fredbassett

Title : Silk and Steel, Part 68
Authors : fredbassett & munchkinofdoom
Fandom : Primeval
Characters : Nick, Connor, Leek, Annie Morris, Lyle, Blade
Rating : 18
Disclaimer : Not ours, no money made, don’t sue
Spoilers : None
Summary : Nick attends a meeting at Leek’s house.
Warning : Slave!fic.
A/N : With grateful thanks to lsellersfic  for casting her eye over the 'science'.

Nick anxiously inspected the well-lit, tree-lined street as he got out of his car and locked it behind him. All was quiet in the leafy suburban avenue, but if he had learned anything since finding himself in this madhouse of a world, it was that appearances were usually deceptive. The passenger door slammed shut and Nick turned to watch Connor climb out of the vehicle. The lad was still pale and drawn, his run-in with Helen having shaken him more than Connor had been willing to admit. The lad looked like he was still hovering only just short of exhaustion, even though he had claimed to have managed a couple of hours sleep in the late afternoon. Nick had been distinctly unhappy about involving their computer expert in whatever games Oliver Leek was now playing but, as Connor himself had pointed out, he was already up to his eyes in as much shit as everyone else.

At Leek’s insistence, Thomson had revoked the full lock-down on the ARC and, as far as their military overlord was concerned, Connor was probably being taken home by Nick for less than professional reasons, but Nick was beyond caring about his reputation. His only concern was that he hadn't been able to bring Stephen and Abby to the meeting. Leek had vetoed that idea, firmly, but had extended an olive branch by offering to assign the female soldier, Tanya Lacey, to watch over the remainder of his team, with orders to protect them by whatever means necessary from any unwanted attention.

Nick hadn't been happy about the compromise. But, with a little subterfuge, he had convinced both Stephen and Abby – separately, of course – to watch out for the other for him. It hadn't taken much, considering that every member of his team had all had their own incidents with Helen. So now they were safe – Nick hoped – in Abby's flat, watched over by a very able Lacey. Nick half hoped that the young soldier would take her orders literally and just shoot Helen if she turned up there, thereby solving everyone's problems.

Lieutenant Lyle opened the door no more than a moment after Nick’s knock, and silently admitted the two men into the respectable-looking terraced house, showing them through to a spacious living room. Annie Morris was already seated on a large leather sofa with the green-eyed soldier, Blade, standing behind her seat, his keen gaze alert and wary, with one hand resting lightly on the hilt of a large knife strapped to his right thigh.

"Come in, dears," Annie said in greeting, her usual efficient cheerfulness somewhat diminished by an obvious mix of exhaustion and distress. "Oliver is around here somewhere. The man seems unable to sit still today, for some reason."

Lyle gave a choked laugh at that, making Annie glance curiously at the soldier. Nick absently watched the byplay as he ushered Connor to a seat and made sure the lad was settled comfortably before he sat down as well. He was beginning to regret not making Connor take more painkillers before they’d left the ARC. The stiff way the young man held his shoulders told their own tale. The discomfort from the strapping Thomson had inflicted on him had clearly not abated.

"Ah, there you are, Cutter. Perhaps now we can get started?" Leek said briskly as he walked into the sitting room, holding a glass that seemed to contain more than a generous amount of alcohol. The man leaned against the back of a chair, noted everyone's expectant eyes on him, and finally sat down with a fleeting wince.

Nick’s lips curled with barely concealed distaste as he decided he didn't really want to know why Leek seemed in some physical discomfort. It conjured mental images that he could well do without.

"Why are we all here, Leek?" Nick asked, taking advantage of the silence.

"I do believe that it is likely to be in everyone's best interests to have you returned to your own world, post-haste, Professor," Leek announced calmly.

Nick blinked in shock, rendered speechless for a moment by Leek’s unexpected declaration. He turned to the others to find Annie and Connor eyeing him seriously, but he could tell from their expressions that this idea wasn't new to them. Nick’s emotions whirled alongside the chaos of his thoughts and he said the first thing that came into his head. "You believe me?” He stared at Leek incredulously. “What’s brought this on? And why the hell should I trust you? You've just had Lester stood down!"

Leek sighed. "To be entirely accurate, our friends in Section 42 had Lester stood down. I had nothing to do with it.” He finished the rest of his drink and held the glass out while Lyle moved smoothly to his side to provide a refill from a bottle of vodka. Leek was clearly drinking for alcoholic content rather than taste. “All right, Professor, since it's obvious you don't consider me a reformed character, let me rephrase myself. With the arrival of Dr Helen Cutter on the scene, it is patently obvious to anyone with half a brain that, in spite of your recently acquired backbone, we actually need the return of our Professor Nicolas Cutter as soon as possible if we are to have any hope of thwarting your – or do I mean his – ex-wife’s plans."

