Chapter 1~Unfinished Business
Danny Quinn sat against the slope of the mountain, considering his options. The anomaly had closed, it was getting dark, and he had no way of getting home. He needed to find somewhere out of the way to sleep for the night, then, in the morning, find something to eat without getting eaten, and then... He didn't know what to do then. He took a deep breath of the clean air and stood up, searching. He needed to find a tall tree or a ledge in the rock that he could sleep in without fear of becoming something's breakfast. Another thing he needed to do in the morning was sort out Helen's body. He doubted anyone would be able to explain why a modern human and a Raptor had died at the time of the first humans. But that was for tomorrow. He caught sight of a... He had no idea what kind of tree it was, everything was different here. But it looked easy enough to climb, and had some sturdy-looking branches at the top, so Danny made for it. It was fully dark by the time he had managed to climb all the way up to the top, disturbing a few small, un-nameable critters on his way up, and settle down. Eventually, he drifted off into a jumpy and fitful sleep.
A few thousand years and about twelve hours later, in the Cretaceous Era, Connor was jolted awake. Abby was crouching over him, both backpacks over her shoulders.
"Come on, we need to get moving," she slid out of Connor's field of vision, onto a lower branch of the tree. Connor heaved himself up, stiff back complaining, and winced at his sprained ankle. He followed Abby down the tree. At the bottom, he tested his ankle. It hurt, but not as much as yesterday, and he could put his weight on it, at least.
"So what now?" he asked Abby.
"We need to find Danny," she said.
"How are we gonna do that?"
"We find where we left him and follow his footprints. Where they end is where he and Helen went through the anomaly,"
"Then what? We can't open a new one; the thingamajig ran out of power,"
"I'm still working on that," Abby started east, and they soon found the place they'd left Danny the day before. Thankfully, the Raptors were nowhere to be seen. Abby scoured the ground, looking for footprints in the leaves.
"There!" she pointed at a trail of dark patches on the ground and started to follow them, Connor limping along behind.
Becker led the seven, heavily armed men through the labyrinth of destruction that was the future of the human race, looking for any sign of Quinn. The Infer-Red goggles made everything a bright green, with the occasional red blip when Predators moved out from behind their hiding places. The team of Snipers on the nearby roof usually shot them before he knew they were even there. They had come from Johnson's HQ, looking for any trace of where Danny, Connor and Abby had gone. He hadn't expected to find one.
"Sir!" a whispered shout from somewhere to his left. Becker turned and followed the beckoning man into a doorway. The man pointed at the door. The ARC's symbol was painted onto it, with 'Cutter Building' printed beneath. The rusted box next to the door resembled a card-swipe system that had stopped working a long time ago, and now the door freely opened. Becker readied his pistol and cautiously pushed the door open, stepping inside. The dust on the floor of the barren room showed signs of recent activity. Becker made his way into the room, his men close behind. Someone had recently been here, recently enough that the dust hadn't had time to re-settle on the surface of a stone, glass-topped table in the centre of the room. No, it wasn't a table; there was a mess of power cables leading out of it, connected to a small clump of... Batteries? This far into the future and they were relying on batteries to power whatever this thing was? No, Quinn had been here. Becker was sure of it. He nodded to his men, who began to set up a defensive perimeter inside the room. Becker slipped out and made his way back to the anomaly to make his report.
James Lester paced slowly through the corridors of the ARC, trying very hard to look impassive and un-emotional. He thought he was doing a pretty good job. His mind, however, was overflowing with thoughts. Where were Danny, Abby and Connor? Had Becker managed to find them? What had happened to Helen? What had she been planning when she left in such a hurry? He pushed all these to the back of his mind and focused on his most immediate matter. Two of his medical staff had retired, and finding decent replacements wasn't as simple as he had thought it would be. Most of the doctors he had interviewed so far had simply no idea of the things they would be dealing with. Lester glanced at his watch and made his way, in his slow and commanding manner, back to his office to greet the next candidates.
The candidates in question were early. Two of them, a young, well built man and a woman looking to be in her late twenties. They were lounging against the wall of Lester's office when he approached, giving the impression that they owned the place. He saw Lester first, and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and smiled, extending her hand out to Lester. He shook it, noticing that the smile didn't quite reach her cold, green eyes.
"James Lester, Home Office," Lester introduced himself. He didn't give them time to reply, he knew their names already, "I don't suppose you have any idea what you're trying to get yourselves into?"
"Nope," the woman said, matching his tone. "Are you going to tell us, or is that one of those things that we're not allowed to know until you give us the job?"
"Let's just say you have undoubtedly never seen injuries like the ones you'll be dealing with," The woman met his stare and held it with a similar one of her own, her friendly smile lifting higher at one corner, giving her a sly look a fox would have trouble besting.
"Try me," she said.
Connor limped straight into Abby when she stopped suddenly, frowning at the ground. They were in the middle of a nearly perfect circle made by fallen trees.
"The footprints, they've run out," she crouched down and studied the earth, but could see no trace in any direction of more prints. The anomaly must've been here, she decided. She sat down on a tree that had fallen nearby and tried to think what to do next. Connor wasn't helping.
"What are we gonna do now?"
"I don't know,"
"Well, you'd better think of something..."
"SHH!"
"Sorry," Connor looked wounded. "I'm just saying..."
"Connor!" Abby held her hand up for silence. "Can you hear that?"
"...No..." Connor was about to say something about Abby being paranoid, when he heard it too, a near-silent beeping. Abby stood up and walked around, trying to pinpoint the source. Connor did the same, and they bumped into each other at the base of the largest of the tree trunks.
