Author's Note:

A couple of people have asked me recently when/if I'll be continuing my "Breakable" series. The answer is a definitive "YES" I've just been having a hard time staying focused well enough to do it justice lately. I'm working on it, but it's coming slowly, so please be patient with me and wait?

In the meantime, my writing partner, Morrigans_eve, and I have started working on creating episodes for a new virtual series 6. At this point, no one knows whether the show will ever renew for another series. So we've determined to start creating one of our own. We're trying to stick to a team based story with a feel similar to that of the show itself. Won't you please let us know whether or not we've succeeded?

Now here's the good news: our hope is for this to become a shared world for lots of people to play in. We've set up communities on both livejournal and dreamwidth that contain original character profiles as well as the first two parts of this "episode". If you've got an LJ or DW account, please consider adding us to your watch list. Or better still, come write with us! On both sites, the community can be found under the name "primeval_vsx".

Best, IShouldBeWriting & Morrigans_eve

~~oOOo~~

"Can't … *coughs* … breathe." Connor stopped to lean up against one of the cars as his lungs heaved and spasmed.

Looking him over critically, Matt's eyes went dark.

"Stay here, Connor. You're in no shape to deal with this after exposure to that dust storm."

A moment before he would have objected, Connor's lungs spasmed again and he was forced to double over, retching as he coughed. Head still down near his knees, he waved the rest of the team onward, making the gesture into a playful swat at Abby's arse as she passed him.

Pushing away from the truck's tailgate as the engine roared to life, he tapped the button on his comm.

"Jess, I'm staying here. When are those medics due back to see Lester?"

Upstairs in the main hub, Jess scrambled over to the ADD to grab one of the comms and slip it onto her own ear.

The ADD was slowly spinning back up to life

"Connor, this may take a bit. The ADD's running a command line right now and not responding to boot up queries."

Digging her mobile phone out of her purse, Jess pulled up the phonebook and hit the speed dial number for the last of the medics she'd spoken to before the ADD crashed.

"I'm going to call in the medics via mobile phone. It's the best I can do until I sort out what's wrong here."

"A'ight. I'll just, make my way back to the hub, shall I?" Connor replied, nodding even though Jess couldn't see.

"If you can. Then at least I can keep an eye on both of you till they get here. And you can help me detangle some of the mess of code that's just revealed itself."

"On my *cough* way."

Hearing Connor disconnect his comm, Jess turned back to her mobile.

"No, no, no," Lester interrupted. "Jess, you need to get onto the field team. The train that's gone has the Chief of the General Staff on it. There's teams enroute to join them from Hereford and Grantham."

Jess gawped at her boss for a moment before snapping back into action.

"You really do need to keep me up to date on these things if you expect me to operate effectively, sir," she chided mildly.

"Yes, well, you know how I hard I try to keep an air of mystery about the inner workings of the political machine. Wouldn't want you to see how imminent our demise is and all."

Giving Lester one of her megawatt bright smiles, Jess dove back into her chair and turned back to the ADD. She pulled out a laptop from the bottom drawer and set it to booting up as she pulled up the mobile numbers of the medical team on her phone.

"Right, the ADD might not be working but I can do a fair bit with my own computer. In the meantime, since you're fit enough to harass me, why don't you lend a hand and call medical for yourself?"

Not looking, she tossed the phone over her shoulder in the direction of where Lester should have been. She smirked with pleasure at hearing it land with a soft thump rather than a crash.

Tapping her comm, Jess brought up the team's open channel.

"Matt, Becker, you've got backup enroute. Should be there by the time you arrive. Be advised, they are NOT briefed on the ARC's mission."

"Jess, we need more details than that. What's going on."

"Lester says the CGS was on that train."

Becker's string of profanities was fairly impressive.

"Jess, who's the back-up? If CGS is gone, the regular army will be treating this as a terrorist attack."

"You've got the two high readiness teams already incoming from Grantham and Hereford." Lester gestured at her.

"Becker, they've been directed to put themselves under your command."

In the truck, Matt's eyebrows shot into his hairline as he looked over at Becker from the passenger seat.

"Well now, Captain Becker again, I see," he murmured.

Ignoring him, Becker remained focused on the comm chatter.