"Her plans?" Nick demanded, ignoring Leek’s barely-veiled insult. “Your Professor Cutter?”

"Control of the ARC is almost certainly nothing more than a stepping-stone in her overall plans, according to Section 42," said Leek, side-stepping Nick’s last question.

"Are you saying she framed Lester and Ryan? How?"

Leek shrugged. "As yet, Section 42 is unable to answer that, but Captain Thomson assures me he is still working on uncovering the real culprit, and I still have some hope that young Mr Temple will continue to earn his keep on that subject."

"But Thomson’s working with her anyway, isn’t he? And you're working with them," Nick said, challengingly.

Leek met his eyes with a steady stare. "Up until yesterday, Professor, I can assure you that I had absolutely no idea who I was working with – or for. Yes, I knew who my backers were, but their connection to Section 42 had escaped me, I regret to say."

"You didn't answer my question," Nick countered. "Is Section 42 working with Helen?"

Leek's answer was slow in coming as he took another long swallow of his drink. The room around them was quiet, and Nick could feel a metaphorical chill working its way up his spine as he waited for Leek's reply.

"Helen Cutter has technology that the government has never seen before. Section 42 was tasked with obtaining that technology. However, the assignment does not appear to be going well."

"So why don't they just put a gun to her head and make her co-operate?" asked Nick. “Or better still, torture her. That seems to be their normal method of obtaining information.”

"Such crude methods haven’t served them very well in the past so far as the inestimable Dr Cutter is concerned. The last time Section 42 tried that, they lost four soldiers and Helen disappeared into thin air." Leek took another mouthful of his drink and swallowed audibly. "Helen Cutter appears to be able to open anomalies at will, without the aid of any obvious technology." Leek looked up and stared straight at Nick. "The government is willing to make considerable sacrifices to gain that particular ability."

"And what are you willing to sacrifice?" Nick asked bitterly.

Leek smiled wryly before taking yet another drink. The level of alcohol in the glass was diminishing remarkably rapidly, but Nick noticed that Leek was showing no obvious sign of inebriation. In fact he seemed remarkably sober.

"Certainly not my own life," Leek replied. "The attack on the ARC somewhat soured my faith in whoever was pulling my strings. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn’t for Lieutenant Lyle's unexpected intervention."

"But that didn't stop you from bringing him here with you last night and fucking him, did it?” Nick sneered, adding angrily, “I bet you did the same with Stephen, as well!"


"Not guilty on that count, Professor. On either count, actually."

"You expect me to believe you didn't take advantage of Stephen last night? Why the hell else would you have sent for him?"

"Perhaps because Lyle needed him? I am capable of altruism, Cutter."

Nick laughed harshly. "You expect me to believe that you didn't feel the need for some stress relief after yesterday’s events? Come on, Leek, pull the other one, it’s got bloody bells on. Or am I the only one who finds the thought of a good man being tortured horrific?"

"Stress relief takes many forms, dear," Annie said, attempting to distract Nick from the escalating confrontation. But all the intervention did was redirect Nick's mounting fury.

"Is that what you call what you do with your bodyguard? Blade, isn't it? Stress relief. I’d thought better of you, Annie, but I was wrong, wasn’t I?"

Annie's expression froze for a moment, and Nick saw Blade stiffen behind her. Then she took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment before replying. "It’s none of your business, Nick, but, for the record, Niall has always consented to everything that occurs between us. I've made certain of that. Not all of us are monsters."

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Leek stiffen, but he ignored the man’s reaction in the up-welling of hatred for this sick parody of a world. "Are you so certain of that? He wears a collar and he’s at the mercy of anyone in authority – hell, my own counterpart had him flogged for nothing more than killing a creature in the course of his duty. How the hell can anyone in his position be able to give consent? You’re deluding yourself, woman."

Annie gasped, an angry flush creeping up her cheeks.

She opened her mouth to reply, only to be cut off by Oliver Leek. "And now you see why we need your counterpart, as you call him, on our side in this battle, Professor Cutter. For all your zeal, you’re an interloper in this world and you’re a burden we can’t afford to carry any more."

Nick leaned his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands. He dragged a long breath into his lungs and exhaled slowly, trying to calm his nerves. Finally, he straightened, ran his fingers through hair that hadn’t seen a pair of scissors since he’d arrived in this world, and nodded. This was an argument he knew he couldn't win. However this world had come into being, it was too big for him to change overnight and alone. Maybe if he really was stuck here forever it would be worth trying to come to terms with it all and continuing his attempts to influence others but, if he wasn’t very much mistaken, a way out had just been hinted at and his heart rate was still leaping at the thought that he might actually get the chance to go home at last.

