[Primeval/Spooks] Fic: Shadows Falling, Team, Gen, PG-13, (12 of 13)
Fandom: Primeval/Spooks
Title: Shadows Falling (12 of 13)
Author: cordeliadelayne
Characters: From Primeval: Cutter, Stephen, Jenny, Connor, Abby, Danny, Sarah, Lester, Lorraine, Becker, and others From Spooks: Lucas, Harry, Ruth and Tariq
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Warning: Character deaths (not of anyone you've met before)
Word Count: 3,371 (Total: 32,315)
Summary: Forced to split up in order to deal with a series of anomalies at home and abroad, the ARC team soon find themselves facing their toughest challenge yet - one that will send shockwaves through time and across continents, and will ultimately threaten their very existence.
Notes: Part of my Man-Made Series which can be read here. It's not necessary to read all of that before this, though here's a handy, spoiler-rific cheat-sheet if you so desire. All you need to know about Spooks is that it's about MI5 operatives. With thanks to red_2 for help with Russian naming conventions.
Masterlist
Chapter Twelve
Danny, Sarah and Lt. Donovan were in the cab of a truck they'd borrowed from a local farmer, the Triceratops sleeping in the back. The other soldiers were following behind with Christine Johnson, though two had been left behind at the warehouse, on the off chance that the anomaly re-opened.
“You know, it's not like it's a T-Rex,” Sarah said, “it isn't going to strike any fear.”
Danny looked over at her and raised an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “We can't make it do what we want.”
“Yeah, I wouldn't be so sure of that. Did you spot it had a radio transmitter, like those future predators?” Sarah nodded, it would be hard to forget her first proper job as a member of the ARC team. “Connor's been working on the signals they use to communicate and open anomalies.”
“Okay,” Sarah said, not quite seeing his point.
Danny took his hands off the wheel long enough for Donovan to tense beside her. “And,” Danny said, pulling out the hand-held anomaly detector he'd pocketed earlier, “they're all programmed into this.”
Sarah took it from him and breathed a sigh of relief when Danny put his hands back on to the steering wheel. “So you think we can use this to make the Triceratops do what we want?”
“Worth a shot don't you think?”
“You're both out of your minds,” Donovan said. They were the first words he'd said since getting into the van, and didn’t exactly instil confidence.
“I think it's as good a plan as any,” Sarah said. She shot Donovan an annoyed look. Suddenly he wasn't looking as attractive as she'd thought.
“Great,” Danny said with a grin, “then hop to it Dr Page. We'll be in London before you know it.”
The AAU
This other Stephen, this stranger, approached Abby and she tried to school her expression into something neutral, something not horrified. She was fairly certain that she failed spectacularly. But it was so strange seeing Stephen like that. So haunted. Her Stephen was coming to terms with what had happened to him, was part of the team again, trusted and trusting. She doubted very much whether this Stephen had been granted the same opportunities.
“I don't need your pity,” Stephen said and Abby flushed guilty.
“Sorry,” she said. Stephen merely shook his head. And then, with a nod at one of the predators, he motioned for her to step away from the lock.
She did so, carefully stepping over the other predators who were still lying down. At Stephen's nod one of them swiped the lock with its claw and then pulled back, hissing in pain. Automatically Abby moved towards it, and gently cradled its injured claw in her hand.
“It look like it's been electrocuted,” she said, amazed. She looked up to see that Stephen was looking at her strangely.
“You really care about these creatures, don't you?”
Abby shrugged. “Of course. All of us at the ARC do,” she added, eyes slanting towards where Anatoly, who she'd learned was in charge of the Russian experiments, was stiffly standing in the shadows.
Stephen's answering smile was brittle. “Good to know.”
“Shouldn't we be getting out of here?” Anatoly finally said. “Before the bomb goes off.”
“Bomb?” Abby repeated in alarm.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stephen told her, which only made her worry more. But before she could ask any more questions he was turning towards Anatoly who took a step backwards at the look of fury on Stephen's face. “Why is this cage door electrified?”
Abby looked cautiously around her, one of the predator's claws still held in her hands. Gently she released it and tried to look reassuringly at the creature.
