Lost People

It was never mentioned in the ARC, really, but almost everyone knew.

Why the project started in the first place, why it carried on.

The official line was scientific research, protecting the public, getting a grasp on new technology.

But it wasn't.

Not really.

It was the lost people.

Sometimes they were well known.

Everyone knew how the ARC started. Connor had told Jess the story.

How, one day, he had opened the paper to find a blurred and barely distinguishable picture of a thing. People were calling it a hoax, clearly there was nothing that sort of size running around the English countryside. So Connor did the obvious thing.

He showed his palaeontology professor.

Cutter hadn't wanted to know, the same could be said of Stephen. Cutter had shown him a fossil of a fish, fully evolved, with no clue to its background. The pieces that didn't fit, he had said, that was what kept him interested.

Connor had almost given it up as a lost cause, until he said the three words that would change everything.

Forest of Dean.

Cutter had frozen, Stephen had straightened immediately.

'If we leave now we can be there by lunch.'

And so it began.

Connor hadn't understood what had changed the two men's minds until later that day.

Lost people.

Helen Cutter had disappeared without a trace in this forest eight years ago. She was the reason Cutter and Stephen started. Her disappearance had never made sense. In fact, it made as much sense as a fully evolved fish showing up in a place it had no right or reason to be.

They started to find her. They continued because they found the missing piece in an unimaginably vast jigsaw. The piece that made everything fit.

The theme continued.

Mere weeks after the Gorgonopsid in the Forest, a flock of Dodos had come through into a stadium kitchen.

Two were infected with parasites. One died in the kitchen, the other escaped, only to be captured by Connor's friends.

One was bitten and, within hours, Tom died in Connor's arms.

Abby had told Jess that Connor had tried to quit then and there. Cutter managed to talk him out of it, asked him to carry on, and he did.

Connor started because of a conspiracy theory; a mystery that only he was willing to seriously investigate.

He continued for Tom.

Lost people.

The first time they lost Stephen, they didn't really lose him. If anything, he lost them.

After his affair with Helen came to light, a wedge was pushed into his once close friendship with Cutter. Connor couldn't look him in the eye and all traces of Abby's affection vanished.

But they didn't lose him.

It would have been so easy for him to follow Helen through the anomaly, so easy to leave his abruptly judgemental friends.

But it would have been the final betrayal.

He stayed, to repair his relationship with Cutter, Connor and Abby, to prove he was still worth their trust.

He could have lost them, that was why he stayed. That was why he carried on.

They lost Claudia Brown at the same time, and they didn't even know it.

Except Cutter.

They thought he was having a nervous breakdown. He knew Connor, Lester, Abby and Stephen but drew a blank at Oliver Leek and the ARC. There was a whole team of people he had never met.

Connor said he had looked around, noting his team, and a strange look had settled over his features.

'Where's Claudia?'

They didn't know who she was.

'Where's Claudia Brown?'

'Oh my God.'

Connor would never forget the expression of horror on his mentor's face as he looked back at the anomaly, about to close.

Stephen had read Cutter's intentions, immediately tackling him, forcing him to stay in the present.

No-one believed him, Connor told Jess. They thought he'd lost the plot.

Connor knew better. Cutter never lost the plot, he didn't have amnesia or any head injuries, and the man couldn't spin a lie in a spider's web.

So he must be telling the truth.

They had lost someone, a friend they had never known. An integral part of their team that had never existed.

Then it got worse.

Jenny Lewis, PR. Beautiful, confident and a dead-ringer for Claudia Brown. Not only had Cutter lost Claudia, he couldn't even escape her ghost.

But he carried on. However, he didn't do it for Helen.

He carried on for Claudia.

Lost people. Always.

Jess span in her chair at the ADD, staring at the swirling ceiling as she thought.

Anyone who had the slightest clue to the more intimate details of this place could see that it was built on these lost people. It existed in their memories. It was here because of them.

It was very British, she decided. No matter what happens, whether pteranodons rain from the sky, or dinosaurs stalk the shadows, they carried on.

Whether a time-travelling psycho shows up after eight years, or the boss fell in love with a woman who never existed, the ARC carried on.

