"Action Man Says He's Coming."

Some years later Jessi stood in the upper area of the main room in the ARC leaning against the railing. To her right a ramp spiraled down to the lower lever were. The office of the man who headed the ARC, James Lester, was behind her had glass walls so he could see things down below.

Normally she wouldn’t be here but today she was waiting for Lester to bring in the new Head of Security. After a Future Predator or Predator for short killed their last one, Captain Tom Ryan, in the Permian she had unofficially taken over. No one, including herself, could deny that she had done a good job of protecting the team. Yet their most recent tragedy still haunted her. While fighting Professor Nick Cutter’s deranged ex-wife Stephen Hart had been killed by creatures Helen and her accomplice Leek had secretly captured. Stephen had been with Cutter and Helen trying to contain the creatures while Jessi had helped Abby, Conner and a woman named Caroline escape. Although Jessi knew it had been the right thing to do she still felt remorse about her failure to save her friend.

Lester was right to put someone in officially. Though, just for shits and giggles, she still might pick on him a bit. He was fun to pester. She smirked as she heard them coming. The walls made it hard to really hear the new person’s voice and they spoke almost quietly but she could still understand what was being said.

“I assume you’ve been fully briefed?” she heard Lester say in a very professional tone.

“Yes.”

“Your job’s to tighten up security in every area of the ARC. As you may well know we’ve had some unfortunate lapses recently.

“I’m aware of that”
The voice was serious, deep and masculine sounding so Jessi assumed it was a man. Lester continued.

“You’re also aware of what we do here?”

“You detect anomalies and fight dinosaurs when necessary”, he said way too nonchalant tone.

“Correct. You don’t sound surprised”.

Of course Lester picked up on it too.

“I have extensive experience in dinosaur handling, Sir. I assumed that was why I was picked for the job”, he said a bit confused but still serious.

Ha! That made Jessi smile. She was beginning to like him already. He certainly seemed to be a witty and sarcastic SOB. Lester didn’t seem very thrilled about it though. They had stopped just in front of the pair of big, metal, double doors that lead into the main room.

“I take it that was some kind of joke”, Lester said sounding slightly irked.

“Yes Sir.”

“A lot of people are skeptical when they first join us. But they don’t stay that way for long”, Lester paused. “And in the future, I’ll make the jokes”.

“Yes Sir. Sorry Sir.”

Wow he was one of those down to line, stiff military guys. It would be interesting to see how he did with the team on his first anomaly. Lester continued on.

"You'll be dealing with a highly strung and temperamental team of rank amateurs who just happen to be brilliant at what they do. Your job's to stop them getting themselves killed. No matte what they say, no matter what excuse they use you and your men are to stick to the plan. We can’t afford another Stephen Hart. Is that clear?”

“Crystal clear, Sir”.

“Good luck”, Lester said as he started to open one of the doors.

He stopped half way through when he turned back to the stranger.

“Oh, by the way, Professor Cutter won't like you, and he'll go out of his way to make your job as difficult as possible. Try not to take it personally”, Lester said pity lacing his voice.

Well as much pity as he could sound like having anyway.

Jessi inwardly laughed at that.

As Becker walked onto the huge main room he looked around. There were tables that looked like kitchen islands that were covered in papers and all manner of fancy gadgets. Most everything like the walls and such were metal as well as it being round gave the place a very futuristic feeling. At the head of the room sat what could only be described as a computer on steroids. It had four glowing screens that formed a cross shape and it was taller than a person. Becker was still a bit skeptical about what Lester had said regarding his duties. Dinosaurs? He smiled. If it were true he knew the person who would fit right in, his friend from back at Sandhurst Jessi.

She would have loved it here, he thought to himself.

Animals, dinosaurs, fighting, adventure, science and all sorts of things that would have made here the perfect place for her to work. But he’d think about Jessi and wonder what happened to her later when he got home. Right now he needed to get to work. Whether his new boss was serious or not there was obviously some reason why these people needed him and he was determined not to let them down.

“Nice. Fresh meat. Tell me Lester, did the creatures call you and tell you they were tired of chewing on the few of us tough or lucky enough to last this long or did you take the initiative to do it yourself?” a female voice called out from above them stopping the two men.

Becker smirked to himself at the rich irony. He’d know that voice anywhere. Speak of the devil herself. Becker decided to mess with her a bit and didn’t turn around or make any sign to show that she was there. It would drive her crazy. He just hoped she still remembered him.

“Very funny Jessi”, Lester turned around to look up at here with a bored and annoyed look.

