Primeval Series 4
Episode 2: He Ain't Heavy
Chapter 1
"Slow down!" Danny called, striding through the half light after his new-found brother.
"No time," Kiran called back. "The Imperial Guard will already be aware of the bar fight, and of your disappearance. They may be stupid, but it won't take even them long to work out our involvement."
"Our?" Danny echoed, reaching out a hand to steady himself against the wall of the descending stairway.
"The Rebels. The sub-humans. The underdogs, whatever you want to call us."
"I always did like championing the underdog!" Danny quipped.
"Never was it meant so literally as here," his brother growled.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'll tell you later," Kiran stopped so suddenly that Danny nearly walked into him. He turned to face his brother before he spoke again. "From here on in we go as quickly and as quietly as possible," he said. "The stairs are going to start spiralling down in a minute and, when they do, we'll be right next to the central shaft. The sensors in there for the lifts will pick up any odd vibrations through the plas-steel walls, so you keep close and keep quite and you do not touch the wall on the inside of the curve. Understand?"
Danny nodded mutely. Kiran turned and picked up speed again.
XXXX
The anomaly winked out behind them and darkness descended, enveloping them in a cloak of silent black so still that Connor felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He shivered. Through their linked hands, he felt Abby do the same. He couldn't see her, it was too dark for that, so he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her hand.
"Where are we?" Abby asked, her voice no more than the shadow of a whisper. In the dense silence, it was enough.
"No idea," Connor replied, his voice not quite as quiet.
"Shh, what if there are predators?" Abby hissed.
"If there's anything like that here, they'll know about us long before we know about them whether we talk or not," Connor hissed back. "Besides, this is as quiet as I get!"
A scuttling sound broke through the silence and Abby froze, sucking in a long breath, as something small and furry ran over her foot.
"What? What is it?" Connor asked in his best version of a whisper.
"Something's here," Abby squeaked.
"What kind of something?"
The small furry creature squeaked and rubbed its back against Connor's boot. He reached down and picked it up.
"This kind of something?" Connor asked, guiding Abby's hand to the errant proto-mammal.
"That'll be it," she sighed, relaxing and scratching the creature behind the ears. "There's always one, isn't there? Lester's going to kill us if we bring another pet home!"
"As long as we get home, I'll be happy," said Connor, fishing around in his pockets with one hand. "Here, hold this little guy for a minute."
"What are you doing?" Abby asked, taking the squirming fur-ball in both hands.
"Well, I'm betting," Connor began, audibly concentrating on something Abby could not see, "that this chap... can see much better in the dark... than we can." Abby felt him slip something over the creature's head and forelimbs. "There, that should do the trick."
"What did you do, Connor?" Abby reminded.
"I made a little halter for him, didn't I," he said, scratching the animal under the chin and taking him back from Abby. "If we keep a hold of his lead he might be able to lead us out of here!"
"Connor, it's pitch black and this thing likes caves. What makes you think it'll even try to lead us out of anywhere, and what makes you think there's an out for it to lead us to! We might be outside already for all we know!"
"Nah, too dark: there's no stars, no moonlight. Plus there's no movement of air and it's far to still and quiet for outdoors."
"And the creature?"
"He'll be looking for food, won't he? Or water. He'll lead us to that."
"And if the food want's to eat him? Or us?"
Connor seemed to consider that for a moment.
"Okay, not the best outcome," he admitted, grudgingly, "but what other options do we have?"
XXXX
So her head had been exaggerating a little bit, so what? Sarah rolled her eyes and shuddered as Professor Mackenzie performed the autopsy on the giant cockroach now lying on its back with its feet in the air on a table in the middle of the lab. It was how she preferred to see cockroaches, admittedly, but this one still gave her the heebie jeebies! Mack had been calling out numbers to his assistant for half an hour now. Carapace one hundred and five point three centimetres. Antennae one hundred and seventy point three eight centimetres. Body length sixty five point zero eight centimetres. Head forty point two two centimetres. And so on...
Sarah watched as Mackenzie cut into the body of the beast. Some of the bullet holes had gone straight through, leaving damp trails of blue-grey goo smeared across its underside. Haemocyanin, apparently. Curiosity began to get the better of Sarah and she edged closer to the autopsy table. The professor had both hands inside the creature, out of sight.
Suddenly a leg twitched. Sarah screamed and pressed herself flat against the lab wall.
"Nothing to worry about, Doctor Page," Mack said smoothly, without bothering to look up. "Just finding out what bits connect to where."
Sarah unstuck herself from the wall.
"You know, I really should go and check on Becker. I'm sure there's some paperwork he usually fills in for these things."
"All taken care of, Doctor Page," said the professor. "Carrington's taken over Becker's duties while he's out of the field. He'll deal with that."
Carrington was Becker's second in command. It was he who had led the military team at the quarry anomaly. The anomaly the cockroach had come through. Sarah winced as another leg twitched on the autopsy table. It really was quite lifelike.
"All the same," she said, edging to the door, "I'm sure he'd like to feel included..."
