CURSE OF THE DINOSAURS: 
The Leadman Accounts

PREFACE

RECOUNT DYCRYPTION: (Data chip damaged - reconstitute) LEADMAN ACCOUNT: restructured Audi and Visi Revised date segment: Cataclysm Event 7 – August 28th, 2036  HISTORICAL NOTATIONS – Provisional marker 
 
The following is my recollected account. Should this record survive, the record will document what transpired prior to The Event. This compilation is as much for me as for those dear ones who are now lost and lie below the ground - the ground that they dedicated their lives to. I’m afraid I have the tendency to ramble; however, it’s the only way I know how to tale a tale. I believe though that the story is clear, and posterity demands a record from one of the survivors. Stories have a way of changing or are distorted, so the facts become myth. As a scientist, I leave this group of historical facts in the hopes that if this chip is discovered and decrypted you will learn from our folly.  For History truly does have a tendency to repeat itself. May you take this record as fact, so you may not repeat the folly which now draws our play to a close. 
 
Good fucking luck, 
 
One who came before 

CHAPTER 1

Section 1 - Under The Sun 
 
RECOUNT DYCRYPTION: (Data chip damaged - reconstitute) LEADMAN ACCOUNT: restructured Audi and Visi Revised date segment: Cataclysm Event 7 – August 8th, 2036  
 
Habi was breathing hard, “Damn psychotic Universe, what is this world of shit we’ve walked into?” “Sorry, Sweetie, ain’t no walking for a while. You ready to run again.” “I can’t feel my feet.” “That’s good. Cause it’s at least another three klicks to the bunker.” 
 
 
 
The sun, the sun. Drenched upon desert. Older than old; older, still shining. Skin burnt red and brown. Wide brimmed hat, stuck to dripping hair.  Crotch moist as arm pits. Lungs hot. Sharp chest drawing in dizzy, wavering, air. Watch hands then approaching 4:00 PM in the parched, baking, afternoon. Salt-red eyes stung; salt-wet trickles wandered off brow. The daily hour of death. The southern Gobi was frightfully fierce two days ago.  I should have known better than to reconnoiter by myself in the late day heat. but what I had found was extraordinary. I’d lingered in the area attempting to unearth more.  Heat stroke was about to seize the revving pistons pounding in my skull.  Men have been known to hallucinate in the desert. I wasn’t sure that I could trust my own eyes or thoughts. 

 
 
 
 
I had brought in the reserves.  The Peanut Gallery and I returned to the discovery site ASAP. The Peanut Gallery: my fossil finding compatriots; Habi, Scotty, and Yan’er - all excellent adepts. Each possessed a diamond personality. Their comely facets: purified intelligence; quiet alonely charm and special plodding scrutiny - that only the intense prospecting paleontologist exudes.  Good party buddies too - off the clock. Everything said, our crew could spot an old bone at fifty paces. I needed their skills. What we sought was beyond mission scope. Our private quest was also a fragile secret. I had little faith in man’s nature, politics, or his hired government stooges.  Hard decisions. Initially I contemplated telling Chan everything. Chan, our field-head, or sometimes referred to in private as: “our head-ache.”  Yes, I wanted to share my unusual find with our expedition leader, and everyone else partaking expedition’s quest - for that matter.  But on second, third, and fourth thought: “No Boning Way!”   Chan was a nice guy. But realistically, everyone was basically nice, even when they weren’t. Chan: the smiling panda. He worked for the Communist Chinese Government. His American dialect - perfect! He ate hot dogs and beans, critiqued American movies marvelously, wore hip Western T-shirts on his boney chest. He also wore a friendly Western face as well.  Another Chan characteristic: deception.   I knew well from past Chan expeditions that rare finds were instantly spirited away. Precious paleo-antiquities were consistently shelved beyond mainstream world scientist’s reach; demarcated:        中国国家资源 (Chinese National Resources). Chan “The Man” at subvert base - a true paranoid freakazoid.  Once Chan’s mind dropped the official boom, the Western World seldom saw expedition’s scodgy old bones by light of day again. Open ocean’s knowledge evaporated into tenuous mists. What might be shared by the world was shelved. 

