Maddrax: Volume 2 (English Edition) E-Book

Ian Rolf Hill

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Maddrax (English Edition)
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 628

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Maddrax: Volume 2 (English Edition)

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

The Story So Far

Evolution

At the Top of the Food Chain

Priests of Immortality

Witch Hunt 2.0

The Complete Story So Far

About J-Novel Club

Copyright

Landmarks

Table of Contents

The Story So Far

By Ian Rolf Hill

This introduction is meant to give you a quick insight into the MADDRAX universe. For those of you who want to know the whole story, please check the extended synopsis at the end of the volume.

On February 8th, 2012, the comet “Christopher-Floyd” crashed into the Earth. United States Air Force flight commander Matthew Drax was deployed to observe the comet’s approach. When Drax and his squadron made contact with the Comet, however, they were flung five hundred years into the future.

During this time, the world as he knows it changes drastically: human civilization undergoes extreme degeneration, to the point of now resembling the Bronze Age: the world’s once-great cities lie in ruins, there are no longer any official forms of government, and people regress to living in clans and tribes, moving through the wilderness like nomads and calling themselves the “Wandering Folk.” Earth’s plants and animals have also mutated in bizarre and dangerous ways.

Upon exiting the timeslip, Drax crashes alone in the Alps. His passenger, the scientist and professor Dr. Jacob Smythe, triggered his ejector seat out of panic and is now missing. There is no trace of Drax’s other comrades.

Attacked by mutated, semi-intelligent giant rats called Taratzes, Matt is saved by a barbarian warrior named Aruula. As she finds his name, “Matt Drax,” difficult to pronounce, she gives him the nickname “Maddrax.” A telepath, Aruula is instantly able to understand Matt, and the two form a connection. Soon after, Aruula falls in love with Drax and remains by his side throughout his adventures.

In London, Matt and Aruula meet a group known as the “Technos,” whose ancestors survived the comet’s impact in bunkers beneath the city. By avoiding the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the group has not only retained its twenty-first-century intelligence, but continued to invent and innovate. However, this knowledge has come at a price: due to their centuries-long stay in the bunkers, the Technos have depleted immune systems, and are only able to visit the surface in protective suits. The community in London offers to connect Drax with other Technos around the world. The journey brings Matt and Aruula to America, now known as “Meeraka” in the language of the Wandering Folk.

Along the way, they encounter the Hydrites, an anthropomorphized species of fish-people. Later, it is revealed that they are not mutants, but rather an alien race who initially settled on Mars, where they were known as Hydrees. When Mars began losing its atmosphere hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Hydrees traveled along a tachyon-based time beam to Earth, where they took the name “Hydrite” and settled the undersea frontiers.

One of the Hydrites—a man named Quart’ol—begins traveling with the pair, ultimately sacrificing himself to save Matt’s life. In the aftermath, Matt and Aruula are separated before they can reach Meeraka. While Aruula is forced to travel with the neo-Barbarian Rulfan (son of a London Techno and a barbarian woman), Matt Drax reaches the coast of the former USA.

In Washington (now “Waashton”), Matt learns of another bunker-based civilization, one calling itself the “World Council” and claiming to be the true global political leaders. The council’s president—General Arthur Crow—is a power-obsessed dictator looking to cement his grip on the world. A rebel group, the “Running Men,” seeks to thwart his plans. The Running Men are led by Mr. Black, a clone of the last US President (and a certain beloved action movie star).

During the clash between the World Council and the rebels, an outside consciousness takes control of Matt Drax. This turns out to be Quart’ol, who at the moment of his death, transferred his soul into Matt’s brain. Quart’ol brings Drax to an undersea city of Hydrites, Hykton, in order to have his consciousness implanted in a clone of his original body.

Matt returns to Waashton where he reunites with Aruula. Together, they are forced to flee from the World Council and end up in Los Angeles (now called “El’ay”). There, they meet the android Miki Takeo, who becomes one of their closest friends.

Meanwhile, the World Council plans a mission to the ISS, where they hope to find information about the comet’s impact. Matt is forced to travel on a repaired space shuttle to make the trip and recover the data. From space, Matt is able to see that life began evolving much faster near the site of the comet’s impact in Siberia than in other locations.

Together with Miki Takeo, Matt organizes an expedition to Crater Lake. The World Council also catches wind of the discovery and a team is en route. On the long and dangerous journey to Crater Lake, Aruula is possessed by a strange consciousness which calls itself GREEN and is a type of plant-based hive mind. Upon Matt and Aruula’s arrival at Crater Lake, the warrior reveals that she is pregnant, and that her child also possesses plant DNA. GREEN has apparently manipulated the embryo’s development, whereby its gestation is changed. Cruelly, Aruula’s child is taken from her womb by an unknown creature before she can give birth.

Shortly thereafter, Matt and Quart’ol make a shocking discovery: Comet Christopher-Floyd was actually a spaceship!

The ship was an ark belonging to an alien species known as the “Daa’mures,” who were searching for a new homeworld and crashed on Earth. The Daa’murian consciousness is stored in green crystals, whose energy is not only responsible for humanity’s degeneration, but also the mutations of other species. Their motivation is clear: the Daa’mures are using the mutations to find ideal host bodies in which to rehouse their minds. A further surprise comes in the form of information that the spaceship is also a cosmic being, known as an “Oqualun” or “Wanderer.”

When Matt accidentally destroys a Daa’murian egg, he is instantly declared enemy number one. Together with his friends, he flees to Russia. There, he meets with a group of Technos who have created an immunity serum from the blood of Mr. Black, allowing various bunker inhabitants to visit the surface without protection. They also confirm that Matt’s body has been flooded with tachyons, which slow down the aging process—possibly as a result of the time slip.

Matt annihilates the Daa’mures’ mutant army and couriers the immunity serum back to London, where he forms an alliance against the Daa’mures with General Crow.

The Daa’mures succeed at reactivating the Wanderer, which sends out a planetwide electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and takes all remaining technology on Earth out of commission. Chaos breaks out, and the Technos are forced to flee their bunkers without protection. As if that were not enough, Matt and Aruula learn that the Daa’mures themselves are only one of countless servant races created by the Wanderers to protect themselves from their enemies: the Warriors, cosmic hunters of unimaginable strength.

Matt and his allies are able to hold off the Wanderer, but the Warrior is quickly on his target’s trail. In order to overcome this threat, Matt searches beneath the Antarctic ice to find a long-lost legendary weapon created by the Hydrees: the Surface Reamer. A grand artifact of unimaginable destruction, it is naturally being pursued by General Crow as well. He attempts to force Matt to fire the Reamer at Washington, hoping to eradicate the Running Men in the process.

