Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The procession that made its way through the ARC's hallway draw the stares of practically every member of the staff, including Nick Cutter and his crew: after all, it isn't everyday that the head panjandrum, James Lester himself, would be leading a military team – and judging from the smell, this team had come forth straight from the sewers. That, and the fact that one of the soldiers was being covered on a stretcher, obviously quite alive, but hurt equally as seriously, was enough to make all the assembled people to realize that today had been no ordinary day for the ARC's leader.

As usual, it was Nick Cutter who took the lead in asking his superior (bureaucratically speaking) about what was going on.

James Lester gave the other man a stare that would make the basilisk from the Chamber of Mysteries look like a toad, and turned to his other main subordinate, Captain Becker.

"Captain," he said in a voice that clearly suggested that only years of impeccable and unshakable political training prevented Lester from turning onto Cutter like the abovementioned basilisk onto Harry Potter with genuinely similar intent, "please tell professor Cutter about our day, including, I suppose, your thoughts and opinions regarding his wife, or his ex-wife, or whoever Dr. Helen is in relation to him, got it? Or should I make it into an order instead?"

"Now, there's no need to be rude," the new leader of ARC's military forces muttered back, clearly discomfited by Lester's last remark. "If professor would be so kind-"

"Just what had happened today?" Nick snapped, the fiery side of his Scottish temper coming to the front, brought on, as usual, by the mention of his ex-wife. "Lester, what had Helen done?"

"It was she hadn't done – and she hadn't done what you probably think that she did," Becker tried to explain, but upon seeing Nick's rapidly purpling face and Lester's own angrily flushed one, changed his tactics and began to rapidly tell about today's misbegotten events.

...It had started innocently enough, with most of the ARC's staff away on various Christmas or Hanukah or Kwanza or whatever holidays, and only few select members were on watchmen duty, being mostly occupied with keeping an eye or an ear out for the time anomaly alarm, finally back online after several days of hard work by Connor Temple. The only exemption – for real – was James Lester himself, busy interviewing the latest newcomer to the ARC team - Captain Becker.

"As you are ought to understand, captain," the civil servant was explaining to the military man, "the hours of the ARC are non-standard and practically entirely dependent on the anomaly alarm that you can see is currently inactive-"

If James Lester had been cueing his speech, he wouldn't be able to ask for a better time for the alarm to activate, sounding its sirens all over the ARC. Conversely, though, it could have been far worse, if there'd been more people at the ARC at that hour – their current numbers essentially prevented them from running around like a crowd of headless chickens, allowing Lester some saving grace in the current situation.

"Well! As you can see," Lester continued as smoothly as he could, with missing nary a beat, "we just have had your first time anomaly alarm. I daresay that we will be able to scrounge up some of your new underlings and investigate it on our own."

"Wouldn't we need scientists of some sort?" Becker's own attitude was rather more sceptical than Lester's own. "In case we need to figure out what the new critter in question is?"

"Nonsense," Lester shook his head, even as he attentively looked over the map of London that showed the new site of the time anomaly. "I know this place, we had trouble there before – however, since the trouble in question consisted of just some giant spiders and centipedes, I believe that we will be able to take them on without professor Cutter's experienced entomological expertise. Still," Lester paused, "tell the men to take supplies of anti-venom with us. Some of the vermin that we may encounter may be poisonous to humans after all."

Becker looked somewhat sceptically at Lester, but the military habit of following his superiors' lead was too strongly ingrained into him, and consequently he nodded in agreement and went to get the soldiers present on the ARC, telling them to prepare to encounter some poisonous insects. Later on, these preparations would turn into a grotesque joke, but back then it sounded as good advice, as a matter of fact...

...When the small – fewer than two dozen troops – group of soldiers with Lester in the lead arrived at the spot where the time anomaly supposedly was located, Lester's certainty about this being another prehistoric bug infestation grew. This branch of the subway had been closed-off for some time now, not because of the time anomaly opening there in the first time, but due to some urban renovation project. Urban renovation being what it was, this meant that that particular area had been out of operation for a long while, consequently falling into profound disuse, and even more so, the place was so cluttered with all sort of debris and mould, that walking around it was simply disturbing.

