You guys! You're so so so nice to me! :D Thank you all for reviewing the first chapter! I hope you enjoy this one, and don't worry YouHaveLovelyHair, Jess totally adresses the running-from-monsters-in-heels thing. :D
"Shoot," Jess mumbled under her breath. "Why do these buckles hate me?"
Abby laughed from the drivers seat beside her whilst Emily and Matt shared a grin.
"How exactly are you expecting to run away from, what could well be a T-rex, in those shoes?" Emily asked, sounding genuinely curious.
"Simple," Jess replied. "I could run a marathon in heels, Emily. Besides, I plan on hanging back and letting you guys do all the chasing and running and whatnot. If it comes down to it I'll use the EMD, but only if I have to."
"That sounds… best," Abby laughed again.
"God forbid we hurt the precious Jessica," Connor's voice reached them all through their comms. The others laughed.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jess asked, confused and sensing that Connor's had been a loaded statement.
Jess didn't miss the cautious, and amused, glance Abby shared with Matt through the mirror.
"Let's just say…" Abby started.
"That the big man in charge with the large gun might just track us down as shoot us with the most high powered EMD he can find," Connor finished.
Jess felt her cheeks blush a little. "Becker wouldn't do that…" She mumbled pathetically.
"Wouldn't do what?" His voice through the comms made them all flinch.
"Nothing," they all chorused together.
They drove in silence the rest of the way.
The hospital was huge: one of only a couple in the country which employed experts in specialist departments and had every department imaginable.
When they pulled up to the A&E bay, hoards of people well enough had been escorted outside and behind police lines to temporary monitoring tents. Becker's black SUV was parked at a terribly inconvenient angle, evidently suggesting that he'd just pulled to a halt and hurried out without much regard for parking.
Jess allowed herself a moment to rebuke him in her head.
He should add safe parking to his list of tasks on the field clearance test.
They'd hardly finished stepping out of their own car when he appeared from the A&E exit and marched over to Matt, giving orders to a few soldiers who hurried off. He turned to the team as he reached them.
"Perimeter's secure, most of those we could get out we have, but there's still some patients in there, in the ICU or who are just too unstable to move. As far as we can tell, the anomaly is somewhere between the seventh and ninth floor, so most likely radiology, as Jess thought. The hospital staff estimate about twenty unmovable patients still inside, plus three site staff. Those wards have been quarantined until we get the anomaly under control, but luckily they're floors eleven and above."
"And the creature?" Abby asked.
Becker turned to her, adjusting the comms piece in his ear. "Hopefully within the quarantine between floors seven and nine. A couple of people remember seeing something large and dark stalk down one corridor, but they didn't get a proper look-"
"-Thankfully-"
"The only thing we have to go off of is that it's carnivorous - three nurses were attacked: one dead, one seriously injured, the other is being treated so we still don't have her statement yet."
"We need to get that anomaly locked," Emily commented.
"On it," Jess replied readily, portable ADD in hand, comms in her ear, as she took a step towards the building.
This was her area of expertise, and she knew it was all down to her to reach the anomaly and lock it.
"Whoa, hold on," Becker's hand was suddenly on her shoulder and he'd taken a step to be between her and the A&E doorway. "Why's Jess here? Where's Connor?"
"It's a whole 'health and safety' thing," Emily told him.
"As in, it's not safe for the rest of us if Connor's here," Abby joked.
"Until he passes his field-work test," Matt remained on point.
Becker swore. "I told him he would have to resubmit six weeks ago. I said his psych and physical tests from when you came back from the Cretaceous would expire. Why doesn't he ever listen?"
"It's Connor," Abby sighed, evidently agreeing from experience.
"He never listens, Becker," Jess tried to reason with him. "So I'm the on-site genius. Now let me passed. Radiology is going to be messing with that anomaly - it could be pretty difficult to close."
"No," He said as if it was preposterous.
"Becker…"
"No. You think I'm going to let you go in there?" His tone evidently suggested that he thought the idea was ridiculous.
"Be-"
"No, Jessica," He stated firmly, shifting the gun in his hands and his weight on his feet. "You shouldn't be here. It's too dangerous."
