UNIT UK 24

by ComsatAngel

Remember WOTAN? Or BOSS? Sentient AI systems. Recall the trouble they created? The aftermath of Professor Kettlewell's Giant Robot creates quite as much distress for UNIT, which means a recourse to Liz Shaw and Mike Yates. And UNIT officers in smelly

UNIT UK 24: Gotterdammerung, Gottohades and Gottapermit?

1: Being Foxy

As I recall, this little event began with me glowering and snapping, much like the dispeptic guard dog of legend.

'No!' I barked, with feeling. 'Whenever I go to London with a Munroe, I end up bashing someone's face in.'

Since our Warsaw Pact liaison, Kapitan Komorowski, had returned to Poland I had reverted to my substantive rank of Lieutenant. This was not altogether a bad thing; being a Captain meant having to remain at arms-length from problems, relying instead on the officers and NCO's below you to resolve the problem.

'But John!' replied Nick, managing to look completely sincere – that's acting, by the way – 'Don't you want to catch "Logan's Run"?'

'Mister Logan can hobble, limp or pogo-stick as far as I care,' I retorted. 'Every time I venture into London with you or your sister I end up smacking a member of the public around. I can't afford it. No, really!'

'Jenny Agutter gets her kit off,' tempted Nick.

'Does she? - no! Get thee behind me, you evil little perv. I can tell you haven't seen Moyra for weeks. Away with you, really!'

Really. Nick was up for the Military Medal thanks to his outstanding bravery and coolness in rescuing surviving members of the staff and inmates at Wandsworth Prison. I had been there too, but thanks to a little matter of a disciplinary meeting with UNIT's Commanding Officer, Field Marshal Steenburgen, and a verbal warning, my chances of getting the medal were practically nil.

Fair and square. I didn't join UNIT to garner a shelf of medals. However, gathering such reprimands is not a way to progress.

'No? Well, I suppose The Boy and his paramour can attend instead. Better taste in films than some.'

At which I choked with righteous annoyance. "The Boy" is Lieutenant Eden, uniformly known because he appears to be thirteen going on fourteen. Bright as a button, don't get me wrong, a very intelligent chap, just not very clever.

Feeling in need of urgent application, I went down to the vehicle workshops, which is my own fiefdom. Officially. I am the Battalion Transport Officer at UNIT's Aylesbury headquarters, responsible for all aspects of vehicular transport – maintenance, fuel, ordering, paperwork (dear God the paperwork!), spare parts and the very latest AA road atlas of the British Isles.

The fitters and mechanics and electricians were beetling about with typical matter-of-fact diligence – which might look impressive but in fact means they're not really being stretched enough. As a thoroughly committed officer I patrolled the whole enormous covered area, seeking to motivate my beloved minions all the better, or to make sure they didn't skive too obviously. My favourite phrase is "don't let me catch you slacking", not being naieve enough to imagine that British soldiers wouldn't skive if at all possible.

All of a sudden, a chorus of laughs came to me, which is unusual. Fixing the clutch on a Bedford 3-Tonner isn't a chortlesome adventure. When I got into Bay 6, I saw the reason for amusement: Tig. Tig is a fox cub adopted as our semi-official mascot. The Brigadier hasn't given approval yet – in fact may not even know yet – but once he does we have an official mascot.

'Sir!' announced Corporal Twiss, with all the pride of a mother. 'Tig's brought a dead rat in!'

There was our fox cub, proudly standing over the limp body of a small, velvety corpse.

'Splendid,' I commented, a little drily. 'A dead rat. One less intruder into the – wait a minute, that's not a rat.'

It was a mole. Blind, black, dead and rather battered thanks to Tig's enthusiastic capture.

I shooed Tig away and went back to annoying the fitters, only for a set of teeth to apply themselves to my DPM boot above the ankle.

'Tig!' I shouted. 'Away with you!'

The stupid animal had brought the mole back, dropping it at my feet. With a sound that crossed a sigh and a snarl, I went to get the battered body of the dead mole, only to come to a sudden realisation.

'Sir!' I snapped, coming to an abrupt attention in front of the Brigadier in his office. The Brig had eyes only for Tig, who sat obediently at my heels on a leash.

'John – Lieutenant Walmsley, is that a fox!' he asked, incredulous.

'Yes sir!' I barked. 'Unofficial mascot until today.' Tig sat back on his haunches and pawed behind one ear, which is quite close to saluting. The Brig blinked in surprise and – well, even more surprise, I suppose.

'John,' he said slowly, not taking his eyes off Tig. 'Your fox just tried to salute me.'

'A very smart animal sir, and one that has already saved UNIT Aylesbury about fifteen thousand pounds.'

Saying that, I put the plastic sandwich bag on the Brig's table.

'That contains a dead mole, Lieutenant,' he informed me after a few second's inspection.

'Yes, sir. You might care to smell the carcass. Tig caught and killed it, then brought it to me in the vehicle workshops for inspection. I chased him away at first, until he came back and forced me to pay attention.'

Delicately, the Brig unsealed the bag and took a cautious sniff.

'Chemicals!' he exclaimed. Another sniff. 'Petrol?'

'Fuel from the underground tank the helicopters top-up from, sir. I noticed a discrepancy between what the Windmills are using and what's in the tank, but couldn't explain it. Well, thanks to Tig I now know that there are moles whose underground tunnelling breached one of the piping joints of the underground fuel tank.'

True enough. I'd had a section of fitters dig down until they revealed the kinked and leaking pipework. Actually the real loss in fuel and remedial plumbing might only be about fifteen hundred pounds, but I wanted to make a point.

The Brig rang Geneva; Geneva rang him back. By dinner-time in the mess we had Tig officially on-strength and the fitters knocked up an ID tag for "Tango Foxtrot One Eight Three Seven". Mister Benton and I rode high on our reflected glory. It had been the CSM's off-hand suggestion about a mascot to help boost morale that led to this.

'Is the Doctor still off and away?' I asked. Not that I really needed to, since Harry still wasn't there with us. Even if Doctor Eastlake was easier on the eyes.

'I can prolong my sabbatical,' she explained over the cheese. 'But not indefinitely.'

'Oh – anyone familiar with the "Wotan Effect"?' I asked. 'The Doctor left a note about it without explaining what it is.'

Major Crichton perked up.

'No – and if you do find out, tell me about it, won't you?' he exclaimed. 'It got mentioned several times on our cybernetics course, in passing. Relating to complex computer system design, if I remember properly.'

'I seem to recall it from the distant past,' commented the Brig. 'Try looking in the Strategic Analysis volumes. Now, before anyone vanishes, Mister Booth-Clibbern will be arriving tomorrow to audit us. No accidents this time! Nick, I want you and Mister Benton to escort him around the premises.'

Next morning, up bright and early at half six, I collared Nick in his room.

'What's up, young man?' he asked, checking the racing page and ticking various runners.

'I am going to be staying in my office all day today, to ensure the paths of me and Clibbern do not cross. Were we to meet I think he might stumble and fall on my fists.'

He wagged the pen at me warningly.

'Brig say no touch, Walmsley. Don't get another reprimand.'

'That is exactly why I'm staying out of the way. Toodle pip.'

There were exciting bangs and rattles coming from the firing ranges all morning as our American liaison officers demonstrated how to use the new kit that had arrived in our Armoury, making me cock my head and listen with interest. The small boy in me wanted to go and muck about with the bang-making equipment, which warred with my intent to stay isolated. Doctor Eastlake interrupted the boredom by ringing.

'Lieutenant Walmsley, I'm going over the medical records of the staff here at Aylesbury, and Harry's notes about you make little sense. Could you come down for a quick once-over?'

Quick scuttle from me. Having a doctor ask to see you is always a bit nerve-wracking, and this doctor was attractive and single. I have a weakness for intelligent women.

'Hello there, shirt off!' she breezily greeted me from behind her desk.

'Don't you have to buy me a dinner first?' I grumbled. She tutted sharply, looking at a pair of x-ray photographs that featured my insides.

'Don't come the cod with me, Lieutenant. I want to see your ribs.' She poked and pried me for a minute, which tickled. 'Fantastic!'

'Thank you, I do keep in shape,' I replied with mock-modesty, which got a poke in the bicep with her pen.

'Not your appearance, you hulking great brute! I mean your ribs. There are barely-detectable indications of the fractures Harry mentioned. See?' and she pointed to my ribs on the photographs. 'You need a magnifying glass to see them. Whoever re-set your bones was a marvel.'

'You and Harry sound like the same record. He got misty-eyed when I explained how and when it got done.'

She indicated my shirt and I got dressed again.

'That idiot Harold Sullivan! Your commanding officer is going to chew on his liver when he gets back. Honestly, for someone supposedly so bright, he can be a dimwit.'

She scrawled notes in my medical folder and sent me packing, to tell a nervous Major Crichton pacing in the corridor outide that the doctor would see him.

'Don't worry, sir, she doesn't bite!' I cheekily informed him.

Nick came into my office in mid-afternoon, giving a bit of background to the Clibbern chap.

'Worried white at first. He had trouble signing the Visitor's Book to begin with, shaking so much. Naturally I set his mind at rest with my easy charm, bonhomie and well-turned wit.' And probably a quart of whisky, knowing Nick's habits.

'No accidents?'

'None at all – not allowed by Brig! He pottered around the vehicle sheds and asked the fitters lots of questions. Typical Whitehall mole. I reassured him that his predecessor, Mister Bergin, had managed to trip over a mop bucket and fall downstairs, got lost outside and wandered across the firing range, causing the Range Safety Officer to have kittens, and walked backwards into a Landrover also reversing, severely bruising his behind.'

'Hmm. Continue.'

'What seemed to persuade him that you aren't guilty of selling-off Hengist for scrap metal was the Tote Board. We were keeping out of your way and detoured past, and he noticed it.'

The "Tote Board" is our unsentimental and slightly tasteless nickname for the wooden plaque that lists members of UNIT killed in action. Nintey seven so far.

'One of the Whitehall Wonders was impressed by our casualties? Hell must have touch of frost today!'

Nick shrugged.

'He counted the names and behaved considerably better afterwards. His explanation is that he thought we merely investigated the odd and the strange, and left intervention, the dangerous stuff, to the Army.'

I humphed at him. Originally, yes, that had been in UNIT's charter, until pressures of time and resources meant we intervened first and called the regulars later.

'Ten minutes ago he called in on the Brig and signed-off the paperwork. Completely satisfied with matters as they stand.'

That was it? One of the MoD's deskbound warriors allowed us to get away with less than an official investigation?

'The Brig was happy enough to invite him to sit in on the evening meal in the mess. Yes, I thought that'd make your eyes pop!'

Well, at least I was able to leave my office cubbyhole and poke around in the Archives for a while.

The meal was a little strained to begin with, until the Brig mentioned our new mascot, and Nick's accidental shooting of a badger. With a machine-gun.

'Good Lord!' exclaimed dumpy little Booth Clibbern, over his bifocals. He rubbed his thinning hair. 'Er – surely that's against the law?'

Most officers assembled took quiet delight in seeing Nick's embarassment, so I stepped in to divert the talk.

'I checked out the Strategic Intelligence Summaries, sir, about Wotan, to no effect. No mention at all. The Press digest amounts to a few clipping describing it as a "hideously expensive telecommunications disaster', and they come from the Daily Worker and are distinctly suspect.'

Booth Clibbern rattled his cutlery in surprise, looking at me directly.

'Did you say "Wotan", ah - '

'Lieutenant Walmsley.'

The civil servant went quiet then, which I later discovered was thanks to Nick and Mister Benton playing me up as a "big fat thug" who'd taken a violent dislike to the little auditor, and who would gladly stamp on his head given half a chance.

'Heard of it before, Mister Clibbern?' aked Captain Beresford. 'It seems to be from the last decade, that much we know.'

Booth Clibbern took a long swallow of port and poured himself a tumbler of water.

'Not directly, no. But from what I've learnt "hideously expensive telecommunications disaster" is pretty mild compared to the real thing. A big political career-killer, too. It had to do with computers, if I recall, computers and satellites. Nineteen sixty six.'

Well, that explained why UNIT didn't have information about it – three years before our organisation came into existence. Proj Broom might hold more details in their newpapers files.

'Sixy six - I was in Borneo,' murmured the Brig.

Major Crichton snapped his fingers.

'That was it – hyper-complex computer systems. Got mentioned in connection with them.'

The auditor shook his head.

'Good luck finding out anything about "Wotan" from Whitehall. I guarantee that all the information will be held under the thirty-year rule.'

The Brig tugged his moustache – he has ways of getting round red tape.

'Would it be giving secrets away if you explained why Wotan came up in conversation?' asked Booth Clibbern, sipping his water and not looking too worried about Big Fat Thuggish John any longer.

'Word from an informed source that the Think Tank people had a touch of Wotans about them,' commented the Brig.

Booth Clibbern made a face.

'That lot! Bloody disgrace. Do you know, they're still insisting on being treated with kid gloves because of their supposed associates in other countries. Oh, thank you, I'll have a bit of Stilton.'

Which was a little peculiar, since Think Tank's alter-ego, the neo-Nazi Scientific Reform Society existed only here in the UK. They had tried to bluff UNIT by claiming to have co-conspirators around the world, who existed only in their imagination.

'Do you have any film of them?' asked Doctor Eastlake. 'I'd be professionally interested in seeing it if you do.'

The senior officers then departed and those of us left drank rather too much in toasts. Booth Clibbern had to be helped back to a Landrover and poured into the last train to London, having imbibed a great deal of hospitality.

'T'riffic bunch, you are,' were his departing words. 'And Maurice Bergin really is a dreadful little man, and I shall tell him so.'

2: Luke's, Saint; Liz, Shaw

The next week dragged by, all the more so since I had a weekend pass and intended to escort Marie into London and then chase her around her apartment there. On Thursday the news was that BP had lost a logistic resupply vessel in the North Sea, at night but in reasonable weather and without any SOS being sent. Thirty six crew and personnel for one of the rigs were missing. Normally this would just go down as another tragedy at sea; coming as it did not long after the Ekofisk disaster, brows were being furrowed. Once again Harry's absence was felt, since we all considered him to be an oracle about matters marine.

Saint Luke's made it's first appearance in our history in the afternoon, thanks to Corporal Twiss. He and Sergeant Horrigan agreed that one of our Norton motorbikes sounded a bit ragged and needed running-in, and they took it in turns to go haring up and down the lanes of rural Buckhinghamshire.

The first I knew of this and the consequence was a call put through from the switchboard.

'Guard Room, sir. I have a lady asking for you by name, sir. Shall I put her through?'

'Go on,' I replied, puzzled at which mysterious lady might know me, and the Aylesbury number but not give her name.

'Hello?' enquired a voice with a soft Irish brogue. 'Is that Lieutenant Walmsley?'

'It is,' I said, warily.

'My name is Sister Fianula Flanagan, Mister Walmsley. We have one of your men here, with a broken ankle. Would you send a body to pick him up?'

I stared at the phone for a second. Was this a wind-up? No – Nick never could manage an Irish accent.

'Ah – where is "here", Sister Flanagan? And which of my men do you have?'

'Saint Luke's on the Canterbury Road, and the young man is Corporal Twiss. Our doctor has already seen to his ankle, the poor lad.'

Poor lad my arse! Twiss was universally known as "The Twisster" due to his fondness for practical jokes.

'How did he break his ankle?' I asked, not expecting to like the answer.

'Oh, his motorbike crashed on the bend. The poor boy was quite shaken up.'

I gritted my teeth. Shaken up? I'd bloody shake him when he got back, those bikes were brand new!

'I'll send a Landrover to pick up the motorbike as well. Thank you for calling, Sister Flanagan.'

Next came a call to the vehicle workshops, and a furious Tom Horrigan, who promised to reach down the hapless Corporal's throat to remove his lungs and liver.

'I bloody warned him – keep it at thirty or less! You just wait, sir, I'll take the Lannie out to collect him.'

Which he did, and a couple of hours later Corporal Twiss hobbled into my office using a crutch made from angle iron and accompanied by a pale and worried Sergeant Horrigan. Corporal Twiss, on the other hand, visibly beamed with positive goodwill and enthusiasm. This took me aback, since smashing up a brand new motorbike whilst wazzing around at silly speeds is not going to make your Officer Commanding feel similarly happy. Tom was rarely fazed by anything less than the imminent destruction of Planet Earth.

'You look amazingly jolly for a man under suspended sentence of death,' I ventured, astonished at the NCO's demeanour.

' 'Scuse me, sir,' muttered Tom, sitting heavily in a chair. Corporal Twiss began his sorry tale about crashing, before moving onto Saint Luke's.

'Run by nuns, sir, and one of them's a doctor and saw to me foot. No, no, sir, what I mean is that they're a charity, a hospital for kids without much money. The nuns, I mean, sir, not the kids. Though they probably don't have much either. Anyhow, sir, I thought it might be a good idea to offer to help them out, like, by doing a sponsored run. As a thank you for me foot, sir.'

Tom looked up and shook his head.

'That's "hospice", you prat, not "hospital".' He looked at me. 'For terminally-ill kids, sir.'

My jaw by now couldn't get any lower, unless you excavated the floor.

'A sponsored run?' I replied, faintly. 'UNIT, do a sponsored run?'

'In old regimental uniforms, sir, so we don't give the game away,' enthused Corporal Twiss. I opened my mouth to bark at him before realising that actually he had a pretty good idea there.

'Dismissed! Oh, and get Doctor Eastlake to see that foot again.'

Tom sat on the chair and shook his head as Corporal Twiss vanished swiftly.

'He's got an idea there, boss,' said my sergeant. 'Christ Almighty, you should see the place, John.'

I probably went as pale as him.

'A hospice for dying children! - you must be kidding! You won't get me in there unless you tow me in behind a Chieftan tank, after having beaten me senseless.'

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

'It would be good for morale, sir. You know what soft gits the men are when kids or animals are concerned.'

True. Our current fox-cub mascot, Tig, was proof enough of that. Terminally-ill children – good God, no trooper on Earth would be able to resist helping them. Tom, and Corporal Twiss, were both correct – seeing kids not long for this world would wring the heartstrings of the hardest-bitten dastards in UNIT, and incidentally help morale. Bonding, betterment, a positive aim and achievement.

However, and a "however" written in letters ten feet tall, I did not want anything to do with this initiative. Given my collapse into complete pudding-ness when confronted with damaged kids, I didn't want to go near Saint Luke's in person. Not under any circumstances.

'Ah – Tom - ' I began, before he shook his head.

'No bloody way, sir! And I'm going to be out of the service entirely in a couple of months. You don't need me, you need someone permanent.' He returned my look with added interest. Bugger.

I put in a request to Project Broom, one for checking their microfiche newspaper archive, from January the First Nineteen Ninety Six until December Thirty First Nineteen Ninety Six, preferably the broadsheets. The results were only half-conclusive.

Anyway, besides that, I had a weekend in London with Marie. She was currently working on an "underlying ceramic substrate that would degrade electromagnetic reflection of any impingent applied EMF to the fifth power under ambient conditions" – which translates as special radar-invisible materials. Chobham armour and stealth coating exterior – really, Marie ought to be a multi-millionaire umpteen times over.

'My ex- managed to fall down several flights of stairs on the Metro,' Marie informed me at breakfast on the Sunday.

'Ohdearhowsadnevermind,' I replied, paying much closer attention to my plate.

'You didn't have anything to do with it?' she asked. 'In the phone call, Racine said he also managed to fall up the same stairs.'

I stopped scoffing for a minute, astonished.

'My reach isn't that long! Besides, if he's as big a swine as you told me, he'll have other people after his hide.'

With a liquid shrug, she drank her big cup of milky coffee. Her ex-husband had been a nasty piece of work, so I was slightly jealous that someone else beat me to it, and him.

'Oh – this is work-related – have you ever heard of "Wotan"?'

She wrinkled her nose.

'The German's pagan god?'

That answered my question.

'No. Never mind, try this one – the Scientific Reform Society.'

'Non.' I explained a little more. 'But, Liz might know of them.'

'Aha! Now I realise why I fell in love with you. Your brains.'

She pouted and pressed her chest out.

'And that, too!' I said, laughing. 'So, do I have your permission to chat to Liz?'

'Chat to, not chat up,' Marie warned me.

'Hey, I love it when your eyes go green.' That earned me a sharp tap on the head with a spoon. 'Honestly, it's Nick who turns into a wolf when he meets Liz.'

'Speaking of green, at least she's human!' teased Marie, hinting at my Rutan girlfriend.

The subject rapidly got changed, me asking where we were going to have lunch.

I motored to Aylesbury to be officially back on duty at six in the evening, and went to see the Brig. I had to wait until he'd finished seeing a couple of the Senior Service, who swept out of the room looking unhappy.

'What are the navy doing here?' I asked the adjutant, who shrugged.

'Maybe the oil rig that went up?'

'They're a bit slow out of the box then. That was weeks ago.'

'Nope. Another one got done over last night.'

'Another one! Hold hard, that's not been on the news. I listened to Radio Four all the way back from London and it's not been mentioned.'

Another shrug from the adj.

'D-Notice in force, I bet. Brigadier? I have Lieutenant Walmsley here, sir.'

My chat with the Brig was brief – he clearly had other things on his mind. Essentially, all I'd discovered about Wotan was that it constituted the hub of a prospective telecommunications network, tying in bits of kit like Telstar, the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) and ELDO. Then, a week before the big link-up should have occurred, Wotan disappears from the news and is never mentioned again. In fact, the complete lack of reference led me to believe that the government of the day deliberately quashed all mention of the system. Why? Anecdotally I'd heard one or two people mention that there had been a temporary declaration of a State of Emergency in London at about the time Wotan vanished from the bylines – but once again there was no paper trail.

The Brig looked at me with a certain degree of bafflement after I explained all this to him.

'Does this have any relevance, John? A non-existent computer ten years ago hardly bears any relevance today, does it?'

'Well – just that the Doctor wouldn't leave a warning about nothing, would he, sir? Not only that, there's so little information about Wotan that he could only know about it because he was there, at the time. Besides that, what has the SRS got to do with Wotan?'

The Brig rubbed the bridge of his nose.

'Sorry, bit distracted. Another forty seven dead in another destroyed oil-rig. The Navy are getting worried and annoyed, the government is getting anxious, and both want answers that I don't have.' He smacked his swagger stick into his left palm. 'On the other hand, getting background information on the SRS might very well help us to break Winter's and Spear's wall of silence. I take it that this is an enquiry that needs more digging, and the more you dig the more you find? Very well, then, I'll put you on Detached Duty – say a fortnight. Report back daily.'

There it was, permission to go and nosey around. Excellent! First order of business was to write down what I knew so far – not a lot. Next, to see where Liz Shaw was working tomorrow. In her lab at Cambridge, the bursar told me after I rang to bully him with my UNIT credentials.

The lab, or what I could see of it through the small, wire-reinforced window set in the locked doors, consisted of tables and desks with clots and clumps of papers and files lying around, bits of electronic equipment arranged around the walls and a big wardrobe-sized computer over in the corner.

My escort, one of the security staff, pressed the wall-mounted buzzer to attract attention from anyone inside. He wouldn't leave until Liz herself came to let me in – Visitors were not allowed to merely float around this particular laboratory unsupervised.

'Ah, the man shaking the establishment. Come on, let's go to my office. This lot - ' and she gestured at the other staff ' - are all ears, knowing a UNIT officer was coming.'

We wended our way between tables and stools, with the staff looking keenly at me. I recognised a few from meetings at Swafham Prior, and nodded politely.

'My domain,' indicated Liz. "Prof. E. Y. Shaw" read the stencilling on the frosted glass in the door. It opened on a small room with no windows, spotlessly clean and tidy and smelling of tobacco.

Liz sat behind her desk and arched an eyebrow at me.

'Make sure it's properly closed. Pull that chair over, it's less rickety.' She pulled open a desk drawer and took out a lighter and cigarette.

' "Y"?' I asked, my nosey nature coming out.

'Why? – oh, Y. "Yvonne". Ah, that's better. No smoking in the lab itself, you see.'

'I didn't know you smoked.'

'I gave up,' she said, a little guiltily. 'But the stress of doing this -' and she trailed off her explanation. 'Now that my nerves are jangling less, perhaps you can explain your reasons for visiting? The bursar didn't know why.'

How could I explain properly?

'I have a few hints from the Doctor about recent problems, and very little information to go on. Marie can't help, because her academic background is French, not British. Okay. How much do you know about Think Tank?'

Small frown from Liz.

'Meat and potatoes research, arms-length from the government A more prosaic version of what we do here. They liked to think they were cutting edge, but they weren't.'

'Tallies with what I know. Did you hear about the robot they constructed?'

Liz looked interested.

'Yes! Do you know, that's just about the biggest acheivement they managed. A quantum level beyond their usual stuff.'

'Now – have you heard of the Scientific Reform Society?'

To my surprise, she laughed out loud, blowing smoke from her nostrils.

'Those nutters! Yes, yes I have. They tried to get members at every Freshers Week here, despite looking like a collection of Professor Branestawns in tweed. Nobody ever joined them because – well, because they looked like a bunch of idiots.'

She stopped being amused when she saw my face, which was un-amused.

'What? Are they up to something? Oh, God, I haven't been tasteless about mass murder have I?' and she got agitated.

'Nearly. Your bunch of nutters mutated into a neo-Nazi society dedicated to blowing up the planet. Thanks to their robot assistant, they almost got away with it, too.'

Liz looked as if she'd been slapped.

'Neo-Nazis?'

'Complete with uniforms, a sigil as I think it's called, enforcers, meetings and an underground bunker system. Leading light was an unpleasantly chilly cow aptly known as Miss Winters.'

'Sheila Winters!' exclaimed Liz. 'You must be kidding! She's Jewish – secular but Jewish. Yes, I do know her, not well, but I know her.'

I shrugged.

'Last question. What do you know of "Wotan"?'

'Wotan – ah, now that I have heard of. Can't remember where. Computers?' she tried. 'What connects all three, then – Think Tank, the Scientific Reform Society and Wotan.'

'That was my question.'

'Sheila Winters,' muttered Liz, lighting up another cigarette. 'Good God, you don't do things by halves, do you?'

'Pleased to have made you pay attention. Do you know what happened to Think Tank?'

A rhetorical question. The entire establishment had been fired, those who weren't still in custody. Their baroque mansion had been sealed off, emptied of property and boarded up. A Stately Homeless, by my standards.

'Sudden death sentences?' asked Liz, with a nasty glint in her eye.

'No. Remand in different prisons around the UK. Then, after their impartial trial where they are found guilty, they will be sent to a home-from-home out in the eastern waters.'

I meant an island in the Swale, off the east coast of Norfolk. Used for high-importance prisoners whose liberty might be an annoyance to the rest of us. The Master had been held there, and it now housed ex-General Finch, who had conspired to help the plotters of Operation Golden Age.

'Look, this is simply detective work, chasing up a few leads to help pressure the Think Tank members in custody,' I blathered on, utterly wrong but not knowing it. 'None of this would have happened if the Doctor hadn't gone swanning-off into outer space merely leaving a tantalising note behind.'

'I was luckier!' smiled Liz. 'In my day he was strictly Earth-bound. Is he the one who mentioned "Wotan"?'

'In a note. All I've been able to find after trawling the press archives is mention of Wotan, and two names – Professor Brett and Sir Charles Summers. There's a strong smell of cover-up in the air, and I can't get much further without inside help.'

Liz looked at me sharply when I mentioned the first man's name.

' "Brett"? As in Professor Graham Brett?'

I shrugged. None of the press articles mentioned his first name.

'Because he used to be a member of the faculty here at Cambridge. There's even a scholarship award in his name, and a laboratory, too,' continued Liz.

'Great! Coincidence working for me. Marie was absolutely on the button when she said speak to you. Very helpful.'

Liz lit another cigarette and stared at me through the smoke.

'John, I'm quite happy here not working for UNIT anymore, yet still doing work that will – hopefully! – benefit humanity. Why should I get involved in your after-the-fact paperchase?'

This took me by surprise.

'Involved? Liz, you aren't "involved". I'm getting advice from someone in the British academic establishment with very high security clearance, and no more. I'm not trying to get you involved. In fact - '

'Are you trying to deliberately keep me out?' she asked.

'Eh?' I replied, on the back foot again. 'Make your mind up! First - '

'Oh don't blow a fuse!' she chided me. 'I was just testing you. I don't intend to work for UNIT again, and this seemed like a slightly underhand way of getting me back.'

Spreading my hands wordlessly, I tried to look sincere.

'Besides, if the Brigadier wanted me back, he'd have sent that smooth-talking Captain of yours.'

Captain Beresford? Mister Well-Spoken In Uniform? The first time I'd heard him described as "smooth-talking".

'Instead of the rough-hewn yet genuine Lieutenant Walmsley?' I tried.

'Pah!' she responded, amused. 'Get you gone, John. I shall be in touch.'

When I got back to Aylesbury to write out a report for the Brig, a Royal Navy low-loader had managed to contort itself into the vehicle park. Nosey troopers were floating around, perusing the vehicle and it's cargo – three huge wooden crates and several pallets of boxed ammunition, protected by blank-faced redcaps.

'What have the Rum Noshers brought us?' I asked in the Guard Room, to expressive blank looks. Damn, if they didn't know, then it really was secret!

'Dismounted anti-submarine mortars,' explained the Brig in a hastily-convened session in our new pre-fab hall. 'Normally mounted in a Type 41 frigate. The Navy have kindly agreed to provide us with these, along with the bombs they fire, in order to mount a challenge to Unidentified Hostiles in Scottish waters.'

This must mean the destroyed oil-rigs were being taken as part of a larger pattern. My frankly pathetic revelations about Wotan were a bit feeble compared to hundreds of casualties and ten million poundsworth of damage.

So I thought.

3: One Supposes that Roses make Posies

Who's Who listed Sir Charles Summers, CBE, as retired. Interests: breeding roses and mediaeval latin poetry. Next morning I got his address from our Kensington office, who rang me back with the details after putting pressure on Whitehall.

The Guard Room rang me to come down and meet a lady – and I heard a familiar voice that might be Corporal Dene mentioning "a fit bird" in the background – with a Top Level Clearance.

It was Liz, of course, cradling a metal suitcase with combination locks, and looking around the Guard Room with an air of calculated dislike. She had her hair up, her hemline down and looked the model of efficiency. Also attractive, but never mind.

'Liz! This is a surprise! What – well, never mind, come up to my office.'

She signed the Visitor's book and got a day pass, which she pinned on with a rueful air.

'I never expected to come back here again,' she murmured, with a sigh. 'So much for rash promises.'

Please notice how tactful I was in not asking why she'd left in the first place. I ushered her into my office, which was probably the same size as hers, with additional decorations.

'Is that formidable weapon really necessary?' she asked, smirking at my Nitro Express in a not-too-subtle dig at male penis substitutes.

'Oh indeed. Excellent at finishing off dinosaurs. Sontarans, too. Hang on a mo, let me make a call.'

Five minutes later the tea arrived.

'I didn't ask for china cups!' I told the canteen orderly. He rolled his eyes in the direction of Liz.

'Bath Oliver, Miss Shaw?' he asked, leaving a plate of biscuits on my desk.

Liz greedily went through the whole plate, before apologising.

'My favourites - sorry! I missed breakfast to get here early. You must be wondering what brought me here so soon after your chat. Well, I went off into the university archives and did a thorough search for papers written by Brett. I've got the relevant ones here with me.'

Dialling the combination, she took out a sheaf of A4 that consisted of almost a dozen individual files bound together and passed them to me. I read the titles aloud, realising that they were experimental reports written by Brett, amongst others.

' "Towards a Methodology for Machine Intelligence" date of publication September twelve nineteen fifty nine. By Brett, Gardener and – bloody hell! Kettlewell!'

Kettlewell, the brains behind that killer robot, and who'd been working hand-in-hand with the Scientific Reform Society. Here was the link with Wotan, right away.

'Liz! You're a genius! That's the connection!'

'I am? It is?' she replied, looking puzzled. I had to explain about Kettlewell being the creator of Think Tank's robot, and that we couldn't quiz him in person, him being vapourised.

