AN: First thing I'd like to say is thank you to; A Daydream Away,PrimevalChick, andrewleepotts, Sweets And Charades, XplanetXearthX and xOncEAgainx. Your reviews made my day. I hope you enjoy this chapter.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Primeval.
Day one, part two
The ARC, 5:13pm
Lester's eyes swept patiently across the sea of techies that consumed the whole of the main operations room; both Jess and Connor were sat at the ADD, both typing furiously and staring more than intently at the screen. The room was filled with the buzz of conversation, people were either on the phone, desperately trying to get the rest of the world to calm down and give London some space to sort this massive problem out, or techies were discussing what could possibly be done to stop the name of the precious organisation from spreading across the world.
Lester truly admired each person's sense of loyalty to the operation, not one person had complained about staying late after their shift or doing something that wasn't technically their job; He would reward them all. Maybe not with a raise, mind, but he would find a way of repaying each and every individual in the building. The man chuckled lightly as he saw Jess and Connor exchange a perfect high five without even looking at each other; this at least showed that they were making some progress. He quietly made his way out of his office before making his way down to the two so-called geniuses. He stood behind them and watched the screens for a minute or two, floods of numbers and codes sailed over the screens like credits at the end of a blockbuster, Lester felt his lips quirk upwards at the fact that neither team member had noticed his presence and were too immersed in their task to even look up. Finally, deciding that it all looked a bit too complicated, he spoke up.
"Any improvements?" He asked simply.
Jess turned around instantly at the sound of his voice and began to stutter something completely in-comprehensible whilst Connor didn't even glance his boss's way; he did however answer his question whilst still looking at the screen,
"We don't know the origin of the security breach- I'll remind you that security is Becker's field of expertise-"He snickered slightly at this.
Lester merely rolled his eyes; He had had a meeting with Captain Becker a few hours prior. It was the first time that he had ever seen Becker look slightly sheepish, after a long discussion Lester had been told by the young captain that a security breach via computer wasn't covered in his job description, but Becker explained that he would happily shoot the perpetrator with an EMD when they were found. Lester took note that he had said when and not if meaning that even Becker had every faith in the ARC's team of techies.
Connor continued, "But if you give us a couple more minutes, we should be able to get us off the air, so to speak." Connor turned to face his superior with a grin, matching Jess' that read; we-know-we're-brilliant-you-don't-have-to-tell-us.
Ignoring the two young people in front of him, Lester turned on his heel and called over his shoulder,
"Well hurry up then, shift it."
The two sat at the ADD grinned at each other and set to work.
Sure enough, within a few minutes, two woops of joy could be heard from the front of the room. Lester glanced quickly towards the young field co-ordinator and the ARC's beloved geek, the latter was punching the air with both fists while Jess rested her head in her hands and began to laugh lightly. Pure relief. Connor sprinted up to Lester's office and practically leapt through the door, almost squealing like a fan girl,
"We did it! The word's gone and I wiped any active profiles of us that were currently open. Hopefully that should help." He paused before adding nervously, "For the mean time anyway."
Lester's head shot up, "What?"
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CIA building, 11:22am
"It's gone."
The room fell so silent that you could probably hear a fly sneeze; it seemed that no one dared to breathe; the air seemed thick and ominous as there was no movement from anyone. How could this word randomly appear and then just go? It wasn't possible, well no, it was possible, it just felt wrong. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, the hushed tone of Maxwell's Canadian accent filled the room,
"How is that even possible?"
He, along with the others in the room, stared eagerly at the main screen. All were silently praying that an answer would suddenly pop up and everyone would understand. No such luck. Nothing appeared, the screen was just normal. Alexa slipped her heals back on and made her way to the front of the room; she was the only movement and it un-nerved her no end. None the less, she made her way towards her boss. Coming to stand beside him, she asked,
"What now?"
Maxwell seemed shocked by her presence but covered it up well with a small but serious smile,
"This isn't over." He spoke louder, "I wanna know what the hell is going on and how we can sort it, understood?"
There was a chorus of 'yes sir's' and a sea of nods as everyone set back to what they were doing previously. Maxwell headed back to his office to make some calls and calm down some panicking politicians. The room was, once again, silent. But it wasn't and uneasy silence, actually Alexa found it rather comfortable until another, rather annoyed voice spoke up,
"Hey, where the hell has the document gone?"
