AN: Here's the next two chapters. Enjoy.
Chapter 1: Blackmailed
Kelly was distinctly aware of someone else in the room. Her heart beat furiously as she slipped a hand out from beneath the sheets, reaching for the aluminium drink bottle that sat beside her bed. Then the curtains were pushed aside. Light beamed in like a dozen spotlights pointed directly at her. Sheer exhaustion built up over the last twenty-four hours swamped her and she shied away from the blinding light. Squinting, Kelly tried to make out the figure stood by the window. Tall, male, bald, solid with a short trimmed beard, dressed for business, no company logos on his jacket or sleeved shirt. His face was familiar…
She groaned as recollection flooded through her like a thousand volts. Dreaming again? Reoccurring death-defying chases were one thing, but what was this supposed to be? Her conscious? Her royal pain in the behind? And she thought the position was already taken…
She rubbed at her eyes tiredly. God, it's one of those days, isn't it? First the mission goes bust then my apartment goes up in flames and now this.
"Good morning, Miss Jones."
"I've had better ones," she mumbled more to herself than as a reply.
"Or, rather, good afternoon."
She decided she didn't like this dream very much. Drop me back in the running one, she commanded her mind as she rolled over and buried her head in the pillow. Better yet, the one where I punch this guy in the face. I like that one.
A polite cough interrupted her thoughts. A seed of doubt sprouted. Well there goes the theory of this being a dream, she thought. It had crossed that boundary and was stepping into nightmare territory now. But weren't her dreams a bit more farfetched than this? This is almost tame by comparison. Undecided whether she'd loathe this more if it were a dream or reality, she rolled off the bed and poked the figure squarely in the chest.
"Get out," she commanded.
Of course, that would be too easy given the precedence. He made no attempt to move and looked vaguely amused.
"I want nothing to do with you or your lot." She crossed her arms. "Get out. Now."
The smile he gave doubled the existing temptation to break his nose. "Of course you have made every effort to avoid us and otherworldly visitors. With conviction such as yours, it is baffling that you just 'happened' to be in the area whenever anything extra-terrestrial occurs. Coincidence, at least we assumed so the first few times. Yet the pattern persisted."
She glared at the alien, contemplating whether a fall from the third storey would be fatal for the alien.
"The blood control incident was understandable as some of your peers were doubtlessly affected, as was the Cybermen with the worldwide appearances. Making for Canary Wharf in a beeline once the battle begun on the other hand…" He ticked off his fingers. "One could assume you were trying to become involved. You must forgive us if we are a little confused on where you sit on the matter."
She decided it was a pity she had turned down the room on the fourth storey.
"Initially," he went on, undaunted by her silence, "I suspected you had been wrongly identified. The behaviour didn't match your profile. It was more akin to what I would anticipate your ally, Miss McShane, would do."
Kelly's ears rang.
"This begged the question: Where is Miss McShane?" he asked, oblivious to her inner turmoil.
"I don't know," she replied coldly.
He sighed. "You are aware that this conversation would be more pleasant if you cooperated, yes?"
Her eyes narrowed, suspicions confirmed. All he wants is to rope her back into cleaning up his problems and he has the audacity to invade my life with the intent of wresting her whereabouts from me. "I haven't seen her since you have."
The alien frowned, doubting her honesty. "That was years ago."
"Three years," she stated. "But then, you'd already know that, seeing as you've been following me everywhere."
"That is… unfortunate." There was a hint of regret in his voice before he continued, "You worked most efficiently as a pair."
Oh no, he doesn't. Seeing where he was going, she aimed to cut the thought off before it took root. "Whatever it is, I don't care. It's not my problem. If it's to do with the agreement, you need to negotiate with the current figure of authority, not me. Now get out before I throw you out." She nodded slightly at the balcony window to the right. "I've already moved due to damaged property. I'll do it again."
She took delight in the loss of colour of his face. "You certainly are a formidable human, Miss Jones," he replied.
"I have my moments." Why didn't she like the way his eyes were shining?
"Yet you suffered a rather humiliating burglary yesterday and let them get away. How very… what's the word? Merciful? Yes, merciful, of you to let them go without pursuit."
Oh no, he didn't…
"Without," he continued, "any apparent intention of delivering vengeance on them or reclaiming your pride, dignity-"
Her eyebrow arced sharply. I'll show you dignity, she thought, right when I shove you out the window.
"-or purifying this blemish on your capabilities- Oh, you seem distressed, Miss Jones. Am I touching a nerve?"