 
  
On arriving back at camp, I’d said to Habi, “half our expedition is totally suspect and epicanthically folded. Not only their eyelids dear... but their thoughts. Get my drift?”  My intention was not to make a prejudicial statement. I wasn’t a racist, but I suspect I was a little paranoid myself. I had been disappointed, so many times in past 30 years - out in the field. Hard work suddenly ripped from my hands, and shuttled away by others, who took credit for my finds, and stealing a larger portion of the wealth earned from my back-breaking labor. I wasn’t going to let that happen again, not on my watch; not this time around. On this expeditious dig we were to act as equals; address each other with dignity and respect. However, I realized that deepdown, inside our beings, even though on the surface we all presented ourselves as congenial altruistic paleontologists, skulking beneath our expedition’s professional surface lurked intense bilateral nationalism. Nationalism fueled by deceitful decades and dormant cold war suspicions; injurious Nationalism spurred by obsolete ideologies. A sickening human mode entitled: we are better than you are.  Remember the rude Irish joke? The one that states: “I wouldn’t trust that man with the steam off my piss...?” Sadly, I wouldn’t.  Not Chan. China’s strong-arm government attitudes solidified my negative impressions. The Chinese Government always gladly accepted our Western money, equipment and expertise. However…  Recently - to my scoffing disdain - Big China gave little in return - other than what we could carry out in our heads, notes, or a few hidden video chips. Everything else worthy was either confiscated, or put up for auction at: paleo/gov./extorsionists.com.   Dealing with the Chinese Government on their home turf was like going over to a Nasty Neighbor’s house for a party. You went to his house accepting the Nasty Neighbor’s demand: That you must pay for all the party favors and entertainment. Why? Because! You were throwing the get-together at his house. Then when the Nasty Neighbor decided you had been in his home long enough, you were forced out. Before you were ejected, you were obligated to pay the Nasty Neighbor an exit fee - just to walk out his door. Bow goodbye to your wallet, and your stuff you’d brought with you. He wouldn’t 

 
 
even let you leave with a balloon, or a piece of cake - unless you emptied your pockets. If it were not for his great backyard, you never would have visited your Nasty Neighbor in the first place. Of course, you could come again, given the same deal: screwed without lubrication. Bitterness aside, our quest into the past was well worth the risks. This dig was sponsored by deep pockets and had a camera crew attached, so spiriting away finds was less likely, but this was a first try at true equality, so who knew the end-result? To be fair, the non-governmental sections of the Chinese team were super folks. The regular stiffs were sharp, friendly, and talented. Nice kids overall. We had common goals regardless of birth nationality.  Ancient knowledge was the true reason we all were willing to suffer the trials of the deep desert - Chinese, American, or otherwise.  Why?  The Gobi offers the richest unmolested pre-KT fossil fields ever discovered on this over-populated and over-shredded planet.  The Big Bonus?  Due to geological conditions, the Gobi’s Big Backyard seasonally offered its bones on or near the surface.  Also, strangely enough, with the advent of autos and flying machines, the ancient desert death trap was now easily accessible. Ahhh… more easily accessible. The location was still a desert The Gobi is one our world’s largest deserts and among the world’s highest also, a wreckage result of the 200-million-year slow motion crash; the Indian plate subducts the Asian continent, thrusting the Gobi into a high plain currently 1,800 meters above sea level - or higher. The expansive Asian desert is an in-situ ever-lost; a dry, mid-continent, bone explorers dream. A graveyard choc full’a empty riverbeds, soft hills and crusty plains majeure.  Seemingly everywhere: buried death-blocks locked within crinkly dry rocks and crumbly brown sediments. Yet still, a treacherous bone reserve - most handy, but only due to harsh conditions, which favored fossil discovery, and in the same proclivity, tested the very ability of life to survive.  Conveniently dangerous, and secretively profitable for the willing tenacious.  Gobi residents, who have lived in the wasteland for millennia, understand the foolhardy die in the desert; most other rational and life-loving persons tend to bypass the waterless, 

