Area 51
2039
(three months later)

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THE DINOSAUR bellowed, its yellow eyes slitted in contempt.

"Ooh! Ooh!" Tina slammed her palm on her white desk in excitement, and Amelia glanced amusedly at her friend. "It's a ... a ..." Her face screwed up in frustration, and Lector Kilfoy tapped the projected image impatiently with his cane. The carnivore — which was made clear by its huge, curved teeth and short yet muscular arms which it held close to its chest, continued to snap and snarl.

While Albertina — the full name which she hated — continued to struggle with the Megalosaurus' identification, Amelia allowed her mind to drift as her eyes rested on the glass wall of the JEE unit, which was more spacious than some of the other rooms, however cramped with desks and rolled-up posters; besides from that fact, the other reason she enjoyed the Jurassic Era Education class was the view of all the other cubicles. Weight-lifting, across the Glass Path, where solemn men and women picked up almost three-quarters of their body weight with ease ("Steroids," Luca spat in contempt, although both Tina and she knew that he was only trying to protect his own male ego, which couldn't even handle thirty pounds). And then fellow JEE sections, where marines and learners (Such division, Amelia thought, with a burst of frustration. In the end, we're all trying to achieve the same goal) learnt about some of the beasties they'd most likely be facing when in the Jurassic Period.

Which wasn't very far along at all, Amelia reflected, just as Albertina finally squeezed out: "Uh ... allosaurus?"

Amelia winced. Bad choice. The allosaurus was smaller than the Megalosauridae family, and less feathery. Though that assumption was purely based on fossilized evidence; the scientists and Heads of the ERAA program were all guessing, and hoping that they were right. Well, that's what she perceived, anyway.

"No." The lector's mouth twisted downwards. "That," he poked his cane at the image once more, "is a —"

"Megalousaurus," another voice piped up. Amelia didn't need to turn around to know that Shaunia had once again 'offered her extensive knowledge on Jurassic matters'. Otherwise known as being positively be-yotchy. "At least thirty-five feet in length, and one and a half tons in weight." She could imagine the raven-haired girl counting the facts off of her fingers, her tone bored. "Fossils discovered in England, as if we're going there ..."

Sniggers rolled around the class of about seventeen learners — so-called for their far more extensive paleontological education than the armed forces — and Amelia turned slightly to see Shaunia leaning back in her chrome seat, her bronze arms crossed. Her eyebrows were raised challengingly at Kilfoy, but then they flickered to her. Shaunia smirked as Amelia looked away.

Tina sat back down in her own seat, her shoulders slumping. Her gaze blazed angrily at the hologram. "What's the difference?" She hissed, loud enough for Mel to hear. The tanned girl frowned, and pressed her shoulder against Tina's own. "They're both meat-eating ... killers! Classification doesn't matter when you've got a gun in your hand, does it?"

Amelia squeezed the other girl's wrist, a warning as much as a comfort. Disregard to the ways of the program was not taken lightly, and neither were claims of using fatal weapons when they finally got to their ultimate destination. But Amelia felt pity for Tina, who, for all her blunt and oblivious faults, was still the same young woman who had given her a tour of the institute and taught her how to handle herself in this place; where it seemed going to the Jurassic Period was a competition. A deadly one, of brains and brawn and mentality. Not everyone had made it this far, and Amelia knew too much was at stake to lose.

Daryl would suffer if she did.

Even thinking of him, three months and two days after abandoning him like that, sent a jab through her chest. She had left for the helicopter two days after he had confronted her, leaving a note and the few credits she could spare in her wake.

Thirty-four people were taking part in ERAA's execution. And all of them had left someone behind.

Sixteen days, Amelia reminded herself, before her own memories got the better of her. Just sixteen more days. And then she and the thirty-three others would be put in crypto-sleep, herded into their pods, and travel across dimensions and centuries for plus-minus a hundred and thirty-one days. The mathematics was so confusing for her, despite Luca's repeated attempts to explain to her how her entire being would be transported across fifty-three million years (the equivalent of more than three hundred gazillion microseconds) at the speed of light, so of course it would take a while, being separated and divided to a sub-atomic level in order to withstand such forces, but then again, Luca was one of the geeks being trained on the mechanics of the TSP pods, in order to fix them and regulate them upon arrival to the K-zone, and make sure they didn't explode or do anything that would destroy the natural environment (which sounds extremely safe), so it naturally wouldn't make sense to her. He was a nerd. She was one of the four paleontologists — Shaunia included, though her file reflected that she dabbled more in anthropology — that would (or should) be able to recognize dinosaurs, and explain to others on how to neutralize them.

No pressure.

"I suppose it's just better if we know what we're dealing with," Amelia supplied lamely. She didn't share Tina's distaste for JEE — on the contrary, she found it interesting, when it wasn't Shaunia doing the talking.

