Primeval fic: All in Good Time 2/4
Title: All in Good Time
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: No ownership, no money.
Rating: PG-13, may yet get upgraded.
Summary: The first time Connor met Stephen wasn't the first time Stephen met Connor. Or something like that.
AN: I needed something despicably cute for the cat name, and the Harry Potter reference just sort of presented itself to me, waving wildly.
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As Connor seemed to relax dramatically with Stephen's assurance, he was struck by just how young he was. He'd always thought of Connor as being young, not merely because of the eight year difference between them, but because of his ways of running around, all arms and legs, like a teenager in a growth spurt. But there was a sort of pleading desperation here for someone to step up and take the burden of adulthood off him, and Stephen was struck by the thought that perhaps, after this, Connor had taken his chance at living out the rest of his childhood with both hands, knowing what it was like once you didn't have it back.
Well, while he didn't know how he'd done it, obviously he had, because Connor had lived to disturb the living daylights out of him. It was oddly reassuring, but he still had to deal with everything here, and that included seeing if there was anything he could do for the ones still trapped in that compound.
There were a few questions he still had to ask, despite not really wanting to know the answers. Because teenagers forced into fits that had them tearing small children apart was terrible enough, but he had to know more. "Connor, if we're going to get you both home and the others out, I'm going to need to know about the compound, the guards and anything else you can tell me."
"Right. For strategy," Connor nodded. "Elliott'll be safe enough up here for a few hours tomorrow, so if you'd like, I can take you down to get a look for yourself."
Loathe though he was to leave a child alone in a place like this, Stephen had to admit that there hadn't been anything prowling the treetops yet that was dangerous. "What can you tell me about the guards? Elliott said something about clones?"
"Yeah," Connor nodded. "That's the going theory, at least. We thought they might be robots, androids or something, for a while, but Patrice got in a lucky hit once and they bleed, and they smell more or less human."
"Smell?" he asked. It was all so strange.
This odd younger Connor nodded. "The . . . treatments," he explained. "They make us stronger, faster, improve smell, well, all our senses, and they've caused some changes, physiological ones. It's not just brain chemistry," he added. "I heal faster, there are things I can do now I shouldn't be able to with a human physiology, and I'm pretty sure the makeup of the brain itself has changed as well."
"How?" These one-word questions might start getting old fast, but there was nothing else to add.
"It's . . ." Connor paused, looking for the words. "I'm not sure there's words for it, but . . . it's like a wolf pack, sort of. Like my instincts are telling me that Elliot's . . ." another pause, this one embarrassed. He pushed on regardless. "Elliott's my cub," he said defiantly. His arms tightened slightly around the sleeping boy. "But they're also sort of telling me that you're an alpha, a pack alpha and that I need to either . . . er . . ."
Despite the whole strange situation, it was a tad amusing. "You thinking of challenging me for position in the pack?"
"Maybe a little?" Connor said hesitantly. "I mean, it's sort of split. Either challenge or submission. It's sort of the, erm, polite thing to do."
"More like the thing to do," Stephen suggested. "I doubt that even wolves think that dominance challenges are polite, per se."
"Maybe," Connor agreed. "Anyhow, I'm pretty sure everyone down there's like . . . like a pack to me too, and is like this as well. The instincts, I mean."
Stephen nodded, thinking through things. "They can all fight like you did?"
The too-young face shuttered a moment. "The ones still alive can. The ones that couldn't . . ." The tear-filled eyes were familiar, the look on his face the one Stephen had seen as Connor knelt beside Tom, dying on the stadium floor. Suddenly, a snarl rumbled out of his chest, sounding like nothing so much as a puma Stephen had startled from it's prey one time. "She laughed as they died," he growled around the sound. "Laughed. As though hearing them . . ." He was angry and grieving and lost all at once.
"Connor?" Elliott asked sleepily. He woke to see Connor's wet eyes and fury. "I miss them too," he said. Then suddenly wriggled off Connor's lap.
Without a word, Connor dropped off the platform down to the forest below. "Where's he going?" Stephen demanded.
"He's scared he'll do bad things to me," Elliott said placidly. "But when he goes away and does stuff, then comes back, he's better."
Frowning in concern, Stephen asked the boy, "What sort of stuff?"
"Dinosaur hunting."
"He didn't call it that, did he?" Stephen asked.
Elliott shook his head. "Well, first he tried to tell me he was going for a walk, like I was too stupid to know that's stupid. Then he said he was going and getting fruit, but he doesn't always remember the fruit, and one time he had stuff on his hands. So, then he admitted he was going after dinosaurs. But he doesn't call them dinosaurs, he called them archosaurs."
"Well, there aren't any dinosaurs around," Stephen pointed out.
Elliott leant over a branch, pointing out something that seemed to be a prowling dimetrodon. "What's that then? It's in all my dinosaur books."
"A dimetrodon is not a dinosaur," Stephen lectured. "It's a type of reptile that predates the dinosaurs."
"Predates?" Elliott asked.
"Sorry," Stephen told him. The maturity in the young face threw him. "It means came before."
"There was things before dinosaurs?" Elliott asked in awe. "But they were 65 million years ago! That's like 65 million time how old I am!"
He hadn't seen awe like that in what felt like a very long time. Cutter staring at the scutosaurus, his own shock and delight at the sight of the ancient creatures, even the gorgonopsid, seemed to have been lost ages ago, ripped apart like the victims of the monsters that had come through the anomalies. But from the safety of this treetop, looking down, he felt the sheer pleasure of watching an animal in its natural environment again, the fascination that came with the discovery of something new and the satisfaction that came with the knowledge that he was first. He'd seen this, not Cutter not some other evolutionary theorist, hunter, biologist or behaviourist.
So, he settled in to answer all of Elliott's questions. When Connor came back, he joined in, admitting quietly to Stephen in a moment when Elliott's back was turned, that he'd been letting the dinosaur thing go mostly because the stress he'd been under of having to be in charge had left him too short-tempered to risk the explanations lest he take out that temper on Elliott. Unsurprisingly, even at fifteen, Connor was a wellspring of hot and cold running paleontological esoterica. In fact, about the only flaws in his discussion were theories that had been disproved or invented since 1998.
He'd also arrived back with, "Protokiwis!" exclaimed Elliott in delight. They did indeed look rather like what Stephen imagined the predecessor species to the kiwi might appear, not that paleobotany was his area in any way. When he tried one, he understood Elliott's attraction to them. They were incredibly sweet. So sweet, they were candy-like.
Elliott was soon on a sugar high, and Stephen realised he and Connor weren't far behind. "You really shouldn't have given him those," he told Connor as Elliott happily bounced around the little treehouse.
Connor made a face. "I don't want to take him for a run out there," he jerked his head towards the forest floor. "There's a fair few predators that are starting to come out right about now, we're close to a watering hole, you see. After the nap he had, he might be up all night if I don't give him something so he'll wind down later."
"Ah," Stephen said as Elliott bounded past again, accidentally smacking him on the head. "I'm tempted to hit him," Stephen muttered, "And I don't even have an excuse like you. There's a reason I never wanted children." For a moment, Connor tensed, Stephen braced for a potential explosion, then Connor closed his eyes and breathed deeply a moment.
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't really think that you'd . . . it's just the whole," he waved a hand around his head, "Thing."
*************************************
Connor grimly suppressed the desire to make sure the interloper knew the cub was off limits. It had been a joke what Stephen had said, and he needed to remember that. "No," said Stephen, "I should have remembered. I'll try not to say things like that in future."
The way he'd backed down got Connor's hackles up. He had to control himself, because if this kept up he'd wind up going after Stephen, and Stephen was just there to help. He was trying to avoid confrontation, and the issue of alphas had no place there. He was grateful when Elliott crashed finally, and even more so when Stephen told him he'd take the first watch. "You've had a long day and you're still hurt, even if the rate at which you heal's been accelerated."
With another person there to stand watch, Connor sighed and relaxed into sleep. For the first time in a very long time he felt safe enough to really relax. Curled around Elliott, he felt himself begin to purr, content to know that the cub was safe and there was another member of their little pack there to watch for danger. He'd been dreaming of hunting and chasing when he was gently shaken awake.
Dazed with sleep, he snapped to a feral awareness, rather than full human consciousness.
There was the new interloper, the alpha-who-wasn't-an-alpha. The way he'd been backing down from confrontation, wouldn't fight, wouldn't slap Connor down meant he wasn't strong enough. "Connor?" came the soft voice of the cub.
Shocking Connor out of it. "It's okay Elliott. Nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep."
"'Kay," came the soft reply.
He ran his hands through his hair. "Sorry, I just . . ." How do you explain you were about to try smacking someone around for not being a half-mad feral creature?
"It's alright," Stephen said. "Lesson learnt. Treat you like a puma." He reached slowly forward, placing a comforting hand on Connor's shoulder again, and Connor sighed, leaning into the touch a little. He'd never been particularly tactile, but he got the feeling that, whatever had been done to him, it had made him more so. "I was just letting you know to take the shift from now 'til dawn."
"Right." Connor nodded and took up the good watching position, seeing Stephen curl himself around Elliott, dropping into sleep quickly. Settling in for a wait, Connor took to patrolling around the top of their tree, keeping an eye out for more dangerous creatures that might cause them trouble, letting the movement and use of his senses soothe him. He had to wonder what he'd do when he got home. The night was so loud here, so full of smells and sounds, how would he cope at home? He wanted to go home, missed his Star Wars posters and the internet, he missed his family and friends, he didn't miss school so much, but the chance to go to uni, to meet a girl and have a life that wasn't scrabbling hand to mouth like this would be, that he'd regret.
But could he even have that? The best therapist in the world wouldn't be able to erase the animalistic instincts that drove him now, he couldn't stop scenting people and animals, if he was in his bedroom overnight he'd probably feel trapped by the four walls the way he felt trapped now by the tree.
The next morning, more to get ahold of himself than anything else he volunteered to check the water hole and see if it was reasonably safe, with no water-dwelling predators lying in wait and no land-dwelling predators on their way over. By the time he got back to tell them it seemed reasonably safe, Connor thought he had himself under control.
But Elliott had latched onto this real adult, leaving Connor without authority over his cub. Because Elliott was turning to Stephen for everything. And Stephen was taking control, smooth and competent, clearly used to wilderness like this, carrying bloody guns that he was able to whip out like some sort of action hero and aim at things, and Connor only had fists and a still-healing body. He knew he was being irrational. What did he know about survival in a tropical jungle?
The last straw came with the words, "But Connor, Stephen said-"
A visceral fear, primal, instinctive and unhuman overtook him of losing the cub to the interloper. Instincts that might belong to any dozen animals bringing to mind a thousand nature programmes on the telly where one male would kill another male's cubs or kits, just because, the desired to remain in control, the demand that this oh-so-passive alpha be brought down to the proper beta position to Connor, who was stronger and faster and more than he was took over.
He snapped.
There was a red haze and the desire to taste blood as he leapt across the clearing. His opponent saw him coming, eyes wide, and dove out of the way. With a snarl, Connor turned, ignoring the cub as he bleated in those silly noises again. The other male was making placatory gestures and that just made Connor's lips split into a grin of triumph. He'd already won, he just had to drive the message home.
