Hello! Sorry this chapter took so long, but I've been out the country. However, now I'm back and with a fair amount of free time... I think... at the moment.
Anyway, as I predicted, this story is going to overrun. But hey ho, that's life, Connor and dinosaurs. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Primeval. Or any lasers... and before anyone says, I know laser is an acronym and should be in capitals, but it has evolved into its own word now, I think.
"OW!" cried Abby. "Quit pushing..." She stopped suddenly, mid-sentence and everyone froze around her, concerned something was wrong. Abby took a deep breath in before very slowly and purposely speaking again. "Stevens."
"Yes, Ma'am. Miss. Maitland," stuttered the young soldier, naive, but not naive enough to miss the unmistakeable tine of trouble.
"Stevens, take your hand off there."
Stevens glanced down and noticed (to his horror) that in trying to help Abby into the pipe his hand had slipped down and was now effectively groping the blond's rear. He gulped and hurriedly removed himself so he was standing several feet back. Everyone around let out a huge sigh of relief they didn't know they had been holding.
"How much further do you think you can go?" asked Connor, eager to break the awkward silence. Abby twisted her body around before wriggling so she could speak to the men properly.
"I can't see. I need that torch. I think a fair distance further."
Lester produced the torch again, as if by magic, and Connor squatted it down to push it through to Abby, trying not to touch anything he shouldn't; he felt happier about doing it than another an though.
"Thanks," replied Abby, taking it. There was an echoic click and Abby let out an 'Aha!'. Suddenly, her feet disappeared up the pipe as if she was being sucked in.
"Abby! What's happening?" cried Lyons.
"What? Is something going on out there?" asked Abby, in a tone which suggested no problem at her end, just concern for the others.
"No, we were just concerned with the speed of your disappearance, as Connor let out n audible sigh of relief. "Please try to allow us to keep track of you, just this once."
"Oh, I found a bar to pull myself along," she said casually, to which the rest of the soldiers breathed out an audible sigh of relief. "Look, I can go at least another ten yards, but then some debris must have crashed down of the pipe; it's completely crushed."
"Like a drink can," suggested Connor, who quickly stopped as soon as he saw the murderous stare that was being sent to him by Lyons.
There were a couple more echo-y grunts from the pipe, but none of the men took much notice of them having heard Abby's distinctly unladylike sounds in the pipe in the first place, although, like she asserted vehemently, it wasn't as if she was too big or fat for the pipe, it was simply awkward and required bending her body in five different places in six different directions.
"We need to know how much further we need to go in order to reach Becker and Matt," stated Lyons. He bit his lip for a couple of seconds, before turning to Connor. "Have you got anything which could cut metal? Only needs to go through this thin stuff." He hit the pipe to make his point and the response was some choice swear-words from Abby. Lyons widened his eyes slightly and forwarded his apologies.
"Hold on one second," interjected Lester. "What on Earth are you planning on doing?" Lyons took a deep breath in as if he had to gather his patience when things weren't done as soon as the order was given, a state he was unused to.
"Debris is a sign of a ceiling. Given the distance it is, it's going to have to have happened well within the lab that Matt and Becker are in." Lyons approached Lester as he stated his case emphatically. "It may be as simple as cutting them out of the pipe."
Lyons looked pleadingly at Lester, who shifted his foot and folded his arms. The civil servant ran his tongue along his teeth and clicked a couple of times.
Taking a deep breath in, he grudgingly quizzed the soldier. "And the best way of going about it all is using some device of Connor's?"
"I do have some lasers I could modify pretty easily," muttered Connor, purely wanting to help without getting caught up in the politics of the situation. Lester threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.
"Oh brilliant! And there was going to be lasers! A health and safety heaven!" he cried. "Why do you even have lasers anyway? I don't recall seeing any dinosaurs coming in with bits burnt off." He stared accusingly at Connor, who shuffled his feet nervously, but kept the gaze.
"They're left over from when I was trying to access the artefact. Never got thrown out."
