Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [128]
Sal shook her head. ‘Maybe … but the shape of the body looks all kind of funny to me.’
‘Oh, come on, it’s a one hundred by one hundred pixel image – everything’s going to look all funny.’
She shook her head again. ‘I’m not sure. It could be anything … it could be some animal.’
‘Bob, next image.’
Another image flickered up and this time the dark mass of pixels was gone, leaving the image the same even mix of blue and green squares.
Maddy grabbed a pen from the desk and scribbled the time of 14:35 on a scrap of paper. ‘Well, OK, we know someone was hanging around then. We’ve got one possible window. Let’s get on with the slideshow and see what else we get.’
Once more the images began to flicker on-screen one after another, a second apart, the blue pixels of the sky slowly changing hue from bright blue to a rose colour.
‘It’s evening,’ said Cartwright helpfully.
The sequence continued, with the sky pixels slowly reddening in colour, and the jungle’s light green becoming a deeper darker green, until all of a sudden, in the middle of the image, they saw a single dot of bright orange.
‘Stop!’
All four of them craned forward to get a better look.
‘That’s fire, isn’t it?’ said Forby. ‘A flame?’
Sal nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Someone starting a campfire maybe?’
‘Fire … right,’ uttered Cartwright, ‘and the only thing that can make a fire back then is going to be human.’
Maddy tapped her chin thoughtfully. ‘Yup … so maybe this is a more reliable candidate than the other. What time is this image, Bob?’
> 18:15.
‘Give me the next image.’
The orange pixel became a dozen pixels, and half the screen was filled by a vertical block of black pixels. In the top left corner, they could just make out the sky, the pink evening becoming a deep purple with the onset of dusk.
‘Someone’s standing right there again!’
‘And that thing doesn’t look as weird as the earlier one,’ said Sal.
Maddy looked at her. ‘How can you tell?’
‘Screw up your eyes a bit, Maddy … it sort of blurs the pixels slightly. You can make out shapes more easily.’
‘A campfire and someone standing right there,’ said Cartwright. ‘Looks like the best time so far.’
‘Yes,’ she replied absently. ‘What do you think, Bob?’
> This image looks most probable.
‘Quickly run through the rest.’
The slideshow flickered through the last sixty-eight images, one image per second. A juddering animation of time … the fire slowly dwindling, dying and vanishing, the sky darkening until the final few dozen images were simply a sequence of black pixels.
> Sequence complete.
‘Looks like we have a winner,’ said Cartwright. ‘Can we now proceed?’ He looked up at Forby. ‘You know? Before those hunters come knocking on our door?’
‘OK … let’s begin powering up, Bob.’
> Affirmative.
Cartwright stood up straight, his arms caressing a stiff back. ‘So … what happens next?’ He glanced at the large perspex tube. ‘They’re going to appear inside that?’
She shook her head and pointed to a circle of chalk scrawled across the concrete floor. ‘There. You and Forby need to stand well clear of that.’
Cartwright’s man stepped away from the table and faced the circle, unslinging his assualt rifle in readiness.
Maddy turned to regard both men. ‘I’d be happier if Mr Forby could take his finger off the trigger.’
Cartwright smiled. ‘Of course.’ He nodded at his man. ‘You can stand down, Forby. But … just stay alert, all right?’
Forby nodded, slackening his grip and lowering the barrel of his gun.
CHAPTER 70
65 million years BC, jungle
Liam lashed out with his hatchet, swinging the serrated metal blade in one hand and probing and prodding with his bamboo spear in the other. But the creatures dodged back with graceful agility, keeping their eyes on the weapons.
The fire nearby had taken a firm hold of the branches that had been thrown on top of it. Occasional tongues of flame lashed up into the almost dark sky, and upward cascades of sparks danced like fireflies. The flickering light, the warmth from