Chapter 4

Jenny Lewis sat at her newly acquired desk. In front of her sat a small pile of graphs, charts, maps and memos, each finding a new way to tell her that the entire North Sea was increasing in size and the many and vaired ways in which this would affect the island nation she called home. There were maps showing which areas would be the first to flood, suggestions for evacuation plans, estimations of the hight and strength of the flood defences necessary to avoid catastrophe, calculations of the estimated loss of life should the defences fail and no evacuation take place. The last of these made both terrifying and depressing reading: it included every city on the east coast. Only Edinburgh, with it's extinct volcanoes, stood a chance of keeping any of its buildings above the predicted water levels.

She flicked through the flimsy computer printouts, trying to keep the edge of panic buried deep within her. All the while, throughout the immense crisis she now found herself in, one single question kept coming back into her mind.

Who was Claudia Brown?

XXXX

"It's not that bad," Connor admitted grudgingly. Abby rolled her eyes at him and continued to inspect the small, badly decorated room they had been allocated.

It wasn't 'that bad', she supposed: she had definitely seen, and stayed in, worse. What worried her more was the situation: they hadn't expected to be away for more than a day, so nobody had brought any spare clothes with them, let alone an overnight bag, plus she'd never left Rex on his own overnight. She wasn't worried about the rest of her lizards: they were slow, placid creatures who sat patiently in their vivariums waiting to be fed. Rex was different. From the very first, he had been less than keen to spend all his time in a tank. He also appeared considerably more intelligent than her other, more usual, pets. He was more active and that meant he ate more frequently: every day instead of once a week or month like some other reptiles. She wasn't even sure he was completely cold-blooded: that stint in the fridge should have killed him, or at least knocked him out, but instead he'd survived and even managed to stay consious throughout. She would have to remember to speak to Cutter about that, some time when there were less pressing matters to worry about.

There was a knock at the door. Abby and Connor glanced at each other, then at the door.

"Come in," Abby called.

The door opened to reveal Captain Becker in a rather more military outfit. Behind him stood a younger soldier carrying two kit bags.

"I took the liberty of checking your files," Becker announced, walking into the room and motioning to the soldier to bring in the bags. "The clothing in here should fit you both. You will also find a number of overnight essentials. I'm afraid you won't be able to sort through them just now: Sir James wishes to see you both in his office."

Turning on his heel, Becker disappeared, his young lackey in tow. Abby and Connor looked at each other.

"Sir James?" Connor asked, puzzled.

"Lester, Connor," Abby sighed, heading for the door, "He means Lester."

XXXX

"Ah, good afternoon. I see you have finally decided to grace us with your presence," Lester quipped as Connor and Abby found their way into the office. Jenny, Becker and Cutter were already seated around the small conference table. Lester stood at the head of it.

"You will probably want to sit down for this," Jenny suggested in measured tones.

"As some of you are aware," Lester began, not waiting for the two newcomers to take their place at the table, "we have an unknown quantity of water pouring into the North Sea from an unknown anomaly leading to an unknown era. That is far too many unknowns for my liking, therefore I have had my busy little bees out there coming up with some answers. So far, we know that the low tide, which occurred some half hour ago, was predicted to show a low water level of one point six meters. Instead, it showed a low water level of four meters: almost as high as the previous high water level today. That gives us an estimated rise of just under two and a half meters. Initial reports suggest similar rises in sea level throughout the coastlines bordering the North Sea."

"Have the water levels stopped rising yet?" Cutter asked.

"Another unknown," Lester replied. "The tides on this side of the North Sea are on the turn now, so the rise in water levels at present is at least partially due to that. Other countries aren't monitoring their water levels constantly, as we are, since they don't yet know of any reason to do so. That means that, in between tides, we only have our own data to rely on.

Assuming that the water level remains stable, in terms of the anomaly anyway, that leaves us with a predicted high water level of six point two meters. Data from high water this morning suggests that the water level has risen two meters since then. If we add that to our current prediction, at half past eleven tonight we should see a high water level of eight point two meters, possibly more if we lose the wind. It is currently half past five, so that gives us six hours in which to either reverse the flow of water through the anomaly or prepare for the consequences."

"What height are our flood defences at currently?" Jenny asked, looking to Becker.

"The flood warnings went out four hours ago," Becker replied, "That should be enough time for most well organised areas to have added half a meter to their existing defences."

"Is that all?" Cutter exclaimed.

"There's a lot of coastline to cover," Becker shrugged.

"What about here?" Abby asked. "How high are our own defences?"

"The sea wall takes us up to seven meters. Spring tides rarely hit the six meter mark here. We've added half a meter to that ourselves: that's taking us up to seven and a half meters. The harbour slipway is our weakest point. I've got every spare man working on it but we'll still be cutting it fine by high tide and there's no guarantee that our defences will hold under the weight of water that's expected."

"So the ideal solution would be to find some way of pushing the water back through the anomaly," Lester said pointedly. "Or at least stop any more water coming through. Any suggestions on how we do that?"

"We can't!" Connor said, shrugging. "The water level on the other side of the anomaly must be deeper than it is here. It's creating a pressure difference: that's why water's coming through in the first place. It won't stop coming through until the water pressure on both sides of the anomaly has equalised."

"Then how do we go about equalising it?" Lester asked simply. "Can we increase the water pressure on this side of the anomaly artificially? What about closing the anomaly? Can we try that?"

"We don't know enough about what opens them yet, let alone what closes them!"

"Then might I suggest you turn your scattered yet highly imaginitive brain to some good use, Connor, and find out." Lester straightened up and addressed the entire group once more. "The ground floor of the hotel has been entirely converted into research facilities. We have anything available that Captain Becker's men can requisition within the town. I suggest you all start working on this. We should know more when the research vessel arrives back. Keep me informed."

The last words signalling an end to the meeting, Cutter and his team got up and followed Becker out of the office. They were led along corridors to a large room with a stage at the far end, in the middle of which stood a large screen showing a map of the North Sea and a number of flashing dots. Connor walked over to examine the screen. Becker joined him.

"It's not as coherent as your own model in the ARC, but it's the best we could come up with at short notice."

"What are the dots?" Connor asked.

"The white dot is the anomaly," Becker replied, pointing to the stationary white dot in the midst of the sea. "The green dot is our research vessel and the red dot is us. At the bottom of the screen you can see the time since detection, the strength of the magnetic field and a graph showing the countinuous readings of the latter."

"It's holding steady then."

"Unfortunately, yes."

XXXX

At the side of the hotel, hidden from the view of the general public by a solid wall, a member of the kitchen staff began unloading the various peelings and offcuts produced by the kitchen into a large green bin. Shaking the last of the carrot tops into the bin, he threw the large plastic box into a corner and picked up a hose. It didn't take long to clean out the box with the jet spray from the hose. That was the one good thing about the job: it might be noisy and smelly, and you stood a good chance of getting soaked if you weren't careful, but at least it was fast. He turned off the water and replaced the hose, anxious to get back inside out of the wind and threatening rain. Turning round again, he scooped up the box, straightened up and walked straight into a fist.

The cleaner's outfit was almost identical to that of the unconsious kitchen worker, but as he bound and gagged the helpless man, the cleaner considered one addition. Pulling the knotted scarf off of the other man's head, he undid its ties and refolded it, bringing it up to tie it around his own neck.

People tended to remember scars.