"That was a light experiment."
"Yes, but the only place I could source single wavelength light from quickly was MI5. I just used then on their lowest..." Connor trailed off as Lester's face turned bright red and his fists clenched and unclenched slowly.
Lyons grabbed Connor's jacket and that of the closest soldier to him, which happened to be Stevens, and thrust the pair back down the darkened wreck of a corridor, a hasty 'Go, get them!' sounding in their ears. The pair, especially Connor, wasted no time in finding their balance and beating one of the fastest retreats history had ever seen.
"YOU GOT LASERS FROM MI5! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THAT DOES TO OUR REPUTATION? WE OWE THEM! THEY'LL WONDER WHAT WE'RE UP TO AND WE HAVE TO PAY RESPECTS TO THEM! YOU LOT THINK IT MEANS NOTHING BUT IT DOES, YOU'LL SEE. AND IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO GO CRAWLING TO MR SMART NOSE ON YOUR BEHALF YOU HAVE ANOTHER THOUGHT COMING TO YOUR B..."
"I swear the Head of MI5 owes you more after that 'Hill invasion incident'. I recall the bloke had to write a 'sappy, meaningless apology letter' to you," said Lyons.
Lester stopped mid-flow, opened his mouth a few times, before biting his lip in silence. He harrumphed and cleared his throat, a smouldering look in his eye. He stayed silent though, the ringing of his words still echoing around the metal that lay within twenty foot of them.
After a reasonable pause, Lyons breathed out gently as if his breathing may cause further upset. When it didn't, he started assessing how they could prepare for Connor's return.
"We need to phone Matt and make him aware of the plan. Then we need to select a suitable spot to cut... somehow," he eventually decided. "Abby can you come out for a minute?"
As people pushed past to help the petite female exit the pipe, where she had been sheltering from the noise outside, Lester muttered angrily "He's still going to pay after this."
"Where are your lasers?" asked Stevens as the pair settled into a breathless jog following their initial rush.
"They were in my lab, which is well away from... any of this. I'd been using them recently in my Prospero work."
"Great," said Stevens sarcastically. Connor looked at him quizzically. "Well, the reason it's away from the blast zone is, let's see, oh! it's on the ground floor. Couldn't we have picked it up while we were down there? Now we have to climb back down."
"Yeah, thanks mate, had realised. Look, I didn't know they were going to be needed. Here." Connor pulled to a halt at the lift shaft. "Let's face it, lasers aren't normally the most useful piece of kit."
"When aren't lasers useful?" muttered Stevens, staring down the dark depths they had to climb down. If only they'd taken the torch; such a hasty exit had left them with little time to think of provisions.
Connor ignored this comment, but swung himself down. He was suddenly realising why he annoyed Lester, and irritated and exasperated many others. Stevens was the Connor to Connor. He was sure the young, naive soldier was going to stop at the drinks vending machine on the ground floor.
The break in conversation led to a lengthy silence as they clambered blindly, scrabbling for holds. Stevens especially was being careful, knowing if he fell, it was likely he'd take Connor down with him.
Silence was also fallen in the pipe as Matt strained his ears to listen for the tell-tale signs of a rescue attempt. Becker was as far from any of the sides as he could get, but was trying to remain as quiet as he possibly could. Even in the dim light, Matt could see he was turning pale at the effort; the team leader hoped Abby, Connor and Lester came soon as he didn't want to try to assure the Captain again – that would be admitting he was still a problem.
The ringtone startled both of them as Mat fumbled in his haste to answer the device. Becker simply looked at him.
"Hello... Yeah... Brilliant... Any idea how you're going to do that?... What!" Becker started at Matt's sudden surprise. Matt's response was to turn slightly away, so the Captain couldn't see any worry on his face, but he soon thought better of it, knowing Becker did not take kindly with being shut out of conversations.
Sure enough, Becker shifted forward anxiously and mouthed 'What's going on?' Matt held up his hand to prevent him from moving again while he hearing Abby out.
