fredbassett | Fic, Dear Diary, Lester, 12

Title : Dear Diary
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 12
Characters : Lester
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word Count : 804
Summary : Lester contemplates the state of his diary at the beginning of a working week.
A/N : Written for my

primeval_denial bingo card and the square ‘future predators’ 2) With many thanks to

clea2011 for providing the inspiration for this. Her prompt was ‘with the future changed, the type of predator is very different’.

James Lester had a cordial dislike of online diary systems.

He preferred to rely on the tried and tested methods of pen and paper, placing his trust in the immaculate creations made by Smythson of Bond Street (est. 1887), rather than any system that relied on electricity for its continued existence. Come the apocalypse (and although Lester very much hoped that had now been averted, one could never be too sure of such things, apocalypses were awkward customers, at best), at least he would be able to carry his current diary (red lambskin, gilt-edged, pale blue featherweight paper, page per day view and address book pocket) out of the office with him, rather than wondering vaguely who he’d been intending to see that day.

He liked to use the bottom third of the page for To Do lists and general notes, with the remainder of the page for appointments and sundry reminders.

Every day at 8.30am he conducted a diary review with his assistant, just to ensure that they were on the same page, so to speak, and every Monday at the same time, he would discuss his availability during the coming week. It was a system that had worked remarkably well for several years.

When his previously well-ordered existence had been thrown into something of a disarray by the discovery of the anomalies, Lester had still prided himself on being an organised man, and although he hadn’t quite tamed the unruly rips in time to the extent that they knocked politely on the door and waited their turn, he had at least been able to smooth over some of their worst excesses. Convergence, however, had proved to be something of a strain, but even that had been survivable. It had simply taken an additional degree of organisation to coordinate multiple response teams in the field at any one time, but Miss Parker had risen admirably to the occasion, as had all other personnel.

Lester just wished he could impose the same degree of order on the various individuals and organisations who were all now clamouring for his attention since knowledge of the anomalies had become public knowledge.

The week commencing 25 April was case in point.

10.30am Monday – Discussion with a BBC film producer wanting to make a ‘fly on the wall’ documentary about a week in the life of the ARC. (Damn the Home Secretary and his edit about cooperation with the media to hell.)

2.15pm Monday – Interview with a reporter from Vogue. (Dear God, it would be Homes and Bloody Gardens next, in fact, he had a nasty feeling they were booked in for Thursday afternoon.)

4.10pm Monday – Watching Captain Becker pose for photographs for the cover of Soldier Magazine. (He had been assured by Lorraine that this was a genuine publication and that it was less dubious than it sounded. However, the petty cash receipt for additional hair care products was somewhat taking the piss.)

9.15am Tuesday – Daily Mail wanting a feature on the ARC’s defense of Middle England against the ravening hordes of immigrant dinosaurs. (He was minded to cancel that and sod the Home Secretary. The Daily Vile would cross his threshold sometime after hell had frozen over.)

9.16am Tuesday – Hell freezes over. (Miss Wickes was clearly privy to advance Meteorological Office reports and to his dislike of that vitriolic publication.)

12.30pm Tuesday – Lunch with the Director of Advanced BioPharma Inc. (The Defence Minister’s cousin, so he couldn’t cancel. But he was damned if the anomalies would be exploited by that sort of vulture. Lunch, however, was at an extremely expensive restaurant, so that would be some consolation for the aggravation he’d get when he politely declined their advances.)

11am Wednesday – A visit from the President of The World Wildlife Fund. (Could his life get any more surreal?)

And so it went on.

The world, his wife (or in the case of their French colleagues, his mistress) and their dog wanted their time in the limelight with the ARC. There was even talk of a range of action figure being commission based on his ‘plucky band of dinosaur hunters’ (not his words, he hastened to add), complete with a range of accessories (Becker was still angling for a tank). Sales of dinosaur toys had gone through the ceiling and there was a steady stream of requests for his staff to appear on breakfast TV, lunchtime TV, anybloodytime TV.

It was a miracle anyone managed to get any work done.

Lester snapped his diary closed and pushed it to one side of his desk.

Cloak and dagger had suited him far more than the current enforced openness. Under the old regime, the only predators he’d had to deal with had been the ones coming at them out of the anomalies.

At least he knew where he stood with them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

raptor-moon.livejournal.com

Poor long suffering James. But if nothing else after all the publicity he should at least get his
"Sir" back for all his trouble.

A very enjoyable break to my paper grading. Nicely done.

From:

Fic, Dear Diary, Lester, 12

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