Fight for Survival

Infobox primeval book
name=Fight for Survival
featuring=TBA


author=TBA
publisher=Puffin Books
isbn=13: 978-0141323947
set_between=
pages=TBA
date=27 March 2008
preceding=The Lost Predator
following=None|

"Fight for Survival" is a novel based on the British science fiction television series "Primeval". It is a novelised version Episode 1,2 and 3 of series 2.

Plot

As Nick takes in the information that Claudia Brown has never existed and that the world has changed, the anomaly begins to close. He desperately runs towards the anomaly, but Connor and Stephen hold him back as the anomaly finally closes. Lester begins to leave the scene. As a confused Nick tries to take in what's happened, he learns more about the world he has come back to: no-one has heard of Claudia Brown, and her task of running the anomaly project has been tasked to Oliver Leek, and that the team no longer work at the Home Office, but a facility called the ARC, or Anomaly Research Centre. These revelations cause Cutter to collapse, but Lester and the others dismiss it as stress and amnesia.

Cutter arrives at the ARC (Anomaly Research Centre) and is introduced to Claudia Brown's replacement- Oliver Leek- who acts as though he has known Cutter for a long period of time. Pretending to be recovered, he acts as though he remembers Leek, but in private, confides in Connor Temple that he can't remember a thing. Cutter asks Connor whether he believes that the evolutionary timeline has changed. Connor says he'll accept Cutter's story, but then asks if he has changed: Cutter worryingly replies that some things never change. The timeline change which deleted Claudia Brown has also created a new branch of Nick's organization, with several new staff.

Meanwhile two security guards at the Castle Cross Shopping Centre are attacked and killed by a pair of Raptors. The first attack takes place behind the bowling alley. As the guard's colleague attempts to escape, the second one attacks and kills him. Reports of this get back to the team who are sent to try to capture the raptors that are on the loose.

They discover the raptors came through an anomaly which is hidden behind the bowling alley. Stephen claims that they need better weapons as the raptors are extremely dangerous, but Cutter argues against it, saying that the disruption caused by their meddling with the past has already cost him a close friend: he doesn't intend for it to happen again. During the search they find a cleaner and Connor and Abby are left with the job of taking him to safety. In a locker room, as Connor looks around with the gun, the cleaner is attacked by a baby raptor, which slashes him in the neck, badly injuring him. Connor sedates the baby, accidentally tranquilising Abby in the process, while Nick and Stephen encounter the infant's mother in the bowling alley. Stephen is put in mortal danger by the raptor but when Cutter tries to shoot it, the gun jams. Though the raptor is driven off, Stephen accuses Cutter of allowing the raptor to kill him in revenge for what happened between Helen and him. Nick tells Stephen that he resents Stephen for his affair with Helen, but that if he wanted Stephen dead, Nick would have killed him personally. The adult raptor attacks again, but this time, they are able to tranquilise it.

Connor finds them and alerts them to the presence of the infant. He also notices that the cleaner is gone, although the man was badly wounded. Nick thinks he simply recovered and got out. They theorise that there are three raptors in the shopping centre: having already captured a female and a baby, the chances are the raptors are a family unit. The team tether the young raptor and let it wake, hoping that its cries will attract one of the adult raptors which is still loose. Indeed, another adult raptor arrives, but it cannibalises the infant.

Nick and Stephen are about to sedate the male when Abby wakes up and distracts it. After a chase involving Nick Cutter and Stephen Hart riding on two motorcycles taken from two boys that were riding around the carpark, they finally tranquilise the last raptor. By this point, Lester and Oliver Leek, under the prompting of their Government superiors, decide it would be a good idea to get a PR (Public Relations) liaison to explain the carnage and the aftermath of the anomalies.

At the anomaly, Cutter asks Abby whether she believes the timeline has changed. Abby says she wants to believe Cutter and seems interested in who Claudia Brown was. With no further answers to his current problems, Nick takes the remaining dinosaurs, tied to trolleys, through the anomaly into dry desert hills of the Cretaceous.

