Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Episode 1: After the Dark

DURING CONVERGENCE

The Manor House Resort in Alsager was normally the picture of serene beauty and tranquillity, however the world was in chaos at the moment and the resort had not been spared. 

Rifts in the shape of fractal lights were opening all over the world, and monsters and dinosaurs were spilling forth causing untold amounts of death and destruction. 

Flying creatures had descended in swarms upon the resort, picking off guests and staff that tried to flee the building. In the chaos running rampant throughout the resort, another rift opened far below the resort, completely unnoticed. In the caves the resort was built on, providing their natural springs, a glowing light opened and flickered in the soothing cool and dark. 

The gentle drip of water, echoing quietly was the only noise, until the light flickered and something small darted out. Followed by another, and another. 

Several hours later, the anomaly underneath the resort was closed, at the same time that every other anomaly across the world collapsed. 

The resort began repairs, there were numerous smashed windows, scratches and tears in the wallpaper, but the worst damage by far was to their reputation. Despite the extenuating circumstances of such rifts opening across the world, they had lost a significant chunk of their clientele, the ones who swore they would never come back, and the ones who were killed in the carnage.

The months worth of repairs would mean nothing if they failed to get anyone through the door now they had reopened.

They just had to figure out how to market it properly. The world had nearly ended; the stress and hardship had impacted nearly everyone, it was time to relax and start anew. Surely everyone needed a spa break at this point?

⋆⭒˚.⋆

3 MONTHS AFTER CONVERGENCE

Jess reajusted her seat after the night shift field coordinator had left, and tilted the monitors just the way she liked them set up. She ran through the written hand over Molly had left her of what happened overnight; no new anomalies but there was a team dispatched to deal with some teenagers who had been growing what they had thought was weed, but was actually a plant that had come through an anomaly during Covergence, and over the last three months had grown big enough that it had eaten one of the teenagers.

The team was still out dealing with it, and it would either be blow torched to cinders, or brought back to the ARC, she dropped a message for Matt to pick up when he got in as he was always interested in the plants they found, even the carnivorous kind. At least if the plant did get brought back, it would probably end up in a section of Matt’s botany lab, rather than the menagerie with the animals.

The menagerie was fit to bursting since Convergence, when all the anomalies had closed simultaneously it had left numerous animals stranded in this time. The last three months had been a never ending clean up mission.

Thankfully, now the proverbial T-Rex was out of the bag, funding had been pouring in from every government agency, billionaire, and conservationist. Though all wanted different repayments for their ‘help’.

Lester had been grumpier than usual having to organise it all, and had called in every favour Abby had from private zoos and nature reserves, as well as construction being underway to expand the menagerie they had. Jess had offered to help Lester, but she had been kept busy sending teams out on clear up duty, and only now, three months later, was the workload starting to calm down.

She had permanent alerts set up to monitor any news story or internet search that involved ‘dinosaur’ ‘creature’ ‘anomaly’ and a thousand other, related, search terms. There was also a permenant tech staff member monitoring emergency calls for animal attacks or sightings.

The whole team hadn’t stopped to take a breath since Convergence, but finally it seemed to be winding down. Jess desperately needed a holiday; preferably a hot beach, a ready supply of cocktails, and nothing to do but make a dent in her collection of romance novels, ones that involved no dinosaurs or peril of any kind.

Once she had caught up with the night shift updates, made sure there were no teams that needed sending out immediately, she compiled her list for the weekly team meeting and headed to Lester’s office.

The man himself was still on the phone when she entered, and when she raised an eyebrow in question as to who it was, he gave her a familiar half eye roll that meant it was either the Minister or Mrs Lester; the former he despised, and the latter he pretended to, but Jess knew he was a secret softie.

She had met the infamous Mrs Lester after the future predator incident at the ARC. She had felt so dreadful that Lester had been injured helping her, she had taken round food and an expensive bottle of whiskey for him. Mrs Lester was both not was she was expecting, and exactly what she expected. A middle aged, plump, no nonsense woman in a sharp suit, full of sarcastic wit but who seemed genuinely touched that Jess had brought Lester food.

Jess could see Lester was still using his left hand to hold the phone, his right arm still not able to support weight for any length of time. His right hand side was a mess of scar tissue and healing fractured bones. When she had seen the future predator land on him, she’d thought he was a goner, even after it had been scared off, his mangled side had not reassured her he would make it.

Lester finished up his phone call, and after glancing at her, rolled his eyes.

“Get that look off your face.” He demanded mildly, organising the sheets on his desk.

“What look?”

“The guilty look, after three months it’s getting rather tiresome.”

“I-”

The door opened and Becker came in. To the average observer he would look the same as ever, but to Jess, who spent more time than she would admit looking at him, she could see the signs of stress that had taken ahold. The tense posture and tightness around his eyes and mouth. The weariness that he seemed to wear like a shroud.

In the wake of Convergence, the military recruits had nearly tripled at the governments request. Jess had found it overwhelming having to process so many new recruits, and she only had to sort wristbands and training videos. Becker had to oversee their ongoing training with EMDs and general fitness testing, not to mention now overseeing three times as many soldiers for shift patterns, appraisals, and check ins.

“This meeting is the same time each week.” Becker said flatly, “Where are the others?”

It was a familiar comment, and one that Jess was actually prepared for this time, not that it had been directed at her. Becker was more speaking to the room aloud.

“I sent Matt a message about one of the teams from the night shift, and a potential plant that’s incoming to his lab, so he is probably making provisions for that. Abby and Connor had a wedding planning errand to run this morning.”

Becker raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the thought.

“It was the only time they were both free this week, I’m not sure either of them was happy about getting up at 6am this morning.”

The door opened again and Emily came through.

Becker pursed his lips. Jess knew he was annoyed that she joined these meetings, not technically the head of any department, she mostly joined because she wanted to and no one had found a way to stop her yet.

However, it was a well trodden argument, with little use to going over.

Jess beamed at Emily, “Good morning, are you excited for this weekend?”

Emily smiled back at her, “I am. I have been most curious about some things I have researched.”

“What’s happening this weekend?” Becker asked, but before they could answer Matt came in.

They only had enough time to exchange pleasantries before Abby and Connor came rushing in to the office.

“Sorry we’re late!”

“Traffic is mental out there!” Connor grinned and waved at them all.

“Right.” Lester said sharply before they could all descend into chatter, “In the interests of keeping this brief. Abby?”

“Right,” Abby said, caught off guard at having to present straight away, as if Lester didn’t go through them alphabetically every week, “Well, the new construction for the menangerie is almost complete, which means I can start messaging the private zoos and collectors that we’ll be able to start transfering the creatures back here before long. I’ve also got a list of food suppliers to contact as we’re going to need more meat and veg each week to keep up with feeding them. Also the waste removal guys are disputing that they can’t come more than once a week, but the amount of manure that the mammoth produces alone means two, or preferably, three times a week would be much better-”

“Have they no gratitude for those of us who saved the world?” He said dryly, “Get a list of other potential contractors who could do it, and remind them it would be a significant loss to their business to lose us to a competitor.”

Abby nodded but didn’t make a note of it, so Jess scribbled it down in her planner. Besides, if a new contractor was brought in, then new NDAs would need to be handed out, they would need to go over the procedures for collection and saftey regulations. All of which would fall under Jess’ remit.

“Becker?”

“New recruits are progressing well. They’ve been sent out on routine clean ups with experienced soldiers. They should be fine being deployed on their own now.”

Jess made another note to check with Becker if there were any restrictions on who could be grouped with who for mission deployment groups, and shift scheduling. Did he want all the new recruits to be placed in their own groups, or interspered amoung the existing? Technically it wouldn’t be her creating the lists, but she would need to pass any caveats on to who was.

“Connor?” Lester asked, with the hesitancy of a man preparing for battle.

“Okay, so I’ve been looking into how Helen was able to open specific anomalies, right? Because, well, Matt asked and he’s the team leader, but mostly because it means we could start trying to send some of these animals home again. Also I’m still trying to rebuild Cutter’s prediction model, because that was also on Helen’s device that she used to open them, so they’ve got to be connected somehow, but like, what are the chances that there was always one just about to open, going exactly where she wanted to go. Cuz she also talked about ‘invisible’ anomalies, so like, are they just lying dormant all around us or-”

“What’s your progress?” Matt interjected calmly, knowing that Connor was liable to keep going until someone stopped him.

“Oh, well, you know, not super far. I managed to get what I could of Cutter’s old research from Jenny, but most of it was destroyed in the explosion when he- yeah, and I found the notes that Sarah made before she- well, so I’m rebuilding the prediction model, though I’m doing it on the computer, but I don’t know how I would even began to overlap it with what Helen was doing,”

“Just try not to end the world this time.” Lester said, ignoring the hurt look Connor gave him, and the subsequent glare Abby gave him.