However, Matt manages to change the target coordinates at the last second. Instead of hitting Washington, Matt targets an area in the Appalachian mountains, where General Crow was operating a factory building organic robots. The shot effectively exchanges a region five kilometers in diameter with a bubble containing its counterpart from almost million years into the future, The Earth is left defenseless against the Warrior.

With the help of a converter that harnesses the Earth’s magnetic field, Matt is able to reload the Surface Reamer, only for it to backfire when the Warrior comes into range. The Warrior destroys the Earth, and Matt only has one chance left to fix things: entering the time bubbles created by the misfire, which lead to both the past and future.

While traveling through various parallel worlds, Matt meets the archaeologist and time traveler Tom Ericson in the year 2304. Ericson works for a group of evolved humans from the future who call themselves the “Archivists.” Their goal is not only to collect technical achievements from the parallel worlds but also to remove any dangerous time lines and continuities from existence. Matt, therefore, gains an opportunity to quickly reload the Surface Reamer and defeat the Warrior. Unfortunately, too late, and the Moon is launched from its orbit into the Reamer’s firing path, threatening to crash into the Earth.

Matt and Aruula travel through a wormhole at CERN and are sent to a far distant ring planet system. There they meet another alien species called the “Kasynari.” They offer to assist humanity with the evacuation of Earth through the use of a portable wormhole generator. In reality, their goal is to feed off the mental energy of human brains. Only by doing so they are able to maintain the camouflage required to protect their home planet.

Ultimately, it is revealed that the true threat is another Wanderer: like the Daa’mures, the Kasynari are servants of the Oqualun. However, their plan fails and the camouflage screen is nullified. In order to help the Kasynari and save the Earth, Matt and Aruula make contact with the species from whom the Kasynari adapted the wormhole technology: the Pancinovas. With their help, the pair are able to transport the Surface Reamer from the Antarctic to the ring planet system and give the Kasynari a weapon to use against the Warriors pursuing the Wanderer.

And that’s not all! The Pancinovas manage to perform the impossible: They create a gigantic wormhole that sends the moon back to its orbit, saving the Earth before returning to their own solar system. However, the wormhole passage to the ring planet system has collapsed. Contact is lost between Earth and the established colony on the moon Novis.

Before the collapse, a military hardliner named Colonel Aran Kormak also had a lucky break and escaped the collapsing wormhole. Doing so triggered a chain reaction with unexpected consequences: all across Earth, regions measuring exactly fifty kilometers in diameter have been replaced with their counterparts from parallel worlds, surrounded by near-impenetrable forests of thorns.

Evolution

By Ian Rolf Hill

Ydiel steadied the clawrunner as they approached the Graagone nest. With mixed feelings, he observed Rekar disappear between the trees to inspect the second enclosure. Hopefully, Rriikah’s pack had worked diligently and the Graagones would stay asleep for a while. Nothing was more dangerous than an angry Graagone mother defending her brood.

Ydiel smoothly slid off the clawrunner’s back and crouched in front of the nest to measure the eggs’ core temperatures. It let him know when the Graagones were supposed to hatch.

A high-pitched screech transitioning into a series of choppy screams made Ydiel instinctively take cover. The noises were coming from the clawrunner. He reared up and waved his arm-long front claws in the process.

Ydiel knew this could only mean one thing. Danger! He turned around. He raised his arms and slowly walked toward the clawrunner to calm him down. “Easy, Gharr. Nothing to worry about!”

The animal recoiled; his high-pitched screams became faster and more frantic. Without any warning, the clawrunner reared up again. Startled, Ydiel stumbled backward and fell after tripping over a root.

He looked up at the sky...where the clouds had been set in motion. They were sweeping across the firmament and forming a vortex right above him. All of a sudden, there was a rustling noise coming from the surrounding trees, which were swaying from one side to the other due to the heavy storm gusts.

A hurricane! Ydiel’s mind blared the warning. He propped himself up with his claw hands inside the tall grass and tried jumping back up to his feet when something scurried over his fingers. Tiny paws were scratching his rough skin. A furry, brown body was scurrying through the grass, closely followed by a second and a third. The clawrunner was prancing in place, ready and eager to escape.

Ydiel briskly jumped up, rushed forward, and managed to grab the clawrunner’s reins. He had to watch out lest the panicked animal accidentally ram its claws through his body. As such, he pulled the reins with all his might, lowering the clawrunner’s comparatively small head toward himself and slinging his arms around it.

Gharr followed the signal. He flopped on his forelegs and buried his claws into the soil. Most likely, he didn’t even notice that he had skewered one of those furry critters in the process. Ydiel pressed his riding animal’s head closely against his chest to cover Gharr’s eyes. The clawrunner’s flanks were shivering and trembling. They were swelling with every panicked breath.

Ydiel experienced the same panic upon seeing the countless furry animals flooding past him and Gharr. Amongst them jumped bipedal, feathered Pyxies, their long tails twitching and whipping the ground behind their delicate bodies. A clear sign of excitement.

Gharr tried to calm himself with a monotonous humming sound. This was a defensive reflex of the clawrunner, which kicked in when escape and attack were no longer options.

Lightning flashed on the horizon. The sky darkened and turned into a slate gray wall. Hot winds were blowing on Ydiel’s back, and the earth beneath his feet began to tremble. Despite his fear, Ydiel was captivated by the spectacle. The lightning appeared to be limited to a certain area, spanning across the sky like an arch. They were only spared because they were still a bit away from that line. If they had ridden any further...

Rekar!

The thought of his partner being in danger caused a painful wincing in his upper corneal layers. He was overtaken by a strong desire to search for her. But at the same time, the trembling beneath his feet was growing stronger. A tree trunk crashed down right next to him. The Graagone’s droning screams mixed in with the crackling boom of the lightning.

And then, from one moment to another, the inferno ended. The lightning vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The cloudy vortex dissolved into concentric rings, similar to the waves that form when throwing a stone into the sea. At the same time, a green-blue light started billowing across the sky.

Suddenly, there was silence, broken only by Gharr’s continued humming. The clawrunner remained in the same spot and didn’t make any attempts to run away.

Once again, Ydiel felt an urge to move and finally caved to it. He opened Gharr’s saddlebag to take out the communicator. “Rekar, come in!” he shouted into the upper end of the finger-sized cylinder. He waited in vain for a reply.

