Dr. Marsh entered the control room and found Dr. Seeker had fully moved everything from his office into there. She was surprised at just how many things he had squeezed into the previous space that were now sprawled all over the place. She did notice that there was one work space left clear with her nameplate on it and a singular crocheted triceratops made from blue and white yarn about the size of the palm of her hand. She smiled when she picked it up. This gave her a fuzzy feeling.

"You like it?" She heard him ask. She turned around, and he was standing in the doorway, sipping a slushy from the gas station down the street, wearing a tie with stars on it and a deep purple color.

"It is very cute," she said, putting it on a little shelf in the work space. She couldn't remember a time she had had a stuffed animal since she was a little girl.

"I saw it at the gas station and thought of you. It was only about fifty cents," he explained. She had a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't quite shake.

"Has Dr. Orach stopped by yet?" she asked him, trying to distract herself. They were to do a quick safety briefing before sending some folks out to the time period that was chosen.

"He has not."

Dr. Marsh sighed, "Okay." She started tapping her heel on the metal floor, and Dr. Seeker moved past her to get to his desk. "He'll be here, Helen, and it'll all be fine." She sat at the workstation opposite him.

"It has to be perfect."

The door opened, and Dr. Marsh shot up from her seat. Dr. Orach walked through the door. "Good morning!" He said, chipper.

"Good morning," Dr. Marsh said. "Are we ready to begin?" She asked.

"Yes, sir. My team is ready and in the theater."

Dr. Marsh smiled, " Perfect. Is everything ready in here?" She asked Dr. Seeker. He gave her a thumbs up and didn't look away from his monitor, "Ready."

Her and Dr. Orach left the room and walked down the hall to the debriefing room where Dr. Orach's students were waiting eagerly. It was a simple room with gray carpet and no decor. On the back wall, there was a screen in the middle. "Dr. Seeker, can you hear me?" Dr. Marsh called out loud. The screen flickered on, and the lights dimmed.

"Loud and clear, Buttercup. Systems are a go." Dr. Marsh's face felt hot at the pet name, but she tried to keep calm and collected and reminded herself to scold him later for calling her anything other than Dr. Marsh in front of students.

"Alright, good morning, students," she began. "For those of you who don't know, I am Dr. Marsh, director of the Dinosaur Institute. You twelve will be some of the first people to go on what will hopefully be a breathtaking journey through a prehistoric world. Our tours are designed to take you to the Cretaceous Period. We will send you one time, monitor the effects for our reports, and take a survey." She looked around the room at the student's faces. "Any questions?" Several hands shot up into the air at once. She blinked slowly in disappointment and took a deep breath. "Any questions not about Draven?" She asked, and all but one hand went down.

"Yes, you. Cameron, is it?"

A young man put his hand down and spoke, "Are we allowed to get out of the vehicle?" He asked.

"Good question," Dr. Marsh said. "Not this trip. We are testing the autopilot feature, but we will be making trips in the future that may allow that," Cameron nodded and made a note in his notepad.

When he was done, Dr. Marsh paused to let anyone else ask anything. "No further questions?" She asked, and no one spoke up. "Alright, I will let Dr. Seeker take things over from here."

The screen cut to Dr. Seeker in the control room with his monitor displaying the CTX Time Rover. "Hello, this is the Time Rover you will be traveling in today. All eleven of you and Dr. Orach will be transported back in time as Dr. Marsh said previously. There are seatbelts in the rovers. Please use them. The terrain out there can be pretty rough. The only thing treading that ground are dinosaurs and other critters, so please put all of your bags and other loose items inside the pouch in front of you. We don't want anything of yours showing up millions of years from now fossilized and on display. It would be very hard to get back." The students laughed. "Please don't exit the vehicle, and watch each other's backs if things get dicey," the screen changed to coordinates.

"These coordinates are locked into the system. Memorize them if you must, but the computer should be able to get you back to the present if anything goes wrong."

"Should," one of the students snickered.

"And who exactly was that?" Dr. Marsh challenged. "If you don't want to go on this once in a lifetime excursion, you do not have to." Everyone was silent. "Go on then." No one came forward. Dr. Marsh tried to hide her frustration.

"Alright. Now, we will go to the loading dock," Dr. Orach said to his students. Doors opened to their left, and the students filed out into the other room. Dr. Marsh put her hand on Dr. Orach's elbow so he would stay. She whispered in his ear, "That Cameron looks like trouble. Keep a close eye on him." Dr. Orach nodded and followed behind his students. They loaded up onto the time rover and fastened their seatbelts.

"This is really gonna keep us secured in here during time travel?" A tall, blonde student asked. Dr. Marsh nodded, "It hasn't failed us before, and it has made the difference between being left behind and making it back to the present." This seemed to put the student both at peace and made her a bit more nervous all at once.

