Sorry, sorry, sorry! I was inbetween broadband providers and so I had to cold turkey from the internet for a week :( I promise to update more often from now on!

Hope you enjoy x

Chapter 11

"Absolutely out of the question!" Lester yelled, his face flushed with indignance.

"If we do nothing about this, we're all dead!" Nick argued back, matching his rage.

"Listen to him James!" Jenny interjected, hands on her hips in her most imposing stance.

"You stay out of this!" Lester snapped, leaning back on his chair and surveying her from over his desk. "As far as I'm aware, you no longer work here."

"Well I'm back now," she retorted coldly. "Surprisingly, the approach of the apocalypse has made me re-think my career options."

"Oh lets not get dramatic about this," Lester scoffed, gesturing lazily down at the file Helen had given them. "We know the woman's a psychopath. She's probably lying about it all."

"I've read her research, and believe me, she's got sound scientific reasoning," Cutter pointed out, pacing back and forth with impatience. "I know she's a manipulative bitch, but that doesn't mean she's not right."

"And if she's not right?" Lester exclaimed hotly. "You want me to base the evacuation of London on the word of Helen Cutter?"

Jenny felt a pang of annoyance at his referral of the woman as 'Helen Cutter', and immediately, she despised herself for it. She had been perfectly aware of the situation before she and Nick had began dating, so she had no reason to feel irritated at the woman's last name. Still, now that she was the new soon-to-be ex Mrs Cutter, she couldn't help but feel a wave of disgust that Helen had indeed been right about one thing - they both did have something in common.

"Yes!" Nick snarled, slamming his hands down on the desk.

Lester was spared answering by the arrival of Connor and Sarah, who hurried into the office without knocking.

"What's going on?" Sarah demanded, looking from one angry face to another.

"We just got your message - " Connor began, speaking to Nick, but Lester cut him off.

"Oh, it's just Cutter and his Doomsday predictions again. Same old, same old. Are we done here?" he drawled, standing up and buttoning his blazer. "It's just that I have lunch reservations in ten minutes - "

"This is serious!" Nick barked at him before snatching the file up from the desk and thrusting it into Connor chest. "Read that will you, and tell him how important it is that we do something about it before it's too late."

"Why, what does it say?" Sarah asked, looking over Connor's shoulder at the research with a puzzled expression.

"It's that theory we've been toying with," Nick explained, his voice strained. "About where the energy that opened the anomalies is going. Helen's come up with a thesis about it, and it's a damn good one."

"What's Helen got to do with this?" Connor asked, his eyes skimming the pages.

"It's a long story," Jenny answered, exchanging a meaningful glance with Nick. She looked back at Connor. "Where's Abby?" she asked him.

"She was at the zoo - she's on her way," Connor replied in a distracted tone, his gaze still frantically searching the file.

"Can someone please just explain the short version of all this!" Sarah interjected, sounding irritated. "What do you mean 'Doomsday predictions'?"

Nick sighed deeply, looking older than Jenny had ever seen him.

"Basically, Helen's postulated that the energy has been building up since the anomalies first stopped," he began to explain for the third time that day. "And as a consequence, she's calculated that when the fault line next ruptures, hundreds of anomalies are going to open at once. Right here in London."

A hush descended over the room for a moment as they all, willingly or otherwise, contemplated the ramifications of that actually happening.

"How long have we got?" Sarah asked quietly.

"What, you're saying you actually believe all this rubbish?" Lester laughed coldly.

"Why wouldn't I?" Sarah snapped, narrowing her eyes. "Like it or not Lester, we get payed to do anomaly research. Why are you bothering to keep us on if you're not going to listen to anything we find out?"

"But that's precisely the point!" Lester burst out. "You lot didn't find anything out! This is all Helen's doing!"

Sarah folded her arms, clearly unwilling to back down. "I could march back there right now - " she pointed behind her in the general direction of the matrix room. " - and show you a dozen of our own research papers on the depletion of anomaly energy. Just because Helen beat us to the punch doesn't mean that we shouldn't take the threat seriously."

"You've all lost the plot," Lester stated, his finger and thumb on the bridge of his nose as though he couldn't take hearing any more of this. "It's all nonsense! The anomalies have stopped - they have for a year now. Helen's just trying to wind us up."

"So she'd waste a year of her life on research that's she's created just to bate us?" Jenny asked raising her eyebrow doubtfully.

"What part of 'the woman is unhinged' are you not understanding Jenny?" Lester snapped, perching on the edge of his desk. "We all know what she's capable of. Or do I have to remind you all what happened to Stephen?"

Nick opened him mouth to retort, looking furious, but Jenny set her hand on his arm to silence him. They couldn't afford to let this turn into a four way screaming match. They needed to move quickly and to do that, it was imperative that they got Lester on side.

"James, you know how unpredictable the anomalies are," Jenny said in a forced-even tone. "And you knew the likelihood of them reoccurring was high. And if two separate scientific teams are saying that this is a probability, then we need to take it seriously. Because if we don't, you'll be explaining to the rest of the world why Britain has been wiped out by thousands of prehistoric creatures. That is if you survive it yourself," she finished, looking at him sternly.

