getting to know doctor "needles"

i can safely say i HATE being caught, captured, and just in general being held prisoner by not nice people!!!

this time it has been by some guy called "spectre", who beat up professor paradigm and then dino-napped me... i don't know why he has taken me though!

my only hope is that someone out there is looking for me! though at the same time i'm very worried they won't find us. not where spectre has hidden us both!

the cheeky meany has chosen the most unlikely hideout in the whole valley. the last place i'd ever look for a dinosaur abducting... uh i'm not actually sure what he does for a living... guy!

he has made his lair in the royal tyrrell museum!!!

as if that weren't enough, spectre has taken over the back room of the cretaceous garden, my former home in the tyrrell!

which ironically makes me wonder, after living right outside it for 4 years, why i never bothered to look inside this room before?!?

i have to hand it to this spectre guy though. it makes the perfect evil genius hideout. the cretaceous garden is the most missed part of the museum by visitors, and this backroom is only accessible by the gardener (who isn't at work today!!!) normally.

it was in here, the museum's plant nursery, spectre had me tied up.

"how does it feel to be back home, traumador?" spectre asked me menacingly as he put me down on a large table towards the back of the room.

i had rope all around me, including my mouth. despite my powerful tyrannosaurid bite, my jaws weren't very powerful when it came to opening (just like modern archosaurs) so i wasn't able to properly respond.

i tried to answer "let me go!" but it just came out a muffle.

"yes, i thought you'd be surprised by my choice of 'workspace'," he answered smugly, despite the fact i hadn't remotely replied at all to his question.

"no! i said let me go!" i tried to counter, but my words were smothered.

"please," spectre responded as though slightly insulted. which was weird, as why would he be surprised i didn't like being tied up and being held captive? "you don't have to be so formal. i'm not a doctor at moment, so much as you're companion of personal discovery, and i am so very much hoping we are about to make some exciting discoveries about you. i feel therefore that we have entered into a more personal relationship. my 'friends' all used to call me needles. so please no more of this doctor spectre nonsense."

what? why on earth would i be concerned about to call him at a time like this?!? who cares?!? i wanted out!!!

"let me go you madman!!!" i stifled, ignoring him.

"yes it is hard to believe isn't it," dr. jaden "needles" spectre happily told me, not that i asked! "back before my falling out with the palaeontologic community i used to have many many friends."

seriously, what was wrong with this guy?!? here he was scarily looming over me, as i was tied up, and he was happily telling me his life story... i was getting even more wigged out by this behaviour (was that the point of it i wonder?)...

"which is funny. it was those very 'friends' who drove me to this form of lifestyle," needles lamented on some clearly long gone better time in his past.

i struggled against the ropes in vainly. if it wasn't bad enough being menaced by this madman, i didn't want to hear him blab on and on...

dr. spectre seemed to think i was shaking my head in disbelief (in reality i couldn't really move my torso below the neck due to it being secured to the table) "i assure you, it is true," he pleaded with me. "why there was a day when 'good old' alvar paradigm and me were best friends."

not that i'd asked, but that was a surprising claim. not that it didn't make sense. during their fight paradigm and spectre had seemed to have a bit of history... just based on how they fought, i'd never have thought it was a good one.

taking my mind off both the ropes and dr. spectre rambling he interjected on his own monologue. "oh well," he said as he reached into a drawer outside my vision. he started rummaging through its content, and my blood went cold as i could hear various metallic objects and tools clang against each other as he tossed and turned them.

"time for us to begin," spectre informed me, though what we were beginning was a mystery to me. however i'd watched enough TV to know that my being tied up for it wasn't a good thing!

needles had picked his first implement, and was ready to thrust it at me. "hold still!" he sinisterly instructed me, and lunged the long slender tool at my face... i let out a muffled scream!

suddenly to my surprise i found that dr. spectre had begun to brush my teeth with a toothbrush! which felt very weird, as i'd never brushed my teeth ever before in my life!

before you say anything people of the webwide world, it's not like i need to brush like you mammals... you only have the two sets of teeth in your life, so you need to take very good care of them. i on the other hand like all other dinosaurs (and for that matter most other reptiles) continually grow new teeth throughout my whole lifetime. so if one breaks or gets a cavity i'll grow a new one in no time... as an added bonus i make a killing off the tooth fairy!

having my teeth brushed tickled, and i was kind of enjoying it. meanwhile, dr. spectre resumed talking. "yes, what an ungrateful man paradigm is," he cursed, and for a moment he brushed harder. "i gave him the best years of my life, and what does he do, banish me into exile from the scientific community!"

i was partially zoned out, enjoying my teeth being scrubbed that much. i let out a blissful sigh, which through my tied up mouth must have been a weird noise. needles interpreted it to mean i was curious about his latest tangent...

"it is true, i gave that man everything, and yet he destroyed me!" needles angrily told me. "i had a promising future when i started out in palaeontology, and he couldn't stand it!" "

"i graduated with my PHD by age 20 and promptly offered a curatorship. making me the youngest scientist to have ever be offered such a position at a major museum. do you know what i did with that chance? i let alvar paradigm talk me out of it, and for what? the chance to co-fond with him the most "unique" palaeontologic institute in the world. HA! that was rich. do you know what that institute turned out to be?" he demanded of me.

"palaeo-central," he snarled. i for the first time was interested in what he had to say. he grabbed my head and forced it back on the table. "no please stay down," as he resumed brushing my lower jaw. "yes, i too was palaeo-prime alongside alvar for the beginning of palaeo-central. what an honour most thought, what glory others resented, what adventures some even stupidly envied. if they only knew!"

with that he finished brushing my teeth, and set aside the toothbrush. as he went back into his drawer i was excited to see what he'd get out next. having my teeth cleaned was fun!

man i'm stupid sometimes. the next thing he pulled out was a surgical pick and a scalpel!