He sighed, took another deep breath, and then said, "What do we need to do?"

Leek looked at him, then at Annie, and then finally at Connor, who Nick had overlooked in the tension of the confrontation. Nick could see that his outburst had left everyone on edge,

"I’ll make some coffee, I think,” Leek sighed. “Or perhaps tea, in your case, Professor. Lyle, your assistance, please?"

As Lyle led the way out of the room, eyeing Nick warily, Leek stood up and began to follow his bodyguard. Then, just as he reached the door, he turned and looked at those left behind. "I assume I can leave the rest of you to play nicely while my back’s turned? No fisticuffs, please, Cutter. And no bloodshed. My new position in the ARC probably won't stretch to having my carpets and suite cleaned on expenses."

And then Nick, Annie and a very quiet Connor were left alone together with one very alert soldier on guard over them. It was perfectly obvious to Nick that her bodyguard was just as furious as Annie Morris. It rather belatedly occurred to him that annoying the one person who might actually be able to devise the means of sending him home might not have been the most sensible thing he’d ever done in his life.

"Annie," Nick began, and she lifted her head at his words. "I'm sorry."

Annie just stared at him, her face still hard and unforgiving, Blade's expression almost identical. Nick would have laughed if he hadn't felt sick.

"I really am sorry. Leek’s right, I don't understand this world, or how anyone with a conscience could use another person in ways that seem perfectly accepted here, but I do understand this. You’ve been kind to me. You've taken Connor under your wing, and I've never seen you so much as raise a hand to anyone. I don't know what happens between you and Blade in private, but you're right, it's none of my business."

Annie merely nodded her understanding, even though it was obvious that Blade was far less forgiving. Nick wondered if the man was angry on his own behalf, or if he was actually defending the woman who had taken him to her bed. The whole situation was twisted, but Nick knew better than to continue to share his thoughts.

Whatever he thought of this world, of these people and their morals, he needed Annie’s help if he was to get home.

The tension was finally broken by Leek's return, with Lyle carrying a tray of cups behind him. The tray was set down, drinks quickly and quietly dispensed, and finally everyone turned expectantly to Annie.

She sighed, took a sip of her coffee, put down her cup, and began to speak. "Science – and various other disciplines such as philosophy – has been theorising about the existence of multiple universes for some years now. Theories include sequential universes – a big bang followed by a big crunch followed by a big bang and so on – branching universes created from timeline changes that produce alternate realities and, finally, the one we are interested in: the multiverse theory.” Annie paused for a moment, as though allowing a class of students to catch up.

"Imagine a layer cake, each layer consisting of a completely independent universe. These are called bubble universes. Now, it has been theorised that these bubbles can sometimes develop a bulge, which might be reabsorbed, but on other occasions the bulge might grow into a new bubble universe instead, separating from its parent bubble and becoming independent." Annie stopped to take another sip of her coffee, appearing to collect her thoughts before continuing.

"When James first came to me, looking for advice on how to deal with your situation, Nick, my first thought was that we were dealing with some form of multiverse rather than a simple timeline change. The differences you experienced were too arbitrary, too recent for a change that had to have occurred in the Permian. But without further data, I was unable to tell him how the multiverse worked. So I joined the ARC in order to study this phenomenon with a view to sending you home.” She gave him a small smile. “James was becoming rather concerned that your eccentricities, as he saw them, might destabilise an already difficult working environment.”

Nick snorted, then shot Annie another apologetic glance and made a small gesture with his hand, inviting her to continue.

"I will admit that I was concerned. Even if I was able to prove that we were dealing with multiple universes rather than merely a changed timeline, there was no guarantee that – with the new universe having separated from its parent – we would be able to make contact your universe again, let alone your own time. Especially since all the anomalies to date have connected to the past or future."

Nick's stomach turned over at that announcement, but he said nothing. He couldn't believe that they would have called this meeting, after a day as fraught as the previous one that they’d all endured, if there was really no hope of returning him to his own world. Despite everything he despised about this version of reality, he couldn’t bring himself to believe Annie would be that cruel.

