Part One
Prologue
Splash!
The girl was pulled into the murky green water by a strange force so strong it couldn't have originated on earth. She could barely fight it, her blue sundress pulling her down into the deep as she thrashed, desperately hoping to stay above the surface. Whatever was pulling her down would not give up and eventually, her small and pale hand went limp as her life was washed away from her like debris on the beach front. The small girl drifted peacefully to the bed at the bottom of the town pond, the corpse landing among the heaps of rotten and long forgotten bones.
Chapter One
I walked past it everyday for 14 years.
It was on the side of the street I took to school. On the path to the shops and the park. On the road to the normality of the human lifestyle. It was slap bang in the middle of my life and yet I barely gave it a second glance as I strolled on past, my mind busy with homework and friendships and last nights episode of Sherlock.
However, today, I stopped. And I looked.
As I passed it on the way to school, 7.30AM on a cold British Monday morning, I paused, stopping in my tracks. Something was directing my gaze, pulling me towards it. Slowly, I turned to face it; a broken, falling apart, out of use photo booth, the kind that takes passport photos. Something inside of me ached for my hand to reach out and pull back the thin, dusty curtain that separated the inside from the out. An ordinary and rusted booth that no longer worked. I closed the curtain and stuck my hands in my blazer pockets, ready to carry on my journey to school. But my palms clasped around a cold, gold object. The object I always kept on my person; my watch.
I was found with it as a baby, someone left me near that very same photo booth, the watch on a chain around my neck. I had never tried to open, assuming it was simply broken. But today, once again, something urged for me to pull it open, so I did, using both hands. A sudden bright light blinded me as I stumbled backwards in a fit of confusion. Hundreds and thousands of images flashed through my mind faster than anything I had ever seen before.
Another planet.
People.
But they weren't people.
Fire
Pain
Death
My real parents.
Extermination,
A space ship and a crash landing, right here, on this very street.
And a face. A face with eyes so old, eyes so filled with pain and knowledge.
Eyes that I could never forget.
I placed the watch back in my pocket and once again turned to the photo booth.
This time, I pushed the 'Receive photos' button,
once,
twice,
three times.
Then, I pulled back the curtains and stepped in. Stepped into the beginning of a new world.
Chapter Two
Smoke filled the air around me, causing my throat to burn and my eyes to water. My first time flying the space ship that I'd come to Earth in as a baby and I had somehow managed to crash it. I'd been aiming for 1947, but something had knocked me off course.
I ran out of the door into the cool, fresh air before the smoke could poison me. The first thing I noticed was the small 'Click!' of a camera, one that takes instant pictures. Coughing and spluttering, I looked up to see a young man dressed in tweed and one of those funny flat caps they wore in Victorian times. He was holding a notebook in one hand, and pencil in the other, his camera hanging from a ribbon around his neck.
"Oh, hello," I said awkwardly, walking towards him. He backed away, his face draining of colour.
"You're an alien!" He cried, waving his notebook around. He fumbled with his camera and took out the photo he's just taken "I've got your photo! Probe me and I'll print it in the newspaper!"
"I've not come to probe you!" I said in between laughter "Do I look like an alien to you? I'm from the flippin' future mate," I decided not to tell him what the watch had shown me about my past, the fact that I was an alien. His tiny mind couldn't take it. But then again, I was struggling with that myself.
"So, in the future all photo booths are time machines?"
I cleared my throat "No no, just this one, excuse me, but whats the date?"
"January 11th, 1990," he said, scribbling something in his notebook "You're not from too far in the future are you? The British economy wont last for much longer,"
"I'm from 2016," I pushed my glasses up my nose "I'm telling the truth, I swear! Anyway, what was your name?"
"Scott, Scott Merino, but I have to ask-"
He was cut short by a loud and ear piercing scream. The boys bright blue eyes caught mine for a second before we both started running in the direction it came from. He was surprisingly fast for someone in tweed.
Together, we approached a small but deep pond, a woman kneeling at the edge.
"Audrey!" She shrieked, turning towards us "My daughter can't swim and neither can I!" Instinctively, I pulled off my blazer and glasses and dove down into the water. I didn't even think.