Anatoly was shrugging. “I didn't even know this was here. I didn't think - anomalies aren't supposed to be able to open here. There's a forcefield...”
“I disabled the inner ones,” Stephen said, interrupting Anatoly. “All this is happening because I was sent here. By Banyon and his wife.”
“Banyon?” Abby asked.
“He passed through here a little while ago, you must have seen him?”
Abby nodded. But something was niggling at the back of her mind again. Whoever he was, his name wasn't Banyon. But if he was from the future how could she...
“Oh my god,” Abby said. “Oh my god.” She grabbed hold of one of the bars of the cage, afraid that her knees might give way if she didn’t have something solid to help her stay up.
Stephen and Anatoly turned towards her, as did the future predators.
“Abby?” Stephen said. “What is it?”
“I know why I recognised him now. That man you called Banyon, he's from the future, isn't he?”
“Yes,” Stephen said. “But you've seen him before, how?”
“He's been at the ARC,” Abby said. “That's Dr Jin. He's the ARC psychologist.”
Abby had only seem him briefly a few times, which is why it had taken so long for her to recognise him, and now that she thought about it, he had made sure to keep out of everybody's way. Except Stephen’s. Stephen he had spent a lot of time with. Now she could see the reason why, he was standing right in front of her. Looking horrified.
The ARC
Lester bristled as Wilder lead him into the animal containment area but he said nothing. He kept up his silence while Wilder told one of his apparently trusted soldiers to stay outside and make sure that Lester behaved, and he merely pursed his lips when Wilder made a crack about the sabretooth in its cage being a good companion.
Once Wilder had left and the guard had looked in on him once, Lester moved swiftly over to the computer console to the left of the room. He was grateful, once again, that MI5 were now involved with ARC operations (not that he would ever let them know he felt that way), because it meant an added layer of security to the computer systems. Coupled with Lucas' paranoia and Connor's expertise it meant all he had to do was input a series of commands and...
“Bingo,” Lester smirked. He was now back in control of the ARC systems. They may have been able to take over the main computers upstairs but these ones were on a different server, and apparently Connor hadn't got around to updating the schematics of the building yet. Lester's smirk turned into a large smile. If he was going down, he was taking as many people as possible with him.
“Mr Lester?” a voice whispered. Lester immediately jumped and reached for his gun.
“Show yourself!” he hissed.
A scientist that Lester vaguely recognised as working on the anomaly locking device with Connor, crawled out of an air vent near the floor. She glanced around and then hunkered down behind the bench so that even if the guard did look in, he wouldn't be able to see her.
“How on earth...?” Lester began but the scientist interrupted him.
“I was looking for Nancy,” she explained. Lester heard a squeak and saw that one of the Diictodons that Connor and Abby had rescued recently was sitting behind the scientist, striking up as innocent a pose as he supposed she was capable of. He sighed as the scientist continued, “and so I was sort of, out of sight, see, when they were looking?” Lester nodded. “And I've been working my way through the air vents, but then I saw they'd taken you in here so I thought I'd...help?”
Lester chanced a glance at the guard outside the room, but he was looking out towards the corridor and not inside, for which Lester was immensely grateful. He was just going to ask her what help she thought she could provide when her next words stopped him cold.
“And when Dr Jin opened that anomaly...”
“What?” Lester asked, a slow rumble of fury building in his chest. “How -”
“He did something to one of the devices Connor's been working on. I couldn’t see clearly but he could use it to open an anomaly and he just stepped through! As if he'd done it hundreds of times before.”
Lester stared down at her as if she'd grown another head. “He just stepped through?” he repeated. The woman nodded, but Lester wasn't really talking to her. “And he had one of Connor's devices.”
“Oh,” the scientist said after a moment. As the ARC psychologist Dr Jin was not permitted in any of the science labs, merely his own office, the gym and the kitchen. He shouldn’t have had any access to ARC equipment.
“No wonder Connor's locking device didn't work,” Lester was saying to himself. “It was sabotaged.” He slammed his hand down on to the counter and then tried to look composed as the guard peered in. “Abby could have been killed,” he said once the guard turned back around. “Any of them could have been...”
“What should we do?”
Lester looked down at her. “It's Dr Gordon, isn't it?”
