Chapter 2
"Rex? Re-ex?" Abby scanned the rafters for the mischievous coelurosauravus. She had shelled out a bit on his favourite fruits and now he had decided to be awkward. It was her own fault: she'd been neglecting him a bit lately and now he was sulking. She knew he was in a bad mood with because he'd refused to come out of his nest that morning when they left. That was why she had spent more than usual on his food.
"Where are you?" Abby sighed, and flopped down onto the sofa. She put the plate of chopped papaya and lychees down on the cushion next to her and leant back, resting her head on the back of the sofa and watching the rafters for any sign of movement.
"I know I've not been here much," Abby shouted up at the ceiling. "But I'm trying to make up for it! Come on, Rex: Connor disappeared for a whole month and you forgave him as soon as he showed up! Please? I got your favourites!"
Abby stared at the ceiling. The ceiling stared blankly back. She knew she'd been acting up around Peta. She knew she was being possessive and slightly jealous. It wasn't that she didn't trust Connor: she just didn't trust Peta. Peta was far too much of a geek for Abby's liking. It meant that the Australian redhead had far more in common with Connor than Abby did, and that made Abby feel threatened. She also didn't like the fact that Peta didn't quite seem to understand that Connor was taken. She'd seen the other woman putting herself in his way at every opportunity. Flirting, laughing, trying to impress. It was amusing, of course, that Connor hadn't noticed, but then, by not noticing, he also hadn't put her straight and that meant that she was getting worse. There was something else, something that Abby couldn't quite put her finger on, that made her suspicious of Peta, she was sure of it. She frowned and went over things in her mind once more. Whatever it was that had caught her attention, it remained elusive.
Abby sighed and got up. She looked down to pick up the plate and found it empty.
"You sneaky little..."
XXXX
"Well: what is it? You're the expert now."
Sir James Lester glared at the fish swimming round and round the outside edge of the tank.
"Looks like some kind of ostracoderm," Connor shrugged. He didn't bother looking up to check that Lester had actually spoken to him: there were no other possibilities now. It still irked him to be called an expert, though. He wasn't. Not officially. Not yet. Not on this! He hadn't even graduated, no matter how much the Home Office had rushed his progress through university.
"And what diverse region of our planet's history does an 'ostracoderm' call home?"
You could hear the 'air quotes' around ostracoderm.
"Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian. Somewhere round about there."
"Can you be more specific?" Becker asked.
"Not really," Connor shook his head mournfully, "I never paid much attention to the fish bits. They started off in the Ordovician, that's about four hundred and eighty odd million years ago to four hundred and forty odd million years ago, and fossils have been found from as late as the Devonian, that's roughly four hundred odd to three hundred and fifty odd million years ago. The Silurian is the bit in between: I think they kind of diversified a lot then, then started dying out again."
"And this guy?"
"Seriously: no idea. Could be any of the three. I'd have to do a fair bit of hunting to narrow it down."
"Then may I suggest, Mr Temple," hissed Lester, "that you get on with it!"
Connor bit his lip and kept his gaze fixed on the fish as Lester stalked out of the room. The fish was definitely an ostracoderm. The fused bony plate on the underside of the body and head was there. The jaws of modern fish were not. There were no fins though. That suggested it was quite primitive. In fact, it looked rather like a large, heavily armoured and scaly tadpole. Probably closer to the Ordovician end of the time scale then, Connor thought.
"What do we do now?" Becker asked, cutting into Connor's concentration.
"The anomaly's closed," said Connor. "We didn't get a chance to see what it was like or where it led. We've no way of knowing what bit of a hundred and thirty or so million years it led to. There's not much we can do." He shrugged. "Find a tank for it and work out what it eats. There were no other creatures through the anomaly, right?"
"None that we could find, no."
"Well, that's all we can do then, isn't it."
"Sir James won't be happy."
"When is he ever?"
XXXX
"How is that synchronisation program going?" Peta called across to Nigel.
"Almost there. I just need to tie in the last set of electromagnetic discs."
"Set?"
"I've grouped them into seven sets of six. It should make it easier for the system to handle."
"Yeah, I guess. Give me a shout when you're done and I'll give it a read through."
"How's the building?"
"Going okay. You know he's asked for a permanent one."
"Who?"
"Sir James. Wants a permanent 'imploder' down at Darwin Lodge."
"Darwin Lodge?"
"You know: the house in Cornwall."
"Oh, is that what they're calling it."
"So I hear. They've nearly finished the rebuild."
"What are they going to do with it?"
"Study the Triassic anomaly I presume. We already know we can reopen it. It's a foothold."
"Makes a change from the economy drive!"
"It's progress, isn't it? We might have lost a really expensive piece of kit, and we're not likely to get any pay rises in the next six months, but at least we have some actual progress to back it up."
"Hm."
Nigel nodded thoughtfully and then turned his attention back to the additional program he was writing. Once it was complete, the program would ensure that all forty two electromagnetic discs switched polarity in unison. He glanced back over to the spotted globe that was their new imploder, or Anomaly Control Executor, as he liked to call it: the ACE up his sleeve.
XXXX
"Where were you? I was worried!"
Helen lay down next to the tiny hole in the base of the wall dividing her cell from his. Her visits to the past, and her own time, had been getting more frequent recently and, each time she was away, she stayed away that little bit longer. Just long enough to keep him worrying. Worry was good. It meant that he still believed her and, what was more, that he cared about her.
"I'm fine. They took me to see some more of their world. They seem to blame us for it. I don't know what's going on."
"You didn't look fine when they dragged you past me."
She let the blood drip out of her nose: it would stop by itself. Cai had done a good job today.
"I'm fine," she insisted. "I've been worse. It's just a couple of bruises and a bleeding nose."
"How long do you think we've been here now?"
"I don't know: it's hard to say. It's always daylight when they take me up there, but I can't tell how much time is passing in the other cells."
"What are they like, the other cells?"
"Just like this one, and yours I suppose. Hacked out of the chalk. Iron bars. That sort of thing."
"I've been thinking," he started.
Helen smiled. Here it came: that seed of an idea she had planted days ago was finally starting to bear fruit. She would have to be careful though: to much pushing and he might spot that it wasn't quite all his own work. Too little and he might lose faith in the plan and drop it entirely.
"Yes?" Helen coaxed.
"There may be a way out," he continued with renewed vigour. "If you try and count the steps again, and the turns, the next time they take you out of here, I'll try and figure out where we go from there. I've been working at the iron bars: it takes some time and patience, and a chicken bone or something to scrape with, but I think we can work them loose. By the look of things, if we can get the bottom of the bars loose, we can just lift them out: there doesn't seem to be any solid fixings at the top of the bars."
"Really?" Helen took care to sound surprised. "You're sure?"
"Absolutely. We're going to get out of here, Helen. We just need to work at it."
"I'll do my best," she murmured, glancing up at the three bars of her cell that already stood loose against the far wall.