“Jess?” Lester prompted.

“Oh, um,” she wasn’t sure whether she should reassure Connor that he’d been forgiven, certainly by her and Abby at least, but everyone was looking at her, so she go on with her update.

“The clean up operations are going well, they seem to be coming in less frequently, so hopefully we’re getting to the end of every creature that came through during Convergence. The active, new anomalies are back to appearing every week or so. With all the extra staff brought on board, hopefully we’ll be overstaffed, underworked, and bored before long.”

She smiled widely, as if she could drag them all into her optimism with her. Everyone had been run ragged in the lead up to Convergence, during, and in the following three months, that she was worried someone was going to break down if there wasn’t good news on the horizon.

“Oh good, we can all look forward to being out of a job soon,” Lester said drolly.

“No, that wasn’t-” Jess hurried to assure them all that wasn’t what she had meant, only that things were going back to normal, or as normal as if ever got around here, but before she could clarify, Lester had moved on to Matt.

“I have no concerns with the team’s functioning.” Matt said.

Lester waited for more, and when none was apparently coming, he nodded, “Good. Succint. Now please all leave my office.”

“Lester, just a reminder that Emily, Abby, and I will be unavailable from Friday through Sunday.” Jess called out.

“What, why?”

Jess had made sure to call out on her way out so she could pretend she hadn’t heard his questions. She had organised the cover, and the back up cover in case anything went wrong, telling Lester was more of a formality.

The group headed over to the ADD machine, where Becker asked, “Why are you unavailable?”  

“Oh, we’re going to the spa!” Jess squealed excitedly.

“Hen do?” He asked Abby, whose eyes lit up.

“Jess, can we-”

“You cannot have it as your hen do, I have separate plans for that. This weekend is for relaxing away from work now that things are slowing down!”

“If that’s the case, why wasn’t I invited?” Becker raised an eyebrow at Jess, who flushed at the thought of seeing Becker relaxed, out of uniform, perhaps in a pair of swimming trunks.

“Oh, I, er-”

Abby swatted at Becker, “Leave her alone. It’s a girls weekend. Besides, Emily has never been to a spa before.”

“I am told it is similar to the natural hot springs in Bath during my time, though I was never able to visit, I am familiar with the concept of rejuvinating waters.”

“The pool, the sauna and steam room, the massages, they even have an ice room and a cold plunge,” Jess said dreamily, “It’s been so long since my last spa trip.”

“And the thought of a spa trip got me through the year in the Cretaceous,” Abby said.

“Hey!” Connor grinned, “I thought it was my dazzling company.”

She patted his arm playfully, “That too, that too.” Then turned to the rest of them and loudly whispered, “But mostly the spa.”

“And I specifically booked one that was super far away, so there is no chance of being dragged into work,” Jess said, “Plus they had an excellent offer on.”

“Better hope work doesn’t come to you.” Matt said, and Jess pointed an accusing finger in his face.

“Do not even joke about that!”

“I don’t know,” Connor chipped in, “I think it would be funny to see a T-Rex try and use a jacuzzi.”

⋆⭒˚.⋆

It took around three hours to get to the resort, which was up near Crewe. The train would have gotten them there in two, but Jess rarely got to go on long car trips now, and it was one of the few truly sunny days they got now they were leaving autumn and heading into winter. She had barely gotten to take the Mini out when she could open the sunroof and let the wind run through her hair.

Throughout the journey they had been cycling through the best hits of the 80s and 90s in a bid to catch Emily up with modern music. They’d started in the 20s a few months ago but quickly burned through the classics, and now they were up to Abby and Jess’ childhood music they were taking their time going through all their favourites.

They stopped to refuel both themselves and the car at a petrol station, so by the time they got to the spa they were fed, hyped on the Spice Girls and Bon Jovi, and ready to relax. The tension they hadn’t realised they’d been carrying had dissapated somewhere around the M40.

The resort itself was at the end of a long gravel driveway, leading to a 17th century converted farmhouse, with a courtyard around the side and a spa garden sprawling further behind the building; an outdoor pool, glass relaxation lounge, potting shed saunas, and a swim up bar.

Abby grabbed ahold of Jess’ shoulder as soon as the car was parked, “This was the best idea we’ve ever had.”

“Right! It’s exactly what we needed,” Jess said, “Though I feel bad now for not inviting the boys, do you think we should have?”

“I need a break from wedding planning,” Abby said, “Connor is having so much fun, but it’s- quite full on.”

Emily nodded, “And Matt is acting strangely again. I have tried confronting him, but he is being evasive. I too have been looking forward to a break from it.”

Abby gave her a consoling look, “Besides,” she turned to Jess, “I’m sure they’re having fun, whatever they’re up to.”

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Matt was staring at the CCTV footage from three months ago, specifically his future self. The battered and bruised version, that had looked so severely at him and told him, “You have to go back.”

He must have watched it over a thousand times already, and could still not glean any new information from it. There was nothing about the clothes, or the injuries, not even his hair length, to indicate how far in the future he was from, or what specifically had gone so wrong. There wasn’t even audio, he could just seen the other version of himself’s lips moving, and he remembered the words. They had practically burned themselves into his mind.

Go back. You have to go back.

Had he missed something?

Was his ongoing presence in this time affecting things into the future?

When they were each given their tasks, they had also been given strict rules to follow in regards to what they should do once their task was complete, whether success or failure. They were to retire to the specific safe house, live out the rest of their natural life while making as little impact on the timeline as possible. No partners, no children, certainly not maintaining a job like Matt was doing.

He was meant to retire to the same house that he had watched his father die in, and not affect the timeline.

He hadn’t realised he’d even made a conscious decision to stay here until he’d seen his future self, they had finished saving the world, and had already been sent out to find a train carriage which had gone through an anomaly. He hadn’t been thinking of what came after.

He knew logically though that by heading out for the anomaly, instead of instantly heading to the safe house, he’d made his decision. After so much careful work saving the world, his attachments to the team had still negatively impacted the future. Enough that his future self hadn’t even told him to go to the safe house, he had to go back to his own time.

Deep down he knew it was because of Emily.

He could disappear to a safe house, and the others might try and drag him back but with enough bull headedness on his part he knew they would eventually visit less and less, before he would be left on his own. But not Emily, god help him, she was as bull headed as him, if not more so. She wouldn’t let him retreat to a house never to be seen again. She could live with him, she wasn’t meant to live in this time either, they could retreat to a bubble out of time and live the rest of their lives as long as they didn’t have children or effect the natural course of time.

She wouldn’t be happy though. She was endlessly curious, and had spent months travelling as a guide through different dangerous times. Hell, upon returning to her own time she started hunting down a velociraptor that had earn the moniker ‘Spring Heeled Jack’. She wouldn’t be content to sit back and do nothing for the rest of her life, and he could never ask it of her.

Now because of that he had to go back to his own time.

He had set Connor off on finding a way to open anomalies to certain times, ostensibly to return all the displaced creatures in the menangerie, but also to return his own displaced self to his time. He wasn’t a scientist, he didn’t know how to go about creating that kind of technology, even if it had been available in the time when he was from. They had used it to specifically send each of the soldier back to staggered times.

One thing he did know though, was that in changing the timeline, the future he came from would no longer exist. His future self’s demands that he went back made little sense, as he would be just as out of place in that time as in this one. He was a soldier though, so he left the theories of alternate dimensions and theories of time travel to the likes of Connor.

He closed the laptop with a decisive snap. He wasn’t making any more progress here, and if he sought out Connor, it would only distract the man from unknowingly working on how to get Matt home.

He decided to go and bother Becker instead. Matt could use the stress relief.

The soldiers’ training rooms and armoury were deep in the ARC, better equipped for rapid deployment from the garages in endless SUVs. He headed down and quickly found Becker in his office. The one he only really used when someone other than Jess was in the Main Ops room. Otherwise, when Jess was working, the Captain could reliably be found loitering nearby, ‘in case the anomaly alert went off’.

There was a soldier in there with him, but the door was open, so Matt had no qualms about leaning against the doorframe.

“Sir, it was only because I know Reynolds and Jones are chalk and cheese, they’re not going to get on. If I switch with-”

Becker pinched the bridge of his nose, and let out a heavy sigh, “This isn’t school, Jackson. I don’t care if you aren’t partnered with your friends anymore. It’s better to have new recruits mixed with experienced soldiers. There’s less likely to be reckless mistakes and casualities. Understood?”

The soldier nodded, looked annoyed but not necessarily surprised, “Yes, sir.”

“Anything else?”

“No, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

The soldier nodded, and after giving Matt a brief nod as well, departed.

“I think you’ll be off his Christmas card list.”

