February Sucks Eggs

I would like to thank George Anderson for permission to continue his story. (//rosa-blanca.ru/desixxxphoto/s/february-sucks) and I'd like to thank Randi for her editorial assistance. All errors are mine. Also, thanks to my beta readers and special thanks to the person who inadvertently suggested this iteration of February Sucks.

Thomas and Emma-Louise checked the systems for the twentieth time. Overkill? Not at all. Even one apparently small, insignificant error could kill them, either immediately or at some point down the line.

They had both earned their degrees in Paleontology and had been working together at the National Institute of Chronological Antediluvian Research for several years, in fact since their joint dissertation was published.

They had been a part of Project Oospore for the past 18 months and were working in conjunction with the Project Wellsian team to bring about the ultimate goal of the founders of the NICAR, which was to send researchers back in time to harvest fertilized dino eggs.

At first there had been a moratorium on using the time travel technology, with naysayers holding forth and pontificating on esoteric concepts such as time paradoxes and the disruption of the historical timeline.

There had been an impasse for several years until at the UN-sponsored Time Travel Technology Debate, the anti-time travel advocates put their points of view over and the case for time travel being allowed was put by Professor Gordon Lightfoot, a small, yet feisty Cambridge Don.

He pointed out that if someone had traveled back in time and did something, say, 500 years ago, then whatever they had done would already have happened and would be part of the historical record.

Else why, he said, would not despots such as Hitler have been assassinated by a time traveling vigilante? He then revealed that there had been at least 42 attempts to assassinate Hitler, probably many more that went unreported, and wondered if at least some of those plots had been instigated or organized by people who had traveled back through time?

After his speech, the opposition to time travel faded away and official bodies such as the National Institute of Chronological Antediluvian Research were launched to oversee and coordinate time travel. Although Professor Lightfoot's attitude held sway, time travel was strictly controlled because controlling things is what governments like to do.

The NICAR had decided to send a team back to the Cretaceous Period and obtain some eggs (hopefully fertilized) from up to four dinosaur nests.

Lots were drawn to see which team would be the first to go back and Thomas and Emma-Louise won the draw.

And so it was, two months later they were sent back in time to collect the eggs. "We'll only take one from each nest," Thomas said.

"Yeah, I agree. We don't want to upset their maternal instincts, do we?" Emma-Louise replied.

When they traveled back, they noticed several things immediately. The air was very humid, they were wearing breathing masks to supplement the lower oxygen levels, and the trees and plants that were alien to their eyes were absolutely enormous, as were the flying insects that they saw and heard.

They could hear some crashing sounds and noises from some creatures that were low, booming noises some distance away. "Nothing like the old Jurassic Park movie," Emma-Louise said, giggling.

Thomas shook his head. "Nah, Sis! Clearly not!"

They nervously hunted around in an area marked out on their map as having multiple potential nest sites, as paleontologists had discovered many fossilized nest sites in modern times.

They found four nest sites in reasonably close proximity to each other. "Wonder where the parents are?" Thomas asked, glancing round.

"Probably feeding," Emma said. "Luckily the dinosaurs we're seeking out are herbivores so they won't attack us."

"Yeah, so long as they don't see us kidnapping their babies!" Thomas replied.

They carefully removed one egg from each nest and gently placed them into the incubator they'd brought, making sure they were snug and safe.

They noticed that the eggs, which were about the same size as an Ostrich egg, were still reasonably warm. Emma-Louise remarked about how light they were. "Probably because the last time we held eggs from this type of dinosaur they'd been turned to solid stone, so were pretty hefty," she noted.

"Right," Thomas said. "We have the eggs, now we have one more job to do."

They walked through the Cretaceous Period jungle until they saw a dinosaur that was ambling along, minding its own business. To their shock, rather than looking like a gigantic lizard it actually looked more akin to a really massive bird-like creature covered in bright feathers.

Thomas activated the extra piece of equipment they had brought with them and whistled to attract the attention of the bird-like creature. It turned toward them and began running in their direction. There was none of the lumbering gait that many people had expected of dinosaurs. She, or he, was moving rapidly with a flowing, graceful series of movements.

