Helen's Hi-jinks Part I

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Intermission 1

Some days it just does not pay to get out of bed, Abby Maitland mused, as she and the rest of the field agents of the Anomaly Research Center or, abbreviated, ARC, sat at the meaning, led by their loud and sarcastic leader, James Lester.

"...and that concludes the review of the mechanics," the latter was saying. "Blown tire – one of them was the spare – complete depletion of fuel – utterly ruined seat upholstery – Daphne, what were you doing with the car when you went to that anomaly? Smuggled sabre-toothed cats in it or something?"

"Lester, let it go," Nick spoke up instead, in a weary tone of voice. "We submitted the report to you. The anomaly was not there; it was a snowballed prank, consisting of some snakes being released into a local church. We even have the response from the zoo authorities. Can't you just let it go?"

"I would love to, Nick, I really would," Lester replied with a completely insincere look on his face, "but alas, Leek had had a too free hand with the center's finances. We're currently a bit strapped for cash, and so I am very upset that we already have to spend the few resources we currently have on car repairs that could have been avoided."

"No, not really. The road was under construction; it was a stroke of bad luck that the tires caught nails into them, but, well, there wasn't any other way."

"Aha," Lester nodded sagely, "that's perfectly understandable. No, wait. Why couldn't you have walked on foot there?"

"Because the witnesses led us astray – we thought that there was a prehistoric creature in the church. Instead, there weren't."

"Cutter, I see that you have fully prepared to explain all of the above," Lester sighed. "You know what, I'm going to stop playing Brutus to your Marc Anthony, and just tell Daphne here that she shall practice her driving if she wants me to trust her any of ARC's vehicles ever again. If you think that that is unfair, you can help her practice for her exam. End of that discussion."

There was a pause, as everybody else began to look around and wonder if they should just leave now. "I am not finished – I mean, we are not finished," Lester snapped. "As I have said before, we have a big problem with our finances, so I – out of desperation - asked Ms. Lewis down there if she knew anyone who dealt with such matters, and she admitted that she had a cousin in this area. So, let us welcome, Ms. Claudia Brown!"

There was another pause, as the doors to the conference room opened, and in walked the blonde twin of Jenny Lewis.

Nick's eyes bulged at the sight of the two identical women, and considering that this woman was identical to the Claudia Brown, he had left behind in the world without Leek or Jenny, his breath caught in his throat as well.

The other original members of his team – Connor and Abby – did not have had such history as Nick had with Claudia, but they have heard enough about her to be shocked as well.

For few moments, there was silence, which was eventually broken by Connor. "If you two are cousins, why are you twins?"

"We take after our mothers, who were also identical twins – our different hair color is the only thing inherited from our fathers," Jenny spoke-up, sounding oddly upset about her cousin being there.

"Yes, that is exactly so," Claudia nodded, her voice having some odd speech patterns in it. "Our branch of family lives in Cornwall, and Jenny's in Oxford, so we don't really meet much."

Nick felt like he was drowning on dry land. Helen had to be behind this somehow, in some way, but how? In addition, this was Claudia, even if she was from Cornwall, but then, Claudia was Jenny or Jenny was Claudia, so... "So, what's Cornwall like?" he said the first safe thing that came to him.

"Rustic, really," Claudia smiled. It was a very nice smile, Nick noticed. "We're not as urban as Jenny and her family, but the change of scenery is nice."

"Really?" Jenny could not help but say. "Because from what I can remember of our family reunion-"

"Ladies, please!" Lester interrupted, seeing how things were getting out of his control. "I am sure that the two of you have plenty of family opinions to share between themselves, but please! – not at this moment. Ms. Brown, I need to explain to you how things are; Ms Lewis, you and all others are dismissed. Have a nice day. When there is an anomaly for you to deal with, we will call you. Professor Cutter, that includes you too."

"Lester," Nick half-turned to the other man, his Scottish accent especially evident in his speech, "you-"

"We're going now!" Abby said brightly, as she and Connor dragged Nick away from the conference table and Lester. "See you later, Ms. Brown!"

"Please, call me Claudia," the other blonde-haired woman replied. However, the others were already gone.

Back in the corridor, Nick seemed to have collected his bearings and become once again more like himself. "Just what were you doing?" he sternly spoke to Abby and Connor.

"Preventing you from assaulting Lester or something similarly stupid," Abby replied. "Nick, I mean you and Jenny and Claudia – but that's not that Claudia is it?"

