Fic - Aftershock (part 3 of 7)
Title: Aftershock
Author: prehistoriccat
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Abby (with references to Abby/Connor) Matt (with references to Matt/Emily) Nathan Somerville (OC)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, no copyright is intended
Warnings: Contains spoilers for series 5, also multiple deaths of canon characters.
A/N: Written for angstbigbang Thanks to my wonderful beta reader evenstar_estel and to the awesome luvconnor for the artwork
Abby and Matt try to work out what's happened and how they can fix it; could Nathan provide the answers?
Abby was woken by the sound of coughing. Nathan was sat up on the bed, trying to reach for the bottle of water that Abby had left on the side for him.
“Easy,” she said softly, passing him the bottle. Her own chest felt tight and her head ached but she pushed that aside to worry about Nathan. She'd felt like this before; during those first few days in the Cretaceous she'd felt sick and breathless. Connor had said it was due to the differences in oxygen levels in the air and that they'd get used to it after a while. They'd never actually thought that they'd be there long enough to become acclimatized. The fact Abby felt unwell now meant only one thing - the oxygen level in the room was dropping.
Nathan rummaged in his pockets but couldn't find what he was looking for. “My inhaler... must... have... dropped it,” he wheezed. A slight look of panic spread across his face, which Abby picked up on straight away. She pulled over an oxygen tank and passed him a mouthpiece. He nodded gratefully and inhaled a few times until his breathing eased.
“Thanks, I guess I owe you guys my life.”
“You're welcome. What were you doing at the power station and how did you find us?” Abby said.
“Been following you for a while now. My friend was killed by a pack of Hyenadons that came through one of those gateways, and ever since I've been trying to find answers. I need to know who is responsible for Daniel's death.” Nathan blinked, determined not to cry. “No-one would believe me. They tried to tell me that I'd imagined it because Daniel and I had been drinking, but I know what I saw Abby.”
“I'm sorry. How old were you?”
Nathan began to tell Abby about the terrible afternoon that Daniel was killed. She listened without a word, her heart aching for him. She knew only too well how it felt to lose a friend because of something that came through an anomaly, but for it to happen at such a young age, no-one should have to deal with that.
“I spent hours on the Internet, trawling through all the weird creature sightings in the hope someone else had seen something similar. Your people did a great job of keeping things under wraps, but eventually I found it... a blog by someone who had seen a glowing ball on the M25 and a mammoth rampaging down the middle of it.”
Jenny's team were supposed to have found and ordered the deletion of every mention of that incident. Abby remembered Connor saying it was impossible and Jenny giving him a scowl and telling him that she had every confidence in her team. It seemed Connor had been right.
“And that led you to us?”
“Pretty much. I emailed the guy that wrote the blog and he said he'd seen a bunch of guys lead the mammoth into a truck and then drive off with it. He said they took charge and seemed to know exactly what they were doing. At that point, I believed those people were responsible for creating the gateways and letting the creatures through to kill people... and I had to find them to make sure they paid for what happened to Daniel.”
Abby backed away a little. Nathan seemed angry, had he spent all this time tracking them down to come and kill them in revenge for his friend's death? “But we didn't make the anomalies, Nathan.... at least not the ones that just appear randomly. We were trying to understand them in the hope that one day we could stop them. We lost friends too.” She reached out and stroked his hand.
“I know that now. That's why I've been following you. You were lost for a while too weren't you? You said something last night about the Cretaceous and survival blankets, and I didn't see you for a long time.”
Abby nodded. “Connor and I were trapped on the wrong side of an anomaly. It was a year before we were able to get home.”
Nathan whistled. “You survived a year in the Cretaceous era? Of all the eras to be stuck in... some of the most deadliest predators that ever lived were from that period!”
“Tell me about it! We had several close encounters, but we got through it.” Abby sighed. “You know your stuff then?”
“I figured that the only way to get the answers I need would be to join you. I studied electronics, physics and computer science, and spent every spare minute researching prehistory.”
“Geek!” Abby teased.