It didn't quite happen that way, though. For one, this time, when he launched himself again, he was met force for force by a blow from the pain thing like the Bad Ones carried -- gun -- sending him spinning off course. The other wasn't stupid and slow like the Bad Ones were. He was fast and agile, blue eyes narrowed in concentration, getting out of Connor's way again and again. Not every time. He was taking his share of blows, but the didn't seem to slow or confuse him like the ones belonging to Her. And quite suddenly the sun was in his eyes, dazzling him, giving his opponent the chance to slide past his defenses, tackle him and pin him, something pressing to his throat to choke him.
As always happened when he went mad like this, the world suddenly resolved again, the words making sense. "You'll do as I tell you unless you've got a damned good reason otherwise, Connor. Are we clear?"
The last gasp of those instinct struck in that moment, but this time, reassuring him that Stephen was a true alpha. The part of him that had been on guard, fearing the leadership of a weak pack leader suddenly rolled over and gave up, because he'd challenged this one and lost. It was with a sense of relief that he twisted, whining nearly subvocally, baring his neck in submission.
Stephen stood, filthy, but practically radiating his dominant stance in the pack. "Connor?" he asked, a snap of authority in his voice.
"Yeah," Connor said softly. "Stephen, I . . . thanks."
A single eyebrow was raised at that, reminiscent of Mr. Spock. It was a query and a rebuke at once, and Connor couldn't help tilting his head to show his neck again. He heard Stephen mutter, "Thank you, Abby," and had no idea what that meant, but didn't care, because he was given a hand up off the ground.
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright," Stephen told him, friendly again. "You'd warned me it might happen."
"But why Stephen?" Elliott demanded. "He didn't do anything!"
Connor knelt next to his little cellmate. "You know how I said those instincts keep making think weird things?"
"Yeah. Did they make you think Stephen was bad?" Elliott asked anxiously.
"Not exactly," Connor told him. "It's more like . . . you ever hear people say, 'respect is earned'?"
Elliott thought hard. "No. What does that mean?"
Stephen broke in then. "It means that a person doesn't deserve to have people trust him or believe him or do everything he says until he's proved that he's good at his job, or smart or usually tells the truth and things like that."
"It's like when you get a new teacher in school," Connor explained. "At first you'll only do what they say because if you don't you'll get in trouble with the headmaster or your parents. If they're a really good teacher, you'll want to do what they tell you because you think they're a good teacher."
"Okay," Elliott said slowly. "So, what's that got to do with you trying to hurt Stephen and Stephen hurting you back?"
"Those instincts that make me act weird kept telling me I couldn't really trust Stephen. That he'd be a bad person to be in charge." He looked apologetically at the man. "You were always placating me, and they sort of kept saying that if you were a real alpha, you'd've smacked me down."
"But that's stupid!" Elliott cried, confused by it all. "He's a real grownup and he's got all those guns and he saved us. Why'd you think he wasn't any good?"
"Why're you scared of moths?" Connor retorted. "It doesn't always make sense."
"Moths're creepy," grumbled Elliott. "Stephen's nice."
WIth that, they made their way back to the tree and Stephen set Elliott to playing watchdog in the branches. It gave them a bit of privacy to clear the air a little more.
"So, you felt like I was an interloper moving into your territory?"
"Worse," Connor said with a sigh. "You know all those nature specials where they talk about lions killing other lions' cubs and the like? That was flashing through my head. That and the worry that if you couldn't take me on, obviously you weren't strong enough to head the pack."
"So, it's cleared up now?" Stephen asked. The mildness Connor had been taking for placation took on a warning subtext. So he nodded, and Stephen smiled, giving him a companionable half hug. And because he was still so grateful for an adult there to take control of things, the two halves of him came together and he couldn't stop himself from settling against Stephen and purring.
The look of bafflement on Stephen's face was worth the hideous sense of humiliation at Elliott cheerfully declaring that Connor was like his parents' new pet kitty, Minnie Tufty Tibbles McGonagall.
*******************************
They didn't wind up going to look at the compound after all. Because Stephen was sore and bruised and feeling a stab of guilt every time he looked at Connor's bruised and happy face. Because he'd had to practically beat the boy into submission, and abuse of a minor did not sit well with him. Only the fact that Connor seemed happier somehow now that he'd been slapped down with such force kept him from feeling sick with himself. That and that he'd truly had to fight for his life and limb the way Connor had acted in those moments, nothing Elliott said and nothing Stephen had said had snapped the boy out of his state. Only the rifle across his throat, choking him into submission had done it, and Connor had rolled over like a beaten wolf, baring his throat.
Abby's lessons in animal behaviour had never come so in handy.
Where before Connor had been grateful and eager if somewhat distrustful of Stephen, it now appeared he thought Stephen had hung the moon, and it was a tad uncomfortable for Stephen. Used as he was to the slight amount of hero worship Connor had a tendency to, the fact was that Connor from 2007 would also chide Stephen if he thought the older man was being offensive and had been known to take the mickey as much as anyone else at Stephen and his reputation.
This teenaged Connor hung off of Stephen's every word, eagerly bounding about, purring at any word of praise from him and getting disturbingly tactile.
He recalled the moment he'd leaned on Connor during that incident with the dodos and the way Connor had stared at the arm resting on his shoulder. At the time Stephen had thought Connor uncomfortable with the physical contact. Now he wondered if perhaps Connor had been resisting an urge to purr and snuggle.
And the purring. The noises Connor could now produce were a strange array of animal sounds normal humans could either not produce, or could only produce with training, practice and effort. It drove home in some ways better than anything else that Connor was truly no longer fully human.
He suggested they stay close to home that day instead, choosing not to let on just how sore and bruised he was. Connor, in his feral state was a force to be reckoned with, and Stephen knew that a bit more training or a bit more intelligence and he'd have lost. So, instead of having to creep around, hoping they wouldn't get caught, he found out from the pair how they'd survived, what they'd been eating (mostly archosaurs and protokiwis with a leavening of roots) and more about cartoons and comic books than he'd ever wanted to know.
But he also learned about the clones. The soldiers on the first day, the identical ones, Connor had assured him they were clones, and listening to the stories about the inhuman soldiers, the blank faces and the way they seemed unresponsive to anything but the most egregious pain. They could, of course, simply be very well-trained, but anyone who felt it was a valid thing to torture children didn't really deserve consideration.
That night Connor took first watch and Stephen was kept up a bit by his perambulations around the tree. He also woke up stiff, sore, wanting a hot shower and a good run to stretch out the kinks. "Hey, your turn," said the teenager.
"Mmm?" Elliott started to wake up, and Connor wriggled in behind him at once.
"Shh," he murmured into the child's hair. "Go back to sleep. 'S'okay." Then he started purring, and Elliott snuggled down and then relaxed back into sleep. Stephen rather envied him. Then he crept over to a decent watching post and had to settle for stretching repeatedly to get the kinks out.
Both boys woke up with dawn, and Connor said. "You wanted to get a look at the compound. We'd best do that soon. Anyhow, I'd wanted to see if I could get a tarp or some such for when it rains. We've been lucky in a way, but it'll rain eventually and I'd rather not get soaked if I don't have to."
"Are you sure?" Stephen asked.
Connor nodded. "I don't like it, but I also don't know anything about tanning hides or skinning things, and we'll need something eventually if we don't get home soon." Then he looked at Elliott. "Do you think we should leave Elliott a gun?" he asked. "I wouldn't want one, but right now I'm dangerous enough not to necessarily need one. Elliott's another story."
Frowning, Stephen gave it some serious thought. Because they'd be leaving a child of under ten alone in a very dangerous area. They didn't know what was prowling around, and Elliott was fundamentally helpless. He was also only a child, and there was no way of knowing if he could even handle it. In the end, he decided leaving a pistol was the lesser of two evils and spent a good half hour carefully going over gun safety with the child and making sure he knew how to turn on the safety and not to use the gun unless something was actually about to hurt him.
Then he and Connor left, striking out for the compound. Intrigued, Stephen watched this younger Connor as he retraced his way to the base. He frowned as he recalled Connor's movement back when they'd first met, when Connor had come flopping up to Cutter and Stephen at the university, the way he'd tramped about in the Forest of Dean and wondered what had happened to the way Connor was flitting so lightly along. The traces he was leaving were small enough even he could barely see them and Connor was silent and graceful as he did so.
The only thing he could compare it to was the evening Connor had come to his flat, trying to warn him about Helen. There had been none of the stumbling about then, just an easy prowl across the floor. He'd also looked sick, as though suffering some sort of withdrawal. Something teased at the back of Stephen's mind about the whole thing, but he couldn't quite latch onto the thought.
Connor suddenly grabbed his arm. "We're basically here. There's a good tree nearby for spying. Come on." Bent nearly double, they scurried along, darting from fern to fern for cover. It took some doing to get up the tree, and a bit of manoeuvring to get the both of them where they could see. There was a high wall surrounding the whole of it and a few different buildings. "The one on the left is where they run the experiments," Connor said. "You can't see it from here, but there's an enclosed corridor between them. The nearest end is where She has her Roman Gladiator ring."
"Roman Gladiator ring?" Stephen inquired.
"With the raptors and things," Connor clarified. "She's usually pretty . . . I don't know what to call it," he admitted. "But at a guess, she . . . she gets off on it."
He nodded, wondering who this sick woman was. "How do you know?"
"She smells the same when she's baiting Luke about wanting to play with her and her toys," Connor said seriously. "But it's a guess 'cause, well, my sense of smell wasn't good enough before to have known what that would smell like, and . . ." he flushed, embarrassed. "And girls aren't exactly beating down the door to snog the dinosaur geek."
There was nothing that wasn't trite and stupid to say to that, so Stephen changed the subject. "The other buildings?"
"The one in the middle's where they keep everyone," Connor said. "It's pretty much like what I've seen of jails on the telly." He gave a ghost of a grin. "But at least there aren't any big men wanting to shag us." It was a pale version of Connor's usual terrible attempts at lightening the moment with a bad joke. More pale because this Connor lacked the wherwithal to truly make light of the situation, and was too saddened to go further. He shook it off and pointed to the last one. "The one on the right's where the soldier barracks are. I got close enough once to see in. It's pretty much just a big barn with cots. Somewhere in there's also where the armoury is and the like."
"What about the smaller one there?" Stephen asked, pointing to a fourth one closest to the fence.
Connor went very still. "That's why I guess about the berserker soldiers," he said. "I've seen it. That's where they put the teenagers that have cracked. They're in cages, and . . . and they're not . . . I'm not sure they're even really human anymore," he said, voice cracking. "I couldn't tell Elliott. What could I tell him? Gary, Tim, Kathy, Pam . . . it's like the can't recognise me or anyone else. They just scream and claw, and when they get loose they kill the soldiers and just . . . just tear them apart like animals. I don't even think there's instinct there anymore," he told Stephen. "Just . . . just the kill."
"I . . . I'm sorry," he said inadequately. He wrapped an arm around Connor's shoulders and felt the teen burrow into him a moment, seeking comfort. He was, despite how little he liked these sorts of things, he was more than willing to provide that comfort, because Connor had been the tower of strength for Elliott, and Stephen wasn't sure he'd have been up to it when he was fifteen.
Then his young friend stiffened. "There," he said softly, pointing to a female figure walking out of the enclosure they kept the transformed and feral teenagers. "That's Her. That's the . . . the bitch in charge." The venom and the cursing were unlike Connor, and Stephen strained to get a good look at this villainess.