"Jess, was there any indication of why CGS was travelling by train? He has a staff car."

"I'll ask Lester. He seems to know more about this than he's telling."

"Right, well, let me know what you find out. Becker out."

Heels clicking furiously, Jess moved across the hub to where Lester was on the phone. She couldn't help but smile as she heard the sharp bite of his sarcasm directed at the person on the other end of the call.

" - yes, never mind then, I'll just sit here bleeding and wait on your convenience."

He waited for a brief moment, eyes closed, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

"It's not as if it matters how quickly you get back here. I'm only your boss, after all."

Before whomever was at the other end of the line could reply, Lester ended the conversation decisively by throwing the phone across the room.

"Sir!" Jess looked fury at him. "That was imy/i own mobile you were using. I take it you'll be replacing that for me?"

"Fine. Oh, and by the way, the medical team aren't showing up any time soon, if they ever come back at all. Something about having not been paid enough for these sorts of risks."

"Try the medics at Northolt then, sir. There's at least two military medical units in the area that should have staff stood up after the last twenty-four hours."

Across the room, the ADD finally spluttered back to life. Jess scrambled back to it and began to pull up the Transport Police chatter and other files aggregated by her spider programs.

"Matt, change of plans. They've located the last point that the train passed. You're heading for Crew's Hill rail station. There's a break in the line between there and the M25."

"On it Jess."

"Jess, any sign of comms with the incoming teams?"

"I'm trying to patch their Airwaves into the ARCnet now but the computers are still a mess. Team 1 is under a Lt McTavish. Team 2 is lead by a Lt Selkirk."

"Thanks, Jess. We'll coordinate with them when we arrive."

Connor stumbled into the hub finally to find Lester talking quietly on the phone. Weaving unsteadily up to stand behind Jess, he looked over her shoulder at the command line prompt window she had open. Eyes scanning back and forth across the lines of code, he tried to spot an error but there wasn't one. She'd done everything right.

"You said the ADD was acting up?"

"Yes. For all Burton's genius, he laid a rather crude program over the ADD OS you'd grafted together."

"If its so crude, why's it giving you problems now?"

"There were a few deliberate and vindictive bugs on top of that. When he didn't terminate the failsafe, the bugs were released."

"Need a hand cleaning up?" Connor offered hopefully.

"Not really," Jess replied breezily. "What I need is for you to see that yourself and Lester get treated by the medical team when they arrive. He's too stubborn. Would likely tell them it's nothing more than a scratch."

Connor's responding chuckle quickly turned onto a wheeze.

"Sorry!" Jess patted him on the back and grabbed him a bottle of water, which he sipped gratefully.

He continued to watch her rapid coding though, surprised by her efficiency, and the short cuts she was using. Seeing her use a loop-back command to send one of the worm viruses chasing after his own tail, Connor gave a low whistle.

"Nicely done, mate."

Jess blushed as she finished off the trojan she'd been chasing then went back to destroy the inert worm.

"Respectfully, Connor, this is what I trained in. I never intended to be working in an offshoot of Paleontology."

"Then why the hell did you end up here?"

"Family."

She turned back to the coding and Connor took the hint that she wasn't interested in discussing the subject further.

He hobbled back towards one of the room's spare terminals to see which of his own projects he could resurrect. There were a few aspects of his work for Burton that still might be useful. And other projects he'd been working on privately in the rare instances where he had time to wait while something he'd been working on for New Dawn completed. Perhaps it was time to get back to the things left behind in the ashes of the last fire at the ARC. While this time around they hadn't experience a true physical destruction, it still felt like the phoenix was rising once more.

"Jess. Do you have McTavish and Selkirk online yet?"

"Not yet, Becker. I'm still trying to put the ARC's computer systems back together from scratch."

Becker smirked as he heard Connor in the background shouting i"damnit, Bones, I'm a field coordinator, not a utilities service person!"/i

"Jess. Concentrate on the comms. I need to talk Selkirk and McTavish through this, or they're going to be more liability than anything else."

"Right. Connor, can you take over from here?"

"Yeah, you've got more of the really nasty stuff. Should be nothing more than running a full drive and operations restore at this point. Just show me where the backups are and I'll play babysitter."

