SNOWED IN, WORK CANCELLED, SO WHAT DID I DO? WATCHED DOCTOR WHO. AS SUCH, I GOT A BEE IN MY BONNET YESTERDAY, A GOOD IDEA FOR A ONE-SHOT. I WILL COME BACK TO MY ALTERNATE TITANIC STORY, I PROMISE, BUT THIS IS A FUN LITTLE DIVERSION. AND IT'S UNIQUE FOR ME BECAUSE THERE IS NO MARTHA!

IT EXPLAINS FOR US A MYSTERY THAT NEVER GOT EXPLAINED ON-SCREEN, AND ADDRESSES A RATHER ODD COINCIDENCE THAT HAS ALWAYS BOTHERED ME. IF I HAVE MADE ROSE TYLER SEEM MORALLY DUBIOUS, I'M SORRY. I DIDN'T REALLY INTEND TO. SHE IS SUPPOSED TO BE DESPERATE, AS MANY OF US ARE WHEN WE'RE IN LOVE...


"Oh, shut that bloody thing up," spat Clinton Hacker, shuffling through the room at top-speed. "It's like an insane Myna bird."

"Oh, shut that bloody thing up," said the organism flatly. "It's like an insane Myna bird."

"Sorry, sir," said Dr. Guyer, not particularly abjectly. She'd had enough of the obedience bit, but found that her life was easier when she did what he wanted, so she turned the volume down.

A third person cleared his throat. Uncomfortably, Mr. Parsons said, "Yes, well." And the two underlings went back to work, like good little drones.

"Yes, well," Hacker echoed, much like a Myna bird. "Our chief benefactor is coming for a visit today. You know what that means. Look sharp. He'll be here in five minutes."

"Yes, sir," Parsons said. "Thank you for the useful well-in-advance-warning, sir."

"Don't be cheeky," growled Hacker. "Just get back to work."

"He's in a mood today," Guyer commented as Hacker left through the other side of the room.

"What else is new?" Parsons said back. "He must be all surly because the buttons on his suit jacket are beginning to pull apart. What d'you reckon he's gained? Twenty pounds? Thirty?"

"That's very juvenile of you," Guyer scolded, smirking. "And it's got to be at least forty."

"Probably all pork pies and gin."

"All joking aside, the secrecy must be getting to him," she said, pulling the flame guard down over her face. She activated her blow torch and stared into the sparks as they flew past her head.

"I told him not to," he agreed, as she pulled the guard back up. "I told him to find another benefactor, but he wouldn't listen. He said Pete Tyler was the only one who could understand the technology who also had enough money to fund this thing… so here we are."

"Yeah, here we are," she said. "Building a bizzarro device that does something unknown to us and having to memorise a whole set of alternative plans so that we can lie to our patron about it. Fabulous. Yes, this is why I spent four years getting my Ph.D., thank you for asking, Hacker Industries." She scoffed at where her life had brought her, then pulled the mask down again.

The door through which Hacker had exited opened, and he re-entered with two men in tow. Hacker's demeanour had changed drastically, he'd gone from tense anger to tense brown-nosing. He was explaining to the two men how quickly the device was coming along, and how it would revolutionise espionage in Britain.

"Just a couple more weeks, Mr. Tyler, and we'll be able to present it to the Prime Minister," Hacker said.

"Fine," said Pete. "But before we do that, I need a guarantee that it's completely safe."

"It's strictly a device for gathering intelligence," said Hacker. "It's not a weapon."

"Fair enough," Pete said, with a bit of finality.

"Dr. Lauren Guyer, Mr. Colin Parsons, meet Pete Tyler, our eminent benefactor," Hacker said.

Pete shook hands with both technicians. "Dr. Guyer, Mr. Parsons, a pleasure to meet you. This is my technology consultant, Mickey Smith."

Mickey gave something between a wave and a salute and smiled awkwardly. Pete's a flippin' genius, why does he need me here? he was thinking. Second set of eyes, he says. Right. Tin dog. Always the tin dog.

"Now, what have we got here?" asked Pete.

"Well, sir," Guyer began. "It's a living organism powered by electromagnetic pulse, designed to penetrate a living psyche, so as to learn more about its environment. It mimics behaviours, and then it will manifest corporeally when it is ready."

