Previous: "Hideout"
|
Next: "Running Faster Than Ever Before"
|
Series 5 Episode 7
"Hitting Home"
The team from the ARC had found a new base. It was a little closer to home, especially for Abby, Connor and Mia, as it was their house. The Home Secretary, who closed the anomaly operations down, had chucked the team out of the ARC, and they now had to operate at secret locations.
As they entered the house, Rex flew down and perched himself on the dining table. Rex was a Coelurosauravus from the Permian era, and was Abby’s pet. Also, Sid and Nancy, Diictodons also from the Permian era, ran over. A pregnant woman in a hospital described them as ratty, chipmunk, beaver things, but Connor especially loved them dearly.
The team fled in and shut the doors. Curtains were drawn to make it look like no-one was in. No-one could find out the team were there, or they’d be arrested.
Jess wasn’t in a good mood. She’d just seen ex-team member Lloyd Daniels arrested, not long after he saved her life. She felt a connection with him, like she’d never felt before. They were a similar age, with Lloyd being 18 and Jess being 19. She sat down at the table, took out her laptop and logged in to the ARC system that Connor had uploaded there. The Anomaly Detector had been scanning whilst the laptop was off, and no anomaly had been found. Jess wasn’t taking in anything after that. All she could remember is Lloyd being carted off by the Home Secretary’s men. That moment ran on repeat in her head. Tears dropped down her soft cheek.
“Jess…”, a voice came from beside her. Jess heard it, but wasn’t listening.
“Jess!”, the voice repeated itself, louder. A female voice. Jess sat up, and looked to her left. Standing there was Mia Turner.
“Jess, are you alright?”, Mia asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine”, Jess replied, tears still forming in her eyes.
“You don’t seem it. What’s wrong?”, Mia showed her concern. She looked into Jess’ deep blue eyes. The colour was like that of the sea.
“Oh, it’s Lloyd, isn’t it?”, Mia remembered. Jess nodded.
“Come here”, Mia put her arm around Jess and pulled her gently in to her chest, giving her a friendly hug.
“I’ve been heartbroken many times. At 28, I’ve had about 5 relationships, about three before I was 20. The heartbreak doesn’t get any easier”, Mia confessed.
“I’m not heartbroken”, Jess lied.
“Jess, I know when someone’s heartbroken. I’ve seen it a thousand times, and felt it about that many times aswell”
“It’s…it’s just I’ve never felt like this before. There was something special. I know he felt it too”
“Lloyd’s a good lad. He’ll be released before long”, Mia added. Jess nodded, wiped her tears and started typing things on the laptop. Mia stood up, and was approached by Harry.
“Is she OK?”, Harry quietly spoke.
“Yeah, just a little shocked”, Mia revealed.
“She’s a soldier, she is. Normally when I’m in a bad mood I just take a day off”, Harry confessed, then realised what she said, “…not that I do it often…”
“Yeah…”, Mia sarcastically replied. Both laughed together, “But we’re all a little shocked. The best thing we can do is move on and not let it phase us”.
Meanwhile, Jenny was listening to one of Cutter’s stories about his days working at the Central Metropolitan University. Since Jenny had saved Cutter from certain death, they’d been in what the team knew was a relationship, even though they’d never admit it themselves. Claudia watched them both. She was happy for Jenny. She’d been lucky in love since coming into this reality. Claudia not so much.
James Lester was being shown some more techniques of the Detector by Jess. She wanted to go out on the team whilst they were without the ARC, so Lester had to do field co-ordination. He was useless with computers, so Jess was giving him lessons.
Connor, Abby and Mia were watching TV. It was their house, they could do whatever they wanted whilst they waited for an anomaly signal. Life without the ARC was certainly hard, as there was basically nothing to do in the meantime. Sarah sat with Harry looking through papers. Harry let out a mighty yawn. And Claudia was chatting with Danny about the recent events. Both were extremely different people so they both found it interesting to learn the opposite person’s view.