Before the dinosaur had gotten too close, they activated the time travel device and found themselves back at the HQ of the NICAR.

Thomas turned off the device he had been using, and together they went through into the laboratory, removed the eggs from the portable incubator and placed them, very carefully, into the laboratory incubator.

They left the laboratory and talked outside. Emma-Louise said: "Did you get what you wanted, Thomas?"

Thomas nodded, saying: "I think so. Let's check it out." They were both more than satisfied with the result, and after putting it through the final processes, they felt that they were ready.

"I'm a little nervous about this idea, Thomas. Should we really go ahead with our plan?"

Thomas shrugged. "If we don't, Susan and Michael wouldn't happen and we need to follow through. After all, as Professor Lightfoot said, 'Whatever people had done would already have happened and would be part of the historical record,' so we have to proceed."

They returned to the building, picked up several items of equipment and made their second time travel event of the day, but they only stepped back a relatively short time compared to their previous trip.

They had set their coordinates with pinpoint accuracy and waited at the side of the road, partially hidden behind a billboard.

"I can hear it! Get ready!" Emma-Louise said, excitement in her voice.

"Okay" Thomas said. He aimed the handheld device he was carrying and the Hologramex 3-D projector began to work as he aimed it toward the road.

The throaty purr of a classic car, a Bugatti Veyron Vitesse was heard as local footballing hero Marc LaValliere was driving at speed toward something very rare for him, a second assignation with a married woman by the name of Linda Brown, who he had managed to spirit away from her husband at his happy hunting ground, Morrison's nightclub.

LaValliere didn't consider himself to be a bad man. In fact, the only thing that he liked more than working with the charities he had set up was taking other men's wives and borrowing them. Theoretically he knew that behavior was reprehensible, but there was a highly useful moral blind spot in his psychological makeup that often saw him bedding the wives or girlfriends of other men. And, although this was discreditable, he did get off on making cuckolds of other men.

He rarely if ever wanted to see one of his conquests again, but there was something about Linda, especially in that stunning blue dress when he had first seen her, that really spoke to him in a way that other women rarely did.

Oh, there was no chance of him really taking her away from her husband because he wasn't the kind of man looking for a committed relationship, and he knew that whatever relationship he could have with Linda would be torrid but relatively brief.

He had arranged for a further assignation with her. She wasn't sure it was a good idea; she was working hard to make things up with Jim her husband and didn't want to put their reconciliation at risk.

LaValliere had eased her conscience by telling her it would just be a cup of coffee and a talk about things, that he didn't want her to risk her marriage and that he'd not try to seduce her.

That was a mixture of lies and half-truths. He did want her to talk to her about things (probably), he didn't want her to risk her marriage (probably), but he would try to seduce her (probably).

He was driving over the speed limit, but that was copacetic as the local police always gave the local sporting stars considerable leeway. Also, the fact that he was a trustee of the local police charity board certainly helped somewhat.

Suddenly, LaValliere saw something impossible running toward him, it was a huge dinosaur, covered in feathers. He swerved to the right and his car smashed into a wall.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the very real looking dinosaur flicked out of existence as Thomas turned off the Hologramex 3-D projector.

Emma-Louise flipped open the device she was carrying, which was a perfect clone of a standard smartphone of several years ago. She dialed 911, and when connected said: "Hi! I'm calling to report a pretty bad accident involving a single car. The driver was travelling really fast and then he lost control of the car and hit a wall."

The operator took the details and a fire truck, an ambulance and a police cruiser all arrived on the scene.

The fire crew members used the jaws of life to extricate a badly injured Marc LaValliere from the wreckage of his car. It was only because he was wearing his seatbelt, the airbags deployed and the car was so solidly built that he had lived through the crash.

Thomas and Emma-Louise traveled back to their own time and wondered about what they had just done.

Two weeks later they, and their parents Jim and Linda plus their younger siblings the twins, Susan and Michael, were guests of honor at the Marc LaValliere Wheelchair Football League annual dinner.

