The plane ride to Costa Rica was a lot of fun, especially for the converted Animalians who had never flown in a plane before. Malice certainly liked taking pictures of cloud shapes, especially with Simon.
She hadn't expected him to enjoy the summer with them before traveling to the Nevada Police Academy. He was taking a special correspondence course during the summer, but he wouldn't get the special training (especially the recognition of drug scents as well as the scents used to conceal the scent of drugs) until the fall. But Malice certainly wasn't complaining.
---
When they arrived at San Josè, Costa Rica, they found Enrique waiting for them at the Airport. He was hoping to get Animalia Ambassadoria transport to the Museum, but wasn't sure how to do it. Fortunately, the Animalia Ambassadoria Cara-van was more than adequate.
It turns out, as they learned from Enrique, Animalia was not only making headlines in America but around the world as well. Sarah, checking up on the Animalia Website, discovered a new part of the site that talked about new "recruits", not just for Animalia Aquatica.
Two new recruits were a pair (male and female) of Chinese giant pangolins, donated by the imperial family of China in hopes of curtailing the illegal poaching and trafficking of pangolins. Another donation was a male and female platypus from Sydney, who were most interested in the effects of the Animalia virus on monotremes.
The thing that was making headline news around the world was that DNA from a preserved Tasmanian Wolf in a natural history museum in Sydney was capable of bonding with the Animalia Virus, much to everyone's surprise. As a result, many natural history museums were getting museum specimens of creatures that went extinct during the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries to send the DNA to the newest subdivision of Project Phoenix. Fortunately, the Sydney Natural History Museum were generously sharing the DNA extraction process that had unexpectedly succeeded. Also, there were plans to hold off on using the Tasmanian wolf DNA until they had more data on marsupial Animalians.
---
When they arrived at the Museum, Abby and Co. marveled at the many dinosaur fossils.
"The San Josè museum has a top paleontology department." Said Roland, reading from the guide book that they were given before they started their trip, "Professors and students come from all over the world to work on their fossils and bones."
"G'day, mates." Said a man with blonde hair and wearing an adventuring archaeologist's garb and a wide-brimmed fedora with a zigzag patterned band around the outside of the crown.
"Animalia Ambassadoria," said Enrique, "this is the archaeologist responsible for this dinosaur exhibit."
"'Melbourne' O'Riley, wow!" Exclaimed Abby, "I saw you on last summer's Adventure Illustrated Magazine, hand-catching piranhas on the Amazon!"
"Aw, that was nothin'." Said Melbourne, a little proudly, "Just a day at the beach compared to getting those Dino bones."
"I guess they were kind of heavy." Said Samson.
"I was lucky to get out of the jungle with my life." Said Melbourne.
"Why, what happened?" Asked Malice. Melbourne was a little surprised to see Malice, but fortunately Sarah managed to explain some things for him.
"Anyway," said Melbourne, recovering slightly and indicating one skeleton that seemed to be a new species of Tyranosaur with extra spikes on the head and tail, "Some say that those bones are cursed. Whoever takes them from the temple where they were resting suffers the dinosaur spirit's revenge, but I took them anyway."
"And you survived." said Sophie, as Roland used his IPod touch to test a new fossil identification app developed by the International Paleontology Society. But when he scanned the bones of the extra spiky Tyranosaur, the app glitched, prompting Roland to send a message to the makers of the app.
"I sure did." said Melbourne, who then started rubbing his chin confusedly, "Though it's kinda hard to explain what smashed in that room where they were putting that skeleton together."
"After 65 million years even its spirit would be extinct by now." Said Sophie. That was when a very minor earthquake struck the museum. Enrique implored everyone to remain calm, but Abby, somewhat taller and more top-heavy, staggered and fell down on the floor near the underside of the skeleton. When the shaking had stopped, that was when she saw something written on the underside of one of the femurs of the skeleton, and she quickly took a picture of what she saw for later.
"I supposed that's the spirit of the dinosaur?" Asked Travis.
"Spirits are nothing but wombat puckey." Said Melbourne, dismissively, "Real archaeology is nothing like it's depicted in the Indiana Jones movies."
"Enrique, do you mind if we take a look around?" Asked Simon, getting to his feet.
"Not at all." Said Enrique, calling over a young woman from one of the groups of guests. "This is Heather Wilcox, a foreign exchange college student who volunteers giving tours here. Heather" he said, turning to her, "a special tour for Animalia Ambassadoria here."
"Sure thing." Said Heather, "This way please."
---
"We're one of the few museums to exhibit actual moon rocks." Said Heather, coming to a space exhibit, "And before you try them, no, the moon isn't made of green cheese. Over here is the prototype excavator that will be used when we begin mining the moon for helium-3."
