fic: into the woods 1/2
FANDOM: PRIMEVAL
Title: Into the Woods (1/2)
Word Count: 5,710 (this part... eek!)
Rating: M (this part is PG though)
Pairing: Becker/Jess
Spoilers: None really
Warning: It's almost 6,000 words and nothing really happens...? :/
Summary: An anomaly alert in Norway means that Jess has to join the soldiers in the field, something that Captain Becker is not happy about. Jess is determined to prove herself, but it's easier said than done.
A/N - This is a Holiday Exchange present for seren_ccd and is already late because I'm useless and have also been very busy over the Christmas period... but mostly useless. Proof of said uslessness is that this massive chunk of story is only half of the finished product - I'm still working on the second part and should get it posted either tomorrow night or, by the latest, Saturday morning. I'm very very sorry for the delay!!
Also, I don't know how this story got so long, I really don't. It's insane. It just keeps growing and growing and I can't stop it. So I also apologise that you have to read this behemoth!
I'm not going to post the prompt until the end of the story because it would totally give away what happens in it. This part is very much setting up the second part.
I'm going to shut up now because y'all have enough to read below as it is!!
Into the Woods
The anomaly alert went off at noon, just as Jess was thinking about going to get lunch. Typical, really - it had been far too quiet and peaceful that morning. She rushed over to the ADD as the supercomputer went to work locating the anomaly, and footsteps in the hallway heralded the rest of the team heading her way.
“What we got?” Matt asked as he and Becker rounded the corner into the Hub. Jess barely glanced at them, instead staring at the screen as the ADD zoned in on the anomaly. It was taking a bit longer than it usually did.
“Hang on, it’s still -” Jess frowned as the location of the anomaly came up on the screen. “Um… it’s in Norway.”
Abby, Connor and Emily arrived at the ADD just in time to hear Jess’ announcement, and all five of the field team stared at her for a moment.
“Norway?” Becker said eventually.
Jess nodded. “Yep.”
“You’re kidding,” Connor said.
Jess shook her head. “Nope.”
Matt stepped round the desk so he was standing next to Jess. “There haven’t been any overseas anomalies since Convergence,” he said, sounding worried. Jess knew what he was implying and was already running a check on another screen. “Is there anything -”
Jess was already shaking her head. “No, it’s just the one,” she assured him. “It reads like a completely normal anomaly… it’s just in Norway. It’s in Oppland. On a mountain.”
Becker groaned. “This is going to be a logistical nightmare,” he said. Jess pursed her lips - he didn’t need to tell her that, since she’d be the one coordinating said nightmare.
“What are you all standing around here for?” Lester snapped from behind them, making the whole team start and look round at him. He raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t there an anomaly?”
Jess span her chair round so she was facing Lester properly. “Yep,” she said. “In Norway.”
Lester stared at her for a moment. “Huh,” he said.
“I don’t suppose there’s a Norwegian ARC team that can deal with this?” Abby asked dryly.
“Unfortunately not,” Lester said, equally dry. “I’d better call the Minister.”
The ADD beeped behind Jess and she quickly spun round again to look at her screens - the signal from the anomaly was growing weaker, and the locators were scrambling. “Wait a minute,” she said, tapping a few keys. “It’s… it’s gone.” And it had. The anomaly had closed, mere minutes after it had opened.
“It closed,” Matt said, leaning over Jess to see the screens.
“Stroke of luck,” Connor said, also leaning round to see the screens.
“Maybe,” Becker said tersely. He was standing beside the desk with his arms folded, and looked tense. Jess fought the urge to roll her eyes at his ominous announcement. Connor did roll his eyes, something that Becker noticed - he scowled at him. “Something could have come through,” he explained needlessly. Yes, it was a possibility, but the anomaly had only been there a few minutes.
“Stand down for now,” Lester said, shifting everyone’s attention back to him. “Jess, keep an eye on communications in the area - look out for any potential sightings.” Jess nodded, and Lester looked over at Becker. “Becker, come up with a contingency plan for taking a team there. Hopefully we won’t need it.” He nodded to them all and headed back to his office.
