Sorry about the wait everyone, but I am an incredibly lazy individual, and I recently discovered Tumblr, which means nothing much will have happened in my life.
But now here it is.
I would like to thank Prawn Crackers, Beth Becker, Jnevadub232, Mijo54 and Forever-Diamonds for giving me lovely reviews, and also big thank yous to everyone who faved/alerted since chapter 3.
I love you all!

Chapter Four:
West lay flat on her back and stared at the ceiling. They were interesting things, ceilings. She had thought it was white when she had first moved in, and had gone on thinking that for a week or so until about three months ago, when she had been told of Jack's death. Then she had begun staring at that ceiling for enormous amounts of time, and she had discovered that it was in fact a very subtle shade of lilac. She liked purple; it was one of those things that she could only really describe as funky, however random a word that may be; and she reasoned that she liked it on her ceiling. The flat was far too boring otherwise.

Of course, another wonder of ceilings was that one could get completely hypnotised by the way the grooves in the paint swirled around each other, and her overactive imagination had come to inform her that whoever had done the paint job may not have been entirely sober. Either that or said painter had just gotten extremely bored with painting in a straight line. But whatever the reason, West thanked them for it. It gave her something interesting to stare at when she couldn't sleep.

She replayed the last few hours over in her head for the nine hundredth time. She and Becker had been sitting in that cave talking away about things she would rather have not thought about, when he had just fallen asleep. West knew better than anyone how important it was for people to stay conscious after sustaining serious injuries. Of course, she had next to no sympathy for him. Lester had told her upon her arrival at the ARC of Becker's self-destructive tendencies. He had told her she was even allowed to order him to the medical wing if the need arose, and he had also said that Becker himself wasn't remotely pleased with the idea.

The ARC team had tunnelled through to their cave half an hour after Coms came back up, during which time West had fed Jess continuous updates on Becker's condition. Jess had kept saying that she was forwarding it through to the medics on the way, but West knew better. She could tell how infatuated Jess was with Becker. Everyone could.

She hadn't seen Jess at all that day. Becker had been rushed straight back to the ARC medical bay and Jess had been there as soon as she had heard them come in. West had been directed towards the medical bay too but if anyone had noticed that she had gone straight home, no one cared about it. Hers were small inconveniences; shrapnel wounds. She could take care of those herself.

She had gone straight back to her flat and showered, intent upon getting as much sleep as possible. But that was evidently not going to happen. She kept thinking about what had happened. It was her plan that the team had been executing, her idea that they had been attempting. She didn't blame herself for what had happened; it wasn't that that was keeping her awake. Becker just reminded her so much of her brother. They both had the same determination, the same stubborn ambition. They even looked similar, although she would never confuse one for the other. She had gotten Jack into similar trouble with her actions and decisions too, and the events of the day had brought back all sorts of memories. This was just the first time all day that she hadn't been too occupied to think about them.

She missed her brother. She missed the things they used to get up to, the things they joked about. The little things that she had hated back when he did them she now missed more than ever, like waking up to find him lying next to her in bed, giving her that sleazy grin of his. She especially missed fighting him. He had taught her everything she knew about street fighting, things that he had learnt from their father, and they used to spend hours a day practicing on each other. They would never actually hurt one another; Jack was too good for her to land any serious blows and he would always play down to her level to stop her getting brain damage or something. Of course, that hadn't stopped him gloating about how much better he was than her.

They had been in Spain before, living in a flat in San Sebastian. Six months ago Jack had insisted she should go back to London, but he had never followed her there. Then three months later she had received a letter from a British military Spec Ops division saying that he had been killed in Libya. She hadn't been upset; she didn't believe it. What would he be doing in Libya? Jack went to places that were of interest to him, and if he had been interested in the goings-on over there, he would have told her. That was the way they worked. So West had figured, out of a whole plethora of possible reasons ranging from a spontaneous explosion to zombie attack, that Jack had died by some other means and someone was trying to cover up his death. That conclusion had upset her. It had taken her longer than she would have liked to get back up on her feet again afterwards but he was her brother; any other reaction would have been considered heartless.

Talking with Becker about Jack that day had brought back some of the things she had felt and thought, like how did he die, when, and more importantly, why? She had dismissed them before because she knew she couldn't find the answers. Jack had had contacts for everything but had deliberately not given any details of them to her, 'for her own safety.' She regretted not pestering him now. She would just have to go back to Spain and look through his stuff until she found anything useful. As much as she hated invading his privacy, it was necessary, and it wasn't as if he would mind...

A buzzing sound interrupted her train of thought. Her phone. At two o'clock in the morning? Really? Who in their right minds would be calling her at this time of day? With a grumble of annoyance she swung her legs off the bed and made her way over to her ARC uniform trousers and felt around in the pockets. She had to stop leaving things in her clothes, she mused. The caller ID told her it was Jess.

"Hello?" she muttered, pressing green.