"So learning about behaviours is part of what happens during a kind of incubating process?" asked Pete Tyler, arms crossed over his chest.

"Exactly," she agreed.

"So, how does it hear and mimic if it's not ready to manifest yet?"

"Well, it latches onto a human host," Dr. Guyer said. Sensing Pete's worry, she said, "But don't panic. The human host never knows it's there, and there is absolutely no neurological damage as a result of it. The person inside remains 'in the driver's seat,' as it were. The mimic is simply in co-pilot mode."

"Hm," Pete grunted dubiously. He looked at Mickey with a furrowed brow, and gently signalled for him to chat with Parsons, find out what else was up.

"So what goes on over here, then?" Mickey asked Parsons, who had gone back to his work station. Before them, a large plasma screen blipped with numbers and measurements, and a huge expanse of controls spread out on either side of them.

"This is how we keep it alive," Parsons explained, smiling. Unlike Guyer, who was lying through her teeth at the moment, he was happy to be able to tell the truth. "We measure its vitals, brain waves, intelligence and cognition factor, all those things."

Mickey looked at the display where Parsons had indicated cognition was measured. This, he knew, measured the thing's thinking capacity, its complex thought, its ability to be clandestine and discreet. "Doesn't look like the thing's too clever yet," Mickey commented.

"Yes, well," Parsons repeated his favourite uncomfortable phrase. "That's why it'll be a couple weeks before we can go live with it. It has to develop an intelligence; a savvy or finesse. Otherwise, it will mimic behaviours exactly, and make itself immediately known."

"Like a Myna bird," Mickey said.

Parsons chuckled. "Yes, like a Myna bird."

"What's this?" asked Mickey, pointing to some numbers on the screen.

"That?" Parsons asked, suddenly very, very nervous. "Oh, that's nothing. That's just the setting that tells the mimic what species to zero-in upon. In this case, it's human."

Mickey studied the numbers. In his comings-and-goings at Torchwood, he had seen this kind of thing before. He assumed that the mimic would require an oscillating frequency as a kind of "coordinate" for where to go, what to target. He had seen plenty of read-outs for varying human oscillating frequencies, and this one wasn't even in the same ballpark. This number was higher, much higher – as in, a species a billion years more advanced in its evolution higher.

But he chose not to say anything. "Ah, I see," was what he said instead.

He turned and walked back over to where Pete was, and Parsons gulped.

"How do you plan to deploy this thing? You know, sort of get it off the ground?" Pete was asking Dr. Guyer.

"That's the beauty part," she said, her face lighting up. "We're working with the Torchwood Institute on this project, and they've agreed to give us access to some rudimentary teleportation technology so that the mimic can slip in and out undetected, and not have to worry about security protocols and the like."

At the mention of Torchwood, Mickey and Pete looked at each other.

"Torchwood, yes," Pete said, covering. "I've heard of them. Why did you choose them?"

Mickey's eyes narrowed. He saw what Pete was getting at. He wanted to know if this lot knew that his daughter held a high-up post at Torchwood, a fact that was supposed to be a complete secret. If there were interweavings between Hacker Industries, Pete Tyler and Torchwood's upper echelons, things could get ugly and Rose could be compromised, especially if it wasn't a coincidence.

But perhaps it was.

"Well, sir," she said. "They're funded by the government. We approached them because we figured that once they heard of the possibilities for national security, they would agree to work with us for free. And we were right. We were just trying to spend your money more efficiently, Mr. Tyler."

"Indeed," said Pete, though Mickey could not read his expression.


Neither Mickey nor Pete said anything on the way to the car. When they were quite sure that their vehicle was out of earshot and off the premises, Pete asked, "What do you think?"

"They're hiding something," Mickey told him, without hesitation.

"Any idea what?"

"Not yet, but they're working with a frequency that's definitely not human, and they're in cahoots with Torchwood. I'm pretty sure that whatever they're doing, it's not in the interest of national security," Mickey told him.

"Extraterrestrial."

"Bingo."

"Think you can get in?"

"A bit of the old Cloak 'n' Dagger? Yeah, I think I can manage that."


