"BUT THAT can't be a bad thing," a short black woman - Juliette Reeves, Tina thought her name was. A botanist; and she looked the type who would prefer to spend her time with plants instead of people - piped up, shattering the solemn silence.

Tina didn't know what to think. Ichabod shipping dinosaurs back to 2039? For what purpose? A dinosaur petting zoo?

Truth be told, she didn't care much for Ichabod in the first place; he was a bad guy, and what motives did they need to hate him even more than they already did? She was more concerned about Luca, and what the dank he was getting into.

"Think about it," Amelia said, her tone low. Tina internally winced for Juliette, recognizing her friend's defending-the-dinosaurs tone. "Things are bad enough for us, but at least we expected the dinosaurs. Our friends and family won't be expecting them, and whatever Ichabod'll doing with them, it won't be good."

Even in the morning shadows, the sky only just turning blue, Tina could see Amelia's eyes were even darker than usual. Something had happened, she was sure. Her heart clenched at the thought - while Amelia was risking her life to get the papers that revealed Ichabod's evil mastermind plans, she, Tina, had been sleeping. (And only just. She'd been having nightmares, staring into Luca's dead eyes before waking up and realizing it was a very real possibility.)

It made Tina feel useless. Just another person Lale was supposed to protect, and she could tell by the cords in his neck and leanness of his cheeks that being a leader wasn't a role he was accustomed to.

"Biological warfare, warfare in general," Shaunia added, speaking for the first time in what seemed like months. The chipper mean girl role had already worn out on the second paleontologist; she only seemed tired since the fiasco with betrayal had started. "Imagine if we'd fought wars with raptors and pterosaurs instead of horses and elephants. Creatures optimized to kill could easily replace nuclear weapons."

"And would produce the same fallout," Lale finished with a murmur. Tina rubbed her brow, biting back the slowly rising panic.

"This isn't about us anymore, is it?" Tina asked rhetorically. She knew the answer already. "This isn't about Ichabod and him killing Bradley -" Lale flinched. Amelia hung her head, and Tina remembered with a pang how Amelia had cried at hearing of Bradley's death, only an hour before. Already felt like a lifetime, "but rather the whole world."

The silence in itself was an answer. Tina felt the tension snap like a cord around them.

Botanist... psychologist ... one by one, Tina ran her eyes over the fourteen other people that stood beside her like prisoners of war. Amelia and Lale knew their place as fighters on the front line, but what about them? Tina wasn't sure she had a place fighting against a bunch of marines with volt-guns.

If only battle was as easy as designing a building. Some measurements and added dimensions could fix anything as long as it wasn't set in the foundation. Deaths weren't like that, though.

Shaunia spoke up again, when Tina was in those deep thoughts. She could only hope ... and pray, something she'd associated more with her mother than herself, that Luca was okay.

"So, what's the plan?" The raven-haired girl's eyes were fixed firmly on Amelia, and Tina felt a wave of annoyance flush through her cheeks. The same challenging glint from their training days was back in Shaunia's gaze, ready to pin down on she or Amelia.

Amelia lifted her head, her own gaze equally as cooling, even though it sparked something more hopeful in her bones.

Maybe they would all get out of the final confrontation alive ...

"As soon as we can figure out how to disable their volt-guns, we'll fight back."

But probably not.

Before Tina could even debate it in her own mind, she stepped forward, flexing her hands nervously and keeping her light brown eyes on them. She blinked, inhaled, then met her friend's gaze. Maybe Luca would be able to save them, indirectly.

"Get me to Luca," Tina said quietly, her heart thumping in her ears. In excitement? Or fear? She couldn't tell. "I know how we can shut down the volt-guns."

"It's simple," Luca growled, jabbing the screwdriver into the tangled pocket of wires that made up the EEG's back. "The EEG is magnetic, and solar-powered. Just access the internal softdrives, and you'll have your own crane."

His words were dripping with sarcasm, but Ichabod didn't seem to notice. His gaze was lit up, and he was grinning. "Keep at it," he encouraged, patting Luca on the back. The technician had to fight not to shrink away.

You're doing this for Tina, he reminded himself. He refocused on the task at hand, though his thoughts were already starting to drift off. Tina. Was she one of the few who had - according to Xeon - escaped the volt-guns? Or was she ...?

Luca swallowed. Stay alive. Get back to her. That was all that mattered, even though he knew it was messed up. Zoey had told him as much, but even she had reluctantly agreed that there was no other choice.

Ichabod left him, and Luca tightened his grip on the screwdriver. He had none of his essential tools, nor a proper work space to work on. The EEG was fragile, for dag's sake! One wrong twist ... he shuddered to think.

And it didn't make it any easier that Ichabod and his armed cronies were circling he and Des like hawks; Des being the quiet Pakistani guy who sweated profusely and dropped his screwdriver every five minutes as he attempted to search through the EEG' circuit boards for automatic override. One switch of a button, and Ichabod would be able to twitch the robot off, and no one would be able to get into the EEG's head.

Except for them, of course. That was the reason why Luca was almost ninety percent sure that they - he and Des - were going to eventually get killed. Why would Ichabod want to keep around the tech nerds who could foil his plans?

There was nothing Luca could do, however, than keep jabbing and wiping fog from the circuits. Even though the robot was water resistant, inside and out, corrosion was always an uncertain factor in such prehistoric climates.

Eventually the call of the wild became a more nagging factor, and he got up with a quick word to Des; "Don't move," before moving off towards the jungle and behind a fern that had unofficially become the bathroom, far enough for some semblance of privacy and close enough to scream for help as you were ripped into by a dinosaur with your pants around your ankles.

Even with the tech's suit, shrugging the grey clothing off was an entire palaver in itself. As he unstrapped and unbuckled himself from the stained outfit, he glanced warily towards the shadows of the unmerciful jungle in front of him, then leapt backwards when the glint of golden eyes reflected in his steamed-up glasses.

He landed butt-first on the moist ground, leaf mulch tightened into his fists. His breathing was coming hard, air thick with damp scraping against the roof of his mouth. The eyes had vanished, and Luca shook his head and flicked the mulch he had grasped away.

"Dank. Dank." He wiped his hands on his suit, finished his business, and hurried back to Des. If his hands hadn't been clammy with marsh plant juices, he'd have been raking them through his hair.

Seeing a dinosaur - or creature, or whatever it was - so close to camp felt like a flashing neon WARNING sign. Something was happening, and it tied to the EEG and the unknown reasoning behind turning the robot into a glorified magnet.

Luca wiped away the sweat that had suddenly drenched his brow. Des barely glanced at him, tweezers quietly plinking against the boards. Luca took the screwdriver back in his hand, then bit his lip.

"I've done it." Des' words were quiet. He put the tweezer down, exhaling in relief. Luca wished he could feel it as well - that part of their job was done. His gut twisted with dread instead.

The other technician squinted at him, only then noticing his disheveled appearance. "You okay?"

"Fine." Luca dug the screwdriver beyond the wires and tapped around tentatively for the robot's framework, which would lead him to further internal wiring.

In reality, Luca was not fine. His hands shook slightly and it took a moment of focus before they steadied. Something was going to happen, Luca knew.

And it wouldn't be good.

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