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “Nicola Gordon.”
“Next we contact Thames House. I'm sure they're already working on something, but they need to know about this.” He shook his head and turned back to the computer. “None of this is at it seems.”
Thames House
Harry was sitting at his desk, reading the file that Ruth and Lorraine had compiled on Christine Johnson. It made for some interesting, and alarming, reading. On the surface her activities would appear merely as those of a sycophant eager to gain power and someone who the newly elected Prime Ministers relied on perhaps a soupçon too much. And yet, and yet... Harry shook his head. It seemed the PM had a penchant for pornography of a dubious legality. And Ms Johnson hadn't been above seeing that he got a regular supply. In return she'd had almost unrestricted access to the ARC's database. Almost because Lester had the sense to make sure not everything was recorded for government posterity.
Which is why she'd started blackmailing him when she realised certain vital pieces of information were missing. Harry smiled. At least Lester had led a fairly blameless life and her attempts had merely focused on threats to the main ARC team and threats of disbanding them all together. Which Lester, in his pigheaded fashion, had attempted to deflect on his own.
Ruth and Lorraine were standing anxiously in front of his desk, but Harry kept reading, ignoring them for the moment. Because once you added in the existence of the anomalies her frequent trips to remote areas of the country - caught on CCTV, and thank god for Big Brother, Harry murmured under his breath - it became quite clear that she was in possession of some extraordinary technology.
“We don't know how she got it, but it appears she can open anomalies at will,” Ruth said, rightly interpreting where in the document Harry had read up to.
He nodded. “No one she's met seemed out of the ordinary?”
“Tariq's running background checks right now, seeing if anything raises a red flag.”
There was a knock at the door and Tariq peered his head around. “And I think I've found something. You're all going to want to see this.”
They all trailed out to Tariq's desk and stood around his computer.
“These are a series of shots from CCTV at St Pancras. I had to use the facial recognition program plus a few other tricks to align these up.” Tariq sounded quite smug so Harry merely glared at him and he coughed and got back down to business. “Yes, well, this is Johnson meeting with the same man. Different times, different days, but same place.”
Harry moved closer to the screen. “Do we know who that man is?”
“It's Dr Jin!” Lorraine said. She looked at the others in surprise. “But he's, he's the ARC psychologist. Lester hired him so that Stephen could go to someone with full clearance and who'd be on the scene in case anyone else needed him.” She shrugged. “He's always seemed pleasant enough when we've bumped into each other in the kitchen. Keeps himself to himself really.”
Harry turned to Ruth. “And what do we know about him?”
Ruth sat down at the console next to Tariq and began puling up information. “Hmm,” she said, “his original background check passed with flying colours. Degrees, work experience, all look like they're in perfect order. In fact, everything looks perfect.” She looked up at Harry and they exchanged significant glances.
“I don't,” Lorraine began, “I don't see the problem. If it's perfect then...”
“Nobody has a prefect background. Not a real one anyway.”
Lorraine's face fell. “You mean he's a spy?”
Ruth shrugged. “Not one of ours, maybe the sister service?”
Lorraine's brow furrowed. “The what?”
“MI6,” Harry explained. “I'll give them a call. Ruth -”
“I'll make some calls too,” she said with a nod, already reaching for a phone.
“You too Tariq,” Harry said. “Let's find out exactly who this Dr Jin is working for, shall we?”
Outside the AAU - Team Alpha
Lucas North hunkered down behind some army trucks. They were as close as they dared get to the compound's front entrance. He made sure that his weapon by his ankle was secure and loaded, and then checked the gun that he would allow the guards to find and take.
He looked back over his shoulder to the ARC guards. They weren’t exactly the best he'd ever worked with, but they seemed competent enough and Becker had assured him, in whispered undertones, that he'd picked the ones less likely to fire on their own side.
Somehow Lucas had not found this as reassuring as Becker had appeared to mean it.
“Ready?” he asked them. They nodded. At least they looked the part, Lucas mused. He turned back to stare at the entrance. So far everything was going as planned.
He hated it when that happened. It meant the problems were still to come.
He pulled out his phone and dialled Connor's number. “Ten minutes,” was all he said before hanging up.
