DISCLAIMER: So, I don't own Primeval. I also don't own a narwhal. Got it? Good.


"Alright, let me get this straight," Connor said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You are Captain Anger's little sister from the States who gets shipped across the world to Britain for four months while your parents go on a trip?"

Austin looked up from her nail filer. "Yeah, pretty much," she half-heartily replied. "Oh, but daddy goes on a yearly vacay with our newest step-mom, and Hilary's my half brother."

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?" Becker mumbled. Austin just ignored him. She was a smart girl, Jess could give her that. Becker was a hard person to ignore (well, in her opinion, since he was so strong and handsome and muscular... and loud), and his sister was the only one that could, apparently.

"And you got a job here how exactly?" Connor asked. Obviously, it was hard for his fairly large brain to understand that yes, a sixteen year old girl could be just as smart as him. "I mean, it took me ages just to get an interview, even though I was one of the original founders."

Austin laughed for a moment, and spun once in Jess's office chair. The little brat was not only stealing her attention from Becker, bur now she had stolen her spinney chair? This wasn't right. It had to be stopped. She quickly added, "Yeah, how exactly did you get through without an interview from Lester? It took me at least three interviews, and I was by far the best choice."

Austin stopped spinning. "How did you know that?"

Jess looked at her nails, pleased with her work. "As I am the brains of the operation," she answered, "I get a file about everyone. I have one about Abby, Connor, Matt, even Becker here. I got yours this morning. I opened it just a bit, but saw the date of application. It was three days ago." Jess crossed her arms, satisfied with the look she put on the poor girl's face.

Austin, of course, had a witty comeback ready to fire, as Jess expected. Clever little thing, she was. "I'm really qualified for the internship. I have all the skills, and daddy has political power, since he has been a huge part in both the United States and the United Kingdom's military. Besides, I already knew everything I need to know. Hil told me."

Everyone turned to stare with piercing eyes at Becker. "Hilary's in trouuuu-ble," Connor sang. But he was in trouble. There was a rule around the office: they could talk to people that work at the ARC about the work they did, but no one outside. It was taboo, and Becker, of all people, should have known that. After all, he was the one that yelled at people about it.

Becker looked positively shocked. "I did no such thing, Mary Austin Becker!" was his defence. Jess felt so bad for the poor man, being turned in by his sister, and about to be chastised by everyone else. Austin rose an eyebrow, causing Becker to realise something, which he then proceeded to yell. "You... you hacked into my email back at the flat, didn't you? Oh, you're good, sis..."

"What?" Jess was about to explode. "Good? She hacks into your email, reads your personal messages, and you call that GOOD?" She stomped her foot, arms crossed as if they would never unravel. Never before had she felt so much like a schoolteacher. "Next thing you know, she'll be robbing a bank, and you'll just stand there saying, 'Great job! Keep up the good work!'"

Connor snorted, and Jess gave him a death glare. This was the farthest thing from a laughing matter! He was encouraging breaking the law. A man of the military! Oh, they were going to have to have a long conversation about this once they got married...

"And the fact that I can do that makes me even more qualified for the job," Austin retorted. She got out of Jess's chair (which lifted a weight off of Jess's shoulders) and sat on her desk (which made her feel like Atlas. It was her property, after all). "Think about it. I can hack into one of the world's most protected databases, AKA, my brother's ARC email account, and snoop around getting any information I want. I could be the person who discovers things hidden away from the public eye, the omniscient leader concealed behind a computer, the brains of the operation-"

"But that's my job!" Jess yelled. Everyone looked at her. It wasn't often the girl had a tantrum, but when she did, it was worse than a terror bird hunting for you.

"Used to be my job." Connor sipped his coffee, then continued. "Then I got trapped in another era without any other humans- Ow! I was about to say with you, Abby. No need to elbow me. But yeah, your top computer specialist gets trapped in the Cretaceous, so, what do you do... I'm going to shut up now."

Austin rolled her eyes. "Ignoring that... what I meant was, this internship could turn my life around, and whether you like it or not, I was hired and am not leaving until I'm fired!"

"You're fired," a voice called nonchalantly from the glass office in the corner. Lester looked up from his phone long enough to see the fifteen year old girl in front of him jaw drop. "Oh, little girl, will you go get your father? I need to fire him."