Stephen paid his dues just less than a year after he went with Cutter and Connor to the Forest of Dean.

He took one for the team, clearing his name while saving the city from the horde of predators.

'Tell Connor and Abby to stay out of trouble.'

Cutter had watched, desperate, as his best friend was torn apart. The creatures had fought over him, eventually destroying each other. Only then did the door open.

The concrete floor had been slick with blood. Bits of creature lay all over the place.

A raptors head in the corner, a future predators arm off to the side.

And there, in the middle of the room...

There had barely been enough left for a funeral.

Stephen James Hart
Died 4 3 2007
Age 32
Rest in Peace

The small crowd round the grave had started to disperse when the call came through. Another anomaly.

They had carried on immediately.

For Tom.

For Claudia.

Now for Stephen.

Changes had to be made to the ARC. Decisions were reached that had not been deemed necessary before.

Connor was allowed a gun. A tranquilizer gun, but a gun none-the-less.

Rigorous background checks were run to stop the Leek fiasco ever repeating.

A new Head of Security was appointed, tasked with keeping the team alive and a safe as possible. Captain Becker had arrived.

Connor told Jess he had expected Becker to be much like Ryan; trustworthy and protective, always there when needed, but very much in the background.

Upon his arrival, the Captain had been told to "stick to them like glue" in order to prevent another death, and Becker rose to the challenge.

He got to know them. He learned their habits and quirks, so if anything ever happened, he'd be able to get to them as quickly as possible. Captain Becker became their friend, and was soon as much a part of the team as anyone else.

He was extraordinarily driven, more so than Ryan had ever been. He was as driven as Connor or Abby or Cutter. He was willing to put his life on the line to save theirs.

And it begged the question no-one had ever asked, Jess thought.

Who had he lost?

Becker's first month wasn't smooth, by any means. By the end of it, Cutter was gone. Murdered by his insane wife.

Becker didn't know Cutter too well, and the two had never got on. Becker hadn't known him well enough to really mourn his loss but Connor had.

Barely recovered from Tom's death, still suffering from Stephen's, Connor now had to cope with losing the one man who had truly understood him, the only one who stood by him, kept him on the straight and narrow.

In the year and a bit they'd known each other, Cutter had become Connor's mentor, the first one he turned to for answers or advice. He had become a father-figure, a constant in this hectic and ever-changing life. Cutter had given Connor a purpose, something worth fighting for, and now he was gone.

And, deep down, Connor knew he would never truly recover.

'You can't bail out now.'

That's what Cutter had said, right after Tom died. And Connor wouldn't.

'This is important. I don't know why, but it matters.'

And so Connor carried on. He continued Cutter's work, studying the Artefact, what it did, what it was for, his list of lost people now longer than anyone else's.

Ryan.

Tom.

Stephen.

Cutter.

It might have started with a conspiracy, but they were now the reason he did what he did.

Everyone knew who Connor and Cutter had lost. Theirs was no great secret.

Others were.

Jess thought back. She was thirteen years old, sat in a hospital, holding her mother's hand.

Her Mum opened her eyes and looked straight at her daughter. It seemed to take every ounce of strength.

She hadn't been able to say anything, but Jess had understood the look in her eyes.

I love you. Be happy.

The young girl felt the huge knot in her throat, distorting her words almost beyond recognition.

'I love you too Mum.'

Jess had held her Mum's ice-cold hand as the corner of her mouth pulled up in a final smile, and her eyes slid shut.

Forever.

Grace Parker's death had been put down to a wild dog attack. She had jumped between the beast and her daughter, saving the child's life.

Jess had got away with a scratch over her left eye and superficial bruises.

Grace hadn't been so lucky. The animal had broken several ribs, causing internal haemorrhaging too severe for the surgeons to counter. The best they had managed was to keep her alive just long enough for Jess to say goodbye.

The wild dog had vanished.

It was a large dog, the experts agreed, but definitely a dog. A wolf, escaped from a private zoo or the like, would be the most extreme candidate for the attack.

Jess knew better, but no-one believed her.