On the other hand, it was that debris and mould that gave Lester the first re-assurance that they were on the right track. It was always warmer underground, even during an English winter, but as he and his men moved down the branch, the temperature grew ridiculously, almost subtropically warm, and the mouldy debris got replaced by pieces of rusted or corroded metal covered in mosses and plants that looked like tiny ferns. Insects – not just spiders or centipedes – but real, insects with wings – flew from wall to wall to ceiling or to floor, all of which began to resemble more and more not a man-made tunnel, but a real cavern. Since this was a subway tunnel – at least initially – there were several lesser tunnels branching away on both left and right, but no one in Lester's force felt a need to go in there or investigate.

But even in the main tunnel, as Lester resolutely led his force through it, there were now clear signs that this was not what Lester had expected it to be – besides flying insects (and spiders, and centipedes – but all much smaller than the ones infesting the subway) there were also small frog-like creatures, and various salamanders, and possibly even a lizard or too. Furthermore, the plants grew increasingly tall and luxuriant and there was increasingly more water underfoot as well.

"Mr. Lester?" Becker finally decided to remind his leader that while subordination was a fine thing, it also went in both ways. "What is going on? The insects around here aren't the size that you have talked about-.

A loud, bird-like squawk interrupted what Lester was about to say as a smallish, reptilian head with a crest of feather-like scales emerged from the ferns and glared at the party in a rather forbidding way.

Lester was the first one to recover, as the creature didn't seem to be interesting in doing anything more than to hoot in an apparently warning way. "Well, that is unexpected," he muttered, even as he re-adjusted his tie. "Cutter told me that giant vermin were before the dinosaurs-"

"-and they are, you bureaucratic buffoon," Helen Cutter appeared out of the surrounding darkness in her usual ghostly manner. "This is the Jurassic time period – the giant insects and spiders are long gone, but the dinosaurs are just nearing their zenith. Where's Nick to explain it to you, Lester?"

"Professor Cutter is busy elsewhere tonight," Lester said coldly, as he vividly remembered Helen's role in Leek's failed power coup, and had no intention of letting her get away without a fight. "You two," he gestured to the nearest soldiers, "stop her!"

The two men moved forwards, momentarily forgetting about the dinosaur. That was to be a mistake, as the bird-like reptile suddenly sprinted forwards, jumping onto the nearest man, and starting to maul him in the shoulders, neck and face before anyone else could react.

Surprisingly, Helen reacted and reached the struggling man before anyone else did. Or rather – she reached for the dinosaur that the man was struggling with, and expertly grabbed it by its' throat and forelimbs, putting a choking hold onto it. Within moments, the bird-like reptile stopped struggling and went slack, and Helen Cutter proceeded to tie it up, not unlike a chicken. And then she looked at the others, who were just beginning to make sense out of what had happened and glared at them. "Somebody, get this man wrapped-up or something, before it gets worse," she spoke in a tone that implied that she thought that all others were idiots. "Now, before it gets worse."

As the fallen soldier's partner and other man began to follow Helen's suggestions, exchanging sheepish looks between themselves and their team mates, Becker and Lester got down to Helen's eye level and looked at her.

"What is that thing exactly?" Becker decided to ask a safer question first.

"A dinosaur – not a coelophysis, but one of its later descendants, just don't ask me which one. There are at least three different species running around back in those particular millennia of the Jurassic as a whole, and unlike Nick I do not enough about dinosaurs to fully distinguish one from another. And that brings me to the next topic on the agenda – eggs."

"Whose eggs?"

"Hers. And her mate's," Helen explained, as she briefly retreated into a side tunnel, before returning from it, carrying another, similar dinosaur on her back. "There are approximately a dozen of them in the ferns over there, almost ready to hatch. Since I am going to blow up the tunnel to shut down the time anomaly, I figure that you would want to take this family to your center in order to promote funding or whatever."

Becker blinked. "Why are you blowing up the tunnel? This is a unique opportunity – tell her, Mr. Lester."

"I agree," Lester said flatly, looking at the other two with an almost equal distaste. "Why can't we seal-off the tunnel instead? It worked last time."