For a moment, he felt the world do a lazy spin around him. The thought that had been trying to crystallise about Connor's evening visit landed like an anvil.
"Helen."
****************************************
When his new adult friend whispered the name, Connor didn't understand right away. It took a moment for the thought to work through his mind, and the shocked and appalled look on Stephen's face forced him to understand. "You know her?"
Stephen looked like he might throw up. "Helen," he repeated, almost as though he were having a one-sided conversation with Her. "I don't . . . you left Cutter, you left me for . . . to do this?" He was shaking badly, and Connor glanced worriedly at him.
Unfortunately, while it might be safer to have this conversation back at their home tree, he had the feeling that making it clear to Elliott would require a more delicate touch than Stephen would be able to manage right then. "What do you mean?" he prompted.
"She . . . when I was in uni, she was my thesis advisor," Stephen told him slowly. The story being dragged from him. "I . . . she lied to me, made me think she was leaving her husband. We had an affair." Connor felt his jaw drop. Someone had wanted to sleep with Her? Why would Stephen, who seemed like a good person want to do that? As though he'd heard Connor's thought, Stephen said, "She was different then. Or, at least, acted different. I was in love with her, I thought she loved me." He gritted out, "I believed her, you know? She was . . . is . . . beautiful and intelligent, brilliant really. Then she vanished. The university basically flung me at Nick, her husband, and I finished my degree under him. And he hired me on as his assistant. I found out she'd been lying about their marriage being over. At least, Nick hadn't had any idea."
Connor resisted the urge to say that he was pretty sure that a woman like the one he knew couldn't be trusted to tell the truth.
Stephen continued to speak as though he couldn't stop it, and Connor rather thought he'd needed to say it all for a long time. "I got bit by a giant prehistoric bug," he said. "And she appeared right after, and by the time I was found, I was hallucinating. I thought Abby was her. I'd wanted to see her again for so long, wanted it to be her so badly." He ran his hands through his hair distractedly. "I feel so stupid," he growled. "How could I not see?"
There was really only one comfort Connor could offer. "Sometimes people lie, about themselves and what they want, and sometimes they're so good at it you can't tell." He shrugged. "And sometimes you want it to be true so you believe it, and sometimes it's a bit of both. I remember when Julie Benson started making nice, acting interested in the things I was and the like." Connor hated the story, hated that he'd been as stupid as to believe Julie Benson of all people would have liked him, but he'd wanted to think it, wanted to think someone thought he was fun and interesting and worth going out with. "She played nice and I thought she really liked me. Turned out she just wanted me to help her get straight As so she'd be able to get a boost to her clothing allowance from her parents."
His story managed to break Stephen out of his shock and funk. "It's not exactly the same," he said, "But I'll take it. Thank you." He seemed sincere, and Connor felt that purr welling out of his chest, his inner feral self preening at the words from his alpha. He shook it off. Stephen had brought himself out of his fugue with that, and was frowning at the soldiers. "I just can't imagine where she's got them all from."
"She's got a whole bunch of scientists," Connor pointed out, "And the kind of genetic manipulation she's doing to us suggests it's not that far at all to cloning."
"I suppose," Stephen said. "I'm just having to wrap my mind around the notion that she's been doing this instead of investigating the lives of hesperornis."
"She's really a paleontologist?" Connor asked, fascinated at this insight.
Stephen shook his head, "Not exactly. She's an evolutionary biologist. It's more a matter for them of tracking the development of species and the ways they change over time and with enviromental alterations and so on."
"Wow," Connor said, thinking he'd have to expand his views and species in his database.
In the end they were there all day as Stephen used his watch to time the shift changes, watched with Connor as they dragged poor Theresa out of the cell block and out to the enclosure with the other feral teens. Eventually they left, Stephen lost in contemplation, though no less sharp for it, and they made their way back to the home tree. When they were nearly there, one of the small predatory reptiles Connor had never heard of in the fossil record leapt out at them, only to be met by a perfect shot, fired of by Stephen with incredibly accuracy and on what appeared to be reflex. "Wow," Connor said. Then he took a closer look at it. "Oh, good. Dinner."
Shooting him an amused look, Stephen asked, "Really?"
"Mm-hmm," Connor nodded. "These're tasty. I killed a bunch of things when Elliott and I first got out, before I went back to normal. This was the best of the lot. And it's been a few days since Elliott and I had meat."
Stephen nodded, chuckling to himself about something, but refused to tell Connor the joke. "I'll explain sometime," he said cryptically, and wouldn't say any more.
*********************
"The Bad Lady's name is Helen?" Elliott said, appalled. "That's my auntie's name!"
Connor offered, "I'm sure Helens aren't intrinsically bad."
"What's intrin -- in-trin-sic-ly mean?" Elliott asked.
While Connor explained the meaning of the term, Stephen just went over and over in his mind everything he'd ever seen of Helen, everything he'd ever known. No matter what Connor said, this was mad. How had he missed something so . . . terrible? Had going through the anomalies unhinged her? Was there something intrinsic (in spite of himself, he was a little amused at the apropos appearance of the word) to anomalies that drove people mad? Or had she always been this way and he and Cutter had both been so in love with some ideal version of her that they missed it entirely?
"How did you know her?" Elliott's question broke into Stephen's internal cyclone of confusion and anger.
"She . . . er . . . was one of my teachers at university," Stephen told him.
The five-year-old was fascinated. "She was a teacher?" Clearly picturing his primary or even nursery school teacher.
Stephen found himself faced with the task of maintaining a straight face as he pictured Helen teaching children. It was an entirely bizarre thought. As bizarre, he thought with an internal grimace, as the notion that she was a mad scientist running a laboratory in the Permian in order to build an army of berserker teenaged soldiers.
"She was teaching grownups who want to get more schooling once they're done with regular school," Connor explained.
Elliott was utterly baffled. "Why would you want to do more school?"
"Because there are lots of jobs they won't let you do if you don't. Like being a doctor," Connor told him.
"Oh," Elliott said. "Well, I want to be a firefighter."
Connor's reply that Elliott would have to go to the special sort of school for firefighters nixed that idea. Stephen slipped up a few branches to get some quiet while Elliott tried to find a 'cool' sort of job that wouldn't need him to do any more schooling than the bare legal minimum. He had a pad and pen on him and began to add to the notes he'd written about the plans of the buildings, and the guard shift changes. Ideas for how to get in and get the other children out, what to do about Helen and then how he was going to get a whole passel of children and teenagers somewhere safe they could get some sort of help.
A half hour later he still only had vague ideas and realised a few things. First, he wanted to see one of Connor's supply raids, which, despite Connor's wish the day before to get some sort of rain blocking item, had not happened, and he needed to get more information about the floor plans of the place and whether and how much he could rely on the other teenagers. "Elliott's decided he wants to work at Tesco's," Connor declared suddenly from behind him.
Stephen nearly fell out of the tree. "Why?"
"Because it was the first job that seemed sort of neat to him that didn't require at least college."
Nodding his understanding, Stephen commented, "It makes a sort of logical sense."
"I can't really blame him," Connor said. "I mean, are there a lot of professors that are secretly mad scientists? Because I'll have to give up on paleontology if there are." The cheeky grin and deep dimple were all Connor Temple.
WIthout thinking, Stephen replied, "You shouldn't, you're far too good at it." Connor frowned and Stephen hastily changed the subject. "I'm going to need to do some more information gathering," he said. "I wondered if you'd be willing to make that run you gave up on yesterday because I was wibbling over Helen. If it's possible, I'd like to break in myself at some point, but I'm not about to try it without watching some more. I can't manage a ten-foot vertical leap, after all."
"It's a good point," Connor admitted. "The one main advantage we have in this, is that the soldiers are really stupid. I haven't seen any indication that the scientists are a danger, but then, I haven't seen them back to the wall, either."
"We'd want to try to surprise them," Stephen said, considering. "The difficulty is that if we take out all of one or the other, there's the chance to raise the alarm. Not to mention, there's only the two of us-"
"There'll be more if we break into the cells and get the teenagers out," Connor pointed out. "They'll none of them hold back if it means getting free."
It was true that put a different complexion to the matter. Loathe though Stephen was to bring more children into the fighting, they'd earned the right to free themselves and take something out of their captors' hides. "So, perhaps what we need to work on is sneaking past the guards, getting everyone free and then splitting into two groups to deal with both sides at once."
Connor nodded. "So, we'll head out again this afternoon? I'll go after the tarp, maybe some other supplies if something's convenient to grab and see if I can't clarify some of the geography."
*******************************
Stephen had agreed, and they'd headed out again, leaving Elliott with his gun after an impressive not-lecture from Stephen again about not shooting unless he was sure he was about to be eaten or taken or something. Just as Connor would have done, in order to avoid creating a trail for the soldiers to follow, Stephen led the way back to the compound by a different route. It seemed that, once he knew where he was supposed to be going, Stephen was able to navigate by some arcane means Connor couldn't identify.
At least for a few minutes. Suddenly he realised what Stephen was doing. "How are you following the way the soldiers took to get back before?" Connor asked, fascinated.
"There's a bootprint here," Stephen said, pointing out an impression Connor wasn't sure he'd've been able to pick out before he'd been enhanced. "It's pointing that way," he unerringly pointed towards the compound. "They've left the occasional stray thread about, and the way the vegetation is disturbed shows the directionality as well." Then he turned to Connor. "How are you able to tell that's what I'm following?"
"One of 'em was bleeding," Connor shrugged. "I can smell it."
Stephen's eyes narrowed at him a moment. Not in criticism, but in an odd sort of concentration, as though he were seeing something or someone else standing where Connor was. "I see," he said.
They got back to following and found a different perch to watch things from than last time, Stephen settling in to take more notes, while Connor watched for his chance to make a run at the wall. He felt oddly free, because now he knew that Elliott would be taken care of even if he got taken back. It made everything easier, because he didn't have to feel like every single shadow was about to get him.
As the shift change happened, the post was momentarily in flux and Connor leapt up the wall, dodging the cameras that weren't designed to watch for humans, but for incoming archosaurs, slipped past the guards and crept into the cavernous barracks. They were designed in a way that let him effectively stay up in the ceiling, the joists offering perches he could leap along, and the guards certainly weren't smart enough to expect trouble in their own home.
At the back was where the supplies and tents and things like that were, and Connor quickly located a waterproof sheet for them to add to the shelter with, then grabbed a few random boxes of ammunition. He didn't know one bullet from another, but there were only two gun types the clones used, so the two different types of bullets had to be useful. There were some more first aid supplies and some clean water which he added to the rucksack, then he left.
He'd got back to the ceiling, having to be far more careful on the way out, burdened as he was with a full rucksack and carrying the tarp in his hands. He was nearly to the window he'd planned his exit through when he was forced to freeze and start praying.
She'd just arrived. Helen Cutter. Connor gritted his teeth and mentally crossed his fingers that neither she nor her stooge of a scientist would look up. "How are things coming?" she asked the man coolly.
"Quite well," said the sneering man who seemed to take an obscene delight in hearing people scream as the painful injections raced through the system of his victims. "We're nearly ready for the final phase."
"Excellent," said Helen. "I assume there have been no repeats of the . . . incident with the escaping ones?"
"No, no," he assured her obsequiously. "Security has been tightened and they are all coming on quite nicely. The changes are nearly completely settled."
