Fic, Silk and Steel, Part 58, AU, 18
Sep. 1st, 2010 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredbassettTitle : Silk and Steel, Part 58
Authors : fredbassett & munchkinofdoom
Fandom : Primeval
Characters : Leek, Lyle, Thomson, Helen, Connor, Blade, Lacey, Lorraine
Rating : 18
Disclaimer : Not ours, no money made, don’t sue
Spoilers : None
Summary : Leek attempts to find out who is pulling the strings now.
Warning : Slave!fic. References to scenes of violence, including rape.
A/N : Captain Thomson appears by kind permission of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deinonychus_1, Tanya Lacey appears by kind permission of reggietate.
*****
Oliver Leek stood to one side of the corridor, watching as the two black-uniformed medics moved Captain Ryan carefully onto a stretcher and made their way rapidly back to the infirmary with him, a blanket thrown over his naked body. Lyle remained behind, wearing a grim expression, but with his temper still held firmly in check.
Leek admired the soldier’s composure.
But not as much as he admired that being shown by James Lester.
The man had just lost a very dangerous game of cat and mouse being played for real by Captain Thomson. Leek was under no illusion about the purpose of Ryan’s torture. Despite the very real threat presented by the sabotage of the Anomaly Detection Device, the abuse hadn’t been designed to break Ryan – any information gained from him would simply have been a bonus – it had been designed to break Lester, and Thomson had succeeded in that primary objective.
What Leek didn’t understand was why, when Thomson had just succeeded in claiming control of the ARC for the military, he had then promptly relinquished his prize into Leek’s hands.
The object of his curiosity made a polite hand-gesture to Lester, inviting him to precede him down the corridor. Lester threw him a haughty look and stalked off without a backward glance.
Thomson turned to Leek, his face schooled into an expression of respect. “I’ll attend you in your office as soon as the drugs tests have been administered and I have made arrangements for Sir James’s custody, master.” He glanced at Lyle. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that Mr Leek’s safety remains your absolute priority, Lieutenant.”
Lyle saluted in acknowledgment. “Sir.”
Leek smiled in what he hoped was a suitably ingratiating way at Thomson. Until he had a better idea what the man’s game was, he deemed it time to fall back on tried and tested methods. “Thank you, Captain. And while I remember, we don’t need to stand on ceremony between us, ‘Sir’ will be quite sufficient.”
Thomson smiled. “Thank you, sir, now, if you’ll excuse me …”
Leek nodded and watched as the burly captain marched quickly in Lester’s wake, leaving him standing in the deserted corridor with Lyle at his side. A quick look at his bodyguard told Leek that Lyle’s nerves had been stretched to breaking point by Ryan’s torture and rape. The soldier was swallowing hard in a way that told Leek all he needed to know. With a quick jerk of his head, Leek turned on his heel and made his way to the nearest toilets.
He held the door open and stood to one side as Lyle bolted past him to a washbasin and was promptly sick. Leek grabbed a ‘cleaning in progress’ sign and placed it outside the door. The sight of Lyle retching made his own gorge rise, but he managed to suppress his body’s reactions in favour of grabbing a handful of paper towels and handing one of them to the lieutenant when he finally straightened up.
Lyle wiped his mouth and then crumpled the paper savagely in his fist, but before he could move or speak, a fresh bout of sickness hit him and he doubled up over the basin again. Eventually, when Lyle had reached the stage of dry-heaving, Leek laid a hand on his shoulder, half-expecting a violent reaction, and said, “Wait here and I’ll get you a drink of water.”
Lyle pushed himself upright, leaning heavily on the basin. “Not on your own. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not sure ‘fine’ is an adequate description for any of this mess, Lyle.” Leek reached out and turned on one of the taps, letting the water swirl into the basin until the porcelain was clean again.
Lyle looked down at the running water and any remaining blood drained out of his face. He retched again but there was nothing left to bring up. Leek handed him another paper towel and kept his hand on the soldier’s shoulder. “You did well back there, Lyle. I know how fucking hard it was. Now come on, we need to work out what the hell is going on around here.”
“Game on?” said the Special Forces lieutenant bitterly.
