CHAPTER ONE

As the wheezing sound of the TARDIS slowly dissipated into nothing, Clara Oswald ran along the freshly cut green grass with a huge smile on her face. Her long black leather coat fluttered in the wind as her boots kissed the ground. Tugging onto the door handle of the apartment building, she opened the door and was met with a small black cat urinating on the staircase. Frowning, she ran up them, almost dancing and she inserted the key into the keyhole of her apartment door and turned it, opening the barrier.

Expecting to see nothing but an empty room, she was shocked when she saw Bucky lounged out on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn by his side and a baseball cap covering part of his hair. It was longer than normal. He picked his head up when he saw her and the television was turned off.

'I thought you were looking for work,' she sighed, disappointed by his conspicuous apathy.

'I gave up,' Bucky insisted, literally having to drag himself off the sofa. 'I asked down at the accountant agency, they don't have anything going. I asked at the job centre and they didn't have any vacancies. Even the corner shop doesn't have anything going and they employ someone once a week. Anyway, what are you so chirpy about?'

'I just went and met Jane Austen,' she wriggled with excitement whilst plucking the green teabags from the cupboard. 'I tried to make her mention me in Mansfield Park although I don't think she did.'

Bucky heard his mobile phone ring from the bedroom and as he rolled his eyes, he let out a shrill cry and Clara turned around worryingly, almost knocking the mug off the kitchen side.

'I just stubbed my toe,' he yelled.

'Oh go and answer the phone.'

In went the teabag and water and then she stuck a spoon into the mug and began stirring the concoction. I wonder if Jane will remember me, she thought and that was when Bucky came rushing into the kitchen, almost slipping on the laminated floor.

'UNIT were on the phone.'

'Oh why?' she gritted her teeth. 'I was just about to make tea.'

'Oh Clara,' he grinned and took a flask out of the cupboard. 'There's still time.'

As Kate Stewart typed words into her keyboard, she turned around and saw Bucky and Clara enter through the main door. Bucky had changed his loungewear and was now dressed in a plain blue t-shirt and black trousers. Clara held a flask in her hand and glared at Kate who had a look of deep concern.

'Is that tea?' she asked them.

'Why, yes it is,' Clara smiled, placing the white flask on the drawing board table. 'So what is the problem? Bucky said there's something happening involving an escaped Hydra warrior.'

'If only it were that simple,' laughed Kate, but it was not a jovial laugh, it was a laugh full of false enjoyment and nerves. 'Alexander Gorenbourg.'

Taking the projector board monitor from her jacket pocket, she turned the screen on and the image of a middle-aged man came on. He was bald with glasses and a misshapen nose.

'What about him?' Bucky folded his arms and Clara narrowed her eyes at the picture.

'Well Gorenbourg is a HYDRA/White Cobra agent responsible for a number of SHIELD agents' death. About three years ago, a bomb went off inside his hive and HYDRA and White Cobra repaired his mind by inserting cyborg technology into it. This is him now.'

A new image came up of the man but with half of his face silver and metallic. A sinister bloodshot artificial eye filled the space where his original eye was. Part of his lip was missing and replaced with titanium. Even some of the fellow soldiers assisting winced.

'If he's a HYDRA agent why are UNIT dealing with them? Surely it's SHIELD's job?' Clara became confused.

'SHIELD had him contained… for about three hours and then he escaped. UNIT had him contained after that but that was for five hours before he escaped. But who's counting?'

'So what do we do?' asked Bucky.

'Find him,' Kate stepped away from the table and took another look at the picture of the man. 'He had an inbuilt tracker in his skull but he took it out somewhere on the motorway near Croydon. However, we still have two others in his head that he doesn't know anything about. Right now, he's walking around an industrial plant about thirty minutes away. I need one of you to go to the plant and find him and I need one of you to stay here and try to find out a way to bring him down. He had a self-destruct button implanted and we need to try and work out a way to switch it off.'

'You think he'd blow himself up?'

'To kill others? Yes. This man's a psychopath. In 2010, he killed a man and sent his spine to his wife in the post.'

'I'll stay here,' insisted Clara. 'It's not often I get to do the science stuff.'

'Wilson, Hank and Smith, you boys go with James to the industrial plant.'

'Oh, everyone just calls me Bucky.'

'Don't worry. We had the plant evacuated.'

The UNIT soldiers began their journey out the front door and Clara beckoned Bucky back over.

'Take this,' she handed him a long black leather suit. 'It's an industrial plant. You'll stick out like a sore thumb. And be careful.'

She leaned in and pecked him on the cheek and he smudged the lipstick off so she pulled a face.

'You too. Don't blow up the base.'

He smiled and left her side, exiting the building.

'Clara, right?'

She turned around and saw two men. One of them was white with a faint beard and in his late 30s'. The other was a mixed race man with brown eyes.

'Yes.'

'I'm Agent Christwell and this is Doctor Jasper Morrison,' said the white man and shook her hand. 'We're going to be helping you on disabling the self-destruct button. We're both explosion specialists.'

'Well let's get started,' she rubbed her hands together.