"Miss? Miss!"

Jocelyne jumped, sitting up instantly: "I'm awake, mom, I'm awake!" she screamed, only to realize that the person who had pulled her out of the dream world wasn't her mother at all.

"Do I look so much like a woman?" Jackson asked, amused.

"A little" the girl replied jokingly.

"Don't say that in front of Abe, please. He'd make fun of me for the rest of my life" the militia leader laughed in turn, and then took a look at the girl's bed: "Did you spend another sleepless night?"

Jocelyne looked awkwardly at her bed, which was flooded with computers, books and electronic devices. "Apparently" she said with a shrug.

Jocelyne's mental condition had been improving for some time. Slightly, sure, but still they were getting better. Although she still had nightmares and was clearly suffering from PTSD symptoms, she had finally stopped trying to stay awake as much as possible. She forced herself to sleep and this was clearly beneficial to her health: she was now much more relaxed and her skin color was changing from ashen to normal pink. She had also stopped taking antidepressant pills. Though she still had a long way to go, everyone in the house was hopeful that she was finally making it through her trauma.

No one knew what she had triggered that change. Jocelyne herself couldn't explain it. Simply, after that one night in which her nightmares had not tormented her, she had found a particularly insistent voice in her head inviting her to stop trying to escape from her demons. Though no one forced her to, Jocelyne had chosen to listen to that voice. Her psychologists were a little surprised by that sudden willpower, but according to them it was quite common for a person affected by trauma to undergo a short tense period only to find the strength to fight suddenly and seemingly for no reason.

However, for a few days Jocelyne's demeanor had changed again. She had returned to focus on something that no one knew and she spent most nights up. Initially everyone had feared that she was having a relapse, but in reality Jocelyne was not trying to escape her demons again: she was in fact sleeping eight hours straight, with the only difference that a good part of that time belonged to the next morning, not at night. She was simply so focused on what she was doing (whatever it was) that she ended up losing track of time and only when it was very late did she realize what time it was.

While the change in circadian rhythm wasn't necessarily a problem for his health, both mental and physical, his parents still didn't appreciate the behavior. Her mother had already scolded her more than once, but Jocelyne had continued with that strange habit anyway. She seemed obsessed with something. By now waking up in the late morning surrounded by books, notes and computers had become the norm, because when the night before she realized she had to go to sleep it was always too late to put her things in their place. So, she always ended up leaving them on the bed. And in a certain sense he did it also out of laziness: after all, when she woke up she would need them again, so why put them back? It was easier have them already next to her.

"May I know what troubles you so much?" Jackson asked, then glanced at the images on the computer screen. "And why are you so interested in what happened in Flagard City?"

"Nothing. It's nothing special" Jocelyne replied quickly turning off the computer.

"It doesn't seem like 'nothing special' to me at all" Jackson said, noting the girl's scruffy appearance.

Jocelyne bit her lip, then shook her head. "Can you go out? I should get dressed". "There's no point in telling him" she thought. "He'd think I'm crazy... well, I probably am". After all, even she found hard to believe what she had discovered… or what she thought she had discovered.

Jackson nodded and walked out of the room. Jocelyne got out of bed and started taking off her nightgown. In less than a minute she was dress in a comfortable room suit. She sat back down on the bed and, without even bothering to put the covers back, she resumed her research.

She noticed that the computer was almost dead. Snorting, she stood up and grabbed the charger, but as she was walking back to the bed Jackson's voice came from behind the door: "Are you finished, miss?"

"What now!?". "I'm done getting dressed, yes. Why? Do my parents want to see me, or do we have an unexpected guest?"

"No, miss. I just wanted to know if I can come back in your room now that you're presentable"

"Why do you want to come in my room?"

"We were having a nice chat. We hadn't spoken in a while. I was hoping we could continue"

"Seriously, does he really think he can fool me with such tricks?" Jocelyne thought shaking her head in disappointment. It was clear that Jackson just wanted to discover what was on her mind lately. "You have work to do. You should think about that rather than talk"

"I've already completed all my duties for today. It's a bit late, you know..."