Jess was vaguely aware of Abby smirking beside them, of Emily watching their relationship curiously, and of Matt seeming rather bored.
"I'm cleared for field-work. Now move out of the way, Becker."
"No."
"But you're the one who cleared me!"
"Well you aced my test," He muttered reluctantly, "and I didn't think you'd actually need the clearance - so no."
Jess frowned. He was really starting to annoy her now. She wasn't completely incompetent, she could look after herself. She had a gun, didn't she?
She tried to step round him, made it half a step forwards and to the side, before his body blocked hers again.
"Becker," She growled, all hint of amusement or patience gone now. "Move out of the way."
"No."
"Now."
"No," He raised one perfect eyebrow, almost inviting her to challenge it.
"I'm not asking for your permission, Captain," She mocked a little harsher than normal.
"I'm not-"
"Hils?"
Their rapid back-and-forth argument was cut across by the shocked voice of a woman exiting one of the A&E tents as she was led towards the back of an ambulance, a foil emergency blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
They all, including Matt, Abby and Emily, turned to face the arrival.
Becker lowered the gun completely into one hand, but was evidently too surprised to move from the close proximity he and Jess had found themselves in.
"Tami?" Becker questioned back. A second later the woman was hurrying towards them, and then she'd flung her arms around him. Becker had to take a step back, and away from Jess, to hold her weight. "Are you okay? What are you doing here?"
The woman pulled away, her dark hair flying all over her face. As she pushed the strands behind her ears, her facial features were exposed and Jess suddenly knew who she was without asking.
"Certainly not looking for my brother," She half teased, but she was obviously still shaken up as her voice wavered a little. "Or looking to be attacked by some… thing."
"You saw it?" Becker asked suddenly, tearing his gaze away from inspecting the cuts on her forehead.
Tami shook her head a little. "No… well, yes, but not… not enough. I… it didn't look like anything I'd seen before. It was… like two feet tall, and… kind of like a bird…" Tami turned her eyes on the others, avoiding her brothers worried gaze. "I know that sounds crazy but that was what I saw. It was like… like a raptor - you know, from Jurassic Park."
"Late Jurassic, to be exact," Connor's voice crackled over the radio into their ears. Jess put her hand to her ear to better hear him. "And just as a point of interest, that film is so inaccurate - raptors were from the Cretaceous, not Jurassic. I mean, if anybody would know that it would be me and Ab-"
"Connor," Abby reprimanded him, trying to keep him on track.
"Right, sorry. As far as I can tell from that description and CCTV footage, we've got Saurornithoides, Jess. Theropods. About two metres in length. Dangerous. They usually hunt around dusk, so the light's gonna confuse them, probably agitate them. Luckily it's not too bright inside. Well, actually, they have pretty good night vision, so it's not exactly a win-win situation… Well, it is for them I guess. They're supposed to have eaten small animals, but… well, given the chance? I'd say humans looked pretty tasty. There's at least two, but there could be more, a lot more."
"Got it, Connor," Becker acknowledged his words, then he turned to the team, one arm protectively wrapped round his still shaken sister, who couldn't hear a word of what Connor was saying and was too preoccupied from shock to really be paying attention anyway. "We need to contain this thing now-"
"But we can't just go storming in there," Abby pointed out. "They can probably at least feel vibrations in movement if they can't hear us directly."
"Actually, Saurornithoides have pretty good hearing. Really good," Connor corrected her.
"We go storming into that building, they could panic," Abby continued.
"We don't have time to narrow down the area and round them up slowly and cautiously," Matt argued. "We at least need to get that anomaly closed, then we track the remaining ones down, find out how many there are, and get them sedated and back through the anomaly. Chances are they are in the quarantined floors, but if not… the ground floors have been sealed off, and the creatures are unlikely to travel up two floors when there's six more below them and the sound of prey outside attracting them downwards."
"Okay Abby, do you think you could crawl through the vents like you did that one time before?" Emily asked her.
"How do you know about that?"
"I read all the files," Emily shrugged. At their confused expressions she elaborated, "Matt doesn't have any good books. I had to find something to do."
"So… do you, Abby?" Becker pressed. Jess was acutely aware of his thumb rubbing soothing circles on his sisters upper arm.