"How dare you," she breathed, "try to goad me into following your plans. And don't give me any of that crap about having no idea what I'm talking about. They're the reason you're here. You already knew Ace wasn't around," she continued, angrily. "You just tried to play me and if there's one thing I hate, it's being manipulated into doing something I don't want to do."
She almost struck him as he beamed in delight. "I knew I could rely on your intelligence."
"I won't do it. You do know that, don't you?"
He continued to smile.
She crossed her arms, her fingers tapping against her hip. "I'm not doing it."
"Of course not. Perhaps if you knew what exactly was stored on that device that you…" he paused, seeming to savour the word in his mouth, "lost you might change your mind."
A sinking feeling slowly sapped at her strength. "I don't care," she told him. Don't you dare say that it's involved in something alien, don't you dare…
"The content of that device includes highly sensitive software UNIT has cannibalised from the wreckage of the Sontaran warcraft. Teleportation technology."
"Not my problem."
"UNIT tests have been somewhat successful thus far, but the information is classified beyond Top Secret and accessible to few. An effort is underway to ensure that information is replaced and the project fails and is expected to conclude in a month's time."
"Still not my problem," she repeated.
"However, should this information become more widely accessible, the recovery will become more difficult. We charged the task of recovering the stolen storage device to MI7 who, coincidentally, entrusted you with the task."
Kelly sincerely doubted it was a coincidence and told him just so.
"Since you are already involved," he went on, "it was agreed that enlisting you once more in the retrieval was the most appropriate course of action."
"More like deliberately involving me in the first instance and continuing my involvement," muttered Kelly. "It's a lovely story and I do adore how it paints the efficiency of your organisation, but I'm not interested."
"Payment can be arranged-" he began but she cut him off with a laugh.
"I'm not the kind to change my mind because money is involved. I won't do it. I'm through with you pushing me around and playing your games. "
He bit his lip. "It was hoped that other methods of cohesion would not be necessary."
That would almost be threatening. "I'd like to see you try," she dared, meeting his eyes.
The alien reached into his pocket. Suddenly she had doubts. They want me alive and willing… don't they? Alive, yes, but not necessarily willingly but they wouldn't knock me out and place me in a situation where I had no alternative but to do what they wanted, would they?
He withdrew a vaguely familiar device with a screen. She relaxed slightly, glad to not have had a gun sprung on her. A 3D image was projected into the air by the device. Kelly flinched and let out a small gasp as she recognised the scene that had appeared.
"Perhaps the continued wellbeing of your uncle will be encouragement enough."
It was instinctive for Kelly to identify camera blind spots, eye exits, plan strategies of entering or exiting a building and estimate the chances of success. Sometimes she caught herself mentally casing her location without making a conscious effort to do so. She shook her head and tried to dismiss the information her subconscious was storing. She had no intention of ever being involved in any breaking and entering in this facility. Breaking and exiting maybe but prevention or rather avoidance was preferable.
Reluctantly she admitted that it would be incredibly difficult if she were to consider breaking in, certainly not without a good reason, certainly not for the thrill of it. You'd need someone who could get eyes on the inside, someone pretty good at navigating blueprints and concealing the presence of the others. Then you'd need-
No, she thought firmly. Stop it. No more thinking about it.
Current Location: Foyer of Her Majesty's Prison, Bristol.
Exits: 2; main entrance doorway, guarded, and the electronically locked door to the rest of the building.
Time: 11:02am, Tuesday.
Surrounding Area: Tall fence, watch towers, concrete bunker style buildings. Quiet as usual. A few other civilians were dotted around the place which was to be expected as they were probably here for the same reason as she was.
Threats: Oh boy, where to start… The dogs, the guards, the armed guards positioned around the perimeter, the electrified fence, the metal detectors, the x-ray machines that scanned possessions and people going in and out, the hydraulically sealing shutters…
Chances of Escape: Thankfully close to 100% as I'm just visiting.
Conclusion: Stop casing the place. It's only making you more nervous.
She never enjoyed coming here. No thief ever would. It was the one place they avoided like the plague yet many ended up inside. Many came through these doors, fewer exited through the front door before serving their time, even fewer without alarms blaring. The concrete walls and steel doors always made her shiver. Her semi-regular visits had cemented her conviction to never end up in a place like this. They encouraged extra caution and reminded her of the consequences of failure which hung over her like a cloud. Pride was one thing, her freedom was another.
She smiled politely at the guard who escorted her to the interview room. A man of proud stature sat at one of the chairs at a table. His ghostly coloured eyes shone as she entered the room and a smile that mirrored her own grew out of a twitch of his lips.