"Ah, yes. The one leading to the future," Helen nodded calmly. "You would have poured cement over an open time anomaly, and thus has contaminated the future with it."

"With what?"

"Cement. It would have poured through the time anomaly and into the future. Thank someone that you Leek do it, and I was able to persuade Leek not to use any cement, but rather let me handle the shutting of the time anomaly."

"But there were no explosions."

"No. But that time anomaly wasn't contaminated by anything either."

"Contaminated?" Lester blinked.

"No significant amount of material was able to stay for a prolonged amount of time, pardon the pun, which would have enabled the time anomaly to remain open permanent. For as long as there is, say, dinosaurs in the present, or modern people in the Jurassic, the time anomaly would remain open, and in time – again, pardon the pun – it would affect an ever greater area on the contaminated side. This whole site is still so rather restricted only because it is underground, man-made. If this was a natural cavern complex, or even an open space in the city, by now the spread of the Jurassic through the present would have been felt much more strongly on a much greater area much quicker than it is now."

Lester and Becker exchanged glances. "That's ridiculous!" Lester erupted. "Time does not-"

"Don't tell me what's ridiculous!" Helen grabbed the bureaucrat by the collar and gave pulled him uprights without too much effort. "Look and see for yourself! Over there is the time anomaly, an opening into the Pangaea of the Late Jurassic, complete with giant sauropod dinosaurs and the carnivores that hunt them. You have come here from the present, Holocene London, where...well, I don't really need to explain, now do I? And here is the place where the Jurassic is leaking into the Holocene if you want to get technical, and I dare you prove me wrong!"

"But how does it work? Technically speaking?" Lester gasped.

Abruptly, Helen released Lester with an almost embarrassed look on her face. "Look, technically speaking it is such a complex process that even I, after eight years of studying it cannot describe in a fully technical terms just what is happening here – 'leaking' and 'contamination' are the best terms I can come up with – sad, really. But, on a less terminological point, there's already enough food to sustain these dinosaurs while the allosaurus mother on the other side of the time anomaly hatches her own brood and leaves, enabling them to leave this place as well."

"The allosaurus?" Lester said weakly.

"Yeah. An allosaurus, the T-Rex of the Jurassic. Five times bigger, longer and heavier than these two, quite faster too, especially on short distances, and when it is guarding and hatching its eggs its' maternal instincts and ferocity go into an overdrive, believe me – and these two egg- and hatching-eaters are the perfect catalysts for that allosaurus go berserk."

"The T-Rex of the Jurassic," it was Becker's turn to blink.

"Yeah," Helen shrugged, looking somewhat uncomfortable. "Quicker on its feet, less robust, and with much more efficient foreclaws – unlike the Rex, this angry mother could disembowel you with just one lucky blow. You do not want to go there." Helen shook her head in seemingly genuine concern. "Anyways, the thing is that these smaller dinos are like birds, they got homing instinct or something, and if a place works, they will nest here time and again. This act would increase the influx of the Jurassic into the modern London, and that is something that Lester here doesn't want, correct?"

"Well, yes," Lester said with a wary look. "But why don't you want it? Cutter back at the ARC claims that you want to alter the future and this seems a very good way to do so."

"You and Nick are bonding? That's so sweet," Helen's voice was anything but. "Well, maybe you can tell him about your ex-girlfriend in return. I'm sure Nick'll appreciate it."

Lester blinked. "My ex-girlfriend? What do you know about her?"

"Anyways," Helen shook her head. "My point is that rather having it all drown in cement, I would do it quickly and easily."

"I am afraid that I cannot allow you to do that," Becker shook his head.

"Oh? Captain, the effects of the time anomaly will soon reach the active part of the tube and then it won't be so easy to conceal anymore."

"Yes ma'am, we fully understand that," Becker nodded back equally solemnly. "However, we're in charge of it, not you." He paused to see if Helen was challenging him, but the time traveller was just looking at him in a curious way, so he continued. "Furthermore, if worse comes to worse, we'll blow this place up ourselves – and we're professionals at doing that, you're not."

"And doesn't Lester over there have any say in your sentence?"