Something wasn't right. They should have been spotted by now. Their security hadn't seemed this ineffective from the air...
Lucas frowned. Maybe that was the point.
“Stay here,” he instructed the soldiers. Then he started to slink forward, his arm outstretched in front of him. After about thirty seconds his arm hit something, although he couldn't see anything in his way. He made a fist and hit the air in front of him. His hand bounced off as if hitting a glass wall. He rubbed his hand and cursed. Time to think of a Plan B.
Outside the AAU - Team Beta
“That was Lucas?” Jenny asked. She stomped her feet on the ground and pulled her scarf closer around her neck. Cutter pressed a little closer to her, trying to share body heat, and Connor and Stephen tried to keep from smiling too obviously.
“Yeah. He said ten minutes.”
“Will you need that long?” Cutter asked.
“Nope,” Connor replied. “It's all ready to go now.”
Stephen moved a little away from the group. He wasn't having as hard a time as the others with the weather, in fact he was starting to acclimatise to the conditions, something he tried hard not to worry about. Dr Jin had told him that was perfectly normal, that the human and predator sides of him were coalescing, that there was nothing to worry about. He'd seemed quite interested in the subject and mentioned a background in biology was the reason Lester had hired him in the first place. Stephen had to admit, although the man was very hard to read, being able to talk to him about all his fears had given him a renewed sense of purpose. Not just in what they were doing at the ARC but in his friends too.
He turned to look back at them and smiled. Stubborn as Cutter could be, he was still the best friend that Stephen had ever had. In her own twisted way Helen had brought them back together and he had to remain a little thankful to her for that.
He took a deep breath, his lungs filling up with cool air and then closed his eyes. He'd been working on some things back in England, techniques that Dr Jin said would help him concentrate his powers. Now was as good a time as any to see if he was right.
The first thing he felt was a throbbing pain in his head. But Jin had said that would abate with concentration, and Stephen found that to be true. After a moment he could wrap the pain in cotton wool and push it to one side. Instead he reached out and he could feel them then, the creatures, their hearts beating softly, the sound like mist to his senses. He couldn't have explained it to the others but that's what it was like. Like hearing mist.
“Stephen?” Cutter asked. “What are you -?”
“Concentrating,” Stephen interrupted in a whisper, waving his hand for silence. He felt Cutter step forward and place a hand on the small of his back, but otherwise he didn’t say anything. He could feel the others looking at him, but he didn't open his eyes.
There were dozens of them, all over the compound. Though the highest concentration seemed to be at the door closest to where they were now, which lead directly to the anomaly that they could see sparkling in the distance, disappearing and reappearing without setting off their hand-held detector. Connor was busy trying to work out why that was, but Stephen had other things to worry about.
“Can you tell anything?” Cutter asked after a moment, not able to keep quiet. Stephen merely hummed non-committally. He could sense one predator on its own and it seemed like it was...waiting, waiting for instructions.
“I don't know,” Stephen said eventually. He opened his eyes. “I can sense lots of them but...”
“Er, guys? I think we've got a problem.”
“What is it Connor?” Jenny asked.
For an answer Connor stood up, picked up a ball of snow, and threw it past Stephen. It didn't have to travel far before it hit something in mid-air. Something invisible.
Cutter's jaw dropped. “A forcefield?” he asked, words feeling unfamiliar in his mouth.
Connor nodded. “That's my guess. Would explain why the satellite image we saw was so strange. And why our detector's not picking up the anomaly.”
“So,” Jenny asked, “what do we do now?”
Before any of them could make a suggestion the door nearest to them in the compound was opening.
“Get down!” Stephen hissed, pushing Cutter to the floor. Jenny and Becker grabbed Connor and they all flattened themselves to the ground, unmindful of the cold snow.
A future predator peered its head around the corner and then sniffed. They all held their breath as it turned to stare directly at where Stephen was lying.
“Damn it,” Stephen muttered.
“Can you -?” Cutter asked but Stephen was already shaking his head before the question was fully formed. They all braced themselves for an attack, but instead the creature lay down and three figures appeared in the doorway, their body's merely silhouettes thanks to the light pouring out from inside. Then the door was closed with a quiet snick and the ARC team could see one person they didn't recognise, and two they did.
