Where It Is Always 1965
By Caroline Miniscule
In the year 2011
Part I
Petra Randall walked down the corridors of Canal + headquarters, her clicking high heels echoing off the walls. She walked into the office of George Porter, head man in charge of re-issuing.
"Petra!"
George rose to his feet, and extended a hand. "So nice to see you."
"It remains to be seen for how long," Petra said ruefully. She shook his hand and then sat down, arranging her skirt over her legs. "I need the masters of The Avengers again."
"The Avengers? John Steed and Emma Peel? What on earth for?"
"As you know, the 50th anniversary of the first year of broadcast is coming up. We're going to do an anniversary set, and they want to remaster the originals again. Not only Steed and Emma, but Keel, Gale, and Tara King as well."
Porter took off his glasses irritably. "Now wait a minute. Have the big brasses forgotten? We're working on turning those originals into three dimensional broadcasts, for the new holographic projectors. And that's what we're going to be giving people for the 50th anniversary in 2016!"
Petra shrugged. "They haven't forgotten. 2016 is the anniversary of the broadcast of the first Emma Peel episode. So what they've decided to do is release the 50th anniversary set of The Avengers this year, because this was the first year of the broadcasts with Ian Hendry as David Keel."
"Yes, yes."
"And so, in 2016, they'll release the Emma Peel episodes again, in 3D, as part of the 50th anniversary of the Peel broadcasts."
Porter shook his head in admiration. "It's amazing how much double-dipping we manage to get away with in this business."
Petra grinned. "From all I hear, that three-dimensional stuff is going to be fantastic. People will be quite happy to buy 'em for the sixth or seventh time."
"They'll have to be," Porter sighed. "Devilishly clever, those big brass people."
Petra nodded.
"Well, you'll have to get the originals back from Dr. Dragomiroff. He's got them all in his lab, down in Hertfordshire. Do you know Dragomiroff?"
Petra nodded.
"I met him when we delivered the originals to his home, several months ago. Well, the company won't want to trust the originals to a shipping company. I'll drive down myself in a van and pick them up."
"Dragomiroff won't be best pleased, I can tell you. He doesn't like being interrupted."
Petra smiled. "I'll exert my feminine wiles on him. No worries."
Part II
Petra drove quickly and expertly into Hertfordshire, and soon arrived at the large home of Professor Dragomiroff. She trotted up to the front door and knocked briskly.
A butler opened the door. Tall, beefy, but with a dignified face.
"Yes?"
"I'd like to see Professor Dragomiroff, please."
"He is not seeing visitors, I'm afraid. He's very busy."
"I know. I'm Petra Randall, from Canal +. He knows me."
The butler's eyes flickered in recognition. "Yes...oh, yes, I recognize you now, miss. You were here several months ago."
"That's right," Petra said cheerfully. "And the professor won't be happy to see me, but I do have to see him, I'm afraid."
A look of discomfort passed across the butler's face. "I'm sorry, miss, but, well, the Professor doesn't seem to be here."
Petra stared at him. "What do you mean, he doesn't seem to be here?"
The butler recovered his stoic demeanor. "That was a poor choice of words on my part," he said hurriedly. "I mean, he's not here. He told me, three days ago, he was going off on a little trip, and he'd be back in a week. So he should be back here in about four days."
"Well...do you have his phone number? I need to contact him."
"I'm sorry, miss, no. I have no way to contact him."
Petra shrugged. "Well, I'm here on authority from Canal +. I need to take back all the original Avengers film that the professor has."
"What, all of them?"
"I'm afraid so. And I can't wait for Professor Dragomiroff to get back. So if you'll just help me carry the canisters to my van - it's parked just outside. And I'll leave a message for the professor."
"Well...very good, miss. I'll get Johnnie to help us."
Johnnie was the gardener, a handsome young man who set to with a will.
The three of them carried film canisters from the Professor's Clean Room out to the van, where they slotted them into the appropriate receptacles. Petra had brought a clipboard with all the episodes listed, and she checked each one off as its film canister was loaded in. Finally...
