Chapter 3
"Sorry? They're recycling me?"
"Yes," he said, and he pulled out his new bleeping device.
"Great!" I said. "Well at least my attackers are environmentally friendly!" His machine beeped more.
"What's that beeping at?"
"Well, about 50 yards in front of us you are walking into a WH Smith and….the angel is approaching…. And you've been taken."
"What! Why didn't you stop it?"
He turned to me, and I guessed he was examining me closely. I stepped away.
"Because it's already happened. Not sending you back would cause a paradox,but," he pulled out his dinging device again. "I've got a signal on it now so we can track it back." He grabbed my hand again and led me back to the Tardis console. "I just need to put in these space-time coordinates and she'll take us where and when we want to go."
Obviously I couldn't see, but he sounded like he was smirking. I heard him pull a lever and the handbrake car noise started again. "Hold on!" The Doctor shouted.
I did as he said, grabbing onto a rail. The Tardis jerked and jumped, rocked and did cartwheels in time-space along with my stomach. I felt my tea make its way back up when, thankfully, the ship landed.
"Basildon!" The child doctor exclaimed. "1990."
The Doctor ran to the Tardis door and said, "Come have a look."
I gave him a "did you really just say that?" face and followed, using the railing as a guide.
"What am I not looking at?" I sniffed.
"An orphanage."
I now gave him a 'not impressed' face. "I'm going to need a bit more to go on than that, please."
"Oh, right. Sorry. Errm. It's a tall building, three storeys, Victorian style, red brick. There's a playground in front of it. It's night. Non one's around, except… ooh! That's fun!" He cooed.
He led me forward, until we climbed some steps to the entrance of the building. I heard a mewling. The Doctor pulled me down to crouch next to him. "It's a baby!" he said, softly. The baby stirred. "Ssh," he said, "It's all right little one. The Doctor's here. You'll be safe."
My heart melted a little at the sound of him, cooing over this baby. "No it's not. It's cool."
"What's cool?" I asked, puzzled at his out of nowhere speech.
"My bowtie."
"But I didn't say anything about a bowtie."
"No, she did."
"Who?"
"The baby. I speak Baby."
Before I could reply to this he said, "She! She! She's a she!"
"Hello again. One quick question before you have a nap again," he said to the baby, "do you have any idea where you've come from?"
I heard a gurgle in reply.
"No recollection of Mum then or Dad? Hmm. Interesting. May, " he turned to me, "do you know where you were born?"
"Err, no." I replied. "My parents said I was a mystery child. There was no record of my birth anywhere. My biological mum obviously wanted well shot of me. That's why I never tried to track her down."
"Oh, May, May, May," he said, in a pitying voice. "You were adopted?"
"Yes."
"Did your parents ever tell you where you were adopted from?"
"No, but they lived in London for a few years before having….." It had finally dawned on me, and I could have kicked myself for being so slow.
"We'd best get her inside. Press the doorbell."
The Doctor did as asked and then led me round the side of the building. I heard the door open and then the person at the door picking up baby me and taking hr inside.
BACK INSIDE THE TARDIS
"Oh, they are clever. Oh so very clever!" The Doctor paced around. He was angry now. Every trace of the child-man had gone from his voice. He was ferocious now. A man not to cross.
"So, they've been sending me back in time and then de-ageing me so I can't remember. Then waiting for me to reach 21 and sending me back in time again to start all over again."
"Exactly."
"But, you said us intervening before with that other me you were watching. You said that would cause a paradox. Why isn't this causing one? There are multiple versions of me running round England all in the same time frame."
His new whizzing machine dinged. He hit it.
"What is that thing you're carrying?"
"It's my wibble detector." He said off hand.
"Your…. wibble detector?"
"Yes, it dings when there's stuff. And the reason they're not causing a paradox, the thing that is oh so clever is that they're sending you in time AND space. Same time but to such far flung parts of the country that your multiple selves never meet and your families never meet, so the Angles are safe from paradox."
"Well. I'd rather not be an eternal meal for some statue monsters, thank you very much. How are we going to stop a repeat?"
There was a heavy silence between us, just the gentle hum of the Tardis. I stroked the railings again. She felt so alive. It was like petting a friend.
"By making a paradox." The Doctor said at last.
"What! I thought that was a bad thing? Won't, like, reality collapse or something if we do that?"
"How do you know that?" He asked, sounding like a child annoyed at being shown up in the playground.
I shrugged. "Just a guess."
"Well, yes. That's exactly what will happen. If we let it get that far, and the Angels know that too. That's why they've been preventing it. But if we draw them to the sight of a potential paradox then we can trap them."
"Okay then," I said. "Let's get going. What's our first move?"