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Fire and Water

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« "Now, not only do we have to battle dinosaurs on not one, but two continents, but we must also avoid getting kidnapped by a crazed megalomaniac! How reassuring!" »
— James Lester


Fire and Water is a spin-off book for the ITV science fiction series Primeval.

Synopsis[]

At a safari park in South Africa, rangers are inexplicably disappearing and strange creatures have been seen battling with wild animals. Danny and Lester fly in to investigate and are drawn into a dark and dangerous conspiracy which could have terrible consequences...

Back in London, Connor Abby and Sarah have been left to cope on their own. As torrential rain pours down over the city, an enormous anomaly opens up in East London...

Plot[]

In South Africa, park rangers Jace and Ellie are sent to investigate the disappearance of multiple tourists and fellow park rangers. Initially they believe it to be the lion population in the safari park but soon discover it is actually a eustreptospondylus that ambushes and kills them.

Some days following this, Danny and Lester arrive in Johannesburg and are greeted by ranger Sophie who Danny immediately takes a fancy to and who escorts them to the park. All the while they keep their true intentions for being here a secret and insist they are here as insurance men keeping tabs on the oil mine near the park. At the park they are breifly greeted by fellow ranger Ted and arrive at the lodge they were meant to be staying at, only to find it ransacked and littered with bodies. Lester prepares to call for help but all three are soon attacked by the eustreptospondylus that was skulking about in the kitchen. They retreat further into the lodge and are eventually cornered, only to be saved at the last second by a small pride of lions that do battle with the dinosaur. As the lions take on the dinosaur, with two of them dying in the process, the three attempt to make their escape onto the roof. Sophie escapes first but the latch catches on the handle after she closes it, trapping Lester and Danny and forcing them to try and muscle it open somehow. It is no good so Danny intervenes in the fight and tricks the dinosaur out of the lodge and goads the lions into giving chase, only doing so when they hear the cries of their cubs. Following a brief clean up of the lodge and a conversation with Sophie, the three of them set off to hunt down the eustreptospondylus in an SUV. Danny calls up Connor to inform him of the situaution and to hopefully get more info on the dinosaur.

In the flooded streets of Maidenhead, the ARC team, minus Sarah, are preoccupied dealing with a velociraptor incursion. When Abby and Connor sneak off with a patrol boat they come across a pair of deinosuchus resting on a nearby bank. Becker is forced to engage the velociraptor pack with only the help of Jamie Weavers. The two successfully lure all the dinosaurs back through the anomaly but are attacked when one of the cars breaks down. Weavers is killed as the two make their escape and the anomaly closes just as Becker returns. Following an update from Sarah he hurries off to aid Connor and Abby as they prepare to deal with the deinosuchus pair. While gathering supplies in one of the flooded shops they are ambushed by a lone velociraptor and saved at the last second by Becker. As they travel towards the deinosuchus couple they lure them into giving chase with various aerosols. The chase is a success and they SAS soldiers are able to bring down the pair with a large array of tranquilizers. The anomaly back to their time closes and after extensive deliberation, the ARC team agrees it would be best to house the deinosuchus couple in Oliver Leek's creature prison until they can hopefully send them home to the right time. While they are recuperating from the mission, Connor recieves a call from Danny.

At the ARC, Sarah is busy keeping watch over the teams and sending updates to the both of them until she feels a presence somewhere in the room with her. Before she knows it she is pierced by a syringe and knocked unconscious.

Back in South Africa, Lester, Danny, and Sophie give chase to the eustreptospondylus in an SUV and track it to a nearby river where a pod of hippos is resting. Once they show up, the dinosaur also shows up and does battle with the hippos, the fight going in their favor. As the trio walk to get some distance from the fight, Danny makes a mental note of some peculiar vehicle tracks, beginning to suspect that perhaps the dinosaur were transported here. His suspicions grow when Sophie acts apprehensive about Danny’s discovery. Sophie doesn’t give Danny a chance to pry further and distances herself from the two to prepare to shoot the dinosaur. Sophie fires but the shot is ineffective and the dinosaur turns its attention to the trio, forcing Lester and Danny to play defense and try to bring the creature down themselves until a postosuchus springs from the dark and finishes off the battered dinosaur. Danny snags a picture of it to send to the ARC before the three opt to retreat for now. Once back at the lodge, Danny receives info about the two creatures from Anna. She gives them the troubling news that because the two creatures are from two very distant time periods, the eustreptospondylus from the Jurassic and the postosuchus from the Triassic respectively, it is very likely the two of them are in search of at least two anomalies.

Back in London, Connor, Abby, and the soldiers return to the ARC as the rain continues to bucket down on them all. After his card refuses to let him enter into the facility, Connor is arrested by the soldiers for reasons he has yet to be made privy to. After a small altercation between Abby and Becker, Tom Samuels makes his presence known and claims to be there to help in Lester’s absence. As Becker begins interrogating Connor, Sarah fills Abby in on what happened while everyone was away. Samuels than shows the two of them security footage of Connor that paints him in a suspiciously light, which is of him tampering with the ADD and sending a suspicious email. Connor is than subjected to a lengthy interrogation process by numerous ARC soldiers that begins to eat away at his sanity. Meanwhile, Abby and Sarah can only sit and wait until Samuels arrives and takes Sarah to have a chat. He asks Sarah to open up to him about the ARC and its staff.

