Jess Parker brushed the hair out of her eyes as she looked at the screen of the anomaly detection device. It was a relatively normal day at the A.R.C. At seven in the morning, it was very quiet around the office, the only people there being Jess, overnight security, and the cleaning crew. The only reason that Jess had come in early that particular morning was to get all her paperwork done before the chaos of her co-workers began. The past year had been utter madness. Ever since all the anomalies had closed, the team had been working overtime to get everything back to normal, which included both returning all of the creatures that had escaped through the anomalies back to the right era and retrieving everything that went through the other side of the anomalies to the current era. The team had traveled all over the world, and were almost done with what Lester called "restoration". There were only about four anomalies left, so Jess was very happy. The only thing that she was really worried about was that after all of this, the anomalies wouldn't open ever again, and she wouldn't have a job anymore. Sure, at twenty, she had plenty of potential, but what about the others? Abby, Connor, Matt, and Emily were fine; they had plenty of skills that they could use to score a new job, but what about Lester and Becker? Lester could get a new high ranking job in government, sure, if he could impress the Minister. But Becker? The closest job he could get to the one he had now was head of mall security. Oh, Becker, she thought. Why do you have to like guns so much?
"Hello? Jess?" a voice called out. "Earth to Jess!"
Almost immediately, Jess snapped out of her daydream and started doodling on a sheet of paper, making it look like she was working. She wanted to impress the owner of that voice. Very. Badly. "Sorry, Becker!" she apologised. Jess knew that he could tell she wasn't working. For one, Becker's hand waving in front of her face was what caused her to wake up. Two, she had drawn a flower on a very important sheet of paperwork. Lovely. She gathered all the papers together, stacking them neatly.
"I was just... umm..." she stuttered. What? Jess Parker never stuttered! It was against everything she stood for! Well, not really, but she liked to make points. "You won't tell Lester, will you? He'll have my head on a stick."
"As long as you won't tell him about my little mix-up." He winked, and set a stack of papers on a desk near by. "I accidentally grabbed Connor- I mean Abby's wedding plans instead of the paperwork for that plane we recovered. They really shouldn't keep those plans lying around. Especially when it has their honeymoon plans on it."
Jess rolled her eyes. "Comic Book convention, am I right?"
"Spot on."
She laughed, throwing back her head. "Abby doesn't know, does she?"
"Not at all." Becker smiled, a very rare sight. "Speaking of weddings..."
"Yes?" Was this it? Jess thought. Was the man of her dreams finally going to ask her to go on a date, get married and have little baby Beckers?
"Uhh..." Becker looked like he had zoned out, but immediately came back to reality. "Do you think Matt and Emily will get married? Y'know, after all this us over?"
Jess's heart sank. It looked like today wasn't going to be her day after all. "Oh, umm, I'm not sure. Actually, no one can be, with those two. It's like the weather forecast. You can predict, but the prediction's never right."
She looked down at the scrap sheets if paper on her desk, which now had 'Mrs. Captain Becker' and 'Jess Becker' written all over it. Quickly, she turned it over and looked back at Becker, who was listening to the earpiece in his ear. He hadn't noticed, thank goodness. But he did look rather frustrated.
"Yes, Connor, I'll be there in a minute... No, I will not bring you breakfast!... Because you sound like this is an urgent matter and there isn't a place to get bagels on the way to the farm! Connor... You know what? I'll be there in a few minutes; keep that man from hurting you... No! I'm not bringing you another EMD after what happened last time!" Becker whipped the earpiece out of his ear in a huff, resting it in his shoulder.
"There's a man out at the farm site that's not being co-operative, and Abby and Connor need backup," Becker explained to Jess. "I told them to wait to do this later, but no, they have an appointment for a venue this afternoon. Call Matt and Emily and tell them to come, alright? Danny's got the day off."
Jess sighed. "I'll get right on it," she said, and started to ring Matt's apartment.
"Oh, and Jess?" Becker said. She turned around, a smile on her face. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it would be her day. "I took home an extra black box yesterday." He fished something out of his pocket and set it on Jess's desk. "Thanks, Jess; you're a doll!"
He walked, almost ran, out of the A.R.C., not bothering to look back. Jess sighed to herself. He called her a doll. Well, it was a start. She was about to put the extra black box back into the system, when she noticed something. This wasn't a black box.
