Special note: Brackets are ANs. Italics are either creature dialogue (if creature POV) or character thoughts.

Part 4:

Home Office.

Harold Duvall was having a pleasant day. A few bribes, and the Prime Minister's secretaries had handled everything without letting the idiot find out. April had launched the Arrows virus, and the ARC's files were downloading themselves onto Duvall's personal computer slowly but virtually undetectably.

The Arrows of Sekhmet virus had been designed by scientists working for Duvall's superiors as an untraceable computer worm. The program could be adapted to send data to any specific external computer, piggybacking off of the host computer's Internet access. It took up a small enough amount of room on the connection and in the computer that it was virtually impossible to notice by traditional means, and was protected from scanning programs and deletion attempts by a prototype eternity code. No government or organization—even Duvall's superiors—had the capability to stop it. No malware sweeper or virus scanner would detect it, and most such programs would be deactivated by a self-defense code built into the virus. The Arrows virus was the most advanced code in computer science, literally decades ahead of anything else in the world. Untraceable, unstoppable, and self-adapting.

Duvall estimated that he had about two weeks before Connor Temple caught on, then a week at most before the ARC technician found a way to stop the virus.

Fortunately, there were other, more…unsubtle methods of getting the information and technology that Duvall's superiors wanted. The biological augmentation program had created the Twelve. There was no weapon that could stop the Twelve, short of a full-scale nuke. Even then, it would be foolish to bet against the augments. The Twelve were the ultimate killing machines.

Duvall himself had seen September kill an entire ten-man American Special Forces team in less than five seconds, while blindfolded and temporarily deafened. She had just walked up to the soldiers, and had blindfolded herself and put in the earplugs while telling them that she was there to kill them. The augment had navigated by smell, using the scent of gunpowder to find and disable the men's guns. Her blades had been beautiful, in a horrible way, even with blood and gray matter dripping off the tips...Duvall shuddered.

Some days, Harold Duvall wondered what he had gotten himself into when he had answered that mysterious caller all those years ago.

ARC headquarters. James Lester's office.

To say that James Lester was merely frustrated would be like saying that the sun is quite warm. This was now the sixth time in five weeks that the infernal little monster known as "Sid" had gotten loose in the ARC. And this time it had somehow gnawed right through a glass bottle without cutting itself. James Lester hated those who escaped their just desserts.

In addition, there were a pack of vicious predators chasing two of his best men through an anomaly, his team's geek was in the hospital for the third time in four months, and the Prime Minister was looking to make more budget cutbacks. Budget cutbacks! As if the ARC wasn't on a shoestring as it was! Plus, of course, there was the Russian.

James Lester made a mental note to himself to call his friend Yuri in the Russian government. Sholoshkova had said that her team was in the intelligence bureau—and Yuri had hinted in the past that he knew something about an anomaly team in said bureau.

Damn, when was the last time they had talked? Two years ago? Things certainly had been busy. He would have to go over his list of contacts. Tim West in the CIA, Xi Yongjin in the PLA, that man in the German government, the Frenchman with the accent—Lester hadn't talked to them in years. He'd need to check and see how many favors they owed him.

"Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry! He chewed his way out—I guess we need some better mesh for the enclosure…"

Jess bustled into his office, spewing a nonstop stream of apologies, and removed the dicynodont from Lester's formerly secret whiskey drawer. She backed out, now both spewing apologies and cooing at the infernal little beast.

Lester felt his blood pressure rising. He put in his earbud and listened in on coms, figuring that that would at least be better than the dicynodont.

He was wrong.

Dartmoor. Anomaly site.

Creature POV.

The spinetail alpha called out signals as she ran.

Squad Alpha, with me. Take out the big prey. Go in fast, nab the hard-nest-thing, get out. Do not let it point its bang-stick at you. Squad Bravo, the leader. Take it down, don't let it get you, grab the hard-nest-thing, and run. Squad Charlie, backup.

Contact left! Squad Bravo's leader chittered. Two strangeprey, with bang sticks, black pelts. Evasive action! Take cover!

Scatter, chittered the alpha, adding a whistled expletive. Get away from them and regroup closer to the target. Go in at a perpendicular if you can.