"We're missing The Cybernauts."
"Oh, yes, miss?"
"Yes," said Petra tiredly. Her arms ached from the effort of carrying film canisters - those things were heavier than they looked.
"Well, he's probably working on that one. Using his three-dimensional process on it, you know. Can't you just take all the rest of these, and come back for that one in a week or so, when Professor Dragomiroff has returned?"
Petra sighed. She could. Knowing Canal +'s restoration people, they wouldn't even get around to thinking about doing any restoration of these episodes for another week or so, but her boss had said bring all the canisters back, and her boss was kind of a pain that way. When he said all, he meant all.
"I'll just take a look in his lab," she said. She remembered the way from the last time she'd been there.
She walked into Dragomiroff's lab and looked around. Huge pieces of machinery dotted the room, including one that had three large screens, each one focused on a spot at the far end of the room. Nothing emanated from them, but the screens themselves seemed to glow.
In the middle of it all was an old-fashioned projector on a table, with film spools threaded on it. On the table was an open canister. Petra glanced on it. "The Cybernauts." This was it.
Petra examined the projector. The episode seemed to be halfway through - with half on the home spool and half on the take-up spool. She flicked a switch and the film began to rewind. When it was completed, she took it off the projector, placed it in its canister, and carried it out to the van.
"Thanks for your help," she told the two men, and drove away with her cargo.
Part II
A day later, Petra picked up the phone in her office, and heard an agitated voice demanding, "What in the world are you playing at?"
"Scott? What's the matter?"
"I've just been looking at "The Cybernauts," Scott said grimly. Scott was one of the restorationists working on the Avengers project. "I'd like you to see something. Right now."
Petra's eyes narrowed. "I'll be there right away."
She hurried down to the lab. Scott, tubby in his white lab coat, set her down and started the projector going. "Just watch," he said grimly.
Petra had seen "The Cybernauts," not to mention all the other Avengers episodes, several times, and knew them by heart. She was still able to view them with enjoyment, however. However, this time, she sat tensely, watching the screen for any shots of marked deterioration, or spots, or splices. Something bad must have happened!
The film unspooled, and Petra watched it with an eagle eye. "What the hell's that?" she warbled suddenly.
In the scene where the Cybernaut, Roger, walked past the security guard on his way towards his latest victim, there was a man talking to the security guard at his desk.
"That's Professor Dragomiroff," she choked.
The security guard left his desk and ran after the Cybernaut, only to be tossed aside like a rag doll.
"Keep watching," Scott ordered.
Petra watched the rest of the episode in petrified fascination. She saw Dragomiroff three more times, just standing in the background during certain scenes. He never took part in the action, never looked at the camera...he was just there.
The episode ended and Scott rewound the film.
"So," said Scott. "Has the man lost his mind or what? What's he doing putting himself into the episode? And where's the original film?"
Petra shook her head. She got up and examined the reel of film. It was the original.
"I don't understand," she murmured.
"It's a good idea, mind you," Scott said. "Those Star Trek people did that, remember? Put the Deep Space Nine people into "The Trouble With Tribbles?"
Petra clapped her hands with a sense of relief. "Of course! That's what he must have done."
"He must be thinking fans would pay for that - to put themselves digitally into an episode. I suppose each fan's episode could be changed."
"Yes," said Petra. "That must be what he's doing."
"But that's not doing us any good right now. Take this back, and bring me back the original, please."
"Will do, Scott."
Petra took up the canister and left the room.
Petra headed purposely through the maze of corridors for t he exterior exit and her van..but then her footsteps began to slow.
The thing was...she knew that this was the original film, not something that Dragomiroff had duped. How could Dragomiroff have digitally inserted himself onto the original film.
It was ridiculous...it was pointless...but she was going to take another look at that film.
Petra returned to her own office, rolled out her own projector, and quickly threaded "The Cybernauts" onto it. She started the projector, and settled down to watch closely.
When it came to the part of the episode where the security guard chased after the Cybernaut... Dragomiroff was not there.