Nick begins to walk away, but then a voice behind him calls out. It is revealed Stephen followed him through the anomaly, believing Cutter would try and stay behind. Cutter argues all he wants to do is restore the time-line and bring Claudia back, but he is persuaded to go back to the present by Stephen, as he could change lots of things and still not get Claudia back or even wipe out mankind. By now the drugs have worn off and the raptors wake up and chase them; Nick escapes unscathed, but a raptor grabs Stephen by the foot and tries to drag him back. Nick manages to drag Stephen back just before the anomaly closes, decapitating the Deinonychus and leaving Stephen and Nick in the modern world along with its head.

Later a cover story is released to tell the public is that the raptor was really just a robot model being tested. Suddenly, Cutter and the team are joined by a new PR guru, Jenny Lewis, who looks every inch like Claudia Brown, but has no recollection of her doppelganger. She is also somewhat skeptical about her new job, unwilling to believe in the existence of dinosaurs and the severity of the anomalies.

Meanwhile, a thick layer of mist with a foul sulphurous smell takes over a skyscraper. An anomaly has opened on the 15th floor and the fog has spilled out from it. The building staff discover giant carnivorous worms moving inside and only just manage to escape with their lives, although the creatures still manage to kill several people. Jenny, who has been appointed as operations manager, nearly breaks down with horror when she realises what she is dealing with.

Concurrently, Connor meets a girl called Caroline in a video store. The pair seem to get on quite well, and Connor brings her back to the flat, much to the annoyance of Abby and even Rex. Abby seems to show signs of jealousy: when she and Connor have to leave to help deal with the worms, she doesn't show much sympathy for Connor's having to leave Caroline suddenly. Caroline writes her phone number on Connor's hand.

At the same time, Stephen returns to his flat to find Helen Cutter, badly injured, having returned to the present day after being injured by a pterosaur. After treating her wounds, Stephen leaves to help Nick and the team, leaving Helen in bed and telling her he wants her gone by the time he gets back (it is hinted they may have carried on with their affair).

Nick and Stephen enter the building and rescue a fire-fighter trapped inside, being attacked by the worms. In the confusion, Stephen and Nick become separated with Nick moving down to the lower levels of the building and Stephen forced to the upper levels. Stephen gets trapped in a lift shaft and Cutter realises the worms can’t survive outside the fog: as they are Pre-Cambrian creatures, they are used to a sulphurous atmosphere, making oxygen highly poisonous to them. Cutter is also forced to rescue Jenny when she rashly enters the building in an effort to find out what is going on for herself. She is attacked by one of the worms, but Nick rescues her, beheading the creature with a katana.

At the same time, Connor and Abby are at the A.R.C, trying to find something to use against the worms: however, Oliver Leek's efforts to provide them with equipment prove of little use. Realising that conventional weapons won't work, the pair go to a garden centre to get leaf-blowers to clear the fog. However, in the corridors of the A.R.C, Connor encounters a soldier with a scarred throat, who looks exactly like the cleaner attacked by the infant Deinonychus earlier on; however, Abby is sceptical.

Connor and Abby eventually arrive at the skyscraper, and Nick sends them to the 15th floor to turn the heat up, in an effort to clear the fog, kill the worms and expose the anomaly; however when they turn the heat up, the worms explode, releasing small parasites which attach themselves to Jenny, Stephen and Nick. Nick uses a lighter to set off the sprinkler system, lowering the heat and killing the parasites

Afterwards, Connor and Abby return to their flat: however, Caroline returns shortly afterwards, having left her mobile behind. Connor asks her to go for a drink, leaving a disappointed Abby behind. Cutter goes to Jenny's home and tries to explain what he thinks has happened with her and Claudia but is met by her boyfriend/husband. Making his excuses, he leaves. Unknown to him, watching in a car a short distance away is Helen, a malicious smile on her lips.

