[Primeval/Spooks] Fic: Shadows Falling, Team, Gen, PG-13, (13 of 13)
Fandom: Primeval/Spooks
Title: Shadows Falling (13 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: 3,066 (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 Thirteen
The ARC
Lester was shooting off an email to Thames House, detailing what he suspected was going on when the fire alarm went off. He looked up, startled. The guard outside was shouting something and Lester hurriedly motioned for Dr Gordon to get back inside the air vent when the whole building shook as if something had slammed into it.
“What is it?” Gordon asked but Lester just shook his head.
“I have no idea.” He pulled her to her feet. “Perhaps the air vent isn't the best place for you right now.”
Lester moved towards the door and opened it. The soldier that had been guarding it was nowhere to be seen.
“Come along,” he told Dr Gordon, grabbing her free hand, the other being occupied with keeping Nancy still; it was apparent that she wasn't going to let the Diictodon get loose again.
They hurried down the corridor towards that atrium and Lester made Dr Gordon hunch to one side as he peered through the doors. The scene was one of utter chaos, thanks to a Triceratops in the middle of the room. Soldiers were lying on the floor, their hands behind their heads, except for Wilder, who appeared to be the Triceratops' first victim. Lester noted with some relief that he appeared to be breathing however; he certainly had some questions to answer.
And then Lester spotted, standing by a large hole in the wall as if he owned the place, Danny Quinn. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to smile, or remind Danny of the penalties for damaging government property.
He settled on the second option.
“You just can't do anything quietly, can you, Mr Quinn?” he asked, stepping into the room, with Dr Gordon following closely.
Danny offered Lester a wide grin. “And where would be the fun in that?”
“The repairs are coming out of your wages.”
Danny barked a laugh. “As you wish. Oh, we've er, got a present for you.”
Lester raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Danny stepped aside to allow Lt Donovan to bring Christine Johnson into the room. She still had her hands tied in front of her, but her legs were free, allowing her to walk unaided, though Donovan was keeping a tight grip on one of her arms. Her hair was a mess, her clothing dishevelled, and if looks could kill Lester would be a heap upon the ground. Lester smiled.
“Ms Johnson. A pleasure, as always.”
“This isn't over,” Johnson spat. “You have no idea what you're dealing with.”
Lester rolled his eyes. “I think we've all had more than enough dramatics for one day. I'm sure our colleagues at MI5 have a few questions they'd like to ask, and you know how much they hate being stonewalled.”
Lester had to give her credit, she hardly blanched at all. With a disdainful sneer he turned around and started heading towards his office - he still had many things to do, not least of which was check and see how operations were going in Russia. But Christine's next words stopped him cold.
“None of this is going to matter. Not when you’re removed from history. When all of you are.”
Lester very slowly turned around. “And how exactly do you plan to do that?”
Christine attempted to shrug and pulled her arm away from Lt Donovan. “I'm not going to do anything. The plan's already in motion. Why don't you ask your Russian friends. If you can get hold of them.”
“What have you done?” Danny asked, shaking her. She merely glared at him and kicked him in the shin. He moved away and growled, but he wasn't about to hit a woman, no matter how aggravating she was. Sarah, on the other hand, felt no such compunction and stood nose to nose with Christine.
“Tell us what we want to know and we'll make this easy for you.”
Christine snorted. “You think that I'm scared of a little wisp of a girl like you?”
Sarah’s reply was to grab Christine's arm in a Chinese burn. Christine yelped and Sarah applied more pressure, much to Danny's amusement.
“All right, all right,” Christine shouted, hissing out a breath of relief when Sarah released her.
“Well?” Sarah snapped.
Christine looked around the room but there was absolutely no one there that would help her. “I don't know specifics,” she said, “but my contact - “
“Dr Jin?” Lester interrupted.
Sarah and Danny looked surprised, but Christine looked worried.
“How did you...?” she started to ask, then thought better of it. “Yes, he's been helping me. Feeding me information. He's going to change things so that I'm in charge of the ARC.” She held her head up and Sarah fought down the urge to smack the smug look off her face.
“People have died because of you,” Sarah said. “Can't you understand how wrong this is?”