The water was cold. Not just cold,but absolutely freezing. It almost burnt my skin as I swam down into the murkiness of the deep. The stinging in my eyes didn't stop me from kicking forwards, towards the silhouette of the girl. As I outstretched my arms to grab her, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. A small, silver, rectangular object, laying between two rocks.
A coincidence?
Never ignore a coincidence. Unless you're busy. Which I was. But I snatched it up anyway, shoving it into my right trouser pocket as my arms reached round the child. Something had to be pulling the girl down, because she was so much heavier than she should have been. Nonetheless, I used all my strength to push her to the surface. Gasping for breath, I squeezed her stomach, water coming out of her mouth in a half cough, half vomit. Three men rushed over to help us out, but there was so much dirt in my ears and eyes that I couldn't really tell what was going on. I suddenly found myself sat in the waiting room of a hospital, wrapped in a blanket. A nurse entered the room with a bundle of clothes. She handed them to me halfheartedly.
"Here, try them on. They might be a bit big," It was obvious she didn't want to be there, so I thanked her and she left, slamming the door behind her. Sifting through the huge pile of clothes I spotted a few things I actually liked: a pair of black boots, grey combat trousers, a too big black t-shirt and a long, black sweater. I dressed quickly and as I was leaving I bumped into Scott again.
"Hello Scott, Scott Merino," I said as he put his hand out to stop me from going past.
"I need to ask you some questions, for the paper?"
I sighed "Fine, as long as you leave out the time machine,"
Chapter Three
As Scott and I walked back towards my photo booth, I remembered the object I'd taken from the lake. It was in my pocket still. I took it out and showed it to him.
"Does this look familiar to you? I found it at the bottom of the bottom of that pond," He took it from me and studied it. Then, he took a spoon out from his tweed jacket pocket.
"Looks like the stuff Hattie used make cutlery out of,"
"Do you always carry spoons with you?"
Completely seriously, he replied "Well, you never know when you might need to eat an emergency bowl of cereal,"
I cleared my throat "Anyway, who's Hattie?"
He passed the object back to me "Oh, she's the oldest citizen in the town. Back when my granddad was my age, she'd make all sorts of nick-knacks for the other towns folk: her dad was a blacksmith,"
The object HAD to be connected to the girl almost drowning "Scott, have there been any other drownings in that pond?"
"Yeah, it's strange, over the last 50 years, about 45 kids have died there. The council are going to fill it in soon- I had to write an article on it a while ago,"
Scott walked me to the home that 'Hattie' had retired to. She was 95, and quite ill.
The home was run down with only members of staff, each with a whole new level of hostility towards us. I asked if we could possibly see Hattie, and all I got in return was some funny looks.
"Hattie? Hattie Starvling? Really?"
"Yeah, really,"
She looked kind of taken aback "Is this a joke? Do you actually want to see her, like, actually?"
"Yes! Actually, we're doing an article about the town and she's been here the longest," I explained as Scott produced the spoon from his jacket.
"Yeah, We want to ask her about her emergency spoon collection,"
The woman sighed "I'm not even gonna ask, but Hattie's room is upstairs, right at the end, you'll know it when you see it,"
We thanked her and turned towards the stairs, wondering about what the woman had meant by "You'll know it when you see it," But she was right. As we neared the top of the stairs, I felt drawn to a particular room. The door was open and walking in the first thing I noticed were hundreds of those silver objects surrounding the room. The aura was strangely calm and I finally set my eyes on Hattie; possibly the oldest woman I'd ever seen, her lap swamped in poorly knitted blankets, two needs on the floor by her feet, which rested inside her grubby and faded pink slippers. Her face was plastered in lopsided and poorly applied make-up. In all honestly, she looked half dead.
"Hello, dear!" Her voice was much louder than I'd expected it to be, making me jump back in fright "Oh! Peter! You're back!" She started at Scott, who's edged nervously into the room behind me.
He gulped "I'm not Peter,"
"Dementia," I whispered quietly.
"I know,I'm 19, I'm not an imbecile," He hissed back.
"And neither am I!" We snapped our heads back to Hattie, who was now glaring at us with pure hatred "I know why you're here- You've got one of my belongings!"
My hand reached into my pocket and took out the silver bar. It seemed to shine ever so slightly more now it was closer to its own kind.
