(AN) R&R, enjoy and please leave any ideas you might have fro season eight's creatures, all help is appreciated.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Primeval or any of it's characters.
Season Seven, Chapter Seven
Mother Knows Best
Connor pulled on the reins and his horse slowed. The anomaly detector had been growing steady louder and more frequently as he rode in the direction of the re-purposed compass needle. He could see a glowing golden light radiating from behind a small hill. He dismounted and slapped the horse's hind quarters, remembering the whistle that Stephen had trained all of his horse's to recognize. As the chestnut coloured horse galloped off, Connor climbed up over the hill.
Upon reaching the top, Connor cautiously moved down the other side towards the now visible anomaly.
"How am I suppose to tell if you pose a threat or not?" Connor murmured to himself.
He knew that there where only three ways to find out, but none of them felt very appealing to him. His first choice was to wait for a creature to come through or wait for the anomaly. Secondly, he could wait for the anomaly to close. He could be waiting the entire night for anything to happen.
Then there was the third- and most risky- option; going through the anomaly to try and guess the era. If a creature was waiting on the other side, he couldn't go back through the anomaly lest it follows him. He could get lost. The oxygen concentration in the air could be low enough to kill him. The anomaly might lead further into the past; every moment Connor was in this time changed a small portion of history, venturing deeper into the past could make things even worse.
He could wait here; the sun was already setting, and if he didn't find a solution quick, then the desert's predators would find him. Connor could already hear the yelps of coyotes from the distance behind the anomaly. The yelping was louder, and he realized that it wasn't a coyote- nor was it coming from behind the anomaly.
"Oh no!" Connor drew his revolver and trained iit on the anomaly. He backed up a few steps, so that if anything jumped through- and he knew something would- it wouldn't be instantly upon him. He reached halfway up the hill and stopped. The yelping loud enough to be just beyond the glimmering golden globe of the anomaly. Connor drew the hammer back on his gun and waited. And waited. And waited.
Connor sighed and glanced at his watch; it had been thirty minutes since he had last heard the yelping. He pointed the gun to the ground and eased the hammer forwards. "If you're going to do something, just do it!" Connor removed his hat and messaged his forehead. "This is easier when you can just lock the damn thing!" He picked up a rock and threw it through the anomaly.
There was shuffling in the dirt behind him. He reacted in a flash, lifting his gun and pulling back the hammer, aiming it towards the top of the hill where-.
"Oh! Hello, I'm sorry if I disturbed you."
To where a young girl stood, watching him. Connor slowly guided the hammer back down and slid the silver weapon into it's holster. The girl didn't wear a dress, just worn jeans, a blue button up shirt, tattered boots and a sack slung across her back.
"What are you doing here?" Connor asked, moving towards her. She looked about seventeen years old.
"I come here for some peace and quiet." She said. "But I suppose it won't be very quiet here tonight."
"No, it won't, sorry." Connor apologized to the girl.
"Oh, that is quite alright." She said. She gazed past Connor. "Oh! It's opened again-" She cut herself off quickly.
Connor stared at her. "Something tells me that you're not just here for stargazing..."
She stared at her feet. "No... I'm here to keep those things from coming through the orb."
"How do you do that?" Connor eyed her.
"I give them what they come looking for, of course." She sighed and slid a pack from her shoulders. "Food." She tossed the pack down in front of Connor. The bag rolled down the hill and next to the anomaly.
Connor watched it, then paled. "What exactly was in that bag?"
"Raw lamb, why?"
Meat! The smell will draw them back to-
There was a shark bark from behind the anomaly. "Stay behind me!" Connor drew his gun for the third time, but this time he had a feeling that he would be using it.
"What are they?" The girl said, fear in her voice.
"What, haven't you seen them before?" Connor said, drawing the hammer back once again.
"Well- no!" She admitted. "I only knew to feed them because of my daddy; he taught me the importance of taking care of the orb and feeding what every was on the other side!"
"So you usually throw the meat onto the other side of the anomaly?"
"Anomaly?"
"Its what we call the 'orbs' where I come from." Connor explained, keeping his focus on the anomaly
"Oh, then yes, the meat is always put on the other side." She nodded.
There was another bark and more yelping as a shadow began to form in the anomaly. Connor raised his gun preparing for whatever was about to come through the anomaly.
"Let me get this strait," Mrs. Maitland said, hardly able to comprehend what she had witnessed and learned over the past hour. "Connor has disappeared through one of these..."
"Anomalies." Matt finished for her.
"And could be anywhere in any time?"
"Well not any time," Matt said. "Before the anomaly closed, we were getting varied results from our anomaly calculator-"
"Calculator?" Mrs. Maitland asked, puzzled.
"It is a device that Connor built to predict the time that an anomaly leads to." Matt explained dismissively. "Before the anomaly closed, the calculator gave us multiple readings. We believe that this is because it lead to an anomaly junction- which is a collection of dozens of anomalies in one area. We haven't been able to locate the junction in our time, so we are clueless to where Connor is exactly." Matt breathed. "We logged the dates that came through the calculator. The majority of anomalies led to the early Triassic era, the late Cretaceous, mid-Permian era and a few more modern times. These included fourteen seventy-one, sixteen twenty-eight, and eighteen eighty-one."
Mrs. Maitland stared at Matt. "So my son in-law is lost."
"Yes."
The woman sighed and sat down in a chair. "I can hardly believe it, but there is too much proof to deny it. Are you sure I should know about all of this?"
"Not as an un-sworn citizen; you're have to swear to the Official Secrets Act now; I guess Lester forgot to mention that earlier."
"You want to know why i went out of my way to explain all of this to her?" Lester said.
He and Cutter stood at the back of the A.D.D room as Abby and her mother talked. It seemed as though Mrs, Maitland was apologizing to her daughter.
"Pretty much," Cutter said.
"Same reason that you tried to help her deal with the woman." Lester said. He leaned close to Cutter and muttered. "I don't think anyone could stand to see her in that state." He then added. "Tell anyone that I said that, and i might have you court marshaled
Cutter was about to nod, agree- something! But Lester had already moved off towards where Becker and Matt were arguing over a new order of E. .