Soon, the students were ready, and Dr. Marsh waved to them all as the time rover started moving. She took a deep breath when they moved along further into the facility and made her way to the control room. When she entered the room, Dr. Seeker spun around in his chair. "Have they launched successfully?" She asked him. He nodded. "They should land somewhere in the Gobi desert, 102 million years ago."

She walked closer and looked over his shoulder at his monitor, and it all felt familiar. "Looks like they're through," he said, turning to her, their faces inches apart. They stared at each other just for a moment, and he swallowed reflexively. "Let me turn on the autopilot," he said quietly and she took a step back. He pressed a button to the right of his monitor, and she turned on the big screen on the back wall. This time, things felt easier. "We should be able to take control over the rover using just our voices if we need to," He explained to her. He typed something into the computer. "Autopilot is now on."

"Computer, lock on homing signal in ten minutes time," Dr. Marsh spoke into the microphone.

"Locking on," the computer chimed back. "Countdown for ten minutes."

She pulled up a chair and sat beside him at his desk. The screen in the back displayed all of the camera angles. "Everything seems clear," Dr. Marsh said to Dr. Seeker.

"Computer, are we tracking any dinosaurs on the scope?" Asked Dr. Seeker. A small cluster of dinosaurs' location popped up on the map. "Computer, identify."

"Alioramus."

Him and Dr. Marsh shared a look, "It shouldn't be a problem," There was some hesitation in her voice. "Right?"

He shrugged and looked at the distance between them and the Alioramuses. "I hope they get to look at the pack at least, but I think it is too far away."

They watched the students in the truck bounce along in the rover over some rocky terrain before they were near the top of the hill. The rover continued over some underbrush and through some small trees. It looked like the sun was setting, and the chitter of early insects was off in the distance. The rover came to a clearing and slowed down. Through the screen, it was hard to see what was on the ground.

"Computer, what is it?" Dr. Seeker asked.

"Nesting ground,"it chimed back. "Okay, we will be avoiding that," the rover started to carefully maneuver around the nests. A brood of feathered dinosaurs started chirping from atop of their perch. "It's a brood of oviraptors!" The student, Cameron peered over the side of the Time Rover, excited.

"Please remain inside the time rover," Dr. Marsh's voice came over the loudspeaker, hiding her annoyance, but Dr. Seeker saw the frustration on her face. They heard a screech in the distance, but it wasn't like the roar of the carnotaurus. An Alioramus ran past the rover quickly with an egg in its mouth, and Dr. Marsh and Dr. Seeker saw the students all duck and scream immediately as a cearadactylus swooped down at the Alioramus beside them, grabbing it from the ground, and flew it away with it in its clutches. The rest of the pack of alioramus ran past in the direction the first was headed before it was carried off. Feathers fell from the sky onto the students. The two doctors looked at each other to make sure what they were seeing was correct, eyes wide. They looked back at the monitor and the rover continued onward.

It was as if everyone was afraid to speak, and they rode in silence and awe. There was another bigger dino on the scope. "Hadrosaurs," the computer said, and Dr. Seeker visibly relaxed. "I will need a drink after this."

Dr. Marsh raised her eyebrows and looked at the microphone that had been left on. He made an apologetic face. The students didn't seem to notice or care as the warning signal came on that someone's seat belt had been unlocked, and another cearadactylus was swooping down towards the vehicle as its nest was noticed in the trees to the rover's right. Dr. Seeker switched through the cameras until he found which student's seat belt had come undone. The student, Cameron's face was fearful as he tried to put it back on, and it wasn't locking. The cearadactylus swooped towards the students and they all ducked again. The blonde student beside Cameron grabbed his arm as they moved over bumpy terrain to get away from the nest.

"Let's get them out of there, Seeker! There's been enough excitement," Dr. Marsh said. Dr. Seeker typed into the computer.

"Time travel commencing in T minus 10 seconds and counting."

The cearadactylus followed the rover, periodically swooping down. A larger flying pterodactyloid dropped what it was carrying over the rover and grabbed at the cearadactylus, ripping it from the sky and screeching in victory. An egg landed in Cameron's lap, and it quickly bounced, bounced again, and started to bounce out of the vehicle. Cameron lunged over the side of the rover to grab it. The girl next to him, held onto his shirt. The pterodactyloid flew away with its prey to a nearby tree. She pulled him back in and glared at him angrily. He safely put the egg into the pouch and held on for life as the rover braced for travel, and there was a bright flash as the rover entered the time tunnel.

0

"Would you call that mission successful?" Dr. Marsh asked Dr. Seeker. It was three In the afternoon, and not too long after the students came back from their time rover tour. The egg had been deposited into an incubator belonging to a distressed Dr. Orach, not having seen it fall into the student Cameron Chandler's lap during the journey.

