Chapter 1
Jess sighed happily as she took the first sip of hot cocoa. It was a luxury she rarely indulged in at work, as it generally made her a little sleepy, but today, she had made an exception. After all, it was Saturday, and there was nothing urgent going on today. There had been a few blind spots she'd noticed in the CCTV system, and she wanted to look into that today. Becker would arrive soon to go over the system with her, and her stomach fluttered a little at the thought. She had to admit she might have scheduled this meeting for a Saturday on purpose, hoping that they might have a bit more peace and quiet than on a regular workday. Who knew, maybe she could persuade him to go out for dinner or a drink afterwards...
And if not, she could look forward to a quiet evening alone at home, as Connor and Abby had gone on a trip to Brighton for the weekend. She still had some of the expensive bath salts her mother had given her for her birthday, and there was a rich Merlot as well as a selection of her favourite films waiting – Casablanca, Breakfast at Tiffany's... all the classics. Although she'd still prefer a Saturday night scenario that involved Becker, she thought with a little smile, and allowed herself to keep thinking about him for a few moments. She had forbidden herself from dwelling on that particular topic for too long, feeling that it would not do to let her feelings get so out of control as to make her unable to work with him. By now, however, what had started out as a little crush, intensified by the occasional flirtation when he responded to her teasing or brought her chocolate, had long since started to turn into so much more.
Of course, after the bomb thing, he had withdrawn from her, so much that she started to think that maybe she had imagined the flirting and he only saw her as a friendly colleague with a sweet tooth or, worse, a kind of little sister. And then, just as she had decided to give up on him before she could say or do any more embarrassing things ("Stay warm!" came to mind) when clearly he had no interest in her, the beetles had happened. And then shortly after the future predators at the ARC. Both incidents had taken place only a few weeks ago, and they were all still too shaken up about the only-just-averted apocalypse, so she hadn't had a chance to talk to him about it all yet. But she knew, now, that there was something there. Both times she had been in danger, he should have been worried about his own life, but he wasn't – he was worried about her. And it didn't take Abby and Emily's conspiratorial glances and nudges for her to realise that maybe he wasn't quite as indifferent to her as she'd begun to think...
Jess' daydreaming was rudely interrupted by a series of shouts and screams from the ops room. Some of the screams were clearly uttered out of fear and confusion, and she wondered if maybe a creature had escaped. But then there were orders bellowed out in a tone she had never heard Becker or any of his men use with the other ARC employees, followed by a series of sharp, echoing bangs that it took her a moment to realise were gunshots, and she knew with icy clarity that somethin was very, very wrong.
In a move she must have picked up from her colleagues on the field team, Jess ducked behind the kitchenette counter, just in time to avoid being seen by the burly man who stepped into the room and took a sweeping look around. From the way he carried himself, as well as a rather intimidating gun, she could instantly tell that he had had some kind of military training – and that he was not here with good intentions. The man was not wearing their security staff uniform – she should know, having spent hours admiring it on a certain Captain. This, in addition to the yelling and the shots which she hoped had only been fired to intimidate rather than to hurt or kill, confirmed her suspicion that there had to be intruders in the ops room, probably the entire building. And if reading the old ARC files had taught her anything, it was to be wary of intruders.
Trying to calm her heavy breathing, Jess remained as quiet as she could until she heard the man leaving again. After his footsteps had faded, presumably as he walked on down the corridor, Jess carefully crept towards the door and slowly inched her head around the door-frame to peer out. She could see all down the corridor and straight into the ops room, where she counted eight armed strangers pointing machine guns at the small group of people who had come in today – lab technicians, cleaning staff, one accountant. She shivered at the sight of terror on their faces, and prayed to God or whatever deity felt responsible that they would not find her.
While Jess was watching, four more of the invaders entered the ops room from the other side, herding in the security staff at gun-point. To her relief, Becker was not among the men – he had either not arrived yet, or had managed to evade the intruders just like her. Either option was comforting. Quietly, Jess withdrew back into her hiding place under the counter, wondering dimly at how much her two years at the ARC had changed her. A mere few months ago, an invasion of armed men at her workplace would have left her petrified with fear and right in the hands of the hostage-takers. Apparently, a few run-ins with bombs, concrete-eating beetles and deadly future predators gave one a whole new set of steely nerves.
Not that she wasn't scared stiff, mind you. Now that Jess felt secure for the moment, she couldn't do much more than sit with her knees pulled up to her chest, listening to her racing heartbeat and wondering frantically what to do. Jess suddenly remembered that, just last night, her Mum had been worried about how tired she sounded on the phone. Mrs Parker had reproached her daughter for working too much, and told her not to put in so much overtime. Right now, Jess wished she had, for once, heeded her mother's advice.
At that moment, there were footsteps approaching again – slow and cautious, but not as heavy as to indicate a return of the burly man who had searched the kitchen before. Nonetheless, Jess' blood froze when the footfalls stopped in front of the door, and then resumed moving - straight towards her. Jess closed her eyes, as if that would allow her to remain undetected, but snapped them open again when she registered someone crouching down beside her.
