fredbassett (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fredbassett) wrote2017-04-29 11:43 pm
fredbassett) wrote2017-04-29 11:43 pm
Entry tags:
- fic,
- jess parker,
- leek,
- lester
Fic, Smudging the Sage, Jess, Lester, Leek, 15
Title : Smudging the Sage
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Jess, Lester, Leek
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Word Count: 6,383
Spoilers : s2.7
Summary : Jess Parker has landed her dream job. But there are some things the interview didn’t prepare her for.
Warning : Some mild non con. Nothing graphic.
A/N :Written for Leek Week on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
primeval_denial. In an obscure way, I believe this fic is ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clea2011’s fault. Thanks to fififolle for her very help posts on teccie stuff.
“Welcome on board, Miss Parker. I’m sure you’ll soon manage to make this place feel a little more… lived in.”
Her new boss waved his hand vaguely in the direction of a mound of boxes cluttering the main room in her new place of work. It looked like a gang of removal men had just emptied the contents of a couple of lorries in there and done a runner before someone asked them to stack things a bit more neatly. Which, to be honest, was probably exactly what had happened.
James Lester at least had the grace to look slightly embarrassed about the mess and, to be fair to him, his own office didn’t look much better. It was rather a contrast to the immaculately turned out man in the expensive suit who had greeted her at the door.
This wasn’t quite what Jess had expected of her first day in a new job, but she had no intention of shirking hard work. Apparently, she was the first of the team to start.
“Shall I go out and buy a kettle?” she asked, plastering one of her brightest smiles on her face. “It might be quicker than working out where the old one is.”
“Excellent idea!” Lester pulled out his wallet and handed her a £50 note. “Get some biscuits, as well. In fact, get whatever you think we might need. Let’s push the boat out, shall we?”
Jess hoped Lester would soon drop his somewhat avuncular tone, but for now, she was prepared to put up with quite a lot in the name of her dream job.
“I’ll be back!” she said, doing her best Arnie Schwarzenegger impression. From the look on Lester’s face, he clearly hadn’t got it, but they exchanged somewhat false smiles anyway, and she quickly scarpered in the direction of the nearby Wilco. At least in there she could get maximum value for money out of Lester’s largesse until the office credit card she’d been promised turned up.
*****
The colour changing kettle brightened up the rather pokey kitchenette.
Jess stacked mugs and plates neatly in the cupboards and emptied the biscuits out into a pottery biscuit-barrel shaped like a teddy bear. It would do for now until she found out where the rest of the kitchen stuff had gone, and she rather liked the bear’s endearingly lopsided grin.
They would just have to count themselves lucky that anything at all had been salvaged from the hasty shutdown of the previous operation. She’d done her homework on her new employers. The government’s response to a national dinosaur crisis had fallen into disfavour after a series of unfortunate incidents and, after a cabinet reshuffle, James Lester and what was left of his team had been put out to grass. The MOD had won the unseemly scrap for their old building, beating the National Crime Agency to it by a short head. But when a hastily - and badly - covered-up anomaly in the Houses of Parliament had led to the need for a new Anomaly Research Centre, the phoenix had risen from the ashes, tied to the apron-strings of Philip Burton’s multi-billion pound flag-ship company, Prospero. But despite the much-vaunted public-private partnership, Jess was still rattling around in a mostly empty series of dark basement rooms, filled with dusty boxes salvaged from a none-too-clean storage facility. She just hoped none of the boxes had mice.
She arranged a few biscuits on a plate, made a coffee for Lester in a mug bearing the words ‘I’m the boss around here’ and took it through to his office.
While she’d been out, someone had delivered his desk and a set of expensive-looking file storage units, but from the dust on them, they clearly weren’t new.
“Let me give that a quick wipe over,” she said, wondering when someone had added ‘office cleaner’ to her job description, but the grateful look he gave her, coupled with the small smile of appreciation on his face when he saw the mug, was endearing enough that she didn’t mind.
Once Lester’s office was clean and well on its way to being almost tidy, Jess turned her attention to her own workspace.
One set of boxes were labelled in thick black marker pen ADD. She presumed they contained the fabled Anomaly Detection Device, invented by Connor Temple. After fighting her way through a morass of packaging, she finally uncovered several computer screens and an assortment of other items of hardware. She took a deep breath and started to unpack everything.
The rest of the day flew by and, by the end of it, Jess had everything up and turned on, if not exactly running yet. But it was a start. It would take her ages to understand the system and get it back online, but she was hoping the fabled Philip Burton would be able to lend her some technical help.
She’d made a good start, and it was only her first day.
*****
A week later, the technical help still hadn’t materialised. Nor had any other staff. Lester claimed it was all in hand, but Jess was beginning to wonder if he even believed the promises himself. The head of security, who Jess hadn’t yet met, was off somewhere recruiting, and Lester was busy conducting interviews for the position of team leader. It had been left to Jess to finish unpacking the boxes and turning what Lester grandly referred to as the Operations Room into something that looked even half-way professional. Fully professional was a very long way.
One of many annoying things sent to try her rapidly-vanishing patience was that someone – probably the MOD – had nicked most of the decent office chairs. Only a few had been delivered, and of those, at least three were destined straight for the tip. Lester had pounced on one of the ones she’d put to one side to keep. It was an impressive, high-backed black leather number that he claimed had been in his previous office, leaving her to conduct a hunt for one for herself. It took two hours, but she was finally able to lay her hands on a somewhat less important-looking but still serviceable version of Lester’s prize. The castors worked and Jess could swivel around in it, so it would do for now.
Rumour had it they were going to be getting some decent furniture delivered in a few days’ time, although she was beginning to doubt that any of Philip I’m-too-important-to-ever-show-my-smug-face-in-your-dingy-basement Burton’s promises would come good. Jess had only met the man twice, but she didn’t like him. He was insincere and patronising, managing to make it perfectly clear that he thought she was too young for the job. He also had no notion of personal space and Jess was certain she’d felt him trail his fingers across the back of her legs on one occasion. Creep.
Jess was working long hours, but was starting to get to grips with Connor Temple’s ADD system. She’d run numerous system updates, tweaked a few things here and there and finally managed to get it working. There was plenty she still wanted to do, but for the moment, she’d settle for what she had. Improvements would just have to wait.
The underground complex that housed the new ARC wasn’t exactly the most cheerful of places to work, and the lack of natural light took some getting used to, but Jess was mostly quite happy to work by herself, even after Lester had left the building for the night. One of the few things Prospero had provided were some rather natty identity bracelets that stored biometric data and were keyed to various zones within the part of the building given over to the anomaly operation. Jess had been pleased to be told that hers allowed her to gain access to all areas. With a security system like that, she felt perfectly safe in the building by herself.
“Don’t stay too late,” Lester said, slipping a bar of chocolate onto her desk. “I don’t want people to think I’m working you too hard.”
Jess looked around ostentatiously at the empty room and then smiled up at him. “It’ll be our secret, I promise. There’s just one set of system checks I want to run before I call it a day.”
“I’ll be late in tomorrow. I’ve got a meeting with the Minister at 8am.”
Jess nodded, and refrained from pointing out that as she had full access to his online diary, she already knew that. She turned back to the bank of monitors in front of her, her fingers already flying over the keyboard again.
Ten minutes later, she heard quiet footsteps behind her and asked, “Have you forgotten something?”
When Lester didn’t answer, she turned around, thinking he might not have heard her.
The operations room was empty.
Jess blinked in surprise. She was sure she’d heard footsteps.
“Hello?”
Only silence greeted her words.
With a slight shake of her head, she turned back to her screens.
One flickered and just for a moment, she though she caught a glimpse of a man’s face, staring at her, a faint smile quirking his thin lips.
She blinked again and the image was gone, replaced by the lines of code she’d been working on.