Becker looked up, as if only just noticing Matt’s presence in the room. That didn’t bode well. Perhaps Jess had been right about the spa break, not that Matt could imagine Becker with cucumber slices on his eyes or a towel around his hair. The man looked awful though, and in need of a full night’s sleep.

“I don’t care.” Becker said sharply, “They’re here to work, not mess around with their friends.”

Matt wondered if Becker had ever watched the soldiers in the gym while they were on call during an alert dryspell. They would use each other as weights, or pretend to use machinery wrong, they would make up ridiculous exercises and then compete to see who could break the records. Never underestimate the ingenuity of bored soldiers.

When Matt had been growing up, their games had involved seeing who could slow their heartbeat down the slowest and play chicken with future predators, or who could shoot those two inch beetles from the furthest range. None of the grown ups had been happy about it, but if they were old enough to fight, they were old enough to die doing something stupid.

“You know,” Matt said, already regretting that he’d said something, “A commander that is well liked, normally lives longer.”

Not that he thought any of the men would deliberately leave Becker in a tight spot, but if it came down to a choice to save their friend or their grouchy Captain, well, people were only human.

“I’m here to keep them alive, not be their friend Matt.”

Matt held up his hands in surrender, before heading out.

At least he could rely on Becker whenever he was feeling miserable about his own life, at least his problems weren’t self inflicted. Well technically they were, in the most literal sense of the term. He headed to the gym and got out the rest of his pent up aggression on the punching bag, ignoring the one soldier trying to bench a bar that had no plates on, but instead had two of his friends on, one on either end trying to balance as he lifted it.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

They had dropped their bags in their room, Jess and Emily taking the double bed, and Abby on the single. They had changed immediately into their swimwear and gone down to the pool. Emily was a little uncomfortable wearing a full swimming costume in public, even with a full length cover up skirt she had also bought in preparation for this weekend. Though she was emboldened by the fact that Jess had headed down in a bikini that was barely more than scraps, insisting she had clothes to put on over the top, though they remained in her pool bag. Abby was wearing a white shirt over her bikini to get to the pool, but quickly stripped it off once they arrived.

It was something she was still getting used to, how much skin was shown in public places. She had come across many different people stranded across different times, each with their own level of modesty with regards to clothing, though some things had to give when stranded in time, and she was by no means a prude. At least by the standards of her own time.

Thankfully the only other people by the pool were a group of woman on a hen do, who paid little attention to them.

Though Emily did notice that Abby nudged Jess with a ‘see?’, to which Jess rolled her eyes.

“You said you wanted your brother to come on the hen do, rather than the stag, would you really want him here?”

Abby huffed but conceeded, “Fine, fine, you continue planning away.”

The pool bar was dominated by the hen do, so they steered towards the glass relaxation lounge, which was basically an outdoor conservatory with a pool and a swinging bed.

Jess launched herself at the bed, and sent it rocking back and forth, laughing delightedly.

“That’s it!” She declared, “I’m telling Lester we need to do company retreats, I think a years worth of monthly spa trips might undo the stress knot in my back.”

Abby immediately jumped into the pool and surfaced only to start floating on her back, letting the ripples in the water rock her back and forth.

Emily hitched the cover up skirt slightly higher and sat at the end of the pool with her feet in. She was enjoying the feeling of the sun coming through the glass and warming her skin. The noise of Jess turning pages of her book, the creak of the ropes on the swinging bed, and the noise of the water lapping at the edge of the pool.

She heard soft footsteps approaching her and a man in a crisp white uniform came and crouched next to her. It made her uncomfortable having a stranger, particularly a man, so close while she was so undressed. It felt unnatural, despite the fact she knew logically she was quite modestly dressed by the standards of today, and definitely in comparison to the other two women with her.

The man was one of the staff, and merely smiled politely at her, handing her a menu.

“If you would like to order any food or drinks to you, rather than going all the way to the pool bar, you are also able to ring that bell, and we will come to you.” He gestured to an old servant’s bell near where the conservatory connected to the rest of the hotel building.

“Oooh,” Jess said, sitting up from where she was, “So quaint! Is it original? You often find resorts are so high tech these days,”

“Normally we have an electronic bell system, however, since the- Burton business a few months ago our electrics have been a tad unreliable. We are fortunate enough to still have the old bell systems working though.”

Jess looked delighted, Emily wasn’t sure why, it was only a servant’s bell. Every house she’d visited in her time had them. She was more interested by the euphemistic way everyone seemed to be referring to the Convergence. It was a very stiff upper lip, British way of dealing with things. The official story had been that Phillip Burton had created some sort of science experiment gone wrong, and had been cloning dinosaurs. They had gotten lose. In Emily’s mind it made no sense, unless he was supposed to have had a base in every country and they all broke lose at once, and it didn’t explain the anomaly sightings.

Apparently it was similar enough to a movie franchise, something called Jurassic Park, that most people accepted it readily enough as something that was possible. From there, the biggest concern had been stopping people from seeking out said dinosaurs, which they had done by telling them they were carrying some sort of disease born out of a mutated virus during the cloning process.

Emily didn’t know how many people truly believed that story, and how many believed it because it was over now and easier to accept the obvious lie.

Some of the recent missions had been made harder by conspiracy theorists (though were they really conspiracy theorists if they were right?) trying to get to the creatures before the ARC teams could.

Emily had the pleasure of punching one the other week, though in her defense he had been about to give away their position to a Terror Bird, so she had felt justified. Lester had told her she had to fill out something called an Incident Report, but she had ignored him and he hadn’t asked again.

“Thank you.” She said to the man, she took the menu and started looking through. He disappeared as quietly as he’d arrived.

They ordered a round of something called Mai Tais, and even though they had eaten only a few hours ago, several bowls of chips.

They watched the sun set from the comfort of the conservatory, all of them eventually converging on the swinging bed, full of chips and tipsy from Abby’s insistance that Emily needed to try all of the different cocktails to see which ones she liked.

They were discussing Jess’ romance book club and Abby’s kickboxing lessons, trying to come up with increasingly absurd hobbies that Emily could try. She grinned into her drink, wondering if the swaying was coming from the bed or the alcohol. It was these free moments she loved about this time, she did not have to worry about the propriety of their topics of conversation, or tending to a husband, or being watched by an eagle eyed matron.

“This was an excellent idea.” She said to no one in particular.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

“This was an excellent idea!” Connor said, having stacked a hash brown into his breakfast wrap, which was already bursting with egg, sausage, bacon, cheese, and sauce that was dripping on to his plate.

Becker was sat with Connor and Matt in the canteen. Or rather, he had sat down to quickly eat his breakfast while reading reports, when Connor sat down and started talking about the wedding prep he was doing, and then Matt came over to ask him about his progess on their science project, and had sat down with them.

Now Connor was proudly showing off his breakfast like a three year old in desperate need of a bib. This was the genius who was either going to save the world or destroy it.

“So you’re working on predicting them at the minute, but shouldn’t you be working on trying to open specific ones?” Matt pressed.

Becker snorted, clearly the man had already had enough of the carnivorous plant that had been brought to his lab the other day.

“Yeah,” Connor said through a mouthful of food, “But I think one leads to another.” He swallowed in a way that looked painful, “So Helen was using the prediction model to open specific anomalies. Now I don’t know where to start with specific anomalies, but I do have Cutter’s work on predicting them, so I figured that was the best place to start.”

Matt didn’t look pleased but nodded in acquiesence.

“Also, it means if we can start predicting them, then we can be there ready for when they open. No more creature incursions, which also solves the problem of too many creatures in the menangerie.” Connor grinned.

Matt clapped him on the back, and left without eating breakfast.

“Have you ever seen Matt eat anything?” Connor asked.

Becker was alarmed that their train of thoughts were aligning, that couldn’t be a good sign.

“He’s from a post apocolyptic future,” Becker said, going back to the reports the new recruits had filled out on the carnivorous plant mission, “He probably eats dried, recycled cubes from packs.”

“Cool,” Connor said, before taking another bite of his quickly deteriorating breakfast, “So what’s your bet for when the anomaly opens?”

“Mm?” He said, trying to ignore Connor as best as he could. He couldn’t believe he’d actually missed this when Connor and Abby had been trapped in the Cretaceous. Though, admittedly, it had more been missing them in general, not specifically Temple’s appalling table manners and being sprayed with crumbs.

“Well it always happens, doesn’t it. Someone tries to do something nice, and BAM, anomaly. Jenny’s wedding, Abby’s brother visiting, Lester’s meal with the ambassador-”

Becker didn’t recognise that last one, Connor caught his look and gave back a sheepish one, “Okay, maybe that was more Sid and Nancy, and less anomaly, but it still counts.”

Becker rolled his eyes, and went back to the report, he would have to check in with them why it took them forty minutes to set up a perimeter around the flat in question. The report was lacking in crucial details.