Leek gripped Lyle’s shoulder hard. “Game on. Thomson’s won this round, but I still don’t have a fucking clue what he’s playing at, although I intend to find out.”
“And what’s my role in all this?”
“Doing what you’re good at. Keeping me alive.”
With Lyle as his shadow, Leek made his way back towards the atrium. Even though it was now mid-evening, the ARC still seemed to be teeming with people. He suspected that Thomson had actually put the facility into full lockdown while he investigated the sabotage, but he didn’t want to betray his own ignorance, and everyone he met in the corridor seemed intent on keeping their head down and minding their own business. No one even met his eyes.
Apart from Helen Cutter.
The woman was lounging in a chair in the command centre. She favoured him with a wide smile, then went back to watching Connor Temple, who appeared to be still running a battery of tests on extracts from the security footage. The young man looked dead on his feet. His normally haphazard movements had been rendered jerky by a combination of exhaustion, pain and stress. He didn’t even appear to register Leek’s presence in the cavernous room.
The same wasn’t true of the soldier still standing guard by the side of the Anomaly Detection Device. Leek recognised him as the green-eyed knife specialist who’d been doubling as Annie Morris’s bodyguard. From what he remembered of the man’s file, he had extensive close personal protection experience, which is no doubt why Lester had assigned him to his old friend. The other soldier on duty was the female, Lacey, if his memory served him right. She was looking down at Connor like a mother bird protecting her chick.
Leek took an executive decision. He very much doubted that Connor would succeed in extracting any useful information from the security footage and it was more important to ensure that the computer expert regained some of his critical faculties, rather than ploughing on, running solely on adrenaline.
The two soldiers came to attention and saluted, their faces wary.
Lyle returned their salutes and Leek acknowledged them with a nod. The movement alerted Connor to the fact that someone else had arrived on the scene. He turned around, eyes wide and frightened, pushing back his chair at the same time and coming very close to landing himself in an ungainly heap on the floor.
“You need to get some rest, Mr Temple,” Leek said, holding his hand up to forestall Connor’s inevitable babbling. “Private Lacey will escort you a restroom. One of the other technicians can take over monitoring the ADD.” But it wouldn’t be the one who’d recently been on the receiving end of Miller’s tender ministrations. He very much doubted that unfortunate human being was in any fit state to return to work.
Connor looked as wary as the soldiers, his eyes bright with an excess of caffeine.
The female soldier was more decisive. She reached down and hoisted Connor out of his chair, muttering, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Conn.”
Leek wondered, with a brief flash of amusement, whether Connor was far enough gone to counter with a line about Greeks bearing gifts, but Lacey didn’t give him any chance to put his foot in it, nor did the soldier nicknamed Blade.
“I’ll call the Duty Tech.” Blade stepped forward, pressed a button on the command console and announced, “Duty Technician to the Control Room. I repeat, Duty Technician to the Control Room immediately.”
The harsh tones of the public address system brought a frightened technician running into the atrium in a matter of moments. Leek was pleased to see that Thomson’s zeal hadn’t managed to incapacitate the entire technical staff of the ARC.
Without a further glance at Helen Cutter, Leek made his way up the winding ramp to the first floor, Lyle at his heels, heading for his own office. As he passed the open door to Lester’s suite, Lyle cleared his throat meaningfully. Leek brought himself up short and smoothly changed direction to enter the office that was now – however temporarily – his domain.
Lorraine Wickes, Lester’s highly efficient secretary, looked up at him, her eyes round with anticipation.
“Sir James has been temporarily relieved of his duties, Lorraine,” he said, as gently as he could. “Your position remains unaltered, and I know I can rely on your full support.”
Her eyes widened even further, and there was a tremor in her face as she whispered, “Yes, Mr Leek.” As the words left her mouth, her hand flew unconsciously to the steel band encircling her throat, and she opened her mouth, no doubt to apologise for the presumption of using his name.
“‘Mr Leek’ will be fine, Lorraine.” He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile and repeated his earlier words to Thomson, “We don’t need to stand on ceremony. But a cup of your excellent coffee would be very much appreciated. And I think Lieutenant Lyle would like some water.”
