Not long after English paleontologist Richard Owen coined the term "dinosaur" in 1842, human beings began to fantasize about encountering these animals from millions of years before the evolution of the human species. Among the first authors to write a scenario in which such an encounter took place was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who in 1912 penned The Lost World, a novel about English explorers discovering a plateau populated with dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Since then, numerous books, movies, and other media have told stories about humans meeting non-avian dinosaurs. Some of these stories were set in a fictionalized version of the prehistoric past in which cave-dwelling humans lived alongside dinosaurs. Others, most notably the story of King Kong, told of modern-day humans finding a lost world just like the one Conan Doyle imagined. Still others, such as Ray Bradbury's short story A Sound of Thunder, had human time travelers from the future encountering dinosaurs in their native time periods.
In 1990, science-fiction author Michael Crichton published a novel which put a new spin on the old dinosaur/human confrontation story. The novel, titled Jurassic Park, had its dinosaurs cloned from DNA recovered from fossilized mosquitoes and placed in a zoo-like park on an island off the coast of Costa Rica. Havoc ensued when an unscrupulous park employee shut off the fences, allowing the dinosaurs to escape. The novel became a bestseller and was adapted by director Steven Spielberg into an even more popular movie.
Jurassic Park made many people feel hopeful that dinosaurs could someday be cloned, but the idea remained in the realm of science fiction until the 21st century. In 2005, a team of scientists from North Carolina State University recovered soft tissue that had been encased inside the 68 million-year-old bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Soft tissue was also found in an 80 million-year-old bone belonging to a hadrosaur (a duck-billed herbivorous dinosaur) in 2009. Both these discoveries challenged a former belief that the fossilization process destroyed all dinosaur soft tissue and lent hope to the possibility that DNA itself would be found in dinosaur remains.
In 2013, at last, virtually complete DNA strands were recovered from inside a Triceratops bone dating back 66 million years, dispelling any lingering doubts that cloning dinosaurs was feasible. A year later, an international organization calling itself the Dinosaur Revival Project formed, extracting DNA from the bones of various dinosaur species and using it to produce cloned dinosaurs which were then distributed to zoos and wildlife parks all over the world.
In 2021, the government of the Central American nation of Guatemala set aside a large portion of its jungle-swathed Peten Basin to be used as a federally protected wildlife preserve for dinosaurs from North America's Cretaceous Period. This preserve, named the National Dinosaur Preserve of Guatemala, became a major source of income for the Guatemalan government in the following decades, attracting tourists from all over the world to view dinosaurs in a natural setting.
Unfortunately, not everyone coming to the park wanted to just look at the dinosaurs…
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Taichi Hidaka seemed the least likely character to be seen in El Mono Feliz. He was, after all, the CEO of Sekiyu Ltd., Japan's largest oil company. A billionaire like him was used to fancy parties hosted at five-star hotels, not smoky bars populated by sweaty commoners and located in one of Guatemala City's slummier districts. As he navigated his way around the bar, the customers could not help but stare at him. Taichi couldn't tell whether they were looking at him simply because he was unusual or because they envied his affluence. Either way, he was grateful he had a pair of bodyguards at his side.
"Hey! Senor Hidaka! Is that you?" he heard a voice shout over the muttering din of customers.
Taichi followed the voice to a table where a burly middle-aged man with slightly grayed black hair sat.
"Welcome to Guatemala, Senor Hidaka!" the man said with a pleasant smile, "I am Miguel Ortega. Nice suit you are wearing. I trust you have brought the money?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Taichi replied, pulling out a silver suitcase and opening it to show that it was filled with bundles of hundred dollar bills, "Five hundred grand US as you requested."
Miguel grinned greedily as he stared into the suitcase's interior.
"Excellent! Now, what dinosaur species do you want to have stuffed?"
"One Triceratops, one Dryptosaurus, and one Tyrannosaurus rex."
"You're after the dangerous dinosaurs, I see. Well, I've hunted all sort of dangerous game in my life, such as elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and tiger. Dinosaurs shouldn't be much more difficult. Let me discuss this with an amigo of mine, Jacinto Garcia."
Miguel then pulled out his cell phone and dialed Garcia's number.
"Jacinto," he spoke into the phone, "I have here a client from Japan who wants us to bag some dinosaurs for him. He offers five hundred grand US for them. I called you to ask you if that sounded like a good deal...Wonderful. We'll organize an expedition into the preserve next week. Adios."
Miguel hung up.
"Well, Senor Hidaka, we have ourselves a deal."
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Ranger Ricardo Hernandez stole cautiously through the tropical undergrowth, armed with a tranquilizer rifle. His black American wife and colleague Melody walked beside him, studying a handheld GPS screen. The two rangers' skins were wet with sweat, not only from the stifling heat and humidity, but also from fear. An Acrocanthosaurus living near this part of the preserve had turned rogue within the last two weeks, killing four humans, so Ricardo and Melody had been assigned to relocate the animal to a more remote region of the preserve.
"Ricardo," Melody whispered to her husband, "The acro's coming towards us from the northeast. We need to hide now!"
They darted to a nearby patch of elephant ear plants and crouched among them until they were fully hidden. They sat still as statues, looking towards the northeast in anticipation of the acro's arrival. After a minute passed, they heard heavy footsteps pounding on the jungle floor, followed by low growling. The rangers' backs felt colder as the footsteps grew louder.
Then, from the shadows, the acro emerged. Forty feet long and twelve feet tall, the dinosaur had a dark red ridge running down its back. It strode on two powerful legs with bird-like feet and had short, muscular arms each with three sickle-shaped claws. Its jaws were four feet long and lined with teeth shaped like little daggers. The creature's left eye glowed like an ember, but the right eye was missing, the flesh around it having been torn off.