"How does it work?" I asked as I re-studied the object "It pulls them in, doesn't it? The kids," Shaking, the frail woman rose to her feet and shuffled towards us. As she stretched her arm out to grab the bar from me, she somehow tripped and collapsed onto the beige carpet. I screamed at Scott to get a nurse as I dropped to my knees beside her.
"Why Hattie?" I whisper as she clutched my hand in hers.
"My children," She croaked "Died in that lake. No-one saved them. So why... should.. people.. save.. the others," she was gasping for breath, now, her pulse quickening dramatically.
"But I don't get it. How does it work?"
Instead of answering, she pointed in the direction of her bed. Resting on her pillow was a small, blood red notebook. I picked it up and opened it.
"In memory of Jane and Jeffrey Starvling, taken from us ages 6 and 8, too early, rest in peace, love mother,"
Her children.
On the next page was a picture of one of the bars, and next to it was a description.
"When my father was 25, and struggling to get money to provide for his family, a strange man came to him, claiming to be of another world. He offered my father thousands of these bars, saying "Make something for the children, they'll be drawn to it," So my ever so dear father made cutlery, and little toys. He taught me how to make them too. And I learned that if I melted at least three of them down into one large bar, it would literally pull children towards it. And after Jane and Jeffery died in that lake, I knew what I had to do,"
I closed the book. I understood now.
"Hattie, I'm sorry, but because your children died, it doesn't mean others have to,"
Tears pricked in her eyes, her badly applied mascara running down her face. The nurse ran in, Scott closely behind her. She ushered us out of the room, warning us that she may not make it. Hattie was extremely old and ill.
15 minutes later, Hattie Starvling was dead.
"I still don't get why she did it," Scott asked as we stood idly outside of the photo booth "If her children died, why not adopt or help other or-"
"You can't ever know someones mindset after their loved ones have passed!" I snapped. Of course we'd never know why, or how she must have been feeling. Not until it happened to us. Scott stared at the booth with wide eyes "Can I go in now?"
I smiled, and pushed the button three times.
Chapter Four
Genesis Handsew was on a roll.
Three banks in three weeks, and she still hadn't been caught. She'd never been caught.
At seventeen, she was probably the youngest international super thief the 25th century had to offer. The only real reason that this was her life was because she honestly had nothing else to do after she left school. Her results had been good enough to get into any college she wanted to, even The Martian Boondox, a highly elite school on, you guessed it, Mars. But she hadn't wanted to do that. She wanted to do something exciting, something different.
Dressed in black, she stood silently on the roof of the national bank of Saturn. Pulling her mask down with one hand, she pulled the round window open with the other – It hadn't been locked. There was a long rope attached to the harness round her waist, the other side tightly secured to the roof. She slung her bag of tools over her shoulder and then slowly lowered her body down into the darkness below.
As she landed, she immediately saw around 20 ATM's. This was the central part of the building, where anyone could come in and access their account. Each machine was restocked with money each night, ready for the business of the next day.
"I'll start with these ones," She thought to herself "Then go down to the vaults," Quickly, she walked over to one of the machines, taking a small round device out of her pocket. It would scramble the computer inside each ATM and transfer all the money to a hidden, undetectable account which only she could access- easier than dragging a bag of notes around. As silent as mouse, she used the device on 5 of them, gaining money quicker than ever. Simple. However, as the placed the object of the screen of the 6th, something happened.
Instead of a transaction, hundreds of lines of code ran through her line of sight,
"What?" Gen cursed aloud, pulling the device off. It must have been broken. The code continued to spew across the screen, so curiously, she reached out with one of her fingers and tapped it.
There was nothing there.
Her hand went straight through it, as though it was a hologram.
Shocked, she tried to pull her arm out, but it was stuck, and the more she pulled, the more she was pulled in.
"Help!" She screamed. She'd just taken all that money. Think of the things she could do, and buy! Gen simply couldn't die now. There was no way she was going to be eaten my an ATM. Not at only seventeen years old.
No-one heard her as she kicked and struggled and yelped, and no-one saw her as she disappeared into another world.
Chapter Five
"Bleugh!"
Hurriedly, I shoved Scott out of the door before he threw up all over my console.
"You should have told me that you got travel sick!" I yelled at him as he was sick on the ground.
