fredbassett | Fic, Falls the Shadow, Part 9, Stephen/Ryan Series, 18

Title : Falls the Shadow, Part 9
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Characters : Cutter, Connor, Ryan, Lyle & Other OCs
Rating : 18
Disclaimer : Not mine (except Lyle and some of the others), no money made, don’t sue
Spoilers : None.
Summary : The Anomalies appear to be weakening.
A/N : Sorry for the delay. The remainder of this series can be found here

“No way, Professor, just no way.”

Nick Cutter grinned. “Just one quick look?”

They’d taken the track as far as the farm, leaving their police escort behind to do the talking while they’d headed off along the footpath leading to the tarn. The anomaly had been visible almost as soon as they’d crested the last rise. It was hanging in the air, above an outcrop of rock, flickering in the low cloud. Then more mist had swirled around and for a second it seemed almost to have vanished.

“It’s getting weaker.” Finn’s voice carried a note of pleading.

The soldier was right, and Cutter knew it. Discretion, on this occasion at least, was clearly the better part of valor.

It had taken them nearly half an hour to reach their current position, and in that time, the glow had clearly started to fade and it wasn’t just the cloaking effect of the mist and the rain. The anomaly was definitely losing its strength. And Cutter had no mind to be stuck on the wrong side when it did finally lose its grip on the present.

So he stood and watched, with mounting frustration, as one of the ever-fascinating windows on the past diminished and disappeared. “Too bloody late,” he muttered.

“I reckon it’ll be back,” said Finn.

Cutter swung his head round sharply, and saw the thoughtful expression on the soldier’s narrow face. He raised his eyebrows. “And your evidence for that is?”

Finn pointed across the rough pasture land of the Lakeland Hills. “There’s a fence round that outcrop but there’s no gate in it. And there’s no sheep on this part of the fells. We’ve seen sheep everywhere else on the drive over here, but this guy’s got his sheep in that bloody great big barn off the yard. I was brought up in the country, sir. The weather’s foul, but I know sheep and I know you don’t keep Herdwicks penned inside, not even when it’s as bad as this. Not unless you’ve a reason that goes beyond weather conditions.”

In spite of his frustration, Cutter grinned. “Then let’s go talk to their owner.”

As they walked back down into the farmyard the two men could see the farmer, a stocky individual almost as broad as he was tall, leaning against the door of his barn. The man watched them approach, his expression guarded, but unsurprised.

Nick very much doubted that the police marksman after a rogue dog excuse had cut any ice with him at all.

“It’s no weather to be lookin’ fer ……… dogs, that’s fer sure,” commented the man, a gleam of something suspiciously like amusement in his dark eyes. “But at any rate, yer wastin’ yer time, ain’t had no trouble from dogs round ‘ere, not in a long while.”

“So what have you had trouble from?” Cutter asked, quietly.

“Foot and Mouth …….. buggers who can’t close gates ………. idiots from MAFF …….. You name it, we’ve ‘ad trouble from it. An’ some types of trouble are easier to handle than others, as no doubt you gentlemen know, but me, I just fences it in. Seems safest that way.”

“So when’s it going to re-appear, Mr. ……?”

The look in the other man’s eyes was as sharp as broken glass and as bright as an anomaly. “Skelton. Raymond Skelton. Give it a couple of hours and it’ll be back, but I doubt we’ll see it much after tomorrow. Last time it was this active was nigh on eight years ago. It lasted two days then, flickering on and off like a ruddy great big Christmas tree light. Same as it’s been doin’ fer a day an’ a half now.” He sucked in a long breath, before declaring, “You’ll be after the kids, I take it?”

Nick Cutter met the man’s eyes and smiled. “Aye, we are. So what can you tell us that’ll help, Mr. Skelton?”

The look he got in return was flint hard. “Find ‘em quick, while you can still get through and back. And while you’re at it, find out why they’m went into it the first place. Annie Lowe’s a sensible lass. She’d not have gone just for a bit o’ fun. So I’d be asking meself why, if I were you.”

Nick cursed under his breath, and grabbed his phone.

“No signal,” said the young policeman who’d driven them to the farm, seeing the look of frustration on the Professor’s face. “You’ll not find a land line here either. So where do you want to go next?”

* * * * *

Connor looked down at the flickering compass in his hand, watching the needle wave erratically. He sighed, pensively. “Try your radio again, will you, mate?”

Ditzy looked puzzled but tried, all the same. And failed.

“What have we just proved?” he asked, as a wide grin spread over Connor’s face.

“Something we already knew. Something we’ve known for ages, and we’ve never followed it up. Like I said at the house, the radios are always fouling up in the Forest of Dean. They’re doing the same here. We need to test this systematically. We need more data.”

