"Action Man Says He's Coming."

“It seems we have a lot to explain Beck,” she said awkwardly.

“You most certainly do,” her father said stiffly.

“I hope you two weren’t…” her grandfather threatened pointing at Becker.

“No!” they said in unison interrupting him.

“We just got done watching Lonesome Dove and were about to fix lunch,” Jessi said.

That seemed to calm them considerably.
“So not that I’m not glad you’re here but weren’t you supposed to come this weekend?” Jessi asked.

“Yes but we decided to surprise you,” her aunt answered.

“…Surprised,” Jessi said with an awkward smile. She turned to Becker, “Can I speak privately with you a moment?”

Before waiting for a reply she dragged him into another room after a quick “Excuse us.”

“Oh my God what am I going to tell them?!” she frantically whispered to him.

“About?”

“Our jobs. Why I look like something that went through a FUCKIN’ meat grinder!”

“Well you could start with the truth,” he suggested.

“The truth?! I’m going to tell four cowboys that we work for a secret government agency that fights dinosaurs!!! Do you know how much they naturally distrust the government? Where do you think I got it from!? ...Which is ironic considering where we work…but anyway!” she flailed her arms frantically.

“It’s alright. Take a deep breath,” Becker soothed.

“You realize we can still hear you right?” her cousin called.

“I do now,” she answered. “Shit! Damn sensitive, ranch ears!” she cursed. They came back out. “Ok can we get introductions out of the way before I spill my guts please?” she asked.

“That sounds like a good idea,” her uncle said.

“Everyone, this is Captain Becker. He works with me and we went to Sandhurst together,” she said.

“Beck this is my mother Jane, my father Wil, my granddad Jim, my aunt Kate, my uncle Brett and my cousin Newt,” she said. He shook everyone’s hand.

“Becker…?” her father asked.

“Captain Hilary Becker actually sir. I just prefer to go by Becker, sir,” he said respectfully.

“I see. Good plan”, her father replied.

“So let’s everyone move to the living room and sit down. I have a feeling this may take a while,” she ushered them into the living room.

“Not until I get a hug first,” her dad said warmly.

Jessi smiled and went around giving everyone in her family a hug. She grimaced a little when the squeezed her bad side.

“Is something wrong?” Newt asked.

“Oh I just hurt myself at work. No problem,” she smiled.

“So what were you two talking about? Dinosaurs?” her mother asked after they had all sat down.

Jessi sighed. “Lester is going to kill us,” she said to Becker before turning back to her family. “Ok let’s start from the beginning. As you know I moved here and started working with Abby at the Wellington Zoo with the big cats. After almost a year there Abby and I went to collect an exotic lizard from a house. Turns out it was a species that neither of us recognized so we asked the boy that found him to show us where. As we were wondering around the Forest of Dean we found a dead cow in a tree. The boy freaked out and ran home, leaving the lizard and us in the forest. We first saw the gorgonopsid and late stumbled on a scutosaurus. Bothe of which and the lizard have not been seen on the earth since before the dinosaurs, mind you. That’s where we met Professor Nick Cutter of the Central Metropolitan University, his assistant Stephen Hart and one of his students Conner Temple.
After that we all managed to find what’s call an anomaly. They are weird rips in time that allow people and animals to travel through to other times,” she explained. Her family was giving her and Becker weird looks. “I don’t understand it very much either. Anyway we got the scutosaurus back home but we had to kill the gorgonopsid and the lizard managed to stay behind. Abby kept him and he’s called Rex. When that was over we all somehow got talked in to working for the government in dealing with the anomalies and what ever came through.”

“I wasn’t here for any of this. After she escaped from Sandhurst I had no idea what became of her,” Becker added who was sitting next to her.

