Disclaimer: I own nothing of Primeval or anything else you might recognise.
The past couple years, Helen Cutter's ongoing presence notwithstanding, had been completely brilliant, Connor thought as he headed down the street to the house Becker now lived in. When he got there, Becker was standing in the door already, having an argument with a girl who looked about the same age, pale blonde hair, in a sweatshirt and jeans. "Hey Becker," he said, reshouldering the bag.
"This," Becker said, pointing at the girl, "Is your fault. Abby, go away already."
"If they're reptiles they can't have migrated like that," she was saying, "They simply wouldn't have been able to maintain it without either the ambient temperatures being higher or some sort of endothermy. And if they're reptiles, that's not possible."
"Dinosaurs?" Connor asked.
"Yes," Becker said tensely. "And if you hadn't sent me that stupid email with all those stupid technical terms I wouldn't have been in the library and Abby wouldn't be following me everywhere trying to convince me that dinosaurs aren't reptiles."
"Well," Connor said, "There's evidence they evolved into birds, which are endothermic, so the whole reptile thing could be a boondoggle." He looked at this Abby person. "So, why are you harassing Becker?"
"Because he's wrong about reptiles," she declared. "They can't migrate like people say the herbivores did, and all the books he pulled up keep having behavioural indicators from nesting sites and things that aren't reptilian."
"You like dinosaurs?" Connor asked.
"No," Abby made a face. "Why would I be interested in dead things? I'm a lizard girl."
Becker walked back out, now wearing his boots and carrying his own rucksack. "Well you can take your lizard girly self somewhere else," he declared, and started down the street without a backwards glance.
Connor hurried to catch up, well aware that Abby was following them. "What's all that about?"
"I don't know," Becker said, "But . . . she keeps looking at me. And touching me. And I think she might like me."
"Really?" Connor looked back at her. She shot him a dark look, then gave Becker a longing look. "Huh. I think you might be right." He glanced at her again. "She's smart, though. Kind of cute."
"You go out with her, then," Becker grumbled. "I like my girls not telling me off for my lack of knowledge of lizards." Then he shifted his rucksack, and said, "So, why are we doing this instead of something fun?"
"Because I want to check out the monster they say is in the park," Connor said for the hundredth time. "It looks interesting. Anyhow, don't you want to know?"
"Connor," Becker said, "It's stupid. The tabloid is stupid, so looking for the tabloid's monster is stupid. There's no monster. Also, if there really is a monster, we have no guns, no backup and we would get eaten. Or trampled."
"So, do you think it's real or not?" Connor asked. He just wanted to know. The photos in the tabloid had looked . . . real to him. Blurry, but the sort of blurry that came from motion, not from someone fudging the evidence.
Becker sighed. "Does it matter? It's your birthday, so we're going to look for your stupid monster."
They started down the street, mostly deserted that time of year and day, Abby following behind them the whole way. "So, you said you'd found someone to talk to about joining the armed forces, didn't you?" Connor asked. "I mean, I know it was a while back, but we haven't talked face to face for a while. How's it going with . . . who was it? Lieutenant something?"
"Ryan, Tom Ryan," Becker said, now much more cheerful. "He lets me volunteer around the recruitment office and talks to me about stuff. He's there right now because he apparently had some bad run of things in the Gulf War, so it's sort of a desk job. He's pretty cool, though."
"Nice," Connor said. "I'm glad. Not that Stephen minded answering your questions, but he's not military, after all."
"Who's Stephen?" Abby piped up from behind them.
Becker sighed voluminously. "He's my legal guardian," Connor said, "And he knows lots of stuff about guns and fitness, so Becker used to ask him about that."
"Don't talk to her," Becker hissed. "You'll just encourage her."
The three of them made their way to the park, Becker frostily ignoring Abby, who doggedly continued to chase after his attention, and Connor watching the whole thing, amused, and trading dinosaur trivia for general reptilian. When they got there, nothing seemed out of place, and Becker rolled his eyes in exasperation as he trailed after Connor. "I still can't believe you came out to Brighton for your birthday," Becker said.
"Stephen and Cutter didn't want to come," Connor explained.
"That's because this is stupid," Becker said again.
"He's right, you know," Abby said. "What are you expecting to find? A lost komodo dragon?"
"Something like that," Connor said. Then they reached the trees. The earth was all churned up and if Stephen's lessons about tracking were right, something had wandered off from there. "This way."
"By the way," Becker asked, "Anyone found any trace of Creepy Cutter?"
"Helen? No," Connor said. "Cutter's well shut of her, of course, but he never knew she was a complete tart."
"That student of hers?" Becker asked.
"Yeah," Connor said. "She pretty much chose him because he's pretty."
"Nice," Becker said. "What do you bet she found some bloke even prettier and ran off?"
"I wouldn't take that bet," Connor said.
"Becker . . ." Abby said, sounding apprehensive. They turned to look at her, then at where she was looking, petrified.
He could not believe his eyes. "A styracosaurus," Connor breathed. "That's a pretty amazing model-" He was interrupted by the thing moving, then literally ripping up half the bush in front of it. No model would do that. Then it spotted them, let out a sort of bellowing low, like a really angry cow, and charged. They fled.