“Hey, you may laugh, but I have a feeling you need me now that the rest of the team are...” he stopped, realising that he perhaps shouldn't be pushing himself in as a replacement for Abby's dead colleagues when they had only died yesterday. “Sorry.”
“It's OK. And you're right. I'm the creature expert, Matt's the brawn. We'll need brains if we're to get through this.” She squeezed Nathan's hand to reassure him that he hadn't stepped out of line.
“Where is Matt? I heard him moving around earlier.”
Abby stood up and stretched. She was stiff after a night being curled in an awkward position on the chair. “Will you be OK whilst I go look for him?”
“Not planning on going anywhere.”
Abby smiled. At a guess, Matt must have ventured outside for some reason. He couldn't have gone far, none of the oxygen tanks had been taken. She found him just outside the large doors at the loading bay where they'd let Nathan through last night.
The familiar, and somewhat comforting, smells of coffee and bacon reached her nostrils. Matt was cooking, leaning over a small gas stove. He was so engrossed in what he was doing he hadn't heard Abby approach. She watched him for a few moments, recognising the look on his face. She'd seen the same look on Connor's face so many times when they were back in the Cretaceous; he too would throw himself into a task so that his focus would shift from the painful reality of their situation. It was clear that Matt had barely slept; the dark circles around his eyes would betray him if he tried to deny it. Right now, she guessed he blamed himself for this whole situation; Connor had done the same.
“Smells good,” she finally said, letting him know she was there.
He looked up and smiled. “Thought I'd surprise you with breakfast. Is Nathan awake?”
Abby nodded. “We've both been up for a while.”
“How is he? Asking questions I suppose?”
“Not really. He's not just some random passer by that got lucky in finding us. He's been following us for a few years.” Matt looked at Abby questioningly. “His friend was killed by a pack of Hyenadons, and he's been looking for answers.”
“A vigilante? Great, just what we need!”
“I think he could help us, Matt. He knows his stuff.”
Matt stood up and wiped his hands on his jeans. “It's too late for help, Abby.” He started to pile pieces of bacon onto the plate he had at the side of the stove and picked up the pot that he'd been boiling the coffee in.
“You're giving up?” Abby said, shaking her head. Matt ignored her and moved towards the doorway to go back to the panic room. “Matt?”
He stopped and turned angrily. “If we're lucky we have two, maybe three, days of breathable air left. I failed, Abby. I was supposed to stop this from happening. Now I just have to accept that this was how it was meant to be all along and just make the most of the last few hours we have.” He turned again, and strode purposefully back through the car lot.
“So you're just forgetting everything you've ever done in your life?” Abby called after him. “Didn't you tell me that your entire life has been devoted to trying to save the future?”
“Yes,” he said, trying to calm the situation and end the conversation. “But unless an anomaly opens in the next 48 hours that also just happens to be one that will take us back a few months, there's nothing we can do. It's over, Abby.”
Abby stood still and watched Matt go into the panic room. Part of her knew he was right; there was a sense of inevitability about this, but another part of her was saying that he was wrong. There had to be something they could do, she just couldn't think what that was at the moment. By the time she was back in the panic room, Nathan and Matt were hungrily devouring the bacon as if they hadn't eaten in weeks.
“I hope you saved some for me,” she said quietly. Matt nodded at the plate he'd left for her on the chair and she picked it up gratefully. They ate in silence and sipped the strong coffee. Abby hated black coffee, but the caffeine was waking her senses up so she tolerated the slightly bitter taste.
“So what's the plan of action then?” Nathan said, looking expectantly from Abby to Matt. “You guys are going to open up one of those anomalies and go and sort all this out, right?”
“It's not quite that simple,” Abby said.
“But you can make those things, can't you? You said earlier that you didn't make the random ones, but that huge one at the power station yesterday... that was you guys wasn't it?”
Matt sighed. “Connor had developed a machine that makes anomalies... well, he made the prototype here in secret, and Philip Burton used his research to make the one you saw. But Connor's the only one that knows how and he's...” He stopped, catching the pained look in Abby's eyes.
