Otetra the dimetrodon lay, basking in the sun, by the dimetrodon nursery, where the hatchlings – hers and others - were either play-fighting or searching for food. Whilst baby dimetrodon could feed themselves out of the egg – mostly insects – their mothers stayed with them for their first year of life, protecting them fiercely until they were big enough to put at least some of the predators off.

A rustling alerted Otetra to three feathered creatures stalking towards the nursery, looking hungrily at the hatchlings. Maternal instincts on full, Otetra let out a low, guttural bellow, causing the three creatures to go rigid. The element of surprise lost, the nearest one lunged for a hatchling, but was stopped by Otetra lunging at it and grabbing its leg in her jaws – the other two retreated, realising that the meal wasn't worth it – Otetra held the third, still struggling in her jaws and bit down, feeling the bones crunch, as the creature screeched in pain, before releasing it. As it limped off, Otetra returned to her hatchlings, safe in the knowledge that they were safe.

Watching this over the CCTV, Alexander Pierce said, "What the fu-"

. . . .

"So, refresh my memory, what happened?"

At Drew's question, Nikolai rolled his eyes and said, "Alexander Pierce said he saw three dromas by the Dimetrodon lake on CCTV – we think they were trying to hunt the hatchlings. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, Otetra grabbed one and bit down on its leg, crippling it. The crippled one limped off roughly north, whilst the other two ran off towards Hell Creek."

Cynthia looked, perplexed, "How could Jack not have noticed three of his dromas escaping?" Nikolai said, "Denham would have – which means there's something else going on here…" and Drew shrugged, "We'll work that out after we find them. Nikolai, you track down the crippled one – should be easy. Cynth and I will track down the other two."

. . . .

Nikolai picked up his communicator and rang Jack's personal frequency. Jack's voice said in a mock-plummy accent, "Good afternoon, you have reached Jack Denham – unfortunately, he is not available at the moment, would you like to take a message?"

Nikolai rolled his eyes and said, "Where are the dromas?"

"Oh, hey, Nikolai. They're at the vet offices for their physicals – it's the first one for the chicks, so they're giving the whole pack a checkup…"

"Are they all there?"

"Of course, they're all there, Nikolai. Seriously, why are you acting like this?"

Nikolai's eyes widened and he said, in a voice almost beyond the grave, "If they're all there, then there are three dromas loose – and they aren't any of ours."

There was a pause, before Jack said, almost inaudibly, "What? How?

Nikolai sighed, "I don't know. Just keep them at the vet station. We don't want to be confusing one droma with another."

. . . . .

After his contact with Jack, Nikolai tracked the blood trail from the Dimetrodon paddock to a nearby stand of trees. However, the trail was running cold – it was as if the droma had disappeared into thin air. Where's the droma?, he thought.

Suddenly, he heard a quiet dripping coming from a nearby oak tree. Running towards it, he found that blood was dripping from the branches… and, lying in the boughs was the droma. Nikolai realised that he had been looking in the wrong place – the droma had climbed a tree to recuperate.

Looking at the droma, Nikolai knew what had happened – after Otetra's bite, the droma had crawled off to recuperate… sadly, her secret weapon had come into effect. Dimetrodon venom contained four different toxic enzymes – all anticoagulants, designed to prevent blood from clotting. The bite could cripple an animal – and the venom would finish it off. It was messy, slow – and ruthlessly efficient.

By his calculations, the droma had lost at least two pints of blood – enough to stain the branches red. Its glassy eyes and laboured breathing helped further the picture – this was an animal beyond any hope of recovery. There was only thing to do – put it out of its misery.

Climbing the tree, Nikolai lifted his gun to where the droma's skull met its spine. The creature looked at him and snarled ineffectually. Giving the creature a sympathetic glare, Nikolai said, quietly, "I am sorry – you won't even feel it." The droma closed its eyes, as if in understanding, before Nikolai fired – a shot echoed out as it breathed its last.

Nikolai climbed down the tree, quiet and saddened. Whilst Nikolai had not been as close to the dromas as Denham was, he had gained quite a fondness of them – it somehow brought back memories of old times having killed one. He shook his head – he had ended the droma's suffering. There was that to console him.

. . . . .

Meanwhile, Drew and Cynthia had tracked the remaining two dromas to the Hell Creek herbivore paddock. As they approached, Drew smiled at her, "This is almost like when I took you paintballing back in high school, - pity you sucked at it…" Cynthia turned to him, "That was because you shot me whenever my back was turned." Drew smiled, "Ain't no rules in paintball", to which Cynthia said, "It was still ungentlemanly…"

Suddenly, a squawk interrupted them, followed by a low honk. Following the sound, they saw one of the female ornithomimus standing guard over the creche of hatchlings as one of the dromas snarled and swiped at her, dodging her attempts at chasing it off. Drew looked at Cynthia, and could tell she shared his confusion; where was the other droma? A few minutes later, they got their answer, as they saw the droma silently creeping through the bushes, towards the hatchlings. At Drew's nod, Cynthia lifted her tranq rifle…

When, suddenly, the female ornithomimus whipped round to see the droma sneaking up on the hatchlings. Element of surprise lost, the droma dived for the nearest hatchling – and was promptly the victim of a powerful kick to the chest. Knocked to the ground by the kick, the droma lay crumpled on the ground – it didn't get up.