She jumped to her feet, recovering her composure admirably. “Of course, Mr Leek. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Leek took another decision. “Yes, get Lord Newnam on the line for me. Call his residence.” He scribbled the number on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “But coffee first, I think.”
Lorraine bobbed her head and hurried to do his bidding.
Leek stared around Lester’s office, remembering all the times he’d pictured himself in here, doing Lester’s job, drawing Lester’s salary and looking forward to Lester’s pension. What he hadn’t anticipated was finding himself caught up in a power struggle that he barely even understood. His backers had been signally unforthcoming on the subject of the attack on the ARC. He’d known it was coming, ostensibly providing the reason for a greater military presence in the person of Thomson and his men, one that owed no personal loyalty to the project itself, but there to serve any outside perception of the greater good, but what he hadn’t expected was to end up under direct personal threat.
And what he still didn’t know was how anybody had expected to retain control of the creatures that had been sent against them, and where the hell the technology in use against them had come from. There was still a hell of a lot he didn’t know, and he was starting to wonder who was in possession of all the facts. If anyone was.
Lorraine set a tray of freshly-brewed coffee, some chocolate biscuits and a jug of iced water on a table and proceeded to dispense the drinks. Leek took a grateful sip, but decided not to chance a biscuit. His stomach was still churning unpleasantly.
“If Lorraine succeeds in getting Newnam on the line, stay out of line of the vid-camera, Lyle.”
The lieutenant nodded, and sipped the cold water. Connor Temple wasn’t the only one who was looking exhausted. Leek made a mental note to ensure that one of the other soldiers was available for guard duty at his home tonight as well. Presuming he ever got there before morning.
“I have Lord Newnam’s private secretary on the line, Mr Leek. Lord Newnam is available for a short call. I’ll put you through now.”
The computer screen on the desk suddenly held an image of a man in his late sixties, white-haired, with a round, ruddy-cheeked face, dressed in a dinner jacket and black bow-tie over an immaculate white dress shirt.
“Oliver,” the man smiled in an avuncular manner. “You’ll be glad to know that the PM’s office has done a sterling job of containing the news of today’s events. Do I take it that you are now occupying the seat of power, so to speak?”
The calm assumption that Lester had somehow already been deposed took Leek wholly by surprise. He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry, and nodded.
Lord Newnam smiled even more widely. “I’ll tell the PM to expect your report in the morning. I presume that for once in his life James failed to retain his much-vaunted composure?”
All too aware of the fact that he hadn’t managed to contribute verbally to this exchange yet, Leek nodded again, wondering how the hell the Prime Minister’s closest advisor knew what had just happened. Or maybe it was a guess based on knowledge of what had been intended to happen? A sudden chill seeped into Leek’s bones.
“Captain Thomson was most … diligent in his methods,” Leek said, managing to force the words out past dry lips. “Sir James was concerned that Thomson was exceeding his remit where the questioning of the ARC’s Head of Security was concerned.”
Lord Newnam made a dismissive noise. “Needs must, and all that, Oliver, as I’m sure you’re aware. The children of several influential parents are dead; the public will expect someone’s head on a plate. The soldier is disposable. So is Lester, for that matter, and I’m sure the PM will come around to that way of thinking if necessary, although knowing James he’ll still find a way to come up smelling of roses, he normally does.”
Leek swallowed hard. It wasn’t so very long ago that he’d been the disposable one.
“Anyway, I’m sure the ARC is safe in your hands for the moment,” said Newnam, with another false smile. “And Thomson is a good man. You can rely on him.” The peer glanced down at his watch. “I must go, Oliver, I’m expected at Number 10 shortly. The PM will no doubt wish to speak to you in person in the morning.”
Before Leek had the chance to reply, the screen went blank.
He sat there, staring at it while his coffee cooled, turning Newnam’s words over in his mind, until an amused voice from the doorway drawled, “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, Oliver? Never mind, it won’t be for long.”
As ever, Helen Cutter wore an expression of supreme self-confidence. And, once again, Oliver Leek found himself at a loss for a smart rejoinder.
