'Nick,' I said, in an air of annoyance, 'can you not hold that thing so close to me?'

We were back in the office, I was back on his lap, but this time we were facing the matrix.

He pulled a face. 'It's just coffee.'

Believe me I knew that. It was the smell I was objecting to. It was almost a painful level of sickeningly bitter and I missed it so much that the very thought of it made my heart ache.

'Don't rub it in,' I returned.

He switched the mug in his hands from the one wrapped around my waist to the other so that he could hold it out away from me. 'Better?' he asked.

I pouted, 'not really.'

Glancing up from where she was sitting crossed legged beneath the matrix, I saw Sarah grin. 'How are the mood swings?' she asked.

'Oh, she's not had any,' Nick answered, before he raised the cup to his lips and took a quick sip. 'None at all.'

'Nick,' I said, nose crinkling.

'I'm always in trouble,' he continued. I was starting to think teasing me was his new favourite thing to do, and while I wasn't someone who had issues with embarrassment because I couldn't remember a time I'd actually felt it, I imagined it was similar to the way it felt to be teased like this.

His arm tightened around me.

'I hope I'm not interrupting.' I lifted my head at the sound of Lester's voice and saw him entering the office through the doorway. My movement made him twitch and he immediately held up an arm, 'don't get up, Miss Havisham,' he said.

And though I hadn't been planning to, I gave a straight lipped smile. Okay.

'You know I've always liked modern art,' he continued, as he walked towards the matrix, 'it's so uncompromising.'

'It's a very complex model,' Nick started in response.

'–of the exact locations and dates–'

'Of anomaly appearances throughout recorded history,' Lester finished for himself. He glanced back as if to check he was correct and I gave him a curt nod. He was finally learning something… Good for him. 'Yes,' he finished, 'I know.'

'Just don't…'

'Touch it,' Nick explained.

Lester turned back, noticing how close he was to the metal, and reclined his head to move cautiously around. 'I read all those reports, Miss Havisham,' he continued, 'I don't think you ever once mentioned it's fragility. It's that serious?'

'It's that serious,' I replied.

'Ah!' Becker appeared all of a sudden in the doorway and eyed us all, his focus quickly washing over me and Nick before he looked somewhat awkwardly back to Lester.

'Any news of Helen Cutter?' Lester asked him.

'I've instigated a complete review of security,' Becker reported in explanation.

'You're sure the intruder was her doing?'

I nodded, 'Aye, I can't think of anyone else who could create an exact replica of a dead man,' I replied. 'Can you?'

Lester blinked back at me. 'You know you two get more and more alike each day,' he commented, before he moved his head back to the captain. 'Keep everyone on high alert. If Helen's back, we should all be very worried.'

I shrugged my eyebrows in reciprocation. 'I've got something that might cheer you up.'

'Is it a pony?'

I bit back my own amusement and stared up at him. 'See for yourself.'

'So, this contraption is going to seal the anomalies, is it?' Lester questioned as I led the way through the hub towards mine and Connor's workspace.

Connor froze, still half hunched over the devise like he thought that no one would be able to see him if he remained completely still.

After a couple of long seconds, he straightened up, spun around towards us, and the screwdriver fell from between his teeth and clattered onto the desk.

'Err…' he responded slowly, 'yep… in theory…'

'You know, after a million pounds worth of research and development I was hoping for something a little more than theoretical.'

'Well, just think how much we'd have had to spend if we'd been funding you to work it out,' I returned.

Lester chewed the inside of his cheek. 'I suppose we should be lucky we have the best and brightest people on the planet working on this.'

Connor irked him with a broad smile.

'We don't get paid nearly enough for this shit,' I continued.

'This is going to work isn't it, Miss Havisham?' he asked.

I smiled slyly back at him. 'James,' I said, because I thought it would be funny, 'when have I ever let you down before?'

He rolled his eyes. 'Why are students always so irritating?' he asked aloud.