DING DING! DING DING! DING DING!
The quieter and poorer quality version of the Detector rang off, and as the team were about to move to tend to it, they saw an anomaly open in the flat.
“Not again…”, Abby sighed. An anomaly had opened in the flat before, and a Gorgonopsid came through and wrecked it.
“We need to get out”, Danny decided.
“What? We can’t just leave this open and let the flat get wrecked again”, Abby defended.
“We’ll come back. We can’t let the soldiers from the Home Office see our stuff here. We’ll get arrested. Just like Lloyd was”, Danny continued. Abby nodded, and led the team out the front door. They quickly plonked their stuff across two cars, and Cutter and Abby hid them. They all met back inside, and Connor set up the locking mechanism. Just a moment before he pressed the button, he spotted a car pull up outside, through a tiny gap in the curtains.
“Guys…”, Connor started to tell them.
“Connor, just lock the anomaly”, Cutter ordered.
“A car has pulled up outside”, Connor announced. They could hear soldiers talking.
“There’s no back door”, Abby told them.
“Hide!”, Sarah quickly thought. The team pounded upstairs and found themselves hiding places. Connor’s especially was ridiculous - the bath tub.
The door was bashed open. The soldiers were greeted by an anomaly locker, aswell as the unlocked anomaly.
“They’re here”, one soldier said.
“Temple, Maitland and Turner live here”, a familiar voice announced. Sarah was listening from Abby’s wardrobe. She recognised that voice - Captain Mitchell!
“I’ll go and search the flat. They can’t be found here”, Mitchell spoke. Each member of the team sighed. They were as stuffed as a teddy now. Soldiers pounded up the stairs. Connor was found instantly, due to his poor hiding place. Mia was found in the shower, and Abby found under her duvet. The soldiers then retreated back downstairs, thinking the rest of the team wouldn’t be there. Sarah heard Abby being taken away and was worried. She opened the wardrobe door slightly, and peeked. No-one was there. She crept out, being as quiet as a mouse (well, even quieter). She sneaked out of the bedroom, and bumped into someone. She leapt back in fright, and saw it was Harry, doing the same, but from Connor and Mia’s room.
“They’ve taken Abby”, Sarah told Harry.
“Oh dear. We need to cause a distraction”, Harry thought.
“Is anyone else in there? They must be. Only I was in there”, Sarah questioned.
“Basically everyone, apart from Connor, Mia, Abby and yourself. There’s loads of Connor’s tosh to hide behind”, Harry joked.
“So Connor and Mia were in the bathroom. OK, thanks”
“Now, how do we sort out this distraction?”
“I’ve got an idea”, Sarah said.
”What are you doing here?”, Mitchell asked Abby, Connor and Mia. They were sat on their sofa, handcuffed.
“We live here”, Mia laughed. Mitchell pointed his gun at Mia.
“This is no laughing matter. You’re not meant to be anywhere near an anomaly”, Mitchell stuck to the rules.
“Ever heard of a coincidence?”, Connor replied. Mitchell was silenced, until he heard a large growl.
“What’s that?”, Mitchell asked.
“Sounds a lot like a Dromeosaurus. Not that you’d know what that is. You’re just a soldier”, Connor teased.
“That’s a Raptor, right?”, Mia whispered to Connor. He nodded back to her.
“Lock the anomaly”, Mitchell ordered a soldier about. But before he finished that sentence, a Raptor ran through the anomaly.
”Shoot it, now!”, Mitchell threw yet another order. The soldiers were getting annoyed with him taking control. He wasn’t usually like this. But they obeyed him like he was their master. They shot the Raptor dead.
“You could’ve just altered history by doing that”, Abby teased Mitchell. She managed to keep a straight face whilst saying that. The anomaly was quickly locked, and they were yet again distracted by something - creaking from the stairs.
“Woah, woah, what are you doing here?”, James Lester asked when he saw Mitchell. Lester was part of Sarah’s plan.