"What's 'Beta'?" Asked Travis, reading the word beneath the cockpit of the excavator.
"The second letter of the Greek alphabet." Explained Sarah.
"Just a nickname for the vehicle." Replied Heather, "A lot easier than saying 'igneous petrafactic accumulator'."
"That would be Greek to me." Joked Abby.
---
"So I guess you heard about our dinosaur spirit." Said Heather, leading the group over to a corridor flanked by two enormous holes.
"Looks like it doesn't bother using doors." Commented Samson.
"Carlos told us that the museum is built on top of an abandoned gold mine." Said Sophie
"Sure," said Heather, a little uncertain for a brief moment, "that was one of our more popular local attractions. Right this way please."
---
"This was a working gold mine until about 75 years ago," Explained Heather, as she led Abby and Co. down an old mineshaft, "then they closed off all the connecting tunnels due to safety concerns."
"Heather, this is Enrique Gonzales." Said a voice over the PA system. "Could you bring our Animalian Amigos back. The Cine-Grande presentation is about to begin."
"Back to the surface we go." Said Heather.
---
There was a showing of an IMAX 3D movie on the Cine-Grande scene showing a documentary of the Spiny Tyranosaur as it looked 65 million years ago, but the main character became a little too real and smashed its way out of the theater, through several exhibit halls, and out the doors and into the jungle. Shortly afterward, a man calling himself Señor Zepeta, and the dinosaur El Oloroso, accused Enrique of stealing the sacred bones from the temple where they were kept. He also accused Melbourne of having a lot to answer for, and foretold that worse was yet to come before leaving.
"He can't blame you." Said Sophie, worriedly.
"No, he's right." Said Melbourne, firmly, "I brought the Spiny Tyranosaur here. If there is a beast, I must find it and capture it. No worries, I have a plan."
---
The tracks of the Spiny Tyranosaur lead to the museum gold mine. As they followed the tracks, Roland's foot suddenly made a loud, wet *squirtch* sound.
"Guys, there's something weird on my shoe. What is it?" He said, silently thanking god that he had chosen to wear sneakers and not sandals, or worse flip-flops.
"It looks like it resembles coprolite." Said Sarah, stooping to get a good look at it.
"Coprolite?" Asked Travis, not familiar with the term.
"Dinosaur poop." Said Sarah, simply.
"Ew." Reacted everyone except Melbourne.
"That's useful stuff." Said Melbourne, "I do a lot of tracking based on what the beasties leave behind."
"Ew!" Everyone responded. Everyone moved on after that, Roland trying to shake the stuff off his foot.
The tracks led on to one of the boarded-over side passages, except that this one was broken open. Everyone followed the tracks, and Malice found chunks of ore that Melbourne identified as iron pyrite, but Sarah picked up one of the chunks that Malice threw away and identified it in her mind. Soon everyone came to an intersection where several passages joined up. Everyone split up into teams at the insistence of Melbourne. Sarah and Travis took one, Malice and Simon took another, Abby and Samson took a third, Jessica and Roger took a fourth, Sophie and Roland took a fifth, and Melbourne took one on his own.
---
Before everyone knew it, everyone minus Melbourne were all piled up on an old-fashioned handcar and racing along the old minecar tracks, with Sarah and Malice powering the handcar. They broke through another boarded over entrance into the jungle and crashed into a bush.
"Looks like that the mine has another, hidden, entrance. Hm." Said Sophie, taking mental notes.
"This mystery is starting to piece together, but we haven't seen Melbourne." Said Samson.
"I'm all right, mates." Said Melbourne, coming out of the cave mouth they had unblocked. "I had a rough go trying to find you all."
"Sarah and Malice saved us from the Spiny Tyranosaur." Said Abby, admirably.
"We did?" Asked Sarah, confused, "The last thing I remember after finding the handcar was dinosaur breath. It smelled like grandpa's 1957 Buick Packard exhaust."
"Somehow I think that that's not a real dinosaur, but someone wants us to think it is." Said Sophie.
---
When everyone made it back to the museum, it was revealed that Roland was tracking in the gunk he stepped in, but was definitively identified as bat guano.
Everyone decided to take a look at the suspects and possible motives:
The curator of the museum might have been behind it as a publicity stunt.
Melbourne might have been behind it to appear as a hero, but that was discounted because of his article in the magazine.
J. J. Hakimoto, the man behind the Spiny Tyranosaur documentary might have been behind it to gain attention for his 3D lizards.
Heather might have been behind it because she was dressing rather nice for a college student that works for free.
Señor Zepeta had a surprising motive. He was wanted by the Supreme Council of Antiquities for scavenging antiquities to sell on the world's black markets.
