Chapter Text
Gold frame circle glasses sat perched on the edge of Sara Webb’s nose. She squinted through the giant magnifying lens she had poised over two pieces of a fossil that had been sent in last season. Leaning back, she let go of the breath she’d been holding before she hunched back over and shook out her wrists. Her left wrist clicked from former injuries, but it’d been so long she hardly even noticed when it happened anymore.
She could see her hands cautiously hovering on either side of her workspace and she very carefully held the two pieces of the fossil together with one hand while the other hand absently reached out for the glue. She set the glue down right beside her workspace and reached up to flick a loose chunk of her greying hair over her shoulder.
After meticulously cleaning the leftover matrix off of the fossil, Sara got to gluing the two pieces together. “ Honestly, whoever processed this fossil needs to be kicked. ” She thought, checking and double-checking to make sure the seam of the two halves of the fossils were still lined up after securing them with adhesive.
Sara had taken it upon herself to start the digitization process of the museum’s archives. Mr. Regis, her boss, thought that it was an asinine idea—people liked coming to museums, they didn’t want to see a collection on their computer. People didn’t have computers for things like entertainment, but Sara had been listening to Ian drone on for the past six months about how computers were the future and how they better get used to it now.
But, that is why Sara found herself in the archives of the Museum of the Rockies, meticulously going through each cabinet, each box, and each tray of artifacts and donations. And it was why she had been fixing the fossils that had just been dumped into storage trays.
“Why are all of these half-assed, barely tagged, and a mess?” She had asked Regis.
“Not enough money to get the students to do a good job, I guess.” Regis explained, “They’ve got enough to dig—barely—so they do as quick a job as they can, and leave the rest for the resident paleontologist.”
“So, why doesn’t the resident paleontologist fix it?” Sara was disappointed in the leadership the director of paleontology seemed to be.
“He’s gotta start fundraising for the next dig as soon as the last one is done.” Regis didn’t sound too concerned with it.
So, Sara took it upon herself to fix things as she went through everything. She emailed Sarah when she had trouble identifying things or needing recommendations about how to handle and tag specific items.
And that was how she was spending her summer.
Sitting back and rubbing the tension and tiredness from her face, Sara let out a long sigh, puffing out her cheeks dramatically even though she was alone. She looked around the empty museum archives. The long worktable that ran the length of the room had a wall of supplies and random objects around Sara’s workspace. The other chairs, which usually held other workers and interns were all empty and vacant, most of them opted to come in later during the summer or had saved their time off for vacation and were out of town. Sara didn’t blame them.
She wasn’t a big fan of Montana, and Ian had tried hard to convince her to stay in San Diego or even go to his hometown in Texas. However, with her knowledge of dinosaurs and a keen eye for nature, Sarah had pushed her to go somewhere where she could “make a difference”.
“Not that I’m doing much when Regis thinks computers are a waste of space.” Sara thought, lifting the cleaned and glued fossil off the table. She ran a nitrile gloved finger around the slight curve of the bone.
Sara blinked, images of a wide-open maw rushing at her made her stop dead in her tracks. A wave of panic washed over her, but it only lasted for a second.
“Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth.” Sara nodded to herself, “Most definitely Tyrannosaurus.” She walked back to the fossil room and over to the slightly misplaced tray that was slid onto a shelf of similar trays. She pulled a tag off of a stack of blank tags and a pen. She tied the tag around the tooth and wrote “Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth” on the I.D. line of the tag. She then went to the tray to find out who had dug it up, where, and when.
Dr. A. Grant.
Hell Creek Formation, MT
Matrix of partially recovered Tyrannosaurs Adult removed from site July 16th, 2000
“A. Grant?” Sara blinked, squinting at the name. “A. Grant.” She repeated, softer and softer as she abandoned the half-tagged tooth in favor of looking through each tray of fossils.
“A. Grant. A. Grant.” She said, pointing at each instance of his name, eyes quickly scanning over each date until she got to the one she expected to see.
Dr. A. Grant.
Snakewater, MT
Matrix of fully recovered Velociraptor Adult removed from site August 17, 1993
In a fit of surprise, Sara snapped the tag off the tub of bones and walked back through the archives until she was in the public area of the museum. She ignored the small crowds of summer camps and brisk walked across the lobby to Regis’s office.
She knocked twice, then let herself in.
“Morning, Sara.” Regis was looking over a spreadsheet and sipping a coffee, he didn’t seem surprised to see her, but he did do a double take when he noticed her wide and conflicted face. “Fossils get up and run away?” He joked. Sara’s eyes widened even more. Regis chuckled, “Sorry, I know. Not funny.”
“You didn’t think to mention that Alan Grant is our resident Paleontologist?” Sara said, waving the archive tag furiously before her.
Regis seemed amused, but confused, “I thought you knew?” He said with a slight chuckle.
“No, I didn’t.” Sara shook her head, “He’s never in here, his stuff isn’t tagged, no one ever calls him by name—,”
“Okay, okay,” Regis held up a hand to calm her down, “I get what you’re saying, but so?”
“So?!” Sara nearly shrieked.
“So?” Regis repeated, “What does this have to do with your work?”
At that, Sara deflated a little bit. “Well…” She trailed off. It really had nothing to do with her work. Sure, his students made her life a little harder by not processing things properly, but it wasn’t as big a chore as everyone made it out to be. “How do I contact him?” She asked instead.
Regis, grimaced, “He hardly ever answers the satellite phone, and it’s usually his field lead that answers any faxes we may send him, but really,” He shrugged nonchalantly, “The best time to reach him is when the season’s over.”
Sara sighed, looking away dejectedly.
“Well,” Regis paused, “He might actually be at MSU for a lecture tomorrow.” He said, suddenly trying his best to sweep things to either side of his desk so he could look at the calendar mat that held the important dates and schedules of the higher up members of the museum on it and he traced the week they were on. “Yup. Tomorrow, Tuesday the tenth. A. Grant, Lecture at MSU.” He double tapped the date. Then he looked up at her, “I was going to have Bowman head out to get pictures for our newsletter, but if you’d like—,”
“Yes!” Sara jumped at the opportunity.
Regis chuckled and nodded, “I’ll let them know you’re coming.”