"I don't! I've just never-" He looked up "Oh,"
Surrounding us completely were hundreds of seats,like a stadium. The faces that sat in those seats stared back at us each with their own strange array of arms and eyes.
I raised my hand "Um, Hi?" A man, sat in the middle of the stadium, looked down at us from a high podium.
He growled "Who are you? And how did you get here?"
Scott wiped the sick from his mouth with the back of his hand as he stared back at the photo booth "Is that not obvious?"
"Shut up," I hissed, punching him in the arm. This was a courtroom, I could tell "I'm sorry, your honor, my friend is of Earth descent,"
The man sighed "Of course. And you?"
"I think you know," He looked down at something on the podium in front of him, then nodded.
"Guards, take them to the cells," Two men, one with three arms on each side and one with four, came over to us and escorted us out of why I presumed was an alien courtroom. They lead us down a long maze of corridors, finally ending up in front of a big, glass door. Inside there were several chairs and tables, and one other person, sat down in the middle of the room.
Scott tried to protest as they locked us inside, but I warned him not to "That room we were just in, it was a flippin' courtroom! I think they were trialing someone for breaking in. Do you want to end up in there?"
"How do you even know that?" He asked as we turned towards the other person in the room.
"I checked before we landed. I was aiming for the gardens outside, but SOMEONE was almost sick over my controls!"
He laughed nervously. The person, whom I now realised was a girl, made her way briskly over to us "You gotta get me out of here, I'm next up on trial and I didn't do anything!"
"Is she human?" Scott asked as he took a step back from her.
"What else am I gonna be? I'm not one of them am I?" She yelled before I could answer "Look, Right, let me restart- Hi I'm Genesis – Gen – Handsew. I'm 17, from earth, 2445,"
"2445?" The tweed boy laughed "I'm from 1990! Tell me, who's the prime minister?"
Gen gave him a puzzled look "The world leader is Dmitri Warmonger, if that's what you mean. Well, he rules every country except Scotland. Because, well, they're Scotland,"
I smiled as I looked her up and down. What was she dressed all in black for? "How did you get here, Gen? Humans don't make contact with this planet for another four hundred years,"
"Long story. Basically, I was in a bank and got sucked in by a cash machine, and when I got here they arrested me because I was somewhere I shouldn't have been. But that's not my fault!"
"Calm down, we'll get you out it's alright," I said as I raised my hands. Scott didn't look convinced.
"Why were you in a bank in the first place. And why are you dressed in black, and whats in your bag?" He exhaled heavily "Sorry, I'm a journalist, it's my job to ask questions,"
Gen sighed "I might as well be honest- I was robbing it, or at least planning too,"
"Which bank?" I asked as he looked down at her feet.
"NBO Saturn,"
I turned away from her "Well then you deserve to be locked up! The people of Saturn are in the middle of a massive money crisis – especially in 2445! Why would you take their money?"
Scott quickly took his notepad from his pocket and scribbled something down "Surely the money belongs to the peoples who have accounts at that bank? Like they just take out the money they have? Like on earth?"
Shaking my head, I replied "No, on Saturn each person is given a specific figure of money each week- their jobs don't pay hardly anything, so by stealing it, you are literally taking the food out of their mouths,"
Gen opened her mouth to reply, but a loud rumbling sound cut her off. The room was shaking.
"What on earth-" Scott began before correcting himself "I mean, what NOT on earth?" Suddenly, the doors swung open, revealing the judge who'd sent us here a few minutes ago, backed by three of his hooded mates. He was different from all the other creatures in the room. For two reasons: One, he was much much taller, with bright yellow arms on each side of his body. Each hand had grotesquely long fingers and appeared almost broken, bent in the middle. He didn't have legs, it was just a kind of blur of grey that led into a slimy tail, like a slug. He had the biggest mouth I'd ever seen, stretching from ear to ear. And two, he had a strange aura about him. Everything, even the chair and tables that dotted the room, seem to be fixated on him.
"And you fell for it, you pathetic child," As he laughed, I could see all the way down his throat, past his three rows of immaculate sharp teeth that could very easily swallow me whole.
"What do you mean, he fell for it?" Gen spoke up, her voice wobbling, showing her nerves.
"Go on, tell them why you came here,"
I gritted my teeth "We didn't come here for the gardens, Scott. There are no gardens. This is the highest security prison in the universe," Did I really want to tell him this? "And we came here because there were life signs of.. of another alien, of my kind," The words didn't come out right but he knew what I meant.
