'What'cha doing?'

Connor's voice made me jump; I'd been far too engrossed in the scrolling loop of extinct vertebrae in the database on my computer screen that I hadn't seen him stop in front of my desk in Ops. I angled the computer screen away from him even though the rest of Ops was completely empty.

'No,' I responded instinctively. He narrowed his eyes. That wasn't an appropriate response. 'What? Nothing… just…' I trailed off, and with a sigh glanced back down to the open files on my desk and quickly closed them. I didn't know where the security cameras were and I didn't know if anyone was looking over my shoulder and spying on me through them. I lowered my voice. 'You know what Matt said the other day about the Kaprosuchus– and I mean it's no big deal; all sorts of reptiles like snakes and lizards all see in infrared– it's just I checked the database.'

I waved him round the desk, grabbing the mouse and clicking the Kaprosuchus file up and onto the screen for him to look at. He came to a stop beside me. He was silent for a moment as he read through the information on the screen. 'That's not on there.'

I swivelled around on the stool to face him. 'Why would he lie about something like that?' I asked, though I didn't for one moment expect him to have an actual response. And in turn I watched Connor shrug. 'There's no way you should give someone information in that sort of situation that's based on conjecture,' I continued. 'I trusted him, and I could have got a lot of people killed. It didn't sit right with me.'

'So?' he prompted, like he could tell I was leading off into another explanation.

'So,' I repeated, 'I pulled his file.' And it hadn't occurred to me straight away that I could do something like that within my role as Team Leader. I had crossed a back door in the system we'd created and started putting in my own details to hack into myself before I came to my senses.

I pushed the file across the desk. He reached out to open it.

'He was born in the 70's,' I said, 'he went to school not far from here, did A–Levels and a degree in I.T and computer sciences, then just up and joined the Marines. Does that seem a little… I don't know… weird?'

'Perhaps he wanted a break?'

'Connor, when people want a break they go to corfu and have a nice holiday, that's preconceived.'

'Surely he was vetted,' Connor returned.

'Of course he was vetted. His record is squeaky clean.'

'Then what are you worried about?'

'I'm not surprised he was hired as Field–Co; he is the perfect candidate. He's as much a soldier as the rest of the personnel in here. You've seen him, he doesn't look like he should be sitting behind a computer… where he has access to everything…' I glanced towards the empty chair in front of the detector. 'When the A.R.C was recommissioned and rebuilt, he spent two weeks here on his own, unsupervised, with just the creatures for company while he went through the whole system. Nothing happens here that he doesn't know about. That's what worries me.'

'You don't like him then?'

'We don't know him, Con,' I replied, 'and I don't know how to trust him if he's lied about that. And he's got shifty eyes.'

'Yeah, but that's not a surprise because he can probably tell when you're watching him.'

'I don't think he wants to be in the chair,' I said, 'I think he'd much rather be out there with us, but giving that up would be like taking his finger off the pulse. I think he wants to know what's going on here.'

Connor hummed in agreement. 'Yeah? Me too,' he admitted, and I could sense some other sort of sharp remark coming, but he never got to finish because he was interrupted by the alarm.

I didn't recognise it at first; there was something in the tone of it that brought my head up like I was expecting to see some kind of fire. 'God,' I noted with a groan, 'is that the detector? Even the alarm is different.'

And Connor shared a look with me as I got up off my stool, and we both moved down towards the A.D.D. I heard the lift doors opening somewhere behind us, and a set of heavy footsteps followed.

'Where's Matt?' Becker called, as he jogged towards us.

'No idea,' Connor replied, then under his breath he turned to me and continued, 'he's never going to know everything if he's never bloody here, is he?'

'No,' I agreed, 'you know we never had this issue with Siddiq.'

'Him and Claire got married, you know,' Connor returned.

'You mean Botany Claire?'

'Yeah, she's just had a baby. A little girl.'

'Awh.'

Behind us, Becker cleared his throat. 'Yes,' he agreed, 'very sweet, can you– ' He glanced at me, did a double take, and his mouth opened prematurely to the words. 'You've cut your hair.'

As though I'd forgotten, I reached up fisting my hands into the blunt ends of hair just long enough to tickle my shoulders. I looked up and caught his eye. 'What?' I returned, 'oh, yeah.'

Becker nodded back at me, attention shifting back and forth between my face and the new length of hair on my head, before he swallowed somewhat nervously. 'It looks good.'

'Thanks. Should we–' I trailed off pointing back towards the detector as though in polite reminder that we were in fact in some sort of hurry.

He cleared his throat again. 'Yes,' he agreed.

'Right,' Connor nodded. He reached over to tap his fingers against the keyboard, and a box with an address popped up on the screen. 'Theatre,' he said, 'Cooper's Street?'

'I know it,' Becker returned. There was a noise from Connor that he obviously didn't appreciate because I could tell his eyes were rolling even though his back was turned. 'I mean the road. Here.' He reached out, snatching up a couple of black boxes of Matt's console and tossing them over his shoulder to us.

'What's this?'

'That's your comm,' he explained, as he kept his attention on the screen and slipped his radio over his ear. 'But it's also GPS, and they collect data from the anomalies. They'll also record everything you say out in the field.'

'Oh. You'll have to watch your language,' Connor said as he nudged me.

'I'm gonna try so fucking hard,' I returned.

'We haven't got them to spy on each other,' Becker continued, 'though I know they're a bit invasive. This way, anyone gets into trouble we all know about it immediately. Unrelated, if you hold it in your hand or put it in a pocket it muffles the audio anyway.'

'Great,' I said.

'Are these things only on during an alert?' Connor returned. He pulled out his own radio and slipped the box into his pocket.

'Philip wants them on all the time.' And that wasn't going to happen either. I felt my eyes rolling as I put the box into the back pocket of my jumpsuit and double checked my radio. 'It might be a good idea to have one to hand but they don't have to be turned on. They have excellent range but they stop feeding back if the signal travels through an anomaly. Where's Danny?'

'Was still in bed when I left,' I answered, 'he's not sleeping too well, let's not call unless we have to.'

'Okay.' Becker finished loading his box, and a spare one, into the inside pocket of his jacket, and finally lifted his head as he zipped it up. 'Let's go.' He turned on his heel, starting back towards the exit as Connor and I followed after him.

We'd only just made it up the steps when Lester's office door opened and Philip came sauntering out. 'Connor!' he exclaimed warmly, 'I need your help.'

'I can't,' Connor replied, 'we've got an alert.' He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up to Philip.

'This is more important.'

At his words, I skidded to a stop myself and I turned to shoot Connor a questioning look. 'What?' Connor asked.

'I need you to run the new security protocol,' Philip clarified, 'check the system for glitches.'

'Really, can it not wait?'

'Core team have their training, you have other skills.'

'Hey,' I called back, as I retreated as though to retrieve him. 'He's a part of my team,' I said, side eying Philip, 'let's go.'

'The understanding was reached that Connor would report to me when needed,' Philip returned. And if that were true it was still the first I was hearing about it. 'You have other people, Anna.'

'It's Doctor to you.'

'It's okay, A,' Connor said, presumably to diffuse the tension before either one of us lashed out any further. 'I'll do this quickly and catch you up.'

I held his gaze for a second, silently conveying that he didn't have if he didn't want to. Sure?

Yeah.

Okay.

He nodded back at me, and I turned around again.

Just before I reached the door handle to pull open the door to the stairwell, I caught Becker's eye. 'You really don't like that guy, do you?' He asked, as we both stepped through and onto the staircase.

I couldn't keep the disgust off my face as I answered. 'No.'