 
  
forsaken lands - for a thirsty desolate death is impressed upon the local mentalities at an early age.  Pre-technology humanity, hardy and tough though they were, had an exceptionally hard time surviving within this solemn, burning, fatal affair.   Luckily, for us gravediggers, humankind had seldom hungout in the greater Gobi long enough to screw up the environment. They had typically just passed through. Prior to motor vehicles, only well provisioned Camel Caravans crossed the Gobi, completing distant trading missions between the southern mountain people, the wealthy tribes on greener plains west, and folks inhabiting the verdant resources amongst the thick forests located in the temperate north, dictating: other than a few brave trader’s brief footsteps, the isolated landscape was for the most part unmolested. Beyond the arid caravan crossings - standing south – upthrust the vast mountainous Himalayas; mighty peaks, reaching on average 6100 meters above Sea’s surface. The 2000-kilometer-long stone vampire leeched the atmospheric circulatory system, depleting the seasonal monsoon wetness that the warm Indian Ocean spins northward. Once over the hollow Asian canines, the stricken clouds bled snows onto their high slopes, blanketing earth’s greatest continental uplift. Rarely do storm clouds cross Asia’s spine. If vapor powered past the rocky teeth, the residue merely wetted the high Tibetan Plains – known as the other side of the Himalayas. West and north of the desert, far east of the rounded Ural hillocks, Atlantic moisture fell out before reaching the Gobi as well. Cold Russian winds turned clouds to rain or snow over the MidAsian plains. That was Russia and its satellite countries for the most part.  The Gobi harbors a uniquely isolated atmosphere. Over the eons, the growing Gobi spawned its own arid Macro-climate, thanks to the high Tibetan plateau. However, occasional rain does fall. No place on earth is ever completely dry.  Brief, heavy thunderstorms deluge the parched land, inundating the fragile barren landscape. The resultant flash floods ravage the vast desert lands via the many runoff channels and ravines, cut between the low foothills. Why we were here. 

 
 
After the brief rain storms, fossils veritably grew out of the ground.  Every new storm’s erosive force revealed more silent, hidden, ancient bones.  Under bone collector’s heaven, we camped - our tents bordered a broad alluvial plain created by one such runoff; large drainage fields adjacent to withered and wind scraped yellow hills. Eon’s fast running water had cascaded between ancient upraised sedimentary layers. Our tents bridged both sides of the great earthen fan. Rushing water had carved the main channels adjacent to our camp, cutting through the southern hills. The periodic runoff exposed soft rock, otherwise unreachable without shovel or backhoe - or broken back. I know of no prospector that has an intact spine, lumbar disks, or insurance plan.  The foot-worthy explorer seeks natural erosion, which allows easier fossil recovery. One moves through Geologic Eras by simply walking up-hill along the river beds.  I walked the Gobi’s river beds daily, searching for old bones.  Walk look; walk sweat. Rub aching back and legs; stretch a bit, curse a bit. I drudged these functions daily, until the very last day of the always too short dig season. There were never enough days to prospect. The short expeditions seemed to relate one always seemed to be packing-up to leave right after unpacking. The days all blurred together, unless one of the team located a find, then the static fog resolved into frenzied intensity - whose memories lasted a lifetime.  The best part of my day was spent: “lonely walking.” I was mostly unfazed when I found nothing – given the years I’d been on un-rewarding walkabouts. I’d learned the requisite skills. An exceptional bone hunter is actually a very patient Indian scout, sporting a sensitive nose, and fielding the luck of an oldfashioned movie detective. One must keep both eyes peeled for what doesn’t seem quite right: a white bit incising the sedimentary layers. He or she is a forensic paleontologist: always hunting odd rocks - often tiny - which might or might not demarcate fragmentary animal remains - long deceased.  My task demanded unusual mental clarity.  A paleolithic find is most often deposited through the assistance of erosion’s mystic hand - usually in one of the many cretch-collies dotting a dry channel’s bed. Once a fossil bit is 