Helen nodded sharply. "Very well. I want them all finished and processed by the week's end," she told him. "Once my pets are finished I can begin training them."
They'd all three been in once place long enough that by now Connor could scent her and the man clearly. They were both . . . excited by the thought. He wanted to vomit.
Barely aware of the need for caution, Connor was a little reckless in getting out. He had to get to Stephen, had to tell him. He arrived at the tree where Stephen was waiting. "Connor?" he asked, eyes wide with worry. "What's wrong? You look white as a sheet."
"She's speeding things up," Connor said, too worried to reassure Stephen he was fine. "She wants it done for the end of the week. That means we only have a few days. Otherwise there'll be nothing and no one left, Stephen."
************************
Connor's words sent a chill of horror down Stephen's back. "What do you mean? How do you know?"
"I was up on the ceiling, people really don't look up ever," Connor said, "And she came in with that berk what's in charge of the scientists. She said she wanted everyone processed by the end of the week."
"Helen always was efficient," Stephen muttered to himself. "We'd best head back to," he paused as the sheer ridiculousness of what he was saying in this situation that was so filled with horror, "The tree."
Connor caught the pause and grinned. "We could call it base camp if that'll make you feel better," he said before sobering again.
"It would," Stephen told him as they hurried back.
His thoughts raced the whole way back to their treetop temporary home. How could they do this? Break in, get the children out, deal with the soldiers and scientists . . .
And Helen.
Connor was hastily explaining everything to Elliott while Stephen flipped through his notes, hoping to wrench an idea loose. Unfortunately, the only one he could come up with was risky for all concerned. "If I act as a decoy, sniping from outside, I can probably create a diversion and thin the ranks." He turned to Connor. "While that's going on, you'd have to get in-"
Never say Connor wasn't quick to pick up an idea. "And I break the others out. Once the other teens're out, we can take out the soldiers and . . ." he glanced at Elliott briefly. "Deal with them."
Elliott wasn't stupid either. "You'll kill them, you mean," he said. "There's nothing else we can do. They're too stupid to talk around. They're more like the dimetrodons than people anyhow." He was placid in the face of this, and Stephen felt a stab of sorrow that he saw echoed in Connor's face at how Elliott had adapted to the necessity of killing so well. "What?"
"They may be really dumb clones," Connor said to him, "They may be sort of brainwashed by Her," Stephen could hear the capital letters Connor gave the pronoun, not wanting to offer Helen the respect of even a name. "But they're still pretty much human, Elliott."
"But they're bad!" Elliott declared. "They're bad and they hurt us. They hurt you Connor, and you're the only one who never ever hit. Even Pam hit Theresa."
"You shouldn't ever think like it's a good thing to kill someone, Elliott," Connor said.
Elliott sighed. "I suppose. It's just . . ."
"I know," Connor told him. "What about Elliott?" he asked. "I mean, we can't just leave him alone here for the time that'll all take. Anyhow, someone'll have to make sure the kids're got out of the way somewhere safe."
"You can't mean -- he's five!" Stephen said, shocked.
Connor glared right back. "We don't have a choice. There's only three of us, even with him. I can get him in and leave him to let everyone out. I'll head out and make sure to distract everyone from heading into the cells. That'll give Elliott and the rest time to get out."
They argued, Elliott piping up from time to time, trying to tell them that he was fine, both of them shushing him, because he was five and didn't know nearly enough of what he was talking about. But the sheer simplicity of the plan made it the best option. No one had to rely on signals, the whole of it was straightforward and easy to explain and it didn't require anything more than what they had, a passel of guns and the three of them.
Without any desire to put it off any longer, and because they couldn't use the help of the teens who were too far gone, they decided to act at sunset. Elliott was fresh from napping all day at Connor and Stephen's insistence, and they set up not long before sunset in a good watching post.
As full dark set in, Stephen settled in and pulled out the handgun. "Get ready," he told Connor. Connor was to basically carry Elliott in, clinging to his back as he slipped past the hopefully distracted guards.
Connor nodded silently and slipped away. After counting to twenty, giving the teenager time to get into position, Stephen lined up and took his first shot.
There was a reason he'd won awards for his shooting, there was a reason he could have gone to the Olympics. One by one, he dropped them with headshots, the gunfire ringing out into the night. Connor was right. They were stupid. They didn't take cover, just stared around into the dark.
When one of them finally got out the machine gun he carried, it took him another minute to even begin to get close to Stephen's treetop position. When one of the people in white coats emerged, shouting directions Stephen couldn't hear for the sound of the guns, he took the moment and took that one out too. Unfortunately, it seemed the scientist's death galvanised the guards, who all took to firing randomly into the treetops in bursts of automatic fire.
He was forced to move from high up and circle around the compound. He'd got to a new place, firing off shots at the soldiers who had boiled out of the barracks building like ants from a crushed anthill, when the teenagers began to burst from the building where they were kept captive. Half mad, they flung themselves at the soldiers, tearing them apart.
Stephen was suddenly very relieved that Connor had retained his self-control in any sense, because the sight before him was horrible. They were savage. Spending half their time crouched on all fours, there was nothing human in the way they moved, reacting to signals and actions Stephen couldn't see, tearing the guards limb from limb, literally. He knew the forces needed to do those things to the human body, but they did it with an ease that was truly frightening.
One of the guards got himself together enough to shoot a girl, who staggered back, slipping on the now blood slicked ground. He was borne to the ground in a wave of infuriated savagery.
Even as another wave of teenagers flooded from the building that housed the so-called scientists, probably having finished dealing with them one way or another, it cleared the way for the soldiers to line up with their automatic weapons to open fire. Stephen knew his role then. He lifted the machine gun up, braced himself and sent a hail of bullets down the line of blank-faced identical men. The back rows died as Stephen carefully aimed away from the children he was now there to protect, but it left the clones trapped between the snarling, feral creatures those children had become, and someone wielding a machine gun that they could not see.
"Enough!" shouted Helen.
************************
As the single shots began to drop the guards one by one, Connor took off running, vaulting the security fence in a reverse of the way he'd escaped the first time, racing through the shadows and into the building he and Elliott had fled so recently. Staying out of sight as he hurried along, sometimes having to keep himself aloft and out of sight of the guards senselessly thundering out to see what was going on, he made his way to the cells, quickly snapping the necks of the two guards left waiting there.
"Connor?"
"Elsie?" he breathed. "I've come to get you out. Would you believe Elliott found some man with a gun lost in the woods out there willing to help?" He swiped the card to unlock the door letting her out, hearing the wonderful sound of the clamouring voices of his fellow captives.
"She'd said you were dead, she . . . we all thought . . ." Elsie flung herself out and hugged him.
He'd've hugged her back, but there wasn't time. "You need to get out there. One half to take on the guards, the others to take on the scientists. I'll join you once you're out."
"What about the kids?" Zeke demanded, even as he clapped Connor on the shoulder.
"Elliott knows where they'd supposed to go. There's a decent room they can barricade until we come for them." Zeke nodded, sending his primary schooler off to Elliott, while the two boys shared a rabid conversation in which Elliott was singing the praises of Stephen Hart.
Hettie grinned and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm for the scientists," she said, grabbing Michael and a few others. Connor felt a moment of despair. There were so few cells left compared to the start, and that just meant so many dead children and mad teens. She left, but Elsie cupped his face in her hands a moment.
"Don't feel guilty," she told him. "You did the only thing you could. You were incredible, and you're getting us out."
"Exactly," Zeke told him.
He nodded, but still wanted to curl in a ball and bawl a little. It wasn't fair. "Okay. Elliott? You got everyone, yeah?"
"Yeah," Elliott said, and scampered off.
Connor led the way, letting the others sort themselves how they wanted. "Just one thing," Connor said to Elsie and Zeke. "I'm . . . they did get to me. I . . . sometimes I wind up like Marge and Thomas and . . . the others. I might go a little . . . mad."
"We'll stop you, Conn," Elsie promised. "Now, let's show these . . . bastards what they've messed with!"
They burst into the night, and Connor couldn't help but feel a savage pleasure at the dead bodies littering the ground. The guards were out in force, but stupid as they were, couldn't seem to form a plan to deal with a single sniper in a tree. He saw a grin cross the lips of the others, and the leapt forward, treating those cloned things the way they had the raptors and troodons in the arena.
He didn't even fight the haze that overcame his vision, didn't want to, ripping into them with the rest of the pack, hearing the sound of his alpha taking more down and knowing the cubs were safe in a lair away from the fighting, he gave himself over to the screams and blood. A bullet tore through Elsie, sending her falling back, bringing Connor around for vengeance on the one that had hurt her.
From the other building, the one that was all pain and Her twisted pleasure, came the rest of the pack, thundering out, joining the fight to destroy the Bad Things. For a moment, they were lined up on opposite sides of the space, when the thundering rattle of machine gun fire came out of the darkness, tearing through the back of the crowd, sending them into distraction and disarray. Through the blood on his face, Connor smiled. They had the best alpha.
There were very few left, they'd have no trouble ending it now, when a familiar scent made them all freeze and turn in atavistic terror. "Enough!" shouted the monster that brought them there.
For a moment they froze, then Connor launched himself at her guards, the soldiers she had with her. They all did, tearing them apart.
But she'd done something, and no matter how any of them tried, they couldn't make themselves attack her.
Her smile was chilling. "Well, I'm glad something worked correctly. I'll have to speak to Mr. Kelly about the rest of this."
"What did you do to us?" Connor ground out. It would all be for nothing if they couldn't do anything to her, but the very thought made him cringe and want to abase himself. It was sickening. Terrifying.
"Just a little safeguard," she said. "Now, who's your -- Stephen?" Her face went slack in shock.
"Helen," he said evenly. Connor shuddered in relief at the sight. Stephen was there, hadn't had done to him what she'd done to the others. "How about you answer Connor's question? What have you done?"
They all watched in disbelief as she oozed her way over to Stephen, shoving her breasts at him. "Oh, Stephen, you don't understand-"
"You're right," he snapped. "I don't. I don't know what game you're going to try playing Helen, but I'm not buying it. Not this time."
"You haven't seen the future, Stephen," she told him, laying a hand on his arm. Her face was full of patently false pleading. "It's for the survival of everyone. There are predators in the future, terrifying things. If we can just create soldiers to deal with them, we can save people." Connor just hoped Stephen didn't fall for it. No matter, they'd get the cubs and run if they had to. But Stephen didn't fall for it.
He just pulled away. "I don't need to, to know what's wrong, Helen. This is wrong." He shook his head. "This is why you were leaving Nick and seducing gullible students, he's too moral for you. Cares too much about right and wrong."
"I love you," she tried.
"If what you feel for me is love," Stephen told her, "I'm rather glad I've never been in love, then. But somehow, I doubt it. Now, you're going to cooperate, and tell me how to get these children home safely, then you're coming back to the 21st century and I'm going to have Lester toss you in prison."
"Are you now?" she asked, sardonically. "Going to shoot me otherwise?"
"If I have to," Stephen told her. "Look at what I've done here."
She just laughed, and stepped away. But before Stephen could do more than aim at her, one of the temporal gates opened up and she fled through, the thing closing right behind her. For all that Stephen looked angry, Connor thought he looked a little relieved too. But he didn't say anything. Stephen had enough to deal with, being in love with the monstrous bitch there. He didn't need Connor pointing out that he should have just shot her and had done with. It wasn't like Connor and the others had done better.
