THE EPOCH CHRONICLES | ✔

nine

Area 51
2039
(three months later)

━━━━

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.