Christine looked down her nose at Sarah. “When history’s been changed they won't have died, so it won't really matter, will it?”
Sarah threw up her hands in disgust and moved away from the other woman, towards Lester. Lester was furiously thinking, and absently pulling at his tie.
“How could he have done this?” Lester asked, and looked around at the others, genuinely asking for input. “Why would he have done this. To infiltrate the ARC, set all these plans in motion.”
“You don't think he's just Johnson's number one fan then?” Danny asked.
Lester barely shook his head. “Today,” he said, turning to Christine, “the warehouse, what was the plan?”
Johnson looked a little unsure now. “We've been going through at regular intervals for weeks now. Gathering future technology, items that Jin said would be helpful in the time change. Normally you don't detect it. I don't know what happened today.”
“How has he been keeping the anomalies secret?” Lt Donovan asked.
Johnson shrugged. “I never asked.”
“How did you even meet him?” Sarah asked. “Where's he from...” She stopped as the obvious answer sprung to her mind. “Oh, he must be from the future.” She turned to Danny who nodded, it certainly would make sense.
“So something was different about today,” Lester repeated to himself, almost as if he wasn't listening to the others. “What could Jin be doing. If he has access to future technology what would he want from here. What...”
“Stephen,” Sarah said, in a hushed tone. The others turned to look at her. “It's all about Stephen. That's what he was really after. Access to Stephen.”
“And I gave it to him,” Lester said. Then he turned around and pushed over the nearest desk before slamming his hand against the wall. “Dammit, I gave it to him.”
Outside the AAU
“Abby!” Connor shouted. He jumped up from his prone position and ran towards her, only to smack straight into the forcefield.
“Connor, get back!” Becker yelled. He grabbed the younger man and pushed him behind himself, taking on a defensive position in front of the others.
“Connor?” Abby said excitedly. She moved close to the team but stopped short of trying to reach out to them. “Are you - are you all all right?”
Connor nodded enthusiastically. “We're fine. But you - how did you get here?”
“Through an anomaly,” Abby said. “I'm not quite sure what's going on though...” She looked over at the other Stephen who was staring at her Stephen, seemingly not able to take his eyes away.
“What have they done to you?” the ARC Stephen asked. He was staring at the other Stephen's face, remembering his own web of fine scars on his back, the only visible reminder of what had been done to him. “Are you - are you a clone?”
“No,” the other man said. “I'm from a different time line entirely. It intersected at a different place when Banyon, when he pulled me out of a situation I'd got myself into.” He shook his head. “It's not important.”
“What, what can we do to help?” Cutter asked. Both Stephens looked at him, surprised. “Surely, there's something. These Russian experiments, what can we - and who's Banyon?” Cutter's thoughts were coming out too fast for him to make them into proper sentences but the others all understood, they felt the same way. Just because he wasn't their Stephen, didn't mean they wouldn't do all they could for him.
He looked at them strangely, as if he'd never had a kind word directed at himself before. Abby stepped a little closer to him, wanting to be reassuring.
“This is all very heart-warming,” the man behind Abby and the other Stephen said, in a heavily accented voice, “but there is still a small matter of a bomb in the building.”
“A bomb?” Becker asked. “When's it going to go off?”
“You don't have to worry,” the other Stephen said. “I have one of my creatures next to the detonator. It won't go off until I want it to.” He turned back around to Anatoly. “But it will go off.”
Anatoly nodded, slowly. “Then let me set off the evacuation alarm. There are many people in there. People with families who had no idea of what was being done. Please.”
The other Stephen nodded, once, and Anatoly raced off, back into the building. It didn’t take long for an alarm to sound and then there was a quiet swooshing sound and the forcefield around the compound was gone.
Abby immediately ran into Connor's arms and Jenny stepped closer to them too, half-hugging them both. “We're so glad you’re okay,” she whispered to Abby and Abby beamed at them all.
The two Stephens meanwhile, were still staring at each other.
“Who's Banyon?” Stephen asked his double after a moment. “Did he do this to you?”
“Yes. Him and his wife. They're...they were trying to create a super race, I think. I was their most successful prototype. I can control the Echolocators as easily as breathing. The others always had trouble.”
