Attention Readers- This is the sequel to my last story The Hardship of a Secret and so I want to thank all of you that read it and all of you who reviewed as I appreciate your comments and suggestions! So thank you!!!
An: In this, Cutter DID NOT DIE, and you have to realise that this story is set a good seventeen/eighteen years into the future. Oh and Claudia never disappeared.
Pairings:
Abby/Connor
Nick/Claudia
Danny/OC
Becker/Sarah
Isabella (OC)/ Ryan (OC)
This story will mostly focus upon Isabella and the rest of the NG of Primeval. Hope you don't mind.
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Primeval, but if I did I would get Connor and Abby together and I never would have let Cutter Die.
This one is going to be from many views, so you might get confused.
Kate wants to become an actor- Thank you for reviewing on the prologue, I'm glad you think it's a class story! I love writing it and I think there's a lot I can do with it.
Oreal770- Thank you for your review on the prologue! I have to say, I think you're one of my most loved readers!
Warning- Swearing ahead!
Chapter one: The beginning of the disaster
(Isabella's Prov)
I love being at the Arc, I really do. It gives me a sense that I belong, gives me a sense that I am doing something that is completely worthwhile, and a great sense of adventure and thrills that all others only dream of. I mean, doing this is only something a teen might do in a film or cartoon, and yet here I am, working for the government in a big conspiracy involving holes in time with dinosaurs, the future and other weird but wonderful things.
It's brilliant.
Absolutely brilliant.
Most of the time anyway.
It's also one of the only places that I can truly be myself. And that is what I'm doing now.
I share an office/Lab room with my Dad; who is, at this moment in time, at a fancy dinner party with my Mum, Lester, and all the other adults. This leaves me alone in the office to do as I please. The office itself is rather messy, both of our desks are cluttered with files and papers, and both our tables that hold our experiments are cluttered with random objects, the walls are covered in diagrams and drawings and rough sketches of dinosaurs and other creatures that we've come across.
It's a Monday; the first Monday of the summer holidays to be exact, and it's roughly half past five, the Arc is almost silent; I think Ryan, William and Nathaniel are in the rec room playing on the game station in there.
It's silent, except for the occasional echoing footsteps of the men on patrol as they walk repeatedly up and down the corridors. "Evening Miss Temple" Mr Jones said as he passed by the door to the office.
"Evening Mr. Jones" I reply back, smiling at him; Mr Jones or 'Derek' rather, has become somewhat of an adult friend, he often volunteers to sit with me at an anomaly site whilst we wait for everyone else to deal with the mass panic of whatever drama is happening., and then I continue to write calculations on the touch-board. I'm currently working on the new calculations for the proton-anomaly generator; the last lot didn't add up properly, so it's proving a little trickier than we had originally thought, but we'll get it right, eventually.
I'm a little chilly, as the Arc air conditioning is on; making the air inside rather chilly, I wore cloths for the warm weather outside. I'm dressed in a black straight arm shirt with a green shooting star going across the front, a black three zip skirt that goes to mid thigh; it has a small white skull on the right side, a pair of black leggings and a pair of green converse.
I'm almost done with this equation and once I complete it, I might just go home or go out to Katharine's; I told her I might meet her and Jenna later.
But, as life is not always fair, I go to write the last series of numbers and the alarm goes off.
An anomaly, I don't know whether to be happy that I'm finally doing some proper work, or pissed because I was just about finnished for now.
I chuck the pen on the desk, I grab my anomaly bag and my jacket and I then run off down the corridor towards the main room; dodging patrol men as I go. I barge through the doors, almost knocking into Mr Jones as I get inside "Sorry" I say hurridely as I run and I get myself to the anomaly detector.
I sit myself down rather hurriedly.
I type furiously, locking onto the anomaly.
"Where is it?" Nathaniel calls as he comes up to me.
"Almost got it" I say, not taking my eyes off of the screens.
"Got it! It's at the Jetzon factory; a building just off skate park down on the estates, luckily it's being renovated so it's closed at five" I say, turning around in the chair.