"You haven't finished your duty. Your duty is to watch over me, protect me, and make sure that nothing and nobody gets through this door. You can't get distracted, and talking to the person you need to protect is a distraction"

"I've got my men all over the house. If anyone comes in, I'll know immediately and..."

"Really? What if the people who want to enter don't make a frontal attack? What if there is a spy among your men, and the enemy already knows the location of each one? What if the enemy, armed with this information, enters stealth killing your men one at a time before they can raise the alarm? At that point the only thing that would protect me would be that door. If you open it and enter and get distracted to talk to me, who's going to stop them from reaching me?"

Jackson fell silent. Not hearing him speak again for over a minute, Jocelyne thought he was convinced. "As you can see, you haven't finished your job. So shut up and do your duty" she said. She didn't mean to be rude, but she was really getting impatient.

However, as she was plugging the charger into the computer, Jackson's voice returned. "You are right, miss, but I think I can take the risk. If you don't agree, you can order me to stop"

"God, how insistent he is!" Jocelyne screamed in her head. 'Maybe I should just tell him… no. That would be silly. He would just tell me I'm using too much imagination.' "As you wish! This is the order: shut up and do your job! This is a priority order given to you by the heir of the Jersey family. Are you satisfied now?"

"No"

"What!? I could accuse you of insubordination"

"I just want to be sure. If you want to give me an order, please go out and say it to my face. That way I'll be sure it's you and not someone imitating your voice"

"Are you kidding me!?" Jocelyne felt the vein on her forehead throb.

"I just want to be cautious. You're right, I have to consider all the possibilities, just like you did"

"The scenario I described to you is exactly what would happen if someone with less or equal strength than us decides to invade this house! In terms of probability, it has 70% of happening! What you say hasn't even 1%!"

"But there is still the possibility, isn't there? Not even 1%, but there is"

Jocleyne was getting a headache. She knew Jackson was just playing dumb. He actually aimed to get her to let him in her room for exhaustion. "Okay, that's enough, continuing would damage the brain... or at least the one of able-bodied people. Come inside"

"Thank you, miss Jersey" Jackson said as he entered with a jovial smile.

"Now that you can see that it's really me and you have no more excuses, I'm tempted to order you to go flush the toilets"

"Please don't do this"

"Of course I won't, I don't intend to separate myself from my head of security. Not to mention that your reputation in the militia would be damaged and this would create quite a few problems that I don't want to deal with" Jocelyne replied crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Come on, tell me what you want"

"I told you, I just wanted to talk and..."

"The point. Now"

"Ok, ok. I was interested in knowing what you were doing"

'As I thought. Tsk…' Jocelyne thought rolling her eyes. "Just a research"

"About what?"

"You would make fun of me if I told you"

"You have my word that I won't"

Jocelyne sighed. There was nothing he could do about it: Jackson sometimes inspired too much confidence. And he knew that even if she lied to him he would ask her to show her the research, so it would be pointless. "Okay, but… don't laugh. So, I... I think the dinosaurs are getting intelligent!" she spat out all in one breath. "Done. Now you can laugh"

"I'm not laughing"

"But you would like to do it"

"Does it seem like I want to do it?"

Indeed, Jackson's face showed no sign of hilarity. Jocelyne was quite surprised: "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. But could you explain yourself better?"

Jocelyne nodded in confusion. She expected quite another reaction. However, she decided to trust him and turned the computer back on. "Ok. Look at the satellite photos. You can clearly see something, something invisible, dragging a whale to a ship. Only the spinosaurus could camouflage so well. Why take a whale on a ship? Who was it supposed to feed? Then, as the weeks progressed, I noticed that the ship continues to sail in the same direction, and the spinosaurus always appears three or four hundred kilometers further at south, as if it wanted to attract our attention. And a few days ago it happened again: another whale was dragged onto the ship by something invisible. Furthermore, there is no one on the ship: people never get on the hull. Doesn't it seem a bit strange to you? And then… what happened in Flagard City. The spinosaurus could have gone away at any time, but instead it always remained in the same spot... and while the police were acting to capture the other dinosaurs, he always intervened and prevented them. It almost seemed that he wanted to give the dinosaurs time to do something…" . A doubt suddenly seized her: "Wait a minute… why don't you laugh in my face? Why aren't you at least a little surprised?"