Nick opened his mouth to reply and then he saw Jenny. The usually cheery woman was decisively withdrawn and was watching him silently. Nick closed his mouth with a snap and one could almost see his brain working inside the skull, coursing a new way of action. "Jenny," he finally spoke, "do you and your cousin have some sort of a bad history together?"

Now it was Jenny's turn hesitate before answering. "What? No, not really. But people always confused the two of us when we were little, and..." she paused. "Well, the two of us are not as close as you may think. She and I..." Jenny trailed-off.

"Right," Nick nodded, seemingly in understanding.

"Um," Abby spoke up when it became clear that neither Nick nor Jenny would be saying much to each other as of right now. "I still have to polish my driving skills. Since Connor does not have much driving experience of his own to begin with, can one of you-"

"Abby," Nick said in a tone of voice that indicated that he had made his mind about something and nothing was going to change it. "Right now I am not much good for judging anyone or anything. Unless there is a time anomaly opening up somewhere, I am going home to lie down and think."

"About what?" Connor's voice betrayed hints of enthusiasm too perky for Nick's current mood, and so the older man just glared, causing Connor to back-pedal quickly.

"Why don't I come with you instead?" Jenny interrupted, seeing that Nick's Scottish temper was threatening to erupt once again. "How about it, Abby?"

"Sure," Abby replied, glad to see Nick lose focus once more, and then she hesitated. "Uh, just in case, you wouldn't know a nice quiet spot for this, do you? I mean, my driving skills-"

"Oh, I know of a spot!" Connor spoke-up, aware that he made a social mistake and eager to make up for it. "I can show you where it is!"

"Fine, Connor. You can come, but be quiet, all right? Nick, are you game?"

"No, Jenny, but thank you for asking. Sorry for acting like an ogre, Abby, but this is something else." Nick's voice was heavy with finality and many other emotions. "I'll see you later." He turned around and left, his figure seemingly made out of stone in the sunlit parking lot of the ARC. The other team members followed him with looks of concern.

However, nothing is very permanent under the sun, and once Abby, Connor and Jenny arrived at the little park that Connor has directed them too, their spirits lifted up, somewhat. The place was cheery, with plenty of trees and grass and a nearly empty parking spot without any people around.

"Here we are!" Connor said cheerfully, eager to break the silence of the ride. "A bit of peace and quiet in the city!"

"Why, so it is," Jenny nodded, aware that the place was somewhat quiet, with just the birds and the grasshoppers singing in the grass and trees. "How'd you discover this place anyways?"

"Oh! Uh... does really matter?" Connor said quickly – maybe too quickly. "Now why won't Ms. Lewis see how you drive your car from the inside and I do the same thing from the outside. How does this idea sound?"

Jenny and Abby were not that close to exchange knowing looks between each other, but individually both of them realized that Connor was hiding something unpleasant from them. However, neither of them particularly wanted at this moment to discuss Connor or anything man-related in general, so they graciously nodded in consent instead. Brightening up, Connor jumped out and away from the car, leaving the two women on their own.

"All right, Abby. Hit it with what you got!" Jenny got back to business. Abby nodded and got down to business. She pressed on the accelerator, her car began to gently go forwards, and then, in a split second—

--the sun seemed to grow dimmer than it was supposed to, the voices of birds and bugs fell silent, a supernatural chill seemed to permeate the air, and a time anomaly open before Abby's car, which went right through it.

"Wah!" Abby's voice came through it in a tinny-sounding way.

Connor blinked, then he realized that since he was still able to hear Abby, it meant that anomaly was still obviously open, and even more importantly, that Abby and Jenny were still within its opening.

"Abby! Ms. Lewis?!" he shouted, even as he stuck his head through it, feeling afraid and concerned at the same time. "What's your status?"

"Can't you see it for yourself?!" Abby snapped back, sounding decisively angry at Connor's question. "Stop asking stupid questions and do something!"

Despite the way that it sounded, Abby's anger was rather justified. On the other side of the time anomaly lay a landscape that greatly resembled some sort of a desert – just sand, dunes and rocks, without any greenery everywhere. Connor frowned in concern: he was sure that he had seen this time in one of their earlier adventures, when Stephen was still alive. However, right now he had more important things to worry about, like how to get Abby's car out of there. The car's deeply set wheels were stuck in the soft sand that was composing the soil of this strange place, and would not budge.