"You lied to me? I asked, when we first met, if you were an alien, and you said no!" Scott backed away from me.
"Scott I'm sorry I-"
"Oh cut the crap. You, the last timelord, fell for the oldest trick in the book. And now you are in my custody,"
"But he's not the last timelord, is he," Came a faintly Scottish accent. One of the hooded men that stood behind the judge stepped forward, his hood dropping to reveal the aged face that I saw when I opened the watch. Those eyes. They were something you never forgot.
The judges jaw dropped "Doctor? But how?"
The "Doctor" walked in front of him, a smile on his face "YOU fell for the actual oldest trick in the book. Falsifying life signs to a machine in one thing, but falsifying life signs to a person is another,"
Confused, I asked him who he was.
"I'm the doctor, and I am like you. A timelord. We are the only ones left and I think we should probably run," We all glanced over to the judge, who was lunging towards us, mouth open wider than should be possible. The doctor ducked round him and out of the glass doors, Gen, Scott and I behind him.
"Where are we running too?" Gen yelled over the sound of our feet hitting the tiled floor "This place is full of people like him," The doctor didn't answer, he just kept moving. I assumed he was as angry as I was at her for robbing The NBOS. Eventually, after a tiresome few minutes of running, we ended up at the dead end of a corridor, and sat in front of the wall was a 1960's police box. He ran up and pushed the door open. Gen hesitated, looking worriedly over her shoulder.
"Why are we hiding in a box? It's too small!"
I flashed a grin at her, knowing what was on the inside "Just wait and see," Hurriedly, I shoved her in just as the judge started to approach the end of the hall. Then I waited for the three words I knew she was gonna say.
"Oh. My. God,"
Chapter Six
As Scott showed Gen around the inside of The Doctors time machine, (It was essentially the same as my photo booth,) I talked to the mysterious man behind the old eyes.
"You're like me then?" I looked him up and down "What makes us 'Timelord' anyway?"
"We have two hearts," He answered "And for some reason your second one has been wielded with a perception filter so no human could tell, even if they dissected you. And you come from Gallifrey,"
Gallifrey. That must have been the planet I saw burning in the watch "What happened to it?"
"It burned. And everyone except us died,"
"Why us?"
He flinched as I questioned him "I wasn't on the planet at the time... and your parents saved you. They sent you in your TARDIS – your time machine – to earth, and you just happened to crash on September 11th, 2002,"
This was a lot to take in, even though I basically knew it all already "Do you think my dad knows?"
"Who's your dad?"
"He's called Jack,"
"Harkness?"
"Yeah, how did you-" He cut me off.
"I used to know someone by that name, but it can't be the same one, what a coincidence," He looked almost sad as he remembered my father.
I looked up at him "Never ignore a coincidence," I warned.
"Unless you're busy," He finished "Which we are- come on,"
Gen and Scott came over to join us "Busy with what?"
"Well first, we are gonna drop this young lady at the NBOS so she can apologise and give the money back, then we're gonna find out how the judge knew about you,"
Without protesting, Gen walked out of the TARDIS into the path in front of the bank. I think she knew that she'd done something wrong and didn't want to argue with someone as powerful as the doctor.
"Bye Scott," She waved "And bye- You never said what your name was?"
I gulped "It's uh, Micahel Tate but everyone calls me Lock,"
"Why?" The doctor asked, looking down at me.
I giggled "On the first day of Year 7 I took a Sherlock backpack to school, so everyone called me Sherlock, because I wouldn't speak or tell them my name, and it just got shortened over time,"
"Well, see ya around, Lock," even though she was now walking towards the front doors of the bank, I had a feeling that we were going to run into Genesis Handsew again.
"She's kinda cute for a burglar,"
I punched Scott in the arm (Again!) jokingly, but really, I was kinda hurt. Ever since I'd met Scott, Which wasn't actually that long ago, he'd been growing on me. And I found HIM really cute. He laughed and we both went back into the police box, following the doctor.
"Where to now then?"
The doctor pulled a lever that was a part of his central control panel "Let's let the TARDIS decide, shall we?"
VWORP VWOORRP VWOOORRRPP