Fic: If the Present Is Killed (2/3)
Sep. 26th, 2012 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tli_productionsHeader information and notes contained in Part 1.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
2
Burton appears a little after lunchtime. Lester hides his annoyance at the unannounced arrival with practised ease and waits for the opening gambit.
“I understand we have a visitor.” Burton stands, as usual. Lester's long given up trying to psychoanalyse the man's behaviour, but he has to wonder at the continual redundant statements.
“A minor inconvenience,” he replies with a dismissive hand wave, not even bothering to clarify who they're referring to this time. “One I'm assured is being dealt with.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.” Burton's smile has a faint predatory edge. “And how is Doctor Hart getting along with his project to map the anomalies?”
Lester barely has time to be surprised at the almost non-sequitur. “Rebuilding the model,” he corrects Burton, feigning focus on paperwork and continuing to ignore the glimpses of Jessica, who's been continually glancing at his office and giggling for the last few hours. “Mapping the anomalies was Cutter's folly.”
There's movement out of the corner of his eye, but Lester doesn't register until he feels the faint pressure of a hand on his shoulder.
“An interesting choice of words, James,” Burton murmurs, squeezing his shoulder slightly. “As always.”
o o o o o
Stephen doesn't sleep that night. He hasn't slept any of the nights since he got back to the present; the infrequent naps he's taken in the lab at the ARC are enough for now, and London at night is still too loud.
He ignores Hilary's snores as best he can, and focuses on the cracks in the paintwork on the ceiling. And he thinks.
One of Emily Merchant's co-travellers was a teenager born in 2136; his 'antique' FM radio had helped the group track anomalies.
Matt holds up the device Stephen had used to open and close the anomalies. “How does this work?”
Stephen shrugs. It had been enough that even through decades' worth of dust the thing had worked at all.
A police siren warbles down the street; Stephen's off the bed and halfway across the room before he catches himself. He gingerly sits at the foot of the bed (Hilary can sleep through anything bar gunshots and mobile ringtones) and waits for his pulse to slow.
Connor stares at the light cluster Helen had just pulled out of the artefact. “It's a map,” he breathes. “Cutter was right.”
In the shadows cast by the moving map, Helen's face curls into a parody of a proud grin. “Nick's best student.”
It had taken him almost two months to get so much as a flicker out of the derelict console, and then he'd had to keep his distance for three weeks after a pair of bat-creatures had associated his heat signature with the unnatural noises coming from that building.
”Every anomaly that ever was or will be.”
Had Connor said that, or Sarah?
Every anomaly that ever was.
Stephen's missing something, but that's all he can figure out. He runs a hand through his hair, suddenly exhausted, and crawls slowly up the bed covers so he's lying level with Hilary.
He closes his eyes. Eventually he falls asleep.
o o o o o
A little after four in the morning, Becker's phone goes off. It wakes him up and nearly sends Stephen through the ceiling.
“Whatever it is, be quick,” he says tersely. And be important, he thinks, watching Stephen get his breathing down.
“Anomaly alert,” Jess answers quietly. “Stately home a couple of hours outside London. A military team's en route to you from the ARC with weapons and equipment.”
“Copy that.” Becker hangs up. He looks over at Stephen. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yes.” Stephen isn't the least bit convincing. “Go.”
Becker hesitates, then nods. He dresses quickly and grabs a jacket from the hallway before letting himself out. His team reaches the building a few minutes later, and Emerson moves over to let Becker ride shotgun, then hands him a black box and earpiece.
“Anderson's on his way, and so are Temple and Maitland,” she tells him. “They'll meet us there.”
Becker nods his acknowledgement, and makes a silent wish for caffeine. The rest of the journey takes place in silence.
o o o o o
Stephen doesn't bother going back to bed. He digs through the chest of drawers beside the bed and finds a pair of pyjama bottoms that have seen better days and pulls them on before going to put the kettle on.
He curls up on the sofa with a steaming mug of tea and a notebook. It's one of the ones he'd taken through the racetrack anomaly, filled with observations of the hominids and a few, hastily written pages detailing his attempts to prevent Helen's body from contaminating the fossil record.
He rereads the section on the hominids, the memories flowing easily and almost pleasantly. The early pages had been sparse, simply noting the number of days and the continued absence of the anomaly that Helen had opened, but eventually the scientist in him had won out and begun making detailed reports of life in a place and time that had fascinated Stephen when he was a child.
On day 58 he'd written: Still no damn anomaly. Obv. manipulated by Helen's device. Could open naturally tomorrow or in 1000 yrs.
Stephen frowns. He dimly remembers the thought process that had led to that conclusion, that Helen's device could only manipulate existing anomalies, not open new ones, which was why she – and Stephen months and millions of years later – had had to find predetermined longitude and latitude co-ordinates.