“And he's just been plucking...us... out of different time lines.”
The other Stephen nodded.
“That's barbaric,” Cutter said.
“He couldn't have done it without your wife's help.”
Cutter took a step back, as if he'd been slapped.
“I take it you and Helen weren't involved then,” Stephen said, shooting Cutter an apologetic look.
The other Stephen looked scandalised. “You and that witch...?”
“Stephen, there's something else you should know,” Abby said, disentangling herself from Connor. “This Banyon...” She paused, hating to be the one to cause Stephen any more pain. “He's been posing as Dr Jin.”
There was a stunned silence.
“How is that possible?” Becker asked. “He would have had full security clearance...” he trailed off, the implications too enormous for him to contemplate.
“I thought he was helping me,” Stephen said softly. “I told him, I told him so many things that I didn't, that I couldn’t tell...” He looked over at Cutter, helpless. Cutter moved forward quickly, grabbing onto Stephen’s arms.
“It's okay, Stephen, it's all right, whatever he wanted, whatever his plan was -”
“He was planning on changing history,” the other Stephen interrupted. “He's already started on it. I think he thought that if he could make all these changes in the past, the future would be his to do with his as he wants. With his trusted Echolocators controlled by their Alphas.” Here he pointed at himself. “We'd make a pretty good invasion force, don't you think?” he added bitterly.
“Oh Stephen,” Jenny said, not sure which one she felt the most for.
“And Jin, Banyon, whatever his name is. He's inside the building?” Stephen asked.
“Not any more,” Becker said.
They all looked up to see a man running from the door and heading across the snow and towards the anomaly. The anomaly itself could be reached by a steel walkway that Becker had inspected briefly earlier - though he hadn't got close enough to it to realise it had been protected by a forcefield at the time.
“No,” the other Stephen said, “I’m not letting him go back.”
And then he was off, running as fast as he could, one of the future predators bounding at his side.
“Wait!!” Stephen shouted, and with a quick glance back at his companions, he was chasing after them.
“Oh god,” Connor muttered, “this isn't good. What do we do?”
Cutter didn’t wait for any suggestions, pushing past Becker's futile attempt to keep him there, and gave chase.
It was hard work, over the snow, and Cutter found his breathing more laboured than he would have liked. Stephen's suggestion that he spend some more hours in the gym was suddenly not looking as ridiculous as it had done at the time. But he pushed all thoughts of that aside. He wasn't going to lose Stephen. Not again.
“Stephen! Wait!” he shouted, then decided conserving his energy was a better use of his time.
He reached the walkway and began climbing up the steps to it, just in time to see Banyon and the other Stephen disappear through the anomaly.
“Stephen!” he shouted. He hauled himself up and saw Stephen at the other end of the walkway, looking down at the anomaly. “Stephen, come on, just, step away....”
Stephen turned around and Cutter stopped in his tracks.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
Cutter's shoulders slumped. “Stephen...”
“Do you trust me, Nick?”
Cutter closed his eyes for a brief moment and then opened them, blinking rapidly. “Of course, I trust you, Stephen. But...”
“I have to see for myself, don't you get that? However much it pains me to say it, I was born again in the future. And there’s so much that I don't know, that I don't understand about myself now. Jin might have been a lying bastard, but he did help in a way, because he knew me, what I was going through. He'd helped others go through the same thing, in his own sick, twisted way and if I ever catch up with him I’ll...” He stopped and wiped at his face, vaguely aware that it was wet. “I need to do this.”
Cutter stared at him, arms useless at his sides. He wanted to grab Stephen, to shake sense into him, but part of him could see that Stephen needed to do this for his sanity, as much as anything else. He needed to learn about this other part to himself, before he could truly reconnect to his humanity.
And Cutter hated his wife in that moment more than he ever had before.
“Just come back,” he said, instead of all the other things he wanted to say.
“I will,” Stephen promised. And then he stepped off the edge.
Outside the AAU - Alpha team
Lucas looked up in surprise as an alarm inside the compound began blaring and streams of people began pouring out. Some of them were armed, but most of them looked like regular scientists. Some of them were wearing winter weather gear, but the rest seemed like they were poorly prepared to be outside in such temperatures.