The following morning, Danny prepared himself for the day ahead, opting to let Lester continue resting peacefully. Sophie arrives shortly after, dropping off their ADD and Lester’s laptop and offering Danny to tag along with her to try and find the postosuchus. Their search turns up mostly cold, only being able to find the shredded corpse of the eustreptospondylus. As such, they retreat to the lodge and Sophie shares scarce details about herself with Danny. She dropped Danny off back at the lodge and left to get more supplies while Danny and Lester fill each other in on their respective mornings. Sophie returned to the lodge after a while with more ammo, water, and a baby impala. Sophie then drove them to a large opening with a tree and pole and prepares the impala to act as bait. They then make their way to the tree with a platform, set up their supplies, and wait for the next two hours. Finally, after a long period of awkward and tense silence, the postosuchus emerges from the shrubs and devours the impala. All three of the team try taking their best shot at the creature but not a single one lands its mark. Sophie takes one more shot as its attack becomes even more frenzied but it also isn’t a kill shot and the creature knocks the tree down and sends everyone tumbling onto the ground below. Danny takes several more shots at the creature but realizes that he’s been set up when every single close range shot does nothing. Sophie sacrifices herself to save Danny but ends up crushed by the postosuchus. This gives Lester the opportunity to take Sophie’s gun and unload onto the postosuchus until the rifle’s magazine is empty. Sophie used her final few words to tell the two survivors that she had been coerced into doing this by unknown forces and Lester decides then and now it is time for them to get back to London to get to the bottom of this.

Back at the ARC, Sarah presents her case to try and clear Connor’s name. She and Connor put forth a very strong and reliable case in regards to how Connor has set up his server to automatically back up many important files. This is also when everyone realizes there is still digital theft going on but Connor put a stop to that by blocking them and infecting whatever remaining files they get with a damaging virus. With his name cleared and the files safe, Samuels releases the team from house arrest. When they all return later on, an anomaly is detected and the team heads off to deal with it, Sarah once again staying behind and in Samuels’ company. He then gets Sarah to talking about the anomalies and whatever theories could help the team better understand them. And when he proposes that maybe it would make things easier to go public with the anomalies, Sarah begins to open up more and feel she can trust him.

Unbeknownst to anyone, in Hammersmith, the hackers that Connor had tracked and messed with are beginning to clear out of an abandoned office space when they fear they’ll get caught. They clear out and leave no traces of their presence.

On their way back to the lodge, Lester calls Ted and informs him of what happened and also advises Danny that he might have some hand in all this. Danny also once again mulls on the possibility that there are no anomalies to find and that someone is bringing the creatures to this park. Ted and a small group of rangers are there to greet the two of them and handle Sophie’s body while they watch and Ted attempts to send the two off, saying they will leave the next day, much to Danny’s hesitance. He opts to watch the funeral from the platform while Lester takes his laptop and attempts to contact the ARC again before coming down to prepare dinner. Once most of the rangers are gone, Ted returns and reveals his lack of English was an act and he begins to show more hospitality to Danny by offering him moths to eat for a snack and homemade South African beer, Lester helping himself to a few swigs. He then shifts the conversation and reveals the truth about this whole operation; how the new rangers don’t care for the animals, how Sophie had a change of heart about setting them up to die, and how the people at the mine are most likely the true masterminds here. Lester is now even more determined to leave and sort out what is happening so he begins making calls for the next flight home. Unfortunately, nothing is available due to the bad weather. Lester decides going to the oil mine is their only option out of the lodge so the two begin staging an ordinary night, like Ted was never there. While sneaking out, they notice two figures patrolling the car park. Danny and Lester are able to ambush one of the assailants and recognizes him as one of the guards who tended to Sophie’s corpse earlier. They restrain him, take his guns, and Danny heads in the lodge first. The second assailant attempts to ambush Danny but he dodges and is expertly saved by Lester. They attempt to interrogate the first assailant they had captured but he instead kills himself by ramming his head through a jagged pipe.

Appearances[]

Characters[]

Creatures[]

Animals[]

Locations[]

Objects and technology[]

Organisations[]

Continuity[]

  • The book is said to take place, two weeks after the future fungus incursion and Jenny's retirement.

Trivia[]

  • This book is the latest Primeval novel to be written so far.
  • Most of the creatures in this novel appeared in Walking With Dinosaurs, which was also made by Impossible Pictures.
  • On the cover, the promo image of Connor is from Series 2 while this episode takes place during Series 3.

Errors[]

  • The Postosuchus' are referred to as either a dinosaur or a crocodilian. In fact, Postosuchus was a Raisuchian.

Story connections[]

  • Lester and Tom Samuels both mention Nick Cutter's story about the timeline change from Episode 1.6 and 2.1.
  • Oliver Leek's organisation and what it did was mentioned several times from Series 2
  • Stephen Hart and Nick Cutter's deaths and their cemetery are mentioned from Episode 2.7 and 3.3.
  • The Giganotosaurus from Episode 3.4 is mentioned.
  • In reference to Episode 3.5:
    • The future fungus incursion and subsequently Jenny's retirement is mentioned.
  • Foreshadowing the next episode 3.6:
    • Lester asks Danny and Becker to check and tighten up security. They would do so at the start of the next episode.
    • The surveillance camera set up by Christine Johnson's military was said to be watching Lester as he tidied his office. It would be discovered by Danny and Becker.

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