It was Ditzy’s turn to sigh. That was the problem when it came to working with bloody scientists. They always needed more data. “We actually need to find Stephen, which is why we came out here in the first place, remember?”

Connor reluctantly dragged his attention away from the compass. “He’s not here, and all we got from his phone, when we did have a bloody signal, was This user’s mobile is not in service.”

“So we get soaked to the fucking skin on yet another cold wet hillside looking for another needle in a haystack. Same as before.” In irritation, the medic took a swing with his foot at a large rock. “Or we could just start yelling and see if that does any good. It seems to be the only sodding method of communication left round here that might work.”

The younger man shot him a sympathetic look. The soldiers didn’t like it when their toys went wrong. And people called him a geek!

The offending rock found itself on the receiving end of a second kick and at the same time, something clicked in Connor’s mind. He knelt down on the wet grass and flipped the rock over, muttering under his breath.

“Leaving no stone unturned?” Ditzy sounded amused, in spite of his frustration.

Connor looked up, dark eyes thoughtful. “Look at this and then at the ground around here. Tell me what you see.” The soldier opened his mouth to protest, and was forestalled by a wave of the younger man’s hand. “No, don’t argue. Tell me what you see.”

Ditzy stared around him, his normally easy going manner gone in an instant, buried beneath a mantle of detached professionalism.

“Looks to me like it’s been thrown from somewhere …. from further up, maybe …….yeah, look, …….. bounced a bit there,” he pointed to a spot a few feet up the hillside, “…. landed, then rolled about two metres down the slope, towards us. So what’s your point, Connor?”

“There’s been an anomaly here, the compass activity proves that. So does the fact that the radios are giving us nothing but static crackle That rock doesn’t come from round here. I’ve done enough geology to know that. It isn’t native to this hillside, so how did it get here?”

“Someone chucked it through an anomaly?” hazarded Ditzy, with a look that spoke volumes. He really didn’t like where this conversation was heading.

Connor nodded. “Someone who didn’t think he had enough time to get through himself, but still wanted to try and get something back. Something that we’d see. I think I know why we can’t raise ‘em, mate.”

Ditzy flipped open his phone. Telling Ryan that his boyfriend was now stuck in the past as well as his kid wasn’t the medic’s idea of fun. The captain was likely be a tad hard on the bearer of news like that. “Still no signal,” he said, with something approaching relief in his voice.

He put his hand to his ear, trying the radio out of long habit.

Connor could hear the buzz of static from where he was standing. If anything, it was worse. He looked down at the compass again. This time the needle wasn’t just flickering, it was spinning, first clock-wise, then anti-clockwise.

“Watch your gun!” he yelled, a few scant seconds before an anomaly opened, no more than four metres away from them.

The instruction saved Ditzy’s rifle from the sudden magnetic tug, but it didn’t stop Connor from losing his own phone through the rough circle of shattered light. Crap. Lester always snarked about bills for replacement phones. He’d already told Connor that he’d prefer him to find another method of getting an upgrade. One that wasn’t funded by the taxpayer.

The anomaly winked, blinked and closed again, before either of the men had chance to speak.

“OK, that’s a first,” said Connor, looking unhappy. “Come on, we need to find Cutter.”

* * * * *

Greg Thornton drove up through the Kentmere valley like the proverbial Hounds of Hell were on his tail, which, round here, he’d decided, was an all too likely scenario. Even though here the bloody things probably wouldn’t have fur, but from what he’d heard, they would be well-endowed with teeth.

“So how long have you been riding shotgun for this lot?” he asked, conversationally, as he took a cattle grid at something approaching 50 mph.

Ryan winced out of sympathy for the vehicle’s suspension, whilst simultaneously admiring the man’s driving.

In the back, Lyle braced himself, seeing a tight bend in the track coming up, and wondering whether he should mention it.

“Best part of six months,” said Ryan, eyes fixed ahead.

Greg drove his foot down on the accelerator rather than the brake. “So you know what all this is about?”

Ryan shook his head. “Nope. It’d make life easier if we did. Would probably have lost less lads, as well.”

The car took the bend in a barely controlled skid. Lyle flinched and his foot stabbed at an imaginary brake.

“And is the Government going to tell us what’s going on?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Ryan admitted.

“Then they’ve got a lot in common with the bloody locals, although I doubt either side would care to admit it,” muttered Greg, swerving a few metres off the track to avoid a surprised looking sheep.

Five minutes later, he brought the vehicle to a halt next to a ruined cottage.

Calum Richard pulled his car off the track behind them. “Speeding tickets are in the post,” he muttered, taking a quick look to see if his exhaust pipe was still in place.