Jess rubbed a hand over her eyes. She’d definitely been working too long. She quickly saved the changes she’d made and closed the system down. Time to grab her coat and head for home.
*****
At 7.30am, the area of the underground carpark set aside for the ARC was deserted.
Jess used her biotag to gain entrance to the building and headed straight for the small kitchen for her first coffee of the day. The office credit card had finally arrived and their first major purchase had been a decent coffee machine. Suitably fortified to face the day, Jess made her way to her desk, as the sensor-operated lights came on in front of her and dimmed behind her as she walked through the corridors. It took a bit of getting used to, but Philip you-do-know-I’m-a-genius-don’t-you? Burton was very keen on that sort of thing. The office diary claimed they were due for a visit from him today, but he hadn’t specified when. She’d believe it when she saw it. He cancelled appointments more often than he kept them.
As she walked down the steps into the operations room, the light in the corridor behind her dimmed for a moment but then flickered back to full strength again.
Jess turned, wondering if Lester had come in early to collect some papers for his meeting.
There was no one there.
The lights remained on for half a dozen heartbeats, but then started to dim again.
Jess put her coffee on the desk and bent down to turn on the computer tower on the floor.
A hand brushed lightly over her bottom.
She jerked up so fast she banged her head on the underside of the desk, probably slopping coffee all over her keyboard. Boss or no boss, she wasn’t taking behaviour like that from Burton. Or anyone else, for that matter…
“That’s not acceptable office beh…” She broke off her intended tirade when she realised there was no one there to berate.
She was the only person in the room.
She mopped up the small lake of coffee while waiting impatiently for her system to boot up. When it did, she took a quick look at the security logs and ascertained that she was definitely the only person registered as being present in their building, and had been since she’d arrived.
Jess sat down with a thump, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. She swivelled around to face the room and stared accusingly into corners. A pile of now-flattened cardboard boxes stared back at her. She felt like she’d just been very thoroughly touched up. She didn’t regard herself as a nervous person, but there were times when it felt like there was something not very nice about the new ARC. She’d tried to ignore the feeling in the hope that it might go away, but that didn’t seem to be happening.
The light in the corridor flickered and Jess had to fight hard to suppress a small yelp.
This was getting silly.
She took a few deep breaths. Nothing happened, and the area beyond the operations room remained in darkness.
Jess turned back to her computer screens, determined to get on with some work. Of the three screens in front of her, the middle one had stayed obstinately dark, instead of showing the usual start-up screen. She started tapping away on her keyboard in the hope of bringing it back to life. She didn’t want a monitor failure now, not with Burton due in today. He’d looked down his nose at her enough the last time, and he was bound to want her to demonstrate the ADD to him today…
The lights behind her came on again and a shadow moved across the middle screen. Someone was standing behind her.
She swung around quickly.
And once again there was nothing – and no one – to be seen.
Jess felt fingers play with her hair, lifting a few strands at the back and then smoothing them back down. It felt like a large spider was running across her head.
She did more than yelp that time.
She screamed.
Loudly.
*****
By the time Lester arrived, Jess had regained her composure and had managed to get the middle screen working.
She busied herself making coffee for him and asking how his meeting with the Minister had gone. If she was chattering more than usual, Lester didn’t seem to notice, for which she was grateful.
Jess had no idea what was happening, but she knew she didn’t like it one little bit.
“When will the rest of the staff be arriving?” she asked.
“Monday,” he said with a smile. “Captain Becker has finished putting the security team together, and I’m hoping that Mr Anderson will accept the position as team leader. I’ve had several very promising CVs for technical staff. Perhaps you’d care to look them over before we arrange some interviews?”
Jess beamed at him. “I’d love to!”
Lester handed her a file. “It’ll seem strange with other people around the place.”
That was exactly what Jess was hoping for. But good strange, not bad strange. For a moment, she half-considered telling Lester about the weird feelings of being inappropriately touched that had been besetting her for the past few days, but she was still keen to impress, and didn’t think that trying to broach the subject of invisible hands with her new boss would give quite the right impression.
It was stupid, anyway. She’d just been spending too much time alone in this dark basement. She’d go home on time today…
At 4.30, Lester went off to the main Prospero offices for his meeting with Philip I’m-too-important-to-grace-you-with-my-presence-so-you’ll-ned-to-come-to-me-instead Burton that had originally been scheduled for their building, leaving Jess on her own.
As the lift whisked Lester up to ground level, Jess folded her arms and started at her monitors, daring them to play up. All three promptly went blank.
Jess scooted back in her chair, fighting an urge to scream very loudly.
Behind her, the lights in the corridor flickered.
This was getting beyond a joke. Jess didn’t believe in things that went bump in the night, or in the middle of the afternoon, or any other bloody time. There was a rational explanation for all of this, There had to be. She just needed to call in an electrician and get the wiring checked. Yes, that’s exactly what she would do. Prospero’s maintenance staff were meant to be at their disposal…
The lights flickered once, twice and then all went out at once.
A jolt of adrenaline shot through Jess’s system, sending her fight or flight response into overdrive, but it was pitch dark, making flight difficult. Fight wouldn’t be an easy option, either.
Jess slipped her heels off and grabbed one shoe in her left hand while with the other she groped for her phone. That had a torch ap.
An unseen hand ruffled her hair.
Jess squealed loudly and jumped up, lashing out with her shoe. The heel would do some damage if she managed to catch someone with it, but her shoe cut through the air with no resistance. She fumbled with her phone and was rewarded by the small glow from her screen. It was some comfort. At least she wasn’t in total darkness any more.
A hand settled on her bottom and gave her a hard pinch.
Jess whirled around, slashing again with her killer pink heel.
Soft, derisive laughter greeted her attempts at self-defence.
Behind her, the middle screen flickered into life.
A man stared at her, a smile curving his thin lips. He had short hair, prominent ears and an unpleasant ferrety look. His smile widened, taking in her fear, then the screen went blank again and a heartbeat later the main lights came back on.
Jess grabbed her other shoe and her bag and bolted for the lift.
As the doors closed, Jess realised the enormity of her mistake.
She should have taken the stairs!
The lift started to move and, for a moment, she thought everything was going to be all right, but then the usually smooth mechanism juddered to a halt. Jess didn’t hesitate, she went straight for the emergency call button.
The laughter started up again, echoing around the small metal box. A hand slid up the back of her thigh.
Jess yelped and pressed herself into the corner, trying to keep the hand from touching her, but instead, she felt cold fingers slide across the front of her blouse, brushing across her breasts. There was no getting away from the wandering hands. No matter which way she turned, they were still there, stroking, pinching, lifting her skirt while the laughter echoed all around her, mocking her.
The man’s face stared at her from the mirrored sides of the lift, each one showing a different expression, but each was taunting her. He was drinking in her fear, exulting in her distress.
“Leave me alone!” Her words ricocheted around the enclosed space but did nothing to help her. He simply continued to laugh and his unseen hands continued to grope her.
Fear and anger warred for supremacy, burning white hot through her body. “Leave me alone!”
Gathering what little presence of mind she had left, Jess pressed the button for ground level again, and to her surprise, the lift juddered into life, moving upwards.
When the doors opened, Jess bolted out, one shoe still clutched in her left hand, the other stuck in her handbag.
The lights were on in the foyer and outside, beyond the chrome and tinted glass, the sun was still shining. Jess knew she was wild-eyed and dishevelled, but she didn’t care. She was out of the lift, out of that basement and soon to be out of that bloody building. Dream job or not, she was handing in her notice. Her car was still in the underground car park, but as far as she was concerned, it could stay there. She would catch the bus home rather than go back down in that lift.
She slipped her shoes back on, held her biotag close to the sensor and, with huge relief, stepped out into the sunshine,
*****
Jess had never taken refuge in alcohol before, but she was damn well going to make an exception that night.
