:¨·.·¨:
`·.. Chapter Thirteen
Good as Gold

"This better be important, Jenny, I'm a busy man."

"But Cutter was right about that bracelet that was found."

Lester rounded on her. "You know I'm getting rather sick of him being right all the time," he hissed.

"Taylor Craig was the little girl that was trapped in the Silurian with him and Stephen," Jenny explained. She shoved a pile of papers at Lester. "Three months ago her and her stepfather moved to Gloucestershire. Four days after moving, the stepfather reports her missing, along with her dog. Police assume she ran away from home, but at present she still hasn't been found."

"This is all very fascinating, Jenny, but-"

"Their new house was up the road from the Forest of Dean."

Lester stopped walking.

"Not only that," Jenny continued, thrusting yet another stack of files at him. "The day the first anomaly was discovered, Abby went to a house after a woman named Mary Trent called the zoo about an unusual lizard her son Ben found. That lizard turned out to be Rex, and Ben rambled on about seeing the past to Cutter and Abby. Mary claims that after that he became completely obsessed with conspiracies and time portals, and would spend all his spare time in the Forest of Dean. He went missing the same day that Taylor did."

Lester glared at the reports as she spoke. "So you're saying that some nasty creature is going around devouring children who've seen anomalies before?"

"Not exactly... I'm saying that they most likely went looking for the Forest of Dean anomaly, and found it."

"And went through it?" Lester added.

"Yes."

"And now they're trapped there."

"Yes."

"Absolutely wonderful," he said sarcastically. "What are the chances they're still alive?"

"Not high," Jenny admitted. "It's possible that Taylor just lost the bracelet, but it's also possible that the reason it was fossilised is because, well..."

"I don't need gruesome details... But why the hell did the ADD not go off when that anomaly opened?" Lester snapped.

"It did. Except it was only open for two hours and seventeen minutes, and by the time the team got there it had already closed."

"Ugh. What a mess." Lester closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. After several deep breaths, he reopened them. "Right, I want you to invent a cover story for the bloody palaeontologists who found the bracelet. Then I want you to stay away from the kids' guardians, and make sure everyone else does too. If they remember we were involved with the previous incidents, all hell will break loose. Let them think they just ran away." He began walking again.

"So you just want Mary and Steve to languish without knowing what happened to their children?" Jenny asked in astonishment, her heels clapping loudly against the linoleum as she followed Lester.

"Would you rather try to explain that all those kids' stories about dinosaurs and time travel were true, and that they're probably dead somewhere in a prehistoric era?"

"Well we have to do something," Jenny insisted. "They may still be alive, maybe we can save them."

"The answer is no, Jenny. No rescue missions, no martyrs. Not only do we not know what time they're in, but we do not have the equipment to reopen to that time anyway. They chose to go traipsing through an anomaly after knowing how dangerous they were; let them deal with it."

With that he walked away, leaving Jenny glowering after him.

Tiny filler chapter, sorry. I was seriously considering having Jenny say that Lucien had also gone missing, because I want to fit him into the story somehow (the high school boys Darren and Steve will probably not be in this story, I have their own story planned), but I could not for the life of me think of a role for him without him being a pointless third wheel. If anyone has suggestions (because I know earlier on there were several requests for adding Lucien) please let me know!

Also let me know what you think about a story project that follows Helen's version of the series. I've had this project planned for ages and occasionally add to it, but seeing how many readers I've lost lately I'm not sure whether it's worth it to continue it.

P.S. I think FanFiction's been skipping alerts for some of the chapters. If you feel you've missed something, you probably have.