Disclaimer: Primeval does not belong to me, this is fan fiction, not for profit.
Any references to people, places, businesses etc is entirely fictitious.
109.5
Back to the library…
-x-x-x-x-x-x
Danny stepped through the anomaly onto the grounds of the library, but what a changed library. He stared in amazement. The courtyard where he now stood had neither grass nor pavement. The land was dry and barren, dusty even. The sky was overcast and seemed to have an unnatural yellowish tint.
He might have stayed staring a while longer if the sound of a heavy metal door opening hadn't caused him to turn and look at the building. A woman was standing there in the open doorway, beckoning to him.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" she asked "Hurry up and get inside.
Behind him, Danny heard the distant sound of claws scratching pavement and a chittering vocalization that raised goose bumps on his skin. He ran.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
Together, Danny and the woman slammed the door shut and slid the metal bar locking it into place. He looked at her and realized, this was the same woman from his previous visits to the future. Her honey colored hair was cut short in this time line and she was wearing a dark camouflage one piece outfit, but this was the woman who had once been mother to Delores and once been mother to Liam.
"What happened," Danny asked. And as his words echoed in the empty entry way, he added "Where is everybody?"
"What happened is that you almost got yourself killed," the woman replied icily. "You should know better… to be outside… with no weaponry…"
Danny leaned back against the wall.
"But where's Dolores?" he asked "and Liam?"
"Don't have time for silly questions," the woman ignored his question, pointing to another doorway she said "hurry."
-x-x-x-x-x-x
Danny followed the woman as she led him down a flight of stairs to the cellar. There, in what had perhaps once been a storage room was a shelter of sorts. Four cots, a camp stove, cooking paraphernalia and a door to a tiny lavatory.
"You're lucky," the woman said tersely as she heated beans "if I hadn't been up there watching for Robert and Charlotte, I wouldn't have seen you… wouldn't have been able to let you inside."
As Danny looked at her with a puzzled expression, she went on. "They left… a week ago… going for supplies… they should have been back by now."
She handed Danny a bowl of bean soup and a spoon. He eagerly began eating. In between bites, Danny thanked her for letting him in the library.
The woman looked up in surprise at his words.
"Library," she laughed bitterly "it's been twenty or more years since anyone called this a library… but yeah, it was a library once."
Danny swallowed his soup and repeated his earlier question, "Where is everybody?"
"There is nobody else."
Danny stuttered, "But… they were just here… Dolores or Liam… your child..."
"I don't have a child," the woman said "wouldn't want to bring a child into this world." She shuddered.
At Danny's continued questions, the woman sighed.
"Tomorrow," she said. Pointing at one of the cots, she added "You can have Simon's bed, he won't need it any more."
The cot might not have been a comfortable bed, but Danny was exhausted and he fell asleep wondering who Simon was, and why Simon didn't need a bed anymore.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
Morning came all too soon. The woman was shaking Danny impatiently.
"Wake up," she hissed "come on now."
"What?" asked Danny as he moved to stand "Where are we going?"
"Back upstairs," replied the woman "I've got to watch for Robert and Charlotte."
"Your friends," said Danny as he followed her up the stairs to the main library floor. He watched as she took a stance at the door, peeking out the eyehole, watching the front courtyard.
"Yeah," she said, not even turning to look towards him.
"Well," said Danny as he moved further into the ruins of the library "I need to look for my friends too."
-x-x-x-x-x-x
The dusty library carrels had no power. And if there was a computer hooked up to these carrels, Danny couldn't find it or turn it on. He swore softly under his breath, and moved further into the desolate canyons of tilted bookcases. Books thrown from their shelves, pages torn from bindings and scattered across the floor were underneath every step Danny took.
Against the back wall, Danny found a small bookcase, reminiscent of the one Dolores had shown him in some other when. This bookcase held a few precious books intact. One of the books was embossed with a familiar logo. Danny pulled this one out and started to read.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
The first thing Danny found out was that the ARC had existed, just not the ARC that Danny knew. Connor Temple was missing.
Danny didn't get a chance to read any further. The woman standing guard at the door called out excitedly, "They're here."
He headed back towards the front of the library at her call. Just as Danny cleared the last to the tilted bookcases, he saw the woman pull the front door open. She screamed. A creature appeared in front of the doorway, reaching its talons into the library, pulling her outside. Beyond her Danny could see two people frantically rushing towards her, and more of the creatures rushing towards them. The human beings were torn to pieces before Danny could do anything. He dropped the book that he had been carrying.
At the slender volume hit the floor with a muffled thump, the nearest creature looked up, looking inside the library. It was looking at Danny.
