A FEW VISITORS
CHAPTER 1
JESS
05:30 AM
The clamourous buzzing of Jessica Parker's ringtone echoed out through her London flat, and upon awakening the woman's ears were immediately graced with the oh-so-soothing sounds of rain hammering against her window, sirens blazing outside, and the neighbour's dog barking into the darkness of the early morning.
Jess glanced grumpily at the bright pink alarm clock that sat on her bedside table, and seeing the time, envisioned ripping said alarm clock from the plug socket, marching next door, and strangling the loud miniature poodle that lived there with the cord.
She sighed. Annoying dog, annoying ringtone, annoying British weather.
These sort of rude awakenings were commonplace in her household, and made even more frustrating when Abby and Connor had kept her up the night before with their "antics".
Jess Parker was definitely not a morning person.
She tried to get out of bed, but found herself only to fail miserably when one of her feet got tangled in the bedsheets and she tripped face-first onto the floor, squashing her nose, knocking the air out of her lungs and receiving a decent amount of carpet burn on her forehead.
"Well, isn't this just fan-fucking-tastic?" Jess hissed to herself, on the verge of tears and clutching her nose in agony.
Frustrated, stressed out and utterly disorientated, she sat up, took a breath, and crawled on her hands and knees over to her bag, which had been lazily tossed onto the floor the previous evening after work. Fingers finding the still-ringing phone amidst the cluttered co tents of her bag, she whipped it out and peered at the screen.
Despite being half-asleep and slightly traumatised by the worst morning ever, her heart still managed to Flutter at the sight of one Captain Hilary Becker's phone number. Butterflies filled her stomach as she smiled sleepily to herself and answered his call.
"Hello?" she asked, trying to sound... Awake.
"Jess, it's me. We've got an anomaly alert, we need you at the A.R.C, ASAP." Becker said, sounding all soldier-like and efficient.
Her mind snapped into work mode; suppressing any dreamy Becker-thoughts that crept into her head, she stood and began pulling random items of clothing out of her wardrobe, finding and changing into a tartan dress and a pair of red patent Michael Kors heels.
"Where's the anomaly's location?" she asked Becker, holding the phone with her shoulder as she quickly fixed her hair and makeup in a compact mirror. Anomaly or no anomaly, when it came to Captain Hilary Handsome, she wasn't going to be seen looking like she'd just woken up, squashed her face and cried about it.
Satisfied with her appearance, Jess grabbed her jacket and bag and ran out of her bedroom, noting how quiet the flat was as she did so.
"Umm... Here." Becker replied.
"At the A.R.C?" Jess asked. "Of all the places in the UK, or the world for that matter, why do anomalies keep popping up at the A.R.C?" she whined.
"I don't know. But it's right here, I'm looking at it. I came into work an hour early to file a report on Tuesday's golf course anomaly incident, when the alarms went off. Scared the living daylight out of me." Becker went on. "Nothing's come through yet, though."
As he spoke, Jess realised that Abby and Connor were clearly not home, and so she switched off the lights, locked the door, and headed out of the building.
"How weird..." she mused. "Hey, do you happen to know where Abby and Connor are?"
"No. I called them, but I just got their answer machines." Becker said.
"Well, they're not here. In fact, now that I think about it, they didn't come home at all last night."
Becker paused, and Jess had a feeling he might know where they'd gone. He sighed.
"They're not here, that's for sure. Hold on, Lester just arrived. I've got to go, Jess."
And with that, Captain Becker hung up the phone.
Jess' heart dropped a little, for no real reason other than that she couldn't hear his voice any more and would have to wait an entire seven minutes before she'd finished the drive to work and could see him again.
She shoved her phone back into her bag and started her car's engine, turning the radio on loudly in an attempt to drown out that little voice inside that was screaming about how pathetic she was. She was turning 22 in less than a week, for god's sake— she was far too old now to have girly crushes on her co-workers.
Although, she had a chance with him, right? She wasn't that terrible, after all, and it's not like he had a girlfriend. He wouldn't be going into work to file a report at 5:30 am if he had a girlfriend.
She sighed exasperatedly, and decided to focus on other things— like the terrible morning she'd had, or how much she wanted to kill that miniature poodle.
Soon, though, Jess began to ask herself questions; like why there was an anomaly in the A.R.C, and where exactly Abby and Connor were.
BECKER
He'd lied.
Of course he hadn't come in to work at 5:30 am to file a report on Tuesday's golf course anomaly incident.
The report had been filed on Tuesday. Practically all of his reports were filed on the day of the day of the incident. There was no way he would have left it two days, it was simply unprofessional. Who did she think he was— Connor?
No, no. Captain Becker had gone into the A.R.C that morning with other intentions. Awesome intentions, if he did say so himself.
But he needed some help. And so one Matt Anderson had joined him in his early morning adventures. And naturally, wherever Matt went, Emily went, so she ended up tagging along as well.
