A/N: Okay so I got this idea what with all the snow we've just had in the UK. Although it's all ice now. I've been on eight treacherous journeys to and from school now. If I suddenly disappear from fanfiction, it'll be because I slipped and knocked myself out on the ice that's covering all the pavements on the hills around my house. Anyway, ignore my digression. So this idea: it kind of snowballed (no pun intended) from there on and I had to just write it. I hope you like it and remember to let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from Primeval that have been used in this story. That right belongs to ITV and Impossible Pictures. Unfortunately.


Distractions and Diversionary Tactic

"Right, Miss Parker, I'm off for my meeting with the Minister. I entrust the ARC into your care. Please ensure that Captain Becker does not demolish the building. Or Connor for that matter," Lester muttered, pausing at the ADD as he made his way to the elevator.

The Minister had called a meeting with James Lester a week previously to discuss the efficiency of the ARC operation and what could be done to improve the work-expenses ratio. Lester had only grudgingly agreed to go to lunch with the Minister because of the fiasco with Philip Burton. The ARC operation had lost a substantial amount of funding with his death, and the head of the ARC was looking to get the Minister to agree to donate more funds to the organisation.

Jess, Field Co-ordinator for the company, nodded dutifully and wished him good luck in the endeavour. After doing all the paperwork, she knew exactly how much the ARC needed the money.

"Oh, before I forget," she called after him. "The snow's causing delays, so I rang ahead and told the Minster's people you might be a bit late."

"See, that's why I keep Miss Parker around," he said, looking pointedly at Connor and Matt as they walked out of the hub chatting about nothing to do with anomalies. "She's actually useful." Neither of them raised an eyebrow or made any gesture that signalled they'd heard. Muttering to himself about incompetent staff, Lester left.

Not long after he'd gone, the anomaly alert sounded and Jess began speaking into the microphone.

"Alpha unit, please come and pick up black box units. Coordinates are already loaded on them; anomaly is in the Olympic stadium. CCTV shows creatures already coming through the anomaly-"

"Hi Jess," Becker said breathlessly, as he ran up and grabbed five black boxes, throwing one each to Connor, Abby, Matt and Emily. "Keep us posted over Comms."

Jess nodded distractedly; concentrating on keeping a steady stream of video from the CCTV she'd hacked into.

"We're on our way to the stadium, Jess," Matt said over Comms as he started the 4x4's engine and pulled out of the ARC cap park.

"Thanks, Matt. The situation at the stadium is getting worse. I can see at least five creatures on the CCTV."

"Keep us posted," Becker ordered.

After ten minutes, the car screeched to a halt outside the new stadium for the 2012 London Olympics. Becker pulled his EMD rifle from his lap and slung it over his shoulder, whilst the rest of the team grabbed EMDs from the trunk and followed him into the building. There was an absence of builders working on the development and it was only a matter of months till it was meant to be ready for the event.

"I've got a bad feeling about this…" Becker muttered to no-one in particular.

"Jess, what about those creatures?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, what do they look like?" Connor asked, holding the handheld anomaly detector out in front of him.

"They look like raptors," Jess answered after a moment or two.

"Raptors. Great."

"Cheer up, Captain," Emily said, reaching around her back for where she'd tucked a dagger and knife into the back of her jeans.

Matt rolled his eyes and mumbled something that sounded like "Because that's a safe place to put them."

"Anomaly's this way, guys," Connor called, moving to the front of the group and leading the way to the anomaly. Through the corridors under the seats, they walked until they entered out onto the running track, where the anomaly hovered in the middle of the snow-covered turfed area used for the field events.

"Good job Jess isn't here or she'd ruin the turf in those heels," Matt joked to Becker who smirked slightly. He'd always thought her choice of shoes was ridiculous, not to mention impractical.

"Or she'd disappear beneath the snow," Connor added, joining in."

"Hey," Jess said over the comms, not sounding all that affronted. "I heard that. If you're done making jokes about my height and footwear, you might like to know that I've lost the CCTV feed."

"Can you get it back?" Becker asked.

