The New Romford Free Press

Tag: Dino-Day

  • Dinosaur Queen’s Trial Pushed Back

    Dinosaur Queen’s Trial Pushed Back

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    By Chase Chapley

    NEW YORK – Dinosaur Queen’s trial, which was expected to begin next week, is being pushed back another two months as federal prosecutors and the State Department determine her legal status for her attack on New Romford.

    Dinosaur Queen has been imprisoned in an undisclosed location since being captured following the Dino-Day Disaster, which has led to 85 deaths (five more have died since the initial reports).  Her trial was moved away from New Romford, partially because she would not receive a fair trial there, but mostly to avoid provoking any further pain and suffering to residents in New Romford.  The trial was moved to New York soon after her capture.

    Now federal prosecutors and the State Department are debating if Dinosaur Queen should be put on trial at all.  Sources inside the State Department have heard strong arguments for sending her to the supervillain wing of Guantanamo Bay.  There, she would be kept with fewer legal restrictions regarding criminal law or human rights.

    Surprisingly, most New Romforders want Dinosaur Queen to stand trial in New York.  A recent poll showed 59% support a public trial.  “I think it shows a faith in the legal system to do its job,” said legal expert Burt Montana.  “I think people want to see her on TV, on trial answering for her crimes.  If you send her to Guantanamo or some other far off gulag, then you’re not going to get the same satisfaction.”

    For now, Dinosaur Queen will remain wherever she is until the State Department makes its decision.

  • Area Woman’s Daughter Is A Triceratops (Yes, Really)

    Area Woman’s Daughter Is A Triceratops (Yes, Really)

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    By Chase Chapley

    Susan Wong thought she had lost her daughter during the Dino-Day Disaster.  She was nine-months pregnant at the time when she was transformed into a Triceratops, and like most of the city, she was confused and anxious, and her hormones didn’t help either.  Then she gave birth.  To an egg.

    “I was so excited to be a mother and was actually due in a week,” said Wong.  “My husband and I have been anxiously awaiting the birth of our daughter, and then I laid an egg.  I freaked out.”

    Wong was by herself at the time in Legends Park, and when she was beginning to have labor pains, she found a secluded spot in some bushes.  There, she laid her egg.  Exhausted and “freaked out,” she didn’t have time to contemplate or protect her egg.  The Dino Army was on its way to the park.  She had to run.

    “It was the hardest thing for me to do,” she said, “and I still feel terrible for abandoning my child.  But I tried to hide her as best I could and hoped the Dino Army wouldn’t find her.  I couldn’t carry her with me.”

    When she turned back to human, Wong went back to the park to look for her daughter.  She found egg shells, and the ground was wet.  There was no sign of a child, no tracks, nothing.  Her and her husband searched everywhere and contacted the police for help, but in the aftermath of the DDD, the authorities were stretched thin.  A few officers helped them search, but they found nothing.  “I thought I lost my baby,” she said, failing to hold back tears.

    Fast forward to last week, one of Professor “The Gator” Alan Guinness’s students was walking along the Winston River, and she came across a small Triceratops eating grass.  The Triceratops was about the size of a St. Bernard and was scared upon meeting the undergrad, Kiki Nagasaki.  “The little thing was so cute but also so shy,” she said.  “I grabbed a branch from a tree and inched closer to her.  I held out the branch, hoping she’d eat the leaves and let me get close to her.  And she did.  I petted her, and she just seemed so happy.  Then she tried to cuddle with me with her horns, which really hurt.”

    With the help of some friends, Nagasaki was able to transport the Triceratops to Professor Guinness’s lab, and the good doctor performed some tests.  The results from the DNA scan showed the Triceratops was human in origin, but her DNA was mutated.  Given his personal history with mutation, Guinness released the news to the press.  “I figured someone out there was missing a child,” he said.