The creature had been between five and six feet at the shoulder. There was a thick ruff down its neck and its fur was a strange dark blue. Its ears were triangular, slanted back slightly, and it didn't bark, just snarled.

Jess had known it wasn't a dog, but only now did she realise its true identity. A hyaenodon. From the early Oligocene.

Yes, Jess Parker had lost people too. Only Lester knew; it was partly why he hired her. He knew she would do her utmost to prevent similar events.

After Cutter's death the ARC struggled to keep going. Jenny tried her best but everyone knew she was clutching straws as she tried to keep the operation on its feet.

Then Danny arrived.

If Cutter had been described as a maverick then Danny Quinn was in a class of his own. He stalked the team with near inhuman tenaciousness. His determination was only seen in those bereft and, indeed, Danny was struggling with his own loss.

He followed the team in a desperate bid to find out what happened to his brother.

Patrick Quinn. Missing, presumed dead at age fourteen.

It had broken Danny's heart.

So he joined the ARC in an attempt to find his brother, fighting daily to keep himself and his team alive.

And he'd done well. By the time Helen Cutter showed up again, Danny, Connor, Abby, Becker and Sarah were possibly the strongest team the ARC had seen yet.

Something had to happen.

Sods Law dictates, in simple terms, that whatever could go wrong, will go wrong.

Quite incredibly, this unfortunate law had left the ARC alone for the majority of the time. Obviously, they weren't completely free of it; Stephen's death being one incidence, Abby's kidnapping by the Mer Creatures another.

Unknown to the team, two different people were planning the theft of the Artefact.

The first to become apparent was Christine Johnson. Her arrogance and tenaciousness had been grating on the teams' nerves for a while; they had no doubt who was responsible when the bugs and hidden cameras were discovered.

Christine's first mistake was to underestimate the courage and swiftness of the team. She was expecting to catch them unawares but they had taken the Artefact and were out of the ARC in five minutes.

Her second mistake was to keep Captain Becker on staff. She had seriously miscalculated his friendship with the rest of the team and his loyalty to Lester.

Her third mistake was to believe he was on her side.

In short, all Christine Johnson's ham-fisted attempt at thievery got her was a demotion, a furious dressing-down by the minister and a humiliation.

Helen Cutter was far more successful.

As the late Oliver Leek had said, knowledge was the key. And Helen had more of that than anyone.

With it, she played on both Danny's humanity and his lack of familiarity with her. Where Connor, Abby and Lester would have recognised her bargaining techniques, Danny knew nothing until it was far too late.

As a result, within hours of Christine's death, Becker and Sarah found themselves stood before an anomaly, waiting for their friends to come back.

They didn't.

And then Sarah was gone too.

This final loss seemed to break Becker's will. He had carried Sarah's body back to the 21st Century, his eyes hollow and empty, dark with pain.

The ARC had been shut down, to both his and Lester's disapproval. The two men had sat in the local pub, drowning their sorrows and watching the frantic news report about a massive disturbance in the House of Commons. No-one knew what was happening but Becker and Lester both recognised the roar of a furious Stegosaurus.

Over the next few days, reports concerning wild animal attacks and mysterious disappearances became increasingly frequent until, eventually, the ARC was recommissioned.

A new team was put in place but Becker refused to return unless drastic changes were made. All field agents would be strictly military and no-one would go through an anomaly, under any circumstance.

He had lost four friends and a good colleague, in just the few months he had worked for the ARC.

Cutter, Connor, Abby, Danny and Sarah.

He would not risk losing anyone else.

That was why he carried on.

For eight months Becker was cold and distant from everyone. Many thought he was anti-social and only Lester understood his chilly mask.

Becker worked hard, whipping his men into shape, drilling them relentlessly. He developed a slightly strained friendship with Jess but never really connected with anyone, preferring his own company. Several times, Lester looked at the CCTV feeds to find Becker spending his breaks in the lab above the menagerie, sharing his lunch with Rex.

The antics of his prehistoric friends seemed to be the only thing capable of cheering him up. The only time his men saw him smile in those months was when Sid and Nancy chewed their way out of their pen. Becker had thrown himself at Sid, crashing down the conveniently placed stairs and landing in a laughing heap at the bottom, escapee Diictodon clutched safely in his arms.