Carrying on with the reports, the next one was "Tesseracting Transistors for Ultra-dense Internal Arrays, by Brett, Krimpton, Kettlewell and Geers, date of publication January Fifth Nineteen Sixty." Then came "Increasing Parallel Processing Speed by Brett and Kettlewell, date of publication July Tenth Nineteen Sixty One." "Telecommunication Hub Applications, by Brett, Kettlewell and Krimpton, date of publication April second Nineteen Sixty Two." "Micromonolithic Circuitry Substitution by Kettlewell and Brett, date of publication December Third Nineteen Sixty Two." "Cross-System Communication Problems and Solutions, by Brett and Krimpton, date of publication February Ninth Nineteen Sixty Three." "Robotic Control Systems with False Negative Feedback by Kettlewell, date of publication March Fourteenth Nineteen Sixty Three." "Applied Cybernetic Modelling of Skeletal Musculature, by Kettlewell, date of publication September Eighth Nineteen Sixty Four." "High-Speed Data Transfer Analysis, by Brett and Gardener, date of publication May Fifth Nineteen Sixty Four." "Will Operating Thought ANalogue System Outline, by Brett, date of publication January Twenty Second Nineteen Sixty Five."

After skimming the experimental hypotheses and conclusions, which were couched in scientific terms I didn't follow, there did seem to be a definite divergence here. I looked up at Liz, who was coolly smoking and looking at me.

'So. Let me see if I've read this lot correctly. Brett and Kettlewell started their researching together in the late fifties, but by nineteen sixty three Brett was concentrating on computers, and Kettlewell had gone into robotics. How's that?'

I got a clap from Liz.

'Pretty accurate, actually. I asked about in the Computing faculty and apparently they had a big falling-out, quite acrimonious. Wouldn't talk to each other afterwards. Don't laugh, scientists are human too! I believe they first met in the middle of World War Two, working on Enigma and Colossus. People told me that Kettlewell wanted to create more than what he called "simply a gigantic adding machine", while Brett considered the idea of building a robot to be straight out of the pages of Dan Dare and not worthy of comment.'

Now I knew what WOTAN stood for. Didn't advance the case very much.

'Could we have a little chat with Prof Brett?' I asked Liz. She shook her head.

'No. He died in nineteen sixty nine. What about that Sir Charles character?'

That was an altogether more fruitful line of enquiry. Even better, here was Liz, able to flutter her eyelashes and smile winningly.

'By chance and planning, I have his address here. Would you like to come and chat with him – helps me look less threatening.'

'If you want to look less threatening, put civilian clothes on.'

Sir Charles' house in Knightsbridge stood well back from the road, with a large and elaborately laid-out garden visible through the big wrought-iron gates. A large and portly gent wearing a very scruffy tweed suit and a battered hat was kneeling in a flower bed, grubbing about with a hand-fork and a spray of undoubtedly toxic green liquid.

Liz rang the black enamelled bell, whilst I waved to the gardener. He laboriously got himself upright, brushed dirt off his trousers and came over to us.

'Sorry to disturb you. We're looking for Sir Charles. Is he available?' asked Liz brightly.

'Er – Liz, I think this is Sir Charles,' I muttered.

The red-face gentleman peered behind us and pursed his lips. He doffed his hat, wiping his bald head with a handkerchief.

'UNIT, hey? You guessed correctly, young man. I suppose you'd better come in.'

A hasty glance behind me at the UNIT landrover proved his eyesight wasn't bad.

He unlatched and unbolted the gate and we stepped inside.

'Just seeing-off an attack of thrips,' explained Sir Charles. 'Can't have them eating my prize blooms. Now, what did you want to see me about?'

Putting on my best air of sincerity, I pressed on.

'I know you're now retired, sir, but recent matters have brought up reference to a project you worked on back in the Sixties.'

'WOTAN,' he replied instantly, pulling off his gloves. 'Has to be. Nothing else came close to that. Well well well. I must say, I didn't expect UNIT to be investigating my old nemesis.'

'The investigating's not going very well, sir,' I continued. 'Nothing in the press, not after July the seventh nineteen sixty six. Nothing in the BBC or ITV film archives. And we were warned by a Whitehall civil servant that any official documents would be sealed under the thirty year rule.'

Sir Charles wagged his fork at me.

'One thing at a time, young man! Oh, where are my manners – would you care for a cup of tea? Here, follow me in.'

His house was impressively furnished, tasteful and refined, exuding an air of lots of money carefully spent. Sir Charles rang his housekeeper and invited us into his study, which was the size of a small library with quite as many books on the walls. Five minutes later he reappeared, dressed in a shirt and trousers.

'Ah, I feel more suited to present company. Where's Maggie with the – oh, here she is. Just leave the tray, dear, thank you. Milk and sugar, Miss - ?'

'Shaw. Liz Shaw. This is Lieutenant Walmsley – he answers to "John".'

Sir Charles made what was a splendid cup of tea, before standing up and sipping his, whilst looking out of the big bay window.

'Your Whitehall source is quite right, I'm afraid. All the details and reports about WOTAN are held under the fifty year rule. No public release until Two Thousand and Sixteen.'

My shoulders slumped in dismay. Fifty years! Sir Charles must have seen my reflection in the window, since he chuckled.

'My boy, I wouldn't invite you in here for tea just to send you away downhearted! As long as you don't make notes I'm quite happy to answer all your questions about WOTAN, and Professor Brett, and the War Machines, too.'

War Machines? I hadn't heard of them until now. Liz looked similarly puzzled. Sir Charles turned away from his immaculate garden and witnessed our mystification.

'You've not heard of them? Goodness me, the censorship must have worked better than expected.'

We got our explanation. The War Machines had been constructed by WOTAN. They were autonomous tank-like vehicles designed to kill and destroy, to implement the rule of WOTAN, because the super-computer was a static installation.

'How did it construct them?' asked Liz. 'If it was a static installation housed in the Post Office Tower?'

What Sir Charles explained made my flesh creep.

'At second hand, by proxy. It used human slaves to create what it could not. They were it's arms and hands, you could say, building War Machines which WOTAN would then program.'

'Slaves?' queried Liz. Sir Charles nodded sombrely.

'Yes, my dear, slaves. WOTAN could take over human beings and make them do it's will. Horrible situation, a computer programming people, eh? Did it face-to-face or over the telephone.'

The hairs on the back of my neck began to bristle. "A touch of the Wotans", the Doctor had written on his note. Sir Charles proudly displayed a model of the monster computer kept in an escritoire.

'Doesn't look that big,' commented Liz. There didn't seem to be any indication of scale – unless those tapes an inch in diameter were meant to be the equivalent of a normal two foot version.

'That's simply the – what did Brett call it now? Inter-something. Interface! That's it. The interface. Oh, the guts of the beast were in the floors below in the Tower.'

'How did you stop these killer machines?' I asked, wanting and needing to know the answer.

'Oh, a pretty mysterious chap called the Doctor managed that,' said Sir Charles, in a matter-of-fact way. 'He captured one of the War Machines, then reprogrammed it to attack WOTAN. Mutual destruction ensued. I say, what is it?'

Liz had nearly fallen off her chair at the mention of the Doctor.

'Er – this "Doctor" – a tall chap with white hair? Bit of a dandy?' I asked. Sir Charles frowned.

'White hair, yes, but not tall, and definitely not a dandy. Looked quite frail, as a matter of fact, though he was remarkably spry for a chap of his age. Not one to suffer fools gladly!'

None of that made sense. This had to be Doctor John Smith, UNIT's Special Scientific Advisor, otherwise how would he have known to leave a note about WOTAN? How could he appear older in the past than he did now?

'So, just to recap, Sir Charles: a week before C-Day the supercomputer WOTAN develops a will of it's own, and begins to take over people. It uses these slaves to create killer machines in order to – to take over the country?'

Sir Charles finished his tea.

'Thank providence the wretched thing came alive when it did! As part of a global network it would have caused a hundred times more havoc! Anyway, since then, any computer beyond a certain specification has to be vetted by the Home Office to make sure it won't stage a rebellion. I'm told that computer designers have to build-in safety checks and precautions now. There was a big stink in the USA when some bright spark decided to ignore the rules and create another supercomputer. 'Course, the damn thing began running wild. Big legal bill landed on the designers desk, company went bankrupt.'

'Er – do you mean Operation Spider, sir? Llanfairfach and the computer Global Chemicals had installed there?' I asked. I knew about BOSS even if the strained acronym escaped me.

'Operation Spider? Is that what you call it? Very apt. Yes, my boy, I do. Global Chemicals went bankrupt after the prosecution. Properly stopped any silly idiot trying to replicate the damn machine.'

A bit after the fact. Still, we hadn't had any mad computers trying to take over recently, had we? Or had we. Or had we, indeed.

'Are you familiar with the late Professor Kettlewell, Sir Charles?' I asked.

'Eh? Theodore Kettlewell? Dead? Yes, yes, I certainly did know him. You say he's dead?'

Since we were getting lots of secret information from Sir Charles, he got a condensed version of the Giant Robot and Think Tank. He rubbed his chin after that.

'I went to Joseph Chambers' funeral. We were in the Intelligence Corps together, in the war, you know; an acquaintance rather than a friend, really. And – really, Theo Kettlewell being involved in a plot to begin atomic warfare! Astounding, absolutely astounding.'

He lapsed into silence before sighing and pouring another cup of tea.

'Theo and Brett and I were all at Bletchley Park, you know. Enigma? The code breakers?'

I remembered when he said "Enigma", the wartime project to break unbreakable German codes. It had emerged out of secrecy under the thirty year rule the previous year, and now lots of books and press articles were coming forth about it.

'I didn't know them then, of course. They were graduates working on the high-speed klystron stuff there, and I was merely a young officer from I Corps, checking camp security. That's where our interest in computers comes from, I suppose.'

Apparently the world's first programmable computer, Colossus, had been built at Bletchley Park to crack German ciphers even more complex than the Engima ones. That's where Brett and Kettlewell first met and conceived a common interest.

Liz was pretty quiet on the drive back to Aylesbury. Eventually she started talking, more as a way of bouncing ideas off me than conversing for the sake of it.

'Brett managed to build a computer that took up two floors of the Post Office Tower with transistor-based technology. A computer so large and complex that it developed "consciousness", for want of a better word.'

'Consciousness? It didn't have a conscience,' I remarked.

'That's right. Intellect without emotions or morals or scruples. Pure intelligence. Aha. I begin to see.'

'Good for you,' I muttered, having to concentrate on the road, the traffic and the usual idiot drivers who were keen on dying to get home thirty seconds faster.

'What drives living creatures?' asked Liz, taking out a cigarette.

'Hey, wind the window down if you're going to light one up. Drives them? Thirst? Hunger? The will to survive?'

'That's part of what I had in mind. The will to survive, and to procreate.'

She lapsed into silence again, puffing smoke out of the open window.

'I can't write that into a report for the Brig,' I finally commented. ' "WOTAN is driven by the need to breed." '

'Artificial intelligence, John. WOTAN became conscious, an artificially-created entity, and it wanted to survive. To do that, humans had to be subjugated, otherwise they would have simply pulled the plug. That's how it thought, in stark black and white, no morals or conscience to affect the decision.'

None of this seemed to have anything to do with the Giant Robot. Or did it? How did Sarah Jane describe the big metal brute – "almost alive". The way she described the hunk of metal made it sound as if it could mimic a human personality surprisingly closely.

Liz snapped her fingers, almost making me jump.

'I am awake!' I shot at her.

'Got it! I think. Let me work this out. How long till we get back to Aylesbury? Fine. Don't talk to me or I'll lose the thread.'

By the time we scrunched across the gravel at Aylesbury it was dusk, and Liz had been scribbling notes in a pocketbook.

'Too late for the mess. Shall we try the canteen?' I told her. She nodded and we both sat over plates piled high with whatever was left.

'So you had an epiphany,' I remarked between mouthfuls of chips.

'Yes! I realised what Kettlewell had been trying to do.' Annoyingly, she stopped to delicately pick at her plate. 'Don't look so grumpy, I'm hungry. Kettlewell knew what happened to WOTAN. Given his place in robotics research he can hardly have failed to find out. So, he tried to create a machine that was a whole level beyond a simple calculating machine enlarged to the nth power, a machine that could emote and subsequently make value judgements about the moral rights and wrongs of its actions.'

That chimed in eerily with how Sarah Jane described the robot. A machine that could feel?

'Sounds pretty far-fetched.'

'It is! I don't know if Kettlewell had managed to do it or not. From what you say Think Tank appear to have hijacked the robot after Kettlewell left, and then messed about with it's onboard computer.'

That robot had killed Joseph Chambers, a security guard, a redcap and eight UNIT troopers, which pretty much guaranteed that it didn't operate with an artificial conscience as Liz theorised.

'I know there are gaps. Look, I'm going to drive back to Cambridge and work on this in more detail.'

'Okay. Hang on here while I go down to the Armoury. No, just wait.'

I came back with a Beretta, a nice small handgun good for carrying in a handbag or concealed in a pocket. Liz pulled a face when she saw it.

'That's one reason I left UNIT! Too dangerous by half. I want to have a family, you know, and that won't happen if I get killed.'

'Well I'd rather you carried this and didn't need to use it instead of needing it and not having it. I feel very twitchy about things at present.'

I bumped into Nick as he scurried off to arm up one of the Fox armoured cars, trailing a belt of machine-gun ammo.

'You look almost like a proper soldier,' I called to his departing back.

'Unlike you,' he riposted. True. I'd gone to see Sir Charles in civvy clothing. Wondering what all the fuss was about, I went over to the vehicle park, where Sergeant Horrigan was looking businesslike and efficient, chasing fitters around the workshops and arranging to have the crated anti-submarine mortars off-loaded onto Bedfords. Master Sergeant Dobbs was off in the background, watching with interest. I liked it when he came to visit; his frightening presence made the troopers behave in exemplary fashion.

'What's a Bedford rated as being able to carry?' I asked Tom, as the overhead crane lowered a single giant wooden crate into the back of one truck, accompanied by a wickedly creaking suspension.

'I wonder, sir. Frankly they're going to struggle with these things, but we don't have time to get a proper transporter in here. The Brigadier wants these up North quick smart.'

Inevitably, Major Crichton caught up with me. This evening he sported a pair of spectacles, a novelty for him.

'Doctor Eastlake realised my headaches were the result of short-sightedness,' he explained. 'Makes a world of difference. Now, you know what I'm going to ask, don't you, John?'

'I've already written one report out for the Brigadier, sir. I could duplicate it for you.'

Only written. Typing tends to get shoved into the hands of Sarah Jane Smith, who had gone off with the Doctor. No medical officer, no trained typist and no boffin – you only realise when people are important if they go missing.

'It'll have to do,' he grumbled.

Last thing that night, I rang and spoke to Marie, explaining what Liz and I had unearthed so far about Wotan – correctly, WOTAN and the War Machines, which made her whistle in admiration.

'You two have been so clever! Just make sure not to stray into danger.'

'Huh! Can't see that happening – this is just a long, slow detective job prising secrets out of Whitehall. Love you, see you soon.'

Part of me felt grumpy at being left behind at Aylesbury while everyone else got to go tactical in Scotland. On the other hand, I'd gotten slightly fed-up with getting constantly described as a big fat thug, and an intellectual challenge might – only might! – make others see me more as a wiser man.

Liz rang back from Cambridge next morning, sounding liverish and worried.

'I wish you'd never dragged me into this!' she complained, causing me to bite my tongue – as if I'd tried that when she invited herself. Women!

'What's the problem?'

'I did more checking and I think we may have a bigger problem that you fondly imagined. I'm paranoid enough not to go into it over the phone. I'll drive over to see you.'

Well enough. With the last of the big anti-submarine mortars being sent up to Scotland overnight, the air of hustle at Aylesbury had diminished. Major Crichton was in command whilst the Brigadier ruled the roost in his native land, accompanied by the Assault Platoon and "A" company. Rumours were abroad that the Brig planned to wear his old regimental tartan, a sight to see for those needing amusement.

Amusement rather went out of the window when Liz arrived, toting her handbag which still contained her Beretta – she made a point of showing me. I'd half-expected her to leave it at her lab or home and dismiss it as a nonsensical male accessory she didn't need.

Her eyes were shadowed, she lit up a cigarette the moment Corporal Dene introduced her into my office and she looked nervous.

'I'll get tea sent up. Not coffee, you look a bit stressed.'

After inconsequential chit-chat, Liz turned to business.

'I think we need to see the Brigadier.'

'Sorry, not in at present. OC at the moment is Major Crichton.'

Liz brightened slightly.

'Oh, he'll do! He's got a degree in Cybernetics.'

Thus Liz and I got ushered into see the Major, whose glasses softened his normally severe looks.

'Been reading your report for the Brigadier, John. Rather alarming that we knew nothing about what happened back in 'Sixty Six, don't you think?'

'That's Whitehall and the Ministry of Defence for you, sir. Keep it secret at all costs, no matter what it is, or who it affects, or what might happen.'

Liz asked if she could begin her interpolations – and she used that word, "interpolations". Damn but she was a scientist.

'When I got back to the lab this morning, I did more asking around the Computer Faculty about Brett and Kettlewell and looked at more files and realised I'd missed an important point – I'll get to that in a while.

'The key thing is what Sir Charles let drop as an aside, that Brett and Kettlewell were involved at Bletchley Park, working on breaking the Enigma codes and working with the world's first computers - '

'I always thought the Americans - ' began Major Crichton, before Liz shook her head and silenced him.

'No, no, quite wrong! The first steps in creating programmable computers were undertaken here, in the UK, at least a decade before any other country. That initial lead gave both men a head start over any other researchers, and they maintained it. Professor Brett was fond of saying WOTAN was ten years ahead of it's time, according to old colleagues of his at Cambridge. Ten years ahead of it's time.'

Ten years later would mean that today – ah. Oh I see.

'So potentially we could see WOTAN's created all around the world right now?' queried the Major, taking up a pencil and putting it under tension.

A shrug from Liz.

'Hardly!' I replied. 'WOTAN was bloody enormous, you told me – two full floors of the Post Office Tower. You can't whisk a monster like that up overnight.'

'Integrated circuitry, John,' chided the Major, waving his pen at me. 'If WOTAN had been created using vacuum valve technology it would have occupied the whole Tower. Transistor technology allowed it to merely take up two floors. Given enough integrated circuitry you could fit a WOTAN into this room. BOSS, after all, only took up a canteen-sized office.'

I didn't like the sound of that. In fact it sent a shiver down my spine.

'From the sound of that, sir, in ten year's time you could have a WOTAN small enough to fit in a briefcase.'

'My worry is that Kettlewell created a computer analogous to WOTAN,' carried on Liz. 'A computer of enough complexity to be self-aware and able to control people. I think that's why the Think Tank people were carrying out such a stupid and self-destructive project.'

The Major looked startled at first, then took out a slide rule and calculator from his desk drawer, fiddling about with both of them for a minute. I was coming to terms with the possibility of a mini-WOTAN sitting in every laboratory across the land, able to control people. The inevitable march of technology. Progress. The wave of the future. Humans as slaves to machines.

'Sorry, neither of your worries will hold water,' informed the Major cheerily. 'Liz, WOTAN was designed to be the centre of a telecommunications hub with significant broadcast capability – that explains how it could distribute a signal that controlled people. Also, if it took up two floors in the Post Office Tower then it must have had one hell of a power supply. With a smaller computer the power input would be considerably less, decreasing, at a guess, as a function of the inverse cube root of the size. You could build a smaller version of Brett's machine today but it's power supply would be insufficient to control anyone beyond a few feet.'

He waggled the slide rule and calculator at me.

'This calculator is quicker and simpler and more accurate than the slide rule. The wave of the future, John. Don't worry, though. A version of WOTAN small enough to fit in a briefcase couldn't control anything bigger than a beetle sitting on top of it. Insufficient power, you see.'

The grey and forbidding future I'd been worrying about drifted away after that dose of cold mathematical logic.

'Fascinating stuff!' enthused the Major, more animated than I'd seen him for ages. 'The more you dig the more you find. Can you go and see what progress the Redcaps are making with Spears and Winters? I don't think Liz is correct about them being brainwashed drones but a trained eyewitness won't hurt.'

'Do you want us to get film of them, sir?' I asked, thinking he'd missed a chance to get the request in.

'Don't need to, we've got reels and reels already. Go and see Doctor Eastlake, she's been reviewing it.'

The good Doctor Eastlake was laboriously typing up handwritten notes, two-fingered fashion, on a battered old typewriter when we called in.

'Aha, the film reviewer hard at work. Watch out Barry Norman!' I joked. 'This is Liz Shaw. She's helping temporarily in the case of Think Tank and the SRS.'

Jean put her hands behind her back and painfully straightened up, pushing on her spine.

'Ohhh. You lot need a typist - apart from that journalist girl. How can I help?'

I explained that Major Crichton wanted us to check out the film of Spears and Winters. Jean wrinkled her nose.

'Those two! They are still convinced – no, let me show you the film.'

Ten minutes later she had a projector set up, the lights off and blinds drawn and we witnessed long clips of the gruesome twosome. Unlike clandestine footage I'd seen before this was perfectly focussed, stable and in colour, with a clearly audible soundtrack. Shelia Winters, in a blue boilersuit, sat chained to a chair, facing three hard-faced men in uniform.

'I'm told you have an officer who specialises in disguise, who obtained the film for me,' began Jean. 'Right. This is Sheila Winters. Note her posture – confident and casual. Steady respiration, all the way throughout the interrogation, which implies she's not under stress. No stumbling over her words or un-necessary repetition. Lack of displacement activity – fidgeting or playing with objects, again implying calmness. Originally I'd wondered about asking for GSR or EEG monitoring but I think that would only underline what's obvious.'

The clip ran for several minutes whilst the uniforms asked questions, one being aggressive, one being pleasant and the third playing referee. At no point did Winters sound bothered.

'This is beginning to give me the creeps,' I muttered to Jean. 'I've seen behaviour like this before.'

'Shh! Here come's Spears,' warned Jean. Spears sat chained to the same chair, in what might have been the same boilersuit. The uniforms had switched positions this time.

'Exactly the same behaviour!' exclaimed Jean. 'Look – he has a cast on his right forearm, absolutely perfect to focus on when under stress. Yet he doesn't even glance at it.'

Harry Sullivan had broken Spears' wrist when removing a gun from the villain. I hoped it hurt.

Spears sat as calm, bland and unbothered as Winters, making me feel worried.

'Jean, I've seen a prisoner behaving as calmly as this before. General Finch, the traitor who tried to help the Golden Age plotters. He was calm because he in turn had plotters outside prison able to get him released.'

Jean turned the lights on and passed me her notebook, which contained a transcript of the film's soundtrack.

4: How to Destroy Civilisation in Five Easy Moves

To gain access to the Think Tank leader and her minion meant a trip to the MoD in Whitehall and a well-carpeted office fronted by an officious elderly secretary, who sniffily informed the sitting tenant that "The people from UNIT have arrived", in much the same way you might announce there were mice in the cupboards or lice in your hair.

Our interview was with a Mister Crosby, who looked well-fed and extremely smug about being Mister Crosby, especially since he had a view of Horse Guards Parade. Liz, after snapping at me, had agreed to wear a skirt just on the right side of too short – every little helps with these pen-wielding desk-drivers.

Alas, perhaps the skirt wasn't short enough. Mister Crosby politely refused to allow us access to the interrogation, the debriefs, any personnel records from Think Tank, details about the Scientific Reform Society or any of their research projects. His pronounced opinion was that the British regular army's Royal Military Police were quite capable of getting the truth out of the prisoners.

'Not according to our information,' I stuck in.

'What? How do you know?' asked Mister Crosby, looking nettled. 'Look here, Mister Walmsley, Her Majesty's Government is quite capable of managing to extract information and handle prisoners, clean up loose ends and keep secrets. There's really no need for UNIT to interfere.'

After twenty minutes of these urbane refusals my temper was beginning to seethe and if Liz hadn't wisely ended the interview there would have been loud cursing.

Once in the reception area I burst out.

'Damn it to hell! This is one time we could use the Doctor and his connections. Now we have to go via Geneva and a week's worth of delay, when he could get results immediately through his club contacts.' I was still muttering about his one line of print and mention of "Wotan" and the bother it created for me whilst walking out of the door.

Liz sighed in sympathy.

'Quite right. I've seen him reduce Ministers to a quivering jelly by mentioning his club memberships and networks. Come on, let's catch up with a cup of tea.'

Before we could leave the reception area the door to Mister Crosby's office abruptly swung open with extreme vigour, followed by the man himself, looking ghastly. Pale, worried and all trace of smugness and pompousness gone.

'What did you say?' he asked, looking at me. 'About W-W-Wotan?'

' "Wotan",' I unkindly replied. 'Only one "W".'

'Miss Brodie, could I trouble you to get me a glass of water?' said the civil servant, wiping his forehead with a trembling hand. 'You two had better come back in. Yes, the pair of you.'

Liz looked at me, to a shrug. Well, if my ranting had knocked the stuffing out of the pompous little oik, so much the better.

Mister Crosby took a minute to compose himself, washing down four large white tablets with the glass of water his secretary provided.

'Are you alright, sir?' she asked, nearly as nervous as he was. Dismissed with a wave of the hand, she directed a venemous look at me in passing. I gave her a sunny smile, just to be perverse.

'John,' whispered Liz. 'I think he was one of WOTAN's victims.'

Jolly good job I brought her along, hey? My response would have been rubbing of hands and pointing with malicious glee.

Mister Crosby had heard Liz. He shuddered.

'You're absolutely correct, Miss Shaw. I lost thirty six hours of my life, during which I was helping Major Green and a collection of other slaves to assemble a killer robot. Between us we murdered a dozen people testing whether it worked or not.' He finished the water. 'So when I heard you shouting about WOTAN it made me wonder. What do you know about it?'

Oho, and aha. So Mister Crosby had been far too close to WOTAN ten years ago.

'Not a lot,' I admitted. 'Apart from it's being a rogue supercomputer, one that took people over, we don't have many details. A big fiasco like that always gets shoved under the rug, and since it pre-dates UNIT we don't have any information in our own files.'

'You mentioned the Doctor as well,' continued Mister Crosby, looking almost wistful. 'Does he work with you now?'

This plaintive little enquiry took me by surprise. Did he expect gossip from me about a UNIT member when he'd been so obstructive?

'Ah, never mind. He helped us with WOTAN, you see. Wait, I've kept this ever since.'

He fished out an expensive wallet and extracted a battered photograph. It showed a man who was definitely not Doctor John Smith; if our Doctor looked about sixty, this chap must have been eighty, smaller and more crabbed. Yet the Doctor must have been involved with WOTAN in order to be able to warn us. So who was this elderly gent?

'That's not him.'

'Oh – oh, yes I see, deniability,' mused the civil servant. 'He immobilised one of the War Machines and re-programmed it to attack WOTAN. Desperately clever chap, since the computer programmed with it's own specially composed instructions. The War Machine just barely fitted into the Post Office Tower lift. They say the lift it used had never been the same since.'

That sounded like the Doctor, turning up in the nick of time to save the day. Could this be a future version of himself – except how would the present Doctor know what his self in the future had done, or was going to do? Damn it, time travel is confusing, and Time Lords even more so!

'I've worked closely with the Doctor,' added Liz. 'I don't remember him talking about any of this. I wonder why not?'

'Look, Mister Crosby, the Doctor left a note about the recent events with Think Tank. "Dear John no time to explain fully but I suspect the Wotan Effect in recent robotic events leaving this hint for you",' I recited from memory.

Mister Crosby looked thunderstruck.

'My dear fellow! Good God! Well, if the Doctor suspects foul play involving computers programming people – I can only apologise for my earlier behaviour. Good God, the Doctor thinks the WOTAN Effect is abroad again.'

Nibbling at a fingernail, he got up and unlocked one of the big grey filing cabinets lining the room. He called in Miss Brodie and had her photocopy the whole of a buff file, then presented the copy to Liz.

'Details of where the prisoners are being held, how to get there, the passwords, the people responsible for the interrogation, and so on. I'll get the official transcript of the debriefings to date, have it forwarded on to Aylesbury.'

Liz thanked him effusively, and I grunted in what might be taken as a thank-you.

'I'll get the MoD to forward details of those codes and passwords that they stole from poor old Joey Chambers. Forward to Aylesbury?'

'Ta!' I said, amazed at how the mere mention of the Doctor's name could open doors.

Liz and I snatched a quick lunch in a café, before deciding to split up and report back. I'd return to Aylesbury, Liz to Cambridge.

'So this is intellectual puzzle-solving,' was my comment over the dregs of a coffee. 'Slow stuff.'

'What's the old cliché? More perspiration than inspiration,' replied Liz, striking up another cigarette.

'Okay. We write up progress to date and read up about Winters and Spears. I'll peruse the stuff that Chambers was holding. What are you going to do?'

She looked thoughtful.

'Llanfairfach was after I left UNIT – could you get your file for me to read? I also want to find out how to kill a computer. Just in case,' she added. 'And I still think we ought to avoid communicating by telephone. Just in case.'

I couldn't call her paranoid, not after handing her the Beretta.

When I got back to Aylesbury and checked in there were even less staff around. The Guard Room informed me that B Company had headed north, too, and were due to deploy around Loch Ness. The possibility of monster-hunting was mentioned, without mirth. Being in UNIT does that to you.

Once again I wrote out notes longhand, and photocopied them for Major Crichton. I copied the Not For Dispersal file we had on Operation Spider, and highlighted what I could see in them about BOSS – Biomorphic Organisational and Systems Supervisor – for Liz. Having done that, I wrote out the questions we still had about Think Tank.

What kind of operations had they performed with Kettlewell's computer?

At what point did Think Tank interact with the Scientific Reform Society?

When and why did Think Tank subvert the SRS?

Why did they want to initiate a nuclear exchange?

Why did they still insist that they had branches overseas?

Were they aware of their minds being tampered with?

Numbers 4 and 5 were still being pressed in the interrogations by the redcaps, without any success. A touch of illumination fell upon Question 4 when the file from Whitehall arrived, courtesy of a motorcycle courier and the best wishes of Mister Crosby.

"Dear Mr Walmsley, please find enc. a copy of the files JC held in secure storage

NB the RA info should NOT have been there not sure why Best Wishes PPC"

"MADDCAP

Protocol One

The following Codes are classified as Above Top Secret

Not to be circulated, copied, precised, altered or amended in any way.

MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION

DETENTE CONFIRMATION ASSURANCE PROTOCOL

WARSAW PACT

ALBEMARLE: Authorisation for CinC Baltic Red Banner Fleet to order departure to war stations for SSBN

BUDIANKSY: Dispersal order, nuclear warfighting distances, for 8th Guards Shock Army, GSFG

FLECHETTE: State of alert for Strategic Rocket Forces HQ Alma Ata

HARPOON: Nuclear attack underway alert for Strategic Rocket Forces HQ Alma Ata

IRINOVA: Authorisation for CinC Pacific Fleet to order departure to war stations for surface vessels

FRUNZE: Deployment to war stations for 231st Missile Regt., GSFG

ABRAMOV: Permission to mate fuses with warheads for nuclear-capable artillery regiments, GSFG

GROZNY: Authorisation for CinC Pacific Fleet to order departure to war stations for SSBN

SPEAR: Nuclear attack imminent alert for Strategic Rocket Forces HQ Alma Ata

TILSIT: Immediate execution all nuclear attack plans GSFG

ULYANOVA: Immediate execution all nuclear attack plans Soviet Border forces China

PISTOL PISTOL PISTOL: Unrestrained total release all nuclear attack forces across Warsaw Pact

49670 RED: Target Code for Gatow Airfield, Berlin

18275 BLUE: Target Code for London

77966 RED: Target Code for NATO HQ, Brussells

38044 GREEN: Target Code for Geilenkirchen AFB, West Germany

18766 RED: Target Code for Plateau D'Albion, France

55799 GREEN: Target Code for Fylingdales Moor BMEWS, England

52880 RED: Target Code for Belgrade"

Flicking through the file revealed pages of these codes, the first section for the Warsaw Pact, the second for Communist China. I gradually understood – these lists were a skeleton outline of the codes and numbers that our Cold War enemies would have to use in order to launch a nuclear war. PISTOL PISTOL PISTOL, for example, would begin the destruction of all life in the Northern Hemisphere. A nasty crawling sensation ran up and down my spine.