Three more prey incoming, said Squad Charlie's leader, loud but calm. Should we switch to tail signals?

No. Stay with chirps. These prey seem to have poor hearing. Approaching large prey target now.

The big prey made some noise and changed course, getting too close to the flankers on his right. They swerved to avoid the prey's bangstick [EMD gun, to you humans], and the formation broke.

The alpha swore to herself—a sound not unlike a mammoth relieving itself—and called out a regroup, panting heavily.

Hang in there, she thought to her captured comrades. We're coming, and we will flay the foolish hides of these loathsome strangeprey and free you from their clutches.

They're tracking us using the grass! chittered Squad Charlie's leader from a scraggly tree, jumping from branch to branch as she desperately dodged EMD pulses. Since there's so much grass here, they can see when you're getting close! Not well enough to use their bangsticks, but well enough to track us! The spinetail jumped out of her tree, avoiding a pulse, and called her squad for a charge.

Stick to the plan, shrieked the alpha, feeling the fatigue in her bones. Don't waste time attacking the strangeprey themselves unless it's for a distraction. Squad Alpha, regroup and strike. Adaptive formation—none of this pincer-movement crap.

The squad fanned out. Ahead, the strangeprey made a funny noise.

POV: Becker.

Captain Hilary Becker's brain was moving extremely quickly. A small group of creatures had appeared in his and Matt's ways as they charged the anomaly. Becker had made the executive decision to grab Matt and pull him into a turn, in order to loop around the creatures and lead them back through the anomaly without risking painful death.

Becker had pulled off this maneuver rather impressively, but unfortunately the creatures had tried to cut off his and Matt's loop. Fortunately, the animals seemed to tire quickly, and so the humans and their pursuers were right back where they had started. Another two-hundred-meter dash for the fate of everyone present.

Becker reminded himself to play a prank on Connor later to make up for that fantasy movie-induced dramatic phrasing.

Looking back, he realized that a group of about six of the creatures was coming for him in an unmistakable pincer movement.

With a quick curse, Becker veered right. The creatures erupted in chitters and broke off the pursuit. Becker looked back, and realized that they were regrouping.

Shit.

Matt was almost to the anomaly, but there was another group of creatures on his tail and Becker was a hundred meters back. The soldier leaned forwards and charged as fast as he could. The creatures followed behind him, and Becker wheezed out another curse.

The security team was shouting and running for Becker. He realized that more creatures were between him and his soldiers. The EMDs weren't working through the grass. Emily was hanging back and giving orders. At least she was a little less reserved these days, although a part of Becker was annoyed at this usurpation of his and Matt's authority. The rest of him told that part to shut up and run.

Matt got through, but his pursuers followed.

Fifty yards to go. The captive creatures were shrieking and slamming against the walls of the crate. Becker heard the backup field coordinator's voice over coms urging him to run faster.

What the hell do you think I'm doing, you ****ing idiot?

And the creatures were running past him with twenty-five meters to go. The big one with the snout scars turned around and raised her tail like a banner.

Becker skidded to a halt, panting heavily. The creature's eyes were huge, dark, and intelligent. It raised its head to Becker, baring its throat.

They're intelligent, Becker realized with a stab of shock. That's a gesture of respect—even I can tell that. Aggression would be with the head down, to use that horny scale in a fight. I hope.

The creature approached. The others—three of them—started to move forwards, teeth bared, but the creature flicked its tail and they backed off.

This one's a leader. He—or maybe she—can tell the others to back off. So they have a chain of command, at least at the squad level. Is this part of a larger military? Oh, bad thought. Bad thought.

The alpha whistled something and cocked its head towards the dog crate. The captive creatures banged on it.

"Jess, they're intelligent! The leader wants me to release the captive creatures!"

"Jess is out right now. I'd be glad to mark that…"

"Fine, Owen, then! These creatures are intelligent, and their leader wants me to release the captive creatures. I can't do that until I get through the anomaly, so I'm going to rush through them."

"Becker, they'll kill you," said Abby from the hospital. "You saw what happened to that guy. You can't do this!"

"Sorry. It's our only chance. Matt already went through—if I get hurt, I'll be enough of a distraction for him to get back."

