unfortunate ➸ primeval

Chapter 18

The team ended up at a very swanky block of apartments in the centre of London, and the one the anomaly appeared in was near enough the top floor. Connor stared out the window once they were up there, gazing out at Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

"Wow," he commented. "Nice view."

"Nice place, if you can afford it," Clara chipped in, gazing around the place. The living room alone was enormous, with it being open plan. Although, it was littered with random pieces of modern art, which Clara didn't really know what to make of.

Abby stared at a strange dark powder on the floor, with an odd sort of fungus growing in the middle of it. Clara joined her, but watched as Connor leaned closer to a lamp that had four fans attached to it.

"You know what," he began, peering at the fans but pulling back when they turned themselves on. "I know a lot about art, but I don't really know what I like."

At that moment, Jenny and Becker entered the flat, the former just flipping her phone closed. "Okay, the flat belongs to a Sir Richard Bentley. He's the chairman of the ABS Finance Group."

"First," Abby said, standing up from where she had been peering at the strange powder. "We need to find out what this is." Connor joined the others in looking at the floor.

"Is it fungal?" He asked, beginning to bend down.

"Whoa, whoa," Abby held out her hand to stop him from touching it. "Maybe." She snapped some white latex gloves on and got a sample of the fungus, sliding it into a tube.

"Nice," Connor grimaced.

"And you," Abby held out the tube to Connor. "Need to go and analyse it. Quick."

"Thanks very much," Connor sighed, taking the sample and standing up. "Clara, you're with me."

"Great," Clara rolled her eyes fondly, waving to the rest of the team before following Connor out of the building.

——

Connor swung into the garage at top speed, squeaking the car to a halt. Clara got out first, collecting the sample from one of the soldiers who had been riding in the back and hurrying to the lab; Connor following close behind.

Once in the lab, Clara watched from the sidelines as Connor placed the small sample onto a tray and peered at it through the microscope. He then added a tiny drop of saline solution onto it, and the fungus began to spread rapidly. He pulled away, shocked.

"Radical," he muttered. He then opened a glass case and placed the tray containing the fungus into it, securing it safely in there. "Call Jenny," he told Clara urgently. Clara instantly pulled out her phone and dialled Jenny.

"Jenny?" She said as soon as she answered. "You have to get out of there. Evacuate the full block, now. This fungus is toxic. It's incredibly aggressive. You need to trace anybody who's been exposed to it." Jenny hung up after saying she would.

Clara and Connor watched for a few moments as the fungus spread some more inside the glass case before getting out of the lab quickly, securing the door tightly.

Just a few minutes later however, once the two of them had washed their hands, the intruder alarm was blaring and it was coming from the lab that the fungus was in. Clara and Connor exchanged a glance before rushing back to the lab.

Danny Quinn was stood outside of it, arms folded over his chest impatiently. "Oh, finally," he muttered.

"What happened?" Clara demanded.

"One of Johnson's men was acting suspiciously, so I followed him," he explained simply. "When I found him in there, he had some weird fungus growing all over him."