"We must be prepared for all options, Miss Olivers," Kilfoy responded to Shaunia's jab coldly. "But yes," he turned back to the data screen. "This a megalousaurus. Can anyone tell me where — when shot with approximately five thousand volts — a predator such as this mister can be knocked out?"

Amelia put her hand up immediately. The lector ignored Shaunia's own raised hand and turned to her. "The throat, sir."

Kilfoy didn't seem impressed, but his brisk nod allowed her to relax. Enough intelligence shown in front of the peanut gallery for the day. And the fellow Learners were just as annoying as any middle-school clan of vultures that she had seen on television shows — classics, all of them, Amelia reckoned. Especially since their directors and writers were probably dead by now.

"As Miss Doveare stated, the throat is the most vulnerable part of any theropod, which I may remind you all," he fixed the class with a deathly glare, "is a bipedal dinosaur. Not only is it exposed, but the gullet is a part of the crop, seen in birds to this day, and was likely part of an ancient dinosaur's alimentary tract.

"Shooting it with five thousand volts, which is enough to kill any person, would indeed stun even the largest of the carnivores, and likely render it with a bad stomach ache too."

The walls of the glass lit up with blue wording. Amelia gripped hold of her PortScreen and wedged it back into her pack as the block letters reflected across Tina's face.

JEE learners are dismissed. We now recommend a physical activity.

And 'they', or course, were the Heads. They were seen sometimes around the facility, and talked to the lectors and trainers after-hours, when they thought no-one was watching. And even though the marines were deadly in precision and skill, as Amelia had already seen on the weekly target shootings held above ground, the young woman had no doubt that the Heads themself were far more threatening. They held the future of the world in their hands.

Quite literally.

The various scholars took different paths, most going to the dormitories, while Amelia and Tina hooked a right, down the main Glass Path. Journey down the Glass-paved road to find the nerds who can't rhyme. The joke had circulated quickly, probably originating from the technicians like Luca themselves.

Since the tech-masters were basically walking encyclopedias already, and their only aim would be to immediately situate communication stations around the camp in the K-zone and report on the statuses of the pods (and not to necessarily fight the likes of dinosaurs), they were excused for the lesser lessons of ancient reptilian biology to discuss and dissect batteries or whatever they did in their larger cubicles, situated in another, far larger room to the left of the elevator that had introduced Amelia to this new life.

She could remember the prickling of anxiety like it had happened the day before ... the queasiness as a result of the helicopter flight, the cold of the underground chilling through her thin top and causing goosebumps over the goosebumps that broke over her skin each time the stern-eyed official who went by the name of Graham locked eyes with her. Even thinking about those awkward moments, even with Audrie hovering over her as support, Amelia felt a resigned hiss of uneasiness creep in her chest.

The Graham guy mostly hung out with the marines, to her relief. There was a different hierarchy in here compared to the rest of the world, or, at least, the United States. The Heads were top-notch. They handled things like pod construction and oversaw the activities of each individual. The name of a specific Head — Robert Quillan — was whispered among the quiet chews and scrapes of plastic spoon against plastic bowl in the mess hall. A founder of the mission, and a god to some.

Amelia had personally never heard of him, but she gathered from rumors that he had been the CEO of a corporation specializing in the preservation of historical information — wanting to send probes into space, and the like. While the rest of the world campaigned for the end of carbon emissions and harsher penalties for illegal poaching and logging, STONEAXE argued across political boards for more care of artifacts and precious things that were hardly a priority in a dying world.

She shuddered to think of countless previously worshipped items being torn apart in the riots; vandalized and lost forever. No wonder he had taken such an interest in the mission.

Then there were the marines. Broody with war and unflinching in the name of duty. The nerds and scholars came last; to document, preserve, and change the environment and adapt it to make it habitable for humankind without effecting future generations and evolution that would take place.

Exactly why they dealt with solar-powered volt-guns instead of ones with bullets (one; to preserve the natural balance and environment. Two; bullets were not found on trees, and solar energy would be far more powerful with zilch smog in the air from no human interference. Amelia hoped they could keep it that way.)

Either way, what they were going to do was going to change history — for good, or for bad. Each section had its duty. The civilians' (though it wasn't spoken much aloud) was merely to populate the world once more. Rabbits in an Eden.

Both Amelia and Tina swiped their identification cards (specially issued) through the door, which beeped and hissed as it opened and released regulated, cold air on their covered shins, and then entered the tinkering shop.

Amelia found herself grinning, despite the dozens of bits of bobs that she didn't understand, and the harshness of the fluorescent lights, as well as the sharp tang of oil that pierced the air. Because here was where she'd found her friends.

"Luca!" Tina called out in greeting, and his dark head and large brown glasses popped up from behind a huge screen just as he released a shout, his eyes seeming animatedly magnified in shock:

"Watch out!"

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