 
  
discovered - luck permitting - during the secondary investigation, directed by an experienced paleontologist’s backtrack methodology, the full skeleton’s geo-locked position is uncovered. Just because you found a bone doesn’t mean the fossilized carcass it right next to you. Finds are infrequent, and erosion may separate a fossil’s many parts by feet, meters, or kilometers. Intact finds were rare    Bloody infrequent; I was often stymied.  What was on-location paleontology? My description: perpetually studying disappointment in the dirty, sweaty realm of stubborn resolution. Bone hunt’en required a good constitution, strong legs and the implacability of Chronos. For me, bone prospecting was not just a search for the past, but a search for my own character. With increasing frequency, I still found it difficult not to fall into boredom’s pit. The vibrant land I surveyed at the start of the day soon lost its luster and became an otherwise yawning landscape, which, for all intent observation, looked much the same everywhere. I needed to take breaks often, just to focus my mind again on what became, more often than not, an endless daunting task. Like the shadows at the end of the day, the minutes spent on my rump were growing longer and longer.  It was during one of these ‘butt breaks,’ while I was tossing pebbles at a bobbing sand-speckled lizard, when my fortune changed.   A broken unusual bit of earthy something interrupted my   placatituous quandary. Shading my lizard was one of those little things that looked out of place.  It wasn’t that little either.  In the bed of a steam lay a funny reddish rock.  The layers about my feet were deposit-sedimentary and iron poor, so this funny red rock was definitely out of place. It was an eyebrow raising experience. The colors that the rock spoke to me were in a language not indigenous.  The silent words spoken by the red rock were: “I don’t belong here.” I stood up and positioned myself over the find, examining it in finer detail. The flexing lizard decided it did not want my intense scrutiny, and booked up the wash at high speed; it’s four-toed claws scratching the rough ground loud enough to sound like a running faucet. 

 
 
The rock-like object appeared about as big as a tall man’s foot, and shaped about the same. Actually, the amorphous oddity looked more like a large, rusty buffalo crap. My geological training told me that this obtuse clod was not fashioned by Mother Earth. The oddity showed no gross morphology. The reddish lump contained no veins or rock-like characteristics. No strata; so, it wasn’t Sedimentary. No granulation; so, it wasn’t Metamorphic. The object wasn’t pumice or glass like; so, it wasn’t Igneous.  But here the mysterious nugget was, miles and miles away from any natural geologic structure that might have produced it. My first spoken thought all day was, “perhaps this is a meteorite.” Sometimes when I’m searching alone I speak to myself.  They say it’s normal to talk to yourself, if you don’t answer back. Sometimes I answered back, but not around the others. I had that much consideration.  The sweltering Gobi does funny things to your mind. I struggled to remember protocol. I wiped my beady forehead with my fingers to wet them, whereupon I rubbed them dry and clean on my shorts. Then I leaned over and carefully picked the lump up. Its colors and textures boggled my mind.    Iron oxides appear reddish. Copper oxides appear blue or greenish, same with bronze. Gold always looks like gold; silver always looks like silver. Platinum relates a dull, heavy grey, silverine. Processed titanium was neutral grey, light, and warm to the touch. I had raised the rock up in my palm - examined and fondled it. It exhibited all of these characteristics.  An extraordinary lump: perhaps an Iron or Stony Iron meteorite, maybe an anomalous achonderite, containing a high metal content.  Yet, stilling my heart... something wasn’t quite right. The variety of metal-like inclusions were structured, patterned, as if artificially emplaced, In my tenure, I had handled many different meteor samples, and for the most part, the stony space objects I’d studied were hard, dense, objects. To an expert, meteorites could be identified at a glance. Many had the signature of ablative fusion crusting, do to atmospheric deceleration.  