But what he did know was that Cutter’s ex-wife was really starting to get on what was left of his nerves.
Authors : fredbassett & munchkinofdoom
Fandom : Primeval
Characters : Leek, Lyle, Thomson, Helen, Connor, Blade, Lacey, Lorraine
Rating : 18
Disclaimer : Not ours, no money made, don’t sue
Spoilers : None
Summary : Leek attempts to find out who is pulling the strings now.
Warning : Slave!fic. References to scenes of violence, including rape.
A/N : Captain Thomson appears by kind permission of
deinonychus_1, Tanya Lacey appears by kind permission of reggietate.*****
Oliver Leek stood to one side of the corridor, watching as the two black-uniformed medics moved Captain Ryan carefully onto a stretcher and made their way rapidly back to the infirmary with him, a blanket thrown over his naked body. Lyle remained behind, wearing a grim expression, but with his temper still held firmly in check.
Leek admired the soldier’s composure.
But not as much as he admired that being shown by James Lester.
The man had just lost a very dangerous game of cat and mouse being played for real by Captain Thomson. Leek was under no illusion about the purpose of Ryan’s torture. Despite the very real threat presented by the sabotage of the Anomaly Detection Device, the abuse hadn’t been designed to break Ryan – any information gained from him would simply have been a bonus – it had been designed to break Lester, and Thomson had succeeded in that primary objective.
What Leek didn’t understand was why, when Thomson had just succeeded in claiming control of the ARC for the military, he had then promptly relinquished his prize into Leek’s hands.
The object of his curiosity made a polite hand-gesture to Lester, inviting him to precede him down the corridor. Lester threw him a haughty look and stalked off without a backward glance.
Thomson turned to Leek, his face schooled into an expression of respect. “I’ll attend you in your office as soon as the drugs tests have been administered and I have made arrangements for Sir James’s custody, master.” He glanced at Lyle. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that Mr Leek’s safety remains your absolute priority, Lieutenant.”
Lyle saluted in acknowledgment. “Sir.”
Leek smiled in what he hoped was a suitably ingratiating way at Thomson. Until he had a better idea what the man’s game was, he deemed it time to fall back on tried and tested methods. “Thank you, Captain. And while I remember, we don’t need to stand on ceremony between us, ‘Sir’ will be quite sufficient.”
Thomson smiled. “Thank you, sir, now, if you’ll excuse me …”
Leek nodded and watched as the burly captain marched quickly in Lester’s wake, leaving him standing in the deserted corridor with Lyle at his side. A quick look at his bodyguard told Leek that Lyle’s nerves had been stretched to breaking point by Ryan’s torture and rape. The soldier was swallowing hard in a way that told Leek all he needed to know. With a quick jerk of his head, Leek turned on his heel and made his way to the nearest toilets.
He held the door open and stood to one side as Lyle bolted past him to a washbasin and was promptly sick. Leek grabbed a ‘cleaning in progress’ sign and placed it outside the door. The sight of Lyle retching made his own gorge rise, but he managed to suppress his body’s reactions in favour of grabbing a handful of paper towels and handing one of them to the lieutenant when he finally straightened up.
Lyle wiped his mouth and then crumpled the paper savagely in his fist, but before he could move or speak, a fresh bout of sickness hit him and he doubled up over the basin again. Eventually, when Lyle had reached the stage of dry-heaving, Leek laid a hand on his shoulder, half-expecting a violent reaction, and said, “Wait here and I’ll get you a drink of water.”
Lyle pushed himself upright, leaning heavily on the basin. “Not on your own. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not sure ‘fine’ is an adequate description for any of this mess, Lyle.” Leek reached out and turned on one of the taps, letting the water swirl into the basin until the porcelain was clean again.
Lyle looked down at the running water and any remaining blood drained out of his face. He retched again but there was nothing left to bring up. Leek handed him another paper towel and kept his hand on the soldier’s shoulder. “You did well back there, Lyle. I know how fucking hard it was. Now come on, we need to work out what the hell is going on around here.”
“Game on?” said the Special Forces lieutenant bitterly.