"We'll talk about it at the ARC – I'd invite you too, but obviously..."

"Fair enough," Helen nodded in reply, as she turned to leave. "Two last warnings, captain. Firstly, I am not your friend, and so do not expect our future conversations to be as civil as this one. And secondly, that land in time would become a part of the USA, not England, so you better watch your step, or you'll create an international incident on top of everything else that you have or will have. That is all."

"Acknowledge," Becker nodded, as Helen quietly vanished into a side tunnel. No one tried to stop her, but Lester turned to his new unruly subordinate, clearly determined to give him a piece of his mind.

"Sir, not here," Becker forestalled the upcoming rant. "She's quite good and may be listening in on us as we speak. Let's discuss this back at the ARC, where professor Cutter – the other professor Cutter, I suppose – will be present to give us good advice."

..."And so we returned here, after leaving about a dozen people guarding the place," Becker finished, as Lester seethed quietly. "And professor, sorry to drop this on you so soon after the Christmas celebrations, but if you and your team would go there with us next time to estimate and double-check what your ex-wife told us, well..." he trailed off, clearly uncomfortable talking about it.

"Of course, but isn't it Lester's call?" Nick said, hesitantly.

"Nick, everybody, about that," Jenny began, hesitant and shaky herself, but with a somewhat impish look in her eyes all the same. "Before our little private Christmas get together, I received a memo that I was supposed to tell you, but I guess I forgot-"

At that moment, the entrance door to the ARC opened wide and in walked another woman, one that was so very painfully familiar to one of the ARC's members.

"Mr. Lester – you have been demoted," Jenny finished with a semi-concealed smirk.

"Hello, James," the newcomer nodded coolly, a wicked smirk of her own barely concealed on her lips. "Long time no see, eh?"

James Lester's anguished cry shook the snow of ARC's roof.

End.

Chapter Text

As Lester's bellow of outrage hit especially high notes and began to bounce off the ARC's walls and ceiling, Jenny Lewis muffled her own annoyance: did this fine holiday evening have to be ruined by Helen Cutter again?

Unlike Nick or the others, Jenny didn't feel any particular outrage towards the other woman because of some high principles – sure, her actions did cause Stephen to die (something that Jenny couldn't forgive in a hurry, for Stephen did save her at least once, from a future shark), but yet Jenny's primary feeling towards Helen was annoyance. Jenny was simply annoyed that Nick's ex just didn't have the good sense to give-up Nick-

Well, maybe actually she did, but Stephen clearly had some feelings towards Nick of his own (though not those feelings, hopefully), a fact that caused a lot of problems for all three of them... as well as others.

Not that Jenny, of course, would admit that fact to Nick – for all of his practicality and Scottish thrift, Nick was quite ideological, and after all the trouble that Jenny went through to get to this point, she had no intention of letting Nick believe that she didn't share his ideology. Maybe it was a mistake, but Jenny had had her fill of single life and was planning on getting married (to Nick) before the start of the next decade.

"Uh, Jenny, do you know her?" Connor, meanwhile, was asking her sotto voce. "'Cause I don't think that it's a good idea to ask Lester – or anyone else – at this point."

"I think her name is Christine Johnson, but Lorraine probably knows more about her among the ARC staff, outside of Lester. I think her references to our new boss were considerably less than flattering."

As Jenny was saying this to Connor, they and their co-workers kept an eye on the arguing pair, thus when the aforementioned Christine stopped arguing with Lester, they were partially prepared and quickly snapped to attention when their new boss whirled towards them, an official smile of a political predator already on her face.

"Hello, professor – Cutter, is it?" she said in a rather smug version of casual politeness. "From the files on the Center I developed the idea that you were in charge of the field operations in this place."

"Precisely, and we've just received notification from Mr. Lester that we might undertake a big one very soon – tonight, practically," Nick nodded, cautiously. This woman reminded him a fair bit of several wives of his colleagues – too much personal power, very little restraint and fewer ideas about the proper usage of that power. "So, if you don't mind, I and my team ought to leave now to figure out how to deal with it."

