Chapter 13: Undercover Mission

"Right then, how about you guys work together. Arlo, Buck, I need you two to remove the tiles. Libby, Ida, I want you to remove the weeds littering this place. In the meantime I'll be off to work to... catch up with things." As Peter went to leave, Sarah blocked his way from the exit. "And what am I supposed to do?", "Hmm, perhaps you and Alma can do some research on the shuttle. Heck, there's so many buttons that I haven't pressed yet. See you in the afternoon." Outside of the homestead, the car in front opened its door as Peter got close.

The journey to work was abnormally normal, nothing extreme was happening anymore and everything still looked the same, excluding the giant towers in the distance. When the car stopped he was greeted by the same building as before, with some people asking him questions along the way to the front door, and the inside looked like a carbon copy. Everything was normal. But something felt off. Going up the elevator he could still see those towers off in the distance, something wasn't right about them. On the fifth floor the bright carpet showed him the way to his new boss, Andrew.

"Hello there Peter, haven't seen you in such a long time! How are you my friend?" Andrew said cheerfully, giving him a strong handshake. "Ye I'm good, now that I'm back on Earth." He said, making up a lie as he went on. "So tell me, what happened up there? I'm sure you can trust me. It seemed like you crashed somewhere, but we weren't able to find you. We thought you were a gonna, but here you are!" Both of them laughed amusingly, Peter's being slightly sarcastic."Well, funny thing is, it was worse than you'd expect. So we went up there successfully, and then all of a sudden this airlock fails and ruptures. Nearly lost all the oxygen in there, and some pieces of loose material went out. However we figures a way to get things back on track- if anyone asks just say it was duck-tape. And we got to Mars actually, however it was then we realised we lost our communications and decided to head back to Earth, landed safely of course." He lied again, knowing that it might be 'leaked' in no less then a day.

"Wow, sounds like you had an adventure. Anyways back to business. Since you've had a rough time, you can run the Seismic Accessible Prediction Intelligent Algorithmic Network. We just had it installed a week ago and it would be nice for you to meet it, unless you have any questions to ask me before-so." Andrew briefed, it was now the perfect excuse to ask him. "Yes I have a question, just one. What are those for?" Said Peter, pointing out the window to one of the giant towers. "Funny thing you should ask, they're used for a secret project of mine, you wanna see?"

Sarah looked out of the cabin window, watching the family do their work, before turning to Alma. "So how are they?" Alma quickly stopped what it was doing previously and responded "They're actually a really nice, calm group. Just don't get on their bad side, had that rock coming a mile off.", "Rock, what rock?", "Lets just say they saw Peter as a threat to their crop supply and wanted to... 'take care of him', managed to push him out before it got him which was nice. At least we're happy together. What are you doing?" Alma asked, seeing what Sarah was up to.

"Don't worry, I'm sure these buttons are okay to press, right?" She said, hitting only one button. It was just unfortunate that it was a button that had not been pressed before. Since it was only pressed, what happened next only lasted a second. In front of the shuttle a circular thing emerged before them, however when it closed something was new. When it dissipated someone was in front of them, it was not like the others, as it had wings and a large beak, but it was a species that Sarah knew. The family heard what happened and looked at what was now looking at them.

"Sarah, when this thing is handled with I'm going to slap you for your idiocy." Alma retorted. "Hey how was I supposed to know that button was a multi-dimensional-portal-opener? Answer: there was no way to know." Sarah quickly responded as they got out of the shuttle. All of them watched as the winged dinosaur flew off, straight toward San Jose. "If you guys have any way of catching it, do it now please." Sarah asked, surprisingly it was Arlo that sprung into action, throwing a small log straight towards the flying creature. Direct hit, and it plummeted down like a dead fly.