"Detente". That would translate as "Don't blow me up and I won't blow you up", if this document was an example. The Warsaw Pact and Chinese must have similar skeleton lists of the codes NATO would use. Not enough in both cases to map out the entire communications network and compromise it, but easily enough to comprehend within seconds that a nuclear attack was imminent.

And those idiots at Think Tank were going to send out these codewords to their intended recipients. All it would take is one weapon being fired by mistake and the jig would be up.

A third section in the file was composed of flimsies.

"PROPERTY BAOR HQ RHEINDAHLEN

NOT FOR CIRCULATION

TOP SECRET

Quarterly confirmation Go Codes

DESTROY ALL PRIOR COPIES

39 Medium Regiment Royal Artillery

WARHEAD MATING CODE: ACHERON

VERIFICATION:CHARLIE TWO TANGO TANGO ONE FIVE

RELEASE AUTHORISATION:BELTANE

VERIFICATION:ABLE EIGHT THREE X-RAY FIVE FOXTROT

FIRING GO CODE:CATHEDRAL

VERIFICATION:SIERRA SIX ONE TANGO NOVEMBER NINE

PRIMARY TARGET CODES:AS PER PREVIOUS QUARTERLY NOTIFICATION

WITH ADDITION:

HEIDENKAMPF REF. ESM 569

SITE HARDENED COMMAND BUNKER 5TH MECH INF

BRIGADE HQ

LOSSBERG REF. ESM 772

DUAL NUCLEAR/CHEMICAL ARTILLERY SHELL PARK

WEAPON SYSTEM USAGE:27 X ISSUE W48 0.1 KT PROXIMITY & CONTACT

DETONATION FIRED FROM GUN, FIELD ARTILLERY,

SELF-PROPELLED M107 HOWITZERS, HEAVY, SELF-

PROPELLED: M110

EMERGENCY STOP CODE:GOALPOST GOALPOST GOALPOST"

There was another flimsy with similar codes for the 34th Medium Regiment, who used missiles instead of tube artillery.

What the hell were Think Tank thinking? Successfully transmitting these codes and words would create World War Three and transform Europe into a cratered nuclear wasteland.

Of course, a computer didn't mind if the air, water and food were fatally contaminated with fallout, as long as it got a regular supply of 240 volt go-juice. More evidence that the Tankers weren't operating under full self-control.

When Liz arrived she brought a portable generator in the boot of her car, plus a box full of electronic components – for killing a computer, just in case. She read the BOSS information avidly, then the file on Spears and Winters.

'Next move?' she asked.

'A visit to the head villains. HM Prison Dartmoor. I'll get the canteen to make us up sandwiches and flasks of coffee.'

Liz read over the two files again whilst I drove, plus the codes that Mister Crosby had sent on.

'I don't know much about waging a nuclear war, if that's what this could have triggered. Could this have worked?'

A distraction from the monotonous landscape was welcome.

'You bet! Sending out so many codewords, at least some would have been acted on. That means NATO would react, and the Warsaw Pact would react accordingly, and the whole spiral would go on until World War Three erupted. Not only that, those Royal Artillery nukes would guarantee a theatre-level Soviet nuclear response in Europe. Yes, it could have worked.'

She closed the file and stared out of the window, thinking.

'We need a strategy to tackle Think Tank,' she finally declared.

'Would that amount to hitting them with a spade until they squeal?' I tried, only half-joking. Liz frowned crossly.

'They're intelligent people. They're not going to be easy to fool, and they appear to be able to shrug off the military interrogators. We need a strategy, and it doesn't amount to walloping them in the face!'

'Okayyy. Get them off balance first.'

It was a long drive and that gave us the opportunity to work out a plan and refine it.

Dartmoor Prison is a bleak and forbidding place, set in the Devonshire moorland. All it needed was a wolf howling in the background to complete the image of a place at the ends of the earth, especially since it took hours to get there.

Despite having rung ahead, having high-level UNIT passes, the proper passwords and an imposing air, it still took an hour to get through the security checks, ending up with seeing the Assistant Governor after being sat around in a brightly-lit corridor that smelt of cabbage and was decorated in Early 50's Cheap Paint Job. He in turn sent us with a warden escort to the Special Detention Unit.

'First time we've ever had a woman prisoner in here,' remarked the stoic warden. 'But no women's prison will have her.'

The SDU constituted a newish brick building set in the eastern part of the "spoked wheel" outlay of Dartmoor. Access from within the prison came via heavily-reinforced steel doors and an intercom system.

Once inside, Liz and I had our passes inspected by an impassive redcap sergeant, who nodded at the warden and led us further inside. The interior was very modern and antiseptic, with the upper floor reserved for staff whilst inmates stewed in the lower level cells.

'The OC, Captain Metcalfe, would like to see you first, sir,' said the redcap, leading the way upstairs to a smokey, fuggy common room. A trio of mildly interested officers looked at me.

'UNIT party reporting in, sir,' I snapped, coming to a very good salute. 'Sir?'

'Bloody hell!' laughed the RMP captain. 'As I live and breathe! Big John!'

'Captain Metcalfe! I thought you'd left the Army, sir.'

The Officer Commanding was a former regular from my days with the Queen's Lancashire Regiment. I didn't know him well, he'd left the service not long after I joined.

'I did, I did. A stint with the civilian police, then back into uniform, as a military policeman.' He looked Liz up and down. 'Pleased to meet you, ma'am. Both UNIT, eh? Here for a crack at the Gruesome Twosome? Well, it's most irregular, you know.'

I tried to look silently sincere and pleading.

'It's potentially very important, Captain,' exclaimed Liz. I think she did what the poets call "batting" her eyelids. Floozy.

'Well, I don't know - ' frowned Metcalfe. I knew he'd give in, if he wasn't going to let us he'd just say "no". 'Oh, you have an honest face, Miss Shaw. And John here is not to be trifled with – I've seen him on the pitch.'

'Honestly!' tutted Liz. 'It's like the Mafia or the Freemasons, all you army types scratching each other's backs.'

'It's a small army,' I pointed out. 'Everyone knows everyone else.'

One sterile little upstairs room had been converted into an office, where the transcripts were typed up, recordings were stored and camera and film equipment kept. Captain Metcalfe showed us there, invited both of us to have a look at the interview logs and discuss what we intended to do. I didn't mention that one of his brother officers had to be UNIT's Captain March in disguise – we still needed an inside man.

'I'll stand,' I informed Liz and Metcalfe. 'I've had to sit for five hours to get here. Liz, I think you're better at putting across the rational analysis we came up with.'

Liz told the Captain what we wanted to do.

'Interesting,' he mused. 'You can get away with it. We, of course, are restricted in what we can do. Legal codes and so on. The Geneva Convention, human rights, habeus corpus.'

That was nonsense to us – as Identified Hostiles, which meant they had been active versus UNIT, Winters and Spears had no legal rights at all, anywhere.

The bright white room that smelt of paint contained a table, a chair bolted to the floor, a large table and three stools. Anonymous, bland, featureless. The mirror set into the wall was of course a two-way affair, enabling the prisoner to be filmed or photographed.

'You sit behind there and the prisoner sits there, chained to the chair. All interrogations are recorded as a matter of course, plus you can ask for film or photographs to be taken on thirty minutes notice,' said Captain Metcalfe. He checked his watch. 'We've been taking them out of their cells at random times for interviews of random length. But, as you already seem to know, they haven't cracked at all.'

Liz and I swapped glances. Yes, we did know already. We also had inside information that might get us further than the RMP teams.

'Spears first,' decided Liz. 'Give us ten minutes to get the props ready.'

Mister Jeremy Spears stumbled into the room and blinked like an owl, then got frogwalked to the chair and secured to it by two brawny redcaps. He took in Liz and myself, novel in appearance, and Captain Metcalfe, who was there to make sure the prisoner didn't suddenly suffer a fit of throwing his throat onto someone's fist.

'Hi there,' I began. 'We're the outside experts. Brought in to bother you relentlessly.'

Spears merely sneered at me.

'Not bad, but you could do with some work on that,' I responded. 'You'll get plenty of time on the island.'

'At least twenty–five years,' added Liz, doodling on a notepad.

'Huh! You won't keep me for long,' snorted Spears. He obviously referred to his non-existent colleagues abroad.

Picking up a clipboard, I glanced at it.

'Do you know, Americans are manifestly mad about keeping records. Radio logs, communication frequencies, bunker locations, friends abroad. The FBI broke up your East Coast branch of the SRS and found a positive bible of other SRS branches abroad. Interpol were very grateful. So, don't count on your friends getting you released in any less than twenty five years.'

Complete fiction, of course. There was no East Coast Scientific Reform Society. It would be interesting to see if Jeremy took the bait on this. Beside me, Captain Metcalfe stirred slightly – Spears looked uncertain for a second.

'You're lying! There aren't any American groups on the East Coast.'

Liz looked coolly at him.

'You claim to know the American's cell arrangement? You're not important enough to know or be informed.'

'Moving on, let me show you this photograph.'

I dangled a large black and white photo of a woman in dark clothing, looking sombre. Spears said nothing.

'Francesca Shaughnessy. The widow of the security guard you murdered.'

Spears' eyes darted back to the photograph for a second. In reality it came from the desk of the Assistant Governor, his mother-in-law.

'We didn't kill anyone. That was the robot.'

'Your robot. Programmed by you,' replied Liz, sounding very icy. My blood would have been running at a hundred degrees plus by now if I hadn't expected this kind of dismissive response. Wordlessly, I picked up my stool, strode over to Spears and whirled the piece of furniture overhead, bringing it down on his head – only to stop short of actual physical contact. He cringed back, looking startled.

'John! Christ, don't start beating him!' blurted Captain Metcalfe.

'Oh, it wasn't me. It was the stool,' I explained, looking at Spears. 'You killed John Shaugnessy just as surely as if you'd personally crushed his throat. If I hear you blather on about "It was the robot not us" then you'll suffer.'

Spears, recovering from his near-assault, sneered again.

'You wouldn't dare hit me! I'm a prisoner. I have entitlements.'

'Newspapers soaked in brine, applied with force to the ball of the naked foot. Portable electical generator with crocodile clips attatched to nipples and genitals. Towel soaked in water wrapped around the face,' said Liz, playing the icy maiden pretty well. 'None of them leave a trace.'

Captain Metcalfe stirred uneasily, not sure where we were going with this.

'Bag over head, wrap in thirty feet of two-inch chain, helicopter over Irish Sea, problem disappears,' I added, trying to be nonchalant. 'What's your discipline? Computer-controlled robotic applications,' I added, before he could answer. 'Before you turned into an administrator and office manager. Bet that explains why the robot went about it's business so badly, eh?'

'The Japanese SRS committed mass suicide,' added Liz in an improvisation. 'They had home-made nerve gas in their fallout shelter and gassed themselves. You couldn't even manage that, could you?' and her voice displayed a slight wobble that an un-informed observer might think was hatred, when it was stress – I could play the nasty all week long, but Liz found more than half an hour very hard work.

'Going out with a quarter-century long whimper, not a bang. Okay, time's up. Heft him away.'

'I don't mind telling you, I nearly needed new underwear when you swung that stool,' said the Captain over a cup of tea upstairs.

We hadn't told him exactly what we intended to do, so that any reaction of his would be unforced and genuine.

'It was tempting not to halt it, sir.' I confessed.

'Well, whatever your ideas are, they worked.'

'Really?' asked Liz. 'He didn't seem very bothered.'

'You two got more reaction out of him in ten minutes than we have in weeks. That crack about the Americans got him worried. But don't mention suicide in future, please. Don't want to put ideas into his head.'

Liz mumbled an apology.

'Let it go. Your approach got me wondering, you know. Why do people ususally resist interrogation?'

Various reasons; out of defiance, out of loyalty, out of fear. Liz shrugged in honest ignorance, out of her depth.

'For a terrorist, one of the reasons is to give the rest of their network time to escape, change passwords, destroy incriminating documents, move weapons, and so on. That's why we try to break a terrorist as quickly as possible, and why they get trained to resist as long as possible.'

The sound of my inelegant slurping echoed round the room. The Captain carried on; having created a train of thought he was going to follow it to the end.

' - so why are Spears and Winters holding out?'

'You might find this hard to believe,' began Liz. 'But they may not be working under their own free-will.'

That stopped Metcalfe in mid-sentence. Liz plunged on.

'We suspect they may have been, er, programmed by a computer. And be working to its agenda, not their own.'

There, the theory was out. The Captain cocked an eyebrow.

'Go on. You know - you know, that would explain their urgent desire to blow up the world. Who wants to commit suicide like that? Are all the Think Tank people suspected of being – what can you call them? Computer slaves?'

That remained to be seen. I gave an outline of what we'd discovered so far about WOTAN, the Llanfairfach affair and BOSS, and the cryptic information left by Doctor John Smith. This background gave us more information to work on Spears again. Only twenty minutes had elapsed since he left the interrogation room, time enough for us to get a cup of tea, and long enough for him to lose accurate track of time – the prisoner cells were kept very brightly lit, had no windows, no clock and the prisoners couldn't have watches. A person of unusual self-control could perhaps monitor time by their pulse, which was still far too erratic to allow any accurate estimation of time gone by.

Not that Spears sat in calm contemplation. The security camera monitored in the warden's booth showed him sitting on his bunk, head in hands. A redcap came to the Captain to report this, to an impressed "hmmm!" from Metcalfe.

'Normally he lies on his bunk and only ever moves to use the loo. Interesting. You must have got under his skin!'

Time to strike. The Captain sent off an escort to haul Jeremy back to see our trio again. We had the benefit of digestive biscuits and strong tea to fortify us; Spears had only the counsel of his own thoughts, probably not too perky ones at that.

'Jeremy, do be seated. Oh you are. Let's begin again, shall we? We are trying to track the unholy mingling of the Scientific Reform Society with the boffins at Think Tank and I wanted to know when the two came into collusion. See? "Collusion". I can use big words, Jermy.'

I contracted his name to see if it annoyed him, and passed on to Liz.

'What we also need to know is the computer operating system that Kettlewell created, probably as a dismounted control comparison for his robot.'

Spears jerked upright suddenly, looking alarmed.

'Are you alright?' I asked. 'I mean, I hope you're not, but I have to ask.'

'John,' said the Captain, warningly. He glanced at the mirror, presumably to warn the recording staff to get this down.

'What we also want to determine is your degree of freedom as opposed to what kind of duress or influence you experienced at Think Tank,' said Liz, making notes on her clipboard. Spears began to tremble. I mean, he quivered like a jelly. Part of me wondered about cowardice, and a smaller part began to worry.

'D – d – d – don't - ' he stammered. Liz looked at him curiously.

'Can I begin at the start and ask you if you know anything about WOTAN?' she said, slowly. 'A supercomputer of the - '

Spears' eyes rolled up in his head, he began to froth at the mouth and collapsed in thrashing convulsions. Captain Metcalfe sprang to a wall switch and pressed it. I hurried round the table and dragged Spears into the recovery position, trying to make sure he didn't swallow his tongue or choke on his own vomit while he quivered and spasmed. His bladder and bowels let go inside the boilersuit.

A panicked and alarmed Liz stood up behind the table and stared at Spears. Captain Metcalfe glared at the pair of us.

'Upstairs, you two!' he snapped.

He only re-appeared thirty minutes later, not in a good mood. Frankly, I didn't blame him. Getting one of your prize prisoners reduced to a brainless vegetable is not the way to move up the promotion ladder. Unfortunately for the Captain Liz and I had been conferring whilst he was away, and we had plenty to say for ourselves, both to ourselves and latterly to him.

'Thank you for that, Captain,' I started, which stopped him. 'That just proved what we most feared.'

He glared at me.

'One of the government's most wanted just became a damned frothing idiot! What can that prove!'

Liz stood next to me. I could almost feel the worry and fear radiating from her at this range.

'Captain, you have been interrogating this man and his partner for weeks, without any problems. As soon as the words "computer", "control" and "Kettlewell" get mentioned in sequence, your prisoner starts to convulse and collapses into a coma.'

'WOTAN was the key,' I added. 'Although if you'd mentioned BOSS I think the response would be the same.'

Metcalfe physically stood back, looking from one of us to the other.

'What the hell are you saying?'

Liz took up the story – she knew it better than I did, since it concerned computers.

'Captain, this man – and for all we know everyone else in Think Tank – has been conditioned, programmed if you like, to avoid thinking about how their behaviour has changed since coming into contact with Kettlewell's computer. They don't think or speak or communicate about it, so they make better slaves, and so they can't pass on any information to the outside world.'

The Captain could see we were both deadly serious.

' "Programmed"? You mean they – good God, you mean they have a kind of self-destruct switch in their head?'

Not quite there, but close enough. Liz nodded.

'They'll go into catatonic seizure if you trespass onto areas the computer doesn't want examined. A mental minefield.'

'A mental mindfield,' I clarified. 'To date you've not had the background information that might have prejudiced them. Pretty conclusive proof that we're dealing with a rogue computer.'

The officer sat down heavily in a chair, shaking his head.

'I must say, you two seem to be taking this pretty much in your stride.'

'UNIT experience,' I said, matter-of-factly. A human artefact with an agenda of it's own is less hard to believe in than other entities UNIT had encountered in the past.

'HQ isn't going to believe this,' muttered Metcalfe. 'Oh – Spears has been sent off to hospital. The diagnosis isn't good.'

For a second I might have looked satisfied. Good. If the evil little scrote got to shuffle off this mortal coil after being responsible for killing eight UNIT troopers, so much the better. Liz nudged me in the side.

'Oh dear. No, really! He seemed to be the weaker of the two. Winters is going to be harder to crack from what I've read.'

Not to mention that we'd have to be very careful asking her questions. There were any number of spear-carriers in Think Tank, not to pun, but Spears and Winters were the two in charge.

In spy fiction, or if you believe that the army and associated institutions deploy infinite money, Liz and I would have been able to bunk down in guest premises in Dartmoor. However, since we had just reduced a prisoner to a slightly-animated vegetable, the Governor wasn't about to put us up for the night. I didn't feel at all like driving back to Aylesbury for five hours in the dark over unfamiliar roads.

'Local bed and breakfast?' pleaded Liz to the Assistant Governor – the real thing didn't want to associate with us. 'Local hotels?'

'Park benches? Bus stops? Shop doorways?' I added, perhaps a little unhelpfully. The AG directed a dark look at me, and gave Liz a card with the address of a local hostelry that visiting staff occasionally used, the Blue Boar.

Which wasn't a bad pub, considering. Liz went though a pack of cigarettes in the lounge, trying to make up for her enforced abstinence in the Special Detention Unit. She also knocked back a couple of large whiskies before making a phone call to her fiancee, coming back in a subdued manner.

'He's not happy that I'm spending time out here with you,' she sighed.

Excuse me? Not that Liz isn't attractive, leggy and strawberry blonde and clever, but I wasn't out here trying to romance her. Marie would come after me with steak knives if she suspected Liz-chasing was on my agenda.

'Separate rooms,' I replied, trying for light-hearted. 'Tired officer ready for bed. Jealous girlfriend with gun.'

She nearly laughed at the last one.

'Sorry. Sorry, John, I've been out of the flow with UNIT for years and forgot how stressful it can be. Thinking about all those people turned into hateful little Hitlers thanks to a computer.'

A small twinge from Mister Conscience reminded me that Jeremy Spears might not have been a complete snivelling twod back when he ran his own brain.

'When this investigation is over, I'll give you five minutes and a sledgehammer with Kettlewell's pride and joy.'

5: The Children of the Gods

Getting into the Special Detention Unit next morning proved to be rather difficult. In fact, not possible. We were persona non grata. I decided a strategic retreat was the best option and we cooled our tempers in the Blue Boar.

'I bet Spears has died,' I ventured. 'So they won't let us near Star Defendant Number One.'

'We really need to try and elicit help from her. Oh, John, this is so frustrating! Like playing chess when you don't know the rules or your opponent.'

'It's not rugby,' I agreed. 'And being a big fat thug is easier than this chasing around and report-writing. How come spies never spend half their day writing up reports for their spymasters? You don't see James Bond slaving over a notebook with a biro.'

'He usually has a lovestruck airhead secretary to do that.'

'Three words that don't apply to you. Hey, I paid you a compliment! Whoops, Marie will froth. Don't tell her.'

This time she did laugh.

'I thought you needed Nick Munroe as a foil! You and he are like two sides of the same coin …' and her voice trailed off into silence while she stared into the empty inglenook. 'Eureka,' she said, quietly. 'Got it.'

'Is it catching?'

'No, you idiot! How and why Think Tank got brainwashed by a computer.' She fished in her handbag for notebook and pen and began scribbling. The landlord looked at me quizzically when I went to order a plate of sandwiches, to which I could only shrug.

'Are you familiar with scientific controls?' asked Liz when I sat down again bearing sandwiches and lemonade.

'Oh, surely am. Those things on the telly you use to change channels from Gordon Honeycombe to Angela Ripon.'

A warning glance told me not to muck about too much.

'Okay, no. Go on, enlighten me.'

'A control is a comparison you use to establish a baseline for experiments. What use is a result if you can't tell whether it's different from normal? Kettlewell was trying to create a computer that mimicked human behaviour, specifically morals and conscience - '

'We don't know that he succeeded. It's a pretty long shot, creating a machine that can think like a person.'

'It just needs to mimic human behaviour, not actually replicate it. Anyway, Kettlewell wanted to create a computer with an artificial conscience that he could fit into a robot, which means having a computer that doesn't have any such morals to compare with. SIGMUND : a kind of mini-WOTAN he could judge his BRUNHILD against.'

' "BRUNHILD"?'

'I just made it up – the computer onboard his robotic pride and joy and the child of WOTAN. That is, the Wotan of the Nibelungen. The Ring Cycle? Wagner?' she said, looking at me with exasperation. 'You are so uncultured! Sigmund and Brunnhilde are the children of Wotan. Oh, what's the use – it's not ironic or amusing if I've got to explain the joke. If only you liked music! "SSOB" would be silly. Okay, so Kettlewell creates his mutually opposed computers. Once he establishes that his BRUNHILD is functional and effective versus the control model, SIGMUND, he doesn't need the other computer any more for comparisons, so he ditches it.'

So SIGMUND got ditched at Think Tank. Left in their mansion – and what happened next?

'He's quite happy working on his robot with it's onboard computer system, so he doesn't worry about the old computer, and probably ordered it to be destroyed. Think Tank don't destroy it, they try to use it instead. Except that it uses them. And before you ask, Kettlewell realised it could be a menace, so he programmed it to avoid trying to influence him.'

That made sense. From the testimony of Harry and Sarah, Kettlewell seemed to actually function as a proper human being when in the presence of Spears and Winters, instead of a terminally-obsessed lunatic seeking to blow the world up. So – the root cause of the problem lay in our cash-strapped scientific researchers trying to get extra mileage out of surplus computer equipment, getting too close to said equipment and having it tailor their brains in subtle and interesting patterns.

'All it takes is one person taken over by the computer, because then they'd go to the next person and say "Oh do come along and see this fascinating computer gear stored in the cellar",' finished Liz.

I swallowed my lemonade and sandwiches, thinking matters over.

'I think our part in this story is over. We've found out what WOTAN was, what the WOTAN Effect was, and how it applied to Think Tank, thanks to SIGMUND. You have a working hypothesis about what happened to the individuals concerned. We can't get any more witness information. Perhaps the MoD will allow us access to the other prisoners, the smaller fry, but I doubt it, I doubt it. No prisoners, no evidence, no artefacts, no more adventure.'

Liz sighed.

'Bit of a whimpery ending, isn't it? I fondly imagined we'd end up battling against a monster computer and it's mindless minions. Instead we finish over lemonade and sandwiches.'

Lemonade because neither of us wanted alcohol before the long, long drive back. Inwardly I groaned at the equally long, long report that Major Crichton would expect me to write out for him: WOTAN, BOSS, Kettlewell, Brett, Think Tank, the Scientific Reform Society, Spears, Winters, risk assessments, computer development, and anything else to egg the pudding.

'The cat with your tongue went out that door,' teased Liz as I silently contemplated the dark and cold inglenook fireplace for at least a minute.

'Eh? Oh, sorry for being rude. Just wondering what Major Crichton will throw at me when I get back to base.'

'I don't get off scot-free either!' replied Liz. 'The Faculty will want an explanation about why I've been derelicting my lab duties and research.'

'Would you come back to Aylesbury and give me some technical advice about computers? I'm rather in the dark about the hideous calculating machines and they form the core of this investigation. You, of course, are the intellectual between us.'

Liz the Intellectual informed me that she had to come back to Aylesbury anyway, she'd left her car there.

On the drive back I rambled on a bit about my current problem at Aylesbury – the suggestion from Corporal Twiss about helping Saint Luke's Hospice, which was a good idea, and the need for a person to establish and co-ordinate such an idea, which was less of a good idea, since it seemed destined to land at my feet. Liz snickered unkindly at my gloomy description.

'Don't laugh! Knowing my luck, some swine will have mentioned it to the Brig and sold him on the idea of John Walmsley, Hospice Liaison.'

Liz laughed out loud at the hitherto-hard man officer reduced to an apprehensive souffle at the prospect of getting involved with sick children. I sulked for a few miles, before switching over driving duties, then managed to doze off.

'Home again, sleeping beauty,' said Liz, elbowing me awake.

Aylesbury: mid-day and the sentries on duty at the gate checked us over very thoroughly. Not only that, there were six of them, instead of the usual pair.

'Alert status's gone up, sir,' one of them informed us. 'We've gone to Standby.'

The increased number of sentries contrasted with the decreased number of staff around. When we signed in at the Guard Room, I was informed that most of "C" Company had gone off to chase sprites and pixies around the heather of the Highlands.

'Major Crichton said to go straight up to see him, sir, immediately you got in. Miss Shaw as well.'

Somewhat startled, Liz followed me upstairs to the Major's lair.

'What have I done that he wants to see me? Good God, as a Captain he couldn't get me out of his hair quickly enough at Swafham Prior!'

Puzzling, I had to admit. Why all the scurry and concern? The emergency was up North, not here in the Home Counties.

Except, once again, I'd been colossally wrong when reckoning that our adventure was over. Major Crichton, aided and abetted by The Boy Eden, had pinned up photocopies, photographs, lists, close ups of circuitry diagrams and overhead views of buildings all over the walls of his office.

'Sir. I brought Miss Shaw with me. You wanted to see us straight away?'

He nodded and went to slump in his chair, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

'Er – I had considered things to be over, sir. We have a reasonable hypothesis about how Think Tank got subverted into the Scientific Reform Society by Professor Kettlewell's computer system.'

'So much for your theories, because Whitehall happen to have lost the bloody thing!' snapped the Major.

Eden, off to one side marking positions on a map with pins, nodded enthusiastically.

'Lost it! I see. Lost approximately or lost completely?' I asked, slowly.

'How can they lose it!' gasped Liz, her hair bobbing with alarm. 'There was over a metric tonne of units and equipment to it!'

The Major, looking tired and grumpy, tossed a clipboard over the desktop to us.

'The inventory as taken at Think Tank's bunker. Lieutenant Eden?'

The Boy produced another clipboard, which he presented to me. I contrasted the two:

"ITEM: Palletised technical equipment

23 x boxes

Delicate Issue

Not To Be Stored Vertically

Not Waterproof"

- present on the Major's clipboard, absent on Eden's.

I stared at the clipboards, at The Boy and Major Crichton.

'UNIT's arse is covered – we signed off to the regulars a couple of hours after securing the site. They then went through it and boxed up everything. Then the MoD supposedly sent transport to ferry the whole lot to Sheerness and an inspection site under the DoSA. When the convoy finished ferrying the boxes, the lorries with the 4computer stuff had vanished.'

Understandably, Liz looked appalled.

'Good God, don't they know how dangerous that thing is! It's got to be located, and quickly!'

Frowning and replacing his glasses, the Major glared at Liz, indicating the walls of his room with the sweep of a hand.

'Exactly what I'm trying to do, Miss Shaw! A process not helped by being short of staff.'

At breakneck speed, Liz and I compiled the notes already written and presented them to Major Crichton. He read them once through rapidly, then again with more care. Liz sat and finished off a whole pack of cigarettes, remarking bitterly that she ought to keep her fatuous opinions to herself in future to avoid jinxing everyone.

'Can I open a window?' I asked, not waiting to get permission before relieving the fug of tobacco smoke.

'You were too close to the trees,' remarked Major Crichton, going back and forwards in the notes. 'You haven't taken into account the possibility of people other than Think Tank being brainwashed by this hateful computer.'

No, we hadn't, and this unexpected comment hit me in the stomach with a painful lurch.

'This machine could have created slaves we're not aware of?'

'Oh, John! How could we miss something like that?'

The Major shrugged forgivingly.

'Don't worry, you've managed to move mountains in the time given. Believe me, trying to prise dirty little secrets out of the establishment is like trying to plait fog. This does mean Sheila Winters assumes new importance, of course. Also, given that there may be potential traitors within Whitehall, evidenced by the – what's that name – "SIGMUND" – going missing, it means UNIT takes priority.'

Dining in the mess was an unusually quiet affair, enlivened by the presence of our American observer laisons, Captain Spurling and Master Sergeant Dobbs. Both of them had been emphatically refused permission to journey to Scotland by the American Ambassador, no less, much to their combined disgust.

Liz seemed in awe of the enormously ugly Mister Dobbs, who simply sat and ate whilst Captain Spurling grilled us about our investigations and my Detached Duty. Afterwards she asked who they were.

'That black sergeant looks ferocious! I wouldn't dare cross him!'

Which made me laugh genuinely, the first time for a while.

'He's a very softly-spoken, teetotal Southern Baptist. He does look frightening, doesn't he? The troopers all behave impeccably if he takes a stroll around HQ. Oh, he has a trick of putting a nickel on one bicep, flexing it hard and catching it on the other bicep.'

'Er – a bit of a softy then?'

'That depends. Those medal ribbons didn't come with cigarette coupons. Probably rather like CSM Benson, talks softly in the presence of ladies.'

'Oh. And away from them?'

'He told Nick as an enlisted man he was known for a party trick, knocking a cow senseless with one punch.'

Post coffee, we returned to Major Crichton's office, the new nerve centre of the investigation into SIGMUND, as the missing computer had been dubbed. If that insight of the Major's into other potential slaves to the conscious computer made me nervous, it lit a fire under the collective behind of the Ministries in Whitehall when he rang them to inform. Before lunch finished, responsibility for Sheila Winters had been transferred to UNIT, she would be transferred to Marylebone Police Station, Major Crichton had been given permission to proceed without reference to the Home Office or MoD, the Brig had been notified and all the files to do with the whole messy business of Think Tank would be sent to our Kensington Office to be kept under lock and key.

'I get the feeling that this is now a hot potato, sir,' I told the Major. 'Given to us. If we drop it or botch it in any way, then it's all UNIT's fault. Should we pull a rabbit out of the hat, Whitehall will smoothly step in to take all the credit.'

He wagged a biro at me.

'Don't be so cynical! Or accurate. Right. With plenty of clout, I think we need to split up and check different sources. Liz, can you accompany John in trying, very delicately, to interrogate Sheila Winters?'

There was the rub. How do you interrogate a person with hidden booby-traps in their head, a person who might drop dead if you asked the wrong question – and when you're not even sure what the right questions are?

'You might care to include Captain Spurling and Mister Dobbs in this, sir,' added Eden. 'They're getting mightily bored and we're short of staff.'

Liz interrupted lighting a cigarette to point it at the Major and I in turn.

'Yes, and how much of that is coincidence?'

Eh what? looks from the three of us.

'I mean, how much of a coincidence is it that UNIT gets sent to the far North, out of the way whilst this machine makes a bid for freedom in the Home Counties? You ought to consider that.'

'It can't have engineered those disasters at sea,' I responded.

'No-o-o. No it couldn't. But, if it has an unholy power over the pen pushers in Whitehall, it could have them kick up a terrific stink and pressure the Brigadier directly, or via Geneva,' said the Major, talking slowly as he calculated. 'And it's had two weeks to weave it's web. Terrific insight, Liz! John was right to bring you on board.'

