Jay and Johnny's Excellent Adventure (Part One)

[Bonnie Blue]

In a panic, Johnny Reb jams his foot down on the brakes. The Ranchero skids to a stop about three inches from the edge of a broad, elevated helipad. Throwing it in reverse, he backs up until it seems safe, then gets out to appreciate the surroundings. For three hundred sixty degrees, it's all lush jungle, sandy beaches, and beyond, an ocean of stunning azure. Sunlight glitters on the water, throwing prismatic sparkles in all directions. It's difficult not to smile, not to lose himself in the sights and smells of Paradise.

The helipad sits on top of a magnificent mountaintop mansion, built to take advantage of the landscape's irregularities; and all the more breathtaking for it. A sound interrupts Johnny's reverie; at the far end of the helipad, Jay Omega waves in greeting. Reb walks over to join him.


"This is where you live? Shit, man, I'd never leave if this was my place," he says, still openly marveling at the view.


Omega gives him a thin smile in return. "I figured you'd have called this off, considering..."


"I told ya I'd do this for another six pack, an' I'm a man of my word. After the ladder match this week, whoever wins, you rustle me up a six pack of Whoop-Ass an' we're even."


Jay eyes Johnny skeptically. "Your emotions betray you, young Skywalker. What aren't you telling me?"


"I reckon I ain't as subtle as I thought." Reb's grin broadens. "Ok, ya got me. I might have a little bit of an ulterior motive..."


"Which is...?"


Johnny shrugs. "It has been pointed out that I don't got a lotta friends in WCF, an' with Doc missin' -- "


"If by 'missing' you mean 'wrestled at Slam', then yeah, he's totally missing."


"That was then. Time ain't strictly linear. That's just how you an' me perceive it. Sorta."


"Sorta?"


"Hang on."


Johnny goes back to the Ranchero and gets something out of the glove box. It's a joint; a huge spliff, of the sort that would make even Bob Marley descend from Heaven, just to partake of it.


"Spark that shit while I lay down some transtemporal knowledge," Johnny instructs.




Twenty minutes later...




"Oh!" Jay exclaims, letting out a big cloud of smoke. "I get it! So it's like Jello!"


"Right. Exactly." Johnny grins. "Except for the other dimensions, but that's not really important right now. The thing is, with Doc missin', an' Torture on the loose again -- not to mention Oblivion still wants my head -- it might be wise to form a sorta... alliance."


"So, what you're telling me is... you're taking me on a trip back in time to see, possibly ride, legitimate dinosaurs, just to butter me up? What if I were the sort of crazy man to say no?"


Reb shrugs. "Then we're just two co-workers who went hikin' out in the woods one weekend. No harm done, no hard feelin's."


Omega's eyes search Johnny's face, looking for the slightest hint to betray what the other might be thinking. Reb, however, remains impassive, his expression giving nothing away.


"Listen," Johnny continues, "I don't need an answer until... Sunday. I just figured we could both use some R 'n' R, an' frankly, you're the only person outside Doc I even marginally trust at this point. The Timekeeper said -- uh, nevermind what he said. He's an asshole. You wanna do this or not?"


Jay gives Johnny an unfathomable look for several moments, then nods.


"Yeah, ok. Why the fuck not?"




Another twenty minutes later, give or take...





A half-dozen armed commandos are crammed into the Ranchero's bed, along with an assortment of camping and fishing equipment, a number of high-powered rifles, some grenades, and an RPG launcher. Fortunately for the commandos, Johnny had been thoughtful enough to install a topper over the bed -- otherwise, they'd be torn to pieces by the powerful currents of the transtemporal matrix.


On the passenger side, a rifle of his own across his lap, Jay Omega watches Johnny select an eight-track tape from a collection beneath the bench seat. He frowns in puzzlement when he sees the name of the artist scrawled across the label in Magic Marker: T. Rex; raises an eyebrow in dawning comprehension when Reb jams the tape into the slot and puts the Ranchero in drive. Almost as soon as they begin to move -- and as the first track plays -- the scenery blurs, then dissolves entirely into a dishesion of swirling colors, many of which are typically imperceptible to the human eye.


"I'm guessing you don't need to get this baby up to eighty-eight miles per hour for it to work, do you?" Jay asks wryly.


With a roguish grin for a response, Johnny steps on the accelerator. And, although there is no real motion, there is a brief sensation of increased gravity, pushing both men against the seat back. Johnny reaches over and presses a couple of buttons on the dashboard. In moments, the outside scenery begins to take recognizable form once again.


Palm fronds the size of an airplane's wing slap the sides of the Ranchero as the vehicle jounces rapidly through the underbrush, slowing bit by bit, until it comes to a halt in a small clearing. A lone creature, low to the ground and covered in armored skin, raises its head in irritation, jaws working as it considers this intrusion. The beast scowls as several small creatures spill out of the big one. None of new arrivals pose it any threat, however, so it loses interest quickly.