It turned out to be much easier than he'd anticipated. The guards had no trouble believing that Mickey was the substitute night cleaner (because the regular guy was sick), so they let him in without checking his credentials or asking any questions. Mickey thanked his lucky stars that two of the thickest men in uniform in the Western world were on duty at Hacker Industries that night.

His first stop was at the communcations console where he disabled all of the security cameras except for the ones at the front with the Thick Twins. For them, he ran a tape of old footage.

He snuck into Dr. Guyer and Mr. Parsons' lab using a credit card. Blimey, have these people never heard of magnetic security badges?

The vitals readout for the mimic was still up on the screen. Since it was a living organism, though non-corporeal, it had to be supported day and night. Once more, he checked the oscillating frequency that was to direct the mimic when deployed. He hadn't been mad before – it definitely wasn't human. This thing was meant to target something else. He extracted his mobile.

After two rings, Rose picked up. "You're late."

"I know. I'm doing some covert ops," he said.

"Mickey! I'm at the cinema waiting for you! I've got popcorn and everything."

"I'm sorry babe, but it's gonna have to wait," he said. "And I need your help."

She sighed heavily. "All right then, what is it?"

"I'm at Hacker Industries," he told her. "They've got this thing that they've told us is for government espionage…"

"Right, the mimic," she said.

He was taken aback. Pete was not going to be happy. "Wait, you know?"

"Yeah," she said. "They've been working with us on making it compatible with one of our transport devices."

"But here's the thing, Rose," he said. "The coordinates they're giving this thing, the oscillating frequency… it's not human!"

"I know that," she said, softly, reluctantly.

"You know."

"Yes," she said.

He waited for an explanation. Nothing came, just dead air and the sounds of people around, waiting for their film to begin.

"Rose, what the hell is going on?"

She sighed heavily. She went into a corner, behind a plant, and spoke softly. "I approved this collaboration. And the reason I did was that they had the technology, somehow, to do this 'zeroing-in' thing."

"Torchwood can do that too," Mickey pointed out.

She ignored him. "They wanted to work with us because we have that… machine."

"The thing that rips through to the other universe?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said.

"Isn't it dead in the water?"

"No, it's starting to work," she told him.

"Mm-hm," he said flatly.

"Anyway, I needed what they have…"

"The zeroing-in thing. Not buyin' it. You could just use the molecular pressuriser for that."

"Yes, but…"

"What else do they have that you need, Rose?"

"Would you just trust me? Get out of there, leave Hacker alone, and come see a film with me."

"No, I need to know. These people are lying to your dad…"

"What's my dad got to do with this?"

"He's the benefactor," Mickey said. "He's funding it."

"What?" she shrieked.

"Just listen to me, will you?" he shouted. "They're lying to him, they might be lying to you! Tell me what's going on!"

There was another silence while Mickey listened to the milling around happening on Rose's end. "Fine," she said. "Hacker has developed away to identify an oscillating frequency that no-one has been able to crack before."

Mickey crossed his arms. "I see. Go on."

"The species we're looking for have been able to cloak their oscillations for millions of years," she said. "All other beings are subject to teleportation or disintegration by other species simply through their frequency coordinates, but…"

"The Time Lords found a way to mask it," Mickey said. "I get it."

"So there it is," she said. She sounded resigned.

"So, let's see if I've got it straight," he said, feigning confusion. "Torchwood's machine will push through the void, Hacker's mimic thing will zero in on the only Time Lord in existence, wherever he may be in time or space."

She was silent. He couldn't hear her, but he knew she was biting her fingernails.

"And it never occurred to you to wonder how this bloke was able to get the frequency, work it out when no one else in the universe could?" He asked, angry now. "I mean, who the hell is he, Rose?"

"Their planet was destroyed, Mickey, the defences probably weakened."

"Never mind that," he continued. "It never occurred to you that this is a gross abuse of your authority?"

"Yes, that occurred to me," she said. "Why do you think I took that position? It's not 'cause I really believe in Torchwood's mission statement, believe me."

"There's just one problem, babe," he said. "They really have built a mimic device. They really are planning on infiltrating something, and it ain't Al Qaeda. If the thing is going to mimic a Time Lord, that means… well, it can't be good, anyway."

"He said the mimicry was a by-product of the organism," she told Mickey.

"By-product," he muttered. "Yeah, right."