Co-ordinates that had come from the map in the future ARC that matched the map Sarah and Connor had extracted from the artefact which in turn matched the model that Nick had begun and Stephen was now rebuilding.
Stephen closes his eyes tightly. More than ever he wishes Nick – any version of him – was alive and here so he could fill in the gaps in Stephen's thought processes. The way they'd been able to do for each other for years before the anomaly project, before Stephen's own stupid mistakes and pride had broken them and
Nick backs away from the closed door. A flicker of reptilian tail appears behind him.
“Open the door!” Stephen yells, pounding the glass porthole.
Nick shakes his head. His eyes are sad even as he steps further back into the room – into the building feeding frenzy. “No. Not this time.”
“Nick!”
Stephen realises he's shaking and his cheeks are hot and wet. He breathes long and loud, trying to control his heart rate. Eventually it slows.
He's struck with the urge to bury himself underneath the quilt on Hilary's side of the bed, and even indulges the thought for a few seconds. Then he gets up and finds some day clothes to change into before locking up and leaving the flat, the tea untouched and growing cold by the sofa.
The ARC is quiet at this time of morning, with only a handful of personnel on duty – including Jess Parker. Her eyebrows climb when she sees him.
“You... didn't go with the anomaly team,” she says slowly.
Stephen shakes his head. “Not this time,” he says when it becomes clear Jess meant this as some kind of conversation opener.
“You didn't miss much,” she continues, much more quickly this time. “So far, anyway.”
“No panicked SOS calls come through then?” Stephen's attempt at levity falls spectacularly flat; Jess pulls a face and backs away slightly while he holds up a hand in supplication.
Danny had got away with glib one liners, but Danny wasn't here any more.
“So what has been happening?” Stephen asks.
“With the call out?” Jess considers this for a moment. “The team arrived on site maybe twenty minutes ago; the anomaly's been secured and they're currently checking for any creature incursions.”
“That's good.”
Jess beams. “I can keep you posted if you'd like – if you're... worried, at all.”
Stephen tries not to stare. “Yes,” he says. “To keeping me posted, I mean.”
“Wait there.” Jess bounds over to her terminals and grabs a black box and earpiece, which she tosses to Stephen. “There you go!”
“Thanks.” Stephen nods awkwardly and heads down to his lab. The model seems just as he left it yesterday, but ingrained paranoia makes him inspect the attached post-its and accompanying photographs and report excerpts just to be sure. He quickly confirms that nothing has been moved – that he can tell. He places the black box and earpiece on the table, which is now beside the door, and steps back to the model.
Stephen fingers the anomaly he'd reached yesterday, one that had been encountered by the ARC teams in both his original and this time line. It connected a present day alleyway in Ealing to an uninhabited tundra thought to date to around seven thousand years ago. The tundra landscape had its own connection to a Carboniferous rainforest that was likely the origin of the oversized insects that had made their way to the London Underground shortly after the anomaly project had been formed, though Connor's dating on that had been more guesswork than fact.
Stephen flips through the stack of papers beside the model until he finds the sketches he'd made of the map Helen had activated in the future ARC. The angles and proportions are likely off, but there are similarities between this section of the physical model and the map he'd recreated from memory.
The sketch depicts another line intersecting both the Neolithic and Carboniferous anomalies. Stephen lightly traces the pencilled line with a finger and tries to recall the map in his head.
There was a light cluster near those two anomalies, making it difficult to see where the lines travelled. Stephen follows the line on the physical model – and stops when he hits a post-it note.
The handwriting is Cutter's, but hardly difficult to read.
Permian – Captain Ryan's remains discovered.
o o o o o
In the basement of the stately home, Becker and Connor seal the anomaly with practised ease. Becker steps back from the computers and checks his watch. 6:47.
“Come on,” he tells Emerson. “Sweep for creatures.”
It's Matt who nods and steps forward to divide the soldiers and civilians into four teams, with a corporal staying behind to guard the anomaly. Becker finds himself paired with Matt; despite Emerson's brief glance his way he doesn't argue the assignments.
Everyone disperses and Becker touches his earpiece. “Jess, do you know if this place is in use today?”
“Yes – I do and it is,” Jess replies instantly. “The information's just come through from the management company. There's a wedding scheduled for this afternoon. I love weddings,” she adds wistfully.
Matt raises his eyebrows but doesn't say anything.
“Emerson, find someone on site in charge,” Becker directs over the radio. Then to Jess: “What else have you got? We're going to need names -”
“- for a possible evacuation, yes.” Jess sounds amused now. “One moment please, I – oh.”
“What is it?” Matt asks.
“Oh, that's got to be a coincidence.”
“Jess,” Becker says through his teeth.
