Author's Note: Yes, I am (surprisingly) alive… and as well as can be expected when you're a junior. Too much work! Besides, my "one game of solitaire before I start writing"s take up a lot of time… lol.

Replies:

Short and proud – Holy cow! You signed in! I… am impressed.

T.E.N. – lol. That's very logical thinking… but unfortunately, Eric doesn't seem to be thinking very logically (by those standards).

Aja – Thanks for the questions! But unfortunately, I can't answer them. You're just going to have to wait and see…

Love-angel-89 – Yes, I had a very busy summer. Now I'm having a busy school year. Joy of joys.

RosyGrace – Welcome! Thanks for reviewing my stories. I'm really glad that you like them.

Sulkdodds – lol. Thanks for sticking with me! And I'm glad to hear that this one is better than the last. I don't really care for most of the first one, sad though it may seem. : D

What happened last?

"Well… we would like you on the line just in case they come across something he doesn't know," J.C. said.

"Okay," I said slowly. "But what exactly are they going to be doing… where they're going?"

"Ah, that I can't tell you until tomorrow," J.C. said, smiling at me. "If you have no more questions…" I shook my head, "then I will see you tomorrow at the meeting. Audrey will pick you up at six p.m. Make sure you're in the lobby."

He stood up and walked away brusquely.

'Interesting,' I thought.

Chapter Eight – Annihilate 23

I exited the Deli and looked around the hotel's lobby. It was merely one o'clock. I had five more hours to kill before I needed to be ready to go to the team meeting with Audrey. What was there to do here that would not cause me to remember Lane and what we did six whole years ago? At least we weren't staying at the same hotel. That would have made things more than a nightmare. I was having a hard enough time dealing with the whole ordeal as it was.

"Eric?"

I turned around and saw Audrey walking toward me. "Uh… hi," I said, giving her a smile and trying to wipe the thoughts of Lane from my mind. Audrey did look somewhat like her… in an older, brown-haired sort of way. Her nose was different, but something about her just screamed 'Lane' whenever I set eyes on her. This, you would think, would also make things harder for me, but oddly enough, when Audrey was around, my memories of Lane nearly seemed to slip completely away. Like when you're holding water in your hands. It all drips down through your fingers until you are left with nothing but damp palms to remind you of what was once there.

"What are you doing this afternoon?" Audrey asked me as she reached my side.

"I didn't really have anything planned," I informed her.

"Would you like to go to the beach with me?" she asked. "This is pretty much the only time we have to relax this trip and I want to have some fun."

I smiled at her. "Sure! Should I run up to my room and grab some stuff?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I'll be out front by the fountain. Meet me there and we can walk to the beach."

"Okay." She and I separated and I walked over to the elevators. Maybe spending the afternoon with Audrey would do me good.

"I don't like him," Knight informed J.C. The two were seated in the sitting room of a suite. The French doors were open, and a welcoming breeze wafted in over the balcony and into the room, carrying with it the smell of the ocean.

"What don't you like about him?" J.C. asked, not looking up from his paperwork.

"I just don't like him," Knight stated. He squinted his eyes and looked out at the clear blue sky. "He isn't trustworthy."

"Trustworthy or not," J.C. said, still not looking at the man, "Eric is one of the best dinosaur experts to be found. We need him."

"What about Grey?" Knight said immediately.

"Landon Grey is an arrogant prat and you know it," said J.C. "He doesn't know as much as he boasts. Eric is ten times better. If only we could get him to go on the island…"

"The day Eric Kirby goes with us is the day I quit this thing," Knight snapped.

J.C. looked up from his work and stared at the man sitting across from him. His gaze did not merely look ticked off; it was almost murderous. "You quit and you'll regret it. I mean it, Adam. I told you when you agreed to partner with me; you back out and there will be consequences."

Knight pursed his lips and looked away from J.C. "I just don't trust him, that's all," he said. "Besides, Landon is going and he knows enough to get along. Kirby will just help him through, that's all."

"Exactly," J.C. said icily.

"Right, well," Knight stood to his feet and looked around the room. "Would you like me to send the guys up to start setting up the computers and other equipment?"

"Finally, you're being useful," J.C. said smoothly.

"That would be a yes?"

"YES!" J.C. snapped.

Knight narrowed his eyes but didn't say anything. He only paused a moment before he exited the room.

I sat on the towel and silently watched Audrey and Kevin wrestle with each other in the water. It was easy to tell that Kevin was going easy on her, but Audrey could certainly hold her own against him. The whole ordeal was rather comical, actually.

Kevin was finally able to lift Audrey completely off her feet. This didn't work as well as he had hoped, however, as she wriggled so much, he lost his balance and they were both submerged in the salty ocean water. They both came up coughing. "Kevin, you turd!" Audrey exclaimed, hitting him over the head. "Now I'm going to have to take a shower!"