Ydiel changed the frequency to contact the lab. Same result. Slowly, he lowered the communicator, trying to ignore the shivering of his limbs. Whatever had caused this phenomenon, it had also jammed radio communication. Probably some sort of electromagnetic field related to the lightning, which must have also produced this strange luminous apparition.

Or was there simply no one left to answer him? But that would mean that all of Rhaaka was affected! Ydiel recalled the lightning. If he remembered correctly, it had flashed exactly along the lines of the city. He had to return at once.

But first he had to find Rekar.

Meanwhile, Gharr had calmed down enough that Ydiel felt it was safe to try and mount him. Ydiel gently pulled the reins, and the clawrunner lifted his head and roared excitedly before hesitantly setting off.

From the elevated position, Ydiel let his gaze wander over the trail of destruction. The lightning had created a furrow of scorched earth from which emanated thick smoke. Was he imagining things or did the furrow, curving off in both directions, really form a circle? That should have been mathematically impossible!

The clawrunner shied and refused to go on. Ydiel tried to goad him but to no avail. Eventually, he got off the animal and continued on foot. When he jumped off a fallen tree trunk, his feet sank into the wet ground with a slapping sound. Water was quietly bubbling through the grass and turning the forest’s soil into a swamp.

There was a sucking sound when Ydiel lifted his foot. It seemed like the muck didn’t want to let go of him. He clung to the tree trunk and slowly pulled himself out, panting from the effort. Now he realized why the storm had been able to knock over the tree so easily. Its roots were unable to find any grip in the nearly swampy ground, and the storm gusts had delivered the final blow.

Ydiel kept his balance as he advanced toward the leaf canopy close to the smoke line, which was only several nothanes (one nothane equaled approximately two meters) wide.

Nearby, a Graagone was lying right in front of the burned strip. Judging from the size and the nostril’s shape, Ydiel was able to determine that it was a female. Above the muscular thighs, a huge chunk of the massive torso was completely gone. All that remained was steam rising from the bog. The water had evaporated in the heat.

Ydiel’s horror knew no limits. His mouth felt dry. If Rekar had been in this area, she was surely dead! Maybe even completely burnt to slag and ashes.

Ydiel swallowed his sorrow. Now wasn’t the time to mourn! He lifted his head and tried seeing through the veil of smoke and steam. Maybe Rekar had been fast enough and escaped beyond the burned area. He smacked his lips in an effort to collect enough saliva to call out for his partner. Then, he threw back his head, spread out his arms and stuck out his chest. A piercing scream came from his throat.

Gharr, who was standing a couple of nothanes behind him, snorted in irritation and stood on his hind legs, while Ydiel fell silent, waiting for a reply. When no one answered, he repeated the scream. Again and again. After what felt like an eternity, he finally realized that Rekar wasn’t going to reply or return. Ever again!

Ydiel’s body trembled, his twitching muscles urging him to keep moving. He happily obliged upon realizing the true nature of this incident.

This wasn’t a natural weather phenomenon. This was an attack!

Ydiel threw himself around, ran over the tree trunk toward the roots, and jumped down.

Even here the water had softened the ground, albeit less noticeably than back on the other side. He was only submerged up to his ankles. As his feet squelched through the mire, each new footprint quickly filled with brown water.

Gharr instinctively recoiled; his weight had inevitably pulled him further down. Ydiel hurriedly mounted the clawrunner and tugged on the reins. That was all it took for Gharr to rush back toward the city as if hunted by a horde of Graagones.

When the clawrunner passed through the enclosure’s exit and Ydiel saw the gates loosely swinging back and forth, he realized how bad the situation actually was. The lightning must have disabled the automatic lock. The animals were on the loose!

Ydiel hastily looked around but couldn’t see anything dangerous. Of course not. If another animal, like a Graagone or a Longnose, were nearby, Gharr would have reacted. Nonetheless, it isn’t wise to stay here any longer than necessary. Ydiel once again spurred on the clawrunner.

With big leaps, they approached the city. Rhaaka was still hidden behind the thick vegetation, but the sound of fighting could already be heard. Several detonations in rapid succession. Extremely loud, they resonated far into the distance. Ydiel didn’t have any doubt that shots had been fired!

***

The surf was bubbling between the rocks. Its salty waves left behind tears and cracks before quickly returning to the ocean as white foam.

Keke was crouching atop the largest rock, peering down onto a flat chunk of land the size of a small island covered in shells and algae. Well, the size may have been a bit exaggerated, but the clean boulder with the peculiar texture was big enough to fit about fifty people standing close together. They had tried it several years ago. Naturally, not this exact specimen. It was neither a rock nor an island, but a shield made out of horn and chalk that was several inches thick.

The shell of a sea turtle. Or rather, a mutated sea turtle. As such, they had to be cautious. These beasts could become quite unpleasant fellows if they were disturbed during their egg deposition. And that was exactly the plan of Keke and his friends, since a sea turtle like that would be able to feed the four hunters and their families for at least an entire week.

Keke’s mouth started watering just from looking at it. In his mind, the salty flesh was already sizzling over the fire. He could smell the spicy aroma and taste the admittedly peculiar flavor. Mutated sea turtle wasn’t a food that one could or should eat regularly throughout the year.

Regardless, outside of breeding season it was nearly impossible to find, let alone capture, the animals. To properly hunt them you had to be on land, a realm those monsters only approached once a year. The window of opportunity was extremely narrow. In addition, it was difficult to spot the animal amid all the rocks and washed-up garbage, despite their respectable size.

Besides, last year there had been another problem, which had only become much worse over the past few months. Keke still couldn’t believe that everyone had made it out alive. And “everyone” didn’t just refer to his friends and family, or Méda’s residents, but all of humanity.

Just a few weeks ago the giant moon had stood as an omen of the apocalypse in the sky. All the tornadoes, typhoons, and floods had been mere precursors to the imminent destruction.

Keke had never really come to terms with his impending doom. He hadn’t minded death as such, because someday every human had to die anyway. However, it had pained him that no one was going to remain to honor him.

From the beginning, he hadn’t paid any heed to the rumors, spread by charlatans up north, boastfully promising a certain escape to a distant planet. Complete and utter nonsense, such as one commonly heard before every catastrophe. Nevertheless, some people had left for Saan’tono, where there was supposedly a gate toward another world. Keke could only shake his head. But that didn’t matter any longer.

From one moment to the other, everything had harmlessly resolved. Well, it wasn’t quite that simple. It was impossible to describe the celestial phenomenon that they had observed that day. But in the end, the moon, whose cracked grimace had looked down upon them like death itself for the past few weeks, had shrunk back to its usual diminutive size in the sky.

