How'd I become an industrial spy? I try to infiltrate a power plant--maybe nuke, certainly exotic tech. My bosses suspect it's a den of Mad Science. True! The guard who catches me isn't the usual wacko mad to glue dino bones together on the floor to reconnect skeletons full. Too dull. No, he's out to resurrect Rex! To Frankenstein dem bones, clone T. reck- lessly to life. Near-there! Already he can turn spies like me into dog-size dinos. Test cases for Tyrannosaur. He zaps me in the Clonotron. Ow! New colors burn in my sharp bird eyes. Bright feathers, scales. I roam the plant, a guardogosaur. And find an instant friend! Chirp, chat, wag feathered tails. Run and play! Odd--the Paleo calls that guard "he", yet (though I'm a dinewsaur) I know a she when I see. Aha! The script will make us two the Love Interests! Delights me--and not just for her sake--ooh, my girl's a feathered saur!-- But too, spy films don't kill lovers; can't let down the romantic crowd! And the plot'll bow to humanocentrism too; Rubes identify with skin! So I know that we'll regain humanity, though only once the lab's in flame; till then we lead crowd-charméd lives! An invulnerable run of dinosaurian... fun.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

Pulp plot, gender-blurred dinosaurs: I just read Passing Strange by Ellen Klages. In the afternotes, she says Margaret Brundage, the pioneer queer SF painter (both SFs: San Francisco and science fiction!) painted nearly 100 pulp magazine covers; lurid masterpieces for a pittance. But she had fun painting babes and scaly alien sex... and they paid the rent and kept her independent.

Temporarily invulnerable: not from Passing Strange (gays in 1940s America were profoundly vulnerable) but a kids' book by Ursula Vernon, Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible. Harriet bears a deadly curse: to fall into a century-long sleep when she hits twelve. But she figures out that guarantees survival to twelve! Harriet tests it--fights dragons and giants, jumps off cliffs... Leveraging your capital is one thing, leveraging your curse is inspired. Ha! And my dream liked it enough to give me a taste. Dino for a day. Well, night.

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