To the Time Machine! - Part 12

The Past

BUIES CREEK

Radio Tower


Jacob D. Sanderson - no one knew what the D stood for, not even Sanderson. But he liked to think it stood for Death or Dangerous or Deception.

Slinking from tree to tree, Sanderson approached the science building. This is where it all started. Thanks to the experiments conducted in this so-called science building, his blissful ignorance as a common, illegally imported, jungle lizard had been brought to a crashing halt.

Just the sight of the E. Nigma Science Building hurt his rotating eyes. Too many bad memories! It was here the people in lab coats transformed an exotic lizard into a half-human, half-reptile creature; doomed never to be accepted by either humans or lizards; an outcast among both races.

Both species viewed him as a mistake. Even the Reptilian Forces did not respect him. His dinosaur charges obeyed his orders not out of loyalty, but for fear.

But all that would change now. Sanderson's cold-blooded brain had concocted a Dastardly plan to set it all right.

He bypassed the basement. No need to exact revenge down there. Their time would come, he thought to himself, and laughed at his own evil pun. Get it? Time? Time machine? Reptiles were notorious for their bad puns.

Sticking to the foreshadows, he crept up the twisting staircase to the radio room. From this station, Imperial propaganda was broadcast on the FM spectrum along with a steady diet of easy-listening music. Sanderson, however, had never found the listening easy.

The radio station was tiny and cramped. But then again so were the signal, the listening area, and the Creek.

He could overhear the radio operator speaking, presumably into a microphone. "Unidentified pickup truck, you are in violation of Ballard University air space. Do you copy?”

Sanderson crept around the corner. A producer's back was to him. On the other side of the glass, a deejay was anxiously adjusting his equipment. They were both engrossed in their tasks.

“Why don’t they answer?" the producer asked. "Every truck has a radio."

There was a pause, and then the D.J.’s voice again, “Pterodactyl control, this is the radio tower. We have an unidentified bogey over the fine arts building. Scramble to intercept. Pterodactyl control, do you copy?"

In reply, he heard a fierce hissing noise, then only static.

"Eddie, did you hear that?" the D.J. called out. "Eddie?" He looked through the glass partition. The control room was empty. "If that kid wasn’t making minimum wage, I’d dock his pay," he said to no one.

There it was again! He heard a distinct hiss. He checked his headset, but he could hear the hiss even with the earphones off.

A noise in the next room - a thump. Then, a scratching. The deejay knew sound. And these were not good sounds.

"Who's there?" the station manager cautiously opened the recording room door. He edged out into the control room. "Hello?"

"Goodbye!" Jacob dropped down from the ceiling, landed atop the human, and sunk his fangs in deep. Jacob raised his scaly arms to celebrate his magnanimous victory!

"Ow, you bit me," the surprised D.J. said, now slumped against the wall.

"Yessss," Sanderson cackled gleefully. "Feel my wrath."

"Was that supposed to be a poisonous bite?” said the incredulous D.J. “Except for these puncture wounds you gave me, I feel peachy."

"Perhapssss," admitted Sanderson, "but the bacteria in my ssssaliva will infect the wound. You will die - sssslowly."

"That's not very effective if you're in a hurry,” the wincing D.J. observed. “Sounds like you got shortchanged by evolution.”

“Evolussssion had nothing to do with it,” he flicked his words at the deejay.

“Oh, are you a religion student?” the deejay asked.

“Let uss sssay I have a healthy fear of religion,” Sanderson groused.

“I could get this treated,” the D.J. pointed at his wound. “Some antibiotics. Amoxicillin, I bet. Yeah, if I go over to the infirmary right now, I'll make a full recovery.”

"You will not make it to infirmary," the words slithered out of Jacob. He coiled his prehensile tail around the deejay's ankle and dragged him across the room. Sanderson flung the hapless station manager down the tight staircase, where the bitten deejay landed atop a similarly bitten producer.

Jacob returned to the control room. At last, the time had come. All his many months of preparations were about to come to fruition. Ironically, he was now pressed for time and worried that he would not complete his tasks in time.

With a slow, clawed hand, Jacob D. Sanderson pulled down a large switch into its downward, Off position.

The hum of the radio tower died away. He had not even noticed the sound until it was absent.

"This concludesss your broadcassst day," he hissed in triumph.