What remained were the effects of catastrophes caused by the approaching moon. The coastline had moved almost a whole mile inland and submerged all the beach sand in the process. The lush jungles beyond the city had turned into an impenetrable swamp, cutting off the residents of Méda, and the entire rest of the peninsula, from the outside world.

Méda was now an isolated enclave. The abandoned houses of those who had fled hadn’t stood empty very long. Many of the surrounding villages were no longer inhabitable, as they had been completely destroyed.

“Hey, Keke! Are you asleep?”

The former Techno looked over his shoulder toward the lower rock, where his younger brother Nacho was standing. Like his brother, Keke, too, had taken off his shoes. His pants went down to his knees, and the shirt was flapping around his brawny body. On the other hand, Nacho was three years younger than Keke and had only come of age last summer. Ever since then he had been looking forward to this hunt promised by his older brother.

Keke made a mollifying gesture as he stood up. The turtle appeared to be irritated since the beach that she used to visit in previous years no longer existed. The former Techno groped for his drill-gun. Jumping onto the turtle’s shell and killing her with a precise shot to the neck would have been the easiest solution.

At least in theory.

In practice, it was a little bit more complicated. After all, they needed to disassemble the turtle, which would have been an impossible undertaking amid the pounding surf. So, they had to lure it ashore first.

Keke jumped down over the rocks toward Nacho.

“Where are Paco and Chuy?” he inquired.

His younger brother’s skinny, brown arm pointed at the flooded beach. “They wanted to be on the lookout on the other side.”

“Okay, go and get them. I found what we were looking for.”

“You have? But where?” Nacho stretched himself and tried looking past his brother. Keke stepped aside with a smile and indicated a spot on the water’s surface reflecting the sunlight. From here, the shell did indeed look like another wet rock.

Nacho leaned forward, held his hands above his eyes and squinted. “That’s supposed to be a turtle?”

Keke tapped his shoulder. He was just about to remind Nacho to go get their friends when his gaze wandered over his brother’s head toward the city...and the sky above it.

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

One heartbeat later, a gust of wind blew in from the sea. The light breeze escalated into a veritable hurricane in a matter of seconds without any clouds in sight. Those only formed after Keke had already been blown away.

He crashed against Nacho, who grabbed onto his older brother in surprise. They lost their balance and Keke somehow managed at the last moment to avoid falling onto Nacho.

Keke closed his eyes as they both crashed into the sea. He was expecting the fatal impact to his head any moment, but they were lucky amid their misfortune. Miraculously, they missed all the surrounding rocks.

Nacho started floundering and flailing in panic, and his hand hit Keke’s nose. Instinctively, he let go of his younger brother. Underwater he rolled over on his back and forced his eyes open despite the burning sea salt. His vision was obfuscated by a red veil—the blood flowing from his nose. However, he had no idea where the billowing green-blue light was coming from.

Keke felt that his brother’s floundering body was nearby. While trying to make it back to the surface, he suffered some kicks from Nacho. Suddenly, a giant shadow entered Keke’s field of vision. Nacho was abruptly pulled upward and disappeared.

Beneath his fingers, Keke felt spongy algae and a firm, rocklike object. He managed to pull himself to the surface by grabbing onto them. Keke snorted as he emerged from the water. The giant mutant sea turtle was towering above him. A black, plate-sized eye and a toothless yet razor-sharp beak charged toward him.

In his panic, Keke groped for the drill-gun on his belt. In the background he could hear the shouts of Paco and Chuy. They had been the ones who had saved Nacho! But now wasn’t the time for relief.

Keke dropped himself and grabbed the pistol with both his hands. He stretched his arms to point the muzzle in the direction of the beast’s leathery neck. Then he pulled the trigger. The drill-gun, which had practically no recoil, also worked underwater. Just to be safe, he fired two more shots. He could feel the waves of pressure radiating from the explosives. As soon as he surfaced, he was doused with a cascade of dark red blood.

The beast’s head had been replaced by a stream of blood, innards, and saltwater pouring out of the shell’s hole. Keke realized that the monster’s skull had reflexively retreated into its shell.

While Nacho was still screaming, the shouts of his friends Paco and Chuy had turned into a shocked groaning. They were standing with their legs apart on the rocks, leaning forward and stretching out their arms.

“Keke, take my hand!” Paco yelled.

Finally, Keke’s wet hands grabbed those of his friend. Chuy appeared in front of him and helped him up on the rock. In disbelief, Keke sat up. He had already forgotten about the sea giant’s carcass. His gaze was captivated by his hometown of Méda. It had never been a beautiful sight in the first place, but he was staggered by what he saw now.

A trail of rusty smoke was cutting diagonally through the city as if it had been hit by a giant laser beam. Above in the sky billowed a green-blue light, which cast an eerie glow over the city. It looked like an aurora. Meanwhile, the sudden typhoon had subsided as abruptly as it had formed.

“By Wudan!” Keke murmured. “What happened here?”

It seemed like a nightmare when the smoke veil lifted only to reveal gigantic buildings rising up in the air. They resembled colossal termite mounds. Apart from the fact that termites didn’t use white, smooth materials with a glossy, metallic sheen.

“Wh-what is that?” Chuy gasped.

“Daddy!” Nacho screamed. Before Keke realized it, his brother had already crossed the remaining rocks and reached firm ground. He was running toward the city.

“Nacho! No!” Keke didn’t hesitate for a second. He followed his brother, driven by worries for his family, his girlfriend Maria, his father, all the people who had regained hope after the moon’s return to its original orbit.

He sprinted after Nacho without paying any attention to whether Paco or Chuy were following them. Despite Keke’s speed born of fear, Nacho disappeared between the outskirt ruins—and the massive trunks of house-sized trees literally rising up into the sky—long before him.

Keke thought he had finally lost his mind. He started stumbling. What was the meaning of all this? First the strange buildings, and now the instant jungle. Even after the rainiest summers, the vegetation had never been this thick.

Nacho stopped with heavy breathing and looked around in confusion when he came across the first screaming people. As Keke caught up, he slightly slowed down his own pace. Why were those people panicking?

He was about to find out for himself—one moment later a massive, long snout that was mostly made up of razor-sharp teeth emerged over two flat rooftops. The earth trembled under the weight of colossal thuds that even Keke, who was still a hundred meters away, could feel throughout his entire body.

There were two more monsters stomping through the streets behind the beast. A smaller specimen was chasing down a group of townspeople until it eventually caught one of them and gulped down its victim with two bites. Keke saw the poor soul’s twitching legs disappear between the bloody, crooked teeth. The monsters were equipped with whiplike tails, massive hind legs that appeared to be one hundred percent muscle, and comically small arms.

