Part 3.

Drew was in a state of shock, as the behemoth advanced towards him. What was he going to do? He'd already gave away his position, the shark would have only been enough to tangentially satisfy the behemoth fish's appetite, and it was swimming his way. He breathed out; he only had only one option remaining. He quickly grabbed the communicator and typed a message, warning the park of this monstrous new arrival, before pressing send. He then quickly grabbed the portal remote as the fish continued its remorseless advance and pressed a button that summoned a blue vortex that the giant went through.

At the park, Kyle, Nikolai, Mia, and many other employees were at the portal waiting patiently for what was about to come through; what either of the two teams was going to bring back. The oppressive silence and feel of anticipation was interrupted by the communicator ringing. Kyle picked it up and a message that said. 'Target located. About to send over. Be prepared!' Suddenly, the portal flared open and a gigantic armoured fish began to swim through the portal; it must have been over thirty feet in length.

"Open the gates, quickly!" Kyle ordered. A holding tank was opened and a piece of meat was dropped in. The fish noticed the meat, swerved into the holding tank and, with a speed that belied its massive bulk, grabbed it and swallowed it whole. Kyle, Nikolai and Mia looked over at the giant in shock. It was an imposing looking animal; its entire front half was covered in thick armour, making its head look substantially bigger than its body. Its head was the most distinctive part of its body; its fearsome gape and revealed a vast mouth filled with what looked like massive shearing teeth. This, combined with its orangey-red armour, made its head bear a slight resemblance to an oversized jack-o-lantern.

"Wow, if only Yolanda was here to see this." Mia said.

"After that concussion she suffered, we decided that her health was more important. Besides, she'll have all the time in the world to see it after we've transferred it to the current accommodations." Nikolai responded. Mia nodded in agreement; whilst Yolanda had insisted that she was perfectly fine, it was decided that she spend some more time recovering. Suddenly, they both heard Kyle give a frustrated groan.

"Oh God! Apparently we have to figure out this thing's gender! So, come on, who's dumb enough to dive in and check to see what it carries?!". At that moment, pretty much everyone who'd been at the portal site bolted out of the room, leaving Kyle alone with Nikolai and Mia. "I hate to add more bad news." Mia said. "But most fish have internal reproductive organs, so finding out the gender of Jaws here might become a bit tricky." Kyle breathed out; he knew what Mia was talking about. The ease of telling the genders of fish varied according to species; it was easy to tell on some, subtler on others. Now he had to put some thought into a plan that didn't end in someone dying horrifically.

Back in the Devonian seas, Drew was swimming back to the Mariner. He was almost out of air and he needed to be back before Jack and Leon noticed. After a few minutes, he managed to make it back in time for him to get enough sleep for the night. Though, he wryly noted, he would have a bit of trouble doing that since his heart was still pounding in his chest.

Meanwhile, Adrian and Alice were currently sitting around a campfire eating the tinned soup that Alice had managed to heat up on the camping stove. They were currently conversing with each other, "-And then just when he thought that he'd gotten on the wolf's good side, it peed on his shoe!", Alice burst out laughing, as Adrian told his story. "Let's say that he was not happy. And he maintains it was coincidental, but I swear to this day that's why he's a cat person."

She whipped the tears from her eyes. "Wow, you, Leon and Drew have known each other for a long time." Adrian smiled and said, "Oh yeah, we've known each other since we were in middle school. What about you, any old friends on staff?" She gave a shrug in response, "A couple, a couple; someone I was at school with and a couple of people I met at Novum. However, I was never the social type." In response to this, Adrian shrugged. "Eh, some people like being alone. Everybody's different."

Alice shook her head. "No, it's not that I didn't want friends; it's just that I was never good at making them. Jack made friends easier than I did; God, he attracted them like a dog attracts fleas. He always has done and always will; my dad always used to tell people that he had his own gravitational pull."

Adrian listened closely, taking in every word she said; he'd never heard anything about Jack and Alice's childhoods. He'd known them for several months, but, until now, their pasts were a mystery. "Wow. You've never told anyone that before. Speaking of Jack, what was with him today? He was a bit more… erratic than he normally is."

Alice sighed, "What's with him? Only the same as ever; low self-esteem, crippling status anxiety and the realisation that there's only so much you can do to plaster a smile on a broken soul. You try living, knowing your brother is wrangling dinosaurs; that's why I took this job in the first place. I needed to keep an eye on him." She paused to look at Adrian. "That's the problem with places like this; truth pours out."

Adrian raised a hand to quiet her down. "It's fine, sometimes the best way to handle things is to let it all out. And, to be honest, I wasn't expecting such a happy-go-lucky guy to have hang-ups like this."

Alice smiled at him. "Thanks for listening. And there's more to people than they show to the outside world; they show people what they want to see. If you want to get the measure of a person, don't look at what they show on the surface... look at what they try to hide." She looked around, "Amazing, isn't it?"

Adrian raised his eyebrow, "What?"

"Just how all this happened. Jack told me about what the land in the Silurian period was like; it was just a barren expanse of rock; it was more like Mars than Earth. And now, in just 50 million years, there are massive forests, breathable air and the first land vertebrates! It's weird and unusual and… beautiful. Just beautiful."

Adrian raised his eyebrow in response and smiled, "Well, that's what we've learnt from the history of the world; life finds a way. It gets past all obstacles, it goes to new environments, makes new leaps; painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life always finds a way."

Alice smiled at him, "Nice insight. Anyway, come on, let's get some sleep. We've got a long day tomorrow. We've got amphibians to find."

Back at the yacht, Drew's team were currently still searching for a Dunkleosteus, with Drew constantly checking his communicator to see if the park staff had determined the gender of the one he had rescued last night. He didn't mention it to Jack or Leon; he didn't want to accidentally start a fight again or, worse, get chewed out by them both for going alone. He rolled his eyes at the thought; it's not like he wasn't used to being alone. In fact, he preferred solitude to most other things. He liked it when he could just have time alone to think, or watch a movie, or play a video game. Of course, it wasn't like he didn't enjoy the company of his friends. He, Adrian and Leon went back a long time; they 'd first met in 8th grade biology, over 10 years ago. He smiled as he remembered those old days; they'd changed over that period, change was, after all, the natural cause of life, but they were still very close friends and they trusted each other a lot. One of the crew had confirmed to him that tensions between Jack and Leon were still running high; it seemed like they were finding the tiniest things to argue about.

This moment of introspection was interrupted when Drew suddenly heard a beeping noise; it was the radar. It had picked something up. He went down to the radar to see if they had found one of his two targets. He looked and saw many small shapes moving under the boat. Smiling, he grabbed a periscope to see if they'd come upon more Stethacanthus. He placed the scope in the water, held his breath, and looked through. Sure enough, he could see a small group of Stethacanthus swimming around each other. Why they were gathering was unclear; possibly for the mating season or some sort of annual hunt. Drew knew he had to act quickly if he was going to save them. He couldn't aim the portal from above the water so he would have to go in; luckily, they'd packed a shark cage for this procedure. He walked out, to get ready to dive in shark-infested waters.