"Can I get it back? Of course I can get it back! What do you take me for? A bimbo secretary?" She snapped, sounding truly insulted now.

Matt snickered quietly to himself, nobody else seeming to pay him any attention whilst Becker worried that they had offended Jess. He was sure he could cheer her up again if needs be. A simple bar of chocolate, probably something like Galaxy, would make her happy again. It always did. If he was feeling generous, Becker could also buy her a dark chocolate Toblerone – Jess had eaten a lot of those over the Christmas period so she had to like them, right?

"Where did you say the creatures were, Jess?" Abby asked, staring around. She still couldn't shake the bad feeling that was hanging over them like a dark rain cloud.

Becker looked around and tightened his grip on his EMD, realising why things were feeling so odd. Usually when they went out on an alert, within five minutes they'd either seen a person, a body, a creature or at least heard signs of life. The Olympic stadium was completely quiet, which was disturbing considering it was still a building site.

His heart beating a mile a minute, Becker slowly turned on his heel and came face to face with a pack of five raptors, each poised to leap on a member of the team.

He gulped and signalled the others.

"Don't make a sound and move slowly," he instructed.

Emily couldn't help the gasp that tumbled from her open mouth, and dropping her knife. It fell into the snow with a soft slick.

At the sound of it, one of the raptors cocked its head and growled, taking a hopping step forwards. Without any hesitation, Becker fired three quick bursts of electric pulses at the offending creature, scrambling backwards as the creature in question fell forwards and its fellows leapt over the body towards him, gouging marks in the new AstroTurf.

Luckily for him, Matt and Abby were quick to raise their EMDs, whilst Emily threw her dagger, and somehow they brought down the other four raptors. Connor, on the other hand, fumbled with his EMD, his fingerless gloves sliding over the smooth metal and not giving him any grip.

"Well, that was a close shave," Connor said with a low whistle.

"Come on," Matt replied, taking charge. "Let's put these back through the anomaly and then lock it."

Becker nodded, but kept his EMD at the ready for a few moments longer before shouldering it and helping Matt drag one of the unconscious beasts to the anomaly.

"Isn't there an easier way?" Connor moaned, dragging a raptor with Emily and Abby. Whilst Abby and Emily had suffered in silence with the weight of the dinosaur, Connor hadn't stopped complaining about his aching arm muscles.

"Why don't you go and look for a trolley then?" Matt huffed, out of breath as they finally managed to roll the first creature through the anomaly and moved on to help Abby and Emily.

Connor nodded and stumbled away, slipping on a spot of ice on top of the running track.

"I'm okay!" he yelled, though no-one seemed to be particularly bothered or concerned for him.

Pausing briefly, and allowing Becker to carry on helping the girls pull the raptor by its back legs, Matt tapped his earpiece.

"Jess, any more creatures about?"

"I've been keeping an eye on the CCTV but I'll go through it again, see if anything's out of place. Also there's an issue in the storage room. I can direct you there," she offered, her fingers already typing instructions into the ADD to pull up the CCTV feeds again, the window popping up on top of the digital blueprint of the stadium.

"What kind of issue?"

"The kind of issue that would make Connor soil his trousers," Jess lightly replied, feeling sick from just seeing it on the computer screen.

Matt stifled a laugh and replied, "Thanks, Jess, we'll just finish up with getting these raptors back through and locking the anomaly."

"What was that about Connor?" Abby asked, huffing and puffing like the rest of them, as she dusted off her hands and walked back to the three remaining raptors.

"According to Jess, who wasn't very forthcoming, there's something that would give him a bit of a fright in the storage room…"

Abby frowned and began to worry.

Matt bent down and took hold of another raptors leg, ensuring he avoided the long claws curving towards his inner arm and began dragging again. His back protested, but he ignored it and instead focused on thoughts of how he might coax a massage out of Emily when they got back to the ARC and collapsed in the Rec room.

Finally, Connor returned with a trolley – though why the Olympic stadium even had one, nobody knew – and they loaded up the last raptor onto it, though actually lifting it off the ground was a lot harder than simply dragging them over the snow.

