ECHOES
Sarah Jane Smith prided herself on being a decisive individual. Her finely honed instincts told her what was true, and what was false. An unparalleled moral compass led her on an irrevocable path of righteousness – and on the rare occasion that these intrinsic gifts did not reveal an absolute course of action? Well, that was why she kept an alien supercomputer in her attic.
But certain deliberations (most commonly of a social ilk) continued to escape the clutches of her unfaltering logic.
"Please, SJ, call me." The answer machine bleeped loudly as the message concluded.
Sarah Jane swallowed, sniffing deeply as long buried feelings of betrayal threatened to rear their unwelcome head.
"Sorry, Josh." She whispered. "But I simply can't trust you anymore."
She pushed a large, red button. "Message erased." The automated voice declared.
That was that. Decision made. With a bit of luck, he would never call again.
"Mistress." A new voice echoed through the suddenly hollow hallway – equally automated, but comforting, somehow.
"K-9?"
"Moisture is forming in your eyes, Mistress. Translation; you are, leaking."
Sarah Jane dabbed at her eyes with a sleeve, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"I'm fine, K-9."
The robotic dog stared. It didn't have eyes, but somehow, it gave the distinct impression it was staring. Its crimson tinted optical sensors flashed once.
"Really, K-9, I'm fine!"
A newspaper dropped through the letterbox; she jumped at the sound.
"Oh, this is ridiculous! A ghost from my past, someone I thought was dead, tries to contact me, and suddenly, I'm a bag of nerves."
The robot dog from the future did not respond, and for a long moment, the house was silent.
Number 13 Bannerman Road had been Sarah Jane's home for almost a year, although the precarious towers of cardboard boxes which lined, literally, every room, would make one believe otherwise. The truth was that the ex investigative journalist had grown so accustomed to relocating that she hardly dared to unpack. The 'blast from the past' telephone call had done little to reassure her.
The unnervingly human voice of Sarah Jane's supercomputer broke the silence, drifting admirably from the attic and down two flights of stairs.
"Sarah Jane?"
Impatient as it was, the newest resident to Number 13 usually had something worthwhile to say.
"Yes, Mr. Smith?" Sarah Jane flung open the attic door, a tad breathless and feeling ever so slightly guilty at leaving her faithful, metal dog marooned on the ground floor.
"Sarah Jane. My scanners have detected unusual energy readings coming from the Delta Quadrant."
"Mr. Smith." Sarah Jane sighed. "We have talked about this, remember? Earth does not have a 'Delta Quadrant' any more than Bannerman Road is in the Mirage Nebula. We are in Ealing, please triangulate appropriate maps."
Mr. Smith did so, a map of London appearing on his large, extremely bright screen. The supercomputer was magnificent, but unfortunately it was having trouble adjusting to Earth's comparatively small manner of cartography. Internet inaccuracy and re runs of Star Trek were doing little to rectify this inadequacy.
The screen settled, and Sarah Jane stepped closer, withdrawing burgundy rimmed spectacles from her waistcoat pocket and placed them on her nose.
"Wait a minute. That's near here!"
The alien supercomputer took a moment to reply, during which time a sigh was implied.
"Indeed, Sarah Jane. Approximate time of travel, ten of your Earth minutes, via automobile."
Sarah Jane wasn't listening, the investigative cogs in her conspiratorial mind already churning.
"When did these readings start?"
"I first detected an energy spike about an hour ago; the readings have since dimmed and are maintaining constant, yet distinguishable levels."
"Right." Sarah Jane, guiltily grateful for a distraction from the morning's most unwelcome telephone call, snatched her jacket and handbag from their position – thrust atop a faded chaise lounge. "Time for a little... investigation."
The attic door slammed shut as the journalist darted through it, taking the stairs two at a time.
Sometimes, Mr. Smith mused, he thought that he should never understand the intricacies of human nature. He only hoped that this 'Sarah Jane Smith' was a typical archetype for his study.
The pastel green Nissan Figaro came hurriedly to a stop, jettisoning pieces of gravel into a vivacious shrubbery.
"Okay, K-9. Here we are." Sarah Jane spread her arms wide in a ta-da motion.
The robot dog watched, unimpressed, from the car's passenger seat.
Mr. Smith's readings had lead the slightly odd duo to a wooded area, a small stretch of leafy trees which marked the edges of a long ago 'modernized' park. This small, secluded green strip, was the perfect place to remain away from prying eyes – after all, who would think to look for advanced alien technology in a public park tree line? Unless, of course, one has an alien computer in one's attic to monitor such occurrences.
Midday sun shone high in a cloudless sky, squibs of golden light filtered sporadically through the dense leafage. Sarah Jane pulled her jacket tighter about herself as she climbed out of the car; it was Autumn and, despite the sunlight, it was cold.
Putting thoughts of temperature discomfort from her mind, she glanced about the trees for any sign of unwarranted company. There was none, and, satisfied with the privacy, Sarah Jane flicked the face of her wristwatch upwards, the concealed, miniature screen flashing with ridiculously small digits.