“We could ask you the same. Arrest him. Check upstairs for the rest of the team, they must be here too”, Mitchell threw orders left right and centre.
“Don’t bother, it’s only me here. I promise”, Lester claimed.
“Where were you when we searched the place?”, Mitchell queried.
“I hid. I didn’t know who you were”
“Why are you here?”
I was told to come here by someone”, Lester lied.
“Who?”, Mitchell asked.
“Errr…Harry…Cairns. Yes. Harry Cairns. I believe he works for the Home Office?”, Lester made this up as he went along.
“HC - Helen Cutter”, Abby whispered to the other two. They laughed.
“Never heard of him”, Mitchell replied.
“Not your department”, Lester continued.
“Let’s take him back to the Home Secretary. See what she makes of this. There are clearly no creatures here, so let’s go”, Mitchell decided. He then looked at Abby, Connor and Mia, who were handcuffed and sitting on the sofa, “As for you three, stay away from this operation. You have nothing to do with it anymore”.
“What happened to you, Mitchell?”, Connor asked. Mitchell looked at him and then walked away. The two remaining soldiers in the house un-cuffed the trio. Once the house was clear of soldiers, Connor called the others down.
”Where’s Lester?”, Cutter asked.
“They took him for questioning”, Connor answered.
”This is dangerous”, Claudia mentioned.
“Let’s find somewhere new”, Jenny thought.
”My house”, Claudia suggested, “It has a back door, at least”.
“Our houses are too risky”, Cutter said.
“We just need somewhere for the moment. It’s unlikely there’ll be another anomaly today anyway”, Claudia argued her point.
“Right, let’s go”, Danny decided. The team went outside, just as the soldiers’ cars were about to leave.
“Stop right there”, Mitchell shouted as soon as he saw them. The team started legging it to the cars. Jess took off her high heels when she did so. Guns were being fired, and windscreens being shattered. The team narrowly escaped round the corner, and scrambled into the cars. The soldiers ran after them, and moved right out of the way as the cars sped off.
“Follow them, QUICK!”, Mitchell was angry. Lester watched from the car window, and smiled to himself.
As they entered the house, Rex flew down and perched himself on the dining table. Rex was a Coelurosauravus from the Permian era, and was Abby’s pet. Also, Sid and Nancy, Diictodons also from the Permian era, ran over. A pregnant woman in a hospital described them as ratty, chipmunk, beaver things, but Connor especially loved them dearly.
The team fled in and shut the doors. Curtains were drawn to make it look like no-one was in. No-one could find out the team were there, or they’d be arrested.
Jess wasn’t in a good mood. She’d just seen ex-team member Lloyd Daniels arrested, not long after he saved her life. She felt a connection with him, like she’d never felt before. They were a similar age, with Lloyd being 18 and Jess being 19. She sat down at the table, took out her laptop and logged in to the ARC system that Connor had uploaded there. The Anomaly Detector had been scanning whilst the laptop was off, and no anomaly had been found. Jess wasn’t taking in anything after that. All she could remember is Lloyd being carted off by the Home Secretary’s men. That moment ran on repeat in her head. Tears dropped down her soft cheek.
“Jess…”, a voice came from beside her. Jess heard it, but wasn’t listening.
“Jess!”, the voice repeated itself, louder. A female voice. Jess sat up, and looked to her left. Standing there was Mia Turner.
“Jess, are you alright?”, Mia asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine”, Jess replied, tears still forming in her eyes.
“You don’t seem it. What’s wrong?”, Mia showed her concern. She looked into Jess’ deep blue eyes. The colour was like that of the sea.
“Oh, it’s Lloyd, isn’t it?”, Mia remembered. Jess nodded.
“Come here”, Mia put her arm around Jess and pulled her gently in to her chest, giving her a friendly hug.
“I’ve been heartbroken many times. At 28, I’ve had about 5 relationships, about three before I was 20. The heartbreak doesn’t get any easier”, Mia confessed.
