Chapter 4

"What news, milady?"

"None yet, Cai," Helen Cutter drawled as she slipped into the monitor covered surveillance room. "The Nick of my timeline has had a rather interesting reaction to my news. He's still taking it in. How are my guests?"

"They confuse me, and each other. The elder appears calmer."

"Elder?"

"The woman on the left: she is older, is she not?"

"No, not at all," Helen shook her head, frowning at Cai. His statement puzzled her. She had taken both Claudia and Jenny at effectively the same moments in their life. Claudia had been a month younger when she was taken, but she had been in the cave-cell exactly one month when Jenny joined her. The two were the same age. Helen had controlled everything it was possible to control.

"What makes you think she is older than the other?" Helen asked Cai.

"Her bearing. Her manner," Cai shrugged. "It is difficult to say. Her first reaction to her twin was considerable, but since she awoke she has been able to assess the situation. She has been the one to calm the other down and explain things. She has been the one in control of herself."

Helen's eyebrows crept up her forehead, a rare sign of emotion. She was impressed. Jenny Lewis, it seemed was the stronger character. Such a shame she wouldn't get the chance to show it. Still, Helen thought: she might make a useful aid elsewhere in the project.

"And what of my other guest?"

Cai pressed a button on the console and the central picture, which had been jumping from each of the many cells to another, held steady on the image of a man working doggedly at the base of the metal bars at the from of his cell. They watched the figure in silence. He stopped suddenly and looked round, then shot back to the other side of the cell. A moment or two later, a guard walked past the bars, his helmet just visible in the shot. Another few moments and the man was back at the metal bar, working it loose.

"So far, so good," Helen smiled. "I had better get back to my cell and get some 'work' done on those bars, otherwise he might start getting suspicious. His intelligence should not be underestimated. Speaking of which, maybe it's time you started the tests on him. His reactions are already good and his instincts are usually trustworthy. Start building up his reaction speed. Introduce yourself and the project to him, carefully though. Make sure he believes the story I gave you. It is vital that he trusts both of us independently. His trust in you may vary from time to time, but he has not yet lived through my controversial return from the dead, so he has no reason not to trust me. Let's make sure we don't give him one.

Cai nodded mutely.

"Time to get back to work," Helen smiled, "Call your guards. Remember: this has to look real."

XXXX

Captain James Becker pushed open the door of the hut with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. In front of him he saw various pieces of diving apparatus hanging from walls, racks and ceiling rigs. He stopped short to avoid colliding with a rack of dry-suits and looked round. At the far end of the hut two of his female officers loomed over a young woman sitting in a chair looking distinctly displeased. She looked round at the sound of the door, her damp, dark curls bouncing round as she did so.

"What is going on here?" Kate Barratt demanded, getting to her feet before her keepers could stop her. "You have no right to keep me here. Last time I checked spotting previously extinct animals wasn't a crime."

"You're here so that we can find out exactly what you saw and where, Miss Barratt," Becker replied walking over to her. "Please take a seat and we'll have a chat."

Kate ignored his request and remained standing as he reached her. He stopped just a foot from her and met her gaze calmly.

"We can talk just as easily like this," she replied.

"Fine," Becker shrugged and sat down in another chair. "You don't mind if I sit down though? I find it easier to take notes."

Kate watched as Becker pulled out a notebook and pen. He flipped the notebook open and jotted a couple of things down. Kate relaxed a little and sat down again.

"So what do you want to know?" she asked. "I've already told your other guys everything."

"First, let me introduce myself: I am Captain James Becker, military attaché to the Home Office. I am in charge of the operation that is now going on outside."

"And what 'operation' is that then?"

"Partly to find your extinct creature," Becker watched Kate's features carefully as he spoke. "Partly to find the unexploded bomb your dive buddy spotted."

She didn't flinch. No surprise there then, Becker thought.

"If you're so sure there's a bomb down there, shouldn't you be evacuating the area?"

"Oh, we are. There's a new base being set up for us at a perimeter. I just thought this would be a bit more... private... until it's ready," he shifted the pen in his hand and passed the pen and pad over to Kate. "I would like you, Miss Barratt, to draw for me the creature you believe you saw in the diving lake. I would also like you to try and draw me a diagram of where in the lake you saw the creature. If you saw the bomb, or if you know where your buddy saw the bomb, please mark that on the diagram also."

Kate took the pad and pen, her dark eyes shifting for the first time from Becker's face. He felt an inexplicable sense of relief when that incessant gaze was finally removed and glanced up at the soldiers to check they hadn't spotted his change of attitude. If they had, they weren't giving anything away.

Becker glanced back down at the pad. He watched as long, dextrous fingers sketched rough shapes on the paper and handed the pad and pen back to him. The first drawing looked a bit like a squid. Maybe it had been a squid then. He would have to get Connor to have a look. The second drawing was split into two diagrams of the lake: one from above and the other side on. There were three marks on each map.

"The star is where I saw the belemnite. The small cross is your buried treasure: Joe's bomb," Kate explained.

"And the large cross?" Becker asked, dreading the answer.

"That's the fracture in time the belemnite came through."

XXXX

"Do you have any idea how much money it costs to drip-feed scientists these days?" Lester snapped at the recumbent figure on the bed. "And there's still your wages to pay. It's not just the cost of the drips and the bed and the wages and the general electricity for heating and lighting the place, although why an unconscious man needs the light on is beyond me! It's the cost of the wages for the nurses, doctors and orderlies that have to be here to change the drips and switch the lights on and off! Not to mention the overtime we're racking up with the rest of them! If you weren't so annoyingly useful I'd be seriously considering telling them to switch the whole lot off and go bury myself in the paperwork! In fact, if you don't wake up sometime soon, I might just do that!

To cap it all, I'm not even left with a decent replacement. Mr Temple is obviously trying, but apparently genius, geek and leader is just one ridiculous hat too many for him! We've had to keep his little team of fans on board since they're busy building their new gadget after having demolished the last one. We're still trying to pay that off! As soon as they've finished this one, in the vein of computer programmers everywhere, they will suddenly realise how to build a better one and the whole process will begin again. At some point in the whole repetitive cycle Miss Maitland will be forced to kill Miss Jones brutally for spending more time with Mr Temple than anyone should ever have to. By the time this happens, however, we will have either reopened or failed to close so many anomalies that dinosaurs will once more rule the earth and my supremely intelligent brain will be rotting in some Home Office madhouse somewhere thinking 'where did it all go wrong' and remembering sitting here with you!"

Lester sighed and stared at the ceiling. He hated to admit it, but he was, for once, lonely. Leek was gone, Stephen was gone, Jenny was gone. Becker was off with the others on yet another anomaly hunt. Even the geeks had packed up their new toy and headed off up north. There was something else, though: something that nagged Lester at the back of his mind. He was, for once, out of his depth. He had dealt with almost every situation imaginable in his career, but the anomalies were utterly unimaginable. Regardless of the growing experience he had within the ARC, and his ability to organise the remainder of his team sufficiently well, he lacked one key ability. He could not even guess at what was going to happen next. People were predictable, most of the time. Leek had been an exception, but he had Helen behind him and she was the queen of exceptions! Anomalies were not people. They had no basis on which he could possibly expect to predict the anomalies. Even Temple and his geeks couldn't do that. Not yet. And Helen was back. Her eligibility for the role of 'person' was considerably in doubt! What wasn't was that the only person with the remotest chance of predicting her was currently lying unconscious in an ARC medi-lab bed.

Lester sighed again and got to his feet restlessly. He paced the room once or twice, then turned to the door.

"What," croaked Nick Cutter's voice. "Are you leaving already?"