Chapter 8

"They just don't listen to me, Rex!" Sarah sighed, scratching the lizard idly between the wings as he muched through the chopped fruit she had laid down for him. "Come to think of it, they never did anyway!"

Rex looked round and chirruped sympathetically, then went back to eating his long overdue dinner.

"Yeah, yeah, I know: you're hungry. I'm sorry Rex. I though Becker would have been round to feed you, or send someone round. Now he's another puzzle altogether. Every day, he just comes in to work, or is already there, and gets on with things like nothing's happened."

Rex finished his plate of food and hopped down into Sarah's lap, curling up there for a sleep.

"I mean, obviously," Sarah continued, "obviously things still need doing. Life goes on and all that. But I just wish I could get a little bit, just a little bit of emotion out of him. He never gets stressed, never gets angry. Not like me! He's just there! Always there! Strong and silent and solid and..."

Rex looked up and chittered reproachfully.

"Well, he is, trust me: I nearly broke a nail trying to make a dent in that chest..."

Rex stared meaningfully.

"Well, I know he's a little younger than me, but hey: a girl can dream! What are you going to do about it? Tell him?"

Rex stood up and looked as indignant as a flying prehistoric reptile can, then flew off up into the rafters. Ten seconds later, something green and slimy landed on Sarah's lap.

"Yeah, okay: that you can do!" Sarah groaned, reaching for the box of tissues. "I hope you realise that if any of this ends up on Abby's sofa or rug, she'll kill me when she gets back!"

The chittering sound that drifted down from the rafters sounded, to Sarah's ears, for all the world like distant laughter.

XXXX

Danny looked out at the gleaming cityscape before him. He was in the viewing tower of the kalif's palace, with a panoramic view all three hundred and sixty degrees around, but still nowhere near the highest point in the city. He'd looked down once, seen the glittering spires and towers disappear into the clouds below, felt dizzy and decided not to look down again.

The man who had spoken to him that morning was still there, behind him, watching he reactions and answering his questions. His name was Hisham, and he was the kalif: the ruler of the city. When Danny asked the name of the city, he was told it needed none, for it was the only city he would find in this world. Built on the largest patch of solid land remaining, the city stretched upwards as well as outwards to house the vast majority of the remaining population of the planet. Rising water levels had either drowned the rest of the land, or turned it into uninhabitable swampland. There were some small habitations, where the land could be drained enough to support a swamp farm or two, and a number of floating villages, dragging their living from the unending waters of the oceans. There were some small island chains, like the one on which Danny had been found, delirious, sunstruck, starving and dehydrated, and a few domed semi-underwater towns, but that was all.

Danny watched as a small shuttle buzzed past the window. Most of the buildings up here were connected by skyways: enclosed walkways bridging the gaps from one towering skyscraper to the next. Those that were not connected, directly anyway, could be accessed by a variety of shuttle flight paths, or, if you were rich enough, with your own personal shuttle. Shining doors shimmered as they rose to allow the shuttles access, like garages in the sky.

The ARC still existed, somehow. It was fully under the control of the kalif, though, and only his personally chosen team were allowed access to the building. That explained his hobby of learning ancient languages, then, Danny thought.

He turned to where the kalif was waiting. In the centre of the room was an elevator. It was the same one by which they had arrived in the viewing tower, bringing them up a distance of two hundred or so levels in less than a minute. Now they were heading down again, to the middle city - the part of the city in the cloud belt - to visit the upper areas of the current ARC buildings.

XXXX

Abby groaned. Her head ached and her stomach was complaining. She opened her eyes slowly, rubbing at them with one hand as she pushed herself up into a sitting position with the other. Slowly it dawned on her that there was no sudden rush to her side. No warm hands to help her and support her. Where was Connor?

She looked around. On one side of her, spraying her with a fine mist of cool water, was a waterfall. The dappled light reflecting and refracting through the water gave he enough light to make out the walls of the cave. She looked the other way, back into the tunnels. There was a fire burning low there, with two vaguely oval shapes hanging above it. There was a bundle by her side: Connor's jacket. Inside she found one of their bottles of water. She removed the lid and drank from it thirstily, gulping down almost the entire bottle in one go. Stretching out to the waterfall, she refilled the bottle and replaced the lid.

It was only then, leaning over to the fall, that she felt a tug around her neck and looked down. There was Connor's ring, the one he always wore, hanging round her neck. She lifted it and looked at it in confusion. Then she noticed something trailing from the ring. Wool. Black wool by the look of it.

"What are you up to now, Conn?" Abby muttered.

Getting up, then deciding she had better crawl for the moment, she followed the wool to the fire and the stones that pegged it round it. The oval shapes resolved themselves into two butterflied fish, now dried by the rising heat and smoke.