“Get back to the plane,” Lucas told one of the soldiers, “see if we've got some supplies for them. We won't be able to help them all but...” He trailed off as one explosion inside the compound was followed by another.
“Damn it,” he yelled, “get the first aid kits. I'm going to find the others.”
He raced off in the direction the other team had gone, his mind reeling. He had no doubt that they were involved somehow, trouble seemed to have an unnerving habit of following them around.
He pulled out his gun, wary of anything or anyone he might encounter out here. He only hopped that whatever test subjects the Russians were experimenting on they were well locked up or dead. They might be essentially in the middle of nowhere, but he'd read up on those future predators and he knew they had tremendous speed. It wouldn’t take very long at all for them to encounter a populated area.
His thoughts were already ambling ahead of him so he almost smacked right into Becker, who was leading a motley procession back towards their airplane.
“Becker - are you all right?” he asked. He put his gun away when he saw that the others all seemed unhurt. Another explosion rocked the air and they all winced. “What's happening?”
“Long story,” Becker said. “We found Abby.”
“So I see,” Lucas said, looking between Abby and Jenny in surprise. Considering they'd been reunited with their team mate, none of them looked very happy. And then he realised that they were missing one. “Where's Stephen?”
“He's gone,” Cutter said.
“Gone? Is he - “ Lucas motioned towards the fire lit building next to them.
“No,” Cutter said, shaking his head. “He went through an anomaly.”
Lucas' brow furrowed. “The one to the future?”
The others nodded as one. Lucas took a deep breath, he could see that he wasn't going to get any sense out of them until they got into the warm; they'd all been working on adrenaline alone for too long now.
“He had something he needed to do,” Cutter added in explanation. He favoured Jenny a small smile as she took his hand and squeezed it, though he could barely feel it through his thick gloves. “But he'll be back soon.”
“And what are we supposed to do?” Connor asked, wiping at his red nose with the back of his hand.
“We go home,” Cutter said, moving to the front of their little group, Jenny's hand still grasped in his own. “We go home.”
Title: Shadows Falling (13 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: 3,066 (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 Thirteen
The ARC
Lester was shooting off an email to Thames House, detailing what he suspected was going on when the fire alarm went off. He looked up, startled. The guard outside was shouting something and Lester hurriedly motioned for Dr Gordon to get back inside the air vent when the whole building shook as if something had slammed into it.
“What is it?” Gordon asked but Lester just shook his head.
“I have no idea.” He pulled her to her feet. “Perhaps the air vent isn't the best place for you right now.”
Lester moved towards the door and opened it. The soldier that had been guarding it was nowhere to be seen.
“Come along,” he told Dr Gordon, grabbing her free hand, the other being occupied with keeping Nancy still; it was apparent that she wasn't going to let the Diictodon get loose again.
They hurried down the corridor towards that atrium and Lester made Dr Gordon hunch to one side as he peered through the doors. The scene was one of utter chaos, thanks to a Triceratops in the middle of the room. Soldiers were lying on the floor, their hands behind their heads, except for Wilder, who appeared to be the Triceratops' first victim. Lester noted with some relief that he appeared to be breathing however; he certainly had some questions to answer.
And then Lester spotted, standing by a large hole in the wall as if he owned the place, Danny Quinn. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to smile, or remind Danny of the penalties for damaging government property.
He settled on the second option.
“You just can't do anything quietly, can you, Mr Quinn?” he asked, stepping into the room, with Dr Gordon following closely.
Danny offered Lester a wide grin. “And where would be the fun in that?”
“The repairs are coming out of your wages.”
Danny barked a laugh. “As you wish. Oh, we've er, got a present for you.”
Lester raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Danny stepped aside to allow Lt Donovan to bring Christine Johnson into the room. She still had her hands tied in front of her, but her legs were free, allowing her to walk unaided, though Donovan was keeping a tight grip on one of her arms. Her hair was a mess, her clothing dishevelled, and if looks could kill Lester would be a heap upon the ground. Lester smiled.