“Well, the girls are going for a relaxing spa trip, so BAM, anomaly. I reckon two more hours tops. They got there yesterday, had a relax, and now today I bet there’ll be an anomaly before lunch.”

“Don’t even joke about it Temple.”

Connor gave him a flat look, “I’m not, seriously. I’ve scheduled in time on mine and Ab’s wedding day for an anomaly.”

Becker sincerely hoped not, both about the wedding and the spa. He trusted Abby and Emily to be able to take care of themselves, they’d both fought creatures in different time periods, they were experienced in the front line, whereas Jess was still rattled from back to back encounters with beetles and then future predators in the ARC, where she was meant to be safe behind a desk.

“I’m just saying,” Connor held up his hands innocently, and Becker half expected the alert to go off there and then, but the ADD remained blissfully silent.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Abby had never been so relaxed in her life. She was looking forward to marrying Connor, undoubtedly, she wouldn’t have asked him otherwise, but she was not enjoying the stress of wedding prep on top of dealing with the fallout from Convergence.

Not to mention, she wanted to actually spend some time with her fiancee as she hadn’t been able to spend much time with Connor during the whole Phillip Burton thing.

However, Connor was taking to wedding preparation with gusto and she didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm, though it did make her question just how long he had already been planning their wedding, she thought it was longer than she probably wanted to know.

She could spend time with him while prepping the wedding, which she had been doing, but it meant that now she wanted a whole weekend where no one mentioned napkin colours or first dance songs or wedding invite font choices.

She was here to drink ridiculously named cocktails, probably get sunburnt, and definitely eat too much room service and be horrified by the bill at the end of it all.

She, Emily, and Jess had spent the morning alternating between the sauna, steam room, and cold plunge, and had persuaded Emily to ditch the cover up and just wander around in her swimsuit, which she seemed to tentatively delight in as an act of wild rebellion. Though Abby noticed she still covered her legs with a towel whenever one of the wait staff came over with their drinks.

She was telling Emily about the pub nights with the old ARC team, when they managed to get Stephen to drag Cutter along, they’d even done a trivia night once that Connor had tricked them into.

“I found some old lockers in the ARC basement, was that from the old team?” Emily asked, and Abby had always wondered where Emily got to when there wasn’t an anomaly alert. Apparently she explored the ARC.

“Yeah, some of it got salvaged. Think Lester’s secretly sentimental.”

“Do you have pictures of them? I have only their names, but not their faces,”

“Yes, actually, I have one from that trivia night, I was taking a picture at the moment it was announced it was trivia night, I thought Cutter was going to up and leave then, I’m sure I still have it-” She looked around, before realising she must have left her phone in the room.

“I’ll just go grab my phone, probably best just in case something happens at work,” She whispered the last bit, worried Jess would overhear her and scold her for jinxing it. Emily grinned at her indulgently.

“Jess,” Abby called, “I’m grabbing my phone, do you need anything from the room?”

“I forgot my robe, would you mind grabbing it? I’ve got the massage booked later and I’ll need it.”

Abby agreed, and made a mental note to grab her own for the same reason. Neither of them had managed to convince Emily to go for a full body massage, however, she had agreed to get a hand massage and manicure, as she would be able to keep her swimming costume on the whole time.

Full nudity was too big of a step for the moment. Abby figured they should make it a regular thing, exposure therapy or something. For Emily’s benefit of course.

She quickly nipped back up to the room, grabbing her phone and the two robes before heading back out into the corridor.

She got halfway down the corridor before the lights flickered.

Her steps hitched, and she quickly looked around. She shook it off, she was becoming paranoid. She started back down the corridor again when a loud thump emanating from the wall next to her.

She jumped and spun, fists extended and ready to punch, but it went quiet again.

It was probably just someone dropping something in one of the rooms.

Then several thumps, and a soft scratching noise.

She put her ear tentatively to the wall, the scratching and thumping wasn’t coming from inside one of the rooms, it was coming from inside the walls.

She opened her phone, no new messages.

She quickly typed one out to Connor:

No anomaly alert?

She got one back immediately.

No. Something happened?

She glanced at the wall suspiciously but the scratching had faded off down the corridor. It was probably rats.

All good.

She hurried back downstairs, but before she turned for the indoor pool area, she beelined to reception instead. There was a smiling, fresh faced woman at the desk.

“How can I help you today?”

“You know during the whole Burton thing, creatures everywhere. One of your staff mentioned there’d been some damage done. What kind of creature was it?” She was half expecting the woman to describe a Diictodon, the electrical damage and crawling through the walls sounded like what Sid and Nancy had done in the hospital.

The woman pursed her lips and glanced over her shoulder, as if she wasn’t meant to say, but the human urge to gossip was a strong one.

“They were these horrid small flying things, but they were viscous. The chefs managed to thow a load of raw meat onto the front drive and they descended on it like pirahnas. Managed to board ourselves inside until they flew off somewhere else.”

That sounded like Pteranadons.

Abby figured there’s no way those things had remained unnoticed in the walls for three months, they would have escaped and attacked somebody by now.

“Thank you.”

It was reassuring that it was unlikely to have come through an anomaly, it was probably just rats, which was horrid in its own right, but compared to what Abby had been worried about, rats weren’t her problem.

She headed back to the indoor pool, looking forward to her massage later.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Jess was on her way back from the loo when she heard the screaming. At first she thought it was just the hen do getting rowdy, but the screaming didn’t stop. The screaming was coming from the pool bar, which was between her and the indoor pool where Emily and Abby were. She was on her own.

Suddenly she was back in the armoury with Lester, holding the EMD staring down the future predator, Lester was further back, clutching a battery pack in his hands, waiting for her to shoot the damn thing.

She froze, she froze.

The thing had lunged towards her and she’d done nothing except squeeze her eyes shut and wait to be eaten. Lester had hurled the battery pack at the creature, and it had turned on him instead, pouncing on him and taking them both down to the ground. She remembered screaming and had fumbled with the EMD, a shot going off and hitting one of the speakers in the room, which squealed with feedback. The future predator had reared up at the noise, then had clearly decided they were too much trouble and fled down the corridor away from the feedback.

She’d managed to drag Lester back to the Main Ops room in case it came back, but she knew Lester was only alive because of a fluke. If it had been down to her, they both would have died that day.

The screaming was getting louder, and roused Jess from her backwards sliding thoughts. They were running towards her. It was the hen do, most of them covered in claw and bite marks, bleeding from cuts all over their bodies. Swimming costumes not providing any kind of protection.

Running up behind them was a swarm of creatures gaining on them. They were no more than three foot tall, bipedal, and looked almost bird-raptor like, with huge eyes and beak like mouths. They were covered in fur and had a long tail stretching out behind each of them, that looked almost lemur like in appearance.

“Run!” One of the woman shouted as she spotted Jess in the hallway.

She couldn’t move, she was rooted to the spot, watching this tidal wave of creatures flooding the corridor. There were dozens and dozens of them. She was going to be trampled to death.

Several of the women raced passed her, but the one wearing a tattered Mother of the Bride sash, grabbed Jess, covering as much of her with her body as possible and slammed them into the side of the wall.

The barrage of creatures raced passed them, battering them and clawing them in their frenzied scramble down the narrow corridor. It felt like an eternity before they passed and the woman stood up straight. She wobbled on her feet before landing heavily on her bum. The whole of her back was covered in scratches where she’d shielded Jess.

“There goes the backless dress for the wedding,” She laughed, hiccuping slightly. Jess thought the alcohol was doing a lot of heavy lifting for the woman’s shock.

Jess tried to stand but noticed scratches across her own legs, one of which was surprisingly deep, where one of the claws had punctured rather than grazed.

“Thank you.” She said, her lip wobbling and her eyes welling with tears. Jess was supposed to be an ARC employee, she was supposed to be the one helping these women.

“It’s alright dear, here,” She took off her sash and wrapped it around Jess’ leg as a makeshift bandage, “You go to reception, they must have a medical kit here somewhere.”

“What are you going to do?”

The woman looked around before seeing a fire extinguisher that had been knocked off the wall in the stampede, “Need to go check on the others, get that leg looked at!”

She hoisted the fire extinguisher in her arms and set off down the corridor where the stampede had been heading. Jess scrambled up and started hobbling back to the indoor pool where Abby and Emily were.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

“Abby!” Emily said in relief as the woman appeared again with her phone and the two robes, “What happened, I heard screaming?”

“I heard it on my way back from reception, I came straight here, where’s Jess?”

The two women started immediately for the door, just as an injured Jess came limping through it. Her legs had scratches all over them, and there was some sort of pink silk tied around her upper right leg which was slowly turning red with blood.

“What happened?”

“There’s creatures here, lots of creatures.” Jess panted out, and Abby and Emily helped her down onto a pool lounger.

“What creatures were they?” Emily asked.