Keke swallowed. He had seen creatures like this before. But only in the illustrations of ancient folios.

Dinosaurs.

The roaring monsters, which were roaming the city streets and snapping at everything that moved with their nightmarish teeth, bore a striking similarity to the Tyrannosaurus rex!

Nacho stood fifty meters further ahead, petrified by the sight. While he gawked, a dinosaur’s maw was swinging around toward him.

“Nacho!” Keke shouted and clenched the drill-gun in his fist.

His brother had heard him. Nacho attempted to run back to Keke but tripped over a piece of debris and fell headfirst on the ground.

“No!” Keke panted and accelerated his pace.

With its next step, the Tyrannosaurus buried Nacho’s legs under his claw feet. Keke’s face filled with horror as he saw Nacho screaming in pain and trying to lift his upper body. The dinosaur lowered its head and opened its mouth.

“No, no, no!” Keke screamed and fired the drill-gun as he continued running.

Two explosives detonated on the beast’s back, but were unable to penetrate its scales. The monster did wince when a third projectile hit its head, but by then Nacho’s upper body had already been seized in its jaws.

When Gharr bucked, Ydiel had to hold on tight to avoid falling off. The spooked clawrunner was once again letting out shrill cries of terror. The reservation formed the center of the giantopolis that extended all the way toward the horizon. Well, had extended.

Ydiel had a growing suspicion that was too absurd and horrific to acknowledge. So he ignored it. He sincerely hoped that he was wrong. Despite his fear, Ydiel had followed the echoes of the shots. But when the clawrunner finally reached the wall at the vegetation belt, Ydiel almost collapsed.

It seemed as if the wall had been cut off. Just like the carcass of the Graagone female. Small, shabby square buildings protruded from beyond the trail of destruction.

Where did those strange structures come from? What happened to all the Szousss and Rrukh who worked and lived here?

Graagone tracks were clearly visible in the scorched earth. Water had accumulated inside the three-toed footprints. On the opposite side of the death strip, the burned soil was shimmering like glass. As if the lightning had melted the sand’s quartz.

Even if there hadn’t been such an obvious trail, it would have been an easy feat for Ydiel to find the escaped animals. Their roars were drowning out the noise of the shots, which appeared to originate from projectile weapons.

Ydiel had to seek help; he wouldn’t be able to restrain the Graagones alone. If only, Rekar were still by his side...

He steadied the clawrunner, urging him to walk along the trail of destruction into the city. One building had been cut in two right in the middle. Ydiel painstakingly avoided staring at the charred corpses scattered in the now open assembly hall.

A movement in his peripheral vision distracted him. Consequently, Ydiel wasn’t able to prevent Gharr from rearing up on his hind legs and swinging his claws. Ydiel tumbled off the saddle, striking his back and head against the rubble of the destroyed hall’s exterior wall.

While Ydiel struggled to his feet, Gharr screamed and pranced on the spot, undecided what to do next. The sight of those strange creatures had unsettled him. He had never seen anything like it. Neither had Ydiel.

The group of ragged bipeds, who had covered their bodies in tattered pieces of cloth, were staring at him with wide eyes. There was a dark pupil in the middle of their strangely white-glowing eyeballs. Dark, partially gray fur was growing on their heads.

But their light, leathery skin was the most repulsive of all. Those creatures had a distant resemblance to primitive mammals, despite the fact that they were walking on two legs, and their forelegs were equipped with surprisingly complex gripping tools.

During the span of several breaths, Ydiel was captivated by the sight of these soft-skinned creatures. They had awakened his scientific curiosity, which even allowed him to briefly ignore the Graagone’s roaring and the shots echoing in the distance.

Gharr, however, wasn’t fascinated at all. He was screaming and trying to claw at the soft-skinned creatures. Some of the older specimens let out guttural screams. They dragged their hatchlings along, and before Ydiel knew what had happened, they had scattered to the four winds.

Ydiel relaxed a bit. He reached for Gharr’s reins and began trying to calm the clawrunner when movement on one of the foreign structures’ flat roofs caught his attention.

A softskin carrying a bulky object in its forelegs approached the edge and extended its arms. At that moment, a Graagone shot out of a narrow alley. Only seconds later, three explosions detonated on its flank. Ydiel quickly realized that the softskin’s bulky object had caused those explosions.

These creatures do indeed possess projectile weapons, so they must have developed higher intelligence!

The Graagone’s leathery scales withstood the explosions, but the force of the blast threw it off balance. It tumbled before crashing sideways against the wall of the building, which in turn trembled upon impact.

The creature on top of the roof lost its balance and disappeared into the building’s depths. The small being didn’t even scream as it was finally buried beneath the falling Graagone.

But that wasn’t the end. Ydiel held his breath when he perceived more softskins emerging from an intersection and confronting the Graagone, which was sluggishly forcing itself back to its feet. It snapped at the tiny attackers who now readied their weapons and fired.

The explosive projectiles flew into the Graagone’s open mouth. Blood sprayed everywhere when they detonated and ripped apart its lower jaw. Flesh and blood rained down upon the softskins. Accompanied by a hollow whistling sound, the Graagone fell onto the pavement and died.

Ydiel felt a quake when the imposing animal hit the ground. He felt pity for the Graagone the creatures had slain. He wondered if he was going to suffer the same fate. In horror, he saw the strangers point in his direction. They were gesticulating and uttering peculiar noises. They’re communicating, Ydiel realized.

He hastily mounted his clawrunner, turned Gharr around, and hurried back to Rhaaka. Or whatever was left of it. Wherever he looked he saw disturbed Szousss and horrified Rrukh staring at the odd light that was still billowing in the sky.

And then he noticed: the Great Mother’s palace had disappeared! This reinforced Ydiel’s suspicion that this was an attack by the soft-skinned creatures. How had they managed to advance so far while staying hidden? Ydiel suppressed his ever-increasing pile of questions. He had to talk to someone with decision-making power. At least a little mother if the great one was no longer among them.

The Szousss heaved a sigh of relief upon meeting a troop of armed Rrukh soldiers who must have been following the trail of destruction. Probably in order to secure the borders and repel the softskins’ assault.

The commander stopped and hissed indignantly at Ydiel and his clawrunner, both of whom were blocking her path. The soldiers raised their acid throwers, but the commander ordered them with a hiss to lower the barrels again. Ydiel noticed that none of the Rrukh were wearing their leg cuffs.

“Get out of the way, flat breather! Get to safety! It’s dangerous out here!”