Jackson looked gloomy. "Well... it's not the first time someone has said something like this to me" he replied. "My father, Robert Oz, was kicked out of the scientific community because he claimed an imminent awakening of the cognitive abilities of animals, and he said it would all start with dinosaurs"

Jocelyne was shocked by that revelation. "Your father…"

"... believed that dinosaurs could become intelligent" Jackson concluded. "Nobody believed him, even my mother. We left because he seemed on the verge of going mad. That's why we moved here to Odaria... and then my mother adopted Abe here"

"I'm sorry… I didn't know" Jocelyne murmured. "Are you still in contact with your father?"

"A little. He got into trouble sometimes with big multinationals, in particular with the famous Raiding Global". The Raiding Global was a giant commercial agency that ruled much of the world market. "Fortunately, he always got off easy. Whenever the judge condemned him, he would call me to pay him the bail. Those were the only times I talked to him"

Jocelyne's mind immediately began to work. Jackson claimed that his father was a scientist, so it was unlikely that he would have started saying that dinosaurs could become intelligent for no reason. He had to have some proof, some basis. "Does he still think he's right?"

"In his opinion, he's absolutely right" Jackson replied. "And in a certain way it's not so improbable. The reason why he was kicked out of the scientific community was mostly due to slander and falsehood, as well as his nefarious behavior"

"Do you know what kind of research your father did? I mean... did he use the classic scientific method? Hypothesizing, experimenting, comparing data..."

"Yes, he did. For many years. He never stated anything without scientifically proving it first"

This meant that there was really a scientific way for dinosaurs to become intelligent. Maybe more than one. Jocelyne bit her lip: that was exactly what she needed. She wasn't a scientist, so it would have been helpful to have a scientist on her side, someone who had an idea of what was happening to the dinosaurs.

However, she wasn't naive. Nothing assured her that Robert Oz was right. According to Jackson, the man strongly defended his theory, but there was no guarantee that the theory was true. After all, the first rule of science was that any experiment had to be reproducible. A single scientist who discovered something counted for nothing: other scientists had to be able to redo his experiments and confirm his conclusions. But no scientist worthy of this name would have ever tried to verify the theories of a person expelled from the scientific community.

Unless... she was the one who contacted those scientists and asked them. She was rich after all, she could afford to hire experts.

Yes, that was just what she needed. Put together a group of qualified scientists and ask them to test Dr. Oz's theories and the possibility that dinosaurs developed an intellect.

"No, I can't" she thought. "Those scientists should be motivated to do it. Even if money is a good incentive, and surely many would accept it if I paid a good amount, none of them would really undertake a research in which he doesn't believe. The results would end up unintentionally wrong…"

She knew how important it was for people to truly believe in their work. If they didn't, regardless of pay, the quality of their work would always be lower. And in a delicate subject like science, where there were thousands of variables to take into account, you couldn't accept low quality work.

She was about to give up, when that voice in her head that had been bothering her for some time came back.

Stop hiding.

"Uh? And what it means? I'm not hiding now!" she exclaimed in her mind, but then she wondered, "Wait… am I hiding?"

She knew something was happening. She felt it, she had proof. So why was she faltering? Why not try to act, to see if her deductions were correct?

Wouldn't the scientists have believed her words, or those of Robert Oz? And why not? Jocelyne knew she was very good with words. With the right speech, she could at least convince the scientists that something was happening. Faced with a good argument, a self-respecting scientist would have at least decided to check.

So why didn't she do anything? Maybe she was afraid they wouldn't believe her? Or laugh at her, as she had expected Jackson to do? Then she was just hiding.

She shook her head violently. No, she didn't want to hide. She didn't want to make excuses. She wanted to know what was really going on. How many people before her had done it, after all? If all the great thinkers of the past who had challenged common knowledge had been afraid of not being believed, how would humanity have progressed?