"Hi, West, it's Jess. Sorry if I woke you, but we've got another anomaly." her voice was so cheery it was actually annoying.

"Where is it?" West sighed, pulling a fresh t-shirt out of the drawer.

"Nowhere heavily populated, a farm near one of the city's suburbs. I'm texting you the co-ordinates now."

"Alright, I'll be there as soon as I can." West, not in the mood for exchanging pleasantries, hung up her mobile and sat heavily back down on her bed. Of course she couldn't chase up her brother's death. She had far too many responsibilities now.

Jess liked being in the ARC in the small hours of the morning. The Hub was quiet and she didn't have to talk to anybody. That was her only complaint about her job. Being Team Coordinator, she had to do a lot of talking, not just in emergencies but to answer questions and make small talk with the staff. As much as she loved a good gossip, there were some times she just wished she could be left alone to think.

This was one such occasion. She knew she wasn't going to get any sleep if she went home, and at least if she stayed here she could keep half an eye on Becker. The medical team had kicked her out saying that he wasn't going anywhere and that she should go home and sleep, but she could tell from their expressions that they didn't expect her to. So instead she had merely gone down the corridor and started logging Matt's mission report into the system.

Jess glanced at the time readout on the ADD and got out of her seat, intending to grab a coffee and check on Becker. She had got into the habit of doing that every hour or so. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew he was absolutely fine, but that didn't stop the rest of her brain worrying. She just needed some assurance every so often that he was okay. That was all.

No sooner had she taken two steps toward the Rec Room did the alarm start blaring. It was even louder at this time of day, Jess reasoned as she ran back towards the desks as fast as she could in her shoes. An anomaly. 'These things have no sense of propriety,' she thought. The ADD fed her the coordinates and she reached for her mobile to call the team. She dialled West first. She sounded irritated but that was understandable considering the time. West hung up and Jess moved on to Matt, and from him to Abby. She hated the anomaly alerts that popped up out of hours. Most of the team didn't have Coms or Black Boxes so they all had to be extra careful, and often the only team member Jess had a line to was Matt. But they managed. They had to; the lives of 7 billion people depended on it.

She waited in the total silence of the ARC for fifteen minutes, during which time she half-heartedly tried to find a camera feed in the area. She didn't, but then again, she hadn't been hopeful. The anomaly had opened up on a farm outside the city; there wasn't going to be anything for her to tap into, other than a private network that she would never gain access to from the ARC. She was tempted in her bored state of mind to call Matt again, just for someone to talk to, but her phone beat her to it. It was West.

"Jess, I'm at the anomaly site," she said without even a hello. "Unless I am very mistaken, there is no anomaly." Jess frowned.

"Are you sure?" It was a stupid question, and she heard West snort.

"Very much so. There is nothing here besides myself, my car and a herd of sheep. I have a feeling that if the anomaly was here, the sheep wouldn't be, and besides, it's pitch dark. I would be able to see it." if she was even trying to keep the sarcastic impatience out of her voice, she was not doing a very good job of it. She sounded like she had better things to be doing at two o'clock in the morning than standing in a field, and wanted Jess to know it.

"Does your car have a radio?" Jess asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Tune it to channel 87.6 FM."

"Okay..." there was a pause, filled with rustling and the sound of car doors opening and closing. "What am I supposed to be hearing?" West asked.

"There should be some kind of interference, a regular break in the static, something like that."

"Nope, nothing, just boring household white noise." West's voice faded rapidly and Jess' ears were suddenly filled with that same static, so loud that she had to pull the phone away from her ear. As she did so, she heard a crashing sound from underneath her, like something heavy and metal had fallen over. The static was gone from her phone instantly; West had heard it too.

"Jess, what was that?" she demanded, her previous irritation gone from her voice.

"I don't know. It sounded like something fell over in one of the corridors," even as she said it, Jess realised it couldn't have been someone dropping something. It had been too loud for that. "I'm going to have a look."

"Keep the line open." West ordered. Jess didn't argue. Having West on demand, as much as she hated to admit it, was suddenly a very reassuring concept.

Painfully aware of the noise her shoes were making, she made her way as if it were perfectly normal across the Hub towards Lester's office, and from there to the elevator. The wait as it travelled to level 1 was unusually slow, and she was shaking like the proverbial leaf by the time the ride ended. She had to pause twice along the corridor to stop herself falling over due to wobbly knees. When she did finally reach the corridor, though, she saw them instantly.

A group of men were kneeling in front of the door at the other end of the hall, the one that lead out into the loading bay. Jess lurched herself back around the corner with a muffled squeak, and hoped like crazy that no one had heard her as she ran back towards the elevator, shoes now in one hand. Those men were not ARC security, that much was certain. The question was who were they and, probably more importantly, what were they doing breaking into the ARC? And why hadn't the building's security alarms gone off? Were they responsible for the communications problems they had been having? All these plus a million more questions flooded her mind as the elevator rose back to the Hub level. The second the doors opened, she made her way to the utility cupboard opposite Lester's office, hunkered down inside, and closed the door with a satisfying click.

