By Pamela Love

On my first day as chief fundraiser for Minifauna Tech, a hamster-sized hippo bit the heels off my favorite pumps. Although their genetically engineered animals are small, crafted to fit shrinking natural habitats, they aren’t tame.

That’s why I insisted on teleconferencing the next meeting. Everyone, including Dr. Bennett Stewart, head of their biotech division, was also working from home.

 I began my presentation on reaching out to philanthropic foundations. Cuts in government support meant MT needed to find other funding sources. I moved the cursor. “On this graph—”

“Sorry, Carol.” With one tap, Dr. Stewart, who’d gained fame by turning manatees into minitees, muted me. I felt my eyebrows shoot to my hairline at his rudeness. “We don’t have time to hope your heartwarming appeals will work. People now want a war on warts, not a wee wildebeest.”

Stewart was a classic narcissist. He couldn’t imagine anything more important than his own work, with the possible exception of his Scottish heritage. Even his lab coat was plaid. So, he dismissed funding for research into cancer and Alzheimer’s cures as a ‘war on warts.’ Good thing no one could read my lips, or I’d be out of a job.

Josh Kramer, MT’s CEO, banged a fist on his desk. His Einstein-like hair shook. “Those animal rights activists are another problem. They’ve been protesting outside our offices all week. They say we’re distorting animals instead of saving them.”

“Both issues have the same cause.” Stewart leaned forward. “Lack of vision. And I have the solution. Minifauna Tech has repopulated Earth’s wilderness areas. Now we’re going to start on the skies. I’ve brought back a flying species that is iconic of extinction.” He grinned at our excited whispering. “Here’s a hint: it starts with the letter P.” He stepped offscreen.

I blinked. A passenger pigeon? What else could it be? Those birds were wiped out by overhunting and habitat loss. Reversing that extinction would bring MT widespread support. Annoyed as I’d been, I was almost ready to forgive Stewart. Almost.

He returned, placing a large birdcage in front of his laptop. Everyone gasped at its occupant: a scaly body with a pointed head, slender jaws that opened wide to reveal rows of sharp teeth, a red crest, and dark, leathery wings. “Behold! The pterodactyl, reborn!”

Emily Lombardi from Public Relations raised a sunburned hand from the deck on her Hawaiian beach house. “You mean rehatched, right?”

Stewart rolled his eyes. “Reborn sounds better.”  The creature squawked. “See? Terry agrees with me.”

“Who cares how it got here? We’ve got a real live dinosaur!” shrieked Josh, hitting E above high C. Terry’s cry matched him in pitch. It climbed to a higher perch, as if trying to flee—or fly.

“Emily, prepare a statement for the media.” Our CEO was bouncing in his seat with excitement.

She smiled. “I’ll consult my second grader as a technical advisor on prehistoric animals. For one thing, he knows that a pterodactyl is really a reptile, not a dinosaur.”

Which made me wonder something else. I suppressed a desire to ask Which came first, the pterodactyl or the egg? “How did you get the DNA? Didn’t those things go extinct when the dinosaurs did?” I folded my arms.

“Um…” Stewart squirmed. “Okay, technically it’s not a pterodactyl. I mixed DNA from a lizard and a bat, primarily, plus a few other species I’m keeping proprietary. Aren’t I, Terry?” He was stupid enough to reach in a finger to pat it, but fast enough to yank it out before he lost the tip.

“What kind of lizard? What kind of bat?” I zoomed in for a better look, praying that the latter wouldn’t be a vampire bat. Imagine the memes that would generate.

“That data’s also confidential.”  As for the rest of Terry’s family tree, I had a pretty good idea what one member was. I grew up on a farm.

A red-faced Josh waved his arms around enough to take flight as if he had wings of his own. “How is this even possible?”

“That information is even more proprietary.” The corners of Josh’s mouth drooped. Guess he was regretting MT’s contract with Stewart.

“You can buy glow-in-the-dark petunias. Firefly DNA.” I sent him a link in the chat. “If scientists can do that, this, uh, bizzard, is definitely possible. But we can’t call it a pterodactyl.”

At that point, several protesters, masked and carrying picket signs, stormed into Stewart’s home office. “Down with fake fauna!’ their leader yelled. Stewart fled, screaming. A door slammed offscreen.

Then the leader saw Terry. “Down with dinosaurs!”

Everyone on the call screamed, “No!” as he swung his sign at the innocent pseudo-pterodactyl.

Whatever Stewart had spent on Terry’s creation, he didn’t pay for a quality cage. It fell apart with one blow, which freed Terry—twelve inches of teeth, talons, and temper.

With a bone-curdling shriek, Terry swooped at its attacker. In a panic, he dropped his sign. Tactical, or pterodactycal, mistake. Now he had nothing to protect his face but his hands. I remembered what Terry tried to do to Stewart’s finger earlier.

The other protesters, instead of dropping their signs, dropped any allegiance to their leader and fled, only to be arrested outside. Stewart had dialed 9-1-1. So did I, adding “Better send an ambulance, too,” after Terry did its thing.

As I said, I grew up on a farm. When I saw that crest, I knew Terry was part rooster. Take it from a farmer’s daughter: roosters can be nasty.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pamela Love was born in New Jersey and worked as a teacher and in marketing before becoming a writer. Her work has appeared in Havok, Page & Spine, and Luna Station Quarterly. She is the 2020 winner of the Magazine Merit Fiction Award for her story “The Fog Test,” which appeared in Cricket. She and her family live in Maryland.

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