As Sobek had predicted, his 'stunt' didn't go unnoticed. The internet was a powerful means of communication and allowed people to talk to each other even while they were on opposite sides of the planet. Before the sun had even risen, hundreds and hundreds of videos had appeared throughout Odaria showing a mass assault of talking dinosaurs.

And not only in Odaria: in fact, in Cartago there were also people from other parts of the world. Numerous foreign businessmen and investors were in the area at the time of the attack, and their Internet was not bound by Odaria's restrictions.

Of course, very few people believed the images they saw. The vast majority were convinced that they were fake videos. The Odaria government did not hesitate to use that excuse to deflect suspicion.

The nation's leading heads of state feared in the enormous economic consequences that would follow the discovery of intelligent dinosaurs. So, to avoid the scandal, they passed off the videos as a misunderstanding: according to their explanation, in reality what the authors of those videos had taken were scenes from a film that was being shot in Cartago, and which unfortunately due to a unexpected misunderstanding people had mistaken it for reality. In this way, the Odaria government was sure they could buy some time, since their explanation was expert in the matter: the videos were actually authentic, but what they had filmed was fake.

Unfortunately, however, keeping this lie up was not at that easy. The videos could be explained, but the silence not. The family members of the people who were in Cartago had begun to wonder why their phone calls weren't being answered. Furthermore, everyone noticed that the road to the colony had been closed. This obviously made the governments of other nations quite suspicious; of course they did not think that intelligent dinosaurs really existed, but they suspected that Odaria was trying to cover up an incident of continental proportions.

There were few events that could justify the closure of a territory on such a large scale, and one of them was nuclear emergencies. Although the atomic bomb had not yet made its appearance on Eden, atomic energy had already been discovered. However, the creation of a nuclear power plant was tightly controlled by the NMWA, since it wasn't considered a safe energy: a single mistake could cause the reactor to collapse and devastate huge territories. Although the chances of such an accident were very low, people tended to be suspicious of nuclear power since even on Eden, as on Earth, there had been some disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima that had ruined the lives of dozens of thousands of people and turned whole areas of the planet into a radioactive wasteland.

Therefore, according to NMWA rules, all nuclear power plants in the world had to be publicly declared, so that the NMWA could make sure that everything was build in the right way, with all the necessary security measures. But of course, as in all things, there were also people or nations who preferred to do things in secret, so as to be able to harness the power of uranium while saving on security costs. Clearly, a third world nation ruled by wealthy criminals like Odaria would not hesitate to take this route if it discovered a uranium deposit in its territory. The governments of other nations therefore suspected that Odaria had secretly built a nuclear power plant near Cartago and that it had collapsed causing a disaster, and that now the local government was desperately trying to deflect suspicions by spreading fake videos.

The Odaria government obviously knew about these speculations, and therefore knew that they had to find a solution quickly. However, for the first time in History, no one actually knew what to do. Normally, at the question 'what should we do?' there would always be someone who would come forward and propose a solution, whether it was based on logic or not. But for the first time ever, humanity was confronted with an enemy that it never faced: a completely different species, countless generations away in the tree of evolution.

How to handle someone whose thoughts you don't even know? As far as they knew, dinosaurs could have a completely different logic and morality than humans. For all they knew, they could have conquered Cartago just because they were bored and they really had no good reason to do it but have fun.

However, the Odaria's government couldn't postpone the matter forever. Something must be done. However, it wasn't a choiche that they can take. Odaria's political class was just the puppet of the millionaires of the country. They were the one who takes the decision, the government just had to wait and obey.

So the heads of the families of the nation's largest financial groups met in great secrecy. The meeting took place in the villa of Billy Kimber, the richest man in the country, three days after the capture of Cartago.

When all the heads of the families were gathered, Kimber began: "Gentlemen, we all know the situation. Three days ago the laws of nature were mysteriously twisted and our colony collapsed. Currently, according to the army reports, no life forms have tried to cross the border, but we do not know how long this will last. Many in the military's top brass think that if dinosaurs have taken over one city, it's only a matter of time before they overstep our borders and take over more. And even if they don't, all of our profits from the colony, which now account for almost 60% of our economy, will be lost. We have to take a decision, and now. Our government affiliates are only waiting for our opinion to take action. So, what we want to do?"

"Is there anything to ask?" the one that speak was Oswald Mosley, the owner of the entire Odaria transport industry. "Let's attack them. Let's tear them apart one by one"

"We don't even know if we can win" an old man, Jimmy McCarven, the owner of the shipping industry, noted.

"They are just animals. What do you expect them to do?" Mosley snarled. "Cartago fell because they had practically no one to defend it, but our army will not suffer the same fate. Based on satellite images, we exceed them by two, perhaps three times in number"

"Mr.Mosley is right" someone said.

"Right, right!"

"I agree"

"Let's just attack!"

Obviously, most of the people at the meeting were in favor of a direct attack. However, there were also few against. "If we attack, the dinosaurs will probably kill the hostages" noted Markus Jersey, Jocelyne's father, who being one of the richest men in the nation was present at the meeting. "I propose to go down to negotiations"

"Ah! To negotiate? With animals? Come on" Mosley laughed. "Do you really expect them to turn out to be reasonable beings? Go back to the real world. As for eliminating the hostages... no important businessman from our country is there, so the people in Cartago have no value. Indeed, by killing them they will only do us one favor: the dead tell no stories. We will be able to pass it all off as a natural disaster, for example an earthquake, and no one will ever know what happened there"

Of course, in an oligarchic nation like Odaria, the common thought was that only the rich had value. Since there were only ordinary people in Cartago, it was useless to worry about their fate. What about foreign businessmen and entrepreneurs? Who cares, they would find others.