“According to the booking, the groom's name is Danny Quinn.”
o o o o o
Go to: Part 3
o o o o o
2
Burton appears a little after lunchtime. Lester hides his annoyance at the unannounced arrival with practised ease and waits for the opening gambit.
“I understand we have a visitor.” Burton stands, as usual. Lester's long given up trying to psychoanalyse the man's behaviour, but he has to wonder at the continual redundant statements.
“A minor inconvenience,” he replies with a dismissive hand wave, not even bothering to clarify who they're referring to this time. “One I'm assured is being dealt with.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.” Burton's smile has a faint predatory edge. “And how is Doctor Hart getting along with his project to map the anomalies?”
Lester barely has time to be surprised at the almost non-sequitur. “Rebuilding the model,” he corrects Burton, feigning focus on paperwork and continuing to ignore the glimpses of Jessica, who's been continually glancing at his office and giggling for the last few hours. “Mapping the anomalies was Cutter's folly.”
There's movement out of the corner of his eye, but Lester doesn't register until he feels the faint pressure of a hand on his shoulder.
“An interesting choice of words, James,” Burton murmurs, squeezing his shoulder slightly. “As always.”
Stephen doesn't sleep that night. He hasn't slept any of the nights since he got back to the present; the infrequent naps he's taken in the lab at the ARC are enough for now, and London at night is still too loud.
He ignores Hilary's snores as best he can, and focuses on the cracks in the paintwork on the ceiling. And he thinks.
One of Emily Merchant's co-travellers was a teenager born in 2136; his 'antique' FM radio had helped the group track anomalies.
Matt holds up the device Stephen had used to open and close the anomalies. “How does this work?”
Stephen shrugs. It had been enough that even through decades' worth of dust the thing had worked at all.
A police siren warbles down the street; Stephen's off the bed and halfway across the room before he catches himself. He gingerly sits at the foot of the bed (Hilary can sleep through anything bar gunshots and mobile ringtones) and waits for his pulse to slow.
Connor stares at the light cluster Helen had just pulled out of the artefact. “It's a map,” he breathes. “Cutter was right.”
In the shadows cast by the moving map, Helen's face curls into a parody of a proud grin. “Nick's best student.”
It had taken him almost two months to get so much as a flicker out of the derelict console, and then he'd had to keep his distance for three weeks after a pair of bat-creatures had associated his heat signature with the unnatural noises coming from that building.
”Every anomaly that ever was or will be.”
Had Connor said that, or Sarah?
Every anomaly that ever was.
Stephen's missing something, but that's all he can figure out. He runs a hand through his hair, suddenly exhausted, and crawls slowly up the bed covers so he's lying level with Hilary.
He closes his eyes. Eventually he falls asleep.
A little after four in the morning, Becker's phone goes off. It wakes him up and nearly sends Stephen through the ceiling.
“Whatever it is, be quick,” he says tersely. And be important, he thinks, watching Stephen get his breathing down.
“Anomaly alert,” Jess answers quietly. “Stately home a couple of hours outside London. A military team's en route to you from the ARC with weapons and equipment.”
“Copy that.” Becker hangs up. He looks over at Stephen. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yes.” Stephen isn't the least bit convincing. “Go.”
Becker hesitates, then nods. He dresses quickly and grabs a jacket from the hallway before letting himself out. His team reaches the building a few minutes later, and Emerson moves over to let Becker ride shotgun, then hands him a black box and earpiece.
“Anderson's on his way, and so are Temple and Maitland,” she tells him. “They'll meet us there.”
Becker nods his acknowledgement, and makes a silent wish for caffeine. The rest of the journey takes place in silence.
Stephen doesn't bother going back to bed. He digs through the chest of drawers beside the bed and finds a pair of pyjama bottoms that have seen better days and pulls them on before going to put the kettle on.
He curls up on the sofa with a steaming mug of tea and a notebook. It's one of the ones he'd taken through the racetrack anomaly, filled with observations of the hominids and a few, hastily written pages detailing his attempts to prevent Helen's body from contaminating the fossil record.
He rereads the section on the hominids, the memories flowing easily and almost pleasantly. The early pages had been sparse, simply noting the number of days and the continued absence of the anomaly that Helen had opened, but eventually the scientist in him had won out and begun making detailed reports of life in a place and time that had fascinated Stephen when he was a child.
On day 58 he'd written: Still no damn anomaly. Obv. manipulated by Helen's device. Could open naturally tomorrow or in 1000 yrs.
Stephen frowns. He dimly remembers the thought process that had led to that conclusion, that Helen's device could only manipulate existing anomalies, not open new ones, which was why she – and Stephen months and millions of years later – had had to find predetermined longitude and latitude co-ordinates.
Co-ordinates that had come from the map in the future ARC that matched the map Sarah and Connor had extracted from the artefact which in turn matched the model that Nick had begun and Stephen was now rebuilding.
