CHAPTER III
At the front desk, there sat a thirtyish, stoutish, blondish man wearing a security uniform, and his nametag said Hervé.
"Hervé, my good man, hello," the Doctor said boisterously as he attempted to blow past the desk. "John Smith, Mr. Beaumont is expecting me, thanks."
"Excuse me, sir," Hervé cut in. "Who? Who's expecting you?"
Stopping, but not returning to the desk, the Doctor said. "Don't tell me you've lost my appointment. No, no, please don't tell me that – I was having such a good day."
Martha tried to appear interested in the proceedings, but not confused.
"No, of course not, sir, I just need to verify…"
"I'm John Smith, I told you, and this is my assistant, Mirabella Bankhead," he told the man who was now on his feet and blustering. "Credentials please, Miss B."
The Doctor put his hands behind his back and tapped his toes in a show of impatience. Martha pulled the psychic paper from his pocket and handed it to the man. Of course, Hervé saw what he needed to see, and permitted them passage.
In the lift, she said, "Mirabella Bankhead? Are you kidding me?"
"I improvised," he shrugged.
"You sure did," she chuckled. "What, all the complicated Russian names were taken?"
"Did you want to be Jane Doe? Because I think John Smith and Jane Doe might actually raise a few eyebrows."
"What's wrong with Martha Jones?"
He smiled and pursed his lips, and crooned, "Aww, absolutely nothing!" He kissed her on the top of her head, and she actually pushed him away a bit.
"Oh, shut up."
Sauntering off the lift on the eighteenth floor with his hands in his pockets, the Doctor asked, "If you were a time-swallowing phenomenon with concentrated rippled effects enough to communicate with a sentient time-harbouring vehicle, where would you be?"
"Hiding in the broom cupboard, like everyone else," Martha muttered.
They looked in either direction, and on both sides they saw long hallways with some foliage marking the ends. They went left, the Doctor leading the way. Very soon, they found themselves in a portion of circular hallway that had been opened up like a rotunda. On the outsides, there were four flats, each marked with a letter. In the middle, there was a large planter holding a myriad of different kinds of tropical plant life.
The floors throughout were shiny, blond wood with chrome baseboards, sconces and handrails. The art on the walls was reminiscent of Mark Rothko – abstract, boxy, boring.
But what struck Martha, what made the décor interesting were the concrete borders surrounding the greenery, and the benches nearby. They were carved, swirly almost Victorian, like something one would find in an old cemetery…
This was all she had the chance to notice before she was knocked out. Or at least that's what she thought happened.
She seemed to come to. Funny thing was, she didn't feel any pain, and had no memory of being hit or attacked in any way. She got to her feet and checked her head for a bump, took stock of her body, looking for irregularities, aches, scratches – she found nothing. She looked about and found that she was back in the lobby of the building, and perhaps fifteen feet away, she saw Hervé sitting behind his desk, looking down.
"Whoa," she sighed, unable to help herself.
Hervé looked up. "Miss Bankhead," he said. "Is there a problem?"
"Er… no."
"Sorry I didn't see you come back, I was busy…" and he pointed under the canopy of his desk. Martha glanced over and saw a veritable sea of surveillance images, little boxes spread out over five screens, one of which seemed to be an image of a metal shelf sitting beside some buckets and and brooms.
"You have a surveillance camera in the broom cupboard?" she asked, chuckling.
"Well, there are people in and out of there all day long, and we've actually had some issues with theft," he said. "Industrial cleaner is a hot commodity, apparently. So, did Mr. Smith get off without you?"
"Er, no," she said. "I'm not sure what happened really. I guess I'd better go find him. Thanks for your help."
Vaguely, as she walked back toward the lift, she had the thought that one of the people in the surveillance images had on a blazer very similar to hers.
When she arrived on floor eighteen, she turned left and hurried down the hall into the rotunda area to catch up with the Doctor. She found him just around the little bend of the planter, examining a tropical fern. He seemed to be talking to himself.
He looked up at her through his specs and asked, "What do you think?"
"About what?" she asked.
"About what I just said," he answered. "This species of fern… mesozoic… ringing a bell?" He seemed a bit annoyed.
"Sorry no, I wasn't…" she gulped. "I wasn't here."
"What are you talking about? Of course you were here."
"Not while you were talking."
"Martha, I said two sentences."
She stared at him, then exasperatedly placed her hands on her hips. "You didn't notice I was gone?"
"What do you mean gone?"
"I mean, I was knocked unconscious and woke up in the lobby," she said.
"How long ago?"
"I don't know – five minutes."
"Are you all right?" he asked, reaching for her head
"Yeah, I'm fine. It's weird," she mused, moving away from him examining her for injuries. "I don't remember being hit or anything, and I don't have any bumps or scratches. But one second I was here, the next I was in the lobby with Hervé."
"How could you have been gone for five whole minutes, Martha? I just saw you!"
"What?"
"We were walking around the planter, you were behind me. I saw this fern, thought it was a bit odd, so I glanced at you, knelt down, said that the plant nearly went extinct in the mesozoic era, and then looked up at you to get your opinion," he recounted impatiently. "And that's when this very strange conversation began."
"Is it possible that you talked for longer than you thought? You do that sometimes."
"No, Martha!" he insisted. "I said 'This is a bit strange – this plant went nearly extinct in the mesozoic era. We may have found our time discrepancy, what do you think?'. Those were my words!"
"All right," she said. "What the hell is going on?"
"No idea."
