Sorry again, it took a bit to finish the chapter.
Thanks for all the reviews I recieved, I was happy as always^^
One week later.
Today was the day they all waited for. The anomaly would open and they could get Jenny back. Thankfully it had been a quiet week, no anomalies for a change, but that allowed them to plan every detail. Nick had barely slept within the last few days, instead he had talked to Eve a lot, she had explained to them how the country looked where she lived so it would be possible for the backup to find them quickly, if they had to. Didn't made much sense though, because they didn't know where the anomaly would open to, but Eve had explained them what Helen research facility looked like from far away and inside. She had a lot of training in escaping there, she had told them. It seemed like she was the only one that believed that things wouldn't be going according to plan and Becker, as a little surprise, had agreed with her.
"Murphys law." He had said. "No plan survives the first 30 seconds of battle." To which Connor had asked if that law came from the same Murphy that had said that a bread with jelly always landed on the jelly-side, when thrown off a table.
They did as much planning as they could, expecting every possible creature on the other side and somewhat glad that Eve could tell them how to kill them effectively. They did their best to avoid thinking of Jenny, but it was plain to see that with every day that passed Nick got more impatiently. That morning he was leaning on one of the pillars in the main room, watching Eve and Becker talk and he wondered if that would be the case if none of this would have happened. Early this morning, before the others had arrived, all pale and tired, he had gone down to the armoury, looking through it until he had found what he was looking for. A bulletproof vest. Which was another weird thing. If someone had told him 5 years ago that in the future he would be meeting his wife with a bulletproof vest on, he would have laughed. Now it seemed plausible and nessecary. He wouldn't go through that anomaly without it. Sure, there still was the possibility that she'd shoot him in the head this time, making sure he died, yet the vest offered at least a feeling of protection and control of the situation. Now he wore it underneath his clothes, so it couldn't be seen. He had decided that he'd only take one gun with him, that way Helen would be less suspicious. Of course the others weren't thrilled of that idea, but that also was nessecary. They had to trick Helen, after all, so she should get the feeling that she ruled his damn universe after all.
The plan was simple enough. Eve was to wear fake handcuffs without a lock, so she could open them easily. Another one of Connor's ideas. They would go through it, Eve hiding her claws underneath her clothes, wrapped in some fabric that matched the colouring of her garment. So she could open the cuffs whenever she liked, put the claws on and was able to defend herself. Yet that was planned only after Jenny was safely through the anomaly. Nick would stay and help Eve and hopefully trap Helen. And as an additive safety precaution, Becker would follow them through the anomaly after some time. That was the tricky point, because they couldn't agree on how much time they got. It was the only variable thing. It was possible that the anomaly would stay open for 5 minutes or 5 days, no one could really tell, except Helen maybe. She had predicted when the anomaly would open, so it was possible that she also knew when it was going to close. And even if they knew how much time they got, the opportune moment for the soldiers to follow them was impossible to foresee. If they followed too soon, the plan could fail and Helen could simply open fire on them, as Becker had pointed out. And if they came later it was also possible that Helen had shot them already and they were all dead.
Damn, that really gives me headaches...
Nick jumped as he felt a hand on his left shoulder. Looking back he saw Sarah standing silently behind him, her expression concerned.
"Sorry, I was thinking." Nick apologised to her.
"You do that a lot lately." she answered, stepping up to his side.
"Yeah, I know." Nick simply said, giving her a lopsided grin which she didn't respond to. Instead her frown deepened and she averted his gaze, staring on the ground instead.
"You know, I haven't been here very long, but I consider myself part of the team. And I think I speak out what everyone here thinks if I say that I don't like this plan." Sarah said, still loooking down at her shoes and the ground beneath them.
Surprised Nick lifted an eyebrow, but before he could respond, Sarah spoke again.
"I know that there is no other way except playing her game, but I want you to be careful at least. I'm not too keen on seeing you injured again and I'm sure no one here is. So please, be careful." Sarah added ere she walked away without any further word.
Nick reflected what she had said to him. Of course, the last thing he wanted was to get injured, but the hard truth was that with Helen, no one was really sure how things would turn out in the end. And even if the only thing he wanted was getting Jenny out of there alive it was possible that they all got killed today. Though he didn't like that thought at all, at least he was prepared for it. He closed his eyes and shook his head disbelievingly and glanced at his watch.
Helen had said the anomaly would open at 8:27am, and now it was 7:40am, so they should be going. Looking up again he saw that they all looked at him, both concerned and expectant, so he pushed himself away from the pillar and walked out first, followed by Eve and his team.
Becker had a team of special forces outside, already waiting for them to get going.