"Of course, of course," the smile didn't waver one bit and neither did the very emotionless gaze behind it. "Still, now that I'm in charge of the ARC I expect to be notified of the new developments in your mission."

"Certainly," Nick nodded, and began to carefully follow the others after Captain Becker, looking almost apologetically in Lester's direction. Clearly, the civil worker's initial less than a grand adventure was transforming now into something that was even worse.

"So, meet the new boss – the same as the old boss, only worse," Connor shivered in the crisp air not so much from the physical cold as from the mental apprehension. "Honestly, where does our government dig out these women? She reminded me a bit of my old English teacher – only more so, and not in such a good way."

"I hear you," Abby nodded, grudgingly, not overly happy about this new development herself. "Have you seen how she was staring at Nick? The last thing we need is to have the gender card here played out - in a grand game of self-denial, too."

"Abby? What are you talking about?" Nick carefully turned to the young blonde. "This Johnson woman-"

"People, can we not talk about it, please?" Jenny spoke up sharper than how she intended to sound. "Captain, can you tell us anything about the time anomaly or its site?"

"Mr. Lester has already told you everything, and I don't have too much to add," the Special Forces' man shrugged apologetically. "Mrs. Cutter was... talkative enough to share that that time was late Jurassic, 150 million years ago, and the place was North America – the US in our day. That's pretty much it, though there was a mention of an allosaurus and its nest, if I remember the name correctly."

"Yes, yes you do," Nick nodded, his thoughts now clearly occupied more with dinosaurs and other animals (and possibly plants) of the late Jurassic. "And we will certainly try to sneak a peek at that place, with all due precautions, of course. But speaking of nests – what about the other nest, you know the one that Helen helped you to secure?"

"Honestly, we re-released the dinosaurs, to our embarrassment," Becker sighed. "We didn't want to abandon the eggs in the nest to fate – Mr. Lester was sure that you'd give us ten shades of Hell otherwise – and we were also sure that the eggs won't last long in this weather either, so, we re-released the smallish dinosaurs, and left a pair of guards at 'our' end to keep an eye on them. Not that I think that it's likely, the smell of metal, oil, rubber and whatnot should be sufficient to discourage any prehistoric animals to venture into our world."

"Don't be too sure about this," Nick shook his head. "Dinosaurs – especially carnivorous dinosaurs – were more like birds than mammals; namely, they relied on sight and hearing much more than on their smell."

"What about the cold weather that we're currently having? The breezes going down the tunnel can be quite chilly, you know?"

"That could work," Connor spoke up before Nick did, "but still, I'm sure that we'll be able to handle anything, no matter what!"

The young man was clearly excited about the new development in the ARC's career, and Nick, for one, could hardly blame him. However, when Becker's men appeared to greet them, the initial good mood began to sour with suspicion.

"Sir," the rightmost of Becker's man saluted him sharply. "The professor and – company, we presume?" he added, almost immediately.

"That's right," Becker nodded, equally sharp. "Now, what is going on here? Your position was much further down the abandoned subway tunnel, no?"

"Yes, sir, but there was something in the air – nothing that we could see, no, but there it was, all the same, you know?" the Special Forces' man was clearly discomfited by his admission, yet he, and the other members of his team, did not back down either. "We thought it would be prudent to move some distance away from the sight of the disturbance and keep a look-out out here."

"Right," Becker clearly didn't believe his men. "We'll talk about this later. Right now, I got to show professor Cutter and his people the time anomaly's site-" he entered the abandoned subway proper, and froze.

"What?" Nick asked with a mixture of curiosity, impatience and concern in his voice, and then he joined Becker, and saw...

...a massive hole in the tunnel wall, roughly the circumference of a similar subway tunnel, but the stone around it aged, partially crumbling into dust, partially covered with mosses and lichens. Before the hole was a small pile of dust, dirt, rust and soil, from which several horsetail plants grew. They were pale and sickly, but they were there.

"This wasn't here when we left. The plants and everything else began at least 4 meters from the start of this tunnel," Becker said slowly, "not straight away."

"Interesting," Connor carefully edged forwards and began to examine the entrance to the tunnel and the immediate vicinity to it. "The rails close to this hole seem to be much more aged and rusted than away from it." He turned towards Nick and the others. "You think that Helen may've had a point when she suggested that the Jurassic was taking over our world?"

