Dangerous Dimension

by Pippa Le Quesne

  Claudia shrugged, her strong beautiful face full of empathy. There was a moment’s silence, then she spoke again.

  ‘Strange, that of all the people in the world to hallucinate about, Stephen chose Helen.’

  He looked at her sharply.

  ‘Assuming he was hallucinating.’

  Cutter turned away, not wanting to show her the emotional turmoil he was going through. He had lied to her about the appearance of Helen and he knew she would feel betrayed. She had trusted him. And helped him. But he wasn’t ready to go public with this yet. His eyes lingered on a distant spot on the lake. What was that?

  ‘Steam…’

  Claudia looked at him quizzically and then followed his gaze.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ Cutter said urgently. ‘The tide must be coming in, bringing warmer water from the other side. The steam’s telling us exactly where to find the anomaly!’

  A powerful motor boat was moored to the jetty, waiting to take on board a dive team that included Stephen and Cutter. As the professor zipped up his wetsuit, Claudia sidled over.

  ‘I suppose it’s pointless asking you not to go down with them?’

  ‘Pretty much.’ Cutter grinned.

  ‘At least be careful,’ Claudia said, a soft look in her eyes.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m thinking of the paperwork if you drown yourself,’ the civil servant said playfully. Then her expression became serious. ‘What if you’re right and the creature’s still down there? You’re not a trained diver.’

  Cutter jerked his head towards the SAS team.

  ‘They don’t know what an anomaly might look like underwater.’

  ‘Neither do you,’ retorted Claudia.

  Cutter picked up his scuba gear. ‘I’ll find it.’

  Abby and Connor were up to their waists in the reservoir. They were collecting water samples.

  ‘There’s no trace of saline pollution,’ Connor said, glancing at his handheld salinity meter. ‘It’s not coming from the sea.’

  ‘Must be a freshwater estuary beyond the anomaly,’ Abby commented.

  Connor nodded, but he’d been distracted by the activity of the divers slipping over the side of the motor boat. ‘Why does Stephen get all the fun while we’re stuck collecting water samples?’

  ‘He looks better in a wetsuit,’ Abby said sardonically.

  ‘I can handle the action stuff as well, you know. I’m not just a massive intellect.’

  Abby grinned, but then looked worried. It was very likely that the sea monster might come back through the anomaly in the reservoir – and they were standing right in it. She gulped. ‘What do they do when they find the anomaly? How do you plug a leak in the past?’

  They both glanced warily at the surface of the water, but it was calm. Not even a ripple.

  Cutter checked his underwater gauge. The water temperature was still rising.

  The group of divers continued swimming slowly through the murky water, none of them knowing what to expect. Then, with no warning, one of the divers at the front disappeared. Cutter wheeled round in alarm and motioned for Stephen to follow him. There was a slight undulation in the water, but no sign of the missing man.

  Cutter shone his torch. Weirdly, the light bounced back through the water. They had found the anomaly.

  Abby edged her way through the shallows, distracted by the divers clambering back on to the boat. She didn’t notice a ripple break the surface a couple of metres away. Then the ripple began to arrow towards her. It had nearly reached her when Connor finally tore his eyes away from the boat and looked round.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Abby turned to see the ripple become a wave as a long grey-green shape suddenly crested the water, lungeing towards her.

  ‘Don’t move,’ she hissed, her heart in her mouth.

  The giant swimming lizard circled her, its thick tail flicking through the water as it sized her up. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion now. Connor and Abby stood as if frozen, their eyes following the sea monster’s every move.

  Then, for no apparent reason, it seemed to lose interest, sinking below the surface and swimming away.

  ‘Now!’ Abby whispered urgently, wading for the shore, Connor hot on her heels.

  They had just made it on to the shale when, to their horror, the enormous creature lurched out of the water, scrabbling with its flippers to reach them.

  Connor and Abby scrambled desperately to escape. But they were now trapped by high spiked railings, and only less than a metre from the monster’s flailing head and massive jaws. Penned in, they ran for the only cover they could find – an old rowing boat beached on the shore.