Connor has managed to create a new piece of equipment for the team: the A.D.D, or Anomaly Detection Device. However, it fails on its first test when a young paintballer named Warren is fatally injured at Blue Sky Park. At first, the team examine the body, with Abby concluding that the boy was killed by a British big cat, of which several hundred sightings are seen each year. Jenny Lewis provides information on a local man called Robert West, who illegally kept lions on his farm. Nick and Jenny go to investigate, but West denies any knowledge of the creature. The cat is then seen by a child in the forest, and the team head off after it.

Only Connor is left behind to guard the visitors. When he spots a large cat-like animal scaring the tourists, he shoots at it, before he realises it was the park manager dressed as a mascot and how close he came to killing the man. The team head off into the forest during the night and look for the cat again. Using thermal imaging, Stephen finds a park ranger, Valerie Irwin, lost in the forest. She shows signs of being interested in Stephen, and Stephen also shows reluctance at having to conceal from her what he is doing.

As he drives her home, the park manager, on his way to the park office to explain the shooting incident, is attacked and killed at a train station by a large sabre-tooth cat. A trainspotter captures the attack on camera, and the team identify the creature from the pictures as a Smilodon (although Jenny has to bribe the man to surrender the photographs). The team realise what the creature is and begin setting traps. Valerie arrives at the scene and becomes visibly agitated at what they are doing- Stephen shows concern, but Cutter and the others merely dismiss Valerie's behaviour as stress and shock over what has happened. However, while digging a trap, Cutter discovers the remains of a man buried in a ten-foot deep trench, having been torn apart by the cat a month before. The fact that the body was savaged by the Smilodon and then buried leads the team to conclude that someone knows of the creature's existence and is covering it up. Cutter is then chased by the cat, and Abby fights it off with a JCB. Cutter escapes via a zip-wire and the Smilodon peculiarly doesn't kill him but leaps straight over him and runs off into the forest. The team search the forest for the cat, while Cutter investigates the body.

Cutter discovers that the body he found in the trench was Valerie's boyfriend, and goes round to her home to confront her. However, Valerie surprises him with a tranquilizer gun, threatening him, believing the Smilodon was created by a genetic experiment and Cutter has come to reclaim it. She explains that she found the Smilodon unexpectedly as a cub in her garage (suggesting it strayed through a now-closed anomaly) and that she kept and raised it. She also admits that the body was her boyfriend, who underestimated the creature and was killed by it. Cutter tries to warn her that the Smilodon is a wild animal and is beyond her control, but Valerie believes the cat has imprinted on her as its mother and won't harm her. She tries to shoot Nick with the tranquiliser gun, and when she misses, she apologises and releases the Smilodon, locking it in the same room as Nick.

After Cutter desperately fends the Smilodon off with a table, a can of deodorant and a rake, Valerie calls the cat off the attack, saying to Nick that she's convinced it won't hurt her. In a fit of frenzied anger, however, the Smilodon leaps at her and kills her. The team arrives and the cat is tranquilised by Stephen. Frustrated and angry, Stephen turns on Cutter, asking how many more Valeries there will be before they give up and just tell people. Cutter than accuses Stephen of telling Valerie of what they were doing. Stephen replies that he didn't, but that "I wish that I had".

Back at the ARC, Cutter is confronted by Oliver Leek, who says that the Smilodon died during transportation of a stress-induced heart attack. Cutter does not believe this, saying it was a perfectly healthy animal and dismisses Leek's feeble excuses of a mistaken tranquiliser dosage. When he demands the right to do a post-mortem, Leek explains its remains were destroyed to prevent the spread of possible disease. However, at that moment, alarms begin sounding and the A.D.D lights up. Connor excitedly explains this is not a demonstration: a new anomaly has been detected. The team quickly leave to investigate, despite Connor lamenting the fact he has a date with Caroline.

Caroline Steel and Oliver Leek are seen, meeting in a car, exchanging money and making deals, revealing that the two of them are working together to get close to Connor and Abby.

Creatures

* Smilodon
* Deinonychus (misidentified as Utahraptor)
* Worms
* Pteranodon

External links

* [http://www.douglashenshall.com/Primeval "Primeval" at Douglas Henshall website]