The object of his thoughts finished her drink and then proceeded with her attempts to get him to follow her explanations. "I'm going to backtrack a little here, and share what Connor and I have discovered about the anomalies and then try to explain what we think has happened in this instance. First and foremost, the anomalies don't connect to our own past or future. They connect to different times in different layers of the multiverse – to different universes, in fact. We've been able to prove this because of the properties of each anomaly as it connects to that universe. While they all transmit on roughly the same frequency – 86.7FM – they each oscillate at two slightly different frequencies, one for each universe they connect to. Taking the Permian anomaly as an example, the anomaly in our time has one oscillation while the opening into the Permian universe has another. So, using Connor's probe, we've been able to identify not only the oscillating frequency of our own universe, but of seven other universes. And this is important, because the number of universes we are able to connect to via anomalies is far too many to conform to the layer theory.

"The best way to describe what Connor and I have theorised is that we are in the middle of a collection of universes, much like a bunch of balloons tied together. So, when an anomaly connects us to another universe, we have more than two adjacent layers to choose from.

"Now, this is how the anomalies normally work. But something happened when you returned from the Permian that day. I’ve talked to the people who were present and everyone remembers the anomaly flaring before it closed. That is almost certainly significant. Connor and I believe that was the moment when our universe finished coming into being."

The room was deathly silent and Nick was convinced everyone could hear his heart beating loudly in his chest. He was also certain that Annie had just said something momentous, but for the life of him, Nick had no bloody idea what she was talking about.

Annie sighed, the soft sound breaking the silence. "All right, let me try to make this as simple as possible. When you led your expedition through that anomaly into the Permian, you stepped into another universe. When you came back through that same anomaly, you should have been returned to your own time and universe. But the bulge – the anomaly – expanded instead of closing. It stole energy from its connection with your time and universe and used it to create a new bubble universe modelled on your own. This is where you are now."

"But this isn't modelled on my universe!"

"I assure you that it most certainly is. But it is those very changes that prove we are all in a new universe, created from yours."

"Okay, you've lost me again," Nick said, in resignation.

"This world is, in effect, identical to your universe, right down to its oscillation. The differences between the two universes are minor and are due to coding errors. Glitches, if you want to call them that. I know it’s difficult to understand, but we experienced our own Big Bang just months ago, at the moment when you thought you’d stepped out of the anomaly into your own time. History, for this universe, expanded backward and forward in time from that moment. And it left behind coding errors, like someone making errors while transcribing information."

"You can't know that," Nick exclaimed, beginning to wonder if the woman would ever get to the point.

"I can, because I have found one distinct coding error." Annie stopped for a moment, smiling absently at Blade as he topped up her coffee cup, and then took a few sips before continuing. It looked to Nick as if she as steeling herself for what she was about to say, and he wasn’t at all sure he was ready to hear it.

"Jenny Lewis," she announced, and then took another mouthful of her coffee as the room exploded into noise around her. Finally, she held up one hand for quiet and then began to speak again. "I am sorry, but there was no way to sugar-coat that."

"How can Jenny Lewis be a coding error?" Leek asked, finally joining the conversation.

"It is almost impossible, from the inside looking out, so to speak, to see the changes. So I started with the most obvious question – where had Nick Cutter's Claudia Brown gone? I went looking for her and I found her. So far as I have been able to ascertain, Jenny Lewis is Claudia Brown, right down to her chromosomes." Then Annie frowned. "Well, she certainly isn't Jenny Lewis."

"Make sense, woman!" demanded Nick.

Annie gave a small smile and nodded. "I had James check Jenny's background for me. It was relatively simple to do without showing our hand, as she is an ARC employee, and James has always had a penchant for detailed personnel files. What I found is that Jenny is not the genetic child of the Lewis's."

"So she's adopted," Nick said.

"No. The records are quite clear. Mrs Lewis gave birth to her without incident and took her home soon after. Her birth was registered, by her father, in the normal way. Jenny was the child Mrs Lewis gave birth to but wasn't the child that same woman conceived. She is a coding error."

Nick stared at Annie, struggling to get his head around what she was trying to tell him. For a moment he just decided to take the line of least resistance and asked the question uppermost in his mind. "But what happened to this universe's Claudia Brown? Who is in her place – Jenny Lewis?"

Annie shrugged. "That's a question I don't have an answer to. There are numerous Claudia Browns on record and we haven’t had the time to track them all down. And even with the ARC’s resources, having them DNA tested would be likely to attract unwanted attention."

Nick poured himself more tea and did his best to collect the wreckage of his thoughts. His mind kept circling back to the thought that, if Annie was right, his Claudia Brown might actually be safely back in his own universe, that neither his nor Helen's actions had done anything to endanger her, and hope started to edge back in through a door in his mind that Nick had done his best to close. Then he realised that, regardless of how relieved he was at that prospect, he still had no idea how he was going to get home.

'That's all well and good, Annie,” he said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. “But how is all this going to get me home, or return your Nick Cutter?"