"Mickey…"

"Look, just…" he said, squeezing the bridge of his nose where pressure was mounting. "Just find out who he is. Learn more about him before you do anything rash, all right?"

She sighed. "All right," she agreed. "But you have to get out of there right now, Mickey, before you get caught! Promise?"

"Okay," he said. "I'll keep my part of the bargain…"

"And I'll keep mine."

But it seemed as though where this mimic device was concerned, the lies were simply abounding.


Less than a mile away, Clinton Hacker was in his home, brushing his teeth. Or something that looked very much like Clinton Hacker, anyway.

"Clint, come to bed already!" Abigail called out.

He spat into the sink and smiled silkily into the mirror. Only a year in this body and he'd already managed to find a mate. Hacker's was a decent enough body to manifest into – the owner of a vaguely scientific electronics company, privately funded, and with the potential to earn millions. As lots go, he could definitely work with this one. But it was a damn good thing he'd mimicked a ladies' man while infiltrating Hacker's body, or else he'd be one lonely soul. Thank you, Matthew Sorenson, for your useful wiles with women. Pity about that paralysis of yours… nasty accident, that.

Of course, he'd miss all this when he got back home, but the ends justifies the means.

He heard the phone ring beside the bed. Abby would pick up – she was good like that.

"Sweetheart, it's something to do with work," she chirped.

"I'll take it in the den," he said. He pulled his dressing gown over his round body and trundled down the hall to the secure line in the den. "Clint Hacker here."

"It's Rose Tyler," she said. "Let's get this thing done now."

"Pardon me?"

"Now," she repeated. "Before I change my mind."

"Why would you change your mind?"

"Because," she said. "Mr. Hacker, I don't trust you as far as I could throw you. But I need your unique skill, and if I give myself time to think about the consequences, I'll lose my nerve. Someone is on to you – on to us – and that person can be very persuasive."

"Why don't you trust me?"

"I don't even know you," she insisted. "How is it that you were able to come up with that frequency when the Time Lords had kept it hidden for a million years?"

He sighed. "Rose, I want to find him just as badly as you do," he said. "The world needs him, you know that as well as I do. Now that we have a transport that works, he can come back and forth, but we have no way of contacting him without my unique skill as you called it. Desperate times, Rose…"

"You're full of it, but never mind. I don't want to know anymore. Just meet me in your lab at eleven o'clock."

"If you insist," he said.

Blinded by the possibility of not getting back to her home universe, and not being able to find him once she did, she shut her mobile phone and ran for the car. She skidded round the corner and headed for Torchwood. Whatever happened on the other side, whatever Hacker had up his sleeve, they would deal with it. With him by her side, she could deal with anything. But she had to get there, and she had to find him...


For his part, Hacker was blinded himself by the possibility that this mimic clone had been developed in vain, when they were now so close! It was not yet ready, its intelligence base and cognition factor had not yet grown sophisticated enough to be deployed effectively, but what did he care? The Time Lords needed their come-uppance, and with only one left in the universe, it would be a piece of piss. Not to mention, a great coup to have a partner in crime! When this was over, he'd have a companion, a Time Lord mimic that would have all the secrets of time and space, know everything that they know…

But if he lost Rose Tyler's cooperation tonight, the whole thing might go down in flames. Torchwood currently had the only device that could rip through the void, and without that, he was stuck here, and would never have satisfaction!

"Hmph," he muttered, pulling on a pair of trousers, at least a size too small. "Exile me to a parallel world, will you? Bloody Time Lords."

"What was that, sweetheart?" asked Abby.

"Nothing," he said. "Listen, something's come up, I have to go down to the lab."

"Oh," she said, disappointed. "All right. I'll be here when you get back."

"Thanks, love. See you later."

In the lift, his toe tapped. His fingers fidgeted. "Come-uppance," he muttered to himself, glancing at his watch. Forty-five minutes before Rose Tyler would arrive.


Mickey Smith had not got out of there as promised. He was still studying the vitals screen, trying to work out what this thing wanted with the Time Lord. He had begun fiddling with the mouse, pushing buttons, following prompts. Thus far, no alarms had gone off, and he didn't think he'd killed the specimen, so he reckoned he was fine for now.

