is happening?”
“We have customers.”
“What?”
The anchor began humming.
Marty dropped the skewer.
“Never mind.”
Mr. Bitey stepped farther into camp.
Big Debbie swung her body toward him.
The herbivore had no interest in Marty’s problems. It had interests involving personal space.
Those interests now included an apex predator.
Marty grabbed the anchor.
“Thirty meters east.”
“Yes,” Nora said. “Move.”
He lifted.
The repaired frame flexed.
“Carefully.”
“I know.”
“Marty—”
Clive dropped from the shelter directly onto the repair bench.
His foot caught a small metal contact cap beside the anchor.
The cap smelled faintly of grease.
Clive seized it.
Marty saw.
“No.”
Clive ran.
“CLIVE!”
Nora’s voice sharpened. “What happened?”
“He stole a part.”
“Which part?”
“The little cap.”
“That is not an identification.”
“The one beside the lower connector.”
“The return-field coupling cap?”
“Probably.”
“GET IT BACK.”
Marty ran after Clive.
Behind him Big Debbie bellowed.
Mr. Bitey lunged.
The ground shook.
Marty did not look.
“Clive!”
Clive shot under the broken cooking rack.
Marty jumped over it.
The rack snagged his pant leg.
He crashed into the stones spelling SMOKE.
The tongs flew from his hand.
Clive stopped to inspect the cap.
Marty crawled.
“Drop it.”
Clive picked it up.
“No.”
The dinosaur ran again.
Marty found the tongs, stood, and chased.
Nora shouted through static.
“The activation window is narrowing.”
“I know.”
“How long until you reposition the anchor?”
“Current obstacle is employee theft.”
“What does that mean?”
“Clive.”
“I hate Clive.”
“You’ve never met him.”
“I hate him efficiently.”
Clive darted between Big Debbie’s rear legs.
Marty stopped.
“Not doing that.”
Mr. Bitey roared.
Big Debbie pivoted.
Her tail swept through the campsite.
Marty ducked.
The tail struck the cooking rack.
Wood snapped.
One long support branch flew across the clearing and landed thirty feet east.
The branch carried the metal brace Marty had attached earlier.
Marty stared.
An idea formed.
“Debbie.”
Nora said, “What?”
“Nothing.”
Big Debbie advanced toward Mr. Bitey, forcing the predator sideways.
Clive reappeared.
The coupling cap glittered in his mouth.
Marty held up a cooked scrap.
Clive stopped.
“Oh, now you understand commerce.”
Clive watched the food.
Marty threw it near the anchor.
Clive sprinted after it.
The coupling cap dropped.
Marty lunged and snatched it.
“Got it.”
“Install it.”
He jammed it into place.
The anchor lights turned green.
Nora spoke rapidly.
“Now move east.”
Marty lifted the device.
A fresh piece of meat remained on the hot stone beside him.
His eyes flicked toward it.
“No.”
He turned away.
Then stopped.
The meat had just come off the heat.
Clive approached it.
Marty pointed.
“You don’t mess with meat while it’s resting.”
Nora went silent.
“Marty.”
“Five seconds.”
“Marty.”
“Four.”
“There is a multi-ton predator within audible distance.”
“Three.”
“I WILL PERSONALLY TRAVEL BACK THERE AND KILL YOU.”
“Two.”
Clive reached for the meat.
Marty snapped the tongs at him.
“One.”
He grabbed the meat, tossed it toward the far edge of camp, and lifted the anchor.
Clive chased the food.
Mr. Bitey’s head turned toward the flying scent source.
The predator followed.
Big Debbie shifted after him.
Their movement opened a clear path east.
Marty ran.
Nora’s voice came through the speaker.
“I cannot believe that helped.”
“Resting matters.”
“RUN.”
The anchor weighed far more after twenty meters.
Marty stumbled toward the fallen rack support.
The ground shook behind him.
He did not turn.
“Position?”
Nora’s voice crackled.
“Almost.”
“You need the conductor array elevated and angled toward the strongest field gradient.”
“That means nothing.”
“The upper crystal must face the distortion.”
“Still nothing.”
A faint shimmer appeared in the air ahead.
Marty understood that.
“Found distortion.”
“Point the upper crystal at it.”
He set the anchor onto the fallen rack support.
The support branch, launched by Debbie’s tail, had landed across two rocks. Its metal brace created a crude elevated stand.
Marty stared.
“Debbie built a mounting platform.”
“What?”
“Long story.”
The anchor slipped.
Marty caught it.