There was a rustling in the grass behind him, and four more creatures emerged. The alpha chirped a quick signal to them.

"Look, I only have a few seconds before they decide to kill me and figure out the crate for themselves. If I die, tell Jess that I'm sorry."

Becker picked up the dog crate and steeled himself for pain.

Anomaly Research Centre.

April was relaxing with a quart of vodka. It was important to keep up appearances as a Russian (hence the stereotypical beverage), and her system could take up to a gallon of average vodka without intoxication. Another benefit of augmentation.

That infernal Lester was yelling at someone—probably the Minister. April smirked a little at that thought. Harold Duvall was an asshole, not to mention a terrible actor. The Twelve had a betting pool running on how long it would take until he blew his cover. The smart money was on six months or less. April had bet on two months at most.

Deciding that she needed a little excitement, April plugged in an earpiece that Jess had given her earlier. After about thirty seconds of listening, she figured out what they were fighting. Spinetails. Tough creatures. April's employers had a whole pack of the things at a location in Iran. They had been using "behavioral modification" on the creatures because they were too intelligent for brain chips to work properly.

Another person might have been put off by April's employers' use of torture on sentient, nonhuman life forms. April didn't care. The money was good, and she wasn't a hypocrite—she enjoyed torturing random animals and people herself, and whatever else you could say about April, she was definitely not a hypocrite.

In truth, the money was the main reason April had signed up in the first place. The augmentations were just a bonus tacked on to the cash. Of course, unauthorized freelancing was not allowed for any of the Twelve, but the money was good enough that it didn't really matter.

She chuckled a bit at Becker's attempt at a farewell. Amateur. If he knew spinetails, he would know that once the alpha decided to try communication you were pretty much safe. The spinetails killed their prey in a horrible way, but to them it was just how they were born—they didn't really enjoy it, and they usually tried to ease their prey's suffering by going for the arteries first. They were actually quite nice people, once you got to know them. They hated April, perhaps because they could sense her insanity and sadism.

Duvall emailed her private business account. The Arrows virus was downloading the entire ARC database.

April allowed herself a purr of pleasure. She could practically taste Connor Temple's blood. Infiltration mission or not, she knew that she would get the termination order as soon as that annoying little man found the computer virus.

She checked her other account, the one that her employers didn't know about, the one that was protected by a pilfered copy of Connor Temple's own security system. The one she used for communication with other Twelve augments.

There was a bunch of standard stuff; July still hit "reply all" to all her emails, so there was an update on September's family (she had asked July to check up on them occasionally), and June was still trying to coordinate that weekend in Las Vegas (despite the standing kill order that the American CIA had on all of the Twelve). January had contracted a nasty infection from a fleshreaver in Pakistan that she had been sent to bring in, and November was still looking for a way in to the Russian anomaly team's new base.

At the bottom was a little note from October, dated one month back. It read:

From: perceft10

To: iamnumber4

Subject: Sexy new threat.

Hey, April sweetheart,

Just wanted to let you know, Operation Falcon finally got around to genetically augmenting their agents. Davies is out for your blood for setting those raptors on Foss. He has major muscle augments and an intractinium skeleton, plus armblades that they TOTALLY cribbed off of us. The others have augments as well, some rather drastic, but you'll still be able to recognize them. Vilette Tcherine has some sexy, sexy hair, and with her new mods…mmmmm, nice and long, down to her knees if she lets it out. Try to save her for me if you come across her, hun—I love long-haired brunettes.

Oh, and Agent Peregrine nearly got his ass killed by a gorgonopsian trying to be romantic for Stephanie, but he survived long enough to be augmented and to have his skeleton replaced. You owe me twenty bucks.

Heard that the Council has you prepping to go back into the ARC—I hope they let you show your augments this time. I got security footage of you letting Maitland pwn your ass—that sucked, hon. You deserve the chance to show your true power.

Your loving part-time squeeze,

October

April didn't bother notifying Duvall—October would've notified her superiors just after sending that email, and they would've briefed anyone in the need-to-know loop.

So. Area 52's team was a threat now. Stupid secret CIA divisions, stopping her employers' world-domination plans. They would feel her—well, not wrath quite so much as sadism and boredom—soon enough.