"Becker! How did you know I was in here? Am I visible from the corridor?" He had to smile at how she whispered the exact question he would ask himself in her situation.
"No. I didn't see you in the ops room, but I noticed your cup sitting on the counter and figured you'd be hiding in here. Are you all right?"
"Yes. I ducked down when I heard them coming."
"Good thinking." His voice sounded odd, somewhere between pride and relief, but he had turned away to crawl to the door and resume watching the scene at the end of the corridor, so she could not see his expression.
"Do you have any idea who they are? What they want?"
"No. I don't even know how they got in here. I left the ops room for five minutes to make some cocoa, and suddenly they were there. What do we do now?" As she asked it, it suddenly dawned on Jess what the invaders were after, but Becker already answered her question determinedly.
"We have to get these people out of here."
„No." Becker turned around and stared at her in surprise, but her voice was firm as she continued. "I realised what they want. I know you want to help our colleagues, and so do I, but right now, we need to get Connor's anomaly prototype and data from the lab. It's the most dangerous and important thing in here. It has to be what they are after. And if they get their hands on it … who knows what they might use it for?"
It took him only a second to take in what she was saying, but considerably longer to bring himself to make the decision – the decision to potentially sacrifice the lives of their ARC colleagues in order to save many more others. She had made the situation clear, but she could see on his face what an internal battle was raging inside him – she had seen the expression often enough whenever some innocent bystander died because of an anomaly. Eventually, he nodded.
„All right. Let's find a way to the lab. Can they see us on the CCTV screens?"
„I locked the hub before I left it, so we should be safe for a bit. But as soon as they crack the password, they can use the hub." Jess always locked her computer when she left her station. She knew it made her unpopular with some of the other staff, but the fact was that she did have a higher security clearance than most of her colleagues, and thus her computer contained access to almost all the information about all ARC projects, research and personnel. Right now, Jess was thankful for being such a creature of habit. Her password was quite secure, and they would need to have high-end technology and some serious hacking skills to crack it. Unless, of course, they could get their hands on her.
Apparently, Becker had realised the same thing.
"Don't worry. They're not getting you."
She smiled, moved by his protectiveness.
"So we get to the lab, grab Connor's equipment and hard-drive and get out of here."
She nodded, suddenly feeling confident with him by her side. They could do this. They had to.
"Let's go!"
He took her hand and, after checking none of the hostage-takers were around, led her out of their hiding-place and down a complicated route of little-used corridors towards the lab. They met no one on the way there – the hostage-takers must have already done a sweep of the building and be in the ops room with the hostages right now. As nervous as she was, Jess noticed that, after dragging her out of the rec room, Becker held on to her hand for a considerable while as they moved along the deserted corridors, and that it felt really nice.
With their complicated way of avoiding the invaders, it took them quite a while to get to the lab, and even longer to find all the things Jess thought needed to be protected. She really had to talk to Connor about keeping his workplace in order, Jess thought as she packed Connor's hard-drive and the anomaly-creating prototype into the dufflebag where Connor kept his spare clothes.
As they made their way to the exit, the hostage-takers suddenly came into view again. There were two of them, but fortunately, the element of surprise was on Jess and Becker's side. Before the two armed men could react, they had ducked into a side corridor.
"What do we do now?" Jess had to suppress a slight panic.
"Run!"
"Where? This corridor is leading away from the exit." Despite her protest, Jess followed Becker's instruction and broke into a run, panic returning full force as she heard the hostage-takers picking up speed behind them as well. They heard one of them yelling, presumably into a walkie-talkie:
"We missed two! They took something from one of the labs! Block all the exits, don't let them get out!"
"What do we do now?" Despite her apparently improved crisis management skills, Jess had still not brought herself to start wearing flat, comfortable shoes, and her running skills left much to be desired. By now, she was mostly being pulled along by Becker.
"We're not going to make it to the exit before them." Suddenly, it occurred to Jess: There was one place within the ARC where they would be safe.
"Panic … Room.." Jess managed to gasp out, and Becker promptly nodded and changed course towards the garage and the panic room entrance. One quick stop behind a corner allowed Becker to take out their pursuers with his EMD, and they soon saw the familiar blue doors in front of them that promised safety.
Just as they had reached the doors, however, a man hurled himself out of the shadows at Becker, jumping on his back and locking him in a choking grip that made it impossible for Becker to fight him off.
Fear, despair and the knowledge that this man was the only thing standing between them and safety spurred Jess into action. Grabbing the EMD Becker had dropped in surprise, she swung its heavy handle at the attacker's head as powerfully as she could. The blow was not enough to knock the man out, but it did cause him to loosen his grip on Captain Becker long enough for the soldier to throw him over his shoulder and tackle him to the floor.
"Who are you people? Why are you here?"
The attacker only grinned at him, and Becker punched him, furious at this repeated invasion of his territory.
"Tell me!"