“That’s precisely why I urgently need to talk to a member of the mother regiment.”

The commander barked, amused. “If there are any left, you can try your luck.”

“Who’s commanding the troops?”

“Rriikah.”

“Rriikah? What happened to the superiors?”

“We don’t know. In fact, we don’t know anything. And now, out of the way!”

Ydiel pulled Gharr to the side. “Where can I find Rriikah?” he shouted after the commander, who had already started moving again.

“At the radio tower!” she hissed over her shoulder.

Ydiel turned his head to search for the tapered tower whose top was a wide platform. It was twice as tall as the largest seka tree he had ever seen. In principle, it was the logical choice for an interim headquarter. The platform lay high enough to be out of reach of any projectiles.

But what if those primitive creatures possessed more powerful weapons than those explosive projectiles? Had they also been responsible for the lightning? It seemed unlikely, but not impossible.

Ydiel spurred Gharr on through the streets. Traffic had come to a complete halt. Several hover ovals had crashed to the ground like heavy stones. Any survivors were heavily injured. Abandoned Pyxies scurried across the ruins, tugging the flesh of the partially burned corpses.

The radio tower’s thermo granite layer was shimmering and glowing under the green-blue sky light. The tower was one of several transmission stations upholding global communication. He had once visited it together with Rekar and her primary males.

The thought of his partner made Ydiel utter sad chirping noises. How was he going to break the loss of their brood mother to his fellow breeders?

The radio tower stood atop a hill surrounded by crystal-clear ponds. Ydiel tied Gharr to a tree close to one of the five bridges leading toward the hill. It was guarded by Rrukh soldiers. Their long, twitching tails advised caution.

A beige female with dark stripes on her elongated nose, which almost made her seem attractive, trudged toward him. She was wearing a weapon harness. The curved sickle claws on her feet were moving mechanically. These Rrukhs also weren’t wearing the cuffs that were supposed to prevent any accidental injuries.

Through the use of bolts, the cuffs exerted pressure on the tendons that allowed the foot claws to move separately. As a result, the sickle claws were immobilized, left to protrude just far enough to avoid scraping the ground.

Back in the day, the sickle claws used to be removed after birth. But that practice had come to an end following worldwide protests by the Rrukh, who had considered it a barbaric form of mutilation.

Many Szousss, however, thought that the cuffs didn’t offer enough protection. Ydiel realized that his species’ aversion was a product of fear. After all, the Szousss weren’t equipped with any natural weapons. Their muzzles had receded over millions of years, their teeth had shrunk in size, and their claws amounted to nothing more than horned plates on the last finger phalanx.

The soldier hissed and flickered as she approached Ydiel. She had obviously noticed his gaze, so the baring of her teeth and the rattling of her sickle claws were no doubt purely provocative.

“What do you want here, flat-breather? Go home. You Szousss are only in the way when things get serious.”

“I’ve got to talk to Rriikah. I heard that she’s in command.”

The soldier barked, amused. “That’s right. You want to court her?”

“I have important information. Who is in charge of the dominion?”

“Mother Oszie.”

Ydiel restrained himself from sighing in relief. For a brief moment he had feared that no one was left from the mother regiment. Oszie may not have been particularly high up in the hierarchy, but that actually increased his chances of gaining an audience.

“Please let Mother Oszie know that Ydiel of Rekar wants to talk to her.”

“And where is Rekar?”

“She’s... I don’t know,” he murmured sadly.

To his surprise, the soldier withheld any mocking comments. Instead, she moved aside and cleared the way. “For your sake, I hope it’s important.”

***

The Tyrannosaurus began writhing as soon as the explosive had detonated in its face. Its tiny eye had been replaced with a bloody crater.

However, it was too late to help Nacho. His remains lay in a brown-red puddle, which Keke approached as if he was in a trance. He no longer cared for the fleeing dinosaur. Nor for the other fighters who were standing on rooftops firing on the rampaging monsters. Keke couldn’t believe it. Tears were running down his face as he fell on his knees. The drill-gun slid out of his numb fingers. A thick, metallic scent entered his nose.

“No, O Dios, no! Please no!” he wailed. “Nooo!”

His scream rebounded off the house walls. Veils of dust were blowing through the streets, kicked up by the stomping dinosaurs. Hazy figures emerged, men with drill-guns and vintage rifles in both hands.

Keke winced when two shadows suddenly appeared next to him. Paco and Chuy tried to drag him away but Keke broke free. Paco then pulled him closer to give him a hug. Keke responded by burying his crying face in the bearded man’s shoulder.

“Keke!” he heard someone shouting. “Keke! What happened? Where is Nacho? Damn it, let me pass!”

Keke let go of Paco and slowly stood up. He had recognized the voice, and now he saw the stout figure making its way through the crowd.

“Father!” Keke sobbed and ran toward the man with the sparse hair and thick mustache who was fixated on the bloody puddle. He clenched his fists as he stopped in front of his father.

“I’m...I’m so sorry.”

“Nacho,” Garcia Alfreedo intoned with a flat voice. “Why?” He lifted his eyes to stare at the older son. “Why did you let this happen?”

“I...I...” Keke’s voice failed.

“Why didn’t you just protect him?” Garcia yelled. He grabbed his son’s shirt and shook him. He even pounded against Keke’s chest with his fists before eventually throwing his surviving son to the ground, then sinking to his knees himself.

Having endured his father’s unhinged outburst, Keke now crawled toward him and embraced him.

“How did this even happen? Chuy asked. “What are those creatures?”

“No idea,” Paco answered. “They looked like...like dinosaurs.”

At that moment, Keke turned around. “They were dinosaurs! Nacho was killed by a T. rex!”

“And where did they come from?”

Keke didn’t reply. Instead, he stood up and lifted his head to look past his kneeling father toward the tall, strangely shiny building that reminded him of a termite mound.

“No idea! But we’ll find out!”

His words dripped with hate.

***

“Ydiel! What do you want here? Where’s Rekar?”

Rriikah rattled her metallic sickle claws harshly in front of him. The newly designated chief commander was part of the generation of Rrukh whose claws had still been removed at birth. As soon as it had been decreed that it was no longer permissible to trim or remove the claws, she had ordered customized prostheses made out of a solid metal alloy. Reportedly, she was able to cut bones in half as if they were grass.

“She disappeared!” Ydiel replied. “I need to urgently talk to Mother Oszie!”

He hadn’t really expected Rriikah to listen to him, but she, too, stepped aside and cleared the way to the headquarters.

“She’s up on the sun deck. I’ll go get her.”

