Chapter 11

Light, sound and air came rushing back to Connor as he surfaced. For a moment he paused, treading water, getting his breath back. He drew a hand over his face and shook his head, the spray from his hair creating a shimmer of ripples across the surface of the water.

He looked around him. There was the top of the serving hatch, minus its central wooden support beam. There was the door to the corridor. Where was the Cleaner? He turned in a slow circle, treading water and steering himself with his hands, looking for his erstwhile adversary. There he was. Over by the window.

The moon was up now and its light shone through the window, illuminating the grisly scene in a pallid spotlight. Connor let himself drift closer. As he drew near, he could make out the wooden beam protruding solidly from the Cleaner's neck. He never had had much luck with neck wounds, thought Connor.

The cleaner was definitely dead, he decided. If the glassy eyes and bloodless skin wasn't enough, the sight of chunks of that skin disappearing around the edge that neck wound confirmed it. Connor couldn't see the fish, especially not in this light, but he could see where they'd been and what they were doing. He pulled a face in disgust and turned away, glad of the chance to escape the creatures' notice.

A mild current dragged Connor back and forth in the water. It was well past midnight, he guessed, so the tide must be heading back out. That was good: it would help him get back to the stairs. Kicking out with his feet, he swam back to the kitchen door, dived under it, and headed back along the darkened corridor.

XXXX

"Are you sure it's dead?" Jenny asked, peering hesitantly over Cutter's shoulder.

"I've just stuck a metal bar through it's head, woman!" Cutter replied, "How much more dead do you want it to be?"

Jenny raised an eyebrow at his exasperated tone and stepped closer to the dissecting table. Her arms remained locked together, though, and she refused to touch the table - just in case.

"So what's your verdict?" Becker cut in as Cutter peeled back the shimmering scales.

"Not much more than it was previously," Cutter replied, "Although the general body shape would normally be much smaller at depth."

"How do you work that out?"

"The swim bladder: it's unusually elastic. That's probably why they have survived the change in pressure."

"What do you mean?" Jenny asked.

"Fish have this bit inside of them called a swim bladder, right?" Cutter turned to face Jenny as he explained. "Now a swim bladder is basically just an organic balloon. It's filled with gas. The fish use it as a buoyancy aid. Down in the abyssal planes, it might be something like this." He balled one hand into a fist, held it up in front of him and covered it with his other hand. "But if the fish moves up to a shallower depth, where there's less pressure, it expands, like this." He pulled his hands apart, spreading the fingers to show the area between them expanding. "Usually, because they only move up the water column slowly, the fish is able to get rid of some of that excess gas to keep the swim bladder in check. When a fish is brought up artificially, however, like with a trawl net or by a research team, the drop in pressure can happen so quickly that the swim bladder over inflates and kills the fish."

"But that hasn't happened with these ones," Jenny stated, making sure she was following the narrative.

"No," Cutter replied, dropping his hands. "These guys have survived an immense and more or less instantaneous pressure change. The reason for it is simply their swim bladders. They are both more extendible and more able to get rid of gas quickly."

"Is that the only new piece of information we have?" Becker asked, tearing Cutter's attention away from Jenny.

"No, not the only piece," Cutter conceded. "It's difficult to tell, but the lateral line seems to be less well developed in this species. That's probably why it reacts more to blood than to vibrations. It also suggests that this serrasalminid is more of a scavenger than a predator, which should be good news to Lester."

"I'll let him know. Anything else?"

"Yes, there is one thing," Cutter reached out and grabbed an odd looking torch from a nearby bench. "I thought I saw something like this when the lights went out and someone switched on one of these by mistake," he looked up to see understanding on Becker's face, but confusion on Jenny's. "It's a UV torch. It shows up things that reflect ultra violet light, link blood at a crime scene." Jenny nodded, confusion subsiding.

"And the fish reflects it too," she stated.

In answer, Cutter nodded to one of the guards, who switched off the lights, plunging the room into darkness. Jenny saw the weird purplish light flicker on in Cutter's hand, then saw the same light reflected by the splayed fish on the dissecting board. Looking around her at the tanks, she saw faint lilac glows rebounding back to her eyes from each fish in the tanks. She counted thirteen, the glow from each strengthening then fading as Cutter moved the torch about the room.

The UV light disappeared and the usual room lights flicked back on.

"I think you can tell Lester we've found a way to spot the fish," Cutter told Becker. "It'll have to be done at night and it might take a while, but as long as nobody goes swimming with an open wound, they should be fine."

"Perhaps the rumour of an untreated sewage leak would prevent that," suggested Jenny.

Becker nodded and left the room. Nick turned back to the fish and prodded the bladder. A spurt of spray bubbled out of its mouth.

"I'm sorry about Connor," Jenny said, her voice soft.

"Don't be. He's not gone."

"How can you be sure?"

"I can't. But Abby was. I've seen that kind of certainty. I've lived it. I spent eight years living it. I was right. I believe Abby will be too."

"What you said, then, in that cell, about Helen: was it true?"

Nick shrugged.

"Maybe, partly anyway. The bit about us sharing something: that was certainly true. But we lost that. I don't know how or when, but one day it was just gone, and so was she."

"You really don't have much luck with women, do you."

"Nope. Never have been, never will."

"Don't lose all hope. Just because we can visit the future now doesn't mean we can predict it," Jenny smiled and pulled a face before adding: "I think."

