Ook the Caveman careened down the street so fast, the bike was pedaling him. He managed to drift at the corner, veering left to escape the pursuing scientists and the traffic jam in his wake. Riding alongside, Bri squealed, "Ook, that was awesome!"
Dr Kealy's van peeled out of the pileup and resumed the chase. "We can't let them leave campus, Herman!" he barked, as he loaded the tranquilizer gun. "If we can return that hominid to the lab for study, I can make Paleontological history!"
At that moment, the cell phone rang. It was Dr Estelle Besoin, from the the anthropology department. "Don't you dare touch a hair on that human's head! There is too much to learn from him before you turn him into a dissected frog!"
Dr Kealy yelled into his phone, "Like what? Learn how long it takes him to say 'please' and 'thank you'? He's riding a BMX bike and wearing Nikes! Your experiment is tainted! I need his body before he joins the Walmart nation!"
From the car alongside, Dr Segure yelled back, "You're thinking too small!" With one hand on his own steering wheel, he slapped Dr Kealy's van with the other. "I heard the last part of your sentence, and can easily guess everything else your predictable mind said! Your butchery won't get one-tenth of the information that my DNA analysis can reveal!"
"Herman, get him off the road!"
Dutifully, Herman jerked the van right, slamming into Dr Segure's Miata. Together, they slid against the parked cars alongside the road, fusing into a gnarled mess. As they continued to slide down the street, the trapped Doctors could only glare at each other. "Genetic paleontology is the future, Kealy!"
"That's funny, Segure, because I thought paleontology was about the past!"
Just as their momentum was spent, a Smart Car smacked into them; a germanic "Oops!" popped out of the coupe. Dr Kealy rolled his eyes; "Great, more of you genetic fanboys!"
"Hey, don't lump in Dr Wimmer with me! I've got nothing to do with genetic archaeology!"
From the back, Dr Wimmer murmered, "Actually, I'm an archaeological geneticist; a genetic archaeologist would excavate long-forgotten habitats of a tribe of geneticists." He allowed himself a laugh. "But seriously, that's Doctor Werner."
Dr Kealy muttered to Herman, "There's a lot of competition for tenure these days, isn't there?"
On his ten-speed, Dr Beiber, creationist archaeologist, rode up to the wreck, "Where's the caveman?"
"Back off, Ed, he doesn't know anything about dinosaurs!" Dr Segure barked. "Soon as I line his chromosomes up, you won't have a leg to stand on!"
"Threatened, Ramon? Just give me ten minutes with him, we can settle the Old Creationist versus New Creationist debate, and blow everyone's minds!"
"Dude, he is checkmate! A living, breathing rebuttal!"
"Oh, really? 'Victim's got a bullet hole, but I don't see a gun - I guess he wasn't shot!'"
****
Meanwhile, Ook and Bri had made it off campus, and still racing down the street. "Ook, as soon as we get back to my place, we have to get you a better disguise, so we can find Teddy, and get you home!" She turned to face him- but he was gone...
...following the strong and unmistakable scent of well-hunted and grilled meat. He wound his way to a laundromat parking lot, where a large man in an Iron Maiden-marked denim vest was grilling by a fatigued mini-van. The large man held the turkey leg over his head. Ook rode toward the turkey leg, crashing himself into the open minivan to claim his prize. The assistant slid the door quickly to lock Ook inside.
"That worked great, Red! How'd you know?"
Red doused the grill. "I'm a crypto-anthropologist, Shiela. I know how to catch Bigfoot."
inspired by the Discover Magazine article, "Extracting Family Trees from Ancient Genomes"
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