"I am not sure," Nick admitted reluctantly, clearly unwilling to discuss Helen in any positive way, but also unable to invent any counter explanations to this apparent development. "The time anomalies we've been dealing with before – they're quite different from this. Maybe it's what time anomalies can evolve into, unless they're closed first."

"Mmm, perhaps, but shall we phone Lester and talk to him about the concrete?" Abby asked, feeling slightly nervous, for once.

"Firstly, you forgot that we've got a new boss," Nick said, unhappily, "and secondly, let's at least sneak a look there – real live dinosaurs' nests! That is something that must not be ignored! It is an opportunity that we must take advantage of! People – follow me!"

Without hesitation, Nick walked over to the hole, stepped through it, and continued to walk. Very quickly he vanished in that opening.

The others exchanged looks. "Well, what're we waiting for?" Connor spoke, mostly in Abby's direction. "Everybody, follow Nick!"

Becker looked askance at Jenny, who stared back impassively. "Captain, professor Cutter is the leader of the ARC's field team – I expect you to follow his orders... after establishing a back-up team as well. See you on the other side!"

Resolutely, Jenny turned around and entered the supposed (and mutated) time anomaly. Becker and his people soon followed suit.

Unnoticed by everybody, cracks and primitive plants continued to spread through the subway tunnel's walls, and the circular spot on the floor continued to grow in diameter.

The insides of the tunnel struck Jenny with darkness and warmth – after the rather chilly London, this was almost stifling and almost – unnatural?

"Guys," Jenny's voice shook despite her best efforts. "Where are you?"

"Hush! We're down here," Abby whispered in reply, "so bend down, please, as well!"

Feeling even more worried and confused, Jenny complied, nonetheless, bent down. "What is it?" she whispered quietly.

"Look!" Abby continued to whisper. "Over there!"

Jenny looked, and stared at several small, bipedal dinosaurs that were staring back at them... before running a small distance away from them and re-starting to feed on various smallish plants that grew here in a quite substantial quantity.

"Who are those guys?" Jenny could hear Connor whisper to Nick. "I thought that they appeared later, in the Cretaceous – the Jurassic was the time of the true titans!"

"You forget about such species as othnelia and dryosaurus," Jenny heard Nick whisper in reply. "Small, bipedal ornithischian dinosaurs already existed in the Jurassic, and we can see them right now!"

Suddenly, there was a loud, crashing sound from further down from the whatever place Nick and others found themselves in. "You want to take a look?" Jenny asked, aware that Nick most likely did.

"Yes," Nick eagerly confirmed her fears. "Connor, Abby, are you with us?"

The younger couple nodded, eagerly.

"Becker, are you and your men prepared? Good, then carefully, follow my lead-"

And Nick led the way out of the semi-tunnelar, semi-cavernous space.

Outside of that space, Jenny was blinded for pretty much the second time in less than twenty-four hours – this time from the bright sunlight. Moreover, the climate out here was even hotter and wetter than inside of the whatever they had been lurking – and then there were the dinosaurs.

There were three of them, and even Jenny, whose lessons in palaeontology were really very, very small, could identify those creatures as stegosaurs – maybe even the stegosauruses, and these dinosaurs were very, very busy.

Two of the aforementioned giant reptiles (each one was roughly 8 or 9 meters) in length were... standing on their hind legs, pressing their shoulders and torsos against each other, trying to topple each other over. Their tails, terminated with 2 pairs of razor-sharp spikes, longer than human arms, were thrashing in the dirt, creating those loud crashes that the ARC field team has heard over.

The third stegosaur was smaller, somewhat drabber in coloration, and was waiting some distance away from the fighting pair with an almost bashful expression on its muzzle.

"A mating fight! Remarkable!" Nick exclaimed, perhaps a bit louder than Jenny would've liked – if those titans would decide that they posed a threat and charged, then probably even Becker and his men would not be able to stop them, not without some casualties anyways.

Becker, meanwhile, had other things on his mind. "Professor?" he asked quietly, after walking over to Nick. "Why are those birds flocking behind that hillock?"