Chapter Thirteen
Title: Shadows Falling (12 of 13)
Author: cordeliadelayne
Characters: From Primeval: Cutter, Stephen, Jenny, Connor, Abby, Danny, Sarah, Lester, Lorraine, Becker, and others From Spooks: Lucas, Harry, Ruth and Tariq
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Warning: Character deaths (not of anyone you've met before)
Word Count: 3,371 (Total: 32,315)
Summary: Forced to split up in order to deal with a series of anomalies at home and abroad, the ARC team soon find themselves facing their toughest challenge yet - one that will send shockwaves through time and across continents, and will ultimately threaten their very existence.
Notes: Part of my Man-Made Series which can be read here. It's not necessary to read all of that before this, though here's a handy, spoiler-rific cheat-sheet if you so desire. All you need to know about Spooks is that it's about MI5 operatives. With thanks to red_2 for help with Russian naming conventions.
Masterlist
Chapter Twelve
Danny, Sarah and Lt. Donovan were in the cab of a truck they'd borrowed from a local farmer, the Triceratops sleeping in the back. The other soldiers were following behind with Christine Johnson, though two had been left behind at the warehouse, on the off chance that the anomaly re-opened.
“You know, it's not like it's a T-Rex,” Sarah said, “it isn't going to strike any fear.”
Danny looked over at her and raised an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “We can't make it do what we want.”
“Yeah, I wouldn't be so sure of that. Did you spot it had a radio transmitter, like those future predators?” Sarah nodded, it would be hard to forget her first proper job as a member of the ARC team. “Connor's been working on the signals they use to communicate and open anomalies.”
“Okay,” Sarah said, not quite seeing his point.
Danny took his hands off the wheel long enough for Donovan to tense beside her. “And,” Danny said, pulling out the hand-held anomaly detector he'd pocketed earlier, “they're all programmed into this.”
Sarah took it from him and breathed a sigh of relief when Danny put his hands back on to the steering wheel. “So you think we can use this to make the Triceratops do what we want?”
“Worth a shot don't you think?”
“You're both out of your minds,” Donovan said. They were the first words he'd said since getting into the van, and didn’t exactly instil confidence.
“I think it's as good a plan as any,” Sarah said. She shot Donovan an annoyed look. Suddenly he wasn't looking as attractive as she'd thought.
“Great,” Danny said with a grin, “then hop to it Dr Page. We'll be in London before you know it.”
The AAU
This other Stephen, this stranger, approached Abby and she tried to school her expression into something neutral, something not horrified. She was fairly certain that she failed spectacularly. But it was so strange seeing Stephen like that. So haunted. Her Stephen was coming to terms with what had happened to him, was part of the team again, trusted and trusting. She doubted very much whether this Stephen had been granted the same opportunities.
“I don't need your pity,” Stephen said and Abby flushed guilty.
“Sorry,” she said. Stephen merely shook his head. And then, with a nod at one of the predators, he motioned for her to step away from the lock.
She did so, carefully stepping over the other predators who were still lying down. At Stephen's nod one of them swiped the lock with its claw and then pulled back, hissing in pain. Automatically Abby moved towards it, and gently cradled its injured claw in her hand.
“It look like it's been electrocuted,” she said, amazed. She looked up to see that Stephen was looking at her strangely.
“You really care about these creatures, don't you?”
Abby shrugged. “Of course. All of us at the ARC do,” she added, eyes slanting towards where Anatoly, who she'd learned was in charge of the Russian experiments, was stiffly standing in the shadows.
Stephen's answering smile was brittle. “Good to know.”
“Shouldn't we be getting out of here?” Anatoly finally said. “Before the bomb goes off.”
“Bomb?” Abby repeated in alarm.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stephen told her, which only made her worry more. But before she could ask any more questions he was turning towards Anatoly who took a step backwards at the look of fury on Stephen's face. “Why is this cage door electrified?”
Abby looked cautiously around her, one of the predator's claws still held in her hands. Gently she released it and tried to look reassuringly at the creature.
Anatoly was shrugging. “I didn't even know this was here. I didn't think - anomalies aren't supposed to be able to open here. There's a forcefield...”