XXXX
The thought struck Danny that, if he ever needed to find his way back to the bar, or even the palace, he could never have done so. The myriad maze of tunnels, corridors, stairways and now streets that he had followed his brother through were impossible to keep track of. Even after they veered off, away from the central shaft of the tower and the occasional buzz of the super speed lifts, they hadn't spoken. He was so out of breath from the journey, Danny didn't think he could have said much if he had wanted to, but Kiran's warning had made him wary enough to keep silence until told otherwise. Finally stopping in a foul smelling alleyway, he took a moment to catch his breath while he watched the younger - or was he older now? - man pull something off of a vehicle. What caught Danny's attention first was the lack of wheels.
"Get in," said Kiran, sliding back a door in the dark, streamlined box.
Wordlessly, Danny nodded and climbed inside. Moments later, Kiran followed him, closed the door and knocked twice on the wall behind him. There was a low hum and a sense of rising, followed by a sense of movement, and Danny felt his body pressed back into the seat.
Lights rose almost imperceptibly inside the hover car, as Danny had now decided it must be. The windows were either black or non-existent, though, as he could see nothing outside of it. He looked expectantly at his brother.
"Yes, you can talk now," Kiran answered. "We're safe in here."
"What happened to you? We thought you were dead!"
"I nearly was," Kiran shrugged. "The truth is, I'm still not sure. All I remember is that one minute we're creeping around this spooky old house, for a dare of course, looking for something to take back to prove we'd actually gone in, and Bobby and I spot this light coming from one of the rooms. We go in. I go over to the light, he walks round the room. I put out my hand and it disappears in the light. I take it out, and it's back. The only difference is, my hand feels warmer in the light than out. So I stick my head through and I see this whole other landscape stretching out in front of me. Massive trees and green everywhere. I walk through and there I am, in this other world. I look back and the light's still there on the other side, so I think fine: I'll have a wander round and then go back. It might be Narnia or something.
"Suddenly Bobby comes pelting through the light, screaming at the top of his lungs. And after him comes this... thing. This creature that suddenly goes from the sort of mottled orange of the walls of the room, to the green of the forest around us. Well, the two of us just ran, helter skelter, through the trees as fast as our legs could carry us. When we run out of breath, we finally stop and look around. There's nothing but trees. As far as you could see in every direction, just trees. No creatures, no light. And of course, once we'd finished turning round in circles looking at this, we've no idea what direction we've come from. We walked for a bit, following the land downhill. Neither of us really wanted to go back to the light in case the creature was there, and the running had made us thirsty, so we were hoping there was a stream down there. There was, as it turned out, so we got our drink. That was when we saw the second light. It was across the stream and into the forest a bit.
"We waded across the stream. That wasn't too hard, it was shallow enough and only a couple of metres across. It was climbing the bank on the other side that was the problem. It was quite steep, you see, and muddy. I was taller, so I could reach the top and pull myself up. Bobby had to try and climb up using bits of roots sticking out of the mud. He was having a hard time of it, so I stuck a hand down to him to pull him up. That was when I saw the creature on the other bank. I couldn't pull him up fast enough. The thing was across the stream in one jump and straight onto his back. I heard the screams stop when I was running for the light, so I know he died quickly..." Kiran paused, rubbing a hand across his eyes, his forehead lined. "When I got through the light, I remember being surprised to find I wasn't back in the house. I don't know why: I knew it wasn't the same light I went through. Instead, I had this field stretching out in front of me with thousands and thousands of the things. Every light shining like a whole galaxy of miniature stars. The light behind me was still there, so I didn't think, I just picked one at random and ran for it. As soon as I was through, I fell over. It's hard to run in swampland. I thought I was dead. If the creature didn't catch up with me, something else would. Once I picked myself up, though, I saw the light start doing something weird. It pulsed for a bit, like somebody who feels a sneeze coming on and starts taking those weird deep breaths, then it just vanished. Completely disappeared right in front of me!
"I didn't know what to do. I was completely and utterly lost! I had no idea where I was. I thought I was in another world, on a whole other planet or something. I just turned and wandered. It took me half a day to get out of the swamp. When I did, there was this hut on stilts half built into one of the swamp trees. I don't know what I expected to find, I just went straight up to the door, knocked politely and then, when it was opened to me, collapsed on the front porch."
Danny whistled, his eyebrows raised. "Where were you? How did you get here?" he asked.
"I don't know exactly," Kiran scratched his head absently. "I next woke up in the hut, in a high cot built hanging from the wall. The people who looked after me didn't speak our version of English, but there were a few words I began to recognise. I had some kind of fever though, and I was slipping in and out of it for days. Then, one day, I just woke up here. In the healing rooms, that is. From a dark, wooden swamp hut to the pristine white of the palace healing rooms in the blink of an eye. The people there were different. Well: you've seen them. I met the old kalif then, and Hisham, his youngest son as he was at the time. Pretty much grew up with him. We taught each other our languages, our customs, everything. We were best friends. Then Hisham's eldest brother dies in some weird accident. I wasn't there, but he was. Suddenly everything changes. He refuses to see me. He doesn't return my messages. I felt like I didn't know him any more. Then one day comes the message that I must gather my belongings and leave, on pain of death," Kiran shrugged. "So I did."