The last droma, realising himself at a disadvantage, bolted. Drew got up, to which Cynthia said, "Where are you going?" Drew said, "After it. A light step might make it a bit easier to track – you get the dead one out of the paddock, it's creeping the baby ornithomimus out." Cynthia rolled her eyes – her ex never changed.

. . . . .

Fifteen minutes later, Drew had followed the last droma to a clearing by the tyrannosaur paddock. Scanning the clearing, he muttered to himself, "Where is it? I thought it was right-". As he said this, the droma burst out of the foliage and dived in front of him, teeth and claws bared and missing him by inches. Drew dived out of the way as the pouncing raptor impacted on to the ground. At its failure to pounce on him, the droma hissed indignantly and turned to stare him down, scratching the ground like a fighting cock. It tensed its body and hissed at him, before pouncing. Drew braced himself for the impact…

The impact never came, however, as the droma was snatched in mid-air, with a screech of outrage. Drew looked up to see the shrieking, clawing droma squirming in Terence's jaws. Before Drew could say anything, the adolescent tyrannosaur bit down and shook the droma like a dog shaking a rat. Eventually, the droma's shrieks ceased and Terence walked away, carrying his unexpected meal with him. Drew watched the tyrannosaur walk away, before lifting his communicator and saying, "Nikolai – the last droma is dead. The Code Red is over."

. . . . .

In the staff meeting room, Drew, Jack, Leon, Collete, Kyle and Nikolai were sitting, trying to work out what had happened, with Theodore attending via video call from Novum HQ in San Francisco. He'd been contacted after the incident and had, understandably, reacted with considerable surprise.

The bodies of the three dromas had been placed in the park animal morgue – as of yet, they didn't have a dedicated pathologist (someone else to get when they were ready to open to the public and their operation became bigger) and Khatin had said, offhandedly, he had "plans" for the bodies.

Drew was walking up and down the room, pacing like an irritated tiger, saying "Maybe they got through the portal at some point when we were doing something?" In response to this, Jack shook his head, "No, I think we'd have noticed if three dromas ran through the portal", and Nikolai added, "We also keep the portal on a constant watch; if they slipped past, we'd have noticed." Drew paused, thought about this for a moment, and raised his arms "Fine. That's it. I'm out of ideas. I have no theories as to how they got here." Jack turned to Theodore, "Big Boss, do you have any ideas?"

Theodore, who had stayed quiet throughout the discussion, spoke, "I should point out, Drew, the portal is still an enigma – even to me. The true answer may be far more bizarre than any of us suspected – and maybe we will discover it as we continue to learn more about it. Until then, I would say, keep a close watch on the park – if anything else unusual happens, we may soon find the answer both to this mystery and many, many more…"

. . . . .

Meanwhile, in the forests around Prehistoric Park, a small, shimmering time portal stood. Unlike the park's portal, this was naturally-occurring – it resembled shards of glass floating in the air, rather than the more stable vortex of the park's portal. It had opened only days before, going unwitnessed because of the sheer size of the park.

However, what was clear was that something had come through – a series of droma footprints, of all ages and sizes, leading away from the portal and into the woods of Prehistoric Park. Eventually, the portal began to shrink and contract before, eventually, it disappeared…

Leaving no evidence.

DUN DUN DUN!

It's with this story we get a semi-explicit confirmation as to what the portal is/does – it's, in some level, rooted in a natural phenomenon. And this is our first glimpse of a naturally-occurring portal – or an anomaly, if that's what you want to call it.

As well as this, dromas are now running wild in the land around PP (and one made the footprint Spiny tripped in) – will this be followed up on? Well, to answer that, I have to explain this…

One of my favourite authors is George RR Martin, who wrote the Song of Ice and Fire series – read it, it's really good.

Now, the books were adapted into the TV series Game of Thrones, but that really undersold what a world Martin created – I would particularly recommend the tie-in books The World of Ice And Fire (which details the world Westeros is in) and Fire and Blood (which details the history of House Targaryen), which delve into, in great detail, the world of Westeros and its history.

Now some of these are there to place details that are going to be important for future plot points – you'd have to be familiar with the books to know which ones. These things are being introduced to the reader because, without the reader having previous knowledge of them, important plot details make less sense.

However, there are also plenty of things, times and places we know bugger-all about in the world of ASOIAF that are incredibly likely to not come up in any material. They're just snippets of world-building - there to make the fantasy world feel more real. The beauty of it is… it's incredibly hard to tell which is which.

A similar thing is going on with the PPR-niverse – obviously, we've got confirmation that the time portal is part of a bigger, stranger phenomenon, which goes back a long time in world history… the question is, which of it is going to be important and which of it is just going to be me revealing what a big Primeval fan I am?

Or, in microcosm, are these dromas being introduced because they have a role to play in the story… or are they just going to be cryptids in Sarasota County, eating people's pets and livestock and running out in front of cars on foggy backroads?

You'll have to read to find out.