Danny didn't think, he just reacted and pushed a button on the anomaly opening device. He leaped through the shimmering opening and turned quickly to shut the anomaly. It winked to a close. A long spindly arm ending in three sharp talons fell to the alley way in front of him.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
1.1
Danny looked at his surroundings, he was back in a familiar street in London. He looked at the device in his hand. The geographic locator hadn't moved when had pushed those buttons, but the time selection criteria told a different story. Danny was back in front of the flat that would someday be where Abby and Connor lived.
But today was at least six years too early to hope to see them here. So Danny picked up the creatures arm and chucked it into the first open bin he saw as he strode off down the street.
He had to find the ARC. Danny had to find Connor Temple.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
After his earlier self left to go to work, Danny climbed the steps to his flat. The spare key was still under Mrs. Finchley's geranium. He let himself in to his flat and called his old friend Freddie.
"I need a favor," Danny said "I need to find a young man named Connor Temple, he's a student at Central Metropolitan University.
Freddie called back in less than twenty minutes. There was no such person attending Central Metropolitan University.
Danny ran a hand through his red hair, trying to think, while Freddie kept talking.
"You sure you have the right school?" asked Freddie.
Brilliant, thought Danny. That was the problem… Connor must have gone to a different school.
"Well search the other universities," said Danny.
"Do you have any idea how many Connor Temples there are in the UK?" asked Freddie dryly.
No, Danny had no idea, but surely there couldn't be that many.
"Four hundred and twelve Connor Temples registered in universities across the UK," said Freddie "and a whole lot more if you want the ones not in universities."
"He was from Bradford," said Danny remembering a conversation long ago when he had arrested the young man "birth date in October… I don't remember the year, but he would be twenty-five… maybe twenty-six now…"
Freddie grumbled about the search, but he said he'd get right on it. He called Danny back in ten minutes. There was only one Connor Temple from Bradford, he would have been the right age, but he had been killed by a reckless driver twelve years earlier.
"Can you print out the report, pictures, everything?" asked Danny. "I'll be over to pick it up, in an hour."
-x-x-x-x-x-x
Danny made it from his flat to the police records department in record time.
"Jeez Danny," said Freddie "what happened to you? You're getting more wrinkles every time I see you."
"Well," Danny joked "you caught me without my beauty sleep." He held out his big hand.
"The file Freddie."
Danny opened the file Freddie had assembled and started reading… a biking tour in the highlands, a white panel van, a reckless driver. There had been an accident. The tour guide had been killed instantly. Two of the riders, father and son, had died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
The local constables had been thorough. They had interviewed all the other bikers and had located the rental agency where the van had been rented. They even had pictures of the woman who rented the van. Danny thought it was a good likeness of Helen Cutter. But the woman had disappeared, never been caught.
Danny looked up from his reading. "I'll just take this with me Freddie," he said "oh, and Freddie… if anyone ever asks you about this… even if I ask you about this file… you don't know anything… this never happened."
"Sure Danny."
-x-x-x-x-x-x
0.5
Danny couldn't remember Connor ever talking much about his early years. Danny remembered all the ARCs mission reports, but he had never had a real need to review the personal files, so he didn't know anything about Connor's childhood. Danny remembered hearing Connor mention Christmas at his Gran's home once, but Danny had never heard the young man say anything about his father.
Over an early morning breakfast, Danny had tried to dissuade Connor's father from going on the biking tour. The roads were dangerous, Danny told him, but the man had merely grinned and said they would be on trails, not on the road.
Danny had even thought about trying to lock Connor and his father in the gent's loo, but his plan had failed. Danny had been locked in and by the time he got out, the biking tour had left.
Now, all Danny could do was wait. He was standing on the porch facing the road, when a woman and a young girl came out. They were laughing together and talking about the climb they had been on. From the dark brown hair and eyes, Danny guessed they were Connor's mother and sister. He turned to them, hoping to say something to get them back inside. They didn't need to see this.
The girl raised her hand and pointed excitedly. "Look," she said "they're coming up the hill…"
-x-x-x-x-x-x
Danny was off the porch in a single bound and his long legs running quickly towards the accident. In the distance he could see Helen climb out of the van. She took one brief look at the devastation and then turned to run towards the woods.
When he reached the scene, Danny skidded to a halt. He looked at the carnage, not knowing what to do or where to start. Connor's father was struggling to move towards his son. Pointing at the boy, he told Danny "Help him, help him… please."
Danny knelt and started tying a tourniquet around Connor's leg. Ambulances were very slow to arrive that day.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
6.2
"We have no reservation for anyone named James Lester with or without his wife and guests," sniffed the host "just like I told you the last time you were here."
Nothing had changed this time thought Danny. There was one more time and place to check, and if nothing had changed there as well, he would go back to the library.
-x-x-x-x-x-x