Austin took a deep breath, and put on a fake smile. "Hello," she said, her voice laced with false sweetness. "I'm really sorry I didn't introduce myself sooner. My name is Austin Smith. Well, actually, my name is Austin Mary Smith-Becker, but that's a mouthful, am I right? I go by Austin Becker, but, you know, I couldn't put that on my application because then I would be accused of having a family influen-"

"The Minister just called," interrupted Lester.

"So?" Austin crossed her arms and pretended to look like she didn't care, but Jess could see a glimmer of fear in her eyes. Things were about to get good.

Lester leaned against a table. "He told me everything." He motioned to two of Becker's men. "Take her into custody, if you would. Cell 3B is open and ready."

With a quick "yes sir," the men grabbed Austin by each of her arms. She screamed cries of protest, but no one cared; not even Becker.

"So," Becker asked Lester. "What exactly did my sister do this time?"


"She did what?" Jess asked Becker. "How's that even possible? She's sixteen! Six-freaking-teen!"

Becker looked at her with a smirk lingering on his lips. Obviously, he had thought she would react like this. "Then again, she is my sister. And she is the exact opposite of me. What else would you expect?"

"Yeah, okay, I agree with that. But blackmailing the PRIME MINISTER! That's impossible." Jess through her hands in the air, and stood up from her chair. Blackmailing was illegal. Especially blackmailing the minister. And not just any minister, but the Prime one. How did she even get in touch with him? Of course, Becker must've read her mind, though, because he answered within seconds.

"Mary is a very good flirt," he explained. "A very, very good flirt. She apparently tracked down the Minister's nephew, and convinced him that they were meant to be together, which meant she got this job. The Minister's nephew had a lot of good family secrets to tell her, and that's what she used against his uncle. Very smart, actually."

"Smart? You call that smart?" Jess was infuriated. How could Becker take his sister's side? He was going against the government for crying out loud! "Becker, I don't know if you've realised this or not, but your sister is in government custody. You of all people should know that that's not a good thing."

Becker chuckled. "Of course I know that's a bad thing. I'm just saying that if she's that good at tracking down people and getting information, then maybe she'll be useful. Like, you know, getting finding out who knows what about the anomalies, getting more people to come work for us. She could be a great advantage."

Jess groaned. Yes, maybe she would be a great advantage, but she could be the new weakest link. Austin was sixteen for crying out loud; she should be having fun with friends and dating, not being stuck in a metal cage doing work. Becker must've seen her dismay.

"You know," he added. "Mary could end up taking a bit of work off your shoulders. You could be free to go do more things, and not be stuck at the office all day."

Jess twirled her hair around her finger. She knew where he was going with this. She just didn't want him to chicken out this time. "Now, where exactly would I go?"

Becker rubbed the back of his neck, his ears growing redder by the minute. "Well... umm... actually..."

"Hey, you two," called Abby. Connor waved awkwardly, and started talking, but Abby cut him off. "We're leaving to go look at that venue now. Just thought we'd let you know. will you cover if Lester asks where we are?"

Jess smiled. "Of course we will. Besides, he won't care. Go have fun." She smiled, subtly gesturing at Becker. Abby took the hint, and dragged Connor out of the room. Jess turned back to Becker. "You were saying."

Becker turned red again. Obviously, he thought he had gotten out of it again, but Jess wasn't going to let him. "I... actually, I thought-"

The beeping of the anomaly detector interrupted him, just as he had gathered up the courage to ask her what he was going to. It scared Jess half to death, since she hadn't heard it in over an year.

"What the..." Jess ran back to the anomaly detector, searching the computer for a fluke. There was an anomaly in a car park near by, which would've been normal, but now, it wasn't, since there hadn't been an anomaly that wasn't man-made in months. "This can't be happening. It's impossible!"

People ran out of their offices, surprised and terrorized by the alarm that they thought was gone for good. They gathered around Jess, who was feeling quite frazzled at the moment.

"What's going on?" she heard Matt's voice say over the crowd. "What's wrong with detector?"

"I don't... nothing!" She did a scan over everything, from security to the bills. Nothing was wrong. This was real. And it was actually happening. "Someone needs to get down there now and check it out."

"On it!" Becker's voice rang out. "Get everyone you can out there now!"

