The Cleaner



This experienced mercenary - only known as "the Cleaner", after one of his disguises - was among the small mercenary army hired by Oliver Leek to capture creatures from the Anomalies.

Background
At some point before the second expedition into the Permian, the Cleaner was hired by Oliver Leek to aid his organisation in collecting creatures from the Anomalies for Leek's creature army.

The Cleaner was located at the Castle Cross Shopping Mall, in the disguise of a cleaner who'd been left behind, after an Anomaly opened in the mall and Raptors came through. When the Anomaly Research Centre team encountered the Cleaner, Cutter had Connor and Abby take him out to safety, but he insisted to the pair on going back to the locker room, allegedly for his jacket.

At the locker room, the Cleaner was attacked by a baby Raptor that had been inside his locker, slashing his neck and leaving him unconscious on the floor while Connor tranquilised the creature. While the Cleaner was left unattended to, he vanished before the team returned for the tranquilised Raptor, leaving them to presume that he'd recovered and gotten out himself. However, the Cleaner was left with lasting scars on his neck from the Raptor attack.

While the Cleaner was at the Anomaly Research Centre disguised as a Special Forces security soldier, a surprised Connor spotted him in the hallway and recognised him from the mall.However, Abby brushed it off and she and Connor dismissed it and left.

While the ARC were investigating a creature incursion from the future at a canal in the Isle of Dogs, the Cleaner was stationed again as one of the Special Forces guards. While the Cleaner was alone around an alley, Cutter spotted and recognised him, prompting the Cleaner to try and get away while Cutter gave chase. Cutter followed the Cleaner onto a boat, where the latter knocked Cutter out with a punch, then got away while Cutter was left unconscious.

After the incursion was dealt with, Leek contacted the Cleaner via videolink. Leek warned the Cleaner of the security breach to their operation he'd caused by letting Cutter sight and detect him, and warned the Cleaner to not mess up again before the latter cut the communication.

When Leek tracked a new Anomaly ahead of the ARC by stealing the Anomaly's coordinates from the Anomaly Detection Device via spyware, Leek, summoned the Cleaner and two other mercenaries to the Anomaly site, and sent them through the Anomaly to the Silurian in search of creatures to collect and bring back. While the mercenaries were on other side, they sighted Taylor Craig, a little girl who'd gone through earlier and become stranded; but the Cleaner decided to leave her where she was, against one of the other mercenaries' conscientious protests. However, moments later, the mercenaries came across a Silurian Scorpion, which attacked them and killed the other two mercenaries while the Cleaner got away with injuries.

Later, while trekking across the Silurian desert to reach another Anomaly after the original had closed, Cutter, Stephen and Taylor came across the Cleaner, with nothing but a machine gun. The Cleaner forced them at gunpoint to hand over their handheld ADD and all of their water supplies, so that he could find the Anomaly first and be the one to get out, despite Cutter's pleas that they would die out in the desert without water. However, when the Cleaner threateningly shot the ground, he unwittingly alerted the Scorpions, prompting one to come and ambush him. As the Scorpion began to drag the Cleaner under the sand and eat him alive, despite the circumstances, the Cleaner refused to give away his employer's identity, before he was fully pulled under to his death.

Legacy
At some point before the Cleaner's death, Helen Cutter collected some of his DNA and later used future technology to clone a small army of Cleaner Clones. She used the mercenary clones in her crusade against the ARC, to change the future. (Episode 2.7, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3) At least one Cleaner clone was killed, and all the others were presumably killed in an explosion; when a bomb was set off in the Anomaly Research Centre. (Episode 3.3)

Personality
The Cleaner was a very experienced and ruthless mercenary, who was loyal solely to his employer and was single-mindedly devoted to carrying out his mission over anything else. Due to living by a code that he only pay his mission his attention, the Cleaner could be callous and uncaring towards others in distress when they weren't a direct part of his mission - he once coldly stated in regards to seeing a little girl stranded in the Silurian, "We're not social workers. Let someone else save her!" and set about leaving her and resuming his mission. The Cleaner's devotion to his employer was such that he refused to betray his employer's identity even in his dying moments.

The Cleaner could also be very selfish and cruel - when he was stranded in the Silurian with Cutter, Stephen and Taylor with their only way out being through a nearby Anomaly, he not only stole the others' Anomaly detector so he could be the one to get out, but he also unnecessarily took all of their water for himself; cruelly commenting on their nil survival chances without the water, "Tough break." The Cleaner seemed to be a good actor as well, successfully passing off as an ordinary and unawares mall cleaner to the team without arousing any suspicion.