The team drifted off, back to whatever they were doing, but Becker stayed behind. Jess started tapping commands into the ADD. “I’ll send you coordinates for the site and any other information I have,” she told him.
He nodded. “Thanks,” he said. “I hope we don’t need to go - it really would be a nightmare.”
Jess smiled. “What, you don’t fancy doing some dinosaur hunting in Oppland?” She said teasingly. “Change of scenery and all that?”
Becker raised an eyebrow at her, but Jess could see he was amused. “Not in December,” he said flatly.
Jess shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “It was open for less than three minutes. I very much doubt something came through.”
“Yeah, because we’re just that lucky.”
XXX
It was three days before the first potential sightings came through. In that time Jess had been lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that she was right and nothing had come through the anomaly… but of course Becker was right about their luck. Something had come through, and the only reason there hadn’t been more sightings was because the anomaly site was in the middle of a forest on the side of a mountain and there weren’t exactly that many people around.
By the end of day four Jess had a handful of sightings that just couldn’t be ignored, and she joined Matt and Becker in Lester’s office for a planning meeting that none of them wanted to be at.
“I’ve gone over the reports with Abby and Connor, and they think it’s a woolly rhinoceros,” Jess explained to the others. “It’s from the Pleistocene, and it’s exactly what it sounds like - a big rhino with wool.”
“How big?” Becker asked.
“About three metres long, which corresponds with our reports,” Jess told him.
“Woolly rhinos didn’t live in forests,” Matt said.
“No, they didn’t - they’re more suited to tundra, so I imagine it’s pretty disoriented,” Jess said.
“Excellent, so we have a ticked off giant rhinoceros loose in the middle of Norway,” said Lester. “Becker?”
“It’s going to be a nightmare, but it’s doable,” said Becker. He placed a tablet computer on Lester’s desk and brought up a map of the area. “The anomaly site is here, but the sightings have been further north,” he said, pointing to the map. Jess could see at a glance that the area was steep and very wooded… and over 700 feet above sea level. “It’s moving north, up the mountain, so I propose taking a team out there and closing in on it.”
“We've talked about it, and we think taking the field team out there will be a waste of time,” Matt said. “We couldn’t all go anyway, given that at least a few of us have to stay here in case of any other anomaly alerts. So Becker and his men are going to handle this one.”
Becker nodded. “So the plan is that I take fourteen men -”
“Fourteen?” Lester cut in. “That’s rather a lot.”
Becker gave him a look that Jess thought of as his ‘high military’ look.
“I know, but it’s necessary,” Becker said. “We have no way of tracking the creature - the sightings are all from yesterday, though we may have only heard about them today. The region is very sparsely populated, the nearest village to the anomaly site is over ten miles away. The only people that go into the forest are hunters and hikers, and there aren’t many of either around at the beginning of December. We’re going to need to split into three teams and move in, create a perimeter and close in on the creature. And let’s hope that there’s only one.”
“Abby says there should be only one,” Jess said. “They’re pretty solitary.”
Becker nodded, and Lester sat forward. “Very well,” he said. “How will you get there?”
“We’ll fly to this airbase, and take three separate helicopters to the area,” Becker said. “Unfortunately the area’s far too densely wooded to land where we want to, so we’re going to have to land in these areas,” -he pointed out several places on the map - “and hike in. That will probably take about half a day.”
“Norway in December… how cold is it going to be?” Lester asked.
“It shouldn’t be too bad,” Becker said. “Luckily the mountain the anomaly formed on, Surtningssue, is one of the smallest in the area and isn’t a glacier like a lot of the ones around it. Also the weather’s been pretty mild in Europe in recent months, so there won’t be much snow on the ground. We’ll be fine.”
“Say the name of the mountain again,” Jess said.
Becker looked at her. “Surtningssue.”
Jess grinned. “Now say it three times, really fast,” she said.
“Yes, thank you, Miss Parker,” Lester said flatly, though Jess could see his lip twitching. Becker gave Jess a mock glare before turning back to his map but she could tell he was trying not to smile as well.
