I'd never seen the home office so busy. I hadn't taken my coat off on the way in– and it only added to intensity of the situation. There were three times as many people as usual in the room, most of them were men that I didn't recognise wearing expensive suits and at any given moment I could feel multiple pairs of eyes watching my movements as I threw the maps out across Lester's table and quickly organised them so that Nick and I could explain the theories we had to the others.

Stephen was standing out the way beside the screen we'd used in the meeting yesterday with the footage from the Aldwych anomaly site. Ryan was leaning against the wall beside him, hands in his uniform pockets, trying not to look bored.

We heard him coming long before he entered the room. His voice echoed down the corridor as he shouted at someone on the other end of the phone line, and when Lester finally strolled in through the door, his forehead was damp with sweat. He hung up, stuffed his phone into his pocket, and without even a hello he sighed and looked at me demanding '...well?'

'Well what?' I returned.

'You said you had an update on the anomalies.'

I nodded. 'I've been able to run a few experiments and the results have allowed us to disregard certain theories. And we're now pretty sure how to explain it, at least. We still don't know how exactly they work but, that's not something we were ever going to find out overnight.'

'The anomalies are time's equivalent of an earthquake,' Nick explained.

'They are strong enough to rip apart the boundaries between dimensions,' I added. 'This particular anomaly is different for whatever reason it isn't stationery in our time. I think a fault line ruptured at the swimming pool.' I leant over the table to tap a finger against the map.

'Then ran to the reservoir.' Cutter pointed to the location of the reservoir.

'It could crash its way into our time again anywhere along this line.' I ran my finger down the line to meet his.

'Earthquakes?' Lester repeated incredulously, 'temporal fault lines? We're trying a little bit too hard people its random chance there's no connection with any of it. The anomalies gone. The crisis is over and I'd say we got off pretty lightly.'

I could sense Cutter rolling his eyes as his head turned towards me as though to watch my own reaction. 'Except that a good man is now permanently marooned in the past,' I contradicted, 'but he could make it back. There could be another breech along the fault line at any given moment.'

'Are you sure about this, Miss Havisham?' Lester returned as he looked me up and down. 'Only you look a bit tired and I'd hate for that to cause you to make a monumental mistake.'

'I've been awake for so long now that I don't even know what day it is,' I admitted, 'but am I fuck wrong about this; the evidence is irrefutable.'

'You should be stationing troops at any significant body of water between the reservoir and the coast,' Nick explained, 'like we said yesterday, only this time, we know the chance of it happening again is much, much higher.'

'The press would be crawling all over us in seconds, how on earth would we explain it? I mean you admit it's all conjecture.'

'Yes of course it is, this isn't an exact science yet,' he replied, 'but I'm right. She's right.'

'You people. You're worse than the climate change mob. One cold day in July and suddenly it's the new ice age.'

'You're making a mistake. When the anomaly breaks through again, and I guarantee you it will, it will be somewhere along this line.'

I nodded in agreement to Nick's statement.

'Right now we need to get back to the university,' I continued, 'or I need to at least, this is all new to me but with a bit more time I might actually be able to give you a more accurate statistic about when and where it'll reappear next.'

'We'll go with you,' Nick agreed, 'see if we can't help you out.'

'Alright,' I agreed, 'I'll let Connor know we're on our way back, I'll meet him–'

'Just, hang on–' Lester interrupted, 'you can't just run off whenever you feel like it.'

'Oh,' I replied, 'do you want to try and understand this completely new form of science?'

Lester rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair. 'We'll call you,' he finished reluctantly, 'if anything comes up, in the meantime.'

I smiled. 'Great.'

I leaned around the wall of the corridor leading to the cafeteria and slammed my hand against the plastic mural to claim Connor's attention. 'Connor,' I called and he jumped in shock, before he glanced up at me over the top of his laptop, 'lab, now. Let's go.'

'Anna, yeah, one sec,' he responded and turned his attention back to the screen '... um... how was the meeting?' I just groaned in response. 'Ouch,' he muttered understandingly, 'you wanna finish my coffee?'

He pushed his cup across the table towards me as I got closer to him. 'What is it?

'Americano,' he said, 'it's got sugar in it though so you might not like–' He stopped talking as I immediately lifted the cup to my mouth and downed it, ignoring the way it burnt down my oesophagus. As I lowered the cup, I caught sight of Tom and Duncan creeping towards us from the food stalls.

Tom lifted a finger to his mouth; he wanted to scare Connor. But– given the chances Connor was probably reading something technically classified– I quickly decided it wasn't a good idea.