She finally made up her mind. "That is fine. No more excuses, no more second thoughts. I'll give it a try. Worst case scenario, I will simply find out I was wrong. There is nothing bad in this. But at least I have to try"

Jocelyne looked her security chief. It was clear that there was no good blood in the Oz family, but she needed a hand, a real hand. "Jackson ... I know I ask you a lot, but I need that you contact your father and ask him to meet me"

"I figured you'd ask me" Jackson replied. "I'll do it. But listen to me, don't believe everything he says. It may be convincing, but there is a reason they kicked him out of the scientific community"

Like everyone else, Jackson was also convinced that Robert Oz was crazy in thinking that animals could suddenly become intelligent. However, Jocelyne wasn't of the same opinion. She had seen a side of the dinosaurs that no scientist had ever discovered, and she wasn't firmly anchored to past precepts. She was certainly not someone who let herself be influenced or who didn't look for evidence to support her theories, but the more she concerned the satellite images and the videos of that night of terror, the more she became convinced that the idea that intelligence could also be born in non-human creatures wasn't so far-fetched.

"Now I just need a group of scientists, good scientists... and I think I know which ones I have to contact" she thought, and then she glanced at the spinosaurus model on her bedside table. "I will find out what is happening to the dinosaurs, in a way or in another!"

********

"Etchù!" Sobek sneezed. "Is someone talking about me again? No, I'm probably just tired"

Even though he no longer needed to sleep as often as other animals, that didn't mean he was exempt from that need. After several weeks without sleep, the need to rest the brain began to be felt.

Fortunately, they were almost there now. Also, even though he was beginning to feel tired, he was still perfectly capable of resisting sleep. And to hunt.

And the pack of giant dolphin-like creatures that swam in front of him would have soon payed the price.

[Prey identified: Shonisaurus sikanniensis, shastasauridae. Experience: 400,000 points]

Shonisaurus was the largest ichthyosaur that ever existed and possibly the largest of marine reptiles, even larger than the mosasaur: it exceeded 20 meters in length and had a rather massive body by the standards of its family. These animals were practically the killer whales and sperm whales of the upper Triassic. They weren't as efficient as the mosasaur in combat, but they could still hunt squid and small fish.

Sobek was preparing to attack them when a figure passed him and attacked the nearest shonisauro. Sobek froze when he recognized the unmistakable silhouette of a shark!

[Prey identified: Carcharocles megalodon, otodontidae. Experience: 270,000 points]

Sobek couldn't believe it. He had finally found it! The megalodon, the undisputed king of sharks and all oceans!

He wasted no time. The shonisaurs could go to hell: this was much more profitable! He wanted to take away the satisfaction of killing the only great predator of the past that he hadn't yet had the chance to defeat!

He canceled [Ambush] and made himself visible: he wanted the megalodon to see him. As soon as the shark appeared it looked intimidated by him. The megalodon was between 16 and 18 meters long, but Sobek now measured 32, almost double!

The instinct of a shark was difficult to deceive: even though there were many whales of similar size of Sobek that the megalodon ate, the fish immediately perceived that the spinosaurus wasn't someone to joke with. Very quickly it turned around and swam away as fast as it could, perhaps thinking that Sobek had aimed at the shonisaurs, but unfortunately the spinosaurus was unwilling to let it go!

By now Sobek could reach 330 km/h in the water. In a flash he was upon it and bit it by the tail. The giant shark wriggled, but seeing that it couldn't free itself, it attacked and bit Sobek in the shoulder.

And this made Sobek rejoice. Seeing the megalodon, which possessed one of the most powerful bites of all animals, even stronger than the one of the t-rex, which couldn't even hurt him was a wonderful scene. Sobek's heart roared triumphantly.

If the story of the seven deadly sins had been true, then Sobek was undoubtedly sinning with pride at that moment.

After having enough fun and proving that not even the megalodon could scratch his [Reinforced skin], Sobek killed the shark and quickly devoured it. With the 10 skill points he gained from that fighter, his total skill points reached 200.

Also, although the megalodon had provided him with fewer experience points than a shonisauro, they were still enough to level up one last time. He quickly rose to level 33.

'One last time' because his adventure in the ocean was about to end. When he emerged, Sobek was able to admire the mainland in the distance, half hidden in the sea mist. He hurried to swim in the direction of the ship to warn the dinosaurs of the good news. After three weeks of traveling, they had finally reached Maakanar.