"How'd you get here, rather than just get stuck over there?" he quired, even as he slowly made his way through the anomaly to Abby's car and the two women still sitting in it. "Wouldn't you get stuck straight away?"

"It was the inertia – it carried right all the way till here, where the motor choked on sand and died," Jenny replied as she opened the door and took a better look around their new surroundings. "We got to get it out of here before the anomaly closes."

"And how do you suggest doing it?" Connor asked, as he inspected the tires, still stuck deep in the sand. "We don't have another car or any fastenings to use, and I don't think that on our own we'll be able to push and pull it back to the anomaly in time."

Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but the words died in her throat as she saw movement behind Connor's unprotected back. "Look out!" she was able to croak to the young man, before it was almost too late.

For his part, Connor not so much heard her reply as saw the movement's reflection in the car's right rear-view mirror, and instinctively he jumped to his left. Therefore, the powerful blow that would have landed on his neck and back instead smashed the car's front right door, tearing it off its hinges.

That broke the silence and Jenny screamed, as she suddenly found herself face first with a huge scorpion, easily three meters long, which emerged from the sand. Connor, winded from his jump and shocked with fear just as much, could only whisper: "Giant scorpions... this was in the Silurian, over 400 MYA. Abby, Ms. Lewis, forget the car – we must get out of here now!"

His shout, as loud as it was, was barely heard by the two women. The scorpion took another swing, shattering into shards the front window. Jenny and Abby would have been hit by a shower of shards, if the latter had not fallen outwards, and the scorpion's pincers were not long enough to reach the pair through the opening. Therefore, the scorpion began to strike from the left once again, right through the hole where the front right door has been torn away. This time, it would get the soft meat inside.

Fortunately, though Abby and Jenny had almost soiled themselves from the spectacle, they still kept enough of their wits, and even as the scorpion was reaching out to slam its pincer into the hole, the two women half-crawled half-jumped through the driver's door, to the other side of the car. Therefore, the scorpion's blow largely missed the two women, and just broke the frontal car seats in two, but the pair was out of its reach once again.

Feeling probably frustrating, the scorpion smashed the front of Abby's car once again, deeply denting it. However, the metal held on to the scorpion's assault, and so the scorpion decided to crawl over it, since it was easy. The massive vermin began to climb onto the car; its pincers raised high into the sky, ready for the next series of blows, its bulk pressing the car even deeper into the soft sand with a groan.

All of a sudden, the arthropod stopped and whirled around, half-falling from the car. Sadly, it did not sound too hurt, and instead it sounded like someone or something else got its attention instead.

"What are you three waiting for? Get out of here, you fools!" shouted a semi-familiar voice.

Neither Abby nor Connor nor Jenny waited for a different command nor took much time from running to the time anomaly, which was so near to them... Or, at least, Abby and Connor did. Jenny managed to run a few wobbly steps before she collapse face first into the sand. "Help!" she called out weakly, but Connor and Abby were already here, grasping her by the arms and dragging her to the time anomaly...

...where the bulk of the prehistoric scorpion now blocked the path. However, the arthropod was not paying attention to the trio; instead, it seemed to be dead set on finishing-off... a rather large dog? At any rate, before their minds could process this information, the dog somehow manoeuvred the scorpion face-off to the time anomaly, where there was a sudden snapping sound... and the scorpion took-off from the spot before the time anomaly, dragging two its eight legs over the sand.

However, Abby, Connor and Jenny realized this only fleetingly: instead, they jumped through the time anomaly alongside the dog just before it winked out of existence.

And landed in their own time – right before Caroline's feet.

Connor's ex-girlfriend and her really big dog stared down at them.

Silently, trying to keep their dignity, Connor and Abby helped Jenny to her feet – only to have her pants and underwear slid down to her ankles, as they were snipped neatly in two by the tip of the scorpion's pincer. All pretences of dignity vanished alongside them; instead, every one of the four people present at the sight blinked and stared at them.

"I think," Caroline spoke up in a carefully neutral tone of voice, "that you need a lift. Where shall I take you?"

"Your car-" Abby began only to fall silent, as Caroline pointed to a grey minivan that stood to the side of the lot. "Oh. Nice car. Ms. Lewis-"

"Get me inside with some pants, now!" Jenny hissed.

The three younger adults exchanged looks between each other and complied.

While all of this was going on, Nick Cutter was in his apartment, trying to make sense of his thoughts. It was not easy. Well, the starting point was clear enough: Helen. Evidently, Helen was back to her old tricks, messing with him via Jenny and Claudia, but that was the only obvious thing.