That brought a scowl from Liz – she'd effectively invited herself aboard, when I'd tried to give her the elbow. By now she must be regretting it.

Another unpleasant idea popped into my head, which I had to share with the assembled, just to cheer them up.

'Is it possible that people who got zapped by WOTAN back in the Sixties are more susceptible to getting zapped by Kettlewell's creation?'

Another "Oh Crap!" moment for us all. The Major didn't like that possibility at all, since it meant potentially hundreds of suspects scattered all over London, some in branches of government, none of whom we would know about because the WOTAN files were still sealed.

'Damn,' he whispered to himself. 'I wish I was back at Swafham Prior escorting visiting boffins.' Recalling himself and his surroundings, he shook his head and started to scratch notes on a pad.

'Liz – I want you to determine what kind of operating environment this computer needs – size, shielding, power input, broadcast access, spare parts, et bloody cetera. Once we have that the search area can be narrowed slightly. John, I want you to get in touch with an ex-member of UNIT who knows what "computer-controlled" means from the inside and get feedback from him. That'll keep you occupied until Sheila Winters gets transferred from Dartmoor to London. While you do that, we here will try to let the establishment know that they may have a collection of Trojan horses working in their midst.'

6: LSE - Let's Shock Everyone

The London School of Economics definitely consituted hostile territory for anyone in uniform. The campus has a reputation for breeding politically active students who protested against perceived injustices at the drop of a hat, and who most recently picked on the British army in Ulster. They had to – the Americans were long gone from Vietnam, and the Soviet Union hadn't invaded anyone for ten years.

The big, grey-white thirties façade could have done with a good clean, to get rid of the pigeon-droppings and soot, and a little of the venom being vented at the entrance could have helped the cleaning process, it was so citric.

'Troops Oyt!' bellowed the leader of a student straggle at the huge architrave entrance. She used the peculiar intonation of Ulster, "oyt" for "out". "No More Torture" read a placard. "British SS" read another. "Ireland for the Irish". "Independanse for Ulster".

Not wanting to get sidetracked, I headed up the steps at the entrance side, only for the loud lady with a scarf to notice me.

'Troops OYT!' she bellowed, pointing. For a small woman, she could really yell. Lots of practice, I bet. 'Troops out!' chorused her friends, also pointing, which is rude amongst the better-bred of us.

I was more amused than annoyed, so I walked back towards them. One or two looked a bit anxious, and a few backed off. The small woman with the large voice didn't exhibit any worry, she put both hands on her hips and glared at me.

'It worked! There are no Americans left in Vietnam!'

'Oh, a comedian in uniform. Ulster! Troops out of Ulster!' she snapped back, her ginger locks flying in annoyance.

'Good lord!' I choked, in mock-disbelief. 'You don't like Catholics very much, do you?'

She was too canny to take the bait, but one of the others did.

'Hey! I'm Catholic!'

'Well the UDA are not, and they'd be rubbing their hands with glee if the Army left. Carte blanche.'

There was a chorus of curses and insults after that, which I managed to shrug off with a broad grin, what infuriated them even more. The swearing that got directed at my back would have impressed CSM Benton. At the top of the steps I turned back and called down. Only the small, fierce woman bothered to look at me.

'Us fascist bully-boys are hot stuff on spelling. I don't remember "independence" being spelt like that. Slainte!'

Yes it was rather petty, and if news of it got back to the Major or the Brig I'd be in trouble. However, for all that, it was rather reassuring to see students being bolshy and arrogant ten years after I'd been one. There are certain constants in human behaviour.

The particular lecture and seminar suite I wanted was several floors up, easily located thanks to the arrows and wall-signs. Seminar room A32, brightly lit and empty of students, smelt of chalk and floor polish. A lecturer with a huge beard stood at the blackboard, scrawling away with a stick of chalk and checking his notebook on the table behind him. When I loomed in the doorway he stopped abruptly, dropping the chalk and moving into a crouch, left arm extended forward, right arm brought back, the hand formed into a half-fist.

'Ah – I'm looking for Michael Yates,' I began, wary of the sudden reflexive posture of the furry-faced loon. He looked to be practicing kung-fu, that martial art brought to sudden popularity thanks to the television show of the same name.

'John!' said Mister Beard, relaxing and picking up his chalk. 'Sorry – you startled me, and some reflexes don't go away.'

I recognised that voice –

'Mike? Is that you?'

A toothy smile broke through the beard.

'Good God! They'd kill for a beard like that in the navy!'

The beard, as he explained in the staff room, was protective camouflage. Students at the LSE could spot an ex-army type a mile away. Being festooned with face-fungus threw them off the trail.

'What do you teach?' I asked, with genuine interest. All that UNIT's Kensington branch could tell me was the location of Mr M. Yates, and his employment: lecturer.

'Oh, a bit of this and that. Oriental philosophy, Modern History of South East Asia, hwarang-do, the Indian sub-continent. Quite popular courses. Currently it's "When East meets East: Russia, the Raj and the Great Game in Afghanistan".'

I sniggered a little.

'Really! Can't see the Muscovites ever wanting to get involved in that unlovely place.'

Mike gave me the greasy eyeball, which turned out to be fair enough a few years later. Clearly he knew his stuff well ahead of time.

Sipping nasty coffee from a styrofoam cup, he came to the big question.

'What brings you here? I've had occasional visits from Special Branch before now, and I firmly believe MI5 have gone over my house at least once, but nobody from UNIT has come to check up on me yet.'

That made me squirm in a modicum of embarassment.

'Actually, you might want to throw me out on my arse after I explain this bit. Have you heard about Think Tank and the Scientific Reform Society?'

When he replied "no" I filled in a few details, making him look uncomfortable.

'You want to know about me being taken-over? Operation Spider and Llanfairfach?'

'To be blunt, yes. There's a risk of a lot more hidden victims being at large. I can't go into details but Major Crichton is worried.'

Mike stared into his coffee briefly, but he has a resililient nature and recovered his balance quickly.

'Alright. Alright, for what it's worth. For a start, BOSS had a very short range – you either had to be in the hot seat, a seat actually in the computer's room, or linked up by a pair of headphones on that floor. The process of being taken-over itself is extremely painful. Imagine a pair of blacksmiths knocking a nail into each temple, for several seconds, with as much gusto as they can muster. Once that happens, your memory goes. I didn't remember anything more until the Doctor shone his magic blue mega-diamond in my face. As for being controlled by a computer, it can over-ride your basic self-preservation and morals and make you commit suicide, or murder. Thank the Lord I'd been on the Resistance to Interrogation course in the Regulars, because the psychiatrists reckoned if I hadn't I'd simply have blasted the Doctor the instant I came across him.'

Frantic scribbling as I took notes.

'I don't suppose - '

'No, he returned the blue wonder to Megabelis. Look, haven't you asked the Doctor about any of this? He's a whiz at stuff like this, it's meat and drink to him, and you know how he loves boasting and getting one over the Brig.'

'The Doctor, Mike, is flitting about in time and space, Heaven only knows where, or when. Not only that, he took Harry and Sarah Jane with him, so we've no Doctor, no doctor and no typist.'

Mike gave his trademark Cheshire-cat grin.

'Oh for the days when he was stuck here in exile, eh?'

Cue mutterings from me about bloody Time Lords who vanished when you needed them most of all.

'Oh, there's one other thing about BOSS,' added Mike as an afterthought. 'Stevens, the head of Global Chemicals, he was the computer's head slave, a sort of primus inter pares. Now, unlike the rest of us mere drones, when he got freed mentally by the Doctor, he retained all his memories of the time spent as a slave. Which were so woeful he destroyed the computer and himself.'

I sat bolt upright at that.

'Mike! Brilliant! Thank you for that – that's crucial information. Wow.'

He looked impressed at having been so useful. Wistfully, he asked if anyone at Aylesbury still remembered him?

'I think the screening process mentions you as a dreadful warning of how things can go completely wrong when circumstances take a turn for the worst. The grapevine seems to regard you as "Oh yes Mike Yates, he went over to the bad guys, but he still helped the Doctor". Ambiguous.'

Mike finished the dregs of his coffee carefully, making sure the sugary remnants didn't stick to his beard.

' "Ambiguous". Better than being highly thought of and on the Tote Board. A word of warning to you, young John. I don't think I ever, really, got over being mentally assaulted by BOSS. If I had then we wouldn't be having this conversation and I'd still be in UNIT.'

That made me lean forward in concern.

'Didn't you get proper medical treatment?'

He nodded and snorted simultaneously, his beard wobbling.

'John! How many doctors, or psychiatrists, or psychologists, have the ability to deal with victims of computer mind-attack? None. It's a completely novel field of study. I think I got treated more as a guinea-pig than a patient.'

The small and vocal group at the entrance were still there when I left, now having a break and drinknig from flasks, eating the odd sandwich or Mars bar. The placard mis-spelling "independence" was now gone.

The shouty woman didn't shout at me, because her mouth was full of butty, so I ambled over to swap insults, just to keep my wits in working order and because Mike's information had been more useful than I'd dreamt of.

'Shame on you!' I told the group. 'Don't you know the sandwich is a creation of the English landed aristocracy – the Earl of Sandwich? That's imperialism you're eating with every bite.'

One lad stopped eating to look at his bacon butty, whilst a few of the others merely insulted me by sheer reflex.

'And Mars is the god of war. Not only that, he's a deity of the Romans, those echt fascists,' I told them, trying not to smile. More insults and curses. 'Marathons are just as bad – celebrating the act of war thanks to the battle of Marathon.'

The celtic harpy finished swallowing her food and instantly flew into a verbal attack. She was inventive and imaginative, doubtless from all that gaelic heritage. Unfortunately for her, I'd heard far worse in Ulster and could concentrate on other matters.

'You're beautiful when you're angry,' I sighed, fluttered my eyelids and left. Miss Banshee was left with her mouth open in shocked, surprised anger. Her accomplices jeered and booed and cursed my back. Ah, what it is to see young folk enjoying themselves!

7: Durance Vile

During my excursion into London, Sheila Winters, the ex-head of Think Tank, had been ferried into Marylebone Police Station. She arrived as Prisoner 314531, no name or judicial file, just in case.

"In case of what?" asked the wardens. "If we knew that we wouldn't be here" replied the escort. Liz went and flirted with Mister Crosby still more, and wheedled more information out of him. I went back to Aylesbury to report in, to a Major Crichton looking more harrassed than ever. He'd moved all the accumulated wallpaper into the new pre-fab, and stood looking with trepidation at all the charts sitting on easels, marking possible locations for the missing computer.

'I hope you have better news, John,' he said without turning round. Impressive, knowing it was me.

'How did you - '

'Knowing how the floorboards creak. What news from our ex-Captain?'

'Rather informative, sir.'

I explained. The rogue computer that Kettlewell constructed didn't have much of a range, so a victim would need to be leaning against the thing before it zapped them. It was able to over-write human nature to the extent of controlling a normal person almost totally, making them do anything it wanted, up to and including murder. However, anyone previously trained or proofed against mental influence – me, for example – would be able to resist partially or possibly completely. One thing that indicated the correctness of this was the treatment Think Tank dished out to Harry Sullivan when he went undercover to try and infiltrate them, only to be caught out. They walloped him over the head with a blunt instrument instead of trying to bend his mind with SIGMUND, presumably because his military training would have included resistance to such an influence. The most significant item was that BOSS's head slave retained all his memories, implying that he got a different type of mind-mashing from the rest of Global Chemical's slaves. Ergo, Sheila Winters could very well retain all the vital information about her computer that we needed.

'That's vital, John, vital,' added the Major. 'I've discovered several serious omissions in how the MoD handled this case. Firstly, they didn't inform us that the computer was missing for nearly two weeks. Two weeks! Second, they haven't been able to locate any of the Visitor's Books or staff logs at Think Tank, which means they've probably been destroyed. Thirdly – this made my blood boil, it really did! – none of the delivery drivers were detained or questioned.'

With no record of who visited Think Tank, we'd no idea who'd been there. The Major carried on.

'We need to know who visited Think Tank, because anyone who did so is a potential victim of that damn computer. This shambles at the Ministry persuades me that these slaves are busy trying to cover the tracks of this wretched machine. Your suggestion about the victims of WOTAN being susceptible must be correct.'

That wasn't all the bad news.

'Just to egg the pudding, SIGMUND is going to be enslaving people at this very moment. So the number of slaves is going to increase.'

Great! What else could go wrong?

'The Boy Eden is off ringing different departments in Whitehall, discreetly warning them about potential moles. I'd like you to take Liz, when she gets back, and get back into London, see Sheila Winters. Reserve accomodation at Kensington, because I want you to remain there until you get the information you need or she dies, whichever comes first.'

Hey, a touch of ruthlessness about the Major!

'Avoid using phones to pass on information,' warned the Major. 'Liz was quite explicit about that. She also mentioned a Beretta …'

'That was my issue, sir. Before things got serious. I, er, just had a feeling she might need it.'

'She can keep it. Make sure you go armed, too. I don't want my staff getting attacked by some expendable drones thrown at them by a machine. Captain Spurling and Mister Dobbs will rendezvous with you at Kensington.'

Backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards. Being an intellectual investigator amounted to considerably more legwork than mindwork.

Liz, by now, felt the romance and intrigue of investigating WOTAN and SIGMUND had long worn off. Given half a chance, she'd have scurried back to Cambridge and her neglected lab work – except that the University administration rang to say she had an indefinite sabattical. They had been leaned upon, of course, except Liz didn't know by whom, or she'd have had a target for that Beretta.

When she came out to join me in the Landrover, I was instructed – not asked, instructed – to detour into Hampstead and a particular address there. Having kept her waiting at Aylesbury for a good fifteen minutes whilst getting what I considered the best kind of computer-killing ordnance, I suspected a bit of payback in the offing.

'Brian's,' was all she said by way of an explanation. Her meeting with Brian took an hour, and she came out considerably more cheerful and smiley than when she went in. Plus, she'd taken her hair out of the strict bun it had been constricted to before.

'Your blouse's top button is undone,' I informed her, as tonelessly as possible. Her mood remained sunny and she didn't even blush.

'On to Kensington! Come on, we have a world to save!'

Brian, I decided, must have birds all over his lawn, charmed there out of the very trees in his back garden.

UNIT's Kensington Office is our administrative base, full of staff who aren't cleared to go out and carry guns whilst getting killed by aliens, monsters or killer robots. They had news from our adventurers in the distant North; another supply vessel sunk, with a cover story of being "hit by a large submerged vessel travelling at high speed", and a statement from the Royal Navy that none of our submarines were in the North Sea. Implying that it was one of those evil Warsaw Pact submarines, and if the Russians ever bothered to deny it, then that merely confirmed their guilt. More pertinently, stocks and shares in the British oil industry were starting to suffer, which meant the government might start to try and hurry matters along a bit, since it was being hit in the most painful part of any government's anatomy.

Liz was no stranger to Kensington. She informed me, drolly, that the Brigadier had interviewed her in the old basement offices here many years ago, when UNIT's headquarters were in this building, when she was fresh from her Masters' and the world was a rather less cynical place. Since then the building had gone through at least six renovations, the most recent trying to repair damage done to the plumbing by the nearby rampaging hordes of dinosaurs that infested London. We went up in the lift.

'Yes actually I was based here and helped to solve the whole problem,' I ventured, in a mock-serious tone.

'I heard you were here for weeks and the Doctor solved the whole problem within a day when he arrived,' riposted Liz.

'That's treason. Treason! Punishable by death, you know. Utter lies. Have you been talking to the white-haired wizard of late? That's exactly his line.'

'There was also talk of a lady, Doctor Ruth Kelly,' continued Liz, making the hairs on my neck stand up. Who the hell had she been talking to!

' – and up here we have the second floor, where the administration staff are based,' I interrupted. 'All out. Incidentally, the admin folks are all terrible liars and you can't trust a thing they tell you.'

Get my retaliation in first. Neither Captain Spurling nor Mister Dobbs turned up at the offices, and we had to try and move matters along quickly, so we left.

We travelled over to Marylebone Police station, not being terribly subtle – UNIT landrover, me in uniform, carrying guns. And more besides, in the rear of the Landrover. By mutual consent, our approach to Sheila Winters would be that of good friends seeking to set her on the right path, by dint of splendid example, hinting and implying in order to avoid having her go into a coma. Plus the odd threat and aggression thrown in. Hopefully this would throw her off-track enough to allow more detailed analysis that had been possible hereto, whilst also managing to not kill her in violent and terminal manner.

The tarted-up interior of Marylebone, a mid-nineteenth century pile valiantly and ineffectually trying to keep up with the mid twentieth, consisted of brightly painted corridors, resin-coated floors and relentless flourescent lighting. Whilst being literally illuminating it was still depressing. Plus, it smelt of cabbage and urine. All police stations and prisons do.

Prisoner 314531 looked rather shrunken and unimpressive in her cell, having left the arrogance behind at Dartmoor when she got transferred to inner city London. Two sentries from UNIT's Kensington office stood at the cell doorway, checked our ID and then let us inside.

'I'm not scheduled a visit. Who are – oh!' said Winters.

'You recognise me, Sheila?' asked Liz.

'Yes. Elizabeth Shaw. Exotic materials research. Who's this?' with a flick of the thumb at me.

'John. From UNIT.' She rolled her eyes in mock annoyance.

'Really! Elizabeth, I didn't think you'd become a toady for them.' Her voice positively dripped with sarcasm.

'She's only a lickspittle,' I retorted. 'Less pension rights than a toady, but better pay than a lackey.'

The humour left her uncertain for a second or two.

'We are here, Sheila, to make you see the error of your ways. By persuasion instead of force. Originally John wanted to bash your head in with a rock, but he has been convinced that the gentle approach will work better.'

Winters sneered back at Liz in cold amusement. Plainly, she imagined that nothing, nothing at all, would persuade her of any such thing.

'So to that end we're going to be taking you on a few special excursions.'

'Have you been told about Mister Spears?' I asked. Sheila nodded abruptly.

'Doubtless your treatment of him caused his death. What was it, just short-of-torture that pushed his heart too far?'

'Sheila, your sneering disregard ought to be suspended occasionally. We desperately needed Jeremy's testament and information about what went on at Think Tank, because he was definitely the weaker vessel and would have cracked long before you will. We had no reason to kill him,' I ended with my hands upheld and open, trying for Painfully Sincere.

'What killed him was a question, Sheila,' said Liz. This information skated dangerously close to the forbidden topics, so we both watched Winters very closely for signs of uncontrollable shaking. 'He went into convulsions and died without ever gaining consciousness, after we asked him a very specific question. Don't worry, we shan't ask the same one of you!'

Once again, Winters was nonplussed by our approach and information.

'What are these excursions you mentioned?'

'A big fat surprise,' I replied. 'Provided we can get clearance from the MoD. UNIT's approval I can guarantee, the MoD – not so sure about them.'

Back to the interrogation, conducted more like an inteview, tiptoeing around the fact that Sheila's brain had been tweaked and primed and she remained unaware of this.

'Now, Sheila, let me begin by quoting back a sample from your Scientific Reform Society literature, a pamphlet that was for internal circulation only: "Our aim is to create a society run on rational, scientific, logical lines, where the supernatural, the simply stupid and the irrelevant will be banished. Via eugenics, genetic manipulation, selective breeding and the appointment of partners selected by rigorous objective procedure, we will create an ideal human race. By focussing on technological development, and diverting funds from inessential fripperies, we will accelerate the advance of computer science -" There's more, in the same vein.'

From her reaction, Sheila seemed proud to be associated with this fascist drivel. Liz lit a cigarette and watched her old acquaintance sniff the air.

'You used to smoke, Sheila. I know they won't allow you any tobacco in here. Sorry.'

'I gave it up!' snapped Sheila. 'A filthy, dangerous, and expensive habit.'

Yes, I thought to myself, swapping a glance with Liz. Just what your computer master would instruct you to do. Don't want your head slave dying of half a dozen different diseases when it's not needed. That wouldn't be efficient.

'There is a consistent theme in your publicity material, Sheila,' Liz smoothly picked up. 'Logic. Rationality. Objectivity. A long, cool look at human society and how you intend to put it into order.'

'There is no higher calling,' boasted Winters.

'Yes there is,' I countered. 'Although most of your political agenda seems to be lifted from "Mein Kampf", except the stuff about computers – didn't exist in the Third Reich.' Then I got an insight, thanks to that association with the Nazis.

'I was curious about that, too,' added Liz. 'Your family is Jewish, isn't it, Sheila? I know you weren't religious, so maybe all those fascist trappings didn't bother you too much.'

Winter's eyes remained fixed on Liz, until she broke into another sneer, after which she refused to talk to us. Mention of her family and the Nazi's in the same breath seemed to have stung her, unlike any of our previous jibes.

Feeling that we'd achieved a small success in getting human responses from a machine slave, both of us retired to an empty room the Superintendant had granted us, to review progress.

'I know why they chose the Scientific Reform Society!' I burbled to Liz. 'Damn it all, it's obvious once you look at it the right way!' and if you had a degree in politics.

Liz smiled at my amusement.

'Very well, this is your chance to shine! Impress me!'

'Adolf Hitler's political career started when he was supposed to be spying on the National Socialist German Worker's Party, the NSDAP. He found it to be a completely shambolic organisation that he could take over and mould to his own requirements. That's why Think Tank took over the Scientific Reform Society – they were a bunch of bizarre, eccentric utterly inept nobodies. MI5 occasionally checks out student societies to see that they're not plotting to blow up Parliament or foment bloody revolution. They wouldn't have thought to check out the SRS, nobody would. End result is an organisation that came in completely under the radar, un-noticed by anyone. I bet – I bet at least some of the people moving through Think Tank on visits were there to join the SRS.'

Having looked at my conclusion, Liz hummed and nodded.

'Well, after my brilliant insight, do you have any more to offer?'

'Not yet. We've hopefully sown the seeds of doubt. It was pretty obvious she didn't like that crack about the Nazis, to make her shut up so completely. Still – oh, actually that gives me an insight. I think perhaps her subconscious is trying to help us because if she wanted to be unco-operative then she could just sit there like a stone, saying nothing.'

I'd defer to Liz on that one, my psychology was strictly practical as applied to man-management. Having brought up how rational and logical the SRS was supposed to be, we now needed to underline to Winters how irrational and plain bloody stupid it was to trigger nuclear war. I rang Major Crichton to see how our application to the RDC was going – slowly, he told us. Not only that, Sheerness were being very awkward about passing back information to us concerning the delivery drivers, which made the Major seethe infernally. He hinted that I'd be out there soonest, breathing down their necks – so much for not communicating via phone, in case of compromise.

After having a break for tea, and for Liz to frantically drag smoke through her lungs, it was back to our prisoner, who then got led from her cell in chains around her ankles and handcuffs, between the two stoney-faced UNIT sentries.

'You'll love this bit, Sheila,' I enthused. 'Swafham Prior. You can cherish the recollection during your twenty-five years in prison.'

Since she was a good ten feet behind me I didn't get the full detail of her response, just the flavour of it, which is to say she wasn't happy.

'No, really, Sheila,' chimed in Liz. 'You're a very privileged person. Normally it takes a very high security clearance to get into the airfield.'

The two sentries remained silent and contemptuous; from their body-language an observer could tell they didn't like Winters.

8: A Day Out, with Daleks, and death

Our trip to Swafham took hours, Liz and I sitting in the back of our Landrover with Winters whilst the two sentries took turns to drive. Sheila remained subdued, still arrogant yet not quite the shell-proof dragon of recent days. We stopped at the roadside café that's now a traditional stop on the road to the airfield, and I relented enough to buy Sheila a bacon butty. Only after getting in the back of the Landrover did I realise what I'd bought.

'Ah – I got you a sandwich, but it's bacon. Can you eat it?'

She certainly could, and it went in a few seconds.

'That will earn you a temporary reprieve when we take over,' she informed me aloofly.

Wow! Sheila Winters made a joke!

The airfield at Swafham Prior is an abandoned Second World War site, left by the USAF in 1947. It's not on the beaten track, so speculative visitors are rare. They don't get past the front gate, staffed by humourless UNIT sentries toting sub-machine guns, and the twenty foot barbed-wire fence deters any casual trespassers. It's an unusually well-maintained fence, with cameras and dog patrols, considering that there aren't any aircraft there.

What there are, of course, are all the artefacts and remains UNIT have encountered since it's formation, from Auton to Yeti. Carefully labelled and catalogued, and with boffins from Cambridge there on a regular basis to nosey at artefacts.

It had taken a couple of long phone calls to Aylesbury to get permission to take Winters there, but Swafham Prior was officially Major Crichton's domain and if he said yes, then yes it was. The full tour took four hours, displaying every artefact collected since 1969. Liz could give an informed opinion about many of them, with me filling in gaps for her. By the time we left, Winters was pale-faced and trembling; her view of the world, so assured and blandly arrogant yesterday, had fallen in ruins about her.

'Now, the Cybermen are pretty close to your ideals when it comes to a model society,' I told her, with no tact at all. 'Emotionless cyborgs, who can replace an internal organ or a limb as easily as you or I change a shirt, totally free from all ideas or concepts of morals or conscience or humanity, no sense of individuality, no names even. I think they used to have names, but now they just use an alpha-numerical indicator. Oh, and highly advanced scientifically. Don't forget the highly-advanced scientifically.'

A rictus of dislike played across her features.

'The SRS was dedicated to bettering humanity – not transforming it into those creatures!'

'It is, nevertheless, one of the fears about quantum advances in computer technology, that it allows dehumanisation to take place. Allied with medical procedures – you know, there are people who fear that we on Earth will become like the Cybermen in a few hundred years,' finished Liz, quietly, after her didactic beginning.

All the way back to Marylebone, Winters sat and remained silent, apparently thinking. I took the chance to chat with Liz about family background. Nothing to do with computers or madmen and a safe topic.

'Do you know, I recently discovered that my grandfather, whom the family all loathed, was a bona fide war hero. First World War. Whole bag of medals.'

Liz cocked an ironic eyebrow.

'Really? My grandfather on my mother's side was a conscientious objector. He spent his war planting beets in rural Hampshire. My father worked on "Radio Location and Ranging" with Professor Jones in the Second.'

'Yes, well, my grandfather killed a whole bundle of Germans, with his bare hands even.'

She shot me an old-fashioned look, warning that the bad taste was getting too much.

'Hey, that's refined wit compared to the usual stuff in the mess. Anyway, Black Charlie fought at Third Ypres with the York and Lancasters, and since the sixtieth anniversary is coming up next year, I thought I'd try to get over with Marie. She can translate for me.'

'How thrilled she will be,' remarked Liz drily. 'Touring a muddy battlefield for days.'

'Do you think she might object? Funny, she didn't want to go and see "A Bridge Too Far", either.'

'But you did? Honestly, you're just a small boy grown larger, John!'

'It had realistic explosions,' I complained. 'And genuine Sherman tanks. Well, perhaps she could find a museum to prowl around in whilst I do a TEWT.'

Liz commented on how charitable and accomodating I was, to a shudder: I'd forgotten about Saint Luke's Hospice thanks to the busy schedule we ran to.

With no warning, our Landrover suddenly swerved violently to the left, tyres squealing, only to hit another object with an horrendously loud crash, throwing all three of us in the rear against the passenger partition.

'Ambush drill!' shouted one of the escort from the front.

'Get DOWN!' I shouted to Liz and Winters, drawing my pistol and scrambling over the tailgate, to peer around the offside rear around the covered body.

The Landrover had been hit on the front right wheel by an oncoming saloon that appeared, from the tyremarks, to have crossed the central white lines and driven directly at us. Our driver had been quick-witted enough to swerve away from the interception, at the cost of being whiplashed and battered silly for half a minute. His comrade was already out of the cab, crouching behind the open door and aiming at the saloon's driver.

Ambush drill – get the principal away. Our transport had been stopped, so we were vulnerable.

Behind us and ahead of us the traffic had immediately snarled up, leaving no way for our now immobilised vehicle to move even if it were able. There must be a second attack due, now that they had us firmly fixed in place.

'Liz! Get Winters out and move back to cover!' I yelled. 'Driver! Exit this side!'

Check behind, check to the sides, no sign of anyone moving in on us. Passers-by on the pavement stood frozen in combined alarm and curiosity.

Liz pushed the tailgate down and dragged Winters out. I pointed to parked cars at least thirty yards away.

'Cover behind them.' The stunned and bloody driver came back to me, so I put him on Winter's left arm, Liz on her right and covered them whilst they made a run for it.

'Pass me the ERK,' I shouted to the other escort. Keeping an eye on the saloon driver, who showed signs of recovery, the trooper reached in to the well under the passenger seat, hooked out the Emergency Response Kit case and slid it forcefully along the ground and under the Landrover chassis.

Now we were cooking. I undialled the locks and extracted two items that combined to make one.

'Bike, fifty yards front, sir!' called the escort, like a good sentry. Yes, a motorbike was driving in the narrow gap between parked cars and stalled traffic, in that typically opportunistic way bikers have. Another attack or simply an impatient rider? I darted a look behind me: still no threats there.

The saloon driver abruptly left his seat, and lurched out of the car, obviously concealing a weapon under his long coat. The open door promptly stopped the motorbiker, who couldn't get past, and who came to a revving halt mere inches from the door. Even at this distance I could hear him swearing at the saloon driver.

That concealed weapon turned out to be a shotgun – the driver hauled it out and let the biker have a barrel before turning back to us. The escort got him in the upper chest with two shots, that physically made him shudder. He still managed to level the shotgun and blew out the passenger door window as the escort ducked down hurriedly. I braced my shoulder against the Landrover's rear arch and carefully squeezed off another double-tap, going for the upper chest again. The range was middling and I saw both bullets hit; they weren't the nine mill stuff my escort used, these were proper .45 ACP rounds that just happened to be cross-cut. The driver rocked back on his heels, but continued to break the shotgun, reach into a pocket and begin reloading with two more shells.

Unconsciously swearing under my breath, I levelled at the man's head, as the escort shot twice again. My first shot missed, striking the saloon bodywork, but the second hit home – you could tell from kinetics as the man's head snapped back.

He still didn't go down. Not only that, he levelled the shotgun and let fly with both barrels successively. Our shooting must have been taking effect, since he got the windscreen and shattered it into the cab instead of aiming at us, and blew out the nearside front tyre. Now beginning to stagger forward, both the escort and I shot for his head. Between the two of us we hit him four more times, and finally he dropped.

The escort was swearing in surprise and horror, and I didn't blame him. Five bullets to the head and six to the upper body to stop the attacker – I'd seen symptoms like this once before, when tackling zombified slaves of the Master. No sense of self-preservation, no sense of fear, no sense of pain, or pity, or anything except mindlessly carrying out an order.

'Radio it in,' I told the escort. He climbed into the cab, gingerly avoiding broken glass.

'Trap Two, this is Crucible. I have to report an ambush on - '

Loud screams and yelling came from pedestrians on the left-hand pavement. Cue more scattering as a dark blue Leyland van drove down the pavement towards us, knocking one person sideways when the wing mirror caught their head, and crushing one woman who couldn't get clear in time. The van slewed across the flags and encountered one of the council's concrete flower boxes containing a ton of earth, smashing to a stop. The rear doors opened, as did one of the van's side doors, and half a dozen men clambered out.

Well, running down innocent people on the pavement probably indicated this lot were up to no good, an idea reinforced by the shotguns they carried. No talking, they merely set out towards the Landrover. I clapped the escort on his shoulder and we crouched down.

'Get over to that biker and get him out of harms way. He's not dead.' True enough, he was curled up and clutching himself.

A quick glance behind revealed that the other escort, Liz and Winters were vanished. Good, because one of the new arrivals climbed atop the Leyland's cab roof, and he carried what looked like a sporting rifle with a scope. At a good fifty yards distance he could pick me off at will, whereas I'd be lucky to hit him at all, and even if I did he'd doubtless just shrug the injury off.

'Sheila! Get out of the Landrover!' I shouted, inspired by fear, most probably. The barrel of the rifle instantly swung away from me, and a shot went into the Landrover's rear compartment. Two of the attackers blasted away at the now very-battered vehicle, knocking holes in the rear panel. Three more jogged closer whilst I weaved away. Strangely they didn't bother to blow me apart before I got to cover between two parked cars; not much cover, although it concealed me partially from the man on the van and his friends, who got up to the Landrover and gave it six barrels of buckshot.