 
  
There were no transitionary signatures - indicating a fall out of deep-space onto the Earth’s surface. This red clump was a questionable illogicality. This odd rock, that I delicately cradled in my hand, was far too light. The funny lump felt as though it was hollow inside - like it had air bubbles interspaced within it, similar in weight to volcanic pumice.  The crusty mass didn’t feel solid.  So: The reddish lump was not indigenous; the reddish lump was not from outer space; the reddish lump was not dense; the reddish lump was not like any rock I’d ever seen... there had to be a logical explanation. The atomic signatures displayed on the surface stated my newfound lump was obviously composed - in part - of different rare metals, and more.  Only Humanity forges metals.  We believe civilization has forged the Earth’s commonly abundant metals for about seven thousand years. There were, until recently, camel-foot trade routes through the Gobi that communicated with Eastern Asia, the Northwest, Central Asia, Asia Minor, Russia, Europe, and beyond. Trade across the Gobi was especially conductive during the Khan Mongolian Dynasties, and earlier during the Han Dynasties, but primarily in the south near the great wall. This old residue that I held in my hand may have belonged to the traders who breached the daunting high desert millennia ago. Bourn upon the backs of their great Camel Caravans, this unobtrusive metallic lump might have been a valuable; perhaps an object of wealth - somehow lost or discarded in the middle of nowhere. Unintentionally abandoned under the sun; left to rot for decades or centuries.  And I had found it, “Thank you, Mr. Lizard.”  I smiled. If true, perhaps a valuable artifact, worthy of further investigation.  Possibility suggested that I may have come upon the camp of an ancient trading society. We never know. Perhaps the Artifact’s creators were an archaic population that could smith metals in a way that I’d never seen before. Perhaps there were more artifacts proximate; more clues. Should this item represent an unknown ancient technology, I wanted the whole truth: Truth for all, not just China.                 

 
 
I would be careful before I spoke out. My worry embodied the modicum controlling Conservative Chinese Nationalistic prejudice. It wasn’t too many years before present, that the Chinese uncovered an ancient advanced race of people that used the loom and the wheel. Hard archaeological evidence consisted not only of those early complex devices, but also worked leather technologies, tattoos, women’s rule, basic human sciences, not to mention complex burial rights. Unprecedented in an ancient culture.  These migrating horse-tribes people appeared to be Caucasians, located inside what was now Chinese supra-national territory.  In my opinion: given the archaeological and anthropological evidence I’d seen, it was these ancient Caucasians that may have introduced sophisticated technologies and culture to the ancient unorganized Proto-Chinese tribes.  Of course, I was basing my theory on conventional Asian observations.  Improvements on existing Ideas? A subject different altogether. Asian societies are currently the world leaders at technological improvements. On the whole, their cultures are fastidious, particular, and precise. That’s Asian.  Flight of fancy. Experimental. Inventive risk takers. Broad scope associative mentalities. That’s not Asian. At least not recorded Asian.  Then again, who really knew? I didn’t give a damn: yellow or white. I just wanted the truth. Borders and racial superiority are nonsense to a paleontologist. To hell with political and cultural pride. Unfortunately, my edict was impossible to disregard. To my disdain, many common truths were occluded in my lifetime, for I was keenly aware that in this country, where I searched for evidence of the distant past, old cultural ideologies died slowly.  To our southeast is what I term insecure yellow Asia. The Asia who now takes credit for these ancient anthrotypical practices, and archaeo-inventions. To be accurate – the Asia whose history starts after the Ancient Asiatic Caucasians moved on, were overwhelmed, incorporated into the gene pool, died out, or were obliterated.  I’d personally theorized the different tribes met and screwed until they became part of the local family. Based upon known 