Nick would not call himself stupid, nor would he call Helen a genius, but he understood that he managed to come on top during their last confrontation only because Helen was right there, and her motif became obvious enough. Here, neither of these factors was true: Helen clearly was not right there, and Nick could only grasp at straws regarding her motif.

Of course, there was also the possibility that Helen was not behind it too much: Claudia was indeed a rural cousin of Jenny's, but that opened a completely new can of forms: what if back in time, before the future predator's first visit, Jenny was a rural cousin of Claudia. What if Jenny was true – she was a separate person from Claudia.

Well, now she obviously was, or was that Claudia a separate person from Jenny? Either way, what did this mean for Nick's relationship with both women, once upon a time? Conversely, if Jenny and Claudia were separate people existing simultaneously in at least one lifetime, and not two alternative copies at the same time, it meant that Helen had lied, when she suggested that the latter was indeed the case, and not the former. Consequently, this implied that Helen couldn't be trusted in anything, in which case, why should Nick and other care to capture her, if they could never know if she was telling them the truth or not?

Groaning, Nick looked outside, where sunrays were jumping like little rabbits through his window. "I miss Stephen," he quietly muttered. "He would have some sort of an idea of how to deal with this muddle, I'm sure of it."

A sudden phone call interrupted Nick's head-splitting reverie. "Who is it?" he snapped into the receiver.

"Nick, it's Jenny. There was an emergency of a real time anomaly this time. Can we come up?"

"Yes," Nick said, blood in his veins chilling to ice. A time anomaly emergency and 'we'? Was he going to be confronted by both cousins as well?

To Nick's relief, Jenny was not with Claudia; instead she was with Nick, and Abby, and another young woman. The stranger looked familiar, but Nick was more interested in Jenny: she wore sweatpants, and from what he could fathom, no underwear at all.

"So, what had happened this time?" Nick said quickly, painfully aware that his gaze had lingered below Jenny's waist for too long to be polite at all.

"It was a time anomaly," Connor explained instead. "The Silurian one, with the giant scorpions."

Nick blinked. "What?"

"I was practicing my driving, when it just opened and pulled me and Ms. Lewis through," Abby explained, helpfully. "There was sand, rocks, and a giant scorpion, like the ones brought here by Leek and Helen, which you said back then were from the Silurian period."

"Aha. Then what happened?"

"The scorpion attacked us – fortunately, the car was in its way, so we keep it away from us for the first few moments until Caroline and her dog helped us get away."

The name and the face snapped into mental focus. "I remember you!" Nick said, perhaps a bit louder than he intended to. "You're Connor's ex. What were you doing there?"

"I was walking my dogs," Caroline replied flatly.

"Uh, Nick?" Connor hurriedly interrupted. "Caroline always walks her dogs in that park – the only way that I found out this place was because she took me there few times on our dates. Any coincidence of today is on my conscience."

"I see," Nick nodded. "Please, go on?"

"Caroline and her dog showed up, the dog occupied the scorpion long enough for Caroline to shove a can of Mace into the scorpion's mouth, at which moment it promptly fled. Apparently, Mace isn't very tasty to giant prehistoric scorpions," Abby finished the tale. "The time anomaly closed and we decided to go to you instead of Lester. That's the end of it."

"I see," Nick slowly said. "And Caroline came here because?"

"I drove them," Caroline replied flatly. "Their ride got stuck on the other side of the hole in space and time – in the Silurian, I think."

Nick tried to blink, but his eyes could only budge as his ears relayed to his brain what they had heard. "Your car," he turned to Abby, "is in the Silurian?"

"Yes," Abby said meekly, glaring at Caroline, who stared flatly back.

"I can see now why you wouldn't want to go to Lester, besides the obvious," Nick continued. "Very well. Let us keep it quiet until the next meeting. I hope that by then we will figure something out or get Abby a new car or something. For now, though, Caroline, why don't you drive Jenny home so that she would get on her own clothing for now. I'll drive Abby and Connor to their place, if they don't mind."

"Not at all," Abby nodded, and then she and Connor turned to Caroline. "We, ah, see you around?"

"I guess," Caroline nodded, for once not so much hostile, as wary. "Come on, Ms., I'll drive you home."

As the door closed behind Jenny and her, Connor and Abby looked at Nick with more concern in their eyes.

"Nick, there's something else that you must now," Abby carefully began, "and it always Lester."

To be continued...