Her hand still shook slightly as she poured a large glass of cold Pinot Grigiot and settled down on the sofa, her laptop on her knee, ready to start writing her letter of resignation.
As the screen came to life, Jess felt a lurch of fear in the pit of her stomach. Was she going to see his face again? Had he – whoever he was – followed her home?
She shivered, pulling a warm throw around her shoulders.
How the hell had she ended up working in a haunted basement with a shady Government outfit – sorry, public/private partnership – who dealt with rips in time and hunted dinosaurs? Answer: her father had known someone who’d known someone etc etc, and the role of operations coordinator and head technician had sounded glamourous and exciting. Well, maybe not the dinosaur bit. That had just sounded very freaky and a bit scary. But she liked co-ordination and logistics and she was good at the tech side of things, so it had been ideal. Right up to the moment some bloke had started haunting her…
She stared at the screen, wondering what on earth she could say to explain why she was suddenly handing in her notice. In her bright, airy, white-painted flat, she was starting to feel embarrassed about her flight from the lift and from the building. She was going to have to go back there to fetch her car, and she’d have to see Lester to hand in her notice. She couldn’t just do it my email. That would be cowardly. And Jess Parker wasn’t a coward.
Jess took a gulp of her wine.
Something was niggling at the back of her mind and had been since she’d seen the face of her tormentor. Something about the sticky-out ears and the ferrety face had been familiar, but she’d been too freaked out at the time to realise that, but now, playing it all back in her mind, that feeling of having seen the man before had fought its way back to the surface and was jumping up and down, trying to attract her attention.
Jess drew in a long, slow breath and then, with a few brisk keystrokes, she opened her own private back door into the ARC’s computer system and started to browse the personnel files.
It didn’t take long.
The face of the man she now knew to have been Oliver Leek stared at her out of her laptop screen, and it was all Jess could do to stop herself slamming the lid shut and hurling the machine across the flat. But this image was static, not alive like the ones in the ARC had been. Here he looked almost harmless. The sort of boy who had probably been bullied unmercifully at school for being a nerdy wimp.
But that didn’t give him the right to touch her up at work! Or anywhere else for that matter.
Jess knew from some comments Lester had made that there had been problems at the old ARC. A lot of problems. People had died. But she hadn’t realised the full magnitude of Leek’s bid for power or the sheer bloody awfulness of Stephen Hart’s death. Jess felt tears prick her eyes when she thought about him. To die like that… She shuddered. It was horrible.
Browsing through the archived files, she came across a folder containing footage from security cameras in the old ARC. Curious, Jess opened a file at random and started to flick through the feeds from a variety of cameras. Most of the film was as dull as ditch water, mainly showing random shots of corridors, offices, a cavernous room that seemed to be the hub around which the rest of the building revolved, a long, curving walkway leading to an upper level… a shot of Lester’s office, with the same large black chair he’d rescued from the odds and ends that had gone into storage and had ended up with them. A weird-looking helmet on a stand didn’t seem to have made it over to his new office, but maybe that had gone home with him.
The next shot was taken from a camera mounted high on a pillar on the walkway and showed a view of an office adjacent to Lester’s. The room was unoccupied apart from a desk and a chair. A chair that Jess recognised. A chair that she’d spent the last two weeks sitting on. A shiver ran down her spine, thankfully unaccompanied by any unseen fingers.
She carried on delving into the archives and managed to uncover a file with a floor plan of the building, showing various rooms labelled with the names of their occupants. Proof, if more had been needed, that Oliver Leek had occupied the room adjoining Lester’s.
She took a valedictory swig of her wine.
The chair would have to go. That would be a good start…
With something approaching shock, Jess realised that her thinking had shifted from drafting her resignation letter to planning how she could fight back. She was damned if she was going to allow a mass-murderer to drive her out of her dream job.
Jess carried on browsing the security footage, wondering how many more items associated with Leek had survived to be brought over to their new offices. At first, nothing jumped out at her, but then the cameras lingered for a moment on a workstation in the middle of the improbably huge atrium.
A bank of familiar screens stood in the middle of the room. It looked very much like they’d also been put into storage, along with the rest of the Anomaly Detection Device. Jess wondered what connection there had been between Oliver Leek and the flat screens that now made up her version of the ADD. The security tapes weren’t any help on that score, nor was anything else she could turn up on the security tapes.
Only one person would be able to shed light on that question.
But could she raise it with him?
*****
“… and you think I’m totally stupid, don’t you?” Jess said, shuffling her feet awkwardly as the flood of words that had been tumbling out of her mouth for the past five minutes finally dried up.
The silence that greeted her confession told her all she needed to know.
“I’ll let you have my resignation immediately,” Jess said. She blinked ferociously, to keep tears at bay. She’d been so happy to get this job, now some nasty little mass murderer that she’d never even properly met had ruined it for her. She couldn’t get out of Lester’s office fast enough.
“Miss Parker… Jess… Come back and sit down…” Lester’s tone was kind, not avuncular. Just rather tired.
She turned around and finally met his eyes. There was no ridicule there. Just kindness and concern.
“I wondered if he’d been bothering you, too. That’s why I didn’t want you to work late by yourself.”
Jess stared at him, her eyes widening. “You’ve seen him?” Followed immediately by, “You believe me?”
“He prefers to stand behind me, looking over my shoulder. But I’ve seen his shadow on my computer screen. That’s not something I’m likely to mistake in a hurry.”
“You didn’t say anything!”
“No, I didn’t. And I’m sincerely sorry for not having done so, but telling a new employee that I thought one of her predecessors was haunting the premises is hardly the way to inspire the confidence of your staff. Especially if you were in blissful ignorance of the whole situation.”
Feeling relief course through her system, Jess sat down heavily in the chair opposite Lester. “It really is him, isn’t it? Oliver Leek.”
“From the description you’ve given me, I have no doubt at all.”
“What about the shadow you saw?”
A smile hovered on the extremities of Lester’s lips. “His ears are rather… distinctive.” He glanced almost furtively over his shoulder as he spoke.
Jess stared at her boss in horror. “Can you feel him there now?”
Lester shook his head. “No. That was just out of habit. So, Miss… Jess… What do you think we should do?”
“I… I… don’t know.” And she didn’t. In spite of her desire to fight back, Jess hadn’t actually expected this conversation to go any other way than her handing in her notice after being sneered at by her new boss for her far-fetched claims.
“Am I that unapproachable?” Lester said quietly. Clearly the man could add mind-reading to his already impressive CV. “I made a promise to myself that after the way things ended with Oliver Leek and Stephen that I would be less unpleasant to my staff. But I’m not wholly sure I’ve kept that promise.”
All the bars of chocolate he’d given her, as well as the occasional coffee he’d made for her flashed into Jess’s mind, as well his attempts to put her at her ease.
“You’re a very sweet boss!”
Lester looked horrified.
Jess laughed, feeling the tension slipping from her now that she had an ally. “I think we should get rid of that chair, for a start.”
Lester nodded. “I didn’t even realise it was the same chair. But I’m sure the budget can run to a new one.”
“What’s his connection with the screens? Jess asked. That had been bugging her since she’d seen them on the security footage. “I saw them on the CCTV tapes, in the middle of the operations room.”
Lester looked uncomfortable. “We watched his death on those screens. He was…”
“…ripped to shreds by the future predators. I read the reports.”
He winced. “I thought I’d password protected those files.”
“You did. We can talk about better security protocols some other time. We’ll need to get rid of the screens, too. You make the coffee, I’ll Google how to get rid of ghosts.”
*****
“We could always call a professional…”
“Do you know any emergency exorcists?”
