Chapter 13

It was the way everything felt ordinary that reminded Crystal of what she had done. On the sudden remembrance of this she let go of Connor's hand and held her hand over her head in shame.

"Crystal? What's wrong?" Connor asked immediately after he noticed her hand fall from his.

Connor's question made Steven turn around to them.

"Oh god, oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to but Helen…" Crystal stammered. The reception room door was in sight and her guilt was increase with the memory of watching the whole of event on CCTV camera but being able to do nothing about it.

"Look sis, it wasn't your fault you didn't purposefully put us all in their and direct all those creatures in there, Helen forced you and for Christ's sake she had a gun!" Jack attempted to calm his sister.

Cutter halted at this point turning round to listen to the content of the conversation.

"What's this about?" he asked generally to anyone who was willing to answer him.

"The reason that you all ended up locked in that room, with the creatures was because of me." Crystal confessed. Jack then explained the rest of the story.

"Can you take us to this room?" Cutter asked Crystal who shook her head.

"I can," Jack perked up. Cutter's attention turned to Jack, he was a little surprised but nevertheless glad that someone could.

"Come on then lead the way!" Cutter encouraged. Jack wiggled his way to the front leaving the others confused at Cutter's intentions.

"If they managed to direct the creatures into the room there must be a way we can direct them out!" Cutter informed them.

All now understanding the plan they followed Jack as he led them to the small room in which Helen had forced Crystal and him to rebuild the computer.

It didn't take long to reach the room as Jack seemed to remember the route perfectly. On entering the room Connor went immediately to the computer.

"It's still working…" Connor noted as the screen flashed up.

"Well of course it is!" Crystal frowned wondering if he had paid any attention to Jack's explanation.

"It's not exactly in order, in fact this piece should be in here…" Connor attempted to remove the piece that he was talking about from the back of the main screen and place it in its rightful place.

"Well I didn't exactly have much time!" Crystal exclaimed. Connor looked up, surprised.

"You did this?" he asked.

"Weren't you listening the explanation?" Jack asked him.

Connor froze, taking a second to recall if he had listened to any sort of explanation within the last half an hour.

"Um, must've switched off," he admitted.

Crystal sighed shaking her head. She walked over to Connor and forced the mouse off of him. She returned the screen to the software she had been using to carry out Helen's demands and showed him what she had done in order to get the creatures to file into the one room. Then Connor suggested that they traced the software back and tried to find out exactly what had caused the creatures to move and see if they could recreate it only reverse the command.

"Shall we just leave them to it?" Abi joked as she saw Crystal pull a chair over to the computer.

Jack had already found himself somewhere to perch on (the table), cutter was propped up against the wall and Steven was leaning on the desk. They had all figured that this was going to take some time and gotten themselves momentarily comfortable for the wait.

"Got it!" Connor exclaimed turning to Cutter for verification. "What do you want me to do now?"

Cutter moved away from the wall and walked over to the computer, he bent down and looked at the screen trying to un-jumble the strange computing signs that Connor seem to know all about.

"Right, ok, if we were to press the button now where would they all go?" Cutter asked figuring the best way to go about this was to think ahead.

"Back to where they were originally, so the cage for the sabre-tooth and so forth." Connor replied.

Cutter nodded, "Gone on then," He assented.

Connor turned his head back to the screen and did a few clicks with the mouse.

"No, wait!" Steven cried.

"The door still locked," Steven said at the same time as Connor told him it was too late.

Crystal stood up, remembering she had the code in her pocket and knowing the situation was urgent she hastened out the room without so much as a word of where she was going. Cutter assumed for the earlier comment that Crystal was going to try to open the door and sent Steven after her.

"Crystal!" Steven yelled after her as she ran round the corner. She wasn't going to stop for anyone at that moment for she knew that time matter and every second wasted was more time lost in the succeeding of their plan.

Steven broke into a run, not want to lose sight of Crystal for two reasons: one being that he had been told to look out for her and he couldn't very well do that if she was nowhere in his sight and two being that he didn't really know the way back to the room, he knew that this was the ARC but for some reason the route just didn't seem familiar to him.

With some fast running Steven managed to catch up with Crystal just as she reached the door. He had to take a moment to get his breath back and so could only watch and hope as Crystal got a piece of paper out and bent down over the controls.