The stranger kept his back to her and was looking around the room. She couldn’t see his face but his hair was short and black as were his clothes. He had a protective vest on over a black skintight shirt and a pair of black military looking pants. A military shotgun was in his hands. Jessi found herself smirking at the thought of the weapon. It had been the preferred gun of her friend Becker back in Sandhurst. The stranger even looked like him from the back. But there was no way it could be him; he was probably on some Special Ops mission in gosh knows where.

The new guy still hadn’t turned around or even acknowledged her. Rude much? It was possible that he was one of those “ females can’t fight, they should be kept at home in the kitchen blah blah blah” types. Guys like that got under Jessi’s skin fast and set off her short, Irish temper.

“So are you going to tell me your name or am I gonna have to come down there and teach you some common freakin’ courtesy. Shit the bed Margret why is that so hard to find these days?” she said crossly.

“Nice to see you too, Jessi. That would be just like us wouldn’t it? The first thing we do after all this time is beat the hell out of each other. I hope you remember I was able to beat you half the time”, Becker said as he turned around with a cocky grin to see the astonished face of a girl never thought he’d see again.

It couldn’t be! There was no way! How…why…what…where…? Jessi was quite confused but elated.

“Becker?!?” she cried as a smile spread across her face.

His grin widened.

Jessi ducked under the railing and leapt to the floor landing on her toes instead of her whole foot. Rushing to him, she almost knocked him over as she half hugged half attacked him. He squeezed her tight and she returned it. After a moment Lester cleared his throat and they disengaged but she still kept an arm around his waist and he kept his around her shoulders.

“Well that was unexpected. I take it you two know each other quite well. Please don’t start doing anything extremely inappropriate that will force me to make regulations regarding personal relationships among coworkers”, Lester said in his usual bored tone.

“Only when you’re not looking”, Jessi laughed.

She turned to Becker with a mischievous grin.

“There’s a storage closet down the hall. Wanna meet me there in 5?” she winked jokingly.

Lester signed indignantly, “If you think I’m joking your wrong”.

In a flash Jessi had broken away from Becker, pecked Lester on the cheek and was back with Becker’s arm around her shoulder again.

“Inappropriate things like that?” she said with a big smile.

Lester rubbed his cheek with the sleeve of his jacket and started for the ramp that led up to his office.

“I’ll make regulations to keep you five ft away from me!” he said exasperatedly.

She knew he was joking. They went back and forth like this all the time. It was their way of showing each other how much they liked the other.

“You know you love me!” she yelled as he walked up the ramp.

“Half crazed Celt”, he muttered loudly.

“I’ma completely crazed Celt! Ya should know that by now”, she hollered up to him as he reached for his door.

Lester just signed again, shook his head and went into his office.

Jessi and Becker laughed. She led them down through the double doors and down the hall to her own office.

“No one could ever forget your insanity but I must admit I had forgotten your filthy minded tendencies”, he raised an eyebrow and smiled at her.

She put on her innocent face and rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet with her hands behind her back.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, she said innocently.

“You’ve hardly changed a bit”, Becker laughed.

“Neither have you old friend”, Jessi chuckled.

He gave her a one armed hug and said,” It’s good to see you again Jessi”.

“You too”, she squeezed him back.
Becker started looking around at stuff on her office walls. Jessi pulled out her phone and
checked the time. It was time go get lunch and her stomach agreed.

“Do you wanna go get a bit to eat? I’m starving”, she said.

“Sure”, he replied turning to her.

“I know a good pub not far from here. Unless there was somewhere in particular you had in mind”, she said then paused. “Course now that I say that the Detector will…”she was cut short by the loud alarm from Conner’s Anomaly Detection Device or ADD.

Only Conner could invent a device and it have that acronym.

“…Go off”, she finished with disgruntled sigh frowning slightly.

Becker chuckled.

“Well it looks like this time I’ll be showing you the ropes and not vice versa like in Sandhurst”, she said as they ran down the hall to the weapons room.

“It looks like it”, he said cocking a smile at her.

She could see something in his eyes though. He was thinking back to that last night, she wasn’t sure how she knew but she did.

There’s something you wanna talk about later, she said as more of a statement than a question as she reached out for his mind with hers.

Telepathy was one of the good things about being a shape shifter. Animals had it which meant so did she. It was the one ability that Becker knew about. She hadn’t had time to tell him what she was. In fact the night she ran away she had gone looking for him to finally tell him when she ran into that bag of shit Thompson.

There are quite a few actually, he replied smirking.

I’ll answer all of your questions and tell you everything after we deal with what ever beasty comes through the anomaly this time. All things considered, I expect you’ll have loads more by the end of the day”, she said cryptically smirking as well.