"Okay, let's get equipped and get down there ASAP" Nathaniel says loudly; mainly to some of William and Becker's men. William nods at Nathaniel; William himself is dressed in a miniature version of what his Dad normally wears at work, black trousers, black t-shirt with the Arc symbol on it, combat shoes, preferably doc-martins, though he tends to wear leather fingerless gloves
"You heard the man-boy-, oh you heard him, let's get some weapons" He says to them, practically marching them out the doors; giving us a smile when Nathaniel protests at the man-boy comment.
Nathaniel is wearing a long sleeved white t-shirt with a pair of black jeans that are rather frayed at the bottom and look well worn; he's also wearing a pair of black and white trainers and is carrying a light grey leather-ish jacket.
Just as I'm getting up from the chair, my PDA starts ringing; the caller ID shows that it's Dad.
I answer.
"Everything alright?" he asks; voices very loud in the background.
"Yeah, just got an anomaly alert, that's all" I say, hoping that he'll let us handle it on our own.
"Okay, well, we can't get away, Lester says he'll fire us if we leave now, so I guess you lot are gunna have to deal with it on your own" Result!! "But, be careful, and make sure you all stick together. Just close it and document it"
"I know the drill Dad, look but don't touch, and don't be alone, been doin' this job a while now remember" I look up to see Nathaniel signalling that he's going to the cars "Listen Dad, I got to go, I love you, see you later, bye!" I say quickly and cut the call off.
I quickly walk over and follow Nathaniel out of the doors, slinging my bag over my shoulder and jacket around my waist.
............
When we get up to the vehicles, Ryan is helping William and Becker's men load up the back of the large, silver four by four cars.
He smiles at me and I smile back. He's wearing a short sleeved black and yellow chequered shirt over the top of a black long sleeved shirt with the slogan 'Rehab is for quitters', a pair of dark blue jeans and black and white converse.
"They better not break any of that equipment" Nathaniel says "He hardly ever concentrates on anything anymore, he's too busy staring at your arse whenever your about" He says loudly, most likely hoping that Ryan will hear him; he doesn't.
Nathaniel opens the car door for me and lets me get in first before going round to the other side and getting in himself; he sticks his head out of the window; "We'll see you in a few!" before telling the driver "Jetzon factory, back of the Hills estate"
The driver nods and we set off; another car following us.
"Ya'know, it's just my luck right? I was about to finish up and then go out to Katharine's, but no, an anomaly has to appear" I say, pulling out my anomaly detector from my bag.
My bag is full of all the equipment I could need in case of an emergency. Food rations, a small shocker for creatures, two torches, a small pack with mini screwdrivers, spanners, crocodile clips, tape, batteries, spare wires and computer chips, a small medical kit and a note book with a small army issued camera with night vision; for observations and such.
"Yeah well lucky you, I wouldn't have had anything to do. I just sat there watching Will and Ry battle it out on the game station" Nathaniel said, making sure that he had everything within his own bag.
"Hey, at least we get to hang out somewhere different" I say to him, an air of laughter in my voice.
"Didn't think renovated buildings were your style Isabella" he said, smirking at me.
"Nah, I prefer jumping from trees myself" I joke; making him laugh properly.
And we spent the rest of the car journey joking about.
............
When we got to the site; about twenty minutes later, we climbed from the car and looked at the building; it was surrounded by various sets of scaffolding, and looked rather derelict.
The area around had various containers of whatever inside, diggers, and other large scale building equipment around the place.
No sooner than a minute after arriving, the other three cars arrived through the open gates. Ryan stepped out and slung his bag over his shoulders and then made his way over to Nathaniel and I, we waited a few moments while William got his favourite weapon from the back of the car and slipped his own bag over his shoulders.
"Start securing the area, we're going to look around inside" William told the men; the men nodded, steadying their weapons "No-one gets inside the perimeter okay, and stop anything if it gets out; using tranqs okay?, I'll radio in when we've found it"
"'Kay then, let's go find this anomaly shall we" Nathaniel said to me "Lead the way then Isabella"
"Can I come in?" a voice asks from behind us as we go to go in.
I turn to look at my younger brother Thomas; dressed all in black but with a pair of red skinny jeans on; skateboard clutched underneath one arm. Freshly dyed black and blue hair sweeping over his eyes.