“Ms Johnson. A pleasure, as always.”
“This isn't over,” Johnson spat. “You have no idea what you're dealing with.”
Lester rolled his eyes. “I think we've all had more than enough dramatics for one day. I'm sure our colleagues at MI5 have a few questions they'd like to ask, and you know how much they hate being stonewalled.”
Lester had to give her credit, she hardly blanched at all. With a disdainful sneer he turned around and started heading towards his office - he still had many things to do, not least of which was check and see how operations were going in Russia. But Christine's next words stopped him cold.
“None of this is going to matter. Not when you’re removed from history. When all of you are.”
Lester very slowly turned around. “And how exactly do you plan to do that?”
Christine attempted to shrug and pulled her arm away from Lt Donovan. “I'm not going to do anything. The plan's already in motion. Why don't you ask your Russian friends. If you can get hold of them.”
“What have you done?” Danny asked, shaking her. She merely glared at him and kicked him in the shin. He moved away and growled, but he wasn't about to hit a woman, no matter how aggravating she was. Sarah, on the other hand, felt no such compunction and stood nose to nose with Christine.
“Tell us what we want to know and we'll make this easy for you.”
Christine snorted. “You think that I'm scared of a little wisp of a girl like you?”
Sarah’s reply was to grab Christine's arm in a Chinese burn. Christine yelped and Sarah applied more pressure, much to Danny's amusement.
“All right, all right,” Christine shouted, hissing out a breath of relief when Sarah released her.
“Well?” Sarah snapped.
Christine looked around the room but there was absolutely no one there that would help her. “I don't know specifics,” she said, “but my contact - “
“Dr Jin?” Lester interrupted.
Sarah and Danny looked surprised, but Christine looked worried.
“How did you...?” she started to ask, then thought better of it. “Yes, he's been helping me. Feeding me information. He's going to change things so that I'm in charge of the ARC.” She held her head up and Sarah fought down the urge to smack the smug look off her face.
“People have died because of you,” Sarah said. “Can't you understand how wrong this is?”
Christine looked down her nose at Sarah. “When history’s been changed they won't have died, so it won't really matter, will it?”
Sarah threw up her hands in disgust and moved away from the other woman, towards Lester. Lester was furiously thinking, and absently pulling at his tie.
“How could he have done this?” Lester asked, and looked around at the others, genuinely asking for input. “Why would he have done this. To infiltrate the ARC, set all these plans in motion.”
“You don't think he's just Johnson's number one fan then?” Danny asked.
Lester barely shook his head. “Today,” he said, turning to Christine, “the warehouse, what was the plan?”
Johnson looked a little unsure now. “We've been going through at regular intervals for weeks now. Gathering future technology, items that Jin said would be helpful in the time change. Normally you don't detect it. I don't know what happened today.”
“How has he been keeping the anomalies secret?” Lt Donovan asked.
Johnson shrugged. “I never asked.”
“How did you even meet him?” Sarah asked. “Where's he from...” She stopped as the obvious answer sprung to her mind. “Oh, he must be from the future.” She turned to Danny who nodded, it certainly would make sense.
“So something was different about today,” Lester repeated to himself, almost as if he wasn't listening to the others. “What could Jin be doing. If he has access to future technology what would he want from here. What...”
“Stephen,” Sarah said, in a hushed tone. The others turned to look at her. “It's all about Stephen. That's what he was really after. Access to Stephen.”
“And I gave it to him,” Lester said. Then he turned around and pushed over the nearest desk before slamming his hand against the wall. “Dammit, I gave it to him.”
Outside the AAU
“Abby!” Connor shouted. He jumped up from his prone position and ran towards her, only to smack straight into the forcefield.
“Connor, get back!” Becker yelled. He grabbed the younger man and pushed him behind himself, taking on a defensive position in front of the others.
“Connor?” Abby said excitedly. She moved close to the team but stopped short of trying to reach out to them. “Are you - are you all all right?”
Connor nodded enthusiastically. “We're fine. But you - how did you get here?”
“Through an anomaly,” Abby said. “I'm not quite sure what's going on though...” She looked over at the other Stephen who was staring at her Stephen, seemingly not able to take his eyes away.