“Yes. He comes in later. Anyway because of my abilities as a shape shifter I pretty much just deal with the creatures that stray into our time. The list is long and is a bunch of different stories entirely. But back to the main story.
Some time ago we had a family of what we call Future Predators come through. We think they are the future evolution of bats but they walk on all fours like an ape. They use echolocation to see and are extremely quick, vicious and intelligent. In a nutshell the worst creature we’ve every dealt with which is saying a LOT. Our normal policy is to return the animals through the anomalies but this was an exception. They came through an anomaly in the Permian era and through another into the present. We killed what we thought was the mother but was actually the father and captured the young to help us locate their anomaly. We were going to set up guards at the site to prevent anymore from getting through. If they managed to escape into our world humanity would be in grave danger.
A group of us, including Cutter, his deranged ex-wife Helen (who had disappeared into an anomaly some years ago and then randomly appeared out of nowhere a few months prior to this), the Head of Security Captain Tom Ryan, some of his men and myself, went through into the Permian to find the future anomaly. We were never able to because the mother attacked us. Sadly she managed to kill everyone except Cutter, Helen and me before a gorgonopsid killed her and her young.
When we got back through things had changed. A government woman who worked with us named Claudia never existed and a scrawny man named Leek was doing her job. Also place called the ARC or Anomaly Research Center had been formed and was our base. I have no idea how it happened; we must have done something in the Permian…I don’t know.
During the confusion Helen went back through the anomaly. A few days later our boss Lester introduced us to a new team member named Jenny who happened to look EXACTLY like Claudia. Which was all kinds of weird but weird is something you learn to get use to in this line of work. Cutter and I finally got our bearings and because Captain Ryan had been killed in the Permian I took over as unofficial Head of Security. Lester didn’t seem to mind and someone had to do it anyways.
Later on we discovered that Helen and Leek had been working together and had a secret stash of creatures their men had captured because of the anomalies. Leek had wanted power and who knows what Helen was after. We managed to stop them but because of Helen, the creatures killed Stephen. Leek was also but that was his own fault. Helen disappeared again. I’d been helping Abby, Conner, Rex, Jenny and another woman escape when that happened. Stephen’s death was hard on everyone,” she said. Hatred flared inside her when she thought of Helen.

Sensing Jessi’s distress Becker took over. “Lester decided it was time to put someone as official Head of Security. Though from what I’ve heard she did brilliantly even though she was stretched thin.” He looked down at her and smiled. “When I got there I didn’t have much of an idea what I’d gotten myself into. Sure I’d been told I’d be fighting dinosaurs but it seemed a bit ridiculous. I think I made a joke about it when Lester was giving me the grand tour but he assured me I wouldn’t be skeptical for long.
We’d just finished and had just entered the main operations room when, much to my astonishment, came a familiar voice called a smart ass joke to Lester from the upper level where his office is. Ironically I’d been thinking about how much she would’ve liked a place like that,” he chuckled.

“I didn’t know that. Actually I was thinking how much he looked like you. Well that and why he was being such an ass,” she said her mood lightening.

“She’d asked what my name was and I decided to mess with her a little and ignore her. The look on her face when she realized it was me was priceless,” he laughed lightly.

“I still plan on getting even,” she replied.

“After the last anomaly I think we’re even,” he said raising an eyebrow.

“What happened at the last anomaly? Is that how you got hurt?” her father asked.

“One second Ate. Let us finish the story,” she told him. “So for the next few months everything went normally…well normal for us anyway. That is until Helen showed up again. She shot Cutter and blew up the ARC for stupid, unknown reasons. Now we have no idea what she’s planning or where she is…again. What ever it is it’s not good. But we repaired the ARC and Lester’s looking for Cutter’s replacement. I fully intend on making Helen pay for what she did to my friends.
Now, to answer your question Dad. Two days ago our last anomaly let loose a giganotosaurus. Think of it as T-rex only a tad bigger and faster. Of course it’s my job to deal with it so I changed into a gorgonopsid and started going around it and nipping at its heels, much like some of the cow dogs back home. It tried to bite me and managed to whack me with its head. One of his teeth got me pretty good,” she stood up and showed them her bandaged side. “Becker patched me up and has been here helping me,” she finally finished.

Everything was silent for a moment.

“I’m sure you have questions. So spit them out,” Jessi finally said.

“So you two are dating?” Aunt Kate asked.

Jessi and Becker looked at each other. They hadn’t really talked about it.

“Yes ma’am,” Becker answered.

“So did you know that Jessi was a shape shifter before you arrived?” Jane asked.

“No ma’am. Before she left Sandhurst she’d told me about her telepathy but that’s it,” he replied.

“I’d planned on telling him while we were catching up but the Conner’s anomaly detector went off and I didn’t get time. I changed to fight a giant croc and afterwards on the way back to the ARC he wasn’t happy with me,” she explained.

“But she explained it all to me when we got to her office,” Becker added.

Everyone was silent again.

“I’m sure this is a lot to take in. So I’d like to introduce you to proof of this madness,” she said leading them outside.