"You mean you weren't planning on doing that anyways?" Kevin asked. "Man, I'm not sitting next to you at the meeting!"

Audrey glared at him. "For your information, I was planning on taking a bath, but now I have to wash my hair."

"You mean you actually like sitting in luke-warm water surrounded by your own filth?" he mocked.

"Urgh!" she exclaimed before she waded out of the water, up the beach to grab her bag, and then up to the sidewalk, all while Kevin was laughing at her.

Kevin walked up the beach and sat on a towel next to me. "Such a temper," he said jokingly.

"Oh, of course," I agreed. We both laughed.

"So… what do you think of her, Eric?" Kevin asked, an evil glint in his eyes.

"What do you mean?" I asked, narrowing my eyes a bit.

"I mean," Kevin said, "what do you think of Audrey?" He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

I laughed. "She's cool," I supplied. "Nice."

"Not to mention hot, eh?" he teased, nudging me in the ribs.

I laughed nervously. "Yeah…."

"Right, well, I'm going to go up and take a shower. Don't forget about the meeting tonight!" Kevin stood up.

"All right, man. See you later," I said to him.

"Oh," Kevin said, just as he was about to leave. "I'll save you a seat next to Audrey." He winked at me, and then walked up the beach.

"Ha. Ha," I sarcastically laughed after him.

I looked back out at the beach. 'Why am I here?' I thought. 'This is so stupid. I mean… why entangle myself with things that concern this island? Isla Sorna. I haven't been there in six years. I've been avoiding going to Isla Sorna for six years. In fact, I could have gone on easily in my life if I had never even been there. This is ridiculous! I vowed that I would never again have anything to do with that island at Lane's funeral. Now what am I doing? Having something to do with the island. Ugh… Why am I even doing this??…

'Two million dollars…'

I jumped into the Jeep and Audrey pulled away from the curb. "Are you ready for the meeting?" she asked.

"Er… ready?" I asked. "I didn't know that I had to do anything to get ready."

"What? Oh," she said distractedly. "That's right. Well… ah, I've lost my train of thought. Give me a second to find it."

I laughed. "Okay."

We sat silently in the car for a long while as Audrey sped down street after street, heading to who-knows-where.

"Do you like peanut butter?" she suddenly asked.

"I… what?" I looked over at her, confused.

"It's a simple question, Eric," she laughed. "Certainly you can answer this one."

"What do you mean, this one?" I questioned.

She shrugged and turned down a side street. "You just seem kind of distant, that's all. Just loosen up, man!" She reached over and punched me in the arm. "We're all in this gig together and if you don't get friendly, you're not going to enjoy yourself!"

"Enjoy myself?" I asked, astonished. "How could I possibly enjoy myself?"

Audrey pursed her lips a little bit. "Oh, I don't know. Never mind."

"No," I protested. "Tell me."

"Never mind!" she exclaimed. "If you can't tell then I'm not going to tell you."

I sat and stared at her. What on earth was she on about? 'If you can't tell then I'm not going to tell you.' What was that?

"We're here," Audrey suddenly said. She turned the car off and stepped out. I followed her onto the sidewalk. We stood in front of an old pub. It looked dirty and run down, but it was obviously open. Audrey waved at me, indicating that I should follow her. We walked up an old metal staircase on the side of the building and stopped when we reached the tilted landing at the top. Audrey knocked on a heavy metal door on the side of the building and a small window opened at about eye level.

"What?" a man's voice said. I couldn't see anything of the speaker.

"Let us in, Bret," Audrey said.

"Who's 'us?'" Bret asked.

"Oh for heaven's sake!" Audrey exclaimed. "We don't have time for this. We're late, Baker, so just let us in!"

"Don't call me by my last name," Bret said.

"I'm older, I get to do what I want," Audrey said.

"Uh, guys?" I said, breaking into their conversation. "If we're late, shouldn't we stop talking and go in?"

"Who are you?" Bret asked.

"Eric Kirby," I said tiredly.

"Right," Bret said. The window closed and a second later, the door opened from the inside and Audrey led the way in.

We walked down a dank hallway with only one very dim light in the middle of the ceiling. After the door closed behind us, I heard Bret follow. We reached a room at the end and Audrey opened the door. The three of us walked into a room with a long table in the middle that had chairs placed all around it. Audrey, Bret, and I took the three empty seats on the left side and I looked up at J.C., who was sitting at the head of the table. Knight sat at the other end.

"Right, now that we're all here," J.C. said, sending a reproving glance in Audrey's direction, "we can begin. Why don't we all go around and introduce ourselves?"

Knight grunted.

"What?" J.C. snapped.

"Seems a waste to me," Knight muttered.

"Adam, I'm warning you," J.C. said. "We all talked about this earlier and you agreed…"

"To play along, I know," Knight replied.

