Chapter Text
Only two future predators had come through the anomaly, but it easily felt like a lot more. They seemed to be everywhere at once, their almost supernaturally fast movement allowing them to avoid the soldiers’ aim with ease. So far, only Anders had managed to hit one, but only in the arm, and the injury didn’t seem to be hampering its movement in the slightest.
Nick looked around, trying to ascertain whether everyone was still all right. Still alive. The predator attack had scattered the team, soldier and civilian alike, across the floor of the deserted warehouse where they’d found the anomaly, making them all much more vulnerable than if they’d been able to stick together.
Most of the soldiers had taken cover behind the various stacks of abandoned crates and pallets that were dotted around the warehouse, taking advantage of their dubious protection to take semi-covert shots at the predators whenever they came in range. Nick could also see Stephen behind the same stack as Anders, alternating shots with the Special Forces sharpshooter.
The last he’d seen of Jenny, she’d been scrambling under one of the trucks they’d arrived in, parked at the other end of the warehouse near the thankfully now-closed rolling doors that had once allowed lorries to reverse in to be loaded up with goods. Peering towards the truck, Nick though he could see Abby’s shock of blond hair under the truck as well, and was glad she’d also found a place of relative safety.
That only left…
There was a momentary lull in the noise of gunfire, and Connor’s cry split the relative quiet.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Let me go!”
Nick turned his head sharply towards the anomaly, and saw Connor struggling with their other visitors from the future, who appeared to be trying to restrain him.
“Connor!”
“Nick! Ni-”. His voice cut off as one of the visitors shot him with one of their small taser guns. As he slumped into unconsciousness, he was hefted over someone’s shoulder and then the group turned and disappeared through the anomaly.
“Connor!” Nick surged forwards, trying to go after them, but was brought up short when a future predator landed lightly in front of him. The creature growled menacingly and then with no apparent effort, leapt forward…
* * * * *
One week earlier…
Connor held his breath as the rover passed through the sparkling shards of the anomaly, and then let it out in a sigh of relief as it made it to the other side safely. The screen on his laptop displayed a momentary crackle of static, which then resolved itself into a clear image of a different world.
Nick squeezed his shoulder in congratulations, and then they both leaned close to the screen, trying to identify what they were looking at.
“What do you think?” Connor said. “Looks early.”
Nick nodded in agreement. “Could be carboniferous, something like that.”
“The readings would support that.” Connor looked at the stream of data starting to fill up a second laptop screen. High levels of oxygen, for sure.” He flicked his eyes back to the first screen just as a large something flew through the camera’s field of view. “Yikes! What was that?”
“Some kind of giant dragonfly, I’d say,” replied Nick. “Carboniferous is looking more and more likely.”
Connor grinned. “Now all we need is a giant centipede, and it’ll be Stephen’s perfect holiday spot!”
“Oi, I can hear you, you know.” Stephen mock-scowled at them from his position a little closer to the anomaly, where he had taken up his place in the perimeter ring set up by Captain Jacobs. “I definitely prefer my centipedes a little more centipede-sized, thank you very much.”
Nick and Connor both chuckled as Stephen failed to maintain his scowl and lapsed into a reluctant grin of his own. Although he was originally from a different timeline, where things had played out different in a number of significant ways, they’d established that various events had still been more-or-less the same, and unfortunately Stephen’s near death at the hands (or should that be legs?) of a giant arthropleurid had been one of those that had happened in both timelines. This Stephen still had the scar to prove it.
Connor returned his attention to the laptops, and sighed again quietly as he watched the happenings of the distant past, rendered in pixels on a small screen.
Nick made a sympathetic noise. “You know we can’t go through,” he said.
“I know.”
“It’s too dangerous. You know what could happen.”
Connor nodded reluctantly. He did know. The risk of creating alternate timelines was too great. And the risk that returning travellers might find themselves in one of those alternate timelines was even greater. He and Nick had first-hand experience of the anguish such a circumstance could cause, and he wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.
“Do you think we’ll ever be able to go through one again?”
“I hope so,” Nick said. “I very much hope so.”
“If only we could work out a way to predict when the anomalies are going to switch timelines,” said Connor frustratedly. “Helen’s timeline scanner is only of any use if you don’t actually care whether an anomaly has switched timelines.” He knew he was covering the same old ground, but he couldn’t help himself. He and Nick had discussed the issue endlessly, coming no closer to a solution. And Connor knew that even if they did potentially make progress in that area, persuading Lester to let them go through an anomaly to test it was likely to be an uphill struggle.
“Incoming!”
Anders’s cry snapped everyone to attention, and Connor glanced at the laptop screen in time to see another giant dragonfly heading straight towards the camera. As it disappeared out of shot, he looked up to see it appear through the anomaly.
“Professor…” Jacobs started, but before he could say any more, the dragonfly, apparently unimpressed with the reduced amount of oxygen in the twenty-first century atmosphere, turned tail fled back through the anomaly as quickly as it had arrived.
Connor watched it go, and wished with all his heart that they could follow it.
* * * * *
The team trooped back into the ARC, and Nick watched as Connor immediately made a beeline for his workstation, hefting the rover on to the bench and beginning the customary diagnostics that were required after every trip through an anomaly.
