Chapter 13: Siege and Conquer

There was a tremendous bang, like a firework being let off mere inches away from your face. The flash filled Mel's eyes, blocking out the rest of the room for a short while. But she was alive.

'What…what's happening?' she coughed, placing a hand over her mouth. An acrid smell started to creep into her mouth and nose, like the tendrils of a plant working their way into the soil around them. She gagged, trying to eject the gas, but it was to no avail.

'It's a smoke grenade!' shouted the guard, his hand firmly clamped over his mouth. He staggered towards Mel, reaching out his free hand to grab onto her.

Before he could reach her, however, he stumbled onto the ground, rapidly running out of breath.

There was a huge chain of smashing and crashing from across the kitchen, as every one of the windows fell into a pile of shards. Within a matter of seconds, every single one of the windows was an empty frame, a collection of glass beneath them.

The line of figures started to step through the window frame, weapons raised the whole time.

'In.' one of them said bluntly, pausing for a second to deliver the word. Then, they continued, swarming through the kitchen under a cloak of fog.

'Come on!' Mel heard a voice bellow down her ear, as someone grabbed her shoulders and shove her forward. Her legs started to run, uneasy and awkward, but it was running. She was getting away nonetheless.

The someone shoved her forward through the window, and she travelled through the air, her hands out in front of her and eyes screwed shut.

Outside the window, she plummeted onto the ground, rolling for a few feet before coming to an unceremonious halt. Laboriously, she rose to her feet, taking in the sweet sniffs of fresh air.

'We have to keep moving.' the someone said, just behind her. Like a shot, she spun around, desperate to see who her saviour was – it was Eric. 'The others won't be long,' he added hastily 'but we have to get away.'

'The…the smoke…' Mel gasped, her hands around her throat.

'Nasty, I know.' Eric agreed. 'Sorry to say you get used to it.

An instant later, Lois and the guard scrambled through the windows, dropping to the ground and drawing in new breaths.

'We can hide in Dibton.' Eric decided, tucking his hands into his pockets. 'But we'll have to move fast. They could very easily double back in there.'

'Alright. Anywhere in particular?'

A boom emanated from the Centre, rocking the four escapees a little.

'Run?' Mel asked Eric quietly.

'Run.'

The group started to sprint down the slope towards the village, their frantic feet only just about stopping them from falling flat on their faces. The grass was still a little damp from the morning dew, so they slipped and slid all the way down to the bottom of the hill, the mud squelching underneath their shoes.

Finally, they managed to come to a stop at the foot, almost tumbling into the mire in the process.

'Now where?' Mel asked, her hands resting on her hips as she caught her breath.

'Just there.' Eric answered, pointing at a cottage just by the church. 'Come on.'

In reality, it was probably only a few yards, but it felt much longer to Mel. She was already exhausted from the run down the hill, and the smoke grenade before that. At this moment, she was quite happy to lie down and let the figures take her, but she had the distinct impression that that wasn't an option.

'Come on!' Lois shouted, grabbing Mel's wrist and tugging her across the village. In cottage windows and shop doors, people stared at the spectacle storming through their quiet village. They all recognised Eric Chambers, that was for sure. The lanky, dark-haired woman by his side, she was in a few of the pictures as well. But the towering man and petite ginger woman were completely out of their guessing range.

They made their way towards the Grover Cottage, a small, dusty house in the far corner of the village. Nobody ever went up to it aside from the odd postman – and they'd certainly have to be odd to do so.

'Okay, where is it, where is it…?' Eric exclaimed, as he patted down his pockets. 'The key, I had it just a moment ago…'

Mel sighed, grabbing onto Eric's shoulder and pulling him back.

'You're going to want to stand back.' she warned, bracing herself.

The front door flew on its hinges, banging against the wall of the cottage. Outside, Mel lowered her left leg to the ground, laughing to herself a little.

'Where did you learn to do that?!' Eric asked, dumb-founded by the sight.

'I took tae-kwan-do in school.' Mel chuckled, stepping inside the cottage.

'You don't say…'

Eric went to lock the door, but to no avail.

