Helen Cutter arched her back as she laid over the mossy rock. It was cold and damp from the heavy mist of the waterfall beside her, but she did not mind. There was something about the roughness beneath her, the moisture in the air and that faint trace of sulphur from the hot springs behind that made this place hers.
Three-hundred and twenty-two million years in the past, yet to her it was the present. Times existed within themselves, experienced moment by moment. One day she would find a place to make her own time slip and become a forgotten turn of the universe's sand.
A crackled drone rose over the roar of the waterfall. She smiled, hearing the sound hitch and wane.
Helen rolled off the rock in a sleek movement. Running her free hand around behind it, she found her jacket, water bottle and scarf. Dressed, she folded in the aerial on the portable radio, grabbed it firmly by the cheap plastic handle, and ran.
Ahead the forest opened up into a fern covered flat bordered by black mountain ranges freshly coated in ash. In the centre of the field, light split into a thousand pieces, scattered by the fragmented edges of the anomaly. Time splintered into sheets of improbability. You could see it move like glass breaking in slow motion, suspended between the fragile fronds.
* * *
Paint dripped down his neck, mixing with his hair where it dried into a thin skin. Nick turned his head and the paint crackled. He felt like an oil painting, especially as he brought his hands up for inspection and found them to be Taj Mahal cream instead of a sensible human pink.
He had meant to redecorate when Helen left. He bought the paint twelve months after they gave up looking for her. He moved the paint from the garage to the living room two years later. Five years on, he realised he needed paint brushes for the job. Six months later he bought them and chucked them in the bin. Then Helen showed up and he finally opened the paint tins only to throw them at the garage walls in frustration. He should have known a woman like her would cheat. He could handle her and Stephen, but this was a different kind of cheating.
Yesterday Nick went to the Hardware store on the corner of his street and bought paint, brushes, a screwdriver for levering open the tin, a ladder, paint sheets, turps and a lock for the garage door. He was going to redecorate Helen away especially as it appeared to be the only closure he would be getting.
Nick dipped the paint brush into the tin of paint and slapped it onto the wall leaving a trail of drips down the wall and on the paint sheet. His wedding ring gathered dust under the sofa behind as he painted over a lipstick mark made when they had...
"Knock, Knock... Nick, are you there or not?"
Nick swore and dropped the paint brush into the tin, not caring as it submerged. He crossed the room muttering and unlatched the door.
"Ms. Lewis," he said, surprised and a little embarrassed by the look she gave him. He imagined he was reminiscent of a Yeti.
"Nice look," she quipped, glancing past him into the living room. "And I thought we agreed on 'Jenny', though I suppose anything is better than 'Claudia'."
Nick leant on the door, leaving a white smudge. "Did you come all this way to talk about what you'd prefer me to call you or was there something else on your mind?"
"Actually," she smiled, reaching into his pocket and pulling his phone free. "I wanted to have a chat about your phone, and why it's been off for the past hour..."
"Oh that," he lowered his head, resisting the urge to scratch his neck.
"That's what I thought," said Jenny, switching it back on. It beeped immediately. She selected the, 'play messages' option and put it on speaker.
'You've reached Nick Cutter. Leave a message.
'BEEEEEEP
'Nick? Nick... Turn on your phone. An anomaly has opened up and you won't believe who stepped through it. You'll want to see this. Meet me at the ARC as soon as you get this.
'And Nick, TURN ON YOUR PHONE!'
The message ended and Jenny handed back his phone, informing him that there were at least a dozen identical messages that he might want to delete later. He rolled his eyes at her devilish smile and said that he would join her as soon as he had a shower.
"I don't know, it kind of suits you," she said, as a couple of flakes of paint drifted off. "Lester and I could auction you off for a profit to pay for that new chair he's been drooling over."
* * *
"Absolutely not, loathsome creature – I'm definitely going to have it destroyed."
"Come on Lester..."
"Sir," he corrected Abby, as he shuffled through a couple of creature profiles.
"But it's our pet. You can't kill him!"
Sir Lester ran his hands over the scratched arms of his leather chair, a distasteful glare stretching over his face as he found a sizable hole. "Sorry kids; regulations, guidelines, politics..."
"Politics?" Abby frowned.
"Can't be done I'm afraid. You'll either have to return it or kill it and since there's no anomaly it looks like you'll have to kill it."
Conner and Abby's mouths fell open in joint horror as Lester raised his crystal eyes to them. Lester held a steady gaze bringing both of his hands together. His fingers slotted into each other and folded back onto his knuckles menacingly.
