Living With Dinosaurs (Book 1) - A Ben Pincus Fanfiction (COMPLETED)

Chapter 33: Who Do You Work For?

-Gabriella's POV-

"If you could point us to a phone, we'll be on our way" said Kenji.

"Yeah. Slight problem with that. This island is completely shut off the grid. No communications in or out" Mae replies.

"What?"

"Are you kidding?"

"Why?"

"Wait, you can't use that to call out?" Brooklynn asked.

"Sorry. Closed circuit. Mainly I use this to connect to a doodad in their brains... Oh! Can't tell you actually. Proprietary research" replied Mae.

"So, there's no way home" said Yaz.

"Don't lose faith. You can all rest up with me until we figure out how to get you out of here" Mae replied, reassuringly.

"Do we trust her?" I heard Kenji whisper to Brooklynn.

Kenji laughs after Brooklynn doesn't say anything "I'll take that as a no" he says. They both chuckle before walking off. Yaz and I look at each other and raised our eyebrows before following the rest of the group. Ben stays in the back of the group.

"So, the saber-toothed tiger and the T-Rexes, your bosses are making prehistoric creatures?" Darius asked Mae.

"Some. Although they got the T-Rexes from Isla Sorna. Not that I should be telling you any of this" replies Mae.

"Why?" Sammy asked.

Instead of getting a answer to her question, Mae suddenly stopped walking "hold up. Important announcement time..." Mae turns around to face us. "Whatever you do, do not go down there" she said, motioning to the deeper part of the forest.

"Super dangerous. All right, off we pop"

She turns back around and we start walking again until we come to a waterfall "we're here" said Mae, and takes us behind the waterfall where we found a cave with a locked metal door. Mae unlocks the door and the door makes a beep noise before it opens.

We all gasp once we saw what was inside.

"Oh" says Brooklynn.

"Wow. As far as caves go, this one's pretty swank" says Sammy.

"You live here?" Darius asked.

"Live, work, play surprisingly competitive games of poker with myself. I usually win" Mae replied, laughing.

"Ah! All right, I'm gonna go whip up some sandwiches"

Mae walks away to go make us some sandwiches. As she was in the kitchen doing that Brooklynn and Kenji decided to take a look around to see if there's anything to be suspicious about.

"What are you doing?" Darius asked Brooklynn.

"We're not gonna just take her word for it, there's no phone here" replied Brooklynn.

"Yeah, dude. Did you learn nothing from Mitch and Tiff?" Kenji asked.

"I guess it doesn't hurt to look around" replied Darius.

The rest of us joined in having a look around the room. "Are you guys all right out there?" We hear Dr. Turner ask from the kitchen.

"Yeah. Uh, no problems over here!" Kenji replied.

We then continued on looking around for something that might be suspicious "no phone. I think she's telling the truth" I heard Darius say. "We got nothing" said Brooklynn, her and Kenji walking over to Darius.

"Us too" said Kenji.

Suddenly Sammy gasps from behind Darius and turns around to look at us "Mantah Corp" she says and shows us a piece of paper with a chart and the company's name and logo on it.

We all gasp.

Mae works for Mantah Corp?

Brooklynn turns around to face the rest of us "If Mae works for Mantah Corp, then we gotta get out of here" she says. I couldn't agree more. "Who wants a sandwich?" We suddenly hear Mae's voice from behind us, making us gasp.

Most of us sit down on the couch, Darius sits on the chair, Ben sits on the arm of the chair Darius is sitting in. Yaz and I are sitting on the floor.

"Mmm. This is really good" says Darius, trying to be nice to Mae.

I see Ben pick up a sandwich, looking at it closely and studying it whilst looking unsure about it, for some reason it made me giggle. I think he's been eating far too many grubs to actually want to eat normal food. Then again, there's his carob bars that I gave him behind the others backs.

"Something wrong?" Mae asked, noticing that we're not eating the sandwiches.

"Yes. We wanna ask you about--"

"Something to drink?"

Mae gasps "of course! Silly me. You need cocoa" she says before walking back into the kitchen to get us something to drink. "We need to go" said Brooklynn. "Maybe not" replied Sammy.

"But Mae works for the company that blackmailed your family"

"Yeah. And I did, too. Sometimes, good people can be made to do bad things by bad people"

"Let's at least check out that dangerous area. What if there's a phone or a way off the island, and she's just trying to keep us away from it?" Brooklynn asked.

"Why would she do that?" Darius asked me.

"So we can't tell anyone about whatever shady stuff Mantah Corp is doing here" I replied.

"Okay. I'll keep her busy while you check it out" said Darius.

"I'll stay, too. Maybe we'll get some answers while we're at it" said Sammy.

"So, it's settled. Kenji and Brooklynn will go check it out" said Yaz.

I think I know what she's trying to do here.

"You, Gabby, and Ben should come too. We don't know what's out there" said Brooklynn.

I get up from the floor and follow Brooklynn and Kenji out of the cave. We walk across the forest towards the so called 'dangerous area' and found another metal rectangle.

"Another metal rectangle, like the one we saw in the desert" said Ben.

"Bones. It's a feeding platform" said Brooklynn.

"Which means we should probably get outta here before mealtime" Kenji replied.

"I couldn't agree more" I reply.

We go in a different direction and ended up climbing a little slope in the ground. Kenji helps Brooklynn up before walking next to her with his hand resting on her back. Ben then climbs up from the slope, grunting.

"Ben. I am curious. Uh, who ate grubs first? You or Bumpy?" Yaz asks as she quickly climbs up the slope before walking next to Ben.

"On purpose? Me" replied Ben.

"What? That sounds like a story" she laughs and touches Ben.

I climb up the slope and I was about to walk past Ben and Yaz when Ben grabbed my hand "[...] so, I said, "that's what you get for walking with your mouth open Bumpster." But when there were no digestive issues, I figured, "Eh, anything can be food once."" Ben finishes his storytelling for Yaz.

I look over and see Yaz smiling while looking up ahead "wow. No one has ever smiled at the end of that story. Not even Gabby" said Ben. Ben looked over at me and saw the look on my face.

"Well, it's the way you tell it" replied Yaz.

Ben looks back at Yaz before looking ahead of us.