The Eternal War

CHAPTER 4

2001, New York



Liam found himself drawn back to the main hall and that splendid brachiosaurus skeleton erected in the middle of it. He was staring up so long at the long arch of vertebrae that comprised its neck that he failed to notice another bustling class of elementary students gather round him, just like the other class, all carrying bright orange activity clipboards. They cooed and orrrrred as the others had, craning their necks to look up at the Cretaceous leviathan.

A teacher, or perhaps it was a museum tour guide, was giving the children the vital statistics of the beast, or, as Maddy would say, they were getting a ‘fact-up’.

‘… roamed the plains in small family groups of no more than a dozen …’

‘Well, that’s not true,’ grunted Liam under his breath.

A tiny boy beside him with thick-framed spectacles and a buzzcut of blond hair that stood erect like a toilet brush looked up at him curiously.

‘… their thick green hides, most probably as thick as rhinoceros hides, probably helped to keep them …’

‘Brown, actually,’ Liam muttered again. ‘They were brown.’

The boy tugged gently at his shirtsleeve and Liam looked down at him. He whispered something Liam couldn’t hear. He squatted down beside the child. ‘What’s that again, fella?’

The boy eyed the guide warily. She was still addressing the assembled children. ‘I said,’ he whispered again, ‘are you a … a real dinosaur man?’

Liam laughed softly. He realized the little chap was asking whether he was an expert, a palaeontologist. He stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Well now … yes, I suppose you could say I am.’ He whispered softly, pointing up at the towering bones. ‘I seen these fellas in the flesh, so I have. And I can tell you they’re certainly not green.’

Behind thick milk-bottle lenses, the boy’s eyes widened. ‘You … you seen dinosaurs for, like, real?’

Liam nodded, his face all of a sudden very serious. ‘Aye. Went back in a time machine, so I did. Saw all sorts of dinosaurs … including this big beastie.’ He tapped his nose with his forefinger. ‘But that’s super top secret, young man, all right?’

The boy nodded so vigorously his glasses almost fell off his face.

‘I’ll tell you something else too … We saw ’em in huge herds. Hundreds of the fellas all together in one place. Incredible sight, so it was.’ He winked at the boy. ‘Not small groups like your teacher just said.’

‘Wow,’ the boy gasped.

‘And, like I said, they were brown, like dust, you see, because there wasn’t such a thing as grass back then. They were brown as camouflage against the dirt, not green against grass. See what I mean?’

The boy nodded. ‘Should I put that down on my activity sheet, mister? Brown?’

Liam glanced down at the boy’s clipboard and saw a pop quiz. One of the questions was about the supposed colour of their hides.

He nodded. ‘Sure … put down brown.’

The boy’s forehead furrowed with a difficult dilemma. ‘But … er … I might not get a tick for that.’

Liam shrugged. ‘Aye … maybe so, but at least you’d be right, eh?’

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Becks standing over them, her hair tied back in a tidy ponytail and wearing a plain dark woolly jumper that covered the still very visible scar tissue up her left arm.

‘Liam, you are aware Maddy would not approve of this,’ she cautioned.

‘Ahh … and you see this girl?’ whispered Liam to the boy. The boy looked warily up at her stern expression. ‘She saw these dinosaurs too … smacked one of ’em right on the nose, so she did. Actually started a stampede.’

‘This person does not have security clearance to know about our operations,’ Becks uttered firmly. ‘I recommend that you stop.’

Liam smiled. ‘Right, yes … of course.’ He glanced at the boy’s clipboard. ‘Brown, OK?’ He flicked him a conspiratorial wink and stood up. ‘What’s up, Becks?’

‘It is time now,’ she replied.

‘Uh?’

She nodded at a large digital clock above the entrance. It was a couple of minutes to eleven. ‘Time for us to drink coffee.’