In Pursuit of a Predator
Summary: When Old City Sanctuary hears of what might be an abnormal predator in Montanna, Magnus takes Ashley, Will, Henry and Erica with her to investigate. But this leaves The Sanctuary perilously short handed with only Kate and Druitt...
Rating: T for themes and suggestion, a pretty weak T to be honest. Much cleaner than what it follows.
Spoilers: Within the show, potentially all of season 1 and 2. In season 3, Animus and For King and Country (sort of). No others. This is the fifth in my series of sanctuary fics which runs: Monster, Freedom, Sleeping Bear, Turn Again. You must read all of these before this one, or this one will make very little sense. They deviate progressively from canon.
Set: Monster takes the place of Kali, Freedom a few weeks after For King and Country. All else follows from there. In real-world time, late 2010.
Disclaimer: This world belongs to Tapping, Wood and Kindler alone. Only the plots are mine.
"Helen." Magnus blinked. She'd been dozing, John had woken half an hour ago and woken her. He hadn't meant to. He rarely slept through a night uninterrupted. She turned her head to look at him in the darkness. "Did I wake you again?"
"I wasn't asleep. What is it?"
"I just wanted to say that – that if anything comes of this, I won't desert you again." Magnus blinked.
"John,"
"Whatever happens Helen, I promise I will not desert you again. I know I failed you, but-"
"John, don't." He fell silent. "For one thing, you didn't mean to desert me with Ashley, I don't blame you for that. For another, nothing can come of this, not in that sense." He frowned at her. She propped herself up on an elbow. "I'm amenorrhoeic. I have been more or less since about 1900. Most female mammals don't become infertile because of degenerative change, they have a set number of cycles they can have, then they stop. Every so often, I have a regenerative cycle and I'm fertile for a year or so, I used that to bear Ashley, but they're heralded by a characteristic type of abdominal pain, which I haven't had for a while. Now kiss me, then we should probably get up."
o0o0o0o
Will nodded at Magnus in greeting as he walked in to her office, Ashley, Bigfoot, Henry and Erica close behind him. He flopped down in to an armchair.
"Will," Magnus started, "while we're waiting for the other two, have you had any joy with Ciera?" Will hesitated. Ciera was one of the abnormals they'd snatched the better part of a year ago, the time they'd nearly been gassed to death.
"I said she was damaged, that's still true, but she's starting to believe she can be helped, and your guess was right Ashley. She is sort of an empath, but she couldn't tell what anyone's feeling right now, she feels traces, impressions left in places where particularly strong emotions have been felt, or so she says."
Magnus raised her eyebrows. "Unusual, possibly unique."
"It's odd to watch, it took me a while to figure out how to get her up to ground level. She just will not walk through the main lab, the only couple of times we've tried it, she's burst in to tears and run back the way she came, and she couldn't even articulate what she'd felt." A shutter closed behind Magnus's eyes. She looked down. So whatever Ciera was feeling in the main lab had been Magnus. And Magnus did not want to remember it. Ashley had also looked away from the group straight at a wall.
Orangey-red light flashed in the corridor. Kate and John walked in.
"Sorry Helen."
"Not to worry, you're only a minute late." There was no pretence between the two of them now. Everyone knew they were sleeping together, nobody, except Ashley, minded. Will was sort of almost relieved. "Henry, Erica," Magnus continued "you said you had something for us."
"Yeah." Henry sat himself up straighter. "Something interesting came up in the CAMM files-"
"The bunch we stole a few from, so they went nuts and zombie-bombed us?" Kate asked.
Henry nodded. "Wasn't fun." Will privately agreed. He couldn't remember being sick with the virus, but the fight before that and how tired Magnus had been afterwards would have been enough, even if he hadn't gone and read Magnus's clinical notes.
"Yeah, but we're not scared of them." Ashley put in. "I think we scared them pretty good. They haven't been back for more." Magnus looked deliberately at Henry.