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Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: No ownership, no money.
Rating: PG-13, may yet get upgraded.
Summary: The first time Connor met Stephen wasn't the first time Stephen met Connor. Or something like that.
AN: I needed something despicably cute for the cat name, and the Harry Potter reference just sort of presented itself to me, waving wildly.
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As Connor seemed to relax dramatically with Stephen's assurance, he was struck by just how young he was. He'd always thought of Connor as being young, not merely because of the eight year difference between them, but because of his ways of running around, all arms and legs, like a teenager in a growth spurt. But there was a sort of pleading desperation here for someone to step up and take the burden of adulthood off him, and Stephen was struck by the thought that perhaps, after this, Connor had taken his chance at living out the rest of his childhood with both hands, knowing what it was like once you didn't have it back.
Well, while he didn't know how he'd done it, obviously he had, because Connor had lived to disturb the living daylights out of him. It was oddly reassuring, but he still had to deal with everything here, and that included seeing if there was anything he could do for the ones still trapped in that compound.
There were a few questions he still had to ask, despite not really wanting to know the answers. Because teenagers forced into fits that had them tearing small children apart was terrible enough, but he had to know more. "Connor, if we're going to get you both home and the others out, I'm going to need to know about the compound, the guards and anything else you can tell me."
"Right. For strategy," Connor nodded. "Elliott'll be safe enough up here for a few hours tomorrow, so if you'd like, I can take you down to get a look for yourself."
Loathe though he was to leave a child alone in a place like this, Stephen had to admit that there hadn't been anything prowling the treetops yet that was dangerous. "What can you tell me about the guards? Elliott said something about clones?"
"Yeah," Connor nodded. "That's the going theory, at least. We thought they might be robots, androids or something, for a while, but Patrice got in a lucky hit once and they bleed, and they smell more or less human."
"Smell?" he asked. It was all so strange.
This odd younger Connor nodded. "The . . . treatments," he explained. "They make us stronger, faster, improve smell, well, all our senses, and they've caused some changes, physiological ones. It's not just brain chemistry," he added. "I heal faster, there are things I can do now I shouldn't be able to with a human physiology, and I'm pretty sure the makeup of the brain itself has changed as well."
"How?" These one-word questions might start getting old fast, but there was nothing else to add.
"It's . . ." Connor paused, looking for the words. "I'm not sure there's words for it, but . . . it's like a wolf pack, sort of. Like my instincts are telling me that Elliot's . . ." another pause, this one embarrassed. He pushed on regardless. "Elliott's my cub," he said defiantly. His arms tightened slightly around the sleeping boy. "But they're also sort of telling me that you're an alpha, a pack alpha and that I need to either . . . er . . ."
Despite the whole strange situation, it was a tad amusing. "You thinking of challenging me for position in the pack?"
"Maybe a little?" Connor said hesitantly. "I mean, it's sort of split. Either challenge or submission. It's sort of the, erm, polite thing to do."
"More like the thing to do," Stephen suggested. "I doubt that even wolves think that dominance challenges are polite, per se."
"Maybe," Connor agreed. "Anyhow, I'm pretty sure everyone down there's like . . . like a pack to me too, and is like this as well. The instincts, I mean."
Stephen nodded, thinking through things. "They can all fight like you did?"
The too-young face shuttered a moment. "The ones still alive can. The ones that couldn't . . ." The tear-filled eyes were familiar, the look on his face the one Stephen had seen as Connor knelt beside Tom, dying on the stadium floor. Suddenly, a snarl rumbled out of his chest, sounding like nothing so much as a puma Stephen had startled from it's prey one time. "She laughed as they died," he growled around the sound. "Laughed. As though hearing them . . ." He was angry and grieving and lost all at once.
"Connor?" Elliott asked sleepily. He woke to see Connor's wet eyes and fury. "I miss them too," he said. Then suddenly wriggled off Connor's lap.
Without a word, Connor dropped off the platform down to the forest below. "Where's he going?" Stephen demanded.
"He's scared he'll do bad things to me," Elliott said placidly. "But when he goes away and does stuff, then comes back, he's better."
Frowning in concern, Stephen asked the boy, "What sort of stuff?"
"Dinosaur hunting."
"He didn't call it that, did he?" Stephen asked.
Elliott shook his head. "Well, first he tried to tell me he was going for a walk, like I was too stupid to know that's stupid. Then he said he was going and getting fruit, but he doesn't always remember the fruit, and one time he had stuff on his hands. So, then he admitted he was going after dinosaurs. But he doesn't call them dinosaurs, he called them archosaurs."
"Well, there aren't any dinosaurs around," Stephen pointed out.
Elliott leant over a branch, pointing out something that seemed to be a prowling dimetrodon. "What's that then? It's in all my dinosaur books."
"A dimetrodon is not a dinosaur," Stephen lectured. "It's a type of reptile that predates the dinosaurs."
"Predates?" Elliott asked.
"Sorry," Stephen told him. The maturity in the young face threw him. "It means came before."
"There was things before dinosaurs?" Elliott asked in awe. "But they were 65 million years ago! That's like 65 million time how old I am!"
He hadn't seen awe like that in what felt like a very long time. Cutter staring at the scutosaurus, his own shock and delight at the sight of the ancient creatures, even the gorgonopsid, seemed to have been lost ages ago, ripped apart like the victims of the monsters that had come through the anomalies. But from the safety of this treetop, looking down, he felt the sheer pleasure of watching an animal in its natural environment again, the fascination that came with the discovery of something new and the satisfaction that came with the knowledge that he was first. He'd seen this, not Cutter not some other evolutionary theorist, hunter, biologist or behaviourist.
So, he settled in to answer all of Elliott's questions. When Connor came back, he joined in, admitting quietly to Stephen in a moment when Elliott's back was turned, that he'd been letting the dinosaur thing go mostly because the stress he'd been under of having to be in charge had left him too short-tempered to risk the explanations lest he take out that temper on Elliott. Unsurprisingly, even at fifteen, Connor was a wellspring of hot and cold running paleontological esoterica. In fact, about the only flaws in his discussion were theories that had been disproved or invented since 1998.
He'd also arrived back with, "Protokiwis!" exclaimed Elliott in delight. They did indeed look rather like what Stephen imagined the predecessor species to the kiwi might appear, not that paleobotany was his area in any way. When he tried one, he understood Elliott's attraction to them. They were incredibly sweet. So sweet, they were candy-like.
Elliott was soon on a sugar high, and Stephen realised he and Connor weren't far behind. "You really shouldn't have given him those," he told Connor as Elliott happily bounced around the little treehouse.
Connor made a face. "I don't want to take him for a run out there," he jerked his head towards the forest floor. "There's a fair few predators that are starting to come out right about now, we're close to a watering hole, you see. After the nap he had, he might be up all night if I don't give him something so he'll wind down later."
"Ah," Stephen said as Elliott bounded past again, accidentally smacking him on the head. "I'm tempted to hit him," Stephen muttered, "And I don't even have an excuse like you. There's a reason I never wanted children." For a moment, Connor tensed, Stephen braced for a potential explosion, then Connor closed his eyes and breathed deeply a moment.
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't really think that you'd . . . it's just the whole," he waved a hand around his head, "Thing."
*************************************
Connor grimly suppressed the desire to make sure the interloper knew the cub was off limits. It had been a joke what Stephen had said, and he needed to remember that. "No," said Stephen, "I should have remembered. I'll try not to say things like that in future."
The way he'd backed down got Connor's hackles up. He had to control himself, because if this kept up he'd wind up going after Stephen, and Stephen was just there to help. He was trying to avoid confrontation, and the issue of alphas had no place there. He was grateful when Elliott crashed finally, and even more so when Stephen told him he'd take the first watch. "You've had a long day and you're still hurt, even if the rate at which you heal's been accelerated."
With another person there to stand watch, Connor sighed and relaxed into sleep. For the first time in a very long time he felt safe enough to really relax. Curled around Elliott, he felt himself begin to purr, content to know that the cub was safe and there was another member of their little pack there to watch for danger. He'd been dreaming of hunting and chasing when he was gently shaken awake.
Dazed with sleep, he snapped to a feral awareness, rather than full human consciousness.
There was the new interloper, the alpha-who-wasn't-an-alpha. The way he'd been backing down from confrontation, wouldn't fight, wouldn't slap Connor down meant he wasn't strong enough. "Connor?" came the soft voice of the cub.
Shocking Connor out of it. "It's okay Elliott. Nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep."
"'Kay," came the soft reply.
He ran his hands through his hair. "Sorry, I just . . ." How do you explain you were about to try smacking someone around for not being a half-mad feral creature?
"It's alright," Stephen said. "Lesson learnt. Treat you like a puma." He reached slowly forward, placing a comforting hand on Connor's shoulder again, and Connor sighed, leaning into the touch a little. He'd never been particularly tactile, but he got the feeling that, whatever had been done to him, it had made him more so. "I was just letting you know to take the shift from now 'til dawn."
"Right." Connor nodded and took up the good watching position, seeing Stephen curl himself around Elliott, dropping into sleep quickly. Settling in for a wait, Connor took to patrolling around the top of their tree, keeping an eye out for more dangerous creatures that might cause them trouble, letting the movement and use of his senses soothe him. He had to wonder what he'd do when he got home. The night was so loud here, so full of smells and sounds, how would he cope at home? He wanted to go home, missed his Star Wars posters and the internet, he missed his family and friends, he didn't miss school so much, but the chance to go to uni, to meet a girl and have a life that wasn't scrabbling hand to mouth like this would be, that he'd regret.
But could he even have that? The best therapist in the world wouldn't be able to erase the animalistic instincts that drove him now, he couldn't stop scenting people and animals, if he was in his bedroom overnight he'd probably feel trapped by the four walls the way he felt trapped now by the tree.
The next morning, more to get ahold of himself than anything else he volunteered to check the water hole and see if it was reasonably safe, with no water-dwelling predators lying in wait and no land-dwelling predators on their way over. By the time he got back to tell them it seemed reasonably safe, Connor thought he had himself under control.
But Elliott had latched onto this real adult, leaving Connor without authority over his cub. Because Elliott was turning to Stephen for everything. And Stephen was taking control, smooth and competent, clearly used to wilderness like this, carrying bloody guns that he was able to whip out like some sort of action hero and aim at things, and Connor only had fists and a still-healing body. He knew he was being irrational. What did he know about survival in a tropical jungle?
The last straw came with the words, "But Connor, Stephen said-"
A visceral fear, primal, instinctive and unhuman overtook him of losing the cub to the interloper. Instincts that might belong to any dozen animals bringing to mind a thousand nature programmes on the telly where one male would kill another male's cubs or kits, just because, the desired to remain in control, the demand that this oh-so-passive alpha be brought down to the proper beta position to Connor, who was stronger and faster and more than he was took over.
He snapped.
There was a red haze and the desire to taste blood as he leapt across the clearing. His opponent saw him coming, eyes wide, and dove out of the way. With a snarl, Connor turned, ignoring the cub as he bleated in those silly noises again. The other male was making placatory gestures and that just made Connor's lips split into a grin of triumph. He'd already won, he just had to drive the message home.