"I don't know, you going to behave and do as we tell you?" William asks sternly; his training coming into play. It's not like Thomas hasn't tagged along before, he did so a few weeks back when a flock of Jurassic lizards came through, he helped capture them and get them back through; he's gifted with handling animals, he gets it from Mum.
Thomas holds a hand over where his heart is "I swear it!" he states; smiling at us.
I sigh loudly "Okay, come on Tom" I say, I grab his hand and pull him along; he's a little weird like that, he doesn't mind about holding my hand, it's normally him that grabs it first.
Ryan looks at me in a somewhat reproachful way, and I mouth to him "He's my little brother" I say and head inside.
The others following me.
............
(Katharine' Prov)
I laugh at Jenna when she almost trips as we cut through the back of the Hills estate; there's a small dirt passage-way between the almost non-existent fencing of the Jetzon factory and the actual estate.
We're both dressed rather similarly, blue tank tops with thick black hoodies wrapped around our waists, we both are wearing faded purple skinny jeans and little pink pumps. We always dress like this, Isabella sometimes does it too.
"Didn't Issy say she might come to yours later?" Jenna asked me as we walked.
"Yeah, she said she'll see if she can make it" I reply, but I trailed of slightly at the end when I spot none other than Chester Johnston standing at a torn gap in the fencing looking at the Jetzon building. His hands are stuffed into his black jean pockets; he's wearing skinny jeans surprisingly, he's wearing a track suite jacket and a white and purple polo shirt underneath, with dirty white sneakers and a black cap.
"You talking about Isabella?" he asks, he doesn't even take his eyes off the building as he does so.
"None of your business Chester" I say to him in one of my stuck up ways.
"Maybe not, but I's sure like to know what she's up too" he says, sparing us a glance before turning his gaze back to the building; I wonder what's so interesting about it.
"She's at her Nan's, not that it's anything to do with you!" Jenna says a little angry.
"Really?" he says snidely, turning to look at us properly; he has a cut underneath his eye and his other eye looks all bruised; I guess he's been getting into fights already this summer. He then goes back to looking at the building "I didn't know her Nan lived in the Jetzon building" he said in a voice that didn't quite sound like him.
"What the fuck are you on about Chester?" I ask him angrily; Jenna nodding along.
"You say she's at her Nan's right?" He asks; not even looking at us.
"Yes" I say loudly "We've said that already!"
He takes a hand from his pocket and points in the direction through the fence "Well then, what's she doing with a bunch of armed men over there?" he questions.
I walk over and stand next to him, and I look to where he had been looking and pointing and "Oh My God, what the hell?"
"What?" Jenna asks; she's still stood where we were a moment ago.
Chester pulls on her arm gently and points to where we're looking; her mouth falls open in shock "They've got guns!" she says in a high pitch voice "William has a gun! What the hell are they doing?" she asks as Isabella pulls Thomas along with the others and they head inside. The men with guns then begin to fan out in directions.
"I don't know, but I'm going to find out" Chester says; he slips past the hole in the fence, and legs it over behind a container.
"Chester!" I hiss at him "They have guns!"
He shrugs at me and glares at the pair of us "You ever think that them lot in there may be in trouble?" he whispers loudly "Are you coming or not?" he asks eventually.
I look at Jenna "He might be right" she says "You never know, they could be in trouble, terrorists'll do anything these days".
I sigh angrily and look out, the guards, or rather, men with guns, are mainly staying near the actual front of the building, I nod "Okay, come on" I say to her.
We run over to where Chester is "I can't believe I'm doing this, with you of all people"
"Well believe it Cook" urgh! I hate how he uses people's last names. He looks over around the container and then ahead of us to the building. "Look, that bottom window hasn't had glass put in yet, we can get in through there and then we can see what them lot are up to"
"What if the men with guns see us?" Jenna asks worriedly.
"Then stick your hands in the air and say 'I surrender' or something, I don't know because I don't plan on getting caught" Chester says annoyingly over his shoulder. After a moment he grabs my arm "Go, run for the gap" I do as he says and sprint over to the gap where the glass for the window should be, I climb inside just as Jenna reaches me, I grab her hand and help her get through. Chester comes running a moment later and like he's done this before, he easily lifts himself up and in, in one swift moment.
"Okay, let's go, they've got to be in here somewhere" he says taking off through a door to the left.