Lester hesitated for a moment, scowling into his hand. Everyone watched him silently, except for Connor who still had his nose buried in Helen's research. Eventually, he straightened up.

"How long have we got?" he asked quietly, echoing Sarah's unanswered question from before.

"Three days," Nick answered shortly.

"Three days?" Lester exclaimed, gapping around at them as though he was expecting them to shout 'April fools!' any moment. "How am I meant to organise the evacuation of an entire city in three days?"

"Very quickly I suggest," Nick muttered, before glancing around at Connor. "What do you think?" he added to him.

Connor closed the file, his face chalk white. "I think she's right. Blimey . . . this is - this is bad - "

"What do we do?" Lester interjected. "Hmm? There must be some way to stop this."

"We can't stop it," Connor replied numbly.

"But we might be able to counteract it," Nick interjected, looking at Connor meaningfully. "The Anomaly Locking Mechanism. If we could get it working, we might be able to close them."

"Yeah, but if - and only if - we can get it working . . . this isn't just one anomaly we're talking about. It's hundreds! It'd take forever to shut them all."

"Not necessarily," Nick began thoughtfully. "If these anomalies are appearing because of the same pent-up energy, maybe closing one of them will short-circuit the system and close them all."

Everyone looked at Connor for confirmation, knowing that he was the brain behind the physics of the anomalies. He looked back at them helplessly. "It's possible . . ." he shrugged. "I suppose it's worth a shot . . ."

"How soon can you get the Locking Mechanism working?" Jenny asked with trepidation, knowing that the boys unsure expression didn't bode well for them.

"I - I don't know," he stammered, looking thoroughly ambushed. "Blimey, if I would have known it would have been this important, I would have kept working on it even after the anomalies stopped - "

"How long Connor?" Nick interrupted firmly, obviously trying to steer him back to the conversation.

"I don't know," he repeated. "Maybe I could get it done in three days, at a push."

"Oh, try not to act so certain will you," Lester remarked, his words seeped in sarcasm. "It's only the fate of the nation at stake here!"

"He said he'll try his best," Jenny snapped at Lester defensively, aware that it wasn't fair for all the pressure to be put on Connor's shoulders.

"Well he's going to have to do better than that this time," Lester retorted, folding his arms.

"Excuse me, you only just started taking this seriously yourself about five seconds ago!" Jenny pointed out hotly, but Nick squeezed her arm slightly in warning, clearly not wanting her to agitate Lester now that he was allowing them to move forward.

Reluctantly, she fell silent.

After a tense pause in the discussion, Lester looked around at Connor and spoke in a less venomous tone. "I want you working on this twenty-four seven, if it's our only option."

Connor nodded immediately and looked down at the floor. It was only when Lester cleared his throat impatiently that he glanced up again. "What - now?" he asked quickly.

"Yes now!" Lester snapped in an aspirated tone.

"Alright, alright!" Connor huffed, backing out of the room. "Keep your hair on . . ." he could be heard muttering to himself before the door closed.

Lester turned to Sarah, who was watching the conversation whilst biting her thumb nervously.

"Go and help him," he sighed. "Make sure he doesn't get distracted by a bright light or something sparkly will you?"

Sarah scowled and rolled her eyes, but she left without a word, following Connor down the ramp and out of sight.

With a groan, Lester moved around his desk and sank into his chair again, pressing a button on his phone. "Lorraine, get me Captain Becker," he said shortly into the speaker.

"Of course Sir," the woman's voice answered immediately.

"What are you doing?" Nick asked, a puzzled expression on his face.

"You didn't seriously think I'm going to rest all hopes of our survival on someone who can barely tie his own shoe laces?" he simpered, making Jenny feel a jolt of annoyance. "It's time to talk military strategies incase we can't close the bloody things."

He did have a point, in Jenny's opinion.

With another sigh, he sat back in his chair, surveying both Nick and Jenny with a very curious look on his face. "Am I to assume that you two will be able to put your . . . personal issues aside until this is all over?"

"Yes," they both answered in unison, perhaps a little to quickly to be believable.

They exchange a fleeting glance with each other before looking away abruptly, Nick clearing his throat awkwardly.

"I see," Lester said, pressing his fingertips together and surveying them with a doubtful expression. "God help us."

The anomalies, as stipulated in Helen's research, were to appear together in Bloomsbury, the reason for which Jenny didn't ask - it was clear that the concept of 'in for a penny, in for a pound' was being used; namely, it was the silent agreement that if they were going to go along with the woman's predictions about the anomalies, they might as well believe the majority of the things in the file. There was no point in putting their faith in one theory, and then disputing another. Not that Jenny was very comfortable blindly following the insufferable woman's work, but she was not really in any position to comment seeing as she was a PR manager, not a scientist - any theory she had was rather redundant.