"Let's see, low cognition, low intelligence as of now, like a Myna bird," Mickey said to himself. "Wicked conspicuous as mimics go. Not so dangerous now, but…" he exhaled heavily and searched for more.

"Okay… host destination… hunh," he whispered, quizzically. Oscillation frequency read-outs suggested that the host of the mimic would be human, the target of the mimic is a Time Lord. "All right, interesting. Clever. But what happens to the mimic-ee when the mimic takes over the host?"

"Good question," someone said as all the lights in the lab came on. Mickey turned to find Clinton Hacker standing in the doorway. He crossed to a cabinet that Mickey hadn't noticed before. "Here's another one: how the hell do you even know about all that?"

"Sorry, mate," Mickey said, standing up. "I ain't talking."

"Well, you're right about that," Hacker said, pulling a revolver from the cabinet. He aimed at Mickey. "I'm not having you running off to tell Pete Tyler that we're a bunch of frauds."

"Oh, this goes so far beyond Pete Tyler, you don't even know," Mickey insisted.

"Well, we agree on that."

"So I'm guessing you're not hunting down Time Lords because you need someone to fix your DeLorean."

"That's true. Well done."

"So, I'm guessing that one of them done you wrong back in olden times, and you ain't gonna take it no more."

"Right again. You're clever."

"And you're using Rose Tyler, playing upon her most deeply-held desire, to get what you want."

Hacker was speechless. "Oh, now that is clever. And just a bit too far, Mickey Smith. Come with me, please."

"No."

"Which one of us has the gun?"

"You got me there. Damn, I wish I'd brought mine. Mine's way bigger than that, by the way. I'd have you shaking in your loafers by now, mate."

"Well, it's a cliché, but I think that this situation embodies the expression quite exquisitely," Hacker said, slithering toward Mickey, still holding the gun. "It's not the size, but how you use it. Wouldn't you say? Now move, or I will kill you."

He stuck the barrel in Mickey's back and pushed hard. Mickey walked, reluctantly, and Hacker steered him toward a door.

"So what happens to the human host's mind once the mimic's got what it wants?" Mickey asked.

"Much like the real Hacker, it becomes part of the ether," he said. "If I were a Buddhist, I'd say it was nirvana."

"Oh, I see. So you're one of those mimic things. You got into Hacker's body, but you mimicked someone else so that you could take over his body and stay."

"Yes, it doesn't do much good to try and seek revenge when one is not corporeal. I needed flesh."

Mickey smiled, feigning fascination. "So who'd you mimic? Come on, you can tell me! You're gonna kill me anyway, what's the harm?"

"Never mind, question-boy," Hacker said. "Keep moving."

They kept advancing down a dark hallway, dim because of the late hour.

"I bet he's dead, whoever he is," Mickey said lightly.

"Of course he's not dead," Hacker insisted. "That would be too easy."

"Oh, tortured, then? Exiled? Trapped somewhere? Paralysed?"

With that, Hacker stopped. The look on his face told Mickey he'd touched a nerve.

"Paralysed, is he?" Mickey asked. "In some hospital somewhere, baffling the hell out of the staff? 'We can't think what's wrong with him – no signs of neurological damage, no sign of trauma…' When really, he's just been mimicked into a waking coma."

"You go too far."

"And of course, you wouldn't kill a Time Lord, he'd just regenerate and come and track your ass down," Mickey laughed. "Oh, and you know he would. And the next regeneration might not be as friendly as this one. This one would just talk you to death, but the next one might actually have some bit to him. Oh, mate, I don't envy you. Mind you, I've taken the man on myself. Someday you should try competing with him for a woman. Talk about a lost cause…"

"Shut up!"

"What do you care? He's going to be a vegetable soon anyway," Mickey said. "Unable to move, unable to fly, unable to electronically voodoo you into a black hole. You'll be all safe and sound, with your clone, manifested in some random human body, all fortified with the mimicked (stolen!) knowledge of a Time Lord."

Whomever Hacker's mimic-ee had been, Mickey thought, had not been much of a poker face. His expression betrayed surprise and anger, and Mickey knew he was right. A bit of revenge, and as a bonus, a bosom buddy who could wield time and space. That's what he was after.