“Repeat, Professor!” demanded Ryan, grinning at the look on the policeman’s face. The soldier held the phone to his ear, clearly having trouble making out what was being said. “I’m getting one word in three! Say again!” Two minutes later he flipped the phone closed. His face grim. “Reception’s still shite. Cutter says he’s with Connor. Something about Hart and an anomaly. Another one up by the tarn has just closed. Seems to think the things are getting weaker. Told us to watch ourselves. There was more, but I couldn’t catch it.” He glared at both the phone and the police inspector. “How the fuck do you lot work round here? Comms are a sodding nightmare.”

Calum Richards shrugged. “There are times when it’s worse than others and the bad weather doesn’t help. Causes the Rescue Teams a few headaches as well. Speaking of which, are you sure we couldn’t do with more back-up?”

Ryan glanced at Lyle.

The lieutenant shook his head. “Lester says no, and I’m inclined to agree with him. We’re spread too thinly, but more people won’t help. It’ll just give us more bodies to keep track of. With no effective comms network, we’re having enough trouble as it is. More bodies will just make it worse.”

Ryan watched Lyle rubbing the finger and thumb of his right hand together in an unconscious gesture that he’d seen all too frequently over the years.

The captain threw the boot of the car open, grabbed an assault rifle and threw it at the policeman. “I presume you know how to use it?”

D.C.I. Richards checked the safety catch, slid the magazine out, checked it was full, rammed it home and nodded. “Not exactly standard issue at Hendon, but I won’t blow my own foot off.”

“It’s not your feet we’re worried about, mate,” grinned Lyle, handing the other man four spare clips. “Give me two minutes to tool up properly and I’ll follow you. I’m going to have one last go at raising the others by phone. I had one bar back at the last corner. It’s worth a try.”

Ryan nodded and without a word, turned to head up to the anomaly site. The other two men followed.

Lyle stared down at his phone and hit Cutter’s name on the dial list as he walked back down the track, in search of that illusive signal.

No luck.

He tried the number for the Thornton’s house.

The same.

Connor.

Nothing.

With mounting frustration, he dialed another number, which, to his amazement, met with success.

“Lyle? Where the fuck are you? I’ve just been talking to Cutter.”

“Nice to hear you too, sweetie,” the Special Forces lieutenant muttered. “I’m in Kentmere, it’s getting dark and mobile reception is close to useless. Ryan’s just taken a call from Cutter but ………..”

“How’s he taking it?” Even the crackle on the line failed to disguise the concern in Lester’s voice.

The hairs on the back of Lyle’s neck started to rise. “How’s who taking what?”

“How’s Ryan taking the news that he’s now got a boyfriend stuck in the past as well as a daughter?”

“Oh fuck.” Talk about an op turning to rat shit.

“That about sums it up,” said Lester, heavily, answering both his lover’s spoken, and unspoken thoughts. “I presume you’re not just phoning for a chat, Jon?”

“I was actually dialing any number I could find that worked. I need someone to coordinate this crappy fucking job. Next on the list was Auntie Madge. Come to think of it, Auntie Madge might have been a better bet, she worked at Bletchley during the war …………”

In spite of the situation, Lester snorted a laugh. “OK, point taken. Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”

“Tell Cutter and Connor to get their arses back to the house. We’ve too many people spread half way around the bloody countryside, and I don’t like it.” Plus the fact that Cutter might manage to get something out of his bitch of a wife where we failed. “Tell them to call your office every fifteen minutes from there. I don’t want them out of contact if we can help it.” He fell silent a moment, listening, then continued, “Make them understand. I don’t care how you do it, just get Cutter to follow orders for once in his bloody life. I’ve got a bad feeling coming on, so just humour me. I’ll check in again if I can. If you hear nothing from me in two hours, send Stringer and his lads up here by the faster method. Got that? I don’t sodding care if there’s a herd of fucking T rex in the Forest ………...my thumbs are itching fit to bust, and if you won’t do it, I really will ring Auntie Madge……... OK?” Lyle listened again, then laughed. “Yes, darling, I’ll try. Love you too.”

With that, Lyle sighed, rammed the phone into a pocket of his tac vest and started methodically loading up with as much hardwear and ammunition as he could carry.

He really was starting to have a very, very, bad feeling about all of this.

Lester’s news about Stephen Hart hadn’t helped, but right now, he was just glad that Cutter hadn’t managed to pass that little gem onto Ryan. In Lyle’s view, it was time to start operating on a need to know principle.

And Ryan sure as hell didn’t need to know that particular fact just yet.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

bigtitch.livejournal.com

Oooh - Just checking my flist and this shows up! Awesome! I love your locals - just as well the farmer *can* fence it in. And Yay! for Connor spotting something useful. And Lyle is always worth waiting for.

So - when's the next installment?
*stares at screen*

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Fic, Falls the Shadow, Part 9, Stephen/Ryan Series, 18

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