Prologue (Rough Draft)

It was a box. Just a box like any other box. It was larger than most boxes, but it was definitely a box. It had eight corners, a top and bottom, and four sides, with peeling tape holding the whole contraption together. In fact, it looked so worn and feeble that it was impossible to believe what was inside. Inside was the perfectly preserved skull of an Utahraptor. For the fossil hunters who found it, that alone was enough. It was perfectly preserved, and fully intact, except for two smallish holes below the right eye. Those holes brought this group of people together. Those holes changed the skull from a simple, albeit perfect Utahraptor specimen, into something new, something wonderful, something dangerous. Stephen Brett was the paleontologist, and expert in carnivores of the Cedar Mountain Formation, where the skull was found. Andrea Austin was his graduate student and assistant. Maurice Tenbrink, carbonate stratigrapher & sedimentologist. Fossil Expert, Radiological Dating Expert, Artist, Forensic Expert. If it wasn't for those two holes, the forensic expert wouldn't have been needed. Those two holes were unnatural, those two holes shouldn't have been there, to all trained eyes, those two holes looked like bullet holes.

"Shall we open it?"

"I'm sure she was wrong."

"Susan has very rarely been wrong."

"But what she's saying is impossible."

"We all know it's impossible, but I've never known her to be wrong."

"She is now."

"Yeah."

It was no longer a box. The tenderly clinging tape had been cut back, the box had been unfolded, revealing a core of grey foam. Inside that cold block was what they were all here to see, they held their breath, simultaneously wishing to pull the foam away, simultaneously wishing they had never seen the box before. Here they were, all of them, having to see if it was possible, and yet knowing that it was a fool's errand, their reputations would be damaged if not ruined. Their funding would dry up, their colleagues would shun them, those without tenure would lose their teaching positions, and quite possibly those with tenure as well. And yet they were here. Here to see the box opened up to reveal the grey block of foam, and the grey block of foam split and opened to reveal the perfect Utahraptor skull. Perfect, except for two small holes.