The Rrukh was referring to the radio tower’s rooftop. Back at the Great Mother’s palace, the tallest building in Rhaaka, the members of the mother regiment had always regularly sunbathed. No other building was allowed to be taller than the seat of government. No one was allowed to be closer to the sun than the Great Mother. And under no circumstances was a lowly male allowed to visit a mother on the sun deck.

The Szousss nodded and Rriikah left. Ydiel entered the headquarters and took a look around. He wasn’t really interested in the technical devices in the middle of the circular room. His eyes were drawn to the transparent walls whose view stretched all the way to the horizon.

Northward, he saw the deep blue surface of the sea beneath a pale, cloudless sky. This familiar scene was the only thing that reminded him of home. Unlike the miserable remains of Rhaaka.

Ydiel wasn’t bothered by the dozens of Szousss and Rrukhs chattering and bustling about the room, while looking incredibly busy. They appeared more like a herd of panicking Pyxies. No one paid attention to him as he was examining the extent of the destruction below. The giantopolis’s most important port had been replaced with a cluster of tiny, square structures whose sight pained his eyes.

What kind of creatures build such ugly dwellings? And so deep down in the dark and cold... Creatures of darkness!

Ydiel gasped upon seeing the occasional specimen scurry like a crab through the narrow alleys. The coastline was a collection of rocks, boulders, and tree trunks. Was he deluding himself or was that a paddler’s corpse floating in the sea?

Slowly Ydiel approached the wall overlooking the reservation. However, trees, hedges, and brickwork were barring his view, and he wasn’t able to see a single living animal. Instead, he saw the charred trail of death arching around the reservation’s remains past the melted wall and separating Rhaaka from the softskins’ dwellings. The trail continued beyond the horizon, which was illuminated by bright sunlight that appeared so endlessly far away.

Ydiel was so captivated by the view that he only noticed the silence inside the headquarters upon hearing a voice talk to him.

“Ydiel of Rekar?”

He turned around and saw Mother Oszie, an older Szousss, who was wearing the Great Mother’s sash. Her horny scales looked so youthful that it was safe to assume she had undergone some rejuvenation procedures.

Ydiel crossed his arms as a greeting. “That is me. Rekar is a veterinarian and behavioral scientist at the reservation. I am her assistant. We were in the process of examining some Graagone nests when—”

A sharp hissing sound cut him off. Ydiel sent an irritated look toward Rriikah, who was walking behind Mother Oszie. Had he broken a taboo? Violated a convention he didn’t know about? He had never been granted an audience with a mother. Or even considered seeking one before.

“Save your breath for the upcoming gathering,” Oszie explained benevolently. “You arrived just in time to participate. Unfortunately, we’re still unable to send a direct transmission to all the nest castles to calm the populace and ask for cooperation. So, we have to take counsel together to determine our actions going forward. But first of all, we have to find out what caused this phenomenon.”

“Not what, Mother Oszie,” Ydiel blurted out. “Who!” Oszie stopped and briefly exchanged glances with Rriikah. Ydiel wasn’t able to tell whether the mother was insulted or just perplexed by his audacity, so he quickly continued. “We’re under attack!”

“Where are we going?” Aruula asked. The glider had taken off from Lancaster’s outskirts several seconds ago.

“Second star to the right and straight on till morning!”

“I don’t see any stars, Maddrax. And the sun rose three hours ago.”

“That was a movie quote!”

“Thought so. But I don’t know the movie. So, where are we going?”

“For now, let’s just follow our nose. The Pancinovan satellites still haven’t indicated any abnormal auroras that could serve as orientation.”

Aruula looked through the cockpit window of the glider that the android Miki Takeo had left them. “I hope there won’t be any others,” she proclaimed. “It’s frightening to think that more worlds could appear and maybe even expand indefinitely.”

“Lancaster didn’t expand,” her partner replied. “But you’re right; it’s too soon to give the all clear.”

Thanks to the satellite network installed within Earth’s atmosphere by the Pancinovas for Project Moon Jump, they were able to scan the entire planet at once. The Pancinovas had synchronized the network with the onboard computer of the amphibious tank Proto, and Takeo had transferred it to the glider’s system.

Matt took over the controls and let the elegant aircraft ascend into the stratosphere to facilitate the tracking process. Then, he initiated a new search and leaned back in his pilot seat. But he was pulled back forward only seconds later by a beeping alarm. Could it be...

Yes, no doubt! The network signaled an atmospheric anomaly! Matt pressed some buttons. The status monitor between the pilot seats showed a three-dimensional image of Earth surrounded by red dots, which indicated the location of the fist-sized satellites. Matt zoomed in on the one that had turned green.

“Did you find something?” he heard Aruula ask. She leaned in.

Matt nodded. “Heavily ionized air, indicating a disturbance in the magnetic field.”

“Where?”

“Former Mexico. The Yucatán Peninsula, to be precise.”

“And you think it’s another parallel world?”

Matt shrugged. “Don’t know yet. It’s our first hit, after all. Could just be a heavy thunderstorm.” He strapped in. “Let’s find out.”

He set course to the location in question. The glider reacted without any delay. The inertia dampers worked perfectly. Even with the high-performance engine, the acceleration only generated a light vibrating in the deck.

Matt lowered the altitude, and the clouds appeared like giant cotton candy whooshing past the front window. Shortly after, the land mass beneath them disappeared. Thanks to this incredible speed, they were going to reach their destination in less than an hour.

“I wonder what awaits us this time,” Aruula murmured.

Matt sincerely hoped for a false alarm; maybe it was indeed just a heavy thunderstorm ionizing the atmosphere. But wouldn’t the satellite network have reacted much earlier? After all, hundreds of thunderstorms happen across the globe every day. Well, there was no point in worrying about it. They were going to find out soon enough. Only then they could start planning their next move.

They were crossing the Gulf of Mexico when a red light started blinking to the rhythm of a shrill whistling sound. The proximity alarm!

“What’s happening now?”

“Something’s on a collision course!” Matt turned off the alarm, reduced their drive and increased the glider’s angle of descent. The ocean’s dark water was approaching rapidly.

“I don’t see anything,” Aruula commented while staring out of the front window.

“Maybe the radar will tell us more,” Matt suggested and changed the status monitor’s menu. At that moment, a white dot appeared on the screen. It rapidly approached their location.

Matt pulled the steering wheel to the side. The glider tilted left, and at the same time, a shadow rushed past them, missing the glider by a hair’s breadth. It happened too quickly to recognize anything.