Alexa resisted the urge to face palm as she realised just how difficult her job had become today and walked to the nearest computer, manned by a young woman named Jenna, Alexa looked over the young brunette's shoulder and furrowed her brow as she read what used to be a 10,000 word document on the so called ARC, the message displayed was rather comical,
Document no longer found. :)
Yes, there was actually a smiley face at the end of the small sentence. The blonde exchanged a look with Mark who was standing across from her, he motioned his head towards Maxwell's office at the back of the room, Alexa shook her head whilst mouthing,
"Why me?"
Mark shrugged and mouthed back, "Just go."
Alexa made a dramatic display as she rolled her eyes and glared at her friend before making her way toward the back of the room where her superior's office was located.
She gently knocked on the doors and made her way inside,
"Yes, Alexa, what is it?" Maxwell sighed as he ran a hand over his face.
Alexa fiddled with the cuff of her blouse before deciding to put it simply,
"The documents have gone."
"What?"
Alexa calmed herself slightly and spoke again, "Look at the files you've been sent, they're blank."
Maxwell motioned for her to sit and she did so, he looked at her dubiously before clicking on a file he had received, the page loaded;
Document no longer found. :)
He could do nothing but stare at the screen. He tried re-loading the page;
Document no longer found. :)
He tried again, and again, and again, each time getting more frustrating. How could a smiley at the end of a sentence be this angering? He slammed the lid of his laptop down heavily; it was the best thing to do, short of launching the damned thing across the room, of course. He looked up at Alexa expectantly,
"Well, explain."
Alexa gently pushed her fringe from her eyes as she stated, "We don't know. Sorry."
Maxwell growled an angry sound that appeared in his throat, before once again looking up and meeting Alexa's gaze; she looked tired, stretched. He knew that it wasn't her fault, he had asked her to do some digging, and she had dug. With all due respect, she and Mark had done brilliantly today and he had never seen her look this tired, she had clearly worked her socks off and needed a break, he decided to voice this idea.
"Go home, have some lunch, sit back and relax for a few hours."
The 23 year old interrupted him "but sir-"
"I'm not taking no for an answer, tell Mark too. Although I expect to see you both bang on two thirty, is that clear."
Alexa opened her mouth in protest, but Maxwell just ushered her out of the room.
Defeated, Alexa made her way towards Mark, after telling him to be back at two thirty –at which point, he had been close to doing a victory dance- she made her way towards her desk, grabbed her coat swiftly and mad her way towards her car.
"See you, Lex." Mark's voice echoed through the underground car park.
Alexa looked up from her car and nodded in his direction, "Yeah, two thirty, remember? Don't be late."
Her friend glanced up and grinned at her before sitting himself in the driver's side of his blue Suzuki. Alexa watched him go as she started her Mazda and set off home.
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Somewhere a long time ago.
Danny let out a sigh of relief as he reached the summit of what seemed to him, like a mountain of sand, he stretched his back before sitting down and admiring the view. It truly was breath taking, the early afternoon sun casted an orange glow onto the sand that swept like a blanket as far as the eye could see, a single tree stood like a lonely soldier against the heat. This was both a sad and a cheerful sight to see, for the tree reminded Danny of himself; so alone and yet to stubborn to give up and wither. But the hope remained inside his heart, for where there was vegetation, there would hopefully be water.
Danny closed his eyes and inhaled the empty air. His sunburned shoulders protested as he laid himself on the sand beneath him. He was slowly losing faith, faith that he would ever see home again, who would have thought that he would miss the smell of exhaust fumes this much? But he did, he really, truly did. At the thoughts of home, Danny sniffed and sat back up again, only to fall heavily down onto the sand out of pure shock. He shook his head, telling himself that he was being a fool; he hadn't just seen what he thought he had seen. He was just dehydrated, what was that about being in somewhere hot and seeing things? Mirages, yes that's all it was, all it could possibly had been. For he was sure that he was going insane, yes, he was officially insane now.
He glanced back up again and shielded his eyes from the glaring light of not one, not two, not three, but hundreds of anomalies. The lights twisting un-naturally inside the beautiful floating spheres, golden light pounded at his features and he was sure that he would go blind any minute. But no, his sight remained and he could do nothing but stare in awe at the sight that was before him.