After the absentees had been fully briefed on what was happening, Abby, Sarah, Jenny, Nick and Becker found themselves hunched around Lester's desk, all pouring over a map, discussing strategies. Connor, of course, had practically been chained to the Locking Mechanism by Lester and was excluded from the meeting.

"So . . ." Lester sighed, a note of finality in his voice. "Becker and his team will take Tottenham Court Road. You two," he glanced up at Sarah and Abby, "will head a team around Euston Road. Jenny," he pointed at a spot on the map. "I want you manage a sniper team from a building on Gower street. That should ensure all the bases covered."

Nick didn't look at all pleased about Jenny's assignment, judging by his face. "And me?" he asked tensely.

"Your position will depend on if the Locking Mechanism is ready," Lester answered shortly. "If it is, then you and Connor will be at the corner of the coordinates, trying to close the nearest anomaly to you. If not, then you'll be helping the boy to get it finished."

Oh he's not going to like this, Jenny thought to herself, slightly amused as she glanced round at Nick's scandalized expression. And sure enough . . .

"I'm not staying in the ARC like a good boy scout whilst everyone else is out there risking their necks!" he exclaimed hotly.

"The Locking Mechanism is the most important part of the plan," Lester argued, straightening up and smoothing down his blazer. "Connor can't handle it by himself."

"Well why am I the one who has to sit out of everything?" Nick demanded, sounding like a petulant child. "Why can't Jenny stay with him?"

"Er, excuse me?" Jenny snapped indignantly, hands on her hips. "I'm military trained."

"So are all of us," Nick pointed out.

"Yes, but they, unlike you Cutter turned up to more than one training session," Lester pointed out coldly. "That aside, you are the only other person who has a clue about the science behind the anomalies. You'll stay with Connor and help him. No arguments."

"What about evacuation?" Abby interjected, cleverly cutting Nick off before he could retort.

"I'll get on to the Minister first thing tomorrow morning," Lester answered curtly, although his expression clearly conveyed his dread at the notion. "That'll give us forty-eight hours to clear the scene."

"Right then," Jenny said with a forced smile as she straightened up and moved towards the door. "I'll be back later - "

"Er, where do you think you're going?" Lester shouted after her, causing her to halt.

She turned, hand up against the glass door she was about to push open. "I'm going to make sure my son is out of London before the rush."

"No - I need you here," Lester ordered sternly.

"So what do you suggest? That I just leave him with his grandmother and hope for the best?" Jenny snapped icily.

"Can't you just make a call or something?" he asked. "We're not exactly swimming in time here - "

"No, I can't just make a call!" Jenny laughed humuorlessly.

"Well, you're going to have to, because you're needed here."

Jenny dropped her hand from the glass, looking at the man in disbelief. "Listen James, if you want me on board with all this, I'm making sure my son is well away from London first. Now you can either accept that and I'll see you in an hour, or refuse and I'll walk out of here right now and not come back. Your call," she finished coldly, looking at him expectantly.

"And I want to get my family out too," Abby interjected.

"And me," Sarah said quickly.

"Oh for the love of God, we're in the middle of a crisis situation here!" Lester exclaimed, before he sunk his forehead into his hand. "Fine!" he burst out eventually. "All of you get out of my sight before I change my mind! I want you all back here in an hour."

Without a word, they all turned and hurried out before he could revoke the dismissal, although when Jenny was at the door, she turned, noticing that Nick had stayed put.

"Are you coming?" she said to him in aspiration, holding the door open for Abby and Sarah to pass her.

"Aye, I'll meet you in the car," he replied, before turning back to Lester.

Scowling, Jenny left, letting the door shut behind her.

"What's the problem Cutter?" Lester asked, leaning back in his chair and not looking at him.

"Oh nothing - just the fact that you're sending the mother of my child out to battle without me there," Cutter said sarcastically.

"She signed up for this," Lester sighed, as though he found the whole conversation tedious. "She knows what she's doing. And she'll have a team of soldiers with her. She'll be quite safe."

"Why not send the soldiers alone?" Cutter persisted. "Why do you have to send her with them?"

"Apart from the fact that she's got excellent leadership skills, and the fact that she's a crack shot . . ." Lester began in an impatient tone. "We're short on numbers. We've only got a certain amount of soldiers who know about the anomalies and the creatures, so we need all the help we can get. I need her."

"But why can't you send me instead of her? Why can't you keep her here?"

Lester let out a small chuckle. "Have you two ever met before? Do you really think I could keep her back here whilst you lot are all in danger?"

"Yet you expect me to stay here knowing she's at risk?" Cutter gapped, feeling a pang of injustice.

"You're needed here, and she'd needed out there," he replied quietly. "That's just the way things are. Now you can either waste your time sulking about it to me, or you can go with your wife and ensure that your son is safe at the very least."

Cutter looked at the ceiling for a second, knowing he couldn't win this one. When he spoke, he ensured that it was in the most threatening tone he could muster.

"If anything happens to her . . . well, I just hope you can live with yourself."

He turned his heel and pushed open the glass door with unnecessary force, his anger at the civil servant too much to bare.