Intrusion Ch. 04

"Or it was," she continued, "it's dead now. And possibly was more cohesive and solid when it was still alive."

"Does that mean we're safe?" asked Kate, although the tone of her voice suggested that she already suspected the answer.

"From this stuff, yes," replied Rebecca, "it's basically inert. But I don't like that report of the flash around those two people, and how strangely they were acting afterwards. Or the fact that they disappeared."

"They've not contacted anyone, so far as we know," agreed Kate, "they could still be in the local area, but, even if they didn't take their cars, with cash they could just have got on a train. Or a bus. According to Nalini and Richard, their friends said that they were acting very strangely."

"And probably just after having sex. There's got to be some connection with... you know."

Kate nodded, "lucky we got there late, I guess."

Rebecca grinned, "yeah, we wouldn't want to have..." she caught herself just in time, "I mean, not that, obviously... we wouldn't have... I mean, because we wouldn't..." she was gabbling again.

"Right," Kate was obviously trying not to grin herself at her colleague's obviously tangled phrasing, "you're straight. I completely get that. You said."

"Right," said Rebecca, nodding vigorously, and trying to banish the decidedly non-straight image that has just popped into her mind.

There was an awkward silence for a while, broken only by the sipping of tea, as the two women avoided looking at one another. Then, after struggling to interpret the exact wording of Kate's response, Rebecca felt the obvious question bursting inside her. But she had no idea how to phrase it.

"Uh...?" she began, taking the plunge.

"No."

"So...?"

"I'm not."

"Not...?"

"Straight. Just so you know."

"Fine. Good. I'm okay with that."

At that moment, both of their phones buzzed simultaneously, and they darted for them with unseemly haste. There was a text message from Helen; there had been a development.

***

Queen Mary University was one of the constituent parts of the large network that was, more broadly, the University of London. The call had come from the Student's Union in Mile End, a modern building set a little forward and to one side of a rather more grandiose white-painted structure that stood at the entrance to the main campus.

As the team pulled up they could see a couple of police cars pulled up in the main road next to the building, but there was little sign of activity from this side; the main entrance evidently faced the campus proper, away from the road. Little activity, that is, except for one thing.

"Why is there still an ambulance here," asked Kate, "when the disturbance is supposed to have been last night?"

"Nothing to do with us," said the policewoman guarding the way into the Union, once they finally found it round the far side of the building from their arrival point, "it must be a separate incident."

The building was, of course, blocking her view of the site, so she probably hadn't even seen whatever was happening. Had they not already had an apparent witness still in care at a neurological hospital, Rebecca had to concede that she probably wouldn't have thought much about it herself. London was a busy city; things were always happening, and they didn't have to be connected.

Under the circumstances though, Helen sent Richard back to check up with the ambulance team before they left. Then she turned back to the police officer.

"Is anyone else still inside the building?"

"Not any more," replied the officer, "a lot of people have been in and out since we got the call. There was no reason to secure the building as a whole, until we got the alert from headquarters. My Inspector was very clear that everyone had to stay out until you turned up, but he didn't say why."

He probably didn't know himself; likely he'd been leaned on from higher up once the description of the man who had supposedly started it all had been flagged up as matching that of the missing Denzel Johnson.

"And there has been no sign of the people we are interested in?" prompted Helen.

"There's been nothing on the man since the fight. We're assuming that he must have left the building before we arrived. And nothing at all on the woman. She might have been there, but nobody seems to have noticed. But with it all kicking off..."

"Thankyou, officer," said Helen, "now my people are going to take a look inside, and hopefully give you the all-clear. Please let your colleagues know that they are to remain outside until then, okay?"

As she got on the radio, Rebecca, Kate, and Curtis started to walk towards the entrance.

"Not you, Curtis" called out Helen sternly.

"But..."

"But this is a crime scene and you don't have a warrant. Join Richard, if you want to make yourself useful."

"Look, I'm here to..."

"To observe," Helen cut him off again, "you can observe the outside of this building or you can observe the ambulance, but you're a foreign national, so you're not going in until it's clear. Understood?"

The American gave in, and, curiosity getting the better of him, slunk off after Richard. The police officer looked curious, but evidently decided that it was better not to ask, and busied herself looking out over the campus instead.

Inside the building, Rebecca and Kate headed for the bar area where the violence had supposedly started. By all accounts, it had been well beyond the usual student hi-jinks, which was why the police had been called. And once they arrived, it was easy to see why -- the place had been wrecked.

Tables and chairs were overturned, and in some cases, damaged. Glasses had been broken, and there were even a few spots of blood here and there. According to Richard, witnesses had said the fight had seemed to blow up out of nowhere. They, and those already arrested, would need to be interviewed more thoroughly, but it was sounding like the same uncontrolled burst of emotion that had happened back in Kent.

"A different emotion this time," commented Kate, "and a much more disturbing one."

"Yes, and they said that this Denzel was right at the centre of it. Makes you wonder what on Earth the point of it all is. If there even is a point... maybe this is a side-effect of something else. An accident caused by... I don't know... a failure of communication? Or practice for something else that isn't working yet?"