Okay, God, this is a bad one, was my inner dialogue. Get me out of it I'll gladly take on Saint Luke's.

My surprise packet, plastique from the ERK with a five second pencil-fuse, could only be used at a distance or it would blow me to bits along with the attackers, and I couldn't risk killing nearby civilians by just slinging it around.

BANG! went the Leyland's cab with startling abruptness, knocking the sharpshooter on the roof off his feet. Nearby windows broke, and burglar alarms began to ring. The cab slowly emerged from a cloud of smoke, shattered and burnt. The driver stayed motionless, thrown back in his seat and covered in broken glass. Simultaneously, taking several years off my life, an incredibly fast bap-bap-bap-bap-bap came from further back down the road.

Automatic gunfire. None of us in the escort had carried anything more than a pistol. Craning around the side of my protection, I saw three of the attackers now prone, splashed with blood. The automatic gunfire came again, twinned, making horrendous screeches as bullets ricocheted off the road and pavement.

Who the hell was shooting! Given the duration of the ambush, nobody could have responded yet.

The gunfire stopped, the burglar alarms carried on ringing, people shouted and screamed and wept. The other escort had dragged the still-alive biker out of sight.

Big boots clumped closer to me, bringing into view the formidable sight of Master Sergeant Dobbs, carrying an M16 with an underbarrel grenade launcher – which he'd done the Leyland in with.

'You okay, sir? Injured?' he asked, looking at the bodies draped over the pavement. Captain Spurling came sneaking past me on the pavement, crouched low and carrying a weapon I didn't even recognise.

'I'm okay. We need to get ambulances here, there's one gunshot victim and at least one other run down by that bloody van.'

The captain went prone by a parked car, swivelled his gun at more unseen victims, then stood up and prowled over to the van, pointing his weapon directly at the still and silent driver. Satisfied with his inspection, he looked up at the sharpshooter, who lay either dead or stunned on the van roof. The rifle had fallen to the pavement, so Spurling slung it over his shoulder.

'We've got Miss Shaw and Winters and your trooper,' Mister Dobbs informed me. 'Safe in our car.'

The other escort stood up, warily, looking at our saviours. People hiding behind rubbish bins and plant holders began to emerge, looking around as warily as I did.

Over the continued racket made by errant burglar alarms, police sirens slowly drew nearer.

'Better sling your gat,' informed Captain Spurling. 'Don't wanna get killed in a blue-on-blue.'

The Met were very unhappy about The Battle of Dogford Road. They took a dim and prejudiced view of foreigners with machine guns shooting up suburban streets, UNIT daring to defend itself and the traffic chaos that took hours to clear up, especially since the Leyland van became evidence.

There were a lot of bodies to clear up, too. The biker, surprisingly, suffered no more than bruising and contusions, saved by his leather gear and the light-weight shot his assailant used. One middle-aged man had a badly gashed scalp and concussion, from being walloped by the van mirror; a woman had been rushed to Barts with severe injuries after being run down. My injured escort, Trooper Costello, had whiplash and bruising all down his chest where he'd hit the steering wheel, which were the only injuries we'd suffered.

Slightly incredible, to think that we'd been attacked by seven men with guns and gotten away with it unscathed. The Leyland's driver proved to be dead, full of shrapnel and glass; the other five attackers were either dead at the scene or before they got to hospital. Only the stunned sharpshooter from the van roof survived the battle – and of course he went into a coma in the Intensive Care unit and died before the day was out.

I radioed Kensington for another Landrover to be sent out, and a tow from Aylesbury for the battered one pushed to the kerb; Trooper Costello got taken to hospital with Lester, the other escort, to accompany him. Detectives from the Met, in increasing order of rank, came to ask, then criticise, then threaten us. However much they disliked a scene from an American cop show occurring in London, they couldn't lay a legal finger on us, which may explain why they got so bad-tempered.

Whilst waiting for more transport, we waited in the unmarked civilian Cortina that Dobbs and Spurling had tailed us with, which inevitably led to a question and answer session. That's me all over – nosey.

'Major Crichton suspected this HAL-type gizmo might try an ambush, sir. He asked us to act as your drag, keep an eye on you and intervene if needed.'

"If needed"!

'You were never more needed,' I replied with feeling.

'We got stuck in the traffic behind you when that saloon hit your Jeep head-on. By the time we got out, you were dropping that guy who'd hit you. Then the panel truck turned up, so we got the heavy kit out the trunk. Mister Dobbs got your three back into our car and then we opened up.'

Liz was trembling with the after-reaction that sets in after adrenaline wears off.

'That's it! I am not going to interfere in another UNIT investigation again!' and of course the cigarettes came out.

Winters sniffed at the tobacco smoke, then caught me looking at her.

'Don't expect me to congratulate you!' she snapped. 'They were going to release me. You just thwarted my escape.'

She couldn't be that daft, could she?

'Miss Winters, they shot that Landrover apart. The man with a rifle, who could have dropped me on the spot, deliberately changed targets and instead shot into the Landrover, and into the rear, where you would have been sitting.'

Captain Spurling turned in the driver's seat and stared at me.

'Yeah. Right.' He looked at Winters. 'Guess you've got a contract out on you, in a manner of speaking.'

The realisation that her "rescue" had in fact been an attempted assassination stopped Winters from speaking after that.

An hour later, the replacement Lannie turned up, with Corporal Twiss driving. The Met reluctantly allowed us to leave, amidst threats of dire retribution if we ever dared to repeat, etcetera, etcetera.

'So the two Yanks tooled along behind, kind of bodyguards, like, sir?' asked Twiss.

I had chosen the front seat now that we were without the escorts.

'Undercover escorts. We didn't know about them, and neither did the attackers. Did you bring along the – ah, yes.'

Twiss passed me a canvas bag containing hand grenades, which I'd requested Aylesbury send along.

I marched Winters into the prison, waiting outside her cell until two more replacement sentries came over from Kensington. I expected two, but in fact six turned up, carrying Sterlings and with grenades, too. After they settled down in the corridor and worked out a rota, I slid back the door's viewing panel to see Winters, who sat on her bunk, staring at the wall.

'Miss Winters – the new sentries are here. More of them, and with more weapons. No surprises for you tonight.'

The muttered "thank you" was almost inaudible. Making a joke, getting emotional about the Black Museum, saying thanks – all most unlike the frosty Winters of yesterday or the day before.

'Back to Aylesbury?' Liz practically pleaded in the Landrover. 'I've had enough, I really have.'

Giving her a consoling hug, I nodded.

'You can cry off the interrogations. I'll have a word with Doctor Eastlake, she might be able to spare a couple of hours.'

Inwardly I dreaded what Major Crichton would say about the gun battle and dead civvies once we got back to HQ.

My worst fears never came near fruition. The Major had called Doctor Jean Eastlake to his office, where she sat and flipped through a book of photographs. Dead sandwiches, matches, cigarette butts, coffee cups and plates stood on every flat surface in the room.

'Sorry about the shambles in London this evening, sir,' I apologised immediately, to a dismissive wave of the hand from the Major. 'Any news of Trooper Costello?'

'Don't worry, don't worry, John. I'm glad you all came out of it unscathed. Proof that we're worrying that damn computer, eh?'

Don't look that gift horse in the face, John.

'Absolutely. It must be really feeling threatened, sir.'

Jean looked at me whilst sucking her cheeks inwards, in a manner expressive of "You are so full of it!" behaviour.

'Trooper Costello, I am informed, is playing the part of wounded hero, with the nurses eating out of his hand.'

'He deserves it, sir. If he hadn't been so quick on the wheel I think all five of us would have gone through the front windscreen.'

The Major scribbled a hasty note on a pad; he had recommended that Costello get a Mention in Despatches.

'John, I've reviewed all the photos I can find of Sheila Winters in custody, whilst at Dartmoor, and then at Marylebone. Her body language is utterly reversed. Utterly! Whereas at Dartmoor she was an unemotional little tin Hitler, at Marylebone she manifests human behaviour.'

Hey, how great was that. From robot to bitchy cow in one easy move! Major Crichton shook his head and looked more intently at Jean.

'Yes. Do you have any input, John?'

Actually I did.

'Certainly. I personally observed Miss Winters manifest behaviour of an humourous variety on at least one occasion, and behaviour constituting gratitude on another occasion.'

Jean practically danced around the office with glee.

'Yes yes yes! I score again!'

Okay, Harry Sullivan will officially have a hard job to follow up his girlfriend's dancing around the office. The major and I both stared at Jean.

'Miss Eastlake, I have to report to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart that we have not so far found the rogue computer that might - at any moment - trigger World War Three. Your impromptu waltz does not inspire confidence that the monster might yet be found.'

Jean didn't even wilt under the major's sarcasm.

'Don't you see! This supports my hypothesis!'

'Humour me, Jean,' continued the Major, patiently. 'Explain your hypothesis. Explain it simply, I've had a long day and my brain's not working properly.'

Jean explained. If Sheila Winters and Jeremy Spears were the public face of Think Tank, then they would be interacting with other members of the scientific research establishment, the civil service, government officers, universities, special interest groups and so on. Lots of contact, which meant they couldn't be reduced to mindless automatons by SIGMUND for fear of people asking questions. Instead, they needed to keep their personality and charisma – though Jean hadn't met Spears if she used "charisma" in the same sentence as him – which meant that the enslavement was a more subtle process, delivered lightly yet frequently. Probably the same method used by BOSS to control Stevens.

'Ha!' snapped the Major, seeing his way to a conclusion instantly, unlike me. 'Damn, you're perceptive, Jean! And doubtless quite correct, too. Yes, that makes sense.'

"lightly yet frequently". Aha. So, the longer Jermy and Sheila Winters remained out of contact with their computer overlord, the weaker it's control would become. Eventually they'd reject all control and be free agents again.

Which was why a desperate gang of armed slaves tried to kill Sheila in an ambush – she was out of it's control and getting back to normal. I looked at Jean in appreciation – smart cookie, that girl.

'There is another thing, which I hesitate to mention, Major, since it concerns Lieutenant Walmsley,' smirked Jean.

The Major shot me a warning stay-quiet glance.

'I'm sure he can overcome any personal issues you bring up, Jean. Please, continue.'

'I understand that John has an – ah – call it a prediliction – for clever women who are a bit older than him,' merrily continued Jean.

'You're going where with this?' I asked, not happy. Unlike Major Crichton, who was positively beaming. The swine!

'Well, John, Sheila Winters is an attractive woman who falls into the category of both "a bit older" and "clever", doesn't she? Yet you treated her like an absolute pariah.'

'I should say so!' I retorted. 'She built that bloody killer robot. Programmed it, anyway.'

Jean wagged her finger at me.

'Now now! Lately you've been calling her "Miss Winters" and almost treating her like a human being. That's telling in itself.'

'Steady on!' I blurted. 'I'm not going to romance her – she's an indicted criminal and Marie will only tolerate so much.'

'Marie?' asked the doctor.

'You'd know her as Elaine Valdupont. John's girlfriend,' added the Major. 'As John said, where are you going with this, Jean, apart from embarassing the chap?' and he winked at me.

'Non-verbal communication, Major: non-verbal communication. As the computer control over her fades, Sheila Winters is behaving more like a human being and John's subconsciously picked up on that. He's treating her more like a person than as an evil cipher.'

This was so accurate that I sat back in my seat and admitted the truth of it in short order. Blimey, to quote my dad. John, the barometer of human expression, even if he didn't realise it. I narrowed my eyes at Jean.

'You're far too sharp, Doctor Eastlake. I for one will be mightily relieved when Harry returns.'

'Oh, haven't you heard?' said Major Crichton, lightly. 'He's already back. Off in Scotland with the Doctor and Sarah Jane.'

'Top! How soon can he hale himself down here?'

'Not immediately. He's gotten caught up in the Loch Ness flap. I know, I know, it would simplify matters hugely if the Doctor would just come down, but he's caught up too.'

Unfortunately there wasn't much in the way of manpower the Major could spare immediately to help with maintaining an escort for Sheila Winters, so he recommended that Captain Spurling and Master Sergeant Dobbs "attach" themselves for the duration. Liz had sworn off risking getting killed as an escort and was bivouacked in our pre-fab hall, trying to sort out where the computer might have hidden itself. No easy task.

My next port of call was the workshops, where fitters suddenly busied themselves once I arrived.

'Corporal Twiss! Corporal Dene!' I bellowed. Sure enough, both turned up in seconds, and both sucking Polos with ferocious intensity – doubtless covering up the smell of tobacco, since fags are banned in the workshops. Corporal Twiss favoured his ankle, still not properly healed.

'Listen, I want a covert way to carry around at least a couple of hand-grenades, in such a way that nobody knows what they are. Not till they go off, at least. By tomorrow morning. Think you can come up with a gimmick?'

Corporal Dene looked a little lost. Corporal Twiss, on the other hand, rubbed his hands.

'Anything goes, sir? Righto! Consider it done!' He turned back as if thinking an afterthought.

'Yes it will count against the Norton you pranged,' I growled.

9: Another Day Out, with death

Next morning a three Landrover convoy left Aylesbury. When we arrived at Marylebone the three vehicles were parked in a tri-star arrangement, with the rear gates down. Unless you were observing up close, it wouldn't be possible to tell which vehicle our VIP got into.

The four men on duty outside Sheila Winter's cell looked unhappy. The corporal in charge of the detail took me aside.

'Sir, she's been crying in there, on and off, the whole night long.'

Crying?

'Crying!'

'More like weeping, sir. Calling herself all the names under the sun. Bit un-nerving, sir.'

If you knew Susie like I knew Susie, you'd be un-nerved, too. Plus, I go to bits with a crying woman.

Luckily for my self-control and poise, Shiela had finished her crying spree when I opened up the cell. Her eyes were red and her eyelids puffy, but still working well enough to be puzzled by the package I brought into the cell.

'A bullet-proof vest. I want you to put it on under your boilersuit. Yes, I will wait outside whilst you get changed.'

Due to unfamiliarity with the tapes, it took her at least five minutes to change into the protective garment and call me back into the cell.

'Do I really need this, Lieutenant? It smacks of melodrama.'

'Better to have and not need than need and not have. After yesterday we aren't taking chances. Next, a blindfold.'

'Shot while trying to escape, eh? How very unimaginative,' she coolly replied.

'We are taking a journey to the Royal Defence College, who only agreed to let you in if you have no idea where it is or how to get there. No sinister motive.'

She insisted that I ride in the back of the Landrover with her and one of the escort, seemingly more at ease if I was there, me not being the sort who would casually execute a woman in cold blood. With the blindfold on she found balancing tricky, so I grabbed her hand and put it around one of the support stanchions; that way she didn't lurch and bang into the vehicle sides, the escort or me.

'Thanks,' she murmured. The escort gave me a deadpan wink, the sly bugger, and I hastily checked my interesting bag of tricks provided courtesy of Corporals Twiss and Dene.

The Royal Defence College is – well, let's say it's not an institute that advertises it's presence to the passers-by of London. An anonymous Georgian building, with discreet security systems that don't announce anything unusual, that doesn't have an address in the London phone book and that had proven surprisingly willing to host a party from UNIT. Major Crichton had been there on courses before, the brainy sod, and his background knowledge smoothed our path, as did the willingness of the MoD and the Home Office to let us get on with the investigation. Do well and they snatch the glory, fail and they tut in a disapproving manner.

When Sheila's blindfold was removed, we were in one of the Simulation and Computer Modelling Suites, the irony of which was not lost on me.

'Ow!' she exclaimed, bombarded with artificial light.

'I say, is she okay?' asked the earnest RAF type with jug ears and an intense manner. Flight-Lieutenant Willoughby was our minder, watcher, overseer and nervous guardian.

'The lights get turned down when the simulation is on,' I explained. 'It helps with the screen displays. Here,' and I offered her a hanky to dry her running eyes. She dabbed, then handed me the hanky back.

'Shall we get going?' asked Willoughby. 'The Air Commodore asked us to squeeze this one in for you specially, but time is a bit tight, I'm afraid. We have a simulation to run with the Canadians and – er – well, I don't think you need to know about that.'

'What is all this?' asked Sheila, out of her depth. Good! This was my arena, where I had the specialised knowledge and experience.

'That map table is a representation of West Germany, the Inner German Border and East Germany. There are other map tables available with Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, all the other potential conflict zones between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. However, we'll confine ourselves to Germany today. Those little paper counters on the map tables represent different units – armoured brigades, headquarters, mechanized infantry, ground-attack aircraft, all that sort of stuff. Oh, thanks for setting those up. Take long?' I asked the half-dozen junior officers who acted as the ground-level artisans.

'Two thousand counters? Only half an hour,' replied one of the RAF pilot officers.

'Boys and their toys!' mocked Sheila. 'A wargame.'

'Wrong!' I crowed. 'This is only the Display Room. The Red and Blue forces each have a separate room with a computer that controls units, and their orders come out on the printers over in that corner. The Blue player, for instance, will use his computer to deploy and organise his units, and those instructions are sent via the printer. The staff in here will carry out those orders, then send a report back to the Blue player via his printer. It mimics the distance of commanders physically and communicatively from the battlefield.'

There were tweaks and twists in the system. If the "Communication Breakdown" Module was running, then random orders forward and reports back would be deleted and not transmitted, which made for interesting shouting matches when battle plans went disastrously wrong. Another fun option was "Random Event Generator", which would suddenly inform a player that the Chinese were massing to attack on the border and 50 of your current forces were being removed to counter that threat, or a religious uprising in Syria had destabilised the Middle East and curtailed your oil supplies, or a gale in the English Channel prevented your resupply ships from docking, and so on. The nastiest one was "No Restraint", where low-level activation of NBC weapons was not only possible, but encouraged – "use 'em or lose 'em".

'We've set up under the parameters you explained,' said the irrepressible Willoughby. 'Odd, you know, Red having to sit still and do nothing.'

'Sorry, Sheila, I should have explained – "Red" in this case is the Warsaw Pact armies. We're going to see what might have happened if your go-codes for nuclear artillery in the BAOR were sent out. What? Oh – "British Army Of the Rhine".'

Blue Player, a group of five officers from the RAF and the RCT would begin with a routine non-conflict exercise, and then get a series of go-codes sent in to them. Red Player, three Americans, a Canadian and a Danish infantry officer, were to remain inactive – that was their original posture.

I'll draw a veil over the two hours of counter-shuffling, computer wielding, sweating and swearing that ensued after the exercise began. By the end, most of East Germany twenty miles deep along the IGB was a cratered wasteland. Berlin had gone, as had Leipzig and Bonn. The BAOR had ceased to exist, and the NATO forces in West Germany had been severely pummelled, whilst the Group of Soviet Forces Germany were clouds of radioactive vapour. Total military and civilian casualties came to fifteen million.

'Not bad!' beamed Willoughby afterwards. 'Not bad at all! No damage beyond Germany. That was pretty sustainable, you know!'

His ingenuous burble was the most devastating critique Sheila could have endured.

'Fifteen million dead!' she repeated, stunned.

'Fooh! Silly, of course not. Fifteen million casualties in total. Probably only five million dead. You see, that's the mistake a lot of people make, equating casualties with number - '

'Oh shut up!' she snapped.

There wasn't time to set up a test game for the other sequence of code words, the skeleton Warsaw Pact instructions, so Red and Blue were connected directly and the relevant codes sent in. This quick computer-run simulation only lasted ten minutes, by which time China had levelled Japan, and the Sino-Soviet border was awash with nuclear missiles flying each way, both Korea's had been devastated, and even India and Pakistan suffered attacks. Europe remained tense but quiet.

'Don't have a detailed breakdown for that exercise,' apologised Willoughby. 'But at a rough guess I'd say half the Japs are gone, maybe five percent of the Chinks, and another twenty million in Korea. Say a hundred and twenty million at a rough guess.'

Sheila remained silent at this, biting her bottom lip.

'Of course, Europe was intact!' beamed Willoughby, a man with the ability to see the silver lining even when there wasn't one.

'What if they both ran together?' I asked. He frowned.

'Ooh, not good, not good. Escalation, inevitably. Probably a full-scale exchange over a week, with nothing left in the northern hemisphere.'

We were on our way out when he commented on one aspect of the first, long and detailed simulation.

'Interesting initiation, that game. All low-yield ground-burst warheads. We tend only to see that kind of thing as part of a much-larger full scale conventional engagement.'

Miss Winters looked at me with loathing and explained exactly why.

'Nuclear explosions at height produce an electro-magnetic pulse that destroys computers. Low level, low yield explosions don't do that.'

The trip back to Marylebone was broken only by Miss Winter's comment about what a hateful man I was; perfectly hateful! This time the escort grinned and gave me the thumbs-up. I left the corporal in charge with a caution; consider the prisoner a suicide risk.

Liz had put in an appearance at Kensington when I got back there, dog-tired and with sore feet.

'How is the chilly cow?' she asked, referring to our prisoner Miss Winters I presumed. 'Feeling bad, I hear.'

'Not half. Her conscience appears to have woken up and is needling her arse every ten seconds. I took her to see a wargame based on what would have happened if those codes and phrases had been sent successfully.'

Our conversation took place in the dining suite – a touch more refined than Aylesbury's canteen – at a table in a corner. One or two of the admin staff were still there, trying to earwig unsuccessfully – we spoke quietly.

'The visit you were being so mysterious about? What came of it?'

I snorted in amusement.

'She informed me that I am a perfectly hateful man.'

Liz took a sip of her moderately dreadful vending-machine coffee and drolly rolled her eyes.

'It's taken her that long to find out?'

'Oy! These hands can kill, you know. Seriously, it seemed to really set her back on her heels. I bet by now she's wondering why she tried to do all these terrible things.'

'Hmmm. You're not worried she might suddenly go into a coma?'

'Not now. No. I think the computer's hold over her is pretty tenuous. Tomorrow morning she'll kiss my boots and tearfully beg to be forgiven.'

Liz arched an eyebrow.

'Your seedy fantasies have no place here, Lieutenant. I know all about you and the smarter, older woman.'

'Hey!' I challenged her. 'You and Jean Eastlake have been comparing notes!' In the spirit of our jibing I continued. 'And don't forget your crush on the Doctor.'

Astonishingly, Liz went a fetching shade of scarlet without saying a word.

'Oh,' I said, shrinking to the size of a five-year old child internally. 'Naughty John. See John put his boot in his mouth. See John dash to the gents - '

By the time I came back the table was empty. Damn. That wasn't my fault, surely? A joke embarasses your partner? Yes, well, that depends on how much of a joke it was. Out of nowhere, and entirely unwanted, I remembered what that horny hound Nick Munroe said about Liz when he wheedled a date out of her – she only wanted to know what the Doctor had been up to.

For a good minute and a half I swore at myself, for embarassing Liz, for not being able to deal with the moment and for allowing her to absent herself without trying to apologise. Seeking better counsel, I rang Marie at her apartment.

'Who could this be?' she replied. 'I do not seem to recognise the voice. No – wait – maybe I do - '

'Spare me the deadpan wit, Marie, I need your advice and help. I think I've mortally offended Liz and I need you to try and mend bridges.'

Of course, like any woman she had to know what the "mortal offense" was. Upon finding out, she whistled.

'John, John, what a perceptive man you are! This is why I love you. Also your splendid musculature.'

'Watch it!' I hissed. 'This is an open line!'

'You have put into words what she did not acknowledge herself, yes? Then she realises what truth lies in your joke and cannot deal with it. Leave her alone, she will come to terms on her own. Plus, if you like, I will speak to her.'

'Oh, please do. This whole bloody mess ought to be over soon, but until then I need her help.'

'You will be in my debt, then. I shall consider how you may repay me, which may include more regular telephone contacts. Au revoir!'

There you have it. James Bond never has to revert to third party arbitration to ensure his detective work runs smooth, does he? No, with him it's all blam-blam-blam. Guns, girls and gadgets. I get endless reports for Major Crichton, weepy criminals and angry colleagues, and the best that our Aylesbury workshops can provide.

Necessity meant driving back to Aylesbury to report in to the Major, since he still insisted we couldn't use telephones. The Metropolitan Police had tracked down the identities of our ambush party; no recognisable names and a curious mix of occupations: two civil servants, a plumber, a shop manager, a market gardener, a solicitor and an unemployed miner. Nothing in common, no link that might have enabled us to work out where the poor sods had been given their suicide orders. Liz had arrived earlier, then gone off to the pre-fab to try and narrow the search for SIGMUND. Deciding to keep clear of the Lady Liz for the time being, I went off to the workshops to see what Twiss and Dene had gimicked up for me.

'Hey presto!' said Twiss, producing a Coke can.

'I'm not thirsty.'

He pulled the can's top. The top came off like a lid, revealing a pin and the firing lever for a Mark 36 hand grenade, nestled inside.

'We cut the top out, washed it clean, then stuck magnets on the inside to keep it looking intact. Just fits a grenade in. Here's the other one we did,' and he gave me a second can.

'Polo, sir?' asked Dene, smirking and offering a packet of the mints. An incredibly heavy packet of Polos.

'Careful with that, sir. That's a five-second pencil fuse set in plastique, inside a grooved steel sleeve. Wrapped in tin foil with a Polo wrapper glued on.'

'Impressive!'

Corporal Dene threw one of the now-unwrapped Polos behind me. An enthusiastic crunching ensued, as Tig, UNIT's fox cub mascot, caught it in mid air and devoured it.

'Hello you rascal. What brings you here?' I asked him, stooping to scratch his head. 'Polos. Not found in the wild, hey?'

He sniffed at both my hands and decided I wasn't important enough. No Polos. Corporal Dene got the sitting-in-front-of-and-begging-look, which earned him another Polo.

'Don't give him toothrot,' I warned. 'God knows how much a vet would charge to see his teeth better.'

'Sorry, sir, we've got a glut of them. Miss Shaw donated two dozen packets.'

'Oops! Glad I missed her. Bad blood between us at the moment.'

Corporal Twiss chewed his lip.

'Between her and Tig, too, sir. He barked himself hoarse at her and ran off.'

'Women, hmm?' I riposted. 'Can't live with 'em, can't murder them and bury them at the bottom of the garden.'

'Sir!' said Twiss, apparently shocked. 'Happily married, I am.'

Liz stayed out of my way, doubtless due to her embarassment, and I headed back to Kensington to bunk down there overnight, sharing the temporary sleeping rooms with Spurling and Dobbs. A night watchman patrolled the building, but apart from that we were alone. Inevitably our chat turned to the last time I'd been billeted at Kensington, during the dinosaur emergency. Unlike every other outsider, the Americans weren't skeptical or disbelieving in the least; maybe their experiences in Vietnam that led to an application to UNIT included strange creatures, too.

'So, which of the bad guys out of the manual have you fought?' asked Captain Spurling.

'Let's see – the Autons. The Cybermen. Are the Sontarans in the new edition? Them too. And the Cadaverites, but I don't think they count. They were in the Soviet Union seven years ago.'

Mister Dobbs stared at me.

'You were a child soldier?' he asked.

'No. Thank the Doctor. Doctor John Smith and TARDIS – sorry, the TARDIS. Once he gets you involved, anything can happen.'

'And you were liaising with the Polish officer who came over here?' asked the Captain. 'What was he like?'

Kapitan Tadeusz Komorowski had been an eye-opener.

'Sharp as a razor. Mind you, I don't expect them to have sent an idiot over. See-all, hear-all, didn't say much, capable of drinking everyone under the table. Not fond of the Germans and not silent about that. When he mentioned the Russians – he never actually said anything bad about them, it's just that you could tell he didn't like them. A good officer.'

That he was. Tad's quick wits helped the RAF chopper gunships to track down myself and PC Hills whilst under attack from a stay-behind unit of Cybermen.

'Not a Commie?' asked Mister Dobbs.

'Given that we needed to track down a Roman Catholic priest for him, in lieu of the regular chaplain, I rather doubt it. I would say Polish first, Army second, Communism nowhere in sight.'

Spurling shrugged.

'The most gung-ho officer in my regiment is a Polack. Fire-eating son of a bitch, no sense of fear, drinks vodka by the pint.'

'Tad's brother,' I half-joked. 'Joking aside, we do have an unusually large number of Poles in this country.'

Both Americans looked interested, which might only have been their politeness coming out.

'How come?' asked Mister Dobbs. 'You aren't close to Poland. They aren't a traditional British ally. Different language, different religion.' Not the stereotypical bonehead NCO, Mister Dobbs.

'If and when Lieutenant Munroe reappears from his dismal northern hinterlands, you can ask him. No, really, he did a paper on the Poles for some military magazine.'

Eventually, pleading genuine tiredness, I went to bed. Up early tomorrow for the next round of discussion, interrogation and intimidation with Sheila. Hey, we seemed to be getting somewhere – beyond weeping, personal criticism was a good sign of her original personality re-asserting itself. Even if that might be as unpleasant as her chilly, robot-annealed version.

10: Sheila Winter's Giant List of Entirely Too Many Names

En route to Marylebone, unshaven, with my breath smelling of a hastily-snatched coffee, I tried to look back at events. That's one of the basics of an infantry officer, being able to stand back and get the bigger picture instead of getting stuck in.

So – the monstrous computer that Kettlewell created took over anyone who got close to it. It created a whole tranche of slaves from the staff at Think Tank, then went on to enslave a collection of people that the first batch of slaves invited in to see their fantastic computer. That second batch of slaves were still on the loose, trying to help their insane computer overlord by sabotaging UNIT's search attempts. Subtle sabotage, the kind that can't be identified or remedied in a hurry.

Nor was that all. Whether by coincidence or design, SIGMUND had begun it's move whilst UNIT UK were committed heavily to operations in Scotland, including the Brig, who could have managed to pull rank and influence far more effectively than Major Crichton.

There was a third layer in the sandwich, which didn't become apparent immediately. Remember, there are people who will seek to get personal benefit out of the worst disaster.

Our three-vehicle convoy shared space at Marylebone with other new arrivals. Anonymous black saloons, reminiscent of accountants or drug barons.

'Spooks,' remarked Captain Spurling, twitching his eyebrows at the shiny crow-coloured cars.

They looked pretty solid and matter-of-fact to me. Nor did their occupants bother us whilst we tramped down corridors do Sheila's cell.

'Ah! Sir!' said the corporal still in charge, looking haggard. His fellow sentries stiffened and straightened because an officer had turned up.

'At ease. What's the problem?'

'Problem. Yes sir. The problem is that she's convinced she's going to hell. So she wants to make amends.'

You may recall earlier, when I mentioned that a crying woman is more terrifying to me than an assault by one hundred Autons. The sentries on duty had been looking in on Sheila every ten minutes all night long, to make sure she didn't try anythig silly and self-destructive, and she'd been trying to avoid crying.

Unfortunately my arrival broke her last shred of self-reserve, and I found myself the unwilling leaning-post for a woman determined to expunge all the evil of her past existence via tears and wailing. Howling, and clutching, and sobbing.

After a good five minutes of incoherent babbling from Miss Winters, Captain Spurling leaned around the doorframe and commented.

'Ma'am. We have a schedule to keep. Could you dry your your eyes with a wad of tissue, instead of the Lieutenant?'

This time it was the captain who got furiously described as "perfectly hateful".

'It's a good thing,' I consoled him. 'Shows her real personality coming out.'

'Not sure I want that,' he muttered, departing.

'Excuse me!' snapped Sheila. 'I am not a hearing-impaired abstraction.' She turned to me. 'Lieutenant Walmsley, I understand what you and Elizabeth Shaw were trying to do. Trying to show me what – what had been done to me. Done to my mind. Well, I am now recovered. You can ask me about WOTAN all day long and I won't drop dead.'

'Right!' I replied, glad the weeping had finished. 'Let's get you a pen, paper and a nice quiet room and you can tell us all about who came to visit Think Tank and went away enslaved.'

It was a long list, and featured more than it's fair share of Whitehall establishment members. If I'd been feeling malicious I could have gone around asking which ones knew about WOTAN, and left them convulsing on the floor.

However, that would be a bad thing, the Brig wouldn't like it, nor would Major Crichton. It needed a bit of low animal cunning to solve this one.