“Once we’re in position we’ll close in until we get close enough to neutralise it.”
“Abby is already making room for it in the menagerie,” Jess told them. None of them looked particularly happy with that announcement, but they didn’t say anything. Jess knew they didn’t want the rhino to end up dead - they were just thinking of how much trouble it was going to be to transport the creature back to the ARC. She’d been thinking the same thing.
Oh well. They needed to catch it first.
“Alright, onto logistics,” said Lester.
“We’ll leave tomorrow morning - early,” Becker said. “As I said we’ll split into three teams of five and move in -”
“Yes, that’s fine,” Lester cut in. “The Minister has spoken to the Norwegians and they’re not particularly happy about us taking care of this ourselves…”
“Oh don’t say it…” Becker said, closing his eyes.
“But they’ve agreed, reluctantly,” Lester finished. Becker looked extremely relieved, but Lester wasn’t finished. “However, they have some conditions.”
“Of course they do.”
“First of all, they’ve established their own perimeter in the area.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, they’re well away from any danger,” Lester said. He looked to Jess to back him up, and she nodded.
“That’s right,” she said. “Basically local law enforcement have closed off all of the usual trails into the woods - it will actually work in your favour, since you won’t have to worry about any members of the public wandering too close to the anomaly site.”
Becker didn’t look completely convinced, but he nodded. “Okay."
"They're going to have to be fed up-to-date positions, and we're going to have to monitor for any further sightings otherwise their perimeter might not be wide enough," Jess said.
"How will we do that?" Lester asked.
"I'm going to have to coordinate with local law enforcement, I guess via the Norwegian government," Jess said, scribbling on the notepad she'd brought in with her. "They'll have to relay me the positions of the perimeter so that I can make sure they're keeping out of the way. We don't anyone seeing anything... and we really don't want anyone getting hurt."
"This is getting more complicated by the second," Becker said. Jess shrugged and gave him a small smile - he returned it and turned back to Lester.
"Is there anything else?"
Lester nodded. “The Norwegians want to be kept appraised of all developments,” he said. “everything. They want updated accurate positions of your team every half an hour.”
Becker rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “Well, Jess can track us on our black boxes and send through the coordinates - right?” He looked to her expectantly, and Jess shook her head.
“No, it’s not that simple,” she said. “The black boxes won’t transmit that far - they won’t work that far outside the UK. We’re going to have to rely on GPS, but your standard GPS that you get on a smart phone isn’t going to cut it in a region that remote. Standard GPS relies on mobile carriers as much as it does satellites, and of course you’re not going to get a signal halfway up Surt… the mountain.”
Becker quirked an eyebrow at Jess’ complete failure to pronounce Norwegian, before shrugging. “So… what do you suggest?”
“You’re going to need to take heavy-duty hand-held GPS units with you, at least one per team,” Jess said. “They take some time to calibrate but they’ll give the most accurate reading, which will be read by the ADD and relayed to the Norwegians.”
“How long is ‘some time’?” Becker asked.
“A couple of minutes,” said Jess.
Becker sighed. "Are they difficult to use?"
"Not at all," Jess said truthfully. "Though... well..."
"Yes?"
Jess frowned as she thought about it in more detail. "Well, unless the calibration gets out of allignment... which is quite likely, really, given the remote area. In which case... I guess I'll have to recalibrate remotely from the ARC... though that would be complicated, and reliant on at least one of you being able to calibrate manually."
Becker sighed again. "Right."
"And though you'll be able to use radio to communicate between your teams, you won't be able to use radio to contact the ARC - it's too far," Jess said.
Becker nodded - he'd obviously figured that much out. "I know."
"So you'll need satellite phones, and again they'll need to be calibrated," Jess said.
"You'll also need to keep in contact with the ARC as far as possible," Matt said. "It's Jess who's going to have to keep the Norwegians in the loop, and she's also going to have to monitor any sightings and relay the information back to you."