They were sitting at the bar inside the old fishing lodge that once served as the first headquarters for the Diggs County Dinosaur Institute. It had been converted into dormitories and a mess hall for the students studying when the main building and museum was completed several years ago. It was a place many of the staff fondly remembered teaching in. A place for laughs, tears, and the annual volleyball competitions.

For a while, students had been selling food out of the mess hall to tourists, and even opened an ice cream stand for extra cash in the summer, but there was a need for something more official. The sign was erected the next week that simply said "Restaurant." The mess hall would open its doors to the public from 11am to 5pm to allow the students to eat breakfast and dinner without the prospect of small, crying children. This time, the students were able to keep some of the wages earned. Shortly after its opening, students opened their own bar, serving alcohol to both patrons and each other. It was, of course, shut down, but eventually a liquor license was acquired and they could legally serve so long as all students under the legal drinking age stayed in a separate area of the building.

"I wouldn't call that an unsuccessful Mission," Dr. Seeker responded. Dr. Marsh tilted her head, pursed her lips, and squinted her eyes at him. He sipped some more on his mojito and looked at her over the top of the glass, eyebrows raised. "What about it do you feel was unsuccessful?" He challenged, putting the glass down on the table.

She sighed, stirring her drink, a little cocktail the bartender called a "tequilaosaurus", and said, "the fact that the students were in the throes of danger, the fact that a dinosaur egg made its way back to the present."

"So, only two things?" Dr. Marah nodded in response, sipping her drink.

"That's a 98%," Dr. Seeker said. "I'd say we passed."

Dr. Marsh suppressed a giggle, coughed, and put on a neutral expression, "Be serious."

"Realistically, it happened so fast," Dr. Seeker explained. "It's not like we were in a position to turn them around, and as you said, there had been enough excitement already. There will always be risks sending people back in time."

She frowned. She liked the way his top button was undone under his purple embroidered tie and that irritated her. "I need another drink," she said, getting up from the table. "Do you want anything?" She asked him. Shortly, She came back with two more drinks from the bartender. The students in the bar were looking at her apprehensively as they were drinking. Dr. Marsh turned slightly while carrying the drinks and side-eyed some students watching her walk back to the table. They quickly looked away. Some of them got up and left.

"We're getting quite a lot of stares," she pointed out to him before she sat back down. She sat his drink in front of him. "I wonder if they think we're on a date."

"Yes, absolutely. It totally has nothing to do with the fact that you're the director of the institute drinking at a student-run bar, and everything to do with the fact that two colleagues look comfortable enough to be out together," he teased sarcastically. She tried not to smile, but the fluttering in her stomach wasn't as easily stopped. They both took sips of their drinks. He looked at her intently. "Would a date with me be so bad you wouldn't want to go out in public?" He asked. With a bit of a laugh in her voice, she responded, "No, Grant. That wouldn't be so bad."

She felt her face go hot at the admission, and Dr. Seeker smiled. Sober Helen would be mortified at her now, but she was too tipsy to care. Dr. Seeker hiccuped, and the moment passed as they both paused, made eye contact, and burst out laughing.

When the laughter died down, he looked at her seriously again. "If we can bring back an egg, why can't we bring back a live dinosaur?" He asked her.

"Grant, we've talked about this, the Institute doesn't have the space or funding," she explained. Suddenly, her head hurt. "And before you even start, no, you can't keep a live dinosaur at your house." He pouted. "This was an accident, a one time thing, and we need to return it."

0

"We can't return it!" Said Dr. Orach. Helen crossed her arms and frowned at him. They had been arguing about the Dinosaur egg since she asked to speak with him thirty minutes ago. She now wished it had only been an email.

"Well, why not? We do not have the means to care for it."

"It's already been contaminated by modern air and germs! If we send it back to its nest, all of the life forms in that period could die!" Dr. Orach was stressed, and Dr. Marsh rubbed her forehead. It didn't help that she was hungover from the day before. She remembered ordering a few drinks. Her and Dr. Seeker talked business and tried to destress, then they started walking back towards the institute when it started pouring down rain. He covered her hair with his lab coat, and she ran in her heels with him back to the facility, both of them laughing. She audibly groaned.

"And we can't let it die, that's just not fair to who we are as an institution." He gestured towards the incubator. It was a pale red pod up against the white painted cinderblock of the student laboratory. The gray egg was nestled under a warm light.

"We've sent dozens of people back in time with no issue," she argued, ignoring the pull on her heart and the pain vibrating through her skull.

"Yes, but this dinosaur egg has been handled by humans, when we send the students back in time, it goes too fast for them to touch anything. Our teams are very careful," he paused and reflected. "...except the time with the carnotaurus, but who knows if we can get it back to the very second it was taken?" She sighed, relenting.

"I'll see what I can do."