Orbis Non Sufficit
A new foe wants to know how to use the anomalies as weapons. He captures the ARC team for 'questioning.' However, one team member got away. Now the team waits for their very own walking encyclopedia to save the day. Here comes Connor Temple, Secret Agent 00…0.
A/N: This is what comes from watching I Wish I Were James Bond too many times. It's a great Connor video on youtube by InThereTriumphDie.
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Abby stumbled into the room but didn't fall. She refused to fall. Instantly, she flipped around to glare at the soldier at the door, but he simply gave her a blank stare and shut the door in her face.
"You ok, Abby?" a woman asked and Abby turned to face her team.
Sarah, Becker, Danny, and Lester were all sitting in various places around the room. They all looked a bit worse for wear. Sarah's hair was knotted and frizzing. Danny's shirt was missing a sleeve and there was a smug of dark on his left cheek. Lester's suit was wrinkled probably beyond repair and his hair was sticking up in places. Becker, while looking a bit dirty, was otherwise fine. And while Danny and Lester had nearly full grown beards, more so Danny than Lester, Becker barely had a five o'clock shadow. He looked tired though.
Three of the walls of their prison were plain white with no windows or doors. The fourth wall had a door in the corner while most of it was a giant window. They were in one of the holding pins in the ARC, where they would typically keep creatures from the past that missed their anomaly home. Now it was a prison cell with little to no privacy.
"Yea, I'm fine." Abby moved to sit next to Sarah on the floor.
"You didn't have that bruise when you left," Danny countered.
Abby winced as the bruise on her left cheek gave a slight throb. "Yea. That Ulric guy throws a mean punch."
Danny tensed. "I swear, first chance I get, I'm gonna clobber that bastard," he hissed out, clenching his hands into fists.
Abby grinned. "No need. I already did." All eyes turned to her. "He tried to cop a feel so I kicked him in the balls. He punched me and I gave him a lesson in kick boxing."
Becker winced and gave her a smile. Sarah looked shocked. Lester actually looked a bit impressed. Danny laughed out loud. "So I guess our dear interrogator is out for awhile," he joked. "Wish I could've been there to see it."
"Do you think they'll get a new interrogator right away, or do we have a few days?" Sarah asked, ending the jokes.
Lester shifted uncomfortably from his seat in the corner, a bit away from everyone else. "Dr. Page, this is the military. If they don't already have a replacement ready, they'll find one within hours."
Danny let his mouth hang open for a short moment before he let himself fall to lay on his side against the wall. "Mates, I'm not sure how much more I can take of this. It's been two weeks already. I may have to stage a coup before long."
"That would be inadvisable," Lester commented dryly. "If you think these question and answer sessions are tough, wait until you've caused trouble." He glanced sympathetically at Abby. "You'll be facing a bit worse than a mild beating."
"Then what should we do?" Sarah asked. "They'll get tired of us not answering them soon. Or they'll manage to break into our computers and they won't need us anymore."
Lester shrugged silently and looked away from the group again, as if by not looking at them he could pretend he was somewhere else. Danny turned to Becker, who had been silent the whole time.
"Well, soldier man?" he asked. Becker lifted an eyebrow. "Got a plan in that military head of yours or what? You haven't said a word all day."
Becker shook his head. "I don't need to make a plan. The only possible plan was already made. If we are to escape, we'll need outside help."
He didn't have to say anything more. Everyone knew what he meant: Connor. They could all remember what had happened two weeks ago.
Lester had told them that a man named Harry Waters had been assigned to help them with research. He was a military commander with little patience and they were told to be on guard. When Mr. Waters had arrived, he'd brought trucks of armed soldiers in and had overtaken the building within minutes. They'd had no warning. He didn't even do like Christine Johnson and ask Becker to help him. He just rounded Becker up with the rest of the team. They found Abby, Sarah, Danny, and Lester too, but not Connor.
Waters had sent men to search every inch of the ARC. Connor wasn't there. He wasn't in the main atrium, the firing range, the botonics lab, the containment area, the science lab, in any of the offices, or anywhere else. When the security system was checked, it showed Connor coming to work but not leaving. It was like he'd vanished into thin air.
When asked where Connor was, Becker had said, "I'm not sure. Maybe the Jurassic."
The team had been forced into this containment room while Mr. Waters continued his search for Connor outside of the ARC. Starting the third day of their confinement, and with still no sign of Connor, they were each taken one-by-one to another room in the ARC where a man named Faron Ulric would question them. At first it had simply been sitting for minutes or hours with Ulric as he asked questions about the anomalies and their technology at the ARC that they all refused to answer. After almost a week, Ulric began using minor tortures, trying to wear them down: incredibly bright rooms to pitch black rooms, lots of noise and no noise for long periods of time, no food or no water for a day. Sarah was taking it the worst, but she was managing to hold out still and they all admired her for it.
"I've been meaning to ask, Becker," Abby began, breaking them all out of their memories and worries. "How did you get Connor out?"
Becker tilted his head ever so slightly. "What makes you think I got him out?"