"Where are we?" Omega asks, looking around, impressed.


"America!" Johnny replies, sounding rather proud of himself. "Well, Amerasia. Roughly seventy million years ago. Late Cretaceous. You wanted dinosaurs, you got 'em!"


As if on cue, a clutch of small, duckbilled animals dashes through the clearing with an odd, side-to-side gait that is nevertheless swift and graceful. One stops and starts sniffing Omega's boots; another hesitates at the treeline and makes a series of short, impatient whistles. The little animal looks indecisive for a moment, then follows after the rest of the herd without so much as a glance behind.


"Oh, that reminds me. We gotta be on our guard. These critters don't know to be afraid of people. We're pretty damn lucky we ain't run into any -- "


A sharp cry from somewhere in the foliage is followed by a rustling of leaves, and then, a longer, piercing scream. Jay and Johnny both turn, take a quick head count, and come up with five of the original six commandos.


"Nevermind," Johnny concludes. "This is exactly why I told y'all not to wander off. I thought these guys was professionals, Jay."


"Yeah, me too," Omega replies, glaring at the squad's commanding officer.


The C.O. squares his shoulders. "I had eyes on him personally, sir. Said he had to piss. It happened so fast, I couldn't even see -- "


"I don't want excuses, I want competence. This does not fucking happen again, do I make myself clear? Now buddy up. Nobody so much as blows his nose without backup from here on out. Corporal, you're on us."


"Sir! Yes, sir!" The mercenary salutes sharply.


"Good. Now..." Omega sighs, looking in the direction of the undoubtedly dead man. "We should probably go collect his kit."




============================




After an hour of slashing through dense jungle, they still haven't found much of the commando's belongings. A canteen, a pair of binoculars, and a deck of naked lady playing cards is all the party has to show for their thorough search. By now, the heat is virtually unbearable, with the sun blazing overhead and the air so thick and humid, each breath is a struggle. Johnny calls a halt, and seven men gratefully drop their packs.


Jay takes a seat on a boulder and looks at Reb. "I don't like this. We should have found something by now. What if ...whatever got Silva ...took his gun and stuff? Like on purpose."


"We can't leave any sign that we've been here. At all," Johnny says, his expression grim. "It's pretty damn hard to track out here, but I'm certain the dinos went that way."


He points toward a muddy riverbank, where a number of different animal tracks crisscross. The freshest ones indicate an upright-walking, three-toed creature, probably a little bigger than a grown man, with a prominent claw on the inside of the foot. By Johnny's count, there are at least four of the beasts, and the tracks go right into the water. And beside the tracks, gleaming in the sun at the water's edge, is a plain silvery Zippo.


"If I didn't know better," Omega ventures, "I'd think they were going through his pack pocket by pocket, and just tossing what they don't want.”


Johnny doesn't answer right away. Frowning deeply, he spends several moments digesting that thought. He isn't overjoyed with what that may imply.


“In that case, we oughta shake a leg.”




=================================




By the time the sun’s edge kisses the western horizon, Jay, Johnny, and the soliders have crossed the river and cut their way through another mile of thick foliage. A couple of magnolia trees rise up above cycads and woody ferns, large white flowers reluctantly beginning to close with the day’s end. Another familiar plant seems ubiquitous in this part of the jungle, tall and thick-stemmed, with digitate leaves and deep green buds, studded with red hairs. Johnny makes a mental note to pass back this way -- assuming the entire party isn’t eaten by a Tyrannosaur or something equally fearsome.


He hacks another rubbery, broad leaf down -- and nearly drops his machete at the scene that greets them: the lush jungle gives way to cleared land, where neat rows of crops are tended by hovering machines. Beyond the farms is a complex warren of structures beneath a large transparent dome; obviously a city. But here? Now? Jay and Reb exchange a puzzled glance; both usually loquacious men at an atypical loss for words.


All at once, a flock of feathered lizard things takes to the sky, calling out in raspy annoyance. A split second later, something whizzes between Reb and Omega to impact the tree behind them. Right away, the five remaining commandos form a protective circle around the two, each looking around for the source of the projectile, firearms at the ready.


Too little, too late, as it turns out. Several creatures emerge from hiding, moving to surround the party. These creatures are roughly six feet tall, with more or less human-like features; save for the fact that their skin is salmon-colored and scaly, their faces slightly elongated, and instead of hair, there is a bony crest that runs along the top and back of the skull. There is, however, no mistaking the nearly identical uniforms of deep green, nor the gun-shaped objects clutched in clawed hands.


Knowing what’s expected of them at this point, the commandos nevertheless wait for Omega’s command before they hand over their weapons -- albeit with obvious reluctance. Then, without a word exchanged, the entire party is marched down a wood-paved path, past the automated farms and into the city itself.




To be continued...