"Right," he said when she'd finished. "And it's safe?... Fair point... Ok, well I suppose we can do nothing be wait." Matt snapped the phone shut.
"What is it? What are they doing?" Matt breathed out and glanced at Becker; distracted, the Captain's colour was returning. Matt entertained the idea of not telling Becker what was happening, just to give him different to worry about, but quickly dismissed the thought as being a little too cruel.
"They're close. They think all they need to cut their way out of one pipe and then into this one."
Becker slumped back. "We don't have any metal cutting equipment on site. It'll be ages before they can reach us." Matt remained passive, which, on reflection, said more than any facial expression could. "What? What are they doing?"
"Connor has some lasers he's going to modify to cut the way out."
"WHAT!" Becker repeated Matt's surprise. He leant against the opposite wall as all the things that could go wrong when Connor and lasers mixed passed through his head. "We're going to die aren't we?" Matt's eyebrows shot to the ceiling. "Well, this may be my kind of worst nightmare, but at least I know this is an irrational fear."
"Don't touch anything," order Connor as he let Stevens into his private lab. Stevens gazed around the lab, an unimpressed expression gracing his face.
"Is this it?" Connor stood up from his cupboard sharply. "It's just an ordinary lab. The amount of fuss there is about you being here I thought it would have, you know, bubbling cauldrons full of poisonous chemicals and a bat hanging from the ceiling."
Connor gritted his teeth. "Yeah, I tried to out that stuff in, but Phillip said it was against health and safety." Stevens frowned at Connor's tone.
"Was that sarcastic?"
"Yes."
"Am I annoying you?"
"Little bit, mate, if I'm perfectly honest with you."
"Right, sorry." Connor acknowledged the apology and went back to searching through one of his cupboards. He should have listened to Phillip about one thing. 'Keep your lab tidy.'
Stevens lazily pushed a strange metal object round in a circle. He supposed he should be helping Connor, but he didn't know where to begin and frankly he worried he may not get out of the building alive if he damaged anything.
Connor's hand came down onto the object, stopping it from spinning. Stevens hopped back, wide-eyed. Connor got halfway through a sign before he recognised it as a sigh normally directed at him. He lifted his hand slowly.
"Phillip would go mad at me if that was broken." Stevens bit his lip bashfully. "Can you... can you grab that bunch of screwdrivers over there?" Connor put down four thin metal tubes, each attached to a small box.
"What are you gonna do?" asked Stevens, collecting the equipment. "I thought you were just going to... press some button and it would cut metal." Connor shook his head and pulled up a seat. "But you said that you just used them on their lowest setting? Not that they needed to be engineered."
"Exactly. I need to unscrew the box to get at the dial." Stevens raised his eyebrows as Connor did indeed start to take out one of the screws. "These are experimental lasers; not to be used in operations, or so the guy who gave them to me told me. The case is for safety."
Stevens baulked. "Seriously? You believed MI5 had to deal with health and safety?" He shook his head in bemusement.
"We chase dinosaurs to save the public and we have to deal with health and safety. There's nothing it doesn't touch." Connor adjusted the dial, twisting it round as far as it would go. Stevens watched in boredom, but Connor really didn't want to give him access to lasers. "Look, can you find something to carry this up in? But be careful!"
Stevens breathed in deeply. Somehow, being part of a dinosaur hunting team was getting dull.
Abby tapped the side of the pipe with a metal pen. The corresponding clang was muted and deep. She groaned and pulled herself along a little further, then reached up again. The result was the same; so was the reaction.
This time, the attempt was a high pitched ting which resonated. She tapped around the area, spiralling in circles until she had tested an area she knew she could get through. She smiled broadly.
"Lyons!" she called back.
"Yes," came the response.
"I've found where to cut. Perfect spot." She stared at the patch, memorising its position. "Now all we need to do is wait for Connor," she murmured.
Please review.
PS. Was it sensible to give Connor access to lasers? I'm wondering...