    When Susan Wong heard the news, her and her husband rushed to Professor Guinness’s lab.  She knew it was her daughter.  Crying, she ran to her daughter and embraced her.  The Triceratops, perhaps recognizing her mother’s scent, became excited, hopping up and down and poking her mother with her horns (which were covered with blunt rubber tops by now).  The family was reunited.

    The father, Ken, was more befuddled than ecstatic.  While happy that his daughter survived the DDD, he wanted to know why she didn’t change back to a human like everyone else.  “Our working theory,” said Professor Guinness, “is that being transformed in the womb made the transformation permanent.  We’re not really sure why this is the case, but something in the magic the Dinosaur Queen used mixed with the Wongs’ specific genetics must’ve made this stick.”

    Guinness is still studying Lucy, the name the Wongs gave their daughter, and has offered to let her live at his office.  He promised the Wongs he would find a way to change their daughter back to human.  “After all,” he said, “she’s going to get very big.  Triceratops get to be as big as elephants, and being a 12-foot tall alligator man myself, my lab is big enough for Lucy.”

    But the Wongs insisted their daughter live with them for now.  “We’ll probably have to take the doctor up on his offer eventually,” said Susan.  “But for now, I want to spend every day with my daughter.  I’m just so blessed to have her in my life.”

    Ken seemed less enthusiastic.  “I love my daughter, of course,” he said.  “I just wish she didn’t eat so much and poke her horns into me.”

  • Some Neighborhoods Abandoned

    Some Neighborhoods Abandoned

    By Buffy Bolivar

    It’s been several weeks since the Dino-Day Disaster, and most of New Romford has returned to functionality.  Power, water, and communications have returned, major thoroughfares have been cleared, and business has been normal for most residents.  There are still many side streets and buildings that need repair, but nothing that any New Romforder hasn’t experienced before.

    Even so, there are neighborhoods that are abandoned.  East Town, Jordan, and Virgin Heights were all hit hard by the DDD, and many buildings were completely demolished.  Johnson Lane in East Town is a ghost town.  “I used to live a block from that street,” said Dominique Jones, who is now living at a friend’s house in Norwoods.  “It was a happening place to go, you know.  All these great little shops and restaurants, all these places that only us locals knew, and now they’re just gone.”

    Then there’s the corner of Milton and Melville in Jordan, another popular commercial district that, prior to the DDD, was in the midst of an economic upturn.  McDowell Enterprises had built a new 30-story office building there five years ago, and now it sits empty with a giant hole down its middle.  That’s not even counting all the homes that were destroyed nearby.  The Bellevue Apartments a few blocks away were a newly renovated, upscale apartment complex, and now, with its north wall stripped off, it’s home to squatters.

    “It’s just a shame,” said local resident, Rashida Moen.  “A lot of these neighborhoods were some of the oldest in the city.  They’re architecture was just so unique.  You can’t replace them.  You just can’t.”

    Some 40,000 residents have been displaced in these neighborhoods, and 800 businesses are closed either temporarily or for good.  No other neighborhood in New Romford has been hit as hard, and it may take years to repair.  “The infrastructure was really bad in these parts,” said Richard Martindale, New Romford City Planner from 1996 to 2005.  “The roads, sewers, pipelines, and just the buildings themselves have been beat up so much over the past 50 years from aliens and supervillains, and now dinosaurs, that they really need to be stripped down and rebuilt.  That’s going to take a lot of money.”

    Mayor Lawrence has vowed to repair every street and building that sustained injuries in the wake of the DDD, but the price tag for such a feat may prove to be too high.  The estimated property damage for the entire city is $60.8 billion.  Downtown, which suffered the most damage, is getting top priority on the repairs, and since the Building Replacement Parts Act of 1978, every building is built with interchangeable parts.  Roughly 75% of the buildings in downtown have been fully restored within weeks, but neighborhoods like East Town are at a disadvantage because their buildings were grandfathered into the act and weren’t required to use interchangeable parts.

    “Older neighborhoods like that are going to lag behind,” said Martindale.  “It’s a shame because East Town and Jordan really had some charming architecture.  I just hope they don’t become a haven for supervillains.”