It didn't quite happen that way, though. For one, this time, when he launched himself again, he was met force for force by a blow from the pain thing like the Bad Ones carried -- gun -- sending him spinning off course. The other wasn't stupid and slow like the Bad Ones were. He was fast and agile, blue eyes narrowed in concentration, getting out of Connor's way again and again. Not every time. He was taking his share of blows, but the didn't seem to slow or confuse him like the ones belonging to Her. And quite suddenly the sun was in his eyes, dazzling him, giving his opponent the chance to slide past his defenses, tackle him and pin him, something pressing to his throat to choke him.
As always happened when he went mad like this, the world suddenly resolved again, the words making sense. "You'll do as I tell you unless you've got a damned good reason otherwise, Connor. Are we clear?"
The last gasp of those instinct struck in that moment, but this time, reassuring him that Stephen was a true alpha. The part of him that had been on guard, fearing the leadership of a weak pack leader suddenly rolled over and gave up, because he'd challenged this one and lost. It was with a sense of relief that he twisted, whining nearly subvocally, baring his neck in submission.
Stephen stood, filthy, but practically radiating his dominant stance in the pack. "Connor?" he asked, a snap of authority in his voice.
"Yeah," Connor said softly. "Stephen, I . . . thanks."
A single eyebrow was raised at that, reminiscent of Mr. Spock. It was a query and a rebuke at once, and Connor couldn't help tilting his head to show his neck again. He heard Stephen mutter, "Thank you, Abby," and had no idea what that meant, but didn't care, because he was given a hand up off the ground.
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright," Stephen told him, friendly again. "You'd warned me it might happen."
"But why Stephen?" Elliott demanded. "He didn't do anything!"
Connor knelt next to his little cellmate. "You know how I said those instincts keep making think weird things?"
"Yeah. Did they make you think Stephen was bad?" Elliott asked anxiously.
"Not exactly," Connor told him. "It's more like . . . you ever hear people say, 'respect is earned'?"
Elliott thought hard. "No. What does that mean?"
Stephen broke in then. "It means that a person doesn't deserve to have people trust him or believe him or do everything he says until he's proved that he's good at his job, or smart or usually tells the truth and things like that."
"It's like when you get a new teacher in school," Connor explained. "At first you'll only do what they say because if you don't you'll get in trouble with the headmaster or your parents. If they're a really good teacher, you'll want to do what they tell you because you think they're a good teacher."
"Okay," Elliott said slowly. "So, what's that got to do with you trying to hurt Stephen and Stephen hurting you back?"
"Those instincts that make me act weird kept telling me I couldn't really trust Stephen. That he'd be a bad person to be in charge." He looked apologetically at the man. "You were always placating me, and they sort of kept saying that if you were a real alpha, you'd've smacked me down."
"But that's stupid!" Elliott cried, confused by it all. "He's a real grownup and he's got all those guns and he saved us. Why'd you think he wasn't any good?"
"Why're you scared of moths?" Connor retorted. "It doesn't always make sense."
"Moths're creepy," grumbled Elliott. "Stephen's nice."
WIth that, they made their way back to the tree and Stephen set Elliott to playing watchdog in the branches. It gave them a bit of privacy to clear the air a little more.
"So, you felt like I was an interloper moving into your territory?"
"Worse," Connor said with a sigh. "You know all those nature specials where they talk about lions killing other lions' cubs and the like? That was flashing through my head. That and the worry that if you couldn't take me on, obviously you weren't strong enough to head the pack."
"So, it's cleared up now?" Stephen asked. The mildness Connor had been taking for placation took on a warning subtext. So he nodded, and Stephen smiled, giving him a companionable half hug. And because he was still so grateful for an adult there to take control of things, the two halves of him came together and he couldn't stop himself from settling against Stephen and purring.
The look of bafflement on Stephen's face was worth the hideous sense of humiliation at Elliott cheerfully declaring that Connor was like his parents' new pet kitty, Minnie Tufty Tibbles McGonagall.
*******************************
They didn't wind up going to look at the compound after all. Because Stephen was sore and bruised and feeling a stab of guilt every time he looked at Connor's bruised and happy face. Because he'd had to practically beat the boy into submission, and abuse of a minor did not sit well with him. Only the fact that Connor seemed happier somehow now that he'd been slapped down with such force kept him from feeling sick with himself. That and that he'd truly had to fight for his life and limb the way Connor had acted in those moments, nothing Elliott said and nothing Stephen had said had snapped the boy out of his state. Only the rifle across his throat, choking him into submission had done it, and Connor had rolled over like a beaten wolf, baring his throat.
Abby's lessons in animal behaviour had never come so in handy.
Where before Connor had been grateful and eager if somewhat distrustful of Stephen, it now appeared he thought Stephen had hung the moon, and it was a tad uncomfortable for Stephen. Used as he was to the slight amount of hero worship Connor had a tendency to, the fact was that Connor from 2007 would also chide Stephen if he thought the older man was being offensive and had been known to take the mickey as much as anyone else at Stephen and his reputation.
This teenaged Connor hung off of Stephen's every word, eagerly bounding about, purring at any word of praise from him and getting disturbingly tactile.
He recalled the moment he'd leaned on Connor during that incident with the dodos and the way Connor had stared at the arm resting on his shoulder. At the time Stephen had thought Connor uncomfortable with the physical contact. Now he wondered if perhaps Connor had been resisting an urge to purr and snuggle.
And the purring. The noises Connor could now produce were a strange array of animal sounds normal humans could either not produce, or could only produce with training, practice and effort. It drove home in some ways better than anything else that Connor was truly no longer fully human.
He suggested they stay close to home that day instead, choosing not to let on just how sore and bruised he was. Connor, in his feral state was a force to be reckoned with, and Stephen knew that a bit more training or a bit more intelligence and he'd have lost. So, instead of having to creep around, hoping they wouldn't get caught, he found out from the pair how they'd survived, what they'd been eating (mostly archosaurs and protokiwis with a leavening of roots) and more about cartoons and comic books than he'd ever wanted to know.
But he also learned about the clones. The soldiers on the first day, the identical ones, Connor had assured him they were clones, and listening to the stories about the inhuman soldiers, the blank faces and the way they seemed unresponsive to anything but the most egregious pain. They could, of course, simply be very well-trained, but anyone who felt it was a valid thing to torture children didn't really deserve consideration.
That night Connor took first watch and Stephen was kept up a bit by his perambulations around the tree. He also woke up stiff, sore, wanting a hot shower and a good run to stretch out the kinks. "Hey, your turn," said the teenager.
"Mmm?" Elliott started to wake up, and Connor wriggled in behind him at once.
"Shh," he murmured into the child's hair. "Go back to sleep. 'S'okay." Then he started purring, and Elliott snuggled down and then relaxed back into sleep. Stephen rather envied him. Then he crept over to a decent watching post and had to settle for stretching repeatedly to get the kinks out.
Both boys woke up with dawn, and Connor said. "You wanted to get a look at the compound. We'd best do that soon. Anyhow, I'd wanted to see if I could get a tarp or some such for when it rains. We've been lucky in a way, but it'll rain eventually and I'd rather not get soaked if I don't have to."
"Are you sure?" Stephen asked.
Connor nodded. "I don't like it, but I also don't know anything about tanning hides or skinning things, and we'll need something eventually if we don't get home soon." Then he looked at Elliott. "Do you think we should leave Elliott a gun?" he asked. "I wouldn't want one, but right now I'm dangerous enough not to necessarily need one. Elliott's another story."
Frowning, Stephen gave it some serious thought. Because they'd be leaving a child of under ten alone in a very dangerous area. They didn't know what was prowling around, and Elliott was fundamentally helpless. He was also only a child, and there was no way of knowing if he could even handle it. In the end, he decided leaving a pistol was the lesser of two evils and spent a good half hour carefully going over gun safety with the child and making sure he knew how to turn on the safety and not to use the gun unless something was actually about to hurt him.
Then he and Connor left, striking out for the compound. Intrigued, Stephen watched this younger Connor as he retraced his way to the base. He frowned as he recalled Connor's movement back when they'd first met, when Connor had come flopping up to Cutter and Stephen at the university, the way he'd tramped about in the Forest of Dean and wondered what had happened to the way Connor was flitting so lightly along. The traces he was leaving were small enough even he could barely see them and Connor was silent and graceful as he did so.
The only thing he could compare it to was the evening Connor had come to his flat, trying to warn him about Helen. There had been none of the stumbling about then, just an easy prowl across the floor. He'd also looked sick, as though suffering some sort of withdrawal. Something teased at the back of Stephen's mind about the whole thing, but he couldn't quite latch onto the thought.
Connor suddenly grabbed his arm. "We're basically here. There's a good tree nearby for spying. Come on." Bent nearly double, they scurried along, darting from fern to fern for cover. It took some doing to get up the tree, and a bit of manoeuvring to get the both of them where they could see. There was a high wall surrounding the whole of it and a few different buildings. "The one on the left is where they run the experiments," Connor said. "You can't see it from here, but there's an enclosed corridor between them. The nearest end is where She has her Roman Gladiator ring."
"Roman Gladiator ring?" Stephen inquired.
"With the raptors and things," Connor clarified. "She's usually pretty . . . I don't know what to call it," he admitted. "But at a guess, she . . . she gets off on it."
He nodded, wondering who this sick woman was. "How do you know?"
"She smells the same when she's baiting Luke about wanting to play with her and her toys," Connor said seriously. "But it's a guess 'cause, well, my sense of smell wasn't good enough before to have known what that would smell like, and . . ." he flushed, embarrassed. "And girls aren't exactly beating down the door to snog the dinosaur geek."
There was nothing that wasn't trite and stupid to say to that, so Stephen changed the subject. "The other buildings?"
"The one in the middle's where they keep everyone," Connor said. "It's pretty much like what I've seen of jails on the telly." He gave a ghost of a grin. "But at least there aren't any big men wanting to shag us." It was a pale version of Connor's usual terrible attempts at lightening the moment with a bad joke. More pale because this Connor lacked the wherwithal to truly make light of the situation, and was too saddened to go further. He shook it off and pointed to the last one. "The one on the right's where the soldier barracks are. I got close enough once to see in. It's pretty much just a big barn with cots. Somewhere in there's also where the armoury is and the like."
"What about the smaller one there?" Stephen asked, pointing to a fourth one closest to the fence.
Connor went very still. "That's why I guess about the berserker soldiers," he said. "I've seen it. That's where they put the teenagers that have cracked. They're in cages, and . . . and they're not . . . I'm not sure they're even really human anymore," he said, voice cracking. "I couldn't tell Elliott. What could I tell him? Gary, Tim, Kathy, Pam . . . it's like the can't recognise me or anyone else. They just scream and claw, and when they get loose they kill the soldiers and just . . . just tear them apart like animals. I don't even think there's instinct there anymore," he told Stephen. "Just . . . just the kill."
"I . . . I'm sorry," he said inadequately. He wrapped an arm around Connor's shoulders and felt the teen burrow into him a moment, seeking comfort. He was, despite how little he liked these sorts of things, he was more than willing to provide that comfort, because Connor had been the tower of strength for Elliott, and Stephen wasn't sure he'd have been up to it when he was fifteen.
Then his young friend stiffened. "There," he said softly, pointing to a female figure walking out of the enclosure they kept the transformed and feral teenagers. "That's Her. That's the . . . the bitch in charge." The venom and the cursing were unlike Connor, and Stephen strained to get a good look at this villainess.