After thinking it over, everyone was called to the Cine-Grande theater to review everything.
---
"Here we have my boyfriend Roland," Said Sophie, showing the results as a slideshow, and starting off with the first slide, "demonstrating that there's no creature living in the mine tunnels other than bats.
"Ew." Replied everyone.
"There are surround sound speakers throughout the museum," said Sophie coming to the second slide, "and as you can see here, also in the mine exhibit." She then moved one really large one from behind the podium as she continues, "This particular one is known as a subwoofer. It can make a sound that sounds like..." Then she pressed the button connected to the subwoofer, causing the Spiny Tyranosaur's roar to blast through the theater. There was also shown a small cardboard cutout that was intended to project a silhouette of the Spiny Tyranosaur.
"I believe these things were being used to frighten away people who were coming too close." Continued Sophie, "You might ask, 'Too close to what?' This time it was Malice who provided the answer."
"You can thank me later," Said Malice, proudly, then responded confusedly, "and also tell me why." When Sophie moved on to the next slide, Malice laughed slightly. "Oh, fools gold."
"No, what Malice threw away was real gold." Replied Sophie, causing Malice to look slightly hurt and foolish, "Someone accidentally discovered an active and previously untapped vein in the museum gold mine, and figured out a way to get it safely out." She then moved on to the next slide, showing the excavator from the space exhibit. "If there's a beta, there must be an Alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet." That was when the Spiny Tyranosaur walked into the theater, but then the disguise was shed to reveal a slightly larger version of the excavator with the word Alpha on the side, and piloted by Roland. "Made over to look like a dinosaur, someone has been using this to mine the gold and get it out a secret entrance, but whom?" Asked Sophie as Roland piloted the excavator out of the theater.
"A crime! Supercharged with suspense! Danger! Raw human emotion!" Exclaimed Mr. Hakimoto, making sound like the plot for a good crime drama, then said in a much quieter tone, "But I didn't do it."
"Of course not." Responded Sophie, then moving on to the next slide, "You're a director, not an arts and special effects major, unlike our little 'college student'. Only someone like that would be capable of designing a dinosaur to fit over an excavator." When Heather tried to flee, Simon and Travis grabbed her wrists to prevent her from escaping.
"So Heather is an art major and a gold miner." Joked Malice. When Señor Zepeta tried to leave early, Sophie kept him in his place with some more clues.
"Roland was just contacted by the designers of the Fossil Identification App as to why their app glitched when scanning the Spiny Tyranosaur bones. As it turned out, the app glitched because the bones scanned actually come from different dinosaurs. Also, Abby spotted this inscription on the underside of one of the dinosaur femurs." Sophie then moved on to the next slide. Everyone was surprised to see 'New York World Fair, 1964' enscribed there. Sophie continued, "Señor Zepeta knew those bones weren't authentic. He just planted them at those ruins to create the legend of the curse, and scare people away, because THAT is where the gold is being stored until it can be sold. When the museum became interested in the bones, Zepeta hoped that the curse would scare away Melbourne."
"Never!" Exclaimed Melbourne, rising in indignation.
"When it didn't, the dinosaur had to become real," continued Sophie, "With Heather and Zepeta controlling it. This last photo I just took outside the museum." Finished Sophie, revealing that the authorities had been notified.
---
"I'd really like to thank you Animalians for getting involved." Said Enrique as the cleanup of the museum began in earnest.
"We had something similar happen at Mieni Atoll." Said Abby.
"The gold will help pay for repairs for the museum, and it will turn out to be an exiting and authentic exhibit after all." Replied Enrique.
"We'll be moving on to Manaus, Brazil after two days." Said Abby as she and Samson walked by with rubble in their arms.
"Why is that?" Asked Enrique.
"We're actually going down to the Amazon River to obtain some 'volunteers' for Animalia Aquatica, including an electric eel, a red-bellied piranha, and a pirarucu. We're also picking up a red-eyed tree from and an anaconda." Said Sarah, pushing a cart with some cleaning supplies.
"Maybe I'll come with." Said Melbourne, coming over to them, "I've got a lot of experience with catching all those species."
"Let me double check with Clara." Said Roland, pulling up the Animalia Website and entering a chat room with Clara. After a while, Roland answered Melbourne, "You can come with, as long as you don't overplay your heroics."
"What?!" Exclaimed Melbourne, "I never... oh, that's right." He said, suddenly remembering that very few uplifted Animalians might have heard of his adventures and assumed that most of it was fabrication.
"I have an old friend in Manaus," said Enrique, remembering something from a while back, "I'll contact him and ask him to reward you for helping us out."