The grandiose of the theatre took my breath away. It was easy to forget buildings could look like this, that such architecture existed when we'd spent so long think a hole in the stick roof was civilised.

The seats were covered in red velvet. It immediately made me think of cake. Cake. The doors were gold, the handles were so shiny I could see my face reflected in them. And the novelty of this sort of grandeur was swiftly replaced by the idea that while we had been living hand to mouth, using leaves as toilet paper for a whole year, people had been sitting in these seats watching shows and eating ice–cream.

It wasn't showcasing any performances at the moment. The heating wasn't on, and while the weather outside was still nice enough to not have to worry about being too cold, I still brought the belt of my coat round to tie it up.

I followed Becker down the exterior aisle towards the stage.

'Sweep the theatre for any sign of incursion,' he ordered to the men following behind us. 'Anna and I will lock the anomaly.' And I don't think he'd even realised he'd done it at first. It wasn't until he caught my eye, and presumably registered the amusement on my face, that he paused. 'Oh. Sorry,' he said, 'delay that. Um… listen to her.'

I continued towards him, wafting a nonchalant hand as I passed him on the steps leading up to the stage. 'No no,' I replied, 'don't worry, I was going to say the exact same thing.'

I walked upstage, assuming the anomaly was backstage somewhere because it wasn't front of house. He followed me into the wings. 'I wasn't trying to undermine you–'

'Becker–'

'It just came out.'

'I don't mind you giving the orders, Captain,' I returned, as glanced around the wall behind the green room, hoping to catch a glimpse of the anomaly. 'It just means I don't have to.' I passed a dismantled piece of set design, and squeezed through a gap between a costume rail and an old grandfather clock when I caught sight of a flickering reflection of light within the crystal pendants of a chandelier.

Becker stopped beside me, gun raised. 'And there it is…'

'…never gets old.'

'We've found the anomaly, backstage,' he said, without moving his attention away again– even though I knew he wasn't talking to me. 'We're going to lock it up. Any orders?'

'They're your men,' I returned. 'You call it.'

He nodded back at me, stepping forward to swing his backpack down onto the ground in front of the anomaly. 'Continue the search for any incursion.' He ripped open the zipper and pulled out a much smaller, much more compact device that looked something like the one Connor had built all those years ago. 'Reconvene back in the auditorium.' He reached back into the bag for the flowerhead of the device and slotted it into place.

'How the fuck did you fit that in there?' I questioned as I lowered myself down to his level.

'They do a pocket edition these days,' he returned with a grin.

'Not so much that same world after all.'

He plugged in the wire and pressed the button. There was a soft whirring noise from the device before it locked. I exhaled as I rose back up to my full height. Something didn't feel right. I sucked in my cheeks.

And presumable sensing the same thing I could, Becker nodded. 'Somethings off, isn't it?'

'Bit too easy?'

'Bit too easy,' he agreed.

When were we ever that lucky?

I wasn't sure what made my head turn– whether it was the creak of a floorboard or the sound of a coat hanger rocking back and forth on a costume rail– but something had caught my attention.

I didn't say anything as I turned, stepping almost cautiously back between the old pieces of set design, flats, upturned floats, chairs stacked as high as the ceiling. I kept my eyes unfocused, and centred within my line of vision so I wouldn't miss any moment, shallowing my breathing so that I could hear every sound that was made, but everything was quiet and completely still.

I was about to turn back, having convinced myself that it was just water in the old pipes, when I saw something on the ground. The corner of an ornate rug was poking out from behind a bureau on wheels. I pushed it out the way and it lolloped on uneven coasters across the wooden floor to reveal a leather coat that was draped over something atop the rug.

And again, I was about to ignore it, assuming it was some old musty cushion from a donated settee, when I saw the hair poking out underneath.

I dropped to the ground in front of it, pulling back the coat and half expecting to find some dummy in a wig, but what laid beneath was undeniable human and undeniable real. A woman. And her skin was dullness, draining of colour, and replacing its natural caramel hue with an ashy grey.

My hand went straight to her neck to search for the dull throb of a pulse, but I couldn't find one. I laid a hand against her forehead. She was cold but the skin was still clammy like she'd been running a fever sometime recently.

'Anna?'

'Here,' I called back to Becker. And a moment later he appeared, weapon raised, torch beam cutting through the dingey backstage lighting to find me on the ground. It flitted across to the body. 'She's dead.'

And not a moment later that same kind of distant sound of movement echoed back to us. I turned my head towards but didn't see anything.

'How?' Becker questioned. But I just shrugged. 'Where did she come from?'

'She must have come through the anomaly,' I replied. There was something distinctly Victorian about her clothing. '19th century,' I conjected, 'maybe early 20th. There aren't any markings or lacerations on…' I trailed off as I moved my hand back to her neck and eased down the collar of her shirt to reveal a patch of purpling markings. 'I thought I heard something,' I admitted, 'after we closed the anomaly.'

He reached up to his ear. 'We have one casualty,' he passed on through the radio. 'Female, unknown identity, possible incursion. Matt, are you there?' he waited for a response. 'Matt?' again, there was nothing. 'Anyone, at the A.R.C?'

He looked across to me in trivial annoyance when there was no response.

'Are you getting any sort of signal?' I replied.

'Well, I'm getting through it's just no one's picking up.'

I hummed as though to validate his frustration and stood up. I turned my head back in the direction of the anomaly. 'You locked it, right.'

'You saw me do it.'

I knew that, sometimes I needed to hear a verbal confirmation as well so that I knew I hadn't imagined something. And it wasn't like I thought that wouldn't be the case but I'd had a feeling that I'd needed to check, and that wasn't an inkling I was going to ignore. I couldn't shake the idea that there was something there, and although it wasn't a big theatre there were still plenty of places to hide.

'You think there's something here,' Becker stated. He knew me well enough now to read my expressions and body language– and I guessed he'd had to learn that skill quite quickly because it was undoubtedly my preferred method of communication.

'Besides the body? Yeah,' I answered.

'A creature?'

'Maybe,' I said, 'I don't know what killed her.'

'Then let's search the place again.'