“I could make some phone calls…”
“He assaulted me. This is personal. If this doesn’t work, you can make some phone calls then. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Jess smiled brightly. It had been an interesting shopping trip. They were now the proud possessors of five kilos of sea salt, eight large bunches of sage, two powerful LED torches, two large amethyst crystals, two gas-powered lighters and an impressively hefty axe. And it wasn’t just any old sea salt and sage. It was M&S sea salt and sage. The axe had come from a rather quaint little hardware store that looked like it hadn’t changed for over 50 years. The owner had wrapped it up in a large brown paper bag. They’d done their best not to look shifty. They probably hadn’t succeeded.
Doing her best to look competent and determined, not scared to death, Jess stood shoulder to shoulder with Lester in the middle of the new control room.
“We want you to leave,” she said, loudly and – she hoped – firmly.
Nothing happened. Jess fought back the urge to add, please. Her mother would have been horrified at its omission. Her grandmother would have taken a more robust view.
She nudged Lester.
He cleared his throat. “We want you to leave.”
The three dark screens flickered abruptly into life, even though Jess had taken the precaution of disconnecting the electrical supply.
Three different versions of the same sneering face stared out at them.
“How very quaint.” The words came from three mouths at the same time, but each was spoken with a different variation on a sneering theme, sounding like three amplifiers not quite in sync with each other.
Jess’s skin prickled as though something had set up a static charge too close to her. She fought the urge to turn and run.
“How very quaint,” Oliver Leek repeated. “Do you really think this will all end so easily?”
“No, we don’t,” Lester said, slipping his hand into Jess’s and giving her fingers as reassuring squeeze.
Grateful for the contact, she squeezed back. He believed her. They were in this together. It was going to work. It had to work. Jess wasn’t going to be forced out of her dream job by this creep.
“So what are you going to do, James? Use the magic word, maybe? Say please? Or are you still too high and mighty for that?”
Jess squeezed Lester’s hand, trying to warn him not to get into an argument. They were meant to be telling him to leave, that was all. No debate about it.
“Leave this building,” Lester said firmly.
“Leave this world,” Jess added.
The lights flickered but didn’t go out. If they did, they each had a torch in a pocket.
Leek laughed uproariously.
The sound echoed around the room.
Jess felt sick. And, faintly idiotic, which seemed a rather incongruous emotion in the circumstances.
“For the third time of asking, leave us,” Lester said. His voice sounded stronger now, more sure of himself.
“Leave us,” Jess repeated.
“Do you know how ridiculous the pair of you sound?” Leek demanded.
Lester squeezed her hand again and she squeezed back. They were getting the hang of not rising to the bait.
Together, they turned their back on the screens and walked into Lester’s office, picking up a large packet of sea salt each. Jess stood in the doorway while Lester laid a trail of salt around the room, taking in his desk and chair, then closing the circle with the pair of them on the outside.
Leek’s laughter continued to echo around the control room, but Jess thought she detected just the faintest hint of nervousness in the mocking voice. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.
The static prickle was still raising the hairs on her bare arms but she hadn’t yet felt any intimate touch from him. She gripped the amethyst crystal in her pocket and felt the static chill diminish slightly. She plastered a smile on her face and walked towards the screens on top of her work station. The ADD servers had removed and stored in one of the vacant offices. Lester had assured her that Leek had never had any association for the servers and that Connor had upgraded several times since Leek’s death, so almost nothing of the original set up had survived.
Jess started to pour the sea salt in a large circle around the screens.
Leek’s laughter took on a maniacal edge and his eyes looked like they were bulging out of his head.
She completed the circle and put the packet of salt on the floor.
The next bit was going to be harder, but she’d already taken the precaution of disabling the fire detection systems, as well as all internal CCTV. They weren’t expecting visitors and Philip Burton was off brown-nosing the PM, so they weren’t likely to be disturbed, but even so, the outer doors were locked and could only be over-ridden by her biotag wristband or Lester’s. If this went wrong, they were on their own, but it was better than having someone walk in on their amateur exorcism attempt.
They each took a gas-lighter and a bunch of sage and held the herbs over the flames. Jess did her best to ignore the mocking laughter and concentrate on keeping her breathing slow and steady as she tried to empty her mind of the fear that still gripped her with its icy fingers.
The sage leaves started to curl and smoke. Jess walked around the room, feeling more than faintly ridiculous. The smoke was pungent, but not unpleasant. Lester followed her, doing the same.
When they’d completed a circuit of the room, Leek’s laughter sounded weaker, but it hadn’t died out altogether and his face still stared at them from each of the screens.
Jess sighed and glanced at Lester. “Time for Plan B?”
He nodded.
The axe felt comfortingly heavy in her hand. “Should we have done a risk assessment?”
“I’m not wholly sure the employee health and safety manual was designed with this sort of activity in mind. I think we can fall back on a dynamic risk assessment on this occasion.”
Jess looked at him quizzically. “Does that mean we make it up as we go along?”
Lester nodded.
She smiled widely at him. “Works for me.”
Lester waved his arm - and the axe - in a gallant gesture. “After you, Miss Parker.”
She took a small bow and tried not to drop the axe on her toe. “Thank you, kind sir.”
Jess stepped into the circle of salt and swung the axe as had as she could at the middle screen.
It shattered.
One of Leek’s faces disappeared, breaking apart in fragments of glass and plastic.
The other two faces twisted in pain and anger.
Lester took a swing at the one on the right. It broke apart more spectacularly than the first one.
The remaining face contorted in rage, the veins on Leek’s forehead standing out and his eyes bulging unpleasantly.
Together, they aimed blows at the screen on the left. The two axe heads buried themselves simultaneously in Leek’s hate-filled face.
They swung their axes again and again, reducing the screens to fragments on the floor.
Jess tipped the chair on its side and swung the axe down. The blow jarred up her arms, but the weight of the axe-head snapped the plastic column that connected the base to the castors. Lester pitched in with a second blow, then they found a rhythm, chopping at it until it was broken beyond any hope of repair.
She threw every ounce of her own anger into the hail of blows she rained down onto what had been Oliver Leek’s office chair. The anger felt cleansing and she poured her scorn for the man into each blow. He’d terrified her. He’d touched her. He’d abused her. She wanted him out of her office and out of her life.
Jess wasn’t sure at what point the laughter stopped.
But it did stop.
She stepped back, let the axe fall from fingers that had gone numb from gripping the wooden handle so hard, and stared down at the destruction left on the floor. Glass, plastic, metal, wires and sundry other things she didn’t even recognise were strewn around the floor, all mixed up with salt and bunches of burnt sage leaves.
“Shall we go the whole hog?” Lester asked.
Without waiting for her reply, he picked up one of the packets of sea salt and emptied it over the wreckage.
Jess did the same with the last remaining packet.
They stepped back and admired their handiwork. Then they looked at each other.
At some point in the proceedings, Lester had taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. His hair was dishevelled and he was breathing heavily. Her own hair had come loose from its ponytail and she had sage smuts on her arms and on her yellow blouse. They stared at each other and started to laugh, weakly at first, but then growing in abandon.
They looked ridiculous. They felt ridiculous. They had just destroyed office equipment.
They had just got rid of a ghost.
The atmosphere felt lighter. Less gloomy. Less oppressive.
It had worked.
They’d done it.
Jess flung her arms around Lester’s neck and hugged him hard.
A moment later, he hugged her back, just as hard.
When they drew apart, Lester smoothed his hair back into place, pulled his tie off and started to roll up his sleeves. “I’ll sweep, you use the dustpan.”
Jess smiled at him. “Deal.”
*****
Her new office chair arrived the following day.
It was orange.
She liked orange. Just not in chocolate.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Jess, Lester, Leek
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Word Count: 6,383
Spoilers : s2.7
Summary : Jess Parker has landed her dream job. But there are some things the interview didn’t prepare her for.
Warning : Some mild non con. Nothing graphic.
