Chapter 3

Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.

"So, do you think Abby is unwilling to come with us because of her past?" Sarah Page spoke up after they have been driving in silence for a while. "Because I understand that she wasn't happy this morning when she ran into a former colleague of hers."

"Yes, you're probably right," Jenny admitted, for the mere purpose of killing time, if anything. "For all of her love for lizards, and, of course, feelings for Rex, and Sid and Nancy, she is certainly pleased to be working with that Columbian mammoth of ours – I am guessing that she misses being around big animals as she was in the zoo, all the same."

"True, and I doubt that she wants to spend time with the lion cubs because of Helen Cutter, either. What is the story with her, anyways?"

"It's a long one," Jenny said, now feeling irritated once more. "In a nutshell, she's Nick's estranged wife, who's been lost in the time anomalies for eight years and who needs psychiatric help without a doubt."

"And what if she gets it? Will she stay on here or what?"

Before Jenny could reply to this rather worrying question, another sound prevented her from answering it. Unfortunately, this sound didn't offer her any consolation, for it was the sound of police sirens.

The animal resembled an elephant, and indeed in its stature it was most elephant-like, complete with an almost completely hairless body, a short, ropy tail, and tall, pillar-like legs. Its head, however, was quite different: the ears were much smaller and the trunk was much shorter, and the tusks were actually in its lower jaw, curving directly downwards, rather that straight forward.

"So, is it another one of those future mutants or something?" Becker inquired of Nick and Connor, even as they stared at the mammal. "'Cause there is no way I – or anyone - will believe that that is just an elephant, mutilated in a car accident."

"That's a deinotherium of some sorts," Connor said sourly, "a juvenile Deinotherium giganteum, most likely, for the adult specimens were taller yet."

"How tall? This fellow must be at least 3 meters tall," Becker observed.

"We're talking three and a half to four meters in height, and with stronger tusks," Nick joined the discussion. "This fellow isn't quite there yet."

"However, he is sexually mature – see the dark stripes on its lower cheeks and jaw? Abby had explained that those are the signs of sexual arousal in modern bull elephants, and the deinotherium looks similar enough physically, to probably have a similar hormonal structure as well, or something like that," Connor added sheepishly. "It's probably the same with our mammoth too."

"You think that you could bring that mammoth here, so that it would fight this one and drive it back from whence it came?" Becker spoke sarcastically, and was surprised, when the other two looked at him quite seriously.

"It would be cool to see," Connor said, somewhat wistfully, "sort of a real-life Jurassic face-off, but I don't know who would get us first, Abby or Lester, so no."

"However, this idea has merit," Nick added thoughtfully. "Connor, Becker, is there a working tractor, or truck, or anything nearby? If there is one, then I think we can solve this problem with just some risk."

Instead of replying, Connor and Becker merely exchanged worried glances: when Nick Cutter began to talk about risks, then there would be trouble.

"Ms. Lewis. Why am I not surprised to see you here?"

"Who's that?" Sarah spoke up before Jenny could.

"It's detective-constable Quinn, and we've ran into him before… So, Danny, why are you here?"

"And a good day to you too," Danny muttered back sarcastically, obviously not impressed by Jenny's self-control. "Still, there has been a murder here, and unless you and your crew are here because of it, I suggest that you leave this place now-"

"What?" Jenny's eyes bulged in their sockets, and ignoring her high heels, she quickly walked back, desperately hoping that the deceased wasn't somebody whom they met during the whole gigantopithecus incident.

It wasn't. But it didn't things any better, either.

The deinotherium was not a happy beast. Having evolved in Pliocene African savannahs and jungles, it didn't like the modern landscape of a London suburban abandoned train station at all – it stomped around, emitted sounds similar to a pig's grunts but much, much louder, and generally made a nuisance of itself.

And then… it got a response – a loud sound of a car horn, or rather, of a smallish jeep. Perhaps its owner expected the massive mammal to panic, but the deinotherium, never used to backing down from anyone except from its older and bigger relatives, now decided to charge instead, facing its new opponent face-on.

As it loomed closer and closer, its pillar-like legs carrying it over the terrain without any trouble, the jeep whirled sharply backwards. With dexterity surprising for such a tall animal, the deinotherium followed the car, but as it turned around, it ran into the still-open time anomaly, and vanished from the modern world.

"Got you!" Connor Temple said triumphantly, even as he used the time anomaly manifestation device to close the time anomaly from which the deinotherium came from in the first place. "Guess we shown it who's boss!"

In the next moment, Nick's cell phone rang. "Jenny?" the man spoke-up surprised into it. "Is something wrong?"

"Yes," Jenny's voice came tersely through the phone. "Remember the crazy ranger? The one who had a pet saber-tooth cat?"

"Yes," Nick replied. "I remember her. Why?"

"Her corpse – her mauled corpse was discovered at the entrance of London's zoo some time after we solved the problem of the giant apes. I don't know what has happened, but get here immediately."

"Will do," Nick nodded, fully aware that Jenny was very, very panicked. "We're finished here anyways."

To be continued…