Jess kept scribbling on her pad for another moment, already getting a headache from the logistics of the mission, and when she glanced at Becker she saw that he was frowning as if he felt the same way.
"Becker?" Lester said.
"I'm not sure this will work," Becker said, shaking his head. He looked at Jess and gave her an apologetic smile. "I don't doubt that Jess is going to be able to keep on top of it all, but I have serious doubts that we're going to be able to keep up with all of these checks out in the field. Surely they don't really need us checking in every half an hour."
“I’m sorry but my hands are tied on this,” Lester said flatly. “The Minister had to do enough grovelling to get the Norwegians to agree to let us handle this ourselves, and this was the deal.”
Becker rolled his eyes. “It’s just going to split our focus and make it that much harder to find the damn thing,” he said. "And on top of that you just know that the GPS won't work, and we're going to have to be phoning Jess every half an hour to get her to calibrate everything for us."
Lester pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Perhaps you should have a dedicated member of your team for coordination and logistics,” he said.
Becker shook his head. “Ideally yes, but none of my men are trained for what’s going to be required here,” he said.
Lester shrugged. “Alright, take Jess with you,” he said.
“What?” Jess said, surprised.
“What?!” Becker didn’t just sound surprised - he sounded furious. Jess’ eyes widened a little at his reaction, but she focused on Lester as he kept talking.
“It’s perfect - Jess can concentrate on coordinating your efforts with the Norwegians and touch base with the ARC for updates,” he said. "George can take over at the ADD - it sounds like all of the complicated calibrations will have to be done manually in the field, so Jess will be on hand to deal with all of that, and George can relay messages here at the ARC." He looked at Jess for her reaction, and she nodded. She was a little surprised at the suggestion, but only because she’d never been asked to do something like this before. But Lester was right - this was going to be a tricky operation and she did have the know-how to make it go a lot smoother if she was there on the ground. It also showed a level of confidence in her abilities that she couldn’t but feel a bit flattered by.
Becker, however, didn't seem to see it that way. “It is not perfect, it is very far from perfect,” he said angrily, leaning forward towards Lester.
Lester glared at Becker - Jess knew he didn’t like being argued with like this. “Jess has all the technological knowledge needed and the requisite experience for handling something like this,” he said, calmly but with a touch of steel in his voice. “We’ve already established that coordinating from the ARC is going to cause problems, and you said yourself that you need someone on the ground with you.”
“Yes, but not Jess!” Becker exploded.
“Excuse me?” Jess exclaimed, glaring at Becker. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Becker didn’t even look at her - he just kept glaring at Lester, who was glaring right back. “Jess is the most qualified for the job,” Lester said, starting to sound annoyed.
“This isn’t the Forest of Dean you know,” Becker practically snarled. “We’re going to be hiking through some very difficult terrain in the middle of winter -”
Jess had heard enough. “I’m right here you know,” she snapped. Becker did look at her then, and she glared at him. “I’m well aware of how difficult this is going to be, and that’s exactly why you need me there,” she said.
Becker didn’t look impressed by her reasoning, but Jess turned to Lester before he could protest further. “I’m perfectly happy to go on the mission,” she said. “As I said I’m well aware of the difficulties, and on the ground I’ll be able to coordinate with the local law enforcement and the ARC as well as track the other teams.”
“Excellent, that’s settled then,” Lester said, pushing back his chair and standing up.
Becker immediately jumped to his feet. “This isn’t -”
Lester cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it, Captain,” he said, sounding angry now. “This meeting is over - and you have a mission to prepare for.”
Becker scowled at Lester for a long moment, before turning on his heel and stomping out of the office. Jess watched him leave before turning back to Lester. “Excuse me,” she said darkly. Lester just quirked an eyebrow at her, and Matt looked faintly amused as she stormed past him and out of the office after Becker.
He was already halfway across the Hub, but she could run pretty fast in her heels and caught up with him in a few seconds. She grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop and face her.
“What the hell was that?” She demanded without any preamble.
Becker folded his arms sullenly. “You don’t belong in the field, Jess,” he said matter-of-factly.
