Chapter 5

When they arrived at the ARC Abby and Connor gave their infant son to Jess to look after before they were led to separate rooms for interrogation and debriefing. Abby was first, she was sat on one side of a desk when Matt came in, with a recording device.

"This is Team Leader Matt Anderson, interviewing Abigail Sarah Maitland about her time in the Cretaceous era. So Abby, you originally went there to stop Helen Cutter, is that correct?"

"Yes, she was a maniac, she wanted to destroy the human race"

"And how was she going to do that?"

"She was going to go to site 333 and kill the early hominids"

"And then what?"

"The three of us Danny, Connor and I were trapped in a tree by raptors, then Danny saw Helen in the distance so he managed to escape and follow her, he went to stop her"

"And then you got trapped"

"And then we got trapped"

"What happened to you after that? What did you live off?" questioned Matt.

"Well Connor hurt his ankle, so I bandaged it up, then we stayed in an abandoned nest for a few days, until we built this amazing hut at the bottom of a tree, we lived there. As for food and water, we used our flasks to gather water from the lake, we used a handmade pointy stick to catch fish, we also ate berries and the odd wild mushroom".

"You spent just over a year, 65 million years in the past, when did your son Nicolas come along and how old is he?"

"He's three weeks old"

"And even though you did not have modern medicine to help you, you coped ok, yes?"

"Yes I did, Connor looked after me, he was brilliant".

Matt continued to ask Abby questions about the Cretaceous for another 10 minutes. then he left her and went into the room where Connor was and asked him the same questions.

A little while later they we back in the main room, talking with Jess and Becker when Abby asked "Where's Sarah?"

"Abby, she died" answered Becker.

"What! When?"

"About 5 months ago, a creature got her"

A little while later Abby, Connor and Nicky go into an old store room, where they find there's and Danny's old lockers.

"Someone must've pulled them from the old ARC"

"And that would be me" said Lester from behind them.

"So you knew we'd be back one day"

"Well I couldn't rule it out as a possibility, and well, lockers are expensive"

"Never knew you were the sentimental type"

"Not at all, I was just afraid of opening them, I have no desire whatsoever to see Connor's collection of Vintage Girly Magazines and Superhero action figures"

There is a silence between them all before Lester breaks it by saying "Listen, Abby, there's a job opening as head of the Menagerie, it's yours if you want it"

"No thank you, not without Connor"

"Hey, oi, you take it, it's fine, think of Rex, he'll be an Orphan if we both go, anyway, one of us has got to go and clean the flat so it's liveable"

"12 months back pay will help you with any refurbishments"

"Okay, I'll do it"

"Good, and listen Connor, I'm doing what I can for you, but it's complicated, I need you to keep a low profile, ok"

Lester begins to walk away and Connor opens his locker, causing things to fall out and onto the floor.

"Oh and Connor, please, stay out of trouble" added Lester before leaving the room.

"Out of trouble, gotcha"

"Connor, do you wanna take Nicky, and go to an internet cafe, look for somewhere for us to live while we refurbish the flat"

"Sure, I just wanna have look through some of this stuff first"

"Okay"

End of Chapter