"He's not there," Petra whispered.
A few minutes later he did appear, watching Benson watching Steed enter the Japanese businessman's office.
"Oh, blimey," said Petra reverentially.
She stopped the film, and re-ran it. Grabbing up the canister, she ran to her car and headed for Hertfordshire and Professor Dragomiroff's house at top speed.
Part III
"Miss Petra?" said the butler as he opened the door.
"Has Professor Dragimiroff returned, Jeeves?" Petra asked.
"No, ma'am."
"Well, let me in, if you please. I've come to return "The Cybernauts."
The butler's eyes flickered. "Oh." he said. "Oh, yes."
Petra hurried to Dragomiroff's laboratory, and re-threaded the episode on the projector.
Then she stood back, gazing around the room. Had the professor left any instructions? Was the machine still on? Did she need to do anything else?
"Would you like a cup of tea, Miss Petra?" asked the butler from the door.
Petra whirled and looked at him. Then, "Oh, yes, of course."
"I'll bring it to the living room, Miss Petra."
Petra walked to the living room, and made herself comfortable on the divan. She heard footsteps at the door and turned, and her eyes widened. Professor Dragimiroff walked into the room.
"Dmitri!" she almost shouted.
"Petra!" he said, almost as surprised.
The butler arrived with the tea tray, on which there were two cups and two scones. He placed these on the coffee table and then retreated to the door, where he stopped and waited.
Dragimiroff picked up the teapot and poured with shaking hands.
"Will you explain what's going on please, Dmitri," she said. "I took away the Avengers originals, including "The Cybernauts." When I watched it...I saw you in it."
Dmitri dropped a couple of sugar cubes into her teacup and then handed it to her.
"Don't be silly, my dear. How on earth could I be in an episode of The Avengers?"
"Dmitri, the jig is up. I saw you. And I just now returned the episode to the projector, and five minutes later you walk into the room. You've done something...and I want to know what it is."
Dragomiroff took a long sip of his own tea, gazing at her all the while. Then he shrugged.
"Oh, very well. Since you saw me, you know that what I'm about to tell you is true, and you will not think me crazy."
"Go on," Petra said grimly.
"In experimenting with my three-dimensional process," he said slowly, "I discovered that it was possible to enter the episode undergoing treatment. One day the episode - "The Cybernauts" - was unfolding in front of me in three dimensions - I walked into the field just to see what would happen, and all of a sudden I was in the episode. Luckily, I did it when their were no characters around - just an empty corridor. Once I'd arrived, I was able to hide quickly. I found myself in the world of the Avengers, Petra. Everything was solid...everything was real. I got out of the office building in question and walked around, and the rest of London...even the world, was ticking away just as it would have been doing in 1965. I was able to eat, take a shower, walk around the city with thousands of people jostling at my shoulders."
Petra stared at him, wide-eyed.
"I remain in their world as long as it takes the episode to run its course. Not the 50 minutes of the TV episode, but the real-time that it took the adventure to occur. As soon as it ends, I return to this world."
"You mean...you've been into the Avengers world before."
"Several times," said Dragomiroff, nodding.
"And you've met Steed and Emma Peel?"
Dragomiroff smiled. "No. I had no desire to meet them. I've watched some of their actions - as you no doubt noticed...just to make sure that anything I do ... outside the events in which they're participating ... doesn't alter the flow of the story. And it doesn't. Nevertheless, I don't want to have anything to do with any of the major characters in the episode - that might alter things, and result in me being trapped in that world."
"But this is marvelous," Petra breathed. "John Steed and Emma Peel, alive and living in London in 1965. And anyone can walk in and live their adventures with them."
"Calm down, Petra," Dragomiroff admonished. "Listen to me! It is impossible for anyone to meet Steed or Emma. If anyone from our world were to meet them...it would send the time-loop off on a tangent, and may very well change the result of the episode, resulting in the individual involved being trapped in England in 1965."
"Of course, Dmitri, of course," said Petra. "I'm just a bit excited. Tell me... can I try it out? Go in there for a few minutes?"
