I hadn't realised that I was still in the car when we pulled into the carpark outside the A.R.C.

I'd taken off my seat belt, reached for the keys in the ignition and turned off the engine, but my hand was still there just resting on top as I stared blankly through the windscreen and into the entrance of the building.

And I had no idea I'd been doing it, until there was a knock on my window.

I jumped.

'Anna?' Nick questioned, as my head whipped down to him.

'Hmm? Oh yeah…' I noted, reaching for the door handle and opening the door. 'Sorry, just…'

I couldn't continue; I didn't know what to say because I couldn't explain it and if I couldn't explain it what point was there in talking?

'They should have checked our passes,' I heard Becker complain. I climbed down from the truck and slammed the door shut behind me.

'Yeah, yeah, your men are getting slack,' Nick replied.

'Go on ahead,' he told us, 'I'm going to have a little word with security.'

As Connor glanced down at me, somewhat amused by Becker's attitude, he made his way around the truck to stand beside me.

'Can you feel that?' I asked him. My brow was slightly furrowed, my eyes narrowing as though I was trying to remember a word that I couldn't get off the tip of my tongue.

'Um…' Connor rolled his bottom lip between his teeth for a second, and he bit down, waiting, trying to sense something. 'Not really…'

It must just be me then.

Paranoia.

I swallowed. 'Never mind,' I concluded.

But the prickling didn't stop as we walked down a deserted hallway, and, instinctively, I had to look down to check my watch. Because this sort of quiet wasn't out of place at the A.R.C; the midnight hours were usually very empty because people didn't really work the nightshift; everyone was just on-call whenever we weren't in the building.

I was behind the others, walking a little slower because if anything that strange feeling inside me was growing now, just a little, just a fraction of an inch at a time, and when I still hadn't heard any voices by the time we'd reached the end of the hallway I stopped.

'Something's not right,' I said.

Connor paused, one hand on the hub doors, and turned back to us. 'Where is everyone?' he agreed.

Nick didn't wait, he pushed the doors open and walked out into the hub. I felt the immediate need to reach out and grab him, to pull him back into the corridor but he was already out of reach so I had no choice but to follow.

'Nick,' I said seriously, as I closed down the space between us, 'wait–'

I never got to finish. There was a noise behind us, the sound of guns cocking and I turned so quickly that my hair whirled around and whipped across my lips and I reached up to pull it away.

There he was, above us, up on the balcony outside Lester's office.

The cleaner.

But he wasn't alone; there were hundred of him, all identical versions of the same man standing all over the hub. He was everywhere. And out from somewhere behind one of them stepped Helen.

She grabbed a hold of the railing and peered down at us with a look on her face that made me clench my hands to such tight fists I almost drew blood. Nick turned his head, choosing to keep his attention on me rather than her but I couldn't look back at him.

The hub doors opened again and a figure came through. It walked right up to Nick and stopped behind him. Connor inhaled sharply. But I couldn't move even to breathe– for a second because I couldn't remember how. 'It's– It's you…' Connors voice cracked.

Nick frowned, eyes hooding in confusion before he turned and jumped back as he saw he was standing face to face with himself.

'Put Connor with the others,' Helen said. My mouth opened to argue but I still hadn't found my voice yet, so I kept my eyes locked with his, trying to say as much as we could to each other before he was out of sight.

I tried not to look at the clone too closely.

It was weird.

The way it just stared as it stood there made me doubt that there was anyone home on the inside, and seeing Nick –well– not really Nick but something that looked just like him behave that way left a serious ache in my chest.

'You created this,' Nick said, as he stared at the copy of himself.

Helen cocked her head. 'I borrowed the technology from the future.'

'Well, yeah,' Nick irked, 'obviously, considering it doesn't exist yet and there's no other way you can create a clone of a human being overnight.'

'It's made from your DNA,' she continued. Again, that much was obvious. 'Perfect in every physical detail.'

I pushed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and tried not to find the fact that she knew that disturbing.

'Physical?' Nick repeated.