Though their arms no longer felt like they were being pulled from their sockets, the team had great difficulty in actually pushing the trolley through the deep thirty centimetres of snow they were stood in. Only Becker wore boots with enough grip to push without falling over.

Sweating despite the bitter, winter chill, they finally made it to the anomaly and took a minute's respite. Connor blinked and rested his hands on his knees, desperate to get more oxygen into his aching body. He was beginning to really regret falling over all those times. Becker wiped his damp forehead and adjusted his EMD across his back. It had been threatening to fall over his shoulder for the last ten minutes, and it was only his superior level of control over his body's movements that kept it from swinging down.

"Right then, the last push guys," Matt said, trying to encourage his team.

They all groaned and threw him a dirty look, but nonetheless threw their weight back behind the trolley…just as the anomaly flickered out of existence and closed, leaving them with a raptor.

"Now what are we going to do with it?" Becker asked, angrily kicking the snow.

Matt shrugged.

"Well we can't leave it here," Emily murmured, her hands on her hips as she searched for a solution to their predicament.

"We'll have to keep it sedated and take it back to the ARC," Abby said, stating the obvious.

"Lester is not gonna be happy," Connor muttered, still breathing heavily.

Jess' voice suddenly came over the comms.

"I've cleared it with him. He's given his authorisation for Sid and Nancy to vacate the ARC to stay with you, Abby and Connor, to create space for our carnivorous friends."

"Excellent," Abby grinned, hi-fiving Connor.

"Right, Abby, head back to the ARC to sort out the transition. Connor, go with her," Matt ordered.

The couple nodded and made their way through the snow, walking gingerly on their sore legs.

"I'll send back up to man the anomaly site, and bring an extra car and a van," Jess interrupted before making the order over the ARC's internal communications system.

"Becker, you're in charge of transporting Tooth and Claw here, but give Abby and Connor enough time to get sorted." Becker nodded, gritting his teeth at Matt's tone and presumption that he could tell the Head of Security what to do. "Oh, but don't wait too long, or he'll come round."

"When am I supposed to leave then?" Becker muttered to himself.

Emily stayed by Matt's side, wondering why they were to stay at the stadium when Jessica had already told them back-up was on the way.

"Right let's go check out the storage room."

"Storage room?"

Matt nodded in answer to Emily's question and set off towards the exit to go back under the seats.

Emily followed him, still confused as to the purpose of their remaining behind. When they got to the storage room, and it became clear, she wished she was still ignorant.

Revulsion washed over her at the sight of the ten dead mean, each with deep gashes in their flesh and blood stains on their fluorescent workmen's jackets. All of the workers had been slaughtered, most likely chased down through the stadium into the storage room where they had hoped to hide before being massacred. Emily shut her eyes, not wanting to see it anymore.

Matt wasn't unaffected either, but it was something he had become accustomed to seeing. Sometimes, even though they tried their hardest, the ARC staff couldn't save everyone.

He tapped his comms and asked Jess to send down a unit to recover the bodies and take them to a morgue for identification. Jess did as he asked and began thinking of a cover story to explain their deaths. She didn't enjoy doing it – she would much rather have been able to tell the next of kin the truth, but if she did, Lester wouldn't hesitate to fire her.


Meanwhile Becker was driving his van back to the ARC, very aware of the danger lurking in the back. He was desperate to make it there before it woke up.

"Jess, can you give me an update on Abby and Connor's progress?"

"They've just made it back to the ARC and are moving out Sid and Nancy now. Feel free to floor the accelerator like I know you've been itching to since you got in the van."

Becker's eyes widened as he contemplated how Jess seemed to know him inside out. He'd spent months observing people at the ARC and didn't know half as much about them as she knew about him.

Becker's foot pushed the accelerator pedal and the transit van began to pick up speed as he sped down the motorway, racing back to the ARC. At every bump in the road, he pricked his ears, certain that the raptor would have woken up. His only protection was the EMD he had sitting on the passenger seat. His luck, however, held and he reached the ARC without any disasters, although he had had a heart-stopping moment when the van's wheels had caught on some ice and the whole van had threatened to tip over.