"In there," Hacker said, shaking with anger, gesturing with the gun. Mickey looked inside – it was a sound-proofed room. The words no one will hear you scream popped into his head, inexplicably. He'd watched way too many horror flicks as a kid.

"And if I say no?"

With that, Hacker raised the revolver and in one swift motion, the butt of the gun came in contact with Mickey's head.


"Good evening, Rose," Hacker lilted, standing to greet the lady.

"Yeah, can we just get this over with?" she asked, dropping a large leather shoulder bag on the floor with a loud thud.

"Absolutely," he said.

"I just want to warn you: if you're screwing with me, we'll find you."

"Point taken," he said with a mocking tone, holding his hands up in a defensive, unarmed gesture.

"I mean it, Hacker," she said. "I'll get to the other side, I'll find him, and we'll track you down and see to it that you never see the light of day again."

"Again, I say, point taken." He seemed much more serious this time.

In some other part of the building, Mickey was waking. He heard the voices of Rose and Hacker. He looked up with confusion, and saw a round speaker on the ceiling. The bastard had put him here on purpose so that he could hear what would happen, but there was nothing he could do. Sound-proof… no screams to be heard.

Rose took a device from her pocket. It looked rather like an iPod shuffle, except its electronic guts were showing. "This is the personal teleportation device," she explained. She turned and unzipped the leather bag and pulled out a device that looked similar, except it had more gadgets, knobs and whirling things, was the size of a small engine, and had a scope on the front. "This is the home unit."

"Very impressive," Hacker said, seeming to convey genuine awe. Then he gestured to the organism, the clone. It looked like a cloud floating in a jar. "This is the mimic."

"That is the mimic? A bunch of steam?"

"Steam with a consciousness and a growing intelligence," he corrected.

Rose nodded absently and began firing up the teleportation device. In his padded cell, Mickey began pounding on the door, screaming, "No! Rose, don't do it!"

"Put the organism in the line of fire," Rose instructed. "It will be ready to transport in thirty seconds."

Hacker began counting down, and he touched some buttons on the console. The screen beeped loudly. Rose interrupted the countdown to ask, "What's that? What does the beeping mean?"

"I've deployed the organism, it's homed in. But there are no Time Lords in this universe, so it's telling me there's an error. Not to worry, love, when it gets to the other side we'll see results."

She pursed her lips to show that she was still sceptical, but she told herself once again that she couldn't get what she wanted without Clint Hacker, so... wagons roll.

He continued the countdown, and when he reached zero, he said, "Now!"

Rose turned a dial, and a beam of pink light came out of the laser scope, shined on the floaty thing in the jar, and it disappeared in a blip, as though someone had turned off the television.

Mickey heard the sound of the device, and pounded harder, begging to be let out.

Hacker took up a remote device from the console he'd been using, and joined hands with Rose. She used the personal transporter, and the two of them suddenly appeared in an empty room, identical to the one they'd been standing in before.

"Hmm," she commented, shrugging. "I guess Clint Hacker ain't such a big man on this side."

Hacker was angered by this, but he ignored her. Anger now would only distract him. He looked closely at the display on the small device in his hand. "The mimic has found its target," he said.

Rose's heart skipped a beat. So close!

"Time period?" she asked.

"A hundred years on, give or take," he said. "It's gone to a planet called Midnight. A carbon terrain space truck... out in the back of beyond, it looks like..."

"Right," she said, turning on her heel, walking quickly. "Thanks." She burst through the doors that led out of the building, and he watched her go.

He had coordinates, now all he needed to do was hijack a vortex manipulator. He knew that Torchwood existed in this universe, but it had gone underground, and he had heard rumours that its director in Cardiff carried one with him... he needed to get to a time period where he could sit and wait for his Time Lord-stamped partner to find him.


Outside the door, Rose pulled out her mobile as she hurried down the corridor.

"UNIT headquarters," a voice said.

"This is Rose Tyler," she said. "I need Captain Magambo."

"This is who?"

"You heard me. Rose Tyler."

There was a pause. "One moment."

After a beat, "Captain Magambo here," the woman's voice said. "Is this really Rose Tyler?"

"Yes. I've found him. I'll need a time-jumping comm, can you do that?"

"Yes we can. Where are you?"

"Never mind. I'll meet you outside in half an hour."