Fic: Footsteps; Cutter, Becker; PG; gen
Title; Footsteps
Author: reggietate
Characters; Nick Cutter, Captain Becker
Genre: gen
Rating: PG
Warnings/spoilers: none
Disclaimer: they're not mine, they belong to Impossible Pictures
Summary: Becker and Cutter hunt a creature
A/N: for the first shortfic challenge. Just scraped in under the wire :-)
The Professor in cargo shorts and a teeshirt was quite an amusing sight, but Becker was careful not to show his amusement too obviously. The others were highly protective of their wayward team leader, and he wasn't exactly a fully accepted member of the team, not yet. Perhaps never.
In any case, the shorts were merely a concession to the weather, hot and sticky, like there was a thunderstorm brewing, except it never seemed to arrive. And anyway, the sky was almost cloudless.
The prof had ginger fuzz on his legs. With his untidy, floppy hair, tangled by the occasional gusts of warm wind, he looked like an overgrown schoolboy. His knees were dusty from kneeling in the dirt, trying to identify the footprints of some creature or other he and Abby were tracking, while Becker and his men watched. The professor sent Abby searching in another direction with Connor, accompanied by two of the more dependable of the ARC's soldiers, but Becker elected to remain with the professor. The man was all too prone to dashing off after dangerous creatures without regard to his own safety.
The prints were large and round, as if made by the end of a log, Becker thought. Not a carnivore, then, probably, thanking heaven for small mercies.
"I'd say it was an elephant of some type," Cutter finally announced, getting to his feet and shoving his sweat-dampened hair out of his eyes.
"How many types are there?" Becker asked.
"Depends on the period we're dealing with. There's phiomia, deinotherium, gompotherium, just to start with. Lots of variations on the basic theme."
"Surely an elephant shouldn't be so hard to find in this terrain. Not exactly the commonest sight on the Purbeck Hills, I should imagine."
Cutter shrugged. "Might even be a moeritherium - think of a pygmy hippo, long and kind of low-slung, but with a tapir-like head and small tusks in the upper jaw. Lived in a similar fashion to modern hippos, so it would be looking for a river or a lake."
They were on the Isle of Purbeck side of Corfe, which at least narrowed down the search area, but that was still a hell of a lot of ground to cover, most of it uphill.
"How big is this thing?"
"Nine or ten feet long, probably comes up to your waist. Not a carnivore, but you wouldn't want to get in its way, it could certainly hurt you badly, and quite possibly kill you."
"But of course, you don't want me to kill it."
"Not if you can help it, no," Cutter said, in a pointedly long-suffering manner. "The idea is to send it back where it came from, not murder it."
He understood that, of course, killing was not the primary object of the exercise, it was just that sometimes it was frankly impossible to avoid. The creatures didn't necessarily mean to be dangerous, they were just doing what instinct dictated. And he was sure the professor knew that. Cutter might be exasperating and occasionally wrong-headed, but he wasn't actually a fool. Foolhardy, sometimes.
"I'll keep that in mind, sir."
They tracked the creature up hill and down dale for a couple of hours. Cutter wasn't the best of trackers, certainly, but what he lacked in skill he made up in sheer bloody determination. And the scenery was nice. Becker was by no means unaware that he could have been toiling through Helmand Province or somewhere equally unpleasant and deadly. Riding shotgun on this maddening professor was definitely the better posting.
Cutter was turning a fine shade of pink on the back of his neck and his arms and legs by the time they found the creature paddling in a stream at the bottom of a valley. It turned out to be a moeritherium. The strange beast looked as unhappy to be there as you might expect, apparently finding the vegetation not up to its usual standards. But at least it showed no inclination to run amok.
"How do we get it home?" Becker asked. "The anomaly's miles away."
"Pro'lly gonna have to ask Lester to authorise an airlift," Cutter said glumly.
Becker turned to the stoic Sergeant Dyson.
"Already on to it, boss. Miss Lewis can arrange just about anything these days."
Cutter squatted on the grassy hillside, arms wrapped around his grubby knees. After a moment or two, Becker sat beside him.
"Cheer up, Professor. After all, it's not every day we get to walk in the footsteps of a dinosaur."
"It's not a dinosaur."
"I know. But 'footsteps of an Ogliocene mammal' doesn't roll off the tongue in quite the same way, does it?"
Cutter looked at him, a faint smile forming on his lips. "You have been paying attention to my briefings."
He shrugged. "What else is there to do between anomalies?"
Cutter laughed. "Maybe you'll do after all," he said.