 
  
practice that Men - ancient or otherwise - typically stray when they meet women who appear different and potentially more exciting than their own tribe’s familiar females; thus, it was likely the populations absorbed each other, sharing their knowledge. This has been intensely documented in other ancient societies on the roam. In our brief human history, often, and usually violently.  Comprehensive genetic testing may prove this. The Chinese seem reticent to conduct this anthro-genetic science. I had thought puritan eugenics died-out with the fall of the Nazis.  What was there to worry about? High Asian technology introduced by the savage Pinks? Nonsense!  My point of view was definitely not the alternative theory desperately held onto by the current surviving Communist Party - a stogy old group that I considered proud, biased, and self-centered.  These ruling charlatans where only too happy to take credit for advancements, who’s only ‘Chinetical’ proof was preemptive regional geography.  Many of these important histological discoveries are now suppressed, and locked away dormant in broken-down Chinese museums. For the past can’t hurt credo if one hauls anthrotypical proof out of the closet just once in a while, without doing analysis.  My buddy Scotty always said, “don’t you dare go digging around Sin Kiang or Kunlun Shan without a permit. Especially if you’re a Caucasian. The Nasty Neighbors might not let you leave.” Scotty’s Chinese main squeeze, and my friend, Yan’er, was firm in her opinion that her country had proved her ancestors had invented and released ‘early world technology’, like printed money, gunpowder, the composite bow, etc.  And why not, I had to agree. The Chinese have one of the oldest most sophisticated societies in the history of humanity. Still progressing after over 4,000 contiguous years. Quite a sociological discipline. The Chinese will talk you green in the face, relating with pride, all their ancient achievements.  However, I’m not so easily swayed by talk. See, good practical ideas also simply migrate of their own volition. Who knew an ancient idea’s origin? Patent offices were not an economic necessity until recently. Ideas and innovations may be shared or simply taken by force. To the victor go the spoils. History is violent. 

 
 
Historically, most people simply stole or took what they needed by force. History is written by the winners.  I don’t believe everything that I read.  Oh, contraire’! I do believe everything I take out of the ground! “Fossils don’t lie!” To whom did this relic in my hands once belong to? My hands held fact.  Would the Chinese government suppress my find if it were eventually determined older than their culture and not Chinese?  I wasn’t sure.   In my practiced eyes, this hunk ‘o’ rusty stuff looked: older than old could be!                                              And maybe older than that! Recent archaeological findings were not my realm of expertise, I was more into the Dino-bone thing, but the object in my grasp was obviously a very valuable find. We were only just beginning to understand ancient technologies. It was not too long ago that the remains of an ancient Greek ship were raised in the Mediterranean Sea. It held odd cargo. The Antikythera Mechanism. In the hold of the wreck was a block of melded bronze. One brilliant investigator, privy to the findings, had decided that the amorphous bronze block was a little too complex to be just a slug of metal. So, he had the block X-rayed. Marveling the historically interested community, revealed on the X-ray plate, were representations of gears, and cogs, and other mechanical doohickeys.  The block was a clock; a nautical astrolabe.  Not just a clock, but a Ship Captain’s Star Positioning Computer that was over 4,000 years old - before clocks should have been invented. Go figure! Who really knew about the past? What current technologies have been discovered or invented only to be lost again, and again, and again, and again, add nausea? The past was dead, and graves told no tales. The Earth gave up our specie’s secrets only rarely, through effort, sweat, and study. By luck alone, every blue moon, an individual stumbled upon hidden facts, and had the sense to share their discovery. Maybe today I’d won the lottery.  Never know. 

 
  