Markus gritted his teeth and was about to reply, but Kimber stopped him: "Let's put the proposal to a vote. Who is in favor of an attack?"

More than three-quarters of the people present at the meeting raised their hands. The numerical superiority was overwhelming. "Very well" Kimber said. "So be it. Contact our political friends and get them to mobilize the army"

Markus lowered his head furiously. A massacre would take place, but no one seemed to care.

********

Jackson returned to Jocelyne's room out of breath, not even bothering to knock: "Miss, your father has returned from the meeting"

Normally the girl would have been enraged if someone had entered her room without permission, but right now she didn't have the energy. Not with what was happening. "So? What did they decide?"

"I overheard a conversation he had with your mother. I couldn't figure out much, but it looks like they're going to send in the army to retake the city," Jackson replied. "Miss, please allow me to go get Abe back. If I leave now, I can reach Cartago and be back well before the army mobilizes..."

"And what are you going to do once there? Do you really think you can sneak into the city? The dinosaurs are not stupid, they will have taken their precautions. From the satellite images it seems impossible to enter without being noticed"

"But..."

"No 'buts', Oz. Stop thinking like a brother and start thinking like a soldier. You have no chance of going down there, the only result you'll get is making me lose another loyal fighter"

Jackson closed his mouth with an expression somewhere between furious and cross. He knew what Jocelyne was saying was all true, but it was still hard to resign. "So... what do we do?"

Jocelyne sighed. Yeah, what to do? She had puzzled over this question from the moment she learned of what had happened in Cartago, but she could not find an answer. The situation seemed to be collapsing minute by minute. "If I know the heads of families well, there is nothing we can do to prevent them from sending the army over there. Asking for help would be exposing to the world what is happening here, with consequent economic damage, and negotiating is not something those they will be arrogant, not if they think they can solve the problem immediately at least. Unfortunately, from the information we have, it seems that the dinosaurs are weaker than our army, and for this very reason the heads of families have chosen to attack"

"Don't you think so?"

"I'm sure that's not the case. I'm more than sure that dinosaurs have a lot of tricks up their sleeves. No intelligent creature would attack a human settlement knowing the consequences if it weren't able to repel our armies. And since from what we know it's impossible that dinosaurs don't know the consequences, it is obvious that they expect an attack and that they are sure to win it" Jocelyne shook her head. "Let's resign ourselves, at the moment we can't do anything. At least, this battle will give us the opportunity to evaluate the strength of the dinosaurs, or at least to get an idea of it. In the meantime, give the order to prepare an aircraft"

"A plane, miss?"

"Yes, to get out of here if things go badly. I don't know how the dinosaurs will react to our attack. Personally, I don't think they intend to attack us immediately, because otherwise they would have already done so; it wouldn't make sense for them to wait. But we also have to prepare for the worst case scenario. For all we know, they might just want a casus belli"

'Casus belli' was an expression which meant 'reason to wage war'. Basically, it was an excuse to declare war on someone. A kind of joke that only served to keep themselves beautiful in front of the world and future generations, who could not have accused their predecessors that the war was unjust.

Jackson gulped. "Miss... do you think there will be a war?"

Jocelyne shrugged. "That's your father's guess, not mine. But since he's got it right so far, do you really think he won't be right in the future?"

Jackson lowered his head. "I get it. I'll make sure a plane is always ready for you and your family. If things go badly, I'll personally fly you out of this country" she said, then walked out. Jocelyne was left alone in her room, with nothing but thoughts of her to keep her company.

A war? It was a chilling prospect. It would have been the first conflict humanity would have fought after a hundred years of peace. No nation was truly prepared for a full-scale war. On the contrary, the dinosaurs were most likely ready. And even if humanity had been able to win, it would have been destroyed economically, socially and politically. It was even possible that the NMWA would crumble and tensions that hadn't been able to explode in the last hundred years would re-emerge leading nations to new internecine wars, all while the disappearance of animals and plants would lead to a global famine. No matter how many scenarios she imagined, she could only see the downfall of human civilization in the near future.

The problem was, she was sure dinosaurs would seek war. Not only the humans, as Robert Oz put it, were their common enemy, but even by ignoring each other they would end up ruining the dinosaurs' environment with pollution and global warming. It was as if between two farmers who already couldn't stand each other, one of them had installed a sewage pipe on his land that discharged all the waste into the other's land, polluting it and killing all the plants. Peace was simply impossible.

Jocelyne put her head in her hands. There had to be something, anything, she could do to avoid war, or at least postpone it a bit.

'Stop hiding'

"Again? Easier said than done!" she exclaimed as she heard that voice in her head for the umpteenth time. "Besides, what am I hiding from? What am I supposed to do!?"

But obviously there was no one in the room who could give her an answer. There was only her and her confusion.

*************

At the end of the week, the army was ready. Since the heads of the families wanted to settle the matter quickly, they had sent every available platoon, except for those essential to national defense.

The army consisted of ninety thousand heavily armed soldiers, at least a hundred tanks, various heavy weapons and even some armed helicopters. Odaria wasn't a superpower and didn't possess military aircraft or a large number of vehicles, but the numerical superiority over the dinosaurs was still overwhelming.

The human army set out as soon as it was ready. Commanding it was general Davies, a renowned officer very famous in Odaria for his fight against terrorism.

It took the army five days to cross the desert. An army, after all, moved much slower than a single man. At dawn on the sixth day, the profile of the city of Cartago appeared before their eyes.