The drive itself was silent; none of them felt the urge to speak. Even Connor was silent. They were all concerned and personally Nick felt a dread never experienced before. It almost seemed to him that whenever it got to Jenny or Claudia his feelings were going haywire. Or maybe that was just because Helen was involved. Things had a tendency to turn to bullshit lately whenever she was around.
His thoughts trailed off as they reached the place Helen had sent them. Ironically it was the exact same warehouse where they had stumbled across Eve almost three weeks ago. Ok, she had been thrown at them, but still, irony at its best.
With a nod, Becker and his men swarmed off once more to scan their surroundings as well as every possible hiding place. Nick glanced at his watch again. Twenty minutes to go still. He supposed it was enough for them to get ready and put up the equipment needed. As he watched Becker's men enter the warehouse itself, he turned and grabbed one of the boxes, ignoring the slight pinch of pain in his chest; and set off delibaretaly towards the grey shape in front of them. It was still early, and even if they were in a more crowded place in London, it was unlikely someone saw them. At least not members of the public anyway.
Entering the warehouse Nick saw nothing out of the ordinary. It looked normal, only the bloodstains on the floor spoke that something had died here. Carefully he looked around, but as far as he could tell, no one had been here since they had. The blood was old, older than one week, so it could be the creature's or Eve's blood, at least not Jenny's. Abby caught him staring at the dark red stains, frowning; and edged a bit closer, trying to catch his thoughts. Though she didn't have as much training with that than Jenny had, it worked well enough. Either that or it was harder than usual to hide them, Nick thought grimly.
"Do you think it could be...?" Abby didn't dare to finish the sentence, too frightened of the answer. To her relief, Nikc shook his head firmly.
"No, I don't think so. I think its the blood of the creature Eve killed. And besides, as horrifying as it sounds, alive Jenny is of greater worth to Helen than she would be if she were already dead."
But still, it was plain to see that only the imagination of Jenny suffering pain because of his former wife unleashed a wrath as powerful as a thunderstorm on the Pacific Ocean.
They started setting up equipment as soon as Becker was back and reported that the had searched every hole and crack in the walls and ad found nothing. No hidden devices, caeras, wires or offenders whatsoever, be they human or animal.
Eve watched them work, silently, her dark shape frozen against the dull grey of the wall behind her; a figure prepared for hunt and kill in order to save someone she barely knew. Somehow the whole team felt better having her on their side, her silence reassuring them, her will to face her worst nightmare was amazing in itself. Her silver eyes flickered now and then, piercing the vast shadows, watched them patiently while her body remained motionless. Unfortunately none of their scientists had been able to tell them why her eyes turned silver from time to time, but the test results of her blood were not back either. So everyone just assumed it was a birth deficit, something where evoultion had played a little.
As Connor was finished setting up his newest gadget, the Anomaly closing device (for lack of a better name), Nick looked at his watch again. About three minutes and the anomaly would appear, so he took up his gun and loaded it, ignoring the weird glances from the others. For them it was still unusual to see him with a gun, but to him it was beginning to get normal, which was disturbing in itself. Now he was somehow glad that Stephen had shown him how to use a gun properly. Closing his eyes he tried not to think of Stephen again, or the day he died, ripped to shreds by a bunch of hungry predators, his life spilled needlessly upon the floor of that room. Remembering it Nick still felt supressed anger and guilt. And boy, he felt guilty, if it hadn't been his goddamned pride, Stephen could still be alive.
The beeping of the hand-held detector yanked him out of his thoughts and he watched the anomaly appear right in front of them. It was in the exact same space where it had been last time and Eve stepped out of the shadows to stand beside him.
"It looks the same." She whispered in awe.
"They all pretty much look the same. They just differ in size and place of appearance." Connor answered her, already adjusting the Anomaly Closer facing towards the shards of light.
Nick looked down at Eve, his brow frowned in slight concern.
"You ready?" he asked quietly and Eve met his gaze with her eyes flickering silver again for a moment.
"As ready as I can be. I guess it's time to bind my hands then." She answered with a determinded expression at them all ad glared towards the anomaly, as if the anomaly itself was her enemy.
Nick nodded and took the cuffs together with her claws hidden underneath brown fabric and watched her hide the weapons underneath her shirt; then she stretched out her hands, palms upward and watched Nick put on the handcuffs. He watched her, while she tested them again, open them and; now satisfied more, he close them again.
Then, turning towards the anomaly, she breathed deeply, seeming not so certain about all that anymore, but she remained silent not wanting them to see her doubts. Abby and Connor walked towards Nick, the young woman giving him a quick hug and the both wished them good luck. Sarah stood beside Becker, one hand clutching his arm, the other at her face, she was biting her nails again.