"Wait!" she called down the hallway. "Becker, you left your-" -the elevator doors slammed together- "mobile."
At ten-thirty, the A.R.C. was just as busy as it had been when Jess had encountered Becker a few hours before. Jess was monitoring the situation down at the farm on the Anomaly Detection Device, while reading a book at the same time. The poor girl was bored out of her mind. She actually hoped something would go wrong so that she could have something worthwhile to do. She flipped the pages of her book slowly, as if seeing if they could go any slower. The clock on the wall didn't help much, either. Tick, tick, tick, tick was all she had heard for the past three and a half hours, and it was starting to get on her nerves. Maybe if she blasted it with an EMD, it would stop being so annoying.
"Jess?" Lester's voice had interrupted her violent thoughts against the clock again. She turned around to see Lester holding a folder out to her. "This is the file for your new intern. I expect you'll have it read by the two, when the genius shows up."
Jess looked at the file, momentarily confused. "Umm, sir?" she asked tentatively. "What new intern?"
Lester, who had been walking back to his office, took a deep breath (why he did this, no one knew, but he did it every time one of his employees asked a question) and slowly turned around on his heel. "The Minister seems to think that one day, something will happen to one of the employees of the A.R.C., and thinks that it would be better to hire someone who already knew how to do everything. And, apparently, it means that we all get some little person to follow us around for an entire summer. Lovely, isn't it?" A sarcastic smile graced Lester's lips, but quickly faded away as he started talking again.
"Unfortunately, the government couldn't get much information other than what the person knows about dinosaurs and the military. They can't get access to it, or some lame excuse like that." Lester nodded his head and went on his merry way back to his office while Jess looked over the file. From what she could see, this person was very smart. The man's name was Austin Smith. He was a genius when it came to computers (he had written a separate application completely in binary code to improve), and looked like he knew a lot when it came to everything else. Other than that, there was no information. Nothing personal. Nothing about where he was from, family, previous jobs; nothing.
"Lester?" Jess turned back around in her chair, still looking at the file. "Have you even..." she stopped talking once she saw that her boss was back inside his office. Putting the file in a stack on the desk next to her, she decided that she didn't want an intern. Who would want a person to follow them around all day? Not Jessica Parker, that's for sure!
All of a sudden, Becker's mobile started buzzing and playing what sounded like the main song from his favourite movie, The Terminator. How appropriate, she thought as she smiled. She looked at the screen, which read:
MARY
ANSWER IMMEDIATELY
So, that's exactly what Jess did.
"Hello?"
"Hey Hil!" a peppy voice on the other end of the line exclaimed. "Just wanted to let you know that I got a job and'll be home around eight. Don't exactly know how long it'll take for me to get home. Just wanted to let you know! Bye!"
And the line went dead.
What just happened? Jess thought. Who was that? Whoever it was had an American accent! Oh no! Becker had a supermegafoxyawesomehot American girlfriend he didn't want anyone to know about! Figures, though. A very fit, gorgeous man had a beautiful, exciting, American girlfriend. What else would a girl be doing living at Becker's house?
She was probably wrong; her therapist did say that she jumped to the worst conclusions too fast. It was probably just a wrong number. The person was asking for Hil, which was a girl's name, most likely, and had an American accent. Just some tourist who had gotten confused when they were ringing someone, yes, that was it for sure. But the number was already in his contacts, so it had to be his girlfriend he never mentioned!
Jess looked at the clock, which read eleven. The rest of the team would be coming back to the A.R.C. around noon, and, according to the sticky note on top of the new file, the intern would be arriving around eleven-thirty. Oh joy, she thought to herself. Another long day at work.
"Jess? Jess? Wake up, sleepyhead." Jess opened her eyes to find her head on the A.D.D., arms thrown beside her. She yawned slightly before realising her current situation. Wait, wasn't she at work? Oh no, she had fallen asleep on the job and was going to be fired! And the intern would get her job! Oh no! The intern was probably here!
"What time is it?" she asked sleepily. How late did she sleep? Ugh, the annoying ticking clock had caused her to dose off.
"Around twelve-thirty," the same voice that had woken her up told her her. Jess turned around to see Abby, standing there with her hands on her hips, a smirk spreading on her face.
"Sleeping on the job is new to you, isn't it? Here's a couple of pointers; don't drool on anything, don't talk in your sleep, or... actually, don't fall asleep on the job at all. It's horrible when you get caught. Trust me, I would know."