"What is it they say? Third time lucky?" Nick laughed cynically, "Yeah, well, we'll see."

XXXX

"Captain Becker, sir," the voice crackled through the radio, "We can hear something approaching the stairs."

"Any visual?" Becker replied, turning away from the group of scientists who were avidly describing the inner working of a black hole to Lester.

"Negative," came the reply.

"I'm on my way," Becker replied. "Keep me informed."

Glancing back at Lester, wondering if the geeks would be quite so enthusiastic if they knew just how much Lester really understood about the world, Becker headed over to the stairs.

He was already a full flight down when the call came through that the noisy approach was being made by Connor Temple. By the time he reached the half landing between the first and ground floors, Connor was already dripping on the carpet. The bedraggled palaeontologist looked up an Becker through strands of wet, black hair.

"I don't suppose you've seen my hat?"

XXXX

"You're sure it was him!" Cutter's eyes widened when he heard Connor's story and he couldn't help interrupting at the first mention of the Cleaner.

"The guy was pointing a gun at my head," Connor replied, "He was fairly difficult to miss."

"But that's impossible!" Cutter cried, throwing up his hands.

"Why?" Jenny asked, watching him carefully.

"I watched him die!" Cutter exclaimed. "Back in the Silurian. When Ste... When Stephen and I went through to get that little girl. The Cleaner guy there. We watched him get eaten by a scorpion. All of us."

"Well, somehow, I watched him die again today," Connor said steadily. "Well, yesterday, I suppose," he shrugged, "but the point is: you can't usually die twice!"

"So what?" Becker cut in. "This guy has a twin, maybe? Or perhaps he survived his encounter with the scorpion."

"No, it was the same guy." Connor shrugged again. "He had the same scar and everything."

Lester had been standing with his back to the group, quite quietly. Now he turned round.

"Please feel free to correct me if my logic goes astray," he said, "but the evidence of our eyes, which, I might add, I am inclined to believe, tells us that this man has died twice. That being the case, it is necessary to believe that either he has survived his previous encounter with death or, and this is where the story really starts, he exists in two timelines."

Cutter's jaw dropped. Becker and Jenny looked confused. Connor looked impressed.

"You've been talking to Nigel," Connor grinned.

"Is it that obvious?" Lester replied sardonically.

"Will somebody tell me what's going on?" Cutter pleaded.

"Nigel's got this theory, right," Connor sniffed, "that if you could control the anomalies, you could go back in time and meet yourself, like, ten times over. Creates one heck of a paradox but there's no good reason why, if you could control them, it wouldn't work."

"Or, more to the point," Lester interrupted, "you could move from one part of a much larger timeline to another and remove other people from them many times over. As you yourself have found out, Professor Cutter, when you step away from a timeline, and do something that changes it, when you step back in you are still the same yourself, the world has just changed around you. Now the last time I checked your suspicions indicated that you had thought this man to be working for me, but then changed your mind when you discovered Leek to be the traitor. I am of the opinion that he worked for neither myself nor Leek. Who else do we know with extensive experience of time travel through the anomalies?"

"Helen," Cutter said, looking at the ceiling. "Of course."

XXXX

Connor trudged damply along the corridor on the third floor. Eventually he reached his door and nodded to the guard who stepped aside to let him pass. He opened the door and stepped inside. The guard inside saluted and left the room, joining his counterpart outwith the door.

"It's alright: I'll keep and eye on her," Connor told them. They saluted again and headed off to join the others downstairs.

Connor closed the door gently and turned round. He was tired, cold, hungry and soaked to the skin, but something childish and giggly wanted to burst out laughing and dance around the room. It was stupid, really stupid, but he couldn't help it. They had to sedate her, actually knock her out, to stop her going after him! Surely, God, please, surely, he prayed, there must be hope in that!

He laughed silently to himself and leaned back against the door, a stupid grin plastered on his face. He looked across at Abby sleeping fitfully on the bed. He wouldn't wake her, not yet: not looking like this. He made his way over to his own bed and tipped the contents out of the bag Becker had found for them. He didn't really care what clothes Becker had requisitioned, as long as they were dry. Grabbing the things he needed, he hurried off to the shower in the en suite bathroom.

Ten minutes later, while pulling a t-shirt over his still damp, but at least now clean, hair, Connor heard a noise from the outer room and hurried back through. Abby's fitful sleep had descended into some sort of nightmare and her face had become a mask of panic and terror. He crossed the room, calling out her name. When he reached the bed and sat down next to her, she was still in the hold of the dream, her arms thrashing out as she turned from side to side. Connor grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

"Abby," he called, "Abby!"

Suddenly she sat up, awake and breathing heavily. She stared at him for a moment, confused.

"Connor," she gasped, shaking her head, "No, not again. No, no, no, no..."

Connor grabbed her shoulders and held her still.

"Abby? Abby! It's okay! You're awake. It's me."

"You were dead."

"But I'm not. It was just a dream."

"But they said you were dead. Becker, Lester..."

"They were wrong."

"I was so sure they were... then I was asleep... and I dreamt... I dreamt..."

"It was just a dream. Abby. Abby, look at me." Abby met his gaze. "I am right here. Right here in front of you, okay. I'm fine. I'm not hurt. I'm okay. I'm not going anywhere." Connor's face broke into a grin. "You didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?"

Abby laughed, despite herself, and threw her arms around his neck. Connor's grin was infectious. It always was. It was one of the things she loved about him.

FINI