Ricardo lifted his gun, peered through the scope, and tried to pin the crosshairs on the acro, but the gun kept trembling in his arms. This shaking grew worse as the acro drew nearer. A voice in Ricardo's head shouted at him to shoot now, but he could barely control his quaking.
Ricardo finally pressed the trigger. A tranquilizer dart rocketed out of the gun's barrel. It did not hit the acro.
The acro roared, saliva flying from its cavernous mouth. Then it stormed towards the rangers, shaking the earth with every step. The rangers spun around and raced away, dodging trees and plants. In little time, the acro caught up, then grabbed Ricardo by his bushjacket with its teeth and thrashed him around like a dog with a chew toy. Ricardo's gun dropped from his hands onto the ground.
"Ricardo!" Melody screamed. She spun around and ran towards Ricardo and the acro, then picked up the gun and aimed it at the dinosaur's chest. The creature swiped its hand claws at her, but she dodged them by stepping back. Then she pressed the trigger.
The acro dropped Ricardo and screeched towards the sky. It then wobbled dizzily on its feet until it finally fell onto its right flank. A shockwave rippled across the jungle floor when the dinosaur collapsed. Once it had fallen, the acro slowly closed its eye and drifted off to sleep.
"Ricardo!" Melody exclaimed, running towards her husband, "Are you OK?"
"Yes," he moaned back, grimacing in pain, "That was a close one."
Melody helped Ricardo back onto his feet, then pulled out from her pocket a pistol-shaped device with the words "Animal Vacuum" written on its barrel, aimed it at the tranquilized acro, and pushed a red button. A bright green vortex appeared out of the Animal Vacuum's barrel, sucked the acro off the ground into it, and then disappeared back into the Animal Vacuum. Melody put the Animal Vacuum back into her pocket and got out a handheld radio.
"HQ, come in HQ," she spoke into the radio, "We have sedated and captured the acro. Please send a chopper here now."
"Roger that," a voice responded.
"Tell them to bring a cold bottle of water," Ricardo said, wiping sweat off his dusky skin, "I could use some refreshment. I think I've had enough adventure for one day."
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Miguel, Jacinto, and nine other men had now entered the National Dinosaur Preserve of Guatemala, having gotten here by digging a tunnel underneath the electric fence marking the preserve's southern boundary. Now they hiked northward through the jungle, guns slung around their backs. Jacinto studied a GPS screen while Miguel sliced through the undergrowth with a machete.
"According to this GPS, there is a Triceratops herd near us to the northwest," Jacinto reported.
"How many trikes are there?" Miguel asked.
"Ten adults, two males and eight females."
"Good God, that's enough to trample our entire group. Men, stop chattering and move quietly after me. We do not want to spook the dinosaurs."
Miguel put away his machete. Then he and the rest stole through the jungle like a pride of hunting lionesses through savanna grass. In fifteen minutes, they could hear rustling and deep bellowing and smell the pungent odor of dung. Miguel felt his heart pound with excitement as they continued. Then, after passing through a thicket of ferns, they found the Triceratops herd.
The trikes were four-legged dinosaurs that grew the size of elephants. Their three-horned, bony-frilled heads were massive enough to carry a fully grown man. The dinosaurs cropped off plant fronds with hooked, parrot-like beaks. Two of the trikes had bright red spots on their frills; Miguel presumed indicated that these individuals were male.
Although Miguel had seen and hunted many large animals before, none made him feel awestruck as these dinosaurs before him did. It felt like he was staring sixty-five million years into the past.
These animals must be worth way more than five hundred grand, Miguel thought.
Miguel raised his gun and aligned it with one of the male trikes. Before he could press the trigger, however, one of trike's eyes turned to stare at him, its pupil shrinking to a tiny dot. The trike then raised its massive head and thunderously bellowed towards the sky. Immediately the female trikes turned and stampeded away, crashing through the trees, while the two males charged towards the poachers.
"Run!" Miguel screamed.
On his order, the poachers dashed from the two male trikes, but the dinosaurs caught up in seconds. One of the trikes swung its head back and forth, sending two men flying off the ground. The other trike gored one man with its nose horn and trampled two under its feet. It then started towards Jacinto. Before it could run over him, Miguel yanked him out of the way. He then fired a glowing red beam out of his gun into the trike's side. The trike roared, then turned and bolted towards Miguel. Miguel fired the gun again, this time hitting between the trike's two brow horns, and the creature fell to the ground, momentum pushing its body across the jungle floor several feet until stopping.
The other trike, having seen what happened to its compatriot, suddenly stopped its attacks, then turned and ran off in the direction the females of its herd had gone, bellowing in panic.
"How many men are still standing?" Miguel panted.
"Six, including us," Jacinto reported, also panting.
"Damn. Down from eleven to six within one hour of being here! At this rate, we will all end up dead!"
Miguel pulled out his cell phone and dialed Taichi Hidaka's number.
"Senor Hidaka," Miguel spoke into the phone, "I am sorry, but I demand a higher pay than your offer of five hundred grand. You see, I have just lost five out of eleven of my men, and I need extra money to compensate for their losses."
"I see," Taichi's voice responded icily, "How about one million? That should cover both those losses and any further ones."
"That will suffice," Miguel replied.
"Very well. I warn you, though, that the one million is my final offer. Do not ask for anything more. Sayonara." Taichi hung up.
"What a cold son of a
," Miguel muttered to himself, then he announced to his men, "All right, we will rest here for fifteen minutes before moving on. Do not leave my sight."
Miguel looked at the massive trike corpse before him. He pulled out an Animal Vacuum and sucked the dinosaur into it.
"One down, two more to go," he said to himself, "My most dangerous hunt has just begun.