"Kippers for breakfast? I'm impressed!" Abby reached up and took one of the two fish down, breaking it into bitesized chunk and spitting out the bones.

Having finished her fish, and decided to leave the other for later, Abby started untying the wool, leaving it pegged securely in place by the stones. Only as an afterthought, did she turn back, pick up the pack made from Connor's jacket, with the refilled water bottle in it, wrap the other fish in a leaf that was lying there and lift a branch from the fire, and one from the wood pile nearby.

XXXX

"Yes, sir, I fully understand the implications," said Lester to the wall in front of him.

A voice buzzed in his earpiece.

"Of course, sir, they are our top priority."

Another buzz from the earpiece.

"Indeed sir. I simply wonder if you would consider my proposal. As much as I appreciate the extra help at a time like this, we cannot deny that Mr Temple and Miss Maitland at the very least are exceptional resources and should not be simply discounted as they have been..."

This time the buzzing interrupted Lester and went on at some length.

"Certainly sir. Monitoring and dealing with the anomalies does not take up every minute of every day, however. Would you at least see your way to a compromise? If the search for our missing... employees were to be carried out only in our own time?"

The buzzing, this time, was slightly louder.

"Very good, sir. I understand fully. Thank you, sir."

Lester withdrew the earpiece from his ear and threw it down onto the desk before him with a long sigh. It had been almost a month now. Page was going crazy. Becker was getting stonier by the day. The general populus of the ARC staff treated him as if he were some sort of leper, although technically, they'd always done that...

It had only taken two weeks for Cutter and Stephen to find their way back. They'd had enough trouble doing so, and they'd both been trained in field and survival skills! DC Quinn seemed able to take on just about anything, but what about Connor and Abby? Abby might be all right, but Connor couldn't make himself a ham sandwich if the bread wasn't sliced! At least not without turning the entire kitchen upside down and spilling tea on the antique Persian rug!

Lester sighed again and pressed his fingers to his eyes. He had another headache coming on. Probably a migraine. That meant one of three things: either it was going to thunder, or there was going to be some anomaly related emergency, or Doctor Page was about to have another hissy fit.

Just as his hand got to the box of pills in his top drawer, the phone on Lester's desk rang. He closed the drawer again and picked up the receiver, thinking that at least this way he'd have the pleasure of slamming it down again when the PM finally left him alone. He put the receiver to his ear and listened. His face froze. The colour drained from it. He took a deep breath before replying in the steadiest and most measured tones he could manage.

"What do you mean 'the racetrack anomaly has closed'?"

XXXX

Connor's torch was burning low. Mentally, he kicked himself for not bringing a spare. He would have to go back soon anyway: he was nearly down to the fingers of his second and last glove. He had found a side tunnel, however, that sloped downward. There was a freshness to the air that he hadn't felt in a while and he was sure there was a sliver of light up ahead.

He had spotted a few things on his trip through the tunnels. Most of them were invertebrates of one form or another: arachnids, insects, slimy things... What had really caught his attention, though was the little furry things keeping just out of the light.

They looked a bit like a cross between an echidna, but with fur, and a shrew, but with longer whiskers. Whatever they were, they were definitely mammals! The first mammals, perhaps! His and Abby's and everyone else's ancestors! He'd tried to make sure he didn't step on any after that idea popped up in his head!

The sliver of light was definitely getting brighter now. It was definitely an opening too, not some colony of sickly green glowing bacteria or fungi. He came to the end of his glove. He couldn't just leave it lying here: he'd never find it again! Blowing out the remains of the torch, he tied the end of the wool around the burnt branch and placed it down on the ground.

"Now, no chewing at this," he told whatever furry proto-mammals that might still be hanging around. "It's very important."

Turning back to the light, he made his way the last few feet and out into an almost bare hollow in the land. There was a collection of dead wood in the middle of it that attracted Connor's attention. Good firewood was always welcome! As he made his way over to the pile, he spotted something else glinting in the sunlight.

It took a little bit of work, shifting twigs and sticks and half-branches, but soon he had the small, metallic object out. As soon as he'd got a good look at it, he'd known what it was. Now it was in his hands and he could hardly believe it. Helen must have dropped it: she had the only other one he'd ever seen. But would it work?

So intrigued and absorbed in the device, Connor missed the tiny little sounds that should have warned him of appraoching danger. The scattering of small feet. The silence suddenly pressing down on the surrounding forest. The prehistoric cry of an angry pteranodon bent on removing a threat from its nest. Only when he felt the movement of air behind him did Connor turn round, and by that time it was far too late.