Jess described the look of them; smaller, more bird like raptors, with fur and long lemur like tails. Emily hadn’t ever come across them before and she looked to Abby, who shrugged.

“Connor is the expert, he’s got this spreadsheet full of every possible dinosaur.” Abby looked to Jess, “What was it’s mouth like? And how many exactly?”

“Like a chunky beak? And dozens of them, they were in a big stampede,”

“Okay, promising. Beaks normally mean herbivore, and given how many you saw, that sounds like prey animals in a flock.”

“But were they startled, or were they running from a predator?” Emily asked.

Abby shook her head, “I checked with Connor earlier when I heard a weird noise, no new anomaly, so if these things came through during Convergence, then they’ve been here for three months, if there was a predator here too it would have been noticed, which mean they’ve likely been spooked.”

“They were chasing the hen do, and this is the first week the hotel’s been back open, it’s why I got such a good deal.” Jess confirmed.

“Okay,” Emily said, nodding to herself, “So herbivores that have been sheltering somewhere while repairs have been going on, the hen do spooked them somehow and they stampeded. Which means we need to be looking for somewhere no repairs happened, probably in the vicinity of the pool bar.”

“I’ll ring Connor and see if we can get a confirmation of what these things are,” Abby said.

“I can do it?” Jess said, a bit weakily, “Not sure I’m going to be a big asset in the field, especially at the moment,”

Emily nodded, “You ring Connor to find out more about the creatures, and get a containment team down here. We will see if we can find where they are sheltering and corral them back there for the time being. It will make it easier for the containment team if they are all in one place.”

Abby sighed dramatically, “I knew a relaxing weekend was too much to ask for!”

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Connor phone buzzed in his pocket and he grabbed it instantly, it was Jess. Abby had texted him only minutes ago asking whether there had been an anomaly alert, and now Jess was ringing him? Something was wrong.

“Jess? What’s going on?”

“Connor there are creatures here!” He looked at the clock; 1:30pm. He knew it!

“What kind? Are you okay? What about Abby-” Was Jess ringing him because Abby was injured, what if-

“Abby and Emily are fine, they’ve gone to try and contain the creatures. I need you to send a team here, and then I need your help identifying what kind of creatures they are,”

“Yep, yeah, I can do that.” He tapped his earpiece, “Becker? Becker? There’s been a creature sighting at the spa! We need to go!”

Becker and Matt’s voices came over the earpiece asking questions, and Connor winced at the noise.

“I don’t know. Yes the spa the girls are at. Also don’t know. Look, just get a team, I’ll meet you in the garage, and let you know when I know more.”

“Tell them to bring a medical kit.” Jess added.

Connor relayed the message and received another stream of questions about who was injured and what kind of injury, how severe.

“Jess, who’s injured?”

“Me, but I’m fine. Mostly, just bleeding a bit. Oh dear, that is actually coming through quite a bit.”

Connor was absolutely not saying that to Becker unless he wanted to be killed on the car ride over while the man tried to do 120mph up the motorway the whole time. 

“Everyone is fine, it’s just in case.” Connor said instead, “Now enough questions, parking garage in ten minutes. Jess, what kind of creatures?”

By the time Connor got down to the parking garage, holding his phone between his shoulder and his ear, and typing one handed on the laptop he was carrying, he was pretty sure they were dealing with Leaellynasaura.

“Good news,” he said to Becker and Matt, “They’re herbivores, bad news there’s like sixty of them, and they could do a lot of damage with claws and beaks when frightened. So I’ve told Jess to make sure they keep them as calm as possible.”

“Tell her to shut herself in her room until we get there.” Becker said, and Connor didn’t need to relay the message because the upset huff in his ear told him that Jess had already heard.

“Did you know that this one was named after a girl, her parents’ were paleontologists and when they found a new species they named it after her? It translates to Leaellyn’s lizard? Isn’t that cool?”

“Anything we can use to calm them?” Jess asked through the phone, after confirming to Connor that his fact was indeed, very cool.

“Urm,” Connor scrolled through the database entry as he climbed into the back of one of the cars, “The remains found were from Victoria, Australia, specifically Dinosaur Cove,”

“So they’d like hot humid climates? Like a spa?” Jess laughed with a slight edge of hysteria to her voice.

“Actually, these guys are from the Cretaceous, so at that point in time Australia would have been, for the most part, south of the Arctic Circle, so actually these guys would be pretty used to the cold and the dark, winters would have been months of night without any light. You said they’ve got big eyes, right?”

“Yeah,”

“So they’ll be most at home in the dark and cold, if they’ve been spooked into a brightly lit area, that’s probably why they’re freaking out. Also their tails are like three times their body length, so they probably have a super fast turning speed as well, you know how cheetahs’ use their tails to create counter torque to turn sharply at high speed? So even in corridors, you’re not going to win in a foot race,”

“Thanks, Connor. I’m going to go and find the others and let them know.”

“We’ll be with you in like three hours,” Connor said cheerfully.

“Two.” Becker corrected, peeling out of the car park like a mad man.

“Two and a half.” Matt said, gripping the ‘oh shit’ handle above him.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Jess quickly threw on her shorts and a shirt over her bikini, not that they provided much extra cover for her. She knew she needed to find a medical kit in the resort as there were rivulets of blood streaking down her leg, the bridal party sash doing very little to stop the bleeding.

She had to let Abby and Emily know what they were dealing with first, then she would try reception to see if they had a bandage. If all else failed, back up would arrive with a medical kit, but she didn’t want to wait for three hours to get it sorted.

She hurried through the corridors, heading towards the pool bar where she hoped to find Abby and Emily. The two women were examining a drain or basement entrance of some kind, but quickly jumped up and assumed defensive stances when they heard someone approaching, relaxing when they saw it was Jess.

She conveyed that the others were on their way, and that Connor thought the creatures were something called Leaellynasaura, and that they like the cool and dark, and in a flat sprint could outrun Usain Bolt.

Abby nodded, and gestured to a pair of storm cellar doors, slanted into the ground, where the wooden doors had been trampled over to the point of splitting the wood, “We found where they came from, these doors lead to a wine cellar, which we think connects to the cave system under the spa,”

Jess remembered reading that the spa was built on top of a natural spring, “It would certainly be cool and dark down there, but why leave?”

Emily interjected at this point, “We spoke to the group of women, and they said they heard scratching coming from the cellar, and believed someone was locked in. So they opened the doors-”

“Big influx of light, and the creatures panic,” Jess finished.

“I think,” Abby said, “Whatever they have been eating in the caves for the last three months has run out, and they have started coming up here to look for more, I thought I heard something thumping and scratching in the walls earlier, they’ve probably found a way into the walls from the wine cellar,”

“Explains why their electrics haven’t been working then, if they having dinosaurs running havoc in the walls, though I wouldn’t have thought them wide enough.”

Emily’s eyes lit up, “This is an old building that has been repurposed. Therefore it is likely that it had servant’s corridors, a lot of houses in my time widened the main corridors, but left a narrow servant’s corridor still in place.”

“Huh,” Jess said, “Okay, so we have figured out the why and the how, we just need the ‘what now?’. You spoke with the hen do? They’re all fine?”

Abby confirmed, the hen do had run through to the front of the building and once the creatures hadn’t been confined by corridors they scattered and all started running off in smaller groups.

“We need to make sure they don’t go back down there,” Abby said, pointing to the cellar, “The containment unit won’t all fit down there, and if that leads into the caves and the walls, there’s too many exits for the creatures to go. We need somewhere with one exit, that’s cool and dark,”

“Oh!” Jess said excitedly, “The indoor pool room, if we turn the lights down, and open the door to the ice room, that should be perfect.”

As long as the doors to the sauna and steam room remained shut, the temperature around the pool was mild, and if they opened the door to the ice room, hopefully it would cool down the whole area.

“How do we get them there?” Emily asked, and her and Jess turned to look at Abby.

“They’re after food, most likely their resources in the caves have been depleted. So we need to grab as many greens as possible to get their attention and then we can corral them into the indoor pool area.”

“Corral them with what?” Jess asked, desperately hoping Abby snuck some riot shields in the boot of her car without Jess knowing.

Abby grinned, “Everyone grab a pool noodle.”

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Abby did not want to admit she was having a good time.

She had raided the empty kitchen for every bit of salad they had, in the caves the creatures had most likely been living off moss, fungus, and tree roots, but it didn’t mean that’s what they normally ate. Salad was the best substitute considering she no longer had access to Cretaceous plants, and why couldn’t she have come across these guys during her and Connor’s stint? Why was it all raptors and spinosaurus?

She quickly lay a trail out from the cellar doors (which were now closed off) and the front of the building and trailed them through the corridor to the indoor pool area. Jess and Emily had set it up ready to make it cool and dark. Then the three of them started patrolling the area, armed with their pool noodles.