"Thought you might have decided to move on when you didn't show last week."
"My coffee machine decided to make a bit of a mess," she told him.
"How dare it." He chuckled again when she asked how he was. "The usual. Doing the same old although I did finish knitting a sweater that you'll never see me wear."
She sniffed in amusement at the image that appeared in her head of her uncle knitting.
"But you know what I do miss?" he asked. "Fishing. Sitting around waiting to see what bites. Seeing if they do or don't. Reeling them in, seeing what you've caught. Not a thing like it."
She nodded slowly in agreement despite never having gone fishing a day in her life. Nor had her uncle, which would have surprised the prison guards seeing as it was a regular topic of conversation for them. All their discussions about tides, fish, netting, bating and reeling, and all the hours they spent recounting their catches, you would imagine the pair had spent countless camping trips together, their rods dug into the sand. The guards were unaware that the pair meant bribery when they said baiting, or that the tides referred to the activity of law enforcement, or that the fish were actually successful heists and thefts.
Kelly was very much her father's daughter, but to her uncle's chagrin she had chosen a different path. It had taken some time to convey that message through their code when she had first begun working for MI7. It had taken even longer to explain how she'd managed to be offered the job considering their relation and his imprisonment for money laundering and redistribution of stolen goods. He had been heartbroken that she had "crossed the river". She suspected many others would be too if they knew, her former peers in particular. Yet she lived by the creed, 'Never betray a St Trinian' and was determined to keep that vow despite the vast majority of them rallying on the other side of the law.
"Dearie, you have so many options to choose from," Miss Fritton had told her with the smile of a proud parent after the heist of the Girl With The Pearl Earring. "You can stay your course and outwit the law at every turn, or you can join it and do so much better than half those idiots because you know so much more than they ever could. That is not betrayal!" she exclaimed when Kelly had mentioned her reluctance to take such a path. "Not everyone who masquerades under the banner of anarchy fights for freedom or goes about it in the right way. Somebody has to stop them, lawfully or otherwise. It is not defecting to the enemy, my girl, but a sacrifice to use your skills to defend those who need it. And," her eyes twinkled, "be in a position to protect your own from the inside."
Her uncle didn't quite see it that way. She understood why. It was a bit like joining those who denied him his freedom but he had eventually accepted her decision.
"Or," Miss Fritton had gone on with a conspiratorial grin, "you could damn them both. If I had faith in anyone's ability to walk both paths, it would be in yours."
"I can't stay," Kelly apologised. Her uncle nodded. "Just wanted to be sure you knew I hadn't forgotten about you."
And that you'll still alive, she added to herself.
"You'll know where to find me. I'm not going anywhere," he joked and she almost laughed.
With a fifteen year non-parole sentence he certainly wasn't. He'd be just over halfway through now. He should be safe in here, but if that alien could teleport in and out of my hotel room, he could probably be in and out of a prison like a breeze.
Before this is all over and done, she thought firmly, I have to figure out how to stop them from using him as blackmail the next time they come looking for me.
Location: Warehouse on the outskirts of town.
Exits: Five, six including the skylight window. Two appear to be fire exits and would usually require finding a means to pull down the ladder or climbing up to the fire escape. One appears to open to a large garage area, intended for loading trucks judging by the design and size.
Time: 10:48pm.
Surrounding Area: Electrically alarmed fence. A storage shed of some kind nearby. Hard to tell as it's very dark because the streetlights don't go out this far. Pretty clear for the most part.
Threats: Apart from the fence, not many outside. Inside, there are lights on in about a third of the windows. Unknown how many occupants are inside, but probably no more than ten. No sign of CCTV.
Would they be expecting her? She had no idea. They knew someone had broken into their last hideout. Perhaps they anticipated a retaliation of some kind. If only she'd been more careful the first time, this could have all been avoided. If she'd remembered to pay the landlady, she never would have opened the door and would still have her apartment. If she'd had someone competent with her instead of Caringbah, someone street smart, someone intuitive, someone she could trust… But there wasn't anyone like that in MI7. Sure, on the whole they were competent and the majority of field agents had some street sense at least, but her upbringing made her wary of figures with authority on principle. The distrust was deeply ingrained; after all, they'd usually been the enemy during her time at the boarding school, or at least a hindrance.
She worked alone whenever possible or diverted the agents that had been forced upon her as backup towards tasks that were useful but not essential. Serving as someone else's backup was a hardly better. It meant going along with hurriedly constructed plans or, God forbid, improvisation. One sure way to derail up a well-thought out plan was to have people make things up as they go which was ironic, for that was essentially what she was doing now.