  But it was barely a refuge and the creature quickly manoeuvred itself further out of the water, intent on its prey. Looming over them, it snapped and lunged.

  Connor looked about desperately and spotted an abandoned oar. Grabbing it, he ran out into the open to lure the beast away from Abby. Then, as it turned on him, he rammed the oar as hard as he could into its mouth, twisting it upwards. The monster roared with pain, shaking its head in an attempt to loosen the wooden pole from the roof of its mouth.

  With no other means of defending themselves, Abby and Connor watched in rigid fear as the giant lizard snapped the oar in two, freeing itself of the splintered wood. But then, with one last bone-chilling wail, the sea monster turned and flipped itself back into the water, vanishing from sight. They were safe – for now.

  ‘You saved my life!’ Abby said gratefully, warmly embracing Connor.

  ‘I did, didn’t I?’ Connor beamed. He buried his nose in her fragrant hair and held on a moment too long.

  Cutter suddenly became aware of a huge presence at close range. And then a hideous sea monster was slashing through the water towards him. With no time to react, he watched and waited for certain death. But the creature, displaying not even a flicker of interest in him, swam straight past. And in a hazy blur of armoured body, flippers and sharp teeth, it disappeared through the anomaly.

  ‘It was some kind of Mosasaur… maybe six or seven metres… Cretaceous, at a guess…’

  Connor was shell-shocked from his recent close shave, but he still managed to babble out the facts. That was why he was on the team.

  ‘Too small to be the creature that attacked Anthony Barton. Which is just as well for you.’ Cutter patted Connor on the shoulder. He had shown immense bravery. There seemed to be more to the unruly-looking student than met the eye.

  Just then, Claudia broke away from the group of SAS men that she had been talking to and came over. She looked tired and drawn.

  Cutter shook his head despairingly. ‘The diver swam through right in front of me. He should have been able to make it back.’

  ‘Something must have stopped him. You’re absolutely certain the anomaly’s closed?’ Claudia searched his face, looking for a ray of hope.

  ‘Straight after the Mosasaur went back through. The water temperature is already returning to normal.’

  Claudia stared bleakly out at the water.

  ‘Then we’ve lost him.’

  ‘My guess is that the anomalies are time’s equivalent of an earthquake. Fault lines appear in space and time, some of which are strong enough to rip apart the barriers between dimensions,’ Cutter explained, pointing to a bold red line marked on the map in front of him.

  ‘You think the anomaly has caused a kind of temporal fault line?’ Claudia asked, quickly cottoning on to his logic.

  Cutter nodded and traced the line with his finger from the pool to the reservoir and then on towards the sea. He looked up at Claudia and Lester. They were back in the ops room. ‘It could smash its way through into our time again anywhere along this line.’

  ‘Temporal fault lines? Earthquakes? I’ve never heard anything so outlandish.’ Lester seemed barely able to contain a snigger. ‘It’s random chance, that’s all. Try to look on the bright side for once, Cutter. The anomaly
’s gone, the crisis is over and I’d say we got off pretty lightly.’

  Cutter shook his head stubbornly. ‘There could be another breach at any moment. You should be stationing troops at every significant body of water between the reservoir and the coast.’

  Lester snorted. ‘The press would be climbing all over us in seconds.’ He stared at the professor for a moment, resenting the pressure he was being put under. ‘You admit this is all speculation?’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Cutter met his gaze. ‘But you’re making a mistake. If and when this anomaly breaks through again, I guarantee it will be somewhere along here.’ He stabbed the red line on the map and turned away from the table.

  What needed to happen to make James Lester sit up and listen? Registering the civil servant’s nonchalant sneer, Nick Cutter shook his head sadly. Well, if the Home Office wasn’t going to do anything, then it was down to him…

  Jane Dexter watched her two children making the most of their last five minutes of freedom before school and smiled to herself. They were lucky to live in such a lovely area and to have a large garden for the kids to play in. She glanced around the kitchen. Lunch boxes packed. Dishwasher loaded. Washing… Ah.