'Hmm, it had limited intelligence, enough to follow basic instruction.'

'It's still a human being though right.'

Helen shrugged. 'Free will is what makes us human,' she replied, 'this creature is nothing more than a photocopy.'

'Please tell me you didn't do this to Stephen.'

'No matter what they look like they will never be the original. You have to understand, surely… she explained it to you… you can replicate flesh all you like but there's no genetic way to retain memories because those are just little impulses in your brain. And they can come, and they can go. Isn't that right?'

I knew she was talking to me but I didn't want to answer her, I didn't want to spend another moment in her presence and being forced to stay here against my will with a gun trained on me just made me angry.

'You're unusually quiet, Princess.'

I drew my gaze up off the ground and looked straight into her eyes. 'Call me Princess one more fucking time…' I warned.

She smirked. 'So rattled…' she commented, 'what's up with you? You used to have so much composure…'

'I'm done with composure,' I spat back at her, 'and resolve because I should have told you to get the fuck out of my life a long time ago, and maybe if Stephen had done that he wouldn't be dead.'

'And you would have died in his place,' she returned. 'Little Anna Havisham, so desperate to sacrifice herself to prove she's better than the rest of us.'

Only Helen Cutter could make death sound so egotistical.

So many people had died for me. And I may have sounded like I was somehow alright with that, it's an idea that fundamentally has to be rejected by a human being, but the thing is, you don't ever get a choice.

I leant back against the desk and folded my arms.

'Why did you want me here? Why did you not send me off with Connor? Nick– I understand but you hate me– for reasons I'm sure you're responsible for yourself.'

'I missed you,' she answered, 'last time. You were busy with the Sabretooth and we didn't get to chat.'

'About what?'

'About you.' And she grinned.

It made me wonder if she knew– about the baby, the engagement, all of it, because there was a look of glee in her eye that suggested she must have, but I didn't know where she could have heard from.

Perhaps she'd been spying on us again.

She must have been in the house.

The idea was unnerving to say the least.

But if she did know, a part of me assumed she'd have been much angrier about it all. That she wouldn't have smiled, taunting me, she would have glared because she didn't do happy families. She was jealous, it had been so very obvious even all those years ago, that from the first moment she met me and saw me with him, she had hated that I had been able to make Nick Cutter fall in love with someone who wasn't her.

'Why are you doing this Helen?' Nick's voice interrupted.

I brought my infuriated gaze back down to the floor, nostrils flared, biting down hard on the inside of my cheek. If I looked at her any longer I'd do something stupid.

'Because I have seen the final destruction of almost every living creature on this once beautiful planet.' The thought of the place made me swallow a lump in my throat. 'I can stop it Nick,' she continued, 'I can save us from that.'

If she truly believed that she was more demented than I thought.

'Whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen, we have to leave it alone,' Nick returned.

'The course of evolution can be changed; I can restore balance.'

'You still don't get it, do you?' I said, with a breath of passive laughter.

'No matter how many times you interfere,' Nick continued, 'you still can't get the result you want.'

'Evolution can't be bent to your will,' I added.

She had to take a second. 'You see, you don't know it yet,' Helen interjected, 'but I do–'

'What?' he snapped.

'Your work will lead to predators being created, here, in this precious A.R.C of yours.'

'I'd never sanction that,' Nick returned. And though I didn't say anything I agreed, because the only way that was feasible was if it was me who did it. And I wouldn't ever.

I'd seen what they did to the world. I'd been in that godforsaken place.

I would never let that happen.

'I've seen it,' Helen continued, 'in the future, troops from the A.R.C.'

'You've got it wrong.'

'You haven't done it yet, but sooner or later you will and it has to be stopped– you– have to be stopped now, before it begins.'

'Then why are you here?' I asked.

'Because there's still something I don't understand.' She pulled the cylindrical leather case from her back and laid it down on the table in front of her.

Nick glanced across to me, and I met his gaze but I didn't move, because I still couldn't trust myself to be any closer to her.

She unscrewed the lid and slid the long hexagonal shaped artifact out into her hand.