"West," she whispered, putting the phone back to her ear. "Are you still there?"

"I'm still here Jess. What's going on?"

"I... I don't know... Some people... That crash..." Jess could feel the panic rising again.

"Jess, calm down and tell me in short simple words what is going on in there." West's voice was hard and controlled, and Jess tried to channel some of that into herself.

"That crash was a group of people forcing entry to the ARC. It probably hit the wall and..." she didn't finish her sentence. She figured West had got the gist of it though, because she heard swearing coming down the phone from her.

"Did they by any chance have multi-coloured armbands on?" West asked. Jess heard her car engine start up.

"I... I don't know..." Why was that even important? Did she know them?

"Okay, never mind. Listen, Jess, where are you? I'm going to come and get you."

"I'm hiding in the broom cupboard opposite Lester's office."

"Good. Stay there. I'm on my way."

"But what about Becker? And all the medics... They don't know what's going on."

"He can take care of himself. You stay right where you are, I will find you."

"Okay..." Jess managed, but West had already hung up. With her heart pounding in her chest and an amusing image of West speeding through London in the middle of the night in her head, Jess curled up on a pile of mop heads and waited.

The door to the medical bay clicked shut and Becker opened his eyes. His body was naturally fighting against the sleep-inducing drugs the medics had set him up with and he didn't want them to increase the dosage; it was already giving him a killer headache. Fighting the temptation to pull the drip feed out of arm he sat up and rubbed his eyes. His hand ached from the drip, the ARC issue pyjamas he was wearing were ever so slightly too small and his arm ached from the stitches they'd given him. It was going to scar, apparently.

A shadow fell across the door and he quickly slid back down, faster than his pounding head agreed with, and waited for that annoying medic to come back in. Or maybe it was Jess. She had been paying him visits every hour or so, and it was coming up to two AM. Ten seconds passed and he realised that no one was going to come in and opened one eye slowly. Then he opened the other and frowned. Figures were filing past the medical bay door, casting shadows across the frosted glass window. A dozen... two dozen... more people than should have even been in the building at this hour. Cautiously, he got out of bed, pulled the drip out of his hand and slipped into his uniform. It was still caked with mud and sweat from the day's events but he decided he could live with that. It was only his own after all.

Suddenly the ADD alarm blared, and the figures moving past the door paused, and then sped up. They began to speak amongst themselves in a language Becker couldn't understand, but one that he definitely recognised. Spanish. He waited for the stream of people to pass and wondered if West had anything to do with this. He hated the thought, but she had only been with them for a few days, and once the idea had planted itself in his brain, it wouldn't leave.

Becker waited until no more shadows were passing the door before inching it open and slipping out. He crept down the corridor, melting into the shadows and painstakingly checking round every corner before moving on. A splintering crash made him freeze in a doorway, heart pounding. Whispered shouts flew down the corridor towards him, and he realised the intruders were only just around the corner. Pressing himself flat against the wall he tried to control his racing pulse, and risked a glance around the wall to try and assess what he was up against. His heart sank. There were at least twenty five people milling around in the doorway to the loading bay, and more were waiting beyond, all armed with guns. Becker snuck back the way he had come, taking extra care not to make any noise as he tried to figure out what to do next. There were too many of them for him to take on himself, that was certain, so his main priority was to reach Jess and get out of the building. From there he could make a few phone calls and these strange invaders would soon regret they had ever set foot in the ARC, but before all of that he needed to get his hands on a weapon. The armoury, then, was his first destination.

He felt better, more sure of himself when he had a plan formulated, no matter how vague it was. He could sort out the finer details later, but for now, what he had would work for him...

"ยกAlto!" The shout came from behind him, and the overwhelming surprise it brought almost had enough force to knock him over. He froze and slowly turned, only to come face to face with one of the invaders. The man strode purposefully towards him with a grim face and an automatic pistol in one hand, and began to talk at Becker in rapid Spanish, only to escalate to a shout when he realised Becker wasn't understanding a word of it. Becker noticed that he was young, in his early twenties at most, and he wondered with a stab of sympathy if he even knew what he was doing.

"Please..." Becker said quietly, fully aware that the young man couldn't understand. It was enough, however, because the Spaniard stopped talking and a pained look came into his eyes as the gun in his hand lowered slightly. He stood facing Becker, indecision plain across his face, as if deciding whether or not to actually go through with it and pull the trigger. But then he said something else, only a few words, and his aim tightened again. Becker straightened up too. It seemed that the young Spaniard had made his choice. Well this isn't how I imagined I'd die, Becker thought. Then he thought of Jess, and wondered if she had made it out of the ARC or if, most probably, she was still sitting in the Hub, completely oblivious to what was going on.

The gunshot wasn't as loud as he had expected.

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