  Tucking the washing basket under her arm, she headed down to the basement – an area of organized chaos where she did the laundry. Lost in her thoughts about the day ahead, she automatically loaded the washing machine and set the programme, unaware of a growing pool of water creeping over the stone floor. Then she went back upstairs and called the kids in from the garden. It wasn’t until she’d kissed them goodbye and bustled them out of the door that she noticed her own wet footprints across the hallway. She sighed. The washing machine must have sprung a leak. Calling the plumber was yet another job to add to her list of chores…

  Connor was physically back at the university campus, but mentally he was still at the reservoir. He was staring intently at the screen of his laptop, clicking through various images of different types of Mosasaurs. It was incredible to think that he had only recently come face-to-face with one of these fierce-looking creatures.

  ‘Mosasaur…’

  Connor jumped.

  His friend Tom was leaning over his shoulder.

  ‘Cretaceous era marine predator. Anything from two to twenty metres in length and two tons in weight, extinct sixty-five million years ago. Hey…’ Tom complained as Connor closed the laptop, ‘I was reading that.’

  Connor smiled apologetically at his two pals, Tom and Duncan.

  ‘New project?’ Tom asked with curiosity.

  Connor had already got to his feet and was glancing at his watch. ‘Is that the time? I have to be somewhere,’ he blustered.

  ‘What’s the rush?’ Tom said, wondering what had got into his friend. ‘It’s DVD night. Your turn to get the pizza.’

  Connor fumbled in his pocket and produced a crumpled ten-pound note. ‘Have it on me. I can’t make it tonight.’

  Tom watched him scuttling away and then turned to Duncan. ‘What’s got into him?’

  Duncan pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘Maybe he’s still angry over our practical joke,’ he suggested.

  ‘Come on. That fake dinosaur was a masterpiece.’ Tom grinned.

  ‘Perhaps he’s got a girlfriend,’ Duncan said half-heartedly.

  They both laughed at the thought.

  Tom shrugged. ‘Why the sudden obsession with dinosaurs?’

  ‘Maybe he’s on to something. A dig somewhere, a good fossil, a discovery he wants to keep to himself.’ Duncan narrowed his eyes.

  ‘Which would be selfish.’ Tom paused for a moment, before leaning in conspiratorially. ‘You know, I think we need to keep a closer eye on that boy.’

  Stephen Hart took the stairs down to the entrance lobby of the Home Office two at a time. He was in a hurry to get out as he never quite felt able to breathe properly in that place. Suddenly, out of nowhere, his mind was filled with a lightning succession of images that stopped him in his tracks.

  He was transported back to the dark tunnels of the Underground station… There was the hideous Arthropleura, appearing in the light, venom dripping from its teeth… then an image of himself lying on the ground, gasping for breath, the bite wound in his shoulder oozing blood… And then he saw the beam of torchlight and he remembered looking up to see…

  Stephen gripped the handrail as the memories of that day came flooding back. The terrifying creature, talking to Abby in the ambulance… and seeing Helen Cutter.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’

  Nick’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  ‘I’ve been remembering things.’ Stephen swung round to face his boss, who was walking down the stairs towards him.

  Cutter stopped and looked at him, immediately registering what was going on. ‘You mean Helen,’ he said calmly, as if he’d been preparing himself for this moment.

  ‘Why haven’t you told anyone?’ Stephen said coldly, amazed at Cutter’s indifference to the existence of his long-lost wife.

  Cutter didn’t say anything.

  ‘Did you go searching for her?’ Stephen pressed him.

  Cutter shook his head. ‘If she’d really wanted to talk to me, all she had to do was walk a few yards to safety. Why hide in the anomaly? Why keep on playing these games?’

  ‘You mean it’s not the first time?’ Stephen was incredulous.

  Cutter shook his head again.

  ‘How long have you known she was alive?’ he asked, unable to hide how appalled he was by the revelation.

  ‘Not long.’ Cutter paused and looked away. ‘All those years she let me think I’d lost her. She could have spared me so much grief. But she didn’t. What does that tell you?’ He trailed off quietly, avoiding his friend’s eyes.