Matt returned the glider to its horizontal position just before one of its short wings dipped into the sea and engaged the rearview camera. But he couldn’t see anything apart from the gushing water screen caused by the aircraft’s suction power.

“By Wudan! What was that?” Aruula blurted out.

“I...I’ve got no idea. Something attacked us. That thing tried to ram us!”

When Matt began to pull the glider’s nose back up, the shadow once again soared over them, darkening the cockpit for a split second. The man from the past was breathless. At first, he thought it was a lava dragon. But then Matt realized he was wrong—although he didn’t know whether the truth was much better.

Aruula mumbled something about Orguudoo, but it was unlikely that the demon from the deep was responsible for this creature’s existence. “Maddrax, what is it?”

Matt swallowed. He actually couldn’t believe he was actually about to say the following words. “It’s...a Pteranodon!”

***

“Under attack? What brings you to that conclusion, Ydiel of Rekar?” Mother Oszie asked curiously. She didn’t seem very experienced. She must have been scared and consequently grateful for every confident ally or advisor. Even if they were an irascible Rrukh soldier.

“Yes, Ydiel,” Rriikah hissed. “What makes you believe that? And most of all, who is attacking us?”

Ydiel’s head jolted around. Incredulously, he looked at everyone present individually. Hadn’t they seen it themselves? He frantically pointed at the transparent wall. “Have you not seen the primitive soft-skinned creatures?”

Oszie walked up toward the invisible wall. “Of course, we have,” she replied. “But your conclusions are premature. You should leave the thinking to us, Ydiel of Rekar.”

“Yes, but...those creatures have weapons! With exploding projectiles! They killed a Graagone!”

“Because he attacked them,” Rriikah explained.

Mother Oszie hissed affirmatively. “If you look at the scorched earth, you can see that the buildings of those...softskins as you called them have also been affected. Their city was just as damaged as ours. You may be right that we’re under attack, Ydiel. But those creatures weren’t the ones who attacked us. They are victims just like us.”

“Hopefully, they also see it that way,” Ydiel dared to interject.

“I have to agree with the Szousss male,” Rriikah unexpectedly took his side. Mother Oszie appeared just as surprised as Ydiel.

“We don’t know what caused this destruction,” Rriikah continued. “But without a doubt something hit and partially destroyed Rhaaka. The city’s northern half has been replaced with a swampland and a ruined city populated by semi-intelligent mammals. The problem is that those mammals have deadly weapons. And surely I don’t need to point out that a lack of intelligence paired with advanced weapons creates a highly volatile situation. In addition, we are vulnerable. Whatever hit us, it disrupted our electricity supply. All our suspension railways are out of order.”

Mother Oszie hissed. “What do you suggest?”

“First we should secure the borders. Besides, we must determine the true extent of the destruction. We’ve got to send out a reconnaissance troop. It’s quite possible that those primitives aren’t the only ones.”

“Oh, there’s one more thing,” Ydiel hesitantly added.

Oszie nodded. “Talk!”

“I was at the reservation during the storm and lightning. The trail of destruction cuts right across it. The auto locks have also been disabled. That’s how the animals escaped.”

“Then that’s where your expedition should start. Make sure that no more animals ravage the surroundings. But above all, find out where the attack came from. Rriikah, you go with Ydiel!”

The Szousss and the Rrukh were both in disbelief. “What?” they exclaimed in unison.

Mother Oszie, who had already turned around, stopped. “You will lead the expedition, Rriikah. You’ve proven yourself and I trust your judgment.”

The mission commander hissed and bowed her head. Only the whipping of her tail indicated that she wasn’t happy with the decision. Nonetheless, she replied, “Very well, mother!”

“And Ydiel, you’re currently the most qualified veterinarian at our disposal. So, make sure to keep the animals at bay.”

“Yes, mother!” He turned to Rriikah. “We will have to mount clawrunners.”

***

“The creature sat on an upright walking lizard with arm-long claws. And it also looked like a lizard.”

Keke was sitting on the stage next to the speaker’s lectern, where his father, Méda’s vice-mayor, was talking. The mayor and his followers had been in the part of the city that had, quite literally, been flattened by the strange buildings. Keke wasn’t deluding himself. The people there had died!

With a petrified face, he observed the woman who had introduced herself as Vira Montoya. Her house had been almost destroyed by the attack. She had been looking for refuge when the Tyrannosaurus had attacked.

“We just wanted to get ourselves to safety when suddenly this thing stood in front of us. It let out a terrible roar and aimed for my children and grandchildren with its claws.”

Keke’s gaze wandered toward the women and children in the first row. Their big, dark eyes were filled with tears.

After the giant lizard had disappeared, Garcia had immediately convened a town meeting. If Keke’s heart hadn’t been filled with sorrow, he surely would have been proud of his father, who thought of the community despite his personal loss.

But upon hearing Vira’s words, Keke’s sorrow gave way to burning hate that ran through his veins like lava. He jumped up from his seat, ignoring the startled city council’s shouts. Keke pushed his father aside and leaned over the podium.”

“That was our enemy! He ordered the dinosaurs to attack us!”

“But who are they?” someone yelled from the crowd.

Keke looked into the widened eyes of his horrified father. His lips were pressed together so tightly that they almost disappeared under his mustache. “Do I really have to tell you? The Daa’mures!”

“The Daa’mures? Aren’t they just a myth?”

Keke wasn’t able to recognize the speaker in the dim light, but it didn’t matter. “Does it look like a myth out there?” he shouted back. “My brother wasn’t killed by a myth. It was a dinosaur! And if there are one or two, surely there’s more. I’m telling you, the Daa’mures are back to attack us! Maybe because their plan to make the moon crash into Earth failed.”

Keke bit his lower lip. His last assumption may have overshot the mark. But he sighed in relief upon hearing affirmative murmurs coming from the crowd.

His father approached and put his hands on his shoulders. “Thank you, my son. I’ll take it from here,” he whispered and positioned himself behind the lectern again.

The crowd was agitated, and everyone was speaking at once. Keke cast one final glance at Vira who shuffled toward her family with a crooked back. His father tried calming down the crowd by loudly striking his wooden gavel on the lectern.

“Silence! Calm down again! We don’t have any proof yet that the Daa’mures are back. Fact is, we got attacked.”

“It was Orguudoo!” old Vira screamed.

“What should we do now?” someone else asked. “How can we defend ourselves?”

“With a retaliatory strike!” Keke yelled.

His father turned around. “Sit down, dammit! Nothing good comes from stirring up the crowd.” Once again, he had to pacify the room. “We mustn’t act hastily. Above all, we mustn’t provoke the others.”