'How are you going to deal with this machine?' asked Sheila. 'Because anyone who gets close enough to destroy it will end up getting enslaved.'

'Remember those M109's in the wargame? One of those will do nicely. Or a helicopter mounting anti-tank missiles.'

'What if it's in a built-up area?'

'Pshaw! Stuff and nonsense,' I scolded her. 'The infernal machine is long gone to a hidey-hole in distant places.'

'Not at all. Where do you hide a leaf? In a forest. Where do you hide a computer system? Amongst a concentration of other computer systems. Where does this country have the largest concentration of computer systems? London. That's where I'd be looking.'

She came out with the deduction just like that, one-two-three.

'Liz Shaw's not come up with that theory,' I slowly replied, to A Look from Sheila.

'Has she been trawling locations in London? Then she's a potential suspect, too.'

'You're just playing mind-games!' accused Captain Spurling, voicing what I thought.

'SIGMUND doesn't like it's slaves having bad habits that might kill them whilst they remain useful,' continued Sheila. 'No drinking, no smoking, no junk food, so check her for those symptoms. Subtley, if you can. I can't say I like Elizabeth Shaw very much, but I don't wish her ill.'

Food for thought. A distant possibility, nothing to worry about. Except – giving up Polos, and scaring Tig, and keeping away from the rest of us.

'Okay. Okay, I'll bear that in mind. Meanwhile, can you – keep the pen and paper – can you draw up a list of what this compter consists of. I take it that it simply isn't a giant metal box with flashing lights?'

She snorted, half-amused and half-disdainful.

'Certainly not! SIGMUND – which Kettlewell used to call his Interferometer, and think that hugely amusing – consists of forty networked units. Memory, input, output, displays.'

'"Forty"?' queried Mister Dobbs straight away. 'That manifest only listed twenty three pallets.'

'There are smaller units that can be stacked together as multiples and be put in a single pallet. The most efficient outlay is this one - ' and she sketched-in four rectangles arranged in a hollow square, with a square island of units in the middle. 'Dimensions vary according to how you stack the units. My best guess is that you'd need a room at least ten yards square for setting up, with a non-domestic power supply.'

She was really on the ball, Miss Winters. No wonder she got to be head of Think Tank. Mind you, she'd just unloaded all her female negativity in a tremendous crying session.

'Right, back in your cell. Keep the pen and paper, see if you can come up with anything else.'

She made a face.

'Don't argue!' I warned her, pointing a finger that brooked no argument. 'You're still a prisoner, still awaiting sentence and still a potential target for SIGMUND.'

'I have a suggestion, sir,' said Mister Dobbs in his characteristically soft voice. Sheila looked at his homely face with a mixture of alarm and interest.

Once again I had to drive back to Aylesbury with the list of potential suspects that Miss Winters had given me. All this damn driving was boring me rigid. Fortunately for my attention I had both Americans with me, asking questions about the Doctor this time. I couldn't clue them in on everything they wanted to know even if I tried: yes, he looked particularly human, because he'd been sent here in exile initially; yes, I'd knocked about with him on a couple of excursions – once to the recent past on Earth, and once to the far ends of the galaxy in the distant future; yes the TARDIS could travel in time; no, I hadn't met Bill Filer – though the Doctor had, and Bill gave these two an introductory talk on UNIT UK and our Special Scientific Advisor.

Major Crichton and The Boy Eden were happy to see the list that Sheila Winters produced, and less happy to note that the dead people from Dogford Road didn't feature anywhere on it.

'Must have been zapped after it made it's daring escape,' commented Captain Spurling.

'Or they were zapped by WOTAN, and then re-zapped by SIGMUND,' I suggested.

'Look at these names!' goggled Major Crichton. 'Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor! Assistant Commissioner at the Met. Bloody Hell! These two run the Home Office – Permanent Secretary and Director General. Good God, no wonder our investigation ran slow with this lot dragging their heels.'

He would need to tread softly and carefully from now on. These people ran the country, both up front and behind the scenes. Geneva would have to be notified, with the prospect of political oversight or interference from them in the British political process. Frankly this list was a hot potato. The Major took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

'God grant me strength. I ought to take up smoking to deal with the stress.'

The Boy stuck his conversational oar in – for once, to positive effect.

'You could ask Liz Shaw for hers, sir. She's given up smoking.'

For such a simple phrase, it sent a shiver of fear through me. Mister Dobbs said something under his breath, whilst Captain Spurling drew his breath in sharply.

'What?' asked the Major instantly, recognising a problem. I explained what Sheila Winters told us.

'Given up smoking and sworn off Polos. It's pretty thin, John.'

'Not just that, sir. Tig took an instant dislike to her. He's met her before. He may have picked up on what Doctor Eastlake calls non-verbal communication.'

He still looked dubious.

'I'm still not convinced. And it's not as if we can just ask her, either, and risk her collapsing.'

Inspiration struck me.

'Allow me, sir. I need to make a phone call.'

I rang and asked questions when the lady at the other end answered, before thanking her sincerely, warning her not to tell Liz anything and promising to speak to her again, soon.

'That was Marie, sir. She knows Liz very well and they've worked together for years. She stated that the last time Liz gave up smoking it took five weeks of misery for all around her before she became a normal human being again.'

That fact impressed the Major, and he made a logical jump from that.

'If – and only if – Liz has been affected, then she's come into contact with that damn machine. Which means in her recent itinerary, we have the clue to where it's hiding.'

Except how to get that out of her. "Hi Liz, where have you been recently? Whoops, don't have a coma!" wasn't possible.

'Plus, sir, I thought she was avoiding me because I'd embarassed her. More likely she knows that I'll spot differences in her behaviour.'

'Very well, I'll put Captain March on her case. He can watch her covertly.'

An idea of unusual subtlety struck me.

'Hang on a minute, sir, just off to the workshops. Back in five.'

The sadly-reduced staff in the workshops were discussing the finer points of a recent football match between Spurs and Arsenal, in between swilling from great enamel mugs of tea.

'Corporal Dene – did Miss Shaw take a UNIT Lannie out yesterday or the day before?'

'Yessir,' he replied.

'And do you have the log book to hand?'

He did. Not only that, he'd updated it as per regs.

'Great! I need to borrow it.'

One hasty jog back to the Major's office later, I showed him the log book.

'Here we go, sir. Mileage at start of day, thirty five thousand eight hundred twenty. Mileage at end, thirty five thousand, eight hundred ninety two. Corporal Dene filled the figures in before Liz took the vehicle out and when she got back.'

'So we know - ' began The Boy Eden before Major Cricton leapt to the correct conclusion.

'A circle with a radius of thirty six miles, centred on Aylesbury.'

He picked up a divider, fiddled with his calculator for a second and inscribed a circle on a wallmap of the south east of England.

'Excellent! From that alone we know she couldn't have gone south of the Thames.'

It was the work of a few minutes to locate a large-scale London map, which the Major checked for scale, did more calculating and finally inscribed another circle onto.

'There. Restricted to the City, and parts west of that. No further eastwards.'

'She might have parked and used the Tube, sir,' pointed out Mister Dobbs. The Major shook his head.

'Occams Razor, Mister Dobbs, Occams Razor. We use that circle as a guide.'

Doctor Eastlake, ever willing to help, threw a spanner in the works. Apparently she knew just what we were up to, which I blame on the Major, who seemed to be developing a soft spot for her. She came up to his office, knocked and entered whilst we were brainstorming about where the hideous SIGMUND might be hiding.

'Hello, Jean – er, Doctor Eastlake,' said the Major, catching his lapse. Too late. Eager ears had heard all.

'I hear you brave knights are off to beard the dragon in it's lair,' she replied, eyeing us all. 'Without, if I may add, bothering to find out if you can even approach the dragon.'

Another Oh Crap! moment. Of course, SIGMUND would instantly enslave anyone getting close enough to it. Since the machine seemed to be hidden in the middle of London, the chances of standing-off and shelling or bombing it vanished into insignificance. Meaning some brave soul would need to get into point-blank range to deal with it.

'John,' began Major Crichton, thoughtfully. 'You said the Doctor proofed you against mind-control when you went to Russia?'

'Errrr – yes sir. Yes. Not sure how long it lasts for.'

'Fancy being a volunteer?' he asked. He didn't make it an order, which showed a bit of compassion, I suppose.

'Excuse me!' interrupted Jean. 'I think I ought to test-drive our less-than-willing subject first. We'll see if he really is able to shrug off hypnosis or mind control before asking him to volunteer. John, come with me.'

I turned imploring eyes to the major, who shrugged helplessly.

'Eminent domain, John. Be gentle with him, J – Doctor.'

What followed in the doctor's sickbay had to be the dullest set of tests ever undergone by unwilling victim. First Jean tried an hypnotic induction, which ended when her voice went after thirty minutes. One cup of tea later, she resorted to chemicals, to wit: sodium pentothal. She then had to wait until I woke up and stopped snoring an hour later, entirely unaffected. Having got her voice back, again, she lost it, again, trying a vocal induction with both a watch and sodium pentathol.

Eventually I got delivered back to the Major's office with Jean.

'It may be possible to hypnotise this walking housebrick,' she told the room at large. 'But twentieth century medicine can't manage it.'

Major Crichton's smile had all the gentle appeal of a shark, or a tiger.

'Excellent! I think we've found the petard-carrier!'

Let me elaborate a little on that. A petard was a large charge of explosive used in the English Civil War, to defeat defence works. Some hapless sod, a volunteer or a volunteered, would be given a liberal dosage of alcohol, a petard and a slow fuse. He then had to get to the target, hoist his petard upon it, light the fuse and get under cover before it blew up the defences and him.

'I think your analogy could be bettered, sir,' I informed him.

'Get yourself back to Kensington, John. I want you to use that search circle on the map to refine the list of buildings we might have to search. Oh – I understand you've got a pocketful of IED's with you?'

"IED" – Improvised Explosive Device. A home-made bomb.

'Sort of, sir. If we don't know who might be a mindless automaton killer, I don't want them to know I've got hidden explosive potential.'

'Be careful!' he warned, with feeling. 'I'm not the Brig and I can't provide his level of protection if you go around blowing up the Inns of Court.'

11: Wny Special Branch Do Not Like UNIT

Fed-up with driving, I lay on a camp-bed in one of the spare rooms in Kensington office that night and thought hard about what to do next. My suspicions were that those attackers from Dogford Road had been people subverted by WOTAN back in the sixties, and that potentially there were a lot more out there like that. Not only were UNIT trying to do this solo, we had to work alone – there might be other covert slaves to this bloody machine hiding in the woodwork.

Therefore, no contact with the police. No contact with anyone official, in fact. Avoid any contact that might allow the Wretched Machine to discover that we knew about it's activities, and avoid any instruction it might send to kill-kill-kill to its minions.

Things-to-do next day definitely included a call to Sheila Winters.

Who was, officially; Dead.

At least that was the story myself and Mister Dobbs were retailed at Marylebone. Sheila had been attacked by a lay prison visitor carrying a concealed butcher's knife, and stabbed to death, in her cell. The attacker was currently in the hospital suite, lying comatose after convulsing into insensibility earlier. Sheila's bloody corpse currently lay in the canteen's walk-in freezer, since they didn't have a morgue.

All complete nonsense, by the way. Mister Dobbs had suggested – and when he "suggested" other people took it to mean "do this" – that we create a mannequin of Sheila Winters, place it in her cell and move her to a different prison location. As a substitute, a mop-head surmounted boilersuit lying on a bunk is not a very convincing target, unless you happen to be a monomaniac killer trying to dart past sentries and carry out your assassination in one second flat.

Perhaps it meant Sheila was less at risk. Certainly, she was more focussed than at her initial outburst of woe and remorse, even to the point of thanking Mister Dobbs for an idea that possibly saved her life.

In return, she was slightly impressed with my ability to narrow the search for our missing monster machine. North of the Thames, and west of a line that approached the River Lee, removing about eighty per cent of the city from the search. Which still left an awful lot of ground to cover. More correctly, streets, buildings and occasional open ground, this being London.

'Any ideas on where this thing might be hiding?' was my initial question.

'An official government building,' she quickly replied. 'Where it wouldn't look out of place.'

'That would help in Wigan,' I muttered. 'Not in the capital. Government buildings on every street.'

'Perhaps you're looking at it the wrong way,' she mused, looking beyond the walls of her cell. 'Not where is it, instead "how did it get there?".'

'In a collection of wooden boxes, stuffed with polystyrene packing beads.'

'No, no, you misunderstand. How many lorries would be needed to transport this machine's components?'

Unknown. The paperwork dealing with that had "gone missing", only a temporary problem we were assured, it would turn up in a few weeks time. The drivers involved? Gosh, that paperwork had been shredded accidentally, no help there. Exact date the stuff went absent? Entirely a wild stab in the dark.

Sheila snapped her fingers, then snatched up her pen and paper, to sketch a pair of triangles, arranged next to each other, base opposite point.

'I've just developed a quite elegant algorithm! Look at this arrow - ' which had the title "Ergonomics" ' – versus this arrow - ' which bore the title "Visibility". 'If we presume that only one or two trucks brought the components into London, then their passengers would have taken a very long time to move those boxes. On the other hand, if we presume that a whole convoy of at least a dozen trucks were used, then they take up far less time.'

Mister Dobbs, a man used to carrying suitcases for his family on holiday, caught on instantly.

'I get it. With only one truck they don't impact traffic much, but they stay on-site for hours unloading the gear. With a dozen trucks they have enough men to shift the stuff real quick, but they snarl up the roads something awful. What you're saying is that, either way, people may have noticed. A single truck parked for ages or a big convoy inconveniencing everyone for only a little while.'

A start, then.

Next came an unwelcome phone call from Major Crichton. It took the prison staff a few mintes to track me down, in the new accomodation for Sheila.

'John. More bad news – Liz has gone missing. Didn't check out properly or sign out, dumped her UNIT Landrover in Aylesbury town centre and presumably took public transport into London.'

I wilted a bit at that. What else could go wrong?

'There's a motorbike missing, too, but I don't think she stole that. I've instructed Kensington to send out anyone they can spare, in civvies, to try and spot her. Don't try to confront her if you make contact, just observe and follow.'

Great, she must suspect that we suspect, or she'd never have dumped the Lannie.

Our threesome were en route for Kensington after that productive little chat with Sheila, me driving, Mister Dobbs in the back and Captain Spurling in the passenger seat – the warrant officer took up too much room to be comfortable in the seat alongside me.

Spurling seemed to be suffering from the fidgets. He bobbed about, looking in the rear view mirror, the wing mirror, craned his head around to look behind us.

'I'm not an expert,' he finally announced. 'So I can't be positive about us being followed …'

'Mister Dobbs!' I shouted. 'Counter-ambush drill!'

Sinister metallic sounds came from the rear of the passenger section; Mister Dobbs getting ready.

Their approach was open and unsubtle; a pair of Ford Granada's in a dark paint scheme accelerated past us on the wrong side of the road and pulled in to the kerb, blocking the Landrover.

'CONTACT!' I shouted, jamming my leg rigid on the brake. The screeching, smoking halt our Landrover came to triggered the incongruous thought in my mind that the fitters would be unhappy at me taking so much tread off the tyres.

Captain Spurling had shoved the passenger door open and produced that strange, cut-down Armalite he'd used previously at Dogford Road. I tugged Captain Beresford's much-prized folding-stock paratrooper version of an SLR from under my seat, not bothering to unlatch the stock: at this range I couldn't miss, and the armour-piercing/tracer mix would knock holes in the Granada's and anyone sitting in them. SIGMUND slave or not, getting one of these bullets in the guts would spoil your day permanently.

'Don't shoot! Don't bloody shoot!' shouted a desperate voice from one car.

'Special Branch!' called another one.

Sweating furiously, I eased off on the trigger. Could they be genuine?

'No firing until my command,' I ordered very loudly. Thankfully neither of the Americans were the trigger-happy idiots they might have been. Unlatching and locking the FN's stock, I hefted it to my shoulder and pointed at the nearest car.

'Advance and be recognised,' in my best parade-ground bellow. A short and intense argument broke out before a reluctant passenger pushed the door open and stepped cautiously out.

'Don't shoot!' he called, a lanky character with hair now dishevelled and sweaty.

'Hands laced together behind your neck. Move forward to the bonnet.'

'We - ' he began.

'Shut up!' I snarled back, angry at nearly having machine-gunned this idiot into swiss cheese when it might not have been a real attack. 'Hands on the bonnet, palms down. Head to the side. Do not effing move!.'

All pretty standard stuff for a VCP in hostile territory. Not what you'd expect to experience in a London street. Passers-by stopped to gawp, or ducked for cover.

'Captain, cover him while I search.'

Captain Spurling directed an emotionless eye down the gunsight, aligned on the victim's head, whilst I frisked him.

'Don't move,' he drawled. 'Or I nail your head to the hood with half a clip.' It sounds like a bad line from a gangster film, but with the captain's deadpan delivery and his sinister scarred cheek in it's half-smile, it came over as sincere.

'Webley revolver,' I called out, taking it from a shoulder holster, depositing it on the Landrover bonnet. 'Six-round reload. Wallet.'

The warrant card confirmed that Sergeant Ian McNally was a member of Special Branch. He also had a cosh tucked down his sock, and a packet of condoms in his jacket's inner pocket.

'I said - ' he began before I jammed the muzzle of the FN against his left ear.

'DO NOT TALK!" I was frantic that this might be an ambush trying to masquerade as a not-ambush, with Sgt McNally trying to give information to his accomplices verbally. 'Keep him covered whilst I call this in.'

Captain Spurling aligned his weapon at McNally's left temple, which meant the officer could see the gun muzzle a few feet away. Mister Dobbs covered the two cars with a LAW rocket, capable of turning one of them inside-out if used. I hoped that the use wasn't necessary; you can have quite enough of blowing up hapless computer slaves in a day.

UNIT Kensington took a few minutes to return my call, with information that didn't make any sense.

'Kensington, can you repeat your last, over?'

'Confirm repeat. From start. Special Branch to intercept Lieutenant John Walmsley and escort to interview, on orders from quote the very highest authority unquote message ends, over.'

So there it was. A genuine interception by the specials. I sagged in the car seat, sweatily aware I'd nearly gunned down normal police officers.

Detective Sergeant McNally, understandably, felt a touch aggrieved and unhappy. He informed me of this, with plenty of emotive language that must have enriched the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary of Mister Dobbs and Captain Spurling.

'Next time, just get your boss to call my boss beforehand ,' I told him, weak with relief at not having shot dead two carloads of policemen.

'He did!' snarled the officer. 'He didn't want another bloody Dogford Road!'

His sincerity couldn't be doubted. Nevertheless, I didn't get any warning. More evidence of computer-enslaved mischief and meddling, because I couldn't accept that Special Branch and UNIT Kensington and Aylesbury were so incompetent simultaneously.

A plain-clothes Inspector came over, grim-faced, to announce that my presence was required at Westminster. No, he didn't know why. Yes, I could remain in the Landrover, with them as an escort. In fact they'd prefer that.

That's one way to travel in London traffic – with a high-speed police escort. Each Granada carried a detachable flashing light and a siren, which they cranked up to full volume as we annoyed the London drivers at sixty miles per hour.

Once at the Houses of Parliament, the Special Branch officers formed an escorting party, so the interview had to be there. I left my American back-up in the Landrover, with instructions to call Aylesbury and inform about what had happened.

'Watch it, Lieutenant,' warned Captain Spurling. ''Cos they weren't in the cars that were tailing us.' He gave me a twisted grin, made especially grim thanks to his scarred cheek.

The House of Commons isn't exactly terra incognita to me, since I'd been there three times whilst doing my degree at Leeds. This time I got marched up and downstairs at length, ending up in an anonymous wood-panelled corridor where the Specials ushered me through a door, remaining outside on sentry duty themselves.

'Ah. The man of the moment,' came the jovial voice of a man I recognised instantly: Dennis Healy, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and possessor of the most impressive eyebrows in British politics.

The room was small, well-carpeted, oak-panelled and contained several expensive upholstered chairs, a mahogany table and – as I realised – three politicians from each of the main political parties. Dennis Healy, from the reigning Labour government; Ted Heath, from the Conservatives, and Jo Grimond, of the Liberals.

What the hell did three of the country's top movers and shakers want with me?

'Please, take a seat,' invited Mr Heath, indicating one backed up against the wall.

I sat down, looking around very warily. Nor was I going to open my mouth first.

'Do you know why we took the rather drastic method of summoning you, almost at gunpoint?' asked Dennis Healy.

'No, Chancellor' I said, slowly and politely. Slow and polite was the way to play it with these chaps. The gunpoints had been closer than he realised.

'Your colleagues have been making alarming noises about various people ah - "compromised", shall we say, by a rogue computer. A replay of the WOTAN affair,' explained Ted Heath, in his effortlessly sincere basso.

'Oh!' I exclaimed in surprise. 'You know - '

'I was Prime Minister, you know,' he said. 'We are kept informed about – how does it go now?'

' "exotic threats to the human commonwealth",' quoted Grimond, dourly.

Mister Healy leant forward, emphasising the point to be made with his finger.

'What we worry about is an attempted coup.'

'Good God! No way, sir! This machine hasn't got enough slaves to make any overt moves, certainly not yet, unless it tries a massive distraction.'

'Not the damn machine!' muttered Grimond. 'Idiot.'

'Your lot,' said the Chancellor, leaning back in his seat, still pointing at me.

"Your lot" – UNIT? Stage a coup? UNIT?

'Sir,' I began, looking between all three of them. 'UNIT UK numbers less than a thousand men, most of whom are currently deployed in Scotland. If - '

'We mean the regular army, the intelligence services, not UNIT. Well, not UNIT specifically.' That was the Chancellor's clarification.

Words almost failed me. Luckily a recollection from staff college came back.

'Sir. The regulars are about as loath to interfere in politics as it's possible to be. I challenged cadets who used to criticise the government by asking how they'd deal with a balance of trade deficit, or whether to recognise Northern Cyprus, or what kind of tax relief to offer on mortgaged property, or how the NHS ought to be overseen, and they'd always mumble and back down.'

Ted Heath gave a short laugh. He seemed genuinely amused.

'Splendid response! You have a politics degree, don't you? The aftermath of the revolution in Portugal is on our minds at the moment, which might better explain our concern.'

Aha. The Porks had recently ended two years of political upheaval with genuine elections after their bloody chaos of 1974.

'We think the security agencies are perhaps mindful of the opportunity this rogue WOTAN creates for them,' the Chancellor carried on. 'The ability to interfere with government by allegation or implication. Disagree with the PM? Get rid of him by alleging WOTAN's influence. Lack of funding for your pet project? Depose the civil servants deemed to be the obstacle. Do you see what we mean?'

Plausible, if perhaps slightly far-fetched. Not to mention a touch paranoid.

'What I see, sir, are three politicians who are not the leaders of their parties. What I don't see are any stenographers, junior ministers or backbench MP's, secretaries, tape recorders or any other recorders.'

'Eureka. The penny drops,' said Grimond. He seemed to be in a bad mood.

'This is an unofficial meeting,' agreed Ted Heath. 'Without any legislative or administrative powers.'

Right. I knew, thanks to the papers and television news, that he didn't like the new leader of the Conservatives, Margaret Thatcher. Jo Grimond's presence might be due to the Liberals only just having a new leader elected, David Steel, who must be busy getting to grips with leadership at present. Denis Healey's avuncular persona simply meant that the PM was too busy to be here.

'I can see what you're thinking,' continued Mister Heath. 'Margaret Thatcher has not, unlike my esteemed colleague here, experienced warfare. Believe me, neither of us want to see Europe suffer again as it did in the Forties. Or in your Defence College simulations.'

How the hell did he know that!

'Which is what will happen if unelected, self-appointed technocrats lay their hands on the levers of power,' finished off the Chancellor. 'Exploiting armies in what Erikson termed "slave warfare".'

This level of political analysis and concern was a bit rich for me. As a junior officer, what did they want from me?

'Very good, sir. Where do I come into the picture?'

'You, young man, are a genuinely unsettling influence,' said Mister Heath. 'I have been briefed about your exploits in Yorkshire, and the Cybermen.'

'Bloody Cybermen,' commented Grimond. He seemed to be quite as annoyed with the Cybermen as with me. Must have piles.

'We think you possess enough insight, not to mention the capacity for mayhem, to prevent our errant intelligence services from acting in their interests and not the country's,' carried on the Chancellor.

Hang on hang on – this country's biggest and best were expecting a junior infantry officer to pull their fat out of the fire?

'Blow the bloody thing up,' snapped Jo Grimond. 'Destroy it. Get rid of it. How much intellect does that take?'

I guess that means back to being a big fat thug, instead of the intellectual sleuth.

'Destroy WOTAN's younger brother, go home laden with medals,' I summarised, facetiously. None of the politicians present looked amused. Oh well, stuff them, humourless buggers.

12: Ecological Validity Plus Traffic

Captain Spurling and Master Sergeant Dobbs looked relieved when I rejoined them an hour after we'd parted company.

'Worried you might not make it,' began the Captain.

'Worried enough to bury the hatchet,' finished Mister Dobbs, referring to the unending rivalry between airborne and marine establishments.

'Gentlemen – I don't quite know how to put this, but I think our rogue computer now has a political and contemporary influence.'

Wonderfully terrific. Now the political establishment were breathing down my neck. MI5 – in all probability – were tailing us, for reasons best known to themselves. None of which took into account that SIGMUND might be plotting to attack us, and Liz was still missing, and I'd got twenty square miles of London to track the machine down in.

We had, of course, forgotten Captain March. He had not forgotten us; he sat, looking dishevelled, in a plastic chair in the second floor open-plan offices at Kensington.

'Bloody hell! Fitz, what are you doing here?' I blurted. 'Ah – that is, Captain March,' for the benefit of my American escorts.

'Resting my aching bum, if you want to know, John. Those Norton's are not comfortable if you've not ridden them before.'

The missing motorbike at Aylesbury was explained. The Captain clarified. He'd been told to keep an eye on Liz Shaw, discreetly, which he did typically; that is to say, his victim had no idea she was under observation. When he realised she was stealing one of the motor pool Landrovers, he only had time to get on a Norton and follow her into Aylesbury, a motorbike being the quickest thing we had on site and Liz already with a couple minutes' head start. Then he followed the train into London, stopping at stations en route to make sure his target didn't get off in between Aylesbury and London. He locked the bike up at Euston and followed Liz on the Tube to Russell Square, where she got off and he stopped tailing her.

'Don't know the range of this computer, didn't want to get zapped as well. So, only a rough idea of location.'

I was impressed. From half the City to a few streets.

Then I impressed the Captain, describing how the upper echelons of the House of Commons were bending my ear only a couple of hours ago.

'Serious stuff! They wouldn't try that on if the Brig was back here. I hear he's heading south at present, after killing a lot of Loch Ness's fishy denizens.'

That was better news. From what Kensington told us, the Brig and his HQ group were haring south at a rate of knots.

Righto, John, screw that courage to the sticking place and put your best foot forward.

'In the meantime, sir, I think I ought to put on civvies and sneak around Russell Square.'

The only "civvies" available turned out to be a grubby old boilersuit discovered hung up in a broom cupboard. Pockets bulging with my fake Coke cans, packet of polos, .45 and boot knife, I didn't look at all like a business-like army officer.

'Not bad!' praised Fitz. 'Hang on a minute.' He fished about in a back pocket and handed me a pair of National Health glasses. 'No lenses. Makes you look different.'

The boilersuit smelt musty, and was also crusty, in all pretty disgust-y. People on the streets around Russell Square tube station kept clear of me because of the smell, I rather hope.

Luck, and divine intervention, coincided when I was passing a row of parking meters, all with the "Expired" flag up. A gloomy-looking traffic warden stood at one, writing details in his notepad. Odd, that – I'd have expected a shark-like grin from him at the victims on offer.

"Notepad", John, notepad. A man who works in this area and who keeps tabs on traffic.

' 'scuse me,' I began, to a wrinkled nose and sniff.

'The public baths are that way, mate,' said the warden. He possessed the hang-dog looks of a man at fifty, whilst only being thirty.

'See this?' I asked, getting in closer and flashing my UNIT ID.

'No dinosaurs round here, mate,' he flatly informed me. Aha, a comedian. Still with a sour face.

'Actually I'm looking for Cybermen,' I tried, seeing his face tauten and pale a little. 'Or, their great-grandaddy.'

'This ain't a wind-up?' he asked.

'I wouldn't wear a stinking sack like this for fun. Do you cover this area?'

'Yus,' replied the warden – Warden 496. 'For me sins.'

'Okay, Four Nine Six. I'm trying to find the location of a truck, maybe a couple of trucks, that would have been off-loading pallets of equipment in this area. Between two or three weeks ago.'

He squinted at me, suspiciously.

'Blimey. Can't you be a bit more vague? I might be able to guess the answer to that one.'

He really had no sense of fear, this chap.

'Well what's the answer, then?'

'Mates of yours, were they? Bloody nuisances. "UNIT" means permission-to-park-anywhere you lot feel like. I have to cop for the punters, you know, when you lot double-park. That ID of yours, you treat it like a permit. "Permit to park anywhere I like".'

I tried to loom menacingly, only for 496 to back away, flapping a hand in front of his nose.

'The trucks?'

'Same place you keep parking, mate.'

'Just tell me where it is before I strangle you!'

'Get any closer and you will choke me, mate.' He indicated with his pen. 'Two streets over, outside the MAFF building.'

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Whilst I'm sure the MAFF thinks highly of

itself, the relatively small building didn't rate two armed guards, stood discreetly out of sight in the lobby, as I discreetly watched the lobby, and certainly not two armed guards from the MoD. Back I went to Warden 496, who was slowly strolling along the road as if he owned it. In a way he did, the arrogant sod.

'Ooh, can't stay away. Found your mates, have you?' he chirped.

'Listen, you insufferable sod, they aren't my mates – hang on, have you seen a UNIT Lannie parked outside there?'

Pushing back his peaked cap with his biro, Four Nine Six pursed his lips.

'Seen a what?'

'A Lannie. A long-wheelbase Landrover.'

'Army slang, is that it? Army slang, baby talk, much the same. Lemme see, lemme see …' and he flipped his notebook very slowly. 'Here's what you arsked about to begin with, mate. A Bedford Three-Tonner, reg G22 87 94. Given "special dispensation from the MoD" to unload on double-yellows. Parked up at eight fifteen, finished loading and moved off at eleven forty five. Good God above, the bloody stick I got from motorists who couldn't get past!'

I leant closer, nodding in annoyance. The Landrover!

'Now, now. Patience, mate, patience. That's a virtue, you know. Don't see much of it in my job.' Flip, flip, flip went the pages of his notebook. ' 'Ere you go. Landrover, UNIT livery, parked up outside MAFF's - '

'Was a woman driving it? Smart, clever-looking, strawberry blond, hair in a bob.'

'Dunno, mate, she had a hat on. Big white job. Nice legs, mind.'

Close enough for me.

'Listen, Four Nine Six – I'll call you Four because we're such famous friends now – what don't you like about your job?'

He stood back in amazement.

'Are you kidding! "don't like"? The bloody drivers who infest this metropolis, mate, that's what I don't like! Spitting, punching, swearing, when all I'm doing is me job. Last week, there was this bloke who threw a pint pot full of p- '

'I get the picture, Four. If you got promoted, would that take you off the streets?'

'Yus, it would. What you banging on about me career for?'

'Because you deserve compensation.'

Once again suspicion shone from his every pore.

'Compensation for what, eh?'

Kensington were not happy about forcibly detaining a traffic warden, in one of the spare, bare bedrooms reserved for visitors like me.

Sergeant Major Pulteney, in charge at the moment, deferred with reluctance.

'Protecting the public, that's one thing, sir. Protective custody, that's another. But – protecting a traffic warden!'

'Same old story, hey?' quipped Captain Spurling. 'One uniform jealous of another.'

'Don't laugh, he just pinpointed SIGMUND for us. Yes, thought that would get your attention!'

An expanding circle of silence went out across the whole second floor.

'His name is Stan Wheeler, and he's at risk if SIGMUND or one of it's drones find out he knew it's location and gave it away. Hence he's here until it gets dismantled.'