Right before they stepped through, Nick turned once more towards Connor.
"You're in charge while I'm gone." His voice made it clear that Connor would be in charge also if he didn't make it back. The boy opened his mouth to protest, but Nick never gave him a chance to. He and Eve stepped through the rotating shatters, side by side, none of them knowing what would happen next.
"Now all we can do is waiting." Abby stated and sat down on top of one of the empty boxes, never taking her eyes off the anomaly.
Lightning and thunder clashed throughout the sky to greet them, while the wind howled through the branches like a wounded animal. It was dark on this side of the anomaly, both from the storm above their heads and the night that enclosed them. Cautiosly Nick looked around himself, his right hand holding the gun firmly, its barrel pointing towards the ground, but he saw no one. A sudded and sick fear crept over him as he thought of the possibility that this was only a trap and Helen had her creatures stationed within the dark, waiting to get the command to kill them. Not even the kevlar he wore would protect him from the claws of a future predator or anything of that sort.
Then, in the corner of his eye, he saw Eve's head turn quickly towards the undergrowth and some bushes at their left and she growled low. A strange sound for a human, yet now it seemed fitting. Her eyes flashed silver again and she ducked a bit, the powerful muscles of her shoulders and her thighs tensing and Nick knew she spotted something. He followed her gaze and saw a small shape, black against the dark shadow of the forest behind.
Suddenly a flash of light danced above their heads, lightning lashed across the sky, bathing everything in purple and blinding white light. And even though the light faded within a heartbeat Nick had seen the face of the human hiding there.
"Come out of there Helen, I can see you." He commanded.
A slight chuckle was heard and in the light of other lightning bolts Nick could see the woman he once loved walking towards him, her clones after her. At least twenty of them; all armed with rifles and machine guns, ready to do anything Helen might command from them. Yet there was one person who wasn't there.
Wherever Nick looked he couldn't spot Jenny, she wasn't with them. Helen had not brought her here. So she had planned her own plot.
"Nick put the gun away, before someone get's hurt." Helens words made it clear that Jenny would be the one getting injured.
"Where's Jenny?" he asked, his gun still pointing at Helen, fighting to maintain some kind of patience. But the smug on Helen's face was almost more than he could endure.
"Oh, she's safe. For now at least. Thanks for bringing Eve back. It would have been such a nuisance to hunt her down myself. She belongs here, this is her home."
As a response Eve just growled a bit louder and stepped closer to Nick, desperately looking for an escape. She had to think about that soldier, Captain Becker, who had said that no plan ever survived the first thirty seconds of battle.
Looks like we broke the record for failed plans...
Eve shot a quick glance at Nick and she imagined he thought the same thing. Without Helen it was almost impossible to get Jenny back, there could be a thousand places where she could have hid Jenny, aside from those Eve knew.
"Where is she, Helen? Your conditions are fulfilled. Eve is here and I'm alone. So where is Jenny?"
Madness flickered in Helens eyes for an instant, her clones surrounding them, while Nick and Helen estimated each other.
"Come with me, I'll take you to your precious Jenny."
With that, Helen just turned on her heels and began to walk towards the edges of the forest again.
"And what if I don't?" asked Nick challenging.
"Then," Helen answered glancing back over her shoulder, "Jenny dies. And besides, it's not like you have that much of a choice." She clicked her fingers and immidiately her clones surounded them, aiming the rifles at Nick and Eve.
Realising that Helen had the better advantages Nick lowered his gun and was pushed forwards to follow Helen, Eve close behind him. So close that he could hear her voice talking quietly over the howling of the wind above them.
"What do we do now?" she asked and is sounded she was as concerned as he was.
"We follow her, for now. There is still a chance that Jenny is alive. We'll proceed as planned, we just have to get through the anomaly in time."
To that Nick heard no clear answer, just a mutter of words and a huff of disgust. And if he was true to himself, the further they walked away from the glittering light of the anomaly and the safety that it promised towards the darkness in front of them, the more he thought of what a fool he had been. Helen had always been ahead of them and though he was pretty good at playing her game, he was far away from beating her in it.
At length they reached a large building, hidden underneath tall trees and huge ferns. It was surrounded by a fence and some boxes on the ground leading wires towards the metal frame of the fence gave the impression that the fence was electrocuted. Looking towards the depressing shape of bricks and concrete, no light was seen outside through the veils of rain, which had started to slash down upon them. Nick supposed this was Helen's research facility, the place where she had created all the clones and was brooding over what horror to unleash next on them.