The alien hadn't taken much convincing to agree that it was best that she went in alone. He had relented a little too easily for her liking, but she put that down to that being his preferred option and having predicted she would refuse. Her objective had been altered as time was of the essence. Recovery was optional. She was on damage control. Preventing or at least halting the uploading of the data from this location was her objective and the best way to achieve that was to destroy the SD card. Get in, destroy it, get out.
Kelly had other ideas. She needed that SD card intact and the data undamaged. Destroying it would be a waste of a perfectly good bargaining chip and boy did she want a bargaining chip.
Locating a loose section of the alarmed fence, Kelly shoved a small backpack under then slipped after it. She kept low to the ground and as close to the building as possible, avoiding stopping under lit windows or near doorways. It would not have been too difficult to pick a door's lock but Kelly had erred on the side of caution. Her luck had not been good lately. She wasn't superstitious but she didn't think it was a good idea to disregard luck while on a mission.
The fire escape was a safer alternative, although she began to reconsider when she corrected her estimate of its height off the ground. She tightened the straps of the backpack. One arm after the other, she repeated to herself, as she clung to a drainpipe and pulled herself up inch by inch. Just like all those times sneaking in and out of the dormitory, she reminded herself. The backs of her hands protested as they scraped against the brickwork each time she slipped them between the pipe and the building.
She was panting heavily when she reached the first landing of the fire escape. Must be out of practice, she mused. It was pleasing to have the fire escape door open without any encouragement from Kelly's hairpins.
The building served mostly as a garage with a gantry providing access to a few makeshift rooms above. Most of the windows Kelly had noticed outside had been lit by industrial lights above. A handful of vehicles were parked below, mostly vans and a pair of small trucks. The rooms on the second floor seemed a good place to start her search. As she made to move from the door, she noticed movement below. A small group, three or four men, were unpacking one of the trucks. She hurried to retrieve a pair of micro-binoculars from her pack and trained them on the truck. The crate they were carrying didn't look too large. She guessed it was about the size of a dog crate. One of the men bellowed out a deep baritone cry in alarm as the crate shook. Something was alive in there.
She returned the binoculars to her pack. Must keep focused. Yet she couldn't help but wonder what was inside that crate. Some kind of animal obviously, but she doubted it was a pet. It was likely that it had been illegally imported. She sidled up against the wall and peered through the doorway. Holding her breath, she beat a hasty retreat at the sight of someone seated at a desk an arm's reach away. How to get rid of him… Before she could consider a plan of action, a wail bellowed. The fence alarm.
That's it, thought Kelly. I'm cursed.
She pressed her back against the wall and willed herself to merge with it. The occupant of the room zoomed down the gantry to the ground floor like a bat out of hell. Hearing the man and the crate carriers shouting over the alarm and running off to investigate, Kelly rushed into the room and swept papers aside with her hands, her eyes scanning the surface for her objective. The left side of the desk cleared, she yanked the desk drawer open and tipped its contents onto the table. Speed outweighing the need for stealth, she didn't bat an eyelid as pens, staplers and other stationary struck the table and bounced or rolled onto the floor.
She slammed her fists down on the table in frustration. Where is it? The computer gulped as it caught her attention and screamed in protest as she tore both USBs out of the ports and jabbed at the indent that would release an SD card from the tower. As though concerned for its wellbeing, it relinquished an SD card looking a little worse for wear.
"Bingo," she breathed.
After checking the CD drives were empty, she pulled a ziplock plastic bag from the backpack and, dropped the card and USBs inside. She zipped it up then returned it to the backpack. She glanced down at the first floor as she moved to check the other room. Just a cupboard and bench with a kettle.
Maybe my luck is finally improving, she thought.
Better to be safe than sorry, she decided as she returned to the room with the computer and pulled on the computer's power cable. Its whining ceased, although the fan had not stopped spinning when the computer struck the concrete of the ground floor, having been tossed over the gantry railing.
A high pitched yelp echoed below. Kelly frowned. Skidded to a halt on the gantry, she turned and raced back to where she'd thrown the computer from. Her heart racing, she leaned over the rail and looked down. The computer lay in pieces below but her eyes locked on a lone figure struggling with the crate.
"Hey!" cried a male voice.
The figure below halted. A broad shouldered shadow charged towards the crate, brandishing some kind of weapon in his hand. The figure stopped tugging on the wooden slates of the crate, practically dropping it, and brought their arms up to defend themselves.