"Well, he was excited that day because you were supposed to show him how to use the guns. And then you were the one who answered when we were all asked where he was. He must have been with you when Waters got here," she explained.
Becker let a little smirk cross his lips, but Danny spoke before he could. "Oh, so you have been using it," he accused, but he sounded almost like he wanted to laugh.
"Using what?" Abby asked.
Danny waved a hand vaguely in Becker's direction. "I've been helping this guy and his puppies improve security for the ARC for months now, right? So I find this one passage that's got no cameras in it. None. There's no security at all. But it only goes one way. It lets out in one place outside and one place inside. There's no side passages. I asked him about it and he says it's for emergencies when we need to not be seen."
Lester sat up straighter, all his attention on the group now.
"Wait, so we've had a secret passageway somewhere in the ARC all this time?" Sarah asked incredulously. "Why didn't we use it when we were attacked?"
Becker frowned. "There wasn't any time. We heard the commotion and I barely had time to get Connor out before they found me."
"Secret passages, hm?" a familiar voice asked, but the tone was calm, cold, and collected. The voice had come from the speakers in the room, so they all turned their heads to the giant window. "Perhaps we should start searching then. Maybe your little friend is still hiding out there."
The man standing at the mirror caught them all off guard. He stood at five feet, nine inches tall with super short light brown hair and a light brown beard and mustache. On his face was a pair of simple black glasses that made him look either sophisticated or dangerous, depending on your viewpoint. He had his hands behind his back and stood tall, like a soldier. They were all caught off guard because over the speakers he'd sounded exactly like Connor.
They all stood to face their new opponent on the other side of the glass. Danny took position in front of the others. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"Well," he began, sounding almost lost. When he spoke again, his tone was one of measured care once more. "As you've incapacitated Mr. Ulric, I've been brought in to replace him. My name is Orbis. Andrew Orbis."
Becker lifted his right eyebrow a bit, a smile fighting to gain ground on his face. Orbis had introduced himself like something out of James Bond. Becker fought the urge to smile and soon his face was one of complete calm once more.
Lester stepped closer to the window, drawing everyone's attention. "You don't look military, Mr. Orbis," he stated plainly.
"You're right. I'm not. I was sent from the Minister himself to aid Mr. Waters with regards to you lot." A smile was tugging at Mr. Orbis' lips, like he'd just heard something funny and was doing his best not to show it. He cleared his throat. "About this secret passageway-"
"We won't tell you shit, just like before," Danny interrupted.
For a moment, Orbis looked mildly taken aback. Then he collected himself and cleared his throat again. "Mr. Waters is a very impatient man. He's given me only four days to get the secret of the anomalies from your team. And if Mr. Waters had his way, days would be hours. This puts me in a very tight spot, you see. I have a very short amount of time to do quite a lot of work. Days being hours, I plan to meet that four day deadline." He pulled off his glasses as he spoke and gave them all a very determined look. It had great dramatic effect. "Be prepared."
Without waiting for them to say anything, Andrew Orbis replaced his glasses and walked away and out of view. The soldiers that always guarded this room were barely visible at the edges of the window, but they heard how Orbis ordered them not to nod off as he passed by. Then all was silent.
"Ok, that was weird," Sarah said. "He sounded like-"
"Not only that," Danny interrupted, motioning for everyone to come in close. They did, even Lester. "When he took off his glasses, he even sort of looked like-"
"Connor," Abby finished.
Becker shook his head. "That wasn't Connor." Everyone gave him their attention. "That was James Bond."
For a moment, all eyes simply stayed on Becker, like they could determine what he meant by that just by looking at his face. All at once, Abby's face lit in recognition and she smirked back at Becker. "Or was it Spock?" she asked slyly.
"I'm sorry, I don't follow," Lester stated, one shade away from being a complaint.
Abby shook her head lightly. "What Orbis said about hours and days. Connor kept going on about The Wrath of Khan," she started, but paused, "it's a Star Trek movie. Anyway, he loved the code Spock used to talk to Kirk when their radio communicators or whatever were being monitored. He talks about it all the time. Says the code was so obvious that no one caught on. You say two spans of time, like hours and days, and then refer to the longer one when telling time when actually you're talking about the shorter one."
"So he has a plan to help us escape and he'll launch it in four hours," Becker concluded for her.
"That'd be my guess," Abby agreed.
Danny leaned back a bit. "Then I'd say we'd all best 'be prepared,' wouldn't you?"
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Four hours later, on the dot, the lights went out. Everyone in the containment room looked up at the ceiling briefly before all eyes turned to the window in the wall. One of the soldiers was standing in complete view, watching them carefully. It was actually really creepy.
They didn't have to deal with it for long, however, as there was a brief flash of light near the soldier's stomach and then he fell to the ground. A shadow darted across the window and then the door was being opened.
"Come on, guys, we've only got about three minutes before they're bound to turn the lights on," Connor's voice called.