Jess shook her head. “I’m the most qualified person to handle this and you know it,” she said.
“You’re not a field agent.”
Jess glared at him. “I can handle myself perfectly fine,” she said.
Becker shook his head. “I meant what I said in there - this isn’t going to be some walk in the woods,” he said tersely. “We’re talking about a thickly forested mountain terrain, in Norway, in December.”
Jess felt indignation rise up in her so strongly she had to fight down the urge to hit him. “I know that,” she hissed. “And I’m telling you I can handle it. I may not be SAS but I’m not some delicate little girl who can’t cope with camping outdoors.”
Becker huffed out an annoyed breath. “I don’t care, you’re not coming,” he said. “Lester will see sense by the end of the day, you’ll see.”
Jess folded her own arms across her chest, mimicking his aggressive stance. “Yes, we will see,” she said, absolutely positive that Lester wouldn’t change his mind. “Meanwhile I’ll be here preparing for the mission. I suggest you do the same.”
Becker scowled at her the exact same way he’d just scowled at Lester, and Jess returned it with one of her own. He dropped his arms and started walking again, heading out of the Hub. Jess watched him go, and couldn’t resist a parting shot at his back.
“See you tomorrow!”
He kept walking. Jess scowled at his back for a moment more before sliding into her seat in front of the ADD and starting to bring up requisition orders for the equipment she was going to have to take into the field. After a few moments, though, she had to stop because her hands were shaking too much for her to type properly.
How dare he? She could understand him having some reservations about her going along, because yes of course she didn’t have the same experience in the field as his men did, but she wasn’t completely hopeless. He must know that she was the only one capable of coordinating all the logistics for them over there… but he hadn’t even acknowledged that she’d be useful. Instead he’d completely humiliated her in front of Lester and Matt by saying that she shouldn’t go.
But more than feeling angry, Jess felt hurt. She’d thought that Becker had some respect for her as a professional, but it was clear now that he just thought of her as a naïve and helpless girl. She thought of those times when he’d called her brilliant, and realised that he must have just been humouring her, teasing her like he always did.
And that hurt more than anything else. She stared blankly at the screens in front of her, afraid for a moment that she was going to start crying, but she didn’t. She shook her head and clenched her hands into fists to stop them shaking before stretching them out and starting to type again.
She’d show him how wrong he was about her.
XXX
Jess got barely any sleep that night, her mind racing over the mission to come and the way Becker was acting. She hadn’t seen him again since their fight, and they’d only communicated through email for the rest of the day - Jess had noticed that Becker cc’d Lester into every single one of the messages he sent her, presumably as a tactic to get their boss to change his mind. He didn’t, though, and Jess was glad to see that at least someone had some faith in her.
By the next morning (though in her opinion 4.30am shouldn’t qualify as morning) Jess had calmed down somewhat. She was willing to give Becker the benefit of the doubt - he was probably under a lot of stress worrying about how complicated this mission would be, and having her along was a variable he hadn’t predicted. She didn’t want things to be awkward between them while they were out in the field, so she’d decided to just put the whole messy business behind her.
With that in mind, she headed straight over to Becker when she’d parked her car at the ARC the next morning (4.30am! Seriously - urgh). Becker and the fourteen other soldiers going on the mission were milling around the underground car park sorting out supplies and loading them into various vans, and she sidled up next to Becker at the back of one of the vans. He was dressed all in black as usual, but Jess noted that the top was a fleece and the trousers were thicker than his usual BDUs.
He gave her a slightly wary look, and Jess smiled and held out a paper cup. “Peace offering,” she said.
Becker smiled back and took the coffee. “Thanks,” he said. He took a sip, looking away from her back into the van. No word of apology or anything like that, Jess noted, but she pushed that thought to the back of her mind. She took a sip of her own coffee, which was almost finished by now.
“Have we got everything?” she asked him.
“Looks like it,” Becker said. “Did you take one of the rucksacks yesterday?”
“Yep,” Jess said. “I wanted to pack it at home. It’s in my car.”