The building was one story high, large windows on the side, one door leading inside, opposite to the gate in the fence, which was also closed and locked behind them. Still not speaking, Nick and Eve followed Helen through the broad doors and ended up in a large lobby-like room, cluttered with many things unrecongnizable to Nick. Most of it were just parts of some machines, some were devices he had never seen before.
I think Connor would know what those are...
Dim lights cast their rays over various objects, but the light wasn't nearly strong enough to let them see all of the room. Nick tried to memorize the way they took, but he got lost after the sixth of seventh identical looking corridor.
Never was much good at this sort of stuff...
They took a few flights of broad stairs down and slowly they came to the parts of the lab where Helen's people worked. Men in white coats, bending over microscobes or test tubes, or prodding bleeding bodyparts of some poor creature. To his horror he could even see some larger tables, dead creatures unknown to him lying on them, being examined by the scientists, and they weren't gentle. Shuddering he doubted that he'd ever forget the sound of a bonesaw. Trying to shut his mind off, he walked on, trying to look at the table as little as possible. Some of her scientists looked up as they passed, but most kept their eyes at their work, not heeding anything that wasn't under the light of a microscope.
Nick was only glad to leave that room for an instant, as he realized they walked into a large room, stuffed with cages on either side of them. A horrid stench filled the room and poor creatures either stood or lay inside of the cages, some dead, some probably wishing to be dead. Creatures Eve had told him about, like something close to that hyena-thing which she had killed, only smaller. But also creatures he never saw before, even something Nick thought to be a flamebird. Most of its feathers were gone, it was bigger than a falcon, almost the size of an eagle, on the wings still remains of red and orange feathers could be seen. While Nick looked at it he thought with pity at what a magnificent bird it must have been once. Now it was only sitting in the corner of its cage, swaying from side to side, not heeding the humans walking past it.
Disgusted Nick looked away for a second. All those animals were gathered here to satisfy Helen's neverending thirst for knowledge. To him those were only tormented beasts and Nick had to think of his grandfather who had always told him: He who breaks a thing to see how it works has left the path of wisdom. In this case it was Helen, who broke everything and got madder each time she did so. Looking at the creatures within the cages, dead eyes watching them as they passed, he feared of what could have happened to Jeny in the week she had been here. Had she been locked away in a cage, just like those animals?
They walked on, finally leaving the room with all those barely-living creatures, ending up in a corridor with six or eights doors at either side. Again, the light wasn't strong enough to make anything out for sure. There Helen stopped and turned around at Nick, eyeing him knowingly.
"You will surrender your gun, or else I'll have you shot where you stand."
Unable to ignore her demand, Nick sighed and handed the gun over to one of the clones, who slid it into one of his pockets.
"So what now, Helen? You planning to gloat with your achievements?" he asked in a low voice, anger clouding his bright eyes.
Helen just smirked and walked towards a certain door, the third in that line on the right side of him. The door was old and rusty at the edges, yet it seemed it would withstand even the attack of a large predator the size of a small horse.
"Not really. We're here to fulfill my part of the bargain."
With that she opened the door and stepped inside, Nick and Eve pushed in after her. Nick looked around the room for a second, but gasped as he saw a slender figure at the far side of the room, huddled into a corner, dirty brown hair falling openly over her shoulders, shaking in fear. But the human looked up and well-known brown eyes met his blue ones, suddenly filling with tears and hope and joy and love that he had come. Nick allowed his eyes to take in everything about her to grasp what had happened. Her clothes were tattered at the edges, but still the same she wore that evening he last saw her. Yet now brown stains of dirt and dried mud accompanied the dark blue of her trousers, her hair ruffled from the lack of a brush, her beautiful face pale and her cheeks sunken, deep dark shadows underneath her once sparkling eyes. At least there was no evidence that she was hurt in any way, no wounds or bruises, that fact calming him a bit. Clumsily Jenny stood up and hurled herself at him, sobbing helplessly, because he had come to get her out of here.
And Nick held her, struggling to hold back tears of joy for finding her and pity for the state she was in; stroking her hair softly, hoping she would be fine again. He simply ignored the fact that Helen was standing not three feet away and they were neither out of this place nor through the anomaly in safety, blocking out everything because right now nothing else mattered than Jenny, his Jenny, clinging on to the fabric of his black shirt, dampening it with hot tears.
So this was the long expected chapter of them finding each other again. Sorry for the state Jenny is in, but I thought it would be fitting, because I couldn't imagine Helen being gentle with her...
Ok, now its getting really interesting, next chapter Eve's past will be uncovered and I think there will be some eye-openers.I'm uploading it as soon as possible, but it could take a few days.
And let me know what you think about it, love it, hate it? Review equal in happy dances through the room!