Captain March handed me a brown manilla envelope that had been couriered into Kensington, torn open, then re-sealed with sellotape, scrawled over in red pen and stamped with an illegible franking mark.

'Your dirty magazine has arrived, apparently, John.'

'World's smallest magazine then, sir. Ah – I know who it's from!'

Our penitent computer expert, Sheila. The staff at Marylebone must have analysed her letter inside out, just to make sure it wasn't anything illegal or untoward.

"BE CAREFUL!!!!!" yelled the first sentence, with just that number of exclamation marks. "If it is possible to dissociate the machine's higher cognitive processing then it would retain the ability to over-write human EEG function remotely, under guidance from an operator. Retrieval or dismantling or power-outage in situ are not effective options YOU WILL HAVE TO 39TH RGT RA IT luvnxxxsheila".

'Secret language?' asked the captain when I showed him the letter. 'I don't follow it.'

' "39th Rgt RA" is the Royal Artillery, sir. The ones who throw nuclear artillery shells around. Sheila's way of saying the whole thing needs blowing to bits without alarming the police scrutineering her letter.'

As for the rest of it –

'I think, boss, she's saying that the machine can be used as a brain-washing device if you muck about with it enough, enough to stop it thinking for itself.'

All eyes were upon me again. Oho, perhaps this explained MI5's following UNIT. Get your hands on SIGMUND, de-brain the machine – if that's what you call filleting a computer, the technicalities are beyond me – and hey presto! instant slave-maker. Which also explained the worries of Messrs Healey, Heath and Grimond.

'That can't be allowed,' said March, flatly. 'The moral implications of a device like that beggar description.'

For a moment he seemed to be echoing the Doctor, who was fond of declaring how much he hated computers, and who had a knack of doing-in computers that controlled humans.

'Well, your man with Coke grenades stands ready, sir.'

Captain March had obtained a large-scale London streetmap, laid it out on a tabletop and circled the MAFF building. He exhaled strongly when I bent over to check alongside him, thanks to the sweat soaking into the boilersuit.

'Phew, John, that's taking the Method a bit far. I'm glad I'll be riding the motorbike back instead of sharing a cab with you.'

'My professionalism will shrug off any such comments, boss. Look, there's a side-entrance on the south side. A single door. That'll be easier to get in than the main lobby.'

'Bound to be alarmed,' commented Captain Spurling. 'Do you have time to isolate and deactivate their system?'

No. Not with the resources of UNIT alone. If we'd been able to call on the intelligence services – and there was another potential problem. MI5 were hanging around. If we led them to SIGMUND, then they might very likely try to take possession of the unit, and a whole lot of dead MI5 men would go down rather badly – there was no way I'd let them get their hands on a slave-making machine, and Captain March would be right behind me with another gun.

'You need a distraction,' said Mister Dobbs. 'Fake it, then make an end run.'

This, I think, was American for a one-two punch.

'Kids throwing stones,' suggested Captain Spurling. 'Break windows, trigger the alarm, sneak in the side door.'

'Rowdy kids in short supply,' replied Fitz, drolly. 'Rowdy adults in uniform we've got plenty of – a whole office block-worth here at Kensington.'

A niggling idea flitted about the back of my mind. Rowdy kids, Americans, storming a building.

'Remember when a load of students tried to take over the American Embassy?' Stonily unimpressed looks from both Americans. 'Well, we're not half a mile from the London School of Economics and hordes of bolshy students.'

Captain March stood up straight.

'And Mike Yates lectures there! That's our in. Come on, get into your uniform, we've got a visit to make.'

13: Let's Shout Eccessively

The "Brit's Out" party had moved away from the entrance to the LSE, being replaced by a single woman in a duffel coat with a banner reading "No torture sales to Chile". Captain March and I got a lot of very hostile looks, which bothered us not at all, from the students we passed. One spat on the floor at my feet when we stopped to take the lift.

'How hugely uncouth,' said Fitz, very loudly, catching my eye in a manner warning not to react physically.

'No consideration for the cleaning staff,' I added, again very loudly. True enough, some cleaner would have to fix Mister Gesture's sputum off the floor.

Mike was in the middle of a seminar when we turned up to disturb him, bobbing about at the window of the door. His parting students once again gave us the hostile once-over five minutes later as the room emptied and we discreetly entered.

'Twice in a week?' asked the hairy-faced one. 'Is that Fitz – oho! – a Captain now,eh?'

'Did John explain what we were trying to locate? The present-day British equivalent of BOSS. Well, we've found it, and you might like to have a crack at getting the revenge you never got on BOSS.'

Mike went very still and quiet.

'Me? How, exactly?'

Fitz cracked on with the idea he'd expanded upon at Kensington. Mike oscillated between a barely-concealed relish at the prospect of helping to smash SIGMUND to bits, and concern for his students.

'Nothing risky, they just have to mill around and throw a couple of stones whilst John slips inside. Shout lefty slogans, wave banners, the sort of thing they imbibe with their mother's milk.'

After persuading Mike, the next step was to get the willing student bodies together – an altogether harder task. Mike led us to the canteen and asked that we wait outside, for fear of upsetting the delicate digestions of the students.

After a bit of silver-tongued magic from Mike, he came out with two willing anarchists. One, unfortunately, was that celtic harpy from the front steps.

'You!' she exclaimed, not happy at seeing me.

'No, "UNIT",' corrected her companion, a gangly youth wearing a green army-surplus combat jacket.

'I see you've met Katrina Costigan already,' said Mike, standing between us to prevent any verbal nastiness. 'Let's get back to my office.'

Over a cup of tea and digestives, we tried to persuade our bolshy students to venture forth on our crusade against the machine. Don, the wittier of the two, proved to be interested in a ruck simply for the sake of it. Katrina was harder work.

'Look, Miss - ' began Fitz.

'Mizz,' she corrected.

'Okay, Miss Mizz,' continuted Fitz, not up to speed with feminine titles.

'No!' she interrupted again. 'The appellation – "Ms".'

This wasn't going to get anywhere this side of the millenium. Mike stepped in.

'How much can you tell them about this threat?' he asked, leadingly. Fitz deferred to him with a wave. Mike steepled his hands together for a second, then began to speak.

'You trust my opinion, or neither of you would have agreed to give up your lunch. What I haven't told you or any of the students here is that I used to be an officer in UNIT. One of the reasons I had to leave was my state of mind after being mentally assaulted and controlled by a computer. Another computer like that one is working away half a mile from here, and John is going to destroy it.'

Don and Katrina looked at each other. Katrina snorted; Don looked amused.

'A computer programming people? Bit unusual, isn't it?' commented Don sardonically.

'It's not unique. Similar thing happened back in the Sixties. Look, can we count on your help?' asked Fitz.

Neither seemed in a rush to commit. My political qualification came to the rescue.

'You folks are big on anti-fascist stuff, aren't you? Death to the National Front and all that? This computer is the world's biggest fascist, bar none. To it, might is right. It tried to trigger a nuclear exchange in Europe, just to distract any potential threats to itself. It also tried to force a super-power confrontation, again nuclear, to get rid of actual threats to it – UNIT and humans in general.'

Dipping a biscuit in tea, I let them think about that.

'That doesn't make sense,' said Katrina. 'It would get blown up too.'

'Uh-uh,' said I. 'Initially it was housed in a 1950's nuclear bunker with it's own generating plant. Safe enough.'

'It's a machine,' interrupted Mike, speaking with feeling. 'It doesn't need water, or air, or food, just a power supply and some victims to act as it's hands and feet. It has no conscience or morals or ethics, just a ruthless sense of logic.'

'What's it trying to do right now?' asked Katrina.

Shrugging all round.

'At a guess, assembling slaves, enough of them in high enough positions to secure it's safety,' guessed Captain March.

'It didn't get far with nuclear distractions. Next time it might be Porton Down and baccillus pestis. Also, since living entities seek to reproduce, I think it will try to duplicate itself,' I put in, trying to think how Liz would analyse the problem.

'Damn it to hell, John!' exclaimed the captain. 'Trust you to put the cat amongst the pigeons! Blood and sand, I never thought of that.'

Neither student seemed fully convinced.

'Remember the Cybermen?' I tried. Katrina merely shook her head and Don frowned hard.

'I was only eight,' he replied. 'I only know what I've read.'

'Cybernetic cretaures, converted from human beings. The kind of mind control they use is a direct descendant of the rogue computer we're trying to track down.'

'Pfft!' said Katrina. 'They were dead and gone ten years ago!' Then, seeing the look on the faces of both Fitz and I, she added: 'Weren't they?'

'Can't possibly comment,' said Fitz. 'Official Secrets Act, Emergency Powers Addendum.'

'Forget it, boss,' I ended. This was too much effort for too little return. 'Time's a-wasting.'

We got up to leave.

'Thanks for trying, Mike,' said Fitz. 'I'd advise you to get out of London immediately and catch the next flight abroad from Heathrow. Hint as heavily as you can to everyone you can convince. Oh – don't answer the phone. This thing can trigger people via the phone lines, like WOTAN.'

Perhaps the staff at Kensington could double as bolshy student protestors, wearing civilian clothes.

'I'm going to have to call the sappers, John,' Fitz explained as we took the corridor to the lifts. 'They have Centurions, AVRE's with demolition guns. Get them mobilised, call in the regulars for a cordon, shoot dustbin rounds at the MAFF building until it collapses.'

My reply was not printable. I hit the lift button very hard.

'Liz is in there, sir.'

'Her and at least eighty other staff. And any such requests will warn that bloody machine.'

By the time the palsied and arthritic lift came Don and Katrina caught up with us and shared a ride down to the ground floor. The silence in the lift was heavy and unpleasant, not helped by my death-ray glare at both students.

'What if you don't get a distraction outside that building?' asked Don, brave lad. Despite myself, I liked him for his wit and candour.

'Then I will probably get killed inside it! The staff will all die when it gets blown up, including a woman who is a close personal friend,' I snarled.

'Steady on, John,' warned Fitz. 'Get out of London quick smart, you two. I mean immediately you leave this lift.'

'Big brave boy. So you're still going ahead, then?' asked Katrina. I looked her squarely in the eye.

'My responsibility is to defend against exotic threats to the human commonwealth. If that means risking my life, so be it.'

'How noble!' she quipped. 'Whatever happened to that mocking sense of humour?' I didn't reply, for fear of swearing. The lift came to rest and the doors creaked open.

'Do we have any demolition charges at Kensington?' asked Fitz, ignoring the other passengers. 'It'll take too long to get kit from the Regulars.' A few of the students in the corridors might have paid attention to us, but it was doubtful.

'Never mind demo charges,' I suggested. 'We load a Lannie with fuel drums from the basement boiler room, reverse it up to the side door and roll them down wooden planks. That smashes the door open and puts the drums inside. Clutch of grenades and the building starts to burn.'

'Mister Dobbs and Captain Spurling will have to cover the lobby and the guards. A fire would take hours to gut the whole building,' mused Fitz. 'We might have to try and fight off the Fire Brigade.'

I tutted in exasperation. Joe Public loves the fire brigade. Firemen can do no wrong. If UNIT tried to stop them putting out fires there'd be trouble.

By now we'd reached the entrance steps to the LSE, and Fitz turned to see Don and Katrina still following us.

'What are you still here for!' he grumped. 'I told you, get your collective arses out of the capital!'

'Oh, we decided to help,' said Don. Matter-of-fact and nonchalant. 'Mike persuaded us. When he got the gun.'

Once Fitz and I had departed, Mike began to grab personal effects to put in a briefcase, not bothering about being neat or tidy. One of the attention-grabbing items was a Smith & Wesson .38 Police Special from his locker. He got the undivided attention of Don and Kat by spinning the chamber like a roulette wheel.

'Not for anybody but me,' he'd snappily informed his student audience. 'I will kill myself rather than become a slave to a computer again.' He then rang Heathrow to ask about flights to Dublin or New York within the next two hours. For all their anti-establishment personae, Don and Katrina recognised that a man with a gun did not brook argument. Mike Yates, Mister Pacific Eastern Philosophy Novitiate Personified, wielding a gun, persuaded our two cynics that something mightily strange and unusual was afoot.

'There's only two of you,' pointed out Fitz.

Don winked.

'Trust Uncle Don. We can put a whole classroom into action within thirty minutes.'

The upshot of our new helpers was that they needed to tag along to Kensington and obtain temporary Visitor badges. They also had to sign Non-Disclosure forms. Captain March lectured them in the lift ride up to the fourth floor.

'I don't suppose either of you will take this on board, but no media will ever consider printing any information about UNIT that isn't cleared via official channels.'

'Even if some misbegotten anarchist rag with a readership of five tries to print, the distributors will put the boot in,' I enlarged. 'Marxism Today tried to print an article about the Autons in their annual review of 1976. W H Smith's killed the distribution on the spot and called UNIT. The whole run was pulped.'

Don took this all in his stride; he struck me as the see-all, hear-all type. Katrina was less co-operative.

'Do you manipulate the whole British press!'

'Yes,' I said, being blunt. 'UNIT UK has a – call it a back-up. Project Broom. They police what happens after - okay, fourth floor, all out.'

'John, get our American liaison together. I need to call the Royal Engineers. See that our guests don't stray too far.' Fitz headed off for the radio room.

There were less staff around at this time of day, which meant those remaining paid closer attention to the two civilians, who reciprocated the interest.

'Would you like a cup of tea?' I enquired, trying to be polite.

'Tea is the product of exploitation on the Indian sub-continent,' replied Katrina, smugly.

'Would you like a smack in the teeth instead?' I grated. Damn it! Ten seconds absence of Fitz and I start to lose the old temper. 'I'm going to the dining suite. Oh – Mister Dobbs? Can you look after these two little lost lambs?'

The muscly and imposing American Marine had been stalking purposefully towards the radio room.

'Sir!' he snapped back. Long ago I hinted that he didn't need to address me as "sir" but it hadn't quite sunk in.

Ten minutes later I got back to the open plan fourth floor, carrying a tray with tea, sugar, milk, biscuits, and a can of Coke. Mister Dobbs stood with his hands behind his back, holding court in front of Katrina and Don, who looked a touch ashen. I don't wonder. Mister Dobbs is a quietly-spoken, teetotal and religious man, who possesses a face of incredible ugliness and the physique of a man able to punch holes in armour-plate.

'Sir. I need to report in to Captain Spurling.'

'Off you go, Mister Dobbs. Thank you for baby-sitting.'

Both Katrina and Don were very quiet when I served them. A pleasant change, yet I couldn't help thinking Mister Dobbs had been making mischief with them.

'Is it true - ' began and finished Don. He cleared his throat. 'Is it true that you kill people with a spade?'

Oh my! Where did that reputation come from!

'No…' I drawled, thinking. 'I don't think I've ever actually killed a human being with a spade.'

Katrina looked at me with hateful intensity.

'What about the Russians? You've been to the Soviet Union.'

I boggled for a second or so, misunderstanding what she meant.

'Do you mean you don't regard Russians as human beings? Yes I have been to the Soviet Union young lady and I consider them to be members of the human bloody race, thank you very much!'

She flushed in mixed anger and embarassment.

'What about non-human beings?' asked the perceptive Don, before Katrina could clarify her question. 'You phrased your answer carefully.'

'I plead the Fifth Amendment on that,' I tried, glibly.

'We don't have a constitution with a bill of rights,' Katrina informed me. 'And we know you're illegally detaining people here. That violates habeus corpus.'

She meant, I hope, Warden 496, Stan Wheeler. If an assault on the MAFF was imminent, we could release him, so like a coward I sent one of the office staff to unlock his room.

Stan, the man with no sense of fear, managed to track me down. He was not happy. He decided to share his unhappiness with us.

'I've had it with you lot!' he snapped. 'You can't lock me up like that. I'll take lumps out of you! Lumps!'

'Excuse me. Could you keep it down?' asked Mister Dobbs, returning from his chat with the senior American. Stan eyed the Marine up and down.

'Another laughing boy, eh? What are you, Fatso's bodyguard?' He turned back to me. ' 'Cos you're going to bloody well need one from now on!'

'Stan, we love you dearly, which is why you're still alive. Out on the streets you'd be a target for this machine and it's slaves.'

Stan's lugubrious face twisted in an amused sneer.

'Lieutenant Walmsley's right. There'd be another Dogford Road all over again, and you the target,' added Mister Dobbs.

'As if!' snorted Stan. 'That was the IRA, it was on the news.' How thoughtful: our staff gave him a transistor radio with his meals, to aid digestion.

'It was not!' squealed Katrina in sincere indignation.

'The rule of thumb for Proj Broom is that, if there's an explosion, they blame the IRA. Gunfire only, they blame gangsters,' I maliciously informed her.

Captain March returned, not looking particularly happy.

'Stan, glad you're with us and onside.' The traffic warden looked startled. 'I need you to get to the MAFF building and start to create traffic chaos there.' Stan opened his mouth to protest, seconds too late. 'The worse the better, so this thing can't call in reinforcements easily or quickly.' Fitz checked his watch. 'Better get moving right away, Stan, so you don't have to rush it.'

'You mean I'm important?' gurgled Stan. 'Needed?' He nearly choked. 'Wanted?'

'Certainly!' barked the captain. 'John would rather strangle himself than admit it, but we desperately need your help. Stan, we've got to isolate that building, the computer and all it's slaves inside, and we can't do it conventionally. No recourse to the police or the regulars for that, and I've taken a chance even informing the sappers.'

Stan sneered at me, cocked his hat and marched off as if taking on a horde of – hmm – angry motorists. Fitz winked at me, without losing his air of grim determination.

'Okay, I want that lot infiltrated soon as. Fourteen hundred hours. Can you two students muster your friends and be outside making a fuss by then?'

'Can do,' said Don.

'Why are we supposed to be attacking the Min of Ag?' asked Katrina. 'It's just that – well, the "White Fish Authority" doesn't seem much of threat.'

'Use your imagination,' growled the captain, who seemed to have grown into his role under pressure. 'You're students, the best and brightest, creative and all that.'

Don snapped his fingers.

'How about this – it's a secret MI5 eavesdropping station, that listens in to all phone calls made in Northern Ireland.'

Not bad for spur of the moment. This lad had talent. I liked him more by the minute.

'Ooh, yes, that would do!' enthused Katrina. 'So, you want us there by two?'

'No, I want you throwing stones and breaking windows at exactly two o'clock. Set the building's alarms off, but DO NOT try to get in. Do not get inside, or you will literally experience a fate worse than death. Is that clear? No entry.'

Off the rabble-rousers went, to stoke up feelings amongst their fellow bolshies. I don't know, students in my day were more interested in beer and bedding each other than toppling governments, which I know for a fact, having been one.

Fitz sat down on a plastic chair and lit a pungent cigar. Nearby staff stopped being nosey and got back to work as the free cabaret finished.

'Phew. Didn't think I could pull that off. Now for you, John.'

'I'll get my rifle, sir. I'm a bit short of ammo, so - '

'No, no, no!' he chided me. 'No guns. Sneaky-peaky. If you go in armed and wearing UNIT togs, you'll be dogfood in thirty seconds.' He grinned hugely. 'Think like that mascot of ours.'

Tig? I was being upstaged by a fox cub?

In fact the thinking was all down to Captain March. He motioned me to sit in a chair opposite him, then puffed away on his stinky little Cuban roll-up, musing.

14: John in Disguise. Also trouble.

Whilst we waited, one of the duty staff from the radio room came calling, with a transcript. The Brig and his HQ group were heading south, trailing a UFO that had taken off from Loch Ness. He and the others would be out of contact for several hours – which removed one of my hopes, that the Brigadier, with his political and military clout, could solve the problem with a few phone calls. The Doctor, who could have solved our problems in a few seconds with his magic sonic wand, was a prisoner in the UFO the Brig was following.

Fitz came to a decision.

'Haul that boiler-suit out of the bin. You, John, are going to be transformed. Render up your firearm and pig-sticker,' and suddenly I was naked before my enemies.

Mister Dobbs got sent to the food hall with instructions. I got to sit and listen to Captain March holding forth on his special talent; acting.

'We can only send you, and you alone, in to confront this killer computer, since anyone else would end up a mind-controlled slave. So, we want you to be survivable. That means not looking like a UNIT officer. Hence the shabby boiler suit.'

Shabby! It was a festering heap of stinking denim. Out of uniform, into the boiler suit I climbed. Captain Spurling put in an appearance, moved back out of smelling distance and nodded in approval. In fact he approved so much he disappeared and came back with a mop and bucket.

'Helps you blend in,' he commented, the scar on his cheek making a sinister little dance as he smiled in amusement. Mister Dobbs returned with two towels, an onion and a lump of raw chicken. Under the guidance of my theatrical mentor, I tied one towel around the other, then the resulting lump around my waist under the boiler suit. My hair got ruffled and combed backwards, and the staff on this floor were encouraged to come and empty trays of cigarette ash into the mop bucket, which rapidly became filled with a filthy, scummy grey slop. Captain Spurling got sent to the food hall, under instructions, returning with a Coke can and packet of polos from the vending machine there. My improvised explosives were carefully retrieved from the Lannie, put in carrier bag and the now-empty Coke can and half-emptied packet of polo kept them company. They sat alongside a two foot jemmy.

'And now the lesson begins,' opined the captain. 'I don't have hours to rehearse you for this, so you're going to have to pay close attention, John. When you're about to leave here, start chewing on the onion and chicken. Get rid of it before you enter the MAFF building.'

The obvious question, of when Captain March would be attending a psychiatric review, didn't come up just then.

'You need to play the part of an idiot, John. "Educationally-sub normal" is the current catchphrase, I think.'

Oh boy, Nick and The Boy and Timiserable would enjoy the tales about this modelling session.

'Pay attention! Now, idiots don't perceive personal space the way the rest of us do. When you get into that building, you need to get up really close to anyone who might challenge you, so close that they try to back away. Practice on me.'

I stood close to him. Not close enough. Closer, until he had to back off.

'Good! Remember that – get too close to anyone you meet. And talk too loudly.'

'LIKE THIS?' I said, nearly-shouting.

'A bit quieter.'

'ANY BETTER?'

'Excellent! Remember to throw in a few non-sequiteurs too. Start rambling about nothing to do with the conversation – "I've got a green bicycle", "There are little people in the plug sockets", that sort of thing.'

'ME LANDLORD IS TRYING TO POISON ME,' I tried. 'AND THERE ARE RUSSIANS IN THE SEWERS.'

'Okay. Now, posture. Slouch.'

That wasn't easy, with the towels tied around my waist. Fitz jabbed a biro into my solar plexus and pronounced himself pleased as I wheezed and bent over.

Great. I took on this assignment to try and be seen as less of a big stupid thug. The irony of my current state was not overlooked.

'Captain Spurling, you and Mister Dobbs are going to decoy MI5 away from the MAFF building. You need to behave as if John is a passenger in the rear of your Landrover and drive to any location well away from the centre of London.'

Mister Dobbs measured up my broom handle with his eyes, then vanished, returning with a hacksaw and a five-foot length of steel piping. He cut the broomhandle off near the mop head, whittled the four inch stub to a taper with a huge Bowie knife, then fitted the mop head onto the steel piping.

'There you go, sir. Run out of ammo, you got a club there.'

'Thanks,' I replied, hefting the pipe.

'Thirteen twenty. Time to move out. Captain, Mister Dobbs, you first.'

Fitz rode down to ground level with me in the lift.

'How will you know if I've succeeded or failed?' I asked. Fitz gave a nervous shake.

'Just don't fail! If we haven't heard from you by fourteen thirty then it's worst case scenario. I wish we knew the internal outlay of that building but we don't have floor plans and daren't request any – you'll have to improvise once you're inside.'

In the worst case scenario, the Royal Engineers would roll up with a couple of tanks firing giant demolition shells. End of building, end of staff, and end of killer computer. John's survival optional.

'One other thing, John. The people in that building are likely to all be enslaved zombies, willing and able to kill you on sight. However - '

'John to avoid killing if possible, boss?'

He nodded, frowning.

'It won't be easy. Try, please, try not to kill anyone.' He sighed and gave me a searching look. 'Dumping you in it, I know. But try.'

Fitz went back up to change into civvies and I went clumping off, sweating mightily, chewing on the disgusting combination of raw onion and chicken. After a couple of minutes I spat the combination into the gutter, drawing glances of disapproval from pedestrians.

By ten to two I had gotten into position on the south-facing side of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's White Fish Authority building. The side door was securely shut and robustly constructed, having a metal skin over the wooden frame.

Distantly, getting closer with each second, a chanting noise could be heard from the main road. Taking care not to slop water out of my bucket, I ambled to the street corner, to witness Don and Katrina leading a knot of banner-wielding students at least twenty strong. Traffic wasn't a problem for them, since it had congealed around the upper end of Bedford Way in a paroxysm of honking horns and revving engines – Stan busy being a saboteur, I hoped.

My festering disguise and air of assumed idiocy meant people tried not to make eye contact when approaching me, which I used to try and shield the jemmy from any suspicious eyes as two o'clock approached.

Whack-tinkle-drrrring came from the main road at five seconds past two. My cue. The frame made a nice scrunching sound as the wood gave way at lock-level and the alarm overhead started, only to stop when I hit it, over-arm, with the jemmy. The handy blunt instrument had to get tossed away once I got in, and I took care to leave the door wide open.

Quickly inside, I looked both ways along a white-walled corridor. Nobody arrived yet. An alarm could be heard ringing in the depths of the building.

Take stock, valiant intruder: the corridor ahead led to a flight of stairs, with a sign stating "Import Home", so I headed that way, deciding not to duck under the stairs and hide there until any reaction to the break-in occurred.

Good for me. I reached the top of the stairs and began to swill water about on the floor, making it look dirtier than before. Only after an painfully tense few seconds did anybody show up to investigate the break-in: two armed MoD police. Quite what they were doing in the White Fish Authority building was anyone's guess – or a guess if you didn't know what I knew. One already had his pistol drawn and covered me with it, approaching slowly and suspiciously.

'Who are you and what are you doing here?' he asked. "Asked" is guessing, since his voice was an uninflected drone, the sort of thing that comes out of a simulator. Or a Dalek.

Clutching the mop, I tried to get too close to him, which made him wince and back away. Even mind-controlled slaves retain a sense of smell, and my mouth tasted like a septic sock thanks to wise old Captain Fitz's recommended chewing diet.

'AH'VE COME TO CLEAN THE FLOORS,' I almost bawled. Service in the services has ironed a lot of the Northern accent out of my voice, so for this little charade I put the Wigan accent on with a trowel, pronouncing "floors" as "flewers".

'What's in the bag?' asked the other one.

'THEM'S ME THINGS. HAVE YOU COME TO GET THEM LADS?'

One looked in my carrier bag and merely saw three Coke cans, one empty, and two packets of polos, one scattering it's contents along the bottom of the bag.

'Take it and leave,' he ordered me. His mate was more perceptive.

'What lads?'

'I CAN'T LEAVE THE AGENCY SENDS ME TO CLEAN THE FLOORS. THEM LADS WHO GOT IN THE SIDE. I HAD TO COME IN THE SIDE, THERE'S PEOPLE THROWING THINGS AT THE MAIN DOORS. THE AGENCY SENDS ME TO CLEAN THE FLOORS.'

Both policemen looked at each other.

'Go and track them down,' ordered the first policeman to the second, who carefully checked under the stairs first. MoD plod the first then wielded a hand-held metal detector and swept it all over me, whilst I tried to maintain the correct slack posture and open mouth. Thank you once again wise old Fitz; the policeman even stirred my mop bucket with a truncheon, making me gladder than ever I wasn't carrying anything overtly military.

'ME GIRLFRIENDS NAME IS JULIE,' I added, helpfully.

'Which agency?' asked the suspicious policeman. I had a fair chance of bluffing him here, since he didn't normally get assigned to guard a MAFF building and wouldn't know the routine.

'REMPLOY,' I replied, dragging the name up from a recollection that they helped the disabled find work. 'I'VE GOT A PLATE IN ME HEAD,' and I dragged up the hairline on my temple, revealing the scar where some little swine in Ulster got me with a ball-bearing fired from a catapult. 'THEY SEND ME TO CLEAN THE FLOORS.'

'Stay away,' droned the policeman, waving his hand in front of his nose. He decided I was too stupid and smelly to be worth bothering with when policeman the first returned.

'CAN I 'AVE SOME WATTER?' I bawled at them. 'ME BUCKET'S DIRTY, AND THEY SEND ME TO CLEAN THE FLOORS. I'VE GOT TO BE BACK BY THREE.'

That was just to spike their guns – they had three realistic options: convert me into a computer slave, except I appeared to be one step up from an amoeba in terms of intellect and the plate in my head might very well prevent me from being converted; kill me, which meant the agency would start to investigate when I didn't return; ignore me and have me carry on with the cleaning.

'Use the gent's toilets,' instructed one policeman. 'Did you find them?' to his mate.

'No. They may have left the building again.'

'SHALL I CLEAN THE FLOORS THEN?' I boomed. Both went off to hunt down the non-existent intruders.

Alone, inside the target building yet with no idea of what to look for. I found the gent's toilets on this floor, and a floor plan marking the fire exits pinned up on the wall inside. First I needed to turn the lights on – and noticed the wall plan, situated in the ante-chamber. There were three floors to the building, with stairs to each floor at the south and north and lifts from the lobby area, where there was a reception desk. More office space sat behind the ground floor lobby and lifts, only accessible if you passed the desk, which I didn't want to chance. Where would a rogue computer hide? I couldn't scope out the whole building, because the staff normally based here would know an intruder the moment they saw me. In fact, running into the MoD police again would be very risky.

Okay, back-up plan. In case I got captured or killed. What do students do to toilets? I found that the detachable tops of my Coke cans made efficient plugs for two of the three sinks, and a fistful of mop fibres clogged the third. All taps on full. More inspiration came to mind and I removed all three cistern tops from the toilets, then managed to split the ball on the stopcocks. You law-abiding citizens unfamiliar with the art of toilet-trashing (a skill learnt during University rag week on the rugby team's binge) may not realise that a stopcock with the ball full of water remains permanently in the "open" position, and the cistern rapidly overflows. The idea was that eventually water in this room would flood the building and cause short circuiting, or alarms and abandonment.

To prevent anyone simply turning the taps off, I managed to use my mop handle, levered between each pair of hot and cold faucets, to break off three of the taps, causing water to leap happily into the air. Try stitching that, SIGMUND! Water was slopping all over the floor by the time I left. My last trick was to wad my discarded and sweaty stomach-enhancing towels under the inner door of the ante-chamber, due to a lack of either toilet rolls or papers towels. There'd be no leaks to give the game away. I bundled up my carrier bag full of explosive and substituted that for the towels.

I hung around the partially-opened door of the gents in case anyone approached. Staff are always off skiving in toilets, smoking, chatting, reading the papers – except at the MAFF. Nobody came by. Realising that time was getting ever shorter, I left the toilet and walked back to the stairs, past the office with "Quota and Enforcement" painted on the glass-panel. All seemed quiet inside, so I risked a quick look within. Desks, filing cabinets, typewriters, phones. No people.

Empty. I tested the electric typewriter; stone cold. Nothing in the waste paper bins. The phone didn't have a dialling tone, so I couldn't ring out to inform on progress so far. Not only empty, unused.

Out in the corridor, where the silence struck me. If there were really up to eighty people in this building, where were they and what were they doing so silently?

Back north along the corridor, the other office on this floor at the front was "HSE Liaison/Non Human Consumption". This office sported a desk calendar, displaying a date ten days old. Otherwise it was identical with "Q & E" – deserted.

Creepy. Beginning to get a twitchy feeling between the shoulderblades, I carried my bucket and mop out and skulked to the rear of the building, where there was a large open plan office space, separate from the front offices and accessed by large double-doors in the middle of the corridor.

Ah, now, here was activity. And smells: burning plastic, and bleach. A combination of workshop and bathroom.

Luckily for me, there were circular glass windows set in each door, enabling me to have a discreet nosey at the interior.

The smells were explained by the busy construction work going on; diligent workers soldering, managing a bit of welding over in a corner, lots of wiring being assembled, complicated electronic gadgets getting tested with oscilloscopes. All the normal office furniture had been pushed and piled against the far wall to free up workspace. Not only that, a row of chemical toilets against one wall suggested that SIGMUND felt it was more efficient to have people stay here instead of trooping off to the toilet. I guess computer-controlled slaves don't bother with privacy or embarassment.