“It's OK, Matt. You can say it.” Abby looked at Nathan. “Connor's dead, just like all the others.” The words stung, and she realised she was fiddling with the gold ring on her finger. It was possibly the only part of him she had left.
“Maybe I could... I know a bit... I appreciate it's a bit awkward, but I might be able to...”
“Absolutely not,” Matt said firmly. Abby gave him a look. “It's too dangerous.”
“What have we got to lose?” Abby hissed. “If Nathan can get Connor's prototype up and running and make an anomaly...”
“And then what Abby? We could end up in a worse situation than the one we're in.”
“With respect, Matt. What could possibly be worse than this?” Nathan said.
There was a silence. Matt began to pace around the room, his face twisted as he battled with his thoughts. Nathan was right; they were already on borrowed time. What harm could it do to let the boy at least have a look through Connor's research notes? “Go and get Connor's laptop,” he said to Abby. “It should have a couple of hours battery left on it, and that'll give me time to work out how to start up the emergency power generator.”
Abby suddenly felt her heart leap. Things may seem pretty dire, but at least now it felt like they were doing something to try and make it better.
-o-
Connor's lab was pretty much as he'd left it. Paperwork scattered everywhere, gadgets in various states of completion and a half drunk mug of tea next to the laptop on his desk. It was almost as if he was coming back in any second. Abby closed her eyes and remembered being in here not so long ago and copying his hard drive to give to Matt. Maybe if she'd done that sooner instead of questioning Matt, they'd have worked out what he and Burton were up to in time.
“Woah!” Nathan's eyes were wide as he scanned the room. “He had some pretty decent kit in here!”
“Connor was very good at what he did,” Abby said proudly. “And Burton provided him with the best. It's a shame Connor didn't realise he was being used.”
Nathan blew the dust from the laptop and opened it up. It seemed intact, the blast hadn't damaged it in any way. “We should head back, I'm starting to feel a bit weird.”
Abby nodded. She took a lingering glance around the room before ushering Nathan out into the corridor. “There's something I need to do. Come with me.” She led the way through the ARC, smiling at Nathan's wide-eyed expression, and then into her own office. “This is where I work most of the time,” she said. “And through there is the menagerie.”
“Menagerie?”
“Come and look.” She opened up the airlock and guided him in, then pushed him into the main room towards the large window. “Remember the blog you read that lead you to us? The mammoth?” Abby nodded down into the holding pens.
Nathan's mouth dropped open. Below him was a large Colombian Mammoth, exactly as the man had described in his email. Beyond that he could make out other creatures pacing around. “These all came through anomalies?”
Abby nodded and stood next to Nathan, looking down herself. “Ideally, we'd send them all back to their own times if we could. They don't belong here. Trouble is, even if we found another anomaly that led to the right era we couldn't be certain we were sending them back to where they originated from. It would be like us finding you and sending you back through an anomaly into any time that had humans - you could end up with cavemen, or you could end up hundreds of years in the future.”
At that moment, something clung to the window. “Rex!” Abby exclaimed. She held her hand out to the window, and Rex dipped his head as if he wanted her to tickle him.
“Cute,” Nathan smiled. “Coelurosauravus?”
“You really do know your stuff! Yeah, He's pretty domesticated now. He lived with me and Connor for a while until we got trapped in the Cretaceous. He's pretty much at home in here with all the other creatures.” Abby felt her throat tighten; what was going to happen to all of these creatures now? After putting in so much hard work to make sure they survived, they would all probably suffer the same fate that everything else had eventually. Their food would last another couple of days since she'd only replenished the feeders yesterday, but the air would probably run out before that.
Nathan rested his hand on Abby's shoulder. “I told you I studied hard didn't I? I want to be a part of this team and help in any way I can.” He tapped Connor's laptop. “Let's go back and see if I can decipher some of Connor's work.”
They made their way back to the panic room, and Nathan immediately cleared a space on the table at the far side so that he could set up the laptop. Matt muttered something about the emergency generator and disappeared.
“I don't think he likes me,” Nathan commented.
“Matt's OK but he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. He's not from here - this time I mean.” Abby said, pulling over a chair for Nathan.