"Connor you're standing on it," Abby pulled a dirty, square object out from under Connor's boot and cleaned it off. It was another Anomaly-Opening Device! Helen must have dropped it before she went through the day before. Connor was halfway through a celebratory jump in the air, when a roar behind him made him loose his balance on his good foot and fall over completely. Abbey whirled around, and saw a very big, very angry Raptor running at full speed down the hillside towards them. She threw the Device at Connor and grabbed a branch.
"Quick! Open Helen's second anomaly!" She took up a ready stance and prepared to swing the branch in a perfect baseball fashion at the oncoming Raptor. Connor fumbled with the Device and made several panicking noises before a mess of silver shards flew out from his hands. The anomaly hovered right in the centre of the circle, directly in front of the last footprint. Abby walloped the Raptor in the side of the head, hauled Connor off the floor and sprinted towards the Anomaly.
Sunlight streamed between a break in the leaves of Danny's tree, straight onto his face. He blinked at the rude awakening and rolled slightly to his left. The next thing he knew was a heart wrenching moment of panic when he lost his balance on the branch. It woke him up very nicely. Crouching, he checked to make sure he hadn't been snacked on in the night before painstakingly making his way down the tree. He had to find some breakfast, and seeing as he'd left the rucksacks with Abby and Connor, he would have to go and get it himself. Fantastic. He looked at the sun; it was late in the morning. He'd overslept.
He got three steps up the hill when a mighty roar and a very human-sounding scream echoed behind him. He whirled round, ready to fight with his bare hands if necessary. What he saw instead, however, made him laugh with relief as much as amusement. Connor appeared over the top of the hill, running as fast as his ankle would allow, followed by Abby, still carrying her branch. Behind her, one of the Early Humans Helen had been trying to kill. It stopped just beyond the rise of the hill and seemed to shake its fist at them like a grouchy old man before turning around and climbing back the way it had come. Danny wiped the tears of laughter off his face and stood up. Connor and Abby slid to a stop in front of him and bent over panting for a few moments, Danny still grinning broadly.
"That...wasn't...funny!" Connor managed to say between pants. Danny shrugged and Abby threw her arms around him in a squashing hug.
"Well, that was easier than expected," she announced, much to Connor's disapproval.
"Easy? We've just been chased by that thing for ten minutes straight!"
"Would you rather be wandering around aimlessly in the desert right now?"
"Not really, no, but..." Connor let the sentence hang as he tried again to catch his breath.
"I'm guessing, then, that you guys managed to get that thing fixed," Danny butted in. Abby explained about finding Helen's Anomaly Opener.
"Where is Helen?" Connor wondered.
"She was pushed off a cliff and then landed on by a Raptor,"
"Sorry I asked,"
"Can we go home now?"
"Yes, actually," Connor led the way back to where the anomaly opened, being very careful to avoid the Early Human's territory.
Becker was bored. As much as he refused to admit it, he was very, VERY bored, and needed something to do. He had been waiting in the room they'd found for a good three hours now, and in that three hours, absolutely nothing had happened. Half of his men had made themselves comfortable on the floor, and he didn't have the heart to get them to stand up again. He himself had taken up position slouched against the Battery-Powered Table, listening to the occasional shot from the snipers outside. At least they're doing something, he thought darkly.
He managed to daydream for a few minutes, and only realised when he brought himself back to the present that the Snipers had stopped. There was an almighty crash, and then everything happened at once. Suddenly, all his men were on their feet firing at the ceiling, and Predators were crawling in by the dozen. For the next ten minutes, although it felt like a lot longer, shots rang through the room, Predators sprang, and Becker was forced against the far wall. He'd managed to drop his gun. Just as he was about to do something stupidly suicidal, a blinding light filled the room and everything stopped. The Predators jumped out of the room as quickly as they'd come in, and an anomaly stood right in front of Becker.
Danny stepped through the anomaly into the future and knew that something was wrong. Abby appeared next to him, followed by Connor who closed it behind him. Danny scanned the room, and came face to face with a very angry-looking Predator. On the other hand, the Predators never really looked anything other than angry. Danny froze, and felt Connor and Abby do the same. Not fair, Danny thought to himself, to come this far, and get eaten right on the doorstep. The Predator raised its clawed hand and was about to bring it down on Danny's face, when there was a pair of loud bangs and the Predator fell in a heap of flailing limbs at Danny's feet. He looked up to see Becker with one eyebrow raised, re-loading his pistol.
"Please don't tell me you're going to stand there all day," he really could be quite funny at times, Becker.
"Glad to see you, too," Danny said, somewhat sarcastically. The three of them followed him out, and didn't like what they saw. The bodies of fifteen men were slowly being snacked on by Predators on three nearby roofs. Danny saw Becker's shoulders drop a fraction of an inch.
They crept slowly forwards, hoping the Predators were too preoccupied with their lunch to notice them. They inched towards the end of the path, hardly daring to breathe. Connor could see the racetrack anomaly now, it was locked. Becker stopped, checked his watch, and frowned, motioning to stay where they were and keep quiet. They stood against the wall, watching the Predators, praying that whatever Gods existed were going to be nice enough to let them go by unnoticed.
Not a chance.
One Predator looked up from its meal, straight at the group. It growled to its friends, and the lot of them, there must have been twenty, began advancing over the rooftop. Becker raised his pistol and shot the front most one between the eyes, and immediately wished he hadn't. As soon as the Predator hit the ground, the rest of them gave a unanimous growl that sounded like thunder and charged. Danny, Abby and Connor sprinted for the Anomaly, Becker bringing up the rear, brandishing his pistol. He managed to shoot another four before he ran out of bullets and there was nowhere left to run.