For a moment, he felt the world do a lazy spin around him. The thought that had been trying to crystallise about Connor's evening visit landed like an anvil.
"Helen."
****************************************
When his new adult friend whispered the name, Connor didn't understand right away. It took a moment for the thought to work through his mind, and the shocked and appalled look on Stephen's face forced him to understand. "You know her?"
Stephen looked like he might throw up. "Helen," he repeated, almost as though he were having a one-sided conversation with Her. "I don't . . . you left Cutter, you left me for . . . to do this?" He was shaking badly, and Connor glanced worriedly at him.
Unfortunately, while it might be safer to have this conversation back at their home tree, he had the feeling that making it clear to Elliott would require a more delicate touch than Stephen would be able to manage right then. "What do you mean?" he prompted.
"She . . . when I was in uni, she was my thesis advisor," Stephen told him slowly. The story being dragged from him. "I . . . she lied to me, made me think she was leaving her husband. We had an affair." Connor felt his jaw drop. Someone had wanted to sleep with Her? Why would Stephen, who seemed like a good person want to do that? As though he'd heard Connor's thought, Stephen said, "She was different then. Or, at least, acted different. I was in love with her, I thought she loved me." He gritted out, "I believed her, you know? She was . . . is . . . beautiful and intelligent, brilliant really. Then she vanished. The university basically flung me at Nick, her husband, and I finished my degree under him. And he hired me on as his assistant. I found out she'd been lying about their marriage being over. At least, Nick hadn't had any idea."
Connor resisted the urge to say that he was pretty sure that a woman like the one he knew couldn't be trusted to tell the truth.
Stephen continued to speak as though he couldn't stop it, and Connor rather thought he'd needed to say it all for a long time. "I got bit by a giant prehistoric bug," he said. "And she appeared right after, and by the time I was found, I was hallucinating. I thought Abby was her. I'd wanted to see her again for so long, wanted it to be her so badly." He ran his hands through his hair distractedly. "I feel so stupid," he growled. "How could I not see?"
There was really only one comfort Connor could offer. "Sometimes people lie, about themselves and what they want, and sometimes they're so good at it you can't tell." He shrugged. "And sometimes you want it to be true so you believe it, and sometimes it's a bit of both. I remember when Julie Benson started making nice, acting interested in the things I was and the like." Connor hated the story, hated that he'd been as stupid as to believe Julie Benson of all people would have liked him, but he'd wanted to think it, wanted to think someone thought he was fun and interesting and worth going out with. "She played nice and I thought she really liked me. Turned out she just wanted me to help her get straight As so she'd be able to get a boost to her clothing allowance from her parents."
His story managed to break Stephen out of his shock and funk. "It's not exactly the same," he said, "But I'll take it. Thank you." He seemed sincere, and Connor felt that purr welling out of his chest, his inner feral self preening at the words from his alpha. He shook it off. Stephen had brought himself out of his fugue with that, and was frowning at the soldiers. "I just can't imagine where she's got them all from."
"She's got a whole bunch of scientists," Connor pointed out, "And the kind of genetic manipulation she's doing to us suggests it's not that far at all to cloning."
"I suppose," Stephen said. "I'm just having to wrap my mind around the notion that she's been doing this instead of investigating the lives of hesperornis."
"She's really a paleontologist?" Connor asked, fascinated at this insight.
Stephen shook his head, "Not exactly. She's an evolutionary biologist. It's more a matter for them of tracking the development of species and the ways they change over time and with enviromental alterations and so on."
"Wow," Connor said, thinking he'd have to expand his views and species in his database.
In the end they were there all day as Stephen used his watch to time the shift changes, watched with Connor as they dragged poor Theresa out of the cell block and out to the enclosure with the other feral teens. Eventually they left, Stephen lost in contemplation, though no less sharp for it, and they made their way back to the home tree. When they were nearly there, one of the small predatory reptiles Connor had never heard of in the fossil record leapt out at them, only to be met by a perfect shot, fired of by Stephen with incredibly accuracy and on what appeared to be reflex. "Wow," Connor said. Then he took a closer look at it. "Oh, good. Dinner."
Shooting him an amused look, Stephen asked, "Really?"
"Mm-hmm," Connor nodded. "These're tasty. I killed a bunch of things when Elliott and I first got out, before I went back to normal. This was the best of the lot. And it's been a few days since Elliott and I had meat."
Stephen nodded, chuckling to himself about something, but refused to tell Connor the joke. "I'll explain sometime," he said cryptically, and wouldn't say any more.
*********************
"The Bad Lady's name is Helen?" Elliott said, appalled. "That's my auntie's name!"
Connor offered, "I'm sure Helens aren't intrinsically bad."
"What's intrin -- in-trin-sic-ly mean?" Elliott asked.
While Connor explained the meaning of the term, Stephen just went over and over in his mind everything he'd ever seen of Helen, everything he'd ever known. No matter what Connor said, this was mad. How had he missed something so . . . terrible? Had going through the anomalies unhinged her? Was there something intrinsic (in spite of himself, he was a little amused at the apropos appearance of the word) to anomalies that drove people mad? Or had she always been this way and he and Cutter had both been so in love with some ideal version of her that they missed it entirely?
"How did you know her?" Elliott's question broke into Stephen's internal cyclone of confusion and anger.
"She . . . er . . . was one of my teachers at university," Stephen told him.
The five-year-old was fascinated. "She was a teacher?" Clearly picturing his primary or even nursery school teacher.
Stephen found himself faced with the task of maintaining a straight face as he pictured Helen teaching children. It was an entirely bizarre thought. As bizarre, he thought with an internal grimace, as the notion that she was a mad scientist running a laboratory in the Permian in order to build an army of berserker teenaged soldiers.
"She was teaching grownups who want to get more schooling once they're done with regular school," Connor explained.
Elliott was utterly baffled. "Why would you want to do more school?"
"Because there are lots of jobs they won't let you do if you don't. Like being a doctor," Connor told him.
"Oh," Elliott said. "Well, I want to be a firefighter."
Connor's reply that Elliott would have to go to the special sort of school for firefighters nixed that idea. Stephen slipped up a few branches to get some quiet while Elliott tried to find a 'cool' sort of job that wouldn't need him to do any more schooling than the bare legal minimum. He had a pad and pen on him and began to add to the notes he'd written about the plans of the buildings, and the guard shift changes. Ideas for how to get in and get the other children out, what to do about Helen and then how he was going to get a whole passel of children and teenagers somewhere safe they could get some sort of help.
A half hour later he still only had vague ideas and realised a few things. First, he wanted to see one of Connor's supply raids, which, despite Connor's wish the day before to get some sort of rain blocking item, had not happened, and he needed to get more information about the floor plans of the place and whether and how much he could rely on the other teenagers. "Elliott's decided he wants to work at Tesco's," Connor declared suddenly from behind him.
Stephen nearly fell out of the tree. "Why?"
"Because it was the first job that seemed sort of neat to him that didn't require at least college."
Nodding his understanding, Stephen commented, "It makes a sort of logical sense."
"I can't really blame him," Connor said. "I mean, are there a lot of professors that are secretly mad scientists? Because I'll have to give up on paleontology if there are." The cheeky grin and deep dimple were all Connor Temple.
WIthout thinking, Stephen replied, "You shouldn't, you're far too good at it." Connor frowned and Stephen hastily changed the subject. "I'm going to need to do some more information gathering," he said. "I wondered if you'd be willing to make that run you gave up on yesterday because I was wibbling over Helen. If it's possible, I'd like to break in myself at some point, but I'm not about to try it without watching some more. I can't manage a ten-foot vertical leap, after all."
"It's a good point," Connor admitted. "The one main advantage we have in this, is that the soldiers are really stupid. I haven't seen any indication that the scientists are a danger, but then, I haven't seen them back to the wall, either."
"We'd want to try to surprise them," Stephen said, considering. "The difficulty is that if we take out all of one or the other, there's the chance to raise the alarm. Not to mention, there's only the two of us-"
"There'll be more if we break into the cells and get the teenagers out," Connor pointed out. "They'll none of them hold back if it means getting free."
It was true that put a different complexion to the matter. Loathe though Stephen was to bring more children into the fighting, they'd earned the right to free themselves and take something out of their captors' hides. "So, perhaps what we need to work on is sneaking past the guards, getting everyone free and then splitting into two groups to deal with both sides at once."
Connor nodded. "So, we'll head out again this afternoon? I'll go after the tarp, maybe some other supplies if something's convenient to grab and see if I can't clarify some of the geography."
*******************************
Stephen had agreed, and they'd headed out again, leaving Elliott with his gun after an impressive not-lecture from Stephen again about not shooting unless he was sure he was about to be eaten or taken or something. Just as Connor would have done, in order to avoid creating a trail for the soldiers to follow, Stephen led the way back to the compound by a different route. It seemed that, once he knew where he was supposed to be going, Stephen was able to navigate by some arcane means Connor couldn't identify.
At least for a few minutes. Suddenly he realised what Stephen was doing. "How are you following the way the soldiers took to get back before?" Connor asked, fascinated.
"There's a bootprint here," Stephen said, pointing out an impression Connor wasn't sure he'd've been able to pick out before he'd been enhanced. "It's pointing that way," he unerringly pointed towards the compound. "They've left the occasional stray thread about, and the way the vegetation is disturbed shows the directionality as well." Then he turned to Connor. "How are you able to tell that's what I'm following?"
"One of 'em was bleeding," Connor shrugged. "I can smell it."
Stephen's eyes narrowed at him a moment. Not in criticism, but in an odd sort of concentration, as though he were seeing something or someone else standing where Connor was. "I see," he said.
They got back to following and found a different perch to watch things from than last time, Stephen settling in to take more notes, while Connor watched for his chance to make a run at the wall. He felt oddly free, because now he knew that Elliott would be taken care of even if he got taken back. It made everything easier, because he didn't have to feel like every single shadow was about to get him.
As the shift change happened, the post was momentarily in flux and Connor leapt up the wall, dodging the cameras that weren't designed to watch for humans, but for incoming archosaurs, slipped past the guards and crept into the cavernous barracks. They were designed in a way that let him effectively stay up in the ceiling, the joists offering perches he could leap along, and the guards certainly weren't smart enough to expect trouble in their own home.
At the back was where the supplies and tents and things like that were, and Connor quickly located a waterproof sheet for them to add to the shelter with, then grabbed a few random boxes of ammunition. He didn't know one bullet from another, but there were only two gun types the clones used, so the two different types of bullets had to be useful. There were some more first aid supplies and some clean water which he added to the rucksack, then he left.
He'd got back to the ceiling, having to be far more careful on the way out, burdened as he was with a full rucksack and carrying the tarp in his hands. He was nearly to the window he'd planned his exit through when he was forced to freeze and start praying.
She'd just arrived. Helen Cutter. Connor gritted his teeth and mentally crossed his fingers that neither she nor her stooge of a scientist would look up. "How are things coming?" she asked the man coolly.
"Quite well," said the sneering man who seemed to take an obscene delight in hearing people scream as the painful injections raced through the system of his victims. "We're nearly ready for the final phase."
"Excellent," said Helen. "I assume there have been no repeats of the . . . incident with the escaping ones?"
"No, no," he assured her obsequiously. "Security has been tightened and they are all coming on quite nicely. The changes are nearly completely settled."
Helen nodded sharply. "Very well. I want them all finished and processed by the week's end," she told him. "Once my pets are finished I can begin training them."