'Anyone who knows too much is irritating,' Connor responded, 'you'll have to be more specific.'

The sound of my laughter was covered as the siren from the detector suddenly started to screech. Connor and I shared a look and quickly moved towards it. It had been weeks since I'd last heard it; the last time I'd been here when the A.D.D had detected one was the night of the museum trip.

That was barely three weeks. Somehow it felt like a lot longer. Connor leant in, rattled his fingers against the keyboard to hurry the detector along to a location. I heard the hub doors bursting open, footsteps flooding across the floor as the others gathered around.

'It's in the city,' Connor started, as the satellite traced the signal to the general area before we got the exact location, a building. 'Oh my god. It's a hospital.'

I turned and started running back towards the exit. 'I'll drive.'

We had to follow the palm-held through past the main reception and into the lobby.

It was weird to be back. It hadn't got round to getting into a clinic for my 12-week check-up yet– I must have been 6 weeks overdue for that but hadn't had time to make an appointment. It meant I hadn't set foot in a proper hospital for years.

'Becker, take your men, look for any creature activity.'

I looked around, glancing back behind the nurse's station but my attention was almost immediately snapped up to the ceiling when the lights went out, a shower of sparks sprinkled down from one of the air vents before the back–up generator kicked in and the lights flickered back on

'There must be something here,' Connor said.

'It's chewing through the electrics,' I added. 'We need to find it. There might be back up power but it won't be much use if it can't get anywhere.'

Nick nodded, glancing down at the detector, before he lifted his head and looked off down one of the corridors explanatorily.

We followed the signal to an operating theatre. Connor had broken off halfway, trying to follow a noise he'd heard in the vents, whilst Nick and I had continued on.

The anomaly was hidden, at first, behind the hospital bed and a rolling surgical lamp. Nick pushed them both out the way before he stepped a little closer to the anomaly.

'It's gone right through the floor…' he stated in amazement as he dropped down beside it.

I stopped beside him and lowered myself to crouch in front of it. 'How has that even happened?'

'I don't know.'

There was another crackle of electricity again, the lights cut out and a flash of sparks claimed my attention, as out the corner of my eye I noticed a hole in the wall behind the bed.

'Nick,' I said, and prodded him, so he could turn his head and see where I was pointing. I shuffled towards it. The hole itself wasn't large, it was almost too tiny to suspect anything would be able to go through it, but as I got closer and peered at the edges, I noticed something. 'Teeth marks…'

'We need to find out where this goes.'

He stood up and offered me a hand down, pulling me up to my feet just as my phone started to ring. I pulled it out my pocket. 'Connor,' I explained.

'Oh this can't be good…'

I tried to ignore his understandable pessimism as I picked up. 'Hello.' I didn't have time to ask what he wanted before he was already vomiting words at me. 'Wait, wait, stop,' I said because I hadn't managed to catch anything.

'We've got a problem,' he said, more slowly this time.

I frowned. 'What sort of problem?' I asked.

'A ratty… chipmunk… beaver sort of problem.'

I paused. 'What the fuck is that?'

'What?' Nick questioned.

I pulled the phone down from my ear for a second. 'Ratty chipmunk beaver,' I said.

He responded with a dramatic sort of confusion. '…What?'

'Connor? Where are you?'

'How else did she describe this creature apart for the whole rat/chipmunk thing?' I asked, as we circled back through the ward towards the reception area– the biggest amount of open space where we could stand without getting in the way.

'About yay big,' he responded, gesturing with his arms, 'protruding teeth, and some claws…'

'We've had three other reported sightings,' Becker explained from behind us.

'Okay,' I replied. As the lights flickered again above us, I looked up and groaned. 'There could be dozens of them in here.'

'Okay I need you two to get this place evacuated, now.' Nick said.

'Sure,' Connor nodded. He turned back towards Becker. 'How do we do that?'