I put my hand on the top of Connors laptop and started to push the screen down. Connor straightened and narrowed his eyes at me in confusion, his mouth opened questioningly, but he never got the chance to ask.

'Mosasaur, eh?...' Tom asked just as the laptop clicked shut, '–hey, I was reading that.' Connor spun around in his seat and pulled the laptop into his lap. Duncan squeezed into the empty chair opposite Connor.

'Oh, sorry, it's just, we're in a rush,' I apologised, 'but I can tell you anything you need to know some other time, Tom. Just, not now, yeah?'

'Whoa, what's the rush?' He replied, turning his attention from me to Connor. 'Come on, guys, its Thursday–'

'Oh shit, really?' I asked. I had been awake for a long time.

'It's DVD night. Battle field earth, director's commentaries. Your turn to get the pizza? Come on guys, we said we'd do Thursdays for Will, right?'

Duncan's head whipped around to me.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. 'Right,' I replied. 'Yeah. Here.' I pulled a twenty pound note out my purse and dropped onto the table. 'Oh,' and then I added another 10 to the pile, 'get yourselves some Ice-cream too– Uh. Hang might as well just take my card.' I picked the cash back up and passed it to Connor. 'Get some drinks, maybe a bottle of Warners or something. The pin's still the same, you remember it, right?' I handed Tom my bank card and he nodded in confusion. 'I really am–' I put my hands over my heart to try and convey my sincerity through half a statement. 'We really are– aren't we, Connor?'

'Yeah,' Connor agreed sadly, 'very.'

'Next time, sorry, we'll see you soon.' Backing away, the smile dropped from my face as I made for the exit.

Tom held out his hands questioningly. 'Mate? What's going on?'

I turned around when I realised Connor wasn't following me and again I smacked the mural on the wall, and again the deafening slap caught his attention.

'Sorry,' Connor apologised, 'I've really got to be somewhere.'

As he fell into step behind me, I glanced around at him, 'did you seriously just wink at him?'

'Yeah,' Connor replied, 'why?'

'He's gonna sit us down and start talking about inbreeding again if you do that, I swear to god.'

'Yeah, well, he sees us rushing off together and that's the only place his mind goes, it's not my fault.'

'You didn't have to wink.'

'I wasn't trying to! There's something in my eye. Think it might be some of that grit from the reservoir.'

'I've got some saline solution in my lab, I'll have a– hold on–' I cut myself off as I was suddenly aware that my pocket was vibrating and I stopped. 'My phone's ringing.' I pulled it out and glanced at the caller I.D. 'It's Ryan.'

'Ryan said a second body's been found in the basement,' I explained from the backseat of the car as Stephen drove us to the house where the anomaly had reappeared. Right as the words came out my mouth, another text came through and I went back into my inbox to read it. 'Oh, fuck... Yeah it's the diver by the looks of it. I'm sorry, guys.'

A few seconds later the car pulled up on the street and we got out.

'Why is Ryan texting you?'

I almost didn't hear Nick over the sound of the car doors slamming. 'You never answer your phone,' I replied. Over the street, the Captain emerged from the doorway of the house and he started walking towards us.

'Guys,' he called, 'good, it's in the basement.' And at the end of the garden path he stepped aside to let Stephen and Connor through the gate.

I stepped up onto the pavement, lingering outside as Nick walked past Ryan through the gate and down the path. 'Sorry about your friend,' I said.

He nodded thankfully, 'the medic says it looked like he died of shock.'

'It makes sense,' I replied, 'I can sit in on the post mortem if you want, if it'll make you feel better.'

Again, Ryan nodded, 'thanks,' he said. And I nodded back at him in a way people do when they don't have the words but feel like something needs to be said. I went to walk past him, to move down the path to the house when his hand caught my elbow. 'Anna.' Then, apologetically, he pulled back and cleared his throat, 'they... um... they found this tied round his wrist. We don't know how the hell it got there.'

He held out the handkerchief enclosed in the plastic bag, and, for a second, I didn't realise the significance of it until I saw the letters h.c embroidered on the corner. I swore under my breath.

'I saw you guys earlier, at the lake, and I figured it'd be better coming from you.' I tried to ignore the sinking feeling at the knowledge that someone had seen us, because there was more obviously pressing matters at hand. He gave the handkerchief to me. 'I feel like you should be the one to tell him.'

Sucking my cheeks, I pulled my attention up to Ryan's face. 'Oh, thanks.'