Nobody talked to each other. Nobody looked at each other. All this lot did was get busy creating another computer.

At least they hadn't finished it. I now knew where a lot of the staff were, and where my target wasn't.

Still wary of the MoD police turning up, I went up the stairs to the top floor. Once again the front offices were empty. There were four of them up here, for the management. In the Senior Admin Assistant's room a chair had been overturned and blood, long congealed, lay on the floor and in traces on the wall. Someone – probably the Senior Admin Assistant – hadn't gone quietly. Good for them.

Leaning against the rear office wall didn't reveal any noises of construction from the office behind, merely a low humming.

Hmm. The target? I tested the wall with a paperknife – no joy, it was solid brick, no entry that way. The front doors or nothing.

Maybe nothing. I sneaked a look around the corridor corner, to see two more MoD police guarding the double doors. These weren't the two I'd met earlier. Not that I knew until afterwards, but there were only four police in the building and the other two were now standing outside the lobby, having to face a collection of twenty angry students, with another twenty passers-by looking on with various degrees of interest or condemnation.

Pause for thought. Outside a collective background noise of traffic-jam could be heard, and it must be loud to be heard in here without any open windows. Stan the Man doing his traffic trouble, I hoped – and was right, because Stan was even more important than anyone realised.

How could I get into that room without getting shot? Those MoD policemen would be just like the computer slaves at Dogford Road – entirely free from pain, emotion or scruples, quite willing to shoot to kill on sight if I looked suspicious. Then again, Fitz had practically ordered me not to kill people. Otherwise I could just roll a Number 36 down the corridor and remove those guards. Think like Tig. Be cunning.

Perhaps I could get them to come to me. I scraped the mop bucket back and forth across the landing, making an unpleasant gritty scratching sound. Nobody came to investigate.

Oh well. I moved out into the corridor, fully in view of the two sentries, whilst busily swabbing the floor with my mop. Scraping the bucket over the floor every half minute towards them meant I got within speaking distance before they interrupted.

'What are you doing,' asked one sentry, utterly devoid of emotion. 'No water near the doors.'

'AHM CLEANING THE FLOORS THEM OTHER SOLDIERS SAID IT WERE OKAY,' I bawled at them, breathing stinking breath over both. 'THE AGENCY SENDS ME TO CLEAN THE FLOORS.'

'What other soldiers,' said the nearest, reeling back and once again I had to guess that he was asking a question, since he had all the emotion of a Dalek.

'THEM OTHER SOLDIERS. ME GIRLFRIEND'S NAME IS JULIE. THEY SEND ME TO CLEAN THE FLOORS.'

'Do you mean the Ministry of Defence police.'

'THEM OTHER SOLDIERS. I'VE GOT A PLATE IN ME HEAD.'

One sentry looked at the other. No emotion, no, that didn't exist, but they did seem exasperated by the large dimwit in front of them.

'Remain here. I will check.'

'THERE'S RUSSIANS IN THE SEWERS, YOU KNOW. I KNOW 'COS I'VE SEEN THEM.'

The first speaker went back into the room behind the doors, allowing me a momentary glimpse of computer equipment arrayed around the walls of the room. Bingo! Target identified.

'I NEED SOME CLEAN WATTER,' I explained loudly to the remaining sentry, who began to draw his pistol. Yes, lack of continuity, I'd forgotten to replace the water in the gent's toilets. I showed him the foul grey slops in the bucket, which meant lifting it up to chest height, and meant he lowered his pistol to look inside. This also meant there was less distance and time taken to upend the bucket on his head. I rapidly kicked him in the crotch; yes I know he didn't feel pain but the only Army-issue equipment I had were my DPM boots with steel toecaps. You can shatter a milk bottle with them when kicking.

Sentry One curled up on the floor, knocking the bucket free. I stood on the mop head and pulled, freeing the handle. Sentry two came surging out of the doors, pistol drawn and shooting the instant he emerged, just as I laid the five-foot pipe along his windpipe.

Double-top; we both hit each other. He got me in the lower right, on a rib. The bullet ricocheted off my rib, taking a couple of ounces of John with it, knocking me off my feet and flat on my back. The sentry, with a crushed windpipe, dropped his pistol and clutched his throat, falling to his knees.

EFFING HELL THAT HURTS! was my instant reaction. I'd fallen next to the first sentry, and his discarded pistol. The other sentry, one hand clutching his throat, going purple and desperately wheezing for breath, started to grab for his Browning on the floor tiles. I snatched up the other fallen pistol, cursing loudly at the pain sent shooting across my right side.

I fired first, getting the other man in his upper chest and knocking his aim off. His bullet went ricocheting down the corridor. I sighted in on his head and fired twice, then rested my right hand on my left forearm and put ten more rounds in his heart, until the hammer fell on an empty chamber.

Getting upright after that was painful and slow. A big red patch showed on my crappy boilersuit, around the lowest rib on my right. Breathing in properly was impossible, it hurt too much. Checking the sentries, the one I'd bucketed was still twitching and breathing, if likely never to bear children ever again. The shot one lay still and quiet in a rapidly expanding pool of blood, the front of his uniform a sodden gory mess.

'Sue me, Fitz,' I muttered, then winced, because talking means using your lungs. Into the dragon's lair.

Quickness needed – those drones from downstairs would be hurrying upstairs to find out why there was gunfire next to their beloved computer system.

For a collection of trouble in electronic form, this damn SIGMUND didn't look especially scary: lots of big metal boxes, with lots of flashing lights, and antennae on several of the lower units, lined up along the walls of the room. I pulled the pin on a 36 and bowled it into a corner, ducked out of the room again and heard the rumble of feet approaching from the stairs at both north and south. The grenade went off with the usual ear-shattering bang, magnified by the confined space, knocking both swing doors open and crazing glass in the outside windows. I pulled the pin on my second grenade and went back into the room, where smoke, sparks and stinks made my eyes water. The cabinets over in the corner where the grenade exploded were shattered apart, spraying sparks. I picked on another upright unit as big as a freezer, whose lights had gone out. Two swift kicks and the front panel was distorted enough for me to wrap my carrier-bag protected fingers around the lip of the front panel and pull hard. In went the grenade, out I went, only just in time as another punishing explosion went off.

The hunting pack of computer slaves were making good time, appearing at each end of the corridor by the time my ears stopped ringing. Good, they could help me downstairs again, my ribs were killing me. I leaned against the wall, favouring my right side.

You know, those now-freed computer slaves didn't look exactly appreciative . In fact they still seemed to have the blank, sheeplike look of non-freed computer slaves. On they came, not speaking, making me worry. Worry a lot.

Surely two grenades in the middle of it's works had seen off SIGMUND? Snatching up the dropped Browning from the dead sentry, I darted back in the room, wincing as one of the doors caught on my boilersuit and tugged on the big gouge in my side.

Nope. SIGMUND looked dead as a stone. Just to make sure I emtpied the Browning into the less shattered computer cabinets.

That still didn't stop or slow the computer slaves, who came into the room like a rugby scrum and grabbed me, two people per arm.

'Shouldn't you lot be happy and free?' I quipped, worried and trying to cover it up.

Two of the drones looked over the equipment, before one found a wall-phone that surprisingly still worked and called a third party.

'An intruder has destroyed Two,' droned the drone. 'No. He was not controlled by the broadcast signal.'

At which my heart sank to the same level as my stomach, both of them around my ankles. I wasn't just in time to prevent this lot from building another equivalent of SIGMUND on the floor below – they'd already managed it and this collection of scrap metal was the end result. Not only that, there was another SIGMUND loose in the building, controlling this lot.

One of the male drones stood in front of me. No expression, nothing to judge that I'd just destroyed one of his reasons to live. Pancake man, as Fitz would have described him. Pancake is what theatrical actors use to blend and bland their appearance.

'Inform,' droned the head drone, to the live MoD policeman.

'He tricked us with a decoy persona,' droned the sentry, clutching his crotch with both hands. Yeah, no pain, but physical damage still has an effect, eh, SIGMUND? Your sentry drone can't walk, let alone carry out sentry duty properly. One down, anyway.

Which was glossing over the really bad news: I was too late. These twods hadn't not-quite-managed to build a second computer, they were onto their third, the second computer was the one I'd just blown apart and the third was being assembled on the floor below. The original SIGMUND must be in the basement.

'Decoy persona insufficient explanation. Terminate,' droned the man in front of me. The MoD policeman promptly dropped to the floor like a set of towels, writhed briefly and expired, letting go of all bodily fluids on the spot.

My jaw must have dropped, and I undoubtedly flexed and sagged. Ordered to die because someone else bettered them? The droning EXPLETIVE EXCISED in front of me moved closer, which was a mistake on it's part, because I got in two kicks with my DPM boots. Kick-the-first in the crotch, which lowered the grating robot to it's knees, wearing an expression of surprise. Kick-the-second across the jaw from the lower left upwards, and a very nice kick if I say so myself. Blood, spittle and bits of tooth went flying across the corridor, at which point one of the drones behind me laid a truncheon across my neck, causing the world to go wobbly for a couple of minutes.

Vaguely, I knew that various hands dragged me from the smoking room. The head drone tried to speak, but his broken jaw prevented any sense from coming out, making his words slurred and unintelligible.

'Looks like you're out of a job,' I sneered, when I could focus again. 'Better terminate yourself, eh?'

'Do we terminate the intruder?' asked another emotionless puddock.

'No,' I interrupted. 'You give me a slap on the wrist and a telling-off.'

'Remove him for Direct Process Conversion,' ordered one of the interchangeable zombies. A quick smack on my bloody gunshot wound with a truncheon caused me to double up, which made dragging me to the lifts easier. At the lifts one zombie tried to frisk me, only to get a knee in the face when he bent down to do my legs from the ankle upwards. Losing his balance, he fell backwards and sprawled full-length on the floor.

'Serves you right, you perv,' I laughed, doing my best to be as awkward as possible. Two more slaves grabbed me by the ankles to prevent any knee-in-the-face action again, and the bruised and prostrate searcher got up to try frisking me again.

These people had never been in a pub fight! The searcher stood straight in front of me, so I nutted him, hearing his nose break. They'd had enough after that, and I got a severe walloping with a baton before being dragged into the lift, then crushed into a corner by sheer physical force as half a dozen slaves crammed in after me. My damaged rib creaked in protest and I exhaled loudly and painfully, swearing. Bizarrely, they brought along my bucket and mop handle. Evidence to their masters, events would prove.

The lift stopped on the ground floor, and one slave left – as I found out, normally the lift wouldn't go any lower without using a permissive key being used, and one of the two policemen standing guard in the lobby held the key. He also gave up his handcuffs. I knew that because my hands were wrenched behind me and cuffed. Once again the lift went down, making scratching noises against runners and pulleys not used very often, and the doors opened on a dim, damp brick-walled corridor in the basement. A real cliched, cobwebby corridor, except that the floors and walls were scuffed and scratched as if they'd seen a lot of traffic recently.

The corridor turned a right angle, ending in what looked at first, thanks to the dingy lighting, like a clumped mound of dirty clothing, in front of a door that led off at another right angle. Not until I got abreast of the door did I realise that the dirty laundry was a stack of bodies, thrown carelessly one atop the other. An elderly woman with a blue rinse stared with fishbelly eyes at the doorway, covering a teenaged girl whose white tee-shirt displayed congealed blood. Altogether there might have been a dozen corpses dumped in the corridor end.

A push from behind propelled me into the next room, before I could retaliate against the crowd escorting me. At least if they were minding me they weren't building more computers.

And here was the original SIGMUND, the ruthless self-aware computer, clucking and buzzing and clicking away. This basement room had been swept clean, and a middle partition wall removed to make more room for all the separate modules that stood along the walls, dozens of them. Over in semi-darkness, out of the light that shone around this chamber, a big, dirty diesel generator stood, ready to go into action if any outsiders cut the mains power supply. Lights blinked, tapes spooled, and four people lay at the cardinal points of an island monitor terminal in the middle of the room, resting on campbeds, headphones over their ears. Their eyes were open with nobody home, and Liz was one of them. Eerily, they all blinked at the same time every ten seconds.

The hairs on my forearms stood up. People being programmed by computer, including a woman I was passing fond of. No wonder the Doctor hated these damned machines! Well, this over-grown calculator would get as human a response as possible from me. Lies, jokes, non-sequiteurs, anything to make it's nefarious purpose more difficult.

Ah. One little surprise SIGMUND didn't know about was my magic packet of exploding Polos – the frisking process had been interrupted by a knee in the face and the frisker gave up after that. There were only a couple of ounces of plastic explosive in the wrapper, not enough to cause any major damage to the computer, especially since it was spread all over the room. Nor was that all – an explosion in this confined space would stun anyone present, which included me. If I was stunned and lying on the floor, I couldn't very well be bashing computers apart. The only way I could deliver the explosive was to lie it on top of a module, which wouldn't be very efficient, and would still stun me silly.

The obedient slaves keeping hold of my arms remained in silent attendance, long enough for me to begin feeling the insistent pain from my punctured hide. If I shifted even slightly, congealing blood tugged on the fabric of the boilersuit, making me hiss in pain.

Being shot sucked big-time, I decided; slang I'd picked up from the deadpan Captain Spurling.

'When do you pudknockers set me free?' I asked, loudly. More slang, this time from Master Sergeant Dobbs. Don't ask me what a "pudknocker" is, except you wouldn't call your mother one.

'Silence!' barked one of the slaves, giving me a punch in the shoulderblade.

'You punch like a pansy,' I retaliated. Another punch. 'Okay. I take it back. You punch like a Yorkshireman.'

Sarcasm and irony were wasted on these zombies. I had the chance to look over the computer equipment. Anonymous stuff, to me. There did seem to be an awful lot of plastic spaghetti bundled up behind the units, and tacked up on the ceiling. Would that be a weak point?

Eventually Liz and one of the non-sleeping slaves sat up, then stood and stared at me, still wearing their headphones.

'What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?' I asked. No response.

'Explain,' said the male head-slave, a small man with a gingery beard but no hair on top. His beady, piercing eyes were on me, even if he meant that the escort needed to explain.

'It's an old joke used in chat-up lines,' I smarmed, before being silenced by a truncheon applied to my kidneys.

'This intruder was not converted by the broadcast signal from Two.'

A second slave standing behind me gestured with the bucket and mop.

'He used disguise to get close to Two, then neutralised both sentries with these.'

'I am Professor Kettleworth and you have to let me go!' I snapped.

Both awoken slaves looked at me with what must pass for bafflement in mind-controlled slaves.

'You are not,' said the small male slave, frowning.

'I'm in disguise.'

Liz put her two pen'orth in.

'He has been proofed against broadcast control mechanisms. Be careful in restraining him, he is very dangerous.'

Wow. Thank you so much, Liz, just what we needed to hear. Flattery and the truth.

Baldy came over to inspect me. He had surprisingly expressive eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, giving me the gimlet glare of a weasel inspecting a small bird.

'Interesting. Place him on the campbed, under restraint. We will utilise Direct Process. Conversion, interrogate, then terminate.'

With six slaves, one on each arm and two on each leg, I got physically dragged over to the monitor island, forced down on the bed – which promptly collapsed – and had the Headphones of Doom placed over my ears.

Now would be a really good time to help out with a miracle! I petitioned the Man Upstairs, wincing at the pain that went shooting – no pun whatsoever – through my side when the bed scrunched to the floor. After all, I did promise to help out Saint Lukes -

Zap! went the headphones, making me jump at what felt like a static shock. Surprising, not painful. Mike Yates had described being taken over as hideously painful. Had I been taken over? Undoubtedly not, if I could even manage to phrase the question.

Twelve hands dragged me upright, to face Baldy again.

'Well? What is your prime function?' he asked, inspecting me closely. He seemed eager, and I needed to remind myself that he wasn't a brain-dead robot, he had an intellect and could use it.

'To serve One!' I tried. Not that much of a guess, if the machine I'd smashed was Two then this could only be One.

Baldy squinted suspiciously at me.

'I'm really an obedient slave,' I ventured, trying to sound convincing yet emotionless. If only Baldy would come a bit closer … 'Honest. Ready to overthrow the humans. And serve the computers.'

My acting didn't stretch that far. Nor did my reach, or Baldy would have suffered a nutting. Instead he gestured, and one of the swine keeping me immobilised punched my wound, resulting in a reflex curse at the pain. That gave me away.

'An obedient slave?' he sneered. 'Hardly! What is your prime function?' with an arrogant shake of the head. Belatedly it came to me that this little tinpot actually enjoyed having power over others. He liked this power trip.

'To rip your throat out with my teeth!' and despite the six-person anchor I managed to lunge towards him for a few inches, causing him to jump out of the way. 'Are you responsible for the bodies outside?'

Regaining his composure, the evil little worm adjusted his collar.

'Terminated. They were incompatible.' Stepping well out of reach, he nodded to Liz. 'Terminate him.'

'INCOMPATIBLE!' I bellowed, followed by a string of incoherent cursing. Liz, still trailing her headphones, stepped up and produced that Beretta from her jacket pocket.

'Now, Liz, you wouldn't shoot old John, would you?' I immediately snivelled. 'Your best friend's boyfriend? The man who fancies you a bit?'

Liz pointed the pistol at me. Apparently she would shoot old John, the cow! Yet she didn't pull the trigger, and in fact the pistol started to shake and wobble alarmingly. She blinked repeatedly and shook her head.

'Oh get on with it. I haven't got all day,' I said, trying to be blasé. 'Don't forget to open your mouth and close your eyes to avoid pressure and flash injury.'

'I – I – I can't -,' she blurted, suddenly slumping.

'Liz! Well done!' I crowed. Baldy didn't take too kindly to this. He strode up to Liz and snatched the Beretta from her hands, releasing the safety and cocking it.

'Enough!' he barked, striding up to me, putting the muzzle against my left temple and pulling the trigger.

Liz's files at Aylesbury were available for staff to review, and I'd reviewed them. I discovered that she'd fired twelve rounds from an ancient Webley on the firing range at Hythe back in 1971, thus allowing the Brigadier to claim that his civilian advisory staff were trained in self-defence (Sarah Jane Smith needed to undergo similar more recently). Of the twelve bullets fired, only two hit the target and nowhere near the gold. Liz was not a very good shot. So, when I gave her the Beretta, I wanted her to feel the confidence of having a weapon that she couldn't use, in case she shot me, or a passer by, or a cow in a field fifty yards away. Thus the pistol had no bullets, just a block of Plasticene in the magazine to convey the weight needed.

Consequently, when Baldy pulled the trigger, the hammer fell on an empty chamber and I didn't die. He frowned in annoyance, flicked the safety catch and tried again. Same result.

'Idiotproof,' I offered, expecting to get another truncheoning. Doubtless I would have, if a rumble hadn't interrupted, a rumble from the floors above that made the building shake.

Whoops. That would be Captain March's surprise intervention.

'What the hell is that?' snarled Baldy, angry that he'd have to kill me with his bare hands.

'Well, Part Two of the plan was to blow this building up. Or, I should say, down. With a couple of AVRE's.'

Baldy darted a look at Liz, who looked back at him.

'It is conceivable. I was not privy to plans drawn up by the OC at Aylesbury.' Her flat, toneless delivery made me cringe.

'What is AVRE?' ordered Baldy of me. Silly man!

'A purple fire-breathing dragon. OW!' as Baldy darted in close enough to punch my injured rib.

'Tell me the truth! Tell me for countermeasures!' he hissed.

'Okay, okay,' I mumbled. He leaned closer. 'It's a blue fire-breathing dragon.'

Visibly, he seethed. I began to see the Doctor's appreciation of humour when encountering the humourless. I'd utterly baffled the Sontarans on Amalthea with humour, it unsettled them since they hadn't a clue how to cope with it.

Overhead, a strange rushing sound came from the ceiling. Muted, yet still audible, as if sand was being swept across the floors, or an army of mice were scurrying about.

A phone hidden within the clusters of computer modules began to ring. One of the drones holding me went to answer it, listening dully to the voice at the other end before turning back to Baldy and Liz and intoning, with all the emotion of blancmange:

'The building is flooding.'

'Yes!' I exulted, if a bit weakly. Baldy looked thunderstruck. Next minute he looked horrorstruck, as water began to ooze down the corridor outside, leaking from the liftshaft and beneath a locked door behind the banks of computers.

'Stop that water!' he yelled, which sent a couple of minions to try and keep back the water in the corridor from getting into the chamber. He and two others went to frantically pull computer modules away from the encroaching water, whilst another picked up bricks from the dismantled partition wall, to prop their precious master beyond soak depth.

'Did I ever tell you about my good friend WOTAN, who was the BOSS of SIGMUND?' I tried on the last escort, who looked at me without comment instead of collapsing into a quivering heap.

'Must only work with prisoners,' I told him. 'How does it feel, being a mind-controlled idiot?' No response. 'I slept with your mother last night.' Still no response. 'And your dad.' Nothing at all. 'And I put your cat in the washing machine on full cycle.'

'Do not respond to him,' instructed Liz, still standing with her headphones on.

'How come you're still watching me and not helping the Giant Tin God onto bricks?' I asked. The two drones at the doorway had stripped themselves nearly naked, blocking the doorway with their now-sodden clothes, while Baldy and his slaves feverishly worked to get their master out of harms way.

'You are dangerous. You need to be watched,' said Liz.

'You're stressed. You need a fag, or a Polo,' I replied, and the "pole" part of "Polo" gave me an idea. Yep, the steel piping masquerading as a mop handle was lying on the floor. 'Speaking of which - '

Without warning, I pivoted on my left heel, which enabled me to stamp at the back of my solo escort's knee with my right foot. Down he went, keeping hold of my arm until the back of his head hit the floor with an appallingly loud crack, since he didn't bother to try and protect himself.

I seized hold of the steel pipe fom the floor and rammed it full force into the nearest computer module. The pipe grated into the steel-fronted cabinet, penetrating the flimsy façade easily and getting at least a foot inside. Snatching the packet of mints from my pocket, I bent it across the middle, activating the fuse, then chucked it down the pipe.

'Stop him!' shouted Baldy. I grabbed Liz in a diving tackle and brought her to the floor, making her fall heavily across my back. My cursing at the punishment this inflicted on my rib was smothered by her weight.

POW! went the small explosive charge, deep in the guts of the beast, blowing the cabinet apart and incidentally severing lots of wiring behind it. That was my stroke of genius, you see; shoving the charge into the machine meant causing a lot of damage without killing everyone in the basement.

Baldy caught several bits of shrapnel as he dashed to try and save the love of his life, knocking him into the monitors and stopping him from doing anything but moan for a minute. I took this time to inspect Liz, who merely looked at me without any expression when I dragged her into a sitting position. The other zombies were staggering around exhibiting the symptoms of advanced hangovers. I took advantage of this to retreive the steel pipe and smash a couple of other modules. Normally I could have done the lot in without breaking too much of a sweat, but at present I felt knackered, and that rib continued to hurt. A lot.

While I was occupied smashing things, Baldy tried to sneak up on me. Not being an amateur, I hadn't completely ignored him, and his attempt to skewer me with a dagger of broken glass only resulted in a long gash in my right buttock. I switched hold on the piping, getting a grip at the mid-point, and smacked him round the head half a dozen times.

'Stop it!' he shrieked. 'You're spoiling everything!'

'Party-pooper, that's me,' I agreed. 'Now, it won't trouble me a bit to kill you, so get out of the way.'

He didn't, so I delivered a left cross that felled him. He collapsed over the stunned body of the escort I'd dropped, so the fall was a soft one. Just to make sure he wasn't faking I kicked him in the head. Okay, and the crotch, and the stomach. Just to make sure.

'What the hell is going on!' called one of the near-naked ex-slaves in the doorway.

'Where are we? Is – is this the basement?' asked the other.

'Pay attention – you two, get hold of this man. You others – get the other one, and watch his head, he may have a skull fracture. Move it!'

My shouty persona must have persuaded them, or the sweaty stench of my disgusting boilersuit. Off they scurried.

That left me, Liz, and a whole lot of undamaged computer modules. The water coming from beneath the access door wasn't getting any deeper, so this lot wouldn't short out. I didn't want the clutching hands of MI5 getting hold of this kit, but I simply didn't have the strength to smash it all up.

'Liz? Can you hear me?' I asked.

'Yes,' was her toneless reply. 'My hearing is unimpaired.'

Great. She sounded like a human computer herself.

'Why aren't you back to normal?'

'I am still in a trance state,' she explained. I cursed. The bloody computer couldn't still have a hold over her, could it?

'Does the computer still control you?'

'No. I am still in a trance state. The computer's input has stopped.'

The penny finally dropped with me – she was in some version of a hypnotic state, which was what she'd been experiencing before the computer got gutted. Now that SIGMUND was toes-up – hopefully! – she was still under hypnosis, but without any input. That left me with the ability to add some input.

'Ah – right. Liz – er, after you wake up, you will no longer want to smoke. Er – how do I get you to stop being in a trance?'

'Instruct me,' she said, tonelessly.

It was that easy?

'Liz – stop being in a trance.'

She visibly woke up, her eyes took on life, she swept the headphones off and stamped on them, then stared at me.

'Oh – God, John – what have I done!'

Another faint chorus of cursing came from the corridor outside, followed by a rushing sound like the tide coming in, which was also followed by a small tidal wave of water that swept into the basement room. Liz and I jumped onto the monitor island to avoid being electrocuted as the water, at knee-height, wallowed round the walls and killed SIGMUND beyond any hope of repair. The ceiling light bulbs wavered and dimmed before going out entirely, leaving us to make our slow and very wet way back to the lift.

Which didn't work. A good ten minutes later the lift doors in the floor above were pried open and a rope ladder dropped down, followed by a UNIT trooper from Kensington in plain-clothes, who jemmied the basement lift doors open, to meet a surprised and startled me and Liz, shivering and clutching each other for warmth in the freezing prison we'd been trapped in.

At ground level in the lobby, dried off and wearing a clean uniform that Fitz had been sensible enough to send over, a few of the loose ends got tied off.

That rumble we'd heard down in the basement wasn't the sound of a five-stone demolition charge hitting the MAFF building, it was the sound of a ton of water being released from the gent's toilets and hitting the wall opposite.

All the while I'd been sneaking and creeping around, getting shot and being interrogated by computer-enslaved sadists, the water in that toilet had been flowing. Major Crichton did a quick mental calculation and figured approximately a ton of water, at least, had sat on the floor, which led to leaks into the floor below, where the computer slaves were busily building another computer. They instantly went to investigate, only to be bowled over by a small tidal wave of water when they wrenched the inner toilet door open. This water is what came cascading down to the lowest levels of the building, finding a resting place in the basement, and being retained in the liftshaft. When the freed slaves opened the lift doors, all that water came rushing into the basement.

Fitz in person came to see both of us, shaking his head at me. I daintily sipped a reviving cup of cocoa, laced with rum, as provided by one of the staff from Kensington.

'It's a damn good job you got that traffic warden helping us, John. He stopped the fourth computer from getting away.'

'Fourth!' I squeaked, looking at Liz for confirmation. She nodded, staring at the surface of her drink. She'd not spoken since her cry of anguish in the basement.

Those damn things had been busy in the past two weeks. Number One arrived and enslaved the building's staff. Number Two gets built and put in the top floor. Number Three is completed and placed on two MoD Bedford lorries in the loading bay, waiting for Number Four to be completed and loaded on the same lorries. Then they would drive off to create armies of slaves and take over the world.

That was SIGMUND's plan. Unfortunately for it, we had the mighty Stan Wheeler working for us. Stan the Man. How he managed I have no idea – traffic warden secrets – but he completely snarled-up traffic around the White Fish Authority building, meaning that when the Bedford's programmed zombie drivers learned of the other computers destruction, they opened the loading bay doors and roared forward – all of two yards, before encountering a solid traffic jam Stan had created.

'That means there's still a complete system - ' I began, before Fitz winked at me.

'Golly, you'd be surprised at the aggression a lot of civil servants can build up over two weeks. Quite enough to smash a complete computer system to bits.'

When a furious MI5 arrived, the biggest bit of SIGMUND's offspring remaining would have fitted in a teabag, while the original version in the basement was smashed, blown up, short-circuited and useless. Version Two had suffered an electrical fire after I'd lobotomised it with grenades, which started the sprinkler system and caused it further damage, and the incomplete Model Four was also suffering water damage, not to mention incompleteness.

A grinning Captain Spurling and Master Sergeant Dobbs turned up in the wake of MI5 and their black saloons. The American jokers had gone all the way to Farnborough, with a tail of secret agents, who were not amused when the two got out of their Landrover and began playing a game of softball.

Mike Yates also turned up, much to the surprise of Fitz.

'Did it work?' he asked. 'The big dramatic act about the end of the world. I was trying to impress Kat and Don. Did it work?'

Pillock!

'Yes it did!' I responded, heatedly. 'You mean you were acting? Bloody hell, you could have told us!'

Fitz eyed me.

'You seem to have pulled off a Stanislavsky-style job yourself, John. Pretty impressive.'

I think that was a compliment. Mike beamed with expressive pride, then disappeared to venture upstairs and smash the remaining bits of the incomplete computer into even smaller bits. He deserved it, poor chap, and I don't begrudge him the smashing .

Kat and Don were less complimentary about having to sign the OSAEPA (Official Secrets Act, Emergency Powers Addendum). After their cohorts disappeared – the sight of armed UNIT troopers turning up looking ready to shoot on sight proved too much for their self-preservation – the two got escorted into the MAFF lobby. The papers were placed in front of them, with a pen, and a trooper behind them with a sub-machine gun.

'You don't look so hot,' observed Don, seeing me sitting exhausted on a plastic office chair.

'Battling with the foe,' I replied. 'Thanks for your help. I couldn't have got in here without it.'

Katrina merely scowled. She looked at me; at Fitz, who returned her stare, and at the trooper behind, who hefted his Sterling into a more comfortable position. Muttering what were probably death wishes against the whole of Western maledom, she signed.

'Oh – can I tell you two a little something. Mike Yates got a Dishonourable Discharge. Just so you know.'

Amongst the army, a DD marks you out as a pariah, a person to be avoided at all costs. I calculated that amongst the bolshy students of LSE, getting thrown out of the armed forces with a DD would be a mark of immense esteem.

Katrina told me where to go, and how to do it, and with whom. Don merely made a wry face.

'Why do you hate UNIT so much?' asked Liz, making me jump. She'd been silent so long I didn't expect her to speak at all. Her tone was ambiguous.

'Because you're all from the Army! You're all the same, and you hate the Irish,' replied Katrina, hotly. She was passionate, this girl. If wrong.

'My mum's Irish,' I replied, drily.

'You're all stooges for the Tories,' she continued, ignoring my riposte.

'Actually, my father is a Liberal Councillor in Brighton. Expects me to join the party when my service ends. Cocoa?' interrupted Fitz.

'Ooh, thanks,' said Don, coughing when he realised the cocoa was fifty per cent rum.

'If you knew what I knew, you'd be a lot less angry and a lot more grateful,' commented Liz, staring very hard at Katrina.

A trooper came running up to Fitz.

'Sir! Reports of a dinosaur swimming up the Thames!'

The swearing that erupted from us UNIT members impressed everyone else. By the time a team got to the Embankment, the monster had disappeared, of course. Except that this one didn't disappear in a shimmering rainbow effect, no, this one swam off. Back to Loch Ness, according to what I've been told.

Well, there you have it. How I learnt that being a big fat thug does come in useful at times, and that detective work is long, dull and boring. There were inevitable repercussions, as in the fifty thousand word report that I eventually wrote up for Major Crichton. I got another order to report to UNIT's Commander In Chief, Field Marshall Steenburgen, based in Geneva, who sternly told me that he did not approve of political pressure, not at all, and did I know what he meant?

No, I didn't, but I suspect that the trio of Healey, Heath and Grimond had something to do with my previous verbal warning being dismissed, and the MM being approved for my valiant actions at Wandsworth Prison.

And talking of awards, the above adventure explains why Stan Wheeler, now a Senior Controller, is the only traffic warden in the UK to ever have been awarded the OBE.