'You'll think of something. Right, we best get back to the anomaly, watch out for any other chipmunky beaver things coming through,' Nick responded as he slipped his hand into mine. 'Come on…'

He froze as he opened the door to the operating theatre, and not paying proper attention I didn't realise until I crashed into the back of him. 'Oh, Jesus, sorry–'

He shushed me quickly, and rather than thinking I should find it in any way offensive, I frowned. 'What is it?'

He stepped aside, so that he didn't have to explain, and my gaze fell to the ground where, in front of the protruding anomaly, there was a lone male Diictodon. My eyes widened in amazement.

'Okay, well that explains the power outage,' I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I took a careful step towards it and crouched down. 'These guys'll chew through just about anything.'

The male backed up towards the anomaly, probably about to go back through when another –a female– toppled out and tackled him to the ground. The male got back up, bumped his head to hers and chirped.

'You've got to admit that's cute,' I said.

'Oh yeah,' he agreed, 'an electricians' nightmare but…' He reached out, trying to shepherd it back through the anomaly when one of them jumped towards him, dove through his legs and disappeared through the hole in the wall.

He groaned, lowering himself to try and have better luck with the other, but rather than try to the go back through the anomaly it leapt after it's friend, escaping through Nicks hands and vanishing.

I tried to pretend it wasn't funny, but when he looked up he must have seen the extreme internal struggle I was facing behind my eyes and he sighed. 'Not a word,' he said.

'I wasn't going to say anything!' I responded, lifting my hands in surrender.

A moment later, something came through the door, and I glanced down to see a shape waddling beneath a quilt, heading quickly towards the anomaly. Nick spotted it too, he lunged forward just in time to grab the quilt from the Diictodon just before it passed through the anomaly. He had barely enough time to hold the blanket up in confusion before the owner came through the door behind it.

A woman. She was very pregnant, probably in labour, but that was quickly overshadowed by the fact she immediately looked down to the anomaly. And her eyes bulged.

'Oh… fuck,' I noted under my breath. 'Um… hi!'

At that moment, a Diictodon popped back out the hole in the wall, I heard Nick sigh in exasperation as it scampered towards the door, and the woman let out an ear–piercing scream. I winced, slightly taken aback by the sheer volume of it before the door suddenly slammed shut, and we had just enough time to eye each other in confusion, before Nick moved towards it.

He tried the handle but the door wouldn't open. 'Hey!' he rattled his fists against it. 'hey, come on! Open the door.'

There was no response.

We'd evacuated everyone. With the realisation, I sighed. 'Nick…' And he must have remembered a moment after I had because I saw him roll his eyes. I pulled out my phone. Connor was the first name on my speed dial. He picked up after 2 rings. 'Connor,' I said quickly.

'Helloooo,' he responded cheerily.

'Yeah, hi, um, we're trapped in an operating theatre,' I explained. 'With the anomaly–'

'And a woman who's about to give birth!' Nick raised his voice to interject.

I frowned at him. 'Yeah… so can you come find us?'

'We're on our way,' Connor replied. The line went dead.

'Connor?' I questioned, because I couldn't tell if he'd actually just hung-up without saying goodbye. 'Con– oh for–'

I snapped my own phone shut in annoyance. So that's how that felt. It serves me right for doing the same thing to other people so often. Still, it was rather annoying he'd given Becker a proper "bye bye" on the voicemail when our lives were in danger the last time.

'He's coming,' I relayed. 'So…'

'What is that thing?' the woman asked.

She looked back between the anomaly and the two of us.

I raised an eyebrow.

'The power cuts have caused a temporary atmospheric overload,' Nick said, slowly, unconvincingly in response.

'It's kind of like a hurricane,' I continued, coming to his rescue, meeting her eye with a calm and neutral expression so that she felt a little more at ease. 'It's made up of electricity.'

She only had a couple of seconds more of confusion before she doubled over, mouth opening in an expression of pain as a contraction hit, and I jumped forward, putting a hand down on her shoulder like a counterbalance to ensure she didn't fall.

'Oh no,' she said, 'oh god. I think this is it.'