“He's a time traveller?”
“He came from a future where the earth had become barren because of the anomalies. He was sent back to try and prevent it.”
“And now he thinks he's failed. I get it.” Nathan switched on the laptop and watched it start up. “Think I'd be a bit grumpy too. Ah, I need Connor's password.” He moved aside and looked away as Abby typed in the password. It was more out of habit than respecting privacy or security; it really didn't matter if he knew Connor's password or not.
Abby moved away and decided to give him space to work. She felt a little lost; useless almost. There was no way she'd even begin to understand Connor's notes, and it seemed Matt needed to be on his own for a while. All she could do was sit back and wait. Climbing onto the bed, she leaned back and closed her eyes. The constant tap tap tap of the keys on the computer should have driven her crazy, but it was a comfort; a familiar sound that meant work was being done.
Matt also felt useless. After getting the generator started, there wasn't anything else for him to do. He paced around the room, clearly agitated. Abby suggested that he went to the armoury to see if he could salvage any weapons. He'd agreed that was good idea and went off, much to Abby's relief. She didn't think they would actually need any weapons, but at least it gave Matt something to do. Abby just kept Nathan supplied with coffee and chocolate whilst he studied every single piece of Connor's work in the hope of finding something of use.
“Well this explains what happened with that giant anomaly,” Nathan said, nodding at the screen. Abby came over to look. The calculations meant nothing to her, but clearly they meant something to Nathan. “When Matt took Connor’s small anomaly into the core of Burton’s giant anomaly, the poles repelled each other. It seemed to work temporarily, but what it resulted in was a wave of gamma radiation - bit like the aftershock you get when a powerful earthquake hits, but more deadly.”
Abby nodded. It made sense; when the ARC had become infested by the deadly beetles that came through Connor’s prototype anomaly, Connor had reversed the polarity of it to create a wave of gamma radiation that would kill all the beetles. This was exactly the same, except it was on a disastrous scale. Knowing what had happened didn’t make things any better. Maybe Connor should have realised something like this would happen; perhaps he did but took a chance that it might work. Doing nothing would have resulted in Burton succeeding.
“What's a dating calculator?” Nathan asked suddenly.
Abby came over and looked at the screen. “It's a device Connor invented a little while back. We can use it to give us an idea of what date the anomaly leads to.”
“Before the anomaly machine itself?” Abby nodded. “Then this doesn't make sense, unless... Was Connor working on something else?”
“I have no idea. Connor kept a lot of things secret when he started working for Prospero.” Abby sighed. “Have you found something?”
Matt came back from the armoury carrying a couple of EMDs and some power packs. He placed them down on the bed and came and joined Abby behind Nathan.
“It looks like Connor was thinking about how to rewire the dating calculator to combine it with the anomaly machine.” Nathan leaned back and stretched his stiff neck.
“For the purpose of?” Matt asked.
“Controlling the anomaly.” A smile spread across Abby's face. “Connor was trying to make it so that he could decide when and where the anomaly opened to.”
“That's what it looks like to me.”
“How far along was he with it?” Matt said, moving closer.
“Purely theoretical as far as I can tell,” Nathan said. “Just circuit diagrams and notes.”
“Damn it!” Matt slammed his hand down on the table then walked away. Abby felt her heart sink too. Theory was not much better than nothing at all. She turned away too, blinking back the tears forming in her eyes. The longer this went on, the more hopeless it felt.
Nathan was frowning at the screen. “Where is this dating calculator?”
“Connor would have had it on him when he went to Kings Cross. It's probably destroyed,” Matt said.
“No he didn't. He left it in the lab when he went to try and stop Philip from getting to New Dawn. It should still be there. Why?” Abby asked.
“Because I think I might be able to follow Connor's notes and turn the theory into reality.” Nathan grinned, and both Abby and Matt looked at each other.
“Are you saying you think you can create an anomaly exactly where we need it to be?” Matt hardly dare hope.
“Assuming Connor's calculations are correct, then yes; that's exactly what I'm saying.”