Jess groaned. So when Captain Becker had dumped his girlfriend for her, it wasn't real? And she had hoped that she was getting paid back for all of the good things she had done. But alas, it wasn't so.
"I'm so sorry, Abby!" she exclaimed, flustered. She turned back to the A.D.D., and pulled up files from the farm case. "I'll get back to work right now."
Abby placed her hand on top of Jess's, forcing the younger girl to stop typing. "Jess?" she said, cautiously. Jess nodded, her eyes still on the screen. "It's obvious you need to relax. Just go and tell Lester that you're sick, and go home. It's what I'd do in your current situation."
"But there's so much work to be done... and the intern-"
"- can wait a little longer." Abby laughed at her friend's dismay. Jess had always hoped that one ay, she could be as nice and smart as Abby. It was amazing, really, how different they were; how their personalities clashed so dramatically. But they were still each other's best friend, and Jess wouldn't have had it any other way. "Just be glad it wasn't the guys that found you. They would've held that over you forever! Or Becker; who knows what he would've done?"
Jess shuttered at the thought. If Becker had found her, she may have been yelled at by him. Or he would tease her with it for ages. Actually, she had no idea what would happen if Becker had found her. Hopefully, she would never find out.
"Abby," started Jess. "I can't just leave. I have to fix some things with the security system, and finish some paperwork, and the intern will have no idea what to do, and there's a shoe sale after work that I really don't want to miss." She turned back to the screen before Abby had a chance to respond to her rant. "Now, did everything go alright at the farm?"
Abby sighed. "Yeah, everything went well, although that farmer did put up a good fight. Almost stabbed Connor with a shovel. How that happened, I don't know; Connor was supposed to be in the truck until we got permission to search the area. Lucky for him, I was there and took the shovel from the man before he could puncture him."
"Yes, lucky Connor," Jess mumbled. It was then she remembered what she currently had in her possession. "Oh, look over this file. It's for the new intern the Ministry hired. You know, just in case a future predator kills one of us, this guy can take over."
Abby took the file from Jess. "Lovely."
Jess laughed. "I know, right?" She picked up Becker's mobile. "Becker's in the armoury, right?"
"Do you really have to ask?"
The armoury was much bigger than Jess remembered. Of course, the last time she had been in there, she was being attacked, so she didn't really notice the size of the room. There were definitely a lot of EMDs everywhere, and surprisingly, a handful of guns that used bullets. Of course, that's where she found Becker, polishing a gun that Jess would honestly be scared to use.
"Having fun?" she asked him. He jumped a little, then turned around, a smirk on his face.
"Are you trying to get revenge on me for scaring me this morning?" He asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "If it is, it's working."
Jess laughed. "Of course not! Do you really think I'm that mean?"
"Yes."
Jess's mouth fell opened. So this is was the man of her dreams thought of her? That she was a mean person? How dare he! He had no right to do so!
Becker must've seen the look of hurt that crossed Jess's face. "I'm kidding," he laughed. Oh, that laugh always made Jess's day better. Becker went back to polishing his gun. "So, what brings you here?"
Jess immediately snapped out of her daydreams and back to reality. She took the mobile out of the pocket of her skirt and handed it to Becker. "I don't think this is a black box."
Becker took the device from her and sighed. "I knew I hadn't lost it! Thank you, Jess."
Jess felt like giggling like a schoolgirl. Thank goodness she had a bit of self control. But it was only a bit. "My pleasure." She was about to walk out of the armoury when she remembered about the phone call. "Oh, and someone called a little earlier. Mary, I think. The screen said to answer immediately. She said something about getting a job and being home before eight. I'm not really sure."
Becker froze, his eyes wide. It looked like someone had just told him that Connor got ahold of his favourite gun and had thrown it through an anomaly or something. "What do you mean, 'got a job'," he asked. He wasn't blinking, and Jess was starting to get a little freaked out. "Did she elaborate on that at all? Anything else?"
"Umm, no." Jess looked at her hands. "I don't think so. She just kind of hung up after that."
Becker put his head in his hands. "I can't believe she did this," he mumbled to himself. It took Jess a moment to realise that he was talking about this Mary girl, and not her. Of course, he probably would get mad at her for answering his phone without his permission. That was illegal, wasn't it? Oh, wait; that was mail.