Lester's table had a new engraving running along the outside edge. It matched the inscription on the floor of the ARC and the one on the steering wheel of the van. Stephen Hart – throughout time.
Without warning, Abby's knees bent and a smile cracked across her blushed cheeks.
"You devil," she giggled, hurrying around to the other side of the table and enveloping the shocked Lester in a hug.
Conner's hands went up in protest, "Abby, what'ya doing? He wants to kill Rex and you're making out with the man!"
Abby released Lester and shoved him playfully.
"All right," Lester sighed, "you can keep the lizard."
"What just happened?" asked Conner, but no one had a chance to answer.
The glass doors of Lester's office flew open with surprising ease as Nick strode in, trailed by a high heeled Jenny.
"Well this is friendly," said Nick, as Abby scooted back next to Conner. "Anyone going to tell me why I've been dragged here on my weekend off?"
"Nice of you to join us, Cutter." Lester straightened his suit – another unsightly tie nestled under his collar, and glanced out the window of his office which overlooked the ARC floor. "Well, since you're so late in arriving, I guess there's no point in a dramatic pause."
Nick shifted his weight on his booted feet whilst casually trying to ignore Jenny's choice of low V neckline.
"An anomaly has opened up and Major Ryan has stepped through it."
"Captain Ryan..." Nick corrected, but dropped the point when he saw Lester rub the bridge of his nose and mutter dark things. So many things had changed since Claudia's time that he had given up fighting them.
* * *
Nick leapt back from the transparent wall of the interrogation room as a drinking glass smashed into it. Its contents drip down the wall, aglow under the bright lights.
"Friendly, isn't he?" smirked Lester, nudging Nick forward.
"How long have you had him here?"
"Four – no wait, five hours."
'Why won't you let me speak to anyone!' screamed out of the room as they opened the door and then stopped abruptly as Nick entered. "Finally!" sighed Ryan, pulling himself free of the other soldier's hold. "Nick, tell me what's going on before I go mad."
Nick's mouth may not have fallen open but his brain had definitely paused. With his hand on the door, he glanced down at the ground, listening but not believing the man in front of him.
"You're dead," he said at last, taking a step into the room. "You've been dead for a year."
Ryan placed his palms on the interview table. "What did you say?"
"The creature from the future, it ambushed us – ripped you to pieces."
"No," he protested, shaking his head. "No that was Anders. It dragged him off and tore into him. I buried him with my own hands after you left me there!"
"I left you because you were dead." It said, 'Major' on the breast of his uniform and now that he looked closely, Nick noticed a faint scar running down the left side of Ryan's face. "Where did you get that?" asked Nick.
Ryan frowned, his breath coming fast with his anger. "What?" Nick ran a hand over the side of his own face then pointed at Ryan. "This? I was ten, turned a corner too fast and fell off my bike. What does that have to do with your lot leaving me behind?"
"A lot," replied Nick, picking up one of the seats from the ground and placing it in front of the table. He sat down and after a brief pause, Ryan did the same. "The present keeps changing," began Nick, more to himself than to Ryan. "These anomalies are interfering with our timelines in ways that we cannot predict. Last time it was Claudia Brown –"
"Who?"
"Never mind. This time – it's you. I think you're from a different time line. In my memory, you were attacked by that creature and we buried you there in the Earth, just like we found your skeleton on our first mission through the anomaly. But if you're alive, that means that something else has changed. Things could be changing all the time and we wouldn't even know. Are you even listening to me?"
Ryan's eyes were locked on the door to the interview room were Jenny Lewis had just slinked in, file in hand. She was busy whispering to an amused Lester when she noticed Nick and Ryan staring at her.
Ryan leant over the table and pulled Nick closer to him so that he could say, "This must be another time line, because the last time I saw Jenny Lewis she was dangling off the roof of a skyscraper. That woman," he nodded in her direction, "is dead. I saw her fall – I wish I hadn't but I did."
* * *
After a bit of gentle persuasion, Lester agreed to let Ryan rejoin the operations at the ARC as their head of security. Dead or not, he was the most qualified individual for the job and more than capable of blackmailing his way through the red tape.
He told Nick the story of his survival a million times. Nick picked through each version, comparing it to his own memory of events until he was satisfied that both versions appeared solid. He was particularly interested in what happened after he had left.
"...so I wake up, lying on this rock and covered in dust. I cough a bit and roll over onto my side and that's when I saw it. Hideous thing, scurrying behind a boulder. It was one of the babies out of the crates. I don't know how it survived, but it was laughing and crying or whatever that noise is that it makes.