"Well..." Dmitri paused. "I can run the film forward and put you in when there are just about five minutes left in the episode. So you 'd only be there for about 15 minutes."
"That'd be great, Dimitri!"
Dragomiroff looked at her closely. "You'd be arriving in the heating duct, just after Steed turns the corner from unavailingly trying to rip open that grid that prevents him from escaping through the air duct. It is imperative that you wait there for at least five minutes, to give Steed a chance to find the hatch to the boiler room, and climb down there."
A chance to watch the climactic duel between the Cybernaut and the Cybernaut with a brain.
"Sounds great, Dimitri. Can we do it now?"
Dragomiroff nodded sharply. "Da. We do it now. Come with me."
They returned to Dragomiroff's lab. Petra removed her high heels - she didn't want to be making clickety clack noises in the hallways of Automated Engineering, and she bemoaned her tight skirt. But she didn't want to delay.
She watched Dragomiroff set the machinery in motion.
"Stand on that X," he instructed her, and she did so.
"As soon as I press this button," he said, "the three dimensional world of the Avengers will spring into life. You'll see the duct, and Steed just crawling back and right into the ductwork he just came out of. Step into it, and wait there for a good five minutes before you move."
"Understood," said Petra, breathing deeply to keep calm.
"And Petra, I cannot emphasize enough. Do not, repeat not, repeat not, not, not, let Steed or Mrs. Peel see you. The consequences could be disastrous."
Petra nodded. "Right."
"Okay. I'm pressing the button...now."
In the Year 1965
In the blink of an eye, the large air duct appeared in space in front of her. She could just see Steed's feet disappearing around the corner. Quickly she leapt forward, into the duct. She felt as if her whole body shimmered...and then she was on her hands and knees on a hard metal surface. She was in the episode!
"Oh, my, god," said Petra to herself, as she very slowly felt all the way around the metal ductwork. It was solid. She turned to look into the room that the grill had prevented Steed from entering. It was brightly lit...and all the furnishings were in color. In color. She really was in a real world.
She looked at her watch. It doubtless wasn't the same time as the events going on, but it would tell her when 15 minutes had elapsed.
She began to crawl on hands and knees in the direction Steed had taken, although very quickly her knees began to ache and she shifted to the sideways sliding motion that Steed had adopted in his perambulations of the ductwork.
Soon she came to the hatch, which she knew Steed must have used to drop down into the boiler room. She opened it, very slightly, just in time to hear a whiplike noise. That'd be the janitorial Cybernaut knocking Steed unconscious.
Wait a minute...thought Petra. When Steed was knocked unconscious...there was fifteen minutes left in the episode, it was true, but in "real time" it had to be at least a couple of hours. Roger the Cybernaut was still on his way to Emma's apartment! Steed was unconscious and he probably wouldn't wake up for 15 minutes, anyway.
That's all right, Petra told herself. Hard to keep this timing thing straight. I'm sure Dimitri just mispoke. Or perhaps I'll spend a couple of hours in this universe, but it will only be 15 minutes in the real universe? Something like that.
Anyway, can't worry about it now. The janitor should have taken Steed away by now. Let's get out of here.
She lowered herself into the boiler room, and hurried over to the door. To her relief, the Janitornaut hadn't locked it when he'd left, and she was able to step out into the corridor.
Where to go...where to go. Obviously, there was only one place. The sub-basement, where all the cybernaut parts were stored, and where the climactic battle would take place. She should have plenty of time to find a safe vantage point from which to watch the battle.
The question was...how to get there?
Petra padded down the corridor on her stocking feet, and came across a door, conveniently marked Stairs. How nice of them. She opened it and went into the stairwell, walking carefully down. At the very bottom was a dead end, and a door. She opened the door...and found herself in the sub-basement, piled high with boxes, and dimly lit with fluorescent bulbs in ceiling fixtures.
It was so different, seeing it now from ground level, instead of the slightly overhead view she'd gotten from the episode.
Where would the best spot to be, be?