“I disabled the inner ones,” Stephen said, interrupting Anatoly. “All this is happening because I was sent here. By Banyon and his wife.”
“Banyon?” Abby asked.
“He passed through here a little while ago, you must have seen him?”
Abby nodded. But something was niggling at the back of her mind again. Whoever he was, his name wasn't Banyon. But if he was from the future how could she...
“Oh my god,” Abby said. “Oh my god.” She grabbed hold of one of the bars of the cage, afraid that her knees might give way if she didn’t have something solid to help her stay up.
Stephen and Anatoly turned towards her, as did the future predators.
“Abby?” Stephen said. “What is it?”
“I know why I recognised him now. That man you called Banyon, he's from the future, isn't he?”
“Yes,” Stephen said. “But you've seen him before, how?”
“He's been at the ARC,” Abby said. “That's Dr Jin. He's the ARC psychologist.”
Abby had only seem him briefly a few times, which is why it had taken so long for her to recognise him, and now that she thought about it, he had made sure to keep out of everybody's way. Except Stephen’s. Stephen he had spent a lot of time with. Now she could see the reason why, he was standing right in front of her. Looking horrified.
The ARC
Lester bristled as Wilder lead him into the animal containment area but he said nothing. He kept up his silence while Wilder told one of his apparently trusted soldiers to stay outside and make sure that Lester behaved, and he merely pursed his lips when Wilder made a crack about the sabretooth in its cage being a good companion.
Once Wilder had left and the guard had looked in on him once, Lester moved swiftly over to the computer console to the left of the room. He was grateful, once again, that MI5 were now involved with ARC operations (not that he would ever let them know he felt that way), because it meant an added layer of security to the computer systems. Coupled with Lucas' paranoia and Connor's expertise it meant all he had to do was input a series of commands and...
“Bingo,” Lester smirked. He was now back in control of the ARC systems. They may have been able to take over the main computers upstairs but these ones were on a different server, and apparently Connor hadn't got around to updating the schematics of the building yet. Lester's smirk turned into a large smile. If he was going down, he was taking as many people as possible with him.
“Mr Lester?” a voice whispered. Lester immediately jumped and reached for his gun.
“Show yourself!” he hissed.
A scientist that Lester vaguely recognised as working on the anomaly locking device with Connor, crawled out of an air vent near the floor. She glanced around and then hunkered down behind the bench so that even if the guard did look in, he wouldn't be able to see her.
“How on earth...?” Lester began but the scientist interrupted him.
“I was looking for Nancy,” she explained. Lester heard a squeak and saw that one of the Diictodons that Connor and Abby had rescued recently was sitting behind the scientist, striking up as innocent a pose as he supposed she was capable of. He sighed as the scientist continued, “and so I was sort of, out of sight, see, when they were looking?” Lester nodded. “And I've been working my way through the air vents, but then I saw they'd taken you in here so I thought I'd...help?”
Lester chanced a glance at the guard outside the room, but he was looking out towards the corridor and not inside, for which Lester was immensely grateful. He was just going to ask her what help she thought she could provide when her next words stopped him cold.
“And when Dr Jin opened that anomaly...”
“What?” Lester asked, a slow rumble of fury building in his chest. “How -”
“He did something to one of the devices Connor's been working on. I couldn’t see clearly but he could use it to open an anomaly and he just stepped through! As if he'd done it hundreds of times before.”
Lester stared down at her as if she'd grown another head. “He just stepped through?” he repeated. The woman nodded, but Lester wasn't really talking to her. “And he had one of Connor's devices.”
“Oh,” the scientist said after a moment. As the ARC psychologist Dr Jin was not permitted in any of the science labs, merely his own office, the gym and the kitchen. He shouldn’t have had any access to ARC equipment.
“No wonder Connor's locking device didn't work,” Lester was saying to himself. “It was sabotaged.” He slammed his hand down on to the counter and then tried to look composed as the guard peered in. “Abby could have been killed,” he said once the guard turned back around. “Any of them could have been...”
“What should we do?”
Lester looked down at her. “It's Dr Gordon, isn't it?”
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “Nicola Gordon.”