All me and Jenna could do was follow.
We come out into a very dark, large room stacked with boxes and crates "Storage bay" Jenna says looking at a sign that is being lit from a light somewhere below some stacked crates.
"Shhh!" Chester whispers when a door opens; he pulls us behind some boxes and we listen as they began to speak.
"Storage bay, nice guess Isabella" Nathaniel Cutters voices says quite proudly.
............
(Nathaniel's Prov)
I can't believe she's bringing him along. He doesn't even speak to her much, and he glares at Ryan all the time; but then again, he is her little brother and in about two years he'll be working with us properly anyway. Though he is a little odd, my little sister Kaitlin, is in year eight with him, and she don't hold my hand, she only ever likes hugging, and that's when her friends aren't around.
"This place is huge!" Ryan said; he was right, it's a fourteen floor high building, but the ceiling for the first floor reaches about twenty foot into the air. It's the factory floor, so there are plenty of old machines that the builders have yet to get rid of, but you can defiantly see where they've been pulling and stripping things.
"The anomaly is somewhere out back a back room, or most likely the delivery and storage area" Isabella says, she pulls Thomas along with her and heads straight to the back; the rest of us follow quickly and soon we're stepping through a pair of large double doors.
"Storage bay, nice guess Isabella" I say rather proudly; Isabella can be insecure about the job sometimes, but the rest of us know that we probably wouldn't be able to do this without her and her big brain.
"Thanks" she says quietly.
"Where is it then?" William asks, walking in front of us all and surveying the room whilst keeping his gun firm within his grip; he switched the light on top of it on. I pull my torch from my bag, whilst Ryan does the same and Isabella hands her spare one to Thomas; who finally let's go of her hand.
"Well Will, I don't know, you see, it must be pretty damn hard to find a big ball of pulsating energy that glows inside a dark room" Ryan says teasingly; Isabella slaps him lightly on his arm, he just smiles at her, but looks away when Thomas glares.
"Shut it Ryan, the quicker we find it, the quicker we secure it and then we can get out of here" William said with a small hint of trepidation in his voice.
"Will?" I say.
"Hmm?" he sounds as we move around the room, mostly in the direction of the light.
"You don't have a problem with the dark do you?" I ask him; swiftly kicking Ryan as he snorts, he swears and then shuts up when Isabella gives him a look.
"No" William says quickly "It's just not a good situation, there's not enough light so I can't see well to protect you all from possible danger" he says professionally as we make our way through some crates stacked ten feet high.
'CHINK' A metal pipe rolled across the floor behind us.
"Shit!" A voice whispers loudly straight after the sound; it's a voice that I and the others so clearly recognise.
William moves quickly to where the source of the noise and his voice came from "Come out with your hands up Johnston you prick!" he says loudly.
And surely, but slowly, Chester Johnston comes out from behind a crate looking at us cautiously, with his hands up in the air; but there are also two girls behind them, I recognise them as Isabella's friends, Katie and Jemma, no, that's not their names...
"Katharine! Jenna! What they hell are you doing here?" Isabella asks them angrily, shining the light in their faces; both girls glare at her, their hands still in the air.
"What are we doing here? What are you doing here?!" Katharine asks loudly, voice full of hurt and anger.
"You told us you were at your Nan's for the day, why'd you lie to us Isabella?" Jenna asks, sounding rather hurt, but eyeing the gun pointed at Chester. She glared at William, who only gave a small twitch of the head, as if challenging her to do something.
"Whoa, William the weird with a gun, damn, I always thought you were somewhat psycho William" Chester sneered "Bet you've waited a long time to have the upper hand on me eh?"
Williams face went stone still, and then he smiled slightly and pressed the gun into Chester's face; he didn't look so smug now.
"William!" Isabella scolded "Don't, think of the consequences, you could get us all taken in!" she said desperately.
"Taken in? Don't you mean arrested by the government for being part of a terrorist group?!" Katharine demanded angrily and smugly at the same time.
"Terrorist group, what the hell are you on about Katharine?" demanded Isabella, looking completely confused and somewhat pissed off; I would be to if I had just been followed by a prick and my two best friends, well, the best friends that didn't know what we all get up to outside of school.