She looked around, and saw a high stack of crates against one wall, stacked in such a way that she should be able to climb up to the very top of them. From that vantage point, she should be able to see everything.
She began to climb.
Minutes later, she lay flat on top of the last crate in the stack., face down in her arms, trying to control her eager anticipation. She couldn't believe this was happening. Could it possibly happen?
The time passed so slowly, as she continually checked her watch. Had the damn thing stopped?
Finally, finally, the door opened, and a feminine figure dressed in black leather entered the room. Long, auburn hair swirling about her shoulders, beautiful features, black leather...it was...it was Mrs. Emma Peel.
Breathe, Petra told herself. Breathe. Don't breathe too loudly, though.
Her heart rose into her throat and choked her as she heard a whip-cracking noise, followed by the sound of a door crashing open. There was the cybernaut!
Emma...where was Emma? Petra strained her eyes, as the woman clad in black leather realized that the ferocious, psychotic and invincible robot was after her. The whip-cracking sound continued unendingly, followed by the crashing boxes, as the juggernaut followed after Mrs. Peel, who shot at his chest futilely.
Even though Petra knew how it was to turn out, her heart was in her mouth. What if her presence there had changed things. Dimitri had assured her that it wouldn't - only if she were seen - but what if it did?
With a sigh of relief, she heard Steed's voice. "Mrs. Peel! The pen! Give it me!"
She watched as Mrs. Peel tossed the pen to Steed, saw the incredibly fast Cybernaut, even faster than he'd seemed on TV, swerve and head toward Steed.
"The pen has a miniature homing device in it," Steed called.
"Then get rid of it."
"Don't worry, I will."
Breathlessly, Petra watched the aftermath, as the two cybernauts beat each other, with Dr. Armstrong screaming at his creations to stop, until one whip-cracked him across the room and into a stack of boxes.
Then, silence. Blessed silence. Emma and Steed came out of cover and walked around the cybernaut. Emma raised one finger, placed it against the chest of the cybernaut, and pushed.
Roger fell backward with a crash, and Emma looked at her finger incredulously.
And then Petra sneezed. She scooched back quickly, even as her palms dampened and her mouth went dry.
Oh my god, oh my god. Had they heard that?
She pressed herself flat against the crate, ears straining to hear any noise, but all she could hear was the beating of her heart.
Oh my god...she thought as she felt the crate tremble ever so little. Was someone climbing up to her perch?
There was another tremble. Someone was.
Oh my god oh my god.
At that precise moment, the space in front of her began to shimmer, and Petra found herself once more back in Dimitri Dragomiroff's laboratory, lying flat on her face on the solid ground.
Dimitri helped her to her feet.
"My God that was close," he said. "The episode should have ended as soon as Mrs. Peel looked at her finger, after pushing over the Cybernaut. I don't know why it continued on for even those thirty seconds more."
"Just thirty seconds?" Petra said. "My god it felt like eternity."
"Yes, well, you're safe now."
"I need a drink," said Petra.
Dragomiroff poured her a brandy.
"So," she said, after she'd finished it, "what next?"
"What do you mean?"
"As you said, we can't let the general public in on this. But you...and more importantly me - " she grinned at Dragomiroff as she said this - "we should be able to go back. I really really want to go back. From the beginning of the episode, Dimitri."
"Well, it's up to you then, my dear. This original has been treated, I need it. You've got to arrange for us to be able to keep it."
Petra nodded. "Easy. Can't you dupe it onto film again? I give that film canister to Canal +, they won't know the difference. We keep this one, and have the time of our lives."
Dimitri nodded.
"I shall do that right away."
"I'll bring it back to Canal + immediately. Then I'll arrange to take a fortnight's vacation. I'm due one, anyway. And then, Dimitri, I want to go back into the episode. Okay?"
He smiled at her indulgently.
"Okay."
Petra took a deep breath. A chance to enter the world of the Avengers. To see the Avengers. Not just in glimpses in a dark warehouse, but in the full light of day. It would be fantastic. Quite, quite fantastic.
Quite, quite fantastic.