"I went for my gun, but it must have been thrown clear during the scuffle. When I looked back up, it was gone. I stumbled back to the camp and found it deserted except for a soft mound of earth – a shallow grave. There was small scavenger clawing at the dirt so I shooed it away and piled some of the nearby rocks on top.
"I searched for the anomaly, but there was nothing. If Helen hadn't of found me I don't know –"
"Helen?" Nick interrupted.
"I was asleep and when I woke up she was standing over me –smiling. She made sure I was awake and then disappeared into a new anomaly. I called after her and, naturally, followed her through the anomaly. Next thing I know I end up here."
The thought of Helen roaming about in the present was less than comforting but unless she wanted to be found, there was nothing that any of them could do about it.
"I don't see how going back to the camp site is going to help," said Ryan, sliding a cartridge into place. He laid the gun gentle on the bench top while he clipped his bullet proof vest on.
"If the future creatures changed the timeline – killed Claudia Brown, and if we then get rid of them out of that time line maybe things will go back to way they were."
"My way or your way? And who is this Claudia person?"
"My way – and Claudia is Jenny, sort of."
"Bet she loves that," chuckled Ryan. "She hates that name."
Nick smiled. Some things never seemed to change.
* * *
'The Team' as they had come to know themselves for lack of a better name, stood in front of the newly formed anomaly. It looked innocent enough, spinning silently in the soft light. This one had opened up thirty yards south of the one Nick had stepped back through on the previous year. According to Ryan, less than a day had passed since then on the other side of the anomaly.
"Time's a funny thing," said Nick, as the team approached the anomaly. "It's fickle and inconsiderate of linear deadlines."
Ryan had not been kidding. The other side of the anomaly was exactly as he remembered it. A rough track across a desolate volcanic ridge led directly to the camp. Conner looked away when he saw the rock covered grave, freshly dug, peak out from one corner. Abby was carrying the untested portable anomaly detector, lifting it up and panning it from side to side. Every few seconds Conner appeared over her shoulder to check the readings and listen to the static through the headphones.
"Any sign of it?"
Conner shook his head. "Nothing here at all except the one behind us."
"And it's holding steady?" asked Nick, scanning the perimeter.
"Looks like. For the moment anyway."
"All right everyone, spread out and see if we can't find these horrible things."
Ryan flicked the safety off his gun and headed off in the opposite direction to Nick.
"You two," Nick turned to Abby and Conner. "Stay here and keep an eye on the anomaly. Abby, keep your side arm ready. No – Conner, you can't have one."
Nick took the upper slope behind the camp. There was a distinct set of human foot prints up this way but their clarity was soon lost in the leaf litter. He did not know much about tracking but guessed that the owner was about 5-foot-8, brown hair, push up bra and carrying bad attitude.
"Come on Helen," he muttered to himself. "What do you want me to find?"
They met back at the camp site to the sound of Conner's yelping.
"The anomaly's weakening!" he repeated over and over as people filtered back in at a run, guns drawn.
"Anyone find anything?" A lot of heads shook back and at Nick. He looked back at the empty cage where the creatures had been.
"Hate to interrupt," said Conner, tapping the screen of the detector, "but we really have to go. The anomaly is fading and I would rather not be trapped in the Pre-Cambrian. Ow!"
"Permian," Abby corrected him.
They met the anomaly at a run, what was left of it anyway.
Ryan swore, and pushed the rest of the team up the last hill toward it. "We got to move people," he said, picking Conner up off the ground and shoving him forwards. Abby was first through, followed by most of the military unit. Conner stumbled through mid run and Ryan jogged in after a quick check on Nick who was no more than a stride behind.
They landed in a heap on the other side. The anomaly had shifted slightly and was suspended a foot in the air. Nick was on his feet straight away, facing the unstable vortex of time fragments. He could see bits of each reality – even a glimpse of his own face flickered past.
"I'm sorry," said Ryan quietly to Nick as he hauled the rest of the group up.
"Not your fault," he replied, brushing his fingers over the anomaly. A fleck of grey hopped across one of the fractures and disappeared. Nick frowned and cocked his head, trying to follow the splinter of time. He could have sworn that was...there it was again, clawing the edge of a boulder. A future creature child, laughing silently at him.
"It's about to close," said Conner, holding the device at the anomaly.
"I understand," whispered Nick, slipping his hand around his weapon. He took a deep breath of familiar air and then leapt forward into the closing anomaly. Time solidified as he rolled through to the other side. The horizon shimmered and the anomaly was closed.
Conner, Abby and Ryan yelled after him while the closest armed man threw himself at the anomaly, hitting the forest floor in a grunt.
"It's too late," said Conner. "The anomaly's gone. He – he trapped himself there."