  • Dinosaur Queen T-Rex Caught Trying to Escape in Cargo Container

    Dinosaur Queen T-Rex Caught Trying to Escape in Cargo Container

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    By Skip Daverman

    BOZEMAN, Montana – One of the Dinosaur Queen’s T-Rexes was caught by the Rocky Mountain Ranger inside the Museum of the Rockies after traveling thousands of miles in a cargo container.

    The T-Rex, a general in the Dinosaur Queen’s army according to its armor, was apparently riding in a cargo container of a train ever since the Dino-Day Disaster in New Romford.  It was not clear how it got itself into the container in the first place, or how a 15-foot tall dinosaur evaded detection for all these weeks, but it appeared that it was trying to get to the west coast.

    The train that carried the T-Rex made a stop at the railyards in Laurel, Montana, about 10 miles west of Billings.  The train had made a routine pit stop that lasted 30 minutes when a cargo container began to twitch.  “They’re not supposed to twitch,” said Mark Engelman, the train’s engineer.  “Then it rattled and came off its base and fell on the ground, and then poof!  Out came a dinosaur!”

    Using its powerful legs, the T-Rex busted open the back end of its container and wiggled out.  Once free, it let out a thunderous roar that could be heard for miles away.  It chased after every human it saw but thankfully was too impoverished to run straight.  Witnesses said it looked hungry.  Someone fired a shotgun at it, and the T-Rex charged them, unharmed by the shotgun spray.  When the police arrived, the T-Rex ran away.

    After tearing through a local Walmart, eating half of the meat in the deli, the T-Rex busted out the back door, evading police once again.  “I’ve never seen a T-Rex run so fast,” said John Harmon, a Walmart employee.  “Then again, I’ve never seen a T-Rex run, period.  It must’ve been running 40 mph.”

    Storming through Laurel and crushing a few houses along the way, the T-Rex ran westward along I-90 for several miles before running along the Yellowstone River.  The police, highway patrol, and, by now, the National Guard were all in pursuit, but the dinosaur went down a ravine and was lost for several hours.  The Rocky Mountain Ranger rode in from stopping a Grizzly bear uprising in Wyoming to assist on the search, and his flying robot horse, Gallatin, proved more effective.  The Ranger found fresh dinosaur tracks, leading to the city of Bozeman, about 140 miles west of Laurel.

    The Ranger and the National Guard flushed the T-Rex out of the forest into the open.  Even with his unbreakable metallic lasso, the Ranger wasn’t able to hogtie the dinosaur.  It flung its tail back at the Ranger, sending the superhero backwards several hundred feet.  The T-Rex continued running, eventually making its way to the Museum of the Rockies on the Montana State University campus, where it attempted to blend in with the displays of dinosaur bones.

    “That was its mistake, partner,” said the Ranger.  “None of them varmints has any skin or muscles and whatnot.  It was more than easy to spot him.  Also, he got angry at see all them dead dino bones.  Maybe one of them was his cousin or something.”

    While Gallatin distracted the T-Rex, the Ranger snuck in from behind to hogtie the dinosaur, and this time, he was successful.  Along with some knock-out gas from his belt, the Ranger subdued the T-Rex.  The National Guard hauled the beast away, and despite the general fright experienced by the majority of residents in this small town, the Museum’s paleontologists were ecstatic.

    “I’ve never seen an actual living dinosaur before,” said Professor Mary Diaz.  “It was so exciting!  I mean, sure, I was afraid that it would eat me when it was running around, but it was a living, breathing dinosaur!  I’ve never felt so alive!”

  • Memorial and Final Funerals

    Memorial and Final Funerals

    By Buffy Bolivar

    President Obama, Mayor Lawrence, Adonis, and several community leaders helmed the memorial service for the victims of the Dino-Day Disaster after the final funeral service.