Leek gripped Lyle’s shoulder hard. “Game on. Thomson’s won this round, but I still don’t have a fucking clue what he’s playing at, although I intend to find out.”
“And what’s my role in all this?”
“Doing what you’re good at. Keeping me alive.”
With Lyle as his shadow, Leek made his way back towards the atrium. Even though it was now mid-evening, the ARC still seemed to be teeming with people. He suspected that Thomson had actually put the facility into full lockdown while he investigated the sabotage, but he didn’t want to betray his own ignorance, and everyone he met in the corridor seemed intent on keeping their head down and minding their own business. No one even met his eyes.
Apart from Helen Cutter.
The woman was lounging in a chair in the command centre. She favoured him with a wide smile, then went back to watching Connor Temple, who appeared to be still running a battery of tests on extracts from the security footage. The young man looked dead on his feet. His normally haphazard movements had been rendered jerky by a combination of exhaustion, pain and stress. He didn’t even appear to register Leek’s presence in the cavernous room.
The same wasn’t true of the soldier still standing guard by the side of the Anomaly Detection Device. Leek recognised him as the green-eyed knife specialist who’d been doubling as Annie Morris’s bodyguard. From what he remembered of the man’s file, he had extensive close personal protection experience, which is no doubt why Lester had assigned him to his old friend. The other soldier on duty was the female, Lacey, if his memory served him right. She was looking down at Connor like a mother bird protecting her chick.
Leek took an executive decision. He very much doubted that Connor would succeed in extracting any useful information from the security footage and it was more important to ensure that the computer expert regained some of his critical faculties, rather than ploughing on, running solely on adrenaline.
The two soldiers came to attention and saluted, their faces wary.
Lyle returned their salutes and Leek acknowledged them with a nod. The movement alerted Connor to the fact that someone else had arrived on the scene. He turned around, eyes wide and frightened, pushing back his chair at the same time and coming very close to landing himself in an ungainly heap on the floor.
“You need to get some rest, Mr Temple,” Leek said, holding his hand up to forestall Connor’s inevitable babbling. “Private Lacey will escort you a restroom. One of the other technicians can take over monitoring the ADD.” But it wouldn’t be the one who’d recently been on the receiving end of Miller’s tender ministrations. He very much doubted that unfortunate human being was in any fit state to return to work.
Connor looked as wary as the soldiers, his eyes bright with an excess of caffeine.
The female soldier was more decisive. She reached down and hoisted Connor out of his chair, muttering, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Conn.”
Leek wondered, with a brief flash of amusement, whether Connor was far enough gone to counter with a line about Greeks bearing gifts, but Lacey didn’t give him any chance to put his foot in it, nor did the soldier nicknamed Blade.
“I’ll call the Duty Tech.” Blade stepped forward, pressed a button on the command console and announced, “Duty Technician to the Control Room. I repeat, Duty Technician to the Control Room immediately.”
The harsh tones of the public address system brought a frightened technician running into the atrium in a matter of moments. Leek was pleased to see that Thomson’s zeal hadn’t managed to incapacitate the entire technical staff of the ARC.
Without a further glance at Helen Cutter, Leek made his way up the winding ramp to the first floor, Lyle at his heels, heading for his own office. As he passed the open door to Lester’s suite, Lyle cleared his throat meaningfully. Leek brought himself up short and smoothly changed direction to enter the office that was now – however temporarily – his domain.
Lorraine Wickes, Lester’s highly efficient secretary, looked up at him, her eyes round with anticipation.
“Sir James has been temporarily relieved of his duties, Lorraine,” he said, as gently as he could. “Your position remains unaltered, and I know I can rely on your full support.”
Her eyes widened even further, and there was a tremor in her face as she whispered, “Yes, Mr Leek.” As the words left her mouth, her hand flew unconsciously to the steel band encircling her throat, and she opened her mouth, no doubt to apologise for the presumption of using his name.
“‘Mr Leek’ will be fine, Lorraine.” He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile and repeated his earlier words to Thomson, “We don’t need to stand on ceremony. But a cup of your excellent coffee would be very much appreciated. And I think Lieutenant Lyle would like some water.”