They'd all three been in once place long enough that by now Connor could scent her and the man clearly. They were both . . . excited by the thought. He wanted to vomit.
Barely aware of the need for caution, Connor was a little reckless in getting out. He had to get to Stephen, had to tell him. He arrived at the tree where Stephen was waiting. "Connor?" he asked, eyes wide with worry. "What's wrong? You look white as a sheet."
"She's speeding things up," Connor said, too worried to reassure Stephen he was fine. "She wants it done for the end of the week. That means we only have a few days. Otherwise there'll be nothing and no one left, Stephen."
************************
Connor's words sent a chill of horror down Stephen's back. "What do you mean? How do you know?"
"I was up on the ceiling, people really don't look up ever," Connor said, "And she came in with that berk what's in charge of the scientists. She said she wanted everyone processed by the end of the week."
"Helen always was efficient," Stephen muttered to himself. "We'd best head back to," he paused as the sheer ridiculousness of what he was saying in this situation that was so filled with horror, "The tree."
Connor caught the pause and grinned. "We could call it base camp if that'll make you feel better," he said before sobering again.
"It would," Stephen told him as they hurried back.
His thoughts raced the whole way back to their treetop temporary home. How could they do this? Break in, get the children out, deal with the soldiers and scientists . . .
And Helen.
Connor was hastily explaining everything to Elliott while Stephen flipped through his notes, hoping to wrench an idea loose. Unfortunately, the only one he could come up with was risky for all concerned. "If I act as a decoy, sniping from outside, I can probably create a diversion and thin the ranks." He turned to Connor. "While that's going on, you'd have to get in-"
Never say Connor wasn't quick to pick up an idea. "And I break the others out. Once the other teens're out, we can take out the soldiers and . . ." he glanced at Elliott briefly. "Deal with them."
Elliott wasn't stupid either. "You'll kill them, you mean," he said. "There's nothing else we can do. They're too stupid to talk around. They're more like the dimetrodons than people anyhow." He was placid in the face of this, and Stephen felt a stab of sorrow that he saw echoed in Connor's face at how Elliott had adapted to the necessity of killing so well. "What?"
"They may be really dumb clones," Connor said to him, "They may be sort of brainwashed by Her," Stephen could hear the capital letters Connor gave the pronoun, not wanting to offer Helen the respect of even a name. "But they're still pretty much human, Elliott."
"But they're bad!" Elliott declared. "They're bad and they hurt us. They hurt you Connor, and you're the only one who never ever hit. Even Pam hit Theresa."
"You shouldn't ever think like it's a good thing to kill someone, Elliott," Connor said.
Elliott sighed. "I suppose. It's just . . ."
"I know," Connor told him. "What about Elliott?" he asked. "I mean, we can't just leave him alone here for the time that'll all take. Anyhow, someone'll have to make sure the kids're got out of the way somewhere safe."
"You can't mean -- he's five!" Stephen said, shocked.
Connor glared right back. "We don't have a choice. There's only three of us, even with him. I can get him in and leave him to let everyone out. I'll head out and make sure to distract everyone from heading into the cells. That'll give Elliott and the rest time to get out."
They argued, Elliott piping up from time to time, trying to tell them that he was fine, both of them shushing him, because he was five and didn't know nearly enough of what he was talking about. But the sheer simplicity of the plan made it the best option. No one had to rely on signals, the whole of it was straightforward and easy to explain and it didn't require anything more than what they had, a passel of guns and the three of them.
Without any desire to put it off any longer, and because they couldn't use the help of the teens who were too far gone, they decided to act at sunset. Elliott was fresh from napping all day at Connor and Stephen's insistence, and they set up not long before sunset in a good watching post.
As full dark set in, Stephen settled in and pulled out the handgun. "Get ready," he told Connor. Connor was to basically carry Elliott in, clinging to his back as he slipped past the hopefully distracted guards.
Connor nodded silently and slipped away. After counting to twenty, giving the teenager time to get into position, Stephen lined up and took his first shot.
There was a reason he'd won awards for his shooting, there was a reason he could have gone to the Olympics. One by one, he dropped them with headshots, the gunfire ringing out into the night. Connor was right. They were stupid. They didn't take cover, just stared around into the dark.
When one of them finally got out the machine gun he carried, it took him another minute to even begin to get close to Stephen's treetop position. When one of the people in white coats emerged, shouting directions Stephen couldn't hear for the sound of the guns, he took the moment and took that one out too. Unfortunately, it seemed the scientist's death galvanised the guards, who all took to firing randomly into the treetops in bursts of automatic fire.
He was forced to move from high up and circle around the compound. He'd got to a new place, firing off shots at the soldiers who had boiled out of the barracks building like ants from a crushed anthill, when the teenagers began to burst from the building where they were kept captive. Half mad, they flung themselves at the soldiers, tearing them apart.
Stephen was suddenly very relieved that Connor had retained his self-control in any sense, because the sight before him was horrible. They were savage. Spending half their time crouched on all fours, there was nothing human in the way they moved, reacting to signals and actions Stephen couldn't see, tearing the guards limb from limb, literally. He knew the forces needed to do those things to the human body, but they did it with an ease that was truly frightening.
One of the guards got himself together enough to shoot a girl, who staggered back, slipping on the now blood slicked ground. He was borne to the ground in a wave of infuriated savagery.
Even as another wave of teenagers flooded from the building that housed the so-called scientists, probably having finished dealing with them one way or another, it cleared the way for the soldiers to line up with their automatic weapons to open fire. Stephen knew his role then. He lifted the machine gun up, braced himself and sent a hail of bullets down the line of blank-faced identical men. The back rows died as Stephen carefully aimed away from the children he was now there to protect, but it left the clones trapped between the snarling, feral creatures those children had become, and someone wielding a machine gun that they could not see.
"Enough!" shouted Helen.
************************
As the single shots began to drop the guards one by one, Connor took off running, vaulting the security fence in a reverse of the way he'd escaped the first time, racing through the shadows and into the building he and Elliott had fled so recently. Staying out of sight as he hurried along, sometimes having to keep himself aloft and out of sight of the guards senselessly thundering out to see what was going on, he made his way to the cells, quickly snapping the necks of the two guards left waiting there.
"Connor?"
"Elsie?" he breathed. "I've come to get you out. Would you believe Elliott found some man with a gun lost in the woods out there willing to help?" He swiped the card to unlock the door letting her out, hearing the wonderful sound of the clamouring voices of his fellow captives.
"She'd said you were dead, she . . . we all thought . . ." Elsie flung herself out and hugged him.
He'd've hugged her back, but there wasn't time. "You need to get out there. One half to take on the guards, the others to take on the scientists. I'll join you once you're out."
"What about the kids?" Zeke demanded, even as he clapped Connor on the shoulder.
"Elliott knows where they'd supposed to go. There's a decent room they can barricade until we come for them." Zeke nodded, sending his primary schooler off to Elliott, while the two boys shared a rabid conversation in which Elliott was singing the praises of Stephen Hart.
Hettie grinned and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm for the scientists," she said, grabbing Michael and a few others. Connor felt a moment of despair. There were so few cells left compared to the start, and that just meant so many dead children and mad teens. She left, but Elsie cupped his face in her hands a moment.
"Don't feel guilty," she told him. "You did the only thing you could. You were incredible, and you're getting us out."
"Exactly," Zeke told him.
He nodded, but still wanted to curl in a ball and bawl a little. It wasn't fair. "Okay. Elliott? You got everyone, yeah?"
"Yeah," Elliott said, and scampered off.
Connor led the way, letting the others sort themselves how they wanted. "Just one thing," Connor said to Elsie and Zeke. "I'm . . . they did get to me. I . . . sometimes I wind up like Marge and Thomas and . . . the others. I might go a little . . . mad."
"We'll stop you, Conn," Elsie promised. "Now, let's show these . . . bastards what they've messed with!"
They burst into the night, and Connor couldn't help but feel a savage pleasure at the dead bodies littering the ground. The guards were out in force, but stupid as they were, couldn't seem to form a plan to deal with a single sniper in a tree. He saw a grin cross the lips of the others, and the leapt forward, treating those cloned things the way they had the raptors and troodons in the arena.
He didn't even fight the haze that overcame his vision, didn't want to, ripping into them with the rest of the pack, hearing the sound of his alpha taking more down and knowing the cubs were safe in a lair away from the fighting, he gave himself over to the screams and blood. A bullet tore through Elsie, sending her falling back, bringing Connor around for vengeance on the one that had hurt her.
From the other building, the one that was all pain and Her twisted pleasure, came the rest of the pack, thundering out, joining the fight to destroy the Bad Things. For a moment, they were lined up on opposite sides of the space, when the thundering rattle of machine gun fire came out of the darkness, tearing through the back of the crowd, sending them into distraction and disarray. Through the blood on his face, Connor smiled. They had the best alpha.
There were very few left, they'd have no trouble ending it now, when a familiar scent made them all freeze and turn in atavistic terror. "Enough!" shouted the monster that brought them there.
For a moment they froze, then Connor launched himself at her guards, the soldiers she had with her. They all did, tearing them apart.
But she'd done something, and no matter how any of them tried, they couldn't make themselves attack her.
Her smile was chilling. "Well, I'm glad something worked correctly. I'll have to speak to Mr. Kelly about the rest of this."
"What did you do to us?" Connor ground out. It would all be for nothing if they couldn't do anything to her, but the very thought made him cringe and want to abase himself. It was sickening. Terrifying.
"Just a little safeguard," she said. "Now, who's your -- Stephen?" Her face went slack in shock.
"Helen," he said evenly. Connor shuddered in relief at the sight. Stephen was there, hadn't had done to him what she'd done to the others. "How about you answer Connor's question? What have you done?"
They all watched in disbelief as she oozed her way over to Stephen, shoving her breasts at him. "Oh, Stephen, you don't understand-"
"You're right," he snapped. "I don't. I don't know what game you're going to try playing Helen, but I'm not buying it. Not this time."
"You haven't seen the future, Stephen," she told him, laying a hand on his arm. Her face was full of patently false pleading. "It's for the survival of everyone. There are predators in the future, terrifying things. If we can just create soldiers to deal with them, we can save people." Connor just hoped Stephen didn't fall for it. No matter, they'd get the cubs and run if they had to. But Stephen didn't fall for it.
He just pulled away. "I don't need to, to know what's wrong, Helen. This is wrong." He shook his head. "This is why you were leaving Nick and seducing gullible students, he's too moral for you. Cares too much about right and wrong."
"I love you," she tried.
"If what you feel for me is love," Stephen told her, "I'm rather glad I've never been in love, then. But somehow, I doubt it. Now, you're going to cooperate, and tell me how to get these children home safely, then you're coming back to the 21st century and I'm going to have Lester toss you in prison."
"Are you now?" she asked, sardonically. "Going to shoot me otherwise?"
"If I have to," Stephen told her. "Look at what I've done here."
She just laughed, and stepped away. But before Stephen could do more than aim at her, one of the temporal gates opened up and she fled through, the thing closing right behind her. For all that Stephen looked angry, Connor thought he looked a little relieved too. But he didn't say anything. Stephen had enough to deal with, being in love with the monstrous bitch there. He didn't need Connor pointing out that he should have just shot her and had done with. It wasn't like Connor and the others had done better.
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