A/N :Written for Leek Week on
primeval_denial. In an obscure way, I believe this fic is clea2011’s fault. Thanks to fififolle for her very help posts on teccie stuff.“Welcome on board, Miss Parker. I’m sure you’ll soon manage to make this place feel a little more… lived in.”
Her new boss waved his hand vaguely in the direction of a mound of boxes cluttering the main room in her new place of work. It looked like a gang of removal men had just emptied the contents of a couple of lorries in there and done a runner before someone asked them to stack things a bit more neatly. Which, to be honest, was probably exactly what had happened.
James Lester at least had the grace to look slightly embarrassed about the mess and, to be fair to him, his own office didn’t look much better. It was rather a contrast to the immaculately turned out man in the expensive suit who had greeted her at the door.
This wasn’t quite what Jess had expected of her first day in a new job, but she had no intention of shirking hard work. Apparently, she was the first of the team to start.
“Shall I go out and buy a kettle?” she asked, plastering one of her brightest smiles on her face. “It might be quicker than working out where the old one is.”
“Excellent idea!” Lester pulled out his wallet and handed her a £50 note. “Get some biscuits, as well. In fact, get whatever you think we might need. Let’s push the boat out, shall we?”
Jess hoped Lester would soon drop his somewhat avuncular tone, but for now, she was prepared to put up with quite a lot in the name of her dream job.
“I’ll be back!” she said, doing her best Arnie Schwarzenegger impression. From the look on Lester’s face, he clearly hadn’t got it, but they exchanged somewhat false smiles anyway, and she quickly scarpered in the direction of the nearby Wilco. At least in there she could get maximum value for money out of Lester’s largesse until the office credit card she’d been promised turned up.
*****
The colour changing kettle brightened up the rather pokey kitchenette.
Jess stacked mugs and plates neatly in the cupboards and emptied the biscuits out into a pottery biscuit-barrel shaped like a teddy bear. It would do for now until she found out where the rest of the kitchen stuff had gone, and she rather liked the bear’s endearingly lopsided grin.
They would just have to count themselves lucky that anything at all had been salvaged from the hasty shutdown of the previous operation. She’d done her homework on her new employers. The government’s response to a national dinosaur crisis had fallen into disfavour after a series of unfortunate incidents and, after a cabinet reshuffle, James Lester and what was left of his team had been put out to grass. The MOD had won the unseemly scrap for their old building, beating the National Crime Agency to it by a short head. But when a hastily - and badly - covered-up anomaly in the Houses of Parliament had led to the need for a new Anomaly Research Centre, the phoenix had risen from the ashes, tied to the apron-strings of Philip Burton’s multi-billion pound flag-ship company, Prospero. But despite the much-vaunted public-private partnership, Jess was still rattling around in a mostly empty series of dark basement rooms, filled with dusty boxes salvaged from a none-too-clean storage facility. She just hoped none of the boxes had mice.
She arranged a few biscuits on a plate, made a coffee for Lester in a mug bearing the words ‘I’m the boss around here’ and took it through to his office.
While she’d been out, someone had delivered his desk and a set of expensive-looking file storage units, but from the dust on them, they clearly weren’t new.
“Let me give that a quick wipe over,” she said, wondering when someone had added ‘office cleaner’ to her job description, but the grateful look he gave her, coupled with the small smile of appreciation on his face when he saw the mug, was endearing enough that she didn’t mind.
Once Lester’s office was clean and well on its way to being almost tidy, Jess turned her attention to her own workspace.
One set of boxes were labelled in thick black marker pen ADD. She presumed they contained the fabled Anomaly Detection Device, invented by Connor Temple. After fighting her way through a morass of packaging, she finally uncovered several computer screens and an assortment of other items of hardware. She took a deep breath and started to unpack everything.
The rest of the day flew by and, by the end of it, Jess had everything up and turned on, if not exactly running yet. But it was a start. It would take her ages to understand the system and get it back online, but she was hoping the fabled Philip Burton would be able to lend her some technical help.
She’d made a good start, and it was only her first day.
*****
A week later, the technical help still hadn’t materialised. Nor had any other staff. Lester claimed it was all in hand, but Jess was beginning to wonder if he even believed the promises himself. The head of security, who Jess hadn’t yet met, was off somewhere recruiting, and Lester was busy conducting interviews for the position of team leader. It had been left to Jess to finish unpacking the boxes and turning what Lester grandly referred to as the Operations Room into something that looked even half-way professional. Fully professional was a very long way.
One of many annoying things sent to try her rapidly-vanishing patience was that someone – probably the MOD – had nicked most of the decent office chairs. Only a few had been delivered, and of those, at least three were destined straight for the tip. Lester had pounced on one of the ones she’d put to one side to keep. It was an impressive, high-backed black leather number that he claimed had been in his previous office, leaving her to conduct a hunt for one for herself. It took two hours, but she was finally able to lay her hands on a somewhat less important-looking but still serviceable version of Lester’s prize. The castors worked and Jess could swivel around in it, so it would do for now.
Rumour had it they were going to be getting some decent furniture delivered in a few days’ time, although she was beginning to doubt that any of Philip I’m-too-important-to-ever-show-my-smug-face-in-your-dingy-basement Burton’s promises would come good. Jess had only met the man twice, but she didn’t like him. He was insincere and patronising, managing to make it perfectly clear that he thought she was too young for the job. He also had no notion of personal space and Jess was certain she’d felt him trail his fingers across the back of her legs on one occasion. Creep.
Jess was working long hours, but was starting to get to grips with Connor Temple’s ADD system. She’d run numerous system updates, tweaked a few things here and there and finally managed to get it working. There was plenty she still wanted to do, but for the moment, she’d settle for what she had. Improvements would just have to wait.
The underground complex that housed the new ARC wasn’t exactly the most cheerful of places to work, and the lack of natural light took some getting used to, but Jess was mostly quite happy to work by herself, even after Lester had left the building for the night. One of the few things Prospero had provided were some rather natty identity bracelets that stored biometric data and were keyed to various zones within the part of the building given over to the anomaly operation. Jess had been pleased to be told that hers allowed her to gain access to all areas. With a security system like that, she felt perfectly safe in the building by herself.
“Don’t stay too late,” Lester said, slipping a bar of chocolate onto her desk. “I don’t want people to think I’m working you too hard.”
Jess looked around ostentatiously at the empty room and then smiled up at him. “It’ll be our secret, I promise. There’s just one set of system checks I want to run before I call it a day.”
“I’ll be late in tomorrow. I’ve got a meeting with the Minister at 8am.”
Jess nodded, and refrained from pointing out that as she had full access to his online diary, she already knew that. She turned back to the bank of monitors in front of her, her fingers already flying over the keyboard again.
Ten minutes later, she heard quiet footsteps behind her and asked, “Have you forgotten something?”
When Lester didn’t answer, she turned around, thinking he might not have heard her.
The operations room was empty.
Jess blinked in surprise. She was sure she’d heard footsteps.
“Hello?”
Only silence greeted her words.
With a slight shake of her head, she turned back to her screens.
One flickered and just for a moment, she though she caught a glimpse of a man’s face, staring at her, a faint smile quirking his thin lips.
She blinked again and the image was gone, replaced by the lines of code she’d been working on.
Jess rubbed a hand over her eyes. She’d definitely been working too long. She quickly saved the changes she’d made and closed the system down. Time to grab her coat and head for home.
*****
At 7.30am, the area of the underground carpark set aside for the ARC was deserted.
Jess used her biotag to gain entrance to the building and headed straight for the small kitchen for her first coffee of the day. The office credit card had finally arrived and their first major purchase had been a decent coffee machine. Suitably fortified to face the day, Jess made her way to her desk, as the sensor-operated lights came on in front of her and dimmed behind her as she walked through the corridors. It took a bit of getting used to, but Philip you-do-know-I’m-a-genius-don’t-you? Burton was very keen on that sort of thing. The office diary claimed they were due for a visit from him today, but he hadn’t specified when. She’d believe it when she saw it. He cancelled appointments more often than he kept them.