His men waited at the exit of the underground car park, and took over taking the raptor through to the menagerie, leaving Becker free to go and see Jess at the ADD.

Even though the anomaly alert was over, she was still hard at work, documenting what had occurred, whilst running a full diagnostic on all the ARC's systems, checking through the stadium's CCTV that the police line was being enforced and all whilst trying to talk down a very irritated Lester over the phone.

Becker marvelled at it.

Jess saw Becker hovering at the edge of her field of vision and acknowledged him with a blinding smile before refocusing back on the ADD screen.

The ARC CCTV cameras patched in and showed the footage, as the computer was programmed to do every ten minutes. Jess dropped her pen and gasped in horror, as in live action she saw the raptor leap off the moving trolley and take down a man. Taken unawares, Becker's men were fighting a losing battle. In the cramped space of the corridor, the raptor was able to jump off the walls and evade EMD bolts before landing on the men, either knocking them unconscious of grievously injuring them. Stunned, Jess, watched and forgot all about instigating the lockdown procedure.

Ever since the Beetles' invasion of the ARC, the system had been revised and had to be manually set off from the ADD. Jess, Lester and the core team all had pass codes for such a feat, in the hopes that only those who could be trusted could shut down the ARC. But no-one had accounted for the problem that it could only be done from the ADD and whilst Jess was frozen in the seat – the only person to have seen the attack – no-one else could instigate the lockdown that was needed to save the rest of the ARC personnel from the velociraptor.

"You okay, Jess?" Becker asked, noticing her sudden silence and moving towards the ADD.

Jess jumped and slapped a button on the computer, tears prickling her eyes.

"Lockdown initiated," announced an electronic voice over the ARC's internal sound system.

The ADD screen turned black and the CCTV feed was lost as all the ARC's systems began to shut down. The doors systematically began closing, beginning furthest away from the Hub, locking Abby and Connor in the Menagerie where they still waited for the arrival of the raptor. Frowning, Abby tapped her communications unit and spoke.

"Jess? What's going on?"

There was no answer.

Connor smacked his palm into his head. "Crap! I knew there was something else I was meant to do! I was meant to disconnect the communications from the rest of the ARC's power circuit so we could still use them in a lockdown!" Annoyed with himself, Connor sat down on the floor with a huff, Rex swooping down to climb into his lap.

"Connor," Abby sighed. In fairness, she supposed, it wasn't his fault. He'd been so overworked in the aftermath of New Dawn, whilst he was completely destroying Burton's research and any errant machinery that he forgot about parts of his work on the lockdown procedure.


"Lockdown? Jess, why've you initiated lockdown? What's going on?" Becker demanded.

Speechless, Jess simply shook her head. Across her ADD screen, the words 'lockdown initiated' stood out in bold, red letters, but she still couldn't quite comprehend all that was going on.

"Jess!" Becker said more insistently.

"Y-your men…" she stuttered.

"What about my men?" he asked, desperate for information.

"T-the r-raptor…" Jess suddenly replied, eyes wide and her finger pointing behind him.

Dread seized Becker's heart and he turned to find himself face to face with his old friend, Tooth and Claw, and he did not look pleased to see him again.

"Jess, stay behind me," he ordered quietly not turning to look at her or even wait for an answer.

Jess squeaked and nodded, still sat in her chair, completely incapable of movement.

Slowly, Becker reached over his shoulder, expecting to feel the end of his EMD which he usually carried into the ARC with him, before remembering with a curse that he'd left it in the van. His eagerness to see Jess had caused him to make a mistake. Not that he would ever hold it against the young Field Coordinator, of course. She was too innocent and unassuming for that.

The raptor made a series of noises that sounded suspiciously like it was laughing at Becker before stalking further into the room. Becker glanced beyond the danger at the locked door and wished beyond belief that the lockdown had only been initiated mere minutes earlier. Then Jess wouldn't be trapped with a creature and a useless Head of Security who'd managed to leave their only protection outside.

His face set with grim determination, Becker strode forwards, acting as a diversion to take any and all attention away from the young brunette behind him.