“Next we contact Thames House. I'm sure they're already working on something, but they need to know about this.” He shook his head and turned back to the computer. “None of this is at it seems.”
Thames House
Harry was sitting at his desk, reading the file that Ruth and Lorraine had compiled on Christine Johnson. It made for some interesting, and alarming, reading. On the surface her activities would appear merely as those of a sycophant eager to gain power and someone who the newly elected Prime Ministers relied on perhaps a soupçon too much. And yet, and yet... Harry shook his head. It seemed the PM had a penchant for pornography of a dubious legality. And Ms Johnson hadn't been above seeing that he got a regular supply. In return she'd had almost unrestricted access to the ARC's database. Almost because Lester had the sense to make sure not everything was recorded for government posterity.
Which is why she'd started blackmailing him when she realised certain vital pieces of information were missing. Harry smiled. At least Lester had led a fairly blameless life and her attempts had merely focused on threats to the main ARC team and threats of disbanding them all together. Which Lester, in his pigheaded fashion, had attempted to deflect on his own.
Ruth and Lorraine were standing anxiously in front of his desk, but Harry kept reading, ignoring them for the moment. Because once you added in the existence of the anomalies her frequent trips to remote areas of the country - caught on CCTV, and thank god for Big Brother, Harry murmured under his breath - it became quite clear that she was in possession of some extraordinary technology.
“We don't know how she got it, but it appears she can open anomalies at will,” Ruth said, rightly interpreting where in the document Harry had read up to.
He nodded. “No one she's met seemed out of the ordinary?”
“Tariq's running background checks right now, seeing if anything raises a red flag.”
There was a knock at the door and Tariq peered his head around. “And I think I've found something. You're all going to want to see this.”
They all trailed out to Tariq's desk and stood around his computer.
“These are a series of shots from CCTV at St Pancras. I had to use the facial recognition program plus a few other tricks to align these up.” Tariq sounded quite smug so Harry merely glared at him and he coughed and got back down to business. “Yes, well, this is Johnson meeting with the same man. Different times, different days, but same place.”
Harry moved closer to the screen. “Do we know who that man is?”
“It's Dr Jin!” Lorraine said. She looked at the others in surprise. “But he's, he's the ARC psychologist. Lester hired him so that Stephen could go to someone with full clearance and who'd be on the scene in case anyone else needed him.” She shrugged. “He's always seemed pleasant enough when we've bumped into each other in the kitchen. Keeps himself to himself really.”
Harry turned to Ruth. “And what do we know about him?”
Ruth sat down at the console next to Tariq and began puling up information. “Hmm,” she said, “his original background check passed with flying colours. Degrees, work experience, all look like they're in perfect order. In fact, everything looks perfect.” She looked up at Harry and they exchanged significant glances.
“I don't,” Lorraine began, “I don't see the problem. If it's perfect then...”
“Nobody has a prefect background. Not a real one anyway.”
Lorraine's face fell. “You mean he's a spy?”
Ruth shrugged. “Not one of ours, maybe the sister service?”
Lorraine's brow furrowed. “The what?”
“MI6,” Harry explained. “I'll give them a call. Ruth -”
“I'll make some calls too,” she said with a nod, already reaching for a phone.
“You too Tariq,” Harry said. “Let's find out exactly who this Dr Jin is working for, shall we?”
Outside the AAU - Team Alpha
Lucas North hunkered down behind some army trucks. They were as close as they dared get to the compound's front entrance. He made sure that his weapon by his ankle was secure and loaded, and then checked the gun that he would allow the guards to find and take.
He looked back over his shoulder to the ARC guards. They weren’t exactly the best he'd ever worked with, but they seemed competent enough and Becker had assured him, in whispered undertones, that he'd picked the ones less likely to fire on their own side.
Somehow Lucas had not found this as reassuring as Becker had appeared to mean it.
“Ready?” he asked them. They nodded. At least they looked the part, Lucas mused. He turned back to stare at the entrance. So far everything was going as planned.
He hated it when that happened. It meant the problems were still to come.
He pulled out his phone and dialled Connor's number. “Ten minutes,” was all he said before hanging up.
Something wasn't right. They should have been spotted by now. Their security hadn't seemed this ineffective from the air...