“What have they done to you?” the ARC Stephen asked. He was staring at the other Stephen's face, remembering his own web of fine scars on his back, the only visible reminder of what had been done to him. “Are you - are you a clone?”
“No,” the other man said. “I'm from a different time line entirely. It intersected at a different place when Banyon, when he pulled me out of a situation I'd got myself into.” He shook his head. “It's not important.”
“What, what can we do to help?” Cutter asked. Both Stephens looked at him, surprised. “Surely, there's something. These Russian experiments, what can we - and who's Banyon?” Cutter's thoughts were coming out too fast for him to make them into proper sentences but the others all understood, they felt the same way. Just because he wasn't their Stephen, didn't mean they wouldn't do all they could for him.
He looked at them strangely, as if he'd never had a kind word directed at himself before. Abby stepped a little closer to him, wanting to be reassuring.
“This is all very heart-warming,” the man behind Abby and the other Stephen said, in a heavily accented voice, “but there is still a small matter of a bomb in the building.”
“A bomb?” Becker asked. “When's it going to go off?”
“You don't have to worry,” the other Stephen said. “I have one of my creatures next to the detonator. It won't go off until I want it to.” He turned back around to Anatoly. “But it will go off.”
Anatoly nodded, slowly. “Then let me set off the evacuation alarm. There are many people in there. People with families who had no idea of what was being done. Please.”
The other Stephen nodded, once, and Anatoly raced off, back into the building. It didn’t take long for an alarm to sound and then there was a quiet swooshing sound and the forcefield around the compound was gone.
Abby immediately ran into Connor's arms and Jenny stepped closer to them too, half-hugging them both. “We're so glad you’re okay,” she whispered to Abby and Abby beamed at them all.
The two Stephens meanwhile, were still staring at each other.
“Who's Banyon?” Stephen asked his double after a moment. “Did he do this to you?”
“Yes. Him and his wife. They're...they were trying to create a super race, I think. I was their most successful prototype. I can control the Echolocators as easily as breathing. The others always had trouble.”
“And he's just been plucking...us... out of different time lines.”
The other Stephen nodded.
“That's barbaric,” Cutter said.
“He couldn't have done it without your wife's help.”
Cutter took a step back, as if he'd been slapped.
“I take it you and Helen weren't involved then,” Stephen said, shooting Cutter an apologetic look.
The other Stephen looked scandalised. “You and that witch...?”
“Stephen, there's something else you should know,” Abby said, disentangling herself from Connor. “This Banyon...” She paused, hating to be the one to cause Stephen any more pain. “He's been posing as Dr Jin.”
There was a stunned silence.
“How is that possible?” Becker asked. “He would have had full security clearance...” he trailed off, the implications too enormous for him to contemplate.
“I thought he was helping me,” Stephen said softly. “I told him, I told him so many things that I didn't, that I couldn’t tell...” He looked over at Cutter, helpless. Cutter moved forward quickly, grabbing onto Stephen’s arms.
“It's okay, Stephen, it's all right, whatever he wanted, whatever his plan was -”
“He was planning on changing history,” the other Stephen interrupted. “He's already started on it. I think he thought that if he could make all these changes in the past, the future would be his to do with his as he wants. With his trusted Echolocators controlled by their Alphas.” Here he pointed at himself. “We'd make a pretty good invasion force, don't you think?” he added bitterly.
“Oh Stephen,” Jenny said, not sure which one she felt the most for.
“And Jin, Banyon, whatever his name is. He's inside the building?” Stephen asked.
“Not any more,” Becker said.
They all looked up to see a man running from the door and heading across the snow and towards the anomaly. The anomaly itself could be reached by a steel walkway that Becker had inspected briefly earlier - though he hadn't got close enough to it to realise it had been protected by a forcefield at the time.
“No,” the other Stephen said, “I’m not letting him go back.”
And then he was off, running as fast as he could, one of the future predators bounding at his side.
“Wait!!” Stephen shouted, and with a quick glance back at his companions, he was chasing after them.
“Oh god,” Connor muttered, “this isn't good. What do we do?”