"You know, K-9, as thoughtful as it was for the Doctor to five me this," she wafted the watch as it gathered information, "he did rather fail to take into consideration my... less than Gallifreyan eyesight."
The wristwatch was taking rather a while and, as the minutes drew on, K-9 began to detect signs of his mistress' characteristic impatience. A small receiver sprouted from the centre of his optical sensors.
"Receiving, Mistress."
Sarah Jane spun in momentary surprise.
"Receiving telemetry from your initial scans. Detecting."
The robot dog paused for a moment, then:
"Take five steps, Eastward, Mistress, and look, downward."
Sarah Jane complied, bemused.
"K-9." She huffed. "There's nothing there."
"Downward, Mistress."
The journalist was about to point out that she was, in fact, looking downward, when her wristwatch began 'bleeping' excitedly. She angled it downward, unable to decipher the copious amounts of information now racing across her miniature screen, before it disappeared, replaced with something new. As the 'bleeping' intensified, Sarah Jane sank to a crouch, positioning her wrist as close to the ground as possible.
The screen flashed once, and ceased.
"Oh, you did not just!"
Despite the journalist's protestations, the alien scanner/ wristwatch had overloaded, unable to handle whatever readings it was picking up. Sarah Jane glanced anxiously at K-9; the faithful, robot dog was, admittedly, considerably more robust than her watch but that didn't mean she was willing to take the risk. She had, after all, only just had her loyal companion returned to her. Nevertheless, something powerful was lurking underground and, with undeniable certainty, Sarah Jane knew she could not leave this mystery unsolved. It was a weekday; children were at school and the park was all be deserted. An elderly couple walked their dogs on the far side of the park, but posed no real thread.
"K-9. Stay in the car, but see if you can angle your blaster toward the ground."
An endearing, metallic creak echoed in the trees as a small cylinder protruded from the robot dog's nose, peeking through the car's open window.
"Now, dial it down. We only want to dislodge some of the dirt." Sarah Jane uncapped a lipstick (or what appeared, to the untrained eye, to be a lipstick), hardly daring to breathe. "Fire."
"Affirmative, Mistress."
A weak beam of red light shot from K-9's nose, causing the offending portion of ground to erupt in a cacophony of dirt and gravel.
"Okay. Enough, K-9." The assaulted ceased. "Good dog."
"Gratitude noted, Mistress."
Sarah Jane smiled at the dog's haphazard manner of speech. His tinny voice had been missing from her life for so long she scarcely let herself believe he was back. Her lips tightly sealed, the journalist waded through the cloud of dust, cautiously peering into the newly formed pothole.
"What is that?"
It appeared Sarah Jane's computerised companion was unfamiliar with the rhetoric.
"Optical sensors unable to receive telemetry, Mistress."
What gazed upward from the hole was... odd. A metallic cylinder, perhaps 30cm in length, and reminiscent of a time capsule, was nestled in the dirt. It had a single, transparent window, which winked in the intense sun, baiting Sarah Jane Smith to take a closer look. She did so, lifting it from the ground.
Fire blazed within the capsule. Angry, even vicious emerald flames licked the miniscule window; vengeful and warning, as though Sarah Jane might try to encroach upon their territory. Without realising it, she had raised the enigmatic canister to her eye, peering intrusively into the 'window' with barely 10cm between her optical nerve and the enclosed flames.
Mesmerised as she was by the otherworldly majestic of the impossibly coloured fire, it took the journalist a few moments to process that an eye was gazing back at her. A single, beady green eye winked menacingly. Sarah Jane jumped, suddenly holding the thing at arm's length. The eye disintegrated, returning to its former fireplace style flickering.
In an instant, the flames knitted themselves together once again, the small portion of the fire one could see from the 'window' was, quite suddenly, a mouth. Green lips, green teeth and a tongue of shimmering flames protruding from between in a juvenile display of mockery.
A sudden burst of shrill beeping tore Sarah Jane from her cogitation. She spun, eyes falling upon her faithful robotic dog, whose optical sensors were flashing with deep red light.
"K-9?"
"Systems uncomfortable, Mistress. Cannot explain."
Something was very wrong, and it didn't take Sarah Jane's full investigative capacity to decide it was connected to the fire capsule still nestled in her grip. The fiery mouth had, too, dissipated, but that did not expunge the deeply disturbing image from Sarah Jane's memory.
Placing it carefully back in its hole, she flicked the face of her watch upwards once more. It began to scan the capsule, but within seconds the miniature screen had begun to flicker. The watch was alien, and light years ahead if anything one might find on Earth – it did not 'flicker.'
Sarah Jane felt her blood run cold as virtual, emerald flames licked their way across the flickering screen. Staring at her wrist in disbelief, the journalist gasped as the flames fused, forming, once again, a horridly inhuman mouth, laughing with certifiable malevolence.