"Thank you, Jess." Becker looked up at her, and Jess could tell that he was trying to smile, but struggling.
"No problem. Actually, I-"
"Hey, Jess," a voice said from the armoury door. A certain Mr. Temple was standing in the doorway, a strange (-er than normal) look on his face. He looked... worried, almost. "There's a problem.
Jess looked at Becker, who said that he would be there in just a minute. She smiled at him before leaving the armoury and walking back to the main office.
"Alright, Connor, what's the problem?" Jess asked when they were little over halfway there. Connor gave her a weird expression, as if he was debating whether to tell her or not.
Finally, he decided to spill the beans. "Ahh, well, not really sure how to tell you this," he stuttered, and started scratching his elbow like he always did when he was nervous. "But the new intern's here."
"That's great!" she exclaimed. "Why would that be the least bit concerning, though?"
Connor scratched his elbow again, but much, much harder this time. "Well, uhh, it's not exactly what we expected it to be."
"What do you mean by that? It's not like the guy's an alien."
It was that moment when Jess saw Abby trying to stop a young girl, who was currently spinning around in Jess's chair. She couldn't have been older than seventeen, and her hazel eyes and dark brown hair were very familiar. In fact, she looked similar to...
"Hi!" The girl stopped spinning abruptly and ran to Jess, holding her hand out. "I'm the new intern. Austin's the name."
Jess forced a smile. She knew where she had heard that accent before, the girl was clearly American... and her name, ugh, Austin... how did she not expect this to happen? She was going to be followed around by a girl four years younger than her? Her day was just getting better and better. "Hello," Jess said, trying to hold back her anger. "Jess Parker. Are you sure that you're the intern? I was expecting someone a little older... and with a little more y chromosome."
The girl laughed. "Originally, I had my real age on my resumé, but I hacked into the database where they keep all the applications and changed my name and my age so I would have a better chance of getting the job. Who's going to hire a sixteen year old girl, even if said girl is the most qualified for the job?"
Lester, apparently, Jess thought. How could he have overlooked this so-called minor detail? This Austin girl didn't look professional at all. Her hair was down and straightened, almost reaching the small of her back. She had on a short, colourful skirt with a strapless top tucked into it, and a cropped jacket over the outfit. Her shoes had three inch high wedges on them, which she obviously would have tripped over if she was out on the field. In fact, the whole outfit was impractical. Sure, she was dressed in an outfit that Jess would have worn on a normal day, but Jess didn't have to interact with the creatures. Totally unprofessional.
"So, what are we going to do first?" Austin asked excitedly. "Fight a deinonychus, or rescue the queen from an anomaly, or- Hilary!"
Austin ran over to the entryway and almost tackled Becker in a hug. Hilary? Jess thought. Really? I just thought his first name was Captain. Of course it's not. Ugh, stupid...
"Mary? What are you doing here?" Becker asked. Wait, Mary? But wasn't this Austin? And wasn't Mary Becker's supermegafoxyawesomehot American girlfriend? This girl was way too young to be Becker's girlfriend. In fact, wasn't their age difference illegal? This couldn't be happening- Becker was with a girl eleven years younger than himself. Unless Jess had this all wrong, and she was just a random girl off the streets that Becker had taken pity on and brought her into his home, slowly and surely educating her to become a proper young woman. If her theory was true, the lessons weren't going very well.
"I got a job! Didn't you get my call? I explained everything!" She let go of Becker, and crossed her arms. "And how many times have I told you; my name is not Mary, it's Austin. That's what our dad named me, and that's the name I'm going to use. It's not my fault you got an incredibly girly first name."
Our dad? Jess was momentarily confused. How could she say that, unless... oh no, Jess had it all wrong...
Becker sighed, then started explaining to the many confused faces in the room. "This is Austin, my sister."
A cross between a smile and a smirk came across Austin's face. "Hello, darlings."
Okay, so this obviously isn't my best work, and it's not very well put together (considering that I rushed to finish it because my sister is about to steal the computer). More will be explained in later chapters, specifically in later chapters. I don't know how often I'll be updating, since it's marching season and I will be gone most of the day hoping not to run into baritones on the field.
I figured Becker needed a family, since we never really learn anything about it in the actual series. Hopefully you like it. REVIEW AND I WILL EXPLAIN MORE !
Tomorrow's my first day of high school, wish me luck!
Au revoir, darlings,
~ iWantARocketshipToMars