"I can take over here, Professor Morris, if you want me to?" Connor cut in.

Annie smiled gratefully at him and nodded.

Connor grinned back at her and then took up the story. "After Professor Morris joined the ARC, we made some modifications to my mobile probe so we could collect the data she needed to decide what sort of multiple universes we were dealing with." Connor stopped for a moment and smiled impishly at that phrase. Nick, despite the gravity of the situation, was amused by the lad's pleasure at seeing science fiction come to life yet again before his eyes.

"The Professor – Annie – said that we needed to be on the look-out for any strange behaviour on the part of the anomalies. But it wasn't until we had the data from almost a dozen anomalies that we began to see a pattern. Annie had said that, if our universe had been created out of your universe, it was likely that there'd be a wound where the two universes separated. Like an earthquake or volcanic eruption, there'd be a structural weakness in the membranes between the two universes until they could heal." Connor shrugged. "Our best bet was that the weakness would show up as extra anomalies."

"But how could you tell if there were extra anomalies when we don’t know what is normal?" Nick asked. Nothing Connor said made sense and he was starting to feel like a particularly stupid first-year student.

"We were created directly from your universe,” Connor said slowly. “And we're sitting side by side, identical in almost every way, and if both universes have the same wounds, then it's obvious that they'd be trying to open anomalies at the same time, in the same section of membrane, and that would have to effect the behaviour of the anomalies!"

It wasn't obvious to Nick at all, but he wasn't going to admit that, not when Connor seemed to have just hit his stride.

"Two anomalies, identical in every way, have to go somewhere. They can't open up against each other – that contradicts everything we know about anomalies, as they'd be opening up in exactly the same era in both universes," Connor grinned. "So, where are those two anomalies going?"

Nick glared at Connor and Annie took pity on him, taking up the narrative.

"If our two universes are still identical – and I surmise that it will be a long time, maybe even on a geological scale, before this universe settles into its own oscillation – then it stands to reason that the two anomalies are going to the same place. Twinned anomalies," Annie said, giving the statement a weight that tickled something in the back of Nick's brain but refused to make sense.

"You're saying that there have been two anomalies on the other side of the ones we've encountered since my arrival? I'd have noticed, woman!"

"Firstly, not all anomalies are twinned. Probably less than half of the anomalies we've encountered since the Permian one have been created by these wounds. And the twinned anomalies that we have identified aren't in close proximity, Professor," Connor replied. "In fact, there seems to be a minimum distance required between twinned anomalies."

"So how do you know they’re twinned?"

"Because the twinned anomalies are identical, they have an effect on each other that we can measure with the probe's equipment.” Connor made a gesture with his hands in an attempt to illustrate his explanation. “It's like putting the positive ends of two magnets together, they repel each other. In this case, each anomaly is distorting the magnetic field of the other. It can't be seen by the naked eye, but we've measured the effect. That's how we know when we've got twinned anomalies, without even needing to set eyes on the other one."

Nick rubbed his temples tiredly and was certain he could feel a headache coming on. "So let me get this straight. You've identified twinned anomalies on a number of occasions, but haven't actually seen the second one that’s supposedly from this time in my universe?"

"Right," Connor said, nodding. "But we know it's out there."

"But how far away is it? A mile, a few hundred miles, the next bloody continent?"

"They can't be too far apart, Professor, or they wouldn't be distorting each other's magnetic fields. Maybe walking distance, if the anomaly's field looks strong. Something like trail-bikes might be a better idea, though. Wouldn't want to get stuck there if both anomalies closed," Connor said, nodding enthusiastically.

"So you're saying that I could walk through the anomaly from our end, ride a motorbike across to wherever the other anomaly is, go through it, and be home?" Nick couldn't believe it could actually be that simple.

"Theoretically," said Annie. "We were about to get authority from James to make contact with whatever is on the other side of the twinned anomalies, to confirm it is actually the right time in your world, but then everything went to hell here."

Nick groaned and dropped his head back into his hands. So close and, yet again, fucked up by Helen. And it wasn't even his Helen. That was if she was responsible for everything that had happened to the Anomaly Project, and Nick couldn't see how it could have been anyone else, even without evidence. Her appearance was just too damn coincidental.

"So what do we do now?" he asked.

Surprisingly, it was Leek who answered. "We throw you through the first anomaly that looks promising, grab our Professor Nicholas Cutter, bring him back here and pray it gives us an advantage, however small. And we try to keep Section 42 and Dr Helen bloody Cutter in the dark while all that is going on."

Nick took a deep breath and nodded his agreement. Sometimes, when the chips were down, you had to just grab the opportunities and run with them.

He could live with that.9