As she walked down the steps into the operations room, the light in the corridor behind her dimmed for a moment but then flickered back to full strength again.
Jess turned, wondering if Lester had come in early to collect some papers for his meeting.
There was no one there.
The lights remained on for half a dozen heartbeats, but then started to dim again.
Jess put her coffee on the desk and bent down to turn on the computer tower on the floor.
A hand brushed lightly over her bottom.
She jerked up so fast she banged her head on the underside of the desk, probably slopping coffee all over her keyboard. Boss or no boss, she wasn’t taking behaviour like that from Burton. Or anyone else, for that matter…
“That’s not acceptable office beh…” She broke off her intended tirade when she realised there was no one there to berate.
She was the only person in the room.
She mopped up the small lake of coffee while waiting impatiently for her system to boot up. When it did, she took a quick look at the security logs and ascertained that she was definitely the only person registered as being present in their building, and had been since she’d arrived.
Jess sat down with a thump, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. She swivelled around to face the room and stared accusingly into corners. A pile of now-flattened cardboard boxes stared back at her. She felt like she’d just been very thoroughly touched up. She didn’t regard herself as a nervous person, but there were times when it felt like there was something not very nice about the new ARC. She’d tried to ignore the feeling in the hope that it might go away, but that didn’t seem to be happening.
The light in the corridor flickered and Jess had to fight hard to suppress a small yelp.
This was getting silly.
She took a few deep breaths. Nothing happened, and the area beyond the operations room remained in darkness.
Jess turned back to her computer screens, determined to get on with some work. Of the three screens in front of her, the middle one had stayed obstinately dark, instead of showing the usual start-up screen. She started tapping away on her keyboard in the hope of bringing it back to life. She didn’t want a monitor failure now, not with Burton due in today. He’d looked down his nose at her enough the last time, and he was bound to want her to demonstrate the ADD to him today…
The lights behind her came on again and a shadow moved across the middle screen. Someone was standing behind her.
She swung around quickly.
And once again there was nothing – and no one – to be seen.
Jess felt fingers play with her hair, lifting a few strands at the back and then smoothing them back down. It felt like a large spider was running across her head.
She did more than yelp that time.
She screamed.
Loudly.
*****
By the time Lester arrived, Jess had regained her composure and had managed to get the middle screen working.
She busied herself making coffee for him and asking how his meeting with the Minister had gone. If she was chattering more than usual, Lester didn’t seem to notice, for which she was grateful.
Jess had no idea what was happening, but she knew she didn’t like it one little bit.
“When will the rest of the staff be arriving?” she asked.
“Monday,” he said with a smile. “Captain Becker has finished putting the security team together, and I’m hoping that Mr Anderson will accept the position as team leader. I’ve had several very promising CVs for technical staff. Perhaps you’d care to look them over before we arrange some interviews?”
Jess beamed at him. “I’d love to!”
Lester handed her a file. “It’ll seem strange with other people around the place.”
That was exactly what Jess was hoping for. But good strange, not bad strange. For a moment, she half-considered telling Lester about the weird feelings of being inappropriately touched that had been besetting her for the past few days, but she was still keen to impress, and didn’t think that trying to broach the subject of invisible hands with her new boss would give quite the right impression.
It was stupid, anyway. She’d just been spending too much time alone in this dark basement. She’d go home on time today…
At 4.30, Lester went off to the main Prospero offices for his meeting with Philip I’m-too-important-to-grace-you-with-my-presence-so-you’ll-ned-to-come-to-me-instead Burton that had originally been scheduled for their building, leaving Jess on her own.
As the lift whisked Lester up to ground level, Jess folded her arms and started at her monitors, daring them to play up. All three promptly went blank.
Jess scooted back in her chair, fighting an urge to scream very loudly.
Behind her, the lights in the corridor flickered.
This was getting beyond a joke. Jess didn’t believe in things that went bump in the night, or in the middle of the afternoon, or any other bloody time. There was a rational explanation for all of this, There had to be. She just needed to call in an electrician and get the wiring checked. Yes, that’s exactly what she would do. Prospero’s maintenance staff were meant to be at their disposal…
The lights flickered once, twice and then all went out at once.
A jolt of adrenaline shot through Jess’s system, sending her fight or flight response into overdrive, but it was pitch dark, making flight difficult. Fight wouldn’t be an easy option, either.
Jess slipped her heels off and grabbed one shoe in her left hand while with the other she groped for her phone. That had a torch ap.
An unseen hand ruffled her hair.
Jess squealed loudly and jumped up, lashing out with her shoe. The heel would do some damage if she managed to catch someone with it, but her shoe cut through the air with no resistance. She fumbled with her phone and was rewarded by the small glow from her screen. It was some comfort. At least she wasn’t in total darkness any more.
A hand settled on her bottom and gave her a hard pinch.
Jess whirled around, slashing again with her killer pink heel.
Soft, derisive laughter greeted her attempts at self-defence.
Behind her, the middle screen flickered into life.
A man stared at her, a smile curving his thin lips. He had short hair, prominent ears and an unpleasant ferrety look. His smile widened, taking in her fear, then the screen went blank again and a heartbeat later the main lights came back on.
Jess grabbed her other shoe and her bag and bolted for the lift.
As the doors closed, Jess realised the enormity of her mistake.
She should have taken the stairs!
The lift started to move and, for a moment, she thought everything was going to be all right, but then the usually smooth mechanism juddered to a halt. Jess didn’t hesitate, she went straight for the emergency call button.
The laughter started up again, echoing around the small metal box. A hand slid up the back of her thigh.
Jess yelped and pressed herself into the corner, trying to keep the hand from touching her, but instead, she felt cold fingers slide across the front of her blouse, brushing across her breasts. There was no getting away from the wandering hands. No matter which way she turned, they were still there, stroking, pinching, lifting her skirt while the laughter echoed all around her, mocking her.
The man’s face stared at her from the mirrored sides of the lift, each one showing a different expression, but each was taunting her. He was drinking in her fear, exulting in her distress.
“Leave me alone!” Her words ricocheted around the enclosed space but did nothing to help her. He simply continued to laugh and his unseen hands continued to grope her.
Fear and anger warred for supremacy, burning white hot through her body. “Leave me alone!”
Gathering what little presence of mind she had left, Jess pressed the button for ground level again, and to her surprise, the lift juddered into life, moving upwards.
When the doors opened, Jess bolted out, one shoe still clutched in her left hand, the other stuck in her handbag.
The lights were on in the foyer and outside, beyond the chrome and tinted glass, the sun was still shining. Jess knew she was wild-eyed and dishevelled, but she didn’t care. She was out of the lift, out of that basement and soon to be out of that bloody building. Dream job or not, she was handing in her notice. Her car was still in the underground car park, but as far as she was concerned, it could stay there. She would catch the bus home rather than go back down in that lift.
She slipped her shoes back on, held her biotag close to the sensor and, with huge relief, stepped out into the sunshine,
*****
Jess had never taken refuge in alcohol before, but she was damn well going to make an exception that night.
Her hand still shook slightly as she poured a large glass of cold Pinot Grigiot and settled down on the sofa, her laptop on her knee, ready to start writing her letter of resignation.
As the screen came to life, Jess felt a lurch of fear in the pit of her stomach. Was she going to see his face again? Had he – whoever he was – followed her home?
She shivered, pulling a warm throw around her shoulders.