A loud crack rang out as the man's head hit the ground. Caught off guard by the flying projectile, the remaining figure ducked down and whipped their head frantically side to side as they tried to identify where the flying paperweight had come from.
Kelly felt the eyes stare up at her from the darkness. They shone with an unnatural light, slightly golden. She knew those eyes. A grin grew on her face and she raised a hand to head height. The figure below flinched. She moved the hand from left to right, followed by right to left in a slow wave. The eyes blinked at her.
"Evening, McKenzie," she called in greeting, without a trace of doubt in her mind.
She beamed as a familiar voice sprouted from the figure's lips. "Kelly?!" The figure moved into the light and beamed up at her. "Boy, am I glad to see you."
"Likewise," she replied with a smile.
Ace laughed. "Even with the setting off of alarms?"
"Not so much there, no," Kelly admitted.
"How'd you-"
Guess? Well gee, similar circumstances haven't ever happened before. Mostly abandoned warehouse, shadowed by a certain pyromaniac, no, never happened before. "Spanner thrown into the works of my carefully planned infiltration, who else would it be?" Now wasn't exactly the best time to be catching up. "Can we talk after we're out of this mess?"
Ace nodded in agreement and bent over the crate. She'd just taken the lid off when another figure caught sight of them. Ace took off like a rocket, something clutched in her arms. Ace's footsteps echoed on the concrete below as Kelly ran for the fire escape, tightening the straps on her backpack as she did. She flung open the door and glided down the stairs. Her thoughts and heart raced.
Of all the nights, in all the buildings of the world, we end up in the same one at the same time. Do I owe several years of luck for this coincidence?
Hearing that cry, her instincts had taken over. She hadn't had time to think, to even process what the sound was or who had caused it. Somehow she'd known or maybe, as her logical side would attempt to rationalise, it was her Head Girl conditioning of responding to panicked female voices that had led her to act. She didn't really care. She was just glad she had.
Ace had a good head start on her but Kelly had no intention of letting her out of her sight. A creature was struggling in Ace's arms. It was green, scaled, and had rows upon rows of teeth as well as two curved claws on each limb. Ace was muttering what sounded like curses under her breath, growing louder in volume and quite probably more colourful the more the creature thrashed about.
Without a word, Kelly raced ahead and lifted a section of the fence up for Ace to scramble under. Kelly didn't look back to check they weren't being followed as she could hear engines revving. It could only be a matter of time before they caught up. Leaving with a trail of pursuers on her tail with someone and an uncooperative squawking creature had not been a contingency Kelly had planned for. Ace seemed to have an objective in mind though.
Our only option is to hide, Kelly realised, but their surroundings were quite bare. Except for...
"In here," Ace called and ran straight for the hiding spot Kelly had just identified.
Kelly halted a few metres away. She can't be serious. It had to be the most obvious hiding place she'd ever seen; a shed. Would they even fit inside?
"Come on!"
"Are you mad? It's a box, a bloody box! What kind of hiding place is a box?"
"Just... Get in!" Ace shoved Kelly through the doorway.
Rolling her eyes and groaning with exasperation at her friend's folly, she stepped to the side to allow Ace room. The doors were pulled shut and the sound of the engines died abruptly. A shiver ran up Kelly's spine when she became aware that her back was pressed against smooth stone. It took a moment for her to identify why it made her uneasy. The shed was made of wood, not stone, so what was she leaning against? She turned. A cry lodged itself into her throat. Her legs slowly gave out but the stone column allowed her to slide to the floor.
A curse slipped from her mouth in Arabic as a cavernous space a gothic writer could only dream of had sprung into existence around them. In the very epicentre of the space, a column glowed like a beacon of light, the light swirling around as if it were inside a giant lava lamp. She tilted her head back and the night sky stared down at her from an invisible ceiling.
She was only half aware of her hands mimicking the gestures the Posh Totties made when gobsmacked. 'Oh my God,' was her first thought which was shortly followed by 'What the fuck?'
This is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. A cathedral does not, could not, fit into a shed. By all rights, the columns were at least double the shed's height and ought to be poking out of the ceiling. The gantries stretched up and up without sight of the ceiling. The space was about as wide as a hockey field. A collection of beanbags and a pair of armchairs dotted what appeared to be a library – a library in a cathedral inside a shed!