    The death total reached 92 last week, and all missing citizens have been found.  The final funeral service was held this morning for Gabby Martinez, 32, who died in a collapsed building in Frankton.

    The memorial service was held at Two Rivers Park, near the World War II Memorial.  Pastor Albert Grinds opened up the service with a prayer and a hymn, and he was followed by several other religious and spiritual leaders.  Adonis followed with a short speech praising the virtues of heroism in the face of evil.  “Robert Plank was a bank teller during the day,” he said, “but when turned into an ankylosaurus and surrounded by the Dino Army, he protected his coworkers and the small children in the daycare next door.  He saved their lives, and it cost him his.  That is true heroism.”

    Mayor Lawrence spoke next, promising that New Romford will come back from this tragedy, bigger and better than ever.  Local singer, Shannon McKelvey, sung a song she wrote for the occasion, “Remember the Way”, and then the President ended the memorial with his own speech.

    “In this world of monsters and supervillains,” he said, “we cannot back down in fear of what may happen.  We must act in courage and hope, each and every day.  Tragedy will always be around the next corner, but we must be ready to face it when it comes.”

    A moment of silence followed the President’s speech, and then the National Guard rang a bell ten times to end the memorial.

  • Mic-D Benefit Concert Thrills and Spills

    Mic-D Benefit Concert Thrills and Spills

    Mic-D file photo

    By Julia Crumpleman

    WHITE VALLEY – The Mic-D benefit concert for the victims of the Dino-Day Disaster, nicknamed #Mic-DDD on Twitter, went off without much of a hitch.  Until Mic-D came onstage.

    The benefit concert lasted five hours out at the Marias Amphitheatre outside of White Valley.  The venue was not damaged during the DDD as it was outside the radius of the Dino-Ray.  Over 20 musical acts and special guests were there to raise money for the victims of the DDD.  Beyoncé and Jay-Z performed a duet, U2 played a song with Coldplay, and Miley Cyrus twerked her hardest, all paying homage to the victims and their families.

    The main event, though, was the clone of Mic-D performing five songs for the first time on American soil.  The U.S. ban on clones is still in effect, but the Obama Administration made an exception for this case.

    Initially, Mic-D didn’t disappoint.  He performed his first three songs perfectly.  The crowd seemed to have forgotten that he was a clone of a dead man created by his best friend with or without consent from his family.  But when he started performing his fourth song, “D-Lite City,” things started to get sloppy according to those in the front row of the concert.

    “OMG,” said @AerostarMonk on Twitter, “Mic-D is gushing goo from his legs!  #GOO  #Mic-GOO #Mic-DDD”

    “Mic-D is spilling out of his pants, yo!” said @twittername2, on Twitter.  “It’s green and it’s everywhere!  I think I swallowed some!!  #Mic-DDD”

    Event organizers cut the feed as soon as Mic-D started to spill green goo from his legs, and with the broadcast on a tape delay to prevent any mishaps, it never actually made it to air.  But that didn’t stop dozens of people from tweeting pictures of it.  For legal reasons, we cannot show you the pictures, but we have seen them.

    “I don’t even know what that was,” said @LuluGumshoe, who live-tweeted the experience.  “At one point, he’s fine, the next, GREEN GOO EVERYWHERE.  It was like a pair of valves on the back of his legs or ass sprung a leak.  It was GUSHING.”

    “His handlers came out and dragged [him] offstage,” she continued.  “He seemed to go limp.  I guess green goo keeps him alive.”

    Mic-D’s handlers declined to comment on anything, even the health hazard to anyone who came in contact with the green goo.  Several concert-goers reported being sprayed with the goo and not getting much help from the event organizers.  No one has reported any illness so far.

    “This is why you don’t let no clones into your concerts,” said Kanye West, who was upset that he wasn’t invited to perform.  “You go for the real deal, and you get a real show, yo.  Green goo just don’t cut it.  I’m filled with real goo!”