Abby was having fun.

It felt like the old days of the ARC, where Stephen had been the only one with a tranquiliser gun and the rest of them had to approach the issue laterally with whatever tools they could find. It was certainly safer these days with the endless soldiers and guns, but there was something amusing to her about using a lurid pink pool noodle to nudge prehistoric creatures towards the part of the spa she needed them to go to.

She didn’t dare make a comment though, Jess looked terrified, and had blood streaked down her leg. It no longer seemed to be actively bleeding but it would need properly bandaging soon.

Abby caught sight of a group of around a dozen of them, jumping and trying to snap up the leaves from a tree at the front of the building, and not getting anywhere close to reaching them. She grabbed a piece of lettuce she’d dropped out here earlier and threw it gently towards them, hoping to get them to notice.

One of the pack swivelling its head curiously towards the noise. She noticed it was relying heavily on scent to find the food. She wondered if the natural daylight was making it harder for them to see in, it could be why they weren’t finding the food quicker.

As the one approached the bit of lettuce, it jerked its head down to peck at it, before letting out a rumbling chirp. The others all swivelled their heads towards the noise and came over to look. The way they moved, with jerky head movements, almost reminded her of chickens.

The rest flocked to the first and they started meandering towards the indoor pool, following the trail Abby had left. She followed behind, occassionally nudging one with the pool noodle if it started veering too far from the others.

Progress was slow but she managed to get them into the pool room.

Between the three of them, they eventually managed to corral what they hoped were all of the Leaellynasaura into the pool room. The sixty or so of them happily munching their way through the pile of veggies and salad they’d left in the room, and a few of them bedding down to rest in the ice room.

There were too many to transport back to the ARC, even with the new extension to the menangerie, this was going to be difficult. She remembered her old job at the zoo, and how during Convergence they’d had a Gorgonopsid break in and eat half their penguins, the other half that remained had to be transported out the zoo because they were getting stressed out by the environment and the fear of another attack. So their penguin section was closed for the time being.

She would have to give them a call and see if they fancied housing sixty Leaellynasaura for the forseeable future, the Minister was being incredibly generous at handing out funding to get the dinosaur problem solved as quietly as possible. She would give one of her friends a call in a bit.

It had taken about an hour and a half to herd all the creatures, so they still had at least another hour, possibly an hour and a half, before back up arrived.

“We should do one final sweep to make sure we got them all, then we should scout out the caves in case there are any left down there.” Abby said. The other two agreed, Jess excused herself to go and get a proper bandage for her leg, and came back after ten minutes with a fresh white bandage wrapped round her thigh. Abby could see she’d tried to wipe the worst of the blood off, but had mostly just succeeded in smearing it around and turning her leg a pinky-red.

It was better than the sash which was soaked through with blood, the silk material now dried in shape and left at reception as a horrid reminder.

“To the caves?” Jess asked, squaring her shoulders as if she was preparing for battle.

“To the caves!” Abby grinned, lifting her pool noodle aloft like a soldier lifting a sword before charging into battle.

 ⋆⭒˚.⋆

From the wine cellar they found the maintenance tunnels, which in turn led to even older Victorian acess tunnels, which led out into the caves themselves.

Once in the caves Emily took point, she had often used caves as good places to rest while she was leading groups through anomalies. Larger predators could not fit in them, and they provided shelter from the elements, and often had their own food and water supplies in them.

The caves were cramped enough that the three of them were having to bend over to squeeze through, there was no chance the containment soldiers with all their gear would fit through. She was grateful that she had insisted they go back to the room to change into better footwear for the trip, though Jess only had high heels with her so had chosen to remain in the hotel slippers instead.

The three of them were back in the clothes they had arrived in, and Emily immediately felt more comfortable in her own skin again. It had been fun to try, but when dealing with an anomaly it was better to be properly attired. They had also collected a much needed torch from the boot of Jess’ car, unfortunately the emergency kit only had one but it was better than none.

The cave system was sprawling and they often came to junction points. Abby had tried to insist they should split up, to cover all possible routes and make sure there wasn’t one of the creatures left behind.

But this was terrain that Emily knew.

“If they have been living here they will have congregated around a water source and a food source. The water source is this way.”

“How do you know?” Jess asked, it wasn’t in a tone of questioning her authority on the matter, but more a curiosity as to her knowledge.

“We would often shelter in cave systems while travelling through anomalies. It is remarkable how nature changes very little throughout history. This is a spring, water needs somewhere to breathe, so you follow the air. Cool air means there is a large passage ahead. Mineral deposits in the cave also evidence a permanent water source.”

“That’s amazing, I didn’t even finish my Bronze D of E,”

Emily made a mental note to look up ‘Bronze D of E’ later but for now continued on her path. She quite liked caves, they were simple and easy to navigate once you learned the basics. Water would always try and find the easiest path.

Before long they came to the natural springs and geothermic pools that the spa had been bragging about.

The cave tunnels up until this point had been mostly cool from the damp rock, but as they entered what must have been the central chamber it gave way to warm, humid air.

It was quiet, not completely silent, there was the noise of water steadily dripping somewhere off in the low light. Occassionally a low, almost imperceptible bubbling echoed out.

Their torchlight disppeared into a vast chamber, over a hundred foot across, its ceiling lost in drifting white steam. Pools of perfectly clear water lay scattered across the cavern floor, some no larger than puddles, others stretching away into darkness. Mineral deposits coated the edges in pale creams and oranges, while warm water quietly bubbled up through cracks in the limestone before flowing away in narrow channels that vanished between the rocks.

A thin veil of mist hung over everything in the room.

It caught the torch beam light and turned it into a glowing shaft of mist.

The air was heavy with the smell of warm stone and damp earth, with something faintly metallic beneath it. Not sulphur exactly, just the unmistakble scent of mineral water rising from deep underground.

Emily walked over and dipped her finger into the water.

“Warm.” She confirmed, “Geothermal, natural spring.” She looked to where the water was running, the stream disappeared beneath a curtain of hanging roots and further into the cave. She started following it.

The other two followed behind her.

She could hear Abby muttering to herself, “They could drink out of the springs without getting sick, but they must have had somewhere cooler to live, its too warm for them here.”

Passing through the hanging roots was like walking into another world.

Closer to the main spring, vivid green moss carpeted the rocky walls, interrupted by thick mats of liverwort and clusters of delicate ferns growing wherever faint shafts of daylight filtered through the cracks high above. White shelves of fungus clung to fallen branches washed into the cave long ago, while orange bacterial film shimmered around the hottest pools.

It was so much life brimming so far underground.

As they made their way around, illuminating the space with their sole torch, they could see where the moss was bare for the lowest three feet of wall all around the space, the whole section had been grazed down to the limestone.

Nearby, fern fronds ended in ragged edges, and the thick fungal shelves had crescent-shaped bite marks missing from them. All of the exposed roots that dangled from the ceiling had been stripped of any bark at the ends.

The mud around the water’s edge was well trodden with small footprints, overlapping one another in every direction.

They found piles of droppings tucked beneath an overhanging ledge, and eventually a well worn path to a back section of the cave, where there were cool hollows in the rock where it looked like they had bedded down.

“Poor things,” Abby said, “They must have been suffering in the warm air down here.”

Emily could see they had been trying to make the best of the situation they had found themselves in, despite living in an environment they were ill suited to. She could sympathise. Hopefully one day she could find her metaphorical ice room in this time too.

The three of them covered the area but couldn’t find any trace of any Leaellynasaura left behind.

Abby checked her phone, there was no signal down here but she was only looking for the time.

“We’ve been down here about an hour, we should go and check if the others have arrived yet.”

“The last thing we need in them going in guns blazing to the indoor pool and spooking all the creatures with the lights on the EMDs.” Jess agreed.

Emily thought Jess could probably do with a rest, the woman looked quite pale.

She guided them back into the wine cellar and out into the resort again.

They checked in on the Leaellynasaura but they were all happily bedded down in the indoor pool room, some of them happily scampering in and out of the ice room with delight.

Abby checked in with Connor, who texted that they were still about twenty minutes away.

Emily suggested they sit down for a bit, and left Jess on the swinging bed in the conservatory pool, while she and Abby went to find food in the kitchens.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Connor had never been so scared in his life at Becker’s driving, and they all fought dinosaurs for a living, hell, Connor had spent a year in the Cretaceous where he and the love of his life were in constant mortal peril.

It still paled into comparison at some of the lane swerving Becker had been doing, and he knew the needle on the speedometer hadn’t dropped below a hundred the whole drive.

Lester was going to yell at them about having to sort out speeding fines again at the next meeting, perhaps they should get special dispensation from the Minister to have some flashing lights in the car for emergencies.

At least then the traffic might move out of their way before Becker started darting between them like he had a death wish.