A metal plate on the lower assembly glowed dull red.
He yanked his hand away.
“Hot.”
“Do not touch the field plate.”
“Information has arrived.”
“Secure the lower contact.”
“Where?”
“Behind the field plate.”
Marty looked.
The contact sat behind the glowing metal.
His fingers could not reach it.
He searched the ground.
No stick narrow enough.
No pliers.
His tool bag remained at camp.
The battered barbecue tongs hung from his pocket.
Marty pulled them out.
One arm had bent inward during the chase.
The tips no longer aligned.
He stared.
“Perfect.”
Nora’s voice hardened. “What are you doing?”
“Specialized tool.”
“Marty.”
He inserted the tongs behind the hot plate.
The bent tip reached the contact.
He squeezed.
Nothing.
“Come on.”
The contact shifted.
A green indicator lit.
Nora stopped speaking.
Marty squeezed again.
The contact seated.
Every light on the anchor turned blue.
Nora said, “That worked.”
Marty grinned.
“Appliance repair.”
“Do not.”
“Bad contact. Awkward access. Heat exposure.”
“Marty.”
“That’s basically the same principle.”
Nora inhaled.
Then stopped.
Several seconds passed.
“Fine.”
Marty blinked.
“What?”
“For once in your entire catastrophic visit to theoretical physics, that was basically the same principle.”
He smiled wider.
“I need that recorded.”
“It is.”
“Fantastic.”
A roar erupted behind him.
Marty turned.
Mr. Bitey had crossed the campsite.
Big Debbie remained behind, agitated but no longer blocking him.
The predator had noticed Marty.
“Recording may be posthumous.”
“Activate the anchor.”
“How?”
“The manual trigger.”
“Which—”
Clive burst from the ferns.
The little dinosaur had followed.
“Why are you here?”
Clive jumped onto the support branch.
The anchor wobbled.
“No.”
Clive sniffed the upper casing.
“Get down.”
The predator advanced.
Nora shouted, “Trigger now.”
Marty reached for the control.
Clive saw the dangling grease-stained wire loop.
He grabbed it.
The anchor tipped.
Marty caught one side.
“CLIVE.”
The wire pulled free from the improvised conductor array.
The blue lights went dark.
Marty stared.
Nora said a word he had not previously heard from her.
Mr. Bitey roared.
Marty grabbed the wire.
The stripped end had pulled loose from the mineral contact.
He needed pressure against the dark conducting stone.
No time for proper repair.
He looked at the tongs.
One jaw still rested behind the hot contact.
The other could clamp the wire.
“Same principle.”
Nora shouted, “I swear—”
“No. Actually same principle.”
Marty bent the tongs farther apart, trapped the stripped wire against the conductive stone, and squeezed the handles until the metal flexed.
The lights returned.
“Hold it there,” Nora said.
“With what?”
“Anything.”
Marty looked around.
The broken rack support included one remaining vine tie.
He wrapped the vine around the tong handles.
Pulled.
Tied.
The tongs became an improvised spring clamp.
The connection held.
“Done.”
“Trigger.”
Marty slapped the manual control.
The air thirty feet ahead flashed white.
A vertical slit appeared.
The predator stopped.
Marty stared.
“Home.”
“Field is unstable,” Nora said. “You have seconds.”
The slit widened.
A white membrane formed.
Marty turned toward camp.
His tool bag.
The prep stone.
The broken smokehouse sign.
His collection of aromatic wood.
A pouch containing dried seasoning leaves.
Three carefully selected charred branches.
Primitive skewers.
The dark smoke wood.
His ridiculous tasting notes scratched onto bark with a screwdriver.
Evidence.
Culinary history.
Sixty-six million years of barbecue discovery.
Mr. Bitey stepped toward him.
Marty abandoned culinary history.
“Yep.”
He grabbed the tongs.
The vine resisted.
“Come on.”
He pulled.
The vine snapped.
The conductor wire slipped.
The portal flickered.
Nora shouted, “Leave them.”
Marty looked at the tongs.
Bent.
Blackened.
Half melted near one tip.
Cheap stainless steel.
Civilization.
“No.”
He jammed the conductor wire beneath a rock, grabbed the tongs, and ran.
Clive darted across his path.
Marty nearly tripped.
“You are not coming.”
Clive chirped.
“I mean it.”
The portal shrank.
Marty ran harder.
Mr. Bitey followed.
Clive followed Marty.
“This is not adoption.”
Ten feet.
The ground shook.
Eight.
The portal narrowed.
Six.