He knew that Connor would get through the checks as quickly as possible, and then immediately go back to tinkering with the timeline scanner. Connor had managed to build a replica of it, which as far as they could tell without testing, worked correctly, but he still spent every spare moment working with Helen’s original, trying to work out what signals it was actually detecting when an anomaly switched timelines, and whether he could use that knowledge to expand its functionality, enabling it to detect timeline switches in advance.
He hadn’t had much luck so far, and Nick was starting to worry about him. He remembered how obsessed he’d been with trying to find out what had happened to Helen, back in the early days of her disappearance, and although he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge them at the time, he was starting to see some of the same signs in Connor. He was spending far too much time at the ARC, he wasn’t sleeping well, and while he would go out on anomaly shouts willingly enough, Nick knew that in reality he’d far rather remain at the ARC and continue his work on the scanner. Which for Connor, was highly unusual.
“Anything to report, Professor?”
Nick tilted his head back to look up at Lester, who was staring down at him from the balcony outside his office.
“Not really,” Nick replied. “The anomaly was open for less than an hour, with only one brief creature incursion. We think the anomaly opened to the…”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure it’s all extremely fascinating,” Lester interrupted, waving Nick’s words away in a manner that Nick thought was a bit rich, considering Lester had asked him for the update. “So long as nobody died, or was horribly maimed, that’s all I care about right now. Write everything else down and send me your report by the end of the day.”
Nick scowled as Lester turned away, fairly certain that his report would stay unread in Lester’s inbox until at least the end of the week, now that Lester knew this anomaly hadn’t caused any problems. He contemplated just not bothering with it until the following day, and damn the number of chasing emails Lester would have his secretary send him.
But then he looked across the atrium to where Connor was elbow-deep in technology and sighed. There wasn’t much chance he was going to prise Connor out of the ARC before the end of the day anyway, so he might as well get the report done now, and at least keep Lester off his back.
* * * * *
There was a knock at the lab door, and Nick looked up to see Stephen holding out a coffee towards him.
“Thanks,” he said. “I think my brain needs the pick-me-up.”
“Problem?” asked Stephen, setting the mug down a safe distance from Nick’s computer, and then dropping into the chair on the other side of the desk.
“Oh, not really,” Nick replied, before taking a mouthful of coffee. It was really still too hot, but his need for caffeine outweighed other concerns. “It’s just this report for Lester, that’s all.”
“What’s the issue? It’s not like today’s anomaly caused any disasters.”
“That sort of is the issue,” said Nick wryly. “You know Lester moans when he thinks the reports are too short, but there isn’t much I can say about today apart from what I already told him verbally, plus where we think it had opened too, and the Latin name of the dragonfly – which I’m sure he doesn’t care about anyway!”
Stephen grinned. “Put it in anyway, and then include a discussion of the etymology of the name as well. That’ll give you another paragraph. And it’ll serve Lester right for prioritising quantity over quality.”
Laughing, Nick logged into Connor’s creature database and navigated to the section on Meganeura. Stephen was right, it would serve Lester right.
“You could also ask Connor to give you some of the data the rover recorded,” Stephen added. “Temperature, atmospheric composition, that kind of thing.”
“Good idea,” said Nick. Briefly, he contemplated sending Connor a quick email requesting the information, but then had second thoughts when he realised that Connor’s single-minded attention to the timeline scanner meant there was a good chance he wouldn’t see in time, and Nick’s report would end up being late anyway. “I’ll go and ask him,” he said, gulping down another mouthful of coffee before standing. He pretended not to see the expression on Stephen’s face, that said that Stephen knew perfectly well that Nick was just using this as an excuse to check on Connor. So what if he was?
But when he reached the atrium, Stephen having peeled off back to the office he shared with Abby, he was surprised to find that Connor was neither checking over the rover, or tinkering with the scanner. Instead, his fingers were flying over his laptop keyboard as he muttered to himself. Nick picked out the words ‘radio signals’ and ‘intangible link’, but had no idea what they might mean.
“Connor?” he said gently, and then more loudly, when Connor didn’t acknowledge him, “Connor!”
Connor blinked, and then turned his head as if he hadn’t even noticed Nick standing right next to him. Nick recognised the look in his eyes. It was the look Connor got when he had a theory about something, and was determined to prove it correct.
“Sorry, Nick, but can it wait?” Connor spoke before Nick could say anything else. “I’ve had an idea.”
“I thought you might have,” Nick said, smiling. “Want to tell me about it?”
“Not just yet,” Connor replied. “I’ve only just thought of it, but if I’m right, it might solve all our problems.”
Nick tried not to let his trepidation show on his face. He knew how desperate Connor was to find a solution, and he didn’t want to seem unsupportive. After all, he was just as eager as Connor to start going through the anomalies again. But there were only so many times he could watch his partner get excited about a new theory and then experience the come-down when it didn’t pan out before he started to wonder whether they might not all be better off accepting that anomaly travel was off the table for good.
“I really think this could work,” Connor said, obviously having divined Nick’s train of thought. “Just give me a chance.”
“Okay,” said Nick, backing away from the fight in a way he tried not to think of as cowardly. “Let’s see what you come up with. I’ll leave you to it.” He pressed a quick kiss to the top of Connor’s head, and then made his way back to his lab, glancing back only once to see Connor’s attention was already riveted back to his laptop.
Lester would just have to deal with a short report.