'I don't suppose you can kick a lock back onto it?'

The last few of the guards were rounded up. One by one, they were escorted through the Centre, before reaching the library. In the middle stood Riley, the figure placed in charge at the start of the plan, with carefully-placed auburn curls, porcelain-like skin and a slender, willowy figure.

'I think that's the last one…' he said into a phone. 'We're doing one last sweep to check, though.'

'Very good.' came the voice down the phone. 'Keep in touch, I'm moving in now.'

Before the figure could reply, the phone snapped into static.

'Word from Sir Fisher?' asked a younger figure. 'Is everything alright, Riley?'

'Sh!' Riley insisted, pulling the younger person to the side. 'We're not using names, are we, Lloyd?'

'No.' Lloyd apologised. 'Sorry.'

'It's alright. And yes, everything's going according to plan. Have we got the lift-shaft open yet?'

'Nearly. Exactly as Sir Fisher told us to.'

'Good. A nuclear bunker fifty metres under here. Perfect little jail cell, if you ask me.'

The metal doors slid open, revealing the lift inside.

'Alright, you lot!' Riley shouted to the first group of guards. 'Into the lift, and quietly!'

The swarm stifled, unwillingly to obey the orders. Riley groaned, before retrieving a firearm from his pocket.

'Now!' he yelled, squeezing the trigger. A bullet was fired from the gun, and it collided with the marble roof above them, sending a shower of dust and plaster down.

The guards flinched, moving towards the lift. When as many of them as possible had been squashed into the steel cage, the doors started to slide shut. The lift was lowered to the ground, the grinding fading out of earshot.

'Okay,' Riley told the others. 'Get the next party ready.'

'Really?' Lois asked, checking the time for the fiftieth time that minute. 'Alright, we'll wait here for as long as we can. You've seen the reports, then? No, I don't know what they want either. Keep an eye on them.'

She hung up the phone, placing it back onto the receiver. At the moment, she was sat on a dusty old box in a dusty old loft, trying to press together the scraps of the day and make something worthwhile.

'There you are!' Mel said, as she climbed through the hatch. 'I've been looking for you!'

'Hm? Oh, right.' Lois said, standing up from her seat. 'How's Eric doing?'

'He's asleep. He must be exhausted.'

'I think we all are.' Lois yawned. 'We've been up for…30 hours, now? Something like that. There's a spare room, if you want it.'

'No thanks. I don't like sleeping. Not when there's something to be missed.'

'I see what you mean. We nod off, the troops come knocking an hour later?'

'More like it'd be rather boring.'

Mel strode towards the window – well, it was really more of a crack – and glanced at the Centre. The smoke had all cleared by this point, with a few wafts still hanging the air. Apart from that, the Centre was as deadly still as it always was.

'What do you think they want?' she asked, searching for any sign of life in the building.

'What, the invaders? I don't know. Too much pomp and circumstance to be reinforcements. Not professional enough to be the army or anything big like that. And there's nothing of value in the Centre – well, nothing worth storming it like that. Any information will be rendered useless in a couple of days, and the antiques are all insured.'

'They didn't seem to care about Eric, either.' Mel added.

'Sorry?'

'Well, somebody tried to blow him up a few hours ago. He's clearly not the most-liked person in the country, is he?'

'I see what you mean. But he'd gotten away. Maybe he just wasn't worth the time, going back to kill him?'

'Maybe.' Mel turned to the village, watching it from above. 'I used to live somewhere like this. Pease Pottage.'

'Oh yes…my sister moved there a couple of months ago. Did you move out?'

'Well, no…' Mel paused. 'I suppose I still live there.'

'Sorry?'

'It's complicated. See, the Doctor – Doctor Smith, he picked me up from there. And we go around travelling together.'

'Like hippies?'

Mel laughed: 'A bit like that, yes.'

'I know the sort. Bet you're still on your gap year, aren't you?'

'Actually, I'm a computer programmer.'

'You mean you've got a job?!'

'Yes!' Mel said, perhaps a little too defensively. 'Or at least, I did have a job…like I said, it's complicated.'