Lucas frowned. Maybe that was the point.
“Stay here,” he instructed the soldiers. Then he started to slink forward, his arm outstretched in front of him. After about thirty seconds his arm hit something, although he couldn't see anything in his way. He made a fist and hit the air in front of him. His hand bounced off as if hitting a glass wall. He rubbed his hand and cursed. Time to think of a Plan B.
Outside the AAU - Team Beta
“That was Lucas?” Jenny asked. She stomped her feet on the ground and pulled her scarf closer around her neck. Cutter pressed a little closer to her, trying to share body heat, and Connor and Stephen tried to keep from smiling too obviously.
“Yeah. He said ten minutes.”
“Will you need that long?” Cutter asked.
“Nope,” Connor replied. “It's all ready to go now.”
Stephen moved a little away from the group. He wasn't having as hard a time as the others with the weather, in fact he was starting to acclimatise to the conditions, something he tried hard not to worry about. Dr Jin had told him that was perfectly normal, that the human and predator sides of him were coalescing, that there was nothing to worry about. He'd seemed quite interested in the subject and mentioned a background in biology was the reason Lester had hired him in the first place. Stephen had to admit, although the man was very hard to read, being able to talk to him about all his fears had given him a renewed sense of purpose. Not just in what they were doing at the ARC but in his friends too.
He turned to look back at them and smiled. Stubborn as Cutter could be, he was still the best friend that Stephen had ever had. In her own twisted way Helen had brought them back together and he had to remain a little thankful to her for that.
He took a deep breath, his lungs filling up with cool air and then closed his eyes. He'd been working on some things back in England, techniques that Dr Jin said would help him concentrate his powers. Now was as good a time as any to see if he was right.
The first thing he felt was a throbbing pain in his head. But Jin had said that would abate with concentration, and Stephen found that to be true. After a moment he could wrap the pain in cotton wool and push it to one side. Instead he reached out and he could feel them then, the creatures, their hearts beating softly, the sound like mist to his senses. He couldn't have explained it to the others but that's what it was like. Like hearing mist.
“Stephen?” Cutter asked. “What are you -?”
“Concentrating,” Stephen interrupted in a whisper, waving his hand for silence. He felt Cutter step forward and place a hand on the small of his back, but otherwise he didn’t say anything. He could feel the others looking at him, but he didn't open his eyes.
There were dozens of them, all over the compound. Though the highest concentration seemed to be at the door closest to where they were now, which lead directly to the anomaly that they could see sparkling in the distance, disappearing and reappearing without setting off their hand-held detector. Connor was busy trying to work out why that was, but Stephen had other things to worry about.
“Can you tell anything?” Cutter asked after a moment, not able to keep quiet. Stephen merely hummed non-committally. He could sense one predator on its own and it seemed like it was...waiting, waiting for instructions.
“I don't know,” Stephen said eventually. He opened his eyes. “I can sense lots of them but...”
“Er, guys? I think we've got a problem.”
“What is it Connor?” Jenny asked.
For an answer Connor stood up, picked up a ball of snow, and threw it past Stephen. It didn't have to travel far before it hit something in mid-air. Something invisible.
Cutter's jaw dropped. “A forcefield?” he asked, words feeling unfamiliar in his mouth.
Connor nodded. “That's my guess. Would explain why the satellite image we saw was so strange. And why our detector's not picking up the anomaly.”
“So,” Jenny asked, “what do we do now?”
Before any of them could make a suggestion the door nearest to them in the compound was opening.
“Get down!” Stephen hissed, pushing Cutter to the floor. Jenny and Becker grabbed Connor and they all flattened themselves to the ground, unmindful of the cold snow.
A future predator peered its head around the corner and then sniffed. They all held their breath as it turned to stare directly at where Stephen was lying.
“Damn it,” Stephen muttered.
“Can you -?” Cutter asked but Stephen was already shaking his head before the question was fully formed. They all braced themselves for an attack, but instead the creature lay down and three figures appeared in the doorway, their body's merely silhouettes thanks to the light pouring out from inside. Then the door was closed with a quiet snick and the ARC team could see one person they didn't recognise, and two they did.
Chapter Thirteen