Without hesitation, they all hurried to the door and out of the room. In the hall, it was still almost pitch black, but they could sort of see the person who'd let them out.
"This way," Connor said and hurried down the hall. They all followed him, despite the fact that they all knew the insides of the ARC like the backs of their hands. Connor led them to the firing range before stopping. "Becker."
Becker stepped up to a low placed air vent on the back wall and made short work of removing it. "Alright, everybody in."
"You must be joking," Lester protested. "I'm not getting in there."
"In less than five minutes, the Minister is sending a veritable army in here to take back the ARC. We need to get out of here before they get in," Connor urged.
Suddenly, the lights flickered and came back on. Mr. Andrew Orbis, or Connor Temple, came into full view. He wasn't wearing his glasses this time. After blinking a few times to clear his eyes, he grabbed Abby's hand and moved her to in front of the vent.
"Go, Abby." Abby shot Connor one last look before hoisting herself up and into the vent, along the shaft, and out of sight. "Sarah," he said and Sarah wasted no time in following after Abby. She paused only briefly to give Connor a hug before she was gone. "Sir?" Connor asked cautiously.
Lester glanced around at them all before his eyes rested on Connor's. "Oh, alright," he gave in testily. He half stomped to the vent and pulled himself in, quickly following Abby and Sarah into the dark.
"You next, Connor," Becker ordered.
Connor did as ordered, slipping into the vent after the others. Danny was after him, and Becker came last. He took a moment to fit the grate back over the entrance and then he was right behind everyone else. It wasn't even an air conditioner shaft. After the turn off, the metal covering vanished and it was revealed that this was actually just a small tunnel. Another thirty feet and the tunnel grew so that you could almost stand up. It went down several feet and then it was tall enough for easy walking the rest of the way.
Ten minutes later, they came out in the woods near the ARC building. The exit was what appeared to be a sewer entrance, which was probably why no one but Danny would try to go in that way. Once they were all out and the lid was back on the entrance, Abby grabbed Connor in a fierce hug.
"Abby?" he gasped.
"I was so worried about you," she revealed, pulling back. She grinned and ruffled his hair. "You dyed your hair."
"And cut it," Becker added. Connor shrugged and laughed once.
"How'd you do all this, mate?" Danny asked.
Connor rubbed the back of his head. "Well, once I got out, I went to Minister. I mean, it took a bit, but when I showed them my ID and told them what was wrong they let me through. So I told the Minister what had happened and he agreed to help me out."
The sound of several pairs of boots on concrete caught their attention. Danny, Connor, and Becker hurried up the slight hill near them and peered through the trees toward the ARC. Mr. Harry Waters was being led out of the building with several armed guards. Other military personnel were being handled the same way. They were loaded into black cars, looking defeated and angry. Abby, Sarah, and Lester had joined them by the time the cars drove away and they all watched as most of the rest of the small army made their way back inside. The Minister moved fast.
"Well, time to fix this mess," Lester announced dutifully, fixing his suit as best he could and heading for the building. Connor looked at the others before following, and they were all right behind him.
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Connor was working on the ADD. Some dimwit had attempted to use it to break into the ARC's secret files, which Connor himself had encrypted, and they'd screwed the whole thing up. To make matters worse, at least two anomalies had opened up while the ARC had been inactive and they'd had to send out teams to capture the creatures that had escaped and do a lot of damage control to cover them up. Two people had died.
"Well well well, would you look at that," Danny half crowed, "Our own Mr. Bond, hard at work as usual."
Connor blushed, turning away from his computer to face his friends as they approached. They'd all showered and changed clothes and eaten by now, and Connor had died his hair back to its natural color and shaved. If someone walked in today, there would be no sign the take over had ever happened.
"I'm not James Bond," Connor disagreed softly, embarrassed.
"No," Abby agreed. "You're Andrew Orbis. But you're every bit as heroic as James Bond ever was."
Connor's blush deepened and he smiled.
"So I get where the Orbis came from," Becker began, a smile on his face as well. "But where'd you get Andrew?"
"I was hoping you'd remember," Connor admitted. "No one really pays attention to my clothes, so I wasn't sure you would notice that, but yea. I got Orbis from the Bond family crest, and Andrew was his father's name. I wanted to be slightly obvious, since I wanted you guys to know it was me, but nothing so obvious that Waters would figure it out."
"You're a genius," Sarah complimented.
"I guess we should be glad you're a geek now," Danny teased. Connor frowned. "I'll never doubt you again. Well, maybe. But I'll trust you a heck of a lot more than I did, at least."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Connor pouted and they all laughed.
Abby pat Connor on the shoulder. "Maybe you should've been an actor, Connor. You were pretty convincing."
Connor smiled up at Abby. "Nah. I'd rather fight dinosaurs."
Fin.
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A/N: Orbis Non Sufficit is the Latin phrase on the Bond family crest. It means "The World is Not Enough"….according to the James Bond Wikipedia. That's also where I got that Andrew was James Bond's father. My beta thought I picked Andrew because Andrew-Lee Potts plays Connor, but no.