Clive veered toward a dropped scrap of meat.
“Of course.”
Four.
Marty reached the white membrane.
He looked back once.
Clive stood beside the ancient cooking rack eating stolen barbecue.
Big Debbie crashed through the ruined campsite in the distance.
Mr. Bitey altered course toward the commotion.
Smoke rose from Marty’s first fire.
The stones of the restaurant sign had been scattered until only three letters remained together.
BBQ.
Marty laughed once.
Then he jumped.
He landed on the laboratory floor.
His shoulder hit tile.
The tongs clattered beside him.
Someone screamed.
Marty rolled onto his back.
Bright ceiling lights assaulted him.
Air conditioning hit his face.
Sterile modern air filled his lungs.
The circular temporal frame snapped dark.
Technicians rushed forward.
Nora crossed the room faster than all of them.
She stopped over Marty.
He looked up at her.
Her hair had come loose from whatever arrangement she normally maintained. Her face showed exhaustion, fury, relief, and a desire to invoice him for several laws of physics.
Marty raised one finger.
“Dinosaurs taste like chicken.”
Nora closed her eyes.
A technician stopped.
“What?”
“Chicken,” Marty repeated. “Mostly.”
Nora opened her eyes.
“You have been missing for thirty-seven minutes.”
Marty sat up.
He checked his watch.
4:24 p.m.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I was there for days.”
“Temporal displacement.”
Marty looked at the laboratory.
His tool bag sat beside the frame.
Clean.
Untouched.
He laughed.
Then he realized something.
“My van.”
Nora stared.
“What about it?”
“I have barbecue sauce in it.”
“Marty.”
“I haven’t eaten normal food in days.”
Medical staff tried to examine him.
Marty resisted until Nora threatened to sedate him using resources she probably did not possess.
They cleaned cuts, removed splinters, examined insect bites, and confiscated his filthy clothing.
The tongs remained on the examination table.
Nora picked them up.
“What happened to these?”
“Field repair.”
“They’re barbecue tongs.”
“Specialized field repair.”
“They’re warped.”
“Custom geometry.”
Nora dropped them onto the table.
“Of course.”
Three hours later Marty sat wrapped in a hospital blanket in a conference room attached to the laboratory.
Six scientists faced him.
Nora sat at the end of the table.
A recorder ran.
Marty had been instructed to provide an organized account.
He tried.
“I arrived in a forest.”
Nora nodded.
“Good.”
“Lots of ferns.”
“Good.”
“Large insects.”
“Relevant.”
“Mud’s terrible.”
“Less relevant.”
“Then I saw the dinosaur.”
Five scientists leaned forward.
Marty described it.
Questions followed.
Height.
Coloration.
Movement.
Vocalization.
Feathering.
Behavior.
He answered what he could.
When he could not, he admitted uncertainty.
Mostly.
“I think one might have been a raptor.”
Nora said, “That term covers several possibilities.”
“It had the vibe.”
“Do not record ‘vibe’ as taxonomic evidence.”
The scientist operating the recorder crossed something out.
Marty continued.
He described Clive.
This generated more questions.
He described Big Debbie.
A paleontologist asked several detailed questions regarding body proportions.
Marty thought.
“Bus-sized.”
Nora rubbed her forehead.
“Could you estimate length numerically?”
“About one and a half city buses.”
The paleontologist wrote this down.
Mr. Bitey caused excitement.
Marty refused to identify a species.
“Big.”
“How big?”
“Extremely.”
“Could you describe the skull?”
“From farther away than I wanted.”
Nora interrupted. “Move to environmental observations.”
Marty did.
Plants.
River.
Insects.
Tracks.
Weather.
Animal behavior.
The scientists became increasingly fascinated.
Then somebody made the mistake of asking about diet.
Marty sat straighter.
Nora noticed.
“No.”
The scientist looked at her.
“What?”
“Do not encourage him.”
Marty said, “I conducted several culinary trials.”
The room became quiet.
“Natural mortality only,” he added. “I did not kill anything.”
Nora folded her arms.
Marty described the original piece of meat.
The fire.
The cooking.
The first bite.
One scientist asked, “And the flavor?”
“Chicken.”
Pens stopped.
“Could you be more specific?”
Marty had waited his entire prehistoric ordeal for this question.
“Yes.”
Nora looked at the ceiling.
“The earliest sample had a firm texture, lean muscle, decent browning, mild flavor. Direct flame gave it more character. Later samples differed.”
“Differed how?”
“One was chicken with unresolved anger.”