Becker looked like he had something to say about that, but he just nodded. “Right.” He took another sip of coffee. Jess bit back a sigh - so much for things not being awkward between them.
“Nice boots,” Becker said suddenly.
Jess smiled, looking down at her brand new walking boots. Definitely not what she usually wore, but they were surprisingly comfortable and definitely gave her plenty of support. In fact, none of what she was wearing right now was what she usually wore - she’d left work last night and gone straight to Millets, where she’d proceeded to buy everything she thought she might need for a camping trip to Norway. So, she was currently wearing black thermals underneath black hiker’s leggings, a white thermal shirt and a grey fleece jacket, as well as a black fleecy hat. She’d gone for the best ones she could find, hence the distressing lack of colour. The boots were black too.
“Thanks,” she said. “I got them at…” Her voice trailed off as she realised that Becker never commented on her footwear. She would be the first to admit that her taste in shoes veered towards the eccentric, and Becker had seen her come to work in shoes that even she had to admit were on the ridiculous side, but he’d never said a word. So why was he noticing now? Why was he looking at her feet?
Her eyes widened. “Oh my god,” she said, “you actually expected me to turn up in heels, didn’t you?”
Becker shrugged.
Jess glared at him, all thoughts of a truce flying from her mind as her anger and hurt came rushing back - and anger was winning. “How dumb do you think I am?” She hissed at him, before spinning on the heel of her brand new walking boot and stomping back to her car.
She could hear Becker following her, but she didn’t look round. “Jess - Jess wait,” he said from right behind her. She ignored him, pulling open the boot and starting to sort out her stuff. He appeared next to her a moment later.
“Jess I’m sorry,” he said straight away. “I don’t think you’re dumb, I never meant to imply…”
“Whatever,” Jess said, cutting him off. He probably hadn’t meant anything by it consciously, but it was all indicative of a Becker who had no respect for her as a professional, and she didn’t have to stand for it. She put her now-empty cup into a corner of her boot to deal with later and shifted her rucksack so it was standing up. She’d packed incredibly lightly, and it was only about half full - which was good as she’d have a lot of equipment to add to it.
Becker was still standing next to her, and when she glanced at him she saw that he was staring at the rucksack with a scandalised expression. She followed his gaze and knew exactly what he was going to comment on next. She bit back a sigh.
“Is that your sleeping bag?” He said after moment.
“Yes,” Jess snapped. “What about it?”
Becker blinked at her. “It’s pink.”
“Can’t get anything past you, Becker,” Jess said sarcastically.
Becker frowned. “Jess, do you have any idea how cold it’s -”
“I know exactly how cold it’s going to be,” Jess said angrily. “And the colour of my sleeping bag has nothing to do with how warm it’s going to keep me.”
Becker rolled his eyes. “We’ve got army-issue sleeping bags already,” he said.
“Ew, no, those things are never washed,” Jess said straight away. Becker looked like he was about to roll his eyes again, and Jess snapped. “Contrary to what you obviously think I’m not an idiot, and this sleeping bag is a bloody good one.”
Becker looked surprised at her outburst. “I -”
Jess didn’t want to hear it. She hoisted her rucksack onto her shoulder and slammed the boot shut. “Where’s the equipment I requisitioned?” She asked Becker, who was staring at her.
“It’s… in that van there,” he said, pointing the van out.
Jess nodded. “Good,” she said. “I’ll go check on it now.” She started to walk away but changed her mind after a couple of steps. She turned around, reached out and plucked the coffee cup from Becker’s hand, and then kept walking.
Peace offer rescinded.
XXX
The flight to Norway was extremely uncomfortable for Jess. Ordinarily she liked hanging out with the ARC soldiers; they were nice guys, and though they tended to tease her a lot she didn’t mind it at all since she could give out as much banter as she took. However, now it was just awkward. And Jess blamed Becker.
He’d apologised again for implying that she was stupid, so Jess was slightly mollified on that front though far from satisfied. Becker’s men had clearly been warned that Jess was coming on the mission with them as they’d shown no surprise to see her there, and many of them had greeted her as warmly as they always did. It was when they arrived at the military base to get on the plane to Norway that things started to get awkward.