It kept on them, and Connor glanced up, seeing a sturdy-looking oak tree with some low-hanging branches. He turned for it, the others following behind, and they all scrambled up out of reach, just barely in time for the dinosaur to slam into the trunk. It shuddered, but it held. Glaring, it backed up and charged again, clearly pretty pissed off at them for some reason.
"I'm calling Stephen," Connor declared, tugging out his mobile. He dialled, then waited anxiously for Stephen to answer. He was partway through convincing Stephen that, yes, they were under attack from a dinosaur, when Becker made another lunge at him and got the phone in his hands, hanging up unceremoniously and calling a different number. "Is Lieutenant Ryan there?"
"Becker!"
"Shh. Yes, I need to speak with him, it's important."
"Oh, God," Abby moaned. "I bet we were near its nest or something."
"Tom? Thank God. Look. This is going to sound crazy, but I really really need you to bring something to kill a really big animal. Connor's gone and dropped us into a science fiction film and I'd appreciate it if you'd rescue us." Becker looked offended as the pause went on. "This isn't a practical joke-"
The whole tree shuddered again at another ram from the enormous animal. Connor started taking pictures, because if he died here, he wanted Stephen to know what killed him. "Really?" Abby asked, looking incredulous.
"What else can we do?" Connor asked her. "Might as well take pictures."
"We need an assault rifle!" Becker was saying into the mobile. "Thank you." He hung up. "Lieutenant Ryan's on his way."
Abby shrieked as another assault on the tree jarred her loose and she dangled from the branches, clinging, but clearly slipping. "Abby!" Together they pulled her up, but it was slow going, since every time they got a decent grip there'd be another juddering thud and Abby would slip a few inches again.
They'd just got her back into the tree and resituated somewhere more stable when a shout came from outside their little copse. "Becker!"
"Over here!" Becker shouted. A single man in military fatigues appeared and stared at the dinosaur. The dinosaur whipped around and took great exception to his presence, charging him down. He went straight up a tree. "Why don't you have a gun!" Becker shouted at him as the styracosaur homed in on its new target.
"I do," the lieutenant called back, holding up what looked like a rather small pistol.
Becker looked deeply affronted. "I said assault rifle!" he nearly howled. "Now we'll be here all day until Stephen gets here!"
"You can't kill it!" Abby objected at once.
"It's trying to kill us," Becker replied. "I'd rather it than us!"
It did take hours. Ryan shot it once, which just pissed it off, making it stick around longer. It took so long, in fact, that it lost interest eventually and wandered off. Twenty minutes later, just as Connor and Becker were debating the pros and cons of getting down, Stephen and Cutter appeared. "Connor?"
"Did you bring guns and stuff?" Connor asked. "Because Ryan tried his pistol on it, and that just made it angry."
"Maybe it was in rut," Abby said contemplatively.
Cutter and Stephen were looking at the churned up earth and the damaged trees. "Well, whatever you saw-"
"It was a fucking dinosaur," Becker said. "I did not agree to chase after dinosaurs."
"You came along," Connor pointed out as they tentatively slid to the ground.
Becker gave him a disgusted look. "That's because I thought it was a hoax and you were being stupid," he said.
Stephen was ignoring the byplay as he followed the animal's tracks as they meandered through the trees. "Bloody hell," he said after a few minutes. Cutter shoved past the kids to the front, the two men just in time to see the dinosaur tramp up to some big glowy thing and go through.
"What is that?" Cutter asked.
Pulling out a pen and pad, Connor was about to start taking some notes when the pen went flying from his hand. "What the-"
Lieutenant Ryan frowned and pulled out what looked like car keys, holding tightly to them as they strained to escape his fingers. "It's attracting metal," he said slowly. "It's magnetic, whatever it is."
Cutter frowned, looking at the results of the grumpy ceratopsian, the glowing thing, whatever it was, and Ryan's keys straining in his hand. Then he turned and walked into the . . . thing. "Cutter!" Stephen shouted, racing up to it but stopping short looking indecisive.
The professor came walking back out looking dazed. "It's the Cretaceous," he said. "It's a Cretaceous environment on the other side. There's a herd of styracosaurs, looks like mating season."
"You have got to be kidding me," Ryan said flatly. "It's a magic portal in time?"
A thought was teasing at Connor, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Stephen was looking flummoxed. "What do we do? Tell people? Warn them? I mean, what caused this?"
"We've got to get samples," Cutter said, ignoring Stephen. "I need the kit from the car." He was racing off to where, presumably, he and Stephen had parked. Suddenly, the thing, whatever it was, began to bulge and contract. It rippled, and a tyrannosaurid was suddenly poking its head through.
"Cutter!" Stephen shouted as they all backed away quickly. "Cutter, guns! Now!"
"Fucking hell," Ryan said, eyes wide.
Cutter arrived bearing not nearly enough weaponry, and then the thing bulged one last time, then abruptly closed, neatly beheading the predator. "Bloody hell," Cutter said, staring at the huge head and teeth.
"Seconded," Connor heard himself say weakly.