Through the Wormhole

Chapter II: The Hologram Creates the Quetzalcoatlus

Dan sat on his bed and traced Becca's face. A lump formed in his throat, but he stopped himself from crying. It had been five years; he shouldn't cry anymore.

"Hey, Mom," he said, placing the photo on his dresser. "How are you doing? I'm fine. Dad just returned from a recent space exploration. He and his crew were studying black holes, wormholes, and white holes. It's rumored that if someone manages to travel through a wormhole, they'll go time traveling." Dan glanced at the ceiling— "Wouldn't that be something?"—and lowered his head again.

"You would think that since Dad is an astronaut, I would also want to become one. The thing is, I'm more interested in paleontology, and you know this, Mother. That reminds me—I'm writing a story about a Tyrannosaurs Rex who falls in love during the K-T Mass Extinction sixty-five million years ago. Somewhat odd, I know, but I like it. Oh, and Mom?" Dan removed the picture from its perch and hugged it to his chest. "I turned seventeen today."

***

Being a starship had its pros and cons. Pro Number One: PPMC could travel through a black hole, wormhole, and white hole and go time traveling, but Con Number One: she had to take Daniel Matton with her.

From what she heard while eavesdropping on Ben and Professor Chenoa every time they cleaned her, Dan was stubborn and, in some ways, selfish. The rearing from child to adult paused when his mother died, so for the past five years, the space center programmed PPMC with Becca's personality, hoping the starship herself could finish the rearing process.

But how did a starship rear a teen? Apparently, by blasting him into space to prehistoric times. PPMC still wondered why she agreed to this.

"Professor Chenoa?" Two robotic hands left PPMC's button-filled cockpit, and she tapped the professor's shoulder. She sat in the co-pilot seat.

"What is it?" Chenoa looked up from a holographic diagram and faced her. Her long, black hair ran down her back, and she removed her circular glasses from her large, deep brown eyes.

"Before you call Ben," PPMC stuttered, "can you teach me how to be a mom?" She hoped emotions were out of the question because, as an AI, she didn't feel any.

"Sorry, PPMC—it's too late. Here we go!" Chenoa dropped her tablet onto PPMC's center console/time machine and danced a little. Her hips and lab coat swayed like leaves dropping in the fall. However, she quickly calmed herself and cleared her throat when a hologram of Ben appeared above her machine.

He glitched briefly, and then the Internet stabilized, allowing PPMC to see him. He remained calm, but he was just as stoked as Chenoa. The light on his face said everything.

"Well, Professor Chenoa?" he asked, almost yelling. "What's the deal with PPMC?" He waved at her hands. "Hey, PPMC."

"Hey," she said back. She didn't know if Ben was the right person to talk to about rearing Dan. After all, it seemed he was hardly home; he spent all his time at the space center.

Chenoa turned on her best scientific voice, but she sounded like a robot. "Benjamin E. Matton, the crew and I want you to come to the space center ASAP. After 200 years, PPMC is finally complete and ready for her first mission up the geologic time scale. We want you to be at the center Friday, August 4th. We're planning on launching her at 10 a.m. on the 5th. Make sure you bring Dan, the Star of the PPMC Project, with you."

"Yes!" Ben's hologram twirled under a bright light on his end. "This is so exciting, Chenoa! Dan the Man's become a legend! PPMC, you take good care of him. Ya hear me?"

"I-I'll try," she stated. She didn't know what nervousness felt like, but perhaps she was. What if something happened? What if she and Dan traveled to a mass extinction or the Ice Age? Or worse, what if an Allosaurus ate Dan while he studied an Archaeopteryx? No, no, everything would be fine.

"Thanks, Chenoa," Ben added, smirking. "Don't worry, I know how to get Dan to that space center. It starts with giving him his birthday present! Until then"—he saluted—"see you soon!" And just like that, his hologram vanished.

"Oh, kill me now," PPMC mumbled, and she returned her hands to her cockpit.

***

Dan did not realize he had fallen asleep until he opened his eyes and saw he hung upside-down from an enormous, winged creature. It looked like... No, it couldn't be. It was his mother's favorite prehistoric animal—the Quetzalcoatlus.

Clouds of dust and smoke hid the Sun, and the pterosaur floated over a Mars-like landscape. Dan guessed it was Rodinia, the first supercontinent, but his fascination with geologic time did not overtake the fear he felt in his gut.

"Huh? Where am I? Where am I?" Dan questioned. Why did he suddenly time travel to prehistoric times, and why did it feel like a sign?

He never got a good look at the pterosaur because she dropped him onto Rodinia and opened her wings, starting to fly away.

"Wait!" Dan called after her, scrambling to his feet. "Where are you going? Come back! I can't fly!"

The Quetzalcoatlus paused and peered back at him, but then she flew off again.

Dan stamped his foot. Crap! He shouldn't have done that! The ground started to shake.

At the sound of an intimidating roar, he gasped and looked over his right shoulder pad.

A thirty-foot-tall T-Rex waved its bony arms and screeched in his face. T-Rex spit sprayed on it.

"Ugh!" Dan said, rubbing his face down. "T-Rex snot!" He chuckled nervously and faced the dinosaur. "Mate, why are you so angry? Come on, it's 3023."

The T-Rex put up with none of that and stomped toward him. It stopped when another prehistoric creature, Temnospondyli, entered the scene and growled at it.

Backing up, Dan studied each animal and said only three words: "What? The? Heck?"

A new rock burst out of the surface and took the T-Rex with it. Meteors rained down from the poisoned atmosphere, and Rodinia split under Dan's boots. He jumped to solid rock, only to witness a saber-toothed cat and woolly mammoth running from the disaster. What in the name of space heck was happening?

Dan heard something in the sky. It was an engine of some sort. A blurry starship dodged the falling meteors, but it soon took the form of the Quetzalcoatlus.

She stooped for Dan, scooped him up, and tossed him onto her head.

Yelping, he snatched her crest. "No, no!" he yelled at the sight of a large, flaming rock dropping in on them.

But the rock only fell quicker and hotter.