"Well, let's hope that it's got anger out of the way, then. A lot of people got hurt and..." she looked up at a skylight that had been smashed, "how did they even manage to do that? How angry do you have to be to throw something all the way up there? And why would you bother?"

"A destructive impulse, rather than just anger? Although I agree that I'm kind of hoping for sloth as the next..." she paused in thought, and backtracked to where Kate was standing.

"What?"

"I just realised... you're right: how did they do that?"

"Well, presumably they... oh, I see what you mean."

"Most of the glass should be up on the roof," agreed Rebecca, "some in here, certainly, but with that pattern it looks more as if something was thrown in from the outside."

"But there's nothing here. And it doesn't make sense anyway. You couldn't lob something that far from the outside of the building."

"And here's something else that doesn't fit," said the scientist, looking about the room again, "there's a scorch mark on the edge of the bar there," she went over to it, "looks recent, but I don't see how it could have been caused."

"A small blowtorch?"

"Makes as much sense as anything."

"Except what sort of student carries a blowtorch into a bar?"

"Hmm. Let's see what else we can find."

As she stepped behind the bar to see if there was anything there, out of sight of the main room, Rebecca heard a distinct thump from over to the side. She glanced across, and saw the door to what must have been the storeroom. She and Kate looked at one another, not saying anything. The scientist crept cautiously towards the door, which was clearly shut.

Thump. Thump.

Yes, it was definitely coming from behind the door. Rebecca looked back at Kate again, and her eyes widened as the army officer pulled an automatic pistol from a holster concealed beneath her jacket. Yes, of course, she realised, the security officer was obviously going to be armed. She wondered why she hadn't noticed before, even though Kate had gone somewhere as they left the Ministry. Collecting it from building security, presumably.

Even so, firearms weren't something you often saw in Britain, and the sight of it was a bit of a surprise.

Kate nodded reassuringly to her, keeping the gun levelled on the door. Rebecca hoped it wasn't going to be necessary, but even so, as a fourth thump sounded, she gingerly reached for the door handle, and then suddenly threw it open.

A corpse landed with a thud right in front of her, a dark-skinned man with a deep, scorched hole through his forehead. And something hurtled out of the room beyond, accompanied by a bright flash of light.

Kate shouted something as the scientist tried to throw herself out of the way, but stumbled and fell, down behind the bar. At least there wasn't any broken glass down there.

She quickly rolled onto her back, but couldn't see anything much, except part of the ceiling. There was a buzzing sound coming from somewhere, and the sound of furniture being overturned. There was another flash, accompanied by a crackle of energy and what had to be Kate scrambling for cover.

What the hell was going on?

The science advisor raised herself up onto her arms, but before she get fully upright, she saw something moving from out of her field of vision until it was hovering up near the ceiling. It looked like a giant metal wasp, but with drone-like propeller blades instead of wings. It spun, pointing itself straight towards her, and Rebecca let out an involuntary squeak of fear as she saw what appeared to be a gun barrel levelled straight at her head.

There was a loud bang and the thing crashed out of the way, bounced off a wall and fell behind the curved end of the bar, once again out of her sigh. It was a moment or two before Rebecca realised that she was still alive. Breathing hard, she scrambled to her feet, finding them unexpectedly wobbly beneath her, so that she had to grip onto the bar.

"Are you all right?"

It was Kate, suddenly on the other side of the bar, looking at her with concern. Still in shock, she could see that the automatic pistol had just been fired. Kate had shot the mysterious object, and saved her life. She nodded dumbly in reply to the question, her heart still hammering in her chest.

"Good. Now we..."

Before she had even finished speaking, Kate spun, and fired the gun again. The retort seemed even louder this time, being so close, and Rebecca flinched, even as she saw the object flying up again above the bar top.

The shot was, perhaps, even more on target this time, striking the thing dead centre. It sent out a puff of black smoke and crashed to the floor again.

Kate walked over to it, gun levelled. "It's dead. Broken," she said, "I don't think it's getting up again."

Gunshots. There had been gunshots. If the police had heard those, not even Helen was going to be able to stop them sending in SCO19.

"We... we have to get that out of here, now," she said, her professionalism beginning o kick back in, "and when we come out, you'll want that gun well on display, and obviously not threatening." In a detached way, she noticed that her voice was shaky, despite the business-like tone of her words.

Kate nodded, and put her hand on Rebecca's, a warm touch, the skin slightly more calloused than the scientist's own. Not really thinking, Rebecca gripped and squeezed it , pulling the other woman in towards her, only prevented from actually hugging her by the bulk of the bar that still stood between them.

A moment later, she pulled herself away again. "Okay, I'm fine now," she said, steadying herself, and feeling normality return. "I'm cool. Let's do this."

But she was sure that, during the brief moment that they had gazed into each other's eyes, Kate must have seen the flame of naked desire on her face, and realised just how close, in the emotion of the moment, she had come to kissing her.