'Tell me what this is.'

Nick turned his head me and I had to force myself not to look back at him so that she didn't catch on.

'Well…' Helen prompted. 'Do you know or not, professor?'

'Course I do,' Nick answered.

'Tell me,' Helen demanded.

Nick lifted his chin. 'Go to hell.'

Helen waited, gurning. Just for a second like she thought he'd change his mind. 'Give him 10 seconds,' she said to the clone. 'Then shoot him.'

I straightened up. 'Nick…'

He didn't look at me, he didn't even flinch when the clone stepped forward and raised the gun to his head.

'1.' The clone started counting. '2.'

'Nick,' I repeated more firmly.

'Don't do it,' Nick said.

'3.'

'You can't appeal to its finer feelings Nick; it doesn't have any.'

'4.'

She didn't realise he wasn't talking to her. My hand was halfway back to my knife, my fingers inches away from grabbing the handle because I would defend him, he knew that, at the very least I could fight off the clone quite easily, but at what risk to me? And even if I could fight the clone, what if the cleaner shot me.

'5.'

'Tell me what this is.'

'6.'

My hand closed around the handle of the blade and I took a step froward.

'You don't have to do this.'

'7.'

But I would.

I would if I had to. I would do anything to protect him.

'8.'

'Okay,' Nick whispered, sensing my disinclination at his order to stand down.

'9.'

'Okay,' he repeated a little louder. 'Okay, Helen, I'll tell you…'

'Stop, do nothing obey my voice. Stop, do nothing obey my voice. Stop, do nothing obey my voice.'

My head whipped up towards the P.A system as the sound of Helen's voice came through the speakers.

Helen's face transformed entirely a mien of her distress. 'No!' she cried, 'stop that's not me.'

But glancing around I saw all the different versions of the cleaner lowering their weapons, standing down, looking around aimlessly now they had no orders to follow.

'Connor…' I sighed in realisation. He was a genius. I looked to Nick, relief flooding through me as he flashed a smile in return.

'It's over Helen,' he said.

But she wasn't giving up yet. She moved quickly towards the clone, stopping in front of it to peer into its face and hiss 'listen to me. Complete your mission.'

I moved forward impulsively and reached the box at exactly the same time as the clone did, slamming my hands down on the lid just before it could pull it open.

Its eyes snapped up to me. That same familiar blue stared back, like it knew me, like it remembered me somehow but everything behind it was empty.

My lips parted, but I didn't know what to say to it, to something that looked so identical to someone that meant so much to me but really wasn't that person, because there was barrier that I couldn't get past to reach him.

I suddenly doubted myself. There was this dreadful feeling that encompassed me so quickly that a physical pain tore through my chest and I winced.

I had to lift both hands from the case to my chest and press them over my heart, willing it to stop beating so violently.

It was that same feeling again. From all those years ago. The one from the basement, the images that had started as nightmares. The something that didn't sit right with me.

The distraction allowed him to whip the lid of the case open, snatching up the demote detonation devise, and I had to take a step back.

A bomb.

Another bomb. This time we couldn't deactivate it.

'Please,' I heard myself saying. 'I know you can hear me. I know you understand.'

Its mouth opened and closed, the expression giving nothing of a hint towards what he could be saying, as it remained completely blank.

Until it's forehead slowly condensed into a frown. 'Anna?' It replied.

I felt something in my stomach, an intense sort of pain that echoed the feeling in my heart and I had to try not to show it in my face. I had to inhale before I could respond. 'Yeah,' I nodded, 'yeah that's me.'

The smallest of smiles grew up from the corner of his lips, flooding out across his face until it transformed to this brief façade of happiness.

'Save yourself.'

I took a breath. I wanted to move but for a second I forgot it wasn't actually him, and a shadow of sadness rolled across me, until the real Nick wrapped a hand around my wrist and pulled me suddenly off towards the open door of the hub.

And then we were running. The explosion tore through the building behind us, and I slammed myself into him in slit–second decision, throwing us both off course into the nearest room. And we fell back against the wall for cover.