Cutter didn’t wait for any suggestions, pushing past Becker's futile attempt to keep him there, and gave chase.
It was hard work, over the snow, and Cutter found his breathing more laboured than he would have liked. Stephen's suggestion that he spend some more hours in the gym was suddenly not looking as ridiculous as it had done at the time. But he pushed all thoughts of that aside. He wasn't going to lose Stephen. Not again.
“Stephen! Wait!” he shouted, then decided conserving his energy was a better use of his time.
He reached the walkway and began climbing up the steps to it, just in time to see Banyon and the other Stephen disappear through the anomaly.
“Stephen!” he shouted. He hauled himself up and saw Stephen at the other end of the walkway, looking down at the anomaly. “Stephen, come on, just, step away....”
Stephen turned around and Cutter stopped in his tracks.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
Cutter's shoulders slumped. “Stephen...”
“Do you trust me, Nick?”
Cutter closed his eyes for a brief moment and then opened them, blinking rapidly. “Of course, I trust you, Stephen. But...”
“I have to see for myself, don't you get that? However much it pains me to say it, I was born again in the future. And there’s so much that I don't know, that I don't understand about myself now. Jin might have been a lying bastard, but he did help in a way, because he knew me, what I was going through. He'd helped others go through the same thing, in his own sick, twisted way and if I ever catch up with him I’ll...” He stopped and wiped at his face, vaguely aware that it was wet. “I need to do this.”
Cutter stared at him, arms useless at his sides. He wanted to grab Stephen, to shake sense into him, but part of him could see that Stephen needed to do this for his sanity, as much as anything else. He needed to learn about this other part to himself, before he could truly reconnect to his humanity.
And Cutter hated his wife in that moment more than he ever had before.
“Just come back,” he said, instead of all the other things he wanted to say.
“I will,” Stephen promised. And then he stepped off the edge.
Outside the AAU - Alpha team
Lucas looked up in surprise as an alarm inside the compound began blaring and streams of people began pouring out. Some of them were armed, but most of them looked like regular scientists. Some of them were wearing winter weather gear, but the rest seemed like they were poorly prepared to be outside in such temperatures.
“Get back to the plane,” Lucas told one of the soldiers, “see if we've got some supplies for them. We won't be able to help them all but...” He trailed off as one explosion inside the compound was followed by another.
“Damn it,” he yelled, “get the first aid kits. I'm going to find the others.”
He raced off in the direction the other team had gone, his mind reeling. He had no doubt that they were involved somehow, trouble seemed to have an unnerving habit of following them around.
He pulled out his gun, wary of anything or anyone he might encounter out here. He only hopped that whatever test subjects the Russians were experimenting on they were well locked up or dead. They might be essentially in the middle of nowhere, but he'd read up on those future predators and he knew they had tremendous speed. It wouldn’t take very long at all for them to encounter a populated area.
His thoughts were already ambling ahead of him so he almost smacked right into Becker, who was leading a motley procession back towards their airplane.
“Becker - are you all right?” he asked. He put his gun away when he saw that the others all seemed unhurt. Another explosion rocked the air and they all winced. “What's happening?”
“Long story,” Becker said. “We found Abby.”
“So I see,” Lucas said, looking between Abby and Jenny in surprise. Considering they'd been reunited with their team mate, none of them looked very happy. And then he realised that they were missing one. “Where's Stephen?”
“He's gone,” Cutter said.
“Gone? Is he - “ Lucas motioned towards the fire lit building next to them.
“No,” Cutter said, shaking his head. “He went through an anomaly.”
Lucas' brow furrowed. “The one to the future?”
The others nodded as one. Lucas took a deep breath, he could see that he wasn't going to get any sense out of them until they got into the warm; they'd all been working on adrenaline alone for too long now.
“He had something he needed to do,” Cutter added in explanation. He favoured Jenny a small smile as she took his hand and squeezed it, though he could barely feel it through his thick gloves. “But he'll be back soon.”
“And what are we supposed to do?” Connor asked, wiping at his red nose with the back of his hand.
“We go home,” Cutter said, moving to the front of their little group, Jenny's hand still grasped in his own. “We go home.”