I wasn’t too enthusiastic.  Yet, in my estimation, the relict in my hand harbored an aged-folded identity, unknown. The amorphous mass was endowed with many interesting non-natural aspects. Most parts of the antiquity were desiccated, but some areas retained their sheen, and I wondered what to do with it.   The dirt scientist credo is not to compromise the finding of an unknown quotient until one is inside the premises of a good lab and a controlled environment.   Well, that wasn’t going to happen. The curiosity of life had gotten the better of me. Like a child sneaking down to open his Christmas presents early, I had to know now! An unconscious portion of my training must have remained, for I scoured the immediate area for other clues. My brief stumbling search had revealed nothing. My wrist watch said it was getting late. I was fading out. The air was unbelievably hotter. I should have been back hours ago.  The Expedition Heads would be sending someone out to find me soon. I thought I’d save them the trouble. I somehow concluded walking to camp would be in my best interest. I’d wanted to think about my latest find and predicament on the return hike. I still retained enough alacrity to radio Habi, and told her in raspy whispers, I was on my way back to camp. She offered to pick me up, which I declined. She didn’t like the sound of my voice and repeated that it was my skin. But I refused. So, forthwith, lump wrapped in a spare bandana, and hidden in my daypack, I slowly plodded the 10 kilometers back to base camp. After the first 100 meters, I had not the energy to do anything else but trip towards the white dots in the distance. My mind was so baked I was unable to concentrate on any thought longer than a few labored breaths. Survival mode had kicked in. I almost passed-out dead as I approached the camp perimeter. I should have had Habi pick me up.  Sometimes I can be a total bonehead. I returned destroyed, dehydrated, and out of breath - as the sun crept towards the western hills. Hiking out in the desert takes the ‘get’ out of your ‘get up and go.’ My go was gone. I was dizzy. The warm water drops I’d sucked down during the return trip had helped only a little. The air temperature maxed a hundred twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit on that evening. I stumbled into the midst of our 

 
 
camp. It was all I could do to aim myself in the direction of my little canvas dwelling.   Bright white hemp tents were our homes - rather primitive shelters. What wasn’t primitive was the cumulative American scientific gear held inside the double layered, Amerindian style tents. Their double layer design worked well, keeping the interior relatively cool.  After dropping my pack in my tent, pounding a cold Gatorade and slipping the bandana wrapped lump into my big baggy shorts, I foolishly went looking for Habgeentra. I moseyed over to her tent, and went in without notice. I collapsed into one of her trendy, brightly tie-died, folding chairs. As it was the end of the day, there were no surprises. Invading each other’s tents without notice or invitation was our common practice. Either she or I would typically scuttle between each other’s tent in the middle of the night. In my view, there was no one else hornier or worthier in our group – cha, cha, cha. Lying atop her cot, in front of one of our prized instruments - a portable scanning electron microscope - was the lovely Habgeentra. Habgeentra was my female buddy in paleo-forensics.   She originally hailed from the island of West Timor, though she had been educated in Australia. Smart and thoughtful. My dark golden island cupcake. Tasty. That is, if you could stomach pizza with jalapeños and pineapple. The mix looked a little awkward on the surface, but defiantly mackable - once you bit in. Both hot and sweet at the same time. I had lucked out. She was the only qualified person that I could truly trust.   “Hi, Cowboy, want a ride?” She spread her legs a bit, and patted the sheets between them. “Sure, but not now, I’m wrecked. I want you to look at something I brought over.” “Besides your manhood? Well this must be important, Mr. Bonehead. You’ve never turned down an offer before, sweaty or not.” “Sorry, no offence intended, I’m distracted. Here, can you keep a secret?” “No,” she chuckled. “Well you’re going to have to.” She noticed the seriousness in my eyes, and sat up. “What’s up?” 

 
  
