It was night at Prehistoric Earth and the park was recovering from the chaos of the Late Cretaceous mission one week beforehand. In particular, Drew had kept to himself ever since the last mission; his being stranded in the Cretaceous had weighed heavily on his mind. He had been avoiding staff meetings and duty around the park, spending most of the time in his office, thinking (or so he claimed). In his stead, it had been Kyle and Nikolai who had been giving the team their assignments around the park.

Cynthia and Leon were on duty at Raptor Territory, checking on the dromaeosaurs and troodonts there. This area of the park was one of the "high-risk" areas; with the Velociraptor escape fresh in everybody's memories, it was imperative that this area be kept under constant surveillance.

Alice and Adrian were on duty in Mesozoic Safaris, observing on how the new Late Cretaceous herbivores integrated with the eclectic mix of herbivores already there. This was deemed a particular area at risk; "compatibility issues" had been going on with the herbivores for quite some time and something had to give eventually.

And Jack and Collete had been put on duty in Theropod Kingdom; even without considering the new tyrannosaurs, this area of the park was considered high-alert and, with the Tarbosaurus incident fresh in everybody's memory, it was important that it be kept under constant surveillance. Now, they were approaching the Tyrannosaurus enclosure; so far, they'd noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

Looking around the paddock to check that the giant theropods were still in, Jack said, "It's amazing, isn't it?" Collete gave him a confused look, "What is?" Jack shrugged, "How well things have been going lately; we've passed a safety audit, given two sets of orphaned dinosaurs new families, successfully recaptured an escaped Tarbosaurus and saved Drew from dying in the Cretaceous."

Collete smiled, "People are putting the credit for that on you." Jack grinned sheepishly, "I was just doing what he'd have done for me…" Collete rolled her eyes, saying "And, anyway, this hasn't all been sunshine and rainbows; we've had the Stegosaurus incidents, the Borealosaurus escape, the Tarbosaurus and Velociraptor incidents…" Jack shrugged, "Hey, life isn't always perfect. But you know what I think? Sometimes, the best things in life are the ones you never see coming. Like…" Collete raised her eyebrow and said "Like what?" Jack smiled, "Like you and me." They turned, looked at each other and smiled, at once savouring and regretting the intimacy of the moment.

Suddenly, they both heard a loud whirring noise coming from nearby; that was the sound of a gate opening. Jack and Collete turned to Sharptooth's paddock, where the sound had originated from; it had been decided to keep him separated from the others, for the purposes of their safety and his. What they saw shocked them; the paddock was empty. Looking a short distance away made him realise something else; the gate was open! Jack turned to Collete and said, "Erm, Collete… we have a bit of a problem… the gate open and Sharptooth's gone." Collete's eyes widened, "Shit."

Heading to the ladder, they climbed down into the paddock and walked towards the open door. Jack raised his eyebrow quizzically, "Surely we'd have noticed him get out. He's fifty-two feet long; he's not exactly hard to miss." Collete shrugged and said, "He must have seen the door open and walked out. What's really odd is that he doesn't seem to have left any tracks…" Jack nodded, "Yeah, it's as if he teleported out…"

Suddenly, a low, deep growl, like an alligator, reverberated from behind them. Jack and Collete, rigid with horror, turned around to see Sharptooth standing behind them. Jack and Collete stood, rooted to the spot as the theropod before them scanned the area coldly. He looked an intimidating sight and, before it, Jack and Collete felt as insignificant as mice. They began to slowly back away from the giant, in the hope that he wouldn't follow them. Suddenly, the tyrannosaur paused and sniffed the air, before turning its head to look at them. Jack and Collete went rigid; they'd been found.

The theropod let out a low snarl, before turning towards Jack and Collete, regarding him with a vicious coldness. He moved, slowly and surely, toward him, he massive strides meaning that it was quickly covering the distance towards them. They turned to each other. There was only one sensible thing to do. Run.

Jack and Collete turned and sprinted towards the ladder. Sharptooth, his prey drive activated, took off after them, his massive strides meaning that he was easily closing the distance between them. Fortunately, the two humans reached the ladder in time, milliseconds before the giant theropod reached them, and raced to the gate; they had to shut the gate before Sharptooth got out. The Tyrannosaurus simply glared at them with a cold indifference and, with a speed that belied his massive bulk, ran out of the gate, into the park.

Jack and Collete looked at each other in horror at the events that had just transpired. This was a worst-case scenario; one of the park's most dangerous animals had escaped! Collete turned to Jack, "What do we do? We can't track him down alone." Jack looked at her and sighed, "We sound the alarm." Collete ran towards the red button and pressed it. Suddenly, emergency sirens blared across the park. The two looked at each other; hopefully, everyone would listen.

A few minutes later, Drew, Leon, Cynthia, Adrian, Alice, Kyle and Nikolai had joined Jack and Collete at Sharptooth's now-empty paddock. Jack asked, "Refresh my memory; how did this happen?" Nikolai breathed out and stated, "Shortly before you sounded the alarm, there was a failure in the electronic door locks in several of the paddocks; mostly in Theropod Kingdom and Raptor Territory." Collete snorted, "That's been happening a lot lately." Nikolai nodded, before continuing, "The incident took us all by surprise; the animals all escaped before we could close the doors." Jack sighed, "So we've got to track them all down…" Kyle nodded grimly, "Yup." Jack turned to Drew, "So what's the plan, fearless leader?"

Drew's expression was severe. He pointed to Jack and Collete, "Jack, Collete, you two will go with Kyle and Nikolai; you've all got tranqs, so you can recapture any escapees that you find." He then gestured to Adrian, Alice and Keehar, "Adrian, Alice, you're in charge of finding the other escapees; take Keehar with you, so you can track them better." Finally, he gestured to Leon and Cynthia, "Leon, Cynthia, you're with me. What we do is we find the allosaurs; having them us gives us an advantage we desperately need. It's why you trained them in the first place, Leon; you said having big, toothy apex predators on our side would be helpful when something like this happened. Now the day's come."

All the team nodded, surprised at Drew's sudden proactiveness. At their boss' order, the teams all ran towards the three Jeeps parked outside Sharptooth's paddock, Adrian, Alice and Keehar taking one and Jack, Collete and Kyle heading towards another. Cynthia and Leon ran to the third Jeep, and stood waiting for Drew; if they wanted to survive this night, the best thing they could do would be to stick together.

Nikolai, however, hung back; he was curious. It had occurred to him that Drew had given more orders in the past three minutes than he had in the last twelve months; something had changed, but what? Turning to his boss, he said, "If I didn't know you better, Drew, I'd say that this sounded awfully like a plan."

Drew turned to Nikolai, his expression fierce, "It does, because it is. When I was stranded in the Cretaceous, I realised something; I've been winging it too much. There's blind faith and there's blind luck; I used to think the two were the same thing. I don't anymore. There are a thousand ways that that situation could have ended; they all involved me dying. Going off alone and half-cocked isn't the way to go anymore; now I understand we've had too many near-misses for that. Point is, we need to go into this situation with a plan; otherwise everything we worked for is going to be torn down in a night."

Nikolai smiled slightly, a rarity for him, and said, "I'm glad you've finally understood your flaws, komandir; and I promise you, we won't let you down", before leaving to join Jack, Collete and Kyle. Drew, as fast as he could, ran down the steps to join Leon and Cynthia in their Jeep. The Jeeps all started and headed off in different directions, ready to recapture the escapees. The most difficult night in their history had begun.