A.N. I would strongly suggest that, if you have not yet read Stormy Weather, you do so before you read Chapter 10!
Chapter 9
Abby ran. Out the door. Down the corridor. One flight of stairs. Two flights. First floor. One more flight. Turn the corner. Stop. Water. No Connor. No Becker.
Abby paused for only a second, then dived forward. Before she reached the water, two pairs of arms grabbed her and pulled her back. Cutter and the medic. Behind them stood Jenny and Lester.
"No!" Abby screamed. Cutter wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides and lifting her off the floor. She kicked out with her feet.
"Where is he?" Abby shouted, struggling to get out of Cutter's grasp.
"Calm down!" Cutter gasped, wincing as his shins took yet another blow from Abby's heels.
"If you don't calm down," the medic cut in, grabbing hold of Abby's flailing legs, "you're going to reopen that wound!"
"I... Don't... Care!"
Lester pushed his way past the struggling trio.
"BECKER!" Lester shouted, scanning the paper strewn surface of the water.
"Never mind him, what about Connor!" Cutter called over. Lester ignored him.
"BECKER!" Jenny noticed a trace of panic in Lester's voice. "JAMES!"
"CONNOR!" Cutter and Abby joined in. Jenny looked from Lester, to Nick, then back to the water. She frowned.
"Look," Jenny said, hurrying to Lester's side. "There."
Lester, and the others, followed the line of her outstretched arm. She was pointing at the corridor to the kitchens. The end of the corridor was just visible around the edge of the stairwell. The lights had gone out, darkening the windowless corridor, but a disturbance in the water could be seen emerging from the near end.
"Let... Me... Go!" Abby cried, trying to wriggle out of the now solid grasp of the two men. "Connor!"
Everyone else held their breath, watching the distant corner of the hall into which the corridor emerged. Lester's sigh was audible when Becker appeared from the darkness.
The captain fought his way through the steady current that forced him back against the far wall. He edged his way along until he was level with the stairs.
"James," Lester called out, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Becker called back. "Just a little out of breath."
"Come on," Lester held out his hand, holding on to the bannister for support. "Grab my hand."
The group watched as Becker pushed his way through the water to within reach of Lester's outstretched arm. The water was up to his chest now. He lifted one arm out of the water and grabbed Lester's, pulling himself up onto the stairs.
"Oh no," Abby whimpered.
Cutter looked down at his friend, then followed her gaze. He saw the hat in Becker's other hand.
"Tell me that didn't come off a body!" Cutter's tone was icy as he stared at the hat.
Becker, gasping for air, looked at the hat in his hand as if he had forgotten it was there.
"No," he said, finally, "No, it was all I could find. Of Connor at least."
XXXX
Helen Cutter watched a small red dot fade and disappear on a monitor. It marked the extinction of a life. She smiled. It was amazing what technology you could find in the future these days.
Ah well, no matter. The present could easily be changed. She knew that. The changes could be controlled too. She wasn't in complete control of them yet, but she was getting better with practice.
She turned her back on the monitor. Something else would have to be done now. A new plan was needed. The waters had broken through and washed away her hope of retrieving the control program. There was still hope, though. The program may have to be rewritten. That would delay their discovery somewhat, giving her time to make her next move. She looked around her at the army of minions carrying out the mundane tasks of maintaining her laboratory. She let her gaze rest on one man and smiled.
Death meant little to Helen Cutter, as long as it wasn't her own.
XXXX
"You cannot go charging into piranha infested waters, Miss Maitland!" Lester's tone was authoritative and direct.
"He's right, Abby," Jenny sounded gentle and placating.
"Those things can detect blood as easily as you or I could see a candle in a coal cellar: you'd be ripped to shreds before you got out of the stairwell." Cutter's voice was cool and logical.
Abby Maitland stared at the floor and rocked gently on her chair.
"No," she murmured, "No. He's not dead. We have to find him. He's not dead. I'd know," Abby looked at Jenny hopefully, "I would, wouldn't I? I'd know if he was gone?"
Jenny glanced at the others surrounding Abby's chair, each one half alert and ready to catch her should she make a break for the door again.
"I think," said Lester quietly, "that we have to face up to the likelihood that Mr Temple will not be coming back."
"NO!" Abby cried, dissolving into tears. Cutter wrapped his arms around her again, as much to comfort her as to prevent her running off. He looked up at Lester and Lester took his meaning immediately.
"We're going to need a sedative," Lester said to the medic. "Make sure it'll knock her out for at least a few hours. Send someone for Jones and her team."
The medic nodded and hurried towards the door, pausing to give an order to one of the guards on the other side of it before disappearing in the opposite direction.
Lester watched the door swing shut, then turned to Becker.
"Now," he said, "Tell me exactly what you found in the kitchen."
Becker nodded thoughtfully, then began to describe in detail the scene that had met his eyes as he arrived in the kitchen. He told them about the body of the man trapped against the windows. He described the cleaner in detail and when he mentioned a scar on the dead man's neck, Nick looked up sharply.
"Him again!"
"What is it?" Jenny asked.
"That sounds remarkably like the cleaner from the mall. The man I ran into down by the canal, when Abby was taken by those future mer-creatures."
A sob escaped Abby as her own thoughts flew back to that particular episode of her life.
"What does this mean?" Lester asked, holding Cutter's gaze.
"It means one of two things," Cutter replied, looking away. "Either Leek is back from the dead or," he paused and looked Lester straight in the eye, "Helen's back in town."
XXXX
Jenny stepped up to Nick's side as they watched two military personnel carry a sleeping and stretcher bound Abby out of the library.
"I'm sorry about Connor," she said.
"I've learnt that, when Helen's around, it's best not to count your casualties until you have the bodies in front of you," Cutter replied without turning round. "I wouldn't be surprised if even then you need to keep checking!"
"Do you think she'll be alright?"
"Helen?" Cutter looked round, puzzled.
"No, Abby," Jenny explained.
"She's strong. She'll get through it. I wouldn't like to be Helen if the two of them ever come face to face though."
"You think she's behind this?"
"Maybe not the anomaly or the effect it's having, but the sheer presence of that cleaner guy in the kitchen does suggest she has something to do with Connor's disappearance."
"You really think there's a chance he's not dead?"
"I don't know what to think," Nick shrugged. "Logically, I can think of a dozen different possibilities of what may or may not have happened down in that kitchen. Very few of them include a decent chance of survival."