The only answer he received was, once again, the smug grin, and then they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps and voices approaching in the distance. Becker loosened his grip for a second, and now it was the attacker's turn to use his opponent's weakness. The fraction of a second that Becker had looked away had been enough for the attacker to draw a knife and aim it at the soldier. One quick movement brought Becker far enough to the side so that the knife only slashed the side of his shirt instead of being buried in his stomach, but the stinging pain made his anger increase. With a grunt, he threw another punch, and soon the two men were rolling around on the floor, both struggling for possession of the weapon.
Jess wanted to help again, but they were moving so fast she was scared she'd hit the wrong man if she tried using the EMD. Additionally, the voices of what she assumed were more armed men were coming ever closer. Needing to do at least something useful, Jess dragged Connor's equipment inside the room to be ready to keep it safe, and returned outside to the still fighting men. She was still holding Becker's EMD, pointing it at the fighting men indecisively. For a second she considered shocking them both and then dragging Becker inside the room until he woke up again, but that seemed a risky plan.
And then, as suddenly as it had started, the fight stopped with the other man slumping over and Becker's hand emerging with the bloody knife. He looked up at Jess, and for a second they stared at each other, frozen in shock as the hostage-taker bled out on the dirty concrete.
Suddenly voices, much louder than before, emerged from the other end of the car park, a bullet whizzed past Becker and buried itself into the door right next to Jess. She screamed and Becker jumped up and lunged at her, pushing her through the doors and shutting them both just in time to keep out the array of bullets following the first one. The missiles hit the outer of the two doors with a terrifying noise, but the double-enforced steal- and lead-doors held fast, allowing them to finally catch their breaths. It took a few seconds for Jess to trust her own voice again, before she asked:
"Do you think we're safe in here?"
"This room has protected us from a gamma ray. I certainly hope it'll keep us safe from further attacks until outside help arrives." He sounded calm, and rationally, Jess knew he was right – this, after all, was the whole point of the panic room. Nevertheless, the panic was still there, lurking in the back of her mind and ready to turn into full blown hysterics.
"But no one has called for outside help yet. Oh God, what if someone else decides to come in today? We have to warn everyone!" The thought of the others, who, after all, were in much greater danger than she was, helped Jess to calm down again. There were things to do, she'd need to be efficient, and she knew how to do that, even in stressful situations.
"There's a secure land-line separate from the ARC system." He motioned to a surprisingly old-fashioned telephone receiver attached to the far wall, and she struggled to her feet and walked over, a little unsteadily, but with a determined look on her face.
"Perfect. I'll call Lester, tell him to get the police moving, or Special Forces, or someone. And then we'll warn the others to stay away. And we should start sending over the data from Connor's hard-drive. If they do come in here, we have to destroy it."
As Jess started making plans and calls, Becker found himself full of respect for the courage his young colleague had shown so far. He had already been impressed by the quick thinking she had shown in hiding from the attackers and figuring out what they wanted before she had swung his EMD at the attacker's head. Without her, he would not have been able to shake the man off. Now, however, it became apparent to him that she put on her usual efficient attitude to distract herself from the shock of the morning's events. She was pale, and her hands were trembling as she took the phone and dialled Lester's number – which, impressively, she knew by heart. He was able to persuade her to at least sit down while she explained the details of their current situation to an incredulous Lester.
Meanwhile, Becker watched the little screen which showed them the CCTV image from the other side of the door. A group of five heavily armed men was visible, four of them inspecting the door while the fifth one was kneeling by his injured comrade, the one who had attacked Becker. One of the other men turned to him, apparently asking him something, and Becker had to suppress a chill at the kneeling man's unmistakeable gesture: The hand, moved vertically across the throat as if to slit it, told him that he had just killed a man. It had not been the first time, and yet it was something he had always hated and tried to avoid as much as possible.
It didn't help that Jess had chosen that very moment to stand next to him and watch, and had grown even paler at seeing the scene.
"I'm sorry you had to see that."
"I'm sorry you had to do that." Her voice, although shaky, was warm and compassionate, and he had to resist the urge to hug her. It was things like this that made her so special, he thought, the fact that she tried to cheer him up when clearly she herself was in need of some comfort. He quickly pushed the thought aside, knowing it would not do to dwell on the mystery that was Jess Parker right now.
"What did Lester say?"
"It might take some time, but they're trying to get everyone out as fast as possible. Special Forces are on their way."
"Good." He hated that there were people in danger outside, colleagues, and he could do absolutely nothing to help them.
"He also wants to talk to you. Know what kinds of weapons they have. I already told Lester how many there are, how many hostages they've taken, and what we think they want."
Becker nodded and picked up the receiver to give his boss a detailed description of the invaders' weapons and their presumed location in the building. After they had informed Lester about everything and started to send over the data from Connor's hard-drive straight to Lester's, Connor's and Matt's home computers, the men outside had left, taking with them their dead accomplice. Suddenly, there was nothing left to do but wait.
A/N: So, I'm trying my hand at a bit of action stuff, which I don't generally do (mostly because I don't have the kind of crazy brilliant ideas other authors have). I know this is a rather long chapter, and they won't all be that long, but I didn't want to interrupt the action before it even started.
The title is borrowed from the song "And Darling" by Tegan and Sara and doesn't really have much to do with the story other than I somehow associate it with Jess and Becker.