Other than this, it was a dark time for Captain Becker.

Until they came back.

It was a chilly January morning, and an anomaly had been detected in a deserted square in the middle of the city.

Becker and Matt had been running late and arrived to find the anomaly locked and several soldiers with EMDs pointed at two people face down on the floor.

Becker had frozen, expression changing to stunned disbelief.

He had stridden towards them, crouched by their heads. They had looked up.

His men hadn't heard the few words exchanged before their Captain pulled the two to their feet. It could easily be assumed he was debriefing them.

The intention of the hug, however, was unmistakable.

Connor and Abby were back, and Becker's list of Lost People was two names shorter.

Jess leaned back on her chair at the ADD, gazing at the image frozen on the screen before her.

Following the incident at New Dawn, the minister had sent footage, previously shelved and hidden from public viewing, of creatures and anomalies. They were mostly grainy films taken from CCTV, and the one Jess was so interested in was no different.

It was dated the 18th June 2005. An anomaly could be seen flickering in front of a heavily graphitised garage door. There was no creature in sight, but a young girl seemed entirely too curious of the shining ball of light. She edged closer, then closer still.

She looked behind her for a few seconds, as if listening to a distant noise. Then she turned to face the anomaly again.

Jess watched, her heart in her mouth, as the girl stepped, very slowly, into the light, instantly vanishing.

The anomaly began to pulse as it became unstable, seconds from closing. Jess' hands flew to her mouth in horror.

The instant before the anomaly blinked out of existence, a second figure burst into frame, sprinting toward it. He was too late. The anomaly closed, trapping the child in a distant time, alone with no way home. The second figure, this one a man, crashed into the garage door. He slithered to the floor, hands gripping his hair, an expression of desperation and panic on his face. He lay in a shuddering ball on the floor for a while before looking up at the camera.

Jess paused it again.

She wondered why no-one had ever asked. His dedication to the job was matched only by those with lost people. Those who worked for a greater cause than money or progress. Those who worked to find out what had happened to their loved ones, to stop it ever happening again. Everyone knew the ARC was built on the memories of the Lost People.

Agonised eyes stared at her from the screen. Although the image was not in colour, she knew they were hazel. Dark hair flopped into his face, obscuring the panicked furrows on his brow. Despite being younger than she had ever seen him, he was unmistakable.

Why had nobody ever asked who Captain Becker had lost?

So engrossed in her thoughts was she, it took her a while to notice the hand resting on the back of her chair. Startled, she glanced around.

Becker looked tired and battle weary. His eyes were sad, gazing forlornly at the image of the young girl on the right hand screen.

'Her name was Clipper.' He said, not taking his eyes off her. 'She was my sister. She's the reason I started here. The reason I carried on after everything that happened. She's the reason for pretty much everything I do.'

All the most dedicated work at the ARC was done by people who did it for someone else. They all had their own personal agenda when they joined.

The official line might be scientific research, protecting the public, but everyone knew it wasn't.

The reason the ARC started, the reason it carried on.

It was the Lost People.

Okay, not entirely sure where this came from. Probably somewhere deep in the dark recesses of my mind. It was inspired by 'Red Sky in the Morning' by Funky in Fishnet.

Sods Law is popularly used in Britain. In America it is more commonly called Murphy's Law.

BACKGROUND OF CLIPPER AND BECKER

Yes, I know Clipper isn't your average child's name and, in truth, it's not her real name. It's just a nickname Becker gave her when they were both kids. I haven't decided on her real name. She goes by Clipper almost exclusively.

In the CCTV footage, she's 10 (10 years younger than Becker) so he's 20, fresh from Sandhurst. That makes her 16 now (if she survived).

Since their Dad was killed in action (she was 2, he was 12) their mother started struggling to cope with them both, so he practically raised her until he went to Sandhurst when he was 19. Being on her own made her very independent and a bit of a risk-taker, hence why she went through the anomaly.

I'm thinking of writing a follow up to this about them, either a prequel, sequel or companion piece, I haven't decided yet.

Please review and tell me what you think