unfortunate ➸ primeval

Chapter 37

From the floor, Danny scoffed and pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Since when did you care so much about the human race?" He asked her.

"Oh, it's not humanity I'm going to save," Helen dismissed.

"You know, Helen, you're in dire need of some serious therapy," Danny deadpanned. Helen just gave a short laugh before returning her focus to the screen.

While she wasn't really paying attention, Clara slipped her hand out of Connor's and went over to Danny, crouching down so she was knelt on the floor and checking him over for any injury. She rested a hand gently on the back of his head, relieved when nothing sticky coated her fingers. She gave him a soft smile and a single nod.

They then had nothing to do but watch Helen work her magic. She opened several files before using her fingers to pull open one of them, allowing the full hologram of what had been inside the artefact to spill out above their heads. Helen breathed out in disbelief and awe, and Clara's eyes widened, as did Connor's. The golden lines were filled with glowing white dots that represented anomalies, and there were so many of them.

"It's a time map," Connor confirmed. "Every anomaly that's ever been. Or ever will be."

"Nick was right," Clara breathed. "There is a pattern."

"With this, we'll never have to wait for anomalies to open again," Connor grinned. "We'll just know where they are."

"Such a sweet, clever boy," Helen commented from where she stood. "What a shame you ever met Cutter."

She placed one of her devices that were half glass and half mechanical into the monitor, pushing it into one of the slots so the glass end was completely submerged. She then typed in a code on the screen that Clara could only half see.

"Gotcha," Helen whispered with glee, and the hologram got sucked back into the monitor before the screen faded to a grey haze of nothingness. Helen removed her small device and turned it on, spinning around and pressing a button with her thumb.

An anomaly burst out of the device, shimmering and illuminating the dull room with light. Stood in front of it, she turned around to face the team. "You know," she began. "If I were you, I'd make the most of whatever time you have left." She pulled her backpack onto her shoulders and picked up the artefact. "Believe me, it won't be long."

"Please, no," Connor begged as he shook his head. "Please."

Helen didn't listen. She raised her arms and flung the artefact to the floor, sending it to the ground and causing all the glass inside it to smash. The artefact was dead, and useless. Connor sank to his knees on the floor next to it, scooping up the bits of glass it had left.

Meanwhile, Helen had stepped through the anomaly she had conjured and gone into a completely different world, leaving the others behind. After she had gone through, the anomaly snapped closed and returned the room to darkness.

The monitor's lights flickered before it made a noise and they went out completely. Abby slammed her hands on the screen angrily. "No!" She cried. Connor stood up and buried his head in his hands, while Clara helped Danny up off the floor and carefully brushed him down.

"She was plotting some kind of route," Connor began, as Danny switched his torch on and shone it around the dingy room.

"We've got to find out where she was going," Danny decided. "How we can follow her."

"But how?" Abby questioned. "This thing's completely dead!" She pointed to the screen.

"I know," Connor nodded. "But if we can get it working, then maybe I can reconstruct the route from the computer's memory."