  • Tanya Morales Refuses Cybernetics to Become Advocate for Disabled

    Tanya Morales Refuses Cybernetics to Become Advocate for Disabled

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    By Julia Crumpleman

    Wealthy socialite, Tanya Morales, daughter of famous actor Antonio Morales, is known more for late-night exploits than her social awareness.  But the Dino-Day Disaster changed all that as she explained to Oprah Winfrey for a special on OWN.

    “I was turned into a stegosaurus,” Morales said, “and I was stuck in my apartment on the 56th floor of the Walton Tower.  I was so big that I couldn’t go down the stairs or the elevator, so I was stuck.”  Along with hundreds of other people inside Walton Tower, Morales had to remain in her apartment until she was changed back into a human.  Unfortunately, all the extra weight from her and the other people had destabilized the beams below her, and the floor collapsed.

    “I fell down about 10-15 stories,” she said, “but it felt like 100 stories.  I landed on a pile of people (still dinosaurs), and then we were really stuck.  Every time one of us tried to move, we could hear something creek, like another beam was about to give way.”  A few of the smaller people were able to squeeze out, she said, and thankfully, they landed on the 40th floor.  Every 20th story in the Walton Tower, and in most skyscrapers in New Romford, is reinforced with titanium, by law, to prevent further collapsing for cases such as this.  “Still, we didn’t really know that,” she said.  “We were all so scared to move because we didn’t know what was going to happen.”

    The collapse happened late in the night of the DDD, and by morning, they had turned back to human.  But unbeknownst to them, they were supporting several beams with their added weight and mass, and when they lost that, the beams came falling down on them.  Luckily, no one died in the Walton Tower, but everyone was critically injured.  Morales’s legs were pinned down under a beam.  Rescue robots were able to get her and everyone else to safety, but when she arrived at the hospital, Morales’s legs were horribly infected.  They had to be amputated to save her life.

    “I just cried and cried,” she said with tears flowing from her eyes.  “I just never thought something like this could happen to me.”  Amputation turned out to be a common procedure in the wake of the DDD.  239 people had to have at least one limb amputated.  At New Romford General Hospital, where most of the amputations took place, including her own, Morales saw the toll it took on families less privileged than her own.

    “I am blessed,” she said.  “My family is wealthy, and we can afford to buy cybernetics to replace my legs.  I could very easily get the latest model and walk and run and be stronger than I ever was.  But I just couldn’t do it.  Cybernetic limbs are incredibly expensive.  They cost at least half a million dollars for one limb, and then there’s the lifetime maintenance and repair costs that push it up into the millions.  I was in the hospital for a week, and I got to know my fellow amputees, and I just couldn’t get cybernetics and walk out of there.  I just couldn’t do it.”

    Instead, much to the chagrin of her parents, Morales decided to not only refuse cybernetics, but to refuse prosthetics of any kind.  “Normal prosthetics are useful, but they don’t allow the user to have the sensation to touch or feel temperature,” she said.  “And that’s important for people, important for them to feel whole again, or at least as whole as they can.  We’re in such a technologically advanced society that we should be working to make cybernetics more accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy and superheroes.”

    Because of that, Morales is starting a new foundation, The Cybernetics Project, with the sole intent of pushing for cheaper cybernetics by developing new technologies and reducing supply costs.  The Cybernetics Project already has the backing of New Romford University, ATOM Labs, Dr. Amazing, and Thomas McDowell, who will be the primary benefactor.  “I’m humbled to have so much support for my foundation,” said Morales.  “This project is now my life’s goal, and I will work hard every day to make cybernetics cheaper for everyone.”

    As for her legs, Morales sees them as a symbol.  “Being confined to a wheelchair has been incredibly difficult for me,” she said, “and I’ve only been in one for a few weeks, but it’s given me perspective.  This world, and in particular this city, was built for able-bodied people.  But I still plan on living my life.  Wherever I go, I’ll always be advocating for the disabled, and my legs will be a remainder to everyone of that.  And until my foundation reaches its goal, I will remain in my wheelchair.”