Matt and Emily pulled up outside the ARC in one of the 4x4s already extremely worried about what was going on in the ARC. Twenty minutes previously, the car's Satnav had turned off. Puzzled, Emily had tried to speak to Jess over the comms and found she was only receiving static.

Though there were still some of Becker's men at the entrances to both the underground car park and the building itself, Matt couldn't shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong. He looked about him, but couldn't see anyone looking or anything out of place.

It was only as he swiped his wrist pass in front of the door for the ARC that he realised what was wrong. The electric monitor beside the door had no display. The security system was turned off. Matt knew in an instant that lockdown had been initiated, and pulled out his mobile, dialling the first number he had on speed dial.

"Connor!" he shouted into the phone the moment the line connected. "Where are you?"

"Stuck in the Menagerie with Abs," Connor answered, scratching Rex's chin as the lizard chirped happily. For once, thought Connor wryly, Rex hadn't caused the lockdown.

"What happened? Why are we in lockdown?"

"I've got no idea, mate. The lights and all electrics are down too. Me and Abs haven't been able to get onto the comms-"

"I thought you were going to sort that out months ago…"

"I forgot," Connor admitted.

"Well can you sort out trying to lift it?"

"What am I going to from inside the menagerie?"

"Well, how did you and Jess modify the system?" Matt answered, beginning to think it was hopeless.

"Well we took out the bio-scanner first. Then we got rid of the whole sucking out the oxygen procedure and destroyed any link between the ARC and what was left of Prospero…and we made sure only the ADD could initiate the lockdown," Connor answered simply, feeling Abby's eyes on him. He shot her a brief, worried smile and refocused on Matt.

"Good, but what else? There's got to be something we can do!"

"Oh my God! How could I have been so stupid?" Connor exclaimed in glee.

"What, Connor? What did you do?" Matt asked sharply.

"We built another back door!"

"Where?" Matt demanded, his heart racing.

"We sent an encrypted file to all core personnel and disguised it as a boring memo from Lester. Your ARC email account should have it, Matt, as does mine, Jess', Abby's Emily's, Lester's and Becker's!"

Matt winced. "I may have deleted that…"

"Try leconnortemple at Hotmail dot com. I sent my copy to my personal email address as well," Connor instructed.

Matt took Emily's phone and brought up the internet, quickly using his fingers on the touchscreen to get to Window's Live. "What's your password, mate?"

"AbbyTemple," Connor answered with only a moment's pause. Again he was aware of his fiancée's gaze upon him and turned to her as she pressed her lips to his cheek.

"I've got it!" Matt crowed.

"Download it and run it. I designed the file to work on any system. You'll have to unlock each door one by one but it should work," Connor instructed. "Hurry up though! I'm freezing my arse off in here." With that Connor hung up and squeezed Abby's hand. "We're getting out of here."

"You're amazing, Conn," Abby told him sincerely, kissing him again. She still sometimes wondered how Connor, her love, always managed to save the day given that he could be a bumbling idiot at times. Still, she loved him for all his faults and the heroic status only served to remind her how truly good he was.


Becker groaned and shivered. When had it gotten so cold? He felt like he was lying in snow in the process of completing a naked snow angel. Rolling over, his head spun and he resisted the urge to heave. His head pounded like he'd been hit by a lorry as he struggled onto his hands and knees on the hard ARC floor.

Somehow he managed to stagger to his feet and held onto one of the glass work tables for support. Raising one hand to his head, he winced and felt the sticky substance that could only be blood oozing from a lengthy cut. His vision was blurred as he looked around and recognised the hub around him.

Although the room was certainly in the worst shape he'd ever seen. Jess' leather chair had been knocked onto its side, the ADD overturned and the table that usually held its weight scarred in scratches. Blood lay in a pool on the floor – his, he guessed.

What the hell had happened?

s


So…where's Jess? And what happened to Becker? All will be revealed in the next (and final) chapter!


A/N: Also, my DVD of series 5 came today! *Happiness* I hope you enjoyed this. It was a oneshot but it was getting too long, so I've split it into two chapters. You'll have to wait a bit for the rest. Review and let me know what you thought about it!