It was a glittering event and was attended by the great and the good of the city and also the rest of the country, so important was the Marc LaValliere Wheelchair Football League in American sporting circles.

There was a really very good four-course meal with wines appropriate to each course, and this was followed by a performance by a reasonably good comedian and then worthy speeches praising Marc LaValliere and the members of his committee who ran the charitable side of the league.

Then Marc LaValliere wheeled himself onto the stage in his electric wheelchair. "Good evening, everyone. My name is Marc LaValliere, and I'd like to thank everyone who has helped me over the past decade or so to make my dream of the Marc LaValliere Wheelchair Football League become a reality."

He passed a hand over his face before continuing to speak. "But there's something many of you don't know about me. In my younger days I was an amoral piece of shit." There were gasps and cries of "No! You are a good man!" from one person in the audience.

Marc shook his head with a smile on his face. "No, I can assure you that I was an amoral piece of shit. See... what I would do was go to nightclubs, hotels and the like and target married women and do my damndest to steal them from their husbands for the night. I actually used to get off on turning the wife into my own personal slut du jour and their poor, innocent and loving husband into my cuckold."

The audience was stunned, spellbound by this dreadful revelation. Marc, after a painful pause, continued.

"But one day, one evening, in fact, I was on my way to attempt to convince a wife to cheat on her husband again, I saw something heading toward my car. It was fucking huge. It looked like a dinosaur but it was covered in feathers. Instinctively I swerved out of the way and smashed into a wall.

"I was taken to the Central Hospital in a pretty bad way. They operated on me almost as soon as I arrived. Apparently, they stemmed bleeds from several parts of my body and operated on my spine, an operation that almost certainly saved my life. However, I had lost the use of my legs.

"As you can imagine, I was destroyed. My career as a footballer was over, as was my career as a lothario. At first I felt bitter, but lying on my back recovering from my surgeries, I began realizing that my accident was really a blessing for me. I took stock of myself and I realized that I had become a person who I did not know very well and who I did not like in the least.

"Eventually I came to understand that I had fallen far short of my potential. I wanted God back in my life, so I asked for the Catholic hospital chaplain to start visiting me and taking my confession.

"Eventually I left the hospital and went into a rehab center where I was taught how to cope with being a paraplegic. I had wronged so many people, but now I knew it was time to put things right. I set up what was to become the Marc LaValliere Wheelchair Football League, which now has hundreds of teams all over the country, with thousands of people like me, confined to wheelchairs, able to participate in the greatest sport the world has ever known, American Football!" He punched the air and the audience erupted in cheers and applause.

"I'd also like to thank Jim and Linda Brown for their wise counsel and help over the past ten years. I wronged them very badly and they chose to forgive me. I'd also like to thank my Godchildren, Susan and Michael for being such wonderful kids and their older brother and sister, Tommy and Emma. Though these days, they prefer to be called Thomas and Emma-Louise. But as their crazy, crippled honorary uncle, I get to call them Tommy and Emma!"

He paused and said, "Come on, honey! Come out here, please!" An attractive but slightly plump woman came out to applause as Marc said: "And I'd like to thank my wife, Donna, who I met at a wheelchair football game when she was with her brother, who was playing in a match. Donna and I have been married for five years and for that, I believe she deserves a medal!"

"Also, I'd like to thank God for sending me that dinosaur, because if that hadn't happened, I'd most likely have been shot by a justifiably enraged husband or died of an STD. I... I... I don't know how God arranged for me to meet that dinosaur, but I'm glad he did and I'd like to thank whomever it was who performed that task on the Lord's behalf."

There was a very long, standing ovation for Marc, and Tommy and Emma hugged each other and sobbed with joy and relief.

They'd been shocked when Marc had started visiting their parents in his wheelchair and when their father had forgiven him. They were, to use a British expression, absolutely gobsmacked. Especially when their parents joined the board of Marc's wheelchair football league and worked with him to make it the outstanding success that it had become.

They decided to tell nobody about their part in the apparition of the dinosaur. Well, at least not yet. Besides, they had a paper to write about their exploits in obtaining the eggs and they wanted to visit the dinosaur chicks who were growing bigger every day.