“I’m not heartbroken”, Jess lied.
“Jess, I know when someone’s heartbroken. I’ve seen it a thousand times, and felt it about that many times aswell”
“It’s…it’s just I’ve never felt like this before. There was something special. I know he felt it too”
“Lloyd’s a good lad. He’ll be released before long”, Mia added. Jess nodded, wiped her tears and started typing things on the laptop. Mia stood up, and was approached by Harry.
“Is she OK?”, Harry quietly spoke.
“Yeah, just a little shocked”, Mia revealed.
“She’s a soldier, she is. Normally when I’m in a bad mood I just take a day off”, Harry confessed, then realised what she said, “…not that I do it often…”
“Yeah…”, Mia sarcastically replied. Both laughed together, “But we’re all a little shocked. The best thing we can do is move on and not let it phase us”.
Meanwhile, Jenny was listening to one of Cutter’s stories about his days working at the Central Metropolitan University. Since Jenny had saved Cutter from certain death, they’d been in what the team knew was a relationship, even though they’d never admit it themselves. Claudia watched them both. She was happy for Jenny. She’d been lucky in love since coming into this reality. Claudia not so much.
James Lester was being shown some more techniques of the Detector by Jess. She wanted to go out on the team whilst they were without the ARC, so Lester had to do field co-ordination. He was useless with computers, so Jess was giving him lessons.
Connor, Abby and Mia were watching TV. It was their house, they could do whatever they wanted whilst they waited for an anomaly signal. Life without the ARC was certainly hard, as there was basically nothing to do in the meantime. Sarah sat with Harry looking through papers. Harry let out a mighty yawn. And Claudia was chatting with Danny about the recent events. Both were extremely different people so they both found it interesting to learn the opposite person’s view.
DING DING! DING DING! DING DING!
The quieter and poorer quality version of the Detector rang off, and as the team were about to move to tend to it, they saw an anomaly open in the flat.
“Not again…”, Abby sighed. An anomaly had opened in the flat before, and a Gorgonopsid came through and wrecked it.
“We need to get out”, Danny decided.
“What? We can’t just leave this open and let the flat get wrecked again”, Abby defended.
“We’ll come back. We can’t let the soldiers from the Home Office see our stuff here. We’ll get arrested. Just like Lloyd was”, Danny continued. Abby nodded, and led the team out the front door. They quickly plonked their stuff across two cars, and Cutter and Abby hid them. They all met back inside, and Connor set up the locking mechanism. Just a moment before he pressed the button, he spotted a car pull up outside, through a tiny gap in the curtains.
“Guys…”, Connor started to tell them.
“Connor, just lock the anomaly”, Cutter ordered.
“A car has pulled up outside”, Connor announced. They could hear soldiers talking.
“There’s no back door”, Abby told them.
“Hide!”, Sarah quickly thought. The team pounded upstairs and found themselves hiding places. Connor’s especially was ridiculous - the bath tub.
The door was bashed open. The soldiers were greeted by an anomaly locker, aswell as the unlocked anomaly.
“They’re here”, one soldier said.
“Temple, Maitland and Turner live here”, a familiar voice announced. Sarah was listening from Abby’s wardrobe. She recognised that voice - Captain Mitchell!
“I’ll go and search the flat. They can’t be found here”, Mitchell spoke. Each member of the team sighed. They were as stuffed as a teddy now. Soldiers pounded up the stairs. Connor was found instantly, due to his poor hiding place. Mia was found in the shower, and Abby found under her duvet. The soldiers then retreated back downstairs, thinking the rest of the team wouldn’t be there. Sarah heard Abby being taken away and was worried. She opened the wardrobe door slightly, and peeked. No-one was there. She crept out, being as quiet as a mouse (well, even quieter). She sneaked out of the bedroom, and bumped into someone. She leapt back in fright, and saw it was Harry, doing the same, but from Connor and Mia’s room.