I took the oddity out of my extra-big pockets; unwrapped it, and carefully placed it on her identification table. She got up off her cot, pulled up another psychedelic folding chair, and sat down. Using her professional name, I asked, “So what do you make of this, Dr. Sojeem?”  She puzzled over the lump for a few minutes turning it this way and that. She pulled out her black-handled, overlarge, magnifying glass and inspected it. “Looks like some type of amorphous metals fused together.” “That’s what I thought also.” “So, where did you get it?” She turned the magnifier towards me presenting a giant blinking eye. “Found it in a dry creek bed a few clicks from here. It didn’t belong there. I think it might... Will you stop that! You remind me of Dr. Cyclops.” Her giant blinking eye was now frozen open. “Oh, really!? Dr. Cyclops didn’t have these.” She flashed me her tits.  “Habi, simmer down a sec,” I pleaded. She lost the glass, and dropped her shirt. “So why the big secret honey? Probably just trash from a previous expedition, or something dropped off a camel’s back.” “Yes, maybe you’re right. But what if it’s not?” “Meaning?” She cocked her head in my direction. “I don’t really know. It’s just a hunch. You know how wellpreserved things remain out here in the desert. I want to know what those metals are, and just how old. Why? Just to please myself.”  “I prefer pleasing you, ya know?”  “Cut it, Twakins. No jokes. For reals… Habi. It’s probably just a waste of time. But if this thing is older than old, and it looks like it is, how did what looks-like platinum get into it?” She rolled the rock over and looked at the shorter-end again carefully, “hummm, yeah. Looks kind of like platinum. Might just be pewter, or tin though.” “Might be. Feel curious?” I gave her a sly look. “A bit, what’s got you, Man,” she returned coyly. “Well in my opinion this thing stinks of technology, and it also stinks of age. There are too many diverse metal groups in something that small. It’s not a meteorite, and it’s too light to be natural. I believe someone made this. I want to find out on-the-sly who might be responsible for its fabrication, and what this lump of 

 
 
stuff actually is. That’s where you come in, Holms. Can we put this thing in the X-ray box and take a look?” “Sure, why not? Won’t be easy to hide though, you know how old Ms. Zhaing hovers over everything that I do.” “Right she’s my worry too... or Chan The Man. She and Chan always have their noses dug into everyone else’s business. Ya’ know.” “Uh hu! So, what’s your plan, Sausage Meat?” “Well, I would suggest zapping it at night after everyone hits the sack. But if the Chinese walk in on us, it will definitely seem suspicious. So, I was hoping that you could slip it in during the course of your normal routine tomorrow.”  “I think I could manage that. Got some fossil eggs and some embryo bones on the morning agenda. Scotty’s team dug ‘em out yesterday. I can mix it in with them. Right?” “Good girl. Thanks. Also, I have another mission for you if you are willing to accept it.” “And?” she sucked in her cheeks, and flashed her lashes. “I want you to keep greasy-egg roll distracted while I put some samples though the mass spectrometer.” She released her cheeks and frowned, “Like how?” “Come on, Ms. Flashy Chest. He’s dying for a chance to dig your bones, and bury a fossil. Do something about it.” Habi spit on the ground, “Yuk! Bury a fossil is right. I don’t like the stringy old creep. Like, what do you want me to do?” “I don’t want to know the details, Darling, just keep him occupied at breakfast. If anyone asks for me, tell them that I’m sleeping in late... because I got sun stroke today. No. That will bring over Doc Bob. Just tell anyone asking that I’m sleeping in your tent. Everyone knows we’re an item. They won’t question it. I’ll be in the main tent as soon as the generator fires up in the morning. OK?” “I’ll give it my best shot, Hot Dog.” She popped her shoulders up, and sucked her lip innocently. “Cool, here move over a bit and hand me some tools. I want to take some samples.”  Habi slid over and gave me a helping hand with the puzzling lump. For the next few hours we worked together. I took some scrapings of the various metal-like areas, while the good Doctor Sojeem put the samples into small paper envelopes and labeled them, respectively. We studied the lump some more, and speculated 

 
  
on its possible origins. We also took a series of photos with her Digi. Habi asked me what we should call it. It looked to me more like a dropping than an artifact so I dubbed it: The Turd.  About then, the triangle was rung, and we left for supper after slipping our secret nugget into an empty specimen box. Dinner went quickly, as the Expedition party talked of their daily findings, and plans for tomorrow. After downing our dogs and beans, we made our way back to Habi’s tent. A little stronger after a decent feed, I took her up on her earlier offer.  Neither of us reached our objective. Both of us were obviously thinking about a subject other than intimacy. We both made polite excuses, but she knew I wanted to be alone. With a parting kiss, I slogged back to my own nest and tucked my bum in. I tried to sleep after our infundulundum, but I couldn’t.  The Turd was on my mind.