"Well that's what it is isn't it?" asked Jenna "Or have you got some other excuse for the guns, government vehicles and all that shit?" she asked loudly and harshly.
I decide to interrupt them "We don't need to discuss this here, we'll deal with the questions later on, William, radio one of them men to come shut these three up in one of the van's, we'll let Lester decide what to do with them later. As of right now, we have a job to do remem-"
A loud growling sounded throughout the room, accompanied by a 'thump' and creaking upon one of the crates.
William immediately turns in the direction of which the noise came from, but his light shows nothing there. The sound comes again and this time we all shine our torched in the direction, but again there is nothing there; William turned around, doing a full sweep of the room, top to bottom, side to side, wall to wall, but we saw nothing.
A particularly loud growl came from a few feet to the right of me, and a crate came tumbling over; Ryan pulled me away, but I caught a glimpse of what it was before it seemed to move in a blur.
"It's big, it's black and hairy, and very fast" I say coming to a stop a few feet away from Isabella and Thomas; who was now looking a little pale and scared.
It was silent for a few moments, then the fast, big black hairy thing came flying over the top of the crates, almost knocking them into Chester, Katharine and Jenna, but the crates only very nearly hit them.
"What fuck was that!" Chester spun around, almost crashing into William as he did so "What the fuck is going on Cutter" he snapped at me.
I can see why he and the others are freaked out by the thing, it looks like a cross between a demented chimp, a snake as it has large fangs, and a tiger-bear as it has large clawed feet and a long tail. It also looks very nimble, which is obvious as it can move so fast that we can't track it properly with our eyes.
We looked up when we heard a 'whoosh' sound going above our heads.
Boxes kept falling on either side, forcing us backwards through the lines of crates; finally we were forced into the isle that held the anomaly. I looked up and caught a glimpse of the creature, and then another one was by its side.
"There's more than one!" Screamed Jenna; only to be shut up by Chester covering her mouth with his hand.
"Shut up you idiot!" he hissed at her.
William fired off several rounds at them, which cause them to jump away, and they were soon joined by another two, smaller ones this time.
"A pack! They're in a pack; they're hunting us like a pack!" Whispered Isabella in a slightly panicked voice, a bit louder than an actual whisper, but a whisper none the less. She looked backwards at the anomaly as we were being forced closer and closer to it by the black creatures, realisation dawned on her face "T-they want us to go through the anomaly with them", they're not hunting us, they're doing something else" she said as the creature growled, no, they weren't growling anymore, they were making some other noise, like a cross between growling and purring.
"They're toying with us" I finished for her, then rest of the crates came crashing down, one knocked into William which forced Ryan to stumble and eventually, we all fell through the anomaly like a row of domino's falling in a game.
All I could hear was everybody else yelling; and what sounded like the doors to the room crashing open; and then after falling through the anomaly, I hit something soft and hard; which cause the breath to be knocked out of my, and I began rolling very fast down some sort of hill; black and sooty dust clogging up my senses, as I rolled, I caught very brief, scattered glimpses of the others falling down with me.
I suddenly hit my head, hard, against something rather solid, and as darkness began to swim at the edges of my vision; I looked up at a darkening purple-blue sky, constellations twinkling, or were the stars actually from hitting my head, there was silence as it began to cloud my vision and I felt something warm and sticky sliding down my neck and on my back, there was only the sounds of the others groaning and coughing, until I hear Ryan call out in panicked desperation "The anomaly, it's closing"
Then darkness took over me.
Oh No, what's going to happen to them? Is Nathaniel alright? How are they going to explain everything to Chester and the girls? How are they going to get home? Is there more to Chester than really meets the eye? Seriously, I don't know what going to happen yet, and I'm the one writing it!
Okay, so that was the first chapter in this story! I hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I liked writing it!
I'm hoping to get the next chapter out as soon as possible, but it is a busy week for me; I have science revision on Monday, a trip to Carding Mill valley on Tuesday, and science revision on Thursday and then I sit a science exam on Friday.
But Wednesday, the school is on strike so I shall be home, so I'll try and write it and get it out to you ready for the evening!
Please Review- and give ideas or suggestions if you have any!
OpenUpMyHeart is putting her pen down!