"So yeah, they've been gathering reports from an area out in Montana of something they seem to think is an Abnormal. We went and did some digging and it looks like there's something in it. All the reports are around one town, and there are a lot of them for the size of the area."
"What sort of abnormal is being reported?" Magnus asked.
Henry hesitated. "Sketchy. I kind of assumed it was a predator because of a lot of the reports are based on dead deer and rabbits and stuff." Magnus and Ashley frowned simultaneously.
"So why an abnormal predator?" Magnus asked.
"Couple of things don't fit. First, there just aren't wolves, or mountain lions, coyotes, not even many bears, and people have looked."
"You think the abnormal scares them off?" Ashley asked.
"Well nobody's found any other reason." Erica answered.
"There's also what it's killing." Henry continued. "Lots of deer, lots of mountain goats, almost no cattle. Other ranches in the state lose one animal in four hundred per year, this place it's more like four thousand." Magnus raised her eyebrows. "And people find wolf tracks now and then, but they can never follow them. Even a pack of more than ten, the trail just vanished." Magnus shifted her weight back. She'd made her decision.
"Definitely worth a look. Good find Henry."
"We can't just walk in there though. The locals don't like scientists much."
"They know something?" Will suggested. Henry nodded.
"But they don't mind hikers. They have a guest house and stuff."
"So under cover?" Ashley asked. Henry nodded. "Cool. I'm in."
"Will, if dealing with the locals is likely to be a problem, I want you on this one."
Will nodded. "Sure. There's nothing here I can't leave."
Magnus was eyeing people in the room thoughtfully. "Not you." She said to Druitt. "I'd rather leave one teleporter here if we can." Ashley relaxed slightly. "Henry, do you want to come? You found it?" Henry hesitated and glanced at Erica.
"Can we both come?"
"Doctor Magnus," Erica started, "Ashley's been helping me with the stunners. I ought to be able to track like Henry can, I've just never tried." Magnus thought for a moment.
"So if you both came, it would be you two and Bigfoot left." She pointed to Kate and Druitt. "Kate, are you happy holding the fort down here?"
"You sure?"
"Bigfoot refuses to lead anything and you've been here longer than John."
"I guess then. How long'll you be gone?"
"We'll probably only be scouting around. Four days at the most."
Kate nodded. "OK. We should be able to handle that."
Magnus smiled. "Good. Can we leave tomorrow morning at, say, nine?" Nobody objected. "Then meeting dismissed. I'm sure you all have things to do." Will certainly did. He got up with the rest and set off after Erica. People started to split off, Kate and Ashley went one way, arguing about what sounded like pros and cons of buying something, Henry and Erica went the other.
"So if we're going to be away for a few days, what do we need to do about system maintenance?" She was asking.
"We just ask the techs at another Sanctuary to do it for us. It's not usually a problem." Will wanted to wait until as few people as possible were in earshot. He glanced over his shoulder. Nobody else was in sight.
"Hey, Erica!" She stopped and looked back. So did Henry. Will caught up with them. "Can I talk to you for a moment?" Henry understood that, so started walking again.
"Is this about field work?" Erica asked.
"Yeah, it is. I just wanna check you've thought this through. Most of the time in the field, we're fine, but every so often, it all goes insane, even on missions we're not expecting it to. It gets scary, it gets dangerous. My question is do you know how you're going to cope with that.?"
"You mean do I know I might end up changing?" Will nodded once. Erica drew breath slowly. "Yes." She glanced away. "It doesn't scare me as much as it did, I've got a better idea of how strong I am and…" she paused, as though wondering how to word something "and I trust, for want of a better word, that I'll still be me if it does happen. Henry says it's his default fall back in a fight now."
"What do you think made that change?" Erica shrugged.
"Just spending time in HAP form I think, and realising that I still think like me." Will smiled. She smiled back. He'd seen her and Henry chasing round the Sanctuary a couple of times.
"OK. I'm glad you're more comfortable now."
Amenorrhoeic: Does not have menstrual periods, therefore is not fertile.
I doubt this will get many readers, but if you're here, please let me know what you think