As Alma went over to what ever it was, the family all looked at Arlo, who soon knew what they were thinking. "Um... me and Thunderclap have met before.", "Thunderclap, that's his name?" Alma pondered as it got to him, as soon as it said that, Thunderclap sprung up and was ready to attack Alma, however it was no match for Alma's maneuverability. It wasn't before long that Alma managed to get Thunderclap flying straight toward the shuttle, which Sarah was inside to press the button once more. Next thing they knew, he was no longer there, taken back to the world Arlo came from.

Peter stared in awe, looking at the largest object in the basement. The object in question would be too complex to describe simply, but it looked... alive in some sorts. Parts were moving and others not, parts were blinking and others were making all sorts of sounds of different intensities. It was the strangest contraption Peter had ever seen, but the thing that he had questioned most was the clear, glass-like sphere on the top with a light in the middle dimming and brightening. What ever the purpose of this was, it was one that nothing else in history had been given before.

"This, is my project. Like it? Designed the whole thing myself. Just don't say anything about this to anyone else okay. Peter? What are you looking at?"

"Sorry, just checking the news. Looks like one of my things escaped. Luckily Sarah and Alma should be taking care of it." He lied, though it seemed something wasn't going to go as easy as hoped.

"I completely forgot to ask, what are those things you showed in Sydney? They look so life-like yet they're not, it's incredible. Where'd you get them from?"

"Well uhh, we landed just offshore from Japan, and these were the things they gave us as a 'welcome back home present', pretty nice of them actually. Don't see what everyone's freaked out about."

"Blast, for a moment you had me that they were actual Dinosaurs." Andrew said as they walked back to the elevator. "You know, I have a thing for dinosaurs."

"You do?"

"Yes, though I think their fame is a bit overrated, I guess they're not too bad. Anyways, time for work."

Sarah sighed as she scrubbed the dirt off of the metal walls. Off in the distance they could all hear a car parking itself up. When it stopped, the door smoothly lifted up, revealing the one and only Peter. The new homestead looked much cleaner from the last time he saw it, so much seemed to have changed but it was still made of the same things. No screeching came from the now-clean-door as he entered, with all the tiles gone, and lots of dead grass to make the floor extra soft. It looked and felt less artificial and more like a home for them.

"Ah Peter, you're back eh? Sarah really screwed up pressing one of the main control buttons. However it did get me wondering and I decided to have a little scan of the inside, those 'fusion engines' are really complex." Alma said, displaying an image of the engine design, something was familiar about it though. Unfortunately he didn't get a proper look at it as Sarah pushed Alma aside. "Look, I'm really sorry for what happened back then, it was an accident okay?"

"Trust me Sarah, I know. Sometimes you have to make stupid mistakes to become the wiser, but not if you do them deliberately." Peter reassured. The sun had long since set, and as there were no street lamps the surrounding area was pitch black. All they could do was turn off the shuttle and get some rest for tomorrow. Which all but Peter did. During the middle of the night, something had awoken him, for a brief moment it had felt like there was a flash of light from somewhere, but when he looked there was nothing there to do so. But then he saw a flash somewhere else. He tried to find whoever was causing it, to tell them to stop, but he was too tired to see clearly. Searching everywhere, no one was to be found, if someone had entered and left it wouldn't of been heard thanks to the changes to the door. It was almost like someone had come in to take photos, and leave.

A/N: Finally getting the time I need, and next week I'll be showing something new to this site (I'm really excited). Next chapter will be uploaded on Monday. I hope you enjoyed this chapter - and more importantly the story so far, there's much more to come, though how many chapters specifically I'm not sure. Let me know what you think so far, and as always... see you, in the next chapter. Bye for now!

Next Chapter: A Looming Situation

Notable Facts: Bit more on the "Solar Eclipse Earthquake", in this universe a massive earthquake hit along the entire Cascadia Subduction Zone (from Vancouver to North California) on the 21st of August 2017, near the exact time the solar eclipse happened. The quake destroyed a lot of buildings and was one of the worst natural disasters in American history. Please note that if such a thing occurs outside of this story then it's pure coincidence, it's just a thing I made up and is next to no chance from happening in real life.