Primeval 'athon: "Conservation"
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Title: Conservation.
Fandom: Primeval.
For: Ssw_loved in the Conbykink Baby!ficathon (someone said "ficathon" where I could hear them)
Author: Keenir.
Characters: Connor, Abby, Becker; mention of Emily and Matt.
Summary: The future, like now, will have Species Survival Plans. Though theirs will have Connor and Abby.
Warning: I may have interpreted the “kink” a bit too literally. Or seen too many National Geographic programs.
Disclaimer: I own none of the canon characters. If you would like to use the future history here or the OCs, please do.
Requested:
- names that honor the dead
- Becker visits in hospital
- someone gives them a gift
----------------------------------------------
Anomalies opened all over the ARC. And from each one emerged something that had the agility of a cobra, the lethal jaws of a tiger beetle, a boar’s bristling fur, and the deafening screams of a siamang. They were the first wave, bred to remove the overly-aggressive from collection zones.
They stopped their attack when the slender Keepers stepped through the Anomalies, switching over to defending the Keepers from impulsive acts of violence.
Some of the Keepers stopped to take measurements of the deceased humans and ARC creatures, while others picked the choicest specimens from among those still living.
-----
Connor opened his eyes, seeing he was in the hospital room again. And saw that Becker was sitting at his bedside. “Is Abby okay?” Connor asked.
Becker smiled. “She’s fine, Connor. Worried about you, even though I told her they wouldn’t hurt you.”
“She’s seen bad keepers,” Connor said. “Thinks they’ll be no different.”
“They’ve had year if they were going to do that,” Becker said.
Connor didn’t say that Abby’s leg may have been flawlessly repaired, but she still didn’t trust them after a Protector had shredded her leg in the initial invasion…after Abby had ripped a Keeper’s eye off its stalk. She still didn‘t like Connor taking their side when it came to anything, so Connor kept quiet on such issues. “How’s Emily?” Connor asked.
“She’s well,” Becker said.
“Its been a while.”
Becker nodded. “It has.” Both pairs had been kept separate for several months now.
Behind Becker, the hulking form of the Matron kept watch on them. No sign yet of any of the Keepers; but then, they rarely ventured into this part of the exhibit. Connor no longer wondered how they got so many details about a hospital room just right - they simply did.
Connor used to think Well, this is one way to be the last man on Earth. Being the centerpiece of the human exhibit in a future zoo. Connor Temple, the type specimen against which all other men are measured and compared to.
That was when the Matron pulled out a lettuce leaf and waved it at Becker.
“I think that means visiting hours are over,” Connor said, having learned that the Matrons and Keepers used human food to get the attention of their charges - and if said humans didn’t follow obediently, you didn’t get dinner.
“Looks like,” Becker said. “Well, good to see you again,” Becker said. “With any luck, it won’t be so long til the next time.”
“Hope so,” Connor said. “Keep safe.”
“Always try,” Becker said, both an answer and a request.
Connor nodded.
When Becker and the Matron were gone, one of the Keepers entered the room. “One-eye,” Connor said, recognizing her.
One-eye waved lettuce at Connor and motioned for him to go to an ajar door.
The Keepers, or whomever they got to do the operations for them, never did anything in half measures. Knowing that, Connor pulled the bed sheets away and got out of bed. I feel better than before…and all I had before was a stomachache.
Stepping into the next room, Connor felt how warm the floor was…and he saw that, just to the left, the floor dropped a foot - and in the broad depression were many nursery bedlets, each with one human baby in it. His jaw dropped.
“Connor?” Abby asked.
He looked up and saw that Abby was on the other side of the room, being handed her lettuce by a departing Keeper. Saw that Abby had spotted him, but hadn’t seen all the babies.
She ran to him and he to her, and they embraced, entirely aware that One-eye was still watching them.
The Keepers and their kind had no noticeable insect blood in them - they resembled the bastard children of tarantulas, armadillos, and badgers, with the stalked eyes of crabs or mantis shrimp. Their front limbs had hands, followed by grasping paws on the next arms, and then four legs.
As Emily had observed before she and Becker were moved, the differences between Keepers, Matrons, and the others, could be from caste differences not unlike that seen in ants - or ‘like the observable difference between a street urchin and a spoilt brat.’
One-eye came up to them, hand-arms folded against her body, and used a paw to go *tap*
*tap* once on each of their heads. And twice on the air between them, miming tapping the head of someone who isn’t present. Then waved that paw over all the babies.
“They’re ours?” Abby asked, turning her head quickly.
“Looks like,” Connor said. Yours, mine, Becker’s, and Emily’s. Unless those last two taps mean something else.
“Do we get a say?”
Once again, Connor chose not to answer.