The scientist frowned.
Nora said, “Do not write that.”
Another scientist asked, “Did you preserve any biological samples?”
Marty’s confidence declined.
“No.”
“Any tissue?”
“No.”
“Bone?”
“No.”
“Feathers?”
“No.”
“Photographs?”
“My phone died.”
“Environmental specimens?”
Marty searched his pockets.
The laboratory had bagged his clothing, but somebody retrieved it.
He found a tiny charred stick.
The room became intensely interested.
Nora took it with forceps.
Marty searched again.
A crushed fragment of dried leaf remained stuck inside the seam of his pocket.
He handed that over too.
Then he discovered a black speck on the battered tongs.
The scientists leaned forward.
Marty looked at it.
Nora looked at him.
“That may be useful.”
Marty hesitated.
“What?”
“You have biological residue?”
“Possibly seasoning.”
Nora’s expression hardened.
“Give me the tongs.”
Marty held them against his chest.
“These saved my life.”
“We need to analyze them.”
“You’ll give them back?”
“Yes.”
“Unaltered?”
“We may need to swab them.”
“Swab is fine.”
“Give me the tongs.”
Marty surrendered them reluctantly.
The scientists spent another hour questioning him.
By the end, Marty had gained some humility regarding dinosaur identification.
He still maintained absolute confidence regarding the food.
A paleontologist asked whether he believed all dinosaur meat tasted like chicken.
Marty considered this.
“No. My sample size was pathetic.”
Nora looked faintly surprised.
Marty continued.
“But enough tasted chicken-adjacent that I’m comfortable calling it a trend.”
Nora’s surprise disappeared.
He spent the following week under observation.
The laboratory classified nearly everything.
Marty signed forms.
Nora made him sign additional forms after he admitted he had written MARTY’S CRETACEOUS SMOKEHOUSE in stones.
“You altered the past.”
“With landscaping.”
“You established a commercial identity sixty-six million years before currency.”
“Branding can precede monetization.”
“You fed dinosaurs cooked meat.”
“They stole it.”
“You named three of them.”
“Names don’t alter history.”
“You have no basis for saying that.”
“Clive wasn’t using his old one.”
Nora walked away.
Two weeks after the incident, Marty finally held a barbecue at home.
His sister arrived with her husband and two friends.
Nobody had been told what happened.
Officially, Marty had suffered an industrial accident at a laboratory.
Unofficially, he had spent six days operating an unauthorized restaurant during the late Cretaceous.
He stood at his grill wearing an apron.
The battered tongs had been returned.
Scientists found no useful preserved dinosaur DNA. Heat, contamination, and Marty’s handling had destroyed most potentially interesting residue.
The charred stick remained scientifically confusing.
The leaf fragment produced several meetings.
Marty cared less than he expected.
He had the tongs.
His sister brought out a tray of chicken thighs.
“You’re doing these, right?”
Marty looked down.
Ordinary chicken.
He had once considered this the ideal barbecue meat.
Reliable.
Forgiving.
Good skin.
Excellent smoke absorption.
Now it seemed underqualified.
“Yeah.”
He seasoned the thighs.
Lit the charcoal.
Established two heat zones.
Placed the chicken over indirect heat.
His brother-in-law watched.
“You still clicking those tongs every time you pick them up?”
Marty looked at the battered pair.
“Safety check.”
He clicked them twice.
One jaw crossed awkwardly over the other.
His brother-in-law frowned.
“Those things are ruined.”
“They’re calibrated.”
Marty cooked the chicken perfectly.
He took the thighs off and placed them on a tray.
His sister reached for one.
Marty slapped her hand away with the tongs.
“Ow.”
“You don’t mess with meat while it’s resting.”
“You’ve become unbearable.”
“Technique matters.”
Five minutes later he took a bite.
He chewed slowly.
Everyone watched.
“Well?” his sister asked.
Marty frowned.
He tasted again.
The chicken was juicy.
Smoky.
Well seasoned.
Perfectly cooked.
Completely disappointing.
“What?”
Marty shook his head.
“Nothing.”
His brother-in-law took a bite. “This is great.”
“It’s fine.”
“Fine?”
Marty examined the thigh.
His sister stared at him.
“You’ve spent fifteen years telling everyone you make the best chicken in the county.”
“Standards evolve.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
Marty took another bite and sighed through his nose.
“It’s just not dinosaur enough.”
Nobody spoke.
He clicked the warped tongs.
They locked crookedly around the chicken.
Marty inspected them.
“That’s basically the same principle.”