"Guys!" Audrey exclaimed. "Remember who's here!"

Knight glared at me, then said, "Right. I'm Knight. I'm the co-leader of this… mission. I'm going to the island and you'll all have to answer to me, got it?"

J.C. cleared his throat. "That's good, Knight. Moving on…"

The woman sitting to Knight's right sat up a little straighter. She had straight black hair that fell to just below her shoulders. "I'm Becca Baker," she said. "I'm a plant specialist and know enough about weapons to get along on my own."

I recognized the man to her right, who went next. His name was Landon Grey and his was a paleontologist who was planning on going to the island. He had published quite a few books and his pictures were all over the place because he had discovered a rare species of Velociraptor buried somewhere in eastern Asia.

Kevin sat to his right and informed us all that he was a "computer geek," and a weapons specialist.

Audrey then told us that she was also a "computer geek" and if you had a question concerning computers, go to her first, then Kevin, as he would have his hands full doing other things most of the time.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Bret jumped ahead of me. Bret looked a tad on the young side. He had blonde hair and stunningly blue eyes. He wasn't exactly the tallest person around. "I'm Bret Baker," he said. "I'm the main weapons specialist."

I waited for a moment before I began talking, just to make sure it was my turn. "Um… I'm Eric Kirby," I said, "and I'm … not exactly a paleontologist but I'm somewhat of a dinosaur expert. I'm not going to the island, but I'm going to be back here on one side of the radio."

"Somewhat of a dinosaur expert?" Landon asked. He turned to J.C. "Why bring someone onto the team who is only somewhat of an expert? It's a waste of our money and time! How can he be trusted? You just…"

"Hey!" Audrey said. "Shut-up, bucko, all right? He has just as much right to be here as you have. You know what J.C. said earlier this afternoon…"

"Of course I know what he said!" Landon snapped back. "But that's not a good enough reason. I want to know why we're paying some half-wit. You, of course, as a woman wouldn't understand…"

"Excuse me!" Becca exclaimed. "Why would being a woman cause her to not understand?"

Their argument became more and more heated. I ground my teeth together. They were yelling over me as though I wasn't even in the room. Why did people always do things like this? I looked over at J.C. He was just sitting there, observing them quietly, until Audrey stood up to her feet in rage. "That is enough," J.C. said. It was amazing that they had even heard him above their ranting and raving, but they had, and they grew quiet. "Please sit down, Miss Roosevelt."

Audrey sat back down in her seat with a huff.

J.C. observed them quietly for a few moments before he spoke. "I think you all owe Mr. Kirby an apology."

"Sorry," Audrey and Becca both said quickly and quietly, but Landon said, "Apologize? Why?"

"Mr. Grey, if you are not willing to cooperate, I will be forced to remove you from the operation. We don't want that, now do we?" J.C. said quietly.

Landon pursed his lips. He sat staring at J.C. for a moment before he said, without turning his head in any direction, "Sorry."

"That's better," J.C. said. "Now that we're done with our little squabble, we can begin our meeting, as I am sure Mr. Kirby is very curious why he is here. You, no doubt, would like to have some things explained to you?"

"Yes, please," I said quickly.

"All right then," J.C. said. "As all of you are aware, our mission involves a certain island titled Isla Sorna. What some of you don't know is what we are going to be doing there and why we are even bothering to go at all.

"Most of you, no doubt, have never heard of a group entitled the Imperium Electum. In fact, those who have heard of this team are either sitting in this room, out doing specified work similar to this mission, or… they are in places that are not needed to be mentioned. They symbol 'IE' is very well know to the people of Costa Rica. This we will not have to go into, however.

"I myself am the co-leader of the entire Electum and it was my duty to find you all, hire you, and bring you here so that you could be briefed.

"Now that you know who has hired you, I suppose you would be interested to know why they have hired you. This is actually very simple. If you will look in front of you, you will see that you have a folder with the symbol 'A23' etched on front. This stands for 'Annihilate 23.'

"But why is it called that? That fact is very easily explained. Our soul mission on Isla Sorna is to hike to the center of the island and wait for a helicopter to deliver a box. Inside this box is a highly complex bomb. Not nuclear, as we could not gain permission to use one.

"What we are striving to achieve is to destroy the island all together. Mr. Hammond, the initial creator of the dinosaurs passed away last year and his ancestors have requested the complete annihilation of the islands. We are to begin with Isla Sorna.

"Unfortunately, this will be our twenty-third attempt. Thus, Annihilation 23. It's all quite simple.

"As it is getting late, I suggest you all head back to the hotel and look over the paperwork in your respective folders. You will be leaving tomorrow morning and any questions you have will be answered by either Mr. Knight or myself," J.C. finished. "Goodnight."

Author's Note: Aha. Now you know what they're going to be doing! Again, I'm sorry for the long wait. Hopefully this won't happen again!

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