"Those aren't birds – they are pterosaurs, rhamphorhynchid pterosaurs, if you want to get technical, though probably not rhamphorhynchus itself, for that specie lived closer to the sea coasts," Nick spoke, still in his full professor mode. "Then again, so did its cousins – the other Jurassic pterosaurs."

"So, does it mean that over there is the sea coast?" Becker wasn't backing down. "'Cause the feel of this land does not come off particularly coastal."

"Oh, very well, we might as well go there and take a look," Nick reluctantly admitted.

As a matter of fact, the hillock with the pterosaurs was some distance away from the competing stegosaurs, through a copse of truly titanic trees.

"Are these sequoias?" Jenny felt like she had to ask.

"Cycads, most likely, or perhaps even tree ferns – not true trees at all," Connor, whom she had been addressing, responded eagerly. "Did you notice their immense height? The odds are that they had reached that height to outmanoeuvre the main herbivores of these times – the sauropod dinosaurs, like camarasaurus, and diplodocus, and-"

The growl did not sound particularly thunderous, but it was continuous and more than a little bit ominous. Slowly, Jenny, and Connor and others turned around – and faced a meat-eating dinosaur.

The carnivore was 12 meters long, and stood on its hind limbs, which reached 3 or 4 meters high. The forelimbs were shorter, but armed with claws that appeared to be made for disembowelling prey such as people, and its eyes, located beneath protruding crests that were much more brightly coloured than the rest of the body, shone with all the friendliness of a crocodile, albeit increased in proportion with the rest of the body.

"Allosaurus," Becker said flatly. "And Mrs. Cutter had warned about its nest being nearby."

"Oh, shut up," Nick spat out. "Try to tranquilize it first – maybe we'll be able to get away before it charges-"

The allosaurus charged. Becker and the other soldiers raised their rifles to shoot, but the allosaurus was already... beyond them, charging around the hillock's bend, its' tail whipping up a storm.

"...Well, that was a lucky break," Becker spoke after several long moments of silence, when it became obvious that the carnivore was not returning to them for a re-match. "Let's just sneak one more peek at the fighting herbivores and leave before another carnivore tries to take a bite at us, shall we?"

"Becker, where's your sense of adventure? I promise we take one last look as to what lies behind this copse and hill, and then we'll leave," Nick said brightly. "Everybody, though, be on the alert!"

As a matter of fact, this was good advice, for if the party had walked around the hillock in their former, carefree style, they would've been in for a nasty surprise. The allosaurus from the araucaria copse was indeed there, and it was busy confronting a pair of smaller carnivores, each one possessing a horny ridge on the upper part of their snouts, over a corpse of another large stegosaur.

"Ceratosaurs," Nick exhaled. "More primitive carnivores – they went extinct about this time."

However, these two particular ceratosaurs were clearly unaware of that state of affair. Instead, they confronted the allosaurus (which was twice as long as either of them), their jaws snapping and their long teeth flashing in the sunlight.

"Take a look at the ceratosaurs' teeth," Nick advised his team-mates, "see how disproportionally long they are? This key feature was kept later on in the descendants of the ceratosaurs – the abelisaurs of South America and Africa in the Cretaceous. Here, though, in North America, the ceratosaur dinosaurs went extinct-"

At that moment, the allosaurus roared again – and this time its cry was echoed by several similar responses. Immediately, the ceratosaurs stopped their face-off and fled, followed by the bigger carnivore.

"So, the carnivorous dinosaurs of these times hunt in pairs or packs," Connor gulped, as the land began to tremble beneath several pairs of powerful legs and bird-like feet. "No offense, but how are we not going to be caught in their way?"

"Through there, I suppose?" Abby pointed to the side of the hillock, where... a time anomaly was glowing with a chromatically white colour in the sunlight.

"A rare opportunity, people!" Nick shouted, excitedly. "Follow me!"

Since the shapes of allosaurs could now be easily distinguished in the further end of the copse, now was not a time for argue. Acting quickly, the ARC field crew and Becker's forces fled up side of the hillock, into the time anomaly, and then-

To be continued...