Stephen closes his eyes tightly. More than ever he wishes Nick – any version of him – was alive and here so he could fill in the gaps in Stephen's thought processes. The way they'd been able to do for each other for years before the anomaly project, before Stephen's own stupid mistakes and pride had broken them and
Nick backs away from the closed door. A flicker of reptilian tail appears behind him.
“Open the door!” Stephen yells, pounding the glass porthole.
Nick shakes his head. His eyes are sad even as he steps further back into the room – into the building feeding frenzy. “No. Not this time.”
“Nick!”
Stephen realises he's shaking and his cheeks are hot and wet. He breathes long and loud, trying to control his heart rate. Eventually it slows.
He's struck with the urge to bury himself underneath the quilt on Hilary's side of the bed, and even indulges the thought for a few seconds. Then he gets up and finds some day clothes to change into before locking up and leaving the flat, the tea untouched and growing cold by the sofa.
The ARC is quiet at this time of morning, with only a handful of personnel on duty – including Jess Parker. Her eyebrows climb when she sees him.
“You... didn't go with the anomaly team,” she says slowly.
Stephen shakes his head. “Not this time,” he says when it becomes clear Jess meant this as some kind of conversation opener.
“You didn't miss much,” she continues, much more quickly this time. “So far, anyway.”
“No panicked SOS calls come through then?” Stephen's attempt at levity falls spectacularly flat; Jess pulls a face and backs away slightly while he holds up a hand in supplication.
Danny had got away with glib one liners, but Danny wasn't here any more.
“So what has been happening?” Stephen asks.
“With the call out?” Jess considers this for a moment. “The team arrived on site maybe twenty minutes ago; the anomaly's been secured and they're currently checking for any creature incursions.”
“That's good.”
Jess beams. “I can keep you posted if you'd like – if you're... worried, at all.”
Stephen tries not to stare. “Yes,” he says. “To keeping me posted, I mean.”
“Wait there.” Jess bounds over to her terminals and grabs a black box and earpiece, which she tosses to Stephen. “There you go!”
“Thanks.” Stephen nods awkwardly and heads down to his lab. The model seems just as he left it yesterday, but ingrained paranoia makes him inspect the attached post-its and accompanying photographs and report excerpts just to be sure. He quickly confirms that nothing has been moved – that he can tell. He places the black box and earpiece on the table, which is now beside the door, and steps back to the model.
Stephen fingers the anomaly he'd reached yesterday, one that had been encountered by the ARC teams in both his original and this time line. It connected a present day alleyway in Ealing to an uninhabited tundra thought to date to around seven thousand years ago. The tundra landscape had its own connection to a Carboniferous rainforest that was likely the origin of the oversized insects that had made their way to the London Underground shortly after the anomaly project had been formed, though Connor's dating on that had been more guesswork than fact.
Stephen flips through the stack of papers beside the model until he finds the sketches he'd made of the map Helen had activated in the future ARC. The angles and proportions are likely off, but there are similarities between this section of the physical model and the map he'd recreated from memory.
The sketch depicts another line intersecting both the Neolithic and Carboniferous anomalies. Stephen lightly traces the pencilled line with a finger and tries to recall the map in his head.
There was a light cluster near those two anomalies, making it difficult to see where the lines travelled. Stephen follows the line on the physical model – and stops when he hits a post-it note.
The handwriting is Cutter's, but hardly difficult to read.
Permian – Captain Ryan's remains discovered.
In the basement of the stately home, Becker and Connor seal the anomaly with practised ease. Becker steps back from the computers and checks his watch. 6:47.
“Come on,” he tells Emerson. “Sweep for creatures.”
It's Matt who nods and steps forward to divide the soldiers and civilians into four teams, with a corporal staying behind to guard the anomaly. Becker finds himself paired with Matt; despite Emerson's brief glance his way he doesn't argue the assignments.
Everyone disperses and Becker touches his earpiece. “Jess, do you know if this place is in use today?”
“Yes – I do and it is,” Jess replies instantly. “The information's just come through from the management company. There's a wedding scheduled for this afternoon. I love weddings,” she adds wistfully.
Matt raises his eyebrows but doesn't say anything.
“Emerson, find someone on site in charge,” Becker directs over the radio. Then to Jess: “What else have you got? We're going to need names -”
“- for a possible evacuation, yes.” Jess sounds amused now. “One moment please, I – oh.”
“What is it?” Matt asks.
“Oh, that's got to be a coincidence.”
“Jess,” Becker says through his teeth.
“According to the booking, the groom's name is Danny Quinn.”
Go to: Part 3
o o o o o
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Date: 2012-09-27 06:07 pm (UTC)Great chapter.
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Date: 2012-09-27 07:01 pm (UTC)