Everyone turned on their black boxes and headed out to the cars so they could make it in time. Jess put on her headpiece, and started barking directions to everyone. "It's about twenty blocks away... Becker, go north!"

Minutes later, she watched as the multitude of red dots travelled across the screen to the car park. "On your left, Becker." She stared as the dot in the lead started turning right. "No, Becker, your left!"

"Jessica," his voice said from the earpiece. "It's the first anomaly in a year, I'm not really thinking about my right and my left."

Jess rolled her eyes. Sometimes, the man could be so stubborn. But she loved him anyway.

"Which level?" someone said in her ear. Jess snapped out of her daydream, and back into reality. She looked at the screen, watching the dots move into the car park, and switched on the security cameras. There were people there, but none near the anomaly. "Third level. Near the west end. Watch out for those people blocking the stairwell on the second level!"

She watched the security cameras around the anomaly closely. Something could come out soon, and she didn't want to find out what. All of a sudden, the security monitors switched to the cameras in each of the cells.

"Hey! Hey, Jessie!" someone whispered. The camera slowly turned from black to where Jess could see the person. Of course, it was Austin. Lovely.

She pressed a button on the large keyboard that let her talk to the inhabitant of the cell. "It's Jess. How did you hack the system?"

Austin crossed her arms. "Jessie, Jess, same thing. And I'm a genius; of course I can hack the system. Is everyone down at the parking garage with the anomaly?"

"How did you know that?"

Austin paused, before turning back to the camera. "You don't need to know," was her smart reply. "Anyway, I need you to let me out. Now."

Jess chuckled. "Now why on Earth would I do that?"

"Because every there is in danger." Jess laughed again, but Austin looked dead serious. She tried looking around Jess (although she couldn't see Jess in the first place) to see if anyone else was there. "Where's Lester? We need to tell him so he can stop them!"

Jess was sick of this girl. Her tricks may have worked on the prime minister and his nephew, but they would not work on Jess Parker. She was nowhere near as daft as the minister. "Alright, look," she started. "Lester's at lunch, and everyone down there is a trained professional. And Connor's there. They'll be fine. They know how to handle this type of situation, and they know what to do if something goes wrong. Your brother's not in any danger."

Austin threw her hands up in the air. "Can't you see! This isn't about my brother. This is about the safety of the world. The universe, even. You have to let me out."

"Bye, Austin!" Jess took her hand off the intercom button, and shut off Austin's connection. She switched back to the security cameras. Nothing had changed, and hopefully, it would stay that way.

"Who was that?" Abby asked her. She could see Abby in the security camera now, down by the anomaly.

"Just Austin. She wanted to be let out, because you all are in 'grave danger,' or something."

"How did she get into the system?"

Jess snorted. "No idea, but it's really creeping me out. What if she got in all the files about last year? Or Helen's file?"

Abby sighed, and Jess could see her messing with her EMD. "Jess, she's in a holding cell. She has on handcuffs. And no access to a computer, There is absolutely no way."

Within seconds, something stuck it's long, large, orange head out the anomaly. It roared, sending Abby and the security team back with its breath, before returning into the anomaly.

"What was that?" Jess asked when everyone was finished reacting.

Connor came into the picture, scratching his head in confusion and despair. "I... I'm not exactly sure; I didn't get that good of a look, but it almost looked like a... an acrocanthosaurus." Abby gave him a look, which obviously meant to elaborate. "It's a dinosaur from the early Cretaceous. Before the T-Rex, I mean. It was known as the king of the dinosaurs, the ruler of all things on Earth, the-"

"Is it dangerous?" interrupted Jess.

Connor responded by scratching his head. "I mean, it preys on ornithopods and sauropods, so it's carnivorous. I don't think it'd come after us, though, unless someone provoked it or it was starving."

Abby sighed. "So that's basically an 'I don't know.' "

Jess finally decided to make a decision, as no one on the site was going to. "Just stay there for a while, and keep the anomaly locked. If it's fine in a couple of hours, then we should leave."

"Excellent idea, Jessica," Lester said from behind her. She almost jumped out of her seat, her boss had scared her so badly. "Although, I wish you would leave the decision making up to me, as I am the one in charge."

Jess blushed. "Sorry, Lester. I just... I thought you were at lunch, so I thought I'd just give them something to do until you got back."

