Oh, You Pretty Things
(Sequel to Bad Penny)
Chapter 1
"Just be careful, that's all I'm saying."
Sir James Lester kept his voice low and serious. He could see from Becker's face that his advice was not welcome.
"It's not like we're going to run off into the sunset together and leave you in the lurch!" Becker hissed.
"You know I don't think that!" Lester snapped. "You also know the dangers of getting involved with someone. Especially coming from your background and in your current situation! I did not train you to be this naive!"
"No, you trained me to trust my own judgement! That is what I'm doing!"
"Not when your judgement is impaired by your feelings for someone!"
"Are you seriously telling me that I should look forward to a life with out the possibility of any form of relationship other than a working one?" Becker hissed, the anger he felt showing clearly in his face. "A wife and kids is all right for the great James Lester, but woe betide anyone else who dares to consider the possibility!"
"That's entirely different!" Lester replied, his tone icy.
"How so?"
"My family are completely separate from work," Lester hissed. "The two worlds do not come into contact, not even in the slightest. Besides: I only have the one identity to worry about. Have you considered that at all? When precisely are you planning on telling her who you really are? First date? When you propose? Wedding day perhaps? Or even never? What kind of a relationship would that be?"
Becker opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the warning siren sounding from the ARC atrium. Another anomaly had opened. The argument would have to wait.
XXXX
Connor stared blankly at the shimmering anomaly in front of him. It winked out suddenly and a clutch of scientists bustled around the spot where it had been. When they had hurried back to their posts, behind the safety of their computer screens, a small, metallic object became visible beneath the anomaly point. It was the newest design of the anomaly rover. It had been upgraded and updated and upmarketed until it covered every possible contingency that could befall it on the far side of any anomaly, with the possible exceptions of volcanoes, deep sea abysses and black holes. Connor's mind registered that the rover was in place, and that all his team were ready for the new test, but was far too preoccupied to give the signal they were all waiting for.
It had been over a month since the warning from Nick and the first text that coincided with the anomaly activity. Now the texts seemed to be arriving every other day. At first, some of them arrived on their own. Now they all came through at the exact moment an anomaly spiked. Anomalies never spiked without a text message arriving, and the text messages never arrived without an anomaly spiking. Even the ones that had arrived before had done so without the presence of the anomaly at all. There was no way to tell whether the spike in the anomaly activity was directly linked to the message, or just a side effect. At least there hadn't been until yesterday.
Yesterday was the first time one of his team had also received a text message during an anomaly run. It was just a silly thing from Nigel's mother asking him for advice on something, but it had come through while the anomaly was open nonetheless. And the anomaly hadn't spiked.
That had raised questions in Connor's mind. Did Nigel's one message prove that Connor's many messages were linked to the anomaly? Or did it have something to do with where the message had been sent from or the fact they had different service providers? Was Nigel's message an anomaly in itself? Connor had become so used to using the word to describe the shimmering rips in the fabric of reality that he had almost forgotten its true meaning.
Someone was calling his name. Connor looked up. It was Peta. They were ready. He shook himself and drew a hand across his eyes. The rover could tell them so much more about the anomaly as it formed and what lay within it, never mind what lay on the other side. He pressed a few buttons on his keyboard and watched the live feed from the rover's super slow motion high definition camera fill the screen. He clicked the record button and raised a hand to signal Peta.
The anomaly burst onto his screen, filling the view far faster than his own eyes could pick out any detail. Later they would rewind the recording and watch it in super slow motion. Now they had to make sure the rover would transmit through the anomaly in the same detail. At least they knew that the Triassic landscape beyond was relatively harmless. The occasional nothosaurus, having wandered over the rocks and away from its usual part of the beach, might come across the rover and decide to try and eat it, but they couldn't do it that much damage. Connor picked up his control pad for the rover and edged the lever forward. The glare on his screen cleared and a new picture took over.
Connor's startled reaction made the rest of the team rush from their places to his computer. The look of mute shock that covered his face had stayed rigid as they gathered round, their faces gradually mimicking his own. Whisperings and mutterings filled the air around Connor as he struggled to take in the view in front of him. Only one thing ran through his mind. One phrase filled his consciousness until he was deaf and blind to everything else.
It's not the beach.
XXXX
"What have we got?" Lester demanded as he reached the small group in the atrium.
"It's in London, sir," replied Margo, the new anomaly detector operator who had taken over from Nigel when Connor's team left. "North Kensington. A school, by the looks of things. Printing out the address now, sir."
Cutter looked from the map in front of them to Lester's face and back, then glanced at Abby. Abby looked round at Lester, then back to Cutter. She shrugged and shook her head.
"Lester?" Cutter asked. "What's wrong?"
"Get everyone on it," Lester snapped, his face uncharacteristically white. He snatched the printout from Margo and handed it to Becker without moving his eyes from the screen. "I want all civilians out of that area without any casualties. Tell them it's a training exercise for you. Tell them it's a gas leak. Tell them it's an emergency drill for them. Anything! Just get there, get them out and get it sorted! Now!"
Becker was off before Lester had finished his speech, with Cutter and Abby following him closely. As they reached the Jeep, Becker finally slowed down to give orders to his men.
"Call Kate, get her to meet us there," he said, giving the slip of paper with the address to Abby. He swung himself into the driving seat of the vehicle as Abby climbed in behind him, one hand already dialling, and Cutter sat down next to him.
"What's going on?" Cutter demanded. "I know these things aren't usually a walk in the park but there's more to this than usual. More urgency. And Lester? My God, he looks as though the polar ice caps have just melted!"
"In Lester's world, right now, they may as well have done," Becker replied, accelerating out of the ARC campus. "The anomaly is right in the middle of his son's primary school."