She jumped to her feet, recovering her composure admirably. “Of course, Mr Leek. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Leek took another decision. “Yes, get Lord Newnam on the line for me. Call his residence.” He scribbled the number on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “But coffee first, I think.”
Lorraine bobbed her head and hurried to do his bidding.
Leek stared around Lester’s office, remembering all the times he’d pictured himself in here, doing Lester’s job, drawing Lester’s salary and looking forward to Lester’s pension. What he hadn’t anticipated was finding himself caught up in a power struggle that he barely even understood. His backers had been signally unforthcoming on the subject of the attack on the ARC. He’d known it was coming, ostensibly providing the reason for a greater military presence in the person of Thomson and his men, one that owed no personal loyalty to the project itself, but there to serve any outside perception of the greater good, but what he hadn’t expected was to end up under direct personal threat.
And what he still didn’t know was how anybody had expected to retain control of the creatures that had been sent against them, and where the hell the technology in use against them had come from. There was still a hell of a lot he didn’t know, and he was starting to wonder who was in possession of all the facts. If anyone was.
Lorraine set a tray of freshly-brewed coffee, some chocolate biscuits and a jug of iced water on a table and proceeded to dispense the drinks. Leek took a grateful sip, but decided not to chance a biscuit. His stomach was still churning unpleasantly.
“If Lorraine succeeds in getting Newnam on the line, stay out of line of the vid-camera, Lyle.”
The lieutenant nodded, and sipped the cold water. Connor Temple wasn’t the only one who was looking exhausted. Leek made a mental note to ensure that one of the other soldiers was available for guard duty at his home tonight as well. Presuming he ever got there before morning.
“I have Lord Newnam’s private secretary on the line, Mr Leek. Lord Newnam is available for a short call. I’ll put you through now.”
The computer screen on the desk suddenly held an image of a man in his late sixties, white-haired, with a round, ruddy-cheeked face, dressed in a dinner jacket and black bow-tie over an immaculate white dress shirt.
“Oliver,” the man smiled in an avuncular manner. “You’ll be glad to know that the PM’s office has done a sterling job of containing the news of today’s events. Do I take it that you are now occupying the seat of power, so to speak?”
The calm assumption that Lester had somehow already been deposed took Leek wholly by surprise. He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry, and nodded.
Lord Newnam smiled even more widely. “I’ll tell the PM to expect your report in the morning. I presume that for once in his life James failed to retain his much-vaunted composure?”
All too aware of the fact that he hadn’t managed to contribute verbally to this exchange yet, Leek nodded again, wondering how the hell the Prime Minister’s closest advisor knew what had just happened. Or maybe it was a guess based on knowledge of what had been intended to happen? A sudden chill seeped into Leek’s bones.
“Captain Thomson was most … diligent in his methods,” Leek said, managing to force the words out past dry lips. “Sir James was concerned that Thomson was exceeding his remit where the questioning of the ARC’s Head of Security was concerned.”
Lord Newnam made a dismissive noise. “Needs must, and all that, Oliver, as I’m sure you’re aware. The children of several influential parents are dead; the public will expect someone’s head on a plate. The soldier is disposable. So is Lester, for that matter, and I’m sure the PM will come around to that way of thinking if necessary, although knowing James he’ll still find a way to come up smelling of roses, he normally does.”
Leek swallowed hard. It wasn’t so very long ago that he’d been the disposable one.
“Anyway, I’m sure the ARC is safe in your hands for the moment,” said Newnam, with another false smile. “And Thomson is a good man. You can rely on him.” The peer glanced down at his watch. “I must go, Oliver, I’m expected at Number 10 shortly. The PM will no doubt wish to speak to you in person in the morning.”
Before Leek had the chance to reply, the screen went blank.
He sat there, staring at it while his coffee cooled, turning Newnam’s words over in his mind, until an amused voice from the doorway drawled, “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, Oliver? Never mind, it won’t be for long.”
As ever, Helen Cutter wore an expression of supreme self-confidence. And, once again, Oliver Leek found himself at a loss for a smart rejoinder.
But what he did know was that Cutter’s ex-wife was really starting to get on what was left of his nerves.