At first, Matt had refused to say what the Keepers and their ilk were - or why they had so many legs, why other life forms nowadays were large with invertebrate features, and other things. Eventually, Matt had been forthcoming. When the world had been sterilized of all life outside the bunkers where the last of mankind had hid from Catastrophe, a few tried to undo the disaster before it began, some had argued that the surface should be repopulated with creatures from Earth’s past…while others began engineering organisms with the genetics of all manner of ancestors. That was how those giant wasps came to be - with lungs and armor skin, they violated no laws of nature.
As far as Connor could tell, this exhibit and the enclosures semed to be fifteen million years later. And in the same length of time it had taken whales to appear after the K-T extinction, the Keepers had evolved here. And so had far stranger things…Like the eusocial hamster-grubs with lactating castes, Connor thought to himself, looking at all the babies; I think they want us to use those to feed the tykes.
They had been permitted to escape once and only once - on the outside, they had found things that killed specimens and gathered them in orderly niches, found other things which made a living from paralyzing and embalming non-food items; there was a strong drive to gather and organize, Connor had concluded when they were brought back to the safety of their cages.
A few months after his admission, Matt was removed from the exhibit, not to be heard from again.
Do giant pandas get a vote in species propagation? Connor thought to himself as Abby let go. Walking through the rows, Connor came to one and picked up one of the babies and said to Abby, “We can call her Sarah.”
“She looks nothing like Sarah,” Abby said.
“Well I don’t think she’s a clone of her,” Connor said. “But that’s no reason not to give her the name. I don’t look much like my great-uncle Connor.”
“Fine, name her Sarah,” Abby said, turning around, looking away.
That was when Connor realized that Abby was deliberately not looking at the infants. “Abby.”
“What?” not looking at him.
“We have to look after them.”
“We do that, Connor, we’ll never get back home.”
I don’t think we were ever going to be released, Connor thought to himself. Not to the 21st Century or to any other time. But he knew he couldn’t say that to Abby. And then he remembered the perfect quote, a line from a movie perfect for this: “They need a mother.”
Silence.
Then Abby groaned and turned back around, looking at Connor surrounded by the nursery beds. “Fine. But you’re feeding them.”
“Okay.”
“And changing them.”
“O-kay.”
“And we’re not going to name any of them Jack.”
“No problem.”
“Which one’s Lester?” Abby asked.
Connor looked around, and finally found one with both feet raised in the air and staring intently at said feet. “That one.”
“Okay,” Abby said, coming down to pick up baby Lester.
Thank you, Mr. Barrie, Connor thought.
-----------------------------------
The End of this story.
.
Title: Conservation.
Fandom: Primeval.
For: Ssw_loved in the Conbykink Baby!ficathon (someone said "ficathon" where I could hear them)
Author: Keenir.
Characters: Connor, Abby, Becker; mention of Emily and Matt.
Summary: The future, like now, will have Species Survival Plans. Though theirs will have Connor and Abby.
Warning: I may have interpreted the “kink” a bit too literally. Or seen too many National Geographic programs.
Disclaimer: I own none of the canon characters. If you would like to use the future history here or the OCs, please do.
Requested:
- names that honor the dead
- Becker visits in hospital
- someone gives them a gift
----------------------------------------------
Anomalies opened all over the ARC. And from each one emerged something that had the agility of a cobra, the lethal jaws of a tiger beetle, a boar’s bristling fur, and the deafening screams of a siamang. They were the first wave, bred to remove the overly-aggressive from collection zones.
They stopped their attack when the slender Keepers stepped through the Anomalies, switching over to defending the Keepers from impulsive acts of violence.
Some of the Keepers stopped to take measurements of the deceased humans and ARC creatures, while others picked the choicest specimens from among those still living.
-----
Connor opened his eyes, seeing he was in the hospital room again. And saw that Becker was sitting at his bedside. “Is Abby okay?” Connor asked.
Becker smiled. “She’s fine, Connor. Worried about you, even though I told her they wouldn’t hurt you.”
“She’s seen bad keepers,” Connor said. “Thinks they’ll be no different.”
“They’ve had year if they were going to do that,” Becker said.
Connor didn’t say that Abby’s leg may have been flawlessly repaired, but she still didn’t trust them after a Protector had shredded her leg in the initial invasion…after Abby had ripped a Keeper’s eye off its stalk. She still didn‘t like Connor taking their side when it came to anything, so Connor kept quiet on such issues. “How’s Emily?” Connor asked.
“She’s well,” Becker said.
“Its been a while.”
Becker nodded. “It has.” Both pairs had been kept separate for several months now.
Behind Becker, the hulking form of the Matron kept watch on them. No sign yet of any of the Keepers; but then, they rarely ventured into this part of the exhibit. Connor no longer wondered how they got so many details about a hospital room just right - they simply did.
Connor used to think Well, this is one way to be the last man on Earth. Being the centerpiece of the human exhibit in a future zoo. Connor Temple, the type specimen against which all other men are measured and compared to.