Pointing toward one of the doors off the hub ubiquitously labeled "file room", Jess pulled her own laptop back over to the centre of the desk. A couple minutes of fierce concentration saw her patched into the Airwave net.

"I take it back, Jess," Connor said with a smug grin. "Looks like you're a utilities repair person too."

She didn't even look at him as she brought the grafted together comm system live once more on the all channels frequency.

"This is ARC Zero. All stations, who do I have live?"

Dutifully, Becker checked in first.

"Hotel Bravo. Assuming this net is insecure, Zero?"

"Confirmed, for the moment, assume this is an unsecured net, Bravo."

A new voice came on, a rough tenor bearing the distinctive brogue of a Scotsman. "Tango Mike, leading Romeo One."

It was followed quickly by the brightly clipped precision of a voice that smacked of boarding school education. "Hotel Sierra, commanding Delta Two."

"Thank you both. Bravo, that's all teams accounted for. ETAs please, gentlemen?"

"This is Hotel Sierra. We're twenty-five minutes from the site. Zero, is Hotel Bravo site commander?"

"Confirmed. You should have orders to that effect. Romeo One, what's your ETA?"

"Five minutes, Zero. We hitched a lift."

Hearing the incoming sound of a helicopter as it sliced through the sky above him, Becker nodded.

"I believe you're going to beat us there by a minute or two at most, Romeo. Hold position and await further orders. Repeat, do not approach the site without command."

"Acknowledged Bravo."

"This is not a drill, gentlemen. I expect you to be armed and waiting when we arrive."

Matt raised his eyebrow.

"A little wary, Becker?"

"And you're not?" he shot back as the car skidded off the main road and onto the rough track that ran parallel to the line.

A minute's drive on and they could see the helicopter landed on the golf course beside the railway line. Becker pulled the car up onto the grass 50 yards from their position and cut the engine. Popping the doors open, he moved around to the tailgate to retrieve their kits.

Becker unlocked the secure case in the back of his vehicle and handed a each holstered pistol to Abby and Matt. Finally he pulled out a third weapon and a slim id wallet for himself. They all carried EMDs as well - or in Emily's case only an EMD - but they'd learned not to rely solely on the technological toys.

One of the team already present came briefly to attention and saluted as Becker approached.

"Captain Becker?" The young man was every inch the stereotype of a highlander. From his flaming red hair and smattering of freckles across his cheeks, to the broad shoulders, Becker could as easily have seen him in a kilt as combat fatigues.

Resisting the urge to smile, he snapped off a salute as part of his answer. "Lieutenant McTavish, I presume."

"Aye, sir. The pleasure's all mine."

The team before him were armed to the teeth. Black combat gear, gas mask pouches slung low on their hips and daysacks well loaded.

"My team," Becker indicated with a gesture. "Abby Maitland and Emily Merchant, our civilian specialists. Matt Anderson, team leader, late of the Royal Marines."

"A bit short on bodies, Captain?"

"We've been rather hard pressed, recently, Lieutenant. I'm sure you've seen the New Dawn explosion footage."

"That we have, sir. And ARC Zero?"

"Not currently field ready, though she's certainly going to be trained for it after our most recent experiences."

With a nod, Lieutenant McTavish dismissed the pleasantries.

"Right then, so what are we dealing with, sir? My superiors weren't exactly forthcoming with the details."

"If they had been, we'd have had a serious breach. Believe it or not, Lieutenant, we're dinosaur hunting."

"Come again, Captain?"

"You heard me Mister McTavish, dinosaurs."

"Respectfully, sir, the last time I checked, dinosaur hunters were more often found in dusty pits in the ground, and didn't usually commission for regimental duties."

"Well their dinosaurs aren't quite so likely to take an arm off, Lieutenant."

"You're shitting me, sir. Go on, pull the other one." He laughed and offered up a leg, but the expression slid off his face when he saw that Becker hadn't even cracked a smile.

"Not something I joke about, lieutenant. And I'd advise listening to the ladies - they're your best chance at survival."

McTavish eyed Abby & Emily with respect, but there was also a distinctly male appreciation there as well, and Becker had to stomp down his irritation. He hoped the man's interest wouldn't prove to be a distraction in the field.