Lester smiled (sarcastically, of course, as he would never sink to such a level as really smiling), and went back to his office as Jess turned back to the men. "Alright, you heard him!' she exclaimed in what she thought was a somewhat commanding voice. "Lock that anomaly!"


At six o' clock that evening, the team was still at the car park, and Jess was still at the ARC, a magazine in her hand and Chinese takeout on her desk. She felt like she could fall asleep, but she wouldn't fall asleep on the job twice in one day.

She was bored. Again.

Of course, no one really cared, because everyone down at the car park was having a fun time listening to the radio in Becker's car and throwing chopsticks at one another for target practice. Just this once, she wished she could be down there with everyone else, having fun, and not stuck in front of a computer screen, reading how to "get your man in twelve days or less!" She wished she wasn't so scared of everything. That maybe, just once, she could conquer her fears and face something from another time, another place. Although, this magazine did seem really interesting. Getting a guy in twelve days was something new.

She was snapped back into reality by a faint beeping, coming from a hallway off of the main operation room. She slowly got up, walking towards the sound. Lester had gone home about an hour before, so she was alone. She was probably just fooling herself, with all the thought about the predators. Yeah, her counsellor had said that hallucination could occur with post traumatic stress disorder.

"Hello?" she called out. "Who's there?" The beeping kept getting louder and louder, as she turned down the hallway of prisoners, as she liked to call it. She looked in each one of the cells, knowing that each one was supposed to be empty. Each one except cell 3B, that is. 'We have waaay too many cells,' she thought to herself. 'When are we ever going to need this many?'

As she passed by cell 3B, everything seemed normal. Except, it rally didn't, because the beeping stopped here. She peeked through the window, just checking. Maybe she could slip Austin some Chinese. She'd probably like that, being an American eating Chinese food in England.

But there was no one there. In fact, when Jess saw the keypad next to the door, it read 'UNLOCKED.' This was not good. Not good at all.

Jess ran back to the detector, putting her earpiece back on her ear. "Becker? I have something really important to ask you," she said, her breathing becoming more rapid by the second.

"What?" he replied with a mouthful of lo mein. If she hadn't been freaking out, she probably would've found that adorable.

"Can Austin drive?"

Becker looked stunned for a second. "Why do you need to know if-"

"Just answer the question!"

Becker swallowed his food, clearly stalling for time to think. "Yeah, I think so. She got her license in the States last year, and I think she can drive on the left side, as well, so-"

Jess couldn't listen to the rest. She put the EMD checkouts of the past twenty-four hours. Of course, at 6:03, a certain Austin Smith had used a wristband to get one.

"Who forgot to take off Austin's ID bracelet before they put her into custody?" She yelled into the earpiece. She was fuming. How could she be so stupid? Austin had on her wristband, which would allow her access to everything, from lunch in the cafe to EMDs, which also included opening doors. All doors. And getting company cars.

"Jess, it's not that big of a deal," Abby tried to explain. "She's in a tight-sealed celled. There's absolutely no way she could get out. Only authorized personnel can- Oh, no. She didn't."

Jess threw her hand in the air, and fell back into her chair. "She did. And I think I know where's she's going. Just have someone ready to lock her in a car when she shows up."

"On it."

Jess couldn't believe this. She had been outsmarted. By a sixteen year old! Not only that, but a freaking American sixteen year old. This couldn't be happening, could it?

"It's back!" a voice yelled into the earpieces. Jess switched back to the security cameras just in time to see the acrocanthosaurus dart its slimy head out the anomaly. Everyone got their EMDs ready, but couldn't find a place to hit it, since is was strutting out of the anomaly at a fast pace. "I can't shoot! I'm going to hurt it!"

All of a sudden, a shot from an EMD rang out, hitting the acrocanthosaurus' neck, and causing it to fall over. Everyone turned around to see Austin, cradling her EMD and standing there, not a hair out of place. She smirked, and looked directly at Becker.

"And that, darlings, is how you shoot an EMD."


Hope this was enough, after FIVE FREAKING MONTHS OF NOT UPDATING. Very sorry. On the other hand, I survived my first term as a freshman! Yeah. That's pretty much it.

I'll try to update more now, but I have like, a bunch of Honors and AP classes that I have to do stuff for, so it probably won't be very often.

LOVE Y'ALL THIIIIIIIS MUCH.

~iWantARocketshipToMars