Chapter 2

Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™ (except for Becka Page).

Becka Page came to the ARC not so much as a breath of fresh air than as a splash of colors: unlike her twin, she had no intention of blending with her surroundings, but preferred bright, contrasting colors instead – something that didn't go appreciated by everyone, either.

"...What are they doing?" Abby muttered to Sarah one day, as Connor was helping out Becka with something on her computer in a rather energetic way. "Can't your sister do it on her own?"

"Not if she can help it," Sarah shook her head. "Becka really doesn't like technology; as soon as something goes wrong with it tends to send her into a panic. I've no idea what went wrong this time, but you can be sure that it's not flirting, so don't worry."

"Worried? Who's worried? I'm not worried," Abby said just a little bit too quickly, so Sarah had to stifle a grin at the younger woman's antics. However, before she could add anything, the time anomaly alarm sounded, causing both of them to fall silent, and Connor and Becka to look away from Becka's computer: a time anomaly has opened up.

***

"Well! That's just great!" Abby muttered, as she rode in the van (with Connor and Becker), muttering not about Lester's latest sarcastic quip (as she usually did), but about Becka Page – again...and all because of an umbrella.

It all began with the sound of thunder that occurred just as the ARC field team was planning to go outside. Sarah, who was walking alongside her twin, just turned around and asked Becka if it was okay if she passed her umbrella onto Abby, who didn't have one. (Apparently, whenever the Page twins were in the vicinity of one another, it was Becka who was the more responsible one, strangely.) This sparked an impromptu discussion during which it was discovered that only Abby lacked an umbrella (unlike the Page twins or Danny) or a raincoat (unlike Connor or Becker). Needless to say, Abby was embarrassed, a lot, and since she was also a blonde, this showed on her face, also a lot.

"Abby, don't worry," Connor, in his typical manner, was trying to make things better, but somehow was making them worse instead, "you can have my umbrella instead of Sarah's-"

Before Abby could open her mouth and say something that she would regret, Becker interrupted them:

"Kids, we're here."

And, of course in full accordance with Murphy's Law, that's when the rains began to fall for real.

***

Usually, a time anomaly appears chromatically white to a human eye, but in the light of lightning bolts, it appeared to be more of a bluish tinge than the usual. "Okay, Connor, we send in the robot, check out what's on the other side to make the scientific staff happy, and then seal the time anomaly," Becker spoke in his action-man voice, taking the advantage of the fact that Danny and the others weren't there.

"Or we could just seal the time anomaly without the other stuff," Connor suggested weakly.

Becker (who was a stickler for protocol) glared at him. Abby, who usually backed up Connor in these sorts of confrontations, decided to back Becker this time instead, since she was still sore at the entire umbrella fiasco and glared at Connor as well. Faced with twin glares, Connor folded like a pile of toilet paper.

And then things began to go really wrong.

***

Well, actually they began well enough: Connor sent in the ARC's field robot, and the first – and the last – thing that the robot transmitted was a huge hairy snout of some prehistoric animal. The next moment the robot's protocols made it zap the animal with its taser, the animal reacted by charged at the robot, trampling it down - and bursting out of the time anomaly just as yet another lightning bolt came crushing down. This particular bolt did strike the time anomaly, actually, causing it to snap shut, startling the animal, which reacted by charging at the trio's van, since it was a prehistoric woolly rhino and it reacted to literal or probable danger by charging, trampling and goring anything that stood in its way.

In this particular case, the ARC's van was what stood in the rhinoceros' way. Therefore, it was tossed aside, as the startled animal just stood there, snorting and grunting like the giant, prehistoric, scared beast that it was.

"That's not good – our supplies were in the van!" Abby whispered. She could hear Danny and the others arrive, but in that weather, even such a big target as a woolly rhinoceros could be frustratingly hard, even for someone like Becker.

And speaking of Becker... "Hey! You! Ugly!" he called out the animal.

The rhinoceros didn't understand Becker's English, of course, to it, this was just a strange sound – but that was enough: grunting deeply, the rhinoceros charged, pursuing Becker, who fled down a side street.

"Oh no!" Abby gasped, "he's doomed!"

It was then that her walkie-talkie came to life. "Maitland, get a tranquilizer gun and get down here. I'm sitting on a fire escape and the damn animal is grazing beneath me on some ginkgo leaves. Now!"

...It seems that fates weren't yet done with making Abby Maitland sound ridiculous, not by a long shot.

TBC