“They’ve taken Abby”, Sarah told Harry.
“Oh dear. We need to cause a distraction”, Harry thought.
“Is anyone else in there? They must be. Only I was in there”, Sarah questioned.
“Basically everyone, apart from Connor, Mia, Abby and yourself. There’s loads of Connor’s tosh to hide behind”, Harry joked.
“So Connor and Mia were in the bathroom. OK, thanks”
“Now, how do we sort out this distraction?”
“I’ve got an idea”, Sarah said.
”What are you doing here?”, Mitchell asked Abby, Connor and Mia. They were sat on their sofa, handcuffed.
“We live here”, Mia laughed. Mitchell pointed his gun at Mia.
“This is no laughing matter. You’re not meant to be anywhere near an anomaly”, Mitchell stuck to the rules.
“Ever heard of a coincidence?”, Connor replied. Mitchell was silenced, until he heard a large growl.
“What’s that?”, Mitchell asked.
“Sounds a lot like a Dromeosaurus. Not that you’d know what that is. You’re just a soldier”, Connor teased.
“That’s a Raptor, right?”, Mia whispered to Connor. He nodded back to her.
“Lock the anomaly”, Mitchell ordered a soldier about. But before he finished that sentence, a Raptor ran through the anomaly.
”Shoot it, now!”, Mitchell threw yet another order. The soldiers were getting annoyed with him taking control. He wasn’t usually like this. But they obeyed him like he was their master. They shot the Raptor dead.
“You could’ve just altered history by doing that”, Abby teased Mitchell. She managed to keep a straight face whilst saying that. The anomaly was quickly locked, and they were yet again distracted by something - creaking from the stairs.
“Woah, woah, what are you doing here?”, James Lester asked when he saw Mitchell. Lester was part of Sarah’s plan.
“We could ask you the same. Arrest him. Check upstairs for the rest of the team, they must be here too”, Mitchell threw orders left right and centre.
“Don’t bother, it’s only me here. I promise”, Lester claimed.
“Where were you when we searched the place?”, Mitchell queried.
“I hid. I didn’t know who you were”
“Why are you here?”
I was told to come here by someone”, Lester lied.
“Who?”, Mitchell asked.
“Errr…Harry…Cairns. Yes. Harry Cairns. I believe he works for the Home Office?”, Lester made this up as he went along.
“HC - Helen Cutter”, Abby whispered to the other two. They laughed.
“Never heard of him”, Mitchell replied.
“Not your department”, Lester continued.
“Let’s take him back to the Home Secretary. See what she makes of this. There are clearly no creatures here, so let’s go”, Mitchell decided. He then looked at Abby, Connor and Mia, who were handcuffed and sitting on the sofa, “As for you three, stay away from this operation. You have nothing to do with it anymore”.
“What happened to you, Mitchell?”, Connor asked. Mitchell looked at him and then walked away. The two remaining soldiers in the house un-cuffed the trio. Once the house was clear of soldiers, Connor called the others down.
”Where’s Lester?”, Cutter asked.
“They took him for questioning”, Connor answered.
”This is dangerous”, Claudia mentioned.
“Let’s find somewhere new”, Jenny thought.
”My house”, Claudia suggested, “It has a back door, at least”.
“Our houses are too risky”, Cutter said.
“We just need somewhere for the moment. It’s unlikely there’ll be another anomaly today anyway”, Claudia argued her point.
“Right, let’s go”, Danny decided. The team went outside, just as the soldiers’ cars were about to leave.
“Stop right there”, Mitchell shouted as soon as he saw them. The team started legging it to the cars. Jess took off her high heels when she did so. Guns were being fired, and windscreens being shattered. The team narrowly escaped round the corner, and scrambled into the cars. The soldiers ran after them, and moved right out of the way as the cars sped off.
“Follow them, QUICK!”, Mitchell was angry. Lester watched from the car window, and smiled to himself.
Next: "Running Faster Than Ever Before"
|