How the hell had she ended up working in a haunted basement with a shady Government outfit – sorry, public/private partnership – who dealt with rips in time and hunted dinosaurs? Answer: her father had known someone who’d known someone etc etc, and the role of operations coordinator and head technician had sounded glamourous and exciting. Well, maybe not the dinosaur bit. That had just sounded very freaky and a bit scary. But she liked co-ordination and logistics and she was good at the tech side of things, so it had been ideal. Right up to the moment some bloke had started haunting her…
She stared at the screen, wondering what on earth she could say to explain why she was suddenly handing in her notice. In her bright, airy, white-painted flat, she was starting to feel embarrassed about her flight from the lift and from the building. She was going to have to go back there to fetch her car, and she’d have to see Lester to hand in her notice. She couldn’t just do it my email. That would be cowardly. And Jess Parker wasn’t a coward.
Jess took a gulp of her wine.
Something was niggling at the back of her mind and had been since she’d seen the face of her tormentor. Something about the sticky-out ears and the ferrety face had been familiar, but she’d been too freaked out at the time to realise that, but now, playing it all back in her mind, that feeling of having seen the man before had fought its way back to the surface and was jumping up and down, trying to attract her attention.
Jess drew in a long, slow breath and then, with a few brisk keystrokes, she opened her own private back door into the ARC’s computer system and started to browse the personnel files.
It didn’t take long.
The face of the man she now knew to have been Oliver Leek stared at her out of her laptop screen, and it was all Jess could do to stop herself slamming the lid shut and hurling the machine across the flat. But this image was static, not alive like the ones in the ARC had been. Here he looked almost harmless. The sort of boy who had probably been bullied unmercifully at school for being a nerdy wimp.
But that didn’t give him the right to touch her up at work! Or anywhere else for that matter.
Jess knew from some comments Lester had made that there had been problems at the old ARC. A lot of problems. People had died. But she hadn’t realised the full magnitude of Leek’s bid for power or the sheer bloody awfulness of Stephen Hart’s death. Jess felt tears prick her eyes when she thought about him. To die like that… She shuddered. It was horrible.
Browsing through the archived files, she came across a folder containing footage from security cameras in the old ARC. Curious, Jess opened a file at random and started to flick through the feeds from a variety of cameras. Most of the film was as dull as ditch water, mainly showing random shots of corridors, offices, a cavernous room that seemed to be the hub around which the rest of the building revolved, a long, curving walkway leading to an upper level… a shot of Lester’s office, with the same large black chair he’d rescued from the odds and ends that had gone into storage and had ended up with them. A weird-looking helmet on a stand didn’t seem to have made it over to his new office, but maybe that had gone home with him.
The next shot was taken from a camera mounted high on a pillar on the walkway and showed a view of an office adjacent to Lester’s. The room was unoccupied apart from a desk and a chair. A chair that Jess recognised. A chair that she’d spent the last two weeks sitting on. A shiver ran down her spine, thankfully unaccompanied by any unseen fingers.
She carried on delving into the archives and managed to uncover a file with a floor plan of the building, showing various rooms labelled with the names of their occupants. Proof, if more had been needed, that Oliver Leek had occupied the room adjoining Lester’s.
She took a valedictory swig of her wine.
The chair would have to go. That would be a good start…
With something approaching shock, Jess realised that her thinking had shifted from drafting her resignation letter to planning how she could fight back. She was damned if she was going to allow a mass-murderer to drive her out of her dream job.
Jess carried on browsing the security footage, wondering how many more items associated with Leek had survived to be brought over to their new offices. At first, nothing jumped out at her, but then the cameras lingered for a moment on a workstation in the middle of the improbably huge atrium.
A bank of familiar screens stood in the middle of the room. It looked very much like they’d also been put into storage, along with the rest of the Anomaly Detection Device. Jess wondered what connection there had been between Oliver Leek and the flat screens that now made up her version of the ADD. The security tapes weren’t any help on that score, nor was anything else she could turn up on the security tapes.
Only one person would be able to shed light on that question.
But could she raise it with him?
*****
“… and you think I’m totally stupid, don’t you?” Jess said, shuffling her feet awkwardly as the flood of words that had been tumbling out of her mouth for the past five minutes finally dried up.
The silence that greeted her confession told her all she needed to know.
“I’ll let you have my resignation immediately,” Jess said. She blinked ferociously, to keep tears at bay. She’d been so happy to get this job, now some nasty little mass murderer that she’d never even properly met had ruined it for her. She couldn’t get out of Lester’s office fast enough.
“Miss Parker… Jess… Come back and sit down…” Lester’s tone was kind, not avuncular. Just rather tired.
She turned around and finally met his eyes. There was no ridicule there. Just kindness and concern.
“I wondered if he’d been bothering you, too. That’s why I didn’t want you to work late by yourself.”
Jess stared at him, her eyes widening. “You’ve seen him?” Followed immediately by, “You believe me?”
“He prefers to stand behind me, looking over my shoulder. But I’ve seen his shadow on my computer screen. That’s not something I’m likely to mistake in a hurry.”
“You didn’t say anything!”
“No, I didn’t. And I’m sincerely sorry for not having done so, but telling a new employee that I thought one of her predecessors was haunting the premises is hardly the way to inspire the confidence of your staff. Especially if you were in blissful ignorance of the whole situation.”
Feeling relief course through her system, Jess sat down heavily in the chair opposite Lester. “It really is him, isn’t it? Oliver Leek.”
“From the description you’ve given me, I have no doubt at all.”
“What about the shadow you saw?”
A smile hovered on the extremities of Lester’s lips. “His ears are rather… distinctive.” He glanced almost furtively over his shoulder as he spoke.
Jess stared at her boss in horror. “Can you feel him there now?”
Lester shook his head. “No. That was just out of habit. So, Miss… Jess… What do you think we should do?”
“I… I… don’t know.” And she didn’t. In spite of her desire to fight back, Jess hadn’t actually expected this conversation to go any other way than her handing in her notice after being sneered at by her new boss for her far-fetched claims.
“Am I that unapproachable?” Lester said quietly. Clearly the man could add mind-reading to his already impressive CV. “I made a promise to myself that after the way things ended with Oliver Leek and Stephen that I would be less unpleasant to my staff. But I’m not wholly sure I’ve kept that promise.”
All the bars of chocolate he’d given her, as well as the occasional coffee he’d made for her flashed into Jess’s mind, as well his attempts to put her at her ease.
“You’re a very sweet boss!”
Lester looked horrified.
Jess laughed, feeling the tension slipping from her now that she had an ally. “I think we should get rid of that chair, for a start.”
Lester nodded. “I didn’t even realise it was the same chair. But I’m sure the budget can run to a new one.”
“What’s his connection with the screens? Jess asked. That had been bugging her since she’d seen them on the security footage. “I saw them on the CCTV tapes, in the middle of the operations room.”
Lester looked uncomfortable. “We watched his death on those screens. He was…”
“…ripped to shreds by the future predators. I read the reports.”
He winced. “I thought I’d password protected those files.”
“You did. We can talk about better security protocols some other time. We’ll need to get rid of the screens, too. You make the coffee, I’ll Google how to get rid of ghosts.”
*****
“We could always call a professional…”
“Do you know any emergency exorcists?”
“I could make some phone calls…”
“He assaulted me. This is personal. If this doesn’t work, you can make some phone calls then. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Jess smiled brightly. It had been an interesting shopping trip. They were now the proud possessors of five kilos of sea salt, eight large bunches of sage, two powerful LED torches, two large amethyst crystals, two gas-powered lighters and an impressively hefty axe. And it wasn’t just any old sea salt and sage. It was M&S sea salt and sage. The axe had come from a rather quaint little hardware store that looked like it hadn’t changed for over 50 years. The owner had wrapped it up in a large brown paper bag. They’d done their best not to look shifty. They probably hadn’t succeeded.
Doing her best to look competent and determined, not scared to death, Jess stood shoulder to shoulder with Lester in the middle of the new control room.