However, she was even more aware of the most straightforward plan of action.
"It would take too long," Abby sighed, admitting defeat on that plan. "I haven't seen plans of the venting system, and even if I had, they're likely to be complex, and narrow tubing. Hardly enough space for me, Jess and someone with a gun. Plus, I haven't got the first clue about how to set up the locking device Connor made."
Emily sighed, and Becker cursed again. Jess spared a moment to smile at the way Becker's sister reprimanded him for his poor language, then she took the opportunity to speak up.
"Or… I could just… go in."
Five pairs of eyes stared at her in surprise. One out-angered the emotions from the rest.
"Jess-"
"Hear me out, okay," She addressed them all. "We need to send in as little amount of people as we can to avoid panicking the creatures, but we need to lock that anomaly. I need to go in case there's issues with the radio frequency interfering with the locking device. So send me in, it kills two birds with one stone."
"It's too dangerous," Matt argued, to Jess's dismay.
"I'm armed."
"You're in four inch heels, Jess," Emily pointed out.
"I live in four inch heels, Em," Jess told her truthfully. "That's why I don't like the jungle," She teased Becker. His lips quivered, but he was too overcome with anxiety, anger, fear to smile.
"You are not going in on your own, Jessica," Becker stated firmly. On an ordinary day, nobody would argue, but Jess was here today, and she knew she was right.
"How about this," Matt cut across her as she opened her mouth to protest. "I go in with Jess. Two guns, two people. You can stay here and be backup, and if that fails… Becker, your men can storm the building."
"No way," Becker shook his head again and, by now, his sister had begun to realise that he was being overly protective. She seemed to forget the events of the day, and was now more focused on whether or not she had cause to tease her brother later.
"It's a good idea," Abby conceded.
"I'll protect her, Becker," Matt promised quietly, even though they were standing in a tight enough circle for everyone to hear anyway.
Becker stared at them all for a moment, then was roused into action by the arrival of an SUV of second unit soldiers. They hadn't even been on scene for more than five minutes, yet it felt to Jess like they'd delayed for hours already.
Becker's shoulders stiffened, he unhooked his arm from around his sister, shouldered his gun and then turned to Jess.
"No, I'm going with her," He spoke to Matt sternly, then his voice and expression softened towards Jess as he leaned towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder so that she looked him directly in the eyes. "You come back with even a scratch on that pretty face of yours, and I will personally make sure you never get sent out into the field again. Do you understand me, Jessica?"
She sighed, crossing her arms in front of her. "Of course I understand, Becker. I'm the genius, remember?"
Becker actually cracked a brief smile at that.
Tami, momentarily frozen by Jess's boldness against her usually stern brother, blinked and placed a hand on Becker's arm, stalling them.
"You're not going in there, are you?" She asked, horrified. "That… whatever it was, it's vicious. I saw it kill one of my colleagues, Hils. You…"
"Tami, this is my job," He told her kindly. "I'll be fine."
"He's good at his job," Abby tried to comfort her, gesturing towards the coffee cart nearby. "They'll be in and out in fifteen minutes-"
"-Hopefully," Connor added helpfully to the conversation from across the comms.
"Why don't we get a cup of tea and you can tell me all about Becker before he became a soldier-robot."
As they wandered away, Matt and Becker turned to each other.
"If you're not out in twenty minutes, I'm coming in after you."
"Got it," Becker told him. "And Jess? Put this on."
He pulled off his protective vest - the EMD equivalent of a bullet-proof vest - and handed it to Jess. She looked like she was going to argue, but one glare from him shut her up. This, at least, she could do. For him.
Once she'd strapped the vest on, still warm from his body heat, and Becker had collected the locking device from the car, he gestured towards the A&E entry door.
"After you."
"So polite," She teased. He rolled his eyes.
And so it begins... :)
Just so you know, Tami's the same Tami from 'Siblings', just in alternate versions of that world, where this is the first time she meets Jess (and the rest of the team).
Next chapter will be up tomorrow, I promise (or earlier if I can't help myself... Lol)
What did you guys think? Ignore some of the kinks/loopholes - this is, after all, a shameless attempt to relive a little of the magic of Primeval whilst shoving Jess and Becker together. :D