The text from Abby came through asking when they were arriving, but letting him know that all the creatures were contained, and there had been no further injuries.

Relief surged through him, both that everyone was okay, and that Becker could ease off on the accelerator.

Something he quickly let the man know.

He texted Abby back that they would be twenty minutes tops.

They got to the resort in fifteen because Becker, despite all assurances that he didn’t have to speed, still did.

The containment and transport units were likely still another half an hour out because they didn’t have a death wish and respected the legal speed limit.

They entered through reception and found the place unerringly quiet. There was something on the reception desk, and when Connor got closer he realised it was a bloody Mother of the Bride sash, it looked like it had been used to stauch bleeding from a wound.

“Civilians injured?” He said uncertainly, Abby had told him that there were no further injuries from when Jess called. Though Jess had said she’d been injured, it was quite a lot of blood.

They headed out through the corridors, finding one that had torn wallpaper and hundreds of overlapping footprints all down it. The only section that was clear was a small patch of carpet about halfway down the corridor.

“Something or someone was here that they moved around.” Matt commented.

“Caught in a stampede, nasty.”

Becker and Matt glared at him and he shut up again.

Eventually they opened a door and came face to face with hundreds of large glassy eyes that quickly turned to look at them.

Matt shut the door quickly.

“So we found where the creatures are contained. Now to find the others.”

Eventually they ended up passing a pool bar that also showed signs of muddy footprints everywhere, which emanated from a storm cellar door. There also seemed to be half eaten bits of lettuce and kale everywhere.

They headed towards a glass building at the back of the resort and found the others.

Connor could see the three of them lounging on a swinging bed that overlooked a pool.

Abby’s face was glowing with happiness, despite the fact she was covered in mud and small scratches. She was handing out packets of crisps and chocolate bars to the others. The three of them were chatting and laughing. Despite her assurances that everything was fine, Connor couldn’t help but be relieved at the sight of Abby unharmed.

Emily was sat primly on the bed, eating her vending machine grub with the gravitas of a six course meal.

Jess looked the worst out of them, a once-white bandage wrapped around her leg which was covered in mud along with the rest of her. There were smears of blood all down the one leg where it looked like a hasty clean up job.

Normally if Connor or Abby were injured during the course of work, they and Jess would order take out and watch a movie in the evening. They’d done the same for Jess after the beetle incident, and the future predator incident.

Not that Connor was excited that Jess was injured, but it was an excellent excuse to order Chinese food from the place Jess liked.

The three of them quickly headed into the conservatory, the girls looking up as they entered.

“What took you all so long?” Abby grinned, leaning over to kiss Connor’s cheek.

“I think I was actually in more danger on the drive over,” He whispered back.

They watched Becker looking them all over for injuries, narrowing in on the bandage on Jess’ leg, and then he started peppering her with questions about what happened, what if it needed stitches, what if it got infected.

Becker took his job at looking after them all very seriously, and he was always a bit of a mother hen when someone was injured, not that he’d ever admit it, but it was always worse when it was Jess. Which seemed to be happening more frequently of late.

“Jess alright?” He asked Abby, not wanting to bombard Jess with more questions at the minute.

“Caught in a stampede, took a stray claw to the leg. Bleeding seems to have stopped, probably okay for stitches but worth getting it checked out for infection.”

He nodded, and looked over to where Matt was checking in with Emily, the two of them were stood at an awkward distance apart.

“What’s with them?” He whispered.

Abby shrugged, “Matt’s been acting weird apparently. Didn’t manage to find out more.”

“Suppose his life’s mission is over, like, what’s he meant to do now?”

“Get his head out of his ass,” Abby snorted, then lightly tapped on Connor’s chest in excitement, “I can show you the cave system, it’s- well, it’s been depleted but it’s beautiful, the creatures have been trying to make do and adapt there. But I also want to take some samples of the plants, in case we need to create food plans for them, it’ll be good to know what they’ve been subsisting on.”

“I preferred it when I thought it was you just trying to get me to go skinny dipping in a hot spring. Now I know you just want me for the sample jars in the car.”

She grinned, and then shooed him off to the car to get the sample jars. He was glad they were falling back into light heartedness. Between the tension from working for Prospero and Phillip Burton, and the previous year where even their fun had always been underscored with the danger of their environment, it felt like the first time they could just exist as a couple.

He grabbed the jars and headed back from the car. In his absence Matt had asked to join them, the man loved anything botanical, and Emily had quickly offered to guide them. So after informing Becker, who was waiting for the containment and transport teams to arrive, they headed into the caves.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Becker watched the smile fall from Jess’ face as soon as the others had headed off.

She slumped flat on her back on the swinging bed and stared at the canopy quietly. It was unnerving seeing the usually bubbly woman so silent. Even in the grips of allergy induced hallucinations she was still commenting on his hair or about shooting tigers. The only time she had been truly silent had been when they’d arrived at the ARC after the future predators, she had gone mute from shock for hours, only speaking fully again when the medic had said Lester would pull through, after his surgery had finished.

“You okay?” He asked, wincing at the stupidity of the question.

“I froze.” She said, so quietly it was almost drowned out by the noise of the water circulating through the pool’s filters.

“What?”

“I froze. Again. I heard the screaming and I couldn’t move.” Her voice had gone wobbly, as if she was about to cry. He had absolutely no idea what to do to comfort her, but she kept talking, “And the woman from the hen do helped me. Shehelped me. I’m meant to be the ARC employee, I’m meant to help her.”

She sounded so defeated.

Becker perched on the edge of the bed, out of place in the relaxing spa environment with his Special Forces tactical gear and combat boots.

“Jess, you’re not front lines. You’re not a soldier.”

“Neither are Abby and Emily and Connor!” She turned to look at him for the first time, “But they still help people, they can still run or fight, they don’t just- stop functioning at the first sign of danger.”

“Abby and Connor spent a year in the Cretaceous, and Emily hopped around different times surviving who knows what for months. They may not be soldiers but they have front line experience.”

Jess’ lower lip stuck out slightly, almost in a pout.

“I want to be helpful.”

“You are.” He insisted, “What you do in the ARC-”

“I know I’m a good field coordinator.” She sniffed, and sat up straight. He smiled at her affronted tone, “And I’m not saying I want to do what you all do, but if something comes to the ARC again, or I end up in the field-” she gestures around her, “Or, hell! Not even dinosaurs, what if I get mugged, I don’t want to just freeze again, I want to be able to look after myself. I promised my mum I would take self defence classes, she was worried about me living alone in Central London, but then I was so busy, I never got around to it.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder, he could tell she was veering from rambling into a panic spiral, “Jess. That can be done.”

“Hm?”

“Most of it is muscle memory and trust in your own body. I can teach you some, and I’m sure Abby wouldn’t mind some company kick boxing.”

“Really?”

“Of course. What kind of exercise do you do at the minute?”

“None.”

“What?”

Jess shrugged, “I’ve always had a fast metabolism, so I’ve never really needed to exercise.”

He blinked at her, a little incomprehendingly at first. Who had never exercised? He knew his military family would have skewed his perspective somewhat, he and his brothers and dad used to run 5k every weekend growing up, they all went through cadets and basic training. But never? Even Connor had taken up jogging since coming back, he said he found it relaxing now he wasn’t being chased.

“Exercise is not just for weight loss.”

“I know,” she said, a touch defensive at his tone, “But, I skipped a couple years in school, got fast tracked for Computer Science and Mathematics at Cambridge, so never joined after school clubs. I tried to do D of E but I was four years younger and none of the sixteen year olds wanted a kid tagging along with them.”

He knew logically that she was only twenty, and for her to have both a degree and a masters meant she would have had to skip years, but he’d never really considered the knock on implications of that.

“You were fourteen when you did your degree?”

She nodded, “Turned eighteen just as I finished my masters, then worked in the Home Office in Emergency Planning and Disaster Management for a year before Lester head hunted me for a job at the ARC. So, not a lot of time to pump iron at the gym.” He was glad to see there was a least a smile on her face again.

“Fine, fine. You win. But your body is a tool, just like a gun or your computers, and you have to practice, eventually diving out of the way of a creature is muscle memory. You have to learn to act before you think.”

“So you’ll help?” She looked so hopefully at him he couldn’t say no. Technically he really didn’t have time, there was so much work to oversee with three times the recruits, and the new ones had finished their three months probationary period and it was about to bring a whole new host of teething trouble as they headed out properly into the field.

And yet-

“Of course.”

She smiled blindingly at him and threw her arms around his shoulders, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

He awkwardly patted her on the back, already trying to mentally reshuffle his schedule. He could hear the noise of tires approaching on the gravel driveway and knew the containment and transport teams had arrived.

He pulled back, “The others are here. I should-”

“I’ll come help.” She said, much more cheerily than she’d been before.

