I also have a new novel in the works--haven't sold my first one yet, of course, but stay tuned!
-Paul
On
September 11, 2001, federal agents arrested a group of terrorists whose
hijacking plan would have brought down the Twin Towers. This operation was
conducted with little fanfare, the perpetrators were locked away, and few
newspapers even bothered with a front page splash about the plot. The CIA and
FBI had done their jobs and the threat of Al-Queda was contained; as far as the
media was concerned, there wasn’t really much to report.
On
September 12, radical eco-terrorists from the future set off a device in the middle of Times Square. This device
directly linked New York City with a period in the late Cretaceous, sixty-seven
million years in the past. This “temporal link” erased whole entire
neighborhoods, including portions of the Bronx and Queens and much of upper
Manhattan. The fabric of space-time was permanently shredded in the region, and
the rips spread quickly, replacing parts of upstate New York and nearby New
Jersey with vast swathes of jungle. Carnage, confusion and panic were
widespread, and the National Guard was mobilized. By the time that President
Bush declared a national state of emergency, several thousand people had died:
many were shunted into the past when the Link was activated, and countless were
injured by prehistoric creatures. Many of these were carnivores, suddenly and
violently introduced to an environment they did not understand. They reacted
aggressively, seeing the intrusion of human beings and skyscrapers as an
assault on their territories.
The
photograph summarizing the madness, taken by war correspondent Steve McCurry,
shows an Allosaurus rearing its head over Central Park. Its taloned foot
presses down on a police cruiser, and NYPD officers are firing their sidearms
at the animal. The serrated teeth of its massive jaws are bearing down on the
officers, all of whom would lose their lives that day trying to secure the
nearby boroughs.
It goes
without saying that the Link defined a generation, changed the face of the
earth, so on and so forth. The terrorist’s ultimatum—an immediate end to carbon
emissions, under threat of further devices being detonated—were ignored, and
Operation Home Front was begun to exterminate the dinosaurs and find the people
responsible. Over the next decade, hundreds would be arrested on suspicion of
harboring temporal fugitives, and the fledgling President would be impeached after
he authorized the use of nerve gas on “contested” (read: rioting) areas of New
York City. The damage to time’s fabric continued to unfold, spreading from
state to state, churning out regions and animals from bygone eras into
America’s terrified streets.
Some
fortified their homes. Many simply packed their things and ran.
Jim
Conway’s family drove right into that shit.
Oooo cool start. I want more
ReplyDeleteThanks! I am considering turning this into a larger short story, but it will take some time and effort as I want to research the mid-aughts for it. There will be lots of chunky iPods and "YOLOs" though, be assured.
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