Reversal

Miguelito at length reached out to the control panel and pressed a final set of switches, unlocking the cages he, Voltaire, and Antoinette had taken refuge within. "I think it's safe now," he said. The three of them hurried to the door of the aviary, dodging around the remnants of Ghex that none of them really wanted to get a better look at. They arrived at the door and peeked out.

It was even worse out here; not a single living guard met their sight. Averting their eyes, they set out down the nearest corridor, Miguelito in the lead.

And now, to their horror, nearly two dozens guards swept out of hiding and surrounded them. Voltaire snatched up Miguelito to flee, but there was nowhere to go.

/Replicant Prime!/ one of the guards announced. /You are under…!/

"Oh, yes yes yes! I am Replicant Prime and I am under arrest!" said Miguelito crossly. "What a limited vocabulary you have, all of you! Now, where did you come from, and what became of my birds?"

/We are all that is left of the guards,/ came the reply. /As for your birds, we opened a door to the outside and all the birds flew away to freedom./

/Or freedom until we collect them again,/ added another.

/But first, we will collect you!/ Their colors flickering freely, the guards pressed in toward the trio.

"Not so fast!" cried Miguelito, pulling something out of his pocket and holding it up. "If you endanger any one of us, you will all die!"

Within the lab the three men were listening. They had opened the door again once the danger of the birds had passed and now Jim turned to Artie and said, "We ought to help them."

"Right," said Artie. "How do you want to do this?"

But Dr Loveless flapped his hands at them and ordered, "Shush! I'm talking! I, I mean, my original is talking! I want to hear what he has to say!"

Jim looked at him strangely. "He's just trying to bluff them."

"Yes, yes, I know that. But if he's going for the bluff I think he has in mind, I just might be able to help them!"

"Ah?" whispered Artie. And they fell silent, continuing to listen.

/It is not possible for the three of you to kill all of us,/ said a guard.

"Ah, but I didn't say the three of us would kill you," said Miguelito. "I myself, I alone, will kill you all, and the only thing you can do to avoid it is to back off and allow us to go free!" He held the strange item in his hand up, turning it this way and that, shaking it at them threateningly.

"What's that in his hand?" said Jim.

"Hmm? Well, that's strange! It looks like… a jammy dodger?" said Artie. "Well, I suppose he could have gotten it from one of the storage cabinets on the TA…" Hastily shutting his mouth before he could say the word TARDIS in front of Dr Loveless, he redirected the conversation suddenly by pointing at the dead Ghexian scientist still floating in midair in its bubble. "What happened to him?" he asked.

"What?" said the little doctor, distracted. "Oh, it. I used a maguffin to reverse the polarity on its shock generator. Instead of the electricity striking me, it hit the Ghex and killed it. Could we possibly have some silence now?"

Jim and Artie exchanged glances. "What became of that maguffin?" asked Jim.

"Oh, it's right here," said Dr Loveless, pulling it from his pocket. "But if you're thinking of using it against all those Ghex, it's quite impossible. Only the closest of them could conceivably be within range."

"May I see it?" asked Jim.

Frowning, the little doctor handed it over. "Don't you dare turn it on," he warned. "You might alert them to our presence!"

"What's he saying now?" asked Artie suddenly, pointing out the door. And as Dr Loveless turned to listen to his other haranguing the guards, Artie accepted the maguffin from Jim's hand, then retreated to the far side of the lab and used the sonic screwdriver on the strange device.

"Hush!" Dr Loveless commanded, wincing at the shrill noise, fighting to ignore it so he could hear what he wanted to listen to.

Out in the corridor, the guards were tightening their circle around the three fugitives. /Come quietly, Replicant Prime. We have no wish to kill you. Our orders are to take you alive./

/But those orders do not extend to your companions,/ said another guard.

"Not even if we are replicants too?" asked Antoinette, standing up tall and straight at Miguelito's side.

"Don't tell them that!" he hissed to her. "You have no idea what they will do to you as a non-Ghexian replicants!"

"I don't care!" she replied. "My place is by Dr Loveless!"

"Mine also!" said Voltaire.

Within the lab, the little doctor smiled. "My loyal friends…" he said softly.

Suddenly Artie was putting something into his hand. "Try it now," he said.

"What?" Dr Loveless looked down at the maguffin Mr Gordon had just returned to him. He thumbed a button on it, then gaped. "What did you do?" he demanded.

"Increased the range," said Artie easily.

"Will it reverse the polarity on all the guard's shock generators now?" asked Jim.

The doctor nodded. "Yes. Yes, I believe it will."

"Then do it," said Jim.

"And quickly," added Artie.

Nodding again, Dr Loveless calibrated the maguffin, then pointed it through the door and turned it on.

…

This was it, Miguelito thought to himself. This was how he would die. His one consolation was that he had led the guards away from his clone. Replicant Prime was still free and out of the clutches of the Ghexian scientists. He, Miguelito, had done what he could to rescue his home planet which he barely remembered from subjugation by the Ghex. And so, standing tall in the face of the inevitable, he stuck the jammy dodger into his mouth and took a bite.

/It was a bluff!/ called out a guard. /Take them!/ And the air was filled with the crackle of electricity as all the remaining guards turned on their shock generators.

Oh, it was a shock, all right. The electricity coursed within each guard's bubble, cooking the Ghex in their own juices. Their screams of horror crescendoed, then fell silent. For a very long moment, all was still. Then…

"How did you do that, Dr Loveless?" said Voltaire. "I thought that was a cookie!"

"He didn't; I did!" came a voice of triumph from a nearby lab, and Dr Loveless stepped forth, flanked by West and Gordon.

Antoinette threw a hand over her mouth, stunned. "Why… Why, there really are two of you!" she cried. She ran to the little doctor, throwing herself to her knees before him and catching him into a hug.

"Yes, yes, yes," he said impatiently. "I have missed you as well. And you, Voltaire! And now…"

"Now what?"

Everyone turned to look at the last speaker, Jim West.

"Exactly," Artie chimed in. "Now what? The guards are all dead. Only the scientists are left, and we locked most of them up in their labs while we liberated the specimens."

"Normally at this point we would arrest you," said Jim, "but as we don't exactly have jurisdiction here…"

"Not to mention the fact that, amazingly enough, I don't believe you've actually committed any crimes…" put in Artie.

"Or not today, at least," said Jim. "So what do you have in mind to do now, Doctor? Other than go home, that is?"

Dr Loveless turned a sardonic smile toward the agents. "Ah, yes, of course, going home. Precisely what I had in mind." He frowned suddenly. "But how are we to go home again? And for that matter, just how did you gentlemen follow me here to Ghexia in the first place?"

End of Part Two