Iterations and other stories (collection)

“On the contrary,” said Ludlam, his voice full of wonder. “I think you’re telling the truth.”

“ ’Course I am,” said Kowalski. “I been with the City for eighteen years, and I never took a sick day—you can check on that. I’m a hard worker, and I didn’t just imagine this bite.” He gestured dramatically at his bandaged leg. But then he paused, as if everything had finally sunk in. He looked from one man to the other. “You guys saying I was attacked by a dinosaur?”

Ludlam lifted his shoulders. “Well, all dinosaurs had four limbs. As you say, the one you saw must have been injured. Was there scarring where its forearms should have been?”

“No. None. Its chest was pretty smooth. I think maybe it was a birth defect—living down in the sewer, and all.”

Ludlam exhaled noisily. “There’s no way dinosaurs could have survived for sixty-five million years in North America without us knowing it. But…” He trailed off.

“Yes?” said Jacobs.

“Well, the lack of arms. You saw the T. rex skeleton we’ve got at the AMNH. What did you notice about its arms?”

The surgeon frowned. “They were tiny, almost useless.”

“That’s right,” said Ludlam. “Tyrannosaur arms had been growing smaller and smaller as time went by—more-ancient theropods had much bigger arms, and, of course, the distant ancestors of T. rex had walked around on all fours. If they hadn’t gone extinct, it’s quite conceivable that tyrannosaurs would have eventually lost their arms altogether.”

“But they did go extinct,” said Jacobs.

Ludlam locked eyes with the surgeon. “I’ve got to go down there,” he said.

Ludlam kept searching, night after night, week after week.

And finally, on a rainy April night a little after 1:00 a.m., he encountered another piezoelectric phenomenon.

The green light shimmered before his eyes.

It grew brighter.

And then—and then—an outline started to appear.

Something big.

Reptilian.

Three meters long, with a horizontally held back, and a stiff tail sticking out to the rear.

Ludlam could see through it—see right through it to the slick wall beyond.

Growing more solid now…

The chest was smooth. The tiling lacked arms, just as Kowalski had said. But that wasn’t what startled Ludlam most.

The head was definitely tyrannosaurid—loaf-shaped, with ridges of bone above the eyes. But the top of the head rose up in a high dome.

Tyrannosaurs hadn’t just lost their arms over tens of millions of years of additional evolution. They’d apparently also become more intelligent. The domed skull could have housed a sizable brain.

The creature looked at Ludlam with round pupils. Ludlam’s flashlight was shaking violently in his hand, causing mad shadows to dance behind the dinosaur.

The dinosaur had faded in.

What if the dinosaurs hadn’t become extinct? It was a question Ludlam had pondered for years. Yes, in this reality, they had succumbed to—to something, no one knew exactly what. But in another reality—in another timeline—perhaps they hadn’t.

And here, in the sewers of New York, piezoelectric discharges were causing the timelines to merge.

The creature began moving. It was clearly solid now, clearly here. Its footfalls sent up great splashes of water.

Ludlam froze. His head wanted to move forward, to approach the creature. His heart wanted to run as fast as he possibly could in the other direction.

His head won.