“Your leg-”

“No, this is the part I’m good at. Promise.” She grinned and shuffled off the bed, “Abby said she had a contact at her old zoo for the creatures, so I can call them to arrange it. I’ll also need to ring Lester to get them set up with the government grant for creature handling, and get a specialised vet to check them over in case the food or the chlorinated pool water upset their stomachs, oh! My phone is still upstairs, can I borrow yours?”

He handed it over.

“And I need to get NDAs for the bridal party, you brought a medic with you right? He needs to look over the bridal party, and any staff. Abby and Emily told them all to barricade themselves in their rooms until we told them to come out.”

They headed to the front of the resort, he noticed she was barely coming up passed his shoulder, he looked down to see her heels had been replaced with resort slippers that were damp and covered in mud. Despite this, she seemed to be getting back to her normal self.

The containment team were not really needed, and got put to work sheparding the creatures into the two storey transport truck that was normally used for moving sheep. Two of the new recruits got into a argument about something and broke line, letting three of the creatures scamper free, before Jackson managed to round them back up and on to the transport truck.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Matt had been curious to see if any prehistoric plants had made it through the anomaly. Seeds caught in dinosaur feet could have been brought through and propagated, but the only plants down there were from this time. He still helped collect samples of the plants for Abby.

He could feel Emily’s eyes boring into the back of his head while he did so. He knew she was upset that he was pulling away, but he knew if he told her the truth; that he had to go back to his own time, then she wouldn’t accept it. She would rally at him until he caved and stayed, and who knew what horrors that might entail. Horrors enough that a version of him had felt the need to visit him and demand he go back.

He also knew that he couldn’t pretend everything was fine, start a relationship with her like he wanted to, lead her on, knowing the whole time that he was planning to leave. He couldn’t hurt her like that.

So he was having to settle for this slow fading away, which would still hurt them both, but seemed the lesser of all the evils.

“Connor!” He heard Abby call out, “What are you doing? You’re meant to be taking samples.”

“Sorry, yeah, I am, it’s just- Well, my watch is fast.” He hit his wrist a few times, checking it against the time on his phone.

“So?” Abby said.

“It’s probably nothing, just- it’s just the oscillators gone funny.” He looked around at them, “Matt, what kind of watch are you wearing? Mechanical?”

“Yes, why?”

Connor had already grabbed Matt’s wrist and dragged it towards himself. Connor reset his watch to match Matt’s, but then he didn’t let go of Matt’s wrist.

“Ur, Connor?”

“Shh,” he said, and they stood there for a full minute, by the time the hands on both watches had done a full lap, Connor’s was a second fast again.

“So you need a new watch?” Matt did not understand Connor some times, most of the time actually. Which is what he thought a lot of people said about other people with brilliant minds.

“It’s just a bit weird that it’s here, hang on,” he got out his phone and opened some sort of app, “That’s- really weird.”

Matt could see the number on the screen changing:

347°

351°

344°

358°

349°

Connor ran to the other end of the cave, and then called back, “It’s staying the same over here.”

He ran back to where he had been standing in the middle of the cave.

“What’s wrong?” Matt asked, not likely the odd look on Connor’s face, like he was trying to make several calculations in his head very quickly.

“Okay, so you know how anomalies cause interference in the magnetic field, it’s why all the compasses go crazy.”

“Yeah,”

“So, I rewrote this app on my phone to display the phone’s raw compass sensor, because I got fed up of the compass going crazy so I wanted a quick way to visualise the magnetic field.”

“Is there an anomaly here?” Matt asked, because there was no time for labyrinthine science speak if there was an anomaly nearby.

“No, not exactly,” Connor started walking around holding out the phone, “So, anomalies distort the magnetic field when they open, but this-” he gestured between his watch and the phone, “suggests that they actually leave behind low-level electromagnetic resonance, which is slightly distorting the local magnetic field and inducing tiny electrical currents in nearby electronic circuits.”

“Connor?” Abby prompted in the tired voice of something always having to ask him to speak in plainer terms.

“It’s like bending a paperclip, you can try and put it back afterwards but it’s always going to be slightly misshapen.”

“The anomaly leaves a dent in space-time.” Matt said.

“A teeny tiny one,” Connor pinched his fingers together to emphasise his point, “I’ve never gone back to an anomaly site so long afterwards. It’s been like three months, but the resonance of where the anomaly must have been is still here.” He stopped in the middle of the cave, as if to indicate where the anomaly had opened.

“What does this mean?” Matt asked, wondering if this was just an interesting fact Connor had found out, or if it had any practical implications.

“Well, if there’s resonance after its gone, then there might be a build up of distortion in the magnetic field before, and if it takes this long for it to disapate, if it ever does-”

“Then the build up might take a while as well.” Matt finished.

“Exactly! I’ve been looking for energy spikes in radio frequency before anomalies appear, but if it’s a gradual build up of magnetic distortion- it might be harder to look for, but once you know what to look for, then you could predict it way further in advance than I thought.”

“This is good?” Emily asked.

Connor grinned, “This is great. Cutter’s prediction model went off patterns, but I’ve been struggling to follow his logic, let alone predict it myself. But this?” He waved his phone around, “This is energy and frequency, this is my jam!”

“Your jam?” She queried.

“It’s what he knows,” Abby supplied, and Emily ‘oh’d’ in understanding.

“I see. It is your jam.”

Connor held up his hand for a hi five, which Abby had introduced Emily to previously. Pleased to be back on solid ground, she hi fived him.

“Also, I am told you have a spread sheet of every dinosaur, I should like to see it.”

Connor grinned as if Christmas had come early.

Connor and Emily quickly got distracted as Connor explained it was more of a database, and promised to show her how to use it.

Matt and Abby finished collecting the samples they needed to send on to the zoo.

“Did you have a nice time?” Matt asked her, “Despite the dinosaurs?”

Abby glanced over her shoulder to make sure the other two didn’t overhear her, “You know, I think I would have been just a little bit disappointed if nothing had happened. Is that bad?” She scrunched up her face in contrition, waiting for Matt’s verdict.

“I get it.”

“You do?”

He nodded, without the stress of an impending apocalypse to avert, he had been enjoying the ‘run of the mill’ danger and excitement of regular missions. He found an ache in his chest at the thought of not being able to continue.

“Yeah,” he cleared his throat, voice gruffer with emotion than he wanted.

Abby grinned at him, “You big softie. You’re so stoic, but you love us all really.”

He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t held the uptick of the corner of his mouth. God help him, he did.

His eyes landed on Emily. He really did.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Monday morning rolled back around, and Jess was back in her station readjusting the chair and monitors. She hadn’t needed stitches but had been given a round of antibiotics just in case the wound got infected with some horrid prehistoric bacteria. Or regular bacteria, they had gone traipsing through a cave system after all.

The Leaellynasaura had been transported to Abby’s old zoo and homed temporarily in the old penguin habitat. Abby’s old work friend had been sending them videos of the creatures sliding down the icy ramps on their bellies. It was adorable.

Connor had apparently had some sort of breakthrough and was holed up in his lab again, though unlike when he worked for Prospero, Abby was able to go in and mither him, which suited both of them.

The resort had sent Jess a very lovely email thanking them all profusely for their help, and offering them a free visit should they wish to return, which she was tempted to take them up on. Though perhaps not for a while.

Despite the disruption to their relaxing weekend, it had still had the intended effect, that Jess was back and eager to throw herself into work again. Sadly it was because she wanted to put the mess of the weekend behind her, rather than being relaxed and refreshed.

The rest of Monday passed without anomaly, and without need of a clean up crew. So Jess was able to make a dent in the updates to the system, and the paperwork involved with government funds and NDAs, and all the other knock on effects of the weekend.

At the end of the day, instead of heading straight home to sack out on the sofa, she headed down to the ARC gym, and changed into her newly purchased gym clothes. The ARC gym was technically for use of all the ARC staff, though it was mostly used by the soldiers. She was slightly worried it would be packed but when she met up with Becker, it was just the two of them.

“Surprised it’s not full of soldiers in here.” She said.

“Lieutenant Maccey always starts the night shift by running drills in the training rooms. The gym is normally empty about now.”

She made a mental note that the end of day shift was a good time to come here. She imagined Becker was going to help her get started for a couple days, and then she would be on her own with this endeavour, and she did not want an audience to witness her embarassment.

“Right then, teach. Where do we start?” She looked at the rows of machines, which looked rather intimidating.

“We’ll leave off leg exercises until you’re fully healed. So today we’ll do arms, upper back, shoulders, and a bit of core.” He directed her through to a smaller room, where there was equipment but no machines, and handed her a small pair of dumbbells, “Have you ever heard of a lateral raise?”

She shook her head, wondering if she was going to regret this.    

⋆⭒˚.⋆