It was a start.
Author: reggietate
Characters; Nick Cutter, Captain Becker
Genre: gen
Rating: PG
Warnings/spoilers: none
Disclaimer: they're not mine, they belong to Impossible Pictures
Summary: Becker and Cutter hunt a creature
A/N: for the first shortfic challenge. Just scraped in under the wire :-)
The Professor in cargo shorts and a teeshirt was quite an amusing sight, but Becker was careful not to show his amusement too obviously. The others were highly protective of their wayward team leader, and he wasn't exactly a fully accepted member of the team, not yet. Perhaps never.
In any case, the shorts were merely a concession to the weather, hot and sticky, like there was a thunderstorm brewing, except it never seemed to arrive. And anyway, the sky was almost cloudless.
The prof had ginger fuzz on his legs. With his untidy, floppy hair, tangled by the occasional gusts of warm wind, he looked like an overgrown schoolboy. His knees were dusty from kneeling in the dirt, trying to identify the footprints of some creature or other he and Abby were tracking, while Becker and his men watched. The professor sent Abby searching in another direction with Connor, accompanied by two of the more dependable of the ARC's soldiers, but Becker elected to remain with the professor. The man was all too prone to dashing off after dangerous creatures without regard to his own safety.
The prints were large and round, as if made by the end of a log, Becker thought. Not a carnivore, then, probably, thanking heaven for small mercies.
"I'd say it was an elephant of some type," Cutter finally announced, getting to his feet and shoving his sweat-dampened hair out of his eyes.
"How many types are there?" Becker asked.
"Depends on the period we're dealing with. There's phiomia, deinotherium, gompotherium, just to start with. Lots of variations on the basic theme."
"Surely an elephant shouldn't be so hard to find in this terrain. Not exactly the commonest sight on the Purbeck Hills, I should imagine."
Cutter shrugged. "Might even be a moeritherium - think of a pygmy hippo, long and kind of low-slung, but with a tapir-like head and small tusks in the upper jaw. Lived in a similar fashion to modern hippos, so it would be looking for a river or a lake."
They were on the Isle of Purbeck side of Corfe, which at least narrowed down the search area, but that was still a hell of a lot of ground to cover, most of it uphill.
"How big is this thing?"
"Nine or ten feet long, probably comes up to your waist. Not a carnivore, but you wouldn't want to get in its way, it could certainly hurt you badly, and quite possibly kill you."
"But of course, you don't want me to kill it."
"Not if you can help it, no," Cutter said, in a pointedly long-suffering manner. "The idea is to send it back where it came from, not murder it."
He understood that, of course, killing was not the primary object of the exercise, it was just that sometimes it was frankly impossible to avoid. The creatures didn't necessarily mean to be dangerous, they were just doing what instinct dictated. And he was sure the professor knew that. Cutter might be exasperating and occasionally wrong-headed, but he wasn't actually a fool. Foolhardy, sometimes.
"I'll keep that in mind, sir."
They tracked the creature up hill and down dale for a couple of hours. Cutter wasn't the best of trackers, certainly, but what he lacked in skill he made up in sheer bloody determination. And the scenery was nice. Becker was by no means unaware that he could have been toiling through Helmand Province or somewhere equally unpleasant and deadly. Riding shotgun on this maddening professor was definitely the better posting.
Cutter was turning a fine shade of pink on the back of his neck and his arms and legs by the time they found the creature paddling in a stream at the bottom of a valley. It turned out to be a moeritherium. The strange beast looked as unhappy to be there as you might expect, apparently finding the vegetation not up to its usual standards. But at least it showed no inclination to run amok.
"How do we get it home?" Becker asked. "The anomaly's miles away."
"Pro'lly gonna have to ask Lester to authorise an airlift," Cutter said glumly.
Becker turned to the stoic Sergeant Dyson.
"Already on to it, boss. Miss Lewis can arrange just about anything these days."
Cutter squatted on the grassy hillside, arms wrapped around his grubby knees. After a moment or two, Becker sat beside him.
"Cheer up, Professor. After all, it's not every day we get to walk in the footsteps of a dinosaur."
"It's not a dinosaur."
"I know. But 'footsteps of an Ogliocene mammal' doesn't roll off the tongue in quite the same way, does it?"
Cutter looked at him, a faint smile forming on his lips. "You have been paying attention to my briefings."
He shrugged. "What else is there to do between anomalies?"
Cutter laughed. "Maybe you'll do after all," he said.
It was a start.