“We want you to leave,” she said, loudly and – she hoped – firmly.
Nothing happened. Jess fought back the urge to add, please. Her mother would have been horrified at its omission. Her grandmother would have taken a more robust view.
She nudged Lester.
He cleared his throat. “We want you to leave.”
The three dark screens flickered abruptly into life, even though Jess had taken the precaution of disconnecting the electrical supply.
Three different versions of the same sneering face stared out at them.
“How very quaint.” The words came from three mouths at the same time, but each was spoken with a different variation on a sneering theme, sounding like three amplifiers not quite in sync with each other.
Jess’s skin prickled as though something had set up a static charge too close to her. She fought the urge to turn and run.
“How very quaint,” Oliver Leek repeated. “Do you really think this will all end so easily?”
“No, we don’t,” Lester said, slipping his hand into Jess’s and giving her fingers as reassuring squeeze.
Grateful for the contact, she squeezed back. He believed her. They were in this together. It was going to work. It had to work. Jess wasn’t going to be forced out of her dream job by this creep.
“So what are you going to do, James? Use the magic word, maybe? Say please? Or are you still too high and mighty for that?”
Jess squeezed Lester’s hand, trying to warn him not to get into an argument. They were meant to be telling him to leave, that was all. No debate about it.
“Leave this building,” Lester said firmly.
“Leave this world,” Jess added.
The lights flickered but didn’t go out. If they did, they each had a torch in a pocket.
Leek laughed uproariously.
The sound echoed around the room.
Jess felt sick. And, faintly idiotic, which seemed a rather incongruous emotion in the circumstances.
“For the third time of asking, leave us,” Lester said. His voice sounded stronger now, more sure of himself.
“Leave us,” Jess repeated.
“Do you know how ridiculous the pair of you sound?” Leek demanded.
Lester squeezed her hand again and she squeezed back. They were getting the hang of not rising to the bait.
Together, they turned their back on the screens and walked into Lester’s office, picking up a large packet of sea salt each. Jess stood in the doorway while Lester laid a trail of salt around the room, taking in his desk and chair, then closing the circle with the pair of them on the outside.
Leek’s laughter continued to echo around the control room, but Jess thought she detected just the faintest hint of nervousness in the mocking voice. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.
The static prickle was still raising the hairs on her bare arms but she hadn’t yet felt any intimate touch from him. She gripped the amethyst crystal in her pocket and felt the static chill diminish slightly. She plastered a smile on her face and walked towards the screens on top of her work station. The ADD servers had removed and stored in one of the vacant offices. Lester had assured her that Leek had never had any association for the servers and that Connor had upgraded several times since Leek’s death, so almost nothing of the original set up had survived.
Jess started to pour the sea salt in a large circle around the screens.
Leek’s laughter took on a maniacal edge and his eyes looked like they were bulging out of his head.
She completed the circle and put the packet of salt on the floor.
The next bit was going to be harder, but she’d already taken the precaution of disabling the fire detection systems, as well as all internal CCTV. They weren’t expecting visitors and Philip Burton was off brown-nosing the PM, so they weren’t likely to be disturbed, but even so, the outer doors were locked and could only be over-ridden by her biotag wristband or Lester’s. If this went wrong, they were on their own, but it was better than having someone walk in on their amateur exorcism attempt.
They each took a gas-lighter and a bunch of sage and held the herbs over the flames. Jess did her best to ignore the mocking laughter and concentrate on keeping her breathing slow and steady as she tried to empty her mind of the fear that still gripped her with its icy fingers.
The sage leaves started to curl and smoke. Jess walked around the room, feeling more than faintly ridiculous. The smoke was pungent, but not unpleasant. Lester followed her, doing the same.
When they’d completed a circuit of the room, Leek’s laughter sounded weaker, but it hadn’t died out altogether and his face still stared at them from each of the screens.
Jess sighed and glanced at Lester. “Time for Plan B?”
He nodded.
The axe felt comfortingly heavy in her hand. “Should we have done a risk assessment?”
“I’m not wholly sure the employee health and safety manual was designed with this sort of activity in mind. I think we can fall back on a dynamic risk assessment on this occasion.”
Jess looked at him quizzically. “Does that mean we make it up as we go along?”
Lester nodded.
She smiled widely at him. “Works for me.”
Lester waved his arm - and the axe - in a gallant gesture. “After you, Miss Parker.”
She took a small bow and tried not to drop the axe on her toe. “Thank you, kind sir.”
Jess stepped into the circle of salt and swung the axe as had as she could at the middle screen.
It shattered.
One of Leek’s faces disappeared, breaking apart in fragments of glass and plastic.
The other two faces twisted in pain and anger.
Lester took a swing at the one on the right. It broke apart more spectacularly than the first one.
The remaining face contorted in rage, the veins on Leek’s forehead standing out and his eyes bulging unpleasantly.
Together, they aimed blows at the screen on the left. The two axe heads buried themselves simultaneously in Leek’s hate-filled face.
They swung their axes again and again, reducing the screens to fragments on the floor.
Jess tipped the chair on its side and swung the axe down. The blow jarred up her arms, but the weight of the axe-head snapped the plastic column that connected the base to the castors. Lester pitched in with a second blow, then they found a rhythm, chopping at it until it was broken beyond any hope of repair.
She threw every ounce of her own anger into the hail of blows she rained down onto what had been Oliver Leek’s office chair. The anger felt cleansing and she poured her scorn for the man into each blow. He’d terrified her. He’d touched her. He’d abused her. She wanted him out of her office and out of her life.
Jess wasn’t sure at what point the laughter stopped.
But it did stop.
She stepped back, let the axe fall from fingers that had gone numb from gripping the wooden handle so hard, and stared down at the destruction left on the floor. Glass, plastic, metal, wires and sundry other things she didn’t even recognise were strewn around the floor, all mixed up with salt and bunches of burnt sage leaves.
“Shall we go the whole hog?” Lester asked.
Without waiting for her reply, he picked up one of the packets of sea salt and emptied it over the wreckage.
Jess did the same with the last remaining packet.
They stepped back and admired their handiwork. Then they looked at each other.
At some point in the proceedings, Lester had taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. His hair was dishevelled and he was breathing heavily. Her own hair had come loose from its ponytail and she had sage smuts on her arms and on her yellow blouse. They stared at each other and started to laugh, weakly at first, but then growing in abandon.
They looked ridiculous. They felt ridiculous. They had just destroyed office equipment.
They had just got rid of a ghost.
The atmosphere felt lighter. Less gloomy. Less oppressive.
It had worked.
They’d done it.
Jess flung her arms around Lester’s neck and hugged him hard.
A moment later, he hugged her back, just as hard.
When they drew apart, Lester smoothed his hair back into place, pulled his tie off and started to roll up his sleeves. “I’ll sweep, you use the dustpan.”
Jess smiled at him. “Deal.”
*****
Her new office chair arrived the following day.
It was orange.
She liked orange. Just not in chocolate.
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However, I had to stop at the end of the first bit and tel you that I WANT A COLOUR CHANGING KETTLE SOOOOOOO MUCH!! I have a colour changing iron but a kettle sounds so much better. I've had to google it. I might be putting in an order...
Ah, I needn't have worried, that was great. Jess and Lester are such a good team. Really enjoyed that Fred.
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You wanted a fic where she vanquished Leek, so this was born.
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I want that kettle.
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But I'm very glad you decided to give it a go.
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Great fic!
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I'm not sure which was nastiest - the open dark room groping or the elevator groping. *shivers*
Loved it.
PS - at least they didn't have to find Leek's bones and burn them! H/t Supernatural...
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LOL, I was going for possible fixes they could achieve quickly. *g*
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And it wasn’t just any old sea salt and sage. It was M&S sea salt and sage.
Hee!
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