The three of them, Becker, Matt and Emily, had arrived at the A.R.C early on that rainy morning to hide Jess' birthday presents and the decorations for the surprise party they had planned.
But when Becker said "The party we've planned", he really meant "The party I've planned". The soldier just wouldn't admit that he'd gone out of his way to plan something like a fabulous birthday party for Jess Parker- it would have simply been uncharacteristic of him.
But all the same, he Matt and Emily had just locked 47B (now filled with streamers and balloons and banners and presents), when the fucking alarms went off.
Becker and Emily had both nearly jumped out of their skins, however Matt looked almost unsurprised by the noise. It was as if the man couldn't be shocked by anything.
"Anomaly," Becker said.
"You think?" Matt said dryly, shooting the soldier a sardonic look. Becker glared at him, before taking off in a run towards the ADD. He needn't have bothered heading there, though, as he found himself staring straight at said detected anomaly.
Objects that looked like shards of floating glass surrounded by a blue light, chaotic and hypnotic all at once, shimmered and shone in the middle of the room. It looked oddly simple, when in reality it was so much more than just a strange light and pieces of debris, free of gravity's pull and at the centre of everybody's attention. So much more.
"Wh— it's here?" Emily questioned upon seeing it. Funny, how Matt didn't send any hurtful sarcastic comments Emily's way when she stated the obvious.
Becker suddenly realised that he had no EMD and wasn't in uniform. And there was an anomaly right there.
"I've got to get my EMD." he told Matt and Emily.
"Right, me too." Matt said, eyeing the anomaly.
"Okay. Emily, you call—" Becker had been just about to ask Emily to call the rest of the team, but then he realised that she didn't know how to use a phone. Victorian bitch.
Matt smirked.
"Becker, me and Emily will go get the EMDs— you make the phone calls."
And with that, the pair ran out of the room, leaving Becker alone with the anomaly and the phone.
Lester was the first person he called. However, Lester sounded grumpy, and so he'd ended the conversation very quickly.
He programmed Jess' computer to alert each of his men and the other staff members of the anomaly, all while trying to get a little further than Connor and Abby's answering machines, but with no luck.
Finally he'd called Jess.
And lied about why exactly he was at the A.R.C.
And apparently she didn't know where Connor and Abby were either.
Although, when she told him that they hadn't come home at all last night, Becker remembered Connor mentioning something about Abby's brother, gambling and concert tickets- but decided to keep that information to himself.
"What the bloody hell is going on here?" Lester's booming voice had ricocheted off of every wall in the A.R.C, giving Becker a fright for the second time that morning.
"Hold on, Lester just arrived, I've got to go Jess." he'd said quietly into the phone, reluctantly hanging up and knowing that he'd have to deal with the boss for the next seven minutes or so until she got there.
Becker stood with his hands behind his back, as he always did, and braced himself for the wrath of James Lester.
But, hey, it wasn't like the anomaly was his fault.
Lester looked at the anomaly once, huffed, and then eyed Becker.
"Why aren't you in uniform, Captain?" he asked.
"I came in early to file a report, Sir. Wasn't expecting this." he replied.
Lester eyed him again.
"It's strange seeing you dressed in coloured clothing." Lester remarked with distaste.
Becker didn't know how to respond to that.
Matt and Emily soon rushed back into the room, Matt tossing Becker his EMD.
"You go get in uniform, we'll keep watch here. We don't want your men arriving to see you dressed... Casually." Matt said.
"Thanks," Becker said quickly, sprinting off to his locker.
By the time Becker had gotten changed, at least ten of his men had arrived, and Jess was just walking in as he reached the anomaly sight once more.
Jess' eyes widened at the sight of the anomaly, glittering wildly as it was reflected in her blue irises.
Becker caught himself admiring how put-together she looked at such an early hour (although her nose looked a bit red, for some reason), and turned his attention to Matt instead.
"Any luck getting through to Abby or Connor?" he asked.
"None." Matt replied, his line of vision moving lazily from the anomaly to Becker to the anomaly.
"Weird being the field coordinator when the 'field' is right next to your desk..." Jess chuckled as she approached them.
She took a seat at the ADD and Becker stood by, watching the screen over her shoulder.
"I'm tracking Abby and Connor's mobile phones..." she stated, fingers clicking at the keyboard furiously. "Apparently, they're at this address." She pointed to the screen.
"Jack's flat." she and Becker said simultaneously. Becker sighed- his suspicions had been correct.
He ordered a few of his men to go and "retrieve" the dynamic duo who had gone astray, before going to stand over by Matt again.
"What now?" Emily asked. Nearby, Lester huffed again and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Well, unless something comes through this bloody anomaly before we can lock it, we'll all just have to wait." he snapped.
It was as if something on the other side of the anomaly had in fact been listening to Lester, because at that very moment, something did come through the anomaly.
It was a little girl.