Unseen by Steven she slid the control panel and clicked the enter button as she had seen Helen do, then she pressed the green button then the yellow in succession and the number key to follow, then the red button, almost forgetting to press it twice, and the enter key, keeping her fingers crossed. The screen suddenly bleeped and displayed a green light reading 'Opening'. Silently congratulating herself Crystal stood up, knowing they didn't have long at all now. She pushed the non-moving Steven in the direction of the corridor.

"We have about five seconds to get out of here!" Crystal explained when Steven gave her an annoyed look.

They were only half way up the corridor when Crystal realised the door was fully open and the sound of paws and claws entering the corridor became very prominent in her ears.

"I would highly suggest going just a little faster Steven!" Crystal urged him.

They had only just managed to get round the corner fully before they became subjected to any of the creatures that where leaving the reception, at a more leisurely pace they continued on back to where they left the rest of the team.

As soon as they reached the door Crystal dashed straight to the computer almost knocking Connor away from the seat.

"How are we doing?" she asked even though she was already there and able to see for herself. With this in mind Connor didn't validate her with an answer.

Crystal began to type away into the computer and with her head in the way Connor couldn't quite see what it was that she was typing.

"What are you doing?" he asked her.

"Locking doors…" she said her mind too busy to get out a full sentence of exactly what she was doing.

"For what?" was Connor's inevitable reply.

"The creatures have all gone back to where they were originally, so I'm keeping them there." Crystal explained.

Crystal's typing was the only thing that could be heard for a while until she pressed the enter key hard and lifted her hand away from the keyboard.

"So now we can all get going safely!" Jack said having become impatient.

"Wait I'm locking them individually," Crystal held her hand out to indicate she wasn't finished.

Jack sighed and pulled himself back into a standing position after trying to walk away. They waited what seemed like ages to Jack but in reality only about 3 minutes or so before Crystal removed her hands away from the keyboard and turned around.

"Now we can go!" she said. Jack immediately bounded into action and headed towards the door not before Cutter had stopped him and put him in his place, behind him. Steven, Abi and Connor followed on after Jack leaving Crystal to bring up the rear after double checking the computer had done what she had asked it to do.

They all congregated in the reception room, the door had become a problem. It seemed to be stuck in its position and unwilling to budge.

Cutter tried it first, pushing it how he would normally push the door and found it wouldn't move. Steven had then taken over putting it down to Cutter's lack of strength that was preventing the door from opening but he couldn't make it move either. Jack had, in his mind, thought he was stronger than both Steven and Cutter and pushed them out the way to try the door himself causing himself a little embarrassment when he discovered he couldn't.

"It shouldn't be locked…" Crystal tried to sound positive although she was questioning herself at this point in time.

"Then it's just a little stiff…" Abi followed Crystal positive comment and while everyone had paused to wonder what to do, she went up to the door and instead of just pushing it she focussed on where the lock was and gently pressed on that one area. There was a small click and Abi looked triumphantly back at the team. She had managed to open a door that had struck three men clueless; Abi was awash with a feeling of smugness as she held the door open for them to go through.

Jack was the last one through, he let Abi go in front of him because he was determined to work out what was wrong with the door and so while Abi joined the others who had begun walking down the road, Jack held back testing the lock mechanise on the door.

After a while, and finding nothing wrong, Jack gave up. He realised that he had put some distance between himself and the rest of the team and readied himself to run after them.

He had made one step when he heard the sound of glass smashing and then found himself staring into the eyes of the sabre-tooth tiger. Jack froze.

"Um guys…" he started softly and when he got no answer he raised his voice and repeated it again.

The tiger had begun prowling towards him, making him take strides backwards. He was beginning to panic now.

"GUYS!" he shouted as a last resort.

Crystal turned round, attuned to the shout, she pulled Connor to a halt and his screech made everyone else turn too.

"Don't move!" Steven called out to Jack when he realised the predicament.

Jack muttered under his breath: 'I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer' as he eyed the sabre-tooth to make sure he wasn't going to be caught unaware.

Steven pulled out his gun; he loaded it and then aimed it at the creature, his hand trembling slightly. He pulled the trigger but missed the tiger. Crystal whipped her head round to Steven giving him a glare.

"It was a warning shot!" he tried to defend himself. Crystal brought it and turned back to face the scene. Steven made a mock sigh of relief behind Crystal's back.

He brought the gun up again and completed the same process; he knew he couldn't miss now. This time he hit straight on target and the sabre-tooth fell limp on its side.

Crystal ran straight passed the tiger and embraced her brother.

Coming up to some real action soon so keep reading and reviewing!