That was when the Matron pulled out a lettuce leaf and waved it at Becker.
“I think that means visiting hours are over,” Connor said, having learned that the Matrons and Keepers used human food to get the attention of their charges - and if said humans didn’t follow obediently, you didn’t get dinner.
“Looks like,” Becker said. “Well, good to see you again,” Becker said. “With any luck, it won’t be so long til the next time.”
“Hope so,” Connor said. “Keep safe.”
“Always try,” Becker said, both an answer and a request.
Connor nodded.
When Becker and the Matron were gone, one of the Keepers entered the room. “One-eye,” Connor said, recognizing her.
One-eye waved lettuce at Connor and motioned for him to go to an ajar door.
The Keepers, or whomever they got to do the operations for them, never did anything in half measures. Knowing that, Connor pulled the bed sheets away and got out of bed. I feel better than before…and all I had before was a stomachache.
Stepping into the next room, Connor felt how warm the floor was…and he saw that, just to the left, the floor dropped a foot - and in the broad depression were many nursery bedlets, each with one human baby in it. His jaw dropped.
“Connor?” Abby asked.
He looked up and saw that Abby was on the other side of the room, being handed her lettuce by a departing Keeper. Saw that Abby had spotted him, but hadn’t seen all the babies.
She ran to him and he to her, and they embraced, entirely aware that One-eye was still watching them.
The Keepers and their kind had no noticeable insect blood in them - they resembled the bastard children of tarantulas, armadillos, and badgers, with the stalked eyes of crabs or mantis shrimp. Their front limbs had hands, followed by grasping paws on the next arms, and then four legs.
As Emily had observed before she and Becker were moved, the differences between Keepers, Matrons, and the others, could be from caste differences not unlike that seen in ants - or ‘like the observable difference between a street urchin and a spoilt brat.’
One-eye came up to them, hand-arms folded against her body, and used a paw to go *tap*
*tap* once on each of their heads. And twice on the air between them, miming tapping the head of someone who isn’t present. Then waved that paw over all the babies.
“They’re ours?” Abby asked, turning her head quickly.
“Looks like,” Connor said. Yours, mine, Becker’s, and Emily’s. Unless those last two taps mean something else.
“Do we get a say?”
Once again, Connor chose not to answer.
At first, Matt had refused to say what the Keepers and their ilk were - or why they had so many legs, why other life forms nowadays were large with invertebrate features, and other things. Eventually, Matt had been forthcoming. When the world had been sterilized of all life outside the bunkers where the last of mankind had hid from Catastrophe, a few tried to undo the disaster before it began, some had argued that the surface should be repopulated with creatures from Earth’s past…while others began engineering organisms with the genetics of all manner of ancestors. That was how those giant wasps came to be - with lungs and armor skin, they violated no laws of nature.
As far as Connor could tell, this exhibit and the enclosures semed to be fifteen million years later. And in the same length of time it had taken whales to appear after the K-T extinction, the Keepers had evolved here. And so had far stranger things…Like the eusocial hamster-grubs with lactating castes, Connor thought to himself, looking at all the babies; I think they want us to use those to feed the tykes.
They had been permitted to escape once and only once - on the outside, they had found things that killed specimens and gathered them in orderly niches, found other things which made a living from paralyzing and embalming non-food items; there was a strong drive to gather and organize, Connor had concluded when they were brought back to the safety of their cages.
A few months after his admission, Matt was removed from the exhibit, not to be heard from again.
Do giant pandas get a vote in species propagation? Connor thought to himself as Abby let go. Walking through the rows, Connor came to one and picked up one of the babies and said to Abby, “We can call her Sarah.”
“She looks nothing like Sarah,” Abby said.
“Well I don’t think she’s a clone of her,” Connor said. “But that’s no reason not to give her the name. I don’t look much like my great-uncle Connor.”
“Fine, name her Sarah,” Abby said, turning around, looking away.
That was when Connor realized that Abby was deliberately not looking at the infants. “Abby.”
“What?” not looking at him.
“We have to look after them.”
“We do that, Connor, we’ll never get back home.”
I don’t think we were ever going to be released, Connor thought to himself. Not to the 21st Century or to any other time. But he knew he couldn’t say that to Abby. And then he remembered the perfect quote, a line from a movie perfect for this: “They need a mother.”
Silence.
Then Abby groaned and turned back around, looking at Connor surrounded by the nursery beds. “Fine. But you’re feeding them.”
“Okay.”
“And changing them.”
“O-kay.”
“And we’re not going to name any of them Jack.”
“No problem.”
“Which one’s Lester?” Abby asked.
Connor looked around, and finally found one with both feet raised in the air and staring intently at said feet. “That one.”
“Okay,” Abby said, coming down to pick up baby Lester.
Thank you, Mr. Barrie, Connor thought.
-----------------------------------
The End of this story.