Though he’d apologised, Becker was still very clearly not happy that Jess was coming on the mission, and this was blatantly obvious to all his men. Jess knew they had far too much respect for him to argue with him about it, and she suspected that more than a few of them agreed with him about her being there, and had only been nice to her because they were being polite. That all stopped. The soldiers were all reacting to the tension between her and Becker, and most of them were avoiding even looking at her.
Jess didn’t care so much about the soldiers not talking to her, it just really annoyed her because she thought it was incredibly unprofessional of Becker to let his personal feelings affect the dynamic of the team… and if Becker was one thing, it was professional. So he really, really didn’t want her there, and that just made her angry. And yes, it hurt.
So for the entire trip to Norway Jess sat in her seat glaring out of the window, too wired from her two cups of coffee to calm down her racing mind.
The transfer at the Norwegian military base was handled with - who’d have thought it - military efficiency, and their choppers were ready to leave when they arrived. Becker called them all together for a final word before they split into three teams.
“Right. I want to find this thing quickly, but let’s not be stupid about it,” he said. “This isn’t like an ordinary anomaly alert - if you go down here, Jess isn’t going to be standing by to have paramedics on the scene within five minutes.”
Jess wasn’t sure whether that was praise for her usual efficiency as a field coordinator, or a dig for not overseeing everything from the ARC as usual.
“You all know your drop zones and the perimeter we’re creating. Stay in radio contact - report any sightings or evidence of creature activity immediately. The containment team will stand by here and move in once we have the creature neutralised - it will take them a few hours to get to wherever we are, so if you bring it down be prepared to stay there until they arrive.”
Everyone nodded, and Jess stepped forward with an open box in her hands. “Here, I’ve got black boxes for everyone,” she said.
None of the soldiers moved to take them, and most of them looked at Becker - Jess did too, and saw he was frowning. “I thought you said they don’t work?”
“They don’t - well, they can’t be traced by the ARC,” Jess said. “But I have an idea, and I don’t know if it will work but if it does I need everyone to have a black box. So just switch them on and put them in your pockets.”
Becker looked at her for a moment before nodding - the men all took that as their cue to step forward and grab a black box from Jess.
“Alright, good hunting everyone,” Becker said once they were done. With a final nod the group split into their three teams. Jess handed the now-empty box to one of the containment team and started to head towards their helicopter with the rest of her team, but Becker caught her by the elbow.
“What’s your idea?” He asked her.
“I might be able to programme my GPS to detect the black boxes, and then I’ll be able to relay that data to the ARC instead of the other teams having to calibrate for themselves,” Jess said. It had only occurred to her as a possibility right towards the end of the flight over here, and it was most likely not going to work - but she might as well try, and so everyone needed a black box. She was just glad she'd requisitioned them and brought them along just in case.
Becker was still holding onto Jess’ elbow, staring at her intently. “Well, if you can do that, can’t you stay and monitor us from here?” He said.
Jess’ eyes narrowed. “No I can’t,” she said firmly. “I’d still need to calibrate the GPS from one location, and like I said it’s just an idea.” She stared at him defiantly - he was clearly trying to think of another way to keep her out of the field.
After a few moments Becker’s mouth tightened and he let go of her arm. “Right.”
The two of them started towards the helicopter - the other four members of their team were already on board - and Jess felt her steps get a little heavier the closer they got to it. Everything had happened so fast since the meeting yesterday, and she’d been so preoccupied with being annoyed at Becker, that she hadn’t really thought about the fact that she was actually going on a mission. Properly going on one - not accidentally by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Becker must have seen something in her expression. “Have you ever been in a helicopter?” He asked her suddenly.
“No,” Jess admitted. She looked up at Becker just in time to see him sigh, and she narrowed her eyes again. She was not going to be a useless little girl - she was going to be an asset on this mission, and she would show Becker that he was wrong to doubt her.
Without another glance at Becker, Jess strode purposefully towards the helicopter and climbed aboard.
TBC