  ‘There could be all kinds of reasons she stayed away,’ Stephen said gently. ‘The point is she wants to see you now.’

  ‘She left you to die like a dog.’ It pained Cutter to make this point, but it was true.

  ‘Maybe she thought help was coming,’ Stephen suggested levelly.

  ‘Maybe she didn’t care.’ The professor’s answer was bitter. ‘You think I don’t want to know what happened? I’ve thought about nothing else for eight years. But what if discovering the truth is worse than not knowing?’ He paused, the hurt written across his face. ‘Are you going to tell the others?’

  ‘It’s not my call,’ Stephen replied. Then he added, ‘But if she was my wife, I’d go through a million anomalies to find her.’

  ‘Well, she’s not, is she?’ Cutter’s response was fierce.

  ‘She was important to me too,’ Stephen said almost inaudibly, turning away.

  Cutter squeezed his friend’s shoulder.

  ‘I know that.’

  The plumber shone his torch into the darkness and let out a low whistle.

  ‘I thought you’d got a leak in the washing machine, love, not an indoor pool.’

  Jane Dexter stood on the steps behind him and looked gloomily at what had been her utility room. The water level was waist height now – and still rising – and the electrics had blown.

  ‘Can you stop it?’ she asked the plumber anxiously, watching him wade through the depths towards the washing machine.

  For a few seconds he fumbled with the pipes at the back before replying.

  ‘Your connections are fine. Must be a mains leak…’ Just then something caught the plumber’s eye. There was a ripple in the water and he could have sworn he saw something moving just below the surface. He swung his torch in an arc over the room, just in time to see a creature’s head disappearing underwater.

  ‘Well, your dog’s enjoying a swim anyway,’ he said cheerily.

  ‘We haven’t got a dog,’ Jane Dexter replied distractedly, retreating upstairs to find a phone number to contact the council about the leak.

  The plumber frowned after her and then turned his attention back to the deep pool that he was standing in. There wasn’t anything else he could do to fix the
problem, so he may as well be off.

  But at that moment, a large pointed head burst out of the water directly in front of him and in the split second he had to register what was attacking him, he saw the nightmarish form of a sea bird with reptilian scales and rows of dangerous-looking teeth. Then it lunged for him, its ugly screech melding with his scream of mortal terror…

  Almost simultaneously, a bulky form bobbed to the surface of the water. It was the body of a lifeless man, dressed in a wetsuit.

  James Lester and Claudia Brown rushed down the corridor towards the operations room. There was an atmosphere of barely controlled panic between them.

  ‘We’re still trying to clarify the exact picture, but it seems a plumber was attacked in the woman’s cellar,’ Claudia gabbled.

  ‘I’m not surprised. Have you seen how much these people charge?’ Lester quipped.

  Claudia clenched her jaw. Lester seemed incapable of any real human emotion. All he seemed to really care about was his job. She went on. ‘She claims the damage was done by some kind of large reptile.’

  Lester stopped and looked at her squarely.

  ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me this town is directly on Cutter’s mythical fault line?’

  Claudia nodded, a faint glimmer of a smile playing on her lips.

  ‘You know,’ said Lester, ‘I’m really beginning to dislike that man.’ He grimaced. ‘So now we’ve got a potential flood on top of everything else?’

  ‘That might be a blessing in disguise.’ Claudia ran her hands through her thick mane of hair. ‘At least it allows us to evacuate without too many questions asked.’

  Lester nodded slowly, deep in thought. Then he snapped back into officious mode. ‘Keep the press as far away from this as possible. If we have to we’ll go with an escaped crocodile story, but for the moment we deny everything.’

  Claudia’s mobile started to ring and she answered it hurriedly. Lester made to walk away but she held up a hand to stop him. Her face was ashen.

  ‘They’ve found a body in the basement.’ Claudia’s voice trembled. ‘The SAS diver.’

  Claudia made her way up the path to the Dexters’ house. It had quickly been cordoned off as a crime scene and the police were holding back the throng of reporters that had already swooped in. Paramedics were wheeling out the body of the diver.