Her analytical brain failed to compute the information her senses were detecting. There was too much, far too much for her to see. She closed her eyes and that helped considerably. She could still hear the echoes and persistent hums of the – dare she call it a room? – but it was easier to process without scanning everything within the impossibility. The humming wasn't mechanical but almost a purr. As for what wafted in the air, she supposed she smelt apples, sour green ones, and just a touch of Earl Grey tea. Madness unless there was an orchard in here too, but she hurriedly pushed the thought out of her mind before she tried to picture it.
There wasn't anything but stone to touch so that left sight. Cautiously she opened an eye slightly. Wooden floorboards. A little more. The base of the column, more wooden floorboards. She turned to face the door but Ace had vanished. Warily, she scanned the room bit by bit.
Some kind of structure seemed to sprout from the floor. It was dotted with all sorts of bric-a-brak. An ancient typewriter, what once might have been a radio, wooden panels, switches, dials… She halted, unaware that she had been approaching it until within arm's reach. A machine of some kind, she gathered. All the various pieces of this and that were connected; all parts of a greater something. The column rising out of the structure was different to the others, transparent like glass instead of stone.
A sharp intake of breath caused her to turn.
"Told you he bites."
Kelly tracked Ace's voice to the library section of the room. The mumbles of a male voice grew. With a jolt, she recognised the man stood beside Ace. She remembered those piercing blue eyes quizzing her about her attire, her socks in particular. It had been such an odd confrontation that she had not forgotten it. She remembered this man approaching Ace at the bar, remembered throwing a firecracker in order to create a distraction so she could escape. She clenched her fists, preparing for trouble.
"I'm sure he'll be a lot happier once he's back home."
"Back to the Jurassic then?"
"Triassic," he corrected, rolling the 'r'.
"Same thing."
He scoffed at Ace and she nudged him back. He bopped her nose gently with a finger and her face glowed as she grinned. Kelly didn't know what to think. This couldn't be the same man Ace tried to escape from. Yet she knew that face and he looked exactly the same. She felt lost. The man she had assumed to be with the enemy was now, horrifyingly, bantering with Ace. Not only were they talking, they interacted as though they were the oldest of friends, and as if there was no one else around.
Kelly bit her lip. Ace has forgotten I'm here.
The man moved towards the central structure and stopped directly opposite Kelly. Head bent down to stare intently at the switches he was flicking, he was so preoccupied that he didn't notice her. Ace approached the structure and examined a screen, similarly distracted. Kelly maintained a steady gaze on her until she looked up, saw Kelly through the transparent column and glanced sideways at the man, a confused expression on her face.
What the hell is this? Kelly mouthed, gesturing the room with her hands.
Ace's mouth opened and shut without a sound which Kelly translated as 'Oh'. She grew more troubled as she glanced at the man again. "We haven't left yet, Professor, have we?" she asked as Kelly's eyes narrowed.
Left yet?
He sighed. "Ace, when I agreed to show you how the TARDIS functions, reluctantly I might remind you, I was hoping you would at least remember what I taught you."
Ace's eyes quickly scanned the various switches and the screen in front of her. She cringed slightly when Kelly crossed her arms and began tapping her fingers. "I was just checking," she returned insistently, betraying none of her anxiety.
What is going on? Kelly mouthed.
Ace looked incredibly sheepish. It was anything but reassuring because if Kelly knew that look, it was a Well-I-have-no-idea-what-to-do look. Ace mouthed, 'Sorry'.
You tell me what the hell's going on right now, Kelly mouthed back.
Ace continued to resemble a startled deer in the headlights. With a growing sense of unease, Kelly decided to leave. As reluctant as she was to have Ace disappear again so soon after finding her again, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was trespassing somewhere she really, really didn't want to be. This place is too… weird. It defied what she knew to be true and offered no explanation. In all honesty, the wrongness frightened her. She heard Ace's shoes behind her but didn't look back, not even when Ace whispered her name and urged her to stop.
"No, no, Kelly. Stop, no, don't! Don't open the door. No, no-"
Kelly pulled on the door and harsh sunlight blared into her eyes. The wrongness struck her like a blow. Dawn ought to be hours away.
After a sigh, Ace called out, "Professor," in a loud voice.
Distantly, Kelly heard footsteps approach her and an exclamation of surprise. She had thought the inside of the shed had been stimulus overload, but this was a whole different level.
She heard a loud sigh. "Professor, meet Kelly. Kelly, meet the Professor," Ace began, before noticing Kelly's gaze out the door, and then added almost as an afterthought, "and, I suppose, the Jurassic."
"Triassic," the man corrected in a stern tone.
"Same thing."