"all palaeo-central ever did for me was put me up against dangerous villains, endanger my life, and worst of all cost me years of research time!!!" needles vengefully fumed, waving the scalpel around my face... "oh but 'it was all for the greater good' alvar would assure me, and i stupidly trusted him. can you believe that. that arrogant jerk never cared about my standing as a scientist, he just used me to boost him up. while i squandered those years, alvar was always 'somehow' making the most amazing discoveries, getting the best publications, and becoming a power house in the palaeontolgic community! "

"what did i get you might ask?" dr. spectres demanded of me again. not that i was paying any attention to his words, what with the insanely sharp tool weaving around my snout! "nothing! that's what. i spent all my time taking care of the 'business' side of central. that would be the combat, the intelligence, and dealing with the law. paradigm as the science end of the duo would swoop in and grab all the credit for anything of scientific value that we found!"

"my early reputation as a palaeontology prodigy faded away, and i became nothing more then paradigm's lackey in everyone's eyes. an inferior man serving his better! i was the joke of the scientific community," he coldly recalled. "i'd publish something, and everyone would congratulate him! obviously it was the great paradigm helping out his lackwit assistant needles... i saved that man countless times for unfathomable foes, and that was how he repaid me!"

i was now terrified. not only of the tools he was starting to pull out, but of how he was so detachedly telling me his life story. i just wish i could have paid more attention to it. as he sounded like he could have answered many of my questions about paradigm, palaeo-central, and the dark side of palaeontology... that was of course if he wasn't the most dangerous manifestation of that dark side i'd yet to meet!!!

he had now pulled out a incredibly scary saw to supplement the scalpel and pick. i shivered as i was figuring out what he was up to. the cleaning of my teeth had just been his first step. as i don't brush my teeth their often encrusted in old gooey chuck of meat and such. so if you wanted to see them for study you'd need to get that off. which spectre had now done. i feared he was planning on cleaning off a lot more then my teeth now!...

as he stood clearly contemplating how to proceed with his planned "cleaning" spectre continued his rant about his past with paradigm. "it didn't matter i used to convince myself in those days. in the 70's i'd hit upon the most revolutionary discovery! on the side of my palaeo-prime responsibilities, i gathered and prepared my scientific masterpiece. the first definitive proof that dinosaurs were warm blooded!"

dwelling upon this painful memories seemed to slow down spectre's decision making processes, and he dawdled in picking a tool or technique to get started on me... not that i minded of course, but a moment later i was in for a surprise. i was about to sympathize with the man, despite what he was doing to me...

"i will always remember how i felt on august 16, 1986," spectre said crushed, it was the first time i felt anything resembling pity for the man. despite his being an evil palaeontologist who had dinonapped me, i for that instant related with him. through his voice i could tell he spoke of a genuinely devastating moment in his life where all his dreams collapsed on top of him. i know because it happened to me on september 21 2006 (like him i will always remember the date of that event!). "the day bakker released that damn book!"

"i'd been ahead of them all the whole time, even the 'revolutionary' robert bakker by a good 3 years it turns out. yet, due to the restraints and delays forced upon me by paradigm and palaeo-central i'd been kept from claiming my rightful place in scientific history!" he anguished.

suddenly i couldn't bring myself to completely hating this man... not that he was my new best friend mind you. still, he was right.

there wasn't a palaeontologist in the modern generation more famous than robert bakker. he'd started the dinosaur renaissance, and put dinosaurs and fossils back on the scientific map. with challenging the proposition that dinosaurs were more then lumbering stupid lizards, bakker had become one of the key legends of palaeontology. a name that will no doubt remain prominent in science history.

yet had things turned out differently (or properly?) it sounded like instead we'd all remember jaden spectre, or maybe dr. needles? as being the one to make this find... my head spun at this possible alternate history.

snapping me out of what could have been, and back to what was, spectre lifted up the scalpel and the scary saw, and started mentally weighing them against each other.

he muttered out loud comparing the too. "you'd be best for the cranial incision, but you'd be more fun," he said favouring the saw as the "more fun" option. "but you'd be better at the peritoneal extraction," he went back to the scalpel. "though you'd be more fun," in favour of the scary saw. "the added control for the brevis peeling would be nice," spectre once again referred to the scalpel "yet, in the end it won't be as much fun," his arguments for the saw seemed pretty single noted...

as spectre continued comparing the tools in his head, he turned back to me. "to think after all we'd been through together, alvar sided with bakker when i tried to stop the publication. our entire 'camaraderie', and he discards it for a simple matter of 'proper' timing. if not for alvar i'd have published my findings years before that bearded glory hog!!!"

spectre then made up his mind. "well, i could do the job quickly and cleanly," he said thinking of the scalpel. "but where's the fun in that." okay, like i was surprised at that outcome...

as he picked up the huge scary saw, spectre concluded. "needless to say, i've been trying my best to out do paradigm and the rest of his 'established' scientific community ever since. something which i think you'll help me out with perfectly my small friend."

"i do appreciate your sacrifice in my ascension," spectre informed me. "and though you may not be around to revel in it, i'm about to make you a very famous specimen."

of course the part he left out was that to be made famous, dr. spectre was going to have to clean off my skeleton too! which based on his "fun" saw, was going to hurt a lot... at least while i was still alive...

all i have to say, is good bye people of the web wide world! please think well of me when i'm gone (though being famous might at least help with that)...

to be continued???