'Must be, if you go travelling all the time.'

Mel turned back to the crack, looking at the Centre once more. She didn't want to grace that with a reply, needless to say. Lois sighed noisily:

'Alright,' she started 'Tell me about these changes.'

'What?'

'You said your…Doctor had found changes in the, er…timeline, was it? So tell me about them.'

'I'm really not the expert.'

'Neither am I. I'm just interested.'

Mel considered this, before surrendering.

'Imagine if you could travel in time.'

'Right.'

'Now imagine going back to the past.'

'Right.'

'And you meet the creator of…Volkswagen.'

'Hold on, so I can meet the creator of Volkswagen in the past, but I can't even get a letter through to the Times editor today?'

'Just imagine it.'

'Right.'

'And you convince them to change the name from Volkswagen to…People Car.'

'Right.'

'Then in the present day, every Volkswagen would then be called People Car. That sort of change. It's a vast spatio-temporal event that creates anomalous resonation throughout the timeline continuum.'

Lois took this in, then thought about it for a second.

'So…it's like that bit in Back to the Future?'

Mel sighed in defeat.

'Yes. Like Back to the Future.'

'I see. So you think something's changed the past, which has changed the future?'

'Yes! Exactly!'

'Right…but how would you know what's changed? If you're from this present as well, surely, it'd be the same to you?'

'Ah.' Mel said, biting her lip. 'That's the complicated bit. You see, me and the Doctor, we…we travel in time.'

'Time?'

'And space.'

'Time and space? Right!'

Mel watched Lois, as she started to pale over slightly. And then as she let out a monstrous laugh.

'Time travel? Man alive! That's the best you lot in the S.I.S. can come up nowadays?'

'S.I.S.?'

'Oh, don't play stupid with me, Mel. We both know why you're here. You think Eric's up to no good, don't you? So you were sent to investigate,' Lois echoed, stressing the word to Mel 'us and find out what was happening. Am I right?'

'I don't know what you think,' Mel replied 'but I'm not a spy. Honestly, I'm not!'

'Right…yeah…!'

'If I'm a spy, then what was that green…thing that came after us before?'

'A mobile communications system. That's how the Doctor managed to speak through it. By the way, 'the Doctor'? Bit too The Prisoner, if you ask me.'

'I'm not a spy!' Mel shouted, before a hand was placed over her mouth. Lois muffled the cries, shushing her slightly.

'Don't worry,' she said 'you're not the first spy we've had. Seems everyone wants a piece of the action these days. I won't hurt you. Just forget everything you've seen, and you can go home.'

'Please, you must listen to me! I'm not a spy! I'm on your side!'

'So you're a supporter, then? You still think he's some great, misunderstood hero? Look at the stuff in here, then.' Lois ranted, tearing open one of the cardboard boxes. 'He likes to keep everything the media says about, from the junkets to Desert Island Discs. It's all here, down to the last detail.' A flurry of newspapers scattered out of the boxes, yellow and crinkled. 'Have your opinion all you want, but good word can only cover so much.'

Lois marched towards the hatch, swinging it open.

'Go on, read it!' she snarled, stepping down the ladder. 'See how long your hero worship lasts after that!'

The hatch slammed shut, sending a cloud of dust into the air. Mel huffed quietly, crossing her arms, before squatting down and scooping up the scraps of papers from the floor. However, the first headline caught her eye.

'What's this?' she asked to herself, as she started to read.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that there wasn't a single positive word in that box. The press could be the kindest of guardians on a good day, but when the price was right, they'd turn into the most incisive of weapons.

And when they were handed a feast like Eric Chambers, they'd devour the meat in seconds.

Mel felt a single tear role down her cheek, as she saw the same image of Eric over and over and over again, in black and white, colour, even pop-art at one point. She didn't quite know what she was crying for – betrayal? Anger? Disgust?

Whatever it was, she could feel it, resting on her soul, like an anvil weighing down her spirits. She was familiar with the spirit of doppelgangers, but never like this. Never had she seen two people so far apart with the same face like this before.

By the time the newspaper reached the floor, Eric Chambers was dead to her.