For what was he supposed to do? Run through the nearest orb of time?
He groaned loudly at his rather irritable predicament before cursing to high heaven, how was he supposed to decide? He could go through one, only to find himself in the cretaceous whilst narrowly missing the anomaly that went to 2011. He took his time with making the decision and finally, after deciding that there wasn't going to be an answer that would present itself, he ran. He ran fast.
He felt the old, familiar feel of passing through an anomaly, like walking through a cheese grater, and felt the ground beneath his tired feet turn from soft, unreliable sand, to something hard and smooth. He prayed to god that he was standing on tar-mac. After picking up the courage to open his eyes, he glanced around at his new surroundings; dark wooden flooring, a dark blue leather sofa with a matching armchair, a small flat screen television. All of this was promising. His leg protested as he made his way towards the dark oak coffee table and searched for anything that would give him an idea of what date it was. Luckily enough, there was a newspaper folded neatly next to a small fruit bowl, he picked it up and began to read;
24th August, 2011
He grinned broadly. Yes, he was home and life had never felt so good.
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The ARC, 5:34pm
"What?" Was the only word that Jess could form as she sat at the ADD and watched the number of anomalies rise. The alarms blared overhead and brought her back to her senses, she called out to Matt on the coms.
"Matt! It's happening again, the…the…?" she struggled to get the word from her lips, luckily for her; Matt finished her sentence for her.
"Convergence?"
Jess merely nodded, forgetting that Matt and the others couldn't see her,
"Jess?"
She shook her head and cleared her thoughts, "Yeah, sorry, it's happening again."
"Are you sure it's not a mistake?" Connor's voice filled her ears as Jess set her chin in defiance.
"I don't make mistakes, Connor."
By now Abby, Becker and Emily were behind her chair, Becker giving orders to his men whilst Jess read out co-ordinates. The three team members- minus Becker who had just left- turned at the sound of Matt's voice,
"Emily, with me. Abby go with Connor. This is going to be fine, convergences can come in pairs, the second is always smaller and should be easier to deal with."
"And you didn't think to tell us that sooner, Anderson?" Lester's ticked of voice came from behind the team leader. Matt opened his mouth to reply but Lester dismissed him,
"Later." Lester stated curtly, "Now off you go and save the world."
The team nodded and made their way to their cars.
Richmond secondary school.
Three men, all dressed in black, military uniform wandered the abandoned corridors of the newly built school. Becker led two of his men with silent precision. EMD raised, he entered a small classroom, to find it –to his relief- empty.
"Jess any sign of an incursion."
"Not that I can see. Anomaly is in the gym, I'll lead you to it."
"Thanks." He turned to his men, "Keep looking for any sign of an incursion."
The two young soldiers nodded and moved off.
Alone in the gym, Captain Becker sighed, and held back a small laugh as Jess's concern filled his ears,
"Everything alright, Becker?"
"Been a long day." Was his answer.
He held back the truth; that he felt responsible for the hectic start to the evening, it was still difficult to believe, the whole world knew, whether they would act on their knowledge, he didn't know. Security was his area, it had been since he had started and it wasn't as if today was a small breach. No, it was a major breach, or as his mother would had said; a humongous breach in the ARC's security.
He suddenly felt the sense of foreboding washing through his veins, he wasn't alone.
His suspicions were soon confirmed as a small but menacing growl erupted from behind him,
"What was that you said about no incursion, Jess?"
A nervous laugh echoed through the coms. Feeling as though the creature was getting closer, he turned…
And immediately took a fearful step back, he'd recognise that creature anywhere. Therocephalian. It took all of his will power not to recoil in dread as memories of his last encounter with this creature raced through his mind. His fear soon turned into something else however as he raised his EMD, not giving a damn about what setting it was on, he fired. The thing squealed in pain as it slid across the room on its side. Becker checked the setting on the weapon; medium voltage. He fired again and hit the creature in the face. The Therocephalian twitched in a final attempt to stand before falling limp at Becker's feet. The soldier turned back to the anomaly as it was confirmed that there were no other creatures in the building.